Ancestry
***Timeline and locations are still being worked out and will likely need updating at some point***
An indeterminate amount of centuries ago, the Cadaurums were the rulers of a tyrannical empire that was constantly seeking to expand its domain and power, as tyrannical empires do. To help in their rise in power, they had developed a unique strain of necromancy that allowed them to greatly expand their armies and created new opportunities for subterfuge. Instead of merely raising corpses to control, the Cadaurums were able to completely restore them to a state that appeared to be perfectly normal living specimens and could even speak and use any magic they had while alive, despite still being soulless puppets. In addition, they were also stronger and faster than normal mortals and could be augmented even further with spells, making them a nightmare to fight or escape from. If they concentrated, they could even see through the eyes of their thralls making them useful spies as well.
With their armies only growing with each battle, they continued their conquest with zero disregard for anything else, stomping out smaller kingdoms like Cloveshire out of pettiness, until they turned their sights on Kivvia, a distant land with a ton of resources that sure would be cool to add to their own. It started out well enough with them conquering Drahten and setting up an occupation in their capital, which was enough to make the other countries nearby start paying attention. Still, things were going well for the Cadaurums until their sweet precious golden child, Valerian, ruined all that for them. This had been the first time Valerian witnessed his family’s delightful methods firsthand and, long story short, was disturbed by their lack of mercy and defected to join a small party on their unrelated quest that will not be covered in this section in the interest of brevity. It was very dramatic though, trust me. Anyway, that all snowballed until enough of a resistance was formed and, with Valerian’s expertise on how they could stop their super special undead, the Cadaurums were forced to retreat back to the mainland. Before they left, Valerian’s younger sibling, Florian, entrusted him with their child they had from a probably very tragic romantic tryst since they knew their parents would never accept them as a true heir and they knew Valerian would be staying in Kivvia since their parents would, y’know, murder him on sight for his betrayal. Valerian accepted and he and his (eventual) husband, Xyaire, raised her as their own with an abundance of love and care under their new surname of Aphelion.
The Cadaurum’s suffered heavy losses from their fun time in Kivvia that they had not recovered from when, around a century ago, a new rebellion started in the empire that gained more traction than ever before. The linchpin of the rebellion’s plan was the help of super powerful sorcerer or whatever who placed a seal on the entire family’s magic that severed their connection to the occult and they lost control of their own zombies which rampaged until they ran out of magic and were reduced to normal corpses once more. Only one family member was able to escape both the undead and the rebellion’s carnage and were forced into hiding to survive, creating as much distance between them as possible.
Unfortunately for literally everyone else, the bloodline did not die there and eventually someone was able to marry into some super rich family, the Trevens, before eventually killing their spouse off and claiming control of whatever they had that made them so rich, I don’t know what era this is in at this point, whoops. Over the years, they continued growing and became a prolific industry name, backed by any number of underground deals, both mundane and occult-related, they could make to regain their status, money, and power as quickly as possible. Repeat this for as many generations as possible until they eventually become the lovely cutthroat billionaires they are today who have never forgotten their roots as rightful rulers.
Present
The current era of what is currently named the Treven family is led by Tsubaki, the direct descendant, her husband, Giovanni, and their only son, Masakii. The seal has weakened over time to the extent that they can now see weaker spirits, but for the most part they are still lacking in the sixth sense department and their necromancy is still locked to only raising the dead and giving them basic commands to follow automatically. If they try to force it any further, it feels as if something is blocked like a particularly stubborn pipe clog and becomes painful. This has not stopped them from being obnoxious about anything in their history, unfortunately, though their exact connections to the fallen empire are left unspoken.
In an attempt to weaken the seal faster since any magical remedies have failed, they’ve been mixing their blood with other necromancy families in hopes it would bolster their abilities faster, which is where Giovanni came in. Giovanni was the youngest of three children and therefore the last to inherit their own family’s company, but he managed to screw over his siblings and gave it to Tsubaki’s conglomerate or whatever as what was surely a very romantic wedding present. He’s a little estranged from his family, to say the least, but hey, he’s also the richest and most powerful and isn’t that what REALLY matters? Yes, the answer is yes. Also they’re all necromancers. By the way.
Between the two of them and their perhaps unsavory histories, they managed to grow even further through their expansive underworld connections and cutthroat attitudes towards… everything in general. Sometimes literally! Anyway, they have foreboding reputation but nothing can be proven against them since they keep sneaking their rich little fingers into every pot and either bribe or force anyone they want to go along with it.
But who cares about any of that, we’re here to talk about Masakii. As can surely be surmised from the above, Masakii was born under optimal conditions by two individuals who could definitely be trusted to raise a child in a healthy environment. This was proven by having the usual parental expectations placed upon him since the time he could breathe, such as being perfect in every way, always ranking as superior in comparison to others, and never embarrassing them in any conceivable way. This wasn’t as severe when he was still a young child since he learned quickly under close tutelage and greatly admired his parents who paid great attention to his progress. From the outside he was borderline
creepy with how unchildlike he was already beginning to act, but obviously they were just jealous their hideous progeny couldn’t spell and define “subterfuge” like theirs could.
Masakii obviously could not have realized it at the time, but the highlight of his entire childhood would be learning necromancy from his parents personally, instead of it being delegated to tutors like everything else was. He picked it up quickly and thrived under the rare genuine encouragement and praise he received from his mother especially (his father didn’t care nearly as much), and dedicated the little spare time he had to practicing it further. And then things started going to hell!
Alaster Slate
His parents had a sort of friendly rivalry with another family, the Slates, and the Slates had a son of their own named Alaster, though he was around six years older than Masakii and had the general disposition of a small shaking dog. An academically gifted small shaking dog. The mother, Parvati, and Tsubaki were constantly trying to one-up each other (but liked the other enough that Tsubaki wasn’t going to, like, kill or ruin her), and this eventually spread to their sons who were more or less forced into competition with each other to see whose was superior. Since Alaster was significantly older, Masakii was mostly competing against his old test scores that were intimidatingly near perfect in mostl subjects (literature being the exception), and his already homework heavy tutoring sessions increased even further because he was Not Allowed To Lose.
Unfortunately, being banned from losing did not actually stop him from losing, and no matter how much Masakii studied, his test scores were always slightly less than Alaster’s, and anytime he managed a perfect score, Alaster had done that already as well. Feeling himself plateauing and beginning to stress about receiving anymore of his mother’s lectures about his failures and wasting his potential as a Treven, Masakii realized he had to change tactics. While Alaster could maybe possibly potentially perhaps be considered smarter than him, he was a mess when it came to social interactions and spent most of his time at the frequent galas and parties the upper echelon were constantly throwing hiding in corners or lingering by the snack table. It is probably not called a snack table at fancy parties but I don’t have internet right now to google this so it’s a snack table. Anyway! If he couldn’t beat Alaster academically, he could at least ruin him socially to make himself look better since he can at least conduct himself properly in public, and maybe that would be enough to rattle Alaster into scoring worse as well. Please keep in mind he’s like, seven at this point so Alaster would be thirteen.
Masakii had been spying on Alaster enough at this point, either at parties where he was constantly underfoot or at their homes since their parents made frequent visits to each other, so he knew the root of Alaster’s insecurities and why his parents were so severe on him. Despite being born into a normal family who were, of course, oblivious to anything magical existing, Alaster had a tremendous sixth sense and was constantly being besieged by ghosts who were excited to have someone to talk to or whatever and he was absolutely garbage at hiding it, frequently looking off to the side or above him and muttering quietly to himself. This was, of course, one more point of contention to Masakii who could not see ghosts at all and honestly it was really unfair that this magic-less child surpassed him in that as well. But society at large not knowing ghosts existed was convenient for Masakii who made this his favorite method of harassing Alaster over, going as far as recording him having a conversation with what appeared several different empty places and spreading it around until it eventually reached Alaster’s parents who were not amused, to say the least. He showed up to parties less after that and seemed even more anxious when he did, which was really saying something. It was funny though, trust him. Masakii also engaged in lesser “pranks” to make him seem worse in public, such as having one of his undead servants push Alaster into a flower patch at a garden party to both ruin the plant and his suit with the added bonus that no one would believe him that a grown adult would shove a little kid off the sidewalk, but the ghost ones were his favorite. Also it made him feel slightly better after the lectures from his mother became colder and colder as he continuously failed to meet her expectations for him to the extent that he felt awful dread anytime he was called over to speak with her and avoided her when he could (which was easy with how frequently his parents were on business trips at least).
After a couple years, Alaster, now fifteen, had a breakdown somewhere that Masakii was never able to learn the details of, but was apparently severe enough that his parents had finally had enough and sent him to an institute to deal with his ghost problem, effectively disowning him in the process. This was hilarious to Masakii until it dawned on him that his parents might do the same if he continued to under-perform for them as well. It was much less funny after that. But on the bright side, this meant there was only two more years of Alaster’s wretched test scores to deal with and, in the meantime, Masakii made a point to visit him at the institute so he could lie about how much better he was doing now. Alaster didn’t believe him of course, but whatever, it’s not like he could prove it, and if he became rude about it, then Masakii could rub in his face that he was his only visitor and that always seemed to get under his skin, so he won either way! Four years later, a nineteen year old Alaster made a baffling and violent escape that should not have been possible, and Masakii was never able to figure out what happened there either, which was frustrating on several levels for him since he’d been obsessed with him for around half a decade and then he was just completely off the radar. At least he was gone?
Kidnapping
Soon after, Masakii also finally reached fifteen and had officially caught up with the remainder of Alaster’s tests, effectively freeing him from his shadow that had loomed over him for so long. Since his parents were on another of their frequent trips, Masakii decided to celebrate by sneaking out to a party somewhere (“sneaking” referring to avoiding the servants since his parents were gone). This was a common occurrence for him, though it was perhaps too common in retrospect since he was becoming predictable about it. At the party, he was offered a drink by some older guy, accepted it because he sure can’t get alcohol on his own at fifteen, and the next thing he knew he was waking up bound and gagged in the trunk of a car.
It wasn’t even a fancy car.
His captors, four of them total, brought him to some abandoned farm in the countryside near a forest and unceremoniously dumped him inside, only ungagging him later to give them his parent’s number and demand a ransom for his return in however many pieces it was required to get the full sum they wanted. Masakii did attempt not tell them anything and demand they let him go, do they know who his parents are (obviously), and etc etc, but, uhhhh, he has no pain tolerance. He very, very quickly became more compliant with some Gentle Persuasion and told them whatever they needed with no further objections or defiant comments.
Thankfully, these were just normal mortals and had no idea how thoroughly wrists need to be bound to prevent enough movement to cast magic. That night, after three of them had fallen asleep with only one to keep watch, Masakii managed to move his hands enough to raise a rat skeleton to chew through his bonds out of view of his captors. While Masakii was careful not to move too much or make any noise that would attract their attention, the noise outside certainly did. It turns out it’s common practice for farmers to bury deceased dogs on their land and forests have some exciting remains in them as well. When the one on watch went outside to check what it was, shutting the door behind him to Masakii’s dismay, he was promptly mauled by skeletal dogs, foxes, and whatever else could be summoned in a hurry. The others jumped to their feet, very suddenly awake, and either grabbing their guns or whatever they could snatch in a hurry as they tried to figure out what was happening. Masakii tried to use this opportunity to run for it, but, unfortunately, did not make it far with how bruised his ribs were especially, and one of the captors had enough presence of mind to grab him. And then the door broke down.
The fight did not last that long considering bullets aren’t particularly effective against the undead and, with how severely Masakii was freaking out, his only order was the phrase “kill them” repeatedly. Unfortunately, the one who had grabbed him had his grip in a panicked death hold and he was dragged in, the scuffle resulting in a giant gash across his forehead at he barely even registered until it was all over and there was blood dripping over his eyebrows. He gazed upong his really cool handiwork of several mutilated bodies that were barely distinguishable as people (furries) at this point and passed out cold.
When he awoke again, he was in his bed, alone but bandaged up and in clean clothes. Everything was sore and his head especially hurt, but soon the family physician realized he woke up and provided both pills and the explanation of how his parents had been able to track the call and found him unconscious in the farmhouse. They had already disposed of all the bodies and any evidence the kidnapping had ever occurred and that was the end of story. If anyone asked (as they certainly would), there was cover story about a car crash to explain his injuries and recovery period. Masakii was a little touched his parents had bothered returning home early from their trip to see him but it didn’t last particularly long considering how furious they were, especially considering none of it would have happened if hadn’t left the mansion without their permission in the first place. This more or less cemented Tsubaki’s opinion that he was beyond salvaging and gave up on him ever reaching the standards of their family.
The fun didn’t end there, however. Masakii was deeply traumatized by what had happened and was unable to even leave him room for several days until his parent’s servants quite literally dragged him out because he had spent enough time moping and needed to get his act together before anyone started questioning the story. He did try to comply, but he could no longer see anything in the same light. Instead, every interaction began to feel like they were searching for a weakness or trying to find a weakness to exploit and every compliment was an attempt to lower his guard. It was at this point that instead of just spreading rumors and ruining reputations out of petty disputes that he became actively vindictive and vengeful in the name of preemptive self-defense. Masakii already had existing ties to Less Savory pursuits due to his family being what they were, but this was the first time he starting paying more attention to the more underhanded tactics happening around him and figuring out how to use them for himself. Eventually blackmail and planting evidence would be his favorites, and he found ruining other peoples (furries) lives was actually very cathartic whenever his own felt like it was spiraling out of control. They deserved it anyway for insulting him, or plotting against him, or trying to use him to get to his parents, or whatever else they were trying to do since there really wasn’t a shortage with how many grudges there were against his family (and also him specifically at this point since this was moving beyond his usual pettiness). Anyway, the point is that it was definitely all justified since they were going to do something worse to him if he didn’t do it first. And if he happened to gain a significant amount of money from doing so, it was only happenstance.
Lucille
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Servant Death
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Current Standing
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Future
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