Aulus Kahar

Aulus Tolis Kahar the Third

Baron of Eastwatch

Familial Info
Born: 605 ATA

Died:

Parents: Aulus Tolis Kahar II and Solena Mikin

Siblings: Janus Aulus Kahar, Serus Aulus Kahar, Nadina Kahar, and Tulla Kahar.

Children: None.

Spouse(s): None.

Family Holding(s): Brandywine Castle

Biography
Justice and Honour: the moral code of the noble House of Kahar, an imperial password for the duties and responsibilities of its lineage, was instructed to Aulus since his boyhood days as a page at his father’s table. It was not merely a motto, for only nine generations separated him from the Emperor Talus Kahar VIII; and this regal patrilineal link - while distanced by time - instilled a mark of respect and dread in the heart of the young boy. His was the family that had produced Emperors, and it was his family that ultimately secured the lands for noble, freeman, and vassal alike to live peacefully. Law ruled within the borders of the Empire while the sword kept the hordes of Wildlings at her gates and beyond the walls. Certainly it was an upbringing of privilege; but the Kaharian blood flowing through his veins also placed the burden of its responsibility on his shoulders. Aulus, at once attracted and repelled by the relationship, knew from an early age that he would have to one day stand to meet the Destiny before him.

Born in the ancestral home of Brandywine Castle outside Eastwatch on Fealty, the Third Day in the month of Harvest, 605 ATA, Baron Aulus Tolis Kahar III is the eldest son and male heir of Viscount Aulus Tolis Kahar II and his wife Viscountess Solena Kahar (née Mikin). His brother Janus Aulus Kahar would perish from the plague at the age of four in 610 ATA: a profound experience for the young Aulus whom had never before encountered a glimpse of death. The following year would see death and re-birth: outside Brandywine, the Second Wildling War decimated the countryside as they pushed north from Vozhdya obliterating several ancient familial manors – homes to kinsmen and their vassals – sending a surge of refugees northward to Eastwatch. His father was stoic toward the calamity. Farmlands, vineyards, forests, and holdings were obliterated by the horde: noble, vassal, and freeman butchered without pity or mercy. Trained as a warrior in his youth, Aulus Tolis Kahar II had retired from the Emperor's Blades. He would say to his son and heir: ''“The Light bringeth and taketh away, Aulus. It is our duty not to show cowardice, or to succumb to doubtful resignation. We are the guardians and protectors of our people in life; if we shall fall then it is surely their death, and if we shall run our station is lost. So we must choose the honourable path, for in it is the hope of success and a noble legacy.”''

During the War, many men lost life and limb to the Wildlings as they ravaged town and country. The family stronghold was itself besieged. Here his kinsmen made their stand, and resolved to defend the outer-walls and keep to the last man. Thankfully, though they suffered considerable bloodshed, his father, kinsmen, and retainers were able to withstand the assault until the arrival of the Imperial Horsemen. The creatures were not only cleared from the walls, but were eventually pushed clear of Eastwatch as the Kahar's guardsmen sallied forth to join the Emperor’s armed men in the Stand of Eastwatch. While the countryside was in smouldering waste, joy was nonetheless wrought on his family as young Aulus’ mother gave birth to their daughter Nadina. Life would continue; in two years, Aulus himself would become a page at his fathers’ court.

Learning to read and write, the etiquette of waiting table on his father and guests, and other gentle pursuits of a noble constitution were formed in these early years. In 619 ATA, young Aulus’ started his education as a squire: horsemanship, falconry, dancing, the art of rhetoric, religious doctrine, and swordplay were instructed to him at this time by his father and his retainers. Of course, the most notable instruction he received was not in martial pursuits – not in jousts or masked dances – nor in the practical lessons on strategy and statesmanship – but in the mores and values of chivalry. He had a favourite bard, Wolfram Harpsong, rumoured quietly in certain circles to be the possible paramour of the current Lady Kahar, who regaled his late hours around the Great Hall fireplace with tales of chivalric valour and courty love. The stories of past heroes, breaking their lances on the shields of honourable foes, filled his head with excitation. He yearned to find a noblewoman worthy of his pure love, and to impress her with gallantry and deeds insofar that she might deign to bestow upon him a favour: a look, a lock of hair, a few secretive words.

When Aulus found himself knighted by his father after five full seasons, at the age of nineteen years, he was prepared to gallop out across the countryside and join his cousin Serath Kathar in the ranks of the reconstituted Imperial Horsemen. He was too young to participate in the Second Wildling War when it swept to the doorsteps of his ancestral lands, but staunchly desired the grand and heroic life of service for his family and empire. The Fall of the Emperor in 625 ATA, and the following establishment of Zolor Zahir on the imperial throne, deeply unsettled these honorific aspirations. By royal right of birth, the crown belonged in his family; and to see the usurpation of that lineage by a Nahir shattered his previously idealistic beliefs. Not that Aulus did not still maintain the chivalric ethos in high-esteem, but he realised that shadowy politics were at work across the empire to undermine its foundations: its justice and honour. The improper influence in his household by the Vozhdya Patriarch, and the posturing of the Vozhd-Kahar line, was only another example of treachery and baseness at work to corrupt the Empire. It was a world made by his pure bloodline, and for his pure bloodline: Aulus realised that only fanatical devotion to the family could act as the guarding force of the realm, and vowed to the Light that he would no longer sit idly on his family lands allowing injustice and corruption to rot Fastheld. Ambition would grow, admittedly for the sakes of others, but necessarily first for his own plot in life: as the eventual leader of his line of the family, and perhaps one-day its very head.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Justice and Honour.

OOC Logs
Nobility and Honor

Perils of Misperception

By the Light