Johanna Notare (Charlotte's 4th Alt)

[Johanna]

Name: Johanna Notare
Pseudonym: Hanne Clark

Class: Acolyte
Age: 26
Born in: Ilia

Appearance: Johanna stands around 5’8” and has a very slender frame for someone of her height. Her skin is naturally pale, but with her recent travels there is a touch of color to her ivory complexion. She’s somewhat curvy, though not as well endowed as some men might prefer. Her hair is manageable, a beautiful auburn brown that looks almost red when the light shines on it. The best way to describe Johanna’s looks are a strange beauty. While her complexion is clear and her eyes a beautiful shade of blue, her eyes appear slightly too far apart, and the bridge of her nose juts about a bit further that one would expect. Despite this, though, she is still largely attractive, if only in that a set of eyes will linger on her for a moment or two longer than usual as they try to determine what is different about her beauty.

As a sister the young woman was clothed in a habit at all hours of the day. While not fond of the look, Johanna did appreciate the loose nature of the clothes, and often finds herself adopting looser-fitting undershirts and jackets. When travelling the snowy roads of Ilia, Johanna dons a long wool coat with fur lining she took from the Manor. Under it is her usual clothing: a set of tall, brown leather boots, warm brown leggings, a cloth skirt and a leather shirt over both a long and short sleeved undershirt. She keeps her copy of Lux Divinae attached to her belt in case she needs to quickly use it to defend herself, and she carries a pack with rations, two vulneraries, and a handful of blank journals and pieces of graphite so she can write wherever she is.

Personality: If there was one word to describe Johanna Notare, it would be “driven.” As soon as the woman commits herself to something she loves, there is almost nothing in the world that can stop Johanna from going after what she wants. She pushes herself harder than her father ever did, which is why she was so frustrated when he didn’t understand her devotion to the things she was interested in rather than what he wanted her to be interested in.

Johanna is also extremely creative, which lends well to her aspiration as writer Hanne Clark. She’s penned a dozen novels at this point, with her serials growing more popular every time she releases a new installment. While she doesn’t mind the attention her books get, it’s sometimes frustrating to her that she can’t claim credit for the work she does as Hanne, though it only resurfaces when a fan of Hanne brings up one of her own books to her. She’ll often try to change the subject as quickly as she can when this happens, just as she does when any mention of her family comes up as well.

While she’s willing to help those in need, Johanna’s main goal now that she’s been liberated from the manor is to tell both the stories she comes up with, as well as the stories of the people she meets and things she experiences. She has to push herself to go out of her way for other people, though this isn’t ill will so much as it is her being preoccupied with the next big idea or big story.

Story: Daughter to the Notare noble house of Ilia, much of Johanna’s life had been decided for her not long after she was born. Lord Edmund Notare III, a very traditional man, had a very specific plan for his family, including how he desired each of his children to contribute to his great nation. A nationalist at heart, Lord Notare thought it only fit to devote his children to the place he loved most, in any way he could. So as soon as he found out about each of his wife’s pregnancies, Lord Notare prayed and consulted with his court bishop to determine the best course for the future child.

Lord Notare made it through four children without much discontent regarding their chosen paths. The oldest, Edmund IV, was set on the path to be the heir to the estate, while the second Alexander was dedicated to becoming an officer in the Ilian army. Lord Notare’s third son and first daughter, twins Hank and Harriet, were educated in the arts, with Hank taking to poetry while Harriet was naturally talented in painting.

And as stringently as the Lord’s children were taught to respect their predestinies, there were murmurs of discontent that still rippled through the family. Hank was secretly jealous of Alexander’s talent with a sword, while Edmund IV desperately wanted to cast away all of the responsibility given to him and travel the world. Despite their dreams, though, all of the children kept on the paths their father set for them, largely trusting that he had their best interests at heart.

When informed of Lady Notare’s fifth pregnancy, the court bishop made clear it was Elimine’s intent for this child to be given to the church. A devout man, Lord Notare was more than pleased to hand over his child to study and devote herself to the faith he felt so strongly for. So Johanna Notare was born with the full intention of being placed into the convent as soon as turned 18, which was when the Lord determined she would be old enough to leave. Until then, she was taught much about the history of Elibe, the church of St. Elimine, and the Light, as well as how to read and write, as the convent she would be placed in produced the best scribes in all of Ilia.

But Johanna, as she was named, was anything but compliant with her father’s plan. When she should have been reading her history tomes, Johanna would sneak off to engross herself in fiction serials. Close to her brother Hank, who shared her love for fiction, she had him sneak her the latest serial novels she was dying to read so the two of them could gossip and wonder what would happen next. At a young age she would read about knights in shining armor saving damsels in distress, dreaming her own knight would take her away so she wouldn’t have to go to the convent like her father wanted.

As she grew older, she read of great adventurers traversing strange lands, again dreaming of the places she’d see if she could leave the manor. She even started to concoct her own stories with Hank, often finishing serials that they couldn’t wait for the ending for while she was supposed to practice her handwriting. Hank always dreamed up grand battles between powerful armies, while Johanna wrote of hopeful travelers setting out into Elibe and places she had only read about in her history books. Her father and mother scolded only Johanna for her stories, telling her she was wasting her talent meant for scribing.

Once she was a teen, Johanna’s acts of rebellion became more pronounced, as she knew she was drawing closer to the day she would be sent to the convent. She started skipping her lessons entirely, sneaking out of the manor to the nearby Edessa and hanging out in the markets looking for new books to read. She was never able to stay out of the manor for long, her father’s men always finding her and bringing her back to be scolded to no end. All of the Notare children were all too familiar with the shouting matches that occurred between Johanna and the Lord after her countless attempts to abscond to Edessa.

While the plan had been to send Johanna away on her 18th birthday, the Lord had enough of his daughter’s insolence long before that milestone came. After discussing with the court bishop, the Lord handed his daughter over two years earlier than planned, believing a life in the convent would be the cure to her rebelliousness. Johanna was heartbroken to be taken away from her brothers and sister, but could do very little to combat her fate. The convent was in a small village not far from Edessa, though because of the strict schedules the Mothers laid out for the ladies in the convent, Johanna had no time to think about visiting the city as she used to.

Johanna resigned herself to convent life at first, trying to commit herself to the life that had been assigned to her. But the routine of the life bored her to no end, as hard as she tried to devote herself to it as those around her did. Her mind wandered during prayer hours, during scribing hours, during chores, and even kept her awake at night, tugging at her as if telling her this wasn’t the life for her. To keep her mind sharp, she recanted her favorite novels as during prayers and as she fell asleep at night.

But after a while, the memorized stories weren’t enough to keep her engaged amid the simple life of the sisters. Soon she started to dream up her own stories again, finding ways to write them down as the sisters scribed around her by slipping stray scraps of parchment into her robes. The Mother Superior didn’t notice the paper disappearing at first, but as Johanna kept writing her stories, the ideas coming from her were coming too fast for her to keep up with on just scraps. After Johanna started taking full pieces, Mother Superior noticed the parchment disappearing quicker than usual and began keeping a closer watch during the scribing hours.

Not wanting to be caught stealing the parchment, Johanna stopped writing her own stories for a while, instead focusing on the texts they were supposed to be scribing instead. During this particular month, the sisters were scribing a tome by the name of “Lux Divinae,” more commonly known to contain the incantations and devotions used by acolytes blast foes with a bolt of divine light. For once Johanna was intrigued by the work they were scribing; instead of emptily rewriting the words she read, Johanna made a point to memorize the majority of the text while also trying to understand how it worked. She was scolded for her languorousness as the young woman’s work slowed as she tried to make sure she remembered the text of the magic tome, but Johanna pushed on.

After two months, Johanna found herself again with her memory expanded but nothing to challenge her again, as her task was still to transcribe the Light tome now stuck in her mind. So again she drifted into her own worlds, and before long she was back to stealing parchment to write her stories. At this point, she’d almost completed her first serial, a series of five short stories about a young monk who left his mountain monastery to travel the world, helping villages and even finding love. But with every page that brought her closer to finishing the serial, Johanna grew more careless in taking their paper, to the point that the other sisters knew the theft was occurring.

It wasn’t long before Johanna was exposed to Mother Superior for her crimes. Stealing from the convent was one of the most disdainful things a sister could do, and as such, as soon as she was told she forced Johanna to pack up what she had and leave the convent after having been there for seven years. While thrilled to finally be able to leave, Johanna wasn’t prepared for her father’s wrath that she’d left behind when she went to the convent. As soon as she arrived back at the manor, her father screamed for what felt like days, and he only looked at her with absolute disgrace in his eyes. Seeing no other option for his failed child, the Lord launched into a search for one of his allies’ sons to betroth his rapscallion of a daughter to. Not thinking her father Johanna did little to protest, instead focusing on reuniting with her siblings, especially Hank, she hadn’t seen since leaving for the convent.

Thrilled with what she’d written in her time away, Johanna begged Hank to read her serial. Hank obliged as he was just as excited as his sister. While the young woman’s first serial was nowhere near perfect, Hank - now a published poet and author himself - was impressed by his sister’s knack for description and telling an engaging story. He edited it as he read, offering Johanna the chance to have the edited manuscript submitted to his publisher, where it could potentially be distributed. Johanna was thrilled, though she and Hank agreed it was best she submit it under a pseudonym. Thus Hanne Clark was born, and “his” first serial novel, “A Monk’s Tale” was distributed in shops and markets around the city markets in Elibe.

Lord Notare had not been idle while Johanna and Hank had been working on her novel, though. A few weeks after Hank gave Johanna the good news of her book being accepted, the father announced that Johanna had been betrothed to the son of House Allesi of Etruria and was to marry him within the year. Shocked and furious that her father had gone through with yet another plan for her life, Johanna begged her father to just let her do as she wished, feeling she’d already tried to do what he wanted and failed. But as always, their talks escalated into a fight, though this would be the last Johanna would have with her father. As the two screamed, Johanna stormed from the manor with little more than the clothes on her back as her father ordered her to never step foot in his home again.

Cast out of her home, Johanna was determined to not let herself wallow in her misery, instead taking her newfound freedom as a chance to travel as she had always wished she could. Her first stop was Edessa, though, as she knew the first thing she wanted to do was find a copy of the tome she had memorized while still at the convent, believing she could maybe cast the magic within its pages. Using some of the money Hank sent her from her serial, Johanna found someone to teach her more about the words she knew by heart, actually showing her how to manipulate the spirits and call on the light in the way the scripture instructed.

Now Johanna is determined to travel and see Elibe as she always wanted, and of course pen as many stories she can as she goes. She writes to Hank often, who she sends her stories to so they can be published as Hanne Clark’s work. Her romance serials are rather popular amongst Etrurian nobles, surprisingly, though Johanna only cares that she can finally do what she loves. According to her brother their father still intends to find her and marry her to the noble of the Allesi house, so Johanna does her best to keep under the radar until she hears her father has lost interest in “fixing” her.

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

Accepted.