The Book Of Fire/Bride
Bride Bedecked with Bloody Garlands
HISTORY: The Bride Bedecked with Bloody Garlands, also known to the Kingdoms of the South as The Gracious Slice, was one of the last Solars to Exalt during the First Age. Chan Dar, a young woman barely past a normal human lifespan, was as reknowned for her radiant beauty and gracious manner as she was for an innate talent for sorcery. Her wedding to a young Lunar hero was but days away when the Terrestrial Insurrection struck. Curiously, although even she could have laid waste to scores of Dragon-Blooded before they succeeded in taking her down, she simply closed her eyes, and let them cut her down without a word. It was this assassination, of one seemingly untouched by the Great Curse and the sins that brought their judgement upon her kind, that made her death one of the most difficult of all for them to carry out. It is unknown what the Malfeans promised her or why she accepted their offer, but accept it she did, and she was reborn as The Bride. She has acted as the voice of reason and the conscience (if such can be said to exist) among her fellow Deathlords, urging unity when their separate goals and methods pull them apart. As time passes, and the Deathlords grow farther apart, she redoubles her efforts to increase communion among them, rarely with success. Those who whisper of such things claim that her ultimate goal is to create a (twisted) surrogate family for all that she lost in life. If true, then it is a goal clearly doomed to failure, one way or the other.
DESCRIPTION: The Bride Bedecked with Bloody Garlands appears as a pale young girl of about 16 years, dressed in a shining white wedding dress elaborately woven from Prayer Strips, which trail behind her like bloody, shed feathers. Her feet are bare and leave bloody footprints, which resolve into Old Realm characters that tell her story before vanishing; her shadow is that of an old crone; her scent is that of an extinct flower whose name she'll trade for one's memory of one's first act of lovemaking, which memories she keeps in a necklace of dreamstones. She wears a cascading veil of Moonsilver mesh, through which can sometimes be glimpsed her innocently large eyes, eternally weeping tears of blood. Her voice is distant and breathy, with an odd emphasis on certain syllables, and she is given to dizzying verbal circumlocutions.
The Bride carries a bouquet of Winter Blossoms, which she hurls at enemies like Perfect Throwing Knives, and which drain Essence as well as blood. Like the other Deathlords, the Bride also knows all Solar and Abyssal Charms, all sorcery up to the Solar Circle and all Necromantic spells.
THE OASIS OF BLISSFUL REFLECTION: Deep within the harsh wastes of the South lies a Shadowland which, in apparent defiance of both the desert and shadowlands, is full of growing plant life. This Oasis is a deceit, however; all the plants that grow there are poisonous, all the water that flows there hallucinogenic. This lethal Garden of Deathly Delights is tended by the Reverend Sorrow, a powerful ghost lord who serves the Bride as major domo of the Chapel of Eternal Parting.
The Chapel of Eternal Parting is the Bride's Citadel, a tortuous structure of bleached bone, like unto a fracture of the Labyrinth jutting through the skin of the world. Within, all is unaccountably cold for the desert, and sound echoes confusingly. Laid out in the manner of a First Age temple, it is more a blasphemous parody of a holy place, tended by dried zombies in formal wear, witlessly enacting ancient rituals. The Bride herself can often be found at the altar, praying for guidance from her Malfean master.
THE BRIDES' SERVANTS: The Hidden Left Hand of Silence is a rotund, jovial Southern woman dressed in the scarlet habit of a long-extinct order of nuns. This Midnight prefers socializing to fighting, and travels the towns of the South, giving aid and advice with a ready wit and an engaging manner. So disarming is she, that few notice the increasing trail of suicides that follow in her wake...
Cemeter Sorrow is the living son of the Bride herself. Using both the Arcanos and the Endowment Charm she remembers from her living days as an Eclipse Caste Solar, the Bride created an actual child of a Deathlord (the Resonance from this act wiped out all life within miles; a suitably birthday present, so far as the Bride is concerned). Tall & thin, the albino Ghostblood is unusually powerful for a mere adolescent, and possesses a certain androgynous grace about him that would net him a score of lovers if he hadn't been raised in a tomb. As it is, he has been around few live people, and is fascinated by any visitors the Chapel receives. Cemeter is immune to all the poisons and drugs in the Oasis, save one, known only to his parents. He has had the equivalent training of a Dynast, has a Pyre Hawk familiar, knows quite a few Arcanos and Abyssal Charms (including death-themed Terrestrial Martial Arts), and is quickly learning much about Necromancy. The Bride's ultimate intentions for the son that she dotes on and fusses over are unknown, but she has hinted that she is waiting for the right time to Exalt him as an Abyssal; but some say that she is awaiting the event of his first love with great...interest. Some whisper that such a being would be an exceptionally powerful exotic ingredient for Necromancy of great power...
THE BRIDES' GOALS: The Bride seeks to unite the Deathlords into an effective team and family; unlikely, as her compatriots tend to see her as more than a little deranged and ultimately harmless. She also believes that the Lunar she was engaged to has recently been reborn somewhere in the world, and would pay much for news of his whereabouts or his presence, but for what purpose is unclear. Perhaps she wishes to finally complete her nupitals, only this time beneath the gaze of the Malfeans...
