//Unlike the newspapers, this is not for anyone but me to use IC.
For just over 80 years the Manners' have been a part of Barovia. The first was three generations back. A man from Toril, wise and aging was in his study. He was reading and studying, as was his custom. "A sharp mind is a quick mind, and a quick mind is the kind that strives," Was his motto. For a man of his intelligence, it was not great, but it was good advice, at the least.
His name was Marcus Manners. In his youth he had been quite the dashing young man; Now he was graying, had crows feet on his eyes, yet still held a spark for life that kept his eyes intense and his jaw squared.
He was a teacher by trade, and a student by hobby. As a rule he only taught one person at a time, and he required them to be mature enough to understand the importance of studying.
Now, as he sat in his study, studying as life-long students will, something happened that his studies had never taught him. Dark gray mists enveloped his room. He went for his lantern, but the light did little to help his visibility. He scooped up his large book and stumbled out the door and into the hallway, but they too were full of mist and fog. He ran down the stairs, but the stairs leveled out into a dirt road and not carpet.
For days he wandered the mists until his stomach had given up on growling for food. Then, as magically as they had come, the mists departed, and before him stood a small, quaint town, bordering a large foreboading castle.
He came to live here, and came to call it as the locals did: Barovia.
His clothes were rich and bright, so he began to don modest earth tones. He also fell in love, finally. All his life he had been trying to find love, and it took him getting lost for it to find him. He married a young Barovian woman 30 years younger than him. He was shunned by the villagers, but she didn't mind. She was shunned too, for she was a widow. They made love nightly, their lust for each other never fading for an instant, until the day death seperated them.
Before that happened though, they had a son whom they named Maximus Manners. Marcus taught Max from the day he was born all the things which he had learned in his own studies. An educated child, Max was often held in contempt by the xenophobic villagers of Barovia, yet he contained the same zest that his father did, and so his eyes showed intense and his jaw squared as well. As he grew older he began to teach his father a few things even, and together they wrote these things in the large collection of his fathers lessons, in the large book he'd brought with him through the mists. His father taught him, "There are good people, and bad people. Some people will accept you for the educated man you are, and some will shun you for it. The latter are ignorant, and they may not wish to change that. You can't make them, so move on, and find someone who will accept you." Max did move on, and moved on often. Still, he was stalwart and cheerful, and eventually found a woman who accepted him. He was not nearly as old as his father when he wed, yet was still just as excited about her as his father had always been for his mother. He loved her often, and before long he too had had a child.
Meril Manners was this childs name. The beginning of his childhood was happy, but around the age of eight his grandfather Marcus died at an almost unnaturally old age. One year later his grandmother died as well. It was rumored that she died of a broken heart. He took these deaths hard, and the life faded a bit from his eyes. His jaw slackened. Children made fun of him for his education and proper tongue, and he fell deeper into despair. His father tried to pull him out of it, but death had not yet released its grip on their lives. Merils mother, Max's wife, died young. Max and Meril suffered in the following days, having lost everyone they loved, but each other. Max tried to teach Meril constantly then, as he had the same greed of knowlege that his father did. Meril would have none of it though. He distanced himself from his father, his studies, and gave in to the torments of the neighbor children. He found himself lost in a black sea of sorrow. Misery rained on him like freezing water and chilled him to his bones. He finally took the only stand he knew how, and with sad eyes and an unfirm jaw told his father that he would no longer continue his studies. The legacy was broken. His father cried hard then. As hard as he had at the loss of his parents and his wife. Perhaps harder. Still, he watched over his son with all the love a father is capable of, and gave him ground to walk on. Eventually Meril came to love his father as well, yet still found he resented him. For his studies, for his charm, his wit, and perhaps most of all because he was still alive. He didn't go down with the ship. He took the large book of Marcus Manners when it was his time to carry it on, and locked it away in his room, never to open it again.
Meril wed a Barovian woman as well, and had a son and no daughters, just like his father and grandfather. She was beauitful, and kind, and soft, much like his mother had been. He even thought she resembeled his mother, though he couldn't remember truely what she looked like.
Just like his father and grandfather, they had one child together. A son.
Marius Manners was born the son of Meril Manners, grandson of Max Manners, and great grandson of the wondrous and late Marcus Manners, 7/8th Barovian. He did menial work often, laborous chores, and everything else his father asked him with a hop in his step. He often baled hay, cleaned up after the cows, even had several crushes in his youth. He shared kisses with them often, in his daydreams. His eyes were intense and his chin was squared. The Manners once again had a lust for life. His father never tried to smite it out, though envied it much, as he had with his father. He also would not teach the young Marius, so that burden fell upon his aging grandfather. Max taught Marius everything he could remember from the book, except for the most important of lessons. Those he could not be taught until he was a man. It was a rule passed down much as the legacy had been, from Marcus. No one can learn the most important knowlege possible until they could truely appreciate and understand it. Marius was taught tongues- Many tongues! He was also taught math, anatomy, and even came to his grandfather for advice on girls, from time to time. Marius had an eye for them, and it caused his grandfather to smile, despite the inherant dangers of such a thing.
Sadly the lessons could not carry on. His grandfather Maximus passed away while he was still a teenager. On his deathbed he whispered some secret in Marius' ear. Marius went home, found the locked chest in his fathers room, and cracked it open. He fled his house with the book in hand, leaving his life, his crushes, and his family behind. He would study, he would learn first hand from life experiences, and he would not be weighed down by his fathers hand.
It was time for Marius to become a man.