Real Name: Valeria

Identity/Class: Human conventional melee weapons-user
    Hyborian era (circa 10,000 BC)

Occupation: Adventurer; later pirate

Group Membership: The Red Brotherhood

Affiliations: Antonius Cabreara, Giorgi, Kazit, Lorenz, Mitra, Mitran priests, Father Romano
    unidentified priests of Mitra

Enemies: Lord Blasius, Cloviz, Mateo, Zingaran pirates;
    people who abuse others;
    formerly Lorenz

Known Relatives: Unidentified father (deceased), unidentified mother (deceased)
    Cassian (brother, deceased)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Aquilonia

First Appearance: Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (October, 2019)

Powers/Abilities: Valeria is a highly-skilled swordswoman and fighter, able to outfight multiple armed adult men.

    She can take multiple punches (and/or kicks) from a large adult man and keep fighting, even using an arm that had been slashed by a sword.

    She can scale a high wall via a grappling hook and rope, and she can ride horses.

History:

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb) - BTS) - Valeria was born during one of the wars between her country, Aquilonia, and neighboring Nemedia.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb)) - When she was 9-years-old, Zingaran pirates raided their village. Her father, more merchant than warrior, tried to protect her mother and her but was slain.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb) / Age of Conan: Valeria#3 (fb)) - As Valeria told her mother that she was scared, her mother hid her in a space below the ground that her father had made for her, telling her that they were going to play a game that involved hiding from Zingaran pirates. Her mother told her not to make a sound no matter what she heard, and Valeria remained silent while hearing her mother presumably being raped and then slain.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb)) - Valeria was subsequently taken into the household of her brother, Cassian, one of the king's royal guardsmen-in-training.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#5 (fb)) - Cassian spent the little money their parents had left him to make sure his sister had the best of everything: the villa in which they lived, horses (and a pony for Valeria) and servants.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#5 (fb) - BTS) - Unable to provide so much on a knight's salary, Cassian apparently began taking risks and eventually dirty jobs from lord high steward Blasius.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb)) - Valeria wanted to be just like Cassian Strong, brave and afraid of nothing and no one. She practiced using a wooden sword against a tree. However, she frequently wandered, and Cassian felt that she would rather be anywhere but with him.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#5 (fb) - BTS) - As Blasius visited Cassian frequently, Valeria came to hate the site of him, not just because his coming meant that Cassian was leaving, but because of the look in Cassian's eyes after he returned: Like he had left a piece of himself behind.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#2 (fb)) - Antonius trained Valeria, hinting that he was training her without Cassian's knowledge as she was a warrior, and advising her that she relied too much on strength; and while she may not be stronger than a man, she could be smarter. He advised her use an opponent's momentum against him, and she swiftly did so, causing Antonius to fall to the ground at her mercy.

    While she wished she could be one of his squires, he advised her to find peace where she was at the time. Cassian subsequently arrived, and he and Antonius departed to have a drink so he could forget he had just seen his sister swinging a sword like a man.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#3 (fb)) - Valeria walked in to see Cassius bidding Antonius farewell. Although he told her that he had received an urgent summons from the king, she was furious that he was going to leave without saying goodbye. When he offered her the chance to say goodbye then, she tearfully ran off, saying she had never had a chance to say a proper goodbye before, so why change things now.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb) - BTS) - After Cassian had been killed, Valeria resolved to become the best swordswoman in all of Aquilonia, ultimately desiring to have the man who had killed Cassian at her feet, begging her not to kill him.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb) - BTS) - Giorgi repeatedly attempted to pickpocket Valeria, but he was consistently caught and battered by her as a result; each time, he promised not to do it again.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1) <Approximately 10 years after Cassian's death> - Valeria beat down Giorgi for trying to pickpocket her again. When he promised not to do it again, she reminded him that he said that every time, and she advised him that one of these days his little pickpocketing trick was going to get him killed. After she chugged a beer, the bartender, Kazit, told Valeria that she was the only person on whom Giorgi still pulled that trick, presumably because he would rather she beat him up than ignore him. When she told him about her plans to go to Tarantia, he warned her that she didn't know anything about surviving in a city that size, but she disregarded his warning, noting that she would never stop in her obsession until the man who murdered her brother was kneeling at her feet, begging her to kill him.

    When she returned to the former town in which she had lived with Cassian, she saw a man forging a sword, but when she introduced herself, he attacked her. After disarming him, she introduced herself again, telling him that she was looking for a blacksmith named Lorenz, and the man noted that to be his father, who used to make swords for the King's guard.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#2) - When her bound assailant awakened, Valeria identified him as the father of the blacksmith she had met the day before. He (Lorenz) explained that Mitrans and those associated with him had been disappearing, and as he and his family had long made sword for Mitran knights, he thought that she had been sent to kill him and his son.

    She asked his help to find the sword's owner, Antonius, to warn him of the threat to Mitran knights, and he advised her to visit the Mitran monastery a half day's ride from there.

    As she approached the monastery, she was lassoed by Mateo and brought before his friends, Cloviz and another, a trio of mercenaries. When they refused to let her go, she attacked, knocking out Mateo and knocking down Cloviz, but taking a deep wound to her left upper arm from the third, who kicked her in the face while she was down.

    Falling beside Cloviz, whom she had previously knocked down, she threatened to kill Cloviz if the third didn't back off; however, the third instead slew Cloviz, noting that they were mercenaries and didn't have friends. However, when he tried to finish off Valeria, she stabbed him through the chest. 

    Valeria subsequently made it to the Monastery of Mitra and knocked on its door before collapsing and being found by a priest, presumably Father Romano.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#3 (fb) - BTS) - The Mitran priest cared for Valeria for a week, during which she had a fever, which broke the day before the main story.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#3) - Valeria began training with her sword again, and she asked the priest about the history of the Mitrans, and he told her he was happy to provide a book on the subject.

    Not wanting to wait, Valeria sought out the book while the other priests were praying, but she tripped and collapsed, and she was found by Antonius.

    While she recovered, the Monastery was attacked. Insisting she could help, Valeria was instructed to find Father Thomas who would put her to work bandaging burns and aiding any wounded. Although never having been bothered by blood, the sight and smell of the burn victims reminded her of her village being burned by pirates. When she tried to look over the wall at their attackers, another priest had her duck done as a something exploded on the wall, and she was distraught to see that he had been killed in the explosion.

    As the leader of the attackers, Lord Blasius, ordered Father Romano to send out "the traitor" or they would burn the place to the ground, Valeria saw Antonius standing with Romano. While Romano insisted that all within were loyal to Aquilonia, Blasius told him he had 24-hours.

    After listening to Antonius speaking to Father Romano, Valeria approached Antonius' door, but as she hesitated, thinking him her brother's killer, he opened it and greeted her.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#4) - Valeria sat and talked with Antonius, torn between her memories and past feelings of brotherly love for him and her desire to kill him for the perceived slaying of Cassian. Antonius told him how Blasius was lord high steward when Cassian and he were in the king's guard and that he used to come by the house to see Cassian, briefly mentioning power and politics before moving to another subject.

    After Antonius walked her back to her room, Valeria slipped out of the monastery and used a grappling hook and rope to scale the wall guarding Blasius' keep. With most of the guards passed out drunk, she slipped into Blasius' room and put a knife to his throat.

    Appreciating that if she had come to kill him, she would have done so already, he asked why she had sneaked into his chambers. When she asked about Cassian, Blasius realized that she was his sister, Valeria. He told her that he was proud to have known Cassian and that he had wanted to offer his assistance to her after Cassian's death but that he had been away on king's business and by the time he had returned, she was gone. He then named Antonius as a murderer and a traitor, noting how he and his knights had committed many heresies against Mitra and had conspired to undermine their king and seize control of Aquilonia.

    Blasius then told her of Cassian's fate and how Antonius had murdered him when Cassian opposed their plot to kill the ambassador of Zamora. Back at the monastery, Father Romano brought Valeria the books she had sought, and she considered that everyone to whom she had spoken had fed her their own version of the truth. Ultimately, she went into Antonius' room to slay him in his sleep, but she found herself unable to strike.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#5) - As Valeria put her sword down, Antonius, who had left a padded roll in his bed, approached, telling her that she was no killer. She then attacked him, accusing him of murdering her brother. Although he fended off her attacks, he then told her that he had loved her and Cassian like family and that he could never hurt her. Admitting to having tried to stop Cassian, he knelt on the ground and told her to do what she had come to do.

    When she demanded to know the truth, he asked "even if it meant the destruction of everything she had ever loved?" and she acknowledged "Yes, even then." Antonius then related how Cassian had been driven to be the best and that he began to resent the very people he had pledged to protect. He further related that after Valeria had come to live with them, how he spent the little money their parents had left him to make sure his sister had the best of everything.

    As Antonius explained that you couldn't provide so much on a knight's salary, Valeria punched him, furious that he would try to undermine her brother's love for her and to try to make this her fault. Taking the punch, Antonius asked her where she thought Cassian had gotten the money for the villa, the horses and the servants.

    Antoninus continued how Cassian wanted everything for Valeria, and so he took risks that progressively brought him to a place from which there was no return. Ultimately, Antonius told her how Cassian had fatally poisoned the Zamoran ambassador and that when Antonius had confronted him about it, Cassian had grabbed Antonius' sword and killed himself with it. Having fled to seek help, he was captured along with the other Mitran knights in the king's service, branded as traitors and sentenced to death. Antonius escaped prison and had been in hiding since, and he had never again picked up a sword.

    After Antonius shared the letter to Cassian from Blasius about the assassination, Valeria recalled Blasius' presence from the past, and she considered that Blasius had been the one to kill Cassian.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#5 (fb) - BTS) -  Valeria fatally stabbed Blasius, possibly with Cassian's old sword.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#5) - Valeria continued her quest to be the best swordswoman who ever lived, and she also resolved to help people, starting with beating down a man at a tavern who was manhandling the waitress.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (flash forward) - BTS) - Valeria became a member of the Red Brotherhood, a name for pirates.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb) - BTS) - Valeria was born during one of the wars between her country, Aquilonia, and neighboring Nemedia.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb)) - When she was 9-years-old, Zingaran pirates raided their village. Her father, more merchant than warrior, tried to protect her mother and her but was slain.

(Age of Conan: Valeria#1 (fb) / Age of Conan: Valeria#3 (fb)) - As Valeria told her mother that she was scared, her mother hid her in a space below the ground that her father had made for her, telling her that they were going to play a game that involved hiding from Zingaran pirates. Her mother told her not to make a sound no matter what she heard, and Valeria remained silent while hearing her mother presumably being raped and then slain.