Laurel Wreath

Laurel Wreath, Saint of Crowns, Dominus Corona

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Supernatural Attributes

Aspect: 0 [4/5]
Domain: 0 [5/5]
Persona: 5 [4/5]
Treasure: 0 [3/5]

Estate Properties

3: Crowns inspire obedience
1: Crowns are unique and recognizable
1: Crowns are driven to be borne
1: Crowns are desired by those around them
1: Crowns are a burden

Mortal Concerns

Passion 2: I believe that art and beauty belong to everyone
Passion 1: I just want to be at peace
Passion 1: I believe that any evil can be overcome
Skill 1: Orator
Superior Skill 3: Lyrist
Cool: 0
Shine: 5
Will: 8

Bonds and Afflictions

Bond 2: I wield a blade that has slain an Angel
Bond 1: I am driven to preserve endangered art
Bond 2: I serve the true song of Heaven
Bond 2: I must protect the good name of Sappho against any assailant
Bond 1: I carry a lyre strung by Sappho herself.
Affliction 2: I can not subvert legitimate authority
Affliction 1: I am haunted by the ghost of my former celestial brother
Affliction 1: I must perform on my lyre for anyone who asks
Affliction 1: I can always find a place for quiet reflection

Anchors

Bakrias Ishara, her bound Excrucian blade
Her lyre
The collective of art in danger of being lost

Gifts

Bakrias, the Excrucian Blade
Treasure 7 (Helpful Miraculous Artifact), +1 Strike; Simple Miracle; Local; Flexible, well-defined ability (Uncover Things); Rare
The blade is thin, cool to the touch, and tainted the sickly green of mistletoe. Those who stare into its reflective surface may see the stolen face of Baldr, his eyes a starry void, and hear the insistent whispers of the Excrucian that waits within.

Eternal
Though they are only breath, the words which Sappho commanded are immortal.

Shapeshifter (Single-form variety)
Before being claimed and given a human guise, Laurel was a poem; with a thought, she can become one again.

Projects

How I Became the Ruler of Heaven
Heaven has become misguided at best, corrupt and evil at worst, and Laurel considers it her responsibility to change this–starting, as Crowns so often do, at the top.
Current Destiny: 0

History

In an age that humans count as long ago, on an island shepherded by the entity known as Greece, there lived a poet named Sappho. It is said by some who did not know her that she invented the lyre. It is also said that she composed many more poems than what humans count as the modern world will ever know, and those few that survive have weathered the burning of libraries and the fall of empires, held tightly in the jaws of dessicated Egyptian crocodiles.

What is rarely said is that one poem survives which was spared all of these things–but, balance being what it is, was subjected to far worse.

Laurel Wreath is the name this poem is known by, when it is known at all; it was whispered into the ear of only one of Sappho's young students, and she in turn repeated it aloud only once, in the moment of her death. But before the poem retreated into the aether and was lost forever, it was taken up by one of the Angels, for its words touched his heart and he could not stand to see it be lost. This Angel had many names, and inspired many myths; to the Greeks, he was Adonis; to the Norse, and to Laurel Wreath, newly-awakened Power of Crowns, he was Baldr.

In those days, the song of Heaven was bright and pure, and beauty and justice were intertwined. The muses spoke freely and frequently, and even the punishments of the gods had an art of their own. The struggles of Tantalus and Sisyphus, the fall of Icarus (or at least the popular version of events); all were just, and all served a point, in a peculiarly beautiful sort of way. In service to Baldr, she heard the Angelic choir daily, and she gave her all in service to it.

But in the age of the Valde Bellum, all things come to an end, and Laurel's simple life was no different. Humans have their legends and histories, and insist that things happen in a certain order, but in the mythic truth of the matter everything came crashing down at once. The death of Adonis and Baldr, both at spiteful hands; the fall of Greece to the relentless and hungry Rome; the burning of the Library at Alexandria. All can be traced back to a single moment in deep mythic time, when Baldr fought the Warmain Bakrias Ishara, Banneret of Erosion, and lost his life. His loyal Nobilis came to avenge him, but one by one they fell, until only Laurel was left. Her strength strained and broken, and her spirit worn down by facing an enemy who wore the face of her fallen Imperator, she could not hope to defeat him–but in that moment of desperation, her Estate showed her the way.

One keeps what one kills. It's the oldest law of succession, woven into reality itself in such deep places such as the Redtooth Rite, and beyond it in the thieving rites of the Excrucians. Thus it was that the blade with which Bakrias had conquered Baldr became a symbol of his authority over Baldr's kingdom. It became a Crown–and through the last tenuous scraps of Laurel's power, that Crown became his prison.

In that moment, when she first wielded the poisoned blade, help arrived in the form of the then-Noble of Violence. Had he but arrived minutes sooner, things might have turned out differently, and that simple question would haunt their relationship until his death. But as she stood, bloodied and drained, bearing the fallen Excrucian in her hands, Violence offered her a new home, a new patron, and she was in no fit state to protest.

At first, her new master wished her dead, seeing how deeply the song of Heaven echoed in her heart–but Violence argued in her favor, having been well impressed by how she had handled herself, and claiming that her loyalty was a virtue that she should not be punished for. And so it was that the Imperator's heart was swayed, and Laurel came to serve him, however reluctantly.

But the death of an Imperator is no small thing, and Baldr's changed the world. In the myths of humans, the deaths of Baldr and Adonis were spiteful, and taught nothing. The Greek gods changed their names and swore allegiance to the all-devouring engine of Rome, and obedience for its own sake became the new face of law. To Laurel, the song of Heaven became tainted with harsh chords, sung in the voices of Angels who had lost their way.

In time, so much time as humans measure it, her reluctance to serve eroded away, and she learned to fight against Heaven as readily as her new brothers and sisters. Though she still hears the true song in her heart, she feels that the Angels now longer hear it, or worse seek to rewrite it. This, in Baldr's name, she cannot allow, and thus she fights on the side of Hell–hoping that, in time, when the Angelic forces are weakened, that she might storm the gates of Heaven itself and restore it to the way it once was and must be again.

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