Name: Tallis Scorza Morand
Age: Thirty Three
Birth Season: Summer
Occupation: Rancher / Entrepreneur 
Kingdom: Lorendale
Citizen Status: Baroness
Height: 5'3"
Weight: 121 lbs
Body Description: Tallis has a no-nonsense appearance. While she can glamor up when needed, she prefers practical over pretty. Years of labor on the ranch have made her tough and muscular. Though short in stature, Tallis carries herself with the authority of a much taller woman. Her expression is that of a perpetual smirk and a raised, condescending eyebrow.
Values: Survival of the Fittest. Mercy and restraint are cheats and shortcuts that favor the weak and pacify the strong. When Tallis wins, it is because she’s not afraid to use every dirty trick in the book to arise victoriously. When she loses, she takes it on the chin. If she was weak or thoughtless enough to let someone else get the upper hand, she deserves whatever suffering comes as a result.

No Gods, No Masters. Tallis refuses to be ruled. Whether it's the monarchy, the military, or social norms, she bucks authority in favor of charting her own destiny. In her view, social hierarchies and the systems that reinforce them give authority to the weak and ineffectual—ie: nongifted. True power is what nature gives you, not what society hands to you by way of a title. Government of any kind works contrary to this natural law.

Blood is Thicker than Water. Most relationships are transactional and fleeting, but your family is here to stay. She will do anything to protect her family and her twin Cezar above all.

Aspirations/Ambitions: 1) Reunite the Scorzas 2) End the Tyranny of the Weak 3) Profit
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Reputation: Tallis’s grit is paired with a witty tongue and a sparkling smile. Her rough-and-tumble, no-nonsense attitude has made her a skilled saleswoman but a questionable dinner guest. There’s not a person in town without an opinion on Tallis Morand: some think her a low-class charlatan, others think her just a savvy woman of business. She’s the kind of woman that could charm the shoes off your feet, then tell you to go to hell and enjoy the trip.

It doesn't take long to get a glimpse at Tallis’s darker side. She’s arrogant, vengeful, and—for the most part—morally bankrupt. Her hallmark quality is her explosive temper, one that has often deadly consequences for those caught in its radius. Either way, it’s pretty universally held that the charming Cezar Scorza is wasted on this slippery snake in the grass.

Combat Experience: Magnon saw combat training as an essential part of teaching Tallis discipline. Though her gift is by far her greatest asset, Tallis is quick with her fists when need be, though she's more of a skilled tavern brawler than a seasoned warrior. Strong, hearty, but unsophisticated in her movement.
Decay Manipulation — the ability to manipulate the decay of matter. This can look like Tallis causing someone's arm to rot off their body in seconds, causing a person to whither into old age and die right before her eyes, a stone wall to erode away and break into dust, or a barn to decompose all the way down into soil and rusted metal. This manipulation can be targeted to specific parts of the body/being/object or encompass a broader area with many beings/objects. The number of targets and the area they're spread out in affects the rate of decay and Tallis's ability to control it.
Family: Cezar Scorza (twin brother/fake husband) | Acacia Scorza (cousin)
Tale:
Show no mercy, beg no man pardon. Those were the words Magnon Scorza drilled into his daughter from the moment she could understand them. He loved Tallis more than anything and so gave her the greatest gift he believed he could: an upbringing as harsh and unforgiving as the world she’d been born into. Anything else would be a disservice to her and her family. Tallis Scorza was to survive, along with the family name—he’d make sure of it.

Magnon raised Tallis on stories of death and destruction. Her days started with rigorous lessons and ended after hours of back-breaking labor in service of the family business. Magnon’s gift was the ability to manipulate the minds of terrestrial beasts. He could read their moods and bring them to calm. The family made a living as ranchers and butchers, for a happy cow makes for tasty meat. Their livestock’s quality was unequaled, and so business was always booming.

Tallis was never allowed to forget Scorzas still lived under threat. Anything that compromised their family’s survival was a luxury they couldn’t afford. One such thing was the whereabouts of Tallis’s twin brother. Born as a twin, Tallis and her brother were most certainly gifted. With Oscalie dead, Magnon took them to Bertille and had his children branded and separated as infants. When she grew older and learned of his and the book's existence, she begged to see it to find her brother. But no matter how much she begged, Magnon wouldn’t reveal his name or where he’d been sent. The book was the only sacred thing in the Scorza family. The secrecy was for her own protection, he said. Magnon was sure she would thank him later, for there was a reason he kept the two apart. Scorza twins are most powerful when together, and when Tallis’s gift manifested, Magnon felt it necessary to keep the lock far away from the key.

Tallis was a child prone to tantrums. During her fits of anger, she could not be reached or reasoned with. She was destructive, violent, and entirely out of control until exhaustion forced her to relent. When she was very young, Magnon used to wait out these fits and approach her with gentle calm. But everything changed when Tallis was six years old. Just what set her off neither could remember, but no one would forget what happened next. In her fit of rage, Tallis reduced a whole flock of sheep to nothing but maggoty flesh and bones. The barn rotted around her, crumbling in on itself as Magnon fled the destruction.

From that moment on, Magnon’s child-rearing practices changed. Disobedience or malcontent of any kind was not tolerated. Discipline came in the form of a smack across her face or a paddling of her backside. It was the only thing that worked; the only thing that kept her temper in check so the whole world didn’t rot around her. It kept them both safe. Alive. He trained his daughter to use her gift, to exercise control while making herself useful—and Tallis hated her father for it.

It wasn’t until Magnon was near death that she’d start to understand him. Tallis started to see all the little ways he expressed his affection, even if it wasn’t the warmth that she’d craved as a child. On his deathbed, he opened up about the isolation of living without his twin and how it had left an aching void in his soul that nothing had ever filled.

In his final days, Magnon revealed her brother's name, the location of the book and the brand housed with Bertille at the crumbling Scorza estate. With that, Magnon left her with a final charge: to find her brother, right the wrongs of the past, and restore the family to its former glory. Since Magnon’s, not a single ill word about her father has passed Tallis’s lips. In memory, Magnon was an honorable man who did what he had to do to protect his family.

With her father buried, at sixteen she took over the ranch and family business. Despite her age, she was a ruthless bargainer and cutthroat trader. Even without her father’s power, her ability to slow the decay of butchered meats allowed her to run a tight operation. Besides, she wasn’t above sabotaging the competition, causing the flesh of the competitor’s animals to decay on their bones. During this time, Tallis searched for her brother, but to no avail. He seemed to have disappeared.

Without a family to call her own, the Phearsons did what they could to provide Tallis with safe refuge. They were a neighboring family who had taken it upon themselves to “adopt” Tallis after her father’s death. She was frequently seen on their property, whether it was to talk business with Alric Phearson or sit down for a family dinner. Despite their warmth, Tallis always held them at arm’s length. She’d swindled Alric Phearson more than a few times by preying on his goodwill. What could she say? Business is brutal.

It was the Phearsons who introduced her to Cezar. They’d taken it upon themselves to find her a match, and figured she’d get along swimmingly with the young blacksmith. Tallis had no interest in marriage. After all, what would a husband do but encumber her? Give her a point of weakness to exploit? Besides, Tallis had never experienced any sort of sexual attraction, which suited her just fine. But despite her politely declining, the Phearsons set up a meeting with Cezar.

Their meeting did not go entirely to plan. Tallis, who had been cornered into the introduction, balked, throwing a fit that made the tree leaves curl. She stormed off, only trudging back to the Phearsons when she realized their relationship was not one she was trying to wreck. Tallis made nice, intending to see Cezar for an appropriate amount of time before sabotaging the whole thing.

Despite her initial disinterest, there was something between them Tallis couldn’t put her finger on. It was a kinship, a sameness, one that was confusing and frightening all at once. She held her tongue and kept her distance, but her curiosity intensified. Maybe this was what attraction felt like; maybe she was, after all, a whole woman capable of desire. In any case, something strange was happening, and she was determined to find out what.

Tallis, determined to put the whole matter to rest, made her move on Cezar (though he remembers it the other way around). It was during that encounter Tallis found Cezar’s scorpion brand. Tallis demanded answers, but it seemed Cezar had none. He didn’t know about the Scorza legacy, as his adoptive parents had kept his parentage from him. Furious, Tallis went with Cezar to confront his adoptive family. They were good people that feared the Scorza’s power and militancy and wanted to see Cezar grow up free from their ideological clutches. It was that answer that sealed their fate. Tallis killed them and Cezar grew up a garden from their decomposed bodies.

Fearful they would lose one another again, Tallis and Cezar continued their “courtship” and soon married. It was a marriage in name only, and entirely a matter of practicality. A fake marriage to protect Tallis from needing to bear children, the very thought of which turned her stomach. Most importantly, it was one step closer to fulfilling the command Magnon had given her: to restore the family to its former glory. No longer would the Scorzas remain scattered, living in fear while carrying the emptiness of their missing twin in their soul. Tallis and Cezar were going to find them. Find them all.

Face Claim: Tessa Thompson 
Tagging: Eloell | Rigby