Evfemia
STR:14 DEX:16 CON:15 INT:14 WIS:12 CHA:10
HP: 29
Languages: German, Latin, French, Italian
PP:65% O/L:30% F/RT:5% MS:50%
HiS:50% DN:35% CW:75% RL:10%
Evfemia never knew her father, and only knew her mother as the sad, broken woman he left behind. As she and her twin brother grew older, albeit more slowly than expected, it became clear that her mother’s family could not support the additional mouths with the meager earnings from their farm and gave the children up to the church. This suited Evfemia just fine, and she took to her studies at the convent quickly. It soon became apparent, however, that her brother was a half-wit and would have to be given up to a sanitarium. This did not sit well with Evfemia, who fled the convent with her brother and took up a life of petty crime.
The two circulated through Germany, moving from place to place, taking advantage of church charity when they could find it, but refusing any help that would require them to be separated. Eventually they wound up in Gandersheim, and found a livable situation, where Evfemia could attend the convent and her brother was allowed to live on the grounds in the orphanarium. There they made a life for themselves, and it may have been a happy ending for them, had not, one day, for no discernible reason, the nuns suddenly snatched the pair from their bed and expelled them from the city, warning them not to return on pain of death. The threat was made good the next day, when they were discovered sneaking back in and were immediately met by a brace of arrows from the town watch. Heartbroken, Evfemia returned to criminal life.
Armed now with the Latin language and knowledge of church doctrine, she turned her back on Germany and set her sights on Italy. Once there, she easily slipped into the life of organized crime. There was never any question as to where her loyalties lay since her idiot brother was used, in essence, as an insurance policy. Evfemia didn’t mind, however, and she eventually rose to a comfortable rank and enjoyed a quality of life that would have been unattainable in Germany.
As regional politics shifted and Barbary pirates began to squeeze the Italian economy, internecine war within and between the guilds became more common. Her security was undercut and she began fearing for her life and that of her twin, and so she took him and stowed away on a dromond bound for Constantinople. The journey was uneventful (made possible by the large decrease in regional piracy brought on by Barnacle Bashim’s policing), but on arrival she soon discovered that she couldn’t find a single Italian speaker. Weighing her options, she considered taking a boat to Sicily, but her brother had found the trip from Rome absolutely unbearable and she couldn’t imagine taking him on another. Instead, she acted on a hunch and looked up Eorl, whose name and face is known to every guild member in Rome. She found him kind of a letdown after everything he was built up to be, and actually a fairly nice guy if you could get past the smarm. Eorl was happy to take Evfemia and her brother in after she agreed not to kill him, and he even took pity on her poor twin and made him an honorary member of his unorthodox ‘guild.’
