Aldern Foxglvoe

Lord Aldern Foxglove (son of the late Traver and Cyralie Foxglove, brother of Sendeli and Zeeva Foxglove) is a charming, intelligent, charismatic, well-read, and social young noble. A young member of the Magnimarian aristocracy, Aldern Foxglove's suave demeanor and flirtatious nature have made him a favorite of ladies, gentleman, and everyone in between.

Beneath the exterior of charm and care-free carousing, Aldern carries the trauma of a family tragedy. At the age of 6, for reasons unknown at the time, Aldern's mother Cyralie seemingly went mad and began killing the servants with an axe before setting the servants quarters ablaze. In an attempt to stop her, Aldern's father, Traver was forced to push his beloved wife out a window and to her death. Overcome with grief, he took his own life immediately after, leaving Aldern and his two older sisters to be sent to an orphanage in Magnimar, before being taken to Korvosa, where they were raised by Traver's second cousin.

After his return to Magnimar, Aldern was determined to restore the family name. By this point Aldern was a successful merchant in his own right, and had purchased a townhouse in Magnimar, building ties within the aristocracy, with the overall goal of reclaiming his family estate: Foxglove Manor. After making connections with the mysterious Brothers of the Seven, who made the acquisition of the family home relatively smooth and simple. The renovation of the now-ruined manor, however, proved to be a difficult task given the superstitious rumors about the manor being haunted. Aldern took on most of the work himself, learning carpentry and various other construction skills while simultaneously building his physique, proving to be deceptively strong beneath his fancy clothes.

A little over a year after his return, Aldern took in a band of traveling Varisians who had been beset by a storm near his manor. Among them was the beautiful Iesha, who captured Aldern's heart so strongly that he proposed that very night.

The marriage was blissful at the beginning, showing every promise of becoming a true "happily ever after," but one night after returning late from a business trip in Magnimar he discovered his wife, Iesha, in the library with one of the few carpenters he had been able to get to agree to work on the manor. Overcome with uncharacteristic rage and jealousy, Aldern blacked out and lost his temper and beat the carpenter to death with a bookend before strangling Iesha to death with her own luxurious scarf.

After Aldern came-to from the event. he was overcome with grief at the realization of what he'd done. He held his beloved Iesha and wept in regret, clutching her body close. Their whole marriage had lasted only five months. In a panic, Aldern disposed of the bodies and called on the Brothers of the Seven for help. They used the information to blackmail him, leading to Aldern becoming addicted to the drug "flyleaf" and taking on riskier and more dangerous endeavors to pay off his debts to the Brothers of the Seven. He fell into his habits of carousing wantonly and losing himself in the haze of drugs and sex to hide from his problems.

When it seemed as though nothing could get worse, Aldern was approached by the enigmatic and beautiful leader of the Brothers of the Seven: a woman named Xanesha. She promised his troubles would all be ended if he would perform the simple task of retrieving a plague-ridden rat from the basement of the manor, from his late grandfather's alchemical laboratory. Desperate to put his mistakes behind him and have his sins erased, Aldern swore he would deliver, but found himself unable to return to the manor directly, choosing instead to travel to the nearby city of Sandpoint, where he attended the annual Swallowtail Festival, a celebration of the goddess Desna.

During the celebration, the town and festival-goers were attacked by a horde of goblins, only to be stopped by a group of local heroes. Aldern was saved by these heroes--though not after tragically losing his beloved hound, Lady. After the daring rescue, Aldern found himself drawn to one of the heroes in particular. He found himself obsessed, and feeling that this new relationship could be his solution to the soul-crushing depression, Aldern began to pursue it enthusiastically.

All of this, every moment of Aldern's life, has been lived in the shadow of an unknown family curse, brought about by his late grandfather, Vorel Foxglove. Vorel, a former Merchant Prince of Korvosa, had previously bonded with the Brothers of the Seven nearly a century before. During an attempt to achieve lichdom, Vorel was stopped by his wife, Kasanda, who saved her son Traver before confronting her husband to stop his ascension. The ritual backfired, trapping Vorel within the manor itself, turning it into a phylactery of sorts. Vorel's presence was what drove Cyralie mad, and what drove Aldern to murder his beloved wife. Vorel's shadow still lingers over Aldern and his life, unbeknownst to his descendants, and his thirst for power and vengeance poisons every part of the manor, having earned it the nickname: "The Misgivings."