BUST - Paladin of Vengeance - Johanna Saffron the Scorned

[Bust - 120mm total height]

[Whole and Separated plinth/body version included]

 

One of the twin daughters of His Excellency High Bishop Madrigal, Speaker of Erdrydion. Johanna’s life, like her twin sister’s, has been spent entirely in service to Erdrydion. As a student of both blade and book coupled with her fervent and tenacious nature had her quickly rise through the ranks of Erdrydion’s Church despite her young age. Ultimately this culminated with her recruitment by the Duke of Canos, taking her as his personal Paladin of Erdrydion and requesting her father anoint her as a Judge of Erdrydion. During the Dragonblight outbreak in Canos, Johanna narrowly escaped with her and her sister’s life. Now she is called to serve the kingdom once again, though now many miles from her home.

 

The Saffron family can trace their lineages as devotees of Erdrydion back to the Second Era, during the golden age of the Draksborne Empire, their line flourished as it rose to the head of the Church during the short-lived Canosite Rebellion of the Fourth Century of that era. With Canos’ noble family being longtime political rivals of the Saffron family, they were quick to inform the Imperial Court of their liege’s planned betrayal against the empire. In later claims of the Saffrons, this was done as enacting Erdrydion’s Will against subterfuge, a claim that was used by the family to carve their path into Erdrydion’s Church in Draksborne, given positions as a dynasty of High Bishops and Speakers who acted both for the Church, and in the Imperial Court’s favour.

This tradition has carried on hundreds of years later, with the current Saffron family patriarch the High Bishop of the Dukedom of Canos. Madrigal is but one of many forks of the Saffron family overseeing activities of Erdrydion’s Church across Draksborne. Johanna and her twin sister Amélie were extensions of his will, and while Amélie took to scrolls and tomes, Johanna took to blades and bloodshed, each encompassing an aspect of Erdrydion’s righteousness.It was nigh a decade that passed where the sisters saw nor heard aught of each other, save for passing mention in letters and visitations by their father. Madrigal held great pride in the martial prowess and wisdom of Johanna, giving her to the Church of Erdrydion in Canos as a Paladin when her training had completed. There she quickly rose to become a Justiciar, and gained the attention of the Duke during Erdrydion’s Day of Atonement, in which she quickly resolved a blood feud between two of his courtiers after they had both attempted to atone for committing adultery with the same man.

He had Johanna join him as his personal Paladin in Court, using her skills to dissolve lies and illusions spilt unto him by political rivals and knaves wishing to deceive him. Often her prosecutions were met with violence, though Johanna was quick to deal with this, in a usually bloodless manner. So impressed with her, the Duke wrote to her father asking him bestow upon her the rank of Judge, wishing to have a Judge of Erdrydion in his employ to act with complete immunity on his behalf. The request was granted, and Johanna became part of the Duke’s Table, acting as his personal Judge, an inquisitor and a righteous weapon.

When Dragonblight took hold of Canos’ southern districts, Johanna and the other Knights of the Duke’s Table were brought forth as a strike team. Though many perished, she survived, with the aid of her sister. Now she and those survivors she fought alongside are set against the the kingdom of Baldur, their rivals across the Grey Sea. Draksborne is in a weakened state after the cataclysmic effects of Dragonblight, yet it cannot sit idly by while its citizens and magistrates perish in Baldur’s own civil war.