Villainy: 10
Strength: 2
Influence: 8
Advantages:
- Time Sense
- Disarming Smile
- Sorcery (2)
- Read
- Arcana (Major and Minor)
- Curse (Major and Minor)
- Pull (Minor)
Hubris: Reunion - Bitterness
Giocanda Fiore is an elderly Vodacce woman with a face full of character and grey hair. It is rumoured to have once been a beautiful courtesan but now she makes her living trading second hand dresses worn by courtesans. For far less than they cost she will lend a dress to a courtesan. Although her life has been intertwined with them for many years she secretly hates courtesans with a passion.
She is in fact a minor noblewoman (Gioconda Villanova) who concealed her sorcerous ability. Her husband arranged for her to disappear as he bored of her once her dowry was his. She persuaded her captors to fake her death and then for them to murder her husband and his mistress with her help. It cost her entire fortune. The gang took everything they felt had value. She found herself living in the palatial residence her husband had set his mistress up in. She had little of value left other than her husband’s lover’s dresses.
Publicly she appears to be a nice old lady trying to get by in her later years – her customers call her Fiore (the flower) which was, in fact, her husband’s mistress’s name. An unlucky few discover the name brothel keepers and slavers gave her la Pandrona di Ferro.
She can repair or modify any existing garment or create a garment with remarkable speed. She knows the latest fashions and styles popular in every court in the land. She knows what parties and events are coming up. She also knows who will be attending and who to bribe for an invitation. She can provide, for a small fee, of suitable garments for guests. For those with liquidity problems she can arrange a lone on reasonable terms.
Through her trading in dresses she knows the true identities of many of the courtesans in the city that is her home. She knows many of the courtesan’s little secrets and through them a great many confidences told to them by those who seek their company.
She has some sorte abilities but prefers not to use them except in direst situations to avoid revealing her past.
Schemes
For a favour or a little money, she can call in at a later date she will reveal the identity of a husband’s courtesan to a wife. She prefers to reveal this to fate witches as their revenge tends to be more interesting. Occasionally she will reveal the identity simply out of spite.
She enjoys slowly increasing the debts owed to her by courtesans till they can no longer pay the usury. Then she will present them with an opportunity to repay their loans working for her friend in a brothel.
For the most beautiful and intellectual of her victims she arranges a meeting with a wealthy benefactor who will pay off the whole debt. In truth these gentlemen are slavers who transport the victim to some distant land where they are sold to the highest bidder.
Notes
Also known as: Fiore and la Pandrona di Ferro (formerly Gioconda Villanova)