Nexus Character Directory

[Murkus]

Adalia Scae

Alias: The witch Caesa, the Queen of High Places

Gender: Female

Race/Species: Scae (spirit) of the Land and Sky. The Scae can be of dual natures, but are more commonly either of the Land, Sea, or Sky.

Age: Ancient. Old as the hills. Quite literally.

Class/Profession: Witch, Rot Queen

Power Rating: Extremely scaleable. At the center of Caesa's might, a locus where she's gathered all her strength, it can easily reach A+. However, no such locii currently exist. Currently it's somewhere between C and B. May the heavens tremble if she ever reaches full power again.

Description: Adalia's appearance is that of a human or elf woman, clothed in animal-skin and a heavy woolen cloak. A deep cowl often hides her face, and as such, she's more commonly described as faceless. Sometimes depicted as a child, sometimes an ancient crone, Adalia's appearance is transient at best. Her face is like a faux-heart, curvaceous and sharp toward the chin. The witch's body is pierced in many places, along her arms and on her face most prominently. Hung from these piercings are a variety of beads, circlets, and charms.

Her hair appears not to be hair at all, but more resembles the jutting scalp feathers of the Lammergeier, lord of vultures. Her eyes, too, are as the scavenger-king's, the colors of moonlight and blood.

Personality: Adalia is a being out of time, a walking horror of prehistory. As such, she's entirely out of touch with the modern world. Even the 'magic' of this day and age is strange to her. Nevertheless, she has a soft spot for young practitioners, and will try to protect them when she can. A patron of the arts, she seeks to reeducate magi, while trying in turn to learn from them.

Her ways are strange. A willful, arrogant creature, she has a natural air of sovereignty, and often expects homage or sacrifice from mortals in exchange for her favor. She is prone to black moods, and fits of rage or savagery for no apparent reason. Ultimately, she wants to make the world the way it was, or at least the way she remembers it. Primitive, desperate, hard and strong. She, too, is all these things.

Equipment: Adalia has very little in the way of worldly possessions, at least, those carried with her. Aside from the clothes on her back, there are but a few charms and nick-nacks worth noting.

• The staff Splinter, a gnarled walking stick with a jagged crack down it's center. The crack seems to pass all the way through, but the staff is in otherwise in good shape. At will, a horrid moaning can be issued from the staff, and the crack will begin to widen. When this occurs, it is said that Adalia possesses spectacular powers over wind. It's also good for carrying things, and supporting the old witch when she feels weak.
• Hecate's Curse, a pendant that impedes the use of man-made devices in a large area. Electronics may cease to function entirely.
• Some water, in a tiny glass bottle. Adalia has never elaborated on the liquid's origins, but it seems to have the effect of de-aging and wound-healing for mortals when properly applied. It has no affect on her.
• An obsidian shard, sharp as it is ugly, bound to a bone handle with leather cord. The handle looks like a child's radial bone. The cleaver is a deadly weapon, and also excellent for preparing food.

Abilities:

|Strengths|

Adalia possesses untold might. She can call stone and air to her aid, summon a congress of vultures for battle, or rip a man's beating heart from his chest. At her strongest, she alters reality with her mere presence. She is obviously immortal, and ageless to a certain degree.

A Black, Bloody Goddess: Adalia's physical attributes are inhuman. She is unharmed by most mundane weaponry, and will simply shrug off a wide variety of attacks made with what she calls 'new magic'. The witch is abnormally strong and fast to boot. Over mountainous terrain, she has no equal, and can fight along the side of a sheer cliff without much difficulty.

Only Misfires Against Me: Ranged weapons are prone to inaccuracy when aimed at the witch. A ripple in the air, a sigh of wind, and it's as though there was no bullet or bolt to begin with. That isn't to say she's impervious to such attacks - though her defenses are extremely resilient. It takes firepower, or truly stunning speed and skill, to harm her. This power is based in the mind, and after all, few marksmen can match the speed of thought.

A True Master Waits: Though Adalia's most impressive abilities have to do with manipulating the world around her - the animals, the elements, the power of the Nexus itself - her true power is much more subtle. She sends curses or familiars to do her dirty work. She summons visions of the future or past to uncover truths. Charms, potions, sacrifices, hidden doors and dark pacts - Adalia trades in all these things. She's much more dangerous for it, as her own presence in a conflict is often unnecessary. She plays sides, manipulates people to her own ends, or favors some mortals with powerful boons.

|Weaknesses:|

To Bleed the Earth: Due to a long-dead deity's curse, Adalia must consume energy to sustain herself. She's often seen walking through remote valleys, along lonely roads, or across scorched battlegrounds. These places give her a kind of strength. It has been speculated that she draws power from the earth, or parallel versions of the same location in other universes, destroying them utterly in the process. Either way, without visiting these locations regularly (or finding another source of sustenance) she will gradually wither and fade. The light and happiness of the mortal world weakens her, and thus she cannot remain in normal societal conditions for long. It is a wearying existence, at times.

Cursed Iron: As mentioned above, lead or flint cannot wound the witch. But cold iron can. It sears her flesh, and bypasses defensive charms. Certain other weapons or magic can harm her just as easily, but such weaknesses are obscure or vague at best. It is said Caesa's true name can bind her physical form.

The Sacrifice: Though it is not common knowledge, the witch does have other ways of sustaining her cursed existence. Consuming the heart of a sentient being, most favorably a human male, is one such way. She gains a portion of the being's strength, but loses herself in the blood, savaging friend and foe alike in a frenzy of power.

How is this a weakness, one might ask? Aside from the fact that she attacks any living being nearby, her eldritch powers are all but lost in this animal state. Only the physical potency, and perhaps a shred of her victim's powers will remain.

Backstory: From time to time on the Harvest Eve, long before the first scythe is swung, the hill people still whisper of Caesa. Voices hushed, as though the witch might hear, they talk of the age from whence she emerged. They say when the humble Peasant planted the first seed, when He planted life in the earth with a single word, Scae was watching from her mountaintop. When He wound back the elder clock and began the cycle anew, Caesa was among those who turned the hands. She is the mountain queen, eldest of the Rock-born things that rule the high places. She is always there, in every creation myth they know, on every mural or piece of cave-art, sitting in the distance astride a lonely mountaintop. Waiting.

Though the hill people are a superstitious lot, there's some truth to almost every one of their tales. Adalia really did exist, in one form or another, before mortal life began. She had a court, then - spirits and beasts, or Outsiders from the plane of earth. Caesa even collected a few True Men, once the Peasant's wife had borne them into the world. But these things are since lost to time, as is much of her power.

After her downfall, an event of which she will not speak, Caesa weaved herself inside a rock on the plains of a world that would one day become part of the Nexus. That boulder, and others like it, would in a few ages time become the base of a mighty mountain. Some of her servants watch over it still, slaying those who would seek the artifacts Caesa hid near her tomb. She has woke before, always to great strife and conflict, but time will tell when the witch will rise again.