Description

Personality

Long years of isolation have left Marric a shy, retiring young man, more comfortable reading over some obscure text or terrorizing his many tutors with intense, sometimes disturbing questions on their various subjects. His tutor on the Ethics of Rulership in particular often despairs at changing the young man's thoughts on the best ways to enforce Laws in the realm. The debates between the two often rage for hours, and would continue longer if Marric didn't always grow to weak for further discussion.

He has a deep inner intensity, somewhere buried deep beneath his physical weakness burns a reserve of strength he has yet to be given an opportunity to test.

Likes: Being warm, a good argument with his tutors, meeting new people, hot foods, his rare constitutionals through the grounds surrounding the manor.

Dislikes: The various methods the local priests of Irruk try to heal him of his "affliction", his weakness, tea, those who tell him that stronger penalties are not an effective way to enforce the laws. His healthier younger brothers.

Equipment

Unfortunately, Marric's poor health and the living conditions resulting from it have left him with little opportunity to collect much in the way of specialized equipment. All he has are the clothes on his back and a can-do attitude that one often sees with the perpetually ill.

History

Marric Royeaux was born to his Imperial Majesty, Henri Royeaux, Emperor of Myar, for all it's grand-sounding name a small kingdom in the east of the Northern Subcontinent, just next to the Godspine. The oldest of the three children from his first marriage, he was declared heir apparent the day after he was born, as was the tradition in Myar. Nursemaids talked, as nursemaids often do, of the happy, black-haired child with a sort of awed wonder. It was odd, after all, for a dark haired infant to be born to the Royal Family, all of whom had hair as fair as the sun. Still, many children had hair that fell out and grew back in another color, and so it was assumed that the boy would be the same.

By Royal tradition, the child was to be purified by passing him through the White Flame, a process that was generally assumed to promote a healthy life and begin a lifelong connection to the Light. Two weeks after his birth, the ritual was held, with all the pomp and ceremony the Empire could muster for the first religious obligation of the newborn heir to the throne. Much to everyone's surprise and initial delight, the infant passed quietly through the flame, not even uttering a single wail as his black hair was singed away, his skin growing paler at the flame's touch. It was odd, since the White Flame was not supposed to harm a person. No one was sure what it meant that his hair had been burned away, since no one had ever experienced such a reaction before. The priests, after scrambling for an explanation, finally decided that the Gods, Irruk in particular, had been so pleased with the child that he had touched the child. This was of course a falsehood, but without any alternative reason for the strange event, the falsehood was accepted for truth.

As he aged and grew, it grew more apparent that the child was not as blessed as had been hoped. He was a sickly boy, often too weak to leave his bed for more than a few hours. The royal physicians did their best, but most did not give the child more than a few years more to live. His first brother had been born by this time, so the line was secure even if he did die. But he didn't. He struggled on, impressing the few physicians and his tutors with his tenacity. All throughout his convalescence, his Father and Mother had visited him regularly, but one day, Marric realized that only his Father was visiting him, that he hadn't seen his mother for weeks. He asked about her absence, but only received shakes of the head and guilty refusals to meet his eyes. To a ten year old, the loss of a parent is a great blow, to one so sickly, it was nearly a death blow. The boy retreated to his bed, to the world inside his books, refusing all visitors. It was a blessing of sorts, freeing his father of the guilty duty of visiting the son that would not die and allowing him to spend more time with the healthier two.

Marric was moved to the family estates, turning his self-imposed isolation to unofficial exile. Despite his long sickness, the story had been spread that he was in good health, that he was being trained in secrecy to take the throne so that no assassin could kill the Light-Blessed Crown Prince. It was not uncommon, in the past children had been assassinated by humans paid sometimes by enemies of the family, sometimes by enemies of the Light. Marric's profile even found it's way onto the coinage, opposite his Father's.

And so the years passed, Marric growing older, but remaining thin and sickly as he passed into adulthood. There began to be whispers amongst those few in the know that perhaps the time had come for the Heir Apparent to finally die, regardless of whether he was ready, to make way for a healthier son to rule. To his credit, Henry Royeaux refused to allow such talk in his presence. Lately though, the talk has spread into the ranks of the clergy, which, unfortunately, falls outside of the purview of royalty.