Group: The Order of the Black Hand
Race: Fey
Duchy: Cornwall
County: Bristol
Barony: Silverlake
Lenore was born as the fifth child of eight to Lothian of Blackwood and his wife Blanchefleur. The children were in order, Lorraine, Lamia, Lilias, Lavinia, Lenore herself, Lisanor, Laurentia and the only boy, Linton. Lenore spent the first fifty years of her life in her father’s mansion in the depths of the Blackwood. It was a lonely place to live, with no one for company but mute, colourless servants. Lenore met her siblings rarely, each of them busy with their own studies and hardly desiring the others’ company. Lothian cared for his children only as far as he could control them, and Blanchefleur was a ghostly presence haunting the dark halls, a madwoman who seemed to despise everything and everyone around her, which led to her eventually leaving after the birth of her son, as if that eighth child fulfilled some sort of deal between her and Lothian. Lenore hasn’t heard a word of her since.
Lenore herself, and all her siblings, finally left their home thirty years later, when their father gave them his Challenge: they were to go out into the world and prove themselves, outdo the others and prove their ability in whatever way they wished. They would meet back in the manor every ten years to discuss their achievements and during one such meeting Lothian would choose the winner who would become is heir, ally and confidante. He did not specify what would happen to the others.
For Lenore the game ended at the fourth gathering, when Lavinia, in that the decade the most successful of them all, was poisoned and fell dead in the middle of a toast. That was the first time blood was spilled among the family and Lenore was quite disgusted with the situation. That night she visited every one of her siblings, trying to convince them to give up the Challenge and to break out of Lothian’s control. Only her brother Linton listened and together they left, vowing never to return unless their sisters saw sense.
In gratitude for Linton’s support Lenore liquidated what remained of her wealth and has a ship built for him, which Linton named “Lady Len”. He set up as an independent trader and for a while Lenore sailed with him and his crew, until one day she had them row her to an anonymous part of the Albion coast and disappeared into the woods. She travelled extensively over the next few decades both in Albion and abroad, stretches of solitude interrupted by brief habitation in small towns and villages. She never stayed anywhere long and she had no contact with her family, other than an occasional letter she and Linton exchanged in a few agreed upon ports. Her nomadic lifestyle came to a halt with the Fall of Albion. With the dangers plaguing the land Lenore was forced from one refugee camp to another until finally finding her way to the queen’s court in the summer of 1114 by the side of Roland Fletcher of the Order of the Black Hand. There a new chapter of her life began, as she met Lord Callum of the Court of Tomorrow, who, apparently impressed by her willpower and convictions, asked for her hand in marriage, an offer she accepted a few months later during the Bell’s Fayre hosted at Silverlake. With all that she had no time or opportunity to look into the whereabouts of her family, something that concerns her, though she holds a firm and uwavering belief that Linton escaped the turmoil unscathed, and lately news reached her that one of her sisters may well be in Winchester…