Felician Costello

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Creator: Silvern
Roleplay: Ordadus
Nickname: Felix

NAME: Felician ("Felix") Costello
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, he/him
ROLE: The Scoundrel
OCCUPATION: Leader of the Cambios Rebels
AGE: 25
NATIONALITY: Perenian, from Perenia
FAVORITE COLOR: Scarlet

CURRENT MOTIVATION: Force Queen Corvinus's hand into abandoning her attacks on newcomers (or else overthrow her entirely), exact revenge on the knights who executed innocent survivors like his family, protect his rebels and every shipwreck survivor he can save, and find a way to get anyone who wants to leave the island back home.

BACKSTORY: Felix grew up across the ocean, in the nation of Perenia, while it was experiencing a famine of historic proportions. He has faint, half-blocked memories of his parents going hungry so he and his twin sister Lydia could eat, of beggars on the streets pleading for food that no one else could offer, of nobility spending their money on foreign delicacies and cakes while citizens starved at their gates. A sailing company offered an alternative to this slow mass death: cheap, cramped "coffin ships" leaving Perenia to sail to the more prosperous land of Facilus. At age 10, Felix was scared when his parents hauled him and Lydia on board a filthy and unsafe ship with them, but somehow, he managed to understand that this was their best chance at survival.

Miraculously, despite the miserable and hazardous conditions of the voyage, all of Felix's family survived until about halfway through their trip, when the ship sank in a storm just off Ordadus's coast. His father drowned quickly in the aftermath; his mother managed to get him and Lydia to shore, with at most two dozen survivors among the hundreds who first boarded. After huddling on the cold, damp beach for about an hour, the survivors were enthralled to see a squadron of knights, looking straight out of a fairytale, galloping towards them. They all believed they were about to be rescued. Instead, the knights drew their swords and attacked the helpless survivors. Felix's mother was one of the first to die.

Past that moment, Felix remembers very little of the event past being grabbed and hauled to Nevra Cor. Sometimes, he remembers Lydia being trampled underfoot; other times, he remembers her swimming out to her death. And some days, he swears he saw her break free from the skirmish and run inland, unnoticed and unpursued. He doesn't know which memory is true, and he hates that he's suppressed it all. More clearly in his mind, however, exists the moment when he was brought in front of Queen Corvinus, struggling to detail the fresh horrors of what happened and why his ship came here in front of a court that doesn't understand his language. When it was understood that the travelers were refugees, not explorers seeking them out, the queen pitied him and let him live due to his young age, but did not allow him to leave. She sent him to live in a nearby orphanage, where he was able to occasionally meet with her niece, Ilaria, as he gradually picked up the Ordadian language at the cost of slowly forgetting his own.

At age 12, Felix was adopted by a woman named Sabina. Once a shipwreck victim herself who survived by fleeing and managing to blend in with Ordadian society, she sought him out when she heard his story. Through her, Felix was exposed to a network of quiet sympathizers who all agreed on one thing: this mindless killing is unjust, and those who find themselves stranded on Ordadian shores deserve the same dignity and safety as anyone living on the island. Sabina, once a resident of the technologically-advanced Divitae, has kept a supply of guns no one from Ordadus knows how to make or use. Felix became a skilled marksman with her training, mastering a weapon that the island's knights are ill-prepared to defend against. Into his twenties, Felix continued building connections with like-minded individuals until he had enough people to rally together into the Cambios Rebels, named for one of the few words in his native Perenian that he still remembers— change. Now one of the only people to walk away victorious from the once-undefeatable knights, Felix is everything the kingdom of Ordadus doesn't want on its island, and he's determined to make sure they regret leaving him alive.

PERSONALITY: Felix is a simmering well of carefully contained bitter rage. It's visible in almost everything he does, even if it doesn't guide his every action; most will agree it's clearest in his eyes. Even when smiling, there's something in his demeanor that suggests he's currently contemplating something violent— although most of the time, nothing ever comes of it. He's learned to save his outward anger for the moments that require it most, but he's also not interested in hiding it from anyone: that anger is proof that he was wronged, and he wants the world to feel that. If he were somehow robbed of the ability to feel it, he'd probably crumble. Anger is a crutch he's been leaning on for so long, and without it, he doesn't know how to stand up to his pain.

APPEARANCE: Felix sticks out in Ordadus, a fact he's always hated— first because because of all the suspicious looks it got him from people who only saw an outsider, and now because he's easily recognizable as Ordadus's most wanted man. His skin is a warm light brown, like most people from the sunny nation of Perenia, and his black hair falls in loose curls just past his chin. His eyes are a shade somewhere between a very dark brown and deep gray, and a smile on his face rarely reaches them. He's tall and visibly strong, especially in the arms and hands— his gun-adept fingers have a muscular definition to them that most people don't. Felix has a handsome face, with slender cheekbones and a sharp jawline, and more people would probably find him attractive if he wasn't always wearing some unsettling expression.

PROJECTED ARC (Subject to Change):
- Felix wants a vengeance that he cannot have. The knight responsible for the murder of his mother (whose identity he learned afterwards) died of natural causes before Felix could hunt him down, and there is nothing he can do to get his loved ones back. For the moment, he is blind to this and carries on down his destructive path. However, as he nears the end of his plan to deal a crippling blow to Ordadus, he'll realize acting it out wouldn't fill the hole in his heart— in fact, it threatens to destroy his relationships and eliminate the only chance remaining for peace. Felix will back down, reflect, and turn to others for moral guidance.
- He learns to see the New Solimans as more than a means to his endgame, and may find himself (to his initial horror) forming friendships with them. In addition, he reconnects with Ilaria, working to address the harm caused on both ends and rekindling their old friendship. He learns to express how he loves her like she was his own sister.
- Possibly, possibly, possibly, should she have lived, he finds his way back to Lydia. This depends entirely on what hidden alcove of the plot Lydia has stashed herself in for the last decade and a half, and what might cause her to come out.
- Right now, Felix plans to leave the island without a second thought once he's satisfied with his revenge. However, what he may come to realize is that he doesn't have anywhere to go, and that maybe, just possibly, he has people to stay for. Beyond that, he may even have a cause: if Ordadus decides to reopen its borders after generations of isolation, someone's going to have to guide them through that transition, and there's no one out there who would be of greater aid or willingness than Felix.

OTHER:
- Felix's love language is gift-giving, but with food in particular: food security is a HUGE thing for Felix and he's always making sure his rebels aren't going hungry. The act of sharing food was the kindest thing he remembers people doing for each other when he was living through a famine, and he's kept that up (although he pretends it's thoughtless).
- He didn't go by Felix at all until he came to Ordadus. "Felician" was an unfamiliar name to the Ordadians, and they couldn't wrap their heads around the -cian starting with a "shhh" sound, so he switched to Felix. Very few people (Ilaria, Sabina, and maybe 1-2 rebels he trusts) even know that he has a different name.
- So far, no one from Perenia or anyone who speaks its language has ever washed ashore, although it's only a matter of time. Felix is conflicted about this: it would be nice to have someone who understands where he comes from, but he knows that the rebels would (reasonably) expect him to translate for them when he can't anymore, and he hates the idea of being so directly confronted with the past and the culture he's lost.