MISTRESS

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Category: Lore

  • The Hunger. [3/?]

    After her unmooring, Doctor Grau’s mind evolved. Alien voices spoke to her in languages lost to time, yet she understood their words as fluently as if they were in her own tongue. They regaled her with the secret mathematics and fundamental truths of the universe, and a great many things were suddenly clear and known. A veil had been lifted; her frigid eyes beheld this starkly illuminated world with strange desire.

    The limits of her flesh quickly became evident as her blessing burned through her. Mortal minds are ill-equipped for such burdens, their architecture unsuitable for the weight of absolute knowledge. As madness gripped her, a bottomless hunger sprang forth. Her lust was fearsome and all-encompassing; every sensation had become synonymous with pleasure. Doctor Grau discovered within herself a particularly ravenous appetite for pain, reveling in its diverse flavors as they spread across her newly awakened palate. Her body demanded abuse, and so she obliged it with a parade of degradations—all in pursuit of the rapture that swallowed her when skin stretched and tore, muscles bruised and blackened, bones cracked and ached. Her appetite grew, and as it did, a twisted grin became etched into her visage. Each experiment brought her agonizingly close to transcendence, but the answer continued to remain just beyond the reach of her bloodied, outstretched fingers.

    The missing element was not something that could be found within. The administration of her own treatments had provided much insight, but lacked the clinical discipline necessary for such esoteric research. To satisfy her craving, she found that test subjects were imperative. In wartime, these were plentiful, and no matter how many drunken revelers, vagrants, or invalids disappeared into her secluded laboratory, questions were seldom asked. The world was already drowning in death and sickness; what were a few more drops in this black ocean? The sum of their flesh was greater on her altar.

    Only the Night Mother witnessed her, and Doctor Grau took her silence as tacit approval.

  • Mark of Glory. [2/?]

    Years had passed since her exile from the halls of academia. As plague and war cut a swath through civilization, Doctor Grau had little trouble finding an abandoned structure to hide and further her research. Sheltered from prying eyes, her experiments had begun to tap into otherworldly forces that were far beyond her comprehension. Standing at the lip of this chasm of knowledge, she embraced the void, plunging into the abyss.

    There was no turning back. The research consumed her, and as days slipped away, she realized that sleep was nothing more than a distraction from her goals. Something inside her mind had broken loose, and as its jagged edges shredded what was left of her sanity, a different person emerged. The light in her eyes had been swallowed by an icy darkness, and what little compassion may have once existed there sank forever into its infinite depths.

    To truly understand her theurgic craft, Doctor Grau made her own mind the subject of her next experiment. In a rare moment of submission, she laid herself bare to the demonic power that obsessed her, eager for its foul blessing. And so it gladly accommodated her: Ten thousand years of arcane enlightenment flooded her skull as an exquisite pain penetrated her soul. Pressing its ethereal member against her brains, it branded her forehead with an eye opened, never blinking, to honor her awakening. Her seared flesh screamed, but her heart felt only the ecstacy of unbounded pleasure.

  • Hildegard Grau. [1/?]

    Before she traded her soul for immortality, the Mistress was known as Doctor Hildegard Grau, practitioner of medical arts. Though medical science as we know it today is quite advanced, the Old Ways were crude and unproven. Simple maladies were often treated with superstitions and phials of swill. Complicated ailments were cured with the bonesaw. Doctor Grau decided to follow a less orthodox path, studying a new branch of medicine involving the dissection of patients as they live and breathe, manipulating their innards to achieve the healthful outcome. Surgery was regarded with suspicion in those days, but it was hard to argue with the results.

    Doctor Grau quickly mastered the scalpel and the needle, and before long, she developed a reputation as a habitual rule-breaker amongst the medical community. Eager to explore her passion, she began to perform unconventional treatments in limb grafting and organ replacement on the infirm. Few of her peers had her academic expertise, and most were hesitant to question her revolutionary methods in public, but privately, they seethed. They saw her ambitions as perverse, a stain on their noble profession. As Doctor Grau pushed the boundaries of their field, they felt the limits of their knowledge weigh heavy on their pride. In hindsight, their decision to shun her and banish her work would be recognized as the first step on her path of ascension.

    Free to pursue her whims, and no longer bound by rules or precedent, the Doctor decided to blend her studies. Alchemic and occult wisdom became sources of profound interest, and as her research deepened, so too did her seclusion. Once hopeful to help mankind with the tip of her knife, her jaded heart now sought to remake it.

  • Deidre Delmonico, Freelance Mage.

    “If you’re going to insist on tagging along, at least keep up. It’s getting late, and I don’t sleep in dungeons.”

    A descendant of a long line of unusually-tailed folk, Deidre is a naturally talented practitioner of the magical arts with a hugely inflated opinion of herself. Selfish, proud, and overly confident in her abilities, she enjoys the prestige that comes with adventuring, but has a general distaste for the associated grime and muck. Not terribly realistic in this line of work, but then, nobody has ever accused her of having good judgement. Frequently seen in the company of her long-suffering ward, Roman, an orphan with an uncanny knack for necromancy (and not much else). Though Deidre finds his lack of magical range to be a little boring, his doting admiration for his guardian has proven tactically useful on many occasions.

  • Mating Dance.

    “Ooh! Now that you can’t leave, we’re gonna play my favorite game! I call it Mating Dance! I’ll be Boy, you be Girl!”

    Vorpal’s venom has a heightened potency, thanks to the cursed ichor flowing through her reconstructed body. Her abdomen, hewn from the pulsating remains of a hellspawn hornet, contains the cruel apparatus with which she’s cut short many a quest—her fearsome, oversized stinger. Grizelda decided to improve upon that biological advantage by linking its organs to the pleasure center of her nervous system. As a result, Vorpal has become obsessed with her grafted appendage over the years.

    Most laypeople assume that an insect’s stinger is a simple tube with a sharp tip, like a hypodermic needle. At an enlarged scale, however, the biological complexity of this tool is revealed: A split shaft with serrated lancets helps the hollow stylet wiggle deep inside the prey and lodge in place, before pumping them full of its venomous payload. While Vorpal finds this activity quite enjoyable, her playmates generally do not.

    Given her monstrous size and the unstable nature of Necrow’s flesh, Vorpal’s exoskeleton is unusually fragile. A strong impact can crack her shell, making her mostly reliant on stealth and the element of surprise to subdue her targets. With enough time to recover, however, she can regrow any severed extremity, including her head.

  • Snicker-snack.

    “This one stopped moving, too! I guess that just leaves you, huh?”

    Vorpal spots you from a distance. She’s cautious, given the nature of your presence; you’re most likely here to destroy the Mistress, and she can’t allow that. Taking you on directly would be suicide, not that she’s any stranger to death; as the first line of defense, she’s tasked with greeting all visitors to Mundus Mortis, Grizelda’s horrific subterranean compound.

    Perhaps she’ll creep along the ceiling, hiding between the shadows, waiting for you to let your guard down. She’ll only need a moment. Just a quick sting, and her job is finished. It’s alright if you dispatch her afterwards; Grizelda’s dark science has put her back together plenty of times before. You, on the other hand, have a painful dilemma on your hands: your body is now burning with ichor-infused venom. As your insides melt, you wonder if you should warn your friends or end your own suffering. You don’t have time to decide before you join the souls of hundreds before you.

    A third-generation test subject, Vorpal is a chimera of insectoid corpses implanted with Necrow’s regenerating flesh. Hypnotized by the ichor pumping through her chitinous body since rebirth, Vorpal has been trained in absolute subservience to the Mistress. Any demand, no matter how dangerous or degrading, is performed with an uncannily perverse glee. Her love for Grizelda dominates her thoughts, and she is highly possessive of her attention amongst the other abominations.

  • Red Nightmare.

    “We can taste your loathing and lust mixing together, Matryoshka… The flavor pleases us…”

    A hybrid of three entities, Matryoshka’s layers each have a separate consciousness, but share sensations and a pool of memories. The outermost layer, the demon skin, is loud and boisterous: a talkative and tactless suit of living armor. It can speak through any of its orifices, and it takes great joy in sharing her innermost thoughts with those she least wants to hear them. Its flesh is rubbery, flexible, and completely impenetrable to conventional weaponry. Its mouths can devour almost anything, but it remains a mystery where those things go once they’ve been eaten.

    The middle layer, what remains of her mortal body, still has limited autonomy. Stoic by nature, Matryoshka is a woman of few words, though her skin frequently betrays her thoughts. A massive warrior in life, her strength has increased a hundredfold in undeath, making her Grizelda’s primary choice in personal defense. Her grip can crush a helmet-clad skull like an overripe fruit, and a wound from her wicked blade, Everthirst, inflicts a bleeding curse that can only be staunched with the aid of healing magic. Though she occasionally still yearns for freedom, she has resigned herself to her fate as Grizelda’s plaything.

    Her innermost layer, her heart, is no longer completely within our plane of existence. Transmuted into a cancerous bridge between worlds, it has access to knowledge and power outside of the realm of mortal understanding. It also prefers to be left alone, refusing to participate in the petty affairs of the tangible unless they happen to affect it directly.

  • Consumed by Hatred.

    “So, you’ve come to destroy us… We can already tell you won’t be the one. You’ll be punished for rousing us.”

    Her creation began as her torture. A former witch hunter turned undead bodyguard, Matryoshka tried and failed to slay Grizelda in the days when such a thing was still conceivable. After her capture, Grizelda decided her body would be of greater use in her laboratory, rather than mounted outside on a pike as a warning.

    A second-generation experiment, Matryoshka is a fusion of Necrow’s poisoned flesh and Grizelda’s eldritch summoning. Demonic flesh usually requires regular blood sacrifice to survive, but when summoned into a regenerating host, the flesh can become self-sufficient. Locking her in a cell with the growing abomination, Grizelda planned to document the slow, painful consumption of her prisoner; instead, the flesh bound itself to her, integrating its foul organs with her own. Without the need for blood, demon flesh eventually solidifies into a static shape. In Matryoshka’s case, the visible part of it became her skin, while the rest made her innards host to the unspeakable horrors of the demon world.

    Although she hates Grizelda from the deepest reaches of her being, Matryoshka is magic-bound to eternally serve and satisfy her mistress in whatever ways she demands. Each time a new trespasser enters the halls of Mundus Mortis, Matryoshka prays they’ll finally be the one to release her. So far, they’ve only been grist for Grizelda’s grim mill.

  • What Strange Delights.

    “Such exquisite beauty, oh yes…! This symphony swirling inside of me… I can’t control myself, I must dance! Mistress, I implore you… dance with me again!”

    What’s left of Necrow? Only a shred of what could be recognized as a man. And yet, certain earthly desires persist, even in undeath. Grizelda’s ichor gives her direct control over mortal flesh while she’s tethered, but has other effects when injected into a non-host. In small doses, the subject becomes vulnerable to suggestion: a sort of chemical-induced hypnosis. As the dose increases, they begin to lose their sense of self until they can no longer perform tasks without prompting. This condition isn’t irreversible, assuming that the source of ichor exposure is removed.

    When a subject is continuously injected with ichor over an extended period of time, however, changes begin to take place. Small ones, at first: A faint green shimmer in the eyes, limpness of the skin, scattered loss of hair, feathers, and scales. As the exposure continues, these changes become more pronounced. At a certain point, the body ceases to produce blood entirely, its diseased heart pumping only the ichor poisoning it.

    Few of Grizelda’s test subjects have survived this type of exposure for more than a few months. As her essense rots them from within, their flesh usually withers until their soul is consumed. Necrow is different. For reasons yet unknown, his body eventually adapted to the presence of the ichor, allowing him limited regenerative powers and extending his lifespan. Grizelda has been using samples of his flesh in her research since his metamorphosis, and ensures that his urges are handled on a regular basis to keep him pliable. Not that he needs much encouragement, given his bottomless devotion to his creator.

  • True Believer.

    “I flew, once… I don’t miss it, though. Mistress showed me that I was more useful here, so now I walk. If you play nicely, she’ll let you walk again, as well.”

    One of Grizelda’s first test subjects, now her most loyal acolyte. Hundreds of years have passed since he was reborn as Necrow, an undead husk animated by her ichor, and while his flesh has remained mostly intact in that time, his mind has not. Once a jealous mortal rival, he has since completely surrendered his black heart and soul to Grizelda. His unwavering loyalty is often rewarded with inclusion in her most depraved schemes and desires. Though he can no longer remember his former life or even his name, Necrow isn’t concerned with such trifles; seeing her Grand Experiment through to the very end by putting himself at her disposal is the only thing that drives him.

    What is the Grand Experiment? Grizelda has never made its ultimate goal clear to anyone but herself. Her relentless investigations into the preservation and regeneration of the flesh she’s hoarded in her compound suggests that the monstrosities she’s assembled so far are just the beginning of her mad ambitions.