Carmen Baxter

Carmen Baxter

Affiliations	Candela Obscura
Marital Status	Single
Place of Birth	Newfaire
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Height	5' 11"
Weight	150 lbs
Eye Color	Green

Carmen Baxter is a Weird - Medium in Arc 3 of Qandela Obscura. She is part of the Circle of Discovery, a newly-formed set of investigators after the events of the "Red Rash" from the year before. When she begins her career with Candela she is in her early thirties.

Physical Appearance

Carmen is tall, at just under six feet in height, with long black hair most often kept pinned up behind her head. She has dark green eyes and pale skin. Most often she wears black dresses, accompanied by gloves.

Personality

Carmen has a lot of empathy for people, especially when it comes to loss. She knows the value of comfort and earnest support offered in a time of grief and need, and she will go out of her way to offer what help she can to people. Carmen has a fascination with the macabre and with her own powers. She feels drawn to circumstances of tragedy and loss not just for what she can do for others, but because those experiences somehow feel right to her, like they're how she's supposed to interact with the world. She wants to understand how death, spirits, and the Flare are all interconnected, and really feel what it means to die without having to die herself.

She enjoys experimenting with her amateur chemistry in creating new scented candles, salts and oils for her shop, and she's truly looking forward to exploring the full extent of her powers with the help of Candela Obscura.

History

Carmen was the only child of William and Marisa Baxter. Her parents were deeply religious, and believed her abilities were unnatural and against the will of the Ascendant. When the great war caused Noma to call for all kinds of volunteers, her father closed up his shop and signed on for the war effort. He died near the end of the war, and Carmen re-opened her father's shop with her own spin: selling scented candles and salts of all sorts for anyone interested instead of primarily producing specialty candles for the Ascendancy to use in religious ceremonies.

One of Carmen's regular clients is a mortician in Hallowharbor, where she has exchanged a discount on her goods for the ability to occasionally visit the dead on her own while funeral preparations are being done. During these trips she has tested and practiced her ability to connect with the least moments of the dead.

Powers and Abilities

Carmen has an ability to sense the pasts of objects she touches, specifically by sensing strong emotions and experiencing flashes of memories associated with them. She has had this ability to some extent since she was a teenager, but her parents strongly encouraged her to conceal and forget about the ability as much as possible.

She has always felt an innate connection with the dead, which frightened her parents as she was growing up. Her abilities further seemed to be heightened when interacting with the bodies of the dead, detecting the smells, tastes, emotions, and sometimes the last sight of those whose bodies she touches. A notable time she experienced this more intense aspect of her senses was at her father's funeral. That was the first time her experience with her abilities was more intense and powerful.

Allies and Associates

The Circle of Discovery

• Dr. Phyllis "Filly" Bailey
  • A friend and coworker of Carmen's distant cousin: Professor Daniel Combs. Prior to their meeting in the context of Candela Obscura the two had met occasionally, at gatherings and parties organized by Dr. Combs, but were not close or particularly friendly.
• The Mocking-bird
  • A known vigilante who protects the people of Newfaire when the Periphery is insufficient. Carmen has long been a fan of her efforts and curious about the mysterious masked woman. As part of that fascination, she's found herself producing scented candles inspired by the Mocking-bird and selling them at her shop. Actually getting to work with her in the same circle in Candela, learn her secret identity, and get to know the woman behind the mask is something she hadn't even dared dream of, but has become her life now.
    • She hates black licorice.
• Noelle Silva
  • TBD

Other Members of Candela Obscura

TBD

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