User Profile

Character: Winnowill
Series/Fandom: Elfquest
Original or Alternate: Original Verse
Age: Winnowill is about 19,000 years old, but she only looks to be around her late twenties/early thirties in human terms.
Gender: Female
Species: Elf (Gliders tribe)
Sexuality: Heterosexual, though she may change her orientation to suit her objectives and/or circumstances.

Appearance: “Perhaps you’ve seen her face: beautiful…white…like a mask made of eggshell…” – Cutter

Unlike the majority of her kind, Winnowill still retains the tall, lithe build of the original elves that first set foot on the World of Two Moons. However, her statue is hardly her most noticeable feature. Her black, straight hair is far longer than she is tall, the locks appearing to possess a deep blue tinge in the light. Thus they both starkly contrast and complement her skin, pale but containing the faintest hint of blue. Her face is angular, the coldly elegant lines only accented by a pair of sharply pointed ears and slanted, almond-shaped eyes. Although they are typically green, Winnowill is able to change their hue as she pleases. Her lips and the rest of her body are equally as deceptive – seemingly benign temptations hiding the deadly intentions beneath. Like all other elves, she has only four fingers on each hand and four toes on each foot.

As for clothing, Winnowill prefers those that are flowing and surprisingly uncomplicated, but do nothing to hinder her natural charms. When she was younger, she was rarely seen without flowers twined in her hair, a habit she has since dropped. When she is taken to Econtra, she is wearing this.

Personality: “All forms of power should be at the disposal of the powerful.” – Winnowill

Winnowill’s willpower and sheer determination is probably the central focus of the twisted web that is her persona. Indeed, she is above nothing when it comes to getting what she wants: not lying, seduction, abduction – not even murder. For her, the ends justify the means. She has a tendency for holding grudges and nursing old wounds. When combined with her natural elfin longevity, it has made Winnowill into quite a patient person, especially in matters of revenge. When angered, she is a force to be reckoned with, but her calm demeanor conceals her rage so effectively – or not – that her retribution seems very sudden and often cannot be identified until it is too late. Despite what she says (and perhaps believes), Winnowill is a very selfish person. She dislikes boredom yet also hates change. Or rather, change that threatens her in any way. Prideful and controlling, she sees herself as superior to others and guards whatever power she has acquired jealously. She has little love for the “impure” – namely, the wolf-blooded Wolfriders – of her kind, and does not consider them worthy to live. Winnowill is subtly sadistic, finding much amusement in the pain of others. However, she is not satisfied with merely observing suffering; she will frequently go out of her way to create situations in which such anguish can be amplified for her enjoyment. But these “pain-games” require victims, and so how she is perceived by others is very important to Winnowill. Whether she’s using a pretense of power or kindness to coerce others into doing her bidding, Winnowill is as duplicitous as her nickname: “The Black Snake.”

Abilities/Strengths: “To have such gifts…and yet to let them slowly starve…feeding only on bitterness…and pain!” – Rayek

The ability that Winnowill is most infamous for is “black sending,” a sort of mental attack causing pain alike to the sensation of having one’s own thoughts turned into cutting knives. She has mastered this technique, able to easily control just how much agony to give: mild and brief for reprimands or warnings to intense and prolonged for thoroughly breaking someone mentally. In addition to “black sending,” Winnowill is also proficient in its less twisted counterpart: sending, a form of telepathic communication among all elves. With her talent in those two areas, getting into her mind is a near impossible task except for those with sufficient mental prowess. Intercepting one of her “lock-sends” (a sending designated to be received by only one person) is just as difficult. But Winnowill herself has no problem with prying into other peoples’ thoughts; in her ability to read minds, the degree of success increases when her victim is asleep, does not have enough mental strength to fend off her intrusions, or has already been under her control for a long time. It also seems that she can grow more powerful by feeding off the dreams and powers of those she has influence over. Any who lock wills with her will find themselves plagued nightly by horrific visions and dreams, perverse versions of memories that Winnowill doesn’t even allow herself to revisit. However, this is more of an inadvertent side effect than an actual ability. She is extremely skilled in manipulation and persuasion. Her theory is that wherever there is need, control is as simple as fulfilling it and then creating other needs to be fulfilled in an endless cycle.

Winnowill is skilled at shaping flesh, able to reshape her own body, changing her physical features. She can shape another’s body, but in that case, the changes are often painful and irreversible. She can also reshape ordinary animals into monsters with deadly powers.

Though she is seldom seen using them, Winnowill does still possess her original powers of healing, which range from mending physical wounds to soothing mental turmoil. She can also send her spirit out, something similar to astral projection. In this condition, she can capture spirits of those who have also sent themselves into the void.

Weapons: None; she is a weapon by herself.

Weaknesses: “That is what comes of going outside to find what has lain within all the while.” – Winnowill

Ironically, much of Winnowill’s abilities stem from her primary weakness: the fear of becoming weak. Her original powers were not as malevolent as they are now, but through centuries of disuse, they have twisted in on themselves. This process has dragged her down into a subtle madness. One of her greatest strengths, being able to persuade others into seeing her point of view, has also ensnared her to the point where she herself sincerely believes in her own warped perception of the truth and that what she does is for the good of all. Additionally, she rarely places blame on herself. Being accustomed to complete and undisputed sovereignty in Blue Mountain, she is also somewhat overconfident when it comes to dealing with people who are not under her rule. Winnowill has the tendency to focus too narrowly on things, forgetting all else except accomplishing her purpose. When she is intensely concentrated on healing or has sent her spirit out, her body is left in a trancelike, and very vulnerable, state.

Although she is a healer herself, Winnowill fears the touch of healing on her. For then her comforting insanity would be taken away, forcing her to confront her long-locked away memories and the guilt surrounding them (yes, she was capable to feeling guilt back then!).

And for one so dependent on deception, her own ability of “sending” is a weak point for her: in sending, there can be nothing but the truth. So though it affords her a measure of secrecy and therefore an advantage, it increases the difficulty of manipulating someone through it.

History: “It was all there in the Egg – there for all to see if they had the minds to look!” – Winnowill

Far away from the World of Two Moons, a star was dying. Its inhabitants gathered up their pets, the trolls and winged preservers, and created vessels from the dying star. These shells would be their vessels, used to travel through space, looking for another place to live. However, the course of one of those shells was thrown off by a rebellion of the trolls on board, making it crash-land on the World of Two Moons. The shell and the passengers had taken on the shape of human legend, of a castle and elves, in order to hopefully communicate with the humans. However, the rebellion caused the shell to land in the wrong time as well. The humans from that time period were little more than what you might consider cavemen and didn't understand the elves, reacting to their presence by killing them. The survivors fled, finding their own sanctuaries on the strange new world. They were known as the High Ones.
Winnowill was probably the Firstborn of these marooned elves. Like many of her kind, she was afraid of the strange, decaying influence the World of Two Moons had on her. And so, she joined another Firstborn, Voll, and his followers in seeking refuge. They found it in the depths of Blue Mountain, and set to work on making its interior an imitation of the Palace. Voll's dream of keeping the elves safe was reached, but so was a state of stagnation. Blue Mountain could only hold so many, so the elves inside - known as Gliders - stopped reproducing. Winnowill, Voll's supporter and lovemate as well as the Gliders' healer, was left with nothing to do. The Gliders were all secure. Having not discovered her flesh-shaping skills yet, this basically meant she was useless. And bored.

As they say, an idle mind is the devil's workshop. Winnowill started creating small "accidents" in which Gliders would be inexplicably wounded in order to keep herself sane. But even she did not know the festering of her gifts had already begun, eating away at her sanity. She and Lord Voll became alienated from each other, neither understanding the other anymore. Winnowill's frustration over Voll led her to leave Blue Mountain in search of the long-lost Palace, to present to him as a gift. On the way, however, Winnowill discovered something far more interesting...

The trolls had been exiled on the World of Two Moons along with the elves. They too had changed and evolved, settling mainly in the north. Smelt was a troll who was sent by his king to seek out elves with the ability to shape rock in order to fulfill the trolls' greedy desires for precious metals and jewels. Smelt, regrettably, lost his way and was found by Winnowill starved and nearly dead. In the most secret recesses of Blue Mountain, Winnowill nursed him back to health. It was a new experience for her, having to deal with someone from the outside world. She found it incredibly fascination to manipulate him, and one of her ventures in this area led to her seduction of Smelt and the subsequent birth of Two-Edge, her son of half-elfin and half-troll blood. However, Smelt eventually remembered his original purpose. When he tried to capture one of Blue Mountain's rockshapers, Winnowill killed the troll, infuriated that he threw away everything she gave him. But even though the source of her anger was dead, Winnowill was far from done.

Over the years, she kept Two-Edge locked up, torturing him with her "pain-games" until his mind and sanity was split in two. After destroying Two-Edge mentally, she turned her attention on all of Blue Mountain, slowly extending her influence over all the elves inside until she was Lord in all but name, for Voll still lived. But he was also a victim of her manipulations; Winnowill kept him in a constant state of fear of the world outside, even sending away the preservers who originally came with them so he would not be curious to venture outside Blue Mountain and out of her influence.

This was to change, however, when the Wolfriders arrived at Blue Mountain. Winnowill first attempted to enslave them, but found that they were slipping from her control and that her carefully constructed world inside Blue Mountain was also crumbling. She tried everything to keep her iron grip over the Gliders and Lord Voll, even kidnapping the son of the Wolfrider chieftain, but it was all for naught. Voll returned to his senses and was inspired by the Wolfriders to seek out the Palace on his own. Winnowill, incapacitated by the touch of the Wolfrider's healer, was unable to stop him.

Voll was eventually killed in his search, meaning that Winnowill was now the absolute Lord of Blue Mountain. She lost no time in regaining control over the Gliders. Except for Chosen Eight, her personal guards, she sent all the rest of the Gliders to sleep and fed off their dreams and powers. For three years this state continued, until one day Aroree, one of the Chosen Eight, returned with a Wolfrider child, intending him as a replacement for herself. As the child had been born of a Wolfrider and a Glider, Winnowill accepted him, entering herself into another clash with the Wolfriders. She "cleansed" the child of the wolf blood, making him immortal, and started working on her grand plan to turn Blue Mountain into a second Palace so she could leave the tainting World of Two Moons with all pure-blooded elves, though not after killing all the tainted elves.

However, she was whisked away to Econtra before her plan could be enacted. Too bad.

Barracks Assignment: Loh-Tria
Player's LJ: biverbal

This is a role-playing journal for featheredsnake by biverbal.
[Elfquest/Winnowill] © [Wendy and Richard Pini].
All content is fictional and for entertainment purposes only, not for profit.