The Afflicted
01-16-08, 08:15 PM
Name: Diane Backwood
Age: 16
Race: Human
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 5' 5"
Weight: 119 lbs
Occupation: Housewife
Personality: Devoted and loyal to a fault, Diane was raised by her mama to be a lady. She doesn't get angry, and always seeks to resolve a situation through peaceful means. She is devoutly religious, believing that all life is sacred and nothing is impossible if you really try.
Appearance: A slight, frail woman, Diane wears her hair back in a single long braid. Her skin is tanned from years of living on a farm, spending much of her time in the sun. She is almost always barefoot. She wears sundresses on warm days and long sleeved dresses on cold. She owns one wool cloak and one nice dress with a pair of nice boots to wear to church.
History:
I was born in a little town named Slaughterville. It had begun as a community of cattle farmers, and got its name when the town boomed because of the meat market. Here and there, on land that separated the herds, little farms would crop up. When the big Bazaar in Radasanth made it more profitable for the cattle to not have to be transported so far, the ranchers moved. They headed for the edge of the big city, and we were left as a farming community. We've endured, though, on the backs and banks of the bigger, older families. Wealthy Coronians that don't bother with the farms, importing fancy seafood and delicacies from the elven lands can be found in their giant houses on the best land in town. It's never bothered me that I was born in a tiny house on a corn farm. Momma always says it ain't getting what you want but wanting what you get that makes for the best life. I've always reckoned that was pretty spot on.
I grew up in this little town like just about every girl did. I spent most of my time playing with the neighbor's kid. Jack and I were thick as thieves until I was about five. He started running around with the other boys in town, and Momma had me stay in the house more to learn to cook and sew. Jack was two years older than me anyway, so we never really saw each other unless we were doing our chores on the farm at about the same time. I'd be feeding the chickens about the same time that he was walking the fence of his papa's land, fixing boards and checking rabbit traps to make sure nothing was eatin' the tobacco. I had always thought of him as just a friend that I never talked to anymore until I turned about 14.
Jack Backwood was 16, gorgeous and had the fastest horse in town. Sometime between 16 and 14, my nights spent feeding the chickens and running through the corn 'til I got lost turned into nights spent keeping an eye out for him. I knew just the right turn along the fence that the sweat would get to him and he'd have to take off his tunic, working until the sun went down with sweat gleaming on his skin.
Momma started giving me silver pieces for my work around the house, telling me that now was the time in my life that I should start to help Papa save for my dowry. I saved most of it, but when a Radasanthian peddler came through town, selling paints and kohl from the city, I'd buy them. After years of watching Momma mend and alter clothes, I fixed mine to fit a little more like the girls in the city wore theirs, letting the hem of my skirts fall higher, the bodice of my blouses fall lower. I had decided that I would make sure that Jack Backwood would notice me again, though the game we'd played when we were little were far from my mind. He was the love of my life, and I was just wondering what I was going to do to make him see the truth in this too. It didn't matter to me that his interests were all the things I didn't care much about, like the blacksmith and my papa's grain silo.
When I was fifteen, Jack had stopped riding his horse. Instead, all the time he had spent at the blacksmith's made sense to everyone in town. He had a thing made of metal parts kept together with wood and rope and chains. I'd asked him once what it was, and he'd tried to explain about a mechanical horse that ran off the old wash from the grain silos. I didn't understand it, and it sounded pretty crazy. Why go to all this trouble when he already had a horse that was fast enough to outrun anyone else? Still, I nodded my head and let him talk and asked questions that sometimes made him frown and sometimes made him smile. He started to take me for a ride on the mechanical horse, in a little bench seat that seemed to me like it might all apart every time the thing roared and lurched. Half the time it would break down before we got home again, and I'd smile at him while he cursed and prodded at the parts that should be moving.
One night, we drove a ways to Proctor's View, a little unclaimed field on one of the foothills that marked the divide between the plains and the mountains. We could see the patches of farmland as they swum with twilight. Fireflies burst with green streaks through the grass around us. I said I loved him, and he kissed me. He never said he loved me back, but laid on the creaking bench seat, undressed and baring more than just my soul for him, he showed me what he meant. We kept going back to Proctor's View. I'd get thrilled every time he turned his "Cougar" off the road to Underwood, heading away from the path to Concordia.
A few months later, Momma got worried that I was missin' my moontime. When I started throwing up breakfast and complaining that I just felt sore, she called in a midwife. I was pregnant, going to have a baby of my own. I didn't understand why Momma and papa were so upset. Didn't they take me to church and tell me to listen while everyone told me that babies were innocent and life was precious and that we should all be kind and loving like a child? A miracle was happening, physical proof of Jack's love for me. I wanted to tell him, but papa said he was going to talk to the boy and his pa first. Jack didn't say much to me the next time I saw him, but we got married soon.
Momma didn't want me showin' at the wedding, and I was happy with that. I wanted to be able to fit into my church dress at the weddin' anyway.
Skills: None
Equipment: 2 cast iron cooking pans. One is 13 inches in diameter and two inches in depth, the other is 9 inches in diameter and 1 inch in depth.
Familiars:
Grace - a young calico cat that serves as the family pet. She comes and goes as she pleases, and doesn't much like to be picked up. A normal cat, no skills, special abilities or abnormal intelligences.
Age: 16
Race: Human
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 5' 5"
Weight: 119 lbs
Occupation: Housewife
Personality: Devoted and loyal to a fault, Diane was raised by her mama to be a lady. She doesn't get angry, and always seeks to resolve a situation through peaceful means. She is devoutly religious, believing that all life is sacred and nothing is impossible if you really try.
Appearance: A slight, frail woman, Diane wears her hair back in a single long braid. Her skin is tanned from years of living on a farm, spending much of her time in the sun. She is almost always barefoot. She wears sundresses on warm days and long sleeved dresses on cold. She owns one wool cloak and one nice dress with a pair of nice boots to wear to church.
History:
I was born in a little town named Slaughterville. It had begun as a community of cattle farmers, and got its name when the town boomed because of the meat market. Here and there, on land that separated the herds, little farms would crop up. When the big Bazaar in Radasanth made it more profitable for the cattle to not have to be transported so far, the ranchers moved. They headed for the edge of the big city, and we were left as a farming community. We've endured, though, on the backs and banks of the bigger, older families. Wealthy Coronians that don't bother with the farms, importing fancy seafood and delicacies from the elven lands can be found in their giant houses on the best land in town. It's never bothered me that I was born in a tiny house on a corn farm. Momma always says it ain't getting what you want but wanting what you get that makes for the best life. I've always reckoned that was pretty spot on.
I grew up in this little town like just about every girl did. I spent most of my time playing with the neighbor's kid. Jack and I were thick as thieves until I was about five. He started running around with the other boys in town, and Momma had me stay in the house more to learn to cook and sew. Jack was two years older than me anyway, so we never really saw each other unless we were doing our chores on the farm at about the same time. I'd be feeding the chickens about the same time that he was walking the fence of his papa's land, fixing boards and checking rabbit traps to make sure nothing was eatin' the tobacco. I had always thought of him as just a friend that I never talked to anymore until I turned about 14.
Jack Backwood was 16, gorgeous and had the fastest horse in town. Sometime between 16 and 14, my nights spent feeding the chickens and running through the corn 'til I got lost turned into nights spent keeping an eye out for him. I knew just the right turn along the fence that the sweat would get to him and he'd have to take off his tunic, working until the sun went down with sweat gleaming on his skin.
Momma started giving me silver pieces for my work around the house, telling me that now was the time in my life that I should start to help Papa save for my dowry. I saved most of it, but when a Radasanthian peddler came through town, selling paints and kohl from the city, I'd buy them. After years of watching Momma mend and alter clothes, I fixed mine to fit a little more like the girls in the city wore theirs, letting the hem of my skirts fall higher, the bodice of my blouses fall lower. I had decided that I would make sure that Jack Backwood would notice me again, though the game we'd played when we were little were far from my mind. He was the love of my life, and I was just wondering what I was going to do to make him see the truth in this too. It didn't matter to me that his interests were all the things I didn't care much about, like the blacksmith and my papa's grain silo.
When I was fifteen, Jack had stopped riding his horse. Instead, all the time he had spent at the blacksmith's made sense to everyone in town. He had a thing made of metal parts kept together with wood and rope and chains. I'd asked him once what it was, and he'd tried to explain about a mechanical horse that ran off the old wash from the grain silos. I didn't understand it, and it sounded pretty crazy. Why go to all this trouble when he already had a horse that was fast enough to outrun anyone else? Still, I nodded my head and let him talk and asked questions that sometimes made him frown and sometimes made him smile. He started to take me for a ride on the mechanical horse, in a little bench seat that seemed to me like it might all apart every time the thing roared and lurched. Half the time it would break down before we got home again, and I'd smile at him while he cursed and prodded at the parts that should be moving.
One night, we drove a ways to Proctor's View, a little unclaimed field on one of the foothills that marked the divide between the plains and the mountains. We could see the patches of farmland as they swum with twilight. Fireflies burst with green streaks through the grass around us. I said I loved him, and he kissed me. He never said he loved me back, but laid on the creaking bench seat, undressed and baring more than just my soul for him, he showed me what he meant. We kept going back to Proctor's View. I'd get thrilled every time he turned his "Cougar" off the road to Underwood, heading away from the path to Concordia.
A few months later, Momma got worried that I was missin' my moontime. When I started throwing up breakfast and complaining that I just felt sore, she called in a midwife. I was pregnant, going to have a baby of my own. I didn't understand why Momma and papa were so upset. Didn't they take me to church and tell me to listen while everyone told me that babies were innocent and life was precious and that we should all be kind and loving like a child? A miracle was happening, physical proof of Jack's love for me. I wanted to tell him, but papa said he was going to talk to the boy and his pa first. Jack didn't say much to me the next time I saw him, but we got married soon.
Momma didn't want me showin' at the wedding, and I was happy with that. I wanted to be able to fit into my church dress at the weddin' anyway.
Skills: None
Equipment: 2 cast iron cooking pans. One is 13 inches in diameter and two inches in depth, the other is 9 inches in diameter and 1 inch in depth.
Familiars:
Grace - a young calico cat that serves as the family pet. She comes and goes as she pleases, and doesn't much like to be picked up. A normal cat, no skills, special abilities or abnormal intelligences.