dillypickles_

You’ve just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As you look around, your gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. You duck and step into a tattered tent, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the tent, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town? she begins, then pauses to study your face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a cushion, “Tell me your story.”

((How do you respond?))

Phaedra blinks. Her nose twitches at the dank air, the familiarity of the rot seeping into her bones like a mixture of henbane and hemlock. The doctor blinks again and realizes that she has yet to answer the elderly woman. Phaedra clears her throat and though her eyes pluck at the cushion's worn edges and fraying seams, she refuses to sit.

"I am but a doctor, ma'am, or a 'leech' if you want to be crude. I am no story teller by any means. I can only spin you tales of the medicinal preachings that peppered my youth. I can recite the body from the stapes bone in our ears to the skin that coils around our horrid flesh. I can tell you all the wondrous applications of wolfsbane and how to poison your husband from a mile away. I can tell you many things that books written by aged monks have already spoken of. I'm afraid I am, how do they say, unoriginal–" Phaedra pauses. She glances at the old hag once, twice, before looking back at the cushion.

'What's there to be afraid of?' Phaedra thinks. She looks at the hag again, 'She's just a lonely old woman. Who'd believe her?'

"--- Unoriginal but not rude." Phaedra continues. She finally sits, the various trinkets on her person jingling from the movement, "My name is Phaedra Harpstein and I hail from the Westerlands. As I have said, I am a doctor. Not a nun or 'holy woman' as many assume from my raiments. I am a doctor as was my father, and my grandfather, and every other Harpstein that chose to stay around Bastion." Makaria pauses again, her eyes glaze over momentarily, before resuming, "...You might be wondering why my family chose to stay around the Lich Mordring's stomping grounds but everyone knows, no matter if you are born of prestige or in the mud, that money holds power. My family, instead of fear, saw opportunity within the Undead that ruined our home. They saw a path to success, to replace. You see, my grandfather realized, that the rich are desperate for anything that'll help elongate their lifespans. They'll, with the right words and performic flip of the hand, buy rotten blood to use as ‘rejuvenating’ perfume or 'exotic' meats to consume for smaller stomachs. They’ll be putty in our hands one day….and dead the next.”

Phaedra now looked down at their feet, eyeing the dried blood on their shoes as it stained the carpet underneath.

"I won't say I regret what I've done. There were some that deserved it and others that didn't. I didn't know them, I could care less to know them. Business is business, after all." Phaedra said, "But when my family's enterprise dribbled into the lives of the poor, the defenseless, I knew then what I had to do. Instead of pretending, I needed to be a doctor. An unconventional one, yes, but a good one--a real one. My grandfather might've been on to something but it has been gnarled and warped by greed--by a lust to win. Life and death go hand in hand and I alone will be the one to find, if there is one to find, that connecting tissue."

Phaedra suddenly stands up, her thick cloak billowing behind her. She stares down the hag and once again her eyes pick like vultures greedily tearing off clumps of foul meat. A small smile stretches on her pale lips. It warps the scar slathered on her cheek, twisting and curling the horrid thing.

“I do hope you wish me luck, ma’am.” Those pale lips prattled on, “Though I don’t blame you if you don’t. Even through all this lavender and sage, my sins cut your senses deeply and bitterly. I don’t doubt you’ve grown to hate me instead of revere me.”

Phaedra then gave a curt bow before moving to exit the tent. With one foot already out, Phaedra crooked her head slightly, “An old man once told me that when among crows, you must caw as one. I find that disagreeable. My father was a liar, my grandfather one too. I am no liar, madame, and through my work, all will hear the truth. Death first to vultures and scavengers."

--

In Depth Appearance & Personality:

Phaedra is a tall (6’1) and lean woman with a face as stony as a gargoyle and as sharp as a butcher knife. Her eyes, a set of dull brown, are stamped on her face like coffin nails and have a slight squint to them. She has hay colored (white in the right light) hair that is messily chopped to her shoulders and is rather pale. She also has a long, twisted looking scar crawling from the left corner of her mouth towards the edge of her left eyebrow. 

As per her clothing, Phaedra can often be mistaken for a nun due to her veil, coif, and guimpe. Pieces of her hair tend to jut out from underneath the bandeau but, while working, they are promptly put back into place. She always wears gloves and, due to how light in color her clothing is, can be seen often covered in flecks of her previous patients. 

As for personality, Phaedra is a reserved woman that is always smiling despite it making her scar all the more unappealing. She's not cheery but neither is she a downer. She is practical, her goals and aspirations always being led by a steed named rational thought. She also has a sweet tooth but you didn't hear that from me ; )

I took inspiration for her appearance from the Elden Ring character Varre and the below picture (artist is Tom Parkinson-Morgan from their game Magnagothica: Maleghast).