Romulius Thrax
Description
Broad-shouldered and a few inches over six feet tall, Romulius manages to strike the impressive frame that would be expected of one of the Mourning Isles' warrior sons. Like the rest of those born of Blackshore, cerulean gaze serves as a clear signature of his bloodline, striking and vivacious on a tapestry of rough-hewn bronze. He keeps a full, well-trimmed beard of coarse hair the same midnight color as the curtain of locks that fall just below his shoulders, ending in loose curls. The whole of the man's body is marked by a latticework of scars, pale white lines marking out tallies against the darker tones of skin infused by the warmth of a lifetime's exposure to the sun. It's not uncommon to see him with a jaw set with conviction and determination, pride and stubbornness apparent in their frame around a pair of thin lips set below a broad nose.
Personality
Stubborn and with a pride that has (thankfully) found some waning since the days of his youth, Romulius is far from the image of levity that his younger brother strikes in the eyes of the Peerage. Honorable to a fault and with a passion that occasionally manages to spill out of a carefully curated sense of politesse and decorum, he possesses a dedication to family and duty that tends to overshadow good sense. Cursed by Blackshore's mercurial blood, he is as quick to flash a grin as descend into a violent temper, vivid blue eyes taking on the appearance of Mangata's furor when driven to particular agitation. Quicksilver is, after all, a fickle thing, as prone to expressions of pleasure and contentment as it is rage and contempt.
Background
While he wasn't born to Blackshore's head of house, Romulius was still the first of his generation and the heir presumptive to the barony thanks to the Mad Baron Oswald's presumed lack of personal progeny. Cornelius Blackshore's firstborn son, the young lord was raised from birth with the expectation that he would one day come to rule from Blackshore Keep and carry on the family's lengthy history of naval architecture and fierce militarism.
Cornelius, in his duties as chief Naval Architect to Donrai Thrax, was required to spend the vast majority of his time sailing the Compact's seas, and his young family was almost always in tow. When formal tutors could not be arranged, the disciplinarian would see to Romulius's education himself, oft at the expense of more direct attention to his younger siblings - a fact that the eldest relished, acting as a shield to Dycard and Skye when Cornelius's tempers would rise to violence. For all of his intensity, though, there was no denying his father's commitment to securing a better life for his children, even if his firstborn was often used as a tool with which to achieve it. The young lord was often presented to other houses in order to discuss future political matches, Cornelius intent on finding a capable bride for the heir-apparent to the barony of Blackshore.
It wouldn't be until later in his childhood that the veneer of a relatively charmed life would begin to crack, his mother Florence of House Gilden turning ill after his fifteenth birthday. With her health quickly waning, Cornelius was forced to deposit both his wife and young daughter back at Blackshore Keep with his older brother in order to carry out his duties to Thrax without distraction. The apparent abandonment was a source of division between Romulius and his father, especially when the stress of separation would lead towards more violence that the young lord made his best efforts to shield his younger brother from. As the spare, Dycard was undoubtedly afforded more freedom in his pursuits, and the elder brother was happy to live vicariously through his sibling while resigned to his lessons beneath their father, all the while gnawed at by the knowledge that his sister and mother were subject to Oswald's violent tempers and deteriorating mind.
It was just a few years after coming of age that tragic news struck in the destruction of Blackshore Keep, allegedly by way of dragonfire. At sea with Cornelius and Dycard, their ship immediately diverted course towards their family's holdings to assess the damages. Their travel was cut short when the ship was waylaid by pirates, an ambush that saw only Cornelius escape while his two sons were captured. The next two years would see Romulius and Dycard in captivity, the elder brother stubbornly refusing to submit to the pirates' demands to join the crew in their reavings. He was instead forced to venture into their fighting pits at various ports of call, made to fight to the death in bets or for simple amusement. It would be a long while before the brothers were able to escape, forever changed by their time as prisoners.
On returning to their home, they found the very beginnings of Skye's works to restore their family to its former glory, the first limestone structures of New Hope razed around a modest port. Immediately turning themselves towards her support, Romulius would come to serve as both the family's Sword and as its Minister of War, skills learned in the fighting pits forging the man into a weapon more lethal than any master-at-arms had ever been able to make of him. Quickly falling into line with the new reality of his baby sister acting as Baroness, he would be named her Heir and Voice and be turned upon the capital in Arx, an experience entirely unlike any he had faced prior to making landfall there.
One such stint in the capital would see a reconnection with a childhood friend in Princess Natasha Thrax, his closest companion and confidante since the age of eight. While they had carried out an extensive epistolary campaign in the years since the burdens of adulthood had forced distance, the pair would quickly reforge their friendship in a connection that would eventually bloom into a betrothal that saw the two wed, Romulius giving up the name Blackshore to join House Thrax as Prince.
