Steffie here! We don’t know each other very well (yet !), so here’s a tidbit about me: I love creating characters. I can read an RPG book and come away with half a dozen character concepts. Since I’m usually the designated GM of my groups, this serves me well – I jot down character blurbs and main statistics for quick-made NPCs. I rarely get to fully flesh them out though, because if you’re making NPCs in bunches it’s not really worth the time to delve too deeply into them.

So mostly, they’ll look like this:

Abhilasha (“Wish”)

Djinn, Spell Lvl 1

Main Skills: Know. Science, Etiquette, Know. Theology

Main Talent: Ritual

Spells: Emneya II, Tayir c

However, since I recently got my WITCH: Fated Souls combo pack with awesome tarot cards, I decided to pick some of my favourite cards and design full characters for them. They’ll all be starting characters, so you can use them as premades in your game!

This is the first in a series of seven character creation blog posts. These are starting characters, and can be used as premades in a game.

Abhilasha

A great poet lived in the Hindu empire of Vijayanagara. She spoke seven languages, studied religious texts, and strung words together with such beauty it made men weep. The Sultan himself offered her his hand in marriage, promising to make her his first wife and their eventual son heir to the throne. She refused with such eloquence that he sent her home with a chest full of gold.

For all her brilliance, the poet was lonely and longed for a child without the indignity of having to lie with men. She prayed to the gods to let her womb quicken and so compelling was her prayer that the gods fought amongst themselves for the privilege of answering it. Finally Ammavaru, most ancient of goddesses, took part of the shell that birthed Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu, and hid it in a pomegranate which she gifted to the poet. The divine mingled with the mortal, and the vast nothingness from which the universe springs with the corporeal. Nine months later, the poet gave birth to a baby girl.

Seven centuries later, long after Vijayanagara was reduced to ruins, the poet’s lineage still carries on. Her descendants belong to India’s upper caste, devoutly Hindu even if they no longer remember Ammavaru’s gift. The seed of nothing still lingers in their blood, and occasionally a child is born destined to be Fated.

Before her Fating…

Abhilasha – then under a different name – was a daughter of an upper class Hindu family. She is well educated, graduating Summa Cum Laude in mathematics at the University of Delhi, even if her family always expected her to marry rather than pursue a career. Abhilasha rankled at these expectations, but as she managed to hold off any serious suitors the matter had not come to a head yet. She was a practicing Hindu, though more because of ingrained family tradition rather than any particular belief of her own.

Abhilasha was Fated because…

Her family carries a seed of Quiet. Abhilasha does not know why she was chosen over all other of her family, but she has come to accept it as a quirk of fate.

Her relationship with her demon is…

The Quiet whispers to Abhilasha – when it does – in a female voice, leading her to believe she was exalted by a goddess. This has turned Abhilasha to Shaktism, a Hindu tradition which believes metaphysical reality is feminine and the Devi (goddess) rules supreme.

Today she is…

Abhilasha has abandoned her family obligations to fully serve Devi. She even sacrificed her name, taking on the new nomer Abhilasha, “wish”, to honor the power the goddess granted her. Her small downstairs apartment in Delhi has become an impromptu temple, adorned with flower wreaths and air thick with incense, as Abhilasha gains more supplicants. She finds it hard to grant all wishes, to listen to endless tales of hardship and distill how Devi can help, but tries anyway – it is the burden of being chosen.

Dark moonless nights see Abhilasha restless and uneasy, as she can almost sense the vast nothingness behind the goddess’ whispers. On these nights she returns to mathematics, often combined with the Experience the Quiet ritual, trying to capture the moment when nothing birthed the universe in a formula. She has penned several revolutionary formula in this manner, though her retreat from academia means they’ve not been published.

Abhilasha tries to be modest – as she believes a servant of the goddess should. In truth she feels great elevation at being chosen, and a sense of pity for her ‘lessers’ pervades everything she does. She recognizes this hubris in herself, but finds it hard to shed. Regardless of her motivation though, she acts with kindness and perhaps this is enough.

Fate: Djinn

Spell Level: 1

Attributes: Charisma 3, Dexterity 2, Intelligence 5, Manipulation 2, Perception 3, Stamina 1, Strength 1, Wisdom 2

Skills: Athletics 1, Empathy 2, Etiquette 4, Expression 2, Intimidation 1, Knowledge: Linguistics (English) 1, Knowledge: Science 5 (*), Knowledge: Theology 3 (*), Spot 2

Talents: Casting 1, Ritual 2 (*), Gauze 1

Cantos: Emneya II, Tayir c

Rituals: The Fertile Womb, Stay the Pain, Track Person, A Lover’s Mark, Ward – Borrtha

Pursuits: Property 1, Status (Shakti Priestess) 3, Status (Mathematician) 1, Prestige 1

Freebies: 10 (Dexterity; Know. Theology; Status (Shakti Priestess))