Editing Crow (Celestial Illuminations) (section)

==== Background: ====
Crow grew up on a primitive world of blackpowder and wooden ships, endless oceans and horrific sea-beasts. Warlords fought endlessly for gold, for safe harbours, for slaves to row their war galleys. Life was short and filled with disease and crippling injuries, and the filthy, winding streets of Crow's home city were full of beggars struck by misfortune and trying to eche out of a living, with those who could still fend for themselves doing their best to ignore them and the bleak future they promised.

Such an environment bred superstition, as people scrambled for every way to turn away bad luck and to blame misfortune on their enemies. Witches made a brisk trade in the cities, selling charms and amulets, placing curses and removing them. Most were pure charlatans, preying on people's foolishness. Others, while also making their living mainly by deceit and manipulation, had a tiny bit of real power. Crow was one of the latter - from a young age, she had a head full of feverish visions and the ability, sometimes, to make them come to life. She was trained in the arts of witchcraft, believing them to be a true discipline that harnessed great power.

Then the Black Ships came, and Crow was one of the few who was put to the Inquisition's ruthless tests and found to have genuine abilty. She was taken from her home, all the way to distant Terra, where she was put to further tests that almost drove her mad. In the end, it was decided that she was not to be given to the God Emperor to appease his eternal hunger, but that she had the strength to serve in a more distinguished way. Now she was given training, and mercilessly taught which (many) of her "spells" were trickery by which she had fooled even herself, and which (few) were genuine psychic abilities.

Scarred in body and soul, Crow has passed the horrific trials put before her, and it has driven her to something that might be wisdom or might just be a subtler kind of madness. She knows now that she was never as powerful as she thought, but she also knows that she has the potential to be more powerful than she ever imagined. The Inquisition offers her training and resources, so she will serve, even though their God Emperor terrifies her more than all the dark spirits and howling ghosts that were worshiped on her own world. One day she will return home in glory.