TESS LECTURA

Generally following Making a Character.

House Beavertail (started in House Minerval, Beavertail since end of first or start of second year).

Grateful credit to LesLes for Tess' particulars, a (redheaded) nearsighted Velma Dinkley to Fay's (blonde and Velma-shaped!) Daphne Blake.

Zingiber: (to LesLes) I didn't give Tess a description! I dithered about where to go with her, not wanting to get stuck in cliché and not having a strong sense of her yet. (I had also considered Susan Quaffle as Fay's post-service conversation partner, but Tess as ex-Minerval seemed richer) and now that Fay and Tess are sneaking off somewhere to doff robes, it's time. Suggestions welcome.

LesLes: Hmm, how about giving Tess thick glasses she needs to keep on as best she can even after robes have been doffed and athletics have begun? And red-hair so that Morgan can tease Fay about acquiring her own dragon? I'm imagining a girl who can look as studious as a Minerval and as soft and welcoming as a Beavertail. (Though I am also almost describing a Velma to Fay's Daphne!)

Editor's aside: At some point I need to get some of these OCs illustrated. Folks' love for The Owl House's gaggle of student witches and wizards makes me want to see the looks on Fay and Morgan's faces.

Tess Lectura started out as an adoptee in the proverbial "your firstborn child" sense, growing up as foster child and assistant to a witch outside of the more organized part of witch and wizard society. She still has the willow basket that held her when she was given over to her foster mother. She doesn't know her true parentage. Her foster mother, the witch, was all the family she knew, outside the familiars, wild creatures, and transformed constructs that were part of her young life.

Tess has carrot-red hair, short-sighted eyes that need glasses, and, similar to Fay, pale skin and a soft, rounded figure of middling short stature.

Tess was given to her as a name after her foster mother's favorite cat. Or perhaps the old witch always had a "Tess", and when the baby girl arrived, "Tess" wasn't already in use by a cat.

Her name Lectura is more properly the role she performed for her foster mother, reading from musty old spellbooks and faded recipes in poor light and hand-copying them until her own eyes were spoilt by her work.

When circumstances freed Tess of her service, her dedication to study and her talent for transformation magic earned her a path into the Boarbristle Academy, entering in House Minerval. Tess may have had sponsors and well-wishers, perhaps prepared for Boarbristle by a charitable scholarship society similar to the peculiar one described by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red-Headed League; Tess, of course, being flamingly eligible, as well as a reader and copyist.

Attentive readers may note Tess' upbringing with her foster mother as a nod to Pip and Mombi in L. Frank Baum's The Marvelous Land of Oz.

Tess appears in Fay Applebum's storyline as Fay enters House Beavertail, Fay having previously been a character in Golondrina's and Morgan's storylines.

Tess on Tess, to Fay: "You can call me a prying bitch if you want, Fay. I won't take it wrong. I am a prying bitch."

In Tess' first year, she was infatuated with Fay Applebum but never got Fay's attention. Tess ended up being the pet of Boarbristle's librarian, primarily for the love of magical writings, but also for Miss Caldwell's erotic attentions, dealt out intensely, rarely and unpredictably. Tess found the Librarian a fascinating, beautiful, stern mother-and-lover figure as she found her footing at Boarbristle, the Librarian's obsessive focus and frequent inattention to Tess' presence recalling Tess' own personality and that of her foster mother.

House Minerval's Housemistress, Iris Amethystine, responded to the then-Tutor Oscar Whiplash's complaints about Tess' sullenness and resistance to corporal discipline by taking Tess in hand herself, until it was clear to the Housemistress that House Minerval was not nurturing Tess in ways she needed, and that other students -- particularly Whiplash's pets -- were taking advantage of her and heaping undeserved blame on Tess in ways that Tess couldn't talk her way out of. Once the problem was clear, Iris Amethystine, in her role as Headmistress of Boarbristle as well as Housemistress of Minerval, performed a peremptory transfer of Tess from Minerval to Beavertail.

Unpurged of House Minerval, Tess retains secret knowledge as well as House Minerval's Sex Move, MIND MELD. Although less gregarious and social than the usual House Beavertail scholar, Tess has made herself at home in her own way, an observer, a hoarder of secrets, and in her own words, a prying bitch.

Tess is shortsighted. She can see quite well from nose-to-nose distances out to the end of her extended fingertips. At greater distances, she uses her glasses, which can take on any shape or form she desires as long as there are lenses in front of her eyes. When sleeping, bathing, or having sex, Tess wears her glasses as a finger ring, a transformation as natural to her as putting on and taking off glasses is to a mundane. She enjoys changing the shape and decorative style of her glasses to flirt or just to amuse herself by instantly changing her look.

Perhaps Master Elbegast assisted with Tess' glasses, or perhaps they are a gift from Iris Amethystine, or perhaps Tess gained them from the good graces of her redheaded sponsors who helped open the doors of Boarbristle.

Tess may drift toward being a specialist in magical writings from her long and close acquaintance with them, or perhaps her talent for transformation magic will put her on a different path.

And her history and identity are clouded, for better or worse.

Basic Traits:
Tess' Basic Traits are Ambition -1, Bravery +0, Cunning +1, Diligence +2.

Two special abilities, skills, spells, or other bonuses:

• Talented Transformer: Take +1 on a Move roll where you can use transformational magic. You can transform sizes, shapes, etc., as a standard Spell for CAST A SPELL. This might suggest unorthodox strategies for MAGIC DUEL like turning your opponent's wand into a long-stemmed rose - with thorns.
• MIND MELD: Tess kept her Sex Move from House Minerval due to a hurried transfer by then-Headmistress Iris Amethystine, who simply didn't care about the usual process of purging House secrets and special abilities. Tess may use either STAMINA or MIND MELD, at her option. Ha, the Spy in the House of Beavertail - Tess, to Fay.

Character Sheet: Tess Lectura

Boarbristle Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry

House Beavertail (House Trait: Diligence; House Sex Move: STAMINA).
Traits: Ambition -1, Bravery +0, Cunning +1, Diligence +2.

• Talented Transformer: +1 to Move rolls including casting a Transformation spell.
• Spy in the House of Beavertail: Tess keeps MIND MELD as an alternative Sex Move.
  Friends and Favors: None at present.
  XP: 0.