Name: Princess Veruise
Nickname: Veru
Race: Dunmer/Altmer
Gender: Female
Age: Appears to be early twenties
Birthsign: The Apprentice
Focus: Magic and Combat
Major Skills: Athletics, Blade, Restoration, Speechcraft, Conjuration
Other Skills: Enchant, Sleight-of-Hand, Necromancy
Class: Necromancer (Journeyman)
General Appearance: Veruise is a dark flower, rare and extremely poisonous. Her crimson hair brings to mind a waterfall of blood. Her skin, a silver so pale it is more reminiscent of moonlight, is very smooth. Her gaunt oval face has well-defined features, with a strong nose, full lips and almond-shaped elvish eyes. She is tall, with a lithe body and modest curves, and she seems delicate- and often unearthly, in the most unnerving way. She is no typical beauty, but Veruise' strength does not lay in her appearance, but rather in what lay beneath the surface.
Hair: Her long crimson hair flows freely down her back, and reaches her waist in length. It's thick and sleek in appearance, and smells faintly of blood.
Eyes: Golden Eyes with a faint glow.
Height: 5ft9"
Build: She's tall and appears delicate.
Skin: Her skin is a pale silver that is almost white. It seems to glow faintly and is often described as 'moonlight' in colour.
Tattoos/Scars: She bears the mark of Mannimarco, carved across her briast, right where her heart is.
Personality: Veruise is dangerous, and let no other convince you otherwise. Though she holds the keys to life and death, she seems to have no preference over which she chooses. Most alarmingly, she seems keen to upset the balance- when she meets someone on the brink of death, she will heal them, when she finds one vibrantly alive... well. And she clearly enjoys the raising of the dead. She has made it her mission in life to eliminate the followers of Arkay, something from which she takes profound joy. Her sharp intelligence mixed with her unpredictability makes her a formidable opponent, to say the least. Though she seems driven, she has no clear cause. If one manages to befriend her, they are safe from her power, and may even benefit from it. Few interest her enough and for long enough for her to consider them worthy 'friends'. Her temper appears to be non-existent, but this is not so- rather, she has inherited her mother and grandmother's taste for vengeance, applied subtly. That being said, she has no taste for politics: only for knowledge and her own whims. She has a cruel and often morbid sense of humour. It is curious what would happen should Veruise's drive be given purpose.
Weapon(s): A daedric cutlass for battles, a daedric atham? for sacrifices, and the clawed fingers of her gauntlet.
Clothing/Armour: Veruise wears a simple, flowing black dress that reaches her knees in length. It is sleeveless, and though it fits her form it is hardly to be considered revealing. She also wears thigh-high black boots and a ruby pendant around her neck bearing Mannimarco's symbol. Though she is notably unarmoured, Veruise' left arm and shoulder are encased in a long black gauntlet (which also acts as a pauldron) referred to as Reap. It is made of a strange, light black metal, angular and spiked in the manner of daedric, and yet not. There are many black soulgems embedded within Reap, and it is rumoured to possess the ability to capture any soul- living or dead, if the wearer's will is enough.
Inventory: She carries with her in her small black pack a collection of black soulgems, a small gambling box and a small purse of coins.
Misc Skills and Traits:
-Though there lays within her extreme reserves of power and magicka, Veruise has yet to reach her full potential, and has a long journey ahead of her before she manages to tap those reserves and learn to use them skilfully.
-Veruise has an obsession with blood: she loves to see it, and is apparently facinated by it.
-Veru is relatively unknown by the necromancer's world, but she despises common necromancers of all kinds as the unworthy servants of her father.
-She is much stronger than she looks (though not necessarily as strong as a hardened warrior), and is seemingly immune to all disease. This is a result of her father's tamperings in her birth.
-Veruise enjoys gambling and has a knack for it. This is how she earns most of her money, save for when she loots the bodies of those she kills.
-She has all of the weaknesses of her two sides, and none of the strengths. Born under the Apprentice, as well as High Elven, she is extremely susceptible to spells.
Short Bio: Morgiah, daughter of Barenziah, made a deal with Mannimarco in exchange for a marriage with Reman of Firsthold. Morgiah agreed to give 'her first' for this. As a result, Morgiah laid with Mannimarco and bore him her first child- a girl, taken prematurely from the womb and greatly weakened. But Mannimarco worked many magicks on her- whether she died and was reanimated is rumoured, but without proof- and the girl lived, the unholy child of Morgiah, and Mannimarco's favourite. She served under him for most of her early life, hating him but admiring the power and knowledge he possessed, and she followed his lessons hungrily. When she was but twelve, she left his necromancer's underworld to explore the outside, and to test her skills. She killed three men in the first two months of her independence, and raised many more. It is said among necromancers that if you could catch her soul, it would be sanguine. It is unclear how she came by Reap, but she served Vaermina for three years, and when she left Vaermina's service she had Reap, so it is assumed that the Daedra Prince had something to do with it. The rest is a story of horror on the part of the Chapel, for though she was only young and still learning her power, she was extremely cunning and killed many of their priests- all dedicated to Arkay.
DaggerfallShe strode purposefully down the street, a slim figure, a tall slip of woman, and yet so imposing in the forcefulness of her movements and the dire omens of her attire. Her skin, a pale silver reminiscent of moonlight, was beautiful in its strangeness, her waist-length red hair a waterfall of blood. Her slender form was clothed in black dress of a kind that would hide gore when it inevitably fell upon it. A naked daedric cutlass bumped against her thigh, and a daedric atham? was strapped below her hip. Her entire left arm was encased in a single piece of dark armour, embedded with strange black crystals.
This was Veruise, a Princess by right, but known only to herself and the King of Worms. But this did not bother Veruise; hers was a mission far more important than mere politics. What did she care for armies or riches?
She was on a mission to destroy a God.
One priest at a time... She smiled with such frost the air around her chilled.
She turned the corner, walking down a close alleyway with a dark gate at the end. In the distance, flowery fields and grey slabs could be seen. She pushed through the gate, and there, stood alone before the statue of Arkay, that ridiculous symbol to those who grieved that the world was in balance.
There were no mourners out this day. Too much had changed in Daggerfall, there was too much feeling of unease. And so it was only her, and the priest, his back to her, unknowing of his impending doom.
She drew her atham? and knelt, digging the ritual dagger into the ground with her Reap encased arm, head bowed and eyes closed tight. Her right hand, she held open as she summoned powers beyond the norm.
The air went deadly still, and suddenly only the priest's breathing could be heard, an uholy silence from which only he was immune. Veruise was perfectly still, her body not even rising and falling in signs of life. The priest continued his vigil before Akatosh's statue, but the silence stung at him in an almost physical manner.
He turned and started as Veruise rose, drawing her cutlass with her right hand, magic like black smoke curling around her blade and body, her breath coming out black. She fixed her golden eyes on his brown ones as graves exploded nearby, men and women flinging themselves with inhuman strength out of their death and into undeath. Gravedirt rained upon the heads of Veru and the priest, the stench of rotting flesh nearly causing the latter to gag, but Veru only smiled, her shoulders lifting as she breathed in deeply.
"So you've come for me at last, then," he said wearily.
Veru nodded.
The priest, who could only have been thirty, turned his head, taking in the horrors that had once been men as they crowded around him. He shuddered, but neither cried nor fled. "Surely you know that you cannot harm me with their unholy hands?" He raised his own hands, and the air around him shuddered and distorted, an odd dome, a shiver in the world, appearing around him. Her minions went to it, then backed away, then tried again once more, but for each time they neared his bubble they were repulsed, their bodies a little more worn than before.
She nodded again, and snapped her fingers. "Eldakhar, Morvhen!" she summoned. The dremora appeared in columbs of green fire, flanking the priest on each side. They promptly grabbed his arms, holding him in place. He reached desperately for magicka, but found it cut off. He was defenseless.
She strode up to him, peering into his face. Gently, almost lovingly, she ran the tip of her atham? down his cheek, scraping the cheekbone and jaw. Blood spurted, and the pain was so exquisite, he hardly had breath to scream.
She stepped back, admiring the effect of the gash on his face, wiping his blood from her own with the back of her hand.
"Y-you have... you have not... w-won..." he stammered, shaking so badly now that the words could barely leave his breathless lips. He seemed to take strength from his own words, and continued.
Veruise knelt, and with a sickening crunch Eldakhar helped the priest to kneel as well. Looking him in the eyes, she said, "I know how much you care for your balance. How much you believe that for every death their should be a rebirth, a place for new souls." It was the first time she had spoken, and her soft voice was a shock to the ears, a monstrous snarl more expected.
"I'm sure you believe that your death will create further balance. That this allows your unborn child her place in the world." She smiled sweetly, but it didn't reach her golden eyes.
The priest could only stare, agape. "No, you haven't returned to your pregnant wife since the second death, have you? You hoped that perhaps by abandoning them, you could spare their lives," her voice was so gentle, so angelic, so sympathetic, it made him want to scratch his own eyes out. What sort of vicious creature was she? What had spawned a monster such as this?
"I'm afraid that you never should have tried to pass on your line. I was going to spare your wife- what did she matter to me?- until your comrade Malthus mentioned her babe- oh yes, he spoke of her. I think it was in a plea for her life, but I forget." She tilted her head to one side.
"They are both quite dead, would you like to see?" she sheathed her dagger in the ground and drew two soul gems from her pack, both alight with human spirits. "They say if you press them to your ear, you can hear their screaming. Like a sea shell, isn't that funny?" she offered them to the broken priest before her, he sobbed and leaned away, his entire body shaking and drenched with sweat and tears.
"As you like," she said, returning the gems to her pack. "I only thought you might wish to say goodbye." She picked up her atham? and then lunged widly at him, digging the blade into his stomach and twisting. This time, he did scream. She whispered the soul trap spell, but nothing happened.
She sniffed delicately.
Why can't I trap their souls? What protection has he put upon them, that I cannot steal them even when I have broken them like this? She returned her atham? to its strap on her leg.
Rising to her feet, she gripped her cutlass now in both hands. "Farewell, Priest of Arkay. The world is made more interesting by your death," she said, and then swung with all her might. The dremoras stood back, and by the time his head hit the ground they were both gone, engulfed once more by the green flames.
She turned and strode away, the undead collapsing to the ground as she passed, the dark spark that had fuelled them disappearing. The cemetery looked more like a battlefield now, with bodies strewn all around.
And that was exactly what it was.
OOC: I'll make a first post with Edrain later.