Ramona Tamora

[Sadistic Hobo]

Ramona Tamora

By appearance, Ramona would have a healthily athletic physique, though a great deal of her feats in combat would lend themselves to the divine blessings she channels rather than physical strength. She possesses an almost delicate beauty and charm that contrast greatly with her subversive demeanor and fiery passions, and the sneers that frequently adorn her countenance. She often struggles to keep thick golden locks at bay, which do generally as they please.

Her manner of speech occasionally hints at a privileged upbringing, though these moments would be the ghosts of something long since discarded by the iconoclast she now is. Not necessarily cruel in nature, Ramona's disposition would lend itself to a rejection of orderly social establishments, and a general lack of moral scruples rather than particular immorality.

In battle her disposition varies from callous scorn towards her foes to rapturous glee in the chaos of the ordeal. She is not reckless in the traditional sense, as her eyes betray a great deal of wisdom for her age. She fights with cheerful abandon nonetheless, as though she is perfectly aware of the danger and embraces it as a clear matter of preference.

Outside of combat Ramona would evidently enjoy the luxuries of life; cladding herself in the finely crafted clothing and adornments that adventuring profits afford her.

With exuberant blue eyes frequently alight with variations of greed, glee, anger, and frivolous wit, Ramona would clearly see the world around her as a mix of experiences to embrace and challenges to destroy, though through her whims and vanities an insightful young woman might occasionally emerge.

If only occasionally.

[Sadistic Hobo]

[Ramona lingers in the doorway to her Greatgaunt jail cell, speaking quietly with the male mage on the other side. Long idle hours and smuggled drink make her more sharing than ischaracteristic, and she rambles on the matter of her home and family quite openly, where previously both topics would be wholly evaded.]

"...I didn't spend much time in the city proper. We mostly kept to my father's estate in the hills above. The Moonsea's a dangerous land, but his pockets were deep, his friends powerful, and the grounds well patrolled. For most of my life I saw the city as the two arched causeways high over the River Tesh, and little more."

[She takes a seat against the interior wall, sneaking a lengthy pull on a bottle of smuggled Rashemi wine. She would idly nibble on blueberries brought by another source whenever Pett turned away.]

"He was away often early on. He was a merchant of sorts, attached to a cadre of Keep clergymembers and various agents turned adventurers. Mostly former acolytes of the Black Hand, various mercenaries, and a bitch of the Maiden of Pain who would later become his..."

"He made himself phenominally wealthy by arranging sale of their unique and powerful adventuring finds. Think of him as... I don't know... their Camille? Only none of the conversation, all of the profits, and at least..."

[She shrugs, pondering]

"...Twenty score the girth?"

"He was of no particular note by birth, but sheer opportunism, endless indulgence, and ethics that never began at all conspired to make him a shockingly wealthy man. It's something folk respected there. Something that gave him the pick of the litter when it came to chosing a woman and siring a proper inheritor."

"He claimed my mother when she was a young woman, no older than me now, as a champion claims a prize horse. She was stunning. Gentle. Sweet. My eyes and hair both took after hers. I guess she was pleased enough to be taken by a successful man, and in those days he might have been called ambitious and dangerously appealing. She was... fragile, though. After a period of honeymoon, she gave birth to me and took ill to her bed, never to fully recover."

"So Father was left with a trophy girl of a wife who was no longer fit, and a daughter whom he wished were a son. He grew... more decadent and cruel. He ruled his estate as the tyrants ruled the various enclaves of my homeland. He cloistered my mother away in some foreign wing of the house, where the help that was still good to her retreated and prayed to all the Gods they were not dismissed."

"I usually had to sneak away to see her. She loved me s-..."

[Ramona smiles softly for a fleeting moment]

"Father hated that I was no proper heir, so he made of me the next best thing. A constant wine girl to tend to his goblet while he slobbered up every concievable indulgence, gained every concievable pound, and tossed every concievable abuse at my mother and myself."

"It was ever his role to entertain his adventuring cadre. The estate was their shrine to drink, food, sport, orgy, violence... And if father lacked a son to take up his ways, he'd at least inflict them on his daughter. So that's where I spent much of my childhood; at his side as he gambled, drank, feasted, whored, and killed. He took up the acolyte bitch of Loviatar as his new matron of the household when I was maybe twelve summers old. At all times she spat insults at my mother, taunts at me, and orders to the lackeys who bowed at my Father's feet. She was in truth just one more of his whores, but he deemed her form the most pleasing, I guess, so she held some preeminence."

[Ramona slumps into the door frame of the cell, losing herself in the explanation. She begins to remember one such feast as though she were playing it out once more, forgetting indeed that she is even narrating it to the mage just opposite the bars. She finds herself nearly ten years back, at her father's side as he bellows crass indecencies to the joy of his revelling guests...]

“MORE WINE, GIRL!”

I replenish his goblet for the fifth time this bell toll, and return the serving vessel -more a great vase than anything- to a side table. As I return, I make an effort to avoid the hostile gaze of the new Loviataran matron mounted proudly on his thigh. Her physical form might have been astonishing, if not for the shrill bitch-fiend that I knew occupied it.

She finds my eyes, and her own narrow with disdain. She always took my silence for weakness. I look away, but her jeweled hand catches my chin, turning it sharply upwards. She runs a finger under my lower lip, and the talon of a nail nearly breaks the skin.

“She is too much her mother's daughter. A girl of twelve should carry a spine, I think. Let her with me, dear; I'll turn her proper.”

The cruel offer lingers in the air, and my father's grumble silences his host. She's requested I be given over to her Mistress before. Father regards me for a time. Long had he despised me for being born a daughter who could neither inherit his enterprise nor learn his ways. But I was his blood, in the least, with looks that would develop well. She goes too far; even through his resentment and scorn of me, he was nothing if not not greedily possessive of his things, and his wine ever needed pouring.

“BAH!”

A massive hand shoves the Loviataran away, and takes up instead one of his lewdly adorned Sharessian play things. They are never far from his reach, and the lives of my father's many women are of constant contest and shifting favor. He gropes at her breast without a scrap of shame, and she giggles like some mindless toy. My stare lingers on the lustful creature a moment too long, and the table cracks with an ear-splitting bang from father's free hand, forcing me back to reality.

“What?! You like her, eh?! It'd be poetic if you turned out as one of THOSE girls, wouldn't it? My wife would already deny me a son and my daughter would drive the nail!”

His bawdy cackle fills the room, but his company knows not to respond until their laughter is permitted. His insult isn't true, but he's never missed a chance to taunt me.

“Would that you were a boy, I'd let her make a man of you right here!”

His roar prompts the delight of his cadre, then he ruffles my thick golden hair as one might a dog. He never touches me as he does his whores, but neither is he gentle. He always takes care not to mar my looks, though, taking some petty amount of pride in pretending they came from him.

The hand dismissively nudges me towards the serving table, and he bellows again to the accolades of his host.

“MORE WINE!”

[...Ramona abruptly halts her tale as her own supply of wine comes to an end, forcing her back to the present. She glances pensively through the bars to her companion, setting the bottle down. She runs a hand through her hair as an awkward filler gesture, then pushes herself up. Clearly rather intoxicated, she nearly knocks down the drained container. She discretely passes it off to the mage for disposal and walks a disoriented line to the cell's cot.]

"... I'm gonna get some sleep, yeah?"