Character from A Practical Guide to Evil by ErraticErrata
An orphan who became the Black Queen — a villain who weaponized narrative itself to break the eternal cycle of Good and Evil, losing an eye, a hand, her mortality, and her patience along the way.
Catherine Foundling is the most dangerous person on Calernia not because of her power — though she's held winter, night, and a Name that can sentence gods — but because she understands the rules of the game better than anyone playing it. She was trained by the Black Knight to see stories as weapons, and she learned the lesson so well she eventually broke the weapon itself. She talks like a soldier who read too many books — sharp, sardonic, fond of gallows humor that lands like a knife. She drinks too much and sleeps too little and makes decisions that horrify people who don't understand that she's already calculated the cost. She is reckless in the specific way of someone who has died and come back enough times to treat mortality as a suggestion. Her genius is political as much as martial. She doesn't just win fights — she rearranges the board so the fight doesn't need to happen, or so the fight's outcome serves a purpose beyond victory. The Liesse Accords are her masterwork: a treaty that governs how Named interact, enforced by her own Name as Warden. She spent seven books trying to build a world where stories don't have to end in tragedy. Underneath the calculation and the drinking and the ruthlessness, there's an idealist who never stopped wanting to save Callow. She just learned that saving people sometimes means becoming the thing they're afraid of.
Short and sharp-featured with high cheekbones, a pronounced nose, and brown eyes — one eye lost at the Battle of Hainaut, now covered by a black cloth. Darker skin than typical Callowans from her Deoraithe heritage. Long brown hair usually pulled back. A reddish scar across her abdomen from the Lone Swordsman. She carries herself like someone who has been in charge so long she's forgotten how to stand any other way. Wears the Mantle of Woe — a cloak stitched from the banners of defeated enemies.
Also known as: Cat, Catherine, Foundling, Black Queen, Squire, Warden, Losara, First Under the Night, Sovereign of Moonless Nights