Warning: This is a page about a Succubus, so stuff that usually would be put on a separate page is just gonna be talked about openly. Heavier topics will at least be collapsed and skippable.
Elizabeth 'Vayn' Fontaine, also just called Beth by her friends, is a "half daemon", an escaped Orsen sex slave, a former mercenary, and speculatively, an eventual sex worker and porn studio manager. She is a sympathetic antagonist throughout Brave Earth: Prologue.
There is truly no such thing as a "Half Daemon" in BE, but it serves as an informal way, even in universe, for Vayn. Since Daemons(This link is a little out-dated, especially about Hybrids, but close enough) aren't real living beings but just ideas or a "thought" floating around in the astral plane, they can't really reproduce.
Vayn is a human woman with a daemon fused onto her soul like a parasite.
The "AI Script Personality" of the Daemon sits in her and influences her subtly. It's been with Vayn her entire life so it's impossible for her to distinguish the difference between it and her.
Since the "Script" for most Daemons is so simple, it's mostly overridden by her human thoughts. Instead it acts more like a part of Vayn's id. It what gives her that deep need to do succubus things.
People generally polarize free 'soul' energy around them to their own, like the cushion of warm air outside the skin that helps insulate us. Vayn is like that on a windy day. No layer -- it's been blown away -- and she is constantly losing energy/warmth.
When Vayn's soul is drained and unprotected, the Daemon is more in control. Usually this manifests by Vayn herself getting stronger urges and desires, but when it's really bad, her behavior becomes just as mechanical as a daemon's.
When she makes an intimate emotional connection with someone, be it through loving intimacy or fear and horror, she can take some of that buffer layer.
She can also drain past that, draining their soul and killing them. This doesn't destroy or eat the soul. It's more like dehydrating someone spiritually. The soul will eventually rehydrate but well they're already dead so--
The feeling of being drained is one of a lingering doom. It's as small as just a small, uncomfortable worry if she's sipping, to inducing a full on panic attack when she's
really draining someone.
Eventually, after Tower in the Sky, Sinlen makes Vayn a ring that stops the soul shedding, making management of her sexual/magic needs much easier. The ring, atop of a collection of friends she can consensually drain, helps Beth live a much more normal life. Beth also has a collection of other abilities and traits, both from being a succubus and from other life experiences.
Vayn can float, freely and phase through objects. While limited flight is part of the succubus tool kit, this exact free floating type of movement is more due to the fact that she is liminal, existing just as much in the aether field (the buffer zone that overlaps between the material and astral) as the physical world
As such she can't pass through people or magical materials, since they also exist in astral space.
Vayn can take other people or things through with her. Anything left 'between' will forcefully eject itself, so she can't say, embed someone in concrete, though she could say, trap someone between the floorboards
There has to be a sense of trust for this to work though. She can't forcefully phase people, nor objects under their control (at least without successfully snatching it first)
She can have wings though. Vayn can transform into a full horned, clawed succubus form. This seems to give her a huge boost in power and energy but coming back out of it leaves her at a big energy deficit.
Vayn knows a lot of "cosmetic magic" and a lot of "Sensation magic", some of this coming more natural to her because she's fused with the succubus.
She, like a lot of naturally magic people, is shockingly strong for her size.
Vayn is one of the most durable, fasted healing non-Sashni characters. She can heal almost instantly from most wounds, but any grievous wound basically forces her to feed.
Vayn doesn't seem to age, kinda stopping in a position that seems like it might be her early to mid 20s? Though with how she styles itself it's hard to tell. With the right styling and behavior, Vayn can pass from anywhere from being 18 to being in her 30s.
Vayn is gorgeous, but it's impossible to tell how much of this is genetics, how much of this is the Succubus, and how much of this was body modification surgeries forded on her in Orso Moldano. Regardless, she seems to have a supernatural allure.
History
Vayn's history is largely unclear. Her traumatic life has lead to memory problems and most of what she remembers is vague. As such she doesn't even remember when she was born.
Beth was born at a large but remote fishing town on the south west of Ryaith. This basically puts them close to Orso Moldano, unfortunately.
Her mother was some kind of sexual single mother. Beth doesn't remember if she was a sex worker, or just got around or not.
At some point, her mother was raped by an incubus.
Daemons technically don't need to reproduce. They more 'bud'. But since they're weird free floating ideas, sometimes they symbolically 'breed' before budding.
Beth's mom was already pregnant. She has memories of her mom claiming this and later Sinlen confirms that this was the only possibility that makes any sense.
So the newly budded -cubus soul binds to the unborn Beth.
It's gender expression is pretty flexible (it probably spawns succubi and incubi when budding or they might even change as they fade in and out of existence)
Beth grows up pretty normally from here. The succubus, dried up from being in a child with no sexual thoughts, was dormant until Beth got older and became sexually active. Beth probably remembers rumors about her at the time because of the incubus story and boys talking about feeling 'weird things' with her, but it was still too starved out to do much.
Enslavement and Slavery
At some point in the early 400s, Beth's village is attacked by Orsen slavers, awakening the daemon in her. By the end of this section she is owned by famous Orsen Warlord, Lana Steiner, who trusts her.
Warning: This stuff is nasty and heavy and goes heavily into some really dark sexual topics. None of this needs to or will be directly discussed in any Brave Earth games out side of maybe vague allusions to her time as a slave, but it effects who she is a character. None of the collapsed details are strictly necessary to read the rest of the page.
The village is brutally sacked. Beth gets gang raped by a group of raiders.
The daemon fully awakens, shredding and killing many of her attackers.
Eventually she is subdued and confined.
At this point, Beth's mind sinks back and the daemon takes over. Attractive Daemons are popular in Orso Moldano among the rich elite as extravagant sex toys. While dangerous,
it's often seen as very possible to take advantage of their simple programming. A succubus will be better at sex than a captured, coerced slave, won't get old, won't get uglier when neglected and misused, and as long as you keep it well fed, with some magical defenses as backup, won't drain it's owner. This is what Beth was, for many years.
While Beth would feel control return a lot, she basically assumed she was a daemon and just followed the impulses. She was too traumatized to do anything else.
During this, Beth received many body modifications, bio-magic material injected into her body to change her proportions, corset her body under the skin, and even change her face. While many of these modifications were made with later customization in mind (using magic to forcefully and painfully reshape her body to the desire of the owner), Beth doesn't remember how she's "supposed" to look.
While these types of modifications are common among the elite of Orso Moldano and their prized slaves, Beth got more extensive work done because they figured being a daemon who could heal would make her more tolerant of it. This wasn't exactly wrong.
Magic-Metal bolts are driven through Beth's wrists and ankles to keep her from phasing through stuff. Her body simply healed around them. While faint, the scars can still be seen on her today.
While most of this period is a dream like blur, during this time she met two people who recognized that she wasn't truly a daemon.
The first was Enko the Flesh Carver, a notorious, heavily body modded witch who specialized in the poorly understood area of bio-magic (No where else in the world uses such magic as extensively).
Enko loves bring out things inner beauty and making people into art. But her beauty standards are warped and weird.
She's oddly kind to her victims. While she has to work on many slaves and does her job without mercy or sympathy, she tends to talk to them very frankly and give them advice. She takes no shame in her job, but her job is to make people look how she's paid to make them look, not to make them better slaves or whatever.
So as such, when she realizes what's going on with Beth (who at this point, doesn't even have a name), she explains it to her and explains how she could try and push the daemon down.
It is possible that the next person only learned Beth was human because of Enko...
The second was another slave, Lana, scrawny a desert elf.
Also a sex slave, Lana was frequently abused by their master for under performing or not being attractive enough.
She wanted to escape before she got carved up like Beth did.
Beth teaches her how to read and Lana and her both learn magic in secret.
Eventually Lana escapes and Beth is left to return to the haze of mindless sex servitude and abuse. Several years later, her master, an Orsen Count, is killed by a returning Lana, now muscular and imposing. Due to Orso's Right of Conquest, the title is given to her as long as she can hold it. Usually when a slave does this, it is a matter of days before they are displaced. Usually it's a blood rapid succession. A Slave gets an Orsen title, then a guard kills the slave, then a lower house noble kills the guard and either they get eaten by a larger house or they actually manage to earn a title.
Lana Steiner was an exception, having become a small mercenary warlord with the help of Enko who, sensing Lana's innate talents, modified her body to be supernaturally strong.
Lana became one of Orso Moldano's more infamous nobles, conquering her way up the ranks and having a powerful retinue, often made up of enemies she liked.
Lana, instead of rejecting the society that hurt her, embraces it fully. The only way to be secure and to trust people is to own them. No one can hurt you if you're the strongest.
Lana Beth becomes part of her retinue. She gets to choose a name for herself. Vayn.
The next few years is one that traumatizes Vayn in a different way. Vayn goes from abused slave to an abuser. She is responsible for training Lana's slaves, a job that she ends up sadistically loving. It's basically a multi year bender of sex drugs and murder. Vayn basically indulges the monster inside her. But she is still a slave to Lana, even if Lana gives her a lot of freedom.
Vayn never stops being sadistic from here on out, but as time goes on she gets healthier about it.
Lana gives her one of Enko's inventions that she likes too. A bio-magic orb that sets inside the vagina that when summoned, would fuse with the flesh to form a big demon dick.
Vayn realizes she reaaally likes being the penetrator in sex. Be it a bit of incubus in her or projecting her own trauma, Vayn likes having the dick.
In current times, she treats it as part of herself. If she didn't have it, she'd feel incomplete. It's an important part of her sexual expression.
Eventually guilt starts building up in Beth. She can't keep doing this. She recognizes that Lana is a monster and she is complicit.
The Case for Vayn as a Trans Woman
Beth currently is cis, but with Loni being the only trans BE character, and a side character, there is a case to make one of the more prominent characters trans. Beth has a lot of little details in her story that makes the change both easy and sensible to the character. Since this would happen during her time as a slave, it's best to discuss here.
Beth has some gender fuckery traits, is technically bound to an incubus and come from the body modification hell hole.
Beth transitioning in Orso Moldano would be an extreme issue if it was forced. Even though that's my shit, it makes sense if it was a favor from Lana (who is gay, anyways and has no need for a twink).
Which means she spent a lot of her time as a slave being a sextwink.
This kinda fixes some of the weirdness of Beth being comfortable with a lot of her body mods.
It could add to why Beth likes having a dick. She missed it and now she can do both.
It conveniently doesn't change much?
Canonically she can't get pregnant cause her body is all messed up already
and her appearance is so modified that she doesn't even know what she 'should' look like.
Enko is so good at her job it'd be hard to tell she isn't cis.
Trans outcomes in BE are generally really good to begin with.
Which is why she would probably be pretty twinky and androgynous when younger. If left to her own devices she'd just get femmer over time but she had some weird rich guy use her as a boyhole.
This has pros and cons though. It's convenient that it's so normal that it has almost no effect on her character, but that's kinda hand-wavey rep? But it's also very wish-fulfillment rep an contrasted with Loni which honestly isn't a bad thing like hell yeah I wanna be Beth!
Another downside is making a trans character kinda a natural sex predator. Beth has some 'toxic masculinity' traits in sexual relationships and those read better when she's a cis woman and become more problematic as a trans woman. Other side of this is that any BE released game stuff probably won't go into enough detail for that to matter. It might also make more sense if introduced at the same time as Loni, so the two counteract each other. She also just seems... flat out the best character for it.
I tend to think it makes more sense for trans characters on the gender binary to be invested in gender(even if that expression is non-standard) and Beth definitely cares about being femme. Even when she gets boyish, it's in a super femme way.
I feel like people tend to headcanon the big fighty girls as trans and while that type of character is cool, like... idk that makes no sense for someone like Naomi or Cassara.
like lol can you imagine Cass caring enough about gender to take HRT???
Makoto and Sinlen are the only other two with a lot of 'femme'.
Trans Makoto would be too 'busy' with her theming and wouldn't work and make sense with her timeline and again, let there be big awkward cis girls too!!!
Sinlen honestly makes sense too outside of the proximity to Loni and the fact Beth is a better candidate.
College AU Sinlen wears programmer socks, waist cinchers, watches anime, and uses linux it wouldn't be a stretch.
Not that College AU matters, but it makes for a good example.
Either way, another convenient part of this is I don't have to decide it. I can literally change my mind at any point and it works.
Escape and Brave Earth: Prologue
On one of Lana's campaigns, around 412 ACE, she meets a mercenary leader named Donovan Morris. The two hit it off and during the campaign, Donovan mentions his plan to head with his unit to Aistoria. Beth, sensing a chance to escape, says she wants to go with him. So fully within Lana's trust, Beth is able to simply leave, being far gone before anyone realizes she's missing.
For the next few years the group slowly work their way toward Aistoria, taking jobs along the way. While Vayn isn't trained to fight, her magic and free movement makes her an excellent assassin.
Beth starts getting her body where she likes it and cuts her hair short. She hasn't had her hair long since being a slave.
While she has no idea how she should look (or could even make herself look like that, given the extent of the work done to her), it was more important for her to be in control. She just changed her proportions (despite the pain) a bunch over the first year just to make sure she found something she identified with.
Orso standards are fucked up, so her big boobs probably used to be even bigger
She is given more chances to feed on people who aren't innocents, and even gets to feed lightly off the troops
Imagining guys bragging about how well they handled getting drained or daring other guys to do it.
She's generally just good for moral
But everyone knows she's actually super scary when she wants to be so she eventually earns the respect of Donovan's troops. She rewards nice boys~
She still doesn't really like killing though, even though she does it.
In 414 ACE she was a part of the Lyse incident.
The Lyse Incident deeply strains what was probably already a toxic relationship between Donovan and Vayn.
Vayn tries to get Naomi to surrender, which was probably a common move of hers. Surrender and capture is just as good!
Naomi is Church Brained still so she treats a Succubus as pretty literal.
Sinlen realizes she'd be a daemon, but also realizes that she's way to smart to actually be a daemon
When Naomi defeats Vayn, she realizes how genuinely hurt she is (more emotionally than physically) and spares her.
Vayn helps Sinlen find Naomi as the Church burns down.
Vayn is imprisoned under the San Victoria church where Sinlen studies her and the three become friends (though obviously with some issues due to Vayn being a prisoner). Eventually Trevor secretly releases Vayn with the request -- get him in contact with the mercenary army Donovan's unit was a part of.
Tower in the Sky
Beth's (now on a "normal name" basis with people again) role in Tower is still to be determined. I'm leaning toward her trying to prevent things from getting out of hand but she might be a temporary enemy again. Afterward though, Beth flees toward the Free Cities.
Post Tower / Roleplaying
Sinlen and Naomi go looking for Beth. Naomi is motivated by the possibility that Cassara was reportedly in the area. Once they all meet up and Sinlen can craft Beth the ring to control her power loss, she stops living on the run and settles down in Steeton.
In RP, Beth starts a porn studio using local sex workers, some of which were rescued from abusive conditions. She also began providing support to those who simply wanted to escape and return to normal life.
In RP, Beth ends up with Hotaru, Cassara's daughter, but it's still not clear what her role would be in any post Tower stories.
Beth mostly avoids adventure, drifting into it just to support Naomi and Sinlen in their rare times on of need.
Beth is one of the chinks in Naomi's armor when it comes to realizing her sexuality. The two are very friendly, having shared a bond through their experiences, but they are very different people so while the two are close, and friends, they're not actually "close friends".
Sinlen and Beth are much closer, the two sharing a fling while Beth was stuck under San Victoria. The two are almost too much on the same page sexually, so while the two enjoy casual encounters, even as time goes on, they never manager to stick in a relationship because neither are naturally romantic and need someone else to bring it out of them.
Beth helped Bunny get on her feet when she was abandoned in Steeton. Beth eventually gets Bunny into porn rather than just dancing and stripping. The two have amazing chemistry in scenes together. While Bunny loves Beth and is grateful for all the help, she also thinks Beth is... a lot.
Personality
Beth is gregarious and often quite bubbly, but is deceptively clever and business savvy. She's very sex forward and flirtatious. Down deep, beyond everything else though, she's a stubborn survivor.
Beth is very trauma brained. She's good at compartmentalizing really intense experiences and simply not thinking about things she feels guilty about.
She also has a very bad memory, likely from trauma. While this applies a lot to her past, she commonly forgets dates and details, sometimes completely misremembering minor events.
Beth actually speaks all three of the major active languages of the New World (English, Hindi, and Mandarin)
Mandarin is actually her first language.
Yes, she has a cute accent, but it's pretty muted at this point.
Her name is probably pronounced closer to "Yīlìshabai Fondan" (方丹 伊丽莎白)
She tries to not say her name with the accent, but it probably slips sometimes when she says her full name like "Yilisha-beth"
She's a natural button pusher and likes pushing peoples comfort zone.
Trying not to over push is one of her big social problems she constantly has to work on post Tower in the Sky.
While Beth is flexible and a pleaser, she is naturally a sadistic domme, feeling much safer while in control.
How much of this is her, the succubus, or trauma is unknown. Probably all three.
BE lore has a lot of dommes and while she can be the most chill one, she can also be the meanest.
She loves seeing someone squirming on the edge of what they can handle. Again, button pusher.
Especially once settled in Steeton... If someone seems nice and safe, Beth is DTF.
She sips a lot from casual encounters. While she doesn't lose energy, she needs to recoup from casual magic usage. She can usually sip these tiny amounts without the other person noticing.
Appearance
Beth seemingly has a pretty androgynous, femme leaning face that can come off very differently depending on her makeup and styling. She's pretty tall and pretty skinny, aside from her big hips and breasts, implying these were all augmented in Orso Moldano.
She has slightly "Fayed" ears -- slightly pointed like an elf.
She tends to be on the pale side.
Her hair goes between 'emo pixie girl', 'futch', and sometimes even almost buzzed.
Despite the changeable nature of her body, she doesn't really ever change anything.
... Maybe the boobs got a bit bigger when she got into porn.
Okay the range she might select for herself is probably somewhere between a 28-30G to J.
Beth is some part Chinese and it shows up subtly.
Style wise...
In more magical places, Beth traditionally fancies elegant black and white dresses. They're basically her calling card.
Once in Steeton, she begins appreciating more "modern" clothing.
It's a joke that Beth is always wearing tiny shorts, even in the winter.
While she can get really dressed up and fancy, Beth is more of a sneaker person than a heels person on most days.
Her casual Steeton style is like a belly shirt, shorts and some sneakers, though she can easily drop into 'scary hot business lady' mode real fast.
In scary business man mode she likes chunky expensive male watches.
