Character: Petrana de Cedoux New Canon Point:la reine du malheur
Synopsis:
At the time of her arrival in Thedas, Petrana was traveling to a secluded manor where she would be housed out of sight and in safety while her husband pursued military operations. She remains here for six months, during which time it becomes apparent she is not pregnant. She exchanges letters with her husband, but expects as a result to be left behind.
He captures and conquers a port city-state. A new wardrobe arrives along with a peremptory summons; Petrana is outfitted in the finest style of what is to be her new home and escorted there with all due haste, where she receives a mixed welcome. They are crowned together in a joint ceremony, and he installs her with a council of his choosing as Queen Regent.
Popularly, he remains known as l'Duc, or less popularly as that renegade; Petrana is snidely referred to in Lamorran circles or those less amenable to the new regime as the queen of misfortune. They publicly declare their holdings to be a sanctuary to all those accused of witchcraft, whether the accusation was accurate or otherwise, and as Queen Regent Petrana passes these protections into law. It is largely considered to be a symbolic gesture.
Until it begins to more definitively swell the ranks of his army, and Petrana's new court. The balance of power shifts, within and without her small kingdom; what had begun as the mercenary army of a warlord increasingly becoming the dedicated following of a charismatic revolutionary. As the palatable public face of his conquest, Petrana reaches out to academics and theologians known to have an interest in religious reform, as well as raising several witches to prominence in her court.
While Marius acts as king and conqueror, Petrana makes diplomatic overtures to the outer kingdoms, with particular focus on those who've been known for religious unrest or dissatisfaction with centralized Lamorran rule. Her purpose is twofold; luring them to their cause with the implication that a peaceful joining will allow them more sovereignty in the future, and the political capital gained from having heads of state recognise her as their equal on behalf of her husband. Several alliances are cemented this way, and Marius acts as benevolent liege-lord in lending his swords to their various squabbles, sealing the pacts in the blood of mutual enemies.
Lamorre can no longer ignore or downplay what's happening as Marius and Petrana take chunks of their empire. War is officially declared on the de Lamorraines. Known former associates of theirs in Lamor City and the court of the Arciduc are detained; the Marquis de Cedoux is executed, though the specific reasons are never publicized and rumor runs rampant.
In retaliation, Marius begins taking advantage of the Arciduc's tendency to farm out his relations to key political roles; he targets those locations, and variously kills or captures his cousins, though it isn't until he lays hands on a former mistress of his uncle, Alysse Desmarais that he lets it be known he's willing to consider a prisoner exchange and an opportunity to come to the table, diplomatically. The talks are a shitshow, all posturing and threats, but the trade-off happens and Petrana welcomes her mother to her court, stoic in the face of the Marquise's inconsolable grief and blame.
The Arciduc is assassinated by his former lover, and Marius seizes the city in the chaos. Rumors travel swiftly of Alysse's subsequent suicide, but no direct witnesses survive to corroborate and reports are stamped out. She is remembered, for a time, as a hero of the revolution.
The independent city of the church is brought to heel and the work begins to dismantle the church's power across the empire. Making a statement with his choice of title the reign of Empereur Marius IX begins, crowning his wife empress consort, and is jointly celebrated with the healthy delivery of the imperial couple's second and only surviving child, Crown Princesse Thaïs de Lammorraine. The Marquise de Cedoux is given the position of governess, overseeing Thaïs's household, in an effort on Marius's part to bring the surviving royal family into some semblance of peace.
The early years of his rule are turbulent in the establishment and exertion of power, the rise of magic and violent shifts in the status quo. Tyranny is presented as the necessary measures for peace; Petrana is the gentler, softer face of an increasingly brutal regime. Her public appearances are tightly controlled, while behind closed doors she pushes back, arguing with Marius and wringing concessions from him wherever she can and leveraging her popularity with their subjects into influence she can exert in court and policy.
Petrana is thirty-five when she attempts to take Thaïs, a little older than her sister had ever been, and flee—aided by a loyal handmaiden (raised to the role from the peasantry, remembered by Petrana for kindnesses during their exile) and a former church knight, Davidias. The attempt fails, Petrana separated from her allies and their fates unknown to her.
Marius imprisons her and binds her magic, though he delays sentencing and refuses to discuss the matter, despite a council urging response to treason; those who owe their positions to his power, concerned by a potential symbol for resistance and unrest. Publicly, the only comment for questions regarding her whereabouts are that she is unwell.
She makes several increasingly desperate escape attempts, coming close enough to success to be seen struggling, beginning (increasingly wild in speculation) rumors of her incarceration. Graffiti paintings of her spread through the capitol and surrounding cities, with her old epithet: la reine du malheur.
Petrana will never know the particular motivations or identities of those involved in her last day in Lamorre. She wakes in the grasp of two strangers, who drag her from her cell up the stairs to the top of the tower, and from there she's unceremoniously flung from its edge to her death.
Key Character Developments:
Generally speaking, Petrana will be a little older and a little wiser—mentally if not physically—and have a bit more significant experience under her belt in governance. She'll bring new confidence in her skills there to the work she does in the Inquisition, and the urgency of having personally experienced the high cost of high stakes.
Relatedly: not super keen on towers any more.
This is an opportunity to confront head on the fact that she never actually wanted to return home; that the realisation she couldn't had been a comfort to her more than just because it meant she didn't have to think about whether or not she did want to. She'll have a lot to work through in the aftermath, but grieving that life—grieving the fact that some version of herself never knew anything but that life—will give her some more space with the resolve she's had to shape her own future in Thedas and allow her to let go of some of what she has held onto in spite of herself. She'll grieve the separation from her second daughter, and the unanswered questions she's going to have to live with, but this marks a clear end-point that makes Thedas inarguably, from every angle, her present and future. She's definitely not considering herself married any more.
While what Marius did next wasn't great, she is going to allow the thought to percolate that she's already dismantled one church (or at least begun the crossgenerational process of dismantling one church) and therefore it isn't impossible to do. Does the mage rebellion have a suggestion box.
Through the work she did with the witches she raised to the aristocracy, she's become a more confident and experienced practitioner of witchcraft. Her direct action combat magic skills have somewhat atrophied, as a result of Marius's increased discouragement of her using them and subsequent binding of her magic altogether, but she became proficient in complex spellwork and the binding of enchantments to objects. So she's even less useful in a fight than she was before, but given time and preparation she can enchant objects more permanently, creatively design glyph triggers, work intricate wards. Support magic and magic of the 'pure esoteric nerd shit' stripe. She's taken an interest in enchanting art to hide information.
petrana de cedoux | canon update
New Canon Point: la reine du malheur
Synopsis:
Key Character Developments: