DAMNED

NAME. Priya Chandra AGE & BIRTH DATE. 339 & June 13th, 1684 GENDER & PRONOUNS. Female & She/Her SPECIES. Daemonfey ( Liche ) OCCUPATION. Employee at Blud FACE CLAIM. Sobhita Dhulipala

BIOGRAPHY

In order to survive the Abyss, one had to be the strongest. That’s what her father would repeat over and over again. Bedtime stories rarely revolved around a prince in shining armor or the endless depths of friendship, but rather the cruelties one had to face in order to survive. To become stronger meant sacrifice and the abandonment of moralities. Priya never believed in such things as she considered herself to be a rare defender of individualism within her coven. A sorceress desiring the end of their dog eats dog society. With Hassan being one of the elders, her father put more pressure onto his daughter than necessary. Caving once her father sugarcoated the customs and power struggles that lead to traumatic events within the coven, Priya was sucked into this world, naive enough to put her father’s wishes over her own. What if he was right? An Elder with high ambitions trying to get his daughter to be more powerful and ready to survive surely wouldn’t have any ulterior motives. Instead, the sorceress slowly began to accept her father’s guidance in exchange for power.

Various challenges followed. Much like Herakles before her, the sorceress was tasked to complete dangerous challenges for the sake of enhancing her powers. Seeing as she didn’t have what it took to be as powerful as her father wanted her to be, he specifically pushed her further into this world, cutthroat, ambitious, survivalists of the worst kind. They had ambitions to become immortal, so to honor the coven’s values, Priya put herself in grave danger to find meaning in her sacrifice. Do not cry for the sacrificial lamb; she’s the one sharpening the knife. To be a sorceress means endless sacrifice to achieve one’s ends and Priya desperately tried to please her coven. Following that path, she forced herself through the darkness, conjured dark magic to defeat her unfortunate enemies. The more time she spent challenging herself, the deeper her father forced her down this road of sacrifice and obedience, the more he heart rebelled. Despite what her coven preached, her heart’s own desire was already reserved for someone else. A Vampire of all creatures, someone who’d already achieved immortality.

What was supposed to be a real testament of her own strength turned out to be a nightmare. Once invited, the vampire attacked them, fed and laid waste to their coven like nothing before. Old and wise, he knew how to have them running for the hills to further excite their blood. Priya awoke among the smell of smoke, burning buildings and laughter echoing through the darkness. Her throat burned, her muscles had stopped aching and her reflexes had become much more refined, faster and… stronger. The strength of immortality. Did she succeed? Only her father stood after the vampire fled the scene, his pockets filled with gold and his body almost overflowing with blood. Now a vampire, her father struggled with what should never be. His undead daughter, stronger than ever, lead by her own heart rather than ambitions. And yet, as their eyes met, Priya’s father struggled to find it in him and kill her for good. The coven’s death wouldn’t have to be for nothing if only they used their teachings to reverse her immortality.

Grieving over her entire coven’s death, Priya believed herself to be the culprit, the hungry vampire who had killed them all in a blackout. Nothing remained, but she knew better than to believe her own lies. The vampire who’d turned her, her one time lover, ended up being nothing more than a trickster, an executioner with fangs, corrupt and merciless. So when her father suggested dark alternatives, desperate for her daughter to return, Priya listened, now more than ever. Watching her father’s madness unfold The guilt didn’t stop. Believing to be the cause of his madness, Priya did whatever necessary to revert the curse and rebuild what had been lost. As she tipped the goblet filled with vampiric ichor down her throat, much of what used to be vanished. Drawn closer by the look of blood but cringing at the initial smell, the actual blood tasted much sweeter, smokier, than what she’d expected. Potent and addictive, Priya poured the blood down her throat, to drown in it, to feel nothing but the sinful taste of what would forever change her life. The demon crawled down her throat with its ichor, taking a hold of her body and soul. The blood of an archfiend, a source of great power to revert what had been done. Blood was the answer, revealing what had been hidden within the darkness for so long.

This hadn’t been her chance of freedom, but only a desperate attempt to revert her own death – a sacrificial lamb, her body served as the ultimate vessel for an archfiend. Enraged and starving, the now Liche slit her father’s throat and tasted his blood out of spite. Such cruelty came with a price: the peace loving, kind child feasted on her father like maggots on a corpse: relentlessly, unceremoniously, only to hurt, only to feast. She watched him carefully as her father’s heart stopped beating, eyes glossy from tears. A Liche, that what she was, an undead creature.

Trying to find meaning in her new, damned existence, Priya travelled the world, hoping to regain some of her humanity within. Kind and still naive, she clung onto the nearest group of vampires in hopes of belonging somewhere. An outcast among outcasts, she was neither bad nor entirely good, feeding upon those she should call family. Alas, the archfiend within had made itself comfortable, peeking through every once in a while, demanding blood and violence. While the archfiend within recklessly wreaked havoc upon her core values and soul, Priya became everything her father wanted her to be: powerful, immortal and, above all, doomed to a life of solitude.

The more the archfiend took over, the less Priya’s body tried to fight them. Mentally she remained on guard, losing control every once in a while, Their ambitions became her own: power, albeit put to good use, a monster with morals, a damned creature of warmth and love despite her cold skin. Still, as she looked in the mirror, her appearance skeletal and frightening, the archfiend within tasked her with the never ending battle for power and influence while her heart remained stoic: the sacrificial lamb, the sorceress who’d never ceased to love, would always remain.

PERSONALITY

+ kind, witty, devoted – tormented, stubborn, naive

Sobhita Dhulipala

Sobhita Dhulipala as Tara Khanna Arjun Mathur as Karan Mehra