❝   she used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, ‘Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die — die, sweetly die — into mine.'    ❞

carrd template by elv1raes.

𝒞haracter

𝒯ricks up the 𝒮leeve

 𝒉𝒚𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒚          The sea / nearby bodies of water can, not always, echo her moods; calm when she is soft, violent when she is wrathful. once, on a hot summer's day, she laughed very deeply, and the lemonade in her glass took the shape of dancing starfish. 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒊 𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒄𝒔          water fairies have innate magic abilities; their tears are drops of pure moonlight, and they glow faintly in the dark. sailors often collected them in bottles as talismans to find their way home. non-seafolk who drink them fall into deep, sweet dreams of the sea. they awaken well-rested, but with their lungs feeling tight, like they just barely escaped a wretched drowning. a kiss from a perisi will allow one to breathe underwater for up to 3 days. prolonged touch with one can leave you with severe saltburns. of course, they havehaunting, beautiful singing voices that lure, unsettle, and fill listeners with intense longing. for adella specifically, if she whispers lovingly in your ear, you can sometimes lose a precious memory or two. 𝒈𝒊𝒇𝒕𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒂𝒏          her magical inheritance; she can use the caspian's waters to force a truth out from a murderer’s lips, to seal an oath, break it, so that the oath-bearer can be brought to total ruin, or to summon a liar’s warped reflection to haunt them. but, her connection to these waters are fading the more deeply she succumbs to her curse. 𝒅𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒄          Violet and lavender blood run in braided but unmixed channels in all perisi. When they die, and both these colorful bloods spill, they refuse to come in contact with the other, like saltwater and freshwater.Violet blood feeds the muscles, emotions, and mostly surges during violent bursts, while lavender blood fuels their memory, voice, and their distinct glow.The lavender blood pools in the mouth and gums. This is why their kisses carry not only a taste of burnt sugar, but also the faint tang of salt and metal. And because lavender blood controls memory, folklore insists that to drink too deeply of such a kiss is to lose one's memory. Sailors call it “A Forgetting Heat”, and Steppe ballads warn against these kisses that rob a man of their names, vows, and bearings.both bloods are absurdly volatile, and only perisi have been known to control them. a non-perisi mage can, in theory, unlock great nightmare and illusionary magic that can drive one to madness. 𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒇𝒕          adella grows more and more skilled at crafting occult potions of all kinds; each with varying degrees of potency. among her recipes are a seafoam wine that brings the spirit incandescent joy ... before sinking it into deep despair; a silver-leaf cordial that sharpens the senses until the world becomes unbearably loud, suffocating, and color-bright; and a dusk-petal elixir that wraps the drinker in the utmost serenity, all while quietly eroding their sense of time.

 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝐼. 
      𝒂 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍      
The year is 1824. And for the small waterside town of Stramuro, Italy, it’s a perfectly uneventful one. No, nothing much happens in a teeny, tiny, blissfully unassuming place like this.Which makes it great for hiding secrets.There’s been this new girl in town lately, swanning about like she owns the place. A girl of red-cheeked manners and zero restraint of character, who seems fully possessed with a desire to make everyone’s business her own. Her name is Adelaide, and she is Stramuro’s dazzling secret.She comes from the underwater capital of the Seven Seas — Atlántica, where myth and magic bloom in equal measure. Her father is king over those waters, which means the girl you’re learning about isn’t really a girl at all, but a water fairy, sisterkin to mermaids, sirens, rusalkyi . . . those pretty girls sailors can't seem to take their eyes off from.she grew up with six adopted sisters, each princesses of their own seas, and a passion for pleasure and all things romantic were things she valued most in her youth. She was called Adella, in affection, the fifth daughter of the sea king: in love with love, kisses and compliments, her own reflection, and almost nothing else. But soon in want of something greater, she chose to escape into the human world. To experiment. See what all the fuss was about. It would only be for a little while, anyway, so short of a trip that her family would hardly even notice.right? 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝐼𝐼. 
      𝒂 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒚      
She stole away an enchanted pendant from the sea witch Morgana, knowing that when worn it would transform her into a human. And dark magic, as it turns out, is excruciating business. She was tearing through the water soon after wearing it, gasping for air, her gold and pink scales dissolving in a storm of churning and sparkling and bubbling water.An elderly woman named Imilia had found her struggling along the coast and took her in as a ward, teaching her language, some writing, and tools of etiquette that Adella employs only sparingly. Imilia and her family run the quiet Stramuro Inn, where Adella had taken up work as a maid who never did more than eat up all the pies before they left the kitchen. It was a languorous, delicious first summer. Especially because she had fallen in love.Not with a prince as she had hoped, but a sailor. Though it ended some time after, as all good things are bound to do, and no one really knows how. Maybe he left. Maybe he drowned. Maybe she did something terrible when she found out he didn’t truly love her back. She never remembers it right. But, the necklace cracked. And that is enough to know for our little story. 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝐼𝐼𝐼. 
              𝒂 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌              
Once Adella had her fill of adventure and excitement and heartbreak, at summer’s end she decided to return home, back to her father and sisters, to say her sorry's for having left them all so heartlessly.But greed and envy have their price to pay, and the sea witch Morgana was coming to collect.As she neared the coast, the waters forced a splintering pain upon her, through her skin and into her very bones.Morgana’s form then slithered out of the sea foam, and she, sneering, hissing, made the girl aware of a curse that was now mangling the magic of the now broken necklace she had stolen.Adella is doomed to a life ashore, never to see her kind again, and endure a curse that will, like a slow-releasing poison, eat away at her by the day. The longer she stays ashore, something of her soul, her happiness, and even her ability for reason dissolves, and only her vices will take their place. A shadow will hang over her, her teeth and nails will sharpen, and her eyes will grow dark. And in the end she will behold herself as neither human nor mergirl but a sea witch of her own kind, the very first to plague the realms of Man.They say the mark of her curse now blooms like a witchmark over her heart, a tight, white, and slowly spreading scar. It burns when she’s touched. it forces a pain like knives into her feet with every step she takes. it fills her with an indescribable insatiableness — a gnawing hunger no feast, no kiss, no cry for mercy could ever quiet. She is bound to a cup that can never be filled, cursed to thirst forever, chasing warmth she will never again be allowed to know.All sea witches, Morgana had told her, are born from a curse of their own making. 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝐼𝒱. 
                𝒂 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈                
Promising Imilia she would rid herself of the curse, she now travels up and down continents in search of a cure, following any trail that often leads her deep into the pitch of black markets, psychedelic moorlands, upside down shrines and houses with chicken feet … learning more and more the ways of dark magic, and perhaps sometimes feeling like she might not want a cure from the usurping evil after all.A voice she's named Maré whispers to her now — sometimes from shorelines, sometimes from behind her eyes. It tells her that to undo the curse, she must find Seven Drowned Men; these are seven men marked by the sea that she must claim. each has their own story to uncover. some must die. some must suffer a different, terrible fate. either way, it is adella's responsibility to cause their undoing.Some towns call her healer. Some call her witch.And with each passing day, her magic grows stronger.To mitigate some external effects as well as the physical pain the curse causes her, she’s taken up studying the occult. She gathers strange ingredients in her adventures — like tangled dried starfish, grave spores, the molars of sleeping children — and grinds them into tinctures of her own making. She tests each recipe on herself first, recording the results in a little velvet book, learning what soothes the mark on her chest, and what may make it sing. To her credit, she’s become a bit of an expert in concocting potions of all kinds.Their potency, though, is entirely up to you.

        ❝    for what value holds a tale without truth, life without death, love without loss, happiness without suffering? none at all. and that is all a man with a drowned name really is:     an acquiescence to oblivion.      a prisoner trapped in the loneliest of curses, waiting for the voice that will finally call his name to judgment.    ❞             ———      @koschyei

 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆 & 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒆         
ever since adella’s curse began, there is a voice in her head. sometimes it sounds like a devil. sometimes, a god. sometimes it sounds like her mother. and sometimes, it takes on adella’s very own voice. she calls this voice maré.maré tells her that she’s transgressed the boundary and balance between earth and sea terribly by stealing a sea-witch’s necklace, forcing herself upon land, commiserating with humans, and blending her magic with theirs. and so must she suffer a terrible punishment, and become a sea-witch of her own. a monster.but there’s a way out. for now. she can free herself of this curse, earn good favor with nature again, by taking part in a sacred, restorative ritual between land and sea. a ritual that is this:every few generations, the sea marks seven fated souls it to claim for its own. they are called the seven drowned men, and once the sea wants them, there can be no turning back. you can think of it as like the black spot from robert louis stevenson's treasure island. 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒕         
sometimes they’re good men. sometimes they’re very bad men. but no matter what, each man has his own story, his own secret, or longing, or something that he is haunted by. each lives a life bound for the depths, towards the end of the life they've known and transformation into something else, whether it be through death, or other means. and each belongs to a certain archetype reflective of who they are, functioning somewhat like the major arcana. the archetypes are:        ✷   The lost,
        ✷   The drunkard,
        ✷   The haunted,
        ✷   The gilded,
        ✷   The dreamer,
        ✷   The betrayer,  
        ✷   The lover.a few generations ago, the dreamer was a man named éamon, a lighthouse keeper who dutifully guided ships to safety. he was in love with seafaring, however, and had dreamed all his life that he might one day join sailors into the water. the sea granted this his dream, and called upon a siren girl to drown him in it. some say he transformed into a sea prince. some say he died. either way, he was never seen again.many, many years before that, once, the lost was a king of a rather frayed kingdom. sometimes he seemed like a very good man, sometimes, he seemed very evil. he wasn’t truly sure which one he was. one day, the sea sent a beautiful red sea sorceress to his shores, and he soon fell in love with her. they shared a bed together, and during those nights, he began to reveal his dark secrets. he once revealed his worst secret to her, with his hands closed around her throat, and when he did, his lungs filled with brine, jellyfish string oozed out of his eyes, and his spine split in half. 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈         
now, it’s adella’s turn to claim these men for the sea. each man is claimed when, at a pivotal moment, they reveal who they truly are, stripped bare of all the dressings of society, the lies, who others might think they are.this can look like a man who had kept his violence hidden for years, only to raise his hand upon an innocent. this can look like a man who lives under a false name; and once adella uncovers his true name, and the secrets associated with his past, his true self is considered revealed. this can look like a man confessing to his greatest sins upon her knee, or admitting that he loves her. depending on the man, his secret, and his story, the revealing and subsequent claiming is different.maré always tells adella the next man she must find, along with their archetype. and so she journeys, to enter this man's life, and slowly work to find out their secret, their truth; to uncover that moment that reveals who the man really is, at their core. their very depths.once they’re claimed, it may not always end in death. what is certain, though, is that the man will be transformed forever, physically, psychologically, financially, emotionally ... and will somehow, and always, be connected to the sea.

𝓛aws & 𝓜agic
of the 𝒮even 𝒮eas

 𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆         To call Adelaide a “princess” is true, but insufficient. in her world, a princess is an heir to a living, breathing force of nature; to a sea with its own law, magic, and will. 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒂 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈'𝒔 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒅𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔         
Adelaide was to Zhansaya ("Zhanya") Dilnaz Aygerim, the Su Iyesi * ("Water Mother") of the Caspian Sea, and a mortal man she lured beneath the waves. For a time, she remade him into a creature of the deep, able to breathe water, stripped of his name, and bound to her court in absolute silence. When he had served his purpose, and she became with child, she released him into the blackest trench of the Caspian, where the pressure crushed him to nothing.There are seven Su Iyesi in this world, each ruling one of the Seven Seas. Though the Sea King’s reign is that of a high sovereign, uniting all seas under one crown, each Su Iyesi is queen in her own waters, a guardian and steward of its magic. And each must birth at least one daughter.At the age of nine, these seven daughters are taken from their mother’s domain waters to the the sea king's crystal city, to be raised together in his halls as though he were their true father, trained in his laws, the etiquette of the deep courts, and the magic of each their mother's domain. These seas hold magic and mysteries beyond human understanding. In maturity, they return to inherit the seas of their mothers, taking their place as Su Iyesi.* Su Iyesi is the name in the tongue of the Caspian water-folk. In other seas they are called differently, in the local dialect. 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅         
The seas rest within a design older than time itself; a cosmology divided into three distinct worlds:        ✷    The Upper World:   The domain of the sky, celestial spirits,
               and powers of light.        ✷    the Middle World:   The realm of humans, animals, and the
               visible lands and seas.        ✷    the Lower World:   The shadowed depths, home to ancestors,
               chthonic spirits, and the roots of rivers both seen
               and unseen in the Middle World. 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒔         
The Seven Seas are much more than bodies of waters in the Middle World. They are portals — thresholds between each Sea, each World. Each has their own unique magic, tended by its respective Su Iyesi.here's a bit of an overview on these Seas. each is an entirely vast realm in and of itself, and this just covers the basics:

 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆         
Before Adella could inherit her place as Su Iyesi, she stole an enchanted necklace from the sea witch Morgana, a selfish act that brought down a cruel punishment. Morgana cursed her, and the magic will twist her into a sea witch herself if she cannot break it in time.Ever since, a voice she calls Maré has whispered in her head, urging her toward a single task: to find and claim the Seven Drowned Names, which will seemingly help rid her of this curse. Yet the longer she hunts them, the darker she becomes, and she begins to wonder if she truly wants to be free of her terrible fate after all.Her bond to the Caspian is weakening. She can sometimes still use its waters to force a truth from a murderer’s lips, to seal an oath, break it, so that the oath-bearer can be brought to ruin, or to summon a liar’s warped reflection to haunt them. But the connection fades with each passing season, and soon even the sea may no longer answer her call.Time is ticking.

 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒐𝒐𝒄 
adella is a su perisi (turkic water fairy). not a mermaid, siren, or rusalka. they're sister-kin to those creatures, with her own biology and magical abilities i made up, details of which are all organized on my info blog (@pearlywog on tumblr). scales, not tails! She has legs, but can’t walk on land with them; when she tries, it’s pure eldritch body horror. Hence why she had to steal a necklace that lets her walk ashore and give her a slightly more human glamour.perisi are vengeful, charm-based creatures and prey on humans. yes, they drown, and eat people. it's very gruesome.perisi as creatures are known to man; they have been studied, captured, and dissected. they are generally considered to be endangered species and do not openly engage with humans, so they mostly belong to folk songs and legends. everyday people don't know much about them. the closer your character is located to the black and caspian seas, where they're native to, they will have more folklore knowledge of them.the laws and magic of the seven seas are also known to humans, especially if they live close by them, though the more magical realms and its creatures belonging to each are very heavily guarded and mostly secret. regular people cannot engage with the su iyesi and magic, unless plotted otherwise.most important aspects of her curse: she generally cannot be in seawater, else she’ll turn into sea foam and crystal; it causes her immense, physical pain (a feeling of knives in her feet when she walks, among other things), though she rarely lets it show unless she's very weak; and it also makes her sleepwalk, usually into dangerous situations.timeline check: tell me if you’d like to meet adella early-curse (she’s softer, more sweetly curious, but she’s still never gonna be a wholly nice or innocent character) or late-curse (more violent, unhinged, horrifying). if you don’t specify, i default to mid-curse; equal parts sweet and violent.in rping with adella, you can generally expect elements like magic (and the price that comes with it), fantasy, weird / dark comedy, and horror (think vvitch, the lighthouse, jennifer’s body, catherine the great, etc.) . . . there's lots of deep lore and world-building here, and my favorite dynamics both ooc and ic are ones where we mix and match your world with mine to create a grand epic, full of other characters we write in other threads and a strong plot hook to pursue. we can also keep it lighter here and see where the themes take us. i'm super open !!other stuff that shows up here include: tragedy. meditations on the power of nature. dark romance. slow-burn tension. danger mixed with tenderness. obsessive devotion. horror (any range, but for meee i love super horrific, eldritchy fantasy the best). villain / hero. villain / villain. monster / monster. protector / monster. partnerships where power shifts constantly. etc. etc. etc. i really do love exploring severe power dynamics, emotional corruptions, and relationships that teeter precariously between love and ruin. loyalty, fear, reverence. i looove exploring found and broken family, and antagonistic dynamics, too. raw, dark explorations on humanity and psychology abound. things aren’t 100% fluffy here, but always deep and sincere. 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓? 
tbqh don’t worry about geography or location. it will usually work and i prefer to not keep it too limited for the sake of creativity. she roams widely in search of cures for her corruption, so she really can appear almost anywhere. she's not averse to throwing herself into dangerous situations (she's reckless, relentless, and very insane). she also loves luxury and intimacy, so she can be fitted into slower situations as well. if you want to put her in a shanty town, sure! if you want to put her in an opera show — go right ahead. i'll find a way to tailor the circumstance and plot to justify it accordingly. 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒄 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏? 
she's a scorpio rising hehe. if you don't know what that means, i'm gonna let cafe astrology tell you:Scorpio Ascendant people have a lot of presence. There is something about them that tells the world that they are not to be pushed around. Their manner commands respect, and in some cases, fear. You either love or hate Scorpio rising people; they are rarely people who go through life unnoticed.They seem to look right through people, seeing through superficiality. This can be quite intimidating to some, and intriguing to others. Scorpio rising people, in their dealings with others, look for answers by reading between the lines. Surface details are discarded when they are getting a feel for people and situations around them.basically, she's very dark, magnetic, but it's also offset by her high voice, delicate, wide-eyed appearance, and the light, often affectionate way she will tend to treat you. this is the essential info, but if you wanna know more ~ vibes ~, it's all included in her dossier on this carrd. 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒐𝒓 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘? 
unless your character is highly perceptive, most humans won’t be able to detect what she is or her violent nature / character / deceits, unless she lets you. she can pass for strange or unnervingly otherworldly, though; that's easy for anyone to pick up on.in-world, perisi are not wholly unknown; scientists have dissected and studied their corpses, and published their findings in books. so, the more close your character is to magic / non-human / the sea (human sailor, etc.), the more they would be able to know and detect her nature, although it is not known to anyone that one would ever be able to walk ashore. 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒔 / 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒔  (i'll expand on this periodically)
canon is flexible. the identities of the drowned men and maré (details outlined on other pages in this carrd) are open-slot lore, meant to suit the plots we develop individually together. maybe your muse is one of the drowned (you can choose your archetype!), marked by the sea, maybe someone they know is, or even maré herself. it doesn’t have to be this way, but it’s just an option to play with! drowned men don’t necessarily have to die — this plot, if you develop it with me, has a lot of tension, if that's your thing!other, lighter starter ideas include: you’re a sailor who survived a wreck, and she's come to see what the sea washed up; you’re a scholar chasing the myth of the su perisi and she’s the proof you really shouldn’t have found; she's a traveling witch and you buy a charm or potion from her that actually works ... and that’s the problem; or, she needs a specific ingredient from you ... and that’s also a problem; you’re another creature who recognizes the souring, dark magic on her, etc. 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒋𝒐𝒚𝒔 
collecting trinkets, palm reading, playing card / puzzle games, anything involving beauty or the arts. being nosy. investigating / solving mystery. banter / wit. talking about death and love and the occult. making potions and testing them on you (yes, you). love stories. flirting as a power trip (i'm so serious about this). bargains / trading favors. affection. attention. drugs (but not alcohol, for some reason ... she's crazy lightweight so it could actually be a funny idea heh). power. other usual acts of hedonism lmao. she loves, loves, loves all animals. being spoiled. luxury. money. 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔𝒏'𝒕 𝒆𝒏𝒋𝒐𝒚 
if you wanna build more tension and antagonistic relationships, join her in hating these things too, or just wanna have fun and piss her off lolol: random acts of kindness (more like she's deeply suspicious of it, it's actually very funny). lawful / neutral / chaotic goods. too much sunlight. cruelty towards animals and nature and most magical things. boredom. rules. stuffy situations. excessive humor. being controlled. being poorly dressed. powerlessness. having her privacy invaded. puritanical behavior and most religious talk. anti-magic philosophy. small talk. lack of ambition. human men / masculinity. if you try to make her read books (i'm deeply SERIOUS, she's very impatient and scattered). 𝒔𝒉𝒆'𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒂𝒕 
cursing. curing. mending injuries. causing injuries. singing you to sleep, death, or a euphoric state. eavesdropping without guilt. filling rooms with tension, just to have fun. lying. playing matchmaker. playing homewrecker. finding lost things. figuring out lies / truth. information gathering. leaning in too close. brewing enchantments (love potions, poisons, etc.). killing people..... eating people...... manipulating social scenes. overhauling your wardrobe. giving unsolicited interior design advice. being a terrible influence.