Lisa Kitaen

Full Name: Lisa Heléna Montes Kitaen
Occupation: Real Estate Agent
Alias(es): Lisa Valenti
Species: Human, Uncursed (Verdania)
Allegiance: To her family
Religion: Meraist
Social Status: 7 (Suburban)

Age: 51 as of 9/20/2000
Eyes: Green/Hazel, shading to brown around the pupils
Hair: Black
Height: 175 cm (5'9")

Physical Notes: Warm olive skin; slim build, but good muscular definition in her arms and legs

Behavioral Notes: Warm, welcoming, wry, teasing, observant, resilient, has hidden depths. Not quick to trust, but kind and fair-minded. Tough and protective of those in her circle.


Lisa Kitaen is the mother of Kathryn Kitaen, the widow of Jacob Valenti, and the wife of Sam Kitaen.

Personality and Appearance

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Background

Homeland

Lisa comes from Verdania, in a rural district near the southeastern border of the province (which abuts the Sylvan Mountains and the border with Quenardya). It's a hilly, rocky land of mixed grassland and forest, which makes it less than ideal for large-scale agriculture. Ranching of sheep and goats is common, as well as timber harvesting, and the lush river valleys are well-suited to subsistence farming and some specialty crops.

Like all of the Midlands, the original human population was driven out by the invasion of giants and lutins in the second century of the Cristos Reckoning. The Midlands were repopulated in the wake of King Andrew's crusade, drawing their new settlers from all over the Pyralian Confederation. Because of this, the Midlands became a patchwork of different ethnicities, dialects and religions — a diversity that continues to this day.

Lisa's family comes from a region that drew on a mixture of Tournish, Brekklander and Pyralian migrants, combined with more local Lantonois. The result is a unique cultural blend that is reminiscent of the Provence region of southern France.

Childhood and Leaving Home

Lisa's family had a comfortable life in Verdania, but they were an insular community and not very worldly. Lisa went to uni in Metamor City because she was ambitious, unafraid of leaving her comfort zone, and she wanted more out of her life than a pastoral existence as a farmer's wife. Lisa was a black sheep in this conservative community, and she burned her bridges on the way out of town.

Meeting Jacob

At Empire University, Lisa met Jacob Valenti. Jacob was tall, blond, handsome, charismatic, and hot-headed. He had his Pyralian father's stubbornness and his Starson mother's passion for justice. A career in the Lightbringers is common for people of the Starson heritage, but Jacob was drawn to the more mundane (and less martial) world of law enforcement, where he hoped he could make a difference.

Jacob was everything Lisa's family was not, and she was instantly attracted to him. Nevertheless, she refused to start anything serious until she had completed her degree in Business Administration (with a minor in Economics). She did not want to be one of those women whose career took a back seat to her husband's. Lisa had her fair share of adventures in university, but she and Jacob stayed in each other's social orbit after graduation, and eventually the time was right for them to start dating.

Things progressed quickly after that, and they married on the day before her twenty-third birthday. Lisa got pregnant with Kate about nine months later — an accidental conception, resulting from a birth control amulet Lisa had forgotten to recharge. Lisa hadn't planned on starting a family so early, but Metamor had a fairly generous parental leave plan, and she and Jacob decided to keep the pregnancy. Kate was born six months after their first wedding anniversary.

By this time Jacob was rising through the ranks MCPD, and Lisa had a promising career at a major banking institution. Neither one of them could have guessed that their life together was headed for disaster.

The Midnight Snatcher

In 1973 CR, Metamor City was struck by a brutal series of murders. Jacob and his junior partner, Joseph Montgomery, were assigned to one of these cases, which at first seemed to be a simple vampire attack: an indigent man drained of blood and left for dead on the Street. As they followed the evidence, however, they uncovered more killings that followed the same MO, and connected them to kidnappings that were taking place all over the city. The press got wind of the apparent serial killer and went public, dubbing the killer "the Midnight Snatcher."

As the case gathered steam and the bodies piled up, Jacob and Joseph found themselves in the middle of a political nightmare. High-ranking police administrators and politicians urged them to wrap up the case quickly, that it was drawing too much negative attention to the city. A suspect was arrested — Stanley Hamish hin'Kallad — and he confessed to all of the kidnappings and murders, but Jacob smelled a rat. He kept up the pressure on hin'Kallad, picking apart the details of his story. Soon after that, hin'Kallad was found dead in his cell, and Jacob was warned to drop the case, or the consequences for him and his family would be serious.

Jacob had never liked bullies. He kept pushing, kept working the case. He and Joseph amassed a large file box full of evidence: enough to implicate some of the most powerful people in Metamor. Whoever was behind this conspiracy, it had dug its roots deep into the soil of Metamor City.

A few weeks later Jacob was killed in the line of duty, apparently shot in the back of the head with his own service pistol. Now it was Joseph's turn to receive a warning: drop the case, or else.

Joseph wasted no time getting Lisa and little Kate out of Metamor. Under cover of darkness, he and his wife Martha spirited them away to Alamar Province, where Martha's parents provided them with refuge.

Recovery and a New Life

Lisa might not have recovered from Jacob’s death without the support of the Montgomerys and Martha’s parents. Having others available to help care for young Kate gave her the space she needed to grieve, to process her emotions, and eventually to heal. With their connections in Alamar, and Jacob’s life insurance benefits and pension from MCPD, Lisa was able to make a new life for herself.

She set up herself and Kate in the small town of Bridger Heights, on the outskirts of the much larger city of Meriton (home of the prestigious St. Merai’s College). The decision was a strategic one: Bridger was close enough to Meriton’s cosmopolitan influences that Kate would not suffer from the sort of small-minded provincial worldview that had plaguedthe community where Lisa had grown up. At the same time, the town was remote enough that Kate would be able run, play and explore the outdoors – all the things Lisa had valued in her own childhood, and which had provided her with a sense of independence and self-determination. Lisa took a job with a small accounting firm at first, but eventually retrained as a real estate agent, which gave her more flexibility in her schedule.

Lisa met Sam Kitaen within a year of arriving in Bridger Heights, courtesy of a mutual friend in the parent-teacher association. Sam was a science teacher at the Bridger Heights high school, and he was the opposite of Jacob in many ways: short, bookish, only average in appearance, and content to live a quiet life in a small town. On the other hand, he was kind, giving, earnest, deeply curious about the world and enthusiastic about sharing his learning with others. Sam was “safe,” in a way Jacob had never been—and after everything she had lost, safety was something Lisa needed. They became friends first, and Lisa was very clear about the fact that she would never allow a boyfriend to take precedence over her daughter. Sam came to love Kate, as well, and by the time his and Lisa’s relationship became more than friendship, he was already a fixture in Kate’s life. Sam and Lisa married about two years after they met, and Sam adopted Kate as his own.

Pets

Lisa had always had an affection for large dogs, thanks to childhood years spent living around shepherd dogs, collies, and other livestock guardians. Once she moved to Alamar Province—away from the often-stringent renters’ restrictions on pets in Metamor City—she was able to get a dog of her own.

Her first dog as an adult was a black Brekkland shepherd named Titan, whom she purchased from a breeder who specialized in protection dogs. Like most dogs of his breed, he was highly intelligent, fiercely loyal, and wary of strangers. Lisa told Sam that the reason she agreed to marry him was because Titan liked him, and his instincts about people were never wrong.

Since then the Kitaens have owned a succession of large dogs, all of them vaguely wolfish in appearance. Their current dog is Meeko, a massive rare-breed shepherd who looks like a dire wolf’s slightly-smaller cousin. Meeko has a brown sable coat (also called an agouti coat), with banded hairs that are dark brown or black at the tips, and tan or light brown closer to the root.

Lisa has gravitated toward these dogs for a variety of reasons—their appearance, their intelligence, their temperament—but most importantly for their value as protectors. Lisa lost her first husband to violent criminals, and she was determined never to let Kate, Sam or herself be left unguarded. Over the years, Lisa studied and eventually mastered the techniques of the Brekkland Schutzhund (protection dog) trainers, and every one of her dogs has been trained in accordance with this demanding program. Lisa gives Meeko commands in Brekklander, as a way of separating his Schutzhund instructions from everyday speech.

Current Activities

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Organizational Membership

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Home

Sam and Lisa live in the suburban community of Bridger Heights, near the city of Elentown in southern Alamar.

Known Allies

Known Enemies

  • Brotherhood of the Sepulcher: They killed her husband, and threatened her life if Montgomery ever revealed what he knew about them. Now that Montgomery has broken his old bargain, the Brotherhood might try to come after Lisa and her family again.

Story Appearances

Homecoming

Sources

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Author's Notes

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