I was chatting about this with a buddy the other night, so:
Nadia doesnât appear to have warm feelings for Lucio. Whenever she discusses him, she criticizes something he did - expresses regret that the vampire eels arenât being kept in a suitable habitat, hates his weird goat painting - so itâs a mystery to me why Nadia wants to avenge his death so badly. (Or possibly even bring him back to life, as other meta has suggestedâŠalong with the fact that heâll eventually be a romance option.)
According to the dev blog Lucio used to be a mercenary and was of common birth, and Nadia was born noble but in a distant land. Itâs possible that during
a local conflict Lucio managed to carve out the city-state for himself, and Nadiaâs claim to the palace is threatened because it was only through Lucio that she had one at all, and it appears as though Lucio didnât even produce an heir by Nadia (assuming that succession in Vesuvia works through marriage ties and descent, which isnât a given.) Consequently, itâs possible that people who want to unseat her could, while building a claim against her, even go as far as to suggest she had a hand in his murder (which would make her desperate to do something about Lucioâs death that is very public) (and it would also look good if people are saying âthey didnât even like each other, she was barely married to him at all, why is she Countess?â but it would depend on whether people in Vesuvia consider love matches in marriage culturally important, or essentially whether itâs culturally important to them to consider what Lucioâs wishes might have been if he had lived long enough to name a successor).Â
Itâs also possible that thereâs civil unrest after someone was able to get into the palace and murder the Count, and people are demanding that someone answer for his deathâŠÂ but a) Julian feels okay wandering around the city like a free man and we donât really see any signs of trouble in the city-state - suspicion, violence, fear - and b) the apprentice read the cards for Nadia and it looks like everyone loves her and her rule is rock solid. Whatever her motive is, it appears to be personal.
So why does Nadia keep his stuff lying around? Doesnât move his creepy paintings, doesnât release his irresponsible exotic pets. Doesnât even bother cleaning up his ashes. His spirit is still in the palaceâŠitâs possible sheâs expecting him to come back. Maybe Julian is the blood sacrifice in some kind of arcane ritual sheâs pulling off on the night of the masquerade, bringing her husband back ad securing her claim to Vesuvia (or hey, maybe they were in love, or at least confidantes and allies, and their relationship was just complex this is my headcanon and Iâm sticking to it :( ).Â
Maybe sheâs afraid to touch any of it.Â
Unlike half the fandom, I think Julian really did kill Lucio. Listen: Lucio had the Red Plague (you can tell by his messed up sclera, the telltale sign). Lucio called in thinkers and magicians from all over to help cure it (or at least cure him). The night of his birthday, he was in bed, probably too sick to get out of it, and I doubt he was long for this world.
IIRC, Julian and Asra were said to work particularly closely together on the Red Plague. But at some point Julian overstepped a bound and Asra lost all good will towards him, calling him a hack who doesnât know what he's doing. So: is it possible that during their time together doing research, Julian learned just enough magic from Asra to shoot himself in the foot, tapped into powers he didnât understand and couldnât control, and attempted using dangerous magic to save Lucioâs life?
Or at least, to preserve it in a body that wasnât dying. Could the result have been the intention?
(Variation on a theme: Julian, unlicensed doctor that he is, tried a last-ditch medical experiment that went severely wrong and Asra used his magic to do what he could to preserve the Count in some way, and burnt the body so they couldnât find evidence of a botched medical or surgical procedure. Likely to protect Julian and try to keep Nadia from calling for his blood.)
So. However it happened, Nadia has her late husbandâs edgy fursona wandering around the palace, which in and of itself is not good, and itâs possible that meddling with sinister forces brought evil down on the heads of the entire household and there will be severe consequences for Nadia if she doesnât put an end to Julian and to what he started.
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