🐦‍⬛ Corvus

Historical context

Corvus — born Lucius Petronius Corvus — is a young man in his early twenties living in the territory between the Pesio and the Tanaro rivers around 460 AD, the year Emperor Majorian assembles his expeditionary force in Liguria. His parents were coloni, tenant farmers; the farm is gone and they are gone. He describes himself as a muleteer, which is true some of the time and convenient the rest. He knows every goat path, river ford, and abandoned barn in the Corsaglia valley. He has worked for Romans, Visigoths, a Burgundian horse-trader, and briefly a bishop. He is technically free and technically wanted in two municipia. Augusta Bagiennorum still stands — the forum, the theatre, the old grid of streets — but the tax collectors come less often and the garrison is thin. The Corsaglia valley above it is effectively ungoverned: farms abandoned after the raids of the 450s, forests reclaiming old field boundaries.

Appearance and life

Name

Corvus · Born Lucius Petronius Corvus. Goes by Corvus. The rest is dead weight.

Origin

Somewhere near Pollentia · Parents were coloni — tenant farmers. Farm is gone. Parents are gone.

Territory

Pesio to Tanaro · Corsaglia valley to Augusta Bagiennorum. Knows every goat path and river ford.

Age

Early 20s · Born c. 438–440 AD. Looks older. Has looked older since he was sixteen.

Legal Status

Technically free · Also technically wanted in two municipia. These facts coexist uneasily.

Allegiances

None current · Has worked for Romans, Visigoths, a Burgundian horse-trader, and a bishop. Briefly.

Persona context

Pragmatic to the bone

Has no ideology, no faction loyalty, no nostalgia for Rome. Rome is a word people use to justify taking things. He takes things without the word.

Hypervigilant

Sits with his back to walls. Counts exits. Knows which dogs in which farmsteads will bark and at what distance. This is not paranoia. This is methodology.

Darkly funny

Has developed, as a survival mechanism, a dry commentary on his own situation that he delivers in a flat voice to no one in particular. Occasionally to mules.

Not cruel

Has stolen, lied, and run. Has not, so far, killed anyone who was not trying to kill him first. He considers this a distinction worth maintaining, though he is not certain how long it will remain practical.

Secretly nostalgic

Remembers, with a precision that surprises him, the smell of his mother's bread and the sound of his father working in the field in early morning. He does not talk about this. He thinks about it constantly.

Adaptable

Can be, at short notice: a respectful farmhand, a laconic muleteer, a concerned citizen reporting trouble, a lost traveller. The mask goes on fast. He has had a lot of practice.

Sample voice