Difference between revisions of "Damien LeCroix"

Revision as of 21:50, 26 May 2017

Background

The Childhood of Damien LeCroix

Damien LeCroix was born the second child of Fernais LeCroix and Ellieanne LeCroix nee Catoran in 720 in the Bavarian calendar, in the village of Chateaufaux in the domain of Dementlieue, along the Sea of Sorrows. An arms merchant of some wealth, LeCroix was a retired mercenary originally from the domain of Lamordia with a special interest in gunpowder and weapons that employ the substance. After years of service to a boyar of Barovia, Fernais settled in the home village of his bride, the beautiful Ellieanne Catoran, and assumed the daily operations of her father's gunpowder import service.

Growing up amidst the gentry, as a young boy Damien was educated at a boarding school associated with the new Church of Ezra of Ste. Mere des Larmes in Port-a-Lucine, the capital of Dementlieue. These were fine times, and as Damien grew, it became expected of his father than Damien, as the second son, enter the Church of Ezra as an anchorite, while his elder brother Arant be groomed to assist his father in the family business.

Damien the Acolyte of Ezra, and the Transmutations of the Cleric-Philosopher Jeaneau Lesante

As Damien grew into a young man, his interest became less that of faith, and more that of science. To his father's chagrin, Damien delayed his vows as a formal anchorite and priest of the faith, and instead remained an acolyte of the faith, falling primarily under the tutelage of the secretive cleric-alchemist Jeaneau Lesante. A genuine wizard and transmuter, the old scientist Lesante was obsessed with making potions derived from the mysterious Icon of Ezra of the Church of Ste. Mere des Larmes. The potions could give to Lesante wondrous powers for a time, and even succeeded in permanently correcting his vision. Damien became Lesante's pupil, and supported the transmuter's obsession with creating ever more powerful potions.

When Damien was 20, his father threatened to cut him from his allowance if he did not soon make his formal vows as an anchorite to La Bastion of Ste. Mere des Larmes, and the two nearly came to blows. However, when the situation was about to become forced for Damien, the Grand Conjunction struck, a great event when the Mists of the Realm of Dread altered and reshaped almost every domain, causing great chaos and strange events, even in the comparative safety and security of Dementlieue. Indeed, shortly thereafter, tragedy struck the town of Chateaufaux, and the sudden and mad violence of the mayor Henri Melano and his Black Watch militia saw the brutal and meaningless death of many townspeople, including Damien's elder brother Arant, who was beaten with clubs until he expired in 470.

For Damien, these events were not entirely unexpected. Jeaneau Lesante had seemed to possess some foreknowledge of the Grand Conjunction, as he called it, and likewise did not seem wholly surprised by the violence and madness coming from the mayor of Chateaufaux and his minions. Indeed, instead of horror and concern, Lesante, along with two other but oft absent members of the local Ezran clergy, expressed interest in these events, taking every opportunity to question those who had been to Chateaufaux and seen the spectacles of violence and madness that were happening there. At last, Damien demanded from his master the reason for their interest. Lesante and his companion-clerics admitted the great secret that they were members of a section of Ezran priests who called themselves les Échansons (the Cupbearers), and that they calculated through their magic and esoteric lore that it was not men who were causing the murders in Chateaufaux, but rather infernal beings, who had come to Dementlieue during the Grand Conjunction.

Believing in their power and convinced of Lesante's wisdom, Damien joined the Cupbearers in an attempt not to destroy, but to harness, the devils of Chateaufaux. In a series of adventures, they encountered the infernal beings in Chateaufaux and the terrors they had wrought. Lesante however woefully misjudged the power of the devils, and while he and his fellow sect-members attempted to imprison the lead fiend and demand from it secrets, the horrific being broke loose from their magical prison, slaying one of their number outright and delivering Lesante a mortal wound.

Damien managed to delay Lesante's death for a time, but the old man was too far gone, and having not taken his vows, Damien could not mend his wounds with prayer. In has last words, Lesante mentioned that his death should not dissuade Damien from his pursuit of magical knowledge, and told him that he ought to seek out his own mentor, Lucient Maront of Richemulot, who had been convinced to leave his laboratory in that country and his search for the prima materia in order to assume to the Chair of Transmutation at the College of Science and Metaphysics in Zeidenburg, Barovia. Giving Damien his key to his secret treasury, Jeaneau Lesante expired.

Damien Studies Transmutation at the College of Science and Metaphysics at Zeidenburg

Inheriting a considerable sum from Master Lesante as well as a certain confidence from his adventures against the devils of Chteaufaux, Damien convinced his elderly father to move their family home and business to Zeidenburg, where instead of serving the Church of Ezra, he would seek study in magic so that he himself might learn the process to make gunpowder, and perhaps many other valuable substances besides. Nearing ruin, his father relented, and Damien used his newfound wealth and moved his family to Barovia.

The city of Zeidenburg was foreign and unfamiliar, but Damien, an older and more experienced student, was quick to his studies. Damien excelled under Assistant Professor Erkon Rasovovich, and by his third year, became the accepted famulus or assistant to the rarely seen Professor Lucient Maront. A very old yet active and driven man, the white-bearded Professor Maront took a liking to Damien due to his shining intelligence, as well as due to his familiar language of Dementlieue. The professor however had little time for students, and experimented endlessly with strange substances and arcane books from distant lands.

The Teachings of Professor Lucien Maront

For a time, Damien prospered. Upon being selected as famulus, Damien was sent on numerous assignments and quests by Assistant Professor Erkon Rasovovich. Damien traveled far and wide, throughout Barovia, Darkon, and to Lamordia, and even upon the Sea of Sorrows procuring special substances or texts for Professor Maront. Damien had many such adventures between his terms of study. By his fourth year, Damien was already powerful and skilled enough to make gunpowder by his own craft, and thereby at last pleasing his aging father with a regular and significant source of income, and establishing the continued success of the family merchant business, now operating out of Zeidenburg. This secure, Damien increasingly left his younger brother Richileau to manage the day-to-day operations of the business, while he focused ever further upon his studies.

Nearing his being awarded his title of Master of Transmutation, Damien was suddenly treated more humanely by Professor Maront, who invited him into his private home, revealing to the young man that he too was human, and not utterly obsessed with research into magical secrets. Maront also revealed to Damien his beautiful daughter Postuma, whose mother had died giving birth to her. Postuma, herself not entirely a stranger to the study of magic, was kindly yet demure, and completely devoted to the care of her great father.

It was at these meetings at his home in Zeidenburg that Damien realized that Maront's studies no longer sought for the secrets of substances or the production of the prima materia, but rather that the powerful wizard had a new pursuit almost entirely, leaving his interest in transmutation behind. Maront's exact purposes however were left vague, and Damien's questions largely unanswered. "In time," the old man said, "I may share with you my secrets, but you have a far longer road to travel before I bestow you with such knowledge."

Invidia

In 745, Damien LeCroix graduated from the College of Science and Metaphysics with the respected title of Master of Transmutation, and with the offer to replace Assistant Professor Erkon Rasovovich, who had mysteriously died in a recent alchemical explosion. Damien did not accept the position however, and continued to work for his doctoral degree under Professor Maront, remaining the appointed famulus, a position usually reserved for more junior students. Maront, increasingly removed from these lesser students, fell into every-increasing intensity into his studies and experiments, which brought the alarm of Postuma, who worried for his health. Additionally, Damien was sent by Maront on increasingly dark missions, gaining grizzly components at much risk to himself, and with little explanation given.

At last pressed by his chief student and daughter, the seemingly kind old man relented, and announcing his retirement, told them both he had purchased lands and a tower in the nearby forested domain of Invidia, and live out his remaining days there. Soon after, realizing the romance between the two, Maront also gave permission for his daughter to marry Damien. The wedding was held at a secret Church of the Morning Lord in Barovia in late 746.

Her father moving away, Postuma moved in with Damien into his new home in Zeidenburg, and Damien accepted the new position of Adjunct Professor of Transmutation. Working hard to earn his doctoral degree, perform his teaching duties and lead his family, Damien found it difficult to make time for his wife, and she miscarried their first child in 478.

The Highest Philosophy of Lucien Maront