Cressa Grayraven

## Traits

Strange, bookish, wild, optimistic, confident. Cressa holds total control of herself and won’t let others infringe on her freedom.

## Goals & Motivation

Short term:

Return to her peak of magic skill, primarily in healing magics paired with physical doctoring skills.

Long term:

Finally retire in peace, build up her coven and make a family of the companions she has made.

## Physical strength

Relatively weak - has enough strength to forage properly, swing an axe, but won’t be winning any arm wrestling contests fairly.

## Speed & Agility

Nimble enough to run through the woods, agile enough to quickly climb trees.

## Endurance and Stamina

Her time roughing it out in the woods have made her fairly resistant to cuts, scrapes, and bruises. She can run with decent speed for long periods of time, useful for pursuit hunting.

## Charisma & Intelligence

Can talk well enough to negotiate her way out of some dangerous situations. Has a deep knowledge of nature and magic, has enough book smarts to write her own. Her time studying and reading has made her more than proficient - perhaps even an expert - in uses of the mind. Her deception and wit lend well towards her behavior, often subtly manipulating people to make decisions she believes are best for them.

## Combat ability

Decent with bows for hunting purposes, swords for melee, and spells. Won’t win coliseum fights off her martial prowess. Her cunning, however, and ability to strategize and command others around her makes her a strong fit in the center of group fights.

## Skills

Cooking, Medicine, Herbalism, Hunting, Outdoor survival, Writing.

## Drawbacks/weaknesses

Raw brawn that cannot be reasoned with. Gets uncomfortable quickly in crowded city environments.

## Early Life

Left in the woods, very hazy memories of being protected by animals of some large size. She learned to live off the land, speaking little. Magics came relatively naturally, and aided her companionship with the animals she existed with. The animals, as well as the grove they inhabited, were home to a number of druidic spirits that took after the girl. She was gifted with a protective spirit by the fey, one that would only be called upon in the most dire of circumstances. Her time in the grove was not indefinite, though, as after completing a trial on a pilgrimage a witch by the name Wania was gifted with the young girl. Cressa was named, raised, and cared for by Wania’s coven until the day she turned 18, at which point she was sent out to complete a ritual meant to preserve her youth. It was successful, an event that would change her perspective on life as a whole for a long time to come. Upon her return to the coven, it was empty. All the witches she had been raised by were driven mad by her leaving, vanishing off into the world to die or never be seen again. Knowing little of the outside world, and now being stuck in it, Cressa would spend dozens of years bouncing from city to city, performing the ritual with mixed successes. In total, the lives of 53 young men were used to preserve her own, each giving a year to her lifespan and preserving her youth. Her failures left her with scars, and questions as to why she would awake to rooms covered in thorns.

## Before the Barrier

Soon enough, she joined a ragtag group of survivors in the wintry wastes. Her magic and skill with plants provided the group with food despite the bitter climate. After years of being settled, she left the group to keep them safe from a band of witch hunters after her, leaving behind friends and her young daughter. Her perceived cowardice and loss of her daughter has haunted her ever since. Back to the ways of her youth, she is foraging and living by the land while keeping an ear out for a new group to band together with. Her dreams of settling down still linger in her mind, but the fear of being hunted and sorrow in her soul are keeping her hesitant.

About a year before entering Oracle, Cressa has come across a man also alone in his travels. Otto, a person she soon grew to trust along their journeys together, became a staple in her life as they travelled and camped together. For the longest time, far into their time into Oracle, Cressa had seen him and their relationship as one of friends and companions. Upon entering Oracle, the two took their time finding a place to settle and lived relatively nomadically.

## Facing the Corruption and Truth.

Cressa has settled in the kingdom of Arcadia, offering and honing her services as a healer and chef. She continues to yearn for peace, in hopes she can reunite with her daughter somewhere safe.

Her time in Arcadia has been hectic, though she wouldn't trade it for anything. Finding close friends and family in multiple of her compatriots, she spent her time finally living in one place for a long period of time. The urge to explore and move never left her, but she had things to look forward to at home. The Vine, her pride and joy, boomed as a business and as a place to meet and make friends. Cooking became a passion she prides herself in, and having a reliable second pair of hands in Otto made her feel all the more at ease.

Unfortunately, a life without strife is impossible to come by. The corruption and it's growing numbers caught her attention. Not wanting her home in danger, Cressa worked in secret to gather information and prepare methods of protecting her newfound family and friends. Her works came to a head when she and another doctor, the renowned Misan's Dr. Frogwart, managed to perform a procedure leaving Lyle and Harrier what would become known as Willowed.

### Truth

After Otto had gone missing for the entirety of spring, Cressa finally became aware that something was wrong. His absence made her realize she had grown rather fond of him. Upon his return, despite the circumstances, Cressa invited him out on a short trip with then intention of spending time with him and process her feelings. On the trip, unfortunately, she was enlightened to the horrid reality of what had been haunting Otto. In a bid to save him, she swore to the entity haunting him that she would do as it wishes in exchange for Otto's safety. The following fall and winter became full of her efforts to appease the entity, calling itself Truth. Soon enough, at the cost of the lives of dozens of bandits, monsters, and animals, she had finished her gruesome work of constructing a body to house Truth. The process left her scarred, the magic required and her lack of self-care leading to the loss of her dominant right hand. The removal was done in hasty success by Eldrin and Dr. Frogwart. When Truth had entered it's body, it had lashed out and injured her other arm as well, though not nearly as severely.

She would spend some time staying in hiding with Otto to help him recover and recover herself. While on their second trip, the two finally confessed their feelings to each other and came back to Arcadia as a pair. She'd return to work in The Vine, rested and recuperating. While her missing hand had proven to be a difficulty, she noticed a small plant blooming from where it used to be.

### The end of the corruption

Much of Cressa's time after returning to Arcadia was spent scheming and planning. Her lost arm replaced by one of vine and leaf, she once again mastered the use of her new limb. Spurred on by the death of Valerie and Sharx, she went through selecting a new subject for the willowing experiments with Dr. Frogwart. The honor fell upon one of the guards of the Eldoran throne, Thaunder. With the process successful, and weapons delivered by the Knowstick family to give an extra edge to the fighting force, Cressa used her magics and free time to write and copy a letter to spread across all of Oracle. One of rallying, to gather and unite the people for one major push against the menace that had taken parts of her found family from her. She told few of this fact, but she was only in the fight for vengeance. Locating their entrance into Pandemonia with the help of Seth, she participated in the initial scouting party into the hellish realm. Alongside a small party, she did battle with Luce and bore witness to her true death at the hands of Odessa Knowstick. Retreating back to the entrance, the group was confronted by Maddox and Zorfu and told to not speak of what had happened and never return. She, in fact, planned on doing neither of those requests. Later that day, the rest of their forces gathered, she stayed at the entrance and awaited the survivors return not this time as a fighter but as a doctor and a field medic. Her first sign, albeit fairly confused, of their success was the loss of her magic. In fact, as she soon learned, all magic in oracle had seemingly died with the corrupted as the final plan of Maddox.

## Eris and Abelot appear!

It took a couple years, but Cressa's past finally caught up to her in the form of two familiar faces arriving in Oracle. One, her daughter Sylvia, using the alias Eris Morancy, came with vengeance in her eyes and a rage in her heart. Her companion, an older man who she saw as a father, Abelot Morancy, was the head guard for the last nomadic group Cressa had been a part of, as well as an undercover witch hunter. He had manipulated Sylvia into believing her mother was a monster, one that would only go on to hurt and kill more people than she already had. It was here, along with a strike of fortune, that Cressa's life before the barrier was brought under a lens and viewed with more scrutiny. Cressa herself had written a book detailing her regrets, memories, and strange experiences through her life, confessing upon the books many pages that she had killed 53 men to extend her life by 53 years. She had other attempted murders that had gotten away, and Abelot was one of them. He had made it his life goal to kill her, seeing killing and dominating her as his main goal in life. To this end, he and Sylvia stalked, kidnapped, tortured, and nearly killed Cressa had she not been saved by Iridessa and Vera. Abelot ran, and Sylvia was left to pursue him and question his motives. By now, Sylvia had grown quite conflicted over her feelings for her mother. On one hand, Cressa abandoned her in the face of danger. On the other, she had spent quality time with Cressa out at her private cabin. This quality time was not enough to deter her from her mission, as she poisoned and kidnapped Cressa alone for Abelot. After the kidnapping, Abelots abandoning of her, and the recent good treatment from Cressa, Sylvia tracked Abelot down with questions. Questions that soon, tragically, turned to a blade through her stomach as Abelot saw no further use of her if she was growing sympathetic to his target. At the end of his wits, he left a note and some of Sylvia's hair in Cressa's mailbox and challenged her to a fight at the cabin she had such fond feelings for. Heartbroken, devastated, and full of blinding rage, Cressa gathered a small group of fighters and brought Abelot's life to a swift and brutal end.

This event was not without it's consequences on Cressa's psyche, though. The loss of her daughter, who she thought she would be able to reconnect with and have the proper family she dreamt of, drove her into a deep depression and solitude. She would personally be the one to bury Sylvia, and visited the grave frequently. Little could combat the pain she felt, of a mother who lost her child far too soon.

## The Coven Era (Present)

Through the hardship, Cressa found temporary solace in some of the people closest to her. The small group, initially consisting of Lylliana, Odessa, Amaryllis, Ametrine, Grikko, was jokingly dubbed a coven and made a vacation and study hovel of the cleaned and refurbished cabin. This period of time has been one of calm, introspection, and ominous foretellings of future strifes to come. Across oracle, a strange inkeeper turned out to be hosting a beast in his basement. An Orc named Merodach caused all sorts of issues, offering Cressa a place by his side during a private conversation. Due to Merodach, she would dust off her combat uniform and aid in the battle against him, freeing Lylliana from his influence and bringing another short period of peace to Oracle. This peace came with celebration, as Cressa and Otto would celebrate their wedding and honeymoon off to the new village of Airus, a place that would become their new permanent residence.

It was during this time of peace that Cressa would gather with her coven a massive collection of texts. She spent night after night, day after day for nearly a year reading and learning as much as she could from these texts. Gaining a simple understanding of various languages, she began deciphering some of the older and more cryptic texts in the covens collection. Her knowledge of old magics greatly enhanced, she began once again leaving her study after the long year. Perhaps it was a slight return to her behavior from her youth, or just a shift due to her being distant for a long period, but upon her return she had fixed her hair up differently, formalized some of her manners, and held herself in a slightly higher regard.

This return coincided well with the growing peak and crescendo of the campaign of horror a cult had been spreading. Working fast to protect her home and tend to the victims of their attacks, Cressa engaged the cultists when she could and tightened the local guard's rounds. This environment was one she had rested well for, as during the raid on the cultist's encampment she took command of the forces sent from Airus. In the chaos of the time, she found little respite form her duties of taking care of those around her. Once the recovery from the cultists came to an end, she would return to her periodic studies until a particularly strange vision and encounter with an old companion afterwards.