Leonera Talliers
Leonera Talliers, or Leona to her friends[1], is a character from Black Crusade. She resides in the Malosian village of Birne and is the cousin of Marta Talliers.[2]
Background
Falsely accused of witchcraft, Leonera Talliers was imprisoned in Perdition Hill, a supposedly inescapable prison. Yet she escaped with Sir Diederic de Wyndt and Violca Hanza. After they escaped and Violca left their presence, Leonera led Diederic across the Cineris Forest to her hometown of Birne.[3]
In Birne, Leonera found the reception to her return surprisingly quite hostile. For one, it was thought that her escape from Perdition Hill impossible. For two, her sister Marta Talliers was accused of witchcraft that blighted the village and was awaiting being burnt at the stake for it. At Leonera's behest, Diederic went about proving Marta's innocence. Diederic asked questioned and sometimes pushed hard. His investigation provoked the wrath of a trio of young toughs, whom came to rough up, and perhaps even murder, him and Leonera in the dead of night. After one of the toughs, Rolan Reveaux came at Diederic with lethal arms, Diederic struck a fatal blow against the boy. After Rolan's funeral, Diederic found that he had alienated most of the town.[4]
Diederic soon found himself under attack by wispy and elusive attackers, evil spirits of the woods. Diederic sought to question Silma Reveaux, for she had conspicuously disappeared after expressing her desire for vengeance. Diederic came upon an ancient site of occultist activity and defeated Silma, revealing to be a witch responsible for the attacks against him. He also freed Leonera from possession by a hag spirit. However, it turned out that the reason for Birne's problems was not the casting of a malignant witchcraft but rather the failure of it. Birne's founding families had long ago made pacts with the Fair Folk to offer regular sacrifices. Over time the cost of these sacrifices grew in demand, such that the regular benign sacrifices failed to appease the Fair Folk and regular human sacrifice was needed. The founding families failed to keep up with the demand of the Fair Folk, thus causing the town's prosperity to fail. Meanwhile, the townsfolk not of the founding families believed this to be the work of witchcraft put upon the town, and thus Marta became a scapegoat. Upon realizing much of the town had witch or occultist ties and this fact's concealment, Diederic bitterly left the town and abandoned Marta to her fate despite Leonera's pleas not to.[5]
