Post by Temperance J. Devereaux on Sept 4, 2019 22:13:46 GMT
Temperance Jane
BASIC INFORMATION
NAME: Temperance Jane Devereaux
AGE: 30, born March 25th, 1989
RACE: Witch, wordsmith
GENDER: female
ALLIANCE: Our Lady of the Water
OCCUPATION: Headmistress of Our Lady of the Water
FACE CLAIM: Elizabeth Debicki
ORIENTATION: Pansexual
RELATIONSHIPS:• Cassandra Devereaux, 53, naturalist witch, deceased
• Charlotte, raccoon familiar
PERSONALITY
Detached | Traditional | Determined 
Temperance stands at a commanding 6 foot, three inches, and her personality backs up every bit of that height. She walks as though she is perfectly unknowable, an indecipherable mystery that is for no one to figure out. That suits her just fine, as she keeps an inkling of her life before Our Lady at an arm’s length. Instead, she exudes a calm refinement that is read as haughty as easily as it’s read as regal. People often perceive her as cold, calculating, artful, and whether she wants to or not, she is constantly self-analyzing her presence and the messages it’s sending off. Sometimes, it feels like too much of a performance, and it’s no wonder that she seems to have forgotten her own humble beginnings. Challenge her position, her coven, or her students, and her passion burns cold and long. She’s not one to make moves without heavy consideration beforehand.Temperance’s voice will never be the loudest in the room, but it can be the strongest if she puts her mind to it. She believes in keeping traditions and fighting for her beliefs just as much as she believes in being progressive and open. Witchcraft is a fine art to Temperance, and there is hardly any reason to go around tampering with something that isn’t broken. The bastardizations of witchcraft that those outside of formal covens engage in is a source of discomfort and sometimes disgust from her. Witches have a higher place than serving humans love charms and potions; their purpose, Temperance believes, is larger and noble. There’s a grand design at work, and Temperance intends to have her and her coven have a hand in it.
HISTORY
Cassandra Devereaux was a woman without a coven and without a direction in her life. She had been raised among humans, none of whom shared her power, and so it had gone years without it being recognized. When she realized that she could, with some effort, make flowers grow, she headed down to New Orleans to find others like her. All she found was a powerful warlock who gave her empty promises and a child before returning to his family in England. Alone and helpless, she was taken in by a loose group of hedge witches who needed a naturalist in their midst. They lacked the prestige and protection of larger and more established covens, but it was a home full of love and nurturing.The loose collective of witches made their money by all sorts of means: back alley potions, human jobs, consorting with all types. It wasn’t much and it wasn’t an honest living, but it allowed them to afford for Temperance and her needs as she grew through New Orleans’s complicated human school system. She made friends easily enough, but the appeal of her own kind was too great. She much preferred her run of the dilapidated farm house to sleepovers with her peers, even those who were life her. Other students were witches or werewolves in hiding, just like her, but the extent of their interaction was nodding at each other in the halls, the solidarity of their secrets bonding them.
As Temperance grew, however, and the first shines of her power began dawning, she started to want more than the emptiness of her mother’s life. Our Lady loomed over everything she did, and more than anything, she secretly wished to be among the severe, elite girls. This frightened Cassandra; she didn’t understand the Our Lady’s worship of the AllMother and their elitism. She tried to discourage her daughter, but Temperance’s teenage rebellion pointed itself in the direction of Our Lady. In the meantime, she started to put her talent with words to help her mother’s coven. She aided the coven in making low-power spells to sell to humans, mostly ones to call love and for protection. Her work was good, but because of her caste and youth, it was hardly recognized.
But after Temperance’s 18th birthday, an engraved invitation to attend Our Lady finally appeared, along with her raccoon familiar. Overjoyed at the former and concerned about the latter, Tempy immediately started packing, much to Cassandra’s sorrow. Against her mother and their coven’s wishes, Temperance fully accepted the invitation and said goodbye to her old life. She dedicated herself, from there on out, to Our Lady and its beliefs. She found, despite her meager upbringing, that she had a chance to compete – and to win – among the other Our Lady students. For the first time in her life, her life was in the up direction, and it was simply intoxicating.
As she went through Our Lady, her love of words and written language solidified into her wordsmith specialization at 19, when she had her coming of age ceremony and accepted her place among the coven. During her last two years at Our Lady, she split her time between the finishing school and human university. She majored in linguistics and minored in history at Tulane, and even after her graduation from Our Lady, she stayed on as an instructor under the old headmistress, who had become a sort of regal mother figure to her in her time at the school.
Since her arrival to Our Lady, Temperance fell out of contact with her mother, despite them living in the same city. She was too invested in her new life, and her origins were no small source of embarrassment compared to the other students at Our Lady. Slowly, she distanced herself from Cassandra, breaking the most prominent relationship she had ever had in her life. It wasn’t easy for her, but it devastated her mother, who was never quite the same. Cassandra and her coven started pushing their power to its limits, and because of that, they weakened themselves considerably. Most of them fell ill, and the coven dissolved until only a couple remained. By the time her mother was incredibly sick, Temperance was up for the headmistress position at Our Lady. She took the time to interview and prepare in lieu of saying her goodbyes. The last time she saw her mother or her remaining coven members was at her mother’s wake.
Later that year, Temperance, then 28 and risen from humble circumstances, was named headmistress, to some surprise and chagrin among other hopefuls. She has taken the reins of the school and applied all of her free time and dedication to bring Our Lady to prominence and elitism once more. Curriculum has become harder and more rigorous, with a focus on understanding not only powers but also the thought process and understanding of the AllMother as a religious figure. Temperance believes it is her job, even now among the threat of integration, to stand as a stalwart holdout for a proud and studied tradition of witchcraft.
PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER ALIAS: Bee
PLAYER AGE: 24
PLAYER PRONOUNS: she/her
OTHER CHARACTERS: they’re coming
PLAYER AGE: 24
PLAYER PRONOUNS: she/her
OTHER CHARACTERS: they’re coming
