Primum non Nocere
-
the count is on, the time is coming soon
but I can get to hell much faster than you
🙟General
age: 28
gender: female
species: human
ethnicity: caucasian; english/scottish
nickname: CC if you're feeling brave
orientation: unknown
alignment: neutral evil
humors: phlegmatic
occupation: unlicensed physician
languages: english, german, french, latin
reference: cate blanchett by norma jean roy (pre-expulsion) | unknown model by julia hetta (post-expulsion)
🙟Setting
Victorian-adjacent low fantasy. Magic and monsters exist but are thought to be myths by a majority of the population. Originally from D&D 5e and Monster of the Week.
🙟Background
Cecelia comes from high blood and all its associated trappings. Her success was preordained. From a young age she excelled at academia and proved scientifically inclined. A tenacious student and later a prodigal surgeon, she eventually earned her doctorate and found employment at the Wexore Institution of Science and Medicine.
However, her career met an abrupt end when she discovered an {insert plot-relevant monster here} feeding among the faculty. She became obsessed with understanding the pathology of their condition; a pursuit that shirked medical ethics and ultimately saw her denounced by her peers as a crackpot. Reputation destroyed, her medical license was revoked, and she was expelled from the university and the city it presided over. Her family wanted no more to do with their disgraced daughter. She departed for the neighboring town, hoping to make some sort of living there.
Along the way her carriage was attacked by highwaymen. However, instead of an easy mark they had happened across a woman with nothing to lose and a firewood hatchet among her personal effects. It ended poorly for them. Marooned in the wilderness and christened with the blood of petty thieves, Cecelia wound up on the fringes of a backwater village. There she carved out for herself a reputation as the slightly unhinged sawbones doctor.
Cecelia will profess drivel that she's glad to be free of the fools at the university-- that their small minds only chained her down, and now that they're gone new vistas have opened for her research. Barbed, nettled, empty words. In her moments of sobriety she is hellbent on proving the existence of monsters and reclaiming her old life, which she feels was unjustly robbed from her.
that river did something to me
just so you know
/////////April1114?sod it1840
////I am watching out the window in case I should see it again. This morning as I crossed my porch something grabbed my ankle. I looked down to see a withered black hand and a withered black face through the rotting wood. And then the god damned thing smiled. As has come to be habit, I kicked it, at which point it began to berate me.
////Berate me. A dead body under my cottage.
////It says its name is Pete. Well. "Pete Moss". It seemed pleased with itself for that little lark, which is why I won't be entertaining it. If I see it smile again the revulsion shall kill me.
////Madness at last.
Whereabouts🙜
A dilapidated cottage perched on rickety stilts in the Blackmoors, where all is misty and decaying and the ground sags underfoot. While technically an apothecary, her cottage is so remote that it's clear she doesn't welcome clientele. Only the destitute call upon her. Anyone with money would much rather make the three day carriage trip to the neighboring town where the surgeons are sober and don't have a favourite bone saw.
A bog mummy named Pete lives under her porch. He speaks in cryptic fragments. Unbeknownst to Cecelia, Pete is part of a flesh amalgam, comprised of weary travelers lured to their deaths by the will-o-wisps that haunt the marshes. Attempts to catch him have a preternatural tendency for failure. She keeps him around for his occasional insights if not his company.
🙟Miss Cecelia Wickes
A cadaverous lady, 5'9" in heeled boots and of a sunless complexion. Preening has fallen to the wayside since she took up residence in the bog. Her honey-coloured hair has been bleached and brittled by the toils of life, coming loose in flyaway wisps no matter how tightly she pins it. Deep-set and shadowed grey eyes. A ridged, downwards-sloping nose and high cheekbones give her a sharp side profile. Old blood stains her medical aprons. Her impeccable posture is reticent of her days as a lady of standing. She still wears her old signet ring bearing the family crest of a thistle.
A brilliant mind made unpleasant by her caustic wit. She's done away with civility and has grown impatient, hostile, and antisocial in her exile. She would claim that her greatest strength is her ability to detach from emotion and confront problems objectively. That said, it took her seven tries to write a resignation letter that wasn't just cursing. She's an excellent problem-solver but an insufferable companion.
Her looping scrawl and poignant language are becoming more common as she hacks a living in the marshes. She has an affection for bitter teas and biting liquors but little else.
I won't believe whatever this is
until you burn all of the witches -
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