Barbara

Barbara (via HeroForge)

While traveling with a caravan, Barbara was taken prisoner alongside her fellow travelers when Brad Modeen's crew ambushed them. After the Templar Aaron McConnell failed to free them, she volunteered to be hung in the orchard as punishment. The NW6 rescued her before the noose could suffocate her, and traveled with them back to Boise after Modeen's defeat.

## History

### Arc 9: The Goat, the Witch, and the Warden

In May of 2096, Barbara was traveling with a caravan that had the unfortunate luck of being hit by Brad Modeen and his allies. While much of the group was killed in the initial attack, she and a few others were taken as hostages so Brad could leverage a dual with Simon. While the remaining caravaners were waiting anxiously, a Templar cut through Modeen's crew and made his way to the middle of the encampment. The Templar turned out to be Aaron McConnell, the first Templar trained under Simon. He challenged Modeen to a one-on-one dual, which Modeen accepted.

The two fought, though when it seemed like Aaron had the upper hand, Modeen shook off his wounds and incapacitated Aaron with his ax. Modeen said another would have to hang for this attempt, and Barbara volunteered. She hoped to use her powers to escape, though events didn't play out as she planned. They hung both her and Aaron in the orchard, with Aaron being strung up first. As Modeen's gang drove off, she attempted to heal herself, but found her magic wouldn't take hold. Left with no other options, she balanced on the only branch she could to hold off the noose.

It was then that Toussaint, scouting ahead in raven form, spotted her. At his approach, the branch that had been holding her snapped, and she began to suffocate. When Toussaint's pecking at her bonds proved too slow a process, he changed into human form midair, cut the noose with his blade, and landed just in time to cushion her fall. When the rest of the group found her, she was in a frightful panic, especially when she laid eyes on Addie. Toussaint, through his supernatural charm, calmed her enough to get her to speak. At Gregg's attempt to heal her wounds, she told the group that the orchard has a hold on those hung there: they can't be healed through magic. Injured but safe for the moment, Barbara recounted what happened with the caravan, and with Aaron. At Addie's question of a weakness for Modeen, Barbara proposed her own solution: asking Aaron.

With the help of some ghost rock, Barbara used her Doomsayer abilities to contact Aaron's spirit. In doing so, the party learned that Modeen had, in a show of reckless arrogance, told Aaron his weakness before hanging him: the blade of the first Anti-Templar, of Julia Aiken. Armed with this knowledge, Toussaint shifted to his bird form and flew back to Boise to retrieve the weapon. While waiting for his return, Barbara spent her time trying to keep Daphne calm.

Still wounded and weakened, Barbara kept out of combat when the group confronted Modeen and his men. Along with the other surviving caravan members, she returned to Boise with the party. With Joan and the other heretics choosing to setup near Boise, Barbara decided to stick around town.

About a month after Modeen's demise, Addie and Horado ran into Barbara once again in Boise, while she using her Doomsayer abilities to clean up a polluted stream. Recognizing Addie, she greets her warmly, and gives her the details on between the factions lately: the grunts of the Doomsayers and Templars have been butting heads for a while, Silas is attracting a lot more mutants to his cause, Denver's power structure is shifting and resistance groups are taking advantage, an aerial group called "The Blue Angels" is taking the resistance fight against Denver's raptors, and a mysterious group of people in leathers is attacking mostly lone wanderers near Shan Fan, Sacramento, and Las Vegas.

## Powers and Abilities

As a Doomsayer, Barbara has the ability to learn anything their magic is capable of. In Arc 9, she revealed her ability to speak to the dead, with a little help from ghost rock.