<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/waqyLCl.jpg)    </div><strong>Kasmira</strong>(http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=1078361)<br/><br/>Ah, the idyllic orphan story-- it was as in the fairy tales, a basket on a doorstep, a soft blanket with gold trim that hinted at nobility, a lovely babe with bright eyes, porcelain skin, and raven-black hair.  Yes, Master Rence and Mistress Catherina Doska, retired to their country estate, were quite smitten with the infant that became the focus of their lives.  Having retired, childless, to a defensible chateau stocked with servants and vineyards, they needed a distraction from their boring and tedious lives of wealth in the countryside.  The girl provided that-- growing lovely in her youth, she was the focus of their tales for guests both merchant and semi-noble, she was the reason for their parties and the recipient of their lavish gifts.  They named the girl Kasmira, and she was suited-after by youths and leches quite heavily in her time.<br/><br/>Paying little heed to the girl's peculiarities-- her fondness for blue-rare meat, her sensitivity to bright daylight and insistence on heavy curtains in her chambers, her strange interests in morbid tales and taboo subjects-- they turned away suitors on her behalf and distracted her with a broad library and the loveliest of dresses.  She was a spoiled prat, no doubt, but she made them quite happy.  The onset of her puberty was quite late, which gave them greater cause to enjoy spoiling her in her 'girlish years'.  Her fascination with dead things was simple 'childhood curiosity' or 'sensitivity'.  And her parlor tricks-- the abilities she began to show to manipulate things and turn away servants that annoyed her?  Well, those were just quirks of her mystery, and one day she would grow out of them.<br/><br/>Regardless, she began to earn a reputation among the visitors-- some said she was a succubus that was leeching life and wealth from her aging parents, and others that she was a changeling that would one day return to the realm of the dark fae.  Little heed was given these warnings, although her suitors dried up, and the legends greatly overshadowed any true menace.<br/><br/>When visitors declined and her parents grew more feeble, the girl took to bouts of exploring... visiting taverns, inviting herself to dances that she'd received no invitation to.  She loved her parents-- well, at least had a fondness for them... but she wanted to experiment, to see the things that people rarely spoke of.  She made pretense of joining a convent, only to sneak out when she grew bored.  She entertained an ivory merchant's advances only to brush him off when he insisted on marriage.  She visited caravans and stole moments of arcanists' time, dug up bodies and lingered in brothels.  Every curiosity was hers to indulge... until her adopted parents, one night, were murdered.<br/><br/>They and their servants were slaughtered, and all were strung up for display at the gates of their home.  There was evidence of some robbery, but the violence and brutality so outweighed the monetary gain that the murder was assumed to be a personal vendetta.  A fisherman on the loch described seeing a young woman in league with a half-dozen horsemen ride to the chateau the night of the murder, and having heard screams he fled to the next village to drink away his terrors.<br/><br/>His story was accepted as fact, and the suspicious townsfolk blamed Kasmira-- the morbid girl's room was filled with curious trophies, in fact... jewels from the deceased, tomes of dark magic, and even a few human skulls.  She was unable to account for her whereabouts because the nomadic merchants that she'd spent the evening with had left town without a trace, and she even had blood under her fingernails (a coincidence of regretfully having to purchase raw lamb to scorch for her breakfast).<br/><br/>Incarcerated for weeks, she was finally freed when her closest friend, confronting the fisherman, forced him to reveal additional details about the mysterious assailants at the home that cast doubt on Kasmira's involvement.  Before the girl could be released from prison, the poor fisherman went missing, and his body (when it broke free of the chains on its ankles and drifted ashore) was found a week later, bloodless, bloated, and putrid.<br/><br/>Kasmira has since found Allsorts, and its owner Mr. Pike, in in kindness as much as business savvy, allows her to entertain travelers for coin so she can keep up room and board.  All her family's wealth was seized by the government, despite the fact that charges against her were dismissed, because as an adopted child she could not be named an heir under local law.  With only a trunk of her old possessions, she lives humbly and performs acts of 'spiritual premonition' for guests-- the reading of tarot cards, spirit-board communication, and seances of minor prestidigitation.  She knows that personal wealth and power are the only tools she has for revenge, and she is plotting to build her reputation and wealth as best opportunity can provide, though for the past few weeks she has barely been scraping by.<br/><br/>(((edit: character up-to-date as of 12/25)))