Name: Rosa Mariane
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Appearance: 
Tall and willowy build, with dark brown hair cut short or tied up, depending on the season. Brown eyes and light skin, the latter of which is usually kept very clean, for presentation's sake. She pays a lot of attention to her appearance, and takes pains to look as pristine as possible. Holds herself with practiced poise, and moves very carefully, with an emphasis on appearing cultured and elegant. Also has a tattoo that stretches down from her nape, across her back, and around to her belly, a black pattern made up of curling lines and tiny words in several different languages.
Rosa's clothes vary between extremely ostentatious and expensive outfits with lots of trimmings and jewelry (for official business) and loose, muted brown cloth and burlap garb (for more secretive dealings).
Personality: Rosa's a snake. Ruthless and analytical, as patient as she is cunning, and utterly distrusting of those around her. She's also a very good actor, and will often try to appear more gentle and innocent than she actually is. Though hardly insecure, she is quite self-conscious, and carefully considers both her actions and the reactions of others. She will often appear friendly, and enjoys making acquaintances, but she always sees these kinds of relationships as tools rather than emotional connections. She can make real friends, but demands absolute loyalty in return.
She's something of a hedonist, and enjoys rich foods, excessive ornamentation, luxurious accommodations, attractive men, and the very best wines the world can provide. The latter is taken in moderation, however, and she stays away from more exotic drugs, out of fear that they may affect her mind. She is also mildly paranoid, and will sometimes have trouble balancing her desires and her need for security. There are many pleasures that Rosa loves, but power over others is foremost among them, and she will work to crush or undermine all those she cannot control.
History: An Atlantean by descent, Rosa was born on a boat and raised on the rivers and seas, the daughter of a pair of formerly wealthy merchants whose powerful Guild had collapsed during the turmoil of the Age of Dusk. With their money running out and nowhere safe to go, her parents had been forced to throw in their lot with a roving band of pirates, using their ability to appraise and negotiate to sell off stolen goods for half-decent prices, which was a valuable talent in such dark times. Neither of them wanted to see Rosa caught up in their dirty business, but the pirates forced their hand, keeping their daughter close as collateral.
Thus, Rosa was exposed to the seedy side of the world at a young age. Though she never took part in any raids or boardings, she traveled the Atlantean Sea with a vile and dangerous crew, stopping at hidden ports and black markets all over the coastline. Resolving to make the best of a dire situation, her parents taught her something of their trade: how to read and manipulate people, the basics of economics, and the details they had learned as merchants of the world's various cultures, including those further inland, such as Iiram, which Rosa had never seen. Sometimes, when they were feeling nostalgic, they would wax poetic about their former wealth, or the might of the Merchants' Guild, and their daughter drank it all in.
However, working alongside pirates was a dangerous business, and eventually Rosa's parents and their employers ran afoul of a vicious and vengeful captain, who was quick to track them down and seek their heads. Knowing that they had little hope of surviving much longer, the two of them called in an old favor and got their daughter a ride on a small smuggling vessel, which took Rosa down to a seedy little port in Darfar, where an old friend was waiting to take her in. There, she was supposed to live quietly, safely, until she was old enough to take care of herself.
The girl, however, absolutely loathed the idea of a life filled with poverty and boredom. Her caretaker was an honest man, but he soon found himself unable to control the young Rosa, who took to the streets, befriending the dirty beggars and orphans who scurried like rats through the dark alleyways. Using her experience and her charm, she organized them, pooling and distributing their profits efficiently and grouping together the skilled thieves to steal valuable goods in planned heists they could never have pulled off before. By the time they'd attracted the attention of the local watch, Rosa's little gang was already wealthy enough to bribe them off, and continue their plundering unimpeded. Soon, as both she and her allies grew older and cleverer and gathered more resources, she began to hire muscle, and took over the more dangerous trades, recruiting drug dealers and con artists, bouncers and bartenders, pirates and bounty hunters, and all the other kinds of dangerous scum who frequented her dirty little port. Her guardian thought her dead by this point, but Rosa was thriving, masterminding a growing criminal empire that was already spreading its reach to the seas.
There was only so far she could have gone through quiet manipulation and organization alone, but Rosa was an adult by now (albeit a young one) and was ready to step out into the wider world. Once she'd acquired enough wealth to buy herself a ship, she was off to sea, armed with her wits and a crew of loyal scumbags, ready to begin her rise to power.
She knew what the world wanted in this age: weapons. After contacting informants on the coastline to find out where the wars were, she bought up arms and armor from peaceful locations before selling them at exorbitant prices to kingdoms at war, who needed them far more than their gold and jewels. As she grew richer and found more allies and customers, Rosa recruited blacksmiths of her own, and began seeking out alchemists, hoping to use their dying art to discover the secrets of gunpowder, and monopolize this for her own gains. As the volatile and brutal Age of Dawn began, supply and demand grew ever larger, Rosa's network spread across the continent, and she became fabulously rich.
Since then, Rosa has been surrounding herself with luxuries, as if to spite her former circumstances. However, these dalliances are mere distractions from her expanding influence and ambitious plans. Using her money and contacts, she has smuggled valuable and much-needed arms and supplies all across the continent, gathered small armies of mercenaries to change the tide of key battles, orchestrated the assassination of major political figures, sent thieves and pirates after her competition, and even used her power to help force pacts and agreements where necessary. Every move is calculated, meant to either yield massive profits or shape the political landscape in her favor. She has also began studying alchemy herself, in the hopes of being able to rebuild and surpass the deadly power formerly posessed by the alchemists of Thule. Now, she travels across the continent, never remaining in one place for long. Wherever she goes, the rich and the poor, the mighty and the weak all whisper of the woman whose every decision might shape the fate of kingdoms.
Journey: If it wasn't already clear... Rosa wants power and money. She already has a crap ton of the latter, and is now beginning to shift her focus towards the former. The instability caused by the events of the Age of Dusk have given her plenty of opportunities to exploit, but right now she's seeking consolidation, creating alliances and holding them steady to ensure that her hard work is not wasted by some unpredictable coup or invasion. She still thrives on warfare, but already has plans to adapt when a more peaceful age inevitably comes about. While world in turmoil can cast away a spider like her, if she can make herself an integral piece of one set in stone, she has won. Her end-goal is a stable and thriving human civilization, with her pulling the strings from the shadows, not openly ruling any land but being powerful enough to get whatever she wants, one way or another.
Ideals: Greed, pleasure, cunning and manipulation. Rosa values the intelligent for being competent servants and a decent challenge, and equally values the stupid for being easy to control. From her point of view, humans are little better than animals, and it is up to the most canny to rise to the top and dominate those below them. Concepts such as honor and kindness mean little to her, for her the only true happiness in life comes from pleasure, power, and the accumulation of both.
Holdings:Officially, Rosa is extremely wealthy, possessing enough material wealth to rival a small kingdom and a fleet of over a dozen vessels, some of which she uses to ferry weapons and goods where she needs them and others of which are simply pirates in her employ. Unofficially, she also has the ear and loyalty of hundred of contacts, including informants, assassins, politicians, mercenaries, gang leaders, pirates, and even the rulers of some towns and cities. These contacts in turn command many others, resulting in Rosa having access to a network thousands strong, though this is spread out all over the continent. It is likely she will know anywhere from one to three major figures in any coastal or riverside population center, as well as a few in key areas outside her usual range. Due to her means of operation, Rosa's influence wanes the further one gets from water and civilized areas, to the point where she has few contacts among groups such as nomadic tribes, although she is working on changing this.
She also has several alchemists working for her, and possesses a large number of rare and valuable alchemical texts, which she is using to try and learn its secrets herself, focusing primarily on its more devastating applications.
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