Maeve Blackwood

Biographical information

Birthplace The Grotto Born Died Age 297 Home Kiva's Fury Sexuality Pronouns

Physical description

Race Undead Kivren Sub-Race Gender Female Height 13'8/5'3 Mass Hair color Deep Ruby Eye color Haunting Teal Skin color Green-tinged

Political information

Affiliation(s) Occupation Pirate Clan(s) Caste Domain Masters Apprentices Alias(es)

Out-of-character information

Writer Grimscythe Created on February 22, 2019 Avatar "song of the undead." by cristina-otero (DeviantART)

Maeve possesses two forms: the one that is true to her, and a human-like one meant for existing undetected among the landwalkers. The first of these forms is Kivren, though her appearance is considered unusual for their kind: Maeve's tail consists of eight, very long, wine-colored tentacles, their suckers blackened with rot and grime. Her skin, greened by decay, is ghostly pale. From behind a veil of dark, ruby curls, ethereal teal eyes glow unnaturally.

In her human form, much of her appearance is the same, aside from the obvious fact that she has legs, as opposed to tentacles. Naturally, she wears clothes, often choosing a pair of dark, leather trousers, knee-high boots, and loosely fitting blouses (usually in a shade of red).

Regardless of her form, Maeve always wears an emerald, tear-drop shaped pendant on her throat. It has an eldritch glow to it and, when looked upon closely, seems to swirl with magic beneath its many facets. This necklace bears three enchantments: one that allows her to shift between the two forms, and one that is, in summation, her life's, or unlife's, essence. Should the necklace be taken away from her, she will be trapped in whichever form she held at the time of theft. If it's destroyed, the magic that reanimates her will be gone, and she will truly perish.

Maeve's voice holds a disembodied quality that is eerie and haunting, as much as it is enticing. Her timbre is unusually low when compared to most females, and its said she uses this to give her songs a falsely comforting sense.

Maeve is a necromancer, though her command of those defiled energies is a bit unconventional in the sense that she does not cast spells, but rather sings them. Some have called her a necromantic bard, but she prefers the term deathsinger. Regardless of what it's called, she appears to be quite skilled in the execution of her magic.

The deathsinger has several laments in her repertoire.

These songs encompass acts of necromancy that involve raising and controlling the dead in various ways.

• Come Back to Me This tune is a call to those that have fallen, similar to most necromancers' reanimation spells. It is used to the lull the dead back to the world of the living.
• Lullaby for the Dead Often used in conjunction with "Come Back to Me", "Lullaby for the Dead" is used to exert control over the newly risen or, in rare cases, to gain control of undead that were raised by other necromancers with weakened ties to their masters.

The intent of these songs is to incite fear among those listening.

• Hush My Sweet When this song is chosen, it fills the immediate area with a stifling, near impenetrable, and unnerving silence. As a performance, it is often used first to encourage quiet among listeners, as well as to help set the atmosphere.
• Darkness Cometh to Thee Used to darken the surrounding area, this song brings a thick, oppressive wall of night with it.

The Songs of Despair are curses that are inflicted upon others. Their purpose is to make the receiver of these curses feel the emotion for which they are titled: despair.

• Mouthful of Maggots While the title implies a mouthful of maggots, this song does not literally fill the recipient's mouth with maggots. Rather, it is a curse that maliciously twists an individual's sensory perceptions. If inflicted, the cursed being's senses will be overcome with awful illusions, altering their senses with visions of death. Most common is the taste of rot upon the tongue and the rancid smell of decay.

There are several things worth noting about Maeve's personality, which seems to be relatively inconsistant in general. First, she is not sane, and many of her actions tend to showcase her lack of mental stability. Often impulsive and rash in her decisions, Maeve will absolutely bite of her nose to spite her face, as the saying goes. She deals with these consequences using force rather than handling the issues that arise from her sometimes infantile actions with maturity. Despite her fits, or maybe because of them, Maeve inspires loyalty among her crew--a feeling she reciprocates with violent adoration.

Maeve isn't considered a friendly creature, often regarding others with an inflated sense of self-worth. Or maybe it's more the fact she's a pirate, and she doesn't much care for those that aren't her kind (undead, Kivren, or necromancers). It doesn't help that she seems to have a chip on her shoulder too, expressing a flagrant disdain for humans especially.

A pirate always has enemies, and Maeve is no different. It isn't unusual for those that cross her to find themselves in a potentially life-threatening situation. The mentality of her crew on the matter of adversaries is fairly universal, and appear united in front of those Maeve deems death-worthy.

Romanticism, on the other hand, is something Maeve isn't particularly fond of. Being dead, she has never felt a need to take lovers or mates: they are of no use to her. And even if that were not the case, her experience with Alaric was more than a just a lesson to her.

Born Cora of the Grotto, Maeve was once considered blessed by Kiva. At a young age, she showed an affinity for controlling the environment around her and as she grew older, she applied this to the benefit of not only her pod, but the entire Grotto as a whole. She served as a protector and avidly hunted ships that came too close to their reefs. It was upon one of these excursions, when a ship strayed too near, that she was captured.

Life drastically changed for Cora at that moment. The human ship that captured her took her to shore, where she was sold to the highest bidder. As fate would have it, that bidder was a cruel necromancer named Alaric Rathmore. Alaric, known for his twisted experiments upon the living, was ecstatic when he saw the elusive creature on display, chained to a dock within the pay so that she'd still have access to the water that was vital to her. He purchased her, and that was the last time she was ever seen.

While rumors spread of the sighting of a Kivren, Alaric took his prize to a home he owned near the shore, where he'd have access to as much seawater as he needed while he conducted his latest tests, even going so far as to employ a jewelcrafter and an enchanter to create the pendant that Maeve now wears, which at that time only gave her the ability to shift forms.

It was through this captivity that Cora learned the common tongue and what behaviors were acceptable among the living of the world. Alaric's hope was that, by not killing her and giving her the gift of legs, that the Kivren might fall in love with him. When she failed to do that, instead beseeching her goddess for aid and making several attempts on his life using the nearby seawater, Alaric took her further inland, to one of his estates. There, things only escalated.

Each gift Alaric bestowed upon Cora only fed her fury, for it removed her further from the life she once loved. When he renamed her Maeve Blackwood, she rejected it. It didn't matter; when Alaric took her into towns and villages and made her travel with him, he paraded her for her beauty. For that fiery red hair and those unsettling blue-green eyes of hers. And he was always careful to keep her away from bodies of water.

Eventually, the Kivren could no longer stand the life she was being forced to live, and she shifted, knowing the dangers that would come with being on land and in her true form. Maeve, as she was now called, struck out at Alaric one last time, wrapping her tentacles around him in an effort to crush his body. Alaric was forced to make a choice at that moment: himself, or the creature he so desperately wanted. He chose the former, and he slew her.

Alaric loved her though, perhaps even more for every moment she rebuked him. He mourned her loss, and in a fit of rage, he denied her the peace of eternal sleep that she'd earned. Raising her from the grave, he bound her soul to the necklace she wore, ensuring that, even should something happen to him, she would live--in a sense. The exact longevity of Cora's reanimation was uncertain, but he believed that it would empower her for centuries.

Upon her reanimation, Cora was no longer the same. Her voice came with powers she hadn't expected, and her words became a dirge meant to coax the dead back to life. It was appalling and unnatural, but there were benefits to be found in her new existence, including the ability to finally overpower her captor. She bid her time, feeding into Alaric's desires enough to learn control of her newfound magic. When the time came, she used the dark magic to aid her and forcefully fled back to the sea.

When Cora returned home, she was different and that was unacceptable; she was no longer welcomed. This weighed heavily on her, and she took back to the surface, where she wandered aimlessly for years as she finally accepted her new name: Maeve. Even there, she was often shunned, but not by all: eventually she encountered a group of pirates while resting in a tavern of ill repute, and she was invited onto their ship, Kiva's Fury.

A horrifying fate befell the ship, and the crew's first mistake was bringing her on board. They had become her family quickly, and they were stolen from her when Kiva's Fury encountered a nasty storm. When the water calmed, the ship was nowhere to be seen: it had capsized, and its crew drowned--with the exception, of course, of Maeve.

Fueled by the strength of her rage, there was an uncontrollable flare in her magic and as she wailed her lament, the crew stirred from their watery graves. The necromancy touched more than that, though. It reached into the once-living grains of wood that was the ship, weaving a curse into its boards that breathed a twisted mimcry of life into it. It was enough that the ship and its crew were able to return to the surface.

The ship haunts the seas to this day, though time has taken it's toll. It's former beauty is gone, replaced with the tell-tale signs of the dead: rot, grime, and decay.

Steve said:

"No one is more of a fish out of water than me."

Click to expand...

Steve gave Maeve a look.