Race: Ancient Atlantean/Demoness
Sex: Female
Real Name: Mar’iha’khaskana’aka
Nickname: Mother Mariah
Birthdate and Location: Unknown, but she has been around for a long, long time.
Position: Sainted Spiritual Leader of the Crimson Brotherhood & Saint, former Goddess
Group Affiliation: The Crimson Brotherhood
DESCRIPTION:
Mother Mariah appears to be about 12 or 13 years of age. She has golden hair and dark eyes. Her face is very pretty, almost too pretty. She stands about 4’9”, is very slender and delicate looking, and usually dresses in dark, drab colours. She generally looks very demure; her head covered by thick veils and her dresses very modest. However, there is an aura about her that most people find disturbing.
(Mariah is played by Kirsten Dunst)
BACKGROUND:
Mother Mariah’s past is lost to obscurity and no one left living knows where she came from. She was born long ago on the lost continent of Atlantis, the youngest daughter of the Atlantean royal family. Mariah was doted upon by her parents, but had no hope of ever inheriting either money or power. She had about a dozen older siblings who were ahead of her in the line of succession. To make up for this, Mariah became very involved in Atlantean mysticism, which was the basis for the culture’s religion. Mariah decided at a young age to join the priesthood.
Mariah joined the priesthood not for the honour of devoting herself to the gods and goddesses, but rather as a means to obtain power. She studied hard, and by the time she was just beginning to become a woman, the girl had discovered a dark path to magik and power. She was just entering her 14th year when she managed to assemble all the necessary components for the ritual. She began late one night in the bowels of one of the temples, where ancient forces were strong. Unfortunately, like so many young people, Mariah was careless and lacked forethought. Her ritual went horribly awry, causing a terrible cataclysm which ended up tumbling all of Atlantis into a watery grave.
Mariah only survived the tragedy of her people because the ritual had caused her to become trapped in a strange astral plane that most people could only access through their dreams. Mariah ended up on the shores of the land that would one day be Ireland. She found wandering tribes of ancient people and through their dreams, managed to persuade them to worship her as a goddess. Mariah could control the thoughts and actions of people that she manipulated through dreams. She thrived on worship, revelling in sacrifice and delighting in the terror and awe of the ancient Celts.
When the Christians came to Ireland, they drove out the ancient gods, including Mariah, subverting her worshippers to the new religion of Christ. Mariah found herself forgotten by most and she was enraged. She managed to convince a missionary that she was actually a child of God. That missionary began the Brotherhood of Crimson, with Mariah as their spiritual leader. She would visit the men in their dreams, offering them the glory of God in exchange for their devotion and service. However, Mariah was not content with this power any longer. Her greed had grown and she desired to affect the world in a more concrete way. Thus she began her search for a way to be free of the dream plane and once again become active in the physical world.
The Brotherhood of Crimson became dedicated to finding artefacts of power and punishing witchcraft. For a time, they gained favour with the church as a whole and waged a war against pagans. During this inquisition, Mariah came by the knowledge of an amulet from her homeland, The Soul of Atlantis. It was a powerful tool of the Atlantean priests used in various rituals and ceremonies. The amulet had many abilities, among them the power to grant corporeal form to the gods. This was theoretically possible through a complex ritual culminating in a mass sacrifice. The amulet had never been used for this purpose.
Mariah desired the Soul of Atlantis to grant her a physical body once again. She sought it all over Europe. After the Inquisition ended, the Brotherhood of Crimson lost its position of power in the Catholic Church. The members continued their work in secret. Eventually, Mariah tracked the amulet to a single family of Irish witches. She tormented and destroyed nearly all the line, but never found what she was looking for. In her final battle with the last surviving member of the family, as far as she knew, Mariah became trapped in the family’s ancestral home, a long-standing castle. Her “spirit” was bound by a seal carved into the block wall that one of the family’s retainers built to trap her inside the dungeon. The last living witch, Allysse Blaise, had hidden away her infant daughter, Rhiannon. The child went to live with the family of her nurse in a small village.
The amulet was sold to a wealthy baron and passed from person to person for many years. It finally came into the possession of Jadyn Lee as part of the stock of her magic shop, XY. The purpose and powers of the amulet are known only to Mariah herself. When an expedition of anthropologists broke the seal at the castle, Mariah sought out the last dozen members of the Brotherhood of Crimson, and they led her to L.A. where the last known owner of the Soul of Atlantis could be found. The amulet is currently in the possession of Amanda Blaise, the last living descendant of the family of Irish witches who trapped Mariah.
POWERS/ABILITIES:
Mother Mariah has complete control over the dream realm where she is trapped. She can create the illusion of reality within it. The only thing she cannot do is change herself. Therefore, she always appears as a young girl although she possesses the mind and soul of an ancient woman. For a brief period, Mariah can assume a physical form by taking and transforming the body of another. However, the other person must be completely willing, and the transformation lasts only 3 days. At the end of that time, Mariah’s spirit returns to the dream realm and the other person’s body is consumed by fire. While inhabiting the body, Mariah has no powers or abilities other than the ones the person would naturally have.
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