Corvo Attano

Corvo Attano
Dishonored character
Corvo as seen in Dishonored.
First game	Dishonored (2012)
Voiced by	Stephen Russell (Dishonored 2)

Corvo Attano is a fictional character of Arkane Studios' Dishonored universe. He is the lead protagonist in Dishonored, one of two playable protagonists in Dishonored 2, and has appeared in multiple Dishonored fictional works, including a comic series, and the first published book of a trilogy of novels announced in 2016.

In the Dishonored universe, Corvo was born 25th Day, Month of Nets, 1798 in Karnaca, Serkonos to a lower class family. His father was killed in a logging accident while Corvo was young. He became estranged from his sister Beatrici, and mother who died, as revealed in the second and third editions of the comics, before Corvo left his birthplace to travel to Dunwall.

At the age of 16 he won a fighting tournament, the Blade Verbena, for which he was awarded a military rank as officer.

At the beginning of the first game, the player is introduced to Corvo serving as a body guard, known as Lord Protector, for the character, Jessamine, who is Empress of the game's fictional monarchy. When the empress is assassinated, Corvo is blamed for her murder, making him ostensibly, the first Royal Protector in history to do so. He is imprisoned and tortured for six months, before escaping. The plot of the game proceeds with Corvo a "wanted exile, hunted by those who arranged the regicide."

Throughout the plot, it is implied that Corvo previously had a private intimate relationship with Jessamine, and that he was the father of Jessamine's daughter, Emily Kaldwin. This is later confirmed in the second game, and expounded upon in the intergame comic series and novel.

As the second game progresses, Corvo and his daughter are confronted by Jessamine's purported half-sister, Delilah, who serves as the game's main antagonist.

The early development of the character was based on 17th century London attire, and was similar in appearance to that of the character Garrett from the game series Thief. The original concept was abandoned as the universe developed into it's eventual form, described as "whalepunk".

The character of Corvo develops throughout the first game based largely on the decisions made throughout, with Emily reacting to Corvo's moral decisions through her drawings. According to Harvey Smith:

We got contacted by so many players who told us that they literally changed the way they played after they came back from a particularly violent mission and saw that Emily had posted up these disturbed drawings in black crayon

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Wikipedia