Hair: Long, black with streaks of crimson
Eyes: Gold
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 150lbs
Role: Primal Hag
Affiliations: unaffiliated


Personality Traits using Volo's Guide pg 55
   - I laugh at my own jokes - the darker, the better
   - I require all of my bargains are put in writing and signed in the other party's blood
Ideals
   - Community. Loneliness is the path to madness. That is why I have my minions to keep me company. (Lawful)
Bond
   - (Custom) My sister is my greatest foe and I can never defeat her without sacrificing myself.
Flaw
   - I will not tell a lie, but I can still say nothing, nod suggestively, or bend the truth a little to suit my needs.

Black Mary is the twin sister of the Elfmaid, except that where the Elfmaid is good and pure, Mary is far from. She is a hag who dwells within Rhannoch Moor, and woe be to those who cross her path. The people of Rhannoch believe that Mary leaves the moor at night to hunt. They say that she steals their children to satiate her dark hunger.

Mary appears as a haggard old woman, hunched with age. Her face is rarely clean and often marred with pimples and scabs. Mary's hair is long and black like her sister's but it is matted with dried blood, pus, and mud. Her eyes are flecked with gold but lack any warmth.

Sprouting from her back are four long, chitinous arms. These arms are just as strong and agile as her fleshy limbs. Those who are rewarded with a closer look see that the limbs are not solid. They are made of pure shadow and will reconstitute if they are severed. Their strange appearance develops over time as insects are drawn into the darkness, which drains them of life and suspends their lifeless shells in its field.

Mariel is a sagacious immortal of the Houses of Silk and Shadows. Like her sister, she is a complex spirit with a blended purview. On one side, she is a life spirit, embodying its communal nature. On the other, Mary is a spirit of darkness and hunger. Combined, her purview is the feast and her creatures are insects and vermin.

Mariel isn't necessarily evil - moral extremism is for angels and demons. Instead, she sees herself as a predator, clearly superior to all other life forms.

Myth: A woman dies in childbirth. An older woman, she spent her life in pursuit of knowledge and took one final opportunity to become a mother. A complication kills the unborn child and dooms the mother. She spends her final moments in anguish having lost both her child and her own life.

   The woman's anguish is so great it poisons the land. Over many years, the Caledonian Forest retreats, producing the Rannoch Moor and in the centre of the moor is a ramshackle house. There lives an old woman with dirty disheveled hair and a disconcerting grin.

   No one alive remembers the birth of the moor nor can they recall ancestors who do. Just as no one can recall a time before the woman of the moor, Black Mary.

Manifestation: As a spirit of life and darkness, Mariel is attuned to the process of death, decay, and putrefaction. Rotting meat and insects can be used as a sacrifice to gain her favour.

   While dead or unmanifest, Mary can be summoned most easily in Rannoch Moor. She may respond favourably if requests made benefit the folk of Rannoch Moor and Loch Rannoch

   To manifest, Mary prefers to take the body of a slain woman. An aged scholar is her favourite and may complain for some time if the host she takes wasn't well educated.

   Mary and Mina are bound spirits; if one dies the other dies and vice versa. If Mina manifests before Mary, Mary will be drawn into a corpse nearest to Mina or to one close to the centre of Rannoch Moor. Should this be an insect or animal body, Mary will travel with haste to Kinloch Rannoch to dig up a more suitable body.