The Duchess

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The Basics

_{Mmm, proper seasoned, you’d make a handsome dish...}

Name: The Duchess.
Age: You would ask a Lady her age?!
Gender: Female.
Race: Wonderlandian human.
Occupation: None, Ex-Member of the Queen’s Court.
Alliance: Neutral.
Canon: Wonderland canon.

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Description

Height: 5’3.
Weight: 125 lbs.
Clothing: Dressed only in the highest of fashions, the Duchess’ clothing reflects fashion from multiple eras, but are primarily from the Elizabethan. She favours corsets, heavy full skirts, neck frills, and gloves; often woven with gold thread and decorated with jewels.
Jewellery: Always seen in her finest jewellery, which include: multiple chains of gold, peals, or jewels; multiple rings; single earrings in each ear lobe; and a range of decorations, including tiaras, for her hair.

Hair

Length: Mid-back.
Style: Typically seen worn up in a variety of ‘up do’s, and decorated with multiple jewellery.
Color: Copper red.

Eyes

Color: Green.

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Profile

Personality: One of the more unstable Wonderlandians, the Duchess’ moods swing violently, making it incredibly hard to predict what face of hers you will encounter. While she can portray the image of a meek, timid, and helpless woman, she hides a sharp tongue and vicious bite. A true Heart, she is unrelenting on getting what she wants and will do anything to get it.

She is capable to actually be kind, but this is a rarity, and typically only occurs when she is away from her stockpiles of pepper for a period of time. All other times, she’s a deadly predator who enjoys stalking her prey, relishing in the fear her reputation creates, and expects to be treated with the same high standards she was accustomed to as a member of the Queen’s court.

Weaknesses: The Duchess’ mental state is greatly affected by the pepper she uses, constantly putting her in a bad mood. She suffers a strong vain streak, leading to her constant quest for fresh blood and meals. This obsessive need means a pretty target can easily distract her.

While she has an increase tolerance to her own weapons, the Duchess is not completely immune to her own pepper; the concentrated forms sending her into coughing fits, spasms, and fainting. However she strictly guards who has access to her personal pepper grinding facility.

Abilities: Despite her size, the Duchess is far stronger and faster than she appears, easily able to pick up her target, or run away from danger if required. It is unknown if she always possessed this strength, or if it has been gained through her change in diet, taking on the power of those she has consumed.

Due to her diet she is a skilled butcher, incredibly agile with a knife both to dismember a body and in combat.

A lady of leisure, the Duchess is trained in typical upper class pass times, and uses many of these to create grisly decorations from body parts of her meals.

She’s also not too bad at croquet…

Weapons: An oversized, ornamental pepper grinder, used as both a club and to spray victims with her mind-altering pepper. Also typically carries a knife hidden on her body, as well as own a wide array of them in her kitchen.

Prized Possessions: Her pepper grinder.

Home(s): Club district.

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History

Once a member of the Queen of Heart’s court, it was during Alice’s first trip to Wonderland that the Duchess began to lose her standing, having been sentenced to execution. However, she managed to escape imprisonment during the commotion caused by the Cheshire Cat during the Queen’s croquet game.

In fear for her life, she took up hiding in her mansion in the Heart District, holding up with only her crazed, pepper-loving cook for company. These confined spaces, mixed with her servant’s overzealous use of pepper, caused the Duchess to become overwhelmed by the spice and placing her in a constant rage and losing what little sanity she held onto. All these elements came to the inevitable event, and during a peak in her anger, the Duchess lashed out and killed her cook with her own pepper grinder, dismembering the body, cooking, and eating her.

An unexpected side effect occurred, as the Duchess discovered that the blood and flesh of the cook restored a small portion of her previous youth and beauty. Convinced that this cannibalism was in fact a metaphoric ‘fountain of youth’, she concluded that younger, prettier victims would only revert her back to her youthful appearance faster and for a longer time.

She abandoned her Heart District mansion in favour for the Club District, using the shadier area of Wonderland to capture new meals and to keep her supply of blood and flesh readily available. All those of beauty should beware when entering the Club Distract, as the Duchess is always hungry.

The Duchess still remains in hiding, fearing the Queen’s promise to cut off her head. She holds no alliances to either side of the war, ready to turn on both if it will supply her a meal, unless it exposes her to the gaze of the Queen. However, several rumour circulate Wonderland to other reasons why the Duchess fears the Queen, and why she wants Redd dead. Those older individuals know of tales that the Duchess was once royalty, but risk their own lives if brought up within hearing range of the Queen’s minions, or the Duchess.

It is unknown what has become of her pig-son, who was taken and set free by Alice, and the Duchess has made no efforts to try and find him again.