Belladonna

### Relatives

Nightshade (Twin brother, Deceased), Eki (Artificial child), Gen (Artificial child, Deceased)

## Physical Characteristics

### Notable Features

Stitched-together, glowing yellow sword (Tonitrus)

## Common Knowledge

A stitched-together  newt-folk woman with mysterious powers, who brought chaos with her wherever she went. She had a vitriolic hatred of magic in any form, and wielded a lightning-infused sword called Tonitrus.

## Further Description

The most infamous, and the last lone, Fateweaver of the Elder God of Madness, Belladonna was a newt-folk trained in the use of Essence, the craft of engineering, the study of alchemy, and the art of war. Decades of suffering and concentrated power of Madness rendered her a remorseless, spiteful woman who sought to remove magic from Orelisle and its people by any means necessary.

Belladonna’s power over Essence, alchemy, and mortal anatomy led to her developing and spreading the Angst Plague, an infection-like curse that intensified active or latent negative emotions in the afflicted. Those same powers allowed her to create facsimiles of living creatures. These Stitches, as she called them, were made from different parts stitched together and animated by Essence and lightning.

Her Essence abilities and hatred of magic in any capacity led to her developing dozens of anti-magic measures, including personal objects that could indefinitely negate the effects of some spells and high levels of magical resistance.

Belladonna was permanently killed by the Binturian Party in 10,017 A.B., specifically by the then-Prophet-of-Life, Morgan.

## Early Life

### Birth and Early Life (9,982 A.B. - 9,995 A.B.)

Born in a dense swamp on one of the Fera Isles, Belladonna grew up with loving parents and her twin brother Nightshade among other newt-folk. Even at a young age, she had a strong gift for Essence and its manipulation through curses and blessings. Everyone in the village would tell her parents that she must be a gift from beyond, that the Juju (their word for Essence) had chosen her for something special. Her girlhood days were spent learning curses, studying plants, and fishing with her brother.

In 9,995 A.B., when Belladonna was just thirteen, a small group of wizards from afar visited their swamp. They claimed to be members of a wizards’ guild on an “expedition for magical research”. Ever cautious of newcomers, her parents placed a curse upon the wizards to prevent them from seeing their twin children. The wizards learned of this curse after some time, and deemed it an offense to them punishable only by death. The wizards bound Nightshade and Belladonna in arcane chains and made them watch as their loving mother and father were blasted to smithereens before their very eyes. Then the wizards departed, having “served justice” and a “job well done”.

Distraught, traumatized, and heartbroken, Belladonna retreated into the swamps away from the rest of the villagers for a month. She reached out into the Essence, asking it what to do next. Now that her parents were gone there was no one to watch over and guide her. The Essence would be her master, her savior. Unlike her parents, the Essence would never die.

### Globetrotting Academia (9,995 A.B. - 10,007 A.B.)

She returned home to find her brother had spent the whole month in the house cleaning it up and gathering supplies. Belladonna smiled, knowing the Juju guided her brother to pack for their journey to Orelisle. She has been given a vision, the outside world was in need of them. There was nothing holding them to the swamp, so the two siblings gathered what little they had and left. The world was waiting for them.

#### Binturia (9,996 A.B.)

Belladonna and Nightshade spent most of their time walking from town to town and reading whatever they could get their hands on. This place was new, especially the plants and food. One time in a village near the Binturian border Belladonna got a blood infection and spent a week on her deathbed before her brother was forced to find a healer and spend everything they had to heal her. Nobody in the area had bothered learning herbal medicine and the pair were new to the forest and knew nothing of the plants life. They just chose to rely on the magic of these spell casters.

#### Ivoran (9,997 A.B. - 9,999 A.B.)

Instead of finding people wanting to explore and understand their world and improve on it, they were relying on magic or people who used magic.  Sure, they were scholars who would understand people and books, but no one who bothered to find if a disease could be cured without magic and if other power sources could be used. The only reprieve they saw from these ideas was in the Ivoran forest. The gnomes there spent a lot of time engineering and math. Nightshade actually befriended a family of these gnomes and the twins decided to settle down for two years when they were fifteen so Nighshade could become an apprentice and learn about this new kind of “science” as these people called it. During that time, Belladonna wrote and talked about the reliance on magic with her new friends. Most spoke of magic as a treasure, something some people are born with and that it could do some wonderful things, like defend their villages. Belladonna wondered if something other than magic could be used to defend their home.

While her brother learned engineering, she learned about the land and the extent of natural medicine. She also came across an old scientist who shared all his previous research on the bodies of the different species of Orelisle. He had wished for a way to bring the dead back to life, but the only way he knew of was with magic and even then, it needed to be within a certain time. The man recalls the story of how he couldn’t find a healer in time to save his daughter When the two left at seventeen he gave the newt-folk girl the book he spent his life creating. He said he felt like she could do more with it then he ever could. The girl said she would never forget the old man.  She never did.

#### Amerale (10,002 A.B. - 10,007 A.B.)

When the twins turned twenty, they came across Amerale. They stood in awe of the magnificent city before them, never having seen something so gorgeous in their whole lives. They discovered that it contained a wealth of knowledge and then decided to spend a few years within its walls. Belladonna tried becoming a witch doctor within the city to heal people without the aid of magic and she had become quite good at it. She offered prices lower than most other healers, so people began going to her instead of them. She had spent the last seven years studying and experimenting with the plants and Essence or Orelisle and found that many ailments had a more natural cure. As a result, she was often tracked down by the government and street healers because they were competition. When they were twenty-five their house was found and burned down by a druid. They only managed to save a few books: their parents’ medicine book that they’d been adding to; Nightshade’s book of schematics; and Belladonna’s book of Essence research. She might have spent much of her time exploring her world, but she also didn’t ignore her natural gift of communing with the Essence. She thought her training and experimentation would come in use one day.

### Return, Exile, and Tonitrus (10,007 A.B. - 10,015 A.B.)

The twins decided to return home after this last mishap and were welcomed with open arms by their old community. Nightshade would still make bi annual trips to Orelisle for certain supplies, but other than that they would spend their time researching in a more permanent peace. Nightshade would spend his time trying to discover new power sources while Belladonna focused her energy on the natural world. She spent most of her time on physiology and Essence. She meditated in the swamp every day. She was convinced that she could use her skills with the Essence to help her cure the magical ailment the world was inflicted with.

According to Belladonna and Nightshade, magic had forced the world to stop moving forward. Nobody realized that they become as strong as magic because magic was so dominant in the world outside the swamp. Science and progress could not come to a world that relies itself on magic so Belladonna decided to spend her life to prove to them that science was just as powerful as magic could be. To do that she needed to bring the dead back to life. She experimented with bodies and the other newt-folk caught on, and labeled her as a mundane necromancer and disrespecting the dead. The elders demanded that she dispose of her projects, so she sealed them in a cave on Orelisle. She was effectively cast out of the swamp at thirty-three. Her brother chose to come with her in banishment.  Belladonna couldn’t see why they would want to live in a world that chose to exist in the past perpetually.

Upon returning to Orelisle, Nightshade gave his sister his final creation, a sword of electricity, not powered by magic. He had spent the last ten years perfecting the sword and it could stun an enemy and send a powerful current through their body, double if they were wearing armor. He wasn’t a good fighter or particularly gifted with Essence so he felt his sister was better suited for it. Nightshade said this sword was called Tonitrus. This was the name of the gnome village the two lived in so many years ago.

That night he was killed by drunk wizards because he was in their way.

### Striking the Bargain (10,015 A.B.)

Magic no longer was just keeping the world at bay. It was actively killing the world and oppressing people who didn’t have magic or any way to defend themselves from this scourge. She began searching into ways to rid the world of magic. She knew she couldn’t convince the people to move to science and Juju, so she would have to force it. Even the gnomes hadn’t realized how evil and disgusting magic really was. This was during the time she began to hear a voice in her head.

“I can help you eliminate magic, just ask the Juju what the future looks like.”

This was the voice of an ancient, primordial force of the universe, who called itself the “Elder God of Madness”, or simply “Madness” for short. He too felt that progress had been stymied by magic for far too long, and found in Belladonna what one might call a kindred spirit. Together, they struck a pact: Madness and Belladonna would help each other rid the world of magic once and for all. From that moment on, Belladonna would be Madness’ Fateweaver.

Unfortunately, Madness lied. Belladonna was always going to be Madness’ Fateweaver, from the moment she was born. Due to the restrictions of the Material Plane, Madness could not enter it directly without reality shattering or caving in on itself. In order to gain true access, the level of magic in the Material Plane had to be reduced. To that end, he chose Belladonna to be his new Fateweaver -- an outcast at the edge of greater society with a grudge against it and its fixations with magic, practically guaranteed to be hurt in some way by the apathy of magocrats or academics.

## Time with the Binturian Party

### Overbright War and Newt-Folk Genocide (10,015 A.B.)

In order to power a massive reading of the future, using both her Essence abilities and her ties to Madness, Belladonna cursed the Giants of the Overbrights into a war with the Dove-Folk. This was hardly the first war between the two factions, but caught the Dove-Folk largely by surprise. The senseless violence and loss of life empowered her scry, she saw the future of the world. She saw what the great monks of the first civilization saw, what magic could and will do. All she saw was suffering and a land frozen in time. Magic would become the end of it all and recent memories of the planar war reinforced her vision. She briefly ran into the Binturian Party in the Overbright, before teleporting to safety.

With that she was reborn. She would even let her heart be caged by a being called Madness.  As time went on she began to miss her heart. She became cold and her body started to fall apart. She stitched herself together with the parts of others. She began to lose her love of non-magical people. Madness’s influence began to creep into her mind and she murdered almost all the adults of the newt-folk to get rid of “undesirable ideas on the future.”. She spared children so they could be raised without magic and instead to study science and the world. She soon developed a curse that would take away one’s magical ability.

Magic wouldn’t be taken from the world swiftly without a care. It would be done deliberately and with purpose. The ends will justify the means. Her silence assured fear in others and during this time she managed to create life without magic. However, it was too late to save her brother, but never too late to save the world.

### Stealing the Stars (10,016 A.B.)

In her travels, Belladonna found an ally in Empress Amity of K’Vesten. Despite the nation’s long and enduring history with magic, Amity believed that its existence could only cause more suffering. By working together, and by consulting ancient K’Vesten texts and Belladonna’s connection to the Essence, they developed a plan to use vast amounts of magical energy, stolen from the Constellations themselves, to destroy as much magic as they possibly could.

Amity, with Belladonna as her advisor, tricked the Binturian Party into tracking down the Constellations for them, then the K’Vesten Magisters and their armies captured all the Constellations but Elysium (who hid in her city of Jericho despite K’Vesten’s attempts to breach its walls) and S’olär (who had been killed and absorbed by Pixie Prince). The Magisters absorbed the power of the Constellations, but they were quickly defeated by the Binturian Party and the captive Constellations released.

Against the warnings of the Binturian Party, Elysium returned and forced Atlas to fuse with her, becoming the mighty Constellation Hades once more. Hades obliterated Amity, but Belladonna escaped his wrath by running in the opposite direction very fast (no doubt along with some Essence and Fateweaver trickery).

### Angst Plague (10,016 A.B.)

Rumors began to circulate about a legendary weapon, one that could fell any foe it touched, and naturally the Binturian Party followed that legend to the letter. The trail of hints and vague clues led them to a cave in the Binturian Forest, where they found and unwittingly released the same creatures Belladonna had imprisoned years earlier.

These two beings were homunculi, biologically engineered to carry and distribute a foul plague. This disease, which would come to be known as the Angst Plague, reduced the impulse-control and self-preservation instincts in the afflicted, and amplified violent tendencies and negative emotions. It would also constantly enlarge certain blood vessels, giving an appearance of extreme exertion and anger. As the disease progressed, the infected became more and more unstable, irrationally angry and everyone and everything. In its final stages the negative emotions totally overtake the victim, rendering them a mindless beast in a state of perpetual fury with bloodshot eyes and veins close to bursting. The disease, being based in Essence and devised by one of its most intelligent practitioners, was nearly incurable (though victims in the final stage, so-called “Rabids” were truly incurable) and spread by physical contact.

Two beings were created to spread this disease. The first, a stitched-together elven woman named Eki, carried this disease perpetually. The second, a collective mind and soul spread across an entire intrusion of cockroaches that collectively took the name Gen. Gen would coagulate into a single whole, resembling a single cockroach-folk, and could influence the minds and bodies of certain other beast-folk (such as insect-folk, raccoon-folk, rat-folk, and mouse-folk). Gen was immune to Eki’s disease, but their power to split apart and recombine let them spread it much faster. Both bore the mark of a newt-folk exile (on the shell of each of Gen’s roaches, and on Eki’s neck), both had strong Essence abilities, physical strength, and agility, and both were now freed.

Gen wished to exact revenge upon the world that sealed them and their sister away by inflicting their plague on as many people as possible. Eki went along with Gen’s plot, and slowly people and animals in Binturia and western Talios were infected. The disease spread quickly, as they are often wont to do.

The Binturian Party eventually encountered the two again, and discovered their likely creator: Belladonna. Belladonna explained that she was responsible for their creation but she had no control over the ensuing chaos and therefore was not to blame, though she *might* make a cure if Eki was somehow returned to her for *experimentation*. When the Binturians fought the duo again, Belladonna’s words ringing in the back of their minds, Eki convinces Gen to flee instead. Eki tried to follow, but was captured by the Binturians. Interrogating her, they learned that she wished to end her brother’s quest for vengeance.

Recognizing that Eki had truly changed, they managed to convince Belladonna to create a cure to the plague (and made very clear to specify that she needed to make a cure that would cure ALL of Orelisle, not just a few people). Weeks later, Belladonna’s cure was completed and administered to Orelisle at large by infusing it into the rain (courtesy of the floating city Ebrilas’s Spirit denizens). Belladonna departed for parts unknown, to devise her latest scheme to destroy magic.

### Kidnapping the Fateweavers of Knowledge (10,016 A.B.)

In order to facilitate her next plan, Belladonna kidnapped the six Fateweavers of Knowledge to take a tiny bit of their power for herself. She imprisoned each one in trap-laden towers throughout Orelisle (Port Calla, Binturia, Haelwyd, Felidae, Khione, and Ivoran) and charged a powerful being with guarding each Fateweaver (Atlas, Pixie Prince, Laeta, Nala, Velka and Atticus, and Belladonna herself, respectively).

It was the God of Madness himself who brought this to the Binturians’ attention, and with his guidance and mass teleportation they rescued all six Fateweavers.

### Night of the Pale Moon (10,016 A.B.)

Weeks later, Belladonna’s plan came to fruition on the night of the Pale Moon when she seized direct control over many of the world’s Unseen, and offered freedom and power to those whom she could not enthrall. On this mysterious night, which happens only once every thousand years, all Unseen are both visible and corporeal. Using their sheer number and individual power, she hunted down magical creatures like dragons and elementals and slew them, and bestowed curses onto magic users preventing them from ever using magic again.

She also hunted down the Binturian Party, both for having magic and for vengeance for nearly defeating her in their last engagement. The Binturians managed to down enough Unseen to weaken Belladonna’s hold on them, allowing the true king of the Unseen (Shop, known today as William Wilson) to release them from her control.

### Death (10,017 A.B.)

William Wilson appears to the Binturians in his Tavern, and tells them that he has found a way to kill Belladonna for good. Belladonna, not unlike himself, has an immortal heart granted to her by an Elder God. In her case, Belladonna’s heart was given to her by Madness, and as such Death may not reap her body’s soul no matter how much punishment it takes. But if they can trick Death into thinking that he can take Belladonna’s soul, then that would take her out of the picture forever.

In order to do this, they needed the blood of the god of madness. The best place to get that would be by killing Madness’ son Samuel Slater. Doing this would unbind him from the contradicting pact with Knowledge, and leave just the purest Madness blood which he could not freely give. They would also need to conduct a ritual to keep Madness out of the Material Plane, stopping him from just making another Fateweaver a few years later.

Samuel Slater went into hiding almost immediately after William broke this news, but when the Binturian Party confronted him he broached an alternative solution: one among them could volunteer to become the Prophet of Life, and therefore an extension of the Elder God of Life’s will. Since the Elder God of Life is without peers, a prophet to them could remove the restriction on Belladonna’s heart that stops her from dying.

William’s plan requires that both he and Samuel die, as well as a litany of other items, but has the added bonus of preventing the Elder Gods (save for Life of course) from influencing the Material Plane in major ways as they had done in years past. From the Binturian Party, Morgan was selected to become the Prophet of Life (merely fulfilling part of his larger destiny, as he would discover the following year), and together the Binturians had an idea. As the Prophet of Life, Morgan could bestow the power of Nirvana onto others by sacrificing some of his own. If he granted a Nirvana to both William and Samuel, then they could destroy Belladonna with the power of the Prophet of Life *and* erect the barrier around the Material Plane, without either Samuel or William having to die (at least, not permanently).

With this new plan in motion, the Binturian Party was teleported to one of the Fera Isles, home to a group of Chameleon-Folk, where Belladonna was waiting for them. Madness channeled as much power as he could squeeze into the Material Plane into Belladonna for one final battle, and the fight began at long last. Belladonna was struck down by Morgan, the Prophet of Life, and her quest to rid the world of magic at long last came to a close.

## Further Information

* Amity
* Angst Plague
* The Binturian Party
* Constellations
* Dove-Folk
* Elder Gods
* Essence
* Fateweavers
* Giants
* K’Vesten
* Madness
* Morgan
* Overbright
* Starless Sky
* Tonitrus
* William Wilson