Novice (10 experience points)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Strength d4, Spirit d8, Vigor d6.

Skills: Climbing d4, Fighting d4, Guts d6, Healing d6, Knowledge (herbalism) d6, Notice d4, Shamanism d8, Shooting d4, Stealth d4, Survival d6, Swimming d4, Tracking d6

• Charisma: 2
• Pace: 6
• Parry: 4
• Toughness: 5

Hindrances: Heroic, Quirk, Loyal

Edges: Attractive, Arcane Background

Powers: Shape Change (white doe), Beast Friend, Summon Beast

See A Note on Indian Names

he name “Virginia Dare” means nothing to White Doe. She has never heard the name given to her by her parents, Eleanor and Ananias , in in honor of Elizabeth , the Virgin Queen, and the colony of Virginia where she began her life. Her birth made her the first English child born in the New World, the babe of Roanoke and granddaughter of John White. She does not know why Wind took her in. His own people decimated by European disease and driven off by the growing Falling Water Empire, Wind joined the Red Earth People further inland.

The Red Earth People knew that diseases like the ones they saw consuming their world came from broken relationships with the wider world, whether the compromise of one’s own strength, or stirring up an ill wind that would make people sick. Often, witches caused such troubles, using the same powers as shamans, but to stir up spirits of sickness and disease and send them into people. Having seen the powerful witchcraft which began killing off whole villages at a horrifying rate immediately after White Doe’s birth, the People concluded that she caused the unknown plague, and that she had great powers as a witch. So the People started training her as a shaman, to help teach her to control her power.

She gained her name when she first showed her power, transforming into a white doe. She lives somewhat apart from the rest of her people, knowing that she caused the disease that continues to spread, killing not only the native people, but choking out the native vegetation with strange new plants and threatening the native animals’ survival. She lives with the knowledge that her presence kills the very land she loves, and with the hope that she can use her power to save it from her own mysterious witchcraft. She struggles, seemingly in vain, to control her powers and herself. Nothing scares her more than the power lurking inside her, a power that oozes out and kills everything it touches.

Timeline

See also Campaign Timeline

1587

On 18 August, John White’s daughter Eleanor delivers her baby, White’s granddaughter and the first European born on American soil. They name her Virginia Dare, in honor of Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen.

1588

Hearing of white-skinned people with much copper and the skill to work it, the Copper People attack the Chowanoc, and take the Roanoke colonists as slaves. Ananais Dare dies in the battle, and Wind believes Eleanor has died, as well. Believing himself indebted to help White’s family, Wind heads to the Gathering Place and buys Virginia from bondage. He then heads north.

1589

Wind returns from his northern journey with the baby Virginia. He heads to Red Earth, and begins living with them.

External Links

• OOC: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Dare?
• Wikipedia entry on Virginia Dare