Lettie Wormwood

Illustration by Aleksandra Wojtas

29-30 (The Empty Throne of Feanav)

The Empty Throne of Feanav

**Lettie Wormwood**, born Leticia Jane Petrine and more formally known as Leticia Wormwood, is an apothecary and planeswalker from Feanav. Following the creation of an alchemical lifeform and her spark's ignition, she was estranged from her home plane, and spent the next year conducting business through several fly-by-night establishments and illicit businesses throughout the multiverse, eventually focusing her efforts on The Arena. Afterwards, she returned to Feanav and formed a family of sorts with Gareth Barton and Animus. She continues to conduct business throughout the multiverse in order to support them.

## Early Life

Lettie was born in the rural county Northshire of Feanav's Imperial homeland in 42 PM to Eleanor May Petrine, an apothecary. Lettie would eventually be the eldest of three sisters, and she would be trained from an early age to inherit her mother's profession. Her odd behavior as a child made many suspect her of being a fae changeling, and on occasion, she was attacked by other children. Her burgeoning interest in natural science such as biology earned her the backhanded nickname of "Little Doctor" when she was eight years old.

When Lettie was eleven, her mother received a job offer from a peer, Lord Barton, who was suffering from a progressing incurable illness. The job entailed long-term care of the lord, and would require the Petrines to relocate to the Imperial capital. Lord Barton was willing to fund the relocation, and Eleanor accepted in part because it would allow her family to escape the poor reputation that Lettie's social difficulties had brought them. During the move, Eleanor made sure to impress on Lettie that if she earned a poor reputation again, she would be destined for Bedlam House: the asylum.

Driven by fear, Lettie sought to learn methods to mask her social difficulties, and eventually learned how to do so by considering social interaction to be akin to a theatrical role for which she could rehearse scripts. During this time, she befriended Lord Barton's only child, Margaret Barton, whom she called Maggie. Once Lettie began her apprenticeship at fifteen, she began frequently attending balls in Maggie's company, and during one met a student working with Lord Barton, Michael Haldean.

Eventually, when Lettie was eighteen, Lord Barton succumbed to his illness, and Maggie was sent to live in the highlands to mourn during the tumultuous succession of the estate, but promised to remain in correspondence with Lettie. Lettie returned to work as an apprentice, and scrambled to earn her certification as an apothecary while Michael aided her in studying. However, after earning her certification at twenty-one, the apothecary's guild refused to recognize Lettie as Eleanor's heir on grounds of her being unmarried. As a result, Lettie would begin courting Michael.

## The Great Work

During her courtship of Michael, Lettie visited a cottage with him in "a year with no summer" when she was twenty-three. After a discussion about the effect of entropy on human artifice, Lettie had an epiphany concerning the nature of life, and devised an alchemical process capable of storing and executing programs (though the theory of computation would not have existed on Feanav at the time). The substance produced as part of the process resembled black ichor, which Lettie named The Melancholic Blood.

Following that, in collaboration with Michael, the two iterated on the design, and eventually presented it to the Imperial alchemical community. The two were granted funding by Prince Regent Edward to construct an artificial creature from The Melancholic Blood. Haldean then proposed to Lettie, and the two agreed to a wedding following the completion of the creature.

The creature's construction was completed when Lettie was twenty-five, and ready to be animated. However, when the creature was powered through a bolt of lightning, the excess of energy caused its alchemical processes to begin somewhat chaotically, in a matter that horrified Michael by its appearance. After Michael fled, Lettie was briefly left alone with her creation, and she realized that the creature, like her, would face constant social rejection, and be held to fulfill a purpose it could have never chosen. She chased after Haldean so that they could face the creature together, only for the creature to escape the laboratory during her absence.

Following that, Haldean would publicly blame Lettie for the creature's disappearance, and claim that her original design had been fundamentally flawed. In retaliation, Lettie broke off her engagement with Michael in a manner that was unseemly to high society. Due to the fear of the reputation that she had earned, her heartbreak at the betrayal, as well as the fact that Maggie had suddenly ceased her correspondence, Lettie attempted suicide, only for her planeswalker's spark to ignite, and subconsciously summon her spark's equivalent to The Melancholic Blood, Lettie's Miasma, which then sustained her and saved her life.

## A Year Without Peace

Lettie was disoriented following her ignition, and struggled to survive. She soon recovered her old tools and library, and frequently inhabited abandoned buildings throughout the multiverse. Estranged from her home and family, she took on a new name, Wormwood, the name of the first fae on Feanav. The tale of The Fallen Bitter Star had resonated with her, and she swore that she would never be ignorant to the suffering that permeates the multiverse.

With this moral resignation, she began establishing shops throughout the multiverse, selling potions, poisons, plants, alchemical reagents and weapons, and any excess stock she could acquire during the manufacturing process. Unfortunately, conflict on the planes would often disrupt her business. As such, Lettie began establishing networks of informants, and would use aggressive tactics to curtail any potential threat to her power and continued operation, including contracting mercenaries, funding terrorists, personal threats, and use of alchemical weapons. She often conducted this warfare simultaneously across multiple planes.

Inevitably, Lettie's preemptive approach would place her at the center of more conflict, and on at least one occasion, she was driven from a plane of existence by the local populace for her deeds.

## The Arena

Approximately half a year after her ignition, Lettie would establish her first shops on The Arena. Shortly after arriving, she encountered Pidge, and established a long term working relationship with her. She was also approached by the Eternity Project for Interplanar Cooperation, which she would come to rely on, despite her immediate distrust for a state entity. She soon learned to exploit The Arena's temporal anomaly in order to more efficiently conduct her business; as such, Lettie commissioned the construction of a permanent residence next to Atlas Bakery.

### The Witch and Entelans

Despite the intentions of her new allies, Lettie's established methods pushed her to prepare for the worst, and undermine those close to her. When cursed chain mail was circulated through PB&J delivery, Lettie considered it an opportunity to overtake Pidge. She similarly profited when EPIC's letter caused their outpost to be filled with cats; Lettie offered to house them, on the condition that several aether tunnels would be built for her. Lettie also sold information on local interplanar societies to Kei during the latter's hunt for EPIC.

Lettie found the situation less convenient when she was delivered a letter of her own. She delayed her response for as long as possible while attempting to investigate the original sender, J; she briefly suspected and investigated Pidge. At the same time, EPIC was attacked by Kei, causing Lettie to regret her decision; she still took the opportunity to sell her services to the Eternity Project, developing a capture poison alongside Ani. Guilt concerning Kei and Pidge drove Lettie to recklessly challenge J, contaminating all of her properties in the process, including her home. She attempted to seek lodging at the PB&J outpost, which she found to also be under attack. After helping rescue Pidge, but letting slip a hint that she had been spying on her, Lettie recovered at Skalor, and admitted to a shallow portion of her personal struggles. Though Pidge would leave the Arena, the two kept in contact, both as business owners and friends.

### Experiment Zero

Michi recommended Henry Brayden to seek Lettie's medical advice concerning his arm. Then, not long after Lettie had finished cleansing her properties, Experiment Zero petitioned her for better weaponry, but experienced a flashback and demonstrated other behavior concerning enough that Lettie refused to sell to them. At one moment, when Lettie tried to demonstrate to Zero that their memory was corrupted, Zero immediately blamed Brayden, which lead Lettie to think that he might be in danger. After recommending that Zero seek repairs, Lettie set about searching for Brayden, but only managed to find him as he was bringing Zero for repairs at the Eternity Project's outpost, without having disarmed the machine. A string of misunderstandings followed, during which Lettie set a trap to prevent Zero's aggression, but which led them to accidentally injure Seiva Zeni, which then prompted Kaira Veis to fire upon Zero. Zero killed Kaira in retaliation, sustaining heavy damage in the process, and fled the Arena.

In the immediate aftermath, Lettie went on a drinking binge to cope with her grief and guilt. During the binge, she met Briar, which prompted her to ward her home against fae. Karina Oblay also approached her, demanding to know Zero's current location, which Lettie had deduced as Nulien, which she eventually shared after repeatedly failing to convince the child not to pursue Zero. Finally, EPIC relied on Lettie's testimony to record the events leading to Kaira's death. Lettie's distrust of the machine, combined with her previous convictions concerning artificial life, as well as the knowledge that Zero housed imprisoned sparks, solidified into hatred. She would instruct her informant network to immediately notify her of any construct's arrival.

### Troischa and Dieule

On responding to reports of a machine's arrival, Lettie moved to intercept it, and encounted a gitaxian experiment, Dieule, which escaped before she could destroy it. Around this time, a mysterious customer, Troischa Sulberynn, asked for directions to a petrol vendor, which she slaughtered. Lastly, Lettie became acquainted with both Seska Erweih and Hilda. Before long, she came to consider Seska a potential threat, and intimidated her into leaving the Arena temporarily.

Lettie responded to the loss of her vendor by investigating, and in doing so met a seeming Child claiming to be Troischa's creator. He offered her compensation for destroying Troischa, which she accepted, having intended to do so already. When EPIC approached her for testimony, Lettie warned them of the simultaneous threats to the Arena in the form of Briar's court, the phyresis outbreak that Dieule caused, and Troischa, who was seeking transport off the Arena. Lettie would then collaborate with Ani Soei in the basic design of the anti-phyresis inoculation.

After Troischa failed to infiltrate EPIC's aether tunnel, she turned to Lettie's own tunnel network instead. Lettie prepared to defend the network hub in her home, and requested assistance from Hilda and EPIC, and was later offered assistance by Seska, who had returned several years older than when she first visited. Troischa would bring Dieule as an ally, offering it a way to spread the infection onto another plane. In preparation for the attack, Lettie emptied her home of valuables as best she could, and stocked it with alarms and corrosives. She was able to separate Dieule from Troischa, forcing it outside, where it would engage Briar (who had joined the battle unsolicited), Leira, and Hilda, until it retreated and was destroyed by pursuing Entelan forces. Seska and Lettie with support from Leira continued to engage Troischa until the Child returned and disassembled her.

Though this was a victory, Lettie's residence was completely destroyed. Hilda departed the Arena for good, much to Lettie's dismay, and so did Seska, after explaining that her hatred of Lettie allowed her to survive in a war-torn world. Lettie would seek shelter with Pidge once again while the Eternity Project constructed a replacement for the home she lost. By the end of the experience, she had internalized and accepted the idea that she would be fighting until her death, which she concluded was fast approaching.

## Personality

Lettie Wormwood is conniving and ruthless, willing to profit off the misfortune of others, and in many cases, has had a hand in indirectly causing that misfortune herself. She feels guilt for the suffering that results, but feels that she has no other options for ensuring her continued survival, a sentiment reinforced by her distrust for others. Her secrecy is motivated by the fear that anyone who discovers her past would be rightfully motivated to fruitlessly seek her destruction.

As a result of her tumultuous life, Lettie has developed a cynical worldview. She believes that the sincere capability to do good is eroded by suffering, and that the entire multiverse is infected by mortal life, along with the suffering inherent to it. It follows then that planeswalkers, who she has often known to be created through traumatic experiences, are vectors of this infection. With her own unnatural resilience and personal history, Lettie considers herself to be cursed with this rot.

Despite this, Lettie has found joy in small measures. She has a special interest in biology, and collects encyclopedias to read cover-to-cover in her spare time. She enjoys explaining scientific concepts and discussing them with similarly educated individuals. When able, she attends theater, which she enjoys for the third-person perspective of various ironies. Though generally solitary, she yearns for genuine friendship, and treasures the few people she can trust.

Lettie is autistic, though she would have had no means of being diagnosed on Feanav due to its society having no concept of mental disability or disorder. Since mental illness was regarded as a moral failing, and her behavior made others suspect her of being a fae changeling, she was forced to mask from a young age. Her methods became more effective when she began to think of her occupation as a theatrical role for which she could rehearse a script.

Lettie suffers sensory overload from eye contact, physical contact, and overlapping sound. She acquired speech late; her speech is halting unless rehearsed, and if rushed she will accidentally insert words from her stream of consciousness into her intended statements. Her ability to read expressions is inconsistent; when uncertain, she is likely to judge others as hostile or disgusted by her, which is often confounded by the discomfort she feels interacting with them.

Lettie has discussed her needs with a select few, though she has only accepted accommodation that is in-line with her home plane's system of manners, such as refraining from physical contact, or respecting private matters. She has refused to be accommodated in communication, implying that she would rather try to act as any other could.

## Abilities

At first glance, Lettie appears to be little more than a medical professional and businesswoman. She is untrained for combat, lacks physical strength or agility, and is generally inexperienced in warfare. However, she is surprisingly resilient thanks to a strong natural constitution paired with regeneration magic, and her wits allow her to indirectly place adversaries at a disadvantage, gain allies to fight on her behalf, and to use magic and weapons of overwhelming destructive force.

### Sympathetic Magic

The primary means of magic from Lettie's home plane requires material components. The outcome of a spell is influenced by both the process of casting and the "sympathetic" qualities of components. These qualities are defined by symbolic relevance, e.g. sulfur can be used to create spontaneous combustion, or rosemary can be used to banish demons. These qualities can also be used to animate objects such as scarecrows; Lettie uses this animation to create mentally linked alarms from taxidermied animals. Lettie can also "cheat" the requirements for her sympathetic magic by pulling the necessary materials from the aether, though she finds this less efficient. Sympathetic magic is also what allows Lettie to create some of her potions, which are effectively bottled spells, in which the casting process is the preparation, completed through consumption.

### Alchemy

Recent developments on Lettie's home plane have allowed the combination of chemistry and sympathetic magic, which is called alchemy. Lettie has demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of alchemy, using it to create some of her most effective potions, such as everwake and regeneration. She has also used it to efficiently summon creatures such as oozes and harvest plants by weaving them into a single durable mass. Lettie is proficient in the use of alchemical weaponry, such as brimstone clouds (mustard gas that can be magically ignited), pale morningstar powder (white phosphorus with magically enhanced explosive properties), and eternity spores (anthrax with a rapid lifecycle).

### Miasma

Lettie's miasma is a complex process involving the auto-catalysis of her planeswalker's spark, whose effects on the surrounding aether in the blind eternities can be compared to a prion, though with decreasing stability with increasing distance from the spark itself. The process is a mixture of alchemy and planeswalker summoning. Lettie can use her miasma as a casting component or medium in her magic, with its sympathetic qualities making it useful in regeneration, animation, and decay; it has been implied to have automatically kept Lettie alive in the past under extreme circumstances, and she physically suffered when it was temporarily dispelled. The miasma will manifest on the plane whenever it is used this way, as well as whenever Lettie planeswalks.

The miasma has several beneficial side effects, such as allowing safe transport of simple organic material during planeswalking, allowing the mental link to Lettie's alarms to reach her across different planes, and shielding her sight of the blind eternities from its brilliance. Unique signatures in the blind eternities can disrupt the process, allowing Lettie to perceive them. When manifested, the miasma appears as black fumes, which can block sight or repel other vapors such Lettie's own weapons.

## Trivia

* Lettie's equivalent historical birth date is March 13, 1791. Historically, this would set her birth immediately preceding the Wars of the Coalitions, and in Feanav's setting, she would have been born immediately before the final wars that consolidated Imperial power across the globe.
* Lettie's spelling of her name, Leticia, is non-standard for the Regency in England. A more historically accurate spelling would be Laetitia, which was a somewhat popular name at the time.
* Lettie's sisters were named Morgan Julia Petrine and Charlotte Aurelia Petrine. Morgan was the first of the three to marry, to an officer of the Imperial Navy.
* Lettie is bisexual, but had not realized that same-sex relationships were an option until after her ignition at twenty-five. She was attracted to Gareth Barton prior to his transition, but had assumed that it was a normal, "childish" thing to be attracted to one's friend (an assumption she later pushed onto Karina and Hannah's relationship).
* Lettie has scarring on the underside of her right arm near the shoulder, which was cut by glass fragments during her ignition. She also has a single prominent scar down the inside of her left forearm from her final confrontation with Zero. Whenever sleeves are not sufficient to conceal either, she opts for powders or bandages.