#belesa | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

weisshapt · 1 year ago

Photo

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐄 𝐕𝐑𝐘𝐄𝐒 + family tree

one of the most notable and powerful families in the city of baldur’s gate, the house of de vryes, an unbroken line of warlocks, has ascended over nearly four hundred years like no other in the city’s history thanks to a long-held and generationally renewed pact with a demonic being of immense power.

ayana. the pact maker. having found herself carrying a child, ayana went to the father to tell him, only to be accused of dark magic and manipulated seduction so that the man might save face in the eyes of his family and his young wife. more than that, he accused her of cavorting with demons, claiming that in laying with him she had used him as a proxy so she might carry a demon spawn. the village in which ayana had lived was overly superstitious, and took little convincing to spark their hysteria into violence. they beat her, before dragging her to the town center and tying her to a post to be burned, never listening to the way the girl protested her innocence. as the torch was brought forth, suddenly the flames sparked, billowing backwards and alighting both people and buildings alike. out of the flames there came a man, or the likeness of a man. the flames that had begun to creep up around ayana were extinguished, and with a wave of his hand her wounds were healed. the man, taltos as he called himself, charmed the girl and offered her a new life amidst the ashes of her old one. “i have nothing to give you,” she confessed. “not yet. but i have everything to give you. in this we are a perfect match.” ayana asked taltos for power. for wealth and beauty and security for her children and her children’s children. three drops of blood from either party were placed in a locket, which taltos clasped about her neck, and the first pact was sealed.

belesa. the cunning courtesan. ayana never got to see the true fruits of her deal with the devil, but her daughter did. her mother having died when she was still quite young, belesa was raised in a brothel, taking on the profession of the house once she was of age, and what a career she made. with taltos ever in her ear, training her in all arts of seduction and manipulation, belesa became a premiere courtesan. when the young woman reached twenty three, taltos explained to her the deal her mother had made, and the reason he’d always been so adamant that she never part with the locket she wore. he gave her the choice to make the same deal, and she agreed. her talents as a courtesan eventually led her to seduce a retired general by the name of dagan mormont. so in love was he that upon a day he fell to one knee and begged the woman to leave her life behind and marry him, professing he cared not for her past if she would only pledge to him her future. and she did. the two eventually had a child, a girl named phoibe. but when their daughter was hardly a year old, dagan fell ill. before she was two, he died. belesa wasted no time, however. when her husband’s health began to fail, she very quickly noticed the way one of his acquaintances, a noble, cadmus de vryes, was suddenly ever at her side, offering condolences and comfort. mere weeks after dagan’s death, the two were engaged, and upon the condition that her daughter be provided for and her future secured, they were married. cadmus legally adopted phoibe, giving her his name and bringing her into his house. within a year, the two had a son of their own, janus. sadly, cadmus perished on a business trip twelve years into their marriage, leaving belesa the independent lady of the house, the first de vryes matriarch.

phoibe. the girl in the garden. adopted by cadmus de vryes when she was no more than an infant, phoibe became the second heir to bear the de vryes name, though she could claim no de vryes blood. despite this, life was easy for phoibe. her steps were light and her laughter gentle. with a mother who doted upon her and a demon at her beck and call, rarely did she want for anything. this trend continued when she met a man, the second son of another noble family named leander amnell, whilst he wandered the garden of her family home where she’d been reading. he was to her the prince in her story books, perfect and pretty and shining. as struck by her as she had been of him, the two were fascinated by each other, but when leander made to speak with the pretty girl he’d discovered, she fled from him, hoping he’d give chase. chase he did, but phoibe knew well the secrets of the garden, and she escaped him. the pair met again that night at dinner, and finally were formally introduced. within days, and following a request to her mother, they were betrothed. meanwhile her younger brother, janus, also found himself engaged to a young woman named chadara elfarren, the daughter of a family well-known for their wine trading, marking two political victories for the de vryes family which would further their ascent amongst the higher society of baldur’s gate. the marriage between phoibe and leander was a happy one, practically a fairytale. like her brother and his wife, phoibe had two children, and like her own mother, she first had a daughter, oriana, and little more than a year later a son, ambrose.

oriana. the delight of baldur’s gate. even more than her mother before her, oriana was adored by all those who looked upon her from a young age. no one would ever speak an ill word against her. talented in poetry, music, dancing, riding, and the arcane arts, and never putting neither foot nor finger out of place or out of order, she was a compliment and a treasure to her family. by the time she was sixteen she had been socially dubbed ‘the delight of baldur’s gate’, with nobles, knights, scholars and artisans alike all eventually coming to vie for her hand. the only person seeming to hold against her any ill will was her own brother, ambrose, though the source of his contention and resentment was always a point of whispered rumour. perhaps it was because the man always thought himself cleverer and more ambitious by half than his sister, and believed he would have made a more competent and effective heir to both the family’s fortune, and to taltos, sentiments that were only spurred on by his later wife, calpernia exeltis, who herself resented that she was not the official lady of the house. when oriana did finally choose a husband and marry, it was to a knight named gideon de nogaret. the two would, as with the previous two generations, go on to have two children, this time twins, numerius and aurelia.

numerius and aurelia. the twins. the only time taltos has ever chosen two heirs. always bound together, rarely seen apart, it came as hardly a surprise when both of the twins claimed to see taltos just after their seventh birthday. after, it was common occurrence to find them huddled together in some quiet room, listening to their infernal tutor, or whispering to each other as though they had a secret language. as they grew older, whispers in quiet corners became secret touches in darkened rooms. in an effort to stem the tide of their debauchery, oriana and gideon married their only daughter to daguenet grimaud, the son of a wealthy merchant family known for their penchant for falconry. still, the pair would not be separated. when aurelia gave birth to her first child, a son named castus, no one dared question who had fathered the boy, though everyone, including aurelia’s own husband, suspected they did not need to. for a time it seemed as though the twins would distance themselves as aurelia focused on motherhood, though this did not last long before the two began to sneak away together again. “find the boy a pretty wife and perhaps he will finally put an end to this degeneracy.” numerius was quickly wed to cornelia eomane, the daughter of a family which owned successful oil and perfume factories in the city. still yet, the twins continued. they could not be stopped and what could be done? they were the heirs to the powers that held the family together. to lose them would be to lose him. worse still, they knew it. in time aurelia had two more children, antha, and deirdre. with his own wife, numerius had a single child, a daughter called isadora, whom, while it was ever clear that he loved her dearly, was hardly his favorite.

antha and deirdre. the deserter and the second choice. antha was a quiet girl all her life. studious, clever, precocious and talented. growing up, awareness of her parentage weighed on her more heavily than it did her siblings, but she never gave any signs of vitriol or disloyalty to her family. not until that night. three days before her binding ceremony, antha disappeared from the de vryes family home, the locket of her birthright left laying on her bed. it was a little over a week before she was found, in a temple to pelor, where she had pledged herself and vowed to remain for the rest of her days. “i want to live in the light, away from the darkness and temptation of our family,” she said to her cousin and half-sister isadora, recently married to a minor noble named tristan hedare, when she came to visit. her abandonment was unprecedented, and taltos was hardly pleased with the development. still, in the loss of one heir, he chose another, the youngest of aurelia’s children, deirdre. as she was a spare heir, she was the spare again in her betrothal to the man who had once been promised to her sister, pelleas de lauzon, the son of a family also known for their arcane abilities. it was clear she was not who either had wanted, as pelleas had long obsessed over her sister, whilst deirdre had done the same over him. together she and her husband bore a single child, a daughter they called nimueh. having moved away from the city, isadora eventually had a child of her own, another girl, linnea.

nimueh. his favorite. it is said that taltos did not wait until nimueh had passed seven years before he came to her. instead, yet reeling and still furious from the loss of his previous intended heir and more than determined not to repeat the same unfortunate mishap, he was ever at nimueh’s side from birth, speaking to her, guiding her, molding her into a warlock of formidable power, especially at such a young age. perhaps that is why the girl grew into a woman who, though more clever and cunning than any who had come before her, had a certain touch of madness, always whispering of her dreams and of destiny, visions in her eyes as much as was the waking world. perhaps it was that madness that led her to her own uncle’s bedchambers one night. “my dreams demand it,” she would say. though, it cannot be truthfully said that castus protested overmuch. together the two had five children, their eldest, agravaine, then twins of their own, cyprien and melitta who died young and furthered her mother’s unstable mind (”i was promised a daughter. i am meant to have a daughter. how could she be taken from me?”). then came bastian, and finally their youngest, the little girl nimueh had so longed for, ovidia. nimueh never married, which did nothing but fan the flames of widespread rumor as to the identity of her children’s father.

cyprien. the seducer. as shrewd as his mother, cyprien recognized early that her never marrying put their family in a precarious position, with potential to lose some of the footing they had gained amongst the nobility of baldur’s gate. so, after a good few years of honing his talents, so to speak, and with taltos as his guide, the young man set out to capture the heart of the beautiful daughter of one of the most powerful families in the city, isla caldwell, and capture her he did. he would charm the girl until she lay with him, and then continued to do so until he could be certain that she carried his child. upon such discovery, he wasted no time before presenting himself to isla’s parents and demanding that they be wed. the only options then were to either grant the imperious boy her hand, or risk the destruction of her reputation once she began to show. the pair were married quickly, though with as much ceremony as befitted the station of cyprien’s bride. despite the schemed nature of its origins, the marriage was not without affection as cyprien did seem to truly love his young wife, and once wed quickly put away much of his more rakish ways. however there were some who resented the match, cyprien’s elder brother among them, as agravaine himself had oft desired his brother’s wife, though to no avail. less than five months into their marriage, the couple welcomed their first child, a son named atlas, and after three and a half more years, a daughter was born, whom they called amara.

amara. she who loved two. while both she and her elder brother were outwardly the perfect picture of dignified nobility, amara had a streak of wild and unbridled curiosity in her that her brother atlas lacked. prone to sneaking away from her family’s guard whenever the urge struck her, the young woman at times found herself wandering the lower city. it is there she developed a certain fascination for the organized fighting matches that were held in secret in abandoned warehouses near the brampton docks. it was at one of these matches that she discovered a fighter by the name of conall merrilin, a man who seemed fully at home in the violence, even appearing to find joy in it. as he’d caught her eye, she’d caught his, but it was between them a sort of game of cat and mouse. during matches, his eyes would find hers, which were often already glued to him, and she would give him a knowing smile and a tilt of her head, but after the match, she’d disappear before he could reach her. one night he finally caught her, and despite knowing practically nothing about each other, passion burned bright between them following a very brief introduction. after, amara revealed why she’d finally allowed him to catch her. she was engaged, but she’d not been able to help herself. her betrothed was magnus artemel, the son of a noble family from waterdeep who’d made their fortune through moneylending, and he was to arrive to meet his new bride in two days time. this news however, did nothing to deter conall, who found amara again in the upper city after days of searching. it was good fortune that her new husband had a deep love of hunting and would be away from home for days on end at times, as amara could not seem to refuse the figher who’d captured her eye and a piece of her heart. still, she came to love magnus as well. “he is my husband. it is not as though i don’t hold some affection for him.” “then why meet with me?” “because i hold affection for you too.” through the years, magnus never learned of his wife’s lover, or if he did, he said nothing, and the two (three technically) remained happy, even when their children were born. while amara assumes that conall fathered both her son, rylen, and later her daughter, ursula, she could never be quite sure, and magnus treated both as his rightful children, whether he believed them to be or not.

ursula. the melancholy heir. the early years of ursula de vryes were happy ones. though she was quiet, she was untroubled and joyful. well beloved by her parents and thick as thieves with her brother and his good friend fabian vadim, it seemed nought could go wrong. such a statement would sadly not stand the test of time. it began with a letter from a distant relation of the family, and the revelation that the current heads of the de vryes family, the most powerful of their line, were not true descendants of cadmus de vryes, and held none of his blood, making their claim both of the family name and its fortunes and holdings illegitimate. this distant branch of the family had fallen on difficult times due to the gambling debts and poor financial decisions of a previous generation, and having discovered the truth of their lineage, demanded recompense as price for their silence, this coming in the form of a betrothal between ursula and their son, oberon de vryes. ursula was crushed initially, as she’d hoped to live her life with her first love fabian, but to refuse the match would be to ruin her family, so she acquiesced. her new husband however, seemed to care little for her, as his own heart belonged to his mistress, finola donati, and would always be hers. things may have worked out had ursula been then free to be with her own love, but a year into their marriage, fabian was killed after being robbed in an alley one night. the news broke ursula’s heart, and from then on she focused purely on her family and worked to be a good wife to her husband, which despite oberon’s lack of the tender fondness she so desired from him, grew as they welcomed multiple children in the coming years, beginning with their eldest, malachy. their next son, dorian, fell ill when was eleven years of age and did not survive, taking with him another piece of his mother’s heart. after that came two daughters, first yseult, and then their youngest, laeta. her brother rylen fell madly in love with a seamstress named cerys rivers, whom he married little more than a year after meeting.

yseult. the runaway bride. despite her mother’s pensive and at times downcast nature, yseult was a happy girl and did what she could to lift her mother’s spirits. incredibly stubborn and hard-headed, there was rarely a rule she wouldn’t be willing to break, much to the chagrin of any charged with looking after her, and it was near impossible to get the girl to hold her tongue under any circumstances unless of the utmost importance. her relationship with her father was always tempestuous, as she largely blamed him for her mother’s dejection, but matters were made worse when he arranged a marriage for her and announced it one night at dinner. while her brother and sister were more or less free to marry as they chose, she, as the heir, had a ‘duty’, so he said, and thus such a choice could not be left only in her hands. even after meeting her intended she did not care for him, as her heart had secretly already been stolen away. the night before her wedding, while both her own family and that of her betrothed slept under the roof of the de vryes manor, yseult slipped on her wedding dress, packed her things, and crept down to the front door. on her way, she came upon her mother, who immediately noticed, even beyond the way she was dressed, the bag she carried over her shoulder. ursula said nothing, just embraced her daughter and gave a silent nod. she understood. having said the only goodbye she cared to beyond the note she’d hidden for her sister, yseult ran beyond the gates of her home and into the arms of her barbarian lover, ulric wolfspeer, whom she had originally met when the man had done mercenary work on behalf of her family. in the years that followed, yseult would live happily with her new husband in his home beyond the city, and would in time bear two sons, hilarus and lindon.

hilarus. the outlander turned nobleman. when hilarus was thirteen years old, his father died in battle whilst away from home on a job. after, though his mother gave it her best attempt, yseult found that without her husband she had no place in his world, and with taltos having already chosen hilarus as the next heir, she knew it was time she returned home to baldur’s gate. it was not what most would call a happy reunion especially where the boy's grandfather was concerned. harsh words were traded back and forth as a mother held both her sons behind her and defended her return. “you may bear the name but you married into this family, father. try not to pretend you understand it.” despite the tension they could not turn away the next generation, could not cast out the new source of their power. still, adjusting to such a new and different life was difficult for hilarus and though he was only ten at the time, it appeared harder on his younger brother lindon. the burden was greatly lifted when hilarus found a friend in a local boy his own age, auctus lyle, and from then on the two were nearly inseparable. what was the kinship between boys eventually turned to love between men. nevertheless, as heir to his family, hilarus had a certain duty, and that duty came in the form of thessela jannath, the daughter of a mine-owning family related to a former grand duchess. the marriage was at the start a cold one, but in time the walls between the two were pulled down stone by stone, surprisingly at auctus’s own behest. as the years passed, affection blossomed not only between a husband and his wife, but between thessela and auctus as well, and together the three found true happiness. thessela only ever had one child, a daughter named alais. lindon was ever a barbarian in the city, remaining by his brother’s side as the sword that guarded his family.

alais. the harshest of all the heirs. alais’s birth was not a gentle one. her entrance into this world was bloody and difficult and violent, and left her mother unable to bear any more children. while her father had left the life of a barbarian behind as a young boy, there was a level of barbarity in his daughter that few could deny. even as a young girl, alais was steely and unyielding, preferring to keep to herself rather than pass her time with other children her own age, as she found them too silly to bother with. as she grew older, she came to hold a marked dislike of weakness, such that when it came time for her to marry, she was adamant that she would not wed a weak man, no matter his riches or his title. at her suggestion, her father hilarus arranged to host a tournament, wherein the prize for the victor would be the opportunity to wed his daughter, should she accept their hand, and if not, a more monetary reward would be offered. however on the day, alais quickly grew bored of watching contender after contender prance about the field, seeming to care more for putting on a show for onlookers rather than making any true show of strength, and thus her interest quickly dwindled. it was well past mid-day, the sun high in the sky, when a tall, scarred man in heavy armor walked silently onto the field. when the fights began, he threw himself into the fray, seeming hardly to even notice the audience, and where others had pulled their swings, he carried them through, never outright killing his opponents, but coming close more than once. suddenly alais was on the edge of her seat, practically leaning over the railing to watch. when the sun set, they had their victor, and alais was married to owain gallus within a week. despite theirs not initially being a romantic match, the two shared a passion for violence that soon became a violent passion for each other. alais often claimed her husband was the other half of herself, and the love the two held for each other was obvious to all, and frightening to many in its intensity. there was no line one would not cross for the other. over the years alais had three sons, riordan, quintus, and galen.

quintus. the social climber. of alais’s three sons, quintus was the least outwardly similar to either his mother or his father. where his brothers, riordan and galen, favored swords and battle and physical strength like their father, quintus’s might was his intellect. his mind was his weapon, shrewd and calculating, no less sharp than his brothers’ blades and perhaps even more ruthless. of all the generations of the family, both past and present, quintus was the most responsible for not only increasing the power of the de vryes family, but of bringing it all under almost singular control. in addition to arranging a marriage between himself and the daughter of one of the oldest baldurian noble families, calliope tillerturn, quintus, over the years, brought together all relatives bearing the family name, no matter how distant, and installed a de vryes at every level in every sector of management or governance in the city. a de vryes hand in every cookie jar. quintus also furthered the family’s involvement with the city’s merchants, the guilds, the artisans, the moneylenders, became a patron to the arts and even kept regular contracts with mercenary groups, one of which was eventually headed by his own younger brother. whilst the family had, before him, already been powerful and a known name both in and beyond the city, quintus made the de vryes family one of the most powerful and near untouchable in baldur’s gate. with his wife, he would come to have three children, attius, despoina, and caecilia.

caecilia. she who wished to be beautiful all her days. caecilia was the youngest of her parent’s children, and the perfect daughter to a noble house, straight-backed and proper in everything she did. her one main flaw perhaps was a touch of vanity, as upon her fifteenth birthday, when taltos asked what she wished for, she stared into the mirror in her bedroom and told him “i wish always to be beautiful, to be perfect.” despite most thinking she was, caecilia’s image of perfection was always her elder sister, for whom she held a level of affection she never dared speak of aloud. it wouldn’t have been proper, and there were few things more important to caecilia than propriety. less than a year after her binding ceremony, she’d secretly wish she’d said more, said something, when despoina came to her one night, and told her she was leaving. she could no longer remain in the family home and pretend she agreed with what they were all doing with taltos, as she believed the family had outgrown any need of him and their pact, or indeed of any pact, especially one with a demonic being none of them had ever truly understood. in one night, she disappeared and never returned, taking a part of caecilia’s heart with her that she’d never get back. eventually she would wed a somewhat distant cousin in decimus de vryes, a man who favored propriety and perfection nearly to the extent that she did. while they may never have found true passion with each other, they did have respect, which both would argue was far more important. they would have one child, a daughter they named helaena. the same was true of caecilia’s older and only brother, attius, who married the daughter of a waterdhavian family famed for their jewelry, nynaeve massalan, and together they had a child of their own, iphigenia.

helaena. the one who died young. much like her ancestor phoibe de vryes, helaena was a sweet girl, quieter than some, perhaps even shy, but never unhappy. as her parent’s only child, no expense was spared in her upbringing. every dress, every doll, every book she desired was hers as quickly as she could voice her desire for it, but it did not leave her spoiled. still, it did leave her unprepared for the first time she was firmly told no. when she was newly twenty, helaena fell in love with the son of a family heavily invested in seafaring and maritime trade, corvus vieri, after meeting him at a grand carnival held yearly by her family. it was love at first sight for both, but corvus was not her father’s choice of match, and her hand had already been promised to another. rather than live a life of unhappiness with a husband she did not love, helaena snuck away one night to meet with corvus, and the two were married in secret, which she revealed to her family the following morning when there was nothing they could do to stop or change it. decimus was furious, and while caecilia disapproved of her daughter’s secrecy and subversion, she did admire her determination. her cousin iphigenia thought the whole affair was “spectacularly scandalous.” in the following weeks there was a held a full and grand public wedding, so that the match might seem more legitimate in the eyes of the aristocracy. their first child was a girl, whom they called licinia, as was their second, but it was in giving birth to ilithiya that helaena would lose her life, passing away shortly after she first held her second daughter to blood loss. corvus himself would die when his youngest was only three years old, off on an expedition, his ship sinking somewhere beyond the trackless sea.

ilithiya. the one whose destiny has been interrupted. after her mother helaena died in childbirth, there was a period of years that the entire de vryes family, immediate and extended, existed in a state of panic. taltos had been bound to helaena, and seemed to have diseappeared with her death. no one saw him, no one heard from him, no one felt him, and all wondered what would become of the family without him. licinia was four at the time, and remembered well the ever-present tension that existed in the family for those years, worsening as she grew older and never saw any sign of him, as much as she’d hoped to. it was only after ilithiya had turned four herself that her grandmother noticed her laughing at nothing and making childish responses to what appeared a one sided conversation with a presence caecilia could not see, that hope was born again in the family. from that moment on, everyone doted on the younger girl, who was officially regarded as taltos’s new chosen upon her seventh birthday, as was tradition. whilst her older sister was, in personality, the spitting image of her grandmother, ilithiya was seemingly an amalgamation of nearly all of the heirs that had come before her, and was the first since nimueh to have had taltos attached to her since her birth. like phoibe and oriana, she was beloved by most all who knew her. like amara she was beautiful and wild with curiosity and a thirst for life and for understanding. she wanted to see and do and feel and experience all she could. when she wondered about love and lust and why people were so moved by it, taltos taught her as he had taught belesa and cyprien before her, and she eventually seduced her tutor and later a guard who worked for her family. like yseult, she never did care for rules or for doing what she was told, and would often sneak away for a ride on her favorite horse, a black cormyrean destrier she called nemetes. unlike those who came before, her relationship with taltos was not only one of a warlock and their patron. all her life he had been there with her, watching her, whispering in her ear of the great destiny which lay ahead of her, a destiny she never understood but accepted wholeheartedly. he was her first and greatest friend, and she'd do anything for him. despite never speaking the words aloud, ilithiya was in love with him, desiring him above all others, desiring to know him and to feel him. whether taltos truly returned her feelings was a question that remained unanswered, though he would always play into and encourage her affections. in this, more than all her ancestors, the evening of her binding ceremony felt to her a sort of wedding, as did the night that followed. still, she knew she would eventually be required to make a real marriage match, and it was whilst travelling to meet a potential husband that disaster struck and the mindflayers attacked. since her abduction, she has not heard from taltos or felt his presence, circumstances that have already begun to fray at the threads of her sanity, only worsened by the sudden weakness of her magic. at present, her only goal is to return to baldur’s gate, to return to him, and hope he does not believe her to have abandoned him. it would also be good to get that damned tadpole removed along the way.