Vyle

Vyle, or Vyle the Vicious, is a young adult hexblood shifter who was the living compromise between a disgruntled sea hag and a desperate wereshark fishing village, born a hexblood and given to the sea hag Wrenette the Wretched at birth. As a fey hexblood, she has an eerie and unnatural otherworldly energy around her that tends to make others uncomfortable, even when she was a young child.

Raised to be a sea hag's eventual progeny, Vyle was taught corrupt magic, hexes, and spells from a young age. With her shark-shifter nature, she was an effective hunter for vulnerable victims for the hag; when none was in supply, Vyle became bait and lure for fresh meat instead. Crying and calling for help on the beaches late at night near cities or villages, she would attract the attention of good samaritans —or, shady men with bad intentions— to the shoreline, giving Wrenette the opportunity to emerge from the dark depths and drag the victim into the lapping waves and frothy sea foam.

Sea hags despise beauty and glorify ugliness, so the older Vyle got, the more the hag would scar and mutilate her appearance, often as punishments but sometimes as experimentation, sometimes testing corrosive acids or destructive magic on Vyle. This would involve carving hexes into her skin, or using urchin needles and squid ink to tattoo permanent spells on Vyle, yet only a few of these tattoos' effects were known to Vyle. Her first ever tattoo she got as a toddler, a sigil on her left foot that allowed Wrenette to track her.

Wrenette the Wretched intended to fully transform Vyle into a sea hag on her twentieth birthday.

Appearance

Vyle is tall, scrawny, and sickly looking, with pallid grey-lavender skin. Her overgrown black hair is tangled and messy, and often reeks of grimy sea sand. If one were to comb their fingers through her hair, it would feel oddly moist, somewhat gritty, and it'll leave behind dirty sand dustings as if it were dandruff.

Her willowy silhouette appears borderline ghoulish, especially with her split pointed ears, and her sharp white eldercross crown wrapping around her head; it is jagged, sharp, and pointy like a series of shark teeth fused together.

Her eyes are big and reddish-black, with a thin corona of blood red.

In a hunting frenzy when shifted, a third eyelid seems to flicker and cover over her eyes, turning them white like an attacking shark. In this state, she is blind and relies off of smell and sound, and if in the water, she can also detect nearby movement in this blinded state from her lateral line. [This feature will be part of becoming a lvl 2 Ranger, with the fighting style Blind Fighting]

She is an excellent tracker and hunter, and if given the scent of fresh blood, she can usually smell her victim. Her favored enemies are humans and elves, the common victim profile of the sea hag she served.

After leaving Wrenette the Wretch, Vyle walks with a limp, her left foot having healed incorrectly after being crushed and bludgeoned by the hag. Despite this limp, she is still capable of quick bursts of speed when she hunts, and can maintain stealth if she is extra careful. Outside of hunting its a different story, when she is not trying to stay quiet, she makes a very audible thump and drag from her lame foot.

Due to sea hags valuing grotesque and hideous appearances, Vyle’s face and body bears numerous deep scars, blemishes, and burns from years of punishments and mutilations from her hag. Parts of her body looks boiled with hard warts resembling barnacles, and she has sections of peeling skin that are seemingly evermore wet and raw, leaking pus that reeks of rotten fish. To the trained eye, one could discern the disfigurements range from old and long scarred, to fresh and and barely healed. Due to her horrid smell and damaged achy skin, Vyle often puts soothing lavender ointments on her face and scars, leading her to have the thick aroma of lavender, mixed with her natural musk of salty oceans, grimy seaweed, and a hint of rotten fish.

Around other people, Vyle almost always wears a veil, draped and tangled in her eldercross. While she may expose her arms and legs (despite them being scarred and blemished as well), she bears particular protectiveness over her face, and is only willing to show someone it if she deeply trusts them.

She was once covered in various sigil tattoos and carved hexes from Wrenette, but after deciding to leave the sea hag, Vyle downed a bottle of hard liquor one night and used a dagger to cross out every intact hex or sigil she could reach on her body, in hopes of breaking whatever magical effects the hag had on her through the mark. Thus, every tattoo and carved hex now has a deep, self-inflicted X scar over them. For good measure, she even carved the X and repeatedly slashed the sigil on her disfigured left foot several times, as it had been the tracking sigil Wrenette used to always know where Vyle was.

History

There was a fishing village of weresharks and shark shifters that lived in a prosperous sacred bay. On a rocky beach a few miles from the village sat a rotting shipwreck, home of a decrepit sea hag named Wrenette the Wretched. The sea hag left the weresharks alone as long as the village left her alone, an mutual agreement that neither minded for the longest. However, after decades of their coexistence, Wrenette's increasingly more sinister activity along the coast began attracting monster hunters to the area, to which the weresharks felt threatened by. Underestimating the power of an old and ancient sea hag, they tried to mob the shipwreck lair she resided in, determined to intimidate her to leave, or use violence if necessary.

After failing horrendously and gravely upsetting the sea hag, Wrenette the Wretched cursed their bay, poisoning the water so that the fishes either fled or perished, as well as making weresharks and shifters sick if they swam too long in their own waters. But their people had existed for centuries in this sacred cove, and they honored their dead by burial at the bottom of the bay; leaving wasn't an option for their people. This devastated their modest fishing village, and after several brutal years of almost no fish and severe famine and sickness in the village, their leader became desperate for a resolution. After discovering she was pregnant with her firstborn and fearing her child won't be able to survive in such dire conditions, the village leader lost all pride and came to the rotten shipwreck on her hands and knees to grovel at the sea hag's feet, pleading for a compromise.

The hag agreed to make all the water clean and prosperous once again, even moreso than it ever was before. All she requested was the firstborn child that the leader was currently pregnant with, and all will be restored. With a heavy heart, the wereshark leader agreed, and the hag dredged up a slaughtered shark from the bottom of the bay and split open its belly, dipping her gnarled bony hand into the fetid rotten juices, before drawing a hex sigil on the leader's belly to seal the contract.

Several months later the village leader began to hemorrhage and entered premature labor. The leader died of bloodloss shortly after childbirth, but not before enduring a difficult and gory birth, where the crowning baby was discovered to be with a sharp shark-tooth eldercross, causing a slow and agonizing disembowelment as the child was born.

Despite their leader being dead, the village was desperate to return to normalcy, now more than ever. And woefully acknowledging that the child was already without her mother, they willing gave the shark shifter newborn to the hag. The child’s father, the human consort to the deceased wereshark leader, was heartbroken. But he did not dare intervene, and his first greeting kiss upon his firstborn child's forehead was also his parting goodbye. The child's eldercross cut the bottom of his nose, and the scar is now the only thing he has left of his taken child.

The hag has already turned the child into a hexblood in the womb, so the newborn carried natural fey magic and power. The sea hag raised the girl to learn magic with the intention of eventually turning her into a sea hag herself, and named the girl Vyle the Vicious.

Wrenette alternated between raising and nurturing the child as her eventual progeny in almost a motherly way, to callously experimenting on her, or scarring and disfiguring the child when she deemed Vyle’s features were not grotesque enough for a would-be sea hag. The hag often tattooed and carved hexes and spells into Vyle’s skin, some of which Vyle knew the purpose of, and some of which she had no clue. A black sigil on her left foot was supposed to always let the hag know where she was, so she can never run away from the hag without being found. Vyle was taught this lesson very young, as one of her gravest crimes in Wrenette's eyes was ingratitude, whether it be real or just perceived by the sea hag.

Wrenette was known to many coastal towns under the guise of a gentle medicine lady, Wren the Wise, who would make good luck and protection charms for people in need, such as embarking their ship on a long journey, or fishing in a dangerous storm. As Vyle got older, the hag would make her shift in order to pluck a sharp shark tooth from her mouth and make shark tooth charms and necklaces as the trinkets she sold. Using Vyle’s “Eerie Token” hexblood ability to see and hear through the shark tooth charms, the hag would ambush and sink the freshly embarked ships to feast on the sailors and claim the cargo.

The large old shipwreck on the rocky beach was soggy and dank on the outside, but inside the sea hag's lair was a myriad of fine material and lavish clothes, as well as plenty of other stolen goods. Whenever Vyle left the shipwreck, it was almost always in veils and long robes, attempting to hide her disfigurement and rotten appearance. Sometimes if the beatings or mutilations broke or damaged a carved hex or tattoo on Vyle’s skin, the hag would wait for her skin to just barely heal and scar, and then re-carve or tattoo onto the fresh tender skin once again.

When she went into towns and cities, Vyle would clad herself in finery and priestess-like attire (always with a veil) to look as if the coverings were out of modesty, and used this disguise to introduce herself as a priestess of some kind of protective gods or goddesses. Using this false identity, Vyle would peddle the hag’s cursed and hexed charms to locals by claiming them to be blessed by the supposed deity she worshiped.

Vyle was also occasionally used as bait once she became a teenager, sometimes tortured and mutilated severely as punishment and subsequently dumped onto beaches at night, left to sob and scream in hopes someone would hear and come to her aid. After which upon someone approaching Vyle to help, the sea hag would emerge from the sea foam and waves to capture the victim, dragging them into the dark depths. Only after Vyle secured her hag a victim was the hag willing to forgive her and bring her back to their home. Wrenette would then gently treat Vyle’s wounds and apply pain medicine to her, usually using the blood of the fresh victim in her pain-relieving potions.

When Vyle was thirteen (equivalent to twenty in human years), she gravely upset Wrenette after being sent on a trip to a major city for several weeks to peddle the hag’s goods, only to return back with very few trinkets and potions sold. The hag was furious, and as punishment for traveling so far but accomplishing so little, she beat Vyle’s feet and ankles— which were already sore from the long travel— until both ankles were swollen and shattered, and her feet were bloodied and raw. Vyle was then dumped onto the beach, but when the pain and blood loss caused her to quickly pass out instead of screaming and sobbing to attract a victim, the hag was disappointed and returned to her shipwreck home without her, deeming Vyle’s additional punishment was to wake up and have to crawl and drag herself home on the jagged rocky beach in the morning, a trip that was several miles away and that Wrenette expected could take a couple days in her condition. Unknowingly to Wrenette, who had been blinded by rage in the moment, the beating was so vicious that the skin on Vyle’s foot hosting the tracking sigil was split and flayed, breaking the hag’s tracking ability.

Eventually, Vyle woke up late the next day, but no longer on the beach. She was in the care of a traveling caravan who found her on the beach, and treated her wounds. Vyle, not wanting to reveal her association with the hag, lied and claimed she had been a slave who was tortured for years by pirates, and eventually dumped on the beach to die. She pretended to have poor memory of the last few years, and lied that she did not know her own name anymore.

The caravan pitied her greatly, and respected her privacy and desire to be veiled and not reveal much about herself. Vyle knew the hag expected her back eventually, and each passing day she dreaded Wrenette’s anger upon return, and couldn’t bear what torments further awaited her. But Vyle saw her tracking sigil was broken, so Wrenette did not know where she was.

Thus, Vyle decided she wasn’t going to go back to Wrenette.

The small caravan was so kind to her, with an older woman name Terrassa who treated her especially affectionately, as Terrassa had lost her own adult daughter several years prior. After caring for Vyle, Terrassa affectionately gave her the name 'Loveday', since Vyle continued to act as if she could not recall her own name. Vyle began to use the name Loveday more and more, not wanting the caravan to know her by the name the hag had given her.

The caravan was going to a far distant land she had not heard of before. After mentioning their home was occasionally troubled by a coven of hags, Vyle’s interest was peak.

Vyle had never met another hag other than the sea hag who raised her, Wrenette. But she felt clingy and attached to the nurturing presence of Terassa, and felt that if she stayed with the caravan she could not only flee far away from Wrenette, but she could potentially contact other hags who might have the power completely undo her hexblood ties to Wrenette— however, likely for a price.

And so she left with them, traveling many months. Vyle is determined to keep her history hidden from Terassa, the caravan, and anyone she comes across. She is determined to fully heal and repay the caravan for their great kindness, feeling extremely loyal and indebted to them. All this, whilst concurrently breaking the bond she has had with Wrenette since before she was even born.

Personality

Vyle spent her entire life under Wrenette's influence, and the effects on her psyche has warped her perception of survival and empathy. Coming to value her own safety at the expense of others, Vyle is not opposed to being selfish or exploitative if it benefits her, and she finds deception comes naturally when interacting with others. She is partial to invoking sympathy in perceived prey and targets, and has a long history with using her damsel-in-distress ploy to lower someone's guard down.

By extension, she can also be quite forward and quick to approach others under the guise of an act, provided she has the confidence of a full outfit and face covering, or at the very least a magical disguise on. She has extensive experience operating as a trinket seller in many cities and towns, often under the false identify of some kind of priestess or religious figure. This persona of hers reeks with the essence of a snake oil salesman, and she can be insistent and highly charismatic in brief social interactions when she has a clear objective to obtain. However, the longer the interaction drags on, the more likely her act might falter or fail.

In organic social settings this behavior greatly wanes, and she becomes a more quiet and withdrawn figure, clearly unsure how to interact with others in a way that isn't self-serving or survival oriented. With those she perceives as allies or friends, she is clunky and awkward, prone to frequent lying as habit from her deceptive history-- even when there is no reason or benefit in the lie, she'd haphazardly insert one anyways at random times. Vyle will feel guilty over her behavior around those she recognizes as benevolent and kind to her, and she forms immense loyalty to people who provides her a sense of safety. In contrast to her verbal awkwardness and inconsistencies, she will show an eagerness to try to please those she greatly looks up to, almost like a child trying to win an adult's approval.

Having been commonly mutilated and forced to make a show of screaming and crying for help in order to lure in victims, Vyle's manipulative and deceptive tendencies come out strongest when she is at her lowest points, almost to where her moral compass is completely eroded and she is capability of great betrayal and cruelty under situations that greatly threaten her safety and well-being.

Vyle has a tendency to deeply envy happy children, close families, loving couples, and natural beauty, as those are all aspects of herself she felt robbed of in life and that she could never obtain. While she is too old to change her grim childhood, she at least has wistful-- if not greatly in vain-- yearns for love, both romantic and familial. And in regards to beauty, she has come to accept that her appearance is largely irreversible at this point, and she deeply fears her mutilated appearance will forever turn away anyone who may find interest in her.

Trivia

• She loves collecting very nice little boxes. For her trinkets! Another box for her trinkets, what's going on? It's trinketville!

• Vyle actually hates the taste of seafood because she associates it too strongly with the stench of rotten fish, like Wrenette and her lair. Sadly, she viewed the scraps of Wrenette's victims as much more appetizing to eat.