At her heart, Corra is a deeply lonesome individual. Though perhaps once sociable in her youth, before the cursed stench of her magic overtook, she has since learned reclusive and avoidant ways. She believes her very presence to be burdensome; her very body repulsive to those around her. She sees the very real harm her magic can cause if she is not careful and has decided to simply remove herself from situations where she poses a threat. Moreover, while Corra herself is nose blind to the foul smell, or perhaps even takes comfort in the familiar odor, she is keenly aware of the foul stench that emanates from her fungal growths. Therefore, she keeps her distance: both physically, avoiding crowds or towns to the best of her ability, and emotionally, too standoffish to truly let others get too close.

So, since the emergence of her magic, Corra has spent most of her days alone, crushed by a self-imposed guilt at her very existence. While she believes separating herself from society is the best course of action, she also feels deeply sad at her own isolation. She longs for what she views to be a normal life and mourns the loss of the burdenless freedom of her childhood. She thrives on companionship, despite her own self-prophecy that she is better off alone. Though Corraine would describe herself as quite a content loner, her own nervous excitement when she encounters a kind soul gives her away: she craves friendship.

To those who do break through the barriers she builds around herself, Corra is the most devoted of friends. She is a deeply loyal and observant individual, carefully cataloging the behaviors and mannerisms of her friends in order to understand their emotions. She seeks to care for them, to find ways to bring comfort and support, though she often struggles to find the words to express herself. So, instead, her love for her few friends is instead apparent in her actions; gifting small trinkets to those she sees feel down, or being quick to step up when an undesirable task needs to be completed.

However, Corraine often crushes herself under deep feelings of guilt. Self-forgiveness does not come naturally to her; instead, she is one to bear the burden of remorse far past what is healthy. Her sleep is often stifled by thoughts of all the mistakes she has made, or all of her missteps. Due to this tendency, she is incredibly sensitive to criticism. Even well-meaning critique feels to her like barbs, tearing at her, threatening to tear her apart. She will tend to avoid putting herself in situations where her actions can be scrutinized by others, if for no other reason than to flee the judgement she fears is coming. She is her own harshest critic. [wc: 465]

[TW: illness, death of a child]

There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary when Corraine Abamont was born. To her parents, a pair of impoverished laborers tending to rural lands on the outskirts of Ivras, the birth of their first and only child was momentous, but thankfully unremarkable. She seemed a healthy and bright young fawn, frolicking in the shade of her parents’ orchard, or roughhousing with the children of nearby farmers. All seemed bright in her future—until she began to waste away.

At first, it seemed an illness, or, perhaps, poor nutrition. The young doe’s ribs poked through her fur more prominently than before; a gauntness noticeable in the sharp angles of her shoulder blades. Her energy seemed to fade with time. No longer did she leap and play, but instead walked, then prod though every step was a burden to her now bony frame. Her coat thinned and lost its luster, and the poor fawn hardly seemed as though she could lift her head. No healing or care seemed to help, and each day, she grew thinner, slighter, until it was clear the end was near. When it seemed even breathing was an effort her small body could hardly bear to sustain, Corra’s father carried her to her favorite forest glade on the edge of the orchard, and her mother prepared a soft bed of leaves and flowers and mushrooms—all of her daughter’s favorite flora from the great woodlands she had so loved to explore. The family huddled close and waited for young Corra to pass away.

She did not.

Morning turned to afternoon, and afternoon into the evening. As the orange of the sun dipped below the horizon and the faded grays of night settled over the quiet forests, the first lines of blood-red hyphae appeared, nestled within Corraine’s ragged coat. By midnight, the strands of crimson had condensed into thin vines of mycelia wrapped around her, and her once-pained gasps for air had settled into the rhythmic breaths of sleep. When the day began to break again, she was awake, and the fog of pain that had once burdened her lifted, as though burned off in the morning sun.

By what seemed like a miracle, the weakness plaguing Corra had lifted, and her strength rapidly returned. However, her second chance at life came with new misfortunes when it was clear the fungal growths –and the magic—were here to stay, for better or for worse. While the mycorrhiza granted Corra life, it quickly became apparent that they were no gift. They bore a foul stench that chased away the other fawns with which Corra once frolicked. They gripped tight at her, uncomfortably, lending a stiffness to her legs which had never been there before. And, the following spring, when Corraine was helping her parents tend their meager lands, sclerotia spawned of her own life-sustaining fungus overran the greenery and choked the orchard in a blood-red blight. Their only source of income, dead.

Desperate to survive, and quickly realizing that their daughter’s newfound magic was now beyond their ability to control, Corraine’s parents left their decaying farmlands and moved to Namarast, where Corra could be trained by The Order.

Corraine spent her teenage years and much of her young adulthood in the grand classrooms of the academy, training to suppress her magic and control the fungal growths she feared would grow to choke her. However, she never quite settled into the academy’s suffocating hallways, nor felt at home among her fellow students. Her fungus’s overwhelming foul odor of decay turned up the noses of whoever was misfortunate enough to be in her vicinity, and the spores which fell from her fur dirtied whoever got close to her. Moreover, she found herself a burden to be contained; the blight of her magic quick to rot any organic material she came into contact with, whether it be the food kept in a small pantry or the rare books of the libraries. In the time Corra attended the academy, she found herself distanced from her peers, ashamed of her magic, and desperate to flee.

So, she left. Before she was able to complete her apprenticeship, she left, no longer willing to subject those around her to the stink of her magic or the blight that scattered in her footsteps. She fled, finding herself more at home in nature than the stuffy halls of the academy. To this day, she wanders Ivras, seeking what, she does not know—new opportunity, a new life, or, perhaps, a way to rid herself of her own magic. [wc: 761]

Crimson mycelia erupt from Corra's body and wrap around her frame, the smaller hyphae entangling themselves in her fur. Corra has some control over her symbiotic fungus and, to a small degree, the mycoflora that inhabit the lands of Ivras. Neutrally, the red growths scatter spores; small dusty particles which scatter in Corra's wake or rub off on whatever the mycelium touches. Where suitable growth conditions are encountered, these spores take root, spreading the cardinal-red fungus in her footsteps. In healthy ecosystems, this growth simply joins the native mycoflora community and sprouts unpalatable crimson mushrooms in her wake; however, when encountering untapped organic matter, the growths instead spread a rot, decomposing whatever it lands upon. This blight threatens to sour stored food supplies, and thus Corra must be careful to avoid important resources.

Much of Corra’s training has been focused on mitigating the spread of her own symbiont, her own disease. With some focus, she is able to lessen the spread of fungal spores, though never completely eliminate their dispersion.

Corra may also channel growth towards mycoflora in her surrounding area and expend her magical abilities to cause all fungus around her to grow: they may germinate new hyphae in seconds, or sprout mushrooms or thick mats of sclerotia in minutes. She does not yet have the ability to discriminate between species when using this power, and all fungi within thirty feet or her location will be affected. She also cannot currently channel their growth into any specific forms or directions.

• The strange fungal growths that entangle Corra's form bear features which tend to frighten and disgust others. The mycorrhizae carry a bright red powder easily transferred by proximity or touch, or scattered if Corra shakes her pelt too vigorously. The spores bear the distinctive and pungent scent of the corpse flower; imbuing Corra with the foul stench and spreading it to any misfortunate enough to catch any pollen grains in their fur.
• Magic use is painful for the caster. Still viewing her magic as a curse, Corraine is very distrustful of the mycelium that wrap around her form. Her hatred of her own magic has, in part, turned it against her; she feels great pain when using magic as the fungus wraps tightly around her.
• Magic use reduces the caster's mobility or reflexes. Though Corraine has worked over time on accepting her magic, she still finds it somewhat unnatural to use. Her torn focus reduces her reflexes while using her magic.