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Saskia Ophélie
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‘What are you doing in my swamp?!’
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⋅ ♀ ⋅ Fae-Tiefling ⋅ Maxius ⋅ Mingtee (Formerly), Chyagheta (Currently) ⋅ Fadoya ⋅ Early 20’s ⋅ Neither/Uninterested ⋅ Vylianity; Pestilence Manipulation ⋅ Questioning Ace/Aro ⋅ Chaotic Neutral ⋅
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↠Weapon of choice↞
I. Magic
Saskia’s magic is best suited as more support/defense rather than direct offense. Her particular flavor of pestilence manipulation has two main abilities - the weaker but more controlled infirmity, and the magic dirty bomb that is disease creation and manipulation.
Infirmity is probably the practical of the two - in simple terms, it’s little more than rapidly aging/decaying the target. It can affect either the body or the brain, but never both at the same time. If it’s the body, the target becomes gaunt and aged, their body turns against them, their organs start to fail, and their bones become brittle and eventually turn to dust. If it’s the brain, the target quickly becomes senile as their mind turns into swiss cheese and whatever’s left decays into neuron soup. Though difficult, the effects on the body can be reversed whereas those on the brain are permanent.
The main benefit of Infirmity is the control Saskia has over it, she can pick her target/s and choose how far she goes. It also has no additional adverse effects on her. The downside is she can only use it on a handful of targets at a time (the most she’s tried so far is 3), plus it isn’t exactly an instant thing and she has to be in pretty close quarters for it to work.
Disease creation and manipulation is definitely the last resort, a one-and-done type deal. Theoretically, there’s no limit on what or how many diseases she can create or how she can manipulate them, aside from the very small, tiny problem of her having no control over who she does or does not infect.
Syphilis that spreads by premarital hand-holding?
Done.
Pneumonia that fills the lungs with fluid in a blink of an eye and causes a quick(-ish) but extremely painful death?
Done… Sort of.
The only real restriction is with whatever she creates, she has to act as patient zero.
Now, yes, her fae blood gives her immunity to disease, however that immunity only extends to organic disease. When it comes to diseases she creates herself she’s only prevented from dying, which still sounds like it’d be really useful until you stop and think about it a bit. Nearly everyone feels like absolute shit when they have something as simple as a cold, imagine how terrible you’d feel with a magic super boosted variant of the plague, plus a potential assortment of other diseases on top. You’d be in utter agony, trapped in a hell of your own making with no sign of relief, unable to do anything but wait and hope someone survives long enough that they manage to take you out before succumbing themselves.
That’s why she only lightly dabbled with this aspect of her power once before swearing never again.
(Let me know if this is okay. I tried to balance it between being semi-usable and not too OP)
II. Antlers & Retractable Claws
It’s no surprise that her antlers, while glorious, make her a walking hazard. They threaten to take out the eye of every poor sod who isn’t careful as she goes about her day-to-day, just think the carnage they could cause if she was intentional about it.
If that wasn’t enough, thanks to her fae blood she has retractable claws. They’re only short, about 2 ½ inches fulled extended, and slightly curved to a sharp point. When retracted they don’t look all that different from normal nails, aside from maybe being a bit more pointed. You wouldn’t know she had them unless you’ve seen them in use.
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↠Appearance↞
Elegant.
Not exactly the first word that comes to mind when you think of someone like Saskia - a grungy swamp witch who haunts decrepit ruins. But it’s something with how she carries herself, a way of doing things with such grace it’s beautiful, to the point it becomes uncanny. There’s a touch of something almost… eldritch to her appearance, aside from the obvious. Like there’s just enough of something there to trigger that little tick deep in the lizard part of your brain that tells you something isn’t right here, but you can’t quite put your finger on what.
A delicate-looking waif of a thing, Saskia stands around 5’3. Figure-wise, there’s not a lot to her. Thin and lithe, she has some curve to her silhouette but there’s very little fat on her and not much more muscle. She’s not emaciated by any means, but definitely on the thinner side of healthy. She looks frail, like a light breeze would send her tumbling. Her complexion is a soft bronze color with this strange, sickly pallor to it. Afflicted with a mild form of vitiligo, her skin is covered in these pale/white specks and roundish splotches, none bigger than a dime.
She has a diamond-shaped face with a refined Grecian nose, strong-ish jaw, and high, defined cheekbones. Her brows are thick and sit relatively flat above her almond-shaped eyes, only curving downwards for the bottom third. Saskia’s eyes are unnerving, to say the least - appearing to be pure white as if she’d been blinded. Though if you look close enough you can make out slightly darker cat-slit pupils. Her lips are plump and naturally tinted a dark red, not that you would know as she always paints them a darker sienna. If you look closely at the edges you can see indents from her longer, more pointed canines and the little dimples on either side that come out in the rare occurrence of her smiling. Her long pointed ears read more elf than half-fae at first glance, the tips just peeking out from her hair.
Speaking of hair, Saskia’s is a little odd. A dark salt and pepper color like somebody's aged Grandmother with streaks of white-ish gray framing her face, it’s not really curly enough to be considered, well, curly, but at the same time, it’s definitely more than just wavy. She also refuses to cut it, leading it to be an impractical length, ending an inch or two below her butt. Because of this, she usually wears it pulled back into a messy plat, interweaving it with all manner of things from ribbons and flowers, small bells and hoops of gold and silver, to small bones, shells, and even Spanish moss. Nestled in amongst it all is a pair of large, ornate antlers resembling those of whitetail deer. Her antlers are just over 27’’ tall, with the left being a tad bigger than the right, and spider out 17’’ with 38 points and curve inward.
Saskia lost all her fancy, elaborate clothes and jewelry when she was made a Chyagheta. Her wardrobe now is a hodgepodge of the well-worn and ill-fitting, but being limited to things either found in the ruins and stripped off corpses or things simple enough she could sew herself, she doesn’t exactly have a lot to work with. An everyday outfit for her is pretty simple, if given the choice, she tends towards darker, more earthy hues.
She usually wears a too-small vintage-style corset camisole with her shoulders covered with a thining wool shawl, paired high-waisted gypsy-style skirt loosely tied around her waist that’s so ripped and frayed at the bottom it’s gone from full length to ¾, held up by a double buckle leather waist belt. Over top, she always wears one of her few prized possessions, a dark forest green cloak that ties with ornate gold buttons. She won’t tell anyone how she got it, and Vyl forbid you try to touch it, but it was clearly originally meant for a man and far too big for her. The bottom always trails in the mud and she trips herself on it constantly.
Jewelry-wise, she has a pair of ratty green feather earrings, a handful of slightly bent bangles, and a small assortment of tarnished rings that adorn her fingers, with the ones that don’t fit going on her antlers. On her feet, she’ll either wear nothing or a worn pair of leather lace-up boots.
↠Personality↞
⋅ Poised ⋅ Cold ⋅ Detached ⋅ Emotionally Unavailable ⋅ Proud ⋅ Petty ⋅ Passive-Aggressive (kinda) ⋅ Arbitrary ⋅ Anarchist ⋅ Misanthropic ⋅ Absent-minded ⋅
The epitome of poise, Saskia’s very closed off and some might even say cold. She exudes this vibe of low-key, unfazed ambivalence that tends to rub off on those around her. She has an uncanny ability to remain serene and detached, even in the face of death or danger, treating life-threatening situations with the mild, somnolent inconvenience of spilling a cup of tea while reading the paper. It’s something she delights in, her innate composure, being the only person in the room who has any semblance of control while everything else falls apart. Really that’s probably her most defining trait;
Composure.
She’s slow to speak, even slower to emote, always cautious not to reveal too much. When she does choose to speak, however, her tone is always quiet and steady with often pointed enunciation of her carefully chosen words.
She’s always felt… dulled when it came to emotions, like she experiences them through someone else. She’s just detached from it all like it’s foreign to her, and the thought of dealing with any of that makes her uncomfortable - makes her feel weak. To Saskia, emotions are shameful, disgusting things that leave you open. It’s much safer, easier even, to put an air. Happiness mustn’t become eagerness, sadness mustn’t become vulnerability. Her victories have to seem effortless, her losses inconsequential - no matter the cost. Anything less would make her a disgrace, a disappointment.
Saskia can be exceedingly proud and petty, and her ability to hold a grudge is legendary. It’s not exactly hard to invoke her ire, though it's nearly impossible to tell when you've upset her. Given enough time there is a very slim chance that she may forgive, but absolutely none that she will forget. She can get very passive-aggressive about it, but she’s smart enough to know not to push too far and start things she can’t win, instead biding her time waiting for just the right moment to get revenge. Though, with that in mind, she’s not afraid to eat a loss or two if she knows it’ll help her or that she’ll still end up on top. Lose the battle but win the war and all that.
Saskia’s her own authority. She does whatever she feels like, whenever she feels like it, fuck everyone and everything else. She has no qualms about engaging in social taboos, or any taboos really, and butting up against societal norms. Rules were never really her thing. Like a petulant teenager, the harder you try to enforce them, the more she’ll go out of her way to break them just to spite you. She’s constantly pushing boundaries, testing to see just how much she can get away with. In a sense, Saskia lives for anarchy, and when it comes to causing chaos she’s more open to following whatever whims strike her in the moment.
Saskia has a bit of a misanthropic streak to her, to the point almost seems like self-parody at times. She looks down in scorn at what she sees as a dying world struggling through its final breaths, poisoned by humanity's idiocies and greed. It’s no surprise then, that she sees things like good and evil or really morality as a whole as little more than frivolous fiction. The definitely a cosmicist tinge to how she sees the world, even if she thinks doing away with any notion of Gods, absolute morality, or good in exchange for complete nihilism and amorality is beyond stupid, something only the most jaded and cynical truly believe.
It’s good to have some hope, to have some faith, and to believe in something greater than yourself. She still has some innate, desperate, childish need for these things, because the alternative is honestly terrifying.
At times, Saskia ‘isn’t all there’, tormented by demented nightmares even during her waking hours. She tends to spiral deep into her thoughts, having Patrick Bateman-Esque monologues while staring at nothing or complex, drawn-out arguments with herself while continuously pacing, both lasting for hours on end. Sometimes the things she sees consume her, giving way to paranoia, making her restless and fretful, suspicious and accusatory of everything, and leaving her unable to focus on much of anything and sequester herself away.
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↠Strengths↞
- Immunity; Poisons and organic diseases have no effect on her.
- Stealth; Saskia casts no shadow nor reflection.
- Heat Resistance; Hot temperatures don’t bother her, and she is resistant to fire.
↠Weaknesses↞
Iron & Silver; Her fae and tiefling heritage makes her sensitive to these two metals. They cause immense pain and burn her skin should she be unfortunate enough to come in contact with them.
Insomnia; Saskia is tormented by hellish nightmares of things she doesn't understand. Sleep is scarce and doesn’t come easy.
Frail; An inverse glass cannon.
Immunity; Healing magic has no effect on her.
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↠Family↞
Mama Samhain ⋅ Patroness/Adoptive Mother ⋅ Deceased
Samhain Ambroise, the wild heiress to the Ambroise fame and fortune. A Kasopho in her younger days, she went through a string of hasty, short-lived marriages after the previous Iritir passed and she was set aside. None of her marriages ever bore children though, and she was said to be infertile.
Though legally Samhain was her mother, she and Saskia weren’t all that close and she was never seen as such. From a young age, Saskia knew that to Samhain she wasn’t really anything more than a means to an end - the heir, and perhaps more importantly a mini her, she always wanted, one with the power to cripple the empire. It hurt her as a child, and she tried to run away many times, never getting too far before coming home. Once she became a teenager and could understand better, it didn’t really bother her that much. Samhain gave her access to a life she’d never would’ve even known existed otherwise, raised by a large maid staff and some of the best tutors in the empire, all in the lap of luxury.
Unknown ⋅ Father ⋅ Unknown
Deified as a figure in local folklore, Saskia was told many stories about her father. A young ruin chanter just starting out on his own, he was drawn to the ruins around Ophélie and wandered the surrounding areas for several months before he was finally driven away by the superstitious locals.
Orianna ⋅ Mother ⋅ Unknown
Saskia doesn't remember much of her mother and knows only what Samhain told her. She was a tiefling immigrant from a small island off the coast who worked her way up to owning a little hunting cabin on the outskirts of the bayou. After a particularly bad storm season destroyed the cabin, she had no choice but to abandon it and used what little money she had left to return home to the island. Saskia doesn’t know what happened to her after that.
↠Lovers↞
At best Saskia is indifferent to the topic of love, at worst she’s actively awkward out by it. That’s not to say she’s against potentially finding someone per se, she has given some thought to maybe one day having a family of her own, it’s just … she’s never really felt any urges for it.
↠Friends↞
Unlikely, but DM me.
↠Enemies↞
Everyone to some extent lol
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↠Bio↞
Saskia’s early life isn’t all that interesting. She lived with her mother until she was five or so when she was brought by Samhain - though brought makes it sound much more.. Nefarious than it actually was.
Besides, growing up in Château de Ophélie wasn’t too bad. She always had to rely on herself for entertainment growing up. Samhain didn’t have any other children, and the parents of those who lived in Ophélie didn’t take too kindly to their children playing with one of them. So Saskia would play in the swamp that surrounded the château and come up with her own adventures, imagining herself as a beautiful Slami, seducing the royal court with eloquent speeches, or gallant Emumo, leading her squad into battle for the glory of Vyl.
Speaking of Vyl, Saskia also spent a lot of time at the local convent, helping out with light chores and such. The Sisters there always suspected she had some form of magic, but they didn’t know for sure until she was 12, when a passer-by stumbled upon her infirming Sister Julia, a wretched old hag who would always give Saskia such vicious lashings for the simplest mistakes. (un)Fortunately, being so weak and inexperienced with her powers meant Saskia didn’t do that much harm, but still, after that, she was ostracised by just about everyone and confined to the Château grounds lest she be burnt at the stake.
The next few years were mostly peaceful. Saskia was already a pretty independent child, but once she got old enough to rebel against Samhain’s efforts to make her into a mini-her, Samhain took a more hands-off approach to parenting. As she got older Saskia spent more and more time out in the swamp, eventually (poorly) constructing a dilapidated shack so she could live there part-time.
Then, on the morning she was due to head out again for her usual month-long stay in the swamp, not too long after her 18th birthday, Saskia came across Samhain’s body in the garden. She’d either jumped - or been pushed over the fifth-floor balcony. The people immediately declared it a murder, and even though there wasn’t really any evidence to support it, suspected Saskia as the culprit. The theories people came up with were wild, from the plausible - Sakina infirming Samhain’s mind enough so she’d commit suicide - to the absolute crackpot conspiracies, saying she’d turned several high ranking officials and nobility into an army of lobotomized thralls and used them to get rid of Samhain so she could gain more power and unleash a plague on the empire.
While never officially charged or tried with anything pending completion of a royal investigation, the last couple of years for Saskia have been spent in limbo. She’s effectively be made a Chyagheta. Ophélie and the château, along with all other property and belongings were seized and the vast Ambroise fortune held in escrow, probably being pilfered by the bureaucrats who manage it. And since the investigation counts as a ‘succession dispute’, until it’s resolved she can’t be sworn in and take Samhain’s place as Mingtee.
Being forced to start from nothing, having everything stolen from her- it’s all left her with a bitter taste in her mouth about the empire.
Summer 
Night Weather: 
Earthquake Moon: 
