Known Past
Because of a folk song called "The Ice Queen," Vanya knows a significant amount about Jezra Wagner's past. Over 300 years ago, when Barovia was still floating alone in the Mists, a boyar named Piotr Wagner was in charge of a lucrative silver mining operation in the Balinoks (and his descendants are in a similar position today). His daughter, Jezra, was a free-spirited young woman who loved the natural beauty of the Balinoks and spent as much time in them as possible. She had made it a personal goal to summit as many of the mountains as possible so she could drink in every possible aspect and angle of their grandeur.
One winter day, Jezra and three of her friends set out to scale the mountains around Mt. Ghakis--a terrible time of year to do it, but Piotr was arranging an engagement for her and she feared that she would be wedded, bedded, and too heavy with child for climbing by the time the weather was more auspicious. No one knows exactly what happened, only that on the third day of their climb, an avalanche struck. Jezra's three friends were never seen again. Jezra, unfortunately, was not so lucky.
For the past three centuries, some climbers in the Balinoks--mostly around Mt. Ghakis, but sometimes in other areas as well--have reported seeing a pale, blue-lipped woman, her face rimed with frost, wearing high-quality climbing clothes from hundreds of years ago. She shivers with cold...until she touches a living person. Then her blue lips become rosy, her cheeks flush with warmth, and her victim falls to the ground, frozen solid.
The song is a cautionary tale about the Balinoks: they don't care whether you're a peasant or a boyar's daughter, whether you despise them or love them with all your heart. Like the Ice Queen, the mountains are beautiful, but they hunger for your warmth and life.
Current Sketch
Jezra is clearly lonely, and desperately misses the seasons outside of winter, as she is bound to the snowy parts of the Balinoks. She is trying to keep her need for warmth at bay for as long as possible so that Vanya can play music for her, because she hasn't heard music in a very long time. She doesn't know that Rose isn't just some strange flying aurochs, and she's expressed a yearning to look at her and bury her hands in the warm fur of a beautiful animal that never ventures this far up into the mountains . . . and then to drain her warmth, because better her than a human. She promised Vanya that she would search for warmth from someone else tonight and that the zombies wouldn't hurt him so long as he didn't try to leave.
Jezra insists that she isn't dead, and doesn't seem to know how much time has passed since the avalanche; she still believes her father is alive and wondering what happened to her. She wants to die and be free from the cold, but whenever she tries to end her life or allow someone else to end it, she always comes back.
Known Powers and Vulnerabilities
- You haven't seen Jezra freeze anyone, but the song is adamant that she can do so with a touch, and she's basically said as much to Vanya.
- Unlike the zombies, she isn't hurt by fire; if anything, she relishes it. She put her hands into your campfire and it temporarily brought her to health, but then her cold became so great that it extinguished the fire and she began to freeze again.
- She made a snowstorm. You don't know whether she has more weather control than that or not.
- Since she promised the zombies wouldn't hurt Vanya unless he tried to leave, she might be able to control them, or she might just be powerful enough to be able to defend you from them.
- She appeared and disappeared from the campfire at will, and her hair doesn't stir in the wind.
- You've seen her using her powers in daylight.
- She claims that she can't leave the snow.
- Her need for warmth is so powerful that she has to remove herself from your presence in order to avoid losing control.
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