Emily Proulx
Mrs. Emily Elizabeth Proulx
Written by: Tahoma
Ah, Mrs. Proulx. Doesn't look a day over thirty, but she's actually 65. The magic of being an Elf, I tell you what. For decades, Emily's been the sole owner and proprietor of The Withered Rose, a talismonger that's been hocking quality magic wares since she was old enough to haggle. In spite of being by and for a niche-demographic, Emily's got herself quite a name not just as a succesful business-owner but a philanthropist as well: the power-players of Raleigh like going to her charity events because they have a nice folksy, 'home-grown' feel to them that makes them look as connected to the common schmuck as Emily is, who proudly boasts about helping the homeless and SiNless with her hiring practices and open picnics. But of course, we know better. Emily Proulx's charity is genuine, but as with any act of generosity from business-owners, there's a personal gain to it. In return for feeding and housing a portion of Raleigh's lowest of the low, she's cultivated a vast and loyal network of eyes and hands, dozens of SiNless friends more than happy to ferry around illicit goods and openly spy on whoever's earned the curiosity or ire of the lovely but ultimately spiteful mistress.Unfortunately, the concept of a 'homeless spy network' is becoming less useful by the day. Most cops have the authority to kick the homeless out of the ritzier districts, and there's more opportunity to quietly eliminate them if they hear something that wasn't meant for their ears.Along with her fiancee of a few years, Marcher, providing a nice selection of handmade gats, Emily is a woman you'd do best to keep pleased. Ever had a homeless guy hired to stand outside your apartment window screaming slurs? I have.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
You didn't hear it from me, but Mrs. Proulx has quite a bit of bioware inside her for an awakened gal, mostly tailored pheremone emitters but if my sources are anything to go by, some degree of synaptic acceleration therapy has been applied.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
The lady of The Withered Rose is considered something of an institution in Raleigh, despite having been in the CAS for 'only' ten years, her fresh-off-the-boat accent notwithstanding. Mrs. Proulx claims to have been brought up in sunny Paris, learning the trade of making and peddling 'alternative medicines' from a cheerfully-cliche mystic, learning what crystals balance what chakras until she was making enough profit on her own from happily cured customers to take her talent overseas and start her own business in Raleigh. This is, of course, a complete lie.
Of course it's a lie. If any of those so-called alternative medicines actually worked, biotech corps would be selling it at a comical mark-up.Emily was actually born in Seine-Saint-Denis, and in the rough parts at that. She was taught the art of selling 'healing remedies', but not with any intent of actually curing whoever was desperate enough to pay. That's right, the illustrious Mrs. Proulx was a con-artist, plain and simple, and made the start of her fortune selling placebos to anyone dumb enough not to notice her doctorate in 'Medicology', under the tutelage of a master of the craft you might know as Charles LeFoux, who took a cut of the profit in exchange for providing the base recipes and making sure they were out of the picture before anyone could come back. This arrangement of a mastermind and his face carried on until 2039, when LeFoux was killed outside of his apartment, having unknowingly been living next door to the victim of one of his cons for weeks.
If the newslinks are telling the truth, they apparently went so long without getting a good look at eachother because they worked opposite hours of the day, and the victim needed the meds to keep active on his night-shifts. Kind of a hilarious way to go for a legend in the business of cons.Emily continued to run the con herself, but the recipe for LeFoux's placebos died along with the man himself, so she decided to improvise and begin making her own concoctions of mystic-sounding things. On that weekend, she discovered a few things: The first being that she doesn't know jack about chemistry, but the second thing was that the hardened chemical masses that resulted from her optimistic mixing of ingredients found in the cupboard led to something more than just a guaranteed trip to the ER, they actually had a tiny glimmer of something arcane floating in them. As it turns out, Emily had the gift of the magical awakening in her all along, she was just something of a 'late bloomer', and that magic unknowingly bled out into her biologically hazardous crafts. From there, Emily's career took a turn to unexpectedly legitimate places. No sense in risking your neck selling counterfeit cures when you can make some legitimate magical merch. Putting all her con-money into collateral for the tools neeed to manufacture legitimate magical goods that people would actually buy, she got started running a small Talismonger - one of the region's first at the time - on the other end of the city, but that wasn't far enough to avoid the consequences of her actions. It wasn't long before a long-forgotten victim of one of Emily's old cons recognised her hocking reagents and things got very ugly. Digging up some old contacts of the late LeFoux, Emily was able to hitch a cargo-ship to the CAS with a couple of duffelbags of valuables and a cleaned-up SIN. Getting back into business after that was difficult, but after some lucky run-ins and a few shared drinks with the current owners of The Withered Rose, Emily quickly rebounded and before the year was over she was a local big-name in Talismongering again, eventually taking the shop over when the previous owners tragically passed away from an alchemy-related accident.
Surprisingly, despite the owners being involved in some less-than-legal enterprises on the side, recovered evidence showed it to actually be a legitimate accident. Always check your recipes, chummers.Now of course, Emily was never gonna stay legitimate for too long. She did owe favors, and as the old saying goes: You can take the person out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the person. It naturally wasn't long before she was doing more risky business behind the counter of her new shop, using the money and publicity from her public enterprises to keep anyone from blowing the whistle, especially when she met and married her unexpected dwarf soul-mate, a man you know as the Marcher, and he started an illegitimate business of his own in the basement. We're still waiting to see how long either of those lasts...
Education
High-school, little else.
Employment
Currently the owner and proprietor of the Withered Rose Talismonger-shop
Relationships
History
Do you know the torture of being unable to turn down another glurgey photo-album lookthrough because it belongs to a pair of well-connected career criminals? I do.
Current Location
Year of Birth
2015
65 Years old
Birthplace
Seine-Saint-Denis, France
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Pronouns
She/Her
Eyes
Brown
Hair
Black, long as the night.
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Tanned
Height
6'4''
Weight
210 lbs
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