Difference between revisions of "Liv Dravot"

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Her power as [[Steward]] rests heavily upon her position as mother of the Kaiser in whose name she reigns. Yet that same Kaiser, from whence her power and legitimacy derives, is the son for whom she can bear no maternal affection. She had no abiding desire to remain in [[Shirekeep]], still less to pursue high office. When the [[Tokaray al-Osman|Tokaray Scare]] gripped the surviving friends and associates of the [[Kaiser Dominus]] it was Liv who urged her aged husband on the course of flight to the obscurity of [[Ura'Bos]]. Yet throughout that brief exile the fear and doubt as to what Adam's son, conceived through rape and borne through an abduction and forced marriage, might become if indulged by sycophantic courtiers and left to pursue his own whims. It was that fear which spoke to her when she urged her husband to make an about face and once more take up the mantle of MoMA, lest the [[Froyalanish]] [[House of Ettlingar Freyu]] strengthen its hand at court.
 
Her power as [[Steward]] rests heavily upon her position as mother of the Kaiser in whose name she reigns. Yet that same Kaiser, from whence her power and legitimacy derives, is the son for whom she can bear no maternal affection. She had no abiding desire to remain in [[Shirekeep]], still less to pursue high office. When the [[Tokaray al-Osman|Tokaray Scare]] gripped the surviving friends and associates of the [[Kaiser Dominus]] it was Liv who urged her aged husband on the course of flight to the obscurity of [[Ura'Bos]]. Yet throughout that brief exile the fear and doubt as to what Adam's son, conceived through rape and borne through an abduction and forced marriage, might become if indulged by sycophantic courtiers and left to pursue his own whims. It was that fear which spoke to her when she urged her husband to make an about face and once more take up the mantle of MoMA, lest the [[Froyalanish]] [[House of Ettlingar Freyu]] strengthen its hand at court.
  
Upon the return of Daniyal and Liv to Shirekeep they quickly became caught up in the events leading towards the [[Struggle for the South]], where [[Lichbrook]], [[Minarboria]] and [[Mishalan]] fell in swift succession. At the same time an anti-Elwynnese reaction began to grip Shirekeep and the [[Landsraad]] itself, where many notables looked askance at [[King Noah|King Noah's]] avaricious devouring of the failed soviet state of [[Mishalan]]. The southern aristocracy, humbled too many times in recent years by the Elwynnese colossus, found itself gripped by an unlikely sympathy for the Mishalanski, less for the Communists, whom many felt were receiving their belated due, but more for the ordinary folk who had merely exchanged the ''nomenklatura'' for a gaggle of over-titled Vanic extremists. The fury of the reaction had already claimed the scalp of the Steward, [[Kyle Kilynn]], who had only clung on long enough to see [[Kezan]] attain statehood. In this emerging power vacuum, Liv, for whom the indignity of Noah's reaction to her marriage still rankled, sensed an opportunity to at last settle the score.
+
Upon the return of Daniyal and Liv to Shirekeep they quickly became caught up in the events leading towards the [[Struggle for the South]], where [[Lichbrook]], [[Minarboria]] and [[Mishalan]] fell in swift succession. At the same time an anti-Elwynnese reaction began to grip Shirekeep and the [[Landsraad]] itself, where many notables looked askance at [[King Noah|King Noah's]] avaricious devouring of the failed soviet state of [[Mishalan]]. The southern aristocracy, humbled too many times in recent years by the Elwynnese colossus, found itself gripped by an unlikely sympathy for the Mishalanski. This was less out of concern for the Communists, whom many felt were receiving their belated due, but rather more for the ordinary folk who had merely exchanged the ''nomenklatura'' for a gaggle of over-titled Vanic extremists. The fury of the reaction had already claimed the scalp of the Steward, [[Kyle Kilynn]], who had only clung on long enough to see [[Kezan]] attain statehood. In this emerging power vacuum, Liv, for whom the indignity of Noah's reaction to her marriage still rankled, sensed an opportunity to at last settle the score.
  
 
*[[Auspicious Occasion]] (1651)
 
*[[Auspicious Occasion]] (1651)

Revision as of 01:50, 19 September 2017

Liv Dravot
Full Name: Liv Dravot (née Djupvik)
Alias The Imperial Mother

Liv.png

Physical Description
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Race: Shirerithian
Hair Color and Style:
Eye Color: Blue
Skin Color: White

Biographical Information
Father: Nilu Sólason
Mother: Kristina Djupvik
Date of Birth: 1615
Place of Birth: Shirekeep
Date of Death:
Place of Death:
Current Residence(s): Raynor's Keep, Shirekeep
Nationality at Birth: Shirerithian
Current Allegiance(s): Shireroth
Occupation: Steward of the Imperial Republic. Director of the ESB Group.
Liv Djupvik; enthroned, to her surprise, as Khanum of Cabbagefall in her own right.

Liv Dravot (née Djupvik) (born 1615 in Shirekeep) is the mother of Kaiser Ayreon. Following her capture and forced marriage to Prince Adam Ayreon-Kalirion in 1644, she became his consort as Khanum of Cabbagefall. After her divorce by decree of Kaiseress Noor in 1645, she became Khanum of Cabbagefall in her right, until Layla Verion took over in 1650. Her only child by Adam, Vidar, was born in 1645, and ascended the Golden Mango Throne in 1650 as Kaiser Ayreon IV. Married to Daniyal Dravot since 1650.

Biography

Early life

The daughter of Nilu Sólason (b. 1577 in Hurmu) and Kristina Djupvik (b. 1580 in Nordiskehjem, Normark), Liv grew up in Shirekeep. Her father Nilu is the son of Arviður Andelarjunarbroðir (b. 1535), former Baron of K'Tzuni (1558–1559), and Jurist of Small Commonwealth Court since 1558, and Sól Míudottar (b. 1543 in Hurmu).

Graduated from Metzler University in 1638, thereafter working in real estate until 1644.

Forced marriage

Liv had, over time, become an acquaintance and then a friend of Queen Noor of Goldshire. During the Oustfest Massacre, the triumphant Adam remembered the family friend and made a visitation to Liv's residence. Travelling in disguise, owing to the disorder then prevalent in the city, he was initially mistaken for his brother Aldin. Nonetheless he was welcomed and received guest rights, whereupon he initiated intimate relations with Liv, his host and a considerably older woman, off his own initiative. Having found her performance satisfactory to his requirements, Adam made her subject to a marital contract and inducted her into his household in the Babkhan fashion. He subsequently had her brought into Goldshire where on 14 Oskalteq 1644, he formally decreed into law her new standing as Khanum of Cabbagefall.

Her feelings regarding her new circumstances went unrecorded.

Following the fall of Cabbagefall, Liv, Adam and their entourage were arrested and brought to Shirekeep. Liv was released and made a guest of Kaiseress Noor, where on 8 Gevraquun 1645, Liv gave birth to a son, Vidar Salim Livarson. Thereafter, Noor, as Queen of Goldshire decreed the marriage dissolved, terminated Adam's title Khan of Cabbagefall, and passed it on to Liv who now was Khanum of Cabbagefall in her own right. This, at least nominally, awarded Liv considerable political power in Goldshire under the Codex Aureus Regni. In practice however, owing to her lack of political experience and the traumatic circumstances of the preceding year, power remained concentrated in the hands of the Royal Chancellery, administered by appointees of the ESB-Jörmungandr Group under the chairmanship of Daniyal Dravot whom she married in 1645 AN as part of a new political alliance. As part of the pay-off for the marital alliance Liv received a directorship within the ESB Group and became responsible for the management of Government Outsourcing and Goldshire, reinforcing and in large measure restoring the ESB's hold on the machinery of government which had been weakened during the civil war and the reign of Adam Ayreon-Kalirion as Khan of Cabbagefall.

Goldshire

Discrete diplomacy had been ongoing for some time to come to a resolution concerning the status of Daniyal Dravot's marriage to Liv, the Khanum of Cabbagefall, under Elwynnese law. Although not Elwynnese by birth or inclination, Liv had been inducted into the House of Ayreon-Kalirion, somewhat against her will, by the young tyrant and regicide Adam Ayreon-Kalirion during the tumultuous year of 1644. As the forced 'wife' of Adam, she had borne him a son, Vidar, whom the circumstances of his conception made it impossible for her to love. Instead the infant was installed with a wet-nurse, and latterly a governess after teething, in the Steward's Tower of Raynor's Keep and there to be raised in an appropriate manner.

The marriage, although necessarily expedient for bringing about a reconciliation of the ESB backed Royal Government with the so-called Kalirion Khanate in Cabbagefall, had thrown up all manner of complications with Elwynn, where the King, Noah, jealously guarded the prerogatives he saw accruing to the White Orchid Throne and all those who married into the Elwynnese branch of the House of Ayreon-Kalirion.

On the 19th of Elroqpinu in the year 1646, the Family Council of the House of Orchids met at the Castle Islàn in the Old Harbour of the Royal City of Hyfrost to discuss a petition by Prince Hallbjörn of the Seven Ports, Princess Fjorleif Llængjarla of Amokolia, Princess Geirbjörg of Illumination and Cimmeria, Kaiseress Noor of Shireroth, and Prince Audun Joel of Araxion, to the King of Elwynn asking for a royal decree to legitimise the marriage in the context of Elwynnese law.

In spite of this however, the release onto the Elwnet of a video purported to be Liv petitioning through the medium of song and dance, combined with reports of Elwynnese peasants being up in arms along the borderlands between the two realms, set Liv on edge and made her determined that she would not be depicted as the cowed supplicant.

Arriving in Kingsgate on the 22nd of Elroqpinu, Liv convened a general assembly of the militia of Suthergold, joined with the officers of the Jaysh al-Sathrati and the Field Army's II Corps, and gave a notable speech in what some have described as an attempt to salvage some dignity in the wake of the debacle surrounding "the video".

The Steward in Shirekeep, when he learned of his wife's speech, was mortified and sent legatine envoys to Kingsgate to calm the situation and prevail upon the militia to return to their peacetime billets.

Lacuna

Return and Stewardship

Liv as reigning Steward circa 1652 AN: It is a rare Steward that takes the opportunity to crown herself.

Her power as Steward rests heavily upon her position as mother of the Kaiser in whose name she reigns. Yet that same Kaiser, from whence her power and legitimacy derives, is the son for whom she can bear no maternal affection. She had no abiding desire to remain in Shirekeep, still less to pursue high office. When the Tokaray Scare gripped the surviving friends and associates of the Kaiser Dominus it was Liv who urged her aged husband on the course of flight to the obscurity of Ura'Bos. Yet throughout that brief exile the fear and doubt as to what Adam's son, conceived through rape and borne through an abduction and forced marriage, might become if indulged by sycophantic courtiers and left to pursue his own whims. It was that fear which spoke to her when she urged her husband to make an about face and once more take up the mantle of MoMA, lest the Froyalanish House of Ettlingar Freyu strengthen its hand at court.

Upon the return of Daniyal and Liv to Shirekeep they quickly became caught up in the events leading towards the Struggle for the South, where Lichbrook, Minarboria and Mishalan fell in swift succession. At the same time an anti-Elwynnese reaction began to grip Shirekeep and the Landsraad itself, where many notables looked askance at King Noah's avaricious devouring of the failed soviet state of Mishalan. The southern aristocracy, humbled too many times in recent years by the Elwynnese colossus, found itself gripped by an unlikely sympathy for the Mishalanski. This was less out of concern for the Communists, whom many felt were receiving their belated due, but rather more for the ordinary folk who had merely exchanged the nomenklatura for a gaggle of over-titled Vanic extremists. The fury of the reaction had already claimed the scalp of the Steward, Kyle Kilynn, who had only clung on long enough to see Kezan attain statehood. In this emerging power vacuum, Liv, for whom the indignity of Noah's reaction to her marriage still rankled, sensed an opportunity to at last settle the score.

Titles and Positions

  • 1615–1644: Lady Liv Djupvik
  • 1615–present: Lady of the Holy Lakes.
  • 1644–1645: Her Imperial Highness The Khanum of Cabbagefall, Princess Elian, Duchess of Cheshunt, Countess of Anmutstadt, Baroness of Port Mills, of Walstadt (all as consort)
  • 1645–1650: Her Royal Highness The Khanum of Cabbagefall (in her own right)
  • 1644–1651: Her Riverine Highness Princess Liv of Elwynn, Llængjarla of Elwynn, Countess of Northshire, Countess of Arietta, Countess of the Lady Esther Isles, Lady in Jorvik
  • 1651–present: Her Serenity The Imperial Mother, Steward of Shireroth.