Lucan Bloom

A secondborn son, Lucan did not anticipate Lordship, nor did he particularly covet it; though he cannot be accused of squandering its many perquisites now that it has fallen to him. Since the scourging of Lordaeron and the exile of his house, Lucan has overseen the rebirth of the Bough into a wandering network of retainers, refugees, merchants, spies, and scholars. Gifted with a **dexterous tongue** and a **theatrical elegance**, Lucan is socially agile — perceptive enough to understand what others want, and charming enough to rarely fail in securing his own desired outcome. He is quick to laugh, to tease, to sulk, to flirt, and to dramatise; and slow to abdicate the centre of attention. He carries a sort of predatory instinct within a social setting; swift in detecting weaknesses, ambitions and insecurities. Swifter still in exploiting them. In this sense, he does not hold himself to much, if any, of a moral code. He sees little contradiction in flattering a rival while holding a knife to their back, or to dangle a Damoclean threat above a presumed ally. Secrets, favours and affections all hold a political currency to him, and he is entirely willing to exchange them to further his own ambitions. In isolation, Lucan may find himself intellectually outwitted, tactically outmanoeuvred, or strategically outplayed; but his eye for talent in others has spared him from needing to carry the weight of his house alone. He **delegates freely**, surrounds himself with specialists and seasoned advisors, and takes pride in growing what has become a mostly self-sufficient ecosystem. As such, Lucan is a man who seems oddly free of stress or worry — aloof in crisis, slow to panic, and possessed with an **irritating confidence** in inevitable resolution. His composure might seem inspiring in victory, but almost certainly verges upon **complacency**. More than likely, this sense of infallibility is a symptom of a deeper **arrogance**. One would be forgiven for finding Lucan vexing in his haughtiness. He is a man, indeed, with a **rather high opinion of himself**. For much of his life he was peripheral to inheritance and expectation, having been accustomed to being overlooked as a second son. Lordship has altered that arrangement, and Lucan has graciously embraced the reversal. To this day, however, he is easily stung when overlooked or dismissed, and seems to **feed off of approval**, or, in its absence, the satisfaction of proving someone wrong. Lucan has a **fondness for all of life's beautiful things**. In many ways, he is a hedonist; finding great pleasure in interesting people, fine clothes, grandiloquent poetry, fine wines, danger, and mystery. He holds something of a romantic appetite for **forbidden and curséd things**, and is involved with a long dalliance with the dark, having privately studied occult magicks from a young age. This same **romanticism** perhaps fuels his passion for **doomed causes and underdogs**, and shines through in his general sentimentality towards good stories and grand gestures. Despite his many distasteful idiosyncrasies, Lucan is **not a heartless man**. He does seem, at least, to genuinely care about the survival and even prosperity of those in his charge. While portraying himself as a shepherd among exiles and outsiders is undoubtedly beneficial to his Lordly image, it does not seem to be entirely separate from his true aspiration. Lucan appears to believe, with unusual sincerity, that a noble house is measured as much by the people gathered beneath it as by the land it commands. His approach to leadership can be possessive and self-serving, but his **affection and loyalty to his people**, at the very least, seems not to be inauthentic.