Character creation and setting discussion

@therecusant I am happy to share a relationship with Severian. In his backstory, Augustine's family are also minor nobles and his father served as an officer in the imperial guard. It could be that he and Severian are cousins and depending on how cordial we want their pre-existing relationship it could either be that we are directly blood relatives or it could be that Augustine is related to your siblings via their mother but not to you, meaning we are not blood relatives and perhaps that creates a bit of tension?

That second choice sounds like a lot of fun.

I would assume if you were a bastard child you wouldn't carry the noble name, you would carry your Mother's surname? You could have been 'recognised' as an heir but then would it make sense that you got sent to the Schola Progenium? Either way I'll leave that up to you. I envisage the de Gäel's as a military family so if you'd like to go the blood-relation route then perhaps both our Father's were involved in the military in some way? This could also still be the case for the non-blood relation route too. Perhaps another member of our family like an uncle or great uncle is teaches at/runs/is involved in the academy we attended? Whether there was a crossover of when we attended depends on how old your character is (Augustine is in his 60s).

I like this idea of us getting on but having an underlying animosity in the background. Augustine would respect you regardless for you abilities but he is very prideful and would likely view a bastard child as a mark of 'dishonour' on the family name and he probably had a poor relationship with your Father because of his infidelity. Not sure about the last point at this stage, but I think it would be more interesting if it wasn't coincidence.

Shall we get back to it?

Sounds like a good plan!