Lúka en Olea

DISCLAIMER: This character's views are extremely biased towards East/Imperial/Otto's Aristios. This does not reflect my actual ooc views, and is a result of how he was raised rather than objective fact

Early Life
Luka was born to a somewhat poor family in what was then called Kattegat, later renamed to Zaropolis. He grew up during the Kingdom of Aristios, a time when Aristios was but a shadow of its former self. When he was young, about the age of 7, he would wander the streets alone. His parents didn't particularly care, and neither were home most of the day, only returning to feed their son and sleep. On the streets, he encountered old men, more impoverished than he, as they were without a home. Some of these men, for a coin, would tell Luka grand stories about the glory days. They wove vast tales of Aristii power, a day when their people were the giants of the north. A nation that was respected and even feared. A military of might and terror. A place to live where there was food on the table for even the poorest citizens, every day. These old men spoke of the Empire of Aristios.

Luka was enthralled, his mind soared with the imagination found only in a youth of his age. He imagined himself a royal, an advisor to the great Kratoras of yore, a great soldier winning an epic battle, and occasionally he himself in the throne. He knew within himself that he would never ascend to such a level, but it was fun to imagine nonetheless.

As he grew up, his wild imagination transformed into an obsession with the old Aristii culture, especially with the language High Aristii, which did not exist in the modern day save for a few texts. There were no public libraries in Kattegat, so he always kept a jar in his house which he filled over time, which he would use to purchase books about the old Aristii cultures. Occasionally, he would get tired of waiting, and just steal the books, especially the High Aristii books, as they were extremely expensive. Sadly, you cannot make money off of knowledge of culture, so he prepared himself for a career as a stonemason, much as his father. However, his future would be shaken up when he was 19, with the return of Otto Olea and the advent of the rebellion.

Rebellion
One of the Kratoras of the ancient empire Luka had such an obsession with had returned to Aristios. At the time, Aristios did not even exist and was ruled by a foreign nation, a fact that infuriated Luka. So, when Aristii partisans gathered in the city square in Kattegat to organize a march to Akirashalam, the capital of the rebellion, Luka eagerly joined in. Many of these partisans were young men like Luka, who had their minds filled with visions of glory and might.

When they arrived at Akirashalam however, Luka himself was declared unfit to fight. He was trained as a stone mason, not a soldier. So, while he was not among the ranks of men fighting in Perdin, he stayed with the rebellion, as a simple laborer to mine stone and netherrack for the defense of the city. It seemed this would be his profession for life, which he was fine with, until he got the honor to personally meet Otto Olea.

While he was working in the mines, he would ramble to his fellow workers about ancient Aristios. He tried to weave tales much as the old men did for him all those years ago, but with the added knowledge of his childhood passion. The workers enjoyed his tales, and found that it massively boosted their morale, to know what they were contributing to. Then, during lunch breaks, men would gather around him and ask for his stories, which he happily obliged. It only grew from there, and sometimes he would be telling stories to upwards of a hundred workers. Eventually, word of this reached Otto, and he decided he wanted to meet this man for himself.

And so, Luka was summoned to the palace in Akirashalam. The conversation went extremely well, and it ended in Otto offering Luka a job, in the government's ministry of culture, which he graciously accepted. He remained in this position, doing much the same work as he did in his youth, trying to collect ancient records of Aristii culture.