Valor van Merit

Valor van Merit
Born	January 12th
Known as	Val, the Winter Prince
Known for	Warlock vassal of Titania, the Archfey
Species	Half-elf
Gender	Male
Age	23
Eyes	Gold, luminous
Hair	Always windswept; black, later turns white
Affiliations	The Summer Court
Education	National College of Wizardry
Occupation	Sales associate, thaumaturge
Alignment	Lawful good
Created for	Dungeons and Dragons

Have you ever wished you had a crystal that could heal a broken heart? A magical concoction to perfect your skin? A bouquet that could turn away energy vampires?

Valor van Merit can provide all that and more.

Biography

Val grew up the middle child in a middle-class suburban family. He made it to college to study wizardry, but once there he struggled. Hard. Wizardry is not a natural talent for him.

To avoid failing out of school, he made a pact with the fey queen, Titania, and spent a summer abroad in her beautiful, terrible palace. It was a straightforward deal, at first: she gave him an easy way to use and access power, and he spread her influence in the mortal plane, selling magical wellness products. During the day he worked in a resort gift shop. At night, went into the depths of society to get strange artifacts and hawked them to influential people for very little money (fortune is not Titania's goal).

As the years passed, her influence over him grew - and his interest in being her vassal faded. His need for a certain kind of success, which was so desperate when he was in school, felt less relevant to him as an adult. He realized the gravity of his situation when Titania began speaking to him through his dreams, making bigger and bigger demands of him.

Val attempted to escape his fate by not sleeping, but Titania eventually sent a fixer named Lavanila after him. Lavanila brought him back to the Summer Court with her just in time for him to fulfill the ultimate sacrifice that Titania asked of him. Titania was about to go into hibernation, and she needed someone to keep watch over her court when summer ended. That person was Val.

And that was how Val became the Winter Prince.

Appearance

A short king with a, shall we say, scholarly body type. He likes mixing black with bright colors, especially purple, and favors streetwear style with lots of accessories. As he starts to lose control of his life, he also loses his passion for fashion. (To sleep, he wears novelty t-shirts he thrifted and cut into crop tops and his old gym sweatpants.)

Before Titania, he was unpopular and lacked social grace but wasn't smart enough to be a nerd. She blessed him with charisma and grace, making him infinitely more cool than he was in high school. Part of why he doesn't want to sever ties with her is that he's afraid of losing that. He views all of his relationships as inherently transactional, which is something rooted in his issues with self-esteem. He assumes that people like him because he can be of use to them - whether that be because of his status or his entertainment value or his magical abilities.

Affiliations

The Summer Court

Titania rules over a fruitful land of muted colors, populated entirely by fey women, most of whom are as blonde as she is. She's part luna moth, part borzoi, part mantis shrimp, part Gwyneth, part Taylor, part Bowie, part Maris, all anime, all woman. She communicates with Val through dreams and visions. She wears long, voluminous dresses and never shows her face to conceal the fact that the bottom half of her is a rotting corpse and she has black Other Mother eyes - the distinction between "otherworld" and "underworld" is hazy.

Lavanila, one of Titania's attendants, was assigned to teach Val magic while he was in the court. They don't have a romantic relationship, but it sure seems like they do. Back in his regular life, she's the one who tracked him down when he went too far off course, like a bounty hunter.

Quotes

From Tam Lin:

At the end of seven years
She pays a tithe to Hell
I so far and full of flesh
I fear it be myself

From The Faerie Queene:

Upon a great adventure he was bond,
That greatest Gloriana to him gave,
That greatest Glorious Queene of Faerie lond,
To winne him worship, and her grace to have,
Which of all earthly things he most did crave;

By Jenny Holzer:

AFFLUENT COLLEGE-BOUND STUDENTS FACE THE REAL PROSPECT OF DOWNWARD MOBILITY. FEELINGS OF ENTITLEMENT CLASH WITH THE AWARENESS OF IMMINENT SCARCITY. THERE IS RESENTMENT AT GROWING UP AT THE END OF AN ERA OF PLENTY COUPLED WITH REASSESSMENT OF CONVENTIONAL MEASURES OF SUCCESS.

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