Name: Cerina Bellamorte
Allegiance: Nocturnia/Arcadian Knights
Cunning and driven with a seemingly endless desire for wealth and power, Cerina is often passed off as single-minded and shallow, just another royal-blooded social climber looking for nothing more than to cling to the highest possible rung of the ladder. Her rivals, peers, and even her family view her in this light, and in truth, they are not wrong to do so. She parlayed her position as a princess into a thriving business empire and vast network of mining operations, harvesting minerals, gems, metals, and other natural resources from the vast cave complexes surrounding her home kingdom of Nocturnia.
Outwardly, she is the epitome of a “whatever it takes” business-like attitude, cold, composed, and adhering strictly to the bottom line, but beneath the surface, there is a past and a path that led her to this place.
Royal lineage in her nation is dictated on the sole principle of the First-Born. Boy or girl, the first-born child of the royal family will inherit the throne. The rule is infallible and unwavering, including in cases of twins, wherein whichever twin arrives first, is destined to rule. Cerina was born only a few seconds apart from her brother, but those few seconds were all that mattered. Her brother was placed on a path to the throne, and Cerina found herself shuffled out of sight and out of mind, relegated to be a princess for life, but never queen. And while, to many little girls, the concept of “princess for life” sounds like a dream come true, as Cerina often noted with her elderly relatives in similar positions, as the years pile up and the wrinkles pile on, it quickly loses its novelty.
Cerina was placed under the tutelage of the only man in Nocturnia’s government whom the kingdom wanted to ignore more than her. Known colloquially as the “Shadow of the Crown,” Lord Nixis, the kingdom’s Minister of Intelligence saw in Cerina a deep seed of resentment. But rather than suppress it, he decided to let it grow, and to shape it into an endless spring of motivation, driving her forward with agendas and goals ensconced in a tutelage of misdirection and subterfuge, masked under a very public persona of power, parties, and all the trappings one would expect from a socialite with riches beyond imagination.
Yet, as her new friends find, when the veil is lifted and the shrouded layers of façade and pretense crumble away, Cerina is a deeply lonely girl, having always lived with servants over friends, and a goal-driven life that consumed her, and left her not truly knowing who she is. She is a portrait of the adage, “Money can’t buy you happiness”… But as Cerina is always quick to respond, “Neither can poverty.”