Willow Wisp
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| Willow Wisp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Origin: | Magic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Archetype: | Defender | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Security Level: | 42 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal Data | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Real Name: | Jeanne de Vall | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Known Aliases: | Wisp ( Crisp - a cruel joke, which she does not aprove off, about the form she turns into if she lacks life essence) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Species: | Human (pseudo life / Undead) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Age: | 19 at the time of her death | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height: | 5'7 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight: | 108 lbs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Eye Color: | Glowing white (Ice Blue when she was alive) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hair Color: | Dark with bluish reflexes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Biographical Data | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality: | French | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation: | Sorceress (French catholic nun when she was alive) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of Birth: | Paris | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Base of Operations: | Paragon City | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marital Status: | Single | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Known Relatives: | None living | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Known Powers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dark Miasma | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Known Abilities | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Equipment | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| None | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ratings:
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Contents |
Affiliations
None for time being.
Personality
Willow Wisp usually appears shy and resigned, but calm. Even though she hides her emotions under her hood she still have a visible a stroke of melancholia and loneliness about her. Her resignation and loneliness is sometimes mistaken as arrogance and gritty emo tendecies which is not the case. Wisp treasure being alive and does not intentionally wish to step on anyones feelings. She is almost always friendly and polite when adressed politely, though not very social and outgoing as she seems to have a hard time grasping people in the modern enviorment and cultures. The reason for Wisp's melancholy is that fact that she does not fully undertand what she have become, how she becaome this way and how to go on with her life. She misses the company and guidance from her old mentor Claude de Charité. Even though she does remember her past life she does not miss her time as a nun, nor does she devote herself to catholisism.
Interests
Wisp have a neverending passion for litterature. She is frekvently seen buried in a book, even at social occations. After her return to life, alot of her interest is concerning sorcery and anything that will make her control her power, rather than having her powers controling her. Despite her shyness she have a curious nature and likes to observe people, like a flie on the wall, even though she always pretend to have her attention elsewhere.
Powers
Dark Miasma & Dark Blast
As Wisp has read the words of the spells on the scrolls and the powers of the scrolls merged with her soul durring the time of her death. She is able to wield negative energies and draw powers from the netherworld. Her powers makes her able to levitate and warp as well. The miasmic powers also have a mending effect with makes her or anyone close to her heal, by stealing some life esscence from another source.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Powers and emotions
Like mentioned above, Wisp's magic powers are liked to her soul, her emotions have a heavy influence on her spell casting. Mentally she is still a young girl in the late teens with no previous experience dealing with sorcery, this makes it difficult for her to control the use of her spells and potentially, but unintentionally dangerous to anyone vunerable to negative energy.
Normal physics and strenght
Even though Wisp is fit and in good physical shape, she have no superhuman strenght or fortitude. She is as vunerable to most physical harm just like an ordinary human.
Sustaining her living form
The magic of the scrolls which helps her sustain her physical living form of flesh and blood have a price. Being human she eats drinks and sleeps like anyone else, but eventually she will have to leeche the lifeforce from other living creatures occationally to remain humanity. If she fails to get the life essence she needs she will transform in to the form she had at her moment of her death and she will change into the shape of a burning, smoldering corpse. If she looses her humanity she also looses any control she have of her powers, her mind turns off, as the survival instinct kicks in and she will launch a full assault one anything or anyone living close by atempting to drain life essence and recover her living form again.
History
A storyline about Jeanne de Vall & The scrolls of Oranbega.
Uruk, Summeria. 3200 BC. (The myth about 'The scrolls of Oranbega' begins.)
The summerian King Enmerkar, founder of Unug-Kulaba also knowns as Uruk, recivied the scrolls called 'The scrolls by Oranbega' as a gift from a group of ancient mariners from the fare west. Survivors from a fallen empire named Oranbega. He was told that the scrolls will give bring the owner tremedeous power. Legend's tells that Enmerkar lived to be 420 years old and with his construction of The Abzu ziggurat of Enki at Eridu. Strong parrallels indicates that he was the actual founder of what later was to be known as the Tower of Babel. The later fate of the scrolls remains unknown for two thousand years.
Babylon, Mesopotamia. 1126 BC. (The scrolls reappears.)
After a historical gap of nearly two millenea, Nebuchadnezzar I, the newly crowned king of the IV Dynasty of Babylon, recovered the scrolls and with the aid of his priesthood he got the ancient signs of the scrolls translated into Akkadian, a tranlated compendium which he added to the original scrolls.
Babylon, Mesopotamia. 331 BC. (Alexander the Great conquers Babylon.)
The scroll remained in the care of the Babylonian dynasites, and later the Perisian rulers for nearly 800 years. As Darius III was defeated by Alexander the great, the scrolls was among the treasures Alexander claimed on his conquest. They remain in Babylon until Alexander's death in 323 BC.
Alexandria, Egypt. 323 BC. (Ptolemy brings the scrolls to Alexandria)
After the demise of Alexander the Great, his general Ptolemy I Soter, who was to become king of Egypt, brought the scrolls home to his Capitol, where they later became stored at The Royal Library of Alexandria.
Alexandria, Egypt. 149 BC. (The scrolls gets translated into greek)
Famous scholar Aristarchus of Samothrace, was rumored to have translated the scrolls into greek, replacing the Akkadian compendium with a greek one while preserving the original. Speculations indicates that Aristarchus' interest in myths and mystism lead to his persecution, carried out by Ptolemy VIII of Egypt, who purged Alexandria for Jews and intellectuals whom he saw as a threat to his reign. Once again the scrolls became forgotten for centuries.
Alexandria, Egypt. 48 BC. - 642 AD. (The destruction the Library of Alexandria)
Wether it was Julius Caesar's conquest 48 BC, The attack of Aurelian in 378, The decree of Theophilus in 391 or The Muslim conquest in 642, which caused the destuction of the Libary is still debated. The scrolls survived though, ending up in persian hands once more.
Jerusalem, Israel. 1095 - 1192. (The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Crusade)
Crusaders and pilgrims fighting to gain a hold of The Holy Land, claimed at numorous occations that mullah's and saracen assassins fourght back using heretic rituals and black magic.
Paris, France. 1191 (The scrolls becomes stored in the catacombs of Notre Dame)
After Richard I of England's capture of Acre, a port on a peninsula in the Gulf of Haifa. The scrolls was reclaimed by a french crusader name Guy de François among the spoils of war. De François got seriously wounded by a poisoned arrow the same year, but manneged to return to Paris. Before he died he signed over his booty to Archbishop Maurice de Sully, who was elected as one of the guardians of the royal treasury during the crusade. De Sully who's mind was focused on the development of Notre Dame at that point, had the litterature sealed away 'for later scrutiny'. He locked it up in a secret chamber in the catacombs of the former church which had been demolished at his request for the creation of the Notre Dame 30 years prior. De Sully died a few years later and with no regestry of his hidden chamber or the litterature he had stored, it remained hidden and untouched for two and a half century.
Paris, France. 1471. (Claude de Charité)
Claude de Charité, a young priest, scholar and personal servant of the aging Bishop Renaud de Fontaines, came had come across the roll some scrolls well hidden by de Sully, durring a stroll in the catacombs. De Charité who regareded himself as much a scientist and scholar as well as a man of God, had a wast collection of litterature, among it some books and texts, which he kept a secret. He instantly grew an interest in the findings in the catacombs, which he decided to keep for studies. Well aware that if anyone knew of his possession of such artifact, it would be regarded as blasphemy and high heresy, and eventually his death at the stakes. He didn't had the heart to destroy the scrolls. His love for litterature simply kept him from disposing them so instead he kept them well hidden in his private chambers.
Paris, France. 1487. (The discovery of Jeanne)
De Charité found and rescused the 9 year old orphant, Jeanne de Vall, from hyperthermia on a cold winter morning. Durring her recovery de Charité noticed the girl being unusually bright for a street girl and decided to change her fate from a desperate life in poverty, begging in the streets to a life dedicated in servitude to God. As she recovered he send her off to a monastery where she would inintiate her path to become an adept nun and a servant of God.
Paris, France. 1494 - 1497 (Jeanne growing up)
De Charité kept a continued interest in her progress as she trived and over the years grew into a stunning young woman. His fasination for Jeanne slowly grew into an obsession. Being a servant of God himself he knew that he would be condemned forever if he ever lay a hand on her, still he wanted to keep her close and share her company so he decided to give her personal leasons and secretly taught her how to read and write. Jeanne seemed to have a neverending appetite for knowledge and de Charité who cherished her company and attention kept feeding her with books and texts, her photographic memory and abillity to remember almost everything she had been taught was a neverending puzzle to de Charité.
Paris, France. 1497 (The trial and death of Jeanne)
Jeanne had finished her initiation as a nun and the amount of duties she had to preform grew, which gave her less time to study with de Charité. In her absence de Charité grew frustrated and paranoid. He started to fear that she intentionally avoided him because she had grown bored with his teachings and his litterature. In deperation de Charité offered her to study his 'secret' collection in atempt to catch her interest. Jeanne happily accepted his offer and he granded her access to his forbidden litterature. Jeanne felt like spellbound as she started reading the scrolls of Oranbega. This was all way different from any book or text she had ever read. In her excitment and facination she had a hard time letting go as she had to return for the daily evening mass at the monastery, so she made a rash decision and borrowed the scrolls from de Charité wihtout telling him.
She spend the next three nights studying the scrolls in her chamber, hiding it in a crack in the wall beneath her bed. Her studies came to am abrupt end the morning of the forth day durring the morning mass as an abbess came across the scrolls durring a random routine inspection. Horrified and outraged by her discovery, the abbess rushed to an audience with Bishop Renaud de Fontaines, which imediatly had Jeanne arrested and imprisoned. The Bishop summoned head inquisitor Nicholas de la Reymie of Chambre Ardante (The Burning Court) to lead the investigation and interrigation of Jeanne.
De Charité who was known to had spend time tutoring Jeanne also came under suspisicion. Hearing about Jeannes arrest he paniced and trew the rest on his incriminating litterature in the fireplace to remove any evidence pointing at him. De Charité was no brave man, so as La Reymie questioned him he denied any knowledge of the scrolls in Jeannes possession. Since de Charité was a favorite servant of the bishop, Renaud de Fontaines held his hand over him and confirmed de Charité's statement of innocence which made La Reymie stop any deeper investigation of de Charité.
Durring her interrigation, Jeanne denied being guilty in heresy and also denied having any collaborators. Fiercely loyal to her old mentor she didn't mention a word about him, which made her unable to come up with an explanation on how she had obtained the scrolls. This made La Reymie focus even harder on Jeanne. After a night of severe torture and abuse by the hands of La Reymie and his crew Jeanne confessed to witchery, to have had intercourse with devil, obtained the scroll directly from the devil, in exchange for her soul and several other accusations about heresy that La Reymie had put in her mouth and made her repeat durring the night. Next morning her confessions where brought before Renaud de Fontaines which ordered her imediate execution. Not wanting to deal with further complications about the orgin of the scrolls the Bishop orders them burned together with the witch. The same day Jeanne was publicly tied to a stake, with the scrolls tied in a cord around her waist she was burned alive, before a cheering crowd.
Paris, France. 1497. (The aftermath)
Watching helplessly from the crowd, de Charité saw Jeanne burn at the stake, firsthand. Devastated with guilt and despair he snug up to the stake the following night and gathered her ashes in an urn. Afterwards he went to visit Pierre de Louvier, a scholar and an old loyal friend from de Charité's time as student. That night de Charité told the true story to his friend. He also trusted de Louvier the urn for safekeeping, begging de Louvier to make sure Jeanne's remains got a true chatholic burial at hallowed ground. Pierre first reluctantly accepted the urn, but intrigued by the part about the Oranbegan scroll which was burned with Jeanne, he decided to keep the urn for research. Despite his friends atempt to clam him down, de Charité left de Louvier's house a broken man. He didn't return home to his own residence. A few days lated the drowned body of de Charité was found at the brink of the Seine in the outskirts of Paris by a city watchman.
North America. 1528. (The urn leaves Paris and dissapears)
How the urn left Paris remains is unclear. Rumors told that Pierre de Louvier, handed it over to Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer who was in the service of the French crown. This support the claimes Girolamo da Verrazano made in 1529 in his notes of his brother’s explorations, mentioning the remains of a city called Oranbega. Like Giovanni da Verrazzano's mystical dissapearance and death in 1528 durring his explorations of Floria and Bahamas, the urn dissapeared and it's fate remained shrouded in mystery for centuries.
New Orleans, Louisiana. 1972. (The urn resurfaces)
The urn turned up on in the collection at the opening of New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum after being salvaged from a temple of a deseased voodoo doctor. The Museum claimed that it had been the belonging of the famous Marie Laveau at some point.
New Orleans, Louisiana. 2004. (Circle of Thorns steals the urn)
Baron Zoria got a clue about the urns orgin and whereabouts. Believing that Jeanne de Vall might be a key to some lost knowledge of Oranbegan sorcery, he send two trusted lackeys to New Orleans to fetch it from him. The break in and theft of the urn does not make any headlines in the New Orleans newpapers as nothing else was stolen or damaged and the loss of the urn was regarded as minor significans by the museum and local historians, who knew nothing of the urns orgin except that it was a minor part of the 'Marie Laveau' collection.
Paragon City, Rhode Island. 2004. (Jeanne's return to the world of living)
Due to a priority in interests and with the uncertainty of the value of the information kept by the long deceased girl, Baron Zoria had no present time to deal with the matters of the urn himself. So he left it in the hands of an experienced high ranking mage in the Circle proceed with the summoning of Jeanne's ghost. With a handful of summoners the mage succeeded in bringing Jeanne's sprit back from the dead. Unkown the the mages they would be unable to control her spirit. The magic within the scrolls had merged with the soul of Jeanne the moment she died. Her apparation unleashed a wave of miasmic tendrils, instantly draining the all shreds of life out of the mages standing closest to the center of the ritual. The lucky few mages who stood out of her reach fled for their lives. The life essence she obtained from the Circle members was enough for her to reclaim and sustain her physical form. Bewildered and scared she fled scene.
