Count Llewellyn ap Selwyth (a.k.a. the young Count)
Count Llywelyn is one of the youngest major land holders in theland of Swynfaredia, controlling the coal-rich province of Stagdrift Hills County.
Llewellyn is a son of a Selwyth mother and a Kovenoth father. He bears the Selwyth surname because his mother was a countess and his father held no title. He has his mother's magical aptitude and appearance but is his fathers' son in personality.
Llewellyn inherited his count title from his late mother when he was only twelve. He recently turned sixteen, which is legally an adult, though socially considered a youth. Just before his sixteenth birthday, a large of number of House Selwyth schemes were collapsing. Schemes of course that Llewellyn had no say in as a child but he is tarred with the political brush of Selwyth's scandals anyway.
Since coming of age, he has made a bold political statements to distance himself from the other Selwyths. He has even considered renouncing his name and declaring himself a Kovenoth. Such a move is not impossible, but it is diffiuclt and costly. His father advised him against it.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
No sixteen year old boy is too totally jacked, but Llywelyn has inherited a solid earthy and gets a lot of regular exercise.
Facial Features
He is considered handsome and has won the genetic lottery for having an aesthetically pleasing mix of earthy and fiery features. For instance, he has fiery blond hair with a small blue streak but has an earthiness in his hair that his hair is straight and easy to work with rather than the frizzy tangled mess that many fiery Scarterrans have to deal with.
Special abilities
Many sorcerers and sorceresses who manifest their sorcery at a young age grow into prodigies. Count Llywelyn is not a prodigy. His sorcerer skills are mediocre at best, though Llywelyn doesn't view this as a large problem. He points out that Swynfaredian law says land holders need to be sorcerers but it doesn't say they have to be potent sorcerers. As a count he can order retainers to cast magic on his behalf.
Llwelyn can reliably cast second circle Necromancy
Apparel & Accessories
He usually wears black clothing. He is not super fond of the stereotype of necromancers wearing lots of black but the centerpiece of his realm is a coal mine and he doesn't want to be cloistered in his castle, he wants to close to the people and not overly worried about getting his clothes dirty.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Count Llewellyn was the eldest child of Countess Cariadna ap Selwyth and Lord Maddoc ap Kovenoth. He has a younger sister.
Young Llewellyn was an early bloomer for sorcery solidifying his position as the heir apparent. Less than two years later, his mother died under suspicious circumstances, pushing Llewellyn "Lord Llewellyn" to "Count Llewellyn" with his father acting as Count Regent.
Stagdrift Hills County has two very productive mines and one mine that is mostly spent and not very productive. When Llewellyn was a small child, his mother agreed to hide dozens of reservist undead soldiers in an unused mine shaft for safe keeping for the ongoing schemes of House Selwyth.
The Kingdom of Swynfaredia and Kingdom of Fumaya are now at war, but House Selwyth still didn't have legal authorization to use undead auxiliary troops like they wanted, so they kept the undead in reserve. And most of them were hidden in one of Llewellyn's unused mine tunnels.
Several of the Spirit loas that Kormatin rescued were from Stagdrift Hills and wanted to return home. An oracle advised them to make the request formally after Count Llewellyn's sixteenth birthday. There is an old superstitition that a ruler's first official acts set the tone of things for the entirely of their reign and Llewellyn wanted his first edicts to involve generosity.
He easily welcomed the eight loas into his land and promised them protection. And later ended up giving a number of them promotions at their jobs.
He took a risk and agreed to a face-to-face meeting with Kormatin (. But he figured Kormatin used discretion and didn't kill anyone in Stagdrift and wasn't going to to start killing here now.
To establish plausible deniability, Llewellyn offered Kormatin terms of surrender and made a formal request for him to return the Talon of Aeres fully aware that Kormatin would say no.
He also predicted that the war would drag on to a stalemate and King Henryk and Queen Gwendolyn would reluctantly sign a peace treaty.
Kormatin shared that he discovered that his mother was killed by accident when some ghouls slipped the leash and a bloodline necromancer on scene was blamed for it and his soul was trapped in a Prison Lanterns. Llewellyn and Lord Maddoc took the story at face value and Llewellyn became even more mad at the Selwyth elders.
by me with Midjourney
When Lord Llewellyn became Count Llewellyn, the Selwyth elders were like "By the way, we are keeping a bunch of powerful undead in one of your mines. We'll be at war soon, and eventually these undead will be needed for the front, but until then, you are responsible for making sure that the undead aren't discovered. Pay? No, you are doing this out of loyalty to House Selwyth like your mother!
Don't worry, they definitely will probably not slip their leash and attack your workforce."
But Fumayan agents, led by Kormatin, deduced that the Selwyths were probably hiding undead in an abandoned mine. They were able to chat up some miners and figure out which mine shaft the miners were forbidden to go down, and then put two and two together. When the mines were closed for the end of year festival, Kormatin and company breached the mine and destroyed the undead there.
Count Llewellyn is embarrassed that a powerful enemy infiltrated his territory right under his nose, but he was rather pleased that his realm is now free of undead, and he was more pleased that Kormatin managed to remove the undead without killing any of Llewellyn's living subjects.
by Eron12 with Hero Forge
Accomplishments & Achievements
Count Llywelyn has a several wise teachers instructing in him all the aspects of being a good Count.
In terms of his education, he excels especially at handling ledgers and the managerial aspects of being a leader of a bunch of miners. His diplomatic skills and social niceties are a little lacking for a formal court, but Count Llywelyn's peasant subjects like this and view him as grounded and approachable.
Count Llywelyn believes in surrounding himself with good advisors and lieutenants and treating them well and most of his mine foremen and other agents on the ground are peasants promoted for merit instead of squibs promoted due to nepotism. This has only strengthened Llywelyn's "Man of the People" credentials.
A common sentiment among the miners of Stagdrift Hills is that "House Selwyth is a den of untrustworthy vipers, but Count Llywelyn is one of the good ones".
Mental Trauma
Losing one's mother at a young age is traumatic. So is being pushed into a position of leadership at a young age.
Count Llywelyn doesn't believe the official story for his mother's death and it has become a bit of an obsession for him.
Social
Family Ties
Even before his mother died, Lord Llywelyn was closer to his father than his mother. Count Llywelyn has a healthy relationship with his father and regent Lord Madoc ap Kovenoth, and intends to keep his father as his primary advisor long after he comes of age.
Though he is a Selwyth, Count Llywelyn is proud of his Kovenoth heritage and espouses a lot of Kovenoth talking points and is leaning towards the Kovenoth's technocratic leadership style.
It remains to be seen whether his younger sister, Awen is a sorceress or a squib. Count Llywelyn has publicly stated that he hopes his sister is a sorceress because it means he has less pressure to marry and produce an heir as quickly as possible.
Until Awen is confirmed to be a squib, Count Llywelyn is treating his younger sister as his proper heir. He insists she get the same quality of education that he has received and he keeps her in the loop as much as is appropriate for a twelve year old.
Relationships
Current Location
Species
Conditions
Ethnicity
Other Ethnicities/Cultures
Currently Held Titles
Year of Birth
1823 CE
16 Years old
Circumstances of Birth
Greymoria's Zodiac Year and Zodiac Month
Family
Spouses
Siblings
Awen ap Selwyth
(sister)
Children
Sex
male
Eyes
grey
Hair
blond with a small blue streak
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
bronzed brown
Height
5'7"
Aligned Organization
Other Affiliations
Related Reports
Ruled Locations
Comments