Viorica Biserica
Age: 22 years
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 120 lbs
Build: Lithe and muscular
Family Matters
"I am loath to speak of my history, for there is much which I would just as soon forget. But perhaps my trust in you is not ill-placed, hmm?
"The homestead where I came of age was secluded in the forests of southern Barovia, somewhere between Berez and Teufeldor. Father warned us to never venture near the mountains...too many dangerous beasts and devils, he would warn us. We lived well enough for our means, with Father hunting and trapping and Mother growing herbs and flowers for the markets. My four siblings and I helped where needed, and Father made certain that we did. With their goods shouldered or bagged for travel, our parents would make their treks to the markets of the nearby cities. And though the cityfolk accepted our trades pleasantly enough, there was always the air of distrust and suspicion about them.
"I suppose their regard for us was understandable. Every one of our brood had lived in the woodlands from birth onward, where the cityfolk would seldom abandon the comforts of their settlements and approach. Father was a hunter and a ranger, and he taught his five children the ways of hunting and preparing our kills from an early age. But Mother...there was something queer in her blood. Something which had tainted each of her children as we grew in her womb.
"Out away from the cities and the streets, something primal courses through the untamed lands...something which I, for all my connection to it, can vaguely comprehend. Something gentle and cruel, nourishing yet poisonous, warm yet cold. Father could touch this power and, through it, could call forth the birds and the beasts to serve our needs, or cause the briars and brambles to shoot forth from the earth and ensnare all who drew too near. But for all his bond with the Wyld, Mother and her powers handily overshadowed him.
"In my earliest memories of her, she was a loving wife for Father and a gentle mother to me and my siblings. I do not know why, but with the years she grew increasingly cold and distant, distracted with some unwitnessed thing and lashing out with anger at the merest provocations. And her discord was passed onto us, greater and greater with each birth. I am the eldest of the five, and Mother's...essence, perhaps? It afflicted me with hair which is quite unnatural in its hue. Something beneath my skin is always itching, and from time to time--often in the springtime--a tiny shoot or sprig of some odd variety of ivy will sprout from my skin, as if it belonged there. I pluck the shoot out and a small rivulet of blood will always fall from the wound. For these unsavory quirks, I thank my mother with bitterness.
"And in succession my siblings had worse. Toman's yellow eyes were as those of a wolf, and gray tufts of coarse hair--or fur--cropped from his cheeks and his neck as puberty found him. The tops of Stelian's hands and feet were clad less in human skin and more in the scaled hide of a serpent, scales which crept further along his peculiar lengthened shins and forearms as he aged. And Ovidiu and Daciana, if I was told truly, could rightly be called caliban in frame and in mind--part human, part animal and part unspeakable aberrant, so warped had they grown through Mother's rising wickedness and witchery; neither of them were ever permitted to join our parents on their travels into town, for neither could be mistaken for anything normal and acceptably human.
"We were the odd folk who lived away from civilization, and each child born to Father and Mother increased our isolation. But one year, Mother went away with two sinister men, their robes and leathers dark and littered with tethered animal bones. And when Father came home, we told him of Mother's departure, and he grew deeply dismayed and raced away into the forest with great speed, forbidding us to follow him.
"We never saw Mother again. When Father returned home, he told us that we would need to forget about her, for she would no longer be part of our lives. Mother was gone, not to return, and something had changed within Father as well. He was always strict with our discipline before, but that vigilance grew fourfold overnight into a burdening and oppressive thing. Every hour was counted, every chore was demanded of us and merriment gave way to ever more work. And Father's criticisms grew louder and more jarring with his descent into despair, and nothing his children could do ever met his impossible expectations. When criticism turned to derision and buffets, I did what any teen-aged child would do when seeking to escape a relentlessly miserable home: I ran away and struck out on my own.
"Father and Mother had taught me hunting and forraging, so I survived well enough on my own. I had hoped to return for my siblings upon finding a better life for us, but I feared that I was always too near to Father, too near to Barovia. And when I happened across a small and gaily-colored travelling circus troupe, I presented myself and went with them.
"There are several circuses and troupes of entertainers wandering the whole of Ravenloft, and some are quite sinister and supernatural. Happily, mine was not one of the horrid carnival bands. They at first took me in on account of my condition, believing that one more freak to their scant freakshow would be nothing but good. But when I practiced my forest-born talents with tumbling and acrobatics, they noticed. All said, I was not with their freakshow for long."
The Wandering Years
"I was only fourteen winters of age when I joined Papa Cristu's troupe, and my body was suited well for vaults and cartwheels and hurdling pirhouettes and other such entertaining feats. What talents I had, the circus life developed further. We travelled most of Ravenloft's core--avoiding such menacing domains as Falkovnia and Sithicus--though never remaining in any province for very long.
"I had been a hunter and a forester for much of my life, but as I saw more and more of the lands outside Barovia I came to recognize the troubles
within Barovia with greater clarity. For many nights had Father and Mother snuffed all lamps in our hovel at the first baying of werewolves across the hills, and so many tales crossed our ears of people leaving their refuges at night and wandering into one of the bad places of Barovia, never to walk in the sunlight again. And I was weary of being afraid of them. Afraid of the werebeasts, the walking dead, the wicked Unseelie. Across each border, it seemed, lay another tale of brave people rising up to strike down the creatures of darkness. Many of these hunters perished, while a sparse few rose above them into greatness, becoming legendary scourges against the supernatural horrors of the world.
"And I reasoned then that hunting deer and wolves was simple. How great a huntress would I become were I to set my sights on more dangerous game?
"After six years the time had come to leave the circus and return to Barovia. The unsettling Mists rose again from the borderlands as I crossed through the forest into Barovia, and this time some nameless and looming figure, half of man and half of shadow, beckoned to me through the Mists. And I pursued him into the outskirts of Vallaki."
"My first act of defiance was in the death of a
cadavrul...a zombie, you would say. My first arrow sang through the cemetery fence and struck it soundly in the belly. If the creature was angered with the wound, it showed nothing of such emotion as it turned on me and slowly loped forward, followed with four others. Two more arrows punched through the zombie's ribs, toppling it at long last, and I retreated into the woodlands before its fellows could round the fence and close on me.
"For weeks after I surveyed the cemetery at night, watching the undead and gauging their movements, their traits, their habits. They were cancerous things upon the land, and surely the Forest Fathers welcomed my work. From a safe distance I observed the more treacherous breeds of the undead, confident that I might one day learn well enough to fell them without perishing first. Barovia's oldest tales warn that one who falls to the walking dead today shall join them tomorrow, and I have no reason to doubt such stories.
"Later, I dared to grow familiar with the werebeasts, perhaps in hope of a belated vengeance for as often as they had kept my siblings and me cringing beneath our beds. As with some varieties of undead, special weapons are needed to injure them, weapons which were beyond the reach of my meager purse earlier on. For that time I was content to track them and watch from afar, fleeing to safety among boughs and buildings whenever the bestial devils found my scent and gave chase."
Iron and Rust
"I will not lie. The life of a hunter is not without its trials, whether of the mind, of the body or of the conscience and soul. Some of what horrors I have faced or endured have left me with fitful, restless nights graced with nightmares and racing, fluttering heartbeats. What has fortified my thews and my recovery from many a disease has given rise to a shameful dependence on wine, whiskey and ale, for sometimes the restlessness and lingering fears can only be exorcised through drink and stupor. I have seen worse souls wile their lives away on alcohol--while my binges remain isolated to times of great strife--but I often wonder if my endeavors against the unearthly will doom me to such a life of squalor and destitution...if they do not doom me to an early grave first.
"But I have learned to temper my hunts against the supernatural with hunts against that which is perfectly natural. In recent days I felled a grizzly bear with arrows alone, stopping the beast's charge shortly before it could reach me. For all its wrath and power, there is nothing unholy about an enraged bear. No tendrils of utter blackness to sap the vigor from my muscles. No penetrating gaze to send my mind into an all-consuming haze of panic. No flesh which mends itself like water at the bare moment I withdraw my blade. And so I have found increasing comfort braving the beasts of the earth, taking their hides and crafting them into furs and armors. It was on a lark months ago that I decided to craft and sculpt handsome and unique armors for the markets of Barovia, and my skill with leatherwork has grown with the popularity of my Biserica Originals. Such pursuits keep my mind fresher for my clashes with the abnormal, and so with bow, with blade, with stealth, with agile prowess and with my prized hunting hawk Curaj have I proudly come into my own as a huntress of both worlds.
"Even if I receive little appreciation from Barovia's people for what part I play to keep the devils from their doorsteps, I am content with my work. May this life less ordinary carry me through many years, and may I always find diamonds among the mountains of dust."
-VB
