Portrait library'The Briar Witch'
Human / Warlock
Submitted character story
Though the large thorn thickets around the area were unusual, the ruin you and the others of the party delved into seemed, at first, like any other: Some dungeon or crypt of some kind in the middle of nowhere.
Those thoughts have sense banished when you found the main chamber. Like a stone palace within the bedrock. It was obviously carved with great care from someone with much influence...But it was what was housed even deeper within that brought chills down your spine.
Beyond the large halls and grand chamber...you found what may as well would have been a room of insignificance...if not for the obvious care that went into carving it.
This sanctum was not any ordinary room, but a perfect recreation of a lady's bedchamber. And there, upon a stone altar carved in the shape of a large bed, ancient common lining the edges in script that, by your best assessment, seems to speak of curse, slumber, and 'true love's kiss'...lies the still body of a beautiful, young woman in fine, ebon gown; vines of briar growing at the edges of her platform...
Princess Ophelia Thorne, The Royal Forgotten, *The Briar Witch,* is a dangerous woman who, despite having to navigate entirely new abilites and new surroundings, remains someone not to be trifled with.
...But ever since you've come to travel with her, there's times yet where she almost seems like a young lady, lost in another world...
Ophelia was the only child of her father, a deeply paranoid, machiavellian king, born of a realm with great precident for scheming and betrayal of the crown. Ophelia would learn well under her father, preparing for a life of cutt-throat policy and a potential succession crisis without a male heir after the death of her mother. She would even see her own share of experience in her own discovery of a plot against her father and facilitating the execution of its conspirators.
...That execution would earn her a nickname among the common folk: 'The Briar Witch', a mockery of her family name and a personal attack upon her character.
'Let them whisper. My house remains.'
>"When I called my father’s court my home, I worked to earn no friends. I earned no favors with courtiers. I kissed the feet of no one, for the place of a subject is not to be coddled, not to be bought. A subject’s place is in the service of their betters. Some may have felt themselves better than such a lot, some by right of nobility perceived themselves in power I was unbeholden to. Some found their insolent tongues removed and* ***not one*** found their game entertained by my household agents." - Exerpt from the diary of Ophelia Thorne
But there was one figure of her father's court who remained an enigma to her, a figure which few understood, who dressed and acted as a fool in flashy green gown and odd finery. 'The Fox', as he was simply referred, always had a grin to his face, like he knew something everyone else did not. Ophelia could never understand why her father kept him around, as the king himself seemed dismissive of the man, and she longed to snatch that grin from his face but he never once gave her a reason to, and so she simply avoided him.
...Until the day he approached her, muttering madness about promises unkept, payments to be rendered, and a curse of 'true love's kiss'...
By the time he had touched her, and Ophelia could feel her consciousness slipping away from herself, it was too late to do anything. All she could manage...was to feel hatred. Of her court, of all of the traitors-*the lot of them*-and the burdensome lot in life she had been given only for it all to finally come apart by *this oaf?!*
She felt so much malice and hatred in that moment, and all of it only had one place to go; the last thing her eyes saw as they closed--The Fox.
The curse of his daughter would be the final betrayal for the already unstable king and he would drive himself mad trying to find The Fox and break the curse. He and his daughter were not beloved though. How could 'true love's kiss' be performed by people who despised her or, at best, wanted something from the royal family?
Eventually, the king, broken by grief and deeply protective of his helpless daughter, would have a chamber built for her deep in the forest, to keep her safe and hidden, laid out in a room carved to perfectly reflect her own chambers to calm her if she ever woke and serve as a place to preserve her most treasured personal effects, such as her alchemical catalogue she liked to read and the livery collar he'd given her earlier as a protective charm.
It wasn't a tomb...at least that was all he could mutter to himself when he finally brought her there...
The king's reign would violently end soon after, and the nation along with it, leaving the tomb of Ophelia Thorne to be left within the woods, forgotten...
...In an undisclosed amount of time later, she would awaken, stirred by the lips of a handsome man with eyes of true kindness. Who was this man? Would this be her savior? She would seemingly return to slumber before she could speak properly to him.
When next she would awaken, it would be to a new, mysterious group of adventurers...and she would find her emotions have a lot more power than they once did...
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>My great grandfather was a hero.
He’d founded this once stalwart nation as a liberator, on principle of honesty and righteous valor. They say history is written by the victors, but in this case, it was recorded down by the own noble scribes of the previous state to have occurred upon the 18th of the third month, just after the final seasonal frost of the calendar of Thorne: *year one.*
*Grandfather* held up to the pointed standards of his king before him. But the kingdom was not without enemies made and they sought to feed themselves off of the bounty my family produced. A slave revolt of our foreign neighbors, for a time, brought their spears into our lands and our fields. Dignitaries, confusing decency for weakness brought demands of tribute-unanswered while my bloodline drew breath. But what shook the old king most of all was not a threat from beyond borders…but within his own court.
And thus, upon discovery, the Earl who’d made it found himself a fair bit shorter.
*Father* was taught well by his old king. He would need it as the heir of a household with two brothers to watch over, though he would not be the only one between them watching.
There was a large drought within the land. *Twelve-thousand* lives found their way over the edge of the census report. Many felt the crown could have handled it better. My uncles possibly could have felt that way-if they were so naive to think so-but, with certainty, they weren't. They were grandfather's students just the same.
And so my father found an army within his lands. Driven by his lords and fueled by his brother.
Slaughtered their levies were. The nobility watched. And when they were all bled or captured, the nobility were decimated in the traditional sense; made to draw lots and then kill the quivering wretch who picked the one short of ten. Uncle was one of the lucky groups of nine afterward who’d gotten to live a relatively peaceful life at a monastery after having their eyes gouged out.
My other uncle, wiseman he was, thought it the savvy course of action for the king with half of the court blinded or buried to find poison on his plate.
*My other uncle did not fare so well as the first.*
My birth was shortly after.
Like his father, and his father's father before, he taught me both in the ways he was instructed and in the ways he’d learned. *And I was a very good student.* My whole juvenile study was of a life or death importance, lest one of the retainers of my house come to slit my throat.
…Which is why it isn't fair. Why did the gods choose to throw my way, not the wrath of an army, not the blade of an assassin-not even the betrayal of a retainer…but, some 87 years after my great grandfather founded this nation, a single courtier of vibrant dress; a man of songful word and jovial pose. He spoke of penance and covenant-of promise not kept…and then the blubbering madman spoke of me as the cost. I know not for why, only that I’d hated him and his riddles…and the feeling of grave danger he gave to me in my own *damn* court.
T’was not the counseling he gave of a *‘true love’s kiss’* that was the last thing I remember. Not-so, as my world began to fade around me.
…T’was my burning hate for him that beheld my heart as my eyes then closed…
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(Going into story arch first for less confusion in explaining her gameplay, as her temperament is heavily tied to how her story evolves.)
Ophelia's story is quite possibly my most open ended, fully-developed story. Besides the source of her mysterious new warlock powers, it is entirely up to the DM what the answers to all of the mysteries of her story are: Who/what is The Fox? All I tell the DM is that he is an arch fey and to give him a Welsh name to keep secret because of the power of names in curses. Why did he curse Ophelia? I offer the DM only inspiration for their own answer: Was it during the reign of Great Grandfather, 'Aurelius The Golden', who used The Fox's help to found their prosperous nation in exchange for one of his decendants? A bride or slave or something that her father refused? Was it a promise made during the reign of Grandfather 'Godwin The Abscent' or as recent as her father, 'Redmund The Red' who made a pact with The Fox to help combat his brother's rebellion? There are many possibilities. Who was the man she first woke up to? Was he as kind as Ophelia
believed? Was he a dream? Perhaps is he a love interest? There's a ton of ways the DM can fill in the blanks with their own story and flair.
Ophelia's warlock abilities are born by her extreme mallice using the curse upon her as a conduit back to The Fox. Whether he knew or not at the time is up to the DM, but her connection to him is what powers her abilities, which is also why they have the nature that they do, being curse, sleep, and briar vine-based, as they are born directly of fey magics. He will certainly know she is awake now.
>"My heart feels cold, gripped - pained…and things I don't quite understand have begun happening at my will. I can feel that pain. I can give it to the monsters we face…and it feels…good. Like a momentary relief from it." - Exerpt from the diary of Ophelia Thorne
As Ophelia is entirely new to her powers, if she is in a higher level campaign, she will not know about her more powerful spells and abilities right away, with them only manifesting in moments of severe turmoil that see her blacking out through it, only to wake back up or collapse afterward.
Ophelia should wake up to-if there is one present-a party member with kind, handsome features. Though this is not necessary for the story, it makes her story more narratively pleasing as she immediately finds someone to possibly anchor herself to and hopefully have as a positive influence. It will also provide some kind of narrative grounding point outside of a person who isn't an immediate part of the story. She will stir with or without a kiss, though it is important that, should one try-or think about trying-to kiss her, she will wake up before it happens, lending some kind of creedance to the existence of her 'kind-eyed man' before, whether he actually exists or not.
Ophelia's entire alignment may not be the same for each playthrough of her story and is dependant upon her surroundings. Though she awakens from her slumber as a lawful evil character, her 'savior' who kissed her (and, hopefully, characters in the party) will push her into being a better person and possibly even humble her. However, that transformation does NOT happen if she fails to find any leads on the mysterious man with kind eyes and she fails to latch onto any other positive influences who might be willing to put up with her severe personality.
She was taught long ago that the dead are just empty flesh and cannot hear you, nor can they appreciate words or sentiments. They are just dead. This will be character development for her if someone Ophelia cares about is dead but, otherwise, she will consider things like funerals as wastes of time and burials as cleanup duty, and such is well beneath her station, though she will pay to see such work done for her.
Ophelia's personality is somewhat that of a tsundere archetype. She is bitter and manipulative, but she's also a girl, quite young (18), entirely lost in a new world with only echoes left behind of her home, and her entire family and everyone she has ever known are long dead. She gets nicer when she feels alone-she's terrified of being entirely alone in this world-and is a LOT more receptive of people who have proven themselves to be trustworthy, especially if she decides that they are the sort of kind person she has sorely lacked in life.
Ophelia keeps a diary in the back of her grimoire she uses in studying alchemy and potion making. It will also evolve into a journal for the study of her new abilities and is my lens for writing her session recaps.
As Ophelia is from such a long time ago, much of the names and influence of her past I lean toward making notably anglo-saxon (I figure it works well with the germanic fairytail vibe) and, thus, she canonically writes in old english (the Beowulf kind, not the 'ye olde Shakespeare' kind) and so I typically try my best to include an untranslated section at the top...to admitedly unknown accuracy since I don't exactly have anglo-saxon history professors for friends. But, from the six-ish tabs of old english translation samples, dictionaries, and grammatical assistance I had on my phone and computer for this stupidly-insignificant, little, flavor detail I just HAD to do for some reason, it seemed relatively...somewhat straightforward with sentence structure that is almost entirely the same as modern english, mixed with a ton of German words which aren't ENTIRELY too difficult to pick up on!
>*“Folk ciegde mē wicce. þē Wicce of ðorn, ciegde mē in scorn of min kin’s name. Ic hated þē afronter. Buton, swa Ic laugte þē wyrst of þē feallan man afore mē…nǣfre habben hit þúhte swa fitten…”*
"But I, the people referred to as a witch. ‘The Briar Witch’ they so called me in mockery of my family name. I despised the insolence of it. But, as I grasped the wrist of the crumpling man before me…
***...I've never felt it so fitting..."***
- Exerpt from the diary of Ophelia Thorne
Ophelia is a lot of things I've wanted to make a character with for a very long time. For one, ever since junior year of high school, I've thought of a fairytail of 'what happened to the princess locked away in her tower when no hero ever came to save her?' I'd also been wanting to make a true sort of 'witch' character that you just don't see outside of hags in RAW D&D. In fact, even the warlock class has so few spells in the list that are 'witchy'-and they have the most of each class by FAR-that I have to source third party spells or make my own for Ophelia to even function with the proper feel and aesthetic. Finally, the third piece of the puzzle was a direct inspirational kick to make a Brothers Grimm, 'true love's kiss', sleeping beauty-style tale and I found from this outside inspiration that it perfectly fit together with the other two pieces of character that hadn't yet had a home to create this deeply Germanic, gothic fairytale-feeling story of as much beauty and hope as it has despare to it.
What gave me that final piece of inspirational kick was the song 'The Witch of Briar Thorn' by Karliene Reynolds and Roxane Genot.
'I awoke to true love's kiss
Pulled me out of sleep so stiff
T'was the day the curse was born
Heart twisted in briar thorn'
Unfortunately, she was only played in a game that was way too brutal to play her properly. Almost the whole party-including her good influence-was immediately killed in the session after she woke up, she was then installed as party leader-which I didn't narratively want but had no reason for her to not accept, she spent most of every encounter twitching on the ground with 75% of the rest of the party, and saw two different generations of the party join and die before she could get attached to just about anyone until she bought it in the third. She also died twice. Not to mention, the players themselves were, naturally, not keen on trying to engage with her after they just spent, two-four characters of playing with her only knowing her as a cold-hearted b--ch.
Safe to say, while I was satesfied with her first death, by the time of the second, I was just relieved it was finally over. I didn't play in that campaign much longer after that. 🥴
She's got a ton of potential as a character. I can only hope one day she finds her way into a campaign that I can properly explore her story in.
I at least got one glorious campaign moment out of her. The first time she died. That group, for character deaths, plays the song 'Empty Crown' by YAS. Hilarity ensued:
>9/7/2025 - Chris - 'You see the only thing to come out of the barrier being Ophelia's hand and her satchel-'
- The Discord 'Best Session Quotes' page
By far, my funniest character death ever.