PERSONALITY

✥{  Calm | Solemn | Motherly | Antisocial | Dutiful | Self-Righteous | Altruistic | Morbid }✥

Those who meet Morteza outside of her profession may very well come out of the experience with the impression she is an unremarkable character devoid of ambition, opinion, and humor. Just an overall depressing woman lacking any desire to connect to anyone.  However, once you place Morteza in her work, things begin to come together, and while those are dying around her, she comes to life.  

Always cool under pressure and free of any judgement, she takes on the emotional burden of accompanying those as they pass on with purpose, listening to their last confessions, easing their pain, and seeing to it that their wills are fulfilled to the best of her ability. 

Morteza knows little outside her field of work and hasn't the time or energy to learn even if she cared to. And why would she? Who else could do this essential service as well as her? The living don't need her, it's the dying who do, and it's the dying who receive all of her attention and sympathy.  

Morteza is the cold physician with a terrible bedside manner who forgets your name and tells you how it is while stitching you up.  But she's also the extremely empathetic and tender caregiver who you might as well mistake for your mother or closest friend when your time is up and you've breathed your last breath.   [WC-221]

HISTORY

How does a life so filled with death come to be?

*shrugs* Idunnuh hopefully this explains it

• Morteza was born into a poor religious family who tended land out in the backcountry of the Kingdom of Ivras.  There was lots of work to be done on the farm and too few to do it, so Morteza was expected to pull her weight as soon as she was physically capable and maybe even a bit before then. Under her family's guidance, she learned many of the practical uses of herbology, most notably during her mother's complicated pregnancy and little brother's birth.  She was only six when she assisted the local midwife in the delivery and was very proud when she was praised for not puking.
• Morteza's family was loving but no matter how hard they tried, they struggled to make ends meet through the years. An abomination passing through and poisoning their small town's crops was the final blow that tore everything apart. Winter came soon after the plight, and with it came the worst suffering Morteza had experienced in her 9 years.
• They were all starving and diseased but her little brother seemed to carry the worst of the fever and was too young to understand why he couldn't be fed.  His cry was agonizing and it killed Morteza to hear it.  Quietly, she would cradle him and coo him to sleep to get him to stop. Everyone could see she had a potent calming effect over him as his cries subsided.  For a while, it looked as though the child would recover, as his pain was gone, but the fever was relentless and took him anyway.  
• A few days after her brother's passing, a disaster relief team, sent by the Ivras Crown, came to aid the inhabitants of the secluded rural town. Morteza was in awe to see the medical team work and bring hope to the community. She was especially taken by a doctor she'd learn to call Uncle Jethro.  
• Uncle Jethro was an old man with kind eyes and a sure voice.  He inspired confidence and Morteza wanted to learn from him.  She tried persuading him to take her on as an apprentice with her knowledge of herbology but in truth it was Morteza's severity that convinced him it'd be worth his time to invest in someone so young.
• Morteza's parents made the hard decision and agreed to let their daughter go, knowing she'd have a better chance at a successful life with the doctor.
• As it turned out, Uncle Jethro wasn't just a medical doctor but a coroner living in the capital city of Faline. Though the city was grand, Jethro lived in the armpit of it. It wasn't what Morteza had expected, but she worked diligently under Jethro, learning the anatomy of the body and how it worked while helping out. It was gruesome and bloody to behold, but Morteza found ways to tie it into the religious theologies of her family to ease her discomfort.  
• There were few children Morteza's age to play with in the years she lived with Uncle Jethro and none who would hang around a morgue, but Morteza didn't mind much.  She'd find friends in the bodies her and Jethro worked on.  She'd learn their names, and fantasize about who they were by how they died.  
• At 12, Morteza's magical capabilities came to light after Jethro accidently cut his hand during a procedure and the intense pain subsided as soon as Morteza looked at it.  Together, they briefly experimented with her ability to be sure.  In the end it was clear.  Morteza was a mage and by way of the Kingdom, Uncle Jethro could no longer oversee her education. Taming magic was beyond his capabilities.  The Order would have to take her in now.
• Moving to Namarast was a hard adjustment, but it felt like the natural next step in her life. It was here Morteza discovered she could inflict pain in addition to numbing it.  Like in her work, she stuck diligently to her studies, finding little interest in meeting the other mages.
• Though among the top of her class, Morteza opted out of becoming knighted into the Order as a Mage Protector of the Realm.  Instead she chose the less glamorous job that would support those heroes and the people they protect when they needed it. She's never stopped working since then and in that time has built a bit of a reputation of superstition around her.
• There's no doubt she's skilled at what she does but the death count of her patients is high, higher than anybody else known in her position. However, what many fail to realize is that the number is high not because she's failing at her job but because of the masses she's cared for, many of which other medics have turned away because the situation was too dire. It's a number that weighs heavy on her but one Morteza wears with pride because it's the number of people she's helped move on peacefully where they otherwise would have suffered alone.  [WC- 831]

✥{ Sensory Illusion }✥

Costs

• Magic use reduces the caster's mobility or reflexes - Morteza's magic requires high amounts of concentration on her intended target which causes tunnel vision and limited  awareness of her surroundings 
• Magic use has a short-term adverse effect on the caster's mood/frame of mind - Depending on whether she has recently inflicted or numbed a subjects pain, Morteza will either suffer from acute anger or depression respectively for up to an 30 minutes afterwards for every 5 minutes used

***Ideas for Leveling Up

• Using her feathers as tools for contact for increased range
• Sharing sensual experiences, including smell, taste, touch, hearing and emotion
• Increased time of lingering effects on the subject