Gothel

* Biography
* Threat Assessment
* Trivia and Notes
* Gallery

Iphigenia Rhodes-Fresne, Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked Stepmother, Wretched Witch of the Woods (Aliases)

### Relatives

Carabosse (Godmother)
Lumi and Tsaritsa (Coven Sisters)
Clorinda and Tisbe Rhodes (Daughters?)
Cinderella (Step-Daughter)
Rapunzel (Adoptive Daughter / Captive / Mentee)

## Biographical Information

### Marital Status

Multiple Times Widowed (Too Many to List)

## Physical Description

### Gothel: Once Upon A Time...

A refugee girl from a foreign war ended up in the Hesse. The girl's name was Gothel and she lived in the depths of the Black Woods. Given few opportunities as a foreigner of no education or nobility, but having a gift for mysticism, the girl became the apprentice of Carabosse.

To please Carabosse, and prove she was better than Carabosse's other apprentice, Lumi, Gothel attempted to harness the power of Lumi's brother — the Big Bad Wolf of the Black Woods. It became the first of many of Gothel's failures. Another was when she accidentally turned the target of a royal seduction into a frog. Ashamed, Gothel went west.

Spending over a century dedicate to intense occult study, Gothel created herbs ideal for use in alchemy. Gothel had hired a peasant to tend to her garden when she had to travel. But when she was away, the peasant began to steal to feed his pregnant wife. When Gothel discovered the theft and saw the wife still lived, she saw a potential for their unborn child. After the birth, Gothel killed the parents, named the girl Rapunzel, and raised her as her own.

Gothel kept the girl locked in her tower, using the tower's geomantic refinements to draw magic from the surrounding land and invest it into the girl. Soon enough, Gothel found Rapunzel's hair growing at an incredible rate and began to harvest it. Containing the hair in vials and refining it to pure essence, Gothel opened a prosperous business in Gascogne and became quite influential in the royal court under the name Iphigenia Rhodes. She even had two daughters of her own who she had help to run the shop, neither aware of Rapunzel or her tower.

Carabosse's rival Vindemia had traced the potent (and volatile) essence to Gothel's shop in Gascogne. She recognized Carabosse's pupil at court, but could not risk direct confrontation. Instead, Vindemia sent the kingdom's heir to look into Carabosse's old hidden tower in the forest.

The prince became seduced by Rapunzel's beauty. When Gothel discovered their affair, Gothel casted Rapunzel into a magic portal and laid a trap for the prince. Gothel blinded and crippled the prince. But in retaliation, after discovering her lover near death, Rapunzel blew up the tower with Gothel inside. Gothel managed to survive, with a last-minute teleportation spell, but even then she was still caught by the blast and had to use what was left of Rapunzel's essence stores to stave off death as her body mended the magical ravages of Rapunzel's rage.

Once well enough to travel, Gothel collected her daughters and moved to Fryslân. As she awaited for her magical power to return and her body to heal, she seduced a wealthy doctor and married him (and likely also murdered him when he discovered Gothel's true nature). Rather than killing the doctor's daughter, Gothel made the girl her servant and tortured her with endless chores and harassment (as this stepdaughter was descended from a maternal bloodline Vindemia was fond of).

Years later, Vindemia helped that same girl marry the Iron Prince. For their abuse of his bride, Prince Charming ordered Gothel and her daughters into servitude. Gothel managed to escape punishment by fleeing into the Black Woods abandoning her daughters.

Hiding in her old childhood cottage, Gothel's injuries began to ache in a manner that told her Rapunzel was near. Gothel began to lay dark plans.

### Supplemental Reports

* (*Submitted by Four-Eyes*) After surviving Gothel, Hansel and Gretel became excellent witch-hunters and chased Gothel all over Europa, even following her in Americana. To escape the lodge of hunters formed by the pair, Gothel fled to another dimension. Though she finally overthrew a kingdom of her own. That was until the arrival of Hansel's farm girl apprentice and her little dog, too.
* (*Submitted by Herald*) Though the Baba Yaga are primarily thought to consist of a coven of three Xana (Gothel, Tsaritsa, and Lumi) and their benefactor (Carabosse), there are actually believed to have been hundreds of previous members. Estimates are that a dozen survived the Sheeda invasion and may have come to Earth. It is probable that such survivors would themselves with the core members to form a Hebdomad-enforced coven of seven.

## Threat Assessment

### Resources

* Fable Physiology
	+ *Immortality*
	+ *Resurrection*
* Sidhean Witch
	+ *Contractual Magic*
	+ *Dimensional Shifting*
	+ *Legendary Alchemist*
	+ *Legendary Anthropomancer*
	+ *Legendary Biomancer*
	+ *Legendary Chartomancer*
	+ *Legendary Erotomancer*
	+ *Legendary Hematomancer*
	+ *Master Chresmomancer*
	+ *Master Contratamancer*
	+ *Master Glamourist*

### Weaknesses

* Holy Water
* Vice — Vanity

### Analytics

* **Physicality:** 4 — Expert / Enhanced
* **Occult:** 7 — Legendary
* **Weaponry:** 4 — Expert / Enhanced
* **Expertise:** 4 — Expert / Enhanced
* **Range:** 7 — Legendary
* **Strategy:** 4 — Expert / Enhanced
	+ **TOTAL:** 140
	+ **RANKING:** High Threat

## Trivia and Notes

### Trivia

* She's enemies with Red Riding Hood, Bigby Wolf, Hansel, Gretel, and Dorothy Gale.
* She had a journal bound with flesh and penned in blood.
* Among the Baba Yaga, Lumi's success caused some tension among her coven sisters, particularly with Gothel. But Lumi had more important things to worry about than her coven sister's feelings.
* When Gothel moved to the Magic Forest she managed to capture the Big Bad Wolf and tried to use his blood as part of a ritual to take his demonic energy to enrich her own power. Her plans were stopped by an intervention from Red Riding Hood.
* Hansel became the prisoner and Gretel became her pupil. The pair were being kept for a solstice gathering of the Baba Yaga where Hansel would become the sacrificial offering and Gretel would be the sacrificial executioner — who would then have a chance to join the Baba Yaga by indulging in the feast of the slaughter. However, when the solstice gathering happened, as Gothel was putting the gag on Hansel's mouth, the boy chomped down on her finger and then shouted for Gretel to awaken from her trance. Much to the surprise of the Baba Yaga, Gretel's love for her brother did break the powerful trance and she used that to channel a raw inferno of magic which sent the Baba Yaga scattering — giving Gretel and Hansel time to escape.

### Notes

* In the comics her name is Frau Totenkinder.
* Gothel is composited with multiple characters: *"I never realized how epic Gothel was in Earth-27 until I had to try to fit her entire story into these few paragraphs. She might be my most composited character to date. In addition to being Gothel from Rapunzel, she is Red Riding Hood's "grandmother", the witch that cursed the Frog Prince, Cinderella's evil stepmother, the witch that tried to eat Hansel and trained Gretel, and still more! Obviously, there was a lot left on the cutting room floor here, but you can get more details about her dealings in the files of Red Riding Hood, Flycatcher, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Hansel & Gretel, and maybe eventually in the story of the characters from Oz."*
* Her alias Iphigenia Rhodes is a nod to Rhodopis, the ancient Greece version of Cinderella.

## Network Files

Network Files Mother Gothel.pngNetwork Files: Mother Gothel

## Links and References

* Appearances of Gothel

1. ↑ Network Files: Mother Gothel
2. ↑ Wolf Cub Pack: Biographical Timeline
3. ↑ Network Files: Lumi
4. ↑ Network Files: Red Riding Hood
5. ↑ Network Files: Hansel and Gretel