Malica Wildwarren

Malica atop Narva

Malica Wildwarren

Malica Wildwarren is a midwife and witch that came to form a pact with Dhuron Balcard, the Demon Prince of Corruption.

## Description

Malica is of average height and build, with brown skin and curly black hair. Her ears come to sharp points and her eyes are a soft lavender color. She typically wears a heavy leather apron and gloves, as well as a bonnet with veil upon her head. Her most commonly held items are a set of prayer beads and a silver-bladed dagger, which she uses as focuses for her midwifery and her magic use.

## History

### Early Life

Malica was raised by her human father in a small village.  He was a blacksmith.  Her mother vanished shortly post-partum. Although Malica's childhood was mostly typical, her father was drafted into the regional militia during her adolescence.  She never saw him again after that.  As a young woman alone in a village stripped of its protective figures, she never felt truly safe.  She began to spend time in the woods, away from from the smithy shop that was being run by her aunt.  When bandits attacked and claimed the smithy (killing her aunt in the process) she found herself without a home.  Meandering through the woods, half-starved, she came upon a small hut from where an elderly midwife practiced her trade.  The old woman, Candlhaw, took her in.  For the next decade Malica spent her days learning the ways of midwivery away from the dangers of the village.  Candlhaw taught her to be wary, prudent, careful and to always carry a dagger folded into her corset.  Malica learned about the precious healing that is found in the woods and techniques for stopping bleeding and calming nerves.

Over time, the gulf between herself and the rest of humanity widened and Malica began to see other people as objects to be mended.  She could spend weeks without seeing folk until a woman arrived, seeking powders for fertility or tinctures to interrupt pregnancy.   Her only company during those times was the wood, Candlhaw and various books on rural witchery they kept in the hut for special circumstances. One such circumstance arrived in the form of a young woman- a girl really- who came to deliver a difficult pregnancy whilst the mistress was performing a home visit several days to the east.  Between the steaming hot water, the salves, the poultices, the tears and screams, the girl gave birth.  The baby was healthy and chubby and howling for his first meal.  Blood pooled around the woman, however and no blessing, prayer, or pseudo-cantrip would staunch the bleeding.  Malica, rather than feeling scared or sad.... felt enraged.  She had spent a decade perfecting her craft, and this birth would not take this girl the way her father and aunt were taken.  She feverishly searched for something that could work.  In the corner of a weathered herbalism manual she saw it- an incantation spelled out phonetically in common, but its meaning was undiscernible.  Desperate, she muttered it aloud and the world went dark and silent.  In this darkness and silence she was given a choice.  Save the girl with my help and pledge yourself to dominion over Death. Although no expert, Malica knew that voice likely came from one of the Thirteen Gates, but she didn't hesitate.  She made her choice, saved a life, and made the Pact.  Candlhaw found Malica different when she returned.  Soon enough, the apprentice said goodbye to her teacher and decided to move out into the world in search of greater power and trying not to imagine the price she'd have to pay.

### Leila's Point

The small hamlet Malica ended up in was plagued by sahuagin from the nearby Blackavon Lake. Malica served the settlement and refugees from the town of Land's End as a caregiver, particularly for pregnant women and newborn children. Some of the older children had gone missing in recent days. Then a group of adventuring types arrived at Leila's Point. None of the other residents would speak to them, but ultimately Malica joined them as they entered into the sahuagin lair to fight the predatory pack that lived within.

### The Dragon Shrine

Fionna and Soma solve the riddle of the puzzle box and open it, giving forth the aurichalcum key to the Dragon Shrine of Manus Coast. So, with the key, they decide to head to the shrine and open the green door and explore what is behind it. They are then sealed within the temple therein and forced to explore the strange prison-like holy place that appears to be a temple, shrine, and crypt built deep into the earth.

At the end of the descent into the old temple, the group found a strange room filled with artifice that held aloft the atropal seen earlier and appeared to feed it with the stuff of a soul well. Malica had secreted the Demon Prince Dhuron Balcard into this space and revealed him upon entering the room. After a short negotiation, Dhuron was given the atropal and the party was allowed to leave, but special gaes spells were placed on Avran and Hez'rod to stop them from harming Malica in any way. The group existed the undertemple and out of the shrine, returning from there to Nock. The trip was quiet and tense.

Malica was last seen leaving the Elm Woods Tavern in Nock on her way to the Montulais Campus.

### A Year Without Friends

Despite what her friends presumed, Malica had little to do with House Montulais besides political optics. She was taken in by Morgan Montulais, highest ranking member of the Sovereign Club, and was made an envoy of the secret sect. She fundraised and created a hospital on the northside of Nock that focused on obstetrics and pediatrics. She found a great amount of use from House Harrigan and their artifice in this work and her own secret work. She pulled Harrigan's notes from the study of Gulthias and his dolls and began pursuing immortality for herself. Her days were spent working the hospital, presenting a face-forward wholesome person whose reputation in the city was that of a charitable do-gooder who worked for those most vulnerable, the child and the mother with ailment. At night, she labored over the Fabricator's lair inside his house's sub-basements, using scraps of metal and stolen flesh from the hospital and from House Gravesend to make her first child, the Harrigan Dragon named Narva. She was gifted a lump of flesh from Alustraat the atropal and the remnants of the holy swordsman Avran by her patron and she used this as the initial seed for the formation of Narva. She tried to make Narva in Dhuron's image, so that once she was satisfied with the process, she would commit herself to it and become like him.

### Debt to Pay

Malica's alarms are sprung when the Black Door of the Harrigan sub-basement is opened. She teleports away from the hospital immediately after forming her preparations, and appears atop Narva in her laboratory set to fight the intruders.

## Trivia

Malica Wildwarren was a character concept received during the application process of the *What Remains* story arc from Cipactli O "xixo". The application was received after the deadline, but the concept was extremely well done and, on the strength of it alone, the player was invited into this community. They played in other games within the group until an availability was made in the *What Remains* campaign, at which point Malica was officially included in the cast.