In fair Verona, our tale begins with EASTON CRAVEN, who is TWENTY-EIGHT years old. He is often called EDMUND by the CAPULETS and works as their CAPTAIN. He uses HE/HIM pronouns.
He has his father’s eyes, and it kills them both. The living, breathing REMINDER of a secret that ceased to be a secret, Easton Craven is the embodiment of everything that went wrong in his father’s marriage, from Gabriel Craven’s infidelity to his wife’s subsequent denial. He’s the BASTARD, the accident, the mistake, and he’s paid dearly for it since the first moment his doomed heart began to beat. He was born with a sin on his soul that even holy water couldn’t wash off, and the tragedy of it all is that it wasn’t his own—but the PENANCE was no less brutal for it. Repentance came in the form of biting words and cold indifference—the former a gift from his father and the latter from his adopted mother—but the youngest Craven boy took it on bent knee, head bowed in the sort of reverence that a man can only give of his own accord, devoted and wholly unbroken. He was damned from the start but better for it.
It was all too easy to look at Gabriel Craven like a god before he found out the truth: that his father’s reluctance to look him in the eye stemmed more from the BETRAYAL his youngest had been a product of than anything Easton had done or said himself. It was liberating and crushing all at once, the realization that it wasn’t his fault and that somehow, it always would be; he spent years trying to make sense of it, so shrouded in his perfect half-brother’s shadow that he lost track of what little light he’d had in his life and gave up on finding it again altogether. Everett, blessed as he was to have been born to the right woman and markedly oblivious to what the younger boy had to endure, was kind—a good brother if there ever was one—but he was always ENOUGH for their father, and for that, Easton never truly forgave him. Everett never once uttered the word “bastard,” but the fact that he never had to said it all.
Easton became something more than a proud man’s discarded MISTAKE when he learned to embrace who he was—to meet every accusation of “bastard” with a cocky grin and the commitment to act the part. He learned to swallow the excuses—the apologies—that rose in his throat like bile and spit out venom instead, and his initiation into the Capulet mob mere months after his brother was a testament to the change in him. He grew bitter, vindictive—so hellbent on getting even that by the time his father wrote his will and left him absolutely nothing, the damage had already been done. He was untouchable in his acceptance of the hand he’d been dealt—for versatility does a good soldier make—and fearsome in his hunger for VENGEANCE.
And he’s far from finished. A boy made to feel as though he was indebted to the world, he’s grown into a man who believes the world is indebted to him, and he’ll be damned if he lets Verona forget it. Once, he might’ve allowed himself to be placated by small victories—by a glance spared in his direction by eyes that had once seen right through him, by praise poured from the same lips that once loathed to speak his name—but now, he’ll stop at nothing. He’ll stab his brother in the back if it’ll show the world that they BLEED the same; he’ll make his father beg for mercy he never learned how to give. They call him a bastard, but they’re mistaken. He’s a king.
PLEASE NOTE, we ask that players refrain from including the following elements when writing the relationship between Easton’s mother and father: physical and extreme emotional abuse, significant age gaps.
NIKOLAI BORISOV: Disgust. Although he is a man of little to no loyalty, there is something to be said for the loyalty that he has for himself and his principles. But none of that could be said for Nikolai, a stranger in the city where such people are considered lower than beggars. However, he realizes the utilization that can be found in a dog that has no master, and what one such dog would do for scraps of meat. Dangle enough meat in front of a stray and heaven knows what other creatures they might kill in order to get it. Nikolai is nothing more than a fool that needs to be told what to do – and by God himself, Easton will make sure that if he is to build his kingdom, then it shall be of fools and beggars. For isn’t that how all great conquerors begin?
EVERETT CRAVEN: Half-brother. They might’ve been brothers once—real brothers, not the kind that depended on something as fickle as blood—if he hadn’t been so bitter, so angry at the older boy for who he was: namely, everything Easton was not. The green-eyed monster first reared its ugly head in the second son of Gabriel Craven when he realized his father afforded Everett the same admiration that he’d been denied, and years later, it still does—shamelessly. He knows, deep down, that his brother isn’t to blame for the lot he’s been given in life, but he’s proud, he’s jealous, and he’s in too deep to turn back now, even if he wanted to—and he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter that his brother was never cruel—that he tried his hardest to take Easton under his wing when they were children; Everett is and always will be as irredeemable in his brother’s eyes as Easton is in his father’s. Biding his time, Easton draws close to his brother and lulls him to brotherly acceptance, feigning a bond that never existed. He will be the serpent lying in wait until the time comes to tear down the pedestal his brother stands on, stone by stone.
RAFAELLA & TIBERIUS CAPULET: Superiors. They’ll answer to him one day if he gets his way, but until then, he’ll settle for doing their dirty work; after all, a man can’t expect to climb without getting a little blood on his hands. He harbors a certain degree of respect for them both, two powerhouses of the same blood but different breeds—an accomplishment, as his respect is not easily earned, but for all that he’d kill for them, he’d just as quickly steal their thrones from beneath them without a second thought. The depth of his loyalty is not to be questioned, but his loyalty to himself and his own ambition is unrivaled. Still, there’s something to be said about Rafaella’s wit and Tybalt’s resolve to do his worst—both are equally sharp.
CELESTE DUVAL: Informant. The leverage on her is nothing less than the utmost advantageous – for he remembers her little love affair that ended so spectacularly. “Please, say nothing of this, I beg of you,” the words had gushed forth from her like the most heavenly music he had ever heard. And so he acquiesced to her request, but at the heaviest of prices – in the form of information. Such things are the only recognized currency in the bastard boy’s bright eyes. She comes to him like a dog beaten into submission, but the fact that she comes to him at all lets him know how badly she wants this information to be kept under lock and key; how far she will go for it. If there’s one thing he’s learned from his life of fateful punishment, it’s that secrets are the only form of power recognized in this city.
Easton is portrayed by MAX IRONS and was written by BREE. He is currently TAKEN by DEAN.