Appearance

Physical Description

In her current form, Yulia is in the shape of an eastern aristocrat who was once her slaver. She is petite, with dark hair and golden eyes.

Apparel & Accessories

Yulia's most iconic accessory is the Pirate-Witch's Hat that gives her the ability to understand any language and even read magic. She designed the piece herself and, while she's gotten more experienced and no longer requires its enchantment, she has kept it throughout her adcenturing career as a reminder of how far she's come.
Yulia wears the Witching Gown, a mostly unassuming piece of clothing that has protective and bolstering properties and can transform to take any form or style she wishes. It has proven extremely useful in Yulia's more subtle efforts.

Special abilities

As a Kitsune, Yulia has the innate ability to shape-shift into any human form and, as a skullbound shapeshifter, she can use the face or skull of her victim to enhance her disguise to near-perfection.
As a powerful witch, Yulia is a powerful spellcaster and a mistress of hexes, able to put enemies to sleep with a thought or animate her own hair as a powerful melee weapon. She's also an accomplished magical artisan and alchemist, able to brew potions and create powerful magical items for later use.

Mentality

Education

In her early life, Yulia received tutoring from her village's elders, learning languages and the basics of how the world worked. In her free time, she found herself blessed and cursed by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and soon began teaching herself from the elder's texts. When her village was destroyed, she found herself having to direct her own study, never missing an opportunity to read a new ancient tome or piece of magical lore.

Employment

Yulia began her adventuring career after escaping from her enslavement by taking a support mercenary position in the Bugman's Brew company. She soon found herself taking an active role in the group's running, her conniving nature and intelligence making her a natural leader, though the team likes to enjoy a level of democratic decision-making.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Murdered her slaver and stole her face.
Stole a pirate ship and proclaimed herself Captain.
Scared a Blue Dragon to death.
Took over a small island and proclaimed herself Queen.
Founded the Unbound Coven.

Failures & Embarrassments

Was enslaved and ultimately lost her family to the evils of the Empire.
Murdered a Hell Knight under the orders of Nyarlathotep and was subsequently cursed for her actions.
Got her friend Torg killed.

Intellectual Characteristics

Owing to a mixture of good genetics, practice and magical accoutrements, Yulia is arguably one of the most intelligent beings on the material plane, with a mind able to outthink demon lords and lesser deities. She is able to make use of odd and sometimes contradictory pieces of knowledge in her long-term plans and will often be able to outsmart her enemies on the fly.

Morality & Philosophy

Yulia believes in a wholely self-centred view of morality. She believes that one's ultimate responsibility is only to oneself and, beyond that, all else is optional. This is possibly due to losing her entire society at a young age and her family members sacrificing themselves so that she may avenge them. She now sees the world as her own private buffet, and her only duty to carve out a slice of it for herself.

person.sexuality

Yulia is asexual, having had her normal psychosexual development stifled by her enslavement. While she understands sexuality and how it can influence others, even taking advantage of it for herself on the very rare occasion, she feels no such attraction herself.

person.gender_identity

As a natural-born shapeshifter, Yulia enjoys a somewhat fluid concept of gender. Though she personally identifies as female, she has no problem taking on a masculine form should the need arise.

Taboos

Yulia prides herself on a pragmatic approach to life, holding few things aloft above personal gain. She does however take a deeply personal distaste towards slavery due to her own experiences. Though over the years she's had to contend with a world with more shades of grey than she'd like, leading her to rethink her position slightly. While she still thinks enslavement of populations of innocents is abhorrent, she sees less issue with the indentured servitude, or the magical domination of an enemy.

Known Languages

Yulia is a natural polyglot, having picked up a number of languages over the years, even without engaging in much dedicated study. She currently knows Common, Sylvan, Aklo, Celestial, Elven, Gnome, Draconic, Abyssal & Tengu.

Personality

Motivation

Yulia is motivated by a combination of self-interest, rage at the unjust world she lives in, and fear. Having taken the life of her slave mistress, she found herself without a heading until her otherworldly patron showed his true colours.
Feelings of betrayal have mixed with her natural power-hungry tendencies, and now the outer god Nyarlathotep has a Yulia's target on his back. Far outclassing her at this point, the Witch has begun her plans to sever herself from his patronage and eventually bring him down, regardless of how long it takes or how much of the world must burn to make it so.
Her lesser motivation is the fear of death. Natural for most people, sure. But with her knowledge of the planes, Yulia has become acutely aware that her soul is bound for a horrifying, and likely short, afterlife in Abaddon. She is determined to find a way to circumvent this, either through gaining some form of immortality or by redirecting her soul after death. Keeping her options open, she's begun looking into all kinds of alternatives, including lichdom, selling her soul to an alternate plane, contingency spellcasting and even, gods forbid, changing her ways.

Likes & Dislikes

Yulia is particularly fond of tea, and trying new brews over a good book is often a way for the young witch to unwind on her afternoons.
Yulia is also fond of crafts, as is befitting of a witch, she enjoys creating wands and potions, or imbuing items with magical properties.
Yulia's greates passions however are discovery and power. She enjoys the adventuring lifestyle because of the opportunity for great discoveries and adding to her already vast knowledge and powers.
 
Yulia has a seething hatred for slavers and slavery in general, and would happily burn a slaver city to the ground if it meant an end to their tyranny.
Yulia is also not fond of wizards. Due to being the more "mainstream" intelligence casters and keeping, what she sees as, some of the more flashy spells for themselves. In all likelihood though, she's just jealous of their spell list and wishes she'd had the opportunity to become one herself.

Virtues & Personality perks

Yulia's greatest strength is, unsurprisingly, her cast intellect. Without any formal training, she has become one of the most intelligent beings on the material plane and a veritable expert in the fields of Arcana, Nature, Religion and the Planes.
Yulia is also a master of infiltration. Between her skills at stealth and deception, her ability to shape-shift, and her magic, there are very few secure locations in the world that Yulia couldn't find her way into, though her natural inclination towards trouble may then make leaving more difficult.
Yulia prides herself on being, what she calls, a "pragmatic evil", allowing her to put forth the front of altruistic intent while working in her own best interest. She has little time for moustache-twirling villains and usually sees cruelty for its own sake as crass. in practice, this often means that Yulia can fit in perfectly well with both saints and sinners and that the people of Mariner's Rest are indeed better off despite her somewhat forceful takeover.

Vices & Personality flaws

For all her talk of subtlety and keeping up a good facade, Yulia struggles with a burgeoning megalomania. Her natural opportunism means that she's keen to jump on any potential route to greater power or influence. A habit that has brought her into conflicts before.
Due to her vast intellect, Yulia can often find herself looking down on those in her company. This can range from simple condescension to treating others like pets, as can sometimes be the case with her coven sisters.
Despite her great magical powers and skills, Yulia is still physically fairly frail and easily overwhelmed in a physical confrontation. For this reason, she chooses to surround herself with far more appetising targets, but if a combat catches her off-guard, she can find herself in serious trouble.

Personality Quirks

Yulia has a soft spot for serving staff and children, often finding herself giving exorbitant tips or using her magic to aid them with no expectation of anything in return. She's not quite sure where these bursts of genuine altruism come from, but as long as it doesn't come back to bite her, she's okay with it.

Hygiene

Yulia is particularly keen on personal hygiene, taking baths frequently when aboard the Sea Hag despite being able to clean herself with magic. It helps remind her that she's no longer in the squalid conditions she was forced into as a slave.

Social

Birthplace

The East

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Queen of Mariner's Rest
Captain of the Sea Hag
Matriarch of the Unbound Coven

Religious Views

While Yulia is far too intelligent to disregard the presence of gods and other celestial beings in the universe, that doesn't mean she worships anyone. Even her relationship with her otherworldly patron Nyarlathotep is seen as more transactional than worshipful. Yulia doesn't see the point in relying on any outside force when all of life's hardships can be overcome with determination and intelligence.

Social Aptitude

Despite her traumatic upbringing and bookish leanings, Yulia was gifted with a natural gift for all things of a social nature. As a shapeshifter, she finds lying to be second nature to her and that an intelligent lie in the right moment can set her up for long-term gain. If diplomacy is required, she'll happily rely on the good looks and aristocratic charm of her form's donor, and if fear is the order of the day, Yulia can let slip a glimpse of the true wicked witch.

Hobbies & Pets

Yulia is always accompanied by her faithful familiar, Salazar, a greensting scorpion. Salazar is a submissive and relaxed individual, dedicated to the service of his mistress. He's very rarely active in the heat of combat, preferring to stay in his carrier while providing Yulia with access to her spells.

Speech

Yulia is a fairly soft-spoken individual who prefers to let the content of her words make the big impact rather than any undignified display of shouting. Even when angered, Yulia tends to speak with venom rather than force, though those who've enraged her tend not to realise what they've done until it's too late.