Kataryna Vasylenko
Originates from Bacиa (BAH-kee-ah), a wintry country. Her family had settled there generations ago, and were established as a local cornerstone of medicine and introduced the performative storytelling of their native culture to the locals in their town. Fire genasi, although originating from warmer regions, are well suited to staying warm in the cold environment.
Kataryna studied medicine as per family tradition, although she didn’t have any healing magic. Her younger brother, Alexey, was the only one who could drag her away from her studies long enough to partake in their traditional story-show, and he enjoyed experimenting with props and stunts- he developed simple fireworks to accentuate dramatic points of the stories.
Then the Bacиa government declared war on their neighbor, Čajanka, and from the start it was clear that it was to jump start a stagnant economy. Most people figured it was more for show than anything, but as the months turned into years and the willing soldiers dwindled into drafts, it seemed they had bitten off more than they could chew.
They had originally just asked for Alexey for the draft, but seeing their family’s medical expertise extended an offer that couldn’t be refused to Kataryna. They had Alexey give them the rights to his fireworks to be turned into bombs, and Kataryna was tasked with both field work and when away from the front, taking part in their study of blood magic. Hemomancy would not only create enhanced soldiers, but open up a world of physical manipulation for laborers during and after the war.
She was away from the front when she got the news that Alexey had died. There was a story about a young Captain Grigorovich and a failed ploy to fake surrender that resulted in the loss of 86 soldiers, but she barely processed it. She couldn’t remember the last thing they’d said to each other. She couldn’t remember the last story-show they’d told together.
It was after this that she helped finish a prototype drug that would simulate the effects seen in some of the reports of hemomancers they had. It would turn the average person into a supersoldier, enhanced by blood magic beyond the mortal limits. She was sent to the western front to test the samples in battle, and it was there that Čajanka, who had spies in Bacиa, had decided to respond to their play in kind.
She didn’t know which side let loose first. It didn’t matter. What was once a picturesque countryside lavender farm had become the most savage battlefield ever seen, as the hemomancy drug turned the soldiers into violent beasts, but when they became injured they sought out whoever was near, friend or foe, to decimate. They would forgo weapons and rend flesh with nails and teeth, with no regard to their own injuries until they were beyond saving, yet still they stood and yet still they fought. And in that field of lavender the few survivors would realize that there was nothing in the world that had ever seen this sight but them, and they would pray to the gods it would stay that way.
In the end, both sides saw huge swaths of soldiers decimated, and couldn’t risk losing any more people. They came to an agreement in secret to never use the hemomancy drug again, and in an act of mutual distrust, both declared it a crime to have been made and used at all, blaming the medics who were present for the whole of it. So Kataryna ran, like so many other survivors, into hiding from a government that told its people they had won, but those who fought knew that there were no winners.
She goes by Chloe Mokca, a street performer known for her impressive feats and storytelling, emphasized by dramatic moves and a small display of fireworks.