Amarande Jean Baptiste

History
Amarande Jean Baptiste is a Parthenon agent, she is a mage and spiritualist and a firm believer in the Old Gods. She casts multiple spells and also does tarot readings for the group.

Amarande was born in 1895 to an aristocratic family in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She was always a disobedient young child, as she would often get into fights at school, her family members, and even with her friends. She would also miss many days of training as her interests were often elsewhere, for example, lounging in the garden or practising dead languages, music, and shopping endlessly. Amarande is someone who was always described to be incredibly vain, she would spend much of her time getting paintings of herself commissioned to hang in the gallery even though there was no space. Even at a very young age, she started to show a level of hedonism which was disliked by her family, the court and everyone.

Being courteous is something that is to be demonstrated by aristocratic families and common courtesy is not something that Amarande had. She would often come across as a violent and aggressive young child, insulting people that she deemed to be "paupers". She would throw coins at the rough sleepers in the streets of Port-au-Prince. Amarande also developed a habit of destroying furniture with knives she picked up at the dinner table. Which lead to her family being banned from multiple court dinners until she learned how to behave.

One day she decided to insult an old woman who was walking down the same path as her through a forest. The woman, clearly surprised and insulted at the bile this young woman has decided to spew, was very surprised. However, she did not react and went on her way. Amarande saw her as an easy target and decided to run after her, she taunted her some more before pushing the woman and making her stumble. Amarande failed to realise that this was no ordinary old woman, this was a real witch. The old woman transformed before her eyes, her hair changing from limp and white to full, curly and dark, the apples of her cheeks lifted and colour came to her face, her sclera turned from white to pitch black and her clothes began to hug her once formless body. Around the witch flowers began to wilt, the bountiful trees started to lose their leaves and the sunlight began to fade. Amarande realised how severe the mistake she made was. The woman began to point a finger towards the young girl, she muttered a few words causing Amarande to fall on the floor and lose consciousness. Upon awaking, Amarande felt flustered, she dusted herself off and headed towards her house. She appeared to her family unrecognisable, failing in her attempts to convince her family that it is truly her she was cast out of her estate immediately. The witch had cursed her and altered her image, all the ugliness that she has shown towards other people had now distorted her face and her body, leaving her to roam the earth mangled, twisted, and alone.

At 10 years old Amarande became a street urchin, fending for her self by pick-pocketing and stealing from bins. She eventually came across an old hideaway and started to rummage through the things, finding what looked like everything she needed. Warm clothing, bottles for water and half-eaten food which she scarfed down before leaving. Not long after she is stopped by an old man with a long white beard who accused her instantly for stealing. Broken down by the pain of her rejection from her family and the pains of street life, Amarande falls to her knees and pleads for forgiveness and promises to repay the old man. The man had mercy on her and brought her into his house, he explained he has lived a long and full life leading him to be very knowledgeable. Amarande, on her quest for material possessions, failed to realise the columns of books that towered above her small frame, they were dark books full of magic. The man explained that he would keep her and look after her only if she would help to look after him. Reluctantly she agrees despite the fact that she had rarely looked after herself up until this point.

Many years passed and the old man and Amarande became good friends. Amarande tells him her story about how she became homeless, she laughed with the old man while telling him about how she had to run away for pickpocketing, how to expertly cut holes underneath market stalls to take fruit and how to expertly bump into a bakers wagon to steal some fallen bread. She also explained how she wasn't always homeless and how she missed her family. The old man's eyes widened when she revealed that a witch had cursed her and made her unrecognisable. Upon receiving the description of the witch, he jumped up to his feet and grabbed a shelf full of books and threw them on the floor. Her name was Estella, although Amarande did deserve her punishment, Estella was generally an extremely wicked woman. That day he vowed to teach and train Amarande everything he knew in order to defeat Estella, he wanted revenge that he couldn't get for himself. Many decades prior Estella did the unmentionable to Shadrach, she had his wife turned into a tortoise and drowned her in a river.

For 8 years Amarande trained diligently under Shadrach and managed to gain many skills including dark magic, black magic, white magic, west African Juju, voodoo, hoodoo, Haitian Vodou. She also became skilled in throwing knives and fighting with blunt objects. She became stronger and had her first life aspiration which is to become the strongest mage of all time. She also learned a temporary illusion spell to give her a more normal appearance. Shadrach called upon an old god called Ogun to bless Amarande with the knowledge to find and the strength to defeat Estella. He died shortly after, Amarande created a funeral pyre, covered it in oil and flowers then burnt it and called on Ogun to receive his sweet soul.

After an hour Amarande found Estella and the fight began. They battled from dawn until dusk destroying everything in their path. Amarande eventually found that Estella had begun to tire out and cast a Stupification spell which caused Estella's mind to be completely redundant, she fell to the ground drooling uncontrollably. Amarande then cast a Confractus spell to break all of Estella's bones so that she would be unable to cast any spells. She removed the prior spell and forces Estella to tell her how to change her form back to normal. Estella, writhing in pain at the bones piercing her internal organs, agreed and begged for the pain to stop. Amarande transformed into her true form and is surprised at her own transformation. Amarande declined politely and explains that she is fulfilling the wishes of Shadrach to which Estella spat on the floor at the mere thought of his name. She moved Estella to the middle of a field and enchanted the area around her so Estella would not be visible to oncomers. She then called on Ogun to accept her living sacrifice as a "thank you" for helping her. She cast Amatera, a never-ending black fire which would burn Estella every minute of every day until the end of time. Estella's screams were unnerving but unable to be heard by a magical and unmagical ear outside the enchantment area.

Amarande proceeded to raid Estella's house for charms and books and enchanted things. Later on, she was stopped by a Parthenon special operations team lead by Artemis Fogg, who explained that the destruction had caught their attention, they then asked her to come with them back to Parthenon, to be trained. Life had treated her unfairly and she had become callous to the thought of more camaraderie so soon after losing Shadrach, so she declined. Artemis found it easy to pick apart her life story and answered that hate and causing others fear was not a proper way of life and that real peace comes from helping people and true friendship. Amarande decided to be stubborn and agrees to join Parthenon only if Artemis won a game against her. Artemis loses and laughed but Amarande is still very intrigued by him and decided to tag along only to spectate. After meeting the rest of the group she begins to feel like she belongs for the first time in a very long time and eventually becomes a fully-fledged member of Parthenon.

Personal
Despite having a horrible personality as a child Amarande grew to be a well-mannered and polite adult. She is helpful and kind and is always ready to give advice. She enjoys physical affection.

Amarande is a naturally stubborn person, she is firm in her beliefs about many things and it takes multiple conversations about a single subject before she can see a different view.

Amarande is very bad at pranking people, she has no poker face and people can normally tell if she is telling a lie or not. If in the rare occasion that a prank is successful she feels bad and apologises and lets the prankee know instantly.

Although she attempts to carry her resentment in her as a drive to do well she feels as if Shadrach is completely avenged and feels as if she can't carry it anymore however she is not ready to accept it as she spent the majority of her life preparing for the moment of Estella's punishment.

She feels as if the talk with Artemis had realigned her moral compass. She jokingly says she resents him for it.

Trivia
Estella is alive but very crispy

Her favourite snack is sugarcanes Navigation