For as long as anyone has remembered Mavis was a weird old lady. She once had a dog she insisted was the reincarnation of her dead husband, Baxter. She keeps a greenhouse that takes up so much of her backyard it violates zoning laws and council ordinances. When she got a little drunk you could sometimes get her to open up about an alleged fling with Richard Nixon in the late 1930s.
Mavis is the authority on weird, exotic plants, especially those with magickal properties. She also wants nothing to do with the occult underground and for what it’s worth they let sleeping dogs lie.
It wasn’t always this way, once upon a time she was about as gregarious a lynchpin for the local weirdo community as could ever be reasonably expected. No one was ever showing up on her doorstep with scraped knees expecting to be taken care of by Mama Davis, but she was congenial and didn’t take sides. Anyone who wanted to trade rituals and magickal services for mandrake or western underground orchids was welcome to call on her for tea and biscuits.
That changed about 9 years ago. “Paracelcius”, brash newcomer and a biker/alchemist obsessed with using mithridatism as a way to transcend his mortality was at a party bragging about having scored a rare variety of virulent wolfsbane from “that cranky, old bitch”. Half an hour later he was dead. It was a motorcycle crash exacerbated by the briar bush that had started to claw its way up his oesophagus. Turned out he hadn’t taken Mavis’s initial refusal to sell him poison kindly, she was in the hospital and her dog Baxter hadn’t been so lucky.
That experience was enough for Mavis to wash her hands of dealing with the magickal community. She returned home and curtly cut ties with those she was in regular contact with, telling them she was out of the business. Not everyone properly understood the finality of her intentions but her resolve sent them packing along with nasty rashes and plant-based curses for those who couldn’t take a hint.
She’s still pottering around town and resolute in snubbing the occult scene who in turn feel awkwardly embarrassed at having lost a pillar of their community who they still run into at the supermarket. Some have tried to reach out over the years to no avail. Occasionally a bonehead brings her up in the context of trying to source some rare ingredients only to be reminded that it isn’t an option and no one wants to talk about why.
Like old recluses the world over, Mavis is the subject of a lot of rumours among those who don’t know any better. The common threads revolve around disappearances of people who have allegedly tried to burgle her for magickal goodies. Most people think that’s pretty tasteless given the circumstances. It’s only actually happened twice. Mavis has a Honeypot (p.48-49 of Book 3: Reveal) in her greenhouse in the form of the hoaxical Man-eating Tree of Madagascar, which is all too happy to gobble up intruders.
STATS
Personality: Old enough to be beyond fear but not bitterness. Mavis intends to live out her remaining years doing what she loves most and never again inviting the occult underground into her life. She’s vicious enough to be prepared for anyone who tries anything.
Rage: Disturbing her peace and quiet.
Noble: Patience. Mavis always admired the kinds of long-term work that takes dedication.
Fear: Losing her independence (Helplessness).
Obsession: Plants. Mavis gloried in discovering her psychic connection to the world of flora and dedicated her life to cultivating her menagerie.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Botanical Genius 65%* (Substitutes for Knowledge, Protects Unnatural, Unique - Has a huge collection of exotic plants.)
Agropath 50% (Versatility, Casts Rituals, Use Gutter Magick.)
Crotchety Recluse 40% (Substitutes for Secrecy, Protects Self, Protects Isolation.)
Shock Gauges
Notches
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Violence
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Unnatural
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Helplessness
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Isolation
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Self
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Hardened
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1
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4
|
2
|
4
|
2
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Failed
|
1
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0
|
1
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0
|
1
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