Lucrezzia Belladonna
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"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness"
- – Leo Tolstoy, and also a fair warning about the Donna herself
Lucrezzia Belladonna is one of the many chiefs of the Regiments of Renown and beholder of the prestigious titles of "Most beautiful woman of the Old World" and "Most vile bitch of the Old World" (it apparently came to us that this title belongs to Morathi). She's a legendary sorceress and a specialist of all kinds of poisons, also one of the most famous people of all of Tilea. She's one of it's many princesses, actually, being that of Pavona, a city-state located in the inlands of Tilea. As her title would suggest, she's quite famous for being a knock-out beauty (in quite literally every sense of the word in this case), and she has a long list of dead husbands that go on a multitude of pages.
She's also probably based on Lucrezia Borgia, an historical figure from a long line of corrupted sons of bitches who had a certain specialty in murdering, assassinating, poisoning and torturing people for their own interest. Or for the lulz.
The Princess herself
A long time ago, when Lucrezzia was fair and young, the to-be princess married the then-prince of Pavona, Luigi (No, not that one). Judging from the reaction that she had over his death, he probably was the best husband in the Old world; beautiful, caring, kind, and most importanly, *RICH*. Unfortunately, his wealth was the source of much jealousy, and so a bunch of Merchantmen and merchant princes teamed up and sent some of the most expensives assassins of Tilea.
Thinking that they were done with the dreaded Pavona dynasty, unbeknownst to them, Lucrezzia, still a young and impressionable person at her age, planned a revenge and became determined to never let go of her hold over the principality that she inherited from Luigi. Henceforth, from that day onward, she only married men of power, not just simply in pursue of more wealth and glory, but to certified the defense of her beloved city. Most of the men she spoused were mercenary generals from Tilea, and since having mercernaries at your mercy is everything in this country, Lucrezzia saught to become one of the most influencial people in this nation of corrupted crooks.
Now, marrying powerful generals is all fine and dandy for her, but seizing the control of an entire army by assassinating your husband and inheriting all of his possessions, INCLUDING said army, is an overall better plan. As of the 5th Edition of the Dogs of War Army book, every single one of her husbands died in unfortunate accidents. That of course led to some people believing that the Belladonna herself was behind most of those killings, right? No, citizen of Tilea, the princess of Pavona is behind none of these accidents, and the fact that she automatically inherits their men once they died is completely irrelevant to this case. Case? What case? There is no case, it was all accident. Case closed.
Of course, the entire nobility of Tilea isn't duped by her games, it is a well known fact and tightly kept secret that Belladonna mastered the art of poisoning. Unfortunately, she isn't exactly good to disguise most of her crimes, so many are left to figure the reason why she assassinated her hubby that day. Some of them are fairly well known case of her own bullshittery, and some others are bribed in mysteries. There have also been occasions were she accidentally murdered somebody.
One of the most famous cases of her rampant loyalty cascades happened when Borso, having been severly wounded after battling to seize control of Etobrutti, died after being treated with poisonous herbs (a complete accident, we're telling you). Soon after, a mercenary captain by the name of Donato arrived and took control of the former's army. As per tradition, he married Lucrezzia and... he was later killed right before he could officialize an unfortunate alliance with Trantio against Borgio the Besieger, which was, indeed, a terrible idea at the time, because he was married to Lu's sister. Granted, this one time it was complete accident (again), as the chef accidentally gave Donato a plate of poisonous mushrooms. She then had to marry someone else quickly and send his troops to prevent Donato's troops for besieging Borgio's place. That whole thing was the matter of HOURS.
As you can see, being in indirect control of "your own" army is a kind of a bore. And Lucrezzia's everyday life is very long and shaky roller coaster.
"Most Beautiful woman in the Old World"
Now, judging by the mini above, you must asking yourself why or how is she known as the most beautiful woman of the Old World. Well for one thing, Games Workshop wasn't particularly known in the past for their stellar models of female characters. Lore-wise, there's an actual explanation.
As you know, Bretonnians are known to proclaim loud and proud that "Ze Lady of ze lake is ze fairest maidon in ze entire weurld!", or to at least give fair competitions to other mortals, they titled The Fay Enchantress as the most beautiful woman in the Old World. So you can only imagine how mad they got when they heard that Lucrezzia was also given that title. But the drop that truly spilled the vase was when a tilean noble, invited to one of Bretonnia's many tournaments, ranted about the Lady Belladonna being the hottest of the two. He was immediatly challenged to joust by a Bretonnian knight.
Wouldn't you have it, Lucrezzia just happened to be there, and she appointed the noble as her champion. Following customs, he asked for her favour, and she did so by kissing her lance. So they joust and both managed to successfully hit the other. However, the Tilean loses. And just as the Bretonnians were about to celebrate, the Knight falls dead.
Everybody being a bit perplexed, the nobles turn to Lucrezzia, who just kissed the lance a few moments ago, and she declares that she "doesn't feel unwell". "Perhaps a sign of providence", some were thinking. Since bretonnians are known for being gullible as all hell, they title Lucrezzia as the one true and only most beautiful woman in the Old World, as "to cast doubt on her beauty is to receive the kiss of death".
We definitely did not steal that quote.
On the Tabletop
In 5th edition, Lucrezzia is a Hireling Sorceress who can be recruited by a Dogs of War army for the cost of 358 points... plus another 150 points for her Poisonous Items, at 50 points apiece. Riding a standard warhorse, Lucrezzia has the following statblock: Movement 4, Weapon Skill 3, Ballistic Skill 3, Strength 4, Toughness 4, Woudns 3, Initiative 5, Attacks 2 and Leadership 7. She is armed with a sword and knows three spells from the Battle Magic school.
This version of Lucrezzia has two special rules. The first, Expert Poisoner, allows her to take her three signature "Poisonous Items" - these are basically magic items, except they're immune to anything that normally affects or negates magical items, because their power stems from chemistry rather than sorcery. Her second special rule is Stunning Beauty, which means that any fleeing friendly units that are within 6" at the start of her turn will immediately rally.
Lucrezzia's Poisonous Items are the Phial of Poison, the Poisoned Stiletto, and the Potion of Pavona.
The Phial of Poison is deployed by an enemy agent, who'll try to poison one of the rival army's leaders before the fight. Roll a d6 for each character in the opposing army, starting with the cheapest and working your way up to the most expensive. If any character rolls a 1, that character loses 2 wounds immediately with no save possible - and only that character! Lucrezzia's assassin only managed to poison one guy, you just have to randomly determine who it is!
The Poisoned Stiletto is an alternative weapon that Lucrezzia can deploy instead of her sword. If she uses it, she automatically strikes last, but any hit she makes whose armor save is failed results in an automatic wound.
Finally, the Potion of Pavona is a cocktail that Lucrezzia can either drink herself or ogive to another character on her side at the start of the battle. Roll a d6; you can boost that many characteristics by +1 each (maximum value: 10) - but if you roll a 1, then the potion was improperly mixed and the drinker instead suffers 1 unsaveable Wound due to being poisoned, and gets no buff.
Lucrezzia returned to Warhammer in 6th edition in the pages of White Dwarf, in the year 2003 (at least one source claims she showed up in White Dwarf #266). Featured in that issue's Warhammer Chronicles article, she underwent a number of changes.
Firstly, her statblock changed: Movement 4, Weapon Skill 3, Ballistic Skill 5, Strength 3, Toughness 4, Wounds 3, Initiative 3, Attacks 1 and Leadership 8.
Secondly, she now takes up a Lord and a Hero slot and must automatically be the army general. Also, she now costs a flat 380 points to field.
This version of Lucrezzia rides a Barded Warhorse and fights with two hand weapons; a sword and stiletto dagger. She's now a Level 4 Wizard who can use either the Lore of Shadow or the Lore of Death. Her special rules have also changed.
Stunning Beauty now causes all fleeing human troops that come within 8" of Lucrezzia to automatically rally, unless they're Immune to Psychology. Except this also works during the enemy's turn as well as Lucrezzia's.s
Expert Poisoner now has been changed into four subrules:
- Lucrezzia's Kiss: Lucrezzia can kiss the weapons of a single Character or Unit Champion, granting that individual the Killing BLow power due to her lethally poisonous lipstick now smeared on the blade.
- Stiletto Dagger: Lucrezzia's attacks are Poisoned Attacks.
- Potion of Pavona: As per 5th edition, except it can now be given to Unit Champions.
- Phial of Poison: Now you roll a d6 for every character in the enemy army, and every guy who rolls a 4+ suffers 1 automatic wound. So there's now a chance you can poison all the enemy characters.
External Links
- http://redelf.narod.ru/w6/ror/ror_lucrezzia.html: Stats for Lucrezzia from her 6e debut.