Camille Churnstone

The vampiric Darklady of Lilliend in the Wartorn Cluster, and a powerful Sorceress of the Maestro bloodline.

Background

Camille was born as part of a set of identical twins, but whereas her twin sister Amaranth was vivacious, sociable and had ambitions, Camille was born with sorcerous potential, but was content to laze around and do nothing but occasionally write morbid poetry. An extreme narcissist, Camille considered herself the center of her universe, and harboured an incestuous desire for her twin as the only reflection of her own perceived perfection.

Her world came crashing down when Amaranth's engagement was announced and all of her tantrums not only failed to stop preparations from going forth, but caused Amaranth to admonish her and announce the upcoming marriage was her wish.

Camille sought an answer in arcane magic, but her talents were untrained and not up to the task. Finally, she resorted to black magic, following instructions in a grimoire which would supposedly grant her eternal youth and the power to claim any lover she wished. To finalize the ritual, Camille committed suicide, expecting to rise in three days' time. She had reckoned without her family quickly burying her corpse in an airtight crypt to hide their shame and prevent a stain of misfortune on the marriage - which otherwise went off without a hitch. By the time the family's declining fortunes caused workers to open up the tomb for relocation of the dead and Camille finally awoke as a vampire -- the very first of the Lilliender vampires - Amaranth was long dead.

Half mad over her 'loss', Camille haunted her sister's bloodline for generations, hoping to find a suitable replacement for Amaranth among its daughters. Her tendency to abduct and murder newborn sons outright, as well as husbands who had conceived daughters so they could not 'taint' the child's mindset growing up, whittled the Churnstone family down until there was only one married couple left. Despite knowing that these people were her last chance, Camille flew into a rage and slaughtered them when they gave birth to a boy.

As she woke in the abattoir she had made of the home of her last living relatives, Camille was claimed by the Mists and installed as the dark heart of her own domain.

Recent history

Camille does not understand what happened when the Mists claimed her. All she cares about, is that there is still a Churnstone family in Lilliend, and that they have interbred with the other inhabitants of her domain, meaning she has a large pool of girls in which to seek her destined and ideal lover.

Rather than assume a direct leadership position in Lilliend, the vampire has infiltrated the boarding schools, the better to monitor their crop of young girls for a worthy mate. Using a combination of lies, intimidation, enchantment and actual hypnotism, she isolates her prey and molds it into what she thinks she wants. The vampire does exert some control over her domain from behind the scenes (albeit only to facilitate her own desires), and has on one occasion used her magic to cause a long-lasting drought in Lilliend as a way to extort the compliance of Lilliend's queen when people balked at sending their children to boarding schools, because they had become aware there was a good chance of them never returning. Camille's influence is keenly felt in the domain, even by those who are blissfully unaware of her existence. Every time a man conceives a daughter within the borders of Lilliend, Camille immediately dispatches one of her numerous vampiric spawn to assassinate him. Many of her spawn use the opportunity to gorge on male blood, committing suicide just so they can be free of their insane sire. Camille does not care and in fact hardly ever notices.

Camille's vile quest for the perfect mate is hampered by the fact that the personality of any girl she does claim for a vampire bride will inevitably shift due to the transformation into an undead creature of the night; she is known to turn such failures to stone with magic. Of greater concern to Camille is the fact that she is searching for a perfect reflection of herself, as she once believed Amaranth to be -- and Camille has long ago lost sight of that self due to casting spells that have permanently altered her appearance, in order to allow her to go unnoticed while she sifts through and grooms potential candidates. This is in fact her curse; Camille is forever chasing a reflection of an image she has forgotten and keeps reconstructing.

Powers and Abilities

Camille is a powerful Sorceress, with a focus in both Enchantment and Necromancy, and a knack for magically changing her own form and the forms of others. In addition to her spellcasting capacity, she is an expert brewer of potions and a competent creator of magical rings. She is known to creatively use her potions to defeat enemies she dares not fight head-on, and to hand out the less pleasing results of her ring-founding to subordinates. Owing to one of her Necromancy spells, Camille is capable of rendering her vampiric spawn dormant, allowing her to recruit new slaves without losing control over older slaves.

Closing the Borders

When Camille wishes to close the borders of Lilliend, a massive storm breaks out over the land. Gale-force winds and rain, hail and/or snow blind those who would escape, and force them back into Lilliend. Local authorities are aware of the significance of such 'freak storms' and tend to arrest people forced back into Camille's gaol, allowing the Darklady to collect them at her leisure or send orders for their execution.

Combat

Camille prefers not to become involved in combat, as she is physically weak for a vampire and well-versed in neither melee nor ranged techniques. If she can prepare, she vastly prefers to send her spawn to do the fighting and bleeding for her. If battle is upon Camille and she cannot force her spawn to do the work for her, she prefers to rake enemies from a distance with spells, preferring Empowered castings for maximal damage. Should an opponent be able to weather her strongest attacks and approach Camille, then she flees without a moment of shame. If an opponent flees, she gleefully gives pursuit, convinced that she has the upper hand. If forced to run, Camille can get unpleasantly creative. She is capable of swapping appearances with random bystanders, using them as a decoy while she flees in another direction. She can seep into the earth in gaseous form. She can disguise herself. But whatever she does, she will sooner or later return for a counterattack. One of her favourite ploys is to impersonate a waitress wherever the ones who attacked her are eating, and to deliver to them food and drink laced with any number of unpleasant potions. Should all else fail, Camille can easily coerce the government of Lilliend to arrest people who have given her grief. Once they are safely locked up in a jail cell, it is only a matter of time before they get a visit from a vindictive Darklady...

Signature equipment

Camille is the recipient of two magical rings as payment from Queen Katherine Lavonie of West-Lund: a Ring of Ebon Dark and what is almost certainly a Ring of Mortal Mimicry. The latter contains the power of the Mimic Mortal-spell at its highest level, allowing Camille to walk under the sun and pursue her targets even by day.

Relationships

Camille focuses on the girls she thinks are fit to be her future mates, and otherwise considers other creatures as irrelevant. Even her own thralls are nothing but tools to her, turned not out of any affection or even basic desire, but hunger and raw pragmatism; she might be able to use them someday, and she frequently loses the ones she sends to terminate men who have (in her eyes) served their life's sole purpose by siring a daughter. Camille has an unusually large number of vampiric thralls, far surpassing her own Hit Dice, because she uses evil magic to force the majority of them into a nightmare-filled hibernation. The number is in fact so large that the Darklady has forgotten many of the places where she has hidden groups of thralls -- and she fails to care, so long as she has enough slaves to serve her purposes.

During the events of the Lilliend Gazetteer, Camille is interrupted in feeding on two girls by the scholar Ciska, which leads her to hate the intruder, and the two eventually come to blows when Camille attacks Veronique. Camille's victory comes more from a momentary surprise Ciska experiences when Camille slips on her prized Ring of Mimic Mortal and steps into the sunlight without taking harm than from her combat technique; until that point, she was the only one to have taken any damage in their running battle.

Statistics

Neutral Evil female Lilliender vampire Sorceress 15