Player: Christi
Faction: Orthodox States, Byzantium
Email: candida_aprene@crusade.chaosdeathfish.com
The Pyrrhos family have had a chequered fortune of late. One of the oldest and most respected families in the Empire, they have nonetheless been regarded with suspicion over the last few years thanks to Iustinius Pyrrhos' close links with the Dowager Regent who preceded Emperor Andronkos.
When Andronikos took the throne of Byzantium, Iustinius was executed and his two sons blinded and banished. His daughter Candida was given in marriage to General Aprenos, one of Andronikos' most trusted commanders in order to appease the powerful interests linked to this ancient family. Candida, however, proved a capable and loyal bureaucrat, and rose to be Andronikos' Collector of Imperial Revenues. With the ascension to the Imperial throne of Isaac II Angelos, Candida retained her position, being recognised as a competent and steady, if occasionally melancholy, administrator.
Hit Me Harder, Heathen
Exert from “Tusks in Gilt: A Study of Social Politics in Post-Alexios Constantinople”, published by New Babylon Press:
”… of the constant terror of the Aprenes. A constant feature in the Constantine political structure, first noted in the paring of Lucius and Candida, the “dueling” Aprenes have been a permanent problem, raging dispute and intrigue between husband and wife, sister and sister, from the 1180's to the 1600's. Although modern research and revelations have brought to light that almost all of these scuffles were fully-orchestrated, arranged and dramatized, in an attempt to achieve political unrest and seize available, panicked power, of particular intrest are Honoria and Augustina, the daughters of Lucius and Candida.
After a particularly harrowing childhood , stolen by an unnamed and unrecorded fiend, the children were raised separately by their publicly warring, privately allied parents, Lucius teaching them warfare, Candida, exodited to Arabia, teaching them politics and the Craft of Witches, each child passed between parents via staged combats. After Candida's execution by The Immortal Pyotr of Georgia, the daughters commenced their war in the public eye. Honoria the perfect image of a young Byzantine Officer under the supervision of her father, Augustina a “tragically en-maddened young hermit, taking out her rage on the father and society that had rejected her” (Giannapoulis, 1199), accompanied by an old black cat.
Their private war, army versus city-blighting Witch, did not become public until the death of their father, where a careful reading of the tax efforts started by their mother revealed that an entire three percent of the city's funds had been carefully redirected into the hands of the sisters, apparently of such a standing, if records were to be trusted, to share assets. It took another decade's worth of investigation to definitely point fingers at the political sway the two had privately, redirecting tax funds, dismissing guard patrols, poisoning food supplies, assassinating major courtiers.
After letters (delivered via the medium of cat, now known as “Aprening”) were intercepted, and the messenger dealt with, Honoria was rounded up by her own guard, counter-commanded by permission of the Emperor, and executed, alongside her husband. Her home was raided, and evidence of heathenistic worship of the Witch God Hecate found, as well as the herbs required for advanced witchcraft. Her twin daughters were not found, and neither was her sister. Another decade passed before the secret wars of the Aprenes continued, carefully staged and arranged with Constantine Royalty in teh centre of the vicious blows…”