Lady Nightingale

Lady Nightingale

Art by Anarts from Fiverr

Relatives	Evangeline Black (mother), Barnaby Black (father), Duchess Antoinette (distant cousin)
Affiliations	The Deathseeker Guild (formerly)
Aliases	The Bloody Bird
Marital Status	Single
Place of Birth	Highborne
Species	Human
Gender	Female (she/her)
Height	6’1
Weight	185 lbs
Eye Color	Blue-grey

Lady Nightingale is a human of noble birth who turned to blood magic in order to better face the horrors of the night. She is an Order of the Ghost Slayer Blood Hunter in the Daggerheart mini-campaign Red Rranos.

Physical Appearance

Nightingale cuts a tall and imposing figure and always stands at her full height. She has fair skin that might be considered delicate on a typical noblewoman. Her blue-grey eyes appear cold at first, but burn with a white-hot intensity the more time you spend around her. Nightingale used to keep her black hair much longer, but she began cutting it to keep it out of the way when she started studying blood magic. Her body has numerous scars from the blood price that her abilities demand, but they’re mostly covered by her attire. In terms of clothing, Nightingale wears dark colors to conceal bloodstains. Her usual attire these nights consists of black pants and boots along with a grey top piece and black overcoat that tends to billow dramatically at the right times.  

Personality

Nightingale was raised to be a reserved and proud noblewoman—someone meant to be seen and not heard. She struggled with her lessons in decorum in her youth, but eventually adapted to the mold her parents expected her to fill in her teens. Nightingale was always studious, and though her parents approved of this they greatly disliked her interest in darker occult practices. Still, Nightingale was able to rebel in some small way by sneaking occult books out of the estate library. Although she was aware of her own place in life, she never cared much about the roles others were expected to fill and, thus, saw nothing wrong in exchanging letters with her black sheep cousin Duchess Antoinette. After leaving her noble life behind to join the Deathseeker Guild of Hunters, Nightingale became far more outspoken, though she maintained her pride. Some believe that her frequent use of blood magic has impacted her personality by making her more masochistic and manic, but Nightingale thinks those aspects of her temperament were always simmering beneath the surface.

History

Lady Nightingale was born into the noble Blackwood family. Her future was supposed to be set in stone from the moment of her birth: stay quiet, keep good posture, and bring the family good fortune with a prosperous marriage. She was an incredibly temperamental child, often throwing loud tantrums when anyone attempted to put her into fancy dresses or drag her away from her loud games of pretend. Despite this, the harsh discipline of her tutors, governess, and parents eventually broke down her resistance and convinced her to fill her designated role. Nightingale found relief from life’s pressures in her studies: learning was a satisfying process for her.

Her interest in learning took a turn for the occult when Duchess Antoinette, her third cousin twice removed, visited the Blackwood estate on her fourteenth birthday. Antoinette had red stained hands and refused to wear gloves no matter how much they unsettled people. Nightingale’s curiosity got the better of her and, despite warnings from her parents, she found a moment to approach her aunt in relative solitude and ask about her hands. Antoinette responded by saying it was her “inheritance” and branding an invisible blood sigil onto Nightingale’s palm. Although this scared Nightingale at first, she soon found herself utterly fascinated by blood magic. Although her parents attempted to discourage this habit, Nightingale constantly snuck into the more “untoward” sections of the estate library to learn more about the sigil Antoinette had left her with. Eventually, she learned that she could use the blood sigil to communicate with Antoinette by activating it and using her own blood to keep a letter’s contents secret.

When Nightingale was sixteen, she learned just how dark the world around her really was. Horrific, bestial creatures assaulted the Blackwood family estate in the dead of night, killing multiple servants and gravely wounding Nightingale’s father. Nightingale spent that night hiding in a closet with her mother. This event made her cripplingly afraid of the dark and she suffered from night terrors for a full year afterward. At seventeen, Nightingale decided that she was tired of being afraid, and resolved to make herself strong enough to face the darkness. As such, she asked Antoinette to teach her to weaponize her blood, and her education in blood magic began in earnest.

Nightingale took to combative uses of blood magic with such excellence that Antoinette recommended that she become a Blood Hunter, but Nightingale doubted her parents would ever allow such a thing. Then, when she was nineteen, came the untimely transformation of her father into one of the horrors that had attacked the estate. Nightingale was able to use her blood magic to fend him off and eventually kill him, but not before he wounded her mother so badly that she was left in a coma. The next day, Nightingale left to seek out people who could teach her to be a Hunter. It wasn’t long before she found the Deathseeker Guild of the Order of the Ghost Slayer.

Guinevere Ashbourne was one of the guild’s most lethal Blood Hunters, and she took a special interest in Nightingale. Perhaps it was the fact that Nightingale came to the guild already bearing advanced knowledge of sanguine magic. Perhaps it was how she would throw herself into weapon training again and again no matter how many times she was knocked down. Perhaps it was simply the sly smile that bloomed on Nightingale’s face every time she invoked her craft. Whatever it was, Guinevere took Nightingale on various excursions and used every available excuse to spend time with her. Nightingale relished the attention, though she didn’t know just how far Guinevere’s affections went.

By the time Nightingale was twenty-two, she was a deadly Blood Hunter in her own right, and Guinevere saw fit to have her lead an incredibly important mission. That mission was the purging of Hadley Village—a place the guild believed was infected with darkness and harboring a cult. Although there was truly a cult hiding in Hadley, Nightingale questioned whether everyone there was truly lost. Guinevere insisted that the village be purged and Nightingale, ever the stellar student, did as her teacher commanded. After carrying out her orders, Nightingale felt a great hollowness settle over her. She didn’t return to the guild for several days. When she did return, it was to leave a note on Guinevere’s desk that said she was leaving.

Two years later, Nightingale returned to the Deathseeker Guild at night, and slew Guinevere in her office. There, she was soon joined by a sentient porcelain doll who looked exactly like her. Nightingale felt sickened when she realized the doll—named Thrush—wasn’t just made in her image, but made to replace her. She might have killed Thrush too if she hadn’t begged to be taken away from the guild. For a reason Nightingale still isn’t entirely sure of, she agreed to let Thrush accompany her on her travels.

Powers and Abilities

Being a Blood Hunter, Nightingale wields both blade and sanguine magic when she confronts her enemies. She usually fights with a longsword in one hand and a short sword in the other, attacking with flurries of quick strikes. Nightingale can easily maneuver from hurting her opponents to slashing her own skin to call upon the power of her blood. One of her favored powers is the Brand of Castigation which sears a red mark onto a target, causing them intense strain and allowing her to more easily track them. The Crimson Rite that Nightingale was taught has her smear her blades with blood to increase their damage potential. Casting Blood Maledict requires a good deal of energy, but it endows her weapons with a thirst for a particular target, making her attacks even more likely to land. Nightingale can also use her Grim Psychometry to view the violent past of an item, location, or creature which tends to help her tracking endeavors.