Rudolf's self-portrait as a young man.
Rudolphus Gapon, known also as 'Marquis', was born to an Alteracian double agent and an actress of mixed nationality, two years before the Second War [596 King's Calendar]. In his early adulthood Gapon was an artist. A series of complications in the young artist's life caused Gapon to find a career within the Defias Brotherhood. Gapon would eventually become a captain within the Brotherhood and name himself 'Marquis' to protect his identity.
Upon the dispersal of the Brotherhood and the death of Edwin VanCleef, Rudolphus fled to Darkshire, where he now resides. It is unsure whether Gapon was in fact a member of the Defias Brotherhood, or an agent of Stormwind working towards the organisation's demise. The latter has been given more and more credit in the years since Edwin's death because of Gapon has been able to escape the consequences of his banditry.
Description[]
Gapon is a tall man and extremely slight of body. If you were to view Gapon from behind, particularly in view of his protruding vertebrae, you might mistake him for an overgrown needy urban child. Suiting his slight frame, his fingers are exceptionally long and thin. At the base of these stiletto fingers lies the hand which bears the cog and sword tattoo necessary for membership of the Defias Brotherhood, which Gapon now hides with a glove. Changes in outfit are both wanted and necessary to Gapon, suiting his pursuits of banditry, deception and professional espionage.
He is white of complexion and is prone to slight red blushes around his cheeks. Close up, either full-face or in profile, he is surpassingly handsome. His older brother describes him as "the androgynous, blue-eyed, unkempt child who the Baron regrets flirting with". A more general and less parochial view is that he reaches too-handsomeness, but does not cross the threshold; he is saved by a slight asymmetry in that his left eye sags slightly lower than his right. Gapon himself takes a different, rather self-aggrandising view. Although he submits that he is close to being wholly beautiful, he is "vulnerable to the same variety of glib criticism which any legitimate object of art is". Fortuitous in that he has evaded many menaces which might coarsen his good looks, Gapon has retained his bounteous good looks without scarring or disfigurement.
But what is undiminishable is the esprit superimposed over his entire face. This reaches his eyes, which are as arresting as a harlequin's mask and often more confounding.
Personality[]
construction. . .
Family[]
Rudolphus is the youngest member of a family of purported "thespians, artists and all things in between." True though this is for Rudolphus, his precocious siblings (Maxim, the oldest son; Georgy, the second son; Annabelle, the only daughter) and his infamous mother (Manon née Jaques), his father's (Clemence) original calling was more clandestine than theatrical - though perhaps his father might argue differently. It was because of the secretive and dangerous nature of Clemence's work that the family would have to move from Uplands in Alterac to the newly erected towers of Stormwind. Since, the family has prospered under the new Crown and has made a name for itself amongst those who are meretricious in their cultural affinities.
Clemence[]
Rudolphus' father, Clemence, then called Giles, was born to Giles Butler II and Lynne Butler (née Hudson), who were the headservants of a household in the Uplands of Alterac. The household consisted only, upon Giles junior's birth, of a widowed Countess. Having had no children, the Countess took a shine to the "handsome" child which her servants had produced. She eventually adopted Giles III and sent his parents away, just after he was weaned from his mother's breast milk. Renaming the boy Clemence, the Countess raised him in pre-pubescence and taught him his letters and numbers. At the age of ten, the Countess had to remarry for money. She chose well for herself, marrying into the aspiring an aspiring Gilneas businessman, who was taking charge of a mining industry not far from the Countess' lands.
However it was not beneficial for Giles, as he was alienated from his seat as the Countess' heir, and was instead sent away to Alterac City. Within the city he was educated at a particularly prestigious academy, and there his talent was discovered; a flair for foreign language. Usually, a young man of Giles' talents would be snapped up into an ambassador's role, but Giles' funding was cut short. The Gilnean industrialist who funded his education had killed himself after his mine shafts, and subsequently mining business, collapsed. Giles was sent home to a penniless Countess whose lands were slowly being eroded by more ambitious nobles.