Atticus Montague deGrey's page

Atticus comes from a long line of household knights - retainers held separate from the military by the Korvosan royalty specifically to serve within the courts. Most, like Atticus, are Korvosan born. The deGreys in particular enroll their youth in a Scarlet Sentinel fortress school in northern Varisia, just east of the Lurkwood. He, along with sixteen of his cousins, spent a good portion of their adolescence in the wilderness learning the tenants of that ancient warrior tradition.

Before this, however, Atticus had always been an unusual boy. Some saw him as eccentric as even from a young age he had an unusual interest in aesthetics - poetry and art to be sure, though he always showed greatest interest in the serene beauty of the natural world. Often he would be found lost among the sculpted topiary of his families many gardens, having become distracted by the wonderful flowers that blossomed there. His parents and mentors waved this aside as little more than a strong sense of empathy - the sign of a kind heart in the boy.

His interest bloomed into a true passion at the fortress school. Surrounded by the pristine wilderness there, mixed with the lurid draw of the Lurkwood, Atticus became fully engrossed in the beauty of the world at hand. Though he proved a capable duelist, he truly began to excel in his classes that dealt with ideology, theology, and philosophy, leading eloquent speeches on the nature of duty and honor to his peers. As his time in the school drew to a close some saw the young man become increasingly reclusive - going on days long expeditions to the wilderness without warning or explanation to his mentors or companions. Yet he remained the image of a perfect knight errant, always returning before his absence interfered with his obligations to the Sentinels. Such a thing would besmirch his own name and that of his lineage.

The blood oath ceremony was held towards the end of his time at the fortress school. Atticus and four others swore their oath together, one of whom was a young Cressida Kroft who would go on to become Field Marshal of the Korvosan Guard. Atticus, on the other hand, returned to his family estate following his graduation. While others from his class entered the merciless world of the courts where they would inevitably be pitted against each other for titles, honor, and wealth, he withdrew into his passions. High society had no need of his ideologies and he hand no need of theirs - he devoted himself instead to the cultivation of what he found most beautiful, most worthwhile in the entire world. Soon his family estate bloomed with the most magnificent flowers, rivaling even those found in Castle Korvosa itself, all tended to personally by the eccentric knight.

He knew even then that this was only the beginning. As a man of both means and knowledge he knew it was his calling, his duty to spread the serene truth he had found wherever it could find purchase. His gardens sprang to life in nooks and crannies across the city. He submitted dozens of essays to the royal courts for review, among the were titles such as "Life Cycles of the Tri-Fold Found" and "Domestication of the Sleeping Willow", each one the culmination of hundreds of hours of research and done with painstaking detail.

This continued into his thirties until he began to feel a disconnect with the root of his ideals. Though he cared deeply for Korvosa and it's people as a matter of principle, he was confronted by the idea that staying in the city was robbing him off the beauty of the world beyond. He resolved to dedicate himself to the life of the ascetic, denying himself the joy of the city and it's peoples so that he may find greater clarity in beauty. He set out onto a journey alone, without the support of his household, travelling northwest past the borders of Varisia and into the lands beyond.

Two factors combined to end his self-imposed exile. Firstly the death of his great uncle that left Atticus the inheritor of the deGrey estate. This is what led him to return in the first place, so that he may pay his respects and tend to his responsibilities as the caretaker of the deGrey household. Yet it was the death of King Eodred Arabast II that cemented his return. In the termoil that followed the city became consumed by the ugliness of its people that boiled to its surface. The Field Marshall Cressida Kroft, the woman he had sworn a blood oath with those many years ago, sent for him at his home. The meaning was clear - Korvosa would need every sword arm it had in the coming days, even one ruled by the strange passions of the Knight of Flowers. This duty to his blood-sister would come above all others, and so Atticus returned.

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Atticus is a kind soul at heart though much of that is ruled by a mixture of lofty ideology and iron discipline. His demeanor is distant as he is often consumed by his own musings, yet beneath this lies a well-honed oratory ability. He is a devout worshiper of Erastil (a trait he picked up while at the fortress school), though in absence of any particular church he holds prayer at his family estate. It is likely that he has never truly hated anyone. Rather, he is disgusted at the sight of mans inherent ugliness - that of the killer, the traitor, and the vagrant. Yet the potential for great beauty lies with those who can conquer these parts of themselves so it could be said that his ideology is inclusive of even the most unsavory individuals. Only those who refuse to find this beauty are worth of being his enemies.

He wears fine clothes with simple, yet practical designs. His armor and weapons are the same, though both are embossed with images of blooming flowers.