Duke Leo Fidante
Never say a word unless you mean it and are willing to defend your convictions with action. The first lesson a swordsman learns is to never, ever draw a blade unless you have the will to use it.
Obituary: Missing and presumed dead, but absolutely no one seems to know what happened to him. Vanished without a trace.
Description: A slender man of sharp, strikingly handsome features, Leo's gravitas and refined dignity would mark him as a high born noble even without ducal accoutrements. While slight of frame, he has the athletic build of a runner, with speed and strength that's served him well on the battlefield. His dark hair and complexion contribute to his serious mien, though when his rarely seen smiles show themselves, they briefly soften his countenance and make him seem far younger than his years. A knife or sword scar on his left cheek slightly marrs his attractiveness, albeit leaving Leo with a more rakish countenance.
Personality: Duke Leo Fidante possesses the serious minded gravitas and dignity of a man that's seen far too much of what the costs of war entail. Far from humorless, he has an affable, charming nature and walks the fine line of being approachable by commoners and nobles alike, but is mindful to keep that slight distance so as to not undermine his station. Unfailingly courteous and polite, he differs drastically from many of the more pragmatic and ruthless nobles in the Lyceum, and Leo views politics not in the stark terms of winners and losers but conscientiously attempting to find compromise solutions that best balance out competing but valid interests.
Background: House Fidante's long held position as the closest rival to House Velenosa in terms of power and prestige in the Lyceum has much to do with the city state of Tor's key strategic location between the westlands controlled by House Valardin and the rest of the Lycene city-states. While Tor enjoys the same dubious reputation for deceit and treachery shared by all of the Lyceum, its closeness to the westlands had a formative effect on the young Lord Leo, who grew up admiring the chivalry and knightly virtues of the West even as he learned much about the art of proper rule from his mother, the Duchess of Tor. His mother recognized his romanticized love of honorable ideals and sent the young Leo to foster with House Valardin, in large part to ease growing tensions between House Valardin and the border city-states of the Lyceum, and secured a betrothal for the future duke with a Valardin princess (distant from the line of succession, but still carrying the prestige of the family name).
Years later, his mother's kindness still fills Leo with guilt. While the prince was living in Sanctum and spending his teenage years growing up among knights, his mother remarried to the Count of Southport, a match that Leo to this day blames himself for not being present to prevent. Barely a few months had gone by after his mother's new marriage before she suffered an extremely suspicious accident while riding and died, and her new husband declared that Leo was an illegitimate child of the Duchess (and claimed he had a confession from the now dead Duchess to that effect), and therefore the Count would have to act as regent and rule over Tor until Leo's infant sister came of age.
Even among the treacherous Lyceum city-states, it was a particularly blatant power grab to seize control of the Fidante family and the city of Tor, but the much younger Leo was shocked how many seemed prepared to let an ambitious and ruthless man murder his mother and lie about his claim. Leo was stunned how many of his relatives in the Fidante family were willing to support Count Lucien of Southport in his bid for a regency, and the wealth surrounding the man raised an army of sell swords and bought him scores of allies among the surrounding other city-states. Nonetheless, Leo's marriage to House Valardin gave him sufficient voice to ask the Prince of Sanctum for aid and returned home to Tor with an army of Valardin knights to contest his claim.
The Tor-Southport War that followed shattered any romantic notions of war and combat for Leo, and even by Lycene standards was an ugly war. Leo raised much of the commons of Tor to his cause, becoming close friends with many of the more powerful commoner families, and he had to witness first hand the butchery of many men and women he came to care deeply about as the war progressed. Though he feels his cause was just, and ultimately led him to killing Count Lucien in single combat and slaying an evil man, he still wonders if the justice and regaining his claim was worth the thousands of lost and shattered lives that he witnessed.
Now much older and wiser, Duke Leo Fidante, the Duke of Tor, is a rarity among the Lycene Houses as a man of dignity and honor and one whose word carries weight and meaning. He stands as a stark contrast in a man that speaks truthfully and acts honorably, and is deeply dedicated to the well being of his people. In his mind, he has an enormous debt that was bought in steel and blood, and has a lifetime of just rule to attempt to pay for it.
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