The Tussets have farmed American land since the 17th century, keeping to themselves and focusing on yoking the rough frontier to the will of the aged, ageless clan patriarch: John ‘Pa’ Tusset. It is through this isolation that the family’s hideous occult practices have gone unnoticed, along with scrutiny of its gnarled family tree.
Their approach to Agrimancy is holistic: not even family escapes the pot. The same way that the land is to be subjugated and brought to heel, family is to be firmly taken in hand. Work, childbearing and social position are all chosen for them and policed by collective reinforcement and punishment backed up by magick. It is the way things have always been done.
The Tussets also practice human sacrifice. A few times a year someone (or a few someones) passing through the tri-county area will disappear. There have been close calls with the law over the years but by remoteness and cunning the clan still manages to indulge. Laura-May makes sure of it.
A tearaway from an early age, Laura-May struggled to fit the mould of the family but life on the farm has a place for everyone. Pa handed her off to her older brother Clifton, the family “catcher”, to learn how to sneak and to fight and to interact with the outside world. The last was the toughest, mistreatment had turned Laura-May half-feral. She still prefers to sleep with the dogs in the old, broken barn over an indoor bed. Clifton did what he could, it wasn’t smooth, but having a small - albeit filthy - woman to act as a lure on his errands made his life much easier.
The usual tactic involved Laura-May laying in the road followed by brutal ambush for anyone who stopped. It was effective too, until Clifton got shot in the back by a good samaritan who Laura-May then pulverised with a crowbar. He can't do much more than sulk up in the big house from the confinement of a wheelchair these days, so with some hard words from Pa the job turned over to Laura-May. She's managed well but the land has turned bad and the money has run out. Today the remote farm is bordered by two large industrial concerns who are applying pressure to buy the Tussets out.
Not even family escapes the pot. To be selected for ritual sacrifice when the need arises is considered the greatest expression of family loyalty and those who are chosen go bright-eyed and willingly. Laura-May was no different, delighted to have been picked. With her death the land would bloom anew and life could continue as it ever had. That was the plan anyway.
Locked away in isolation, fasting and spaced out on fly agaric in preparation for this event Laura-May experienced a hallucinatory revelation which threw a wrench into everything: a twin, a secret sibling given or stolen away (she’s not exactly sure which, looking back she has multiple recollections) at birth! A lost part of her family, herself, Laura-May was shaken and seized by the certainty that her "vision" meant she was supposed to find and rescue them from this awful fate. So she crept out, stole a truck and a box of tools and went searching.
It’s not like she could share her discovery with the others, they would have assumed she was shirking the greatest gift any of them could receive (and they do). She’s so sure of what’s she’s doing that she can taste it: she’ll find her lost sibling, she’ll explain (almost) everything to them, she’ll bring them home and make her family whole again. Then they can both be sacrificed! Everyone will understand. Pa will tell her he loves her and everything will be okay. She can’t wait.
STATS
Personality: Predatory and enthusiastic but uneducated and socially graceless (and a bit embarrassed by it now she's out in the world). Laura-May is a filthy, wide-eyed ingenue holding a rusty hatchet behind her back.
Rage: Family is everything. Laura-May will do anything to protect her family. Anything.
Noble: Family is everything. The hierarchy and role of family is sacrosanct to Laura-May, to her it is as self-evident as the five relationships would be to a lifelong dogmatic Confucian.
Fear: John ‘Pa’ Tusset. Laura-May lives in terror and adoration of her father (Helplessness).
Obsession: Laura-May is unbridled fury at heart, her family gives her a channel for it.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Atavistic Predator 70% (Substitutes for Pursuit, Substitutes for Secrecy, Provides Initiative)
Rabid Fanatic 50%* (Substitutes for Struggle, Substitutes for Fitness, Substitutes for Dodge)
Shock Gauges
Notches
|
Violence
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Unnatural
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Helplessness
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Isolation
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Self
|
Hardened
|
7
|
5
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
Failed
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
2
|
0
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