Ever seen a devil go to church? Me neither.

[hider=Katrina Lark]
[center][h1][color=red]Katrina[/color][/h1]

[img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/710908524602851461/1139604343293755452/image0.jpg[/img][/center]

[b][color=red][u]Name [/u][/color][/b]
Katrina Lark

[b][color=red][u]Age [/u][/color][/b]
37

[b][color=red][u]Strength [/u][/color][/b]
[list]
[*][color=red]Blood Magic[/color]: Due to circumstances long behind her, Katrina is adept in the most unholy forms of magic. The kind that some of the most insidious demons are known for using to bring terror down on humanity; Blood magic is centered on the idea of using a mortal being's life force to shape the world through a lens of violence. Every time Katrina casts a spell with it, there is a toll to pay. The toll ranges from mundane pain such as burnt flesh, to spilling blood and using it to fuel a spell. All blood magic is inherently selfish, and takes from others without return.

Blood is used to draw sigils with malicious intent behind them, such as draining someone of their life force when they come near a sigil, or sparking demonic fire that can destroy anything it touches. The sacrifice offered determines the potency of the effect. Katrina has gotten creative with this over the years, and has found a few tricks to use that do not risk her life. One such method involved drawing blood sigils over her skin, and allowing them to sear themselves into her skin like permanent, branded scars. Every time Katrina uses one of these, it's like sticking hot iron against her arms, and the pain makes her sigils particularly potent. Katrina can theoretically create any sigil she wishes, for any conceivable effect, but the sacrifice necessary will grow to match the intention. More blood must be spilled, more pain must be suffered, an animal must be killed, and so on- She could not bring a plague down on the all the Seven Villages without bleeding herself dry, along with a dozen other people. 

The sigils on Katrina's arms can be cast at a moment's notice, but due to them being burned into her skin, they have very limited range compared to any other sigil she were to draw. 

[hider=Katrina's Scar Sigils]
[img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/710908524602851461/1139620474339471510/image.png?width=602&height=625[/img]
[b]Devilflame[/b]: Katrina sparks a flame that burns with a sinister red hue. The fire will incinerate anything it touches- Trees, houses, flesh, even steel- Until only ashes remain. The only protection is that of a holy origin, such as holy water or a blessing from a priest. For this reason, the Devilflame can't set fire to a church or burn a book of holy text, or a graveyard that was consecrated by a monk. 

[b]Poison Touch[/b]: By holding a piece of a living creature, such as a vial of a person's blood, Katrina can curse them to feel incredibly sick. They will feel weak with fatigue, struggle to eat or sleep at night. A visit to the Holy Order would curse them right away, though they will never truly die. The victim only suffers longer and longer until someone with the right skills can intervene. 

[b]Devour[/b]: When the sigil is activated, a chosen target is slowly drained of their life force, steadily healing Katrina when she touches them. This is the only way to magically heal any of her wounds, but as with all blood magic, a victim will suffer the same injuries Katrina heals. To another person, it's as if Katrina were simply transferring her wounds to a victim. 

[b]Hysteria[/b]: The Hysteria sigil creates a nightmarish vision based on the internal fears of a person she touches. Katrina has no control over what the vision actually is, because the vision depends on what the victim fears more than anything in the world. Their vision is the worst possible outcome of this fear, known or not, taken to a harrowing extreme that only they can perceive. 

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[*][color=ed1c24]Survival[/color]: From hunting to get through another hungry evening, to using nature as a compass, Katrina is used to living in places where most wouldn't. Even as the world clings to the last vestiges of civilization, there are wastelands of ash and hellspawn that go untouched for long spans. Katrina has travelled through these places, and used the terrain to hide from roaming demons enough that she doesn't need a roof over her head to avoid getting killed. She can always find out which direction is which, and where water might be running. Normally, the ground is too corrupted that she finds anything to eat, but her travels help her find shelter from rain and seclusion in unsafe areas.

[*][color=ed1c24]Demonology[/color]: It's unsurprising that someone who uses the magic of demons would know a thing or two about them. Though, since Katrina keeps her magical abilities a secret, one has to wonder where she learned so much about demons. Katrina can easily translate things written in demonic tongues to High Speech, identify different types of demons and the perfect spot to stab them in with a knife, and tell anyone others with experienced certainty that the best way to survive an encounter with a demon is to simply not encounter them. There are some deep, esoteric details about the world of demons that a person simply cannot learn from a book. While priests and clerics learn about so much more, Katrina simply dives deeper into a single subject.

[*][color=ed1c24]Knife Enjoyer[/color]: Katrina is an absolute menace with a dagger. She could throw one and shave the whiskers from a cat with her eyes closed. Katrina feels the most comfortable when she has some sort of sharp object on her person, and often makes very good use of one she always has with her no matter where she goes. 
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[b][color=red][u]Weaknesses[/u][/color][/b]
[list]
[*][color=ed1c24]Unholy Soul[/color]: Katrina's magic is a very destructive thing, meaning she would be murder in a battle situation. On paper, this sounds like a good thing, but Katrina's ability to wield blood magic is merely a product of her making the best of a bad situation. For all intents and purposes, Katrina is semi-demonic in her own right. Those of a holy background with firm faith are next to immune to any magic she throws at them. Katrina doesn't believe in the Starry Field, but even if she were the most devout woman in the known world, she simply could not set foot there because of the stain on her soul. Sacred objects like the Cup of Woe would burn her skin if she touched them, holy water is the same as poison to Katrina, and divine magic that would benefit another has the exact opposite effect on her. The fact that Katrina can even set foot on holy ground in the first place is a miracle.

To add insult to injury, Katrina is completely useless in any other field of magic despite the fact that other magicians could learn from each other. Without her... [i]Condition,[/i] she'd be completely uninteresting magically.

[*][color=ed1c24]Misfit[/color]: Katrina doesn't do very well around other people. She can't negotiate a tense situation without making it worse. She has bad people skills, which often translate to people turning their nose up at her because of Katrina's somewhat antisocial demeanor. Other people just can't seem to get along with her as easily as someone else she travels with, whether or not she tries.

[*][color=ed1c24]Scrawny[/color]: Between the physical sacrifices, being 5'5" and spending many nights hungry, Katrina isn't exactly build for heavy lifting. Sure, she could climb a rope much easier than someone bigger and heavier than her, but Katrina throws a punch like wet sand, and therefore has to resort to magic or crafty tactics to win a fight.
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[b][color=red][u]Connections [/u][/color][/b]
Anyone that Katrina knew is either in a different kingdom by now, dead, or perhaps both. She's on her own and can go wherever she wants. Is it any wonder a stranger like her came here of all places?

[b][color=red][u]Bio [/u][/color][/b]
By all accounts, Katrina was never anyone important.

She was 16 when the gates of Hell flew open. Katrina watched their leathery wings stretch over the horizon on the first few days, and ran in terror when they began to lay waste to her home. Katrina came from a simple farming village all the way in Pendria, far from where the Seven Villages are now. In the early days, she can droves of survivors ran and wandered as far as they could, looking on in horror as countless fires raged. Fields of once-lush grass were now dead and dying, corpses piled high up along the roads, and all Katrina could do was hope the stench didn't make her sick after she just ate what few rations could be spared that day. Eventually, the convoy she walked with dwindled to such small numbers that the armies of Hell missed them. Some flocked to strongholds ran by warlords both human and demonic, others simply perished in peace. Katrina was not so lucky on either account, she was found by a warband and taken back to a demon lord's stronghold, where she worked as a petty servant. The girl was too scrawny to dig trenches or make weapons, and they had enough people to cook food already. And so, Katrina was the warlord's personal servant. She brought him food when he was hungry, kept his house clean and entertained guests from other parts of Hell. 

It was demeaning, and Warlord Kroshtyre was not a kind demon. Sure, Katrina had it easy compared to the trenchers and the farmers who slept in shacks, but she only ate when she could sneak out of the fort and into the kitchen. This was usually late at night when most of the stronghold was asleep. Katrina rarely slept as a child. In fact, she was afraid to, lest some angry demon find her and murder her in her sleep. She slowly learned to slip past guards and explore places that Kroshtyre forbade her from setting foot in. He had a special chamber in his glorified palace that she wasn't allowed in. He said he'd draw out her death for a hundred years if he even thought the scraggly little child went near the door. By 18, Kroshtyre started to believe that Katrina's spirit was broken. After all, she never once rebelled and always obeyed his commands. His home was always clean and she always pleased him when he demanded something. 

What Kroshtyre didn't know was that his fancy chamber of evil magic had a faulty lock. One spindly knife from a shack across the stronghold was all it took to break in. She had been snooping in there for a few months now, reading things and very carefully ensuring nothing looked disturbed down to the very last speck of dust. Books on food production, progress on expanding the border, and more. There were books on magic, something she heard whispers of here and there, but never really understood. One such book had a lot of shapes and shaky lines in a language she couldn't read. But night after night, Katrina got better at sneaking around, enough that sometimes she could spy on Kroshtyre performing magic from outside his window. The stupid bastard had gotten complacent with security- Why waste guards on securing a place no one would break into?

It wasn't particularly easy to learn his secrets with this espionage, but Katrina began to fathom how his magic worked from the shadows. There was a spell he cast that set fire to his hand when he spoke a word. Katrina couldn't hear it, but she recognized the page. On a night where Kroshtyre was sound asleep, she snuck in and attempted to cast the spell herself. It didn’t work, but the noise from saying the strange words out loud alerted Kroshtyre, who just happened to be walking by and heard someone on the other side of the door. He flung it open, and caught Katrina red-handed. In a fit of inhuman rage, he reached to strangle her.

Katrina was grabbed, but she pulled out the knife she used to break in and plunged it into Kroshtyre’s chest. Out of everything someone should’ve done in that position, the warlord [i]laughed.[/i] He dropped her to the ground, and as she gasped for breath, Katrina watched him pull the bloody thing out as if it was just a toothpick. Kroshtyre bent down and looked her in the eyes. He wanted Katrina to bleed out slowly, and so he gutted her with her own weapon, just before pulling the knife out and throwing it out a window.

The wound… Burned.

She had been stabbed once or twice before ending up in this stronghold, but the pain wasn’t like this. It was like someone had poured something acidic in the wound, and she screamed. Katrina’s stomach felt like it was being ripped out of her skin little by little, while Kroshtyre simply watched. The pain made her head swim. Kroshtyre walked away, expecting Katrina to scream herself into sleep by the time he returned with a mug of beer. But her instincts told her to run.

Once he was out of sight, Katrina forced herself up as much as she could. Everything felt like she was underwater, but for some reason, Katrina reached for the book left on the floor first, and dragged herself out the window along with it after. She fell a few dozen feet and landed in mud. Her legs felt weak, but Katrina managed to run. The last thing she heard was the sound of Kroshtyre screaming from the window for someone to stop her, but no one could catch the girl.

Days passed and Katrina did not stop walking. Weeks passed, and she just kept moving. Both out of fear and out of a desire to be anywhere other than Pendria. Whenever she’d stop to rest, Katrina would read the book she stole. As she studied it more, everything became a bit clearer. She managed to parse a few vague meanings of the demonic language, and managed to cast a fire spell. It burned her skin, but it felt [i]right[/i] for some reason… Whenever Katrina looked at her knife wound, the skin seemed to blacken like it was infected, but it felt numb to her. Her blood had taken on a darker color, and she suspected she had become part demonic when Kroshtyre’s blood contaminated her. Katrina came to the conclusion that this was why she could cast the spells now, and so she opted to exploit this as much as she could.

In the last 20 years, Katrina has travelled all over the remnants of the Midlands. During this time, she never found a place she could call home, knowing the Holy Order would look for her if they caught wind of her magical talent, and that they would damn near crucify her if they learned the nature of it. In the earlier days after the end of the world, people would drive her away on account of her inhuman eyes. Katrina has sought out secrets of demonology that most would shudder at, risking her life and her humanity to learn about the affliction she was left with. Sometimes, this desire took her to the very heart of territories controlled by demons, other times saw her spending entire days in crumbling libraries to improve her knowledge on demons.

[b][color=red][u]Assembly Response [/u][/color][/b]

Katrina’s more recent travels took her through the northern mountains of Monothrana. For no particular reason other than the hope for a place where she could slow down for a while and find some temporary peace. The mountains seemed to be mostly untouched by Hell, and Katrina came here not knowing how long it would be before she left. At least that was the case until she discovered the Seven Villages, a stretch of civilization that lived in hiding. As someone used to running and hiding from demons, Katrina could respect that somewhat. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise and Katrina elected to stay for a while. Though, being around strange people meant that people would talk. She stuck to the story that she was just passing through, and planned to stay for a while to rest. The rest was nothing important. 

That changed when she heard about an assembly called by the Holy Order. Something important was happening, and a man named Osric called for volunteers to bring a magic wine glass to a church off in bumfuck nowhere. The location sounded vaguely familiar to Katrina- She passed it a few weeks ago. Apparently this glorified mug had some special, divine properties that could secure humanity’s seat at the cosmological table by sticking it to the forces of Hell. That detail in particular was what intrigued Katrina, and so she offered her aid in the form of knowing the lands far and wide. If there was a place between here and the Priory, she probably went there and found a shortcut.

Of course, there was also the matter of her very dangerous and [i]very[/i] heretical calling in life. Katrina would cross that bridge when she approached it.
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