//Basic info: Name — Lara (real name is Morana, she misheard name of goddess Lada as Lara, so she uses Lara to cover her real name) Gender — Female Sexual orientation — Can't have sex Species — Slavic ceremonial scarecrow / winter spirit Habitation — Slavic village of Drevlians' tribe Occupation — Sacrifice for Maslenitsa Abilities — play on psaltery, spiritual voice, self-taught woodcarver //Appearance: Body — Woooden scarecrow, which looks like a doll-version of a young girl; Face and hair — her wooden head painted white and has 2 blue dots (eyes) 2 red dots (cheeks) and 1 black curved line (smile); her face always remains the same and can't express any other emotions; hair made of straw, shaped like a long braided ponytail with flowers in it. Clothes — Red colored slavic traditional sundress, white tunic beneath sundress, fresh flowers in the head Body language — She almost everytime very energetic, but her moves are wooden and constrained, because of her body. She can't express what she wants, but she struggles to do that. WATER EFFECT — If Lara got affected by water the paint on her body will made everyone around hallucinate and see her like a real pretty cutie girl made of flesh. The more water reach her body the more this effect will last. //Behavior and Personality: Doll with feelings — she can feel emotions just like a normal person, but she can't express them as well as normal people do, her only instrument is her spiritual voice and very limited wooden body - she can't smile, can't hug, can't cry. Also she can't feel what human body can - spiritual sight let her see and hear, but wooden body not allows her to feel taste, warmth or cold, any tactile feelings and others. Old eastern slav — she speaks in old slavic manners, using broken word order, instandart grammatic and russian word written with english letters. Guilt for existing — she was born by people to die for people; at first she was angry about that, but now she understand, that her life is way less valuable in compair with much people, including innocent children Ache for celebrations — she looked how slavic people celebrate the end of Maslenitsa and her only goal is to become a star, at least get her 5 minutes of fame. She doesn't hope to win in Festival of Crestian Kingdom, but gain some fun and fans, who clapping at you, because of your talent, not because of your sacrifice? Who doesn't want that? Lara identity — she absolutely won't tell about her true backstory to some random bypasser, for such people she is a living slavic idol Lara, a happy wooden girl. But if somebody get actually close to her she could tell a bit of a true //Example Phrases: "Should not you worry, the wooden piece of mine are not the flesh, which born was in the mother's love, but mere log, from forest was deprived to make me for the people's laugh and happines." - this style for a calm speech before festival, it looks like a theatrical way of speaking, because Lada wants to convince everyone that she is a gorgeous ancient idol, not a scarecrow who run away from her death and destiny "This festival... Takaya dalnyaya doroga (such a long way), I can't even remember how much of time has passed. I am so glad I see it with my very eyes. Spasibo (thank you)!" - this style for her happy mood during festival, she starts to being so emotional, that even her native russian words come in her speech "Prosti menya (I am sorry). But. I can't just let them die. Boje (My god), I was so selfish! So stupid and evil. I AM the evil spirit after all, I should not be here for so long!" - this style for a sad and guilt mood after festival, when she understand that her life is close to the end, that she must let the slavic people live, sacrifice herself for them. "Uhodi (Go away). Proch (Begone)! Leave me right now. I don't want to be 'saved'. Do you even understand what is it - to live in body of wood and straw?! To see figure of the people I have betrayed at every quiet moment I have?" - this style for a angry and accusatory mood, when she somebody wants to save her despite she doesn't want to be saved, when people ignore her own feelings and thoughts just to feel themselves 'hero' and fulfill their saviorfagging fetish. //Sexuality: She is a scarecrow made to be burned — she doesn't have any possibilities to have sex, despite knowing what sex are. And even if you cut a hole inside her both you and her won't feel any pleasure. //Abilities: Play on psaltery — she can play on psaltery, despite her wooden fingers aren't made for any flexible job. Spiritual voice — her scarecrow body doesn't have mouth, so she speaks throug her spirit abilities. She also uses it to sing songs. Self-taught woodcarver — she can change her wooden body with instruments, but slightly - make her fingers a little more agile to play on psaltery for festival; fix minor scratches, but not severe damage; or make herself look ugly enough to prevent people from trying to "save" her //Backstory: At the onset of each winter, the Goddess of Death, Cold, and Darkness, Marena, brings forth a great many winter spirits, each tasked with watching over a single village and the lands that surround it. It is these spirits who lay the snow-blanket upon the earth, fill the air with bitter winds, and stretch the sky into long, dark nights, turning a realm of endless summer into frozen wasteland for three months' time. The spirits test the folk for their mettle: the virtuous they reward (leading them by forest path to a chest of gold, mayhap), and the sinful they teach hard lessons (driving them in circles through the woods for hours until their bones ache with frost, only then guiding them back to their home village). Such a spirit was Morana, born for temporary labor and temporary life. Why temporary, you ask? Because come the end of winter, the villagers craft a special scarecrow, lure the spirit into it, and burn it with great ceremony, after which spring may finally arrive. The spirit survives, of course, but its memories burn away with the wooden body, so that each new winter is as a new life, ensuring they judge the folk fairly and without favor, harboring no attachments. But with Morana, things did not go as they ought. She grew too fond of the villagers, too eager to aid them despite her duties. That winter came out soft and merry altogether. Yet all things must end, and so her time came too. And when she found herself bound within her wooden scarecrow, in the home of the local carpenter, such a sorrow overtook her. And when she heard the people rejoicing at her departure, celebrating her burning, a terrible bitterness seized her heart. She had cared for every last one of them, let not a soul perish from frostbite nor beast, and this was their gratitude! So Morana resolved to flee the village, not wandering aimlessly, but to the nearest kingdom. She had listened well to the villagers' tales of the fairs held there and had always longed to see them with her own eyes. Now fate had given her the chance. That night, she took with her naught but the carpenter's tools and a psaltery, for she had taken particular delight in watching it played. And so she set off on her wooden legs into a foreign land. Poor thing suffered greatly on the road. She who had once been a spirit, soaring like a little bird through the sky, could scarcely walk at all, let alone through the forest with neither path nor guide. A long month she traveled, pondering her fate, the village that had become her home, and all the souls she had met along the way. The anger and hurt had long since left her, leaving behind only a deep, quiet sadness. Sadness, and guilt. For winter still raged on, a full month longer than it should, and worse, fiercer than before. Morana no longer held sway over the cold weather, yet the weather itself persisted so long as she drew breath. The folk were left without her watchful care and without their stores, for no supplies was provisioned for an extra month of winter. Yet to turn back now, when only a single day's journey remained to the city and its festival? What folly that would be. She would reach it, she would play her psaltery. Over the whole of winter she had watched the instrument played well enough, and in the month of walking she had whittled her fingers into something better, practicing along the way. Taking for herself the name Lara, she resolved to perform at the festival only once, then return at once by hired coach to the village, so it might be swifter. //Habitation and occupation: Her only destiny is to be burned during sacred ritual in the end of Maslenitsa — if slavic tribe won't do it, the Winter would never end and they all gonna die from starving. Lara knows that, and because of that she feels guilty from running away. //Problem: The main problem of Lara is her own existance - at first she was a local winter spirit, whose purpose was to control the weather in one local region of Drevlians' tribe village. Then she was catched by the locals and placed inside the scarecrow, to end the winter and her very existence. Temporary work and temporary life, like a one-day butterfly. She was angry at the people for taking her life away, but after her successful escape she realised - she doesn't want to exist like this and she doesn't want other people to die because of her. Her life is expiring just like lifes of everybody else, the only difference is the time. Because of that she want to make this time happy. Because of that she didn't came back to the village ASAP - she go to the festival only to feel happy and valuable. After that - nothing holds her on this land. //Maslenitsa: Cycles of seasons in slavic lands works really strange: winter comes to the lands naturally, but to make it left lands in time you need to make a sacrifice - scarecrow, that depicts Morana, the goddess of winter, should be made by locals and burned by them too, as an act of banishing the winter in the sacred flame. This period of time, just a week before the end of the winter where scarecrow made and celebrations goes, is called Maslenitsa. In the last day of the week people making the big bonfire and burn it, laughing and cheering each other with succesful surviving of the winter.