Coraline Calamine

## Intro

Coraline Calamine is a young Human Warlock traveling along with the Lost Souls adventuring group.

Coraline exists in the volatile fault line where worlds meet.  She is young, but mature beyond her years.  She came from a happy family, but is reeling from the destruction of her home-life.  She wants to do good in the world, but is continually pulled towards the encroaching evil that she let slip into her life after her (perhaps rash) decision to strike a Faustian bargain to avenge her father's death.

She presents herself as a simplistic village girl...but she is nothing if not complex.

## Background

### Childhood

Coralline Calamine grew up in a very happy household. Her parents knew nothing but love, chasing each other around the kitchen island in a lustful game of tag that would always devolve into lovemaking. He was successful. She was creative. It was idyllic. Their five children came fast after the wedding, often inducing the mental calculus people sometimes do when kids are born before a couple’s first anniversary. And the five sisters thrived in this home fueled by comically perfect happiness.

Her mother, Wendy Calamine, was a devoted mother, dedicated to preserving the innocence of childhood for her daughters for as long as possible.  She played with her daughters constantly, and encouraged them to grow and develop their imaginations, free from the intrusions of the outside world.  She encouraged them to read, learn, and cultivate their independence.  And Coraline excelled in each of these areas more than Wendy could have hoped.  That said, some could say they were sheltered, but others would appreciate the buffer that was put between them and what evils lurk in the unsafe world.

Wendy, this pinnacle of purity for the family, unfortunately passed with the birth of the youngest daughter.  The strength of the family persisted, and in fact was renewed after this test of their will.  Whereas other families might dissolve, the Calamines grew closer. Coraline assumed the role of the mother in raising her four sisters, ranging in age from newborn to preteen.  And while she was never comfortable in the role, given her young age, she performed it admirably.

Her father, Dunger Calamine, was a gifted lawman. He impressed his superiors with his attention to detail, his veracity, but most of all, his fairness. He looked the other way when needy residents of their small town nipped some bread, or cut through some of the private property in the town to get to work faster when they were running late. But when true crime happened, he crushed it with the full weight of justice’s hammer. Soon, he commanded a squad of lawmen, then a division. He was well on his way towards running the show across the whole region.

He loved his work, and what’s more, he loved sharing it with his eldest daughter: Coralline. He never wanted boys, so he considered himself tremendously lucky to have all girls, but Coraline was special. He would bring her on trips, ask her to help at the local lock-up, and get her thoughts about ongoing investigations. He treasured her not only as a daughter, but as an independent and self-defined person. They were as close as a father and daughter could get.

### Tragedy Strikes again

Her closeness to her father catalyzed her reaction to the second great tragedy that befell her family.

It was supposed to be a routine night: execute some of the evil that had found itself in their town. Carve it out surgically and cast it aside. They had already been convicted by the court of elders, and they were heavily bound. But...one of the lawmen under Dungar's supervision who was responsible for binding them to their posts under the dock tied them too loosely. They escaped before the tide could do its duty. Her father, and the small contingent of officers on duty that night, didn’t stand a chance.

Six months went by. Denial turned to anger, and she wallowed in her anger for the better part of that six-month period. She found some satisfaction that the officer responsible for tying the knots was killed in the attack as well, but it wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to crush the bandits that killed her father. Squeeze their skulls in a vice until she was covered in their brains. Bake them in a brass pot over a fire. Fate, the foul goddess that had stolen her happy childhood, would not have another chance to strike.  The hate welled up in her until it exploded.

### Transformation

In a blind rage, she bloodied her knuckles on one of the pylons of the dock in one of her many trips to the scene of her father’s murder. And suddenly, there was a being in front of her. Dark, backlit by fire, and...horned?

This demon, for that’s all Coralline could guess about what this being was, offered to jumpstart her to the bargaining phase: it could offer her a deal. Declare loyalty to it, and it would personally guide her to the bastards that took her father away.

She didn’t hesitate one moment.

Imbued with the new-found powers of a ...warlock? (She had no idea what that meant), she started on her personal quest to mash those fuckers into a soup of blood and bone.

## Key Items

Coraline has a book full of strange infernal symbols. Even she is not sure of the literal meaning but as she looks upon them the knowledge of what she must do to achieve her spell casting seems to fill her mind as easily as if she were remembering how to do something, like riding a bike even after not riding a bike for many years.

Coraline picked up a ring as well, that stores the souls of people she kills in a blood ritual. So far, she has only done this one time, and the experience has thrown her into a moral tailspin.

She also has a strange doll that has spoken to her, revealing it to be an extension of her patron's body. Her Patron, Trysta, has offered power. Coraline isn't sure she wants to take it for what it could mean for her own soul.

## Behind The Scenes (notes from Bill)

Prior to the Lost Souls campaign, there was one night where we didn't have a quorum for another campaign that was being run. During that time, Bill (the player who plays Coraline) ran a one-shot in which a group of "bad guys" were being executed for their deeds by being tied to a pier pylon while the tide came in. Among the playable characters that showed up in that one-shot was Tosk, the half-orc slaver.

At the end of the one-shot Tosk had led the rest of the characters that were being executed towards the nearby town, where they killed the local law enforcement people that had tied them up.

This was the genesis for Coraline, whose father was the leading law-men killed during that raid.

The name derives from 1) the dark-fantasy film "Coraline" as I thought it seemed to be tonally congruous to the way I wanted to play her at the time and 2) a bottle of Calamine lotion nearby when i was asked for a last name. It was summer. I was itchy. The voice was entirely driven from the fact that when saying the name, a Georgian southern belle accent almost naturally flows from the phonetics.