Eric Zawadzki
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Deep Dive Sneak Peek: Abigail Petrescu
🕑 Added 2025-10-07 11:00:08 +0000 UTCThis week's Devoted is part of Abyssal Pioneers, a Standing 6 conspiracy with its headquarters at one of the deepest points of the ocean.
As with the others I've shared, this is a first draft, so there will be changes as I revise.
Abigail Petrescu
Quote: “You can’t fully appreciate the surface of the sea until you have visited the ocean floor. You will never forget the music you hear there.”
Background: Abigail Petrescu grew up in a town on a rocky coastline with a prominent old lighthouse. Classically trained as a singer and pianist, even her high school songwriting reflected her love of the sea. She struggled to make a career as a singer-songwriter but wasn’t as successful as she had hoped and so took piano and singing gigs wherever she could find them. She wasn’t getting rich, but she was making enough to pay her share of the rent.
It was at one of these unremarked performances that the Abyssal Pioneers noticed her. They hired her for a week of daily performance for the guests of Habitat One. Abigail accepted this invitation gladly and was soon astounded (and a little intimidated) by the logistical complexity the Pioneers undertook to ensure that the performance space was acceptable to her – including transporting a grand piano to the bottom of the Sirena Deep.
Abigail’s performances were well received, and she became a regular musical guest at the undersea luxury resort. She learned the general function of the tongueworms during her first week in Habitat One, but it wasn’t until a year later that she finally got up her courage to request one, since she had real concerns about its potential effects on her singing.
She needn’t have worried. The implantation of the symbiont went better for her than for most, and if anything, the tongueworm only made her voice more haunting. The Neo-Atlantean Cult marked her as a likely candidate for membership and brought her to an opening of the Black Circle. The experience changed Abigail, triggering her Divergence, and she has been fiercely loyal to the conspiracy ever since.
Abigail serves as a goodwill ambassador for the Abyssal Pioneers and the causes it promotes. No longer gigging in obscurity, her performances command large, appreciative audiences.
Appearance: Abigail is a tall, statuesque white woman in her mid-20s with blue eyes and blond hair to her waist. She wears this loose at sea, pulls it back in casual settings, and has it elaborately braided for formal occasions.
Roleplaying Hints: Abigail is charismatic and expressive, constantly praising the Abyssal Pioneers for the scientific and environmental work they do and encouraging others to adopt the conspiracy’s causes as their own. Her Scars force her to live a double-life, however. To avoid starvation, she must occasionally kill someone to consume their flesh. She usually hunts by swimming out to rocks at night and luring a lone victim into deep water so that they drown. If they’re strong swimmers, she excretes poisonous slime to finish the job and a knife to complete the butchery so that she can eat.
Origin: Epimorph
Clade: Chimeric
Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2; Strength 1, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2; Presence 3, Manipulation 3, Composure 2
Mental Skills: Academics 1, Occult 1, Politics (Maritime Law) 1, Science 1
Physical Skills: Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Weaponry (Knives) 3
Social Skills: Empathy 2, Expression (Singing) 3, Persuasion 2, Intimidation 2, Subterfuge 2
Merits: Air of Menace, Far-Reaching (Emotional Amplification) 2, Far-Reaching (Vocalization) 2, Fighting Finesse (Weaponry), Mastered Technique (Siren Song)
Willpower: 4
Stability: 5
Conviction: 2
Loyalty: 3
Aspiration: Drown a man
Initiative: 5
Defense: 5
Speed: 9 (60)
Health: 7
Size: 5
Acclimation: 0
Adaptations: Adrenaline Surge, Pack Leader, Untamed
Forms: Devoted
Controlled Scars: Concentration (Vocalization; Self-Doubt) 5
Persistent Scars: Animal Enmity (Aquatic; Cataceans; Social) 4, Conspicuous Appearance (Cutting Brawl Lash; Social) 2, Dependency (Emotion Amplification; eating fresh human flesh; Physical; Fatigued, Sluggish, Submissive, Rare) 4
Variations: Aquatic (Scar-free Magnitude) 5, Emotion Amplification (Aura) 4, Gentle Brawl Lash (Touch, Toxic) 2, Vocalization 5
Techniques: Siren Song (Vocalization; victims don’t regard commands to swim into dangerous situations – such as into storm-tossed seas or freezing cold water – as suicidal, so long as they aren’t directed to dive underwater; damage taken from drowning doesn’t count as damage inflicted by the Deviant or her allies)
Acquainted: +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity; +1 Empathy, +1 Expression, +1 Intimidation, +1 Persuasion, +1 Subterfuge; Superhuman Manipulation 2; Philia (Superhuman Manipulation; eating fresh human flesh; Mental) 2
Personal: +1 Strength; +1 Athletics, +1 Brawl, +1 Weaponry; Superhuman Presence 1, Superhuman Manipulation 3; Philia (Superhuman Manipulation; eating fresh human flesh; Consuming, Routine; Mental) 4
Obsessive: +1 Presence; +1 Academics, +1 Politics, +1 Science; Superhuman Presence 3
Comments
Eric Zawadzki
Gustaw's Retinue and Magorum Collegia, I'll grant you. For the others, it's only their names that are Eastern European. My surname is Polish, but I've never lived in Poland. Alecto is pretty transparently referring to American militia movements, and Abigail could have grown up anywhere with dramatic coastlines (New England would be a solid option) - although the conspiracies they belong to are global. Character names aside, most of the conspiracies are deliberately vague as to their locations.
Earth Seraph Edna
Gustaw's Retinue is Polish, this Abyssal Pioneers character is Romanian-ish, the Kindly Ones character is also Polish-ish, and the Magorum Collegia character is Serbian-ish. I feel as though characters from that part of the world are overrepresented.
