Friends and Enemies: Dottore Luigi Vasso and the Carlo Estates

Doctor Luigi Vasso
The learnéd Luigi Vasso is a canon lawyer and a doctor of the church who has served Cardinal Ernesto Denzelli de Bernoulli at the various church Conclaves throughout his life. He was also appointed tutor to the young Fortunato Ernesto di Carlo. He grew up in Numa and was admitted to an order of monks in that city in his early life. He befriended the former cardinal Giovanni Orsini (who was in line to become the Vaticine Hierophant, with a plan to return the seat of the church to Numa all in place when he died), who sent him to be trained at the cathedral school of Numa. After the death of his patron, Luigi became the professional scribe and lawyer of the newly-appointed Enersto de Bernoulli and took up a position training the young Fortunato in the Vodacce countryside.

Luigi Vasso is a slight man, standing only 5'4". He was born in 1609 and is in his 59th year. He wears the black and white robes of a Vatacine priest and the pinched glasses of a man who has struggled overlong at the reading of small text. He usually has fingerless gloves to keep his hands warm but leave them free for writing. He is always seen carrying a leather satchel filled with inks, pens, and parchments.

Father Vasso has greying hair and goes clean-shaven. His one true love in life is a fine port and some time at the end of an evening to read a book before the sun sets. He is never more content than when in Vodacce, and never more harried than when forced to be on the road. He has a deep reverence for books, libraries, and learning, and has tried throughout his whole life to impart that love (unsuccessfully) on his ward, Fortunato.

The Carlo Estates
In the central regions of the Vodacce peninsula, some 45 miles from the great city of Numa, there lies the estate known as Carlaterre. Eisen barbarians once settled this region as Numan soldiers and its name comes from an Old Eisen word meaning man (cearl). The sleepy hamlets of the region eventually give way to the di Carlo manor and its estates where Fortunato grew up to manhood. It is not far from the land of the Orenza, just over the next rise.

Upon the old half-forested estate there stands a crumbling stone manor of ancient provenance. Still mired in the ancient structure of the middle ages, the di Carlo have made minor updates to it, but it never entered the great golden renaissance of the rest of Vodacce. A single tenant farmer named Alfonzo and his family till the soil beyond the park.

There are five servants in the house—the seneschal and major-domo, decrepit Augustino, the stablegirl Olivia, and a handful of domestics who keep the manor up. Rare has been the day that Fortunato has returned to this slumbering place, preferring instead to have Augustino forward the receipts to him wherever he is staying.