I'm still putting dots on the sheet, but here's the character pitch so far:
Siobhan Murphy was born in the Dublin Magdalen Asylum in 1890. She never knew her mother or her father - though she caught hushed whispers from the other girls that told her enough. Her mother was a prostitute, and died birthing her. Her father some callous soul who spent his seed in a fallen woman and thought nothing more of it - or the misery he was condemning mother and child to by his act.
Siobhan, or "Shiv" to her few friends was an earnest girl. She loved God - or she tried to. But she was not a disciplined girl, and she frequently earned the ire of the Sisters for her careless mistakes. Such ire was always physically expressed. For burned sheets, a hot iron across her toes. For frayed hems, a whipping. And on it went.
Life was a horror in the Laundry, and as Shiv grew into her teenage years she fell very much out of love with God. If he existed, he was a bastard. He was cruel beyond measure to consign her to a hell such as the Laundry for, as far as she could tell, the sin of the man who fathered her. Rage festered within her, and she found herself unable to play nice with the Sisters - even though she knew that for every sharp word she would surely be made to suffer.
One fine Sunday, Shiv found herself overcome by the hideous hypocrisy of it all. The father was preaching the Beatitudes in mass, and only a few short hours before the Headmistress had whipped her bloody for tearing some rich lady's silk petticoats. Blessed are the meek indeed. Shiv boiled over at it all, and threw her hymnal, striking the father full in the face.
The Holy Mother beat her nearly to death shortly after.
Whilst Shiv lay bleeding and delirious in the penitent's cell, she had a vision. A glorious angel wearing a white robe appeared before her. His hair was spun gold, his eyes luminous sapphire orbs that glowed with an inner flame. His wings were white as snow, and tipped with scarlet. His hands, though, his hands were eagles talons, and they were covered in gore.
"Child" he intoned in a choral voice. "I have seen your rage, and it pleases me. Your blood and bloody mind both delight. Come away with me, and be free of this prison. I will show you most excellent things. Together, we shall flense the haughty."
Shiv grasped his offered talon, hardly believing what she saw.
She came to know him as her Keeper., the Angel of Bloody Hands. His realm was a great cathedral of white marble and gold. His sacrament, the torment of hypocrites and the proud. Within the cathedral was every manner of horror known to man, and more than one unknown. Shiv... changed... there. Her keeper bathed her in his holy acids, stripping away all that was not rage and vengeance. He tempered her in his holy brazier, burning away compassion. With his talons he scored her flesh and with his choral voice he reknit it.
Shiv became like him. Beautiful and terrifying. She was sent into the world from time to time to lure men and women to their doom. Anyone who might use their office to abuse another might catch the Angel's eye. Pedophile priests, crooked cops, abusive partners. Shiv would appear to them in their dreams, and eventually in the flesh. Tempting them with the weakness they most liked to prey on; luring them on into the Hedge before she revealed her true self. How she loved that moment - when the abusers were faced with prey turned hunter. The comical confusion on their petty little faces, and then the sweet, sweet terror.
For countless year Shiv reveled in her role. But over time, the Angel... changed as well. He grew bored; he required ever more extravagant torments from Shiv. If she failed to please, she was tormented in turn. And the victims. Abusers became... passe. The Angel looked for ever lesser infractions of his "moral" code. A jaywalker. Anyone who stepped on a crack.
One horrible day, Shiv was sent to collect a little girl who had dared to talk back to a priest the Angel thought was rather charming. Shiv snapped. Somehow she had come full circle. The great cathedral was just another Laundry; the Angel just another hypocrite. Rather than collect the little girl, Shiv fled.
She found herself in Newcastle. She's still making sense of her journey; of how she's changed; of how the world has changed. And she's hiding. Carefully. Because she knows her Keeper. He will not suffer such disobedience. He will be coming.
Mechanically, I'm thinking a Draconic Fairest with a virtue of justice and a vice of wrath. I'm torn between Summer and Autumn courts. Summer really resonates with the *rage* that lives in Shiv's heart. But her role as a terrifying avenging angel seems to also resonate with Autumn.
I imagine that Shiv has taken up with the local fight scene - possibly an MMA club or something similar. She'd find something like sanity in the discipline and order of training , and a steady source of both fear and anger to harvest glamour in matches.
I imagine her Mein as a beautiful angel with a flaming nimbus. I'm still working out contracts but think vainglory, elements (fire), Stone (at one dot) /or dream could work, plus the appropriate court contract.
She'd be a firebrand, and delight in both physically and psychologically taking apart/tormenting "bigger" people. But she'd also hate that about herself, and be struggling to reconcile the anger at her abuse with her loathing *with* abuse. She needs to be careful not to become an abuser, but fuck its tempting.
