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Player: Andreas
Email: drayb@juno.com
Age: >17
Character: Mercedes Sledge
Nature: Human priestess of vaudun
Age: 56 (but she doesn't usually tell)
Appearance: Height: 5'1" Weight: 110 pounds (she is very slender but curvy, and has the body of a woman in her 30's, sleek and tones). Hair: black and soft as angel's hair, like Diana Ross, with twin streaks of gray at her temples; she wears it in intricate cornrows, often with colorful beads, and the silvered braids frame her oval face like jewelry. Skin: the color of dark honey. She is an ageless beauty, of the sort that made British plantation owners and Creole gentleman give their hearts to the mistresses, not their wives. Large, smoky gray-green eyes, like cloudy emeralds, a full mouth and slightly aquiline nose (it's where Chris gets it from). Most of us would be happy to look as good at 30 as she does in her fifties. At the Rouge she dresses casually, in jeans and shirts and sneakers--but in the shop she often chooses silk blouses and gauzy skirts, or embroidered caftans or African robes. Whatever she wears, it looks like the height of fashion on this tiny empress. Her voice is soft and husky as Lauren Bacall's, with a Jamaican accent lending music to her speech, even after all these years.
Personality: Mercedes is the most even-tempered human being in the world, unless someone hurts someone or something that she loves, and then look out! Her loyalty, love and compassion seem boundless, as does her well of humor and charm. (Another gift she passed onto Chris). She is an excellent wife, mother, and career woman, who makes juggling the demands of family, work, and vocation as priestess seem effortless. Her husband and sons adore her, as do her clients at The Wise Woman, and the patrons of the Rouge. She probably has a flaw, but no one's discovered it yet--and actually, it is her fear of being consumed by her incredibly strong necromantic powers, which she has refused to use or even confront--until she met Maeve who is at least her equal, and faces even greater danger than Mercedes did if she is not instructed in their use.
Abilities: Knowledgeable in the properties of herbs and plants in both alternative medicine and magic. A priestess of Vaudun, sworn to serve Erzulie, oen of the gentler of vaudun pantheon. She probably could raise zombies but will not. Her magic is used only for good. She willn ot carry the ingredients for darker spells (like black candles and certain plants) and prefers to limit her books to helpful or at least non-harmful magic.
She is also somewhat conversant with Western magic in several forms--Golden Dawn, Wicca, Norse paganism--but wouldn't use them herself, preferring her own cultural heritage. She's studied Santeria as well as some of the African religions, because they are related to her own form.
Background: Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Mercedes met Harry Sledge while he was still in the Navy. His family were not amused when he told them he wanted to marry a shopgirl who was a voodoo priestess. Harry's family, upper-class California African-Americans who had managed to own their own business for two generations, disowned him. He married her anyway, applied to MBPD, and made it on his own ability. Mercedes went to MBU, majoring in anthropology, and the degree plus two grandsons (Harry's brother and sister all had girls) healed the breach. The Sledges Senior preferred to ignore their daughter-in-law's religious beliefs, so long as the boys were properly baptized as Catholics and raised in the Church, which they were. (Mercedes didn't feel it was necessary to tell them she had also taught her sons about her gods and goddesses as well; it wasn't their business,a after all.)
When the boys were in school full-time,she opened her shop The Wise Woman, which was New Age before there was such a thing. She hired students from the MBU anthropology grad program to help out, but it is her personality that shaped the shop. Once the boys were in college, she got the masters in anthropology and folklore she'd always wanted, and has continued to take the odd anthro and theology class when the spirits move her. When Harry was approaching retirement, he decided to open a club cum restaurant with a Caribbean theme.
Mike, their younger son, was just out of the Navy and finishing up his MBA, and using the large chuck of change they inherited from Harry's parents, they created the Rouge. Harry had always wanted to be chef, and had taken cooking classes whenever possible--the year before they opened the restaurant, he apprenticed to a well-known chef in San Francisco for six months, get a diploma from a cooking school--and voila! Le Club Rouge. Harry cooks, Mercedes supervises, Mike handles the host duties along with a student from UM, and he also does the financial stuff. Six months after it opened, the club is running in the black and making a very nice profit. Mercedes is free to devote more time to her shop and her evenings of counseling and teaching, and she has just taken Maeve Desmond as a pupil in necromancy.
