Browse wiki

Little is known about the true origins of Dio, who claims, or at least fails to deny, that his father was Count Paolo Seraceni. His name is first associated with an enrollment in the School of Steel and Silk in Setarco, where he studied under Captain Guelio Busemi in the arts of naval warfare. According to official school documents, he killed another student in a tavern brawl, and was expelled from school. He was given the choice to serve in the Setarco navy or to rot in prison. After surviving the devastating battle against the forces of the Gyre, Dio was under consideration to become an officer of the Pravus navy, but was captured by a group of Lycene pirates off the coat of Ostria. After apparently managing to murder the captain and dive overboard, he survived four months on a small island near Esterhold, before being rescued by Seraceni sailors and brought to Morisco, where Prisila greeted him as a brother, and granted him command of a ship to sail under the Seraceni banner. After meeting a woman formerly of House Blanchard while on shore in Ischia, it is said that Dio offered a mountain of silver to Count Philippe, with the promise of much more to come for the hand of Lady Imogen. The offer was accepted, and it was only shortly after that news of Prisila's passing reached Ischia, setting into motion a series of events that culminated in the newly married couple being named Marquis and Marquessa.

He is slightly over average height, with a physique composed of lean muscle. His hair is a lustrous black, and his eyes a dark but vibrant shade of brown. A scar marks the lower right side of his cheek and jaw, creating a memorable fishhook pattern causing a subtle break in his beard. Like the sea, his expressions are sometimes fierce and full of wrath, and other times serene. Something in his eyes always seems to suggest a depth and vastness like that of the waters over which he's prone to sail.

On the seas, Dio is fierce and stern - a man who understands necessity and uses the force of his personality to enthrall his crew with a sense of purpose and destiny. At other times, he can be personable and warm, a master storyteller, who can draw his listeners into foreign lands or times not their own, to taste victory on their lips, or feel the weight of silver coins passing through their fingers. The nature of his speech is also as mutable as the sea. He can be formal, even eloquent in the courts of Velenosa or Arx, or spit the most vile and base curses with the lowliest of cutthroats. To those inclined to pay close attention, it is clear that whatever lies underneath these cultivated personas has been locked in a well wrought chest, and buried deep.