Autumn Rose

[Autumn Rose]

Autumn Rose

picture by Selkie/Ines/Mayhem

Appearance

Race: Ghost (formerly human)
Gender: Female
Age: 72 years (25 of them living)
Birthday: 46th of Autumn, 446 AV
Birthplace: Kenash, Cyphrus
Deathday: 46th of Autumn 471 AV
Deathplace: Black Rock, Falyndar

Appearance: Autumn was beautiful as a living being and is still so as a ghost. She learned materializing quickly and can imitate her physical form well. While most of her appearance lacks any of the color it used to have in life, she has made sure to retain the color of her eyes. They are a striking, light blue. In life, she had brown hair with red highlights, and on occasion, she will let this show. For the most part though, her ghostly form is black and white with a sepia tone underlying it all.

Character Concept

Autumn had met a Goddess and been offered Her mark, and it was still only the second most incredible thing that had ever happened to her. The boy pup she raised and the man he became was her greatest joy. In his presence, in the way he cared for her and she for him, Autumn came to understand love in ways she had never known in her living years, first as a mother, then as teacher, then again as a friend, and finally with something more burgeoning between them, something neither of them could quite put their finger on but the existence of which neither could deny.

At her learning of Maro’s passing, Autumn became a shell of the person she once was. Her existence since his arrival in Black Rock had been based around him, and now, without him, she was lost. And being lost, she learned things about herself she had never known.

Hate had never been something Autumn had thought herself capable of. Even her murderer she hadn’t hated. Disappointed. Vengeful. Those were things she felt, but never hate. But when Maro had died, she began to understand hate intimately, as if she and it were lifelong friends. Spite for the living filled her. As much as she hated the feeling, she couldn’t deny it. And as she dug through these feelings, she discovered the most frightening thing of all. She hated herself. It was always her who had encouraged Maro’s curiosity, always her who pushed him to discover things for himself, always her who had taught him that benevolence was the way of life. He was dead because of her.

But more important than her hate was her patience. She had waited a long time for Maro to bring whatever it was that he had brought. Whatever it was had been the thing she was missing, the thing whose absence kept her tethered to this world. Whatever it was, he had almost given her enough of it to set her free, togive her peace. But whatever that was had been stolen away long with his life. She had waited before. She could wait again. Her patience had taught her she could weather anything. Time was on her side.

And with enough patience and enough time, cunning and ambition could drown out all generosity, smother any benevolence, leave any good long forgotten. Cunning quickly became her closest friend, but fortunately for her benevolent soul, she lacked ambition. She was lost, and with no way to follow, no path to tread, no goal to reach, she remained half whole, searching for the thing she had never had in life.

Whatever it was, Maro had almost given it to her. Whatever it was was love, and she could not see that.

Language

Fluent Language: Common
Basic Language: Fratava
Poor Language: Pavi

Skills

Skill	EXP	Total	Proficiency
Materialization	20 (SP) + 10 (RB) +4 +2 +2 +4 +3 +5 +1 +1 +1	53	Expert
Possession	20 (SP) +2 +2 +1 +3	28	Competent
Soulmist Projection	10 (SP) +1 +2 +1 +2 +3 +2 +1 +2	24	Novice

Possessions

-Braided silver necklace with a silver circular pendant. When on Black Rock, the pendant frames a single black Ashl that contains the soul of her killer. (Heirloom: gifted to her by Dira).
-A Book of Fairytales
-A Jar of Borrowed Life Gemstones (98 remaining)


Housing

Location: Lhavit, Kalea

House:Haunting her book of fairytales where it was left in Gweneveh’s room at The Red Lantern

Ledger

Purchase	Cost	Total
Starting	+100 GM	100 GM
Fairytale Book	- 50 gm	50 gm
Travel Expenses (Given to Noah)	-50 gm	0 gm

[Autumn Rose]

Lore

*Amelie: Madeira’s daughter
*Autumn: Alone in the world
*Autumn: Blames herself for Maro’s death
*Autumn: Has memorized her book of fairytales
*Autumn: Perfect in her imperfection
*Autumn: Refilled Bottled Laughter using good memories of Maro
*Autumn: The ugly truth of her death
*Autumn and the Mary: Both longer lived in death than in life
*Autumn’s Necklace: Can make her a ghost to ghosts
*Autumn’s Necklace: Can stay with her, materialized or not
*Autumn’s Necklace: A gift from Dira
*Autumn’s Necklace: Has twenty-four soulmist beads that can each store a mirthful memory
*Autumn’s Necklace: The pendant contains an Ashl made from the soul of Autumn’s killer
*Autumn’s Necklace: She had to kill to get it back
*Autumn’s Necklace’s First Memory: Meeting Maro
*Autumn’s Necklace’s Second Memory: Rain, Maro, and the Thunderstorm
*Ashls: Black Rock’s currency that never leaves the Isle
*Blinking: Cuts distance quickly
*Borrowed Life: Can make a ghost living for a short time
*Candace: Autumn’s young friend
*Candace: A bubbly baby
*Candace: Had a bout of pneumonia
*Candace: Interpreting her babble
*Candace: Worth anything
*Clement: A rapist
*Constellation” Zintila’s Fall
*Curiosities and Lost Things: A handcart that sells oddities
*Curiosities and Lost Things: Had a vial of Deshira Craven’s soulmist
*Curiosities and Lost Things: Has an odd cauldron that changes the things placed into it
*Curiosities and Lost Things: Holds a vial of Bottled Laughter
*Curiosities and Lost Things: Its owner has a brother
*Curiosities and Lost Things: Owned by a short-haired blonde
*Deshira Craven: Key in the formation of Alvadas’ Sealed Grounds
*Deshira’s Mist: Carries a heavy sense of doom and sorrow
*Eilened: Cares about Autumn’s wellbeing
*Emma Chamelle: Madeira’s ghost
*Emma: Nicknamed kitten
*Ennisa: Potential friend?
*Ennisa: Rushes heedlessly into danger
*Ghostly Overgiving: Loss of parts of the soul core leads to loss of vital memories
*Ghostly Overgiving: Tearing of the soul
*Ghostly Rest: Gathering stray mist
*Ghosts: Cold spots
*Ghosts: The difference between those propelled by rage and patience
*Gweneveh: Knew Autumn was there
*Gweneveh: Makes anything look good
*Haunted objects have a sense of being to them
*Haunting: A mixture between possession, materialization, and projection
*Hope: The ultimate weapon of a ghost
*Infinity Manor: Is alive
*Infinity Manor: Reluctant and hostile
*Investigation: Pat down
*Itzi: Ennisa’s friend
*Laure: Clement’s ghost
*Lhavit: Glittering city above the Ahger Ocean
*Life Advice: Never trust the living
*Location (Ten Ten): Catholicon
*Location (Sharai): Candace’s home
*Location (Zintia) : Infinity Manor
*Lore of ghost combat
*Lore of intervening in a fight
*Lore of lying to Eilened
*Lore of mistrust for the living
*Lore of the close relationship of Gweneveh and Bee
*Lore of the emptiness of spiritual exhaustion
*Lore of the intimacy of possession
*Lore of the physical limitations of living bodies
*Lore of the value of patience
*Lore of the weight of grief
*Lore of the will to exist
*Madeira: A dangerous enemy
*Madeira: Can Lie to the living?
*Madeira: Is a mother
*Madeira: The reason for Maro’s secret
*Madeira: Untrustworthy liar
*Maro: Beloved protector
*Maro: Everything good about Autumn’s death
*Maro: Left Autumn behind
*Materialization: Autumn’s gentle dawning
*Materialization: Changing eye colors
*Materialization: Creating color
*Materialization: Made more vivid with more emotion
*Materialization: Pulling back mist for a gentler touch
*Materialization: The pain of being hit
*Materialization: The uncomfortable sensation of being touched
*Medicine: Coupage
*Medicine: Slow changes are harder to detect
*Mercy or Murder? Autumn considered ending Candace’s life
Missing the Love of a Friend: Maro
*Moritz: Madeira’s son
*Noah: A stumbling reader with a pleasant voice
*Noah: The sailor who delivered Autumn to Lhavit
Our Tradition: Read a Fairytale Every Night
*People: Candace
*Persuasion: Coaxing
*Persuasion: Pleading
*Phantom and Laughter: There ain’t a gods damned ‘f’ in either one
*Possession: Controlled entry
*Possession: Controlling a host’s breath
*Possession: Forced breathing
*Possession: Gauging resistance
*Possession: Has a smell
*Possession: An intimate exchange
*Possession: Limited stores of mist make it more difficult to maintain
*Possession: Pushing past the limitations of the body
*Possession: Theory of soul anchor points
*Possession: Weak will makes for easy prey
*Possession: Weakens the host
*Raj: Emma’s beheaded bondmate
*Sailors know the stars
*Seduction: A thousand meanings in a touch
*Soulmist Projection: push technique
*Spiritists: Thrive on deceit
*The Mary: The ship that delivered Autumn to Lhavit
*The sea is a lonely place
*The truth of ‘the monster in the mirror’
*Windy: Noah’s nickname for Autumn

[Autumn Rose]

PC and NPC Relationships

Who	General Impression	Status
Maro	Autumn's most beloved connection formed during her entire existence in life and death	Dead

[Autumn Rose]

History (pt. 1): Meeting a Goddess

The young woman who stepped off the boat on the docks of Black Rock already looked deader than the ghosts who were walking its streets, but she had a purpose in her step. Her striking blue eyes were empty, and she did not smile. To those who asked, she was running from something, but she would not tell them what. She had already accepted her death; there was no escaping it. The running was just to buy her time. She knew she would die but wanted to prepare for her end and whatever would come after.

Patiently, she prepared herself for what she knew would come. Every day, she waited for death and honed skills she knew would serve her well in the time before and after death. Spiritism struck her fancy, and she learned the rudimentary foundations of it quickly as if she knew that those who would be interacting with her soon would require the magical discipline to do so.

Dira took an interest in the young woman as rumors spread of the living dead girl. While she hardly stopped for anyone, when she saw the Goddess of Death, the young woman gave Dira her complete attention and all the time the goddess wanted. The woman answered every question Dira had.

Her name was Autumn Rose as she had been born in the heart of autumn when the leaves were changing. She was named for the changing beauty of the time, her auburn hair tinged with red highlights reminiscent of the dying leaves.

As far as her death went, she knew it would come to her. Dira pressed, curious about and admiring of the young woman’s acceptance of the cycle, so Autumn gave in and told the Goddess everything. She was running from her fiancé. Once she had loved the man, strong and handsome and sweet as he was, but then she had heard the stories of his previous wives. All of them had been young and beautiful like herself, and all of them had died sometime after they had married him. Died was putting it lightly. They had been horrifically murdered: raped, throats slashed, disemboweled, and generally carved up until they were nearly unrecognizable. Though she could not prove it, Autumn was certain her husband to be was the culprit, and she knew, now that she had gained his attentions, that those attentions would eventually turn to murderous obsession. She ran, hoping to find a way to prove his guilt when her own life was taken so no other women would fall prey to his sickened fantasies. It would require her life. This much she knew, and this much was an acceptable price to pay to bring him to justice and avenge the women he had taken before her.

When Dira tried to give Autumn Her mark, the young woman refused, as politely as one could refuse a goddess, telling Her to save the gift for someone who could truly use it. Though Dira did not need to save the mark, She respected Autumn’s decision and continued to monitor her progress.

As her next birthday approached, Autumn had begun to grasp some of the more basic concepts of spiritism and had taken the counsel of many ghosts on how ghostly apparition worked. She meant to stay as a ghost and, in a materialization, name her ex-fiancé as her killer. Her birthday came, and as with every day since she had arrived on the Isle of Death, she did not smile. That day, the day that served as a reminder of life, her doom seemed all the more imminent, and the feeling of dread was proved right that night. He showed up, the man she had feared and run from. The same happened to her that had befallen all his preceding wives.

No one saw who had done this to her, and no one saw him leave. Autumn tried to materialize for weeks on end, desperate to save anyone and everyone from the man. When she could not become an apparition, Dira found her and helped her to materialize. Autumn was about to name her killer when Dira hushed her by placing a finger over her lips. The Goddess held Her hand out and in it was a silver necklace. Dangling from the chain in a thin-lined frame of silver was a single, black Ashl. Autumn understood in that moment that she had no need to name her killer. The Goddess of Death had already seen to it that he would never harm another woman again.

For the first time since she had come to Black Rock, Autumn smiled and accepted her gift gratefully.

[Autumn Rose]

History (pt. 2): Meeting Maro and Their Life Together on Black Rock

When Dira brought a little Kelvic jackal pup back to Black Rock, She placed him under the care of Autumn Rose. Autumn was thrilled to be the one to care for the child. Her first act as his caretaker was to give him a new name, and that was Maro, as he enjoyed cracking open bones in his Kelvic form and eating the marrow inside.

As he was no more than a toddler when he first arrived, her first role to him was that of a mother. She raised him, making sure he had proper nutrition as he grew and the love and support any child needed. It was a particularly joyous time of life for both of them, but it was short-lived. As a Kelvic child, he grew quickly, and his early childhood was soon over.

As Maro became a young child and grew old enough to learn languages, Autumn immersed him in as much as she could. Every day, she took him to the market and had him listen to the traders. There he learned the Common language as well as Fratava and Myrian though to a lesser degree as fewer of the merchants and shoppers used those. After their time at the market, they would go to the Little Dead Schoolhouse for several hours where, eager to please Autumn, Maro absorbed everything taught to him while he was there. Finally, at the end of the day Autumn would read him a story from a book.

As much fun as it was, Autumn made sure it was a learning experience. Rather than read to Maro while he was lying in bed with his eyes closed, she had him guide her where to read. Wherever he pointed, she would read. Besides, she needed him to turn the pages as this was a difficult task to achieve as a ghost. He had some issues with the guiding, but Autumn figured out ways to correct them all. At first, Maro followed the lines from right to left. Then, he would skip lines. His final difficulty was that he would get so excited by the stories he would move his finger too fast for Autumn to follow. Whenever he did this, Autumn would simply stop and make him backtrack to where she had stopped. This was how Autumn taught her little Maro how to read and gave him a lesson in patience along the way.

Maro continued to grow as all young boys do and soon became a young man. The precious time of childhood was over, but Autumn and Maro stayed true to their nightly traditions of reading. Together, the two reminisced of how this had begun, as a teacher and a pupil, and enjoyed the changes that came with Maro’s changing age. His skills in reading grew, and there were times when he would read in the light of the fire and Autumn would listen from the bed as a shimmering apparition with her eyes closed. She loved the sound of his voice. Although there was nothing particularly smooth or musical about it, it was his, and that was what she loved most about it.

He learned new things, things that would help him provide for himself and for Autumn, what little she needed. In his jackal form at first, he followed local fisherman and watched how they worked. His curiosity was one of his better traits; it helped him learn new things and learn them quickly. Soon, he built up the courage to ask the old pros how to fish and how to do it as well as they did. As with any age-old skill, he received a dozen different answers from a dozen different people. Some taught him actual fishing skills. Some taught him theories about fishing, where to look for holes where the biggest fish swam. One old man, Maro’s favorite, simply told him to relax, to enjoy the scenery and nature, the birdsong and the insects, and the cold of water on one’s feet. Fishing, the old man explained, was not actually about catching anything.

It was this one piece of wisdom that Maro held as his greatest bit of learning. Nothing was what it seemed to be. Life was not about living. Death was not about dying. In every action and state of existence, there was something more.

Autumn, of course, continued to teach him all the things she remembered from life. Throughout her life, she had focused herself on keeping a pure mind unhindered by the weight of the world and its worries. To this end, she had become a formidable practitioner of meditation and taught Maro as much as she could. She hoped he would not have to face any of the great trials she had but was adamant that he would be mentally prepared if he did.

Maro happily learned everything Autumn taught him, and the two continued to enjoy their respective life and death together.

[Autumn Rose]

History (pt. 3): A Move to Alvadas and the Things that Brought

Eventually, the time came when Maro’s curiosity outgrew their little home of Black Rock, and at Autumn’s urging, they took their first steps into the world beyond togaether. This was not Autumn’s first venture into the world beyond, but even the sites she had seen seemed new in the light of Maro’s wonder. Coastline that should have held no significance became the most important discovery of the modern age, only to be replaced by the next stretch of coastline as it came into view. His joy brought hers, and hers only brightened his. Since the first moment they had laid eyes on each other, this was how things had been.

Every moment shared together was exactly that. Shared. Her joy was his joy; his sadness, hers. And while they were each their own person, each had more of the other in them than they knew.

The journey at sea was brief. They had boarded a vessel that was northbound to the Suvan, and as the vessel surged north, the sailors began to talk of Alvadas, the next stop on their trade route. Maro had immediately been fascinated by the thought of a city where the eyes couldn’t be trusted, and Autumn had to admit she felt the lure too. So they had entered through a face in the city wall. When it had asked them why they had come, Maro’s reason was curiosity, as it always was.

When she was asked, Autumn’s answer was immediate as she gestured to Maro. “Because he is mine.”

The world they stepped into was like nothing they had ever experienced. Illusions ran rampant about the city, and reason and sense had nothing to do with the day-to-day life people lived here. Though their time there was brief, they easily made it home, because they had each other. Without a doubt, the city was full of wonders.

But it was not without its share of hardships. The illusions had way of making people lose their way, and things were rarely ever in the same place twice. Even the houses weren’t left untouched by such illusions, and Maro, despite his curious mind and tenacity, had a difficult time finding his way home each day. As often as not, Maro ended up sleeping on the streets. Maro joked about those nights, said it was all a game to the city. Despite the newfound joy Maro had in experiencing the wild world of Alvadas and its illusions, Autumn couldn’t help but feel abandoned. She thought she couldn’t possibly feel more alone than she felt on the nights he didn’t come home.

An empty house wasn’t the only difficulty they faced though. There were worse things than loneliness, not many things worse, but there were some. Secrets was one of them. There was only ever one, but it was a secret. She had a few of her own, but Maro had never had one from her, nothing so blatant, not before that day.

It had begun as most normal days did with Maro fishing on the beach near the Patchwork Port, but it didn’t stay normal for long. A scream had sounded, and a young woman had run up the beach terrified by something. Unfathomably curious, Maro had gone to investigate and had ended up getting assaulted by a skinny teenager. It had turned out she was one of the local spiritism family’s youngest and had been possessed searching for answers on a haunting. Autumn wasn’t sure how, but Maro ended up agreeing to aid the woman in her search for the mad ghost Djamila. Whatever happened it seemed to be a success, but Maro wouldn’t tell her what had happened. When he came home that night, his eyes were red from crying, and no amount of consoling and comforting, no questions or interrogation could get him to tell her what had happened, what the ghost had done, or what he had seen. The one thing she knew was that he cried himself to sleep that night, and there was nothing she could do to comfort him. It hadn’t been just that night either. A week passed that way, and though he didn’t cry himself to sleep anymore after that, he did wake now and again with a start and Djamila’s name on his lips.

And so Autumn developed a deep seated hate for the young spiritist who had interrupted them that morning. Secrets had never existed between her and Maro, and now, he had one. Things were changing between them, but not all change is bad. Something else, something that had been a long time coming, continued to build between them, and though Autumn couldn’t manage to identify it before she lost him, she knew she liked it.

[Autumn Rose]

History (pt. 4): Dead and Gone

In which Autumn loses Maro. How she found their missing things and her way to Lhavit

[Autumn Rose]

History (pt. 4): Threads

Thread List

Thread	Date	Summary	Status	Rewards
A Lesson of the Soul	Fall 10th, 514 AV	Autumn teaches Maro how to make Mist	Thread as an NPC	-
The Heart of Autumn	Fall 46th, 514 AV	Maro celebrates Autumn’s birthday	Thread as an NPC	-
Autumn Within	Fall 80th, 514 AV	Autumn teaches Maro about possession	Thread as an NPC	-
Harvesting the Moon	Spring 34th, 515 AV	Maro takes Autumn to a bed of wraith mint	Thread as an NPC	-
A Lonely Place	Fall the 6th, 519 AV	Autumn spends her last night at sea before her arrival in Lhavit	Completed	3 XP & 12 Lore
Into the Stars	Fall the 7th, 519 AV	Autumn arrives in Lhavit and finds a place to stay	Incomplete	Not Submitted
Curiosities and Lost Things	Fall the 27th, 519 AV	Autumn finds a mysterious cart and cauldron and accidentally drops her necklace in	Completed	2 XP & 12 Lore
Best Served Cold	Fall the 31st, 519 AV	Autumn reencounters Madeira Craven after their meeting two years prior	Completed	7 XP & 17 Lore
Like Taking Candy from a Baby	Fall the 33rd, 519 AV	Autumn practices possession on the easiest of unwilling participants	Completed	5 XP & 11 Lore
Broken Souls	Fall the 43rd, 519 AV	Autumn encounters another apparition in a room of mirrors	Completed	5 XP & 9 Lore
A Day of Rest	Fall the 47th, 519 AV	After bad memories brought on by her birth/death day, Autumn takes a day to recuperate	Placeheld	Not Started
Time for Two	Fall the 52nd, 519 AV	Autumn spends time with her favorite baby	Completed	4 XP & 6 Lore
One Breath at a Time	Fall the 70th, 519 AV	Autumn spends a futile night trying to keep a sick child breathing	Completed	4 XP & 13 Lore
Desperate Times	Fall the 71st, 519 AV	Autumn turns to Madeira for help with Candace’s sickness	Completed	6 XP & 9 Lore
Inside the Shadow	Fall the 82nd, 519 AV	Autumn encounters a woman searching for answers in the Red Lantern	Completed	6 XP & 15 Lore
A New Season, A New Leaf	Winter the 1st, 519 AV	Autumn finally introduces herself to her roommate	Placeheld	Not Started
The Only Constant is Change	Winter the 13th, 519 AV	Autumn visits the Outpost for the first time and sees a familiar face (Baelin)	Incomplete	Not Submitted
Restless Spirits	Winter the 16th, 519 AV	Autumn and Jomi get into trouble together at the Lantern	Incomplete	Not Submitted
Arriving Nowhere	Winter the 26th, 519 AV	Autumn pulls Emma out of the Manor on the Arriving Night	Placeheld	Not Started
Fortune Favors…	Winter the 65th, 519 AV	After meeting Dev’Ania, Autumn has her fortune told	Incomplete	Not Submitted
Old Friend	Winter the 77th, 519 AV	Maro returns, but it’s not him	Incomplete	Not Submitted
Curiouser Curiosities	Winter the 88th, 519 AV	Autumn finds the cart again, but something has changed	Completed	3 XP & 11 Lore
I’m a Real Girl (pt. 1)	Winter the 90th, 519 AV	Autumn tries out living again for the first time in the comfort of the Infinity Manor (Madeira)	Incomplete	Not Submitted
I’m a Real Girl (pt. 2)	Winter the 90th, 519 AV	Autumn spends the rest of her day living with one of her few friends (Ennisa)	Incomplete	Not Submitted
Love Me Not	Spring the 22nd, 520 AV	Autumn and Madeira go dancing with strangers at the Heart Festival	Incomplete	Not Submitted