Nicola Crandall
Nicola Marie Crandall
People think having this extra knowledge is great, but it really isn’t. Knowledge is a burden. Have you ever heard of a Cassandra complex? When you know what is going to happen but no one listens to you? No one believes you?Nicola is the main character of Too Wyrd and the Runespells series. She is a single mom, herbalist, Heathen witch... and she is fluent in both Sarcasm and Snark. While Nicola is clever and intellectual, and a pretty strong witch, she has a lot of self-doubt and she isn't exactly what you would call in shape. Nicola's loyalties are strictly based around her friends and family. While it's very difficult to earn being one of her close friends, she will often go to bat for others who aren't quite as close but have earned her respect. Even Nicola doesn't know how to categorize those people in her life who she finds worthy of her loyalty but aren't her friends. Of course, there are different priorities to this, and Nicola would throw everyone she knows under the bus for her daughters, Ella and Maria. Nicola believes in her responsibilities as a parent: to give her children the skills and psycho-emotional support for each of them to be as excellent a person as possible. This means tickle-fights, reading bedtime stories, and a firm routine of chores, including learning to cook and to help make the potions Nicola sells online. Nicola has a strained relationship with her mother, MaryLou. Their relationship revolves around Nicola's daughters. Grandma loves the girls, and the girls love Grandma. Unfortunately, that's really all Nicola has in common with her mother. The only other family member to have Nicola's loyalty is Muriel, her step-sister. Muriel is much younger, prone to getting herself into a lot of trouble, and disappears for years at a time. She is also the reason Nicola got involved with the Bridge Kids, as Muriel has spent most of her adult life homeless.
Every damn thing, every damn day, I get all this information about what would make him better, what would bring her the most happiness in life.
You think they are going to listen to the woman who walks up and tells them to quit their job because the thing they need to do is bake cookies? Or that they need to break up with their significant other because someone better is waiting for them, but I can’t tell them who it is because that would make things happen in the wrong order and mess it up? Ha!
People want the Lotto numbers for this week, not to be told that they should work on their communication skills because, in their job, they are going to repeat the mistakes of their past life as a farmer-turned-messenger during the Siege of Calais. That’s crazy talk! Even when I know it’s true, it sounds like a load of crap.
~ Nicola
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Nicola is a bit curvy. She goes between various levels of not-quite in shape, but can almost keep up. She's constantly saying she's going to get into better shape, but she gets busy with other things.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Nicola grew up in English, a small town south of Indianapolis, near Jasper. It was a quiet place in the Hoosier National Forest, with few people and fewer things to do. It was a pretty racist area, but she ended up stuck there.
Her family moved there because her father worked in manufacturing and was supervisor for a Toyota plant. Her mother worked as an office manager (read: secretary) for various offices in the area. She bounced around, because she didn’t want people to know too much about her and the fact that she was more black than the Hispanic she passed for.
Nicola moved to Indianapolis for college, and stayed there for a full decade. When she became pregnant with Ella, she moved back to English and settled in for small-town life.
Gender Identity
Cis-female
Sexuality
Heterosexual
Education
Nicola has a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology with a minor in Psychology.
Employment
Nicola uses her experience as a Pagan in Indianapolis and the fertile ground around her modest home to grow plants for use in potions, oils and incenses that she sells online. She also gives workshops and presentations, traveling to the Indianapolis and Bloomington areas, as well as Chicago and Louisville.
Mental Trauma
Nicola has several layers of PTSD due to the "adventures" she's had searching for the Runespells.
Her main traumas include:
Her main traumas include:
- Too Wyrd Spoiler
learning about demons, valkyrie and gods being really real
- Too Wyrd Spoiler
Keith's death
- Fluffy Bunny Spoiler
the drowning initiation for the Hand of Aesclepius
- Fluffy Bunny Spoiler
rape via magical emotional manipulation
- Fluffy Bunny Spoiler
seeing her daughter's throat cut
- The Chains That Bind Spoiler
killing Bob
- The Chains That Bind Spoiler
being beaten by Bob
- The Chains That Bind Spoiler
seeing Joseph get shot
- Blood of the Moon Spoiler
nearly drowning in the Bering Sea
- Blood of the Moon Spoiler
Catherine's death
Intellectual Characteristics
Nicola is extremely intellectual, though "logical" might be a stretch. Instead, she has a rather interconnected web of thought patterns that jump around. She can make logical leaps easily and much of her thinking brings in oddities such as old jingles, movie quotes, and song lyrics.
Because of the nature of Nicola's adventures, she gets knocked out often. This is usually due to psychological overload rather than physical trauma, though that happens enough as well.
Too Wyrd Spoiler
“Nicola! Can you hear me?”
Yeah, I can hear you, annoying voice from beyond the not-cotton illusion. Put me back in the warm light!
“Nicola, try to wake up. You have to wake up.”
Do not! I'm dead and done for. I get to sleep now. Until my eternal rest is disturbed. Then I have to stumble and kill.
I frowned. I felt quite disturbed now. Should I do the stumbly-mummy thing?
I opened my mouth and went for a moan. It came out raspy and weak, but it was a start.
“That's it, Nicola. You can do it.”
My eyes fluttered open and I blinked at Joseph staring down at me. I was a little saddened by that. I didn't want to stumble after Joseph and kill him. But them's the rules.
~ Nicola, Too Wyrd
Morality & Philosophy
Nicola focuses on objective truths and realistic odds. This means that she may desire to be more of a white knight (as Joseph insists on), but she has run the numbers and the odds are not in favor of that being even possible, never mind probable.
The Chains That Bind Spoiler
Joseph snorted. “Seems stupid to me,” he said, nodding at the god’s missing hand. “You certainly didn’t come out of it very well.”
Tyr tilted his head to one side. “How do you think I should come out of that?” he asked. “How do you think Nicola should come out of this?”
Joseph frowned. “I-I don’t know,” he said. “I guess, you know, she’s the hero. She should come out of it... well, heroically?”
The god nodded. “And what does that look like?”
Joseph leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table and pursing his lips thoughtfully. “Heroes are the good guys. They have honor and integrity. They are honest and noble, and they do the right thing.”
Tyr gave us a sad smile. “That’s very nice,” he said. “All tidy and happily ever after. Who in the Nine Worlds gave you the impression that that’s how life works?”
Joseph gaped. “Well... I, I guess... I don’t know.”
“Hollywood,” I suggested. “Fiction from the romantic period.”
Tyr nodded and leaned forward, staring into Joseph’s face. “Heroes go to war, one way or another,” he said, his voice low and calm, but as hard as iron. “Heroes fight and die. And the dead ones-”
“Go to Valhalla,” Joseph cut in. “I know that part.”
“But did you know that it’s not the ideal afterlife?” Tyr asked. “Did you know that fighting in Ragnarok is a kind of consolation prize for those who cannot join their families in the afterlife?”
Joseph frowned. “But you guys are all about the fighting...”
I shook my head but kept silent as Tyr continued.
“We are all about family,” he corrected Joseph in a quiet voice. “The fighting is a necessity. The fighting is how we keep the Jötun from sweeping over the world. The fighting is our sacrifice for you mortals.” He sat back. “And for our sacrifice, we’ve watched you turn the harsh and horrible reality of war and battle and fighting into a grand, idealized thing to praise.”
~ Nicola, The Chains That Bind
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Nicola accepted the quest to hunt down the Runespells and prevent Ragnarok.
Social
Family Ties
FAMILY TREE NOT AVAILABLE
Relationships
Legal Status
Fostered, then Adopted
Species
Professions
Year of Birth
1982
39 Years old
Spouses
Keith Ludlow
(Ex-Lover)
Siblings
Muriel Crandall
(Step-sister)
Children
Pronouns
She/Her
Gender
Female
Eyes
Amber (brown)
Hair
Black, slightly curly
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Tanned olive
Height
5'9" or 1.75m
Weight
180lbs or 81.65kg
Old Norse - beginner
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