Arie’s Background
Arie is the youngest vampyr councilor at twenty six years of age. She was born to the sixth son of Olivanticus, and possessed a strong blood rating prior to Taking the Blood. She was groomed by her father for an eventual seat on the council, and is as arrogant as she is beautiful.
Arie claimed the last vacant spot on the council two years ago, which has no real holdings and almost no standing. As a result when the council voted to send a member to begin paving the way for their return she was selected. No one else wanted the job, because it’s extraordinarily risky. The Knights are ever vigilant, and will be hunting for the councilor sent if they are found out. Part of her getting the job was contingent on her going to Reverian.
Arie was only 11 when the purge occurred, but that means a sizable portion of her life was lived in the lap of luxury. She had slaves, magical accoutraments and everything she could wish for provided by her father. She was spoiled rotten, and believes all of these things to be her rightful due.
From age 11 onward she learned to hate the citizens of Olivantia, and the knights of the Dawn in particular for their role in The Purge. She sworge vengeance along with her father, and has thought about nothing other than training in binding, fighting and politics. While returning to Reverian is dangerous she relishes the change to wipe out the knights, and has gone about her work with incredible zeal.
Arie is very, very beautiful and she knows it. She’s been taught to use all the weapons at her disposal, and her looks combined with the pull of her blood make it nearly impossible for any man to resist her. Add in her intelligence, her vampyr nature and her magic and you have a very, very dangerous woman.
She arrived in Reverian two years ago posing as a farmer’s daughter come to market with her father (a bonded bodyguard named Merle). The pair took up residence in a room in Lowtown, because it was the least patrolled district. The knights feared the criminal element enough that they only patrolled during the day, and if they had to come in at night they came in force.
The first thing Arie did was scout the district to see what sort of opinion the people held towards the knights. She was overjoyed to find a brimming cauldron of resentment, and began quietly stirring the pot. She spread rumors that the knights were living well and eating all the food. Several riots broke out as a result, which the knights brutally repressed. This only added more fuel to the fire, making the people even more resentful.
Arie used her charms to take ownership of a popular Lowtown brothel, which served as her new headquarters. She quietly manipulated the minds of each of the whores, asking them to spread rumors of mistreatment by the knights. They helped convince every patron who passed through their doors that the knights were a plague that did nothing to help them.
Next Arie began kidnapping any knight that ventured into the district alone. She bonded a pretty young woman of about forteen, and used the girl to lure knights back to the brothel. They were brought to the basement under the pretext that they were ‘rescuing’ the girl’s older sister.
Her primary goal was to thin the ranks of the already beleagured knights, but there were many secondary goals as well. First, she wanted the knights to fear Lowtown. The more they feared it the less likely they’d be to venture there, which lessened the danger she was in. Next, she needed eyes and ears in the knights.
By kidnapping the knights she could bond them and blood them. Those that didn’t become consumed could be sent back to rejoin their brethren giving her spies in the very heart of the order. This proved to be more difficult than she’d first hoped. The knights were strong willed. Many died during capture, and those that lived often gave in to the blood curse and became consumed.
Only a few survived the process, but she was presented with another dilemma. How could she account for their unexpected absence? It took weeks to break one mentally, and the bonding ritual too still more time. She needed a way to re-introduce them to the order, without having them carefully examined.
The solution she came up with was gladatorial games. The kidnapped knights were forced to fight each other for the benefit of crowds. Because the citizens of Lowtown hated the knights they kept quiet about the games. It provided Arie a much needed source of revenue, and gave an alibi as to where the knights had been for so long.
All she needed to do was arrange for someone in the order to ‘discover’ the games, and when they raided her brothel they’d find the captive knights and take them back into the welcoming bosom of the order. It was unlikely they’d examine them too closely, as the games provided a believable reason for them to have been kidnapped.
Arie knew that she needed at least one officer among her captives for her plan to be truly worthwhile. More, if at all possible. She’s been kidnapping them steadily, waiting for the order to get nervous enough to send someone with authority to deal with the problem.
