Vera Hawthorne and Alice Mason

Vera Hawthorne and Alice Mason are a pair of characters in The Wretched Rite.

Race
The Tsote are a humanoid race that differ from humans in a key way; their affinity with fate. They know that fate is not just an idea but an actual palpable force which pushes them towards their inevitable destiny. They can perceive fate in the same way that humans can perceive odours. Those people who fate has earmarked for greatness have it hung thickly around them. It can be sickly sweet for a particularly pleasant fate or bitter for an unpleasant one. As a consequence of this perception Tsote conflicts have been very one sided affairs. While both sides know that the conflict must happen only the one who is assured victory will really be enthusiastic about pursuing it.

Though some attempt to fight fate and secure their own destiny they are only fooling themselves; for the Tsote fate is absolute. For those who have a good fate their lives are easy, society gifting them all that they are fated to get. For those who have a bad fate their lives can be awful, a constant struggle to survive, spurned by a society that does not care for them.

Their skin is pale lavender and their eyes are typically a metallic colour. Their feet consist of a flat circle with balancing digits splayed around it. Their hands are similar enough that they can be used as extra legs when running, allowing a Tsote to run at a more sustained pace. Their hands have five digits altogether, two of which are opposable; these are located on either side of the hand. They are of a single gender, and their method of reproduction means that more or less any physical contact beyond a handshake can kick-start a pregnancy. As such they are distant and detached from one another, only making skin-to-skin contact in private.

Abilities
Vera has been aware for a long time that her fate involves a certain amount of combat and has prepared accordingly. She is competent at hand to hand fighting, but more so at the use of a whip. She is also an excellent marksman. She has with her an old fashioned pistol and a razorwhip; a whip with razor sharp edges.

Description
Vera has long auburn hair and gold eyes. She wears a practical brown leather jacket. She carries her pistol in a holster on her belt. Her razorwhip is carefully sheathed in a container attached to the other side of her belt. She wears a pair of well worn jeans and heavy leather boots. She is approximately eighteen and it shows in her youthful complexion.

Vera is pretty much the popular girl from high school. She is confident in both her abilities and her looks; she is capable of being casually cruel, perhaps without even realizing that she is being so. Despite her confidence she is not arrogant, her fate does not dictate that she will win every battle, just that she won’t die; she knows this. She is very forward for a Tsote (which is just one step beyond frigid in human terms), this essentially means that she doesn’t mind touching people and she doesn’t wear gloves.

Biography
The fate that can be read from Vera is one of acceptance, happiness, popularity, training, confrontation and victory over a fated enemy. Though this may sound vague this is about as precise as a fate reading could be. It was easy to be happy with a fate that guaranteed victory and so she was. Her positive fate made her popular at school, and she lived an almost charmed life; excelling in her lessons and her weapons training. She planned that when she left college she would see about travelling, finding her fated enemy and having the confrontation that her life was building towards. Then one day she was snatched away from her fate, into a grand battle.

Intro
Though it is not a sentient force fate does not like to be fucked around with. It did not appreciate the abduction of one half of a fated pair before the two had even met. It quickly compensated for one half of the fated pair’s disappearance by sending the other half of the fated pair after her.

Abilities
None

Description
Alice has short dark blue hair (a natural colour for a Tsote) and bronze coloured eyes. She wears old ragged hand-me downs; a white shirt, a thick black coat, black leather gloves, a pair of old grey pants and beaten up black shoes. Her hair is unkempt, one of her eyes is blackened, her lip bloody and her clothing conceals a selection of bruises. She is only nineteen, though from her world weariness she looks a lot older.

Alice is miserable; she is gloomy and pessimistic, but very determined. She is likely to be angry and confused by this turn of events, especially since she was not even provided with an explanation. Like Vera she is pretty sure that she can’t be killed, at least until she finds her fated enemy. In Alice this trait is more likely to display itself in desperate and unwise courses of action, based on the notion that she can’t die.

Biography
The fate that can be read from Alice is one of rejection, misery, pain and eventual defeat at the hands of a fated enemy. It was not easy to life a happy life with such an ominous fate, and as much as her mothers, priests of destiny at the local church, attempted to convince her to accept her fate no matter how grim, she tried to resist it; to force herself to live a good life despite what fate dictated. She was unpopular at school, having such a negative fate. She was miserable and eventually she ran away, believing that if she got far enough from her home she could get far away from her fate as well. It did not help. One day her fated enemy was taken away into a grand battle, and afterwards she was dropped unceremoniously into wherever the first round was taking place.