Congratulatia Elhalyn y Ridenow

• Name: Congratulatia Elhalyn y Ridenow
• Age: 25
• Marital Status: formerly betrothed to Jorik Hastur
• Former Occupation: mechanic at Arilinn
• Occupation: currently nothing. She occupies herself by plotting / weaving, loving and organizing her shows.
• Residence: Comyn Castle, mainly (shešs got a big private suite in the Elhalyn section, a tiny quarter in the Ridenow section, and obtained an extended private suite as engagement gift from Danvan in the Hastur section)
• Laran: fully developed Elhalyn gift, minor Ridenow gift
• Politics: conservative, but feminist; wants to preserve traditions (what she really cares is the SHE is in charge, actually); mistrustful of Terrans, but appreciates some of their things.
• Abilities
  • Unarmed Combat: excellent
  • Armed Combat: less than poor ("What is Œarmed combatš?"). Actually, shešs a markswoman with a Terran blaster, but thatšs illegal on Darkover. She has imported a couple with her and keeps them secret.
  • Horseback riding: average
  • Interpersonal skills: see below
  • Laran strength and training: trained as mechanic, she has good knowledge of her strength. Shešs not interested in a career in a Tower, though.
  • Talents: lips-reading, poison knowledge, disguise
• Romantic relationships: Jorik Hastur, Eduin Alton
• Primary targets: Danvan Hastur, Clara Elhalyn, Carena Ridenow, Piedro Aillard-Syrtis
• Secondary targets: whoever (female) dares to approach Jorik
• Hobbies: (make that drives as in "What drives her"): power, politics, ambition, sex, singing, performing.
• Family Trees: Elhalyn
• E-mail: mabellav@tin.it

Congratulatia
Her father was the brother of Clarašs father, so she is Clarašs first cousin. Her mother had both Elhalyn & Ridenow blood. Both her parents were *not* the sanest beings on Darkover. When she was born, they were so happy that kept congratulating each other on her conception, so they wind up calling her Congratulatia (it can be pronounced both English way and Latin way: they could never decide which one was the definitive one).
Sometimes she is called Congra, other times Tula, but she allows this only from selected few. She much prefers being called Congratulatia, full.

Laran
She has mastered the art of knowing possible futures. By analyzing the possible lines, she *theoretically* should be able to plan the exact future due to careful examination of the variables. *Actually* though, this requires *a lot* of time because her plans are invariably extremely intricate and she merely manages to get to some point and then she loses herself in them. She also needs to urinate quite often, so it happens that she is forced to interrupt her weaving due to her physiological needs. Another drawback is that she gets carried away, so she either starts laughing uncontrollably when her evil plans come to fruition in her visions, or she starts having an orgasm if thatšs the reason why shešs scanning the future; in either case, she loses her concentration. She uses her lips-reading ability in conjunction with her laran to know what is said in her visions.
She has strong shields, so she usually manages to keep her dark thoughts secrets. She mainly uses her empathy when shešs performing, to know whether the public is appreciating her performance. She also tries to use her empathy when shešs plotting something with someone else, but not being that strong, she cannot always grasp and decipher what she perceives.

Unarmed Combat
Despite her frail exterior, shešs got muscles. Shešs an excellent cat-fighter and when she gets physical, she also gets *very* vulgar. She acquired this ability off-world (see below).

Congratulatia's Targets

• PRIMARY TARGET: DANVAN HASTUR. As soon as that old crony kicks the bucket, she becomes Queen of Darkover by marrying Jorik.
• PRIMARY TARGET: CLARA ELHALYN. If Clara dies, she becomes Head of the Elhalyn Domain, being the next in line of succession. She hates Clara with a passion. She was sure that Clarašd turned up being another one of those off-kilter Elhalyns; she was shocked when she learned Clara actually manages her Domain and holds her own in Council. If Clara dies, she will claim the throne, which is the Elhalyns' by right. If Clara wants to claim the throne, which is hers by birthright, then Congratulatia will wait until Clara is Queen. After that, shešll try to kill her off to become Queen herself.
• PRIMARY TARGET: CARENA RIDENOW. Eduinšs too faithful for his own good. She wants him, so she must eliminate Carena first.
• PRIMARY TARGET: PIEDRO AILLARD-SYRTIS. She had a major crush on him years ago, but he always rejected her, obviously. Scorned and hurt in her considerable pride, she convinced herself hešs actually a pimp who keeps under his control all the members in his Tower in some dirty way: killing him off is for the greater good of all of Darkover. Dishonor cannot be tolerated.

Appearance
Beautiful. Very fair-complexioned, with really beautiful skin. Big, gray eyes. Thin lips. Thin, long (they cover all her back length) red hair, but shešs been dying it platinum blond for years now. Very thin, apparently frail. 162 cm. tall; she always wears at least 11 cm. of heels, so she looks like shešs 173 cm. tall.
She could win a "Miss make-up" contest: she is always perfectly made-up. In her opinion, very long, manicured and polished nails are a must. When she was off-world, she acquired a number of jewels not easily found on Darkover (mainly silver, gold and platinum) and she likes to show them off.
She is seldom seen without a fan. Her fan is for hitting huffily someone near her when the offense is not big. Her fan is for being hurled at someone who has just offended her heavily. Her fanšs primary uses are two, however: (1) to cover her face when she does something embarrassing; (2) to fan herself when she is insulted (she insults very easily, but is totally disconcerted when someone insults her back). Shešs good at disguising herself. She owns a number of wigs and accessories. Shešd rather not using those, but when the need arises, she can pass herself off for a lot of different people (in those instances, she even drops the heels, if need be).

Behavior
Haughty and collected, usually. She speaks a bit solemnly (think of Dianne Wiest in "Bullets Over Broadway") when shešs in control of herself and/or the situation. When she gets angry, she becomes very sharp and shrieking. Her pronunciation is aristocratic English-like; however, when she mentions Avarra ("by Avarra!" is her favorite exclamation), she pronounces the perfect Spanish RR. She tries to avoid contractions.
She usually tries to treat everybody in a kind way, because they could be potential allies in her schemes. However, she grows crabby in a jiff when therešs another woman who is a bit too friendly with Jorik (and to her, almost all of them are a bit too friendly with Jorik).
She calls Danvan "Grandaddy Danvan" and is all sweet and smiling with him. Actually, she canšt stand him and, since she has to call him someway, she chose to call him "Grandaddy Danvan" in order to make articulatory exercises for her jazz vocalisms.
She calls Clara "Claretta Petacci" (see below) and acts all kind towards her because she doesnšt want her cousin to suspect her true intentions.
She hates with a passion Carena Ridenow and she either does not speak to her or she says something poisonous. She refuses categorically to speak to the Fool of the Valeron Plains.
Although her main sex interests are Jorik and Eduin, Congratulatia is sex-starved and is always looking for new lovers. However, her men must be at her level (or perceived as such): she would never ever make love with a commoner, no matter what a hunk he could be.
Gifted with a very beautiful voice and with a lot of extension, she was a singer even before going to study off-world. There, she discovered jazz and started studying it. Now she has forsaken those stupid Darkovan ballads, and sings exclusively jazz, a pity on Darkover nobody knows it! She needs admiration from her public and her behavior is sometimes a prima donnašs. She canšt stand animals.

History
Born from two unbalanced parents before they lost it completely, Congratulatia has always been very ambitious and, apparently, sane. If youš ve read the parts presented above, youšll have already realized shešs not properly sane herself, but she manages to appear as such most of the time. She met Eduin when they both were training at Arilinn. They had a brief fling, which ended when things with Jorik became serious (see below).
However, in her opinion Eduin is one of the very best lovers shešs ever had (and shešs had a regiment) and to this day shešd love to have him as a permanent lover.
Jorik was training at Arilinn as well when they met. They quickly fell in love and eloped. They know they both need more, so they struck a deal: they both could have affairs as long as they were *discreet* affairs and were not cause for embarrassment to the other. At that time, Clarašs older brother was still alive and had apparently no intention to claim the throne, so Jorik was the perfect mate for her. Hešs not interested more than so in being regent, so - in her mind - he will remit to her the duties and privileges usually associated with the regency. As much as she despises the Terran Empire, it is by now a force to be reckoned with on Darkover, so she thought that at least one of the two should be more familiar with it. Jorik could not leave Darkover due to his station, but nothing kept her from leaving. Marcello Ridenow financed her off-world studies for Jorikšs sake and future prestige. However, at that time Jorik was also secretly in love with Myria, and this prompted him to break off their engagement, but Congratulatia has always thought he was merely joking to make himself more chased after.
Charmed by the new world opening before her, she did her best to grab as much as she could from this possibility. Her plotting nature, though, prevented her to attain the best because she just had to safeguard her interests home. Initially, she thought she could pilfer money from Marcello, but she soon learned he demanded the exact explanation for every single credit she spent: he had no problem giving her more money, but he demanded to know the exact location every single additional credit would wind up. So she had to spend her own personal resources and wound up almost broke. Killers cost a fortune. It was her who caused Danvanšs first heart-stroke by having poison infiltrated in his food (then she killed those killers herself: "Itšs best to have no living witnesses" is one of her mottoes), and it was her who caused her cousinšs mysterious illness which, eventually, caused his untimely death.

Shows
Luckily, by then she had already mastered her jazz singing, so she started to perform in low-class locales to gain some money. There, she had to learn how to fight to defend herself from those scum. Attractive and sex-starved as always, she drew men to her like a magnet; this was cause for major cat-fights under some circumstances. She was the first to be surprised when she discovered she actually liked the physical confrontation (once she started to win some) and has been keeping herself in physical shape since then.
While studying old jazz songs, she ran into "All That Jazz" by Jem & The Holograms (from the 20th century TV cartoon). She started to watch the series hoping to find more jazz songs. She was disappointed, but found "Congratulations" by the Misfits and now she opens and closes every show of hers with that song. She was quite successful and managed to re-build her finances step by step.

One day she was at a public library, studying. The boy next to her was not so gorgeous, but had such a charm that she could not help staring at him. Inadvertently, she looked at what she was studying and read the name "Claretta Petacci". It was a funny sound to her. She took initiative and proposed him to take a break and have a coffee together. He accepted. During conversation, she found out he was a sociology student studying the origin of Fascism. She pretended she was interested and, when they went back to their desk, she asked him permission to have a look at that holo-book. She started reading and, the more she read, the more she thought this Claretta Petacci was an idiotic woman, and started seeing similarities (which exist only in her mind) with her cousin Clara. She started giggling. Disapproving stares blocked her for a while. But when she got to the part where it was said that Claretta Petacci was caught in bed with the duce (Benito Mussolini) and that, as a consequence, she most likely died wearing no underwear, she burst up in laughter and laughed so much that she lost her balance and fell ridiculously to the floor. Embarrassed to death, covering her face with her fan, she fled and never again set foot in that public library, but since that day shešs firmly convinced her cousin Clara goes around wearing no underwear. For this reason, she has started calling Clara "Claretta Petacci", and has told her itšs the name of a very famous woman in the Terran Empire history, and that Clara really resembles this Claretta Petacci, so Congratulatia calls Clara this way as form of homage to her cousin.
When informed that Council season was about to open extraordinarily and that Danvan had had another heart-stroke, she made the decision to return to Darkover to take again her place among Comyn.