[quote=@Fading Memory]
[@Hour Error]

I'm all for additional writings and extra narrative reveals, but I do request that you keep to what little required information I have requested. I probably have the sparsest sheet in Advanced, and I'll hold everyone to it who submits a character. So give at least some form of summative backstory, but feel free to also supplant what you've presented here onto the sheet in a neatly filed manner. Characterization is an ever-pleasant thing to witness.
[/quote]

Fair. :)

Hopefully this works, but I am happy to make any changes:

[hider=Summary]
[b][color=00a651]What Was:[/color][/b]

Sophia was born somewhere on the East Coast, likely Connecticut if her accent is any indication, and unlike a great many of the citizens of Ulysses she comes from a decidedly upper middle class family. A precocious child, she grew up wishing to follow in the footsteps of her father, a trained surgeon, and spent much of her early life buried in books. She lived something of a charmed life, wanting little, and basking in the comfort afforded to her by her family. What promised to be a pleasant, if predictable life, was forever changed when a teenage Sophia visited an antique bookshop with her mother. Drawn to a dark, seldom visited corner of the tomb-like shop, she found an strange book bound in leather and dyed a deep midnight. It was an ancient tome written in a strange hand and a stranger language still. 

At first, the grimoire made little sense. However, with time, Sophia began to understand letters, then words, then phrases, then paragraphs, and finally pages. It was then that she met Baltasar, or rather, what remained of the ancient wizard. He was an ethereal creature, a spirit, that appeared only to the young girl. Once, had a been a great wizard, an infamous necromancer feared and respected throughout both the Old and the New World. He had met his end, predictably for a necromancer, at the hands of a coalition of his many enemies. It was his books that she had found, Baltasar said. He had written it centuries earlier, weaving powerful magic into each page, creating a bridge to another, cheating death, and ensuring that his legacy would not die with him, as it had with so many other persecuted necromancers. 

The ancient spirit suggested that Sophia enter into a pact with him, providing him with an anchor to the mortal world far stronger than the weakening magic that still remained in his grimoire. In return, Baltasar promised Sophia knowledge, the vast sum of knowledge, both mundane and magical that he had acquired over his long life. He promised her guidance, training in the arcane arts, instruction in hermetic rituals, and an unparalleled mastery of the grim school of necromancy. But most of all, he promised her a friendship that would last beyond the grave. One oath, various arcane ingredients, and a small quantity of blood later, Sophia found herself with her very own spirit mentor.

From that point onwards, Sophia changed, she grew focused, impossibly focused, and a sense of purpose pervaded all her actions. Gone was the carefree girl she had been, replaced by an ambitious young woman. Guided by Baltasar, Sophia broke off an engagement that would have seen her married off to the son of a steel baron soon after. She had never seemed overly excited about the prospect and her parents could do little to convince the willful young woman that she was threatening her future. With great effort, she convinced her parents to send her off to a proper school, a university of peerless prestige, unparalleled scientific achievement, and great wealth. Her days were spent studying medicine, pouring over books concerning anatomy, chemistry, and the treatment of diseases. Her nights were spent in her darkened room with Baltasar, pouring over arcane tomes, drawing ritual patterns in chalk, and learning spells that manipulated life and death.

A scant four years later, Sophia left the world of academia and the university with a medical degree in hand. Although her instructors professed that they were a bit alarmed at the strange hours she kept, and the ease with which she dealt with dead bodies. Still, she was a talented surgeon they all remarked, one of the best they had ever seen. If she was a bit strange? Well, what did that really matter? Ambitions to establish a practice near her childhood home were soon crushed by resistance in the established medical community and Sophia found herself reduced to nothing more than an undertaker, the closet job she could find to a actually practicing medicine. On a bet and to prove a point, Sophia eventually secured the necessary license to pursue this line of work.

For a time, life was good, and Sophia managed to make a comfortable living seeing to the burial of the dead. At the very least, it afforded her discreet access to the raw materials required for any self-respecting necromancer to continue their work, namely corpses of varying vintage. As her mundane career faltered, Sophia continued to pursue her mastery of the arcane arts. Like Baltasar before her, Sophia had little interest in forced servitude as a member of one of the great orders of mages that existed in the New World. Instead, through talent, wit, and occasionally bribery, Sophia maintained a precarious position as an unaffiliated and sometimes only barely tolerated wizard. None, save Baltasar, and especially not other students of magic, were privy to her practice of necromancy.

For all her caution, Sophia's life was undone by a whirlwind romance with a conjurer, a naive hope to do good, and the robbery of an arcane vault belonging to the fanatical arcane inquisitors of the Guardians of the Veil. Baltasar had warned her, but she had not listened, and she paid the price. Betrayed by the woman she loved, Sophia did unspeakable, necessary, and evil things in order to survive. She broke the only oath she had lived by. The only oath that mattered. She took a life. A life that had mattered to her more than any other. Others followed. Bystanders. Unintended victims. The result of a spell gone horribly wrong. An entire city block lost to the ether.

And then...

Sophia ran. 

She ran as far as she could. Stealing a horse, a gun, and then an entire wagon, she headed out West. Shedding her past, her name, and even her appearance along the way. Long days turned to weeks, then months, and when Sophia finally arrived in Ulysses she awoke to find that the melancholy dreams that had accompanied her journey had changed her. There was a darkness in the heart of the town that called to her, but she was no longer afraid. She had found a new purpose, a new place to call home, and a path towards the sort of redemption that only the wasteland can offer.

She wouldn't run. 

Not this time.

Not again.

[b][color=00a651]What Is:[/color][/b]

Sophia Wallace is currently the only practicing doctor and licensed undertaker in the small town of Ulysses. Among the citizens of Ulysses, both mundane and supernatural, Sophia is invariably known as "Doc" or at most "Doc Wallace". A newcomer to the town, Sophia has quickly established herself as a respected and indispensable member of the community. The timing of her arrival was most fortuitous for the townsfolk, as the previous town doctor, Mr. Francois Dumont, had perished only a few weeks prior to her arrival in a tragic and mysterious wagon accident.

Sophia's skill as a doctor are truly remarkable, and in the safety of the Leaky Pitcher some of the townsfolk quietly whisper that there is something supernatural about the effortless way the young woman wields her scalpel. However, following those rare times when even the good doctor is unable to cure a patient, the townsfolk take comfort in the knowledge that a coffin and a proper burial can be arranged for in the very same building for a most reasonable price.

A gifted necromancer, Sophia relies on the widespread, but mistaken belief that necromancers cannot command healing magic and a steady supply of legally acquired corpses to hide herself and her necromantic magic in plain sight. Despite her chosen arcane vocation, Sophia is far from evil, and simply wants to make an honest living helping others.
[/hider]

I usually don't try to make things so dramatic, but Westerns always have that edge of tragedy/regret to them and it seemed interesting to explore the character of a doctor that took a couple of lives (if perhaps not intentionally).