Introduction

((This is the Introduction I wrote for my House, and is thus the first piece of character creation.  It is a bit rougher than my later Salamah, on the one hand, on the other, it captures what he is like, and gives hints at his background.  I hope this will tide you over until Wednesday when, a bit behind schedule--tough couple of days--I'll post Omar Part I.))

House Laurent is one of the newest houses, its head, and the purchaser of the coat of arms, the man who married the woman who had a tenuous claim to high descent—and a good deal of money—are well known.

Salamah Laurent, now Duke, was a man who could have been seen at any party of the rich and powerful, been home at any court, exchanged witticisms and compliments with the highest and mightiest people of the Galaxy. A courtier, in other words, a charming man with brilliant ideas and myriad skills. A man who always had something clever to say, was unfailingly polite, and charming, a man with a smile that could forgive the worst kinds of crime. A man, in other words, who would have a small but valued place in the world of the high and mighty, who might have lived and died in reasonable comfort.

For such a man to spend so much of his money purchasing the heraldry of a Duke, and making it a Duchy quite far from the centers of power, art and pleasure of the Galaxy...such a decision was one nobody expected. Alshain Magna was not the sort of planet a man like him, or so it would seem, would ever want to live in.

But his past is far more complex than that of an upper-middle-class Courtier. Born the son of a barely literate miner, he has worked his way upwards with a single-mindedness that is often obscured by his good manners and pleasing ideas. For beneath his smooth exterior there is a man who will do anything to win.

A man who would and has murdered, blackmailed, donated to charity, seduced, committed adultery, flattered, bought, bribed, sat in dusty rooms working on obsure geological plans, lounged in high-class bars: done, in other words, all these actions and more, every single thing he believed could gain him what he desires.

He wants a place for his family, and power, more power. Love or even like his wife he does not, but his two year old son, Omar Laurent, is a very different story. If he has anything to say about it, Omar will grow up in a world of power and privilege, and become one of the foremost men of the Galaxy.

Those who can see beneath his reasonable exterior—and those are few—might see a fire that, with kindling, may burn into greatness or glory, or might gutter into bloody madness and failure.

The motto of the house is "A vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire."

Translated it means: A victory with risk is a triumph without glory.

Salamah, despite his pretensions to that sort of reasonable, affable intelligence, lives by this.

Duke Salamah Laurent 48 years old - A dynamic, enchanting genius. He is an average duellist and an accomplished administrator.

Head of Geological.

Jamila Laurent - Wife of the Duke - 55 years old.
An idle, charismatic genius. She is an average duellist and a mediocre administrator

Omar Laurent - Son of the Duke - 2 years old. A child of promising potential.