Maddie and the Tome

Name: Madeline de Clermont

Age: 8

Personality: Years of special treatment by her family and servants has left her self centred and aloof. Deep down, she firmly believes she is better than you. She pretends to care, but doesn't really love her family in the slightest. She has no friends, because she hates other children. Seemingly the only thing apart from herself that she cares about is the Tome.

Skills: Very good at reading. She spends a lot of time memorising passages from the Tome and can even perform a few spells on her own. She is also a brilliant actor; she's been fooling her parents, friends and servants for years into thinking she is an entirely helpless and sweet young child. History: The daughter of wealthy parents, Josephine and Samuel de Clermont. From a young age she has been sickly and weak, and her father and mother, who love her dearly, have smothered her under the care of servants and nurses and doctors. None have managed to cure her, but she did improve markedly after her father allowed her to sit outside and read when it was warm. What her parents do not know is that the book she picked out of their extensive library was a cursed tome of magic, which soon had her completely under its control.

Name: The Tome

Age: Unknown

Alignment: Evil

Personality: Selfish and arrogant. It has some mysterious goal that involves gathering knowledge, and is perfectly willing to kill and destroy to get it. At the moment, however, it seems content to make its way slowly through the de Clermont library at Madeline's slow pace.

Skills: All the knowledge it has ever collected in any way is stored within its pages. It can control the minds of young or impressionable people if they touch it even once, and through them can perform devastating magical spells.

History: It was placed in the library when the mansion was first built, given to Samuel by a scholar. Before that, the history of the Tome is unknown. It was found recently by Madeline de Clermont, and found her to be extremely useful. Her sickness means that her parents indulge her and allow her to spend all the time she wants in the library, so the Tome can read and collect knowledge.

Other: The two have a strange, symbiotic relationship. The tome protects Madeline and keeps her sickness at bay, while Madeline helps the tome to reach its own mysterious goals. At the moment, this seems to involve collecting as much information on the history of magic as it can.

It is unknown if Madeline understands what she is doing, or whether the Tome controls her mind entirely. Either way, Madeline acts perfectly normally around her family and the servants, but in her own company acts as oddly as the Tome itself. Unless the tome is speaking through Madeline, only she can hear it.

Strengths: Maddie knows a few basic spells on her own; mostly destructive spells. The Tome has a seemingly endless supply of spells and knowledge. The Tome can control the weak minded; all it has to do is get them to touch it once and it can control them whenever it likes.

Weaknesses: Maddie is physically weak, and prone to bouts of violent coughing. Inhaling dust or doing too much exercise is a sure fire way of bringing one on. When Maddie is incapacitated, the Tome is completely powerless, unless there is someone else nearby that it can control, which is unlikely.