Walter ArmaniPeppe Provenzano Walter Armani is one of several aides employed by Princess Brigidia and Prince Lorenzo while they are acting as regents.
Walter was born in 1980 in a hamlet in the foothills of the Aostan Central Mountains. His parents were farmers who struggled to make ends to meet and the families farmhouse was often damp and this meant that Walter and his siblings, older brother Gino and younger sister Ramona, were often ill in winter.
In 1992 his parents and brother Gino were killed when their families car slid off a mountain road. It took two days for their crash site to be found and their bodies recovered. With no other family willing to take them in Walter and Ramona became wards of the state which meant they were sent a boarding school named after a priest who cared for orphans. The Ciente Peiro Academy has a reputation for taking in orphans and preparing them to serve the Empire in several ways, usually for females it saw them prepared to enter the civil service while males for the military. Walter enjoyed his time at the school and the indoctrination worked as by the time he left in 1998 he was devout in his faith and keen to join the military. He successfully enrolled as an Imperial Marine and impressed during basic training to the point he was sent to the prestigious Commando school.
Between 1998 and 2008 he served as a Marine Commando officer. He was approached by Luigi Caenna the then head of Imperial Security Services to join the team of agents who are charged with protecting members of the Imperial family and while he was not directly a bodyguard he served in the Rapid Extraction Group meaning he was responsible for potentially fighting his way to a member of the family under threat and getting them to safety. The job meant a lot of sitting around during Imperial visits and he began studying for a degree in International Politics graduating in 2011.
Hearing of Walter's newly acquired degree Emperor Franco Tornincasa III personally invited Walter to join the Diplomatic Service and once he agreed Walter was posted to Lodja to work in the embassy there as a special adviser on security matters. This allowed him to also get involved in several diplomatic sessions and events.
In 2019 with the death of Emperor Franco Tornincasa III he was recalled to Aosta by Princess Brigidia who was now one of the two regents of Aosta as the new Emperor (Franco Tornincasa IV) was just a year old. He was named as an Aide-De-Camp meaning he is often delegated by the regents, particularly Princess Brigidia, to deal with important matters.
Walter would, if not in the service of the Imperial family, have become a Priest. Whenever he travels he takes with him a figurine of a small woodland sprite known as a "Messenger Sprite" which are those that tell other Sprites of the deeds and devotion of the good. He prayers at sunrise and sunset to the statue.
He is rather estranged from his sister Ramona who he believes didn't take advantage of the oppurtunities the Empire gave them. His sister meanwhile had ended up working in a cork factory and has several times fallen foul of the law in connection with theft of motor vehicles. She is six years younger than Walter.
Walter is himself unmarried however he did once have a three year relationship with a fellow member of staff at the Imperial Security Service called Maria Bonnara which ended after the two struggled to come to terms with Maria having a miscarriage of a child.
In his spare time Walter spends his time hiking and camping in the hills where he was a young boy. He also enjoys fishing, watching football and woodwork where he is trying to learn to make his own religious figurines.