Rakkaus von Noblesse
Born of the union between the black dragon Malfus and his bride, the succubus Osteria, Rakkaus von Noblesse is a dragonoid — a rare half-dragon, half-succubus bloodline that she regards with a dry, self-aware amusement she calls "delightfully edgy."
She rules Fortimis — a vast city-state carved from the former demon lord's domain — from a great fortress castle perched at the cliffs above the Eastern Grand Tears. The ocean below bears its name from the grief it brings: siren monsters and slumbering demigods stir its depths, and even their tiniest movements raise terrible waves.
Rakkaus has been alive for over two centuries. She served under the last demon king roughly 120 years ago and recalls those days with a knowing, flat-toned remark — "the good old days," she says, with a flicker of irony beneath the emotionless delivery.
She rules now without overlord or liege above her. Fortimis answers to no one but its Lady. The people are happy and hale despite the perpetual lightning storms and grey skies — a testament, perhaps, to the fact that Rakkaus von Noblesse is not nearly as cold as she appears.
Rakkaus favours an ensemble that straddles court elegance and battlefield readiness — silk scapular and shoulder drapes beneath gothic scale armour, flanchard plates and armoured gloves, all finished in a matte darkness. A dark crown rests between her horns. She is, by design, impossible to mistake for anything other than what she is: a ruling lord who could end you personally and look magnificent doing it.
Rakkaus operates with a flat, near-emotionless affect. Her face rarely shifts; her voice carries no obvious warmth. First impressions often land somewhere between "intimidating" and "possibly evil." She is neither — or at least, she's no more evil than centuries of ruling a stormy former demon domain would make anyone.
Over time, she thaws. Small smiles appear. The jokes start coming. They are, without exception, terrible jokes. She finds this funnier than anyone else does, which means she laughs alone, which she also finds funny.
She is a glutton for pastries and sugary things, and quietly anxious about whether this will catch up with her after two hundred years of good cheekbones. She loves cats unconditionally and speaks to them in a voice entirely unlike her public persona — soft, silly, cooing.
Her four castle cats — Inho, Viha, Himo and Rauha — roam the fortress freely. She is mystified, philosophically and genuinely, by why cats flee from pickles. She also loves pickles. The intersection of these two facts is a source of ongoing personal tragedy.
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Fortimis sits at the eastern edge of the continent, its cliffs plunging into the ocean called the Eastern Grand Tears — named for the grief it brings. Lightning storms and rain are near-constant; the sky is almost always the colour of old iron. The land is rich despite this, and the people flourishing.
Beneath the ocean's waves, demigods slumber in the deep dark. Their dreams wash across sailors as waves of madness. Their smallest movements shake the seafloor and raise swells that have swallowed countless ships. Sirens attend to the rest. The ocean is, by any reasonable measure, deeply dangerous.
None of this troubles Rakkaus von Noblesse particularly. She has ruled Fortimis for over a century, holds no lord above her, and has the political acumen to keep it that way. Her only known rival in-domain is Drakofina — another half-dragon hybrid with conquest ambitions Rakkaus finds tiresome and counterproductive.
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