Yekaterina Aleratt
01-26-14, 04:49 PM
Name: Yekaterina Aleratt
Nickname/Alias: Katya, “The Weeping Witch”
Age: 28
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Height: 5’ 4” (~162 cm)
Weight: 130 lbs (59 kg)
Occupation: Ex-Cleric of the Church of the Ethereal Sway, Witch
Personality: Yekaterina is a fearful, tired and broken woman. The recent years have not been kind to her once pleasant disposition, and between the things she saw in the civil war, the things she has been forced to do and endure, and the voices she hears, Katya is bitter, angry and anxious all the time. Although her fear over her secret being exposed and her guilt over her sins have torn at her self-esteem and rendered her extremely depressed, Yekaterina still believes that she can (and indeed, must) help people until she is sent to her final fate.
History:
Yekaterina was born and spent her childhood in Archen with her father, mother and other members of her extended family. The Aleratts had a long history of involvement with the Church of the Ethereal Sway and from her earliest days Katya could remember praying that she would one day become a cleric in the Church like many of her uncles and aunts. She excelled in her schooling and was considered to be a bright, gregarious child well suited for a career in the Church. After finishing primary schooling she enrolled at the local seminary in Archen and studied the theology of the Church of the Ethereal Sway, the way of the missionary, and other things pertaining to the faith. It was her sincere hope that when she was older she might serve her faith by traveling to the heathen lands in the south and bring them into the fold.
When she was eighteen Katya was elated to find out that she had received her first posting; a cleric in a small town a day’s ride from Archen named Loshad was seeking an acolyte to study under him and perhaps take his position. The post sounded like exactly the sort of opportunity she had waiting for, so she took it up immediately with the blessings of her parents. Although she got along with everyone in the town, there was one young girl named Astrid who followed her around like a lost puppy. It did not take long for Yekaterina to realize that Astrid was interested in her for more reasons than simply because she was the newest member of the town, especially after the numerous occasions she caught the girl staring at her. She was flattered by the attention but was too busy with her work and weighed down by uncertainty about her future to pursue the interest. In time the two became very good friends and over the next three years Yekaterina spent much of her own free time teaching Astrid how to read and right, about the Church and sharing stories about her time in the city. When Astrid turned eighteen herself, Katya gave her the copy of The Ethereal Texts her mother had given her when she left for Loshad and encouraged her to enter the seminary as well.
But shortly thereafter things began to fall apart for Yekaterina. Civil war erupted in Salvar between the Church and the Monarchy when the Justice declared the King an apostate. Word came from her superiors at the seminary in Archen that she was being called back like the other acolytes in the field for safety and to help as she could. Leaving Loshad was one of the most difficult moments of her life, but even as Yekaterina’s heart broke as she watched Astrid trying to brave when she gave her the news, Katya knew what her faith demanded of her. She returned to Archen and was placed in the field hospital services where she worked for the majority of the war. When Archen was betrayed and switched sides to the Monarchists Yekaterina led a group of acolytes out of the city and intended to take them to the Cathedral in Knife’s Edge where she hoped they would be safe.
Sadly, life is cruel in the best of times and war is far from those idyllic times; as the group of young priests made their way through the forests between Archen and the capital they were attacked by a group of deserters turned bandit. To this day, Yekaterina is not certain if she was in the “right place at the right time” near a hidden altar to Istaraesh in those woods, or if the fiend had heard her cries, but in that moment as her friends were being massacred around her she heard a voice offering her a choice: Istaraesh would make a contract with her, granting her the power she needed to save herself and her friends and Istaraesh would kill the marauders in exchange for Katya promising her soul to the demon.
As she listened to the women’s screams under the bandit’s ministrations, it was no choice. She accepted the deal and immediately blacked out from a searing pain.
When she awoke, Yekaterina found herself lying in the snow surrounded by dead acolytes and bandits alike with an aching wound in her back and a bronze blade in her hand. That was the first time Katya truly learned not to trust her demon; when she demanded to know why the devil had not fulfilled its half of the bargain, it calmly informed her that it had given her the power necessary to save her friends, but that she had not been conscious to do so. It had given her power, had killed the bandits, and therefore kept its word to the letter, and not one iota more. Since that fateful day Katya has been on the run. She knows that she can never go home, can never return to the Church, and can never stay in one place for any extended period of time. She has slowly experimented with her new blood magic and has used it to quietly save the lives of the injured and sick in towns as she passes through, but each time she does she feels like she loses another piece of her soul to Istaraesh.
She does not know where her roads will take her, but knows where it will inevitably end.
Appearance:
Yekaterina is a thin woman with gaunt cheeks and hollow blue eyes that always seem to have bags under them no matter how much sleep she gets. Her long reddish-brown hair hangs down past her shoulders and she wears it in a simple braid. Though thin she is not muscular, or even particularly fit; Katya was a woman of the cloth and does not have the endurance of a fighter. She always looks to be ready to bolt at any second and reacts excessively (cringing etc) at sudden sounds / sights.
Perhaps the most unique feature of Yekaterina’s is one that she hopes no one else will ever see: a large, painful looking red brand in the shape of a sinuous circle punctuated periodically with long, wicked looking thorns. If a viewer stares at the mark for long enough, it almost appears to rotate until the person becomes aware of the motion. The brand is the mark from Yekaterina’s contract with the demon Istaraesh and proof that she is a witch.
Skills:
Dirty Fighting – Although she was a woman of peace, her time in the war and her time on the run from hunters have taught Yekaterina an improvised kind of fighting with her dagger without rules.
Frontier Missionary: – Yekaterina has lived on the frontier her entire life and although she spent much of her adulthood in seminary she still knows the basics of survival in the wild.
Battlefield Medicine: – During the Salvic Civil War Katya served as a nurse in one of Archen’s field hospitals. She learned a thing or two about triage and first aid.
Corrupted Theology: – Yekaterina was a cleric in the Church of the Ethereal Sway and can impersonate one when necessary AND knows some inside information about Church methodology in Hunting witches, hierarchies, etc.
Abilities:
“Sacrificial Offering” – Pro: Yekaterina can use her blood to fuel a primitive kind of healing magic; at this point she is capable of mending minor cuts and relieving bruises / swelling or stabilizing a more serious injury (setting a broken bone, slowing internal bleeding, etc).
Con: In order to use this magic either on herself or someone else she must make an offering of blood by injuring herself or harming someone else. Using the magic, regardless of the source of the payment is taxing, and the more serious the injury, the offering required becomes exponentially greater (meaning eventually she could not pay the price herself).
“Dark One’s Own Luck” – Pro: Whether it is a byproduct of her paranoia or another “gift” from Istaraesh, Yekaterina has an almost preternatural awareness of impending danger. When in a fight, Yekaterina seems to be able to minimize the damage of a single first strike which might otherwise be incapacitating or even fatal. (For example, she might feel compelled to jump at just the right moment to dodge an arrow aimed at her heart and take it in the shoulder instead).
Con: Perhaps Istaraesh is simply sadistic, but as mentioned, this ability only minimizes damage, not avoids it all together.
“Whispers in the Wind” – Pro: If she absolutely needs to Katya can ask Istaraesh a single, straightforward question once a week and expect an honest answer in response.
Con: Communing with a demon is draining and doing so leaves Yekaterina mentally and physically weak. Additionally, while Istaraesh may tell her something that is technically true, there is nothing to say that it won’t answer the question only exactly as asked, even if other information could be important.
(For example, a question might be “Is there a Witch Hunter in Loshad hunting me now?” And the answer could be, “No, there is not.” However, this does not mean there is not a Hunter riding hard from the next town over after hearing rumors about a witch.)
Weaknesses:
“Self-Loathing” – Yekaterina is torn over the relatively recent development of her magical abilities and over their nature; one the one hand, her gift has saved her own life as well as several those of several other people on multiple occasions. On the other, she knows that her faith condemns her as an apostate and a diabolist, and part of her believes that she should turn herself in. The fact that she has yet to do so only proves how far she has fallen in her mind.
“Consorting with Fiends” – Katya’s agreement that saved her life came with a steep price; she bears the mark of her contract branded in her back between her shoulder blades. If a member of the Church ever saw that mark she could be burned at the stake as a witch. Furthermore, the demons are eager for her soul and whisper dark things in the back of Yekaterina’s mind; she occasionally experiences full-on psychotic episodes (visual hallucinations of damnation, auditory hallucinations of screaming etc).
”Blood Price” - Katya’s magic requires an offering of blood (either hers or someone else’s) and since she refuses to use anyone else’s she bears the marks of her ritual dagger on her arms and hands, a tell-tale sign Witch Hunters might recognize. If she ever wishes to pursue her “gift” further, she will also need to make concessions with her moral code in order to gain access to ever larger amounts of blood.
“Hounded Steps” – There can be no going back to her past life, and Katya knows this; she is a heretic to her faith who has forsaken her vows. As such, she spends much of her time and energy in the (some would say paranoid) avoidance of people she once loved. She has yet to actually come into conflict with anyone from her past, but she nevertheless feels compelled to flee them.
Equipment/Weapons: A copy of The Ethereal Texts with notes on her magical discoveries in the margins, a bronze ritual dagger, a pouch of small glass vials for holding blood.
Languages: Salvic, Tradespeak
NOTE: Yekaterina Aleratt is an alt for Astrid Whitepeak.
Nickname/Alias: Katya, “The Weeping Witch”
Age: 28
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Height: 5’ 4” (~162 cm)
Weight: 130 lbs (59 kg)
Occupation: Ex-Cleric of the Church of the Ethereal Sway, Witch
Personality: Yekaterina is a fearful, tired and broken woman. The recent years have not been kind to her once pleasant disposition, and between the things she saw in the civil war, the things she has been forced to do and endure, and the voices she hears, Katya is bitter, angry and anxious all the time. Although her fear over her secret being exposed and her guilt over her sins have torn at her self-esteem and rendered her extremely depressed, Yekaterina still believes that she can (and indeed, must) help people until she is sent to her final fate.
History:
Yekaterina was born and spent her childhood in Archen with her father, mother and other members of her extended family. The Aleratts had a long history of involvement with the Church of the Ethereal Sway and from her earliest days Katya could remember praying that she would one day become a cleric in the Church like many of her uncles and aunts. She excelled in her schooling and was considered to be a bright, gregarious child well suited for a career in the Church. After finishing primary schooling she enrolled at the local seminary in Archen and studied the theology of the Church of the Ethereal Sway, the way of the missionary, and other things pertaining to the faith. It was her sincere hope that when she was older she might serve her faith by traveling to the heathen lands in the south and bring them into the fold.
When she was eighteen Katya was elated to find out that she had received her first posting; a cleric in a small town a day’s ride from Archen named Loshad was seeking an acolyte to study under him and perhaps take his position. The post sounded like exactly the sort of opportunity she had waiting for, so she took it up immediately with the blessings of her parents. Although she got along with everyone in the town, there was one young girl named Astrid who followed her around like a lost puppy. It did not take long for Yekaterina to realize that Astrid was interested in her for more reasons than simply because she was the newest member of the town, especially after the numerous occasions she caught the girl staring at her. She was flattered by the attention but was too busy with her work and weighed down by uncertainty about her future to pursue the interest. In time the two became very good friends and over the next three years Yekaterina spent much of her own free time teaching Astrid how to read and right, about the Church and sharing stories about her time in the city. When Astrid turned eighteen herself, Katya gave her the copy of The Ethereal Texts her mother had given her when she left for Loshad and encouraged her to enter the seminary as well.
But shortly thereafter things began to fall apart for Yekaterina. Civil war erupted in Salvar between the Church and the Monarchy when the Justice declared the King an apostate. Word came from her superiors at the seminary in Archen that she was being called back like the other acolytes in the field for safety and to help as she could. Leaving Loshad was one of the most difficult moments of her life, but even as Yekaterina’s heart broke as she watched Astrid trying to brave when she gave her the news, Katya knew what her faith demanded of her. She returned to Archen and was placed in the field hospital services where she worked for the majority of the war. When Archen was betrayed and switched sides to the Monarchists Yekaterina led a group of acolytes out of the city and intended to take them to the Cathedral in Knife’s Edge where she hoped they would be safe.
Sadly, life is cruel in the best of times and war is far from those idyllic times; as the group of young priests made their way through the forests between Archen and the capital they were attacked by a group of deserters turned bandit. To this day, Yekaterina is not certain if she was in the “right place at the right time” near a hidden altar to Istaraesh in those woods, or if the fiend had heard her cries, but in that moment as her friends were being massacred around her she heard a voice offering her a choice: Istaraesh would make a contract with her, granting her the power she needed to save herself and her friends and Istaraesh would kill the marauders in exchange for Katya promising her soul to the demon.
As she listened to the women’s screams under the bandit’s ministrations, it was no choice. She accepted the deal and immediately blacked out from a searing pain.
When she awoke, Yekaterina found herself lying in the snow surrounded by dead acolytes and bandits alike with an aching wound in her back and a bronze blade in her hand. That was the first time Katya truly learned not to trust her demon; when she demanded to know why the devil had not fulfilled its half of the bargain, it calmly informed her that it had given her the power necessary to save her friends, but that she had not been conscious to do so. It had given her power, had killed the bandits, and therefore kept its word to the letter, and not one iota more. Since that fateful day Katya has been on the run. She knows that she can never go home, can never return to the Church, and can never stay in one place for any extended period of time. She has slowly experimented with her new blood magic and has used it to quietly save the lives of the injured and sick in towns as she passes through, but each time she does she feels like she loses another piece of her soul to Istaraesh.
She does not know where her roads will take her, but knows where it will inevitably end.
Appearance:
Yekaterina is a thin woman with gaunt cheeks and hollow blue eyes that always seem to have bags under them no matter how much sleep she gets. Her long reddish-brown hair hangs down past her shoulders and she wears it in a simple braid. Though thin she is not muscular, or even particularly fit; Katya was a woman of the cloth and does not have the endurance of a fighter. She always looks to be ready to bolt at any second and reacts excessively (cringing etc) at sudden sounds / sights.
Perhaps the most unique feature of Yekaterina’s is one that she hopes no one else will ever see: a large, painful looking red brand in the shape of a sinuous circle punctuated periodically with long, wicked looking thorns. If a viewer stares at the mark for long enough, it almost appears to rotate until the person becomes aware of the motion. The brand is the mark from Yekaterina’s contract with the demon Istaraesh and proof that she is a witch.
Skills:
Dirty Fighting – Although she was a woman of peace, her time in the war and her time on the run from hunters have taught Yekaterina an improvised kind of fighting with her dagger without rules.
Frontier Missionary: – Yekaterina has lived on the frontier her entire life and although she spent much of her adulthood in seminary she still knows the basics of survival in the wild.
Battlefield Medicine: – During the Salvic Civil War Katya served as a nurse in one of Archen’s field hospitals. She learned a thing or two about triage and first aid.
Corrupted Theology: – Yekaterina was a cleric in the Church of the Ethereal Sway and can impersonate one when necessary AND knows some inside information about Church methodology in Hunting witches, hierarchies, etc.
Abilities:
“Sacrificial Offering” – Pro: Yekaterina can use her blood to fuel a primitive kind of healing magic; at this point she is capable of mending minor cuts and relieving bruises / swelling or stabilizing a more serious injury (setting a broken bone, slowing internal bleeding, etc).
Con: In order to use this magic either on herself or someone else she must make an offering of blood by injuring herself or harming someone else. Using the magic, regardless of the source of the payment is taxing, and the more serious the injury, the offering required becomes exponentially greater (meaning eventually she could not pay the price herself).
“Dark One’s Own Luck” – Pro: Whether it is a byproduct of her paranoia or another “gift” from Istaraesh, Yekaterina has an almost preternatural awareness of impending danger. When in a fight, Yekaterina seems to be able to minimize the damage of a single first strike which might otherwise be incapacitating or even fatal. (For example, she might feel compelled to jump at just the right moment to dodge an arrow aimed at her heart and take it in the shoulder instead).
Con: Perhaps Istaraesh is simply sadistic, but as mentioned, this ability only minimizes damage, not avoids it all together.
“Whispers in the Wind” – Pro: If she absolutely needs to Katya can ask Istaraesh a single, straightforward question once a week and expect an honest answer in response.
Con: Communing with a demon is draining and doing so leaves Yekaterina mentally and physically weak. Additionally, while Istaraesh may tell her something that is technically true, there is nothing to say that it won’t answer the question only exactly as asked, even if other information could be important.
(For example, a question might be “Is there a Witch Hunter in Loshad hunting me now?” And the answer could be, “No, there is not.” However, this does not mean there is not a Hunter riding hard from the next town over after hearing rumors about a witch.)
Weaknesses:
“Self-Loathing” – Yekaterina is torn over the relatively recent development of her magical abilities and over their nature; one the one hand, her gift has saved her own life as well as several those of several other people on multiple occasions. On the other, she knows that her faith condemns her as an apostate and a diabolist, and part of her believes that she should turn herself in. The fact that she has yet to do so only proves how far she has fallen in her mind.
“Consorting with Fiends” – Katya’s agreement that saved her life came with a steep price; she bears the mark of her contract branded in her back between her shoulder blades. If a member of the Church ever saw that mark she could be burned at the stake as a witch. Furthermore, the demons are eager for her soul and whisper dark things in the back of Yekaterina’s mind; she occasionally experiences full-on psychotic episodes (visual hallucinations of damnation, auditory hallucinations of screaming etc).
”Blood Price” - Katya’s magic requires an offering of blood (either hers or someone else’s) and since she refuses to use anyone else’s she bears the marks of her ritual dagger on her arms and hands, a tell-tale sign Witch Hunters might recognize. If she ever wishes to pursue her “gift” further, she will also need to make concessions with her moral code in order to gain access to ever larger amounts of blood.
“Hounded Steps” – There can be no going back to her past life, and Katya knows this; she is a heretic to her faith who has forsaken her vows. As such, she spends much of her time and energy in the (some would say paranoid) avoidance of people she once loved. She has yet to actually come into conflict with anyone from her past, but she nevertheless feels compelled to flee them.
Equipment/Weapons: A copy of The Ethereal Texts with notes on her magical discoveries in the margins, a bronze ritual dagger, a pouch of small glass vials for holding blood.
Languages: Salvic, Tradespeak
NOTE: Yekaterina Aleratt is an alt for Astrid Whitepeak.