"Sometimes I think the birds are singing. Others, I am pretty sure they just scream."
Samantha Ellenoure Cren (Culdivain)
17
4’12 ft
110 lbs, somewhat petite and displaying little muscle mass
Of Noble Blood
3%
Limited Possession:
Her primary means of performing sorcery, Samantha is able to merge herself –body and mind- with that of both animals and, rarely, human beings. While generally speaking such an action is one of conscious intent, it can similarly occur involuntarily during moments of high adrenalin in which she will flee into the nearest susceptible host for an indeterminate allotment of time. Thus conveniently drawing oneself back to the primary drawback of such an ability: its unreliable nature.
All manner of things can go wrong while controlling a host. She can mistake their thoughts for her own. She can find herself being trapped inside the body. She can even accidently slip out of it at inopportune moments. A sudden appearance that would likely lead to a bit more than mere idle gossip around the ballroom floor.
Innate Aura of Oddity:
Simply put, things just act strangely around her. And while, yes, this is not so much a power as it is a potentially life-threatening annoyance, one must digress. Every so often –growing more and more frequent and violent should she become emotionally distressed- the world will act in befuddling, often times disturbing, manners. Shadows might move out of the corner of one’s eye, animals might growl or whimper, mirrors shatter, spoons bend, chairs piling themselves on tables while no one is looking. She has no control over these events -much less does she desire it. In a way, they are simply a constant reminder of the double life she is living.
Perhaps that is exactly the reason they make themselves known.
((er- neither?))
Nothing ever really died in Dunwall.
Oh yes, the plague killed everything it touched. The beggars. The nobles. The clergy. It seemed even the void itself was permeated with its stench. A foul pestilence that rotted a thing to its core till it started crying tears of crimson blood. How poetic a death. How horrible a reality.
Yet, despite all of this, nothing ever really died. At least not for Samantha. No, to her, a young, carefree sixteen year old girl born to one of the most affluent families on the west side of the isles, the world remained the same just as it always had. There were reports of the mounting deaths, of the infestation, of the horrors of the burrows and slums. But those tales were just that, tales. They amounted to nothing more than the bedtime horrors of a child terrified of monsters under the sheets. They were not real. They were not true.
Then her father caught the plague and died.
The Abby seized the holdings of the Cren family, passing them off in a legally dubious manner –given the man’s wife and daughter, both still very much alive- to one sir Elcritch Culdivain, a former business associate. A man with all the moral compass of a lizard and all the lecherous intent of a snake. Samantha never did learn all of the details; however one did not have to be a true detective to determine the cause of her mother’s abrupt betrothal to the man followed up by a hasty wedding coming not three months of her late husband’s funeral. Some might whisper at the dinners. Some might scoff. Some might frown with upturned noses as though to remove themselves from an un-detectable stench. Yet the woman had protected her daughter from the merciless world that awaited those destitute and claimless. And while they never spoke of it, Samantha hated her for it.
It was another four months before the outsider came to the girl in something almost akin to a dream. She was not given a choice. The mark was bestowed as would a brand. And the only remark the demon said as it smiled down on her horrified face?
“Well, this should certainly be interesting.”
The next morning her mother and father-in-law discovered the distinctive tattoo. They did not turn the girl in to the abbey, Elcritch viewed such as political suicide, finding a heretic under his own roof. The man mused over cutting off her hand; only dissuaded from the notion by the realization that it would sully his chances of ever finding suitors for her -but still, it was not as if nothing could be done. They went to great lengths to hide her “deformity.” And, honestly, Samantha was thankful for them.
Dark magic was an evil thing. It was vile. It was corrupt. To have been touched by such a force- why, it was unspeakable. So she went about her life, hiding her left hand beneath a glove, or skin paint, or a stylish sleeve. Never showing, but always thinking. For while she distrusted them, she did use her abilities. While she loathed her, she had to trust her mother. While she missed him she had to ignore her father.
Because, after all. Nothing every really died in Dunwall.
