Signorina Maria Colombo

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• Signorina Maria Colombo, 3rd Rank Ferromaine Sorceress

• STR:10 [No Mods] REF:13 [+1 Def,+1 Eva] INT:17 [+1 Atk,+1 Def,+1 M.Atk,+1M.Def] PSY:14 [+1 M.Atk,+1 M.Def] LOK:12 [No Mods]
• Health:10 [Base1d6+4=9+1@Rank2] Armour Factor:2 Type: Hardened Leather Shield? No.
• Attack:12 [Base11+1StatMod] Defence:7 [Base5+2StatMod] Evasion:4 [Base3+1StatMod]
• Stealth:13 [Base13,No Mods] Perception:5 [Base5,No Mods] Vision: Normal
• Mag. Attack:19 [Base 15,+2StatMod,+2@Rank3] Mag. Defence:9 [Base5,+2StatMod,+2@Rank3] Magic Points:12
• Languages: Angate [Native, Undemanding, F] Bacchile [Archaic, Complex, F] Coradian Trader's Argot ['Tradetounge', Simple, F], Arcane [Sorcery!, F] Currently seeking a tutor in Ancient Emphidian...
• Scripts: Classic, Arcane and 'Gatto Pictographs'...

• Spells:
  • 1st Rank: Dragonsbreath, Image, Lesser Healing, Moonglow, Portal, Weaken.
  • 2nd Rank: Detect Aura, Hold Off The Dead, Inflict Wound, Peer, Tangleroots, Warding.
  • 3rd Rank: Banquet, Beacon, Command, Greater Healing, Illusion, Wolfcall.

• Equipment: Short Sword [d8, 3], Dagger [H2H d4, 3 Thrown d3, 3], Hardened Leather Armor [AF:2], backpack, flint&tinder, new Lantern, 1 oil flask, bedroll, 7 days rations, 1 waterskin, 1 wineskin, 6 bandages (Used to be an underskirt), Silverpoint pen and a folio of parchment notes, Assorted clothing, and an increasingly used sewing kit.
• Money:16 Silver Florins to her name...
• Experience Points: 80 (Paid 5 for Book) Next: 4th/90

• Background: Maria is a unremarkable young woman in appearance, and at the age of nineteen, more mildly pretty than stunningly beautiful (or spectacularly ugly). She tends to appear vague, nose most often buried in a book or pamphlet, than paying attention to events around her, but this is not the case, as the air of distraction masks an active and inquiring mind. She is of average height and medium build, a dark brown eyed brunette, with a olive complexion only a little pale from many hours spent reading rather than sitting in the sun, flirting from the balcony as her younger sister Diana does, ever hopeful of hooking a rich fish from the sea of young men.

• Maria differs from her sister and brother, in that she has but one ambition in life, the pursuit of arcane power, and the required personal wealth to pursue it with, and marriage, however laudable a state, is not a useful one to a woman with scholarly ambition in her opinion.

• Her elder brother Antonio failed to understand this, but he's the one with the family business to run, and the hand on the family purse, not her. Family relations have been complicated since she discovered his wife Bianca plotting with Mama and Diana to marry the inconvenient sister-in-law/daughter/elder sister off to the first suitor to hand. Maria's carefully considered response was to quietly make her way to her brother's chambers, and threaten Antonio with castration.

• Perhaps the fact she was holding a blade at the time may have convinced him of her sincerity, perhaps the rightness of her cause, the advancement of magical learning for both greater knowledge and family profit, spoke to him, perhaps the presence of his mistress, (hastily concealed behind the bed curtains) may have the reason for his counter-offer of a large purse, and his blessing to depart as soon as possible to search for new tutors and other sources of mystical lore.

• She has spent the last year or so doing just that, with some success, but reached the limits of her teacher at the time's magical knowledge, and is again in search of of a tutor in sorcery, or a library or university willing to take a paying student for as long as her funds, already running low, will allow. She and her household have spent the recent summer at the country estate of her cousin Rollo Loccardi at Isla del Burano, dealing with various family matters and fine art.

• Maria's also been known to sit in the marketplaces offering her services as a cheap scribe/reader, like many other students running short of money. She sometimes does cheap healing magic, no questions asked, something that will likely get her in to trouble with authorities if it comes to their attention. She may officially be an 'Astrologer', and a scientifically inclined one at that, specializing in medical horoscopes, but she still treads carefully near the Church's authority.

• Zampa di Gatto is known to her as a trusted source of cheap scholarly supplies (Parchment isn't cheap, unless it's stolen off the final stage drying racks!) and small oddments like silver alloy wire and the like, and as a useful contact if her brother ever thinks about reneging on their agreement. Maria has described Zampa as her maid in the past, (A useful cover for a bodyguard and spy) but regards her as a friend.

• Thugnar of Katorheim speaks at least one language Maria doesn't know, and is also a source of information on a culture steeped in dark magics and old gods, far off the merchant trade routes she knows of only second-hand. She met him through his associate Zampa, who seems to value his unkempt but affable company highly. Maria sometimes jokes she summoned the Northern barbarian by accident with a miscast Wolfcall spell...

• Giovanni Ferraro was introduced to her by a previous member of the group, the Cavaliere Guglielmo DeArcino (Now deceased) some three months ago. He has proved to be a worthy replacement for the old knight, but mercifully free of his predecessor's more colourful habits, if perhaps lacking some of the courtly polish. Like Thugnar, he's a great help with the 'heavy lifting' of Maria's merchant business, as well as to deal with physical threats.