Post by Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy on Jun 23, 2012 22:44:23 GMT -5
Password: Acklay
Character permission Meira
Name: Aerith Vand
Race: Human
Age: 28
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 137 lbs
Birth place: Criaxa
Appearance:
The very first thing most people notice about Aerith is her skin. She is an extremely pale woman with a porcelain complexion and exquisitely light skin, punctuated only by the soft pink of her lips. She has enough of an appearance in that alone that she opts not to wear anything beyond the simplest of cosmetics, simply because she feels it isn’t needed.
Possibly the second attention-grabbing aspect of her appearance is her face. Aerith is blessed with a naturally lovely visage, one that sets her apart from the crowd. It has more than a hint of the angular, with a pronounced chin, yet is indisputably attractive. She is highly recognizable, and keeps her appearance consistent to serve a purpose. Everywhere she goes on Criaxa, she wants to be recognized, and she craves the day when her visage appears on official documents.
Also worth mentioning is her hair, so dark a brown it appears black under indoor light, and falling down to her waist. She wears it in a menagerie of styles, often in wavy, curling strands, and always off her face. It is always in impeccable condition, and her attention to detail ensures that no matter how absent-minded she may be on any given day, she will look as formal as ever.
In stature, Aerith has a long and lean body, standing at a height rather respectable to behold. She is neither short nor tall, and is of a healthy weight. She is neither gifted with extreme curves or the rail thin build of a Coruscanti super model, but is perfectly respectable as a woman, and has a certain regal grace to her that, in her estimation, fully compensates for not being such a person.
If she turns any heads, it has to do with her poise and bearing. She carries herself like nobility, and moves as if she owns the very land she walks on. Her demeanor can be haughty, and while she rarely deigns to be disdainful openly, when she does it comes across as pure scorn on her features.
Aerith is the type of woman with no qualms about flaunting her wealth, and it shows. It shows in her rich dresses made from Daravin silk, of which she has a nearly endless number. She doesn’t repeat her clothing for more than one day in a row, but there are some constants. Dresses are her clothes of choice, cut to her slender contours and in every color of the rainbow. Jewelry also matches her attire, priceless necklaces and jeweled belts, diamond earrings and fine rings. Her favorite colors to wear are blue, green, and grey. She does depart from her dresses while riding, when she wears jodhpurs and equestrian boots.
Personality:
Aerith can be quite cunning and manipulative when it comes to what she wants. She knows precisely what that is, and she has few scruples when it comes to getting it. She feels almost a sense of desperation to secure her victories, which stems from another distinctive trait. She always feels as if she has to prove herself. She is the third and final child in her family, and is sick of being perceived as the baby.
The youngest child in the Vand family is also by far the most stubborn and willful, proving ever since she was a child that she was positively impossible to force into doing anything. This has been both an annoyance to her family and a point of endearment. She has always been her own person through and through, and is not one to bend or conform to some ideal that she isn’t.
Loyalty is something Aerith doesn’t have in great abundance. At the end of the day, what she sees first is her own desire. Her own needs come first, and her own success is paramount. She wouldn’t have to think very heavily when it comes to such decisions. At her heart, there is room for no one but herself. Her own interests are met at the expense of others, and she realizes that as long as there are those in line before her, she can never shine on her own. With a cold and calculating interior, she bides her time, waiting to step over three bodies, even if her hands are bloody.
Her one driving ambition is to outshine her brothers, and to stop living in their shadow. Her whole life has been spent subordinate to them, and she chafes under their successes. Aerith alternates between barely-contained fury that the title of ‘Countess’ is beyond her reach, and dreams of gaining it and becoming the greatest Vand of all. It is that secret desire that motivates her.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Aerith brilliant. She is gifted with an especially keen mind and a rapier wit, as sharp and cutting as any blade. Very often she can be found with a look of quiet contemplation on her face, focused on some daily puzzle or question.
As befits an aristocrat, Aerith enjoys the finer things in life. She has expensive tastes, from clothing to food. She feels deprived without a wine cellar stocked fully, deprived without a stable filled with horses, and deprived without an aviary filled with birds. She needs luxury and opulence like a fish needs water, and when deprived of them the results are not pretty.
While normally Aerith has a tightly controlled temper and cool exterior, she can snap at times, unleashing a blistering wrath that seems wholly foreign to her. At those times she is extremely unpleasant. She also has other unpleasant tendencies. Chief among them, she suffers from a lack of empathy. Aerith isn’t often purposefully cruel or sadistic, she is merely apathetic about what goes on outside her own circle, with the result that she cares shockingly little about commoners outside of their value to her.
However, she rewards loyalty lavishly, and often shows kindness and courtesy to those members of the household staff she is more fond of. Loyalty is something she has little of, which is perhaps why she can admire it so freely in others.
While not precisely xenophobic, Aerith has humano-centric tendencies. She doesn’t see the majority of non-humans as inferior or incapable, though she sees some as ‘droll and amusing’ and others as ‘uniquely ridiculous.’ The majority of her associates are human, and the bulk of her dealings are with humans and near-humans. If given the choice between dealing with two merchants, a human and a non-human who were identical in every other respect, she would likely choose the human.
The Sith Aristocrat suffers from both anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, though neither in a particularly crippling fashion. The anxiety rears its head when her plans fail for the most part, something she cannot abide. She fears failure greatly, and she worries quite often. If she isn’t engaged in idle thought, she is often engaged in worrying over business decisions or upcoming events, and she agonizes over possible failures. As to the obsessive compulsive disorder, it manifests itself in an extremely fastidious nature. Every inch of her life must be organized, clean, and presentable at all times. She takes the same care in her appearance as well.
Deep down, Aerith craves vindication. She needs approval and respect to function, and she goes to great lengths to ensure she receives it. The whole public image she cultivates in the Empire is geared to receive praise and admiration from the general population, and she craves such notoriety. The more people who know her name and hold it in esteem, the happier she will be.
However, Aerith has one final little quirk. It is a complete dissatisfaction with the idea of romance and of relationships. In her past she fell victim to political marriage, and only broke her engagement at the last minute, causing a slight scandal. She has, rightly, realized that with her position and her wealth, her suitors are interested in what she has rather than who she is. She gave up on love for good after her engagement, and is extremely sour on the topic. In fact, Aerith Vand is asexual. She isn’t particularly attracted to anyone, either male or female. She sees such things as foolish wastes of time.
Occupation: Sith Aristocrat, Corporate Magnate
Rank: Noble
Skills:
Business
Fencing
Riding
Falconry
Equipment:
ResCorp RC-7 : A bodyguard, this unnamed droid accompanies the noblewoman when she leaves the estate. It was obtained through a private contractor after being brought into Sith space by smugglers, for precisely the purpose it serves.
Criterion Personal Assistant: Named Tia, this droid serves as a personal assistant and secretary for Aerith, and remains on-call every hour of the day, when organic staff are unavailable. She is programmed with an exceptionally dutiful personality, programmed to constantly evolve to better fit Aerith’s needs.
Aerith’s Saber:This weapon is a personal favorite of Vand, and while she doesn’t carry it everywhere, it would be amiss not to mention it.
Silverwind: When travelling off Criaxa, Lady Vand’s form of transportation is a Coulé class yacht with a custom silver hull and a truly luxurious interior.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 5
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 5
Leadership: 6
Unarmed: 2
Melee Weapons: 6 (swords)
Ranged Weapons: 3
Bio:
When looking at the life of Aerith Vand, it is necessary to start the story in 3700 BBY, with the beginnings of the Vand family’s rise to prominence.
The planet Criaxa was discovered while charting the Hydian Way, and scans revealed it to be extremely rich in resources. A man already rich, Aston Vand, came to the conclusion he could take a planet and mold it completely to himself, building his own little corner of the galaxy up from nothing. He sank his entire fortune into colonizing the world, and he was vastly rewarded. The planet grew and prospered, and he prospered more than any other person, gaining extreme wealth over thirty years of growth. He was an ancient man, and as a legacy to his 20 year old son, in 3670 BBY he began the construction of the Vand estate, a massive structure in the spurs of the Carda mountain range, more a palace than anything else. It had luxurious architecture of pillars, domes and sloped roofs of green, and walls of grey stone. Its courtyards were the pride of the sector.
Before its completion, Aston passed away. On his deathbed he had one simple demand. From henceforth, his son would be a Count, and he had seen to drawing up all the paperwork for that title to be tied in with the estate. He had created a noble house, one that he pledged would never die.
His son Marel was shrewd as well, and he grew the Vand fortune even deeper and made their name even more prominent. In 3653, he became one of the new Sith aristocrats who seceded from the Republic, confident in his wealth and his leadership abilities, ready to forge a new government he would wield influence in.
Shortly there after he married a woman named Ahra and started to have children, the first, a son, coming in 3644. He was named Dar, and was destined for greatness, the future heir to the title. He was joined in 3639 by another son, named Rega. Neither of the parents expected to have any other children. Fate had different plans for them.
Aerith was born in 3629 BBY, a complete surprise. Her father was 61, and no longer young. They had assumed both he and Ahra were beyond the point of bearing children, but they accepted their new daughter and resolved to raise her all the same.
Or rather, to have servants raise her. The family had swollen with wealth as the Sith Empire grew, and there was no shortage of any kind. They could fully afford a nursemaid to attend Aerith, and it was her that she grew up most familiar with, a distance forming between her and the remainder of her family.
The nursemaid was an aging woman named Ana, a human with pale skin and graying hair, and a wide smile. She was constantly singing nursery rhymes and reading bedtime stories, even before Aerith could understand. But even after Aerith understood, she continued.
There were other lessons Aerith absorbed in her threes. She was special. She was smart. She was gifted. She was a Vand.
The family legacy was hers, and she grew up looking at her brothers, wealthy business leaders, and her father, the leader of the planet. She was told without words from an early age that this was expected of her, that she had to be as successful as her elders. It was to be a difficult legacy for her.
By the time she was four, her parents decided it was time for her education to begin, but not just any education would do. She was a Vand, a noble by birth, and she needed the best education money could by. That took the form of tutors, a series of them to teach her. Her first was a Mirialan man named Larin, a veteran instructor freshly retired from a teaching post on Jaemus, and wooed into private service by the appeal of money, he had been Rega’s tutor before Aerith. It was him who taught Aerith the most basic subjects, language and mathematics. They built up a foundation together, and it quickly became apparent that the little girl was a voracious learner, devouring books and knowledge, and that she wanted to branch out to new topics. Two more instructors of her brother extended their work to her, a Tholothian woman named Aria, who was an experienced science instructor, and a human man named Alistair who was proficient in teaching both literature and history.
With her team of instructors assembled and living in rooms inside the estate, the pace of her education increased greatly. She was six, and learning astronomy, geography, stellar cartography, mathematics, and the history of the galaxy. When she wasn’t learning, she was engaged in the childhood pursuit it seemed every little girl was enthusiastic over: horseback riding. She had a white horse, a colt she had named Snowy. She loved riding him along the paths in the woods, always attended of course. It became her refuge when the demands of her schoolwork became too much and she needed a break.
One thing in her childhood was lacking though: friends. Her closest brother in age was 16, and interested in very different things from her. Her parents kept a cordial distance from her, most commonly appearing for meals and the occasional chat. There were no children her age, so as a recourse Aerith began to act older, and to cozy up to Rega. However, her brother wasn’t as keen on spending time with her, a girl who he dismissed as a nuisance and a pest.
That was the beginning of their bad blood.
It was rather lonely, but she adapted to it over the years.
By 13 she was showing remarkable aptitude at literature and some of the sciences, namely astronomy. The estate had both an astronomy tower, which had a fantastic view of the night sky, and a very large and circular study ringed with an aquarium. She would spend the hours of her free time divided between those two locations and the stables. But that wasn’t to say she disliked learning at all, she was able to take pride in it. But, as her instructors were wont to remind her, Rega and Dar were both every bit as smart as she was, and vastly more successful. That irritated Aerith. But if she couldn’t be older, if she couldn’t be more successful, she could still be smarter.
She also, at the taunts of her brother, took up the sport of fencing. She found it every bit as recreational as riding, and she had the added incentive of beating Rega. Of course she didn’t have strength or reach on her side, but she was nimble and quick, and her progress was outstanding. But not outstanding enough.
Whether in the stables or in fencing sessions, Rega chronically outshone Aerith. While she made low jumps on Snowy, he made high jumps. He could parry all her strikes and land touches on her without breaking a sweat. It infuriated her.
Aerith was shaping up well, proving well-read, insightful, quite cunning, a skilled rider, and a skilled fencer. In many areas she was exceeding her brothers when they were her age, namely academic ones, but try as she might she still couldn’t surpass them. Not yet at any rate. Rega loomed just out of her reach, but Dar was vastly beyond her.
She decided she had to bide her time. She realized her growth had to come at their expense, and that a time would come when she had to manipulate them.
When Aerith was 20, and of age, she received her first suitor, another Sith noble named Firins, from a good family, and an officer in the Sith military. He was dashing, he was gallant, and he was from a well known and wealthy family. He was a good catch, and a good match for her. They had great potential together, and she was willing to settle down with him for shared prosperity. They went riding together, and he showed an interest in everything she did.
A little too much interest in fact.
From an omniscient perspective it would have been easy to notice that Firins was only interested in Aerith when she was around. The second she disappeared from his sight his smile faded and was replaced by a look of boredom. He also expressed a remarkable interest in some of the servants instead, and his motivations didn’t merit a question, until it was almost too late.
He proposed, Aerith accepted, and they started planning a wedding for the next year. Only Aerith’s personal maid Yvara was suspicious, and she was determined to find out the mystery and uncover what was carefully hidden. She started to investigate in the staff, and to send out information requests to other servants. Over three months a picture began to take shape.
Firins’ family was bankrupt. They’d laid off their servants and cashed in all their investments, but were looking for new sources of funds, such as marrying into a very wealthy family. They had kept it very carefully hidden from the other Aristocrats. To boot, the young man himself was a voracious chaser of men and women alike, and had been expressing a great deal of interest in a young man in the Vand household staff. Luckily Yvara had gathered up hard evidence and revealed it to Aerith.
Aerith was, to say the least, distraught. Moreover, she was bitter. Her wedding had been looming, and all that was abruptly cancelled upon the discovery. There was going to be no special day for her, no influence in two families, and no new title. It convinced her that marriage was, more than ever, a political affair, and that people wanted to gain what they could from a woman in her position. She was already asexual to a large degree, and this sealed that. Romance was for children, and marriage was to be viewed as highly suspect. It was a hard blow to bear, and Aerith began extensive retail therapy. She bought a new horse, a black filly that she named Tyuru, and she took care of it more personally than ever before. She also took up an entirely new hobby to immerse herself in, falconry. She bought the most expensive bird she could, a Thunder Hawk chick, and she raised that too, naming him Kang.
They were distractions from the real issue. And whenever the real issue was raised by her family, Aerith lashed out in angry verbal disputes. Especially with Rega. It seemed he wanted to rub her nose in it, and he was flaunting his own new wife, a lovely young noble from Jaemus. She didn’t want to talk about it, and she most certainly did not want to hear promises of future and better suitors. Her healing was never completed in a safe manner, and she became scornful of romance and marriage. It was all political, and all anyone wanted was her wealth. More than ever she came to rely on her intelligence, on her wit rather than her heart.
From that year on, she became even more of a calculating figure.
As she turned 23, Aerith was a considerably wiser, albeit sadder, woman. She also expressed interest in the family’s businesses, and in making money. She was satisfied now that she was the smartest member of the family. Dar was a businessman only, Rega was a dilettante, and Marel was past his glory days. But Aerith? She was as politically shrewd as her father, as quick to catch on to new skills and ideas as Rega, and she felt in her heart that she could equal Dar. She alone had continued learning beyond the minimum time, and confidential words from her tutors gave her the vindication she craved, calling her a better student than her brothers. She reveled in that, and held it close to her heart as proof of her own true abilities. After that, Aerith decided it was time for her to start her rise up the ladder of wealth, even though she was privy to the shared wealth of the family. As it happened, her father even agreed to offer her control in one of his holdings, under his close supervision. Rega was gone, in the Sith military now, a Captain, and her eldest brother was off on business constantly. It had fallen to her father. And so it was that Aerith gained a controlling interest in the Criaxa Blue Diamond Foundry.
Under the close tutelage of her family, she learned how to delegate, who to delegate to, how to manage her wealth, and how to play the game. It was far from easy, but she had a lot of help. Over the years she required less and less help, becoming more and more self-reliant. However, there was another setback.
When Aerith was 24, Ahra Vand fell ill, and the family was immediately brimming with concern. Aerith wasn’t close to her parents, or her brothers, but she knew her role in this. She was supposed to be worried, to be fretting. The focus of her life was shifted from making money to constant concern about family, superficially. As each passing day fell into stagnation, she longed for any result to end it, good or bad. She was fed up with it, and constantly taking out her tension in saber fencing.
When her mother died, it was a relief. But she never let that show. She instead threw herself into business, and pretended it was a coping device, while she took a valuable lesson and inspiration from this. Her family were perfectly mortal. No one was above death. Not even Dar and Rega.
She grew beyond the foundries, and she expanded into the cities, investing in all kinds of businesses, small as well as large. She contracted with artisans to secure their goods for the estate, and frequented the more expensive boutiques.
With her mother gone, her brothers away, and her father burying himself in the governance of the Empire, it fell to Aerith to manage the estate, and increasingly to help control Criaxa. She replaced her father at public events, going to benevolent events in his stead and gathering influence with government officials who were beholden to the Vand fortune and prowess.
Aerith spent most of her free time engaged in her usual pursuits, riding, fencing, and falconry. However, she had realized one important lesson long ago: You never stopped learning. Her tutors were gone now, but she still took the time to learn and exercise her mind. She showed a special delight with puzzles and mazes, and she could never find enough of them. Finally, she decided to commission a massive hedge-maze on the estate grounds. Even after it was solved it became a familiar recreational activity, like riding or fencing.
As her 26th birthday dawned, Lady Vand realized that there was one significant gap in her life: travel. She’d never really seen much of the galaxy, or even Criaxa. She’d been living in her own little ivory tower, and she resolved to break free and see more than she had before, by traveling. She began her preparations with two new purchases, both high end droids. The first was to be her bodyguard, an RC-7 built by ResCorp and sold by the unscrupulous company in the Sith Empire even as the model was in service with the Republic. The second was a personal assistant droid she christened Tia, who became her servant during the hours sentient staff were not available.
Aerith made it a point to engage in at least two vacations a year, and her first two were to Murkhana, in the Corporate Sector, and Lorrd, an independent planet. She had chosen the former for both its business, which she was keen to invest in, and its oceans, which were the perfect opportunity for a relaxing cruise. The latter she visited purely for recreational reasons, looking for time she could spend in libraries studying whatever subjects she fancied.
However, 3602 was fading, and she was alarmed by the news of war that reached her. Dantooine. Rhen Var. She wasn’t particular comfortable with the ideas of war, but she was resigned to it, and there was nothing in her power to change any of that. She did, however, see a great opportunity at hand. War was good for business.
In addition, with the untimely deaths of many prominent Sith aristocrats, the Vand family suddenly leapt higher, an order of magnitudes in fact. They’d gone from third tier to nearly first tier. However, it brought about a new level of drama and dissent in the estate. Marel Vand was livid, both furious at the Sith Order and terrified by them. No one was safe now, a precedent had been set. And Marel had long been a traditionalist, a believer in the nobility and not in glowing swords.
He was forced to confront changing realities. He had more than a few new grey hairs and sleepless nights. He also took to staying in other cities, shoring up ties to the remaining aristocrats. Marel Vand became the spokesman for unity among the elite, with the idea that the aristocracy as a whole would rise or fall together. Some considered him an old fool, and considered his rhetoric that of senility. He was, after all, in his mid 90s.
Meanwhile, Aerith was taking advantage of the absence of her family to consolidate her own hold on Criaxa. From charitable works to high society and high finance, the noblewoman was truly omnipresent, and making great progress. The greatest business acquisition she made was a controlling interest in the Criaxa Shipyards, which, when combined with her foundry, meant she had vertical integration, which was continually fed by Sith military contracts for patrol ships, fighters, and corvettes. And that only expanded her personal fortune. The rich grew richer.
In terms of her personal life, it stayed much the same. She went riding and had falconry to entertain her, punctuated by the occasional trip. By and large she remained in her estate however connected to the galaxy through the marvels of technology.
All this while, she was evolving her own plan. Marel was almost 90. He would die soon, whether at the hands of the Sith Order or by the infirmities of age, and she had two brothers in the way. Loyalty was all fine and well, for other people, but she was different. Cold. Calculating. She was more fond of certain staff than she was of them anyway, and she knew what she had to do in her head.
There were two bodies to step over. But she had time on her side, and the best mind in the Vand family.
RP Sample:
“So tell me Miss Ferea, where do you come from again?” A cool and relaxed voice asked the question. The tone was both exceedingly polite and conveying a very specific message beyond the words themselves. That message was “I am the one with authority.” And within the walls of the Vand Estate, there was little question on that point.
Count Marel Vand was the head of the aristocratic family, but his daughter Aerith was the head of the estate in practicality. She was more than often the only Vand on the planet, which left it largely to her. And Aerith, like any good noble, knew every inch of her power intimately.
Around this nicely set dinner table, she was the Empress.
“I came from Yaga Minor Lady Vand,” Ashana Ferea answered, clearly the subordinate. She was no fool, and she knew her place in this discussion.
From the look etched on Aerith’s face, she knew it too. On the first glance and to the casual observer it would have been merely slight amusement or good humor. To the omniscient observer, it was the look of a cat with a mouse under her paw, ready to be spared or devoured according to whim. In high society the stakes were rarely so high as life and death, but the power was much the same. Tonight, here at this dinner table, Lady Vand could determine who would succeed on Criaxa and who would fail.
“Ah yes, of course. How silly of me not to remember. And you wanted to contract with the foundries here to produce droids for the Empire. I think the topic merits detailed discussion. Tomorrow perhaps.”
Ashana’s companion stood up with a frustrated look on his face.
“You wish to add something?” Aerith asked with a tone of polite sarcasm, both impeccably polite and intensely scathing.
“We did not travel across the Empire to be kept waiting.”
Lady Vand frowned and stared intently at the man with unflinching gray eyes, rising from the table herself and smoothing the blue dress she was wearing as if this was the most casual thing in the world.
“I have determined that you shall wait. You will follow my timing, or you will not gain your objective. There are only two possible outcomes, one where you may gain what you seek, and one where you do not. Questioning me leads to the latter. This is your warning.” Quiet steel sounded in the lithe woman’s voice, and a distinct aura of command was on her.
The man was about to rebut when he caught the glimpse sent by Ferea. It was a cautioning look, and he lowered himself to his seat again.
A smug look appeared on Aerith’s slightly angular face, her lips forming a sly smile. It felt good to exert her authority, to wield her control. This was her castle, and she was the master here. No longer the lowly third child, she was the powerful noble. And no one was here to tell her otherwise.
“Good. Now the servants will show you to your rooms.”
Aerith Vand turned and walked out of the ornate dining room, soft fabrics swishing together as she moved, disappearing through the door and heading off to her own devices. The next day would hold the real promise. The first was merely to remind them who was in charge.
Character permission Meira
Name: Aerith Vand
Race: Human
Age: 28
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 137 lbs
Birth place: Criaxa
Appearance:
The very first thing most people notice about Aerith is her skin. She is an extremely pale woman with a porcelain complexion and exquisitely light skin, punctuated only by the soft pink of her lips. She has enough of an appearance in that alone that she opts not to wear anything beyond the simplest of cosmetics, simply because she feels it isn’t needed.
Possibly the second attention-grabbing aspect of her appearance is her face. Aerith is blessed with a naturally lovely visage, one that sets her apart from the crowd. It has more than a hint of the angular, with a pronounced chin, yet is indisputably attractive. She is highly recognizable, and keeps her appearance consistent to serve a purpose. Everywhere she goes on Criaxa, she wants to be recognized, and she craves the day when her visage appears on official documents.
Also worth mentioning is her hair, so dark a brown it appears black under indoor light, and falling down to her waist. She wears it in a menagerie of styles, often in wavy, curling strands, and always off her face. It is always in impeccable condition, and her attention to detail ensures that no matter how absent-minded she may be on any given day, she will look as formal as ever.
In stature, Aerith has a long and lean body, standing at a height rather respectable to behold. She is neither short nor tall, and is of a healthy weight. She is neither gifted with extreme curves or the rail thin build of a Coruscanti super model, but is perfectly respectable as a woman, and has a certain regal grace to her that, in her estimation, fully compensates for not being such a person.
If she turns any heads, it has to do with her poise and bearing. She carries herself like nobility, and moves as if she owns the very land she walks on. Her demeanor can be haughty, and while she rarely deigns to be disdainful openly, when she does it comes across as pure scorn on her features.
Aerith is the type of woman with no qualms about flaunting her wealth, and it shows. It shows in her rich dresses made from Daravin silk, of which she has a nearly endless number. She doesn’t repeat her clothing for more than one day in a row, but there are some constants. Dresses are her clothes of choice, cut to her slender contours and in every color of the rainbow. Jewelry also matches her attire, priceless necklaces and jeweled belts, diamond earrings and fine rings. Her favorite colors to wear are blue, green, and grey. She does depart from her dresses while riding, when she wears jodhpurs and equestrian boots.
Personality:
Aerith can be quite cunning and manipulative when it comes to what she wants. She knows precisely what that is, and she has few scruples when it comes to getting it. She feels almost a sense of desperation to secure her victories, which stems from another distinctive trait. She always feels as if she has to prove herself. She is the third and final child in her family, and is sick of being perceived as the baby.
The youngest child in the Vand family is also by far the most stubborn and willful, proving ever since she was a child that she was positively impossible to force into doing anything. This has been both an annoyance to her family and a point of endearment. She has always been her own person through and through, and is not one to bend or conform to some ideal that she isn’t.
Loyalty is something Aerith doesn’t have in great abundance. At the end of the day, what she sees first is her own desire. Her own needs come first, and her own success is paramount. She wouldn’t have to think very heavily when it comes to such decisions. At her heart, there is room for no one but herself. Her own interests are met at the expense of others, and she realizes that as long as there are those in line before her, she can never shine on her own. With a cold and calculating interior, she bides her time, waiting to step over three bodies, even if her hands are bloody.
Her one driving ambition is to outshine her brothers, and to stop living in their shadow. Her whole life has been spent subordinate to them, and she chafes under their successes. Aerith alternates between barely-contained fury that the title of ‘Countess’ is beyond her reach, and dreams of gaining it and becoming the greatest Vand of all. It is that secret desire that motivates her.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Aerith brilliant. She is gifted with an especially keen mind and a rapier wit, as sharp and cutting as any blade. Very often she can be found with a look of quiet contemplation on her face, focused on some daily puzzle or question.
As befits an aristocrat, Aerith enjoys the finer things in life. She has expensive tastes, from clothing to food. She feels deprived without a wine cellar stocked fully, deprived without a stable filled with horses, and deprived without an aviary filled with birds. She needs luxury and opulence like a fish needs water, and when deprived of them the results are not pretty.
While normally Aerith has a tightly controlled temper and cool exterior, she can snap at times, unleashing a blistering wrath that seems wholly foreign to her. At those times she is extremely unpleasant. She also has other unpleasant tendencies. Chief among them, she suffers from a lack of empathy. Aerith isn’t often purposefully cruel or sadistic, she is merely apathetic about what goes on outside her own circle, with the result that she cares shockingly little about commoners outside of their value to her.
However, she rewards loyalty lavishly, and often shows kindness and courtesy to those members of the household staff she is more fond of. Loyalty is something she has little of, which is perhaps why she can admire it so freely in others.
While not precisely xenophobic, Aerith has humano-centric tendencies. She doesn’t see the majority of non-humans as inferior or incapable, though she sees some as ‘droll and amusing’ and others as ‘uniquely ridiculous.’ The majority of her associates are human, and the bulk of her dealings are with humans and near-humans. If given the choice between dealing with two merchants, a human and a non-human who were identical in every other respect, she would likely choose the human.
The Sith Aristocrat suffers from both anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, though neither in a particularly crippling fashion. The anxiety rears its head when her plans fail for the most part, something she cannot abide. She fears failure greatly, and she worries quite often. If she isn’t engaged in idle thought, she is often engaged in worrying over business decisions or upcoming events, and she agonizes over possible failures. As to the obsessive compulsive disorder, it manifests itself in an extremely fastidious nature. Every inch of her life must be organized, clean, and presentable at all times. She takes the same care in her appearance as well.
Deep down, Aerith craves vindication. She needs approval and respect to function, and she goes to great lengths to ensure she receives it. The whole public image she cultivates in the Empire is geared to receive praise and admiration from the general population, and she craves such notoriety. The more people who know her name and hold it in esteem, the happier she will be.
However, Aerith has one final little quirk. It is a complete dissatisfaction with the idea of romance and of relationships. In her past she fell victim to political marriage, and only broke her engagement at the last minute, causing a slight scandal. She has, rightly, realized that with her position and her wealth, her suitors are interested in what she has rather than who she is. She gave up on love for good after her engagement, and is extremely sour on the topic. In fact, Aerith Vand is asexual. She isn’t particularly attracted to anyone, either male or female. She sees such things as foolish wastes of time.
Occupation: Sith Aristocrat, Corporate Magnate
Rank: Noble
Skills:
Business
Fencing
Riding
Falconry
Equipment:
ResCorp RC-7 : A bodyguard, this unnamed droid accompanies the noblewoman when she leaves the estate. It was obtained through a private contractor after being brought into Sith space by smugglers, for precisely the purpose it serves.
Criterion Personal Assistant: Named Tia, this droid serves as a personal assistant and secretary for Aerith, and remains on-call every hour of the day, when organic staff are unavailable. She is programmed with an exceptionally dutiful personality, programmed to constantly evolve to better fit Aerith’s needs.
Aerith’s Saber:This weapon is a personal favorite of Vand, and while she doesn’t carry it everywhere, it would be amiss not to mention it.
Silverwind: When travelling off Criaxa, Lady Vand’s form of transportation is a Coulé class yacht with a custom silver hull and a truly luxurious interior.
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 5
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 5
Leadership: 6
Unarmed: 2
Melee Weapons: 6 (swords)
Ranged Weapons: 3
Bio:
When looking at the life of Aerith Vand, it is necessary to start the story in 3700 BBY, with the beginnings of the Vand family’s rise to prominence.
The planet Criaxa was discovered while charting the Hydian Way, and scans revealed it to be extremely rich in resources. A man already rich, Aston Vand, came to the conclusion he could take a planet and mold it completely to himself, building his own little corner of the galaxy up from nothing. He sank his entire fortune into colonizing the world, and he was vastly rewarded. The planet grew and prospered, and he prospered more than any other person, gaining extreme wealth over thirty years of growth. He was an ancient man, and as a legacy to his 20 year old son, in 3670 BBY he began the construction of the Vand estate, a massive structure in the spurs of the Carda mountain range, more a palace than anything else. It had luxurious architecture of pillars, domes and sloped roofs of green, and walls of grey stone. Its courtyards were the pride of the sector.
Before its completion, Aston passed away. On his deathbed he had one simple demand. From henceforth, his son would be a Count, and he had seen to drawing up all the paperwork for that title to be tied in with the estate. He had created a noble house, one that he pledged would never die.
His son Marel was shrewd as well, and he grew the Vand fortune even deeper and made their name even more prominent. In 3653, he became one of the new Sith aristocrats who seceded from the Republic, confident in his wealth and his leadership abilities, ready to forge a new government he would wield influence in.
Shortly there after he married a woman named Ahra and started to have children, the first, a son, coming in 3644. He was named Dar, and was destined for greatness, the future heir to the title. He was joined in 3639 by another son, named Rega. Neither of the parents expected to have any other children. Fate had different plans for them.
Aerith was born in 3629 BBY, a complete surprise. Her father was 61, and no longer young. They had assumed both he and Ahra were beyond the point of bearing children, but they accepted their new daughter and resolved to raise her all the same.
Or rather, to have servants raise her. The family had swollen with wealth as the Sith Empire grew, and there was no shortage of any kind. They could fully afford a nursemaid to attend Aerith, and it was her that she grew up most familiar with, a distance forming between her and the remainder of her family.
The nursemaid was an aging woman named Ana, a human with pale skin and graying hair, and a wide smile. She was constantly singing nursery rhymes and reading bedtime stories, even before Aerith could understand. But even after Aerith understood, she continued.
There were other lessons Aerith absorbed in her threes. She was special. She was smart. She was gifted. She was a Vand.
The family legacy was hers, and she grew up looking at her brothers, wealthy business leaders, and her father, the leader of the planet. She was told without words from an early age that this was expected of her, that she had to be as successful as her elders. It was to be a difficult legacy for her.
By the time she was four, her parents decided it was time for her education to begin, but not just any education would do. She was a Vand, a noble by birth, and she needed the best education money could by. That took the form of tutors, a series of them to teach her. Her first was a Mirialan man named Larin, a veteran instructor freshly retired from a teaching post on Jaemus, and wooed into private service by the appeal of money, he had been Rega’s tutor before Aerith. It was him who taught Aerith the most basic subjects, language and mathematics. They built up a foundation together, and it quickly became apparent that the little girl was a voracious learner, devouring books and knowledge, and that she wanted to branch out to new topics. Two more instructors of her brother extended their work to her, a Tholothian woman named Aria, who was an experienced science instructor, and a human man named Alistair who was proficient in teaching both literature and history.
With her team of instructors assembled and living in rooms inside the estate, the pace of her education increased greatly. She was six, and learning astronomy, geography, stellar cartography, mathematics, and the history of the galaxy. When she wasn’t learning, she was engaged in the childhood pursuit it seemed every little girl was enthusiastic over: horseback riding. She had a white horse, a colt she had named Snowy. She loved riding him along the paths in the woods, always attended of course. It became her refuge when the demands of her schoolwork became too much and she needed a break.
One thing in her childhood was lacking though: friends. Her closest brother in age was 16, and interested in very different things from her. Her parents kept a cordial distance from her, most commonly appearing for meals and the occasional chat. There were no children her age, so as a recourse Aerith began to act older, and to cozy up to Rega. However, her brother wasn’t as keen on spending time with her, a girl who he dismissed as a nuisance and a pest.
That was the beginning of their bad blood.
It was rather lonely, but she adapted to it over the years.
By 13 she was showing remarkable aptitude at literature and some of the sciences, namely astronomy. The estate had both an astronomy tower, which had a fantastic view of the night sky, and a very large and circular study ringed with an aquarium. She would spend the hours of her free time divided between those two locations and the stables. But that wasn’t to say she disliked learning at all, she was able to take pride in it. But, as her instructors were wont to remind her, Rega and Dar were both every bit as smart as she was, and vastly more successful. That irritated Aerith. But if she couldn’t be older, if she couldn’t be more successful, she could still be smarter.
She also, at the taunts of her brother, took up the sport of fencing. She found it every bit as recreational as riding, and she had the added incentive of beating Rega. Of course she didn’t have strength or reach on her side, but she was nimble and quick, and her progress was outstanding. But not outstanding enough.
Whether in the stables or in fencing sessions, Rega chronically outshone Aerith. While she made low jumps on Snowy, he made high jumps. He could parry all her strikes and land touches on her without breaking a sweat. It infuriated her.
Aerith was shaping up well, proving well-read, insightful, quite cunning, a skilled rider, and a skilled fencer. In many areas she was exceeding her brothers when they were her age, namely academic ones, but try as she might she still couldn’t surpass them. Not yet at any rate. Rega loomed just out of her reach, but Dar was vastly beyond her.
She decided she had to bide her time. She realized her growth had to come at their expense, and that a time would come when she had to manipulate them.
When Aerith was 20, and of age, she received her first suitor, another Sith noble named Firins, from a good family, and an officer in the Sith military. He was dashing, he was gallant, and he was from a well known and wealthy family. He was a good catch, and a good match for her. They had great potential together, and she was willing to settle down with him for shared prosperity. They went riding together, and he showed an interest in everything she did.
A little too much interest in fact.
From an omniscient perspective it would have been easy to notice that Firins was only interested in Aerith when she was around. The second she disappeared from his sight his smile faded and was replaced by a look of boredom. He also expressed a remarkable interest in some of the servants instead, and his motivations didn’t merit a question, until it was almost too late.
He proposed, Aerith accepted, and they started planning a wedding for the next year. Only Aerith’s personal maid Yvara was suspicious, and she was determined to find out the mystery and uncover what was carefully hidden. She started to investigate in the staff, and to send out information requests to other servants. Over three months a picture began to take shape.
Firins’ family was bankrupt. They’d laid off their servants and cashed in all their investments, but were looking for new sources of funds, such as marrying into a very wealthy family. They had kept it very carefully hidden from the other Aristocrats. To boot, the young man himself was a voracious chaser of men and women alike, and had been expressing a great deal of interest in a young man in the Vand household staff. Luckily Yvara had gathered up hard evidence and revealed it to Aerith.
Aerith was, to say the least, distraught. Moreover, she was bitter. Her wedding had been looming, and all that was abruptly cancelled upon the discovery. There was going to be no special day for her, no influence in two families, and no new title. It convinced her that marriage was, more than ever, a political affair, and that people wanted to gain what they could from a woman in her position. She was already asexual to a large degree, and this sealed that. Romance was for children, and marriage was to be viewed as highly suspect. It was a hard blow to bear, and Aerith began extensive retail therapy. She bought a new horse, a black filly that she named Tyuru, and she took care of it more personally than ever before. She also took up an entirely new hobby to immerse herself in, falconry. She bought the most expensive bird she could, a Thunder Hawk chick, and she raised that too, naming him Kang.
They were distractions from the real issue. And whenever the real issue was raised by her family, Aerith lashed out in angry verbal disputes. Especially with Rega. It seemed he wanted to rub her nose in it, and he was flaunting his own new wife, a lovely young noble from Jaemus. She didn’t want to talk about it, and she most certainly did not want to hear promises of future and better suitors. Her healing was never completed in a safe manner, and she became scornful of romance and marriage. It was all political, and all anyone wanted was her wealth. More than ever she came to rely on her intelligence, on her wit rather than her heart.
From that year on, she became even more of a calculating figure.
As she turned 23, Aerith was a considerably wiser, albeit sadder, woman. She also expressed interest in the family’s businesses, and in making money. She was satisfied now that she was the smartest member of the family. Dar was a businessman only, Rega was a dilettante, and Marel was past his glory days. But Aerith? She was as politically shrewd as her father, as quick to catch on to new skills and ideas as Rega, and she felt in her heart that she could equal Dar. She alone had continued learning beyond the minimum time, and confidential words from her tutors gave her the vindication she craved, calling her a better student than her brothers. She reveled in that, and held it close to her heart as proof of her own true abilities. After that, Aerith decided it was time for her to start her rise up the ladder of wealth, even though she was privy to the shared wealth of the family. As it happened, her father even agreed to offer her control in one of his holdings, under his close supervision. Rega was gone, in the Sith military now, a Captain, and her eldest brother was off on business constantly. It had fallen to her father. And so it was that Aerith gained a controlling interest in the Criaxa Blue Diamond Foundry.
Under the close tutelage of her family, she learned how to delegate, who to delegate to, how to manage her wealth, and how to play the game. It was far from easy, but she had a lot of help. Over the years she required less and less help, becoming more and more self-reliant. However, there was another setback.
When Aerith was 24, Ahra Vand fell ill, and the family was immediately brimming with concern. Aerith wasn’t close to her parents, or her brothers, but she knew her role in this. She was supposed to be worried, to be fretting. The focus of her life was shifted from making money to constant concern about family, superficially. As each passing day fell into stagnation, she longed for any result to end it, good or bad. She was fed up with it, and constantly taking out her tension in saber fencing.
When her mother died, it was a relief. But she never let that show. She instead threw herself into business, and pretended it was a coping device, while she took a valuable lesson and inspiration from this. Her family were perfectly mortal. No one was above death. Not even Dar and Rega.
She grew beyond the foundries, and she expanded into the cities, investing in all kinds of businesses, small as well as large. She contracted with artisans to secure their goods for the estate, and frequented the more expensive boutiques.
With her mother gone, her brothers away, and her father burying himself in the governance of the Empire, it fell to Aerith to manage the estate, and increasingly to help control Criaxa. She replaced her father at public events, going to benevolent events in his stead and gathering influence with government officials who were beholden to the Vand fortune and prowess.
Aerith spent most of her free time engaged in her usual pursuits, riding, fencing, and falconry. However, she had realized one important lesson long ago: You never stopped learning. Her tutors were gone now, but she still took the time to learn and exercise her mind. She showed a special delight with puzzles and mazes, and she could never find enough of them. Finally, she decided to commission a massive hedge-maze on the estate grounds. Even after it was solved it became a familiar recreational activity, like riding or fencing.
As her 26th birthday dawned, Lady Vand realized that there was one significant gap in her life: travel. She’d never really seen much of the galaxy, or even Criaxa. She’d been living in her own little ivory tower, and she resolved to break free and see more than she had before, by traveling. She began her preparations with two new purchases, both high end droids. The first was to be her bodyguard, an RC-7 built by ResCorp and sold by the unscrupulous company in the Sith Empire even as the model was in service with the Republic. The second was a personal assistant droid she christened Tia, who became her servant during the hours sentient staff were not available.
Aerith made it a point to engage in at least two vacations a year, and her first two were to Murkhana, in the Corporate Sector, and Lorrd, an independent planet. She had chosen the former for both its business, which she was keen to invest in, and its oceans, which were the perfect opportunity for a relaxing cruise. The latter she visited purely for recreational reasons, looking for time she could spend in libraries studying whatever subjects she fancied.
However, 3602 was fading, and she was alarmed by the news of war that reached her. Dantooine. Rhen Var. She wasn’t particular comfortable with the ideas of war, but she was resigned to it, and there was nothing in her power to change any of that. She did, however, see a great opportunity at hand. War was good for business.
In addition, with the untimely deaths of many prominent Sith aristocrats, the Vand family suddenly leapt higher, an order of magnitudes in fact. They’d gone from third tier to nearly first tier. However, it brought about a new level of drama and dissent in the estate. Marel Vand was livid, both furious at the Sith Order and terrified by them. No one was safe now, a precedent had been set. And Marel had long been a traditionalist, a believer in the nobility and not in glowing swords.
He was forced to confront changing realities. He had more than a few new grey hairs and sleepless nights. He also took to staying in other cities, shoring up ties to the remaining aristocrats. Marel Vand became the spokesman for unity among the elite, with the idea that the aristocracy as a whole would rise or fall together. Some considered him an old fool, and considered his rhetoric that of senility. He was, after all, in his mid 90s.
Meanwhile, Aerith was taking advantage of the absence of her family to consolidate her own hold on Criaxa. From charitable works to high society and high finance, the noblewoman was truly omnipresent, and making great progress. The greatest business acquisition she made was a controlling interest in the Criaxa Shipyards, which, when combined with her foundry, meant she had vertical integration, which was continually fed by Sith military contracts for patrol ships, fighters, and corvettes. And that only expanded her personal fortune. The rich grew richer.
In terms of her personal life, it stayed much the same. She went riding and had falconry to entertain her, punctuated by the occasional trip. By and large she remained in her estate however connected to the galaxy through the marvels of technology.
All this while, she was evolving her own plan. Marel was almost 90. He would die soon, whether at the hands of the Sith Order or by the infirmities of age, and she had two brothers in the way. Loyalty was all fine and well, for other people, but she was different. Cold. Calculating. She was more fond of certain staff than she was of them anyway, and she knew what she had to do in her head.
There were two bodies to step over. But she had time on her side, and the best mind in the Vand family.
RP Sample:
“So tell me Miss Ferea, where do you come from again?” A cool and relaxed voice asked the question. The tone was both exceedingly polite and conveying a very specific message beyond the words themselves. That message was “I am the one with authority.” And within the walls of the Vand Estate, there was little question on that point.
Count Marel Vand was the head of the aristocratic family, but his daughter Aerith was the head of the estate in practicality. She was more than often the only Vand on the planet, which left it largely to her. And Aerith, like any good noble, knew every inch of her power intimately.
Around this nicely set dinner table, she was the Empress.
“I came from Yaga Minor Lady Vand,” Ashana Ferea answered, clearly the subordinate. She was no fool, and she knew her place in this discussion.
From the look etched on Aerith’s face, she knew it too. On the first glance and to the casual observer it would have been merely slight amusement or good humor. To the omniscient observer, it was the look of a cat with a mouse under her paw, ready to be spared or devoured according to whim. In high society the stakes were rarely so high as life and death, but the power was much the same. Tonight, here at this dinner table, Lady Vand could determine who would succeed on Criaxa and who would fail.
“Ah yes, of course. How silly of me not to remember. And you wanted to contract with the foundries here to produce droids for the Empire. I think the topic merits detailed discussion. Tomorrow perhaps.”
Ashana’s companion stood up with a frustrated look on his face.
“You wish to add something?” Aerith asked with a tone of polite sarcasm, both impeccably polite and intensely scathing.
“We did not travel across the Empire to be kept waiting.”
Lady Vand frowned and stared intently at the man with unflinching gray eyes, rising from the table herself and smoothing the blue dress she was wearing as if this was the most casual thing in the world.
“I have determined that you shall wait. You will follow my timing, or you will not gain your objective. There are only two possible outcomes, one where you may gain what you seek, and one where you do not. Questioning me leads to the latter. This is your warning.” Quiet steel sounded in the lithe woman’s voice, and a distinct aura of command was on her.
The man was about to rebut when he caught the glimpse sent by Ferea. It was a cautioning look, and he lowered himself to his seat again.
A smug look appeared on Aerith’s slightly angular face, her lips forming a sly smile. It felt good to exert her authority, to wield her control. This was her castle, and she was the master here. No longer the lowly third child, she was the powerful noble. And no one was here to tell her otherwise.
“Good. Now the servants will show you to your rooms.”
Aerith Vand turned and walked out of the ornate dining room, soft fabrics swishing together as she moved, disappearing through the door and heading off to her own devices. The next day would hold the real promise. The first was merely to remind them who was in charge.
