Lady Wilhelmina Pell

Lady Wilhelmina Pell is a character in The Opulent Quarrel.

Biography
Wilhemina, or Will as she prefers to be called, was something of a tomboy from a young age. As the only daughter of Lord and Lady Pell she could go more or less wherever she wanted. She was however forbidden from entering the Grey Woods for it was believed that Fae lived inside. So naturally, one day when she was about nine Will snuck off into the Grey Woods to see if she could find one of these Fae that she had heard of. She found one, or rather one found her. She remembers its voice more than anything; sickly sweet and as thick as treacle. It was nice and pleasant until it got near enough to grab her and then she was dragged screaming through the trees while it tittered with laughter. In the middle of a circle of mushrooms in a clearing the fae lifted her by her throat and then everything just seemed to cease.

Nobody noted her absence until that evening. A search party was immediately formed, but even so it was almost a full day before anyone found her; screaming and insensible, her arm and neck marked with dark purple bruises which have not healed since. Most alarmingly though was the fact that she wasn’t responding to any stimulus. She continued to kick and scream and sob intermittently even after she got back to Valenhal and was with her mother and father. A doctor was called to help but he couldn’t seem to find anything physically wrong with her, much less help her.

Many healers tried to fix what was wrong with poor Wilhelmina but all failed. In his desperation Lord Pell even requested the aid of a witchdoctor from a distant land; who was finally able to offer an explanation. It was something he had come across only once or twice before; he believed that some kind of Fae had stolen her senses. He was able to provide a pair of enchanted pearls, which when implanted allowed her to see again, but was unable to offer any solution to her other missing senses. He collected his reward and left.

For a while afterwards Will became quite introverted. She had spent over a month completely cut off from any sense of the outside world, even from any sense of her own body. At times she’d wanted to die, at other times she thought maybe she was. Time passed and she slowly started to come out of her shell again. Despite lacking her other senses she was able to learn to cope with just her sight. She quickly learned to lip read for easy communication with others. The most difficult part for her was her loss of touch; the loss of sensation made minor everyday tasks awkward and fiddly. With practice she was able to regain a certain level of motor control (though she’s still not very good if she can’t see what she’s trying to do). Also of note, with the loss of touch went the ability to feel pain. Given this and her admitted clumsiness it might have been expected that she would live a more placid lifestyle, but Will was not to be deterred. As soon as she was old enough to make her own decisions she left Valenhal and travelled, seeking to learn more of the Fae.

She learned about where they might be found and how they might be appeased, and most of all she learned how they might be driven away or even openly fought. She became a Fae Hunter of sorts. Though there was no money in it, sometimes she would receive a warm welcome and a free board in a village which had been having trouble with the Fae, though just as often not and she would rough it. Occasionally she would take a bounty against a mortal man to make ends meet. Eventually she was taken to fight in a battle to the death.

Description
Will is in her early twenties; she’s of medium height, thin (a little too thin for her own health) with very pale skin smattered here and there with freckles. She has short flame red hair, which is pretty poorly maintained; clumsily cut, patchy and uneven. A person’s attention would most likely be drawn first to her eyes, framed as they are by clumsy red surgical scars which have never healed properly. Where her eyes should be there is a pair of enchanted pearls; their shiny white surface giving her an unnerving blank gaze. Along the forearm and around the wrist of her right arm and around her throat there are large purple bruises that look as fresh as the day they were made. Even putting aside the aforementioned Will couldn’t have been described as conventionally attractive; she was too gaunt in the face and her features a little too sharp.

She tends to wear clothing which is culturally perceived as more masculine, typically a leather jerkin, a sleeveless top, trousers and boots. She has no qualms about letting her bruises show; though she used to be self-conscious of them she eventually accepted them and got over it. Will is confident and determined. She’s not easily perturbed and is personable enough, though strictly pragmatic when a situation calls for it. She hunts Fae not for some sense of revenge, though she might be entitled to such, but because she thinks that one day she might find a way to return her senses, and to a lesser extent that she can help people whilst she does this. She is rather acutely afraid of death, more so than a normal person because of her month spent senseless, which she sometimes thinks of as a death she recovered from. However she thinks it’s more important to enjoy life and make it count. In terms of combat Will will very rarely directly engage anyone. Her lack of senses would be a liability in open combat. She prefers to act stealthily and attack from afar if necessary.

Equipment/Abilities
She has a small crossbow and quiver attached to her belt. She has a selection of different crossbow bolts; the majority are iron or steel, with a couple of silver bolts and a single gold bolt that she hasn’t really found any use for but she figured it would be handy just in case. She carries a backpack filled with travel necessities; some basic provisions, a bedroll, a handful of iron nails, a pair of iron horseshoes, a few preserved cuttings of St. John’s Wort, a pair of handmirrors and a handbell blessed by a priest.

Recently she’s discovered that her encounter with the Fae that took her senses have left her the ability to craft Fae glamours. She’s not very good at it yet, her illusions are small and don’t last very long, but she’s been practicing and she’s getting better. They are strictly visual illusions at the moment because she’d have no way to perceive the effectiveness of any other sensory illusions.