Trump Description:

Powerful sunlight spills in concentrated bars across the flagstone floor and hearthstones of the massive fireplace. The strong contrast between the cold stones in shadow and their warm glitter in sunlight adds life to the background of the framed scene. Common hearth tools, workmanlike tongs, shovels and short broom are made surreal by the strong shadows cloaking the edges of their forms. Barely visible beyond the dark mouth of the fireplace are the banked and glowing coals. Other elements of the scene appear to lose their shape and focus in the dense shadows of the room. Are those tumbled shapes on the floor to the right books? Is that vague hanging form on the left a cloak?

The woman in front of the fireplace is not alone. A large cat sits at her bare feet. Amber eyed and blacker than the deepest shadows of the room, the cat anchors perception of depth and yet deceives the eye. What trick of the artist makes the cat the focus of the card? The cat's gaze is directed at you. It's coat so black, sunlight has no power to illuminate it. It's eyes so knowing, the card grows colder in your hand.

But the woman is a degree more vivid than the night colored cat; her attire very foreign. She is in the act of stepping across the card from left to right. The strands of summer sun are heated ripples diagonally draped across her form. Her eyes are focused to the right, seemingly on her unknown task.For the instant, at least, you have perception of her without her awareness.

She appears a jumbled distraction of color. Your eye hesitates to organize her into patterns that are familiar. From the copper coils of hair inadequately bound and pinned up, to the glittering star amethyst trapped in a fey chain around her left ankle, she is lit and shadowed to a strange rhyme. Her right earlobe is bare, but something dangles and gleams barely beyond the curve of her throat from her left. Her green eyes are not directed at you, and seem to waver in color as you shift the card in your hand. Nothing, neither jewelry nor blouse, covers the slight forward tilt of her neck or the slope of her shoulders. The peasant blouse is raw cotton in the sunlight and charred ash in the adjacent shadows. A wide black belt with winking silver details cinches about her narrow waist and reveals that blouse and skirt are generous for her frame. The skirt itself seems to be a collection of several distinct and faded frocks that have refused to be parted from their mistress down through years of hard use. While they have reached an amicable agreement to serve their function in a collective spirit, the resulting carnival kilting falls just to mid calf.

Is the effect tasteless? Or careless? Is the young woman poor? Or unworldly? If you pursue the call, you may interrupt her tasks.

"An example of the difficulty in tracking the appearances of these peripheral court figures is the deceased witch, BhangBadea. Originally of the Mortisian Court during the Nomad Uprisings, this young addition to the Court was reported killed in the Campaign. While not unusual for inexperienced hangers-on to perish trying to make a reputation, I choose this example because it also illustrates the case of unknown novice spellcasters assuming the nom de plume of a fallen member of the sorcerer caste simply to stand their own reputation on the shoulders of a previous practitioner.
This name has since been 'acquired' on three separate occasions after the witnessed death of the most recent posure, leading to the pernicious rumor that this person is immortal."

Bhangbadea

commoner

Crescent Moon horned down over a seven-pointed Star

unknown +140 years

unknown

Indigo, Silver, Green

Amber

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