Poor little heart with its ruined gardens

⏵ player information
name and pronouns: Bri, she/her
age: 21+
contact: ThriceWiddershins, PM journal

⏵ character information
name: Cassandra de Rolo
canon: Critical Role (campaign 1)
age: 14
canon point: Pre-stream, around two years into her captivity with the Briarwoods.
history: Cassandra de Rolo has had a VERY. TRAUMATIC. LIFE. Her early childhood was happy; she was the youngest of seven children, born to the noble family that ruled the city of Whitestone. And life was good.

A little over 5 years before the campaign began, at least, and it’s a little bit longer than that what are timelines, a Lord and Lady Briarwood came to court. They were invited in as guests... and then viciously attacked the family and their household. Her parents, and all her siblings save one, were murdered. Her brother, Percy, was captured and taken to the dungeon. Cassandra freed him, and together they fled.

But as they fled she took several arrows to the chest, and fell. Terrified, and thinking her dead, Percy left her behind.

She wasn’t, however. She was found as she lay bleeding out in the snow by some hunters from Whitestone, who recognized her. They began to nurse her back to health, when associates of the Briarwoods found them. They slaughtered the hunters and dragged Cassandra back to the castle. The Briarwoods hung her family’s bodies from the Sun Tree, the large tree that stands in the centre of Whitestone, as warning. And to hurt Cassandra. She’s been trying to escape them for years now, and every time she’s caught and dragged back, and punished for it. Still she keeps trying. She’ll be coming in shortly after her most recent attempt. And the punishment that followed.
abilities: In Critical Role proper, Cassandra shows no signs of magical or supernatural abilities. All her abilities and skills are learned and taught. She’s skilled in fighting, specially with swords and daggers. And her mother made sure that she taught her youngest daughter all the roguish skills she had, so stealth, lock-picking, evasion, etc. (Cassandra’s class levels are in rogue, so it makes sense.) She’s noble-born, the daughter of the ruling family of Whitestone, so she’s very well educated. It runs in her family. Only more so, because she is an avid seeker of knowledge. She grew up learning politics and history and languages and all the things needed to rule a city. And she’s immensely skilled in it all. Also dance, and music (she’s very skilled on several instruments, as well as singing), and needlework. The other side of being noble-born.
personality: Cassandra is… complicated, even as young as she is. She’s been through a great trauma, and is still IN said trauma at her current canon point. She’s watched her family be murdered, watched her brother abandon her in the snow thinking she was dead, watched the hunters who took her in and saved her life be murdered by the Briarwoods/their underlings before being back to the castle that had once been her home.

And now has to LIVE there, forced to live as a member of the Briarwood’s family. It’s constant and unending.

She’s always been older than her years (she’s described in Matt Mercer’s narration as being 8 going on 40), and she is WILFULLY stubborn, and at her current canon point filled with so much anger and sorrow and grief. None of which she can express, beyond the stubbornness. She’s two years into her captivity with the Briarwoods, and she continually tries t o escape. No matter how many times she’s dragged back to them. She tries again.

She’s guarded, and wary, and weary, too, honestly. She can’t ever truly rest or let her guard down in Whitestone anymore. When I was first thinking about apping her from this canon point I described her as a half-feral cat, and it’s the truth. She’s going to be prickly and suspicious as all hell because what if this is just another game the Briarwoods are playing? She doesn’t know.

And all the while she’s terribly sarcastic and snarky. (It’s a de Rolo family trait.)


samples: Sample 1. Sample 2.