[b]Name: [/b]Delphine [b]Appearance: [/b][url=http://pre14.deviantart.net/b9b4/th/pre/i/2016/019/4/8/the_holy_blade_of_ecclesia_by_xluxifer-d9ojxy3.png]Prioress Delphine[/url] [b]Age: [/b]31 [b]Gender: [/b]Female [b]Personality: [/b]As armored warriors go, Delphine is highly irregular. Battle, gore, and the second-to-second rush of combat not only fail to enrapture her, but they truly displease her. If not for her station, she would have been glad to never see the battlefield at all. At the same time, however, she is resigned to the woeful age befallen the lands; cruelty and violence cannot shock her, and she understands that slaughter is the way of the world. Despite this, Delphine holds out hope, contained within her ideals: she wishes desperately for a age of light, where the misery of the world melts away and there can be rest and joy at last. All she truly wants is to be in the light. In the meantime, however, she is pleasant enough to those she encounters, polite even if others are stern. She is curious at times and bookish most frequently. [b]Background: [/b]Tucked away in a stormy, hilly land in the west is a great port known as Eigenalle, and surrounding the city is its vast Drenched Hinterland, a region of meadows and dells set above winding rivers, lakes, and swamps. Confined to its large but distant island, Eigenalle flourished as a paradise compared to the accursed continents to the east, but thirty years ago the rains came in the spring and it never stopped. In the ensuing floods, thousands died, muddying the waters with festering corpses of man and beast alike. The rising waters spared only the highest portions of the city and the Hinterland, including Lasteph Abbey where a baby Delphine wept and wondered where the sun had gone. Even when the rains dwindled to an everpresent trickle, the clouds remained, and from the fetid waters of the drowned city the dead walked again. The Darksign had come to Eigenalle. At first, the people were shocked and delighted to find that they lived again, and that despite the tragedy the gods saw fit to give them a second chance. However, death lost its consequence. Be it due to misfortune, malice, or negligence, the people lived and died and lived again, ignorant of the hollowing. In her early teens Delphine discovered during an errand to a nearby shantytown that the villagers wore few clothes, wallowed mindlessly in the muck with the leeches, and treated one another with savage malice. Seeing the insanity in their eyes, she fled back to the Abbey, and after a brief inquiry the holy place locked its doors. Before long a second storm came to Eigenalle, but one of blood, not rain. The last vestiges of humanity in the thousands of people surviving in the city or its Hinterlands broke away, and the region devolved into slaughter. Out of the entire Hinterlands, only two forts, a walled settlement afterward known as Flinthaven, and Lasteph Abbey survived. The Abbey revived its militants, pressing all those who lived in it to be trained in combat, and Delphine showed a gift for keeping the undead outside. Years spent inside the compound’s walls affected her less than most, but she knew as well as the others that a real life could not be spent in a single cluster of buildings. In the dead of night she fled with four friends: two nuns, a war monk, and an archeress who’d been a refugee in the Abbey from the beginning. They made it to a boat unbothered, and set sail for another land. Days later, they discovered three undead stowed away on the ship. Terrified of the curse, the escapees prepared to kill them and toss them overboard, but were persuaded by one of the undead –a sage from another land- to let them be, telling them that only death triggered the Darksign. Delphine tentatively agreed to let the undead alone. That night she awoke to a clamor to find her companions and an undead fighting, and one of the nuns lying dead. Enraged, she grabbed her blade and killed all three with the help of the war monk, despite the protests of the sage telling that he had no part in the murder. Within an hour, the ship made land, and the clerics disembarked. After getting rid of the undead, they resolved to bury their comrade at the edge of a cliff in the morning, but when the dawn broke they found the nun alive again. Delphine and the monk agreed that their now undead ‘friend’ could go insane and attack at any moment, and that she should be dealt with. The other nun cried bitterly but did not lift a finger to stop her. When the monk, weeping also, steeled himself to do the deed, the archeress raised her bow and shot him. As he gurgled on his own blood, she revealed herself to have been undead all along. “You so blindly follow your doctrine of despise that you leap at the chance to slay your own holy sister,” she declared, nocking another arrow. “I will reward your hatred in kind. Die, and live, so that I call kill you again.” Before she could make good on her promise, however, the undead nun threw herself in the way of the arrow, crying, “No matter what we are, we both love the light. I’m her Sister still!” Stunned, Delphine could only watch as the nun and the archeress tumbled off the cliff to the water far below. The remaining nun, overcome with grief, collapsed, and Delphine could not awaken her. Now weeping greatly herself, the Prioress took her things and left, her heart aching woefully. She wandered the new land, fighting when she had to and collecting books when she could, eventually stumbling upon this group. [b]Weapons, spells, armor, other equipment: [/b] Mendicant’s Greatneedle, a ultra-thin and lightweight greatsword with superior thrusting potential. The Llewelyn Shield, a small iron parrying shield crafted from geisteel, with remarkable absorption. Prioress Cowl, a voluminous black-and-white hood that frames a faithful face. Prioress Armor, a specially-tailored cuirass overlaid with a white-striped black cloth. Prioress Gauntlets, smooth black gauntlets with no armor on the fingers. Prioress Leggings, a set of smooth black greaves meant to deflect blades. Great Heal, an epic tale of the gods, that heals her and those close by. Blessed Weapon, a miracle of distant Lothric, that increases her weapon’s attack power and gradually heals her. Great Magic Defense, a tale of the dragonfoe Havel the Rock, that protects Delphine against sorcery. [b]Any relations: [/b] Mother Adeline of Lasteph Abbey Warbrother Hugh Sister Felicity Sister Camille Hawkeye Vivian [b]Talents: [/b]Though a passable fighter, Delphine is more talented as a scribe and scholar, reading and passing on knowledge—particularly Miracles. [b]Title:[/b] Prioress