[hider=The Last Succubus]
[center][img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/030/011/492/large/alex-chow-cinderella.jpg?1599322242[/img]
[colour=lavender][h2]Kinna Brookwidth[/h2]
[b]Rogue Being[/b][/colour][/center]

Summer light warmed the leaves and flowers of the gardens at Brookwidth manor. Those days were happy, the happiest of Kinna's life, days her father would spend indulging her when he was not so busy navigating the legal puzzles of presiding over land in three different realms, days her mother's illness did not seem so grave. In those days she was happy to live the life of a child, even attending her lessons with a smile, and the whole of the manor would keep a watchful eye over her, such that no room or lawn of her father's residence would ever be unsafe.

Kinna laughed as she reached her hand into the rushes. The stream trickled almost silently beyond; somewhere a bird was warbling. [color=lavender]"Come out! Come on, pleeaase... Oh, don't be like that. You wouldn't do anything."[/color]

Her hand emerged. A thrice-coiled adder lay wrapped around her wrist, her hand gripping its tail. A small snake, to be sure; but this was one of the largest of that kind, as long as the girl's arm and then some. Its earth-red eye fixed upon her as it rested its head on her arm, its skin cool, smooth, and enticing as its coils clenched and shifted around Kinna's hand.

The little girl smiled. [color=lavender]"You wouldn't do [i]anything.[/i]"[/color]

Indeed, though its grip tightened nervously around the girl as she stood up and marched to the manor, the serpent clung on with a certain sense of calm, visibly aware of the strangeness of its circumstances yet unable to perceive any kind of threat.

"Kinna!" The cry was sharp from the senior laundrymaid. "Kinna, oh- oh, you mustn't play with such a thing! You mustn't!"

Kinna laughed, and the washerwomen began to laugh with her, a little more shrilly. It was one thing for the curious young lady to be brave, but their lives were at stake if she was bitten, and they were right to be anxious. Kinna raised the heavy serpent to her lips and kissed its dappled forehead. One of the maids looked rather faint. 

[color=lavender]"She's my friend,"[/color] she declared. [color=lavender]"She would never bite me."[/color]

There was a moment of quiet. The senior maid smiled, sighing a deep and tired sigh. "Very well, young lady. If your father approves... But put that thing back in the mud soon, won't you? You'll frighten the girls."

Kinna's laugh was as loud and clear as the call of a wren. Her father approved everything.

[color=lavender]"I'm going to show it to the whole manor!"[/color]

The gathering erupted in impotent protest as Kinna ran away, echoed by a thump that was either a basket or a laundrymaid collapsing. In a moment she was gone.

The Brookwidth manor grounds were not so large, and Kinna came rather close to her stated goal. The maids in the kitchen screamed and giggled through the window. The squires in the exercise yard feigned terror and laughed and pointed dull swords at the thing. The gardener sighed, and waved the girl away with a smile; Kinna's unusual games in the garden were only frightening the first six or so times. Even Adomo Manciora, her father's chief secretary, who quite preferred to set his desk in the sunlight, looked up from his letters and gently chastised her for disturbing him so (and only for that).

The master of horse did not impede her, for all his frowns, and nor did the banner-knight dismounting beside him: Sir Guthcairn, oldest friend of Lord Brookwidth, a man who moved like a stork yet was built like a bull. It was the stablehand, scarred from hard labour, lean and sharp in the eye as only young men can be, that brought an end to her reverie.

"Sire!" The outburst was sudden and aghast, his eyes flashing from the snake to the banner-knight who watched it with unsurprised interest. "Sire- how long has she been touching that thing? It's unclean, sire- for God's sake- it's a serpent!"

"Steady, lad," said his uneasy master, glancing up at the enormous frame of the unflinching knight. "Our lady is Lord Brookwidth's only child. He knows what's best for her..."

"Look at her! By God, man, look at her! No Lord in his right mind would let his daughter carry on like this. Haven't you heard the stories? She wanders alone in the night, she never gets sick, her whole household spares her the rod- now she catches vipers in her bare hands! What next? What happens when she becomes a woman?"

Stunned silence from the stable master. From the banner-knight, nothing. 

"Can't you see that she's- stricken? She needs a priest. She needs a priest and the Abbess herself to come and watch over her for a while- no, she needs to go and spend a year in the Abbey with the nuns, that's it. A lady like her needs to be set straight early, or else we'll be left with no less than witchcr-"

Sir Guthcairn stepped forward so calmly that the stablehand did not even pause his tirade, and struck him with his fist. 

The man's head snapped backwards with the force of the blow and he toppled instantly, tumbled and crashed into the hard timber walls of the stable. Blood streamed from his nose and his lip, neither of which still held their proper shape. Guthcairn bent over as if picking up a dropped trinket and lifted him by his shirt against the wall, back-handed him savagely, and threw him into the hard dirt outside.

No one moved. The stable master only watched wide-eyed. The snake flicked its tongue. Not even the horses showed signs of unease.

"Master Wilrey, see that you acquire a new stablehand," Sir Guthcairn said softly. He laid a hand on Kinna's back and turned her away from the concussed and drooling man. "Come, my dear. I'm sorry for disturbing you like that. I just can't abide such a foul accusation against you. It would not be right."

Kinna's watery gaze did not rise from the floor, and he stroked her hair as gently as he would his own daughter's.

"[i]I[/i] like your snake."

She sniffed. She smiled a little. [/hider]

[hider=Lore]

During the nadir of the world, when men were weak and darkness strong, the beast Chernobog brought forth spirits of carnal desire to divide his foes and control his underlings. These supernatural parasites would possess the daughters of mankind, and empower their bodies to inflame the base lusts of those around them. For decades such powers could reside invisible within the bodies of humanfolk, breeding as they bred, emerging at the dark god's signal as if from nightmare. In this way Chernobog preyed upon the weakness of mortals to tempt men into betrayal, set tribe against tribe, poison the minds of the wise and enthrall the fragile will of his infantry.

But the Chernobog's conquest did not endure and his forces were finally scattered. Under the reign of the Exalted One, succubi were exorcised and killed by the dozen. The exalted Church fostered marriage and holy chastity among its faithful, and strong traditions of love and purity left no corner of Outremer for a succubus to hide.

No corner- for any [i]ordinary[/i] succubus.

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Kinna Brookwidth was born already possessed by a ghost of the primordial days, as was her mother, and her mother's mother one hundred generations before her. A twist of fate ensured that her birth was auspicious for the amassing darkness in other ways- beautiful down to the last pore, she is the last heir of a small but deeply loved house of northern Arcos, the senior statesmen and officers of her father already loyal to her by the grace of his dying wish.

Culled for millenia by the churches of Outremer, the spirit within her no longer bears the power to change her form, nor call up magic, nor even to defend herself with inhuman teeth and claws. Even the simple ability to move from one body to another has been lost for lack of use, and if the spirit tried to escape from Kinna's body for more than a few seconds, it would surely die. What little remains of the Chernobog's ancient creation is a few words of that god's foul speech, and a trace of the old blood, with which some cruel sorcerer may one day resurrect the true succubi of old.

The power to inflame the hearts of men, too, is gone from Kinna. What the church has bred into her in its stead is exactly what it always sought to foster: an untouchable, radiant soul of purity and innocence. This soul has slept within her bloodline for a thousand years, with no spirit ever able to call it up. Now that darkness has once again awakened in the world, this soul has become active, and the spirit within her has long since lost the power to put it down.

Only the will of the strongest is resistant to Kinna's gentleness. Men who see her pledge their lives to ensuring her safety from all evil. Her false light is like the sun to them, the last and only source of hope in a cruel and darkening world. Those who do not love her are blind or degenerate. Those who hate her hate all that is pure and clean and beautiful. They will be cleared from her path, and purged from her sight. Churches will burn for the sake of Kinna's innocence; kings will be thrown down, armies raised, fields salted; if this fragile ray of perfection cannot be made to last, then the world does not deserve to live at all.

Kinna's existence is a grim laugh from Chernobog's many graves. As his other servants foster chaos and bloodshed, her beauty becomes all the more alluring, and the numbers of the desperate swell to follow the meaningless hope she provides. Men once faithful to the true light of the Exalted One will fight alongside orcs and trolls chasing some salvation that she cannot offer, and die in the mud still believing that they are protecting the holiness they have ground to dust beneath their heels.

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[hider=Retinue]
These loyal disciples form the Lady Brookwidth's staff and the chief arm of her power.

[b]Sir Cahan Guthcairn[/b], banner-knight of the Order of the Ram, a formidable Cale warrior who 'moves like a stork yet was built like a bull'. Though he did not strictly owe fealty to the late Lord Brookwidth, he was nonetheless his closest confidant and swore to guard Kinna with his life when he died.

[b]Adomo Manciora[/b], an administrator-diplomat from Goldport whose cheer and cheek complements his extensive shrewdness. Having fled his home city over 'complicated mercantile difficulties', he embedded himself deeply in the Lord Brookwidth's affairs and became a privileged adviser, deeply grateful for a second chance at a noble life.
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[hider=General OOC notes]

Kinna's relevance to the plot is basically this:

-Wherever she goes, she rapidly acquires an elite following.
-She baits the forces of Light like nothing else can. She's a decoy.
-It's [i]very[/i] hard to convince anyone that she's a threat.

[hr]

Narrative intro takes place when Kinna's ~9-10, roleplay starts when she's ~14-15.

[hr]

The lore is a bit over-the-top, though it's too late to go in and rewrite it all now. I tend to make my characters sound like monsters when they just want to live. Kinna's not particularly evil, nor are her followers. It takes a while for her charm to set in fully and some people are randomly immune. They can be made monstrous by being put on the defensive, like a brooding animal.

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