Katia Schlosser

Katia Schlosser is the fourth oldest persona of the Tanar'ri Devoratrix known as the Red Haunt. This persona is first introduced in Quoth the Raven Issue 27, The Conferences of Victor Gagné IV.

Appearance

Although she is a natural shapechanger and should be capable of assuming any form she wants, Katia's 'default' guise has been subtly influenced by the preceding personas of the Red Haunt. Her fair-haired, aristocratic appearance strongly resembles Elise Mordenheim when she was still in the flower of health. Subtle differences persist; Katia's eyes tend to shift in colour between an icy blue and a cloudy dark, her lips a slash of red in her pale face even without the benefit of artificial colouration. In spite of her elegant, beautiful form, Katia prefers to wear a white doctor's coat, which comprehensively covers her in an entirely businesslike manner.

History

Katia was born when the Red Haunt ventured into Lamordia to study science, after she believed she had gained sufficient mastery of arcane magic at the University of Il Aluk. Her studies focused on the medical sciences, but she also studied engineering and became the qabal's most versatile crafter of magic items and constructs.

Katia learned to dislike the Lamordians, considering them provincial and patronising due to the resistance she faced in their society as a woman seeking mastery of the sciences. She had to work twice as hard as any male student, not only to attain the grades she wanted, but also to silence the many people who kept telling her that her ambitions were 'unbecoming of a woman'. Even upon graduating with flying colours, Katia was dissatisfied with what she had learned, and sought fresh sources of knowledge.

Katia eventually managed to gain an apprenticeship under Victor Mordenheim, and for a time she was actually content to study under the mad doctor; Mordenheim accepted no limits to scientific study, which suited her just fine. Her contentment led to resentment of the other personas with whom she shared a body, and Katia tried to monopolize the body and repress the other personas. In her obsession with science, she even neglected to feed -- and the other personas took action.

Due to the interference of 'Mother' and her older 'sisters', Katia's 'default form' started to gradually resemble Victor's wife Elise, as she had been before her confrontation with Adam. Predictably, Victor decided to use her body as a vessel for Elise's brain -- a notion Katia picked right out of his mind in 688 BC. Also predictably, the Fiend erupted in fury. Katia assaulted and fed on Victor, torturing him to the point that he forgot what happened, then abandoned Schloss Mordenheim and founded her own hospital in Leidenheim. Eventually, the Red Haunt's past caught up to her in the person of Boyce Vinctus, and Katia was forced to abandon her life in Lamordia.

Personality

Katia is brilliant, focused, merciless and remorseless. Although she is a skilled physician and a brilliant scientist, these are not qualities anyone should appreciate in their doctor. She is also prideful to the point of arrogance, capable of bouts of intense cruelty when anyone angers her, and has no respect for any part of the natural order she has been studying. For every person whose life she has saved, she has conducted unspeakable experiments on another, and she is known for research into the grafting of undead flesh onto the living.

Unlike her former mentor, Victor Mordenheim, Katia considers magic to be just one more tool in her toolkit to unriddle the universe. She is the most proficient among the Red Haunt's personas in the creation of magic items, and is one of the two 'sisters' responsible for creating the host of homunculi that provide security at their main lair, the Retreat. One of her most ambitious lines of construct-related research is meant to free her of the need to share a body with her 'sisters'; Katia hopes to one day craft a golem body capable of hosting her personality and matching the power of her natural form.

An unusual (for a Fiend) quirk of Katia's is the fact that she appears to suffer from a situational fear of contamination. When performing her research, she is perfectly willing to get her hands dirty with any number of unpleasant substances, and she appears to enjoy the blood of people she is torturing. Outside these situations, however, she abhors physical contact ranging from melee combat to simply shaking another person's hand in greeting. She has been shown to unapologetically wipe her hand with a disinfecting cloth immediately after shaking a patient's hand.

Statistics

Chaotic Evil female Devoratrix Bard 17