The D?Mourir family has been split in many ways, but it is most easily divided between the young and the old. It is the way they divided during the Civil War in the Grand Duchy of Nouveau Bretagne, a place not located on Earth as we know it, which had been their family?s home for many centuries. The war was fought over democratic ideals, which will be referred to as liberal in the classic sense, for the Grand Duchy had seen little of democracy in its centuries of independence.
The Grand Duchy is, naturally, ruled by a Grand Duke, who is picked by lord-electors. Most of the lord-electors are nobles, and each traditionally picks his oldest surviving son as a successor when he is dying or otherwise unable to rule, or, if anyone else, usually another male relative deemed more fit for rule. The same can be said for the Grand Duke. In most cases, the invalid, dying, or dead Grand Duke?s oldest surviving son was selected as his successor by the lord-electors, unless a better candidate was evident. Naturally, this process was subject to bitter family rivalries, all the pettiness of internal politicking, and the occasional military coup.
The D?Mourir family has always been financially well off and, by almost guaranteed extension, socially acceptable, though rarely brushing shoulders with the Grand Duke and having few servants of their own, but being in possession of servants, good houses, and good jobs all the same. Recently the family married into royalty, thinking only of the fortune and influence they would gain, and thinking none of the misfortune they would unwittingly embrace. In 2048 Coleen D?Mourir married the lord-elector Lawrence Clarendon, Jr., and in 2050 gave birth to his son, Lawrence Clarendon III. Coleen?s three brothers found themselves a little more secure and a great deal more in love with this Grand Duchy as they met and became known to more people of influence, and felt very comfortable raising families of their own.
Alain was born on May 10, 2056, and his sister Shannon on June 10, 2061, to Coleen?s brother Jean-Jacques, a bureaucrat and investor; their cousin Basil was born a few years before Alain, and his twin sisters were born in 2059; and their cousin Jerhyn was born in 2048. The three were raised in different environments, despite the wealthy background they had in common ? Alain and Shannon stuck together for as long as Alain could bear his father after his mother?s death when the two children were young, and found himself following the guidance of his wayward, more criminally inclined cousin Jerhyn instead of pursuing a career in the military, while the twins and Basil struck out their own paths, even during the course of the Civil War. However, time and again, their family ties and memories of their childhoods spent together are what brought them together, even as they were driven apart from the older generations of D?Mourirs.
The 2060?s up through 2071 were characterized by a weak-willed but conservative, traditional, and, like all others before him, undemocratic Grand Duke, Charles III, failing to limit the spread of democratic and liberal literature from foreign and local authors. The banishments and imprisonments he ordered were too few and too late, and as the lord-electors grew old and appointed their young sons, the new lord-electors were growing up and going to school and university in an environment rife with ideological change.
Early in 2071, many of the lord-electors who had ?lordship? over districts in the city held polls, based on the experimental ideas of representative democracy, to see who the citizenry favored as the next Grand Duke, as Charles III was ailing and set a date for a successor to be picked: March 1, 2071. While the results of surprised citizens came out in favor of a liberal lord-elector, what remained of the older lord-electors believing in a semi-flexible familial succession plotted. On March 1, 2071, Lawrence Clarendon III was one out of many who comprised a majority who picked Ethan I as the next Grand Duke of Nouveau Bretagne. The new Grand Duke was arrested while entering the House of Electors for his coronation ceremony by the military, and was executed in 2074 when negotiations for his release went awry. Many of the liberal lord-electors were tipped off by a message let slip unwittingly by Clarendon?s aging father, and they were able to escape arrest, though they were subsequently hunted by order of the new Grand Duke elected by reconvened lord-electors, Charles IV, son of Charles III.
Charles IV ascended the throne with a vengeance, tight-fistedly controlling the military and all aspects of government. Exiles who had returned to witness a potential political upset were secretly executed, while the arrest of Ethan I and the illegalization of voting to influence lord-electors sparked protests and riots. As 2072 rolled around, clashes with police became more violent as the young and disenfranchised rose up, backing charismatic leaders, but more often investing themselves in either civil or subversive actions. Deaths late in that year encouraged citizens to take up arms, and by 2073, with mounting casualties in the thousands, revolutionary militias were clashing with police, soldiers, and loyalist militias, seeking to put Ethan I back on the throne and depose Charles IV and reinstate democratic reforms. The smuggling of illegal literature eventually evolved into the smuggling of arms and supplies into secret revolutionary camps and into districts held by the revolutionaries. Alain, having already dabbled in the dark side of work at the docks with a little help from Jerhyn, soon found himself deeply involved in smuggling for the militias. 2074 was the same, and by that time, Alain, as well as others of the younger generation of the family, had wholly invested themselves in the revolution.
2075 was a year of tension, assassinations, attempted coups and one failed ceasefire after another. While the status quo remained the same, the rebels were building their numbers and their supplies. It became clear there was no turning back from the civil war Nouveau Bretagne was deeply entrenched in.
New Year?s Day, 2076, heralded the darkest year in Nouveau Bretagne?s troubled history. That day, revolutionary forces throughout the city staged raids and assaults, with violent results and limited success. For several nights, fires spread throughout the city, with few organized facilities available to stop them, and in the aftermath, the assaults continued. Refugees poured out of the city any way they could as rioting tore through the streets, until massive, violent gangs began to take control of the docks and roads in and out of the city. It was in this environment, with people out on the streets and widespread violence, that the government?s bombing campaign began, a desperate measure not only to weaken revolutionary-held positions, but to keep people afraid to go out into the streets.
This, too, had limited success. The riots dispersed, rarely recurring, and people were afraid to go out, but the resistance became fiercer still. Gangs and revolutionaries alike conducted raids and even clashed with each other, and more fires spread as a result of these assaults and the bombing campaigns. By the spring, Nouveau Bretagne was a bombed-out shell of the beautiful city it once was. More than half of its structures were significantly damaged, and only a fraction of the citizens who peopled this city in 2071 remained.
In the course of this conflict, Basil?s father, a physicist of some renown, had made minor contributions to a project at first intended to create a secret weapon capable of ending the uprising, but it later became clear to those who understood the nature of this project that the device would only provide escape from the hellish nightmare the city had become. Jerhyn, with all his connections, learned of this device, and advised Alain that he have a talk with the Dr. D?Mourir. A reluctant Basil agreed to aid Alain in sneaking into his home and interrogating the doctor, his father; they gained the information they needed, but Dr. D?Mourir pulled a gun the moment he was released, and Alain shot and killed him.
In spite of the subsequent tension that threatened to tear the youngest generation of D?Mourirs apart for good, they recognized this opportunity spelled out their survival. In the middle of the summer of 2076, they conducted a raid into a basement R&D lab in a district that had remained under government control throughout the Civil War. Friends accompanied them; some lost their lives, others promised to follow soon after, or had to go back or chose to remain for whatever reason. It is unclear who preceded them or who followed them, but together, Jerhyn, Basil, Martyna, Ellyna, Alain and Shannon D?Mourir activated the device, stepped through the portal, and left Nouveau Bretagne behind forever - uncertain if any had preceded them or if any others would follow them.
* * *
They all appeared in an alleyway somewhere in the West End of Rhy?Din. At first disoriented and frightened, limited reconnaissance told them they were in a secure area, and the people ? remarkably ? spoke their language; most of them, anyway. Disagreements about what to do in the city nearly led to fighting between the older cousins, but with the kind intervention of the younger cousins, they agreed it was best if they separated for now. Jerhyn went his own way, lone wolf that he?s always been; Alain stuck to his sister, having sworn to protect her; and Basil and his twin sisters left together, all of them heading out in search of survival and a new life in this strange new city.
The Grand Duchy is, naturally, ruled by a Grand Duke, who is picked by lord-electors. Most of the lord-electors are nobles, and each traditionally picks his oldest surviving son as a successor when he is dying or otherwise unable to rule, or, if anyone else, usually another male relative deemed more fit for rule. The same can be said for the Grand Duke. In most cases, the invalid, dying, or dead Grand Duke?s oldest surviving son was selected as his successor by the lord-electors, unless a better candidate was evident. Naturally, this process was subject to bitter family rivalries, all the pettiness of internal politicking, and the occasional military coup.
The D?Mourir family has always been financially well off and, by almost guaranteed extension, socially acceptable, though rarely brushing shoulders with the Grand Duke and having few servants of their own, but being in possession of servants, good houses, and good jobs all the same. Recently the family married into royalty, thinking only of the fortune and influence they would gain, and thinking none of the misfortune they would unwittingly embrace. In 2048 Coleen D?Mourir married the lord-elector Lawrence Clarendon, Jr., and in 2050 gave birth to his son, Lawrence Clarendon III. Coleen?s three brothers found themselves a little more secure and a great deal more in love with this Grand Duchy as they met and became known to more people of influence, and felt very comfortable raising families of their own.
Alain was born on May 10, 2056, and his sister Shannon on June 10, 2061, to Coleen?s brother Jean-Jacques, a bureaucrat and investor; their cousin Basil was born a few years before Alain, and his twin sisters were born in 2059; and their cousin Jerhyn was born in 2048. The three were raised in different environments, despite the wealthy background they had in common ? Alain and Shannon stuck together for as long as Alain could bear his father after his mother?s death when the two children were young, and found himself following the guidance of his wayward, more criminally inclined cousin Jerhyn instead of pursuing a career in the military, while the twins and Basil struck out their own paths, even during the course of the Civil War. However, time and again, their family ties and memories of their childhoods spent together are what brought them together, even as they were driven apart from the older generations of D?Mourirs.
The 2060?s up through 2071 were characterized by a weak-willed but conservative, traditional, and, like all others before him, undemocratic Grand Duke, Charles III, failing to limit the spread of democratic and liberal literature from foreign and local authors. The banishments and imprisonments he ordered were too few and too late, and as the lord-electors grew old and appointed their young sons, the new lord-electors were growing up and going to school and university in an environment rife with ideological change.
Early in 2071, many of the lord-electors who had ?lordship? over districts in the city held polls, based on the experimental ideas of representative democracy, to see who the citizenry favored as the next Grand Duke, as Charles III was ailing and set a date for a successor to be picked: March 1, 2071. While the results of surprised citizens came out in favor of a liberal lord-elector, what remained of the older lord-electors believing in a semi-flexible familial succession plotted. On March 1, 2071, Lawrence Clarendon III was one out of many who comprised a majority who picked Ethan I as the next Grand Duke of Nouveau Bretagne. The new Grand Duke was arrested while entering the House of Electors for his coronation ceremony by the military, and was executed in 2074 when negotiations for his release went awry. Many of the liberal lord-electors were tipped off by a message let slip unwittingly by Clarendon?s aging father, and they were able to escape arrest, though they were subsequently hunted by order of the new Grand Duke elected by reconvened lord-electors, Charles IV, son of Charles III.
Charles IV ascended the throne with a vengeance, tight-fistedly controlling the military and all aspects of government. Exiles who had returned to witness a potential political upset were secretly executed, while the arrest of Ethan I and the illegalization of voting to influence lord-electors sparked protests and riots. As 2072 rolled around, clashes with police became more violent as the young and disenfranchised rose up, backing charismatic leaders, but more often investing themselves in either civil or subversive actions. Deaths late in that year encouraged citizens to take up arms, and by 2073, with mounting casualties in the thousands, revolutionary militias were clashing with police, soldiers, and loyalist militias, seeking to put Ethan I back on the throne and depose Charles IV and reinstate democratic reforms. The smuggling of illegal literature eventually evolved into the smuggling of arms and supplies into secret revolutionary camps and into districts held by the revolutionaries. Alain, having already dabbled in the dark side of work at the docks with a little help from Jerhyn, soon found himself deeply involved in smuggling for the militias. 2074 was the same, and by that time, Alain, as well as others of the younger generation of the family, had wholly invested themselves in the revolution.
2075 was a year of tension, assassinations, attempted coups and one failed ceasefire after another. While the status quo remained the same, the rebels were building their numbers and their supplies. It became clear there was no turning back from the civil war Nouveau Bretagne was deeply entrenched in.
New Year?s Day, 2076, heralded the darkest year in Nouveau Bretagne?s troubled history. That day, revolutionary forces throughout the city staged raids and assaults, with violent results and limited success. For several nights, fires spread throughout the city, with few organized facilities available to stop them, and in the aftermath, the assaults continued. Refugees poured out of the city any way they could as rioting tore through the streets, until massive, violent gangs began to take control of the docks and roads in and out of the city. It was in this environment, with people out on the streets and widespread violence, that the government?s bombing campaign began, a desperate measure not only to weaken revolutionary-held positions, but to keep people afraid to go out into the streets.
This, too, had limited success. The riots dispersed, rarely recurring, and people were afraid to go out, but the resistance became fiercer still. Gangs and revolutionaries alike conducted raids and even clashed with each other, and more fires spread as a result of these assaults and the bombing campaigns. By the spring, Nouveau Bretagne was a bombed-out shell of the beautiful city it once was. More than half of its structures were significantly damaged, and only a fraction of the citizens who peopled this city in 2071 remained.
In the course of this conflict, Basil?s father, a physicist of some renown, had made minor contributions to a project at first intended to create a secret weapon capable of ending the uprising, but it later became clear to those who understood the nature of this project that the device would only provide escape from the hellish nightmare the city had become. Jerhyn, with all his connections, learned of this device, and advised Alain that he have a talk with the Dr. D?Mourir. A reluctant Basil agreed to aid Alain in sneaking into his home and interrogating the doctor, his father; they gained the information they needed, but Dr. D?Mourir pulled a gun the moment he was released, and Alain shot and killed him.
In spite of the subsequent tension that threatened to tear the youngest generation of D?Mourirs apart for good, they recognized this opportunity spelled out their survival. In the middle of the summer of 2076, they conducted a raid into a basement R&D lab in a district that had remained under government control throughout the Civil War. Friends accompanied them; some lost their lives, others promised to follow soon after, or had to go back or chose to remain for whatever reason. It is unclear who preceded them or who followed them, but together, Jerhyn, Basil, Martyna, Ellyna, Alain and Shannon D?Mourir activated the device, stepped through the portal, and left Nouveau Bretagne behind forever - uncertain if any had preceded them or if any others would follow them.
* * *
They all appeared in an alleyway somewhere in the West End of Rhy?Din. At first disoriented and frightened, limited reconnaissance told them they were in a secure area, and the people ? remarkably ? spoke their language; most of them, anyway. Disagreements about what to do in the city nearly led to fighting between the older cousins, but with the kind intervention of the younger cousins, they agreed it was best if they separated for now. Jerhyn went his own way, lone wolf that he?s always been; Alain stuck to his sister, having sworn to protect her; and Basil and his twin sisters left together, all of them heading out in search of survival and a new life in this strange new city.