I finally did it! As promised, I finally made her, word of warning, it is MASSIVE, so make sure you have the time to try and get through the whole damned thing. Sorry she took me so long, but I just had to get her right and do research....and maybe do a little procrastinating.<br/><br/>Cheers, hairy and I hope she is okay!!<br/><br/><br/><br/><div class="floatright"><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>  </td></tr></tbody></table></td><td><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff218/DarlingMissD/bryce.jpg)</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 15pt;"><strong>Anasztaizia Szarka</strong></span></span><hr/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">      <em>daughter of</em> HECATE <em>of the</em> DODEKATHEON</span><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>NATURE:</strong></span><br/>on the surface a charismatic and alluring performer that both mystifies and tantalises intimate crowds with her knowledge of the arcane and dramatic séances. There is a magnetic air of mystery about her that hints at something deeper, something hidden.  To be in her company is to be part of an exclusive audience  where you are so much the richer for knowing her, a better person with an ego that feels full and satiated. With an uncanny ability to hide within plain sight, a certain shyness or aloofness seems to cling to her like the mist of the grave. Seen at parties and events, but photographs end up empty or at best she is a small blurred face at the back of a crowd.<br/><br/>Beneath the public, glossy veneer there is a woman who was born to survive all that life and indeed death could sling at her.  A sharp wit with a sharp tongue to match, her vitriol can be acidic enough to leave burns.  Tragedy is something she has left in her past, but seems to haunt her at times like one of the many spectres that vies for her attention. A love of fine things: cigars, cognac, silks, furs and the most dazzling of gems, is offset with a very real and very pronounced sense of humbleness. Having clawed her way from obscurity and poverty she is slow to trust, but her loyalty is to the death...and perhaps thereafter.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>ATTRIBUTES:</strong></span><br/>Anasztaizia appears in that odd void where age has not touched her despite her thirty-three years, small and almost doll-like in her proportions, standing at 1.55m (5'1”), she is slender, small breasted and lithe of limb.  Her complexion is a flawless cream with a velvet matte that seems to beg to be touched.  Eyes the colour of peridot and sumptuous copper locks lend a definitive femininity that would suggest a delicateness or even frailty. Her movements are calculated with a certain finesse and grace that is impossible to define as being natural or learned. There is allure that exudes from her that could both entice and entrance, but there is also something so barely beneath the surface that suggests an unspoken danger or threat, like a viper coiled, ready to strike.<br/><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>ABILITIES:</strong></span><br/>superhuman charisma, dexterity, and wits<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>Born Medium:</strong></span> Born with the ability to hear the voices of those that have passed to the other side. Anasztaizia's ability was raw and uncontrolled up until her awakening. She had learned to acclimatise to the constant chatter, but when Hecate claimed her as her own, she gave her the gift of being able to refine and even completely filter out the voices. Effectively, she can now turn the ability on or off and also tune into one voice over all others. </li><li><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>Escape Artist:</strong></span> Anasztaizia can somehow slip out of the tightest bonds, the most cunning snares and even her opponents’ very ﬁngers. Whether she’s tied up and left to stew in her own juices or she’s wrapped in a clinch with a snarling berserker, she rarely remains bound for long. Anasztaizia can’t escape thus in view of witnesses, however, unless said witnesses are members of her own heroic Band or are Fatebound to her. Remote witnesses watching via camera transmission don’t hinder the effect, but even close scrutiny of such footage doesn’t reveal how Anasztaizia escaped her bonds. She just did.<br/></li><li><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>Blessing of Importance:</strong></span> Anasztaizia is especially good at winning people over by making them feel special and wanted. She need not necessarily believe that the person is important or special herself. This Knack works very well on mortals, but it’s less effective on Scions, who are usually wise to their charismatic peers’ ways. Anasztaizia can help restore a mortal’s sense of self worth and empowerment just by paying a bit of attention to him and making him feel special. She  can even replenish a measure of the same for one of his fellow Scions. </li><li><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>Charmer:</strong> </span>With sheer, raw charm Anasztaizia can smother an upwelling of panic, suspicion or utter hatred directed at her , for a short period of time. The suppressed emotion doesn’t go away, it merely remains beneath the surface. If Anasztaizia can’t set the person’s mind at ease by the end of that amount of time, the suppressed emotion returns in full force the next time she leaves the affected person’s presence.</li><li><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>Meditative Focus:</strong></span> Whether she’s hunkered down behind a burning car in a war zone, caught out on the yard during a prison riot, stranded on the crowded deck of a storm-tossed ship or just strolling New York during the frenzied heights of the Christmas rush, Anasztaizia never loses her cool. No matter what’s happening, she keeps her mind on what she’s doing while maintaining sufﬁcient vigilance to avoid getting caught up in the hubbub all around her. </li><li><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>Social Chameleon: </strong></span>Being thrust into a situation full of strangers who have bizarre customs and weird manners (such as a sorority house at the height of rush) can be disorienting, but Anasztaizia handles herself with remarkable aplomb. By observing the behaviour of the people around her and reacting preternaturally quickly to their reactions to her behaviour, she can fake like she ﬁts in just about anywhere, with any class of people. She still has to dress the part, and the language barrier might pose its own problems, but she won’t embarrass or draw attention to herself unless she goes out of her way to do so on purpose.<br/></li></ul><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>BIRTHRIGHTS:</strong></span><br/>Amulet of Nekromanteía:  a beautiful memento mori from her true mother; this delicate bracelet that never leaves her wrist, made of the intricately carved finger bones of hanged murderers. The bracelet grants the Purview of Death.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Boons</div><div class="spoiler_body"> The Scions don’t share mortals’ instinctive dread of death, but they know its power well. Likewise, as a Scion’s mastery of this Purview grows, his fear of death diminishes.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>DEATH SENSES:The Scion can see ghosts even when those ghosts don’t choose to manifest. To her, ghosts are livid, physical presences, sensible to feeling as to sight (as well as smell and hearing). She still can’t harm the fragile ectoplasmic shell of a ghost who hasn’t manifested, however. The sense of touch this Boon grants is illusory. If the Scion tries to exert enough pressure to cause damage or restrain the ghost, her hand passes through it. The Scion can also look at a dead body and know what killed it, if that cause isn’t already obvious. The answer she gets is somewhat generic (the reading would tell her a person had been poisoned, for instance, but not by what poison), but it’s conclusive despite the presence of falsified or misleading evidence. Generic causes of death include suffocation, drowning, poison, burns, internal trauma, bleeding, hunger, thirst, exposure, illness, heart attack and old age.</li><li>EUTHANASIA: When a living being is Incapacitated. the Scion can end that being’s suffering. The Scion must touch the being.</li><li>UNQUIET CORPSE: By touching a corpse or its grave with her hand, a Scion can raise that corpse as a mindless Zombie under her control. Only those limbs that are present and firmly affixed to the zombie’s torso function when the zombie rises. The zombie remains animated until either it is destroyed or the Scion who created it dies.</li><li>SUMMON GHOST : The Scion mystically calls out to a ghost and commands its immediate presence. To do so, the Scion either holds some item the dead person held dear or holds hands with a blood relative of the deceased as she speaks the ghost’s full name aloud. The ghost automatically hears the call, no matter how far away from the Scion it is.</li><li>MOTHER’S TOUCH: A Scion with Death Senses can see, hear and touch ghosts that won’t or can’t materialize, but the sense of touch that that Boon grants is illusory at best. If the Scion tries to exert enough pressure to cause damage or restrain the ghost, her hand passes through its body. With Mother’s Touch, the Scion charges her body with flickering strands of black energy that can contain or disrupt a ghost’s intangible body. This energy is visible only to ghosts and those who can see ghosts, and the Scion can extend its aura to surround any item in her hands. A measure of the energy even travels with any projectile the Scion throws or fires from an item in her possession, though it dissipates when the projectile comes to rest.</li></ul></div></div><br/><br/>Blessing of Medea: A large cabouchon of etheral moonstone housed in the simplest of  silver settings, inscribed with arcane symbol within the band. This gift covers the whole fist knuckle in its sheer size and is constantly  worn on on the left hand. The ring rants the Purview of  Magic.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Boons</div><div class="spoiler_body">MAGIC. In a sense, every power a Scion’s Boons, Epic Attributes and Knacks grant her could be considered magic. Yet, one power seems magical even to them—namely the ability to be paid for Fate to bend. Unless otherwise noted in a spell’s description, the effects of a successfully cast spell last for around one hour.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>ARIADNE’S THREAD: The caster declares a target (a person, place or thing) and can thenceforth unerringly track where that target has gone by following the perturbations he leaves in the threads of Fate. If the target is a place, the caster can always find his way back there, no matter how disoriented or lost he has become. </li><li>THE UNLIDDED EYE: This spell allows its caster to see magic and supernatural powers that are normally invisible to mortal sight. It also faintly reveals the threads of Fate that entwine people, revealing strong or thick threads and allowing the caster to determine a Scion’s or other supernatural being’s Legend score.</li><li>BONA FORTUNA: The caster calls upon Fortune for a good luck streak.</li><li>DEMAND A LABOR: The caster can demand that a person perform a task for him. This is called a labour, or sometimes a geas, and until the target of the spell completes the task, he is not whole. The caster cannot, however, demand a labour with a difficulty higher than what the target is both physically and mentally able to perform.</li><li>EVIL EYE : The caster curses a single target with a withering glance or insulting gesture. The target is then at an increased disadvantage in all tasks they attempt for the duration that the caster is in their presence</li><li>TRADING FATES: The caster grants another person a good luck streak, as he can do for himself with the Bona Fortuna spell. The cost for casting this spell, however, is that the caster must himself accept a concomitant penalty at some future time. </li><li>DEUS EX MACHINA: The caster calls for help—and Fate answers in its own way. The most improbable—even impossible—escapes can be delivered by this spell. If the caster hangs from a cliff by his fingernails, a sudden earthquake might cause a ledge to jut out beneath him, catching his fall. If he’s tied to a train track before a speeding train, the train might leap the track over him, continuing on its way as if he weren’t there. The caster cannot choose the manner of help he gets; he has thrown his lot in with Fate and gets whatever destiny brings.  The caster is Fatebound to the person, place or means of his rescue. </li><li>FATEFUL CONNECTION: When the Scion has some sympathetic link to a victim, he can perform this spell over it to loop that victim’s fate around it and cinch it tight. Thereafter, the Scion can affect the victim with targeted Boons or spells remotely through the sympathetic link, regardless of how far away the victim is. Such a link should be either a piece or a secretion from the victim’s body ththat carries a detectable DNA trace back to her. Alternatively, it could be some unique object to which the victim has a strong emotional connection.</li></ul></div></div><br/><br/>Kiss of Hecate: upon her awakening, the seal of her mother (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/13/02/8e/13028ebc7674855b4b8a9990dcd1026c.jpg) appeared a white and raised brand on her sternum between her breasts.  The branding grants the Purview of Arete.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Boons</div><div class="spoiler_body">ARETE Arete is a Greek word meaning “excellence,” a quality highly valued among the Greek Scions. In fact, showing off one’s surpassing skill or total command of a field of study is a recurring theme throughout many legends about them. Granted, most of those legends involve some pompous mortal claiming to be the best there is at what she does and an offended Scion’s reaction to that claim not being very pretty. Nonetheless, the Greek Scions and the society that venerated them held the concept of excellence in such high regard that it became a Purview specific to them. This Purview doesn’t bestow specific powers, exactly, as much as it magnifies one’s talents to divine proportions. In Anasztaizia's case the blessing of her mother has granted her the boon of perfected Wits.</div></div><hr/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>HISTORY:</strong></span><br/><div align="center">…Star browed maiden<br/>Red handed you sanguine languish<br/>Waiting at the crossroads with wolf head and lolling tongue<br/>Teeth sharp to lance the wound<br/>Jaws open wide you,ferocious as the alchemical wolf consume,<br/>Transmute the poisons of the profane,<br/>making all decorous, a holy domain.<br/>Winds blowing, dogs howling,<br/>torches burning, feel the glow,<br/>power is rising, theres magic afoot,<br/>Hekate is here, Her time is near!<br/>Honour Her, adore Her, obey Her every sign<br/>for now is Her time<br/>and now is the way,<br/>so come all and let us sway,<br/>sway with the flames and dance to Her tune,<br/>let us gather under the moon…</div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Daughter of Hecate</div><div class="spoiler_body">There was affluence once: beautiful homes, with sprawling grounds and antique furniture that had once been gifts of royalty. Money was bountiful and never a concern, it provided opulent clothing and every meal was a decadent feast that could have fed many mouths beyond the family. The voices, there was always voices. They negated that luxury: the constant chatter, the pleading and begging, the aggression and the wailing. Everything paled in comparison to the distress and constant pressure that the voices had brought with them. A pretty dress was worthless alongside a mother's weeping for her child. A grand meal grew cold in the light of a murdered soul howling for vengeance and no amount of a nanny's affection could warm the sorrow of a long forgotten relative slowly succumbing to the descent into eternal madness.<br/><br/>She had been born this way, a living conduit between plains. Her first words were not uttered to parents or caregivers, but to those who were no longer corporeal, those who others could not see. She was thought as a creative a child, a playful child with an imagination that could weave whole earths of characters that had endured trials that should have been beyond a child's understanding.  The abundant lifestyle of her parents afforded such frivolity, it was even encouraged. There were whispers that she would perhaps be a famous novelist or playwright, maybe a great performer to be found on the stages of London's West End. Never, never was it even contemplated for a single moment that that tiny, coquettish child with wide verdant eyes and glorious titian curls had a connection so grim, was a playmate to the dead that walked the halls of the family manor.<br/><br/>In the summer of her eleventh birthday she was warned by a new voice that everything was about to change, the man had come to her with a great bloody blossom flowering from his neck and dressed as a man of nobility. He told her she needed to run, that great power of Austria-Hungary  would not only fall but would be vivisected until it was crippled and bleeding. She had gone to her mother then, terrified and ragged, begged for her to take them far to the country. Thinking her daughter too steeped in her own world of fantasy she was placated with laudanum, a foolish misstep which would open a door for a lifetime of addiction.  <br/><br/>July 28th 1914, the tremors of war had finally been felt with force. Austria–Hungary drafted nine million soldiers in World War I, of which four million were from the kingdom of Hungary. During the First World War, Austria–Hungary fought on the side of Germany, Bulgaria and Turkey , the “Central Powers”. With great difficulty, the Central Powers repelled the attacks of the Russian Empire. The Eastern front of the Entente Powers allied with Russia completely collapsed. Austria-Hungary withdrew from the defeated countries. On the Italian front, the Austro-Hungarian army could not make more successful progress against Italy after January 1918. Despite great successes on the Eastern front, Germany suffered complete defeat in the more determinant Western front. By 1918, the economic situation had deteriorated alarmingly in Austria-Hungary; strikes in factories were organized by leftist and pacifist movements, and uprisings in the army had become commonplace. Austria-Hungary signed the Armistice of Villa Giusti in Padua on 3 November 1918. In October 1918, the personal union between Austria and Hungary was dissolved.<br/><br/>Anasztaizia's family had fled in the tumultuous year of 1918 , amid the murder of the president, István Tisza, the revolutions creating major unrest and the invasion of Hungary at three compass points by Serbia, Romania and Czechoslovakia .  They thought that there was no safety to be found until they came to the village of Filkeháza  in the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County  of North Eastern Hungary. It was a small village with less than one hundred inhabitants and was mostly dependant on the farming of artichokes. I was a far cry from the life they had left behind, but it was quiet and there was no fearing for their lives. For  Anasztaizia, living in a land with so few people, meant few dead, the constant chatter she had grown with had abated, but slowly, over time and with her reaching her first bloodying of womanhood, others from far off, with no one to listen or acknowledge them sought her out.<br/><br/>The constant barrage of voices and the massive culture shock that came with the settling in Filkeháza wore the young Anasztaizia down to an almost feral state.  Her mother had come to her wits end: dealing with the lifestyle change, her daughter's steady descent into madness and the bone splintering seizures that had quickly followed the random bursts of delusion. The local priest had been brought into exorcise Anasztaizia; the ritual was a resounding failure, culminating in the holy man running from the house with his robes aflame from a hurled hurricane lamp. All hope seemed to be spent until the oldest inhabitant told Anasztaizia that she thought that she had been cursed by the evil eye. She had directed Anasztaizia out to a hut, secreted in the wilds of North Hungarian Highlands, to find the Boszorkány and to barter for her peace.  She had sneaked from her modest family home under the dark of dusk and allowed those who were never quiet to guide her to the witch.  She walked through woodlands and streams, over treacherous terrains for five days, grabbing handfuls of sleep when the dead would allow her enough peace.<br/><br/>The hut was hidden by moss and the cover of trees and rocks, but the voices of the dead knew exactly how to locate it. She had bravely knocked on that ancient door, willing to accept whatever fate lay beyond it. The Boszorkány was not as she expected, she was old, but she was no crone. Her back was straight and her eyes were as clear as a summer's day...and she knew exactly <em>what</em> Anasztaizia was. She was welcomed as a long lost child with an embrace, a hot meal and a simple bed of furs.  Anasztaizia slept for three full days, in complete silence: not a single dream or voice had disturbed her and when she woke the voices slowly returned one by one.<br/><br/>The Boszorkány had been a strict school mistress. Days were spent in the mountains as her pupil of the land, familiarising herself with the knowledge for survival in the wilderness and arming herself with the bounty the mountains had to offer those attuned to magics. Nights were spent memorising great texts and list of potions, tinctures and spells, and in the wee small hours when all good souls should be sleep, it was then the Boszorkány would whisper to the dead that constantly surrounded Anasztaizia. She would soothe them with words from dead and forgotten languages and in time Anasztaizia herself too, learned these ancient tongues and the power behind them. She was not as the Boszorkány, a woman who was born with the magic of the old world coursing through her ageless body, but she learned the ways, the spells and curses, the hexes and blessings without the power to activate them. Life in the mountains was good, it was hard and laborious and at time greatly frustrating, but she was at peace with the burden of being a conduit between the living and the dead.<br/><br/>Thirteen years, for thirteen years Anasztaizia spent by the Boszorkány’s side, dedicating every hour of her day to the tasks of the mountains and her fastidious study of magic she could never wield. In the early hours of a moonless and starless night, the Boszorkány woke her and told her that her time in the mountains had come to an end, she had been taught all she could be taught and that her true fate resided in lands far from their Hungarian home. The body of a rabbit had lain open on the earthen floor, its innards the divination for Anasztaizia life beyond the Highlands written in viscera and gore. The Boszorkány had wished her well, given her enough to keep her fed for three days then bid her an eternal farewell. With the doors wide open to receive their guidance Anasztaizia found herself in constant good fortune, finding passage, food and bed through Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and finally France. She had earned coin on her journey, passing on messages from passed loved ones and telling fortunes from the simple rules of divination the Boszorkány had taught her. It was one voice that had come to her that fateful night, a voice that had directed her to the United States to seek a fortune the likes she would never have dreamed of.<br/><br/>In her thirty-first year her feet first touched American soil on Ellis Island. She had left the immigrant inspection station with only a small case and enough money for a cup of coffee.  Spirit guided her to a diner where she caught the eye of a theatre agent; the man became entranced by her. Her rolling and smoky accent so exotic in that city of New York and her delicate features were an intoxicating blend that he knew he could glean a small fortune from.  James Caruso funded a small room for her that day and bought her dress that was less threadbare than the one she had travelled in. The man fancied himself a Svengali of this rare gem fresh from the boat, but when he brought her to an industry party, it was not the casting directors that showed an interest in her. Amongst the beautiful and aspiring actress and budding stars was a whole swathe of spirt jostling for attention, climbing over each other to be heard after going unnoticed for so long. Anasztaizia was bombarded with voice after voice begging for attention until she could no longer stand the barrage of spirit. She had gathered a small group and sat them in a secluded corner of the party, passing on messages and directions. It didn’t take long for word to spread amongst that crowd and soon she had gathered quite the audience around that small table. The group at the table turned over quickly as more came to observe and receive word from the afterlife and by the end of the evening she had a pocket full of business cards from eager patrons all desperate to have her at their next event.<br/><br/>She paid Caruso back every cent he had spent on her in the same day, taking the matter of using her unique talents to fund her life into her own hands. She quickly gained infamy for the accuracy of her abilities and in less than three months her name was the buzz on the lips of celebrities and socialites alike. She was constantly moving to the next big party or event, intimate séances or personal appointments. Her time of poverty was long gone and she had bought herself homes in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. In a time of great hardship, Anasztaizia was surrounded in wealth.<br/><br/>It was during a stint in Los Angeles in the winter of 1934 that Fate had finally caught up with Anasztaizia. She had caught the attentions of a young gentleman of the silver screen. He had become obsessed with her, procuring her services on a weekly basis, insisting her attendance to every social gathering and party and sending her lavish gifts of jewelry and furs. She had rebutted every one of his advances knowing he was already married, but still he pursued her tirelessly. His wife had become convinced that she was a mistress and lover, and soon took the matter and her boiling jealousy into her own hands. It had been a still night with a full and pregnant moon and Anasztaizia had found it odd that the voice of spirit had died down to complete silence. She had thought it was a gift, some respite, but it was the work of Fate. The wife had come then, eyes and heart full of an envy so raw it burned with a seething incandescence. She had found Anasztaizia in her bed, alone and stabbed her with a silver letter opener thirteen times. The wife had fled, bloody and babbling, to leave Anasztaizia to die in the loving cast of the full moon. <br/><br/>Hecate had come to her then as her blood pooled around her and reflected the bone white of the lunar glow. As Anasztaizia felt her life ebb away from each puncture, the Goddess had spoken to her in a voice of pure divinity. She told her that she was of few others, a daughter of the Dodekatheon and child born from not womb, but from magic and a virgin mother. Anasztaizia had thought those words were the final moments of madness of a mind coming to terms with death, but her true mother had guided her from the brink of death with gifts bestowed upon her of the Moon, Magic and Necromancy. Hecate had released her then, setting her on a path to continue bringing the word of the dead to the living to facilitate their passing from this plane to the next.  Before leaving she had warned her that there was a second great war boiling in unrest on the horizon and she would be wise to choose a side, before one chose her.</div></div><br/><br/><br/>