Carinthea, Althea "Patchouli"

[MizuJakkaru]

Name: Althea Carinthea
Nickname: Patchouli, Patchy
Age: 38 (October 13th)
Gender: Female
Birthplace: Celestic Town, Sinnoh
Family: Richard Carinthea (Father; Deceased), Melaa Carinthea (Mother; Deceased)

Trainer Orientation: Neutral
Team Affiliation: Scarlet Devils
Trainer Class: Alchemist, Librarian
Starter Pokémon: Lunatone

Character Theme:
38BEETS ~ Cry (Touhou: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil)

Versus Theme:
SHO ~ Locked Girl ～ Burst of the Flastration (Touhou: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil)

Philosopher [Lunatone] — A legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of making the elixir of life.
A gift from her mother when she was four, Philosopher is an interestingly colored Lunatone. Silver-white in tone, with yellow eyes and also a bit smaller than others of its kind, Sopher stands at two feet, Philosopher was the first Pokémon Althea ever owned and is her oldest companion. Needless to say, she has taken effort to train the Pokémon to its finest. Sopher, as it is sometimes referred to, is nothing if not a calm, solid anchor for Althea at all time. Interestingly enough, Philosopher is named after the legendary stone of the same name. Such a stone was said to come in two forms; one white and used for turning substances into silver, the more matured form was red and was used for turning things into gold. Both were said to make the elixir of life...
—Received in Celestic Town from Melaa Carinthea.

Ability: Levitate
Nature: Mild
Move Pool: Baton Pass, Calm Mind, Earth Power, Explosion, Hidden Power (Rock), Hypnosis, Ice Beam, Psychic, Rock Polish, Trick Room

Agni [Male Ninetales] — The god of fire and the acceptor of sacrifices.
A feisty, fiery little devil, Agni is only nice to those he knows as friends: AKA, Patchy and no one else. He typically spends most of his time cozied up in a remote corner of Althea's library at the mansion. He is a bit full of himself, but, regardless of that fact, he can still hold his own exceedingly well in battle. As with most of Althea's Pokémon, his battle experience comes from extensive training following book strategies. That's not to say he's never proven himself in battle, though, just that most of his knowledge of strategy came from books.
—Received in Celectic Town from Richard Carinthea.

Ability: Drought
Nature: Naughty
Move Pool: Confuse Ray, Energy Ball, Flame Burst, Flame Charge, Grudge, Hypnosis, Inferno, Payback, Roar, Safeguard

Sylphae [Female Cherrim] - Creature of the fae, little flower of the woods.
An adorable little morsel of fun, Sylphae is one of the Pokémon Althea obtained prior to her joining the Scarlet Devils. Captured on a field trip into Eterna Forest, she captured the Cherrim quite by chance. First of all, she wasn't expecting to run into the critter in the first place. Secondly, when they did meet, she had never captured a Pokémon on her own before. She managed quite well from all the books she had read on training and the like, though, and added the plant-like Pokémon to her team. Sylphae is a mischievous little devil, often playing pranks on other people and being a general nuisance.
—Captured in Eterna Forest.

Ability: Flower Gift
Nature: Impish
Move Pool: Aromatherapy, Giga Drain, Grass Whistle, Healing Wish, Hidden Power (Fire), Nature Power, Safeguard, Seed Bomb, SolarBeam, Sunny Day

Mercury [Male Milotic] — It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum. Or poison.
A rare find, Althea captured Mercury when she was making a mild study into alternatively colored Pokémon (sparked by her own Lunatone, initially). She found Mercury after doing some research and exploration of the area that the creature was found in, having decided that some remote places in Mt. Coronet might home creatures of alternate coloration more densely than a well traveled region. Mercury is nothing but a little shit. Full of himself and a boaster to a fault, that sour attitude is balanced only by his insane skill in battle. He truly has been trained into a prime fighter, something Althea is quite proud of. Secretly.
—Captured in Mt. Coronet.

Ability: Marvel Scale
Nature: Sassy
Move Pool: Dragon Pulse, Dragon Tail, Haze, Ice Beam, Recover, Rest, Scald, Sleep Talk, Surf, Toxic

Element [Magnezone] — Harvester. To extract from a culture or a living or recently deceased body.
Captured and evolved when Althea was doing a study on the currents of Mt. Coronet and evolution in general, Element is one of Althea's favorite Pokémon. She is fond of lounging on a couple of pillows on its back and reading away the entire day. This isn't to say she hasn't given the stoic Pokémon the same training as the rest of her team, though. In fact, Element is quite a decent combatant, sitting at the middle of the power scale of her team itself.
—Captured on Route 222.

Ability: Magnet Pull
Nature: Quiet
Move Pool: Charge Beam, Explosion, Flash Cannon, Hidden Power (Fire), Lock On, Magnet Bomb, Magnet Rise, Metal Sound, Substitute, Thunderbolt

Jinn [Male Noctowl] — Make a wish.
The last of Althea's team, she captured Jinn when she was wandering after her parent's death. The creature is very bold and has a keen eye for insight, taking to strategy like white on rice. Jinn reminds Althea strongly of her parents, as the Noctowl is very supportive and loving. In battle, the bird isn't the best of her fighters, given the inherent fact that Noctowl can't hold up to some other species of bird Pokémon, but he certainly does his damn best for Althea. Outside of battle, he is often found sitting on the back of Althea's chair, reading over her shoulder. Like some few Pokémon and their trainers, Althea and Jinn share that bond where they can know what the other is trying to communicate, despite the language barrier.
—Captured in Eterna Forest.

Ability: Insomnia
Nature: Bold
Move Pool: Agility, Air Slash, Magic Coat, Night Shade, Psycho Shift, Reflect, Roost, Toxic, Whirlwind

Aelia [Female Espeon] — Good morning, Starshine...
Hatched at the same time as her brother, Aelia and Laelia are twins. Both small, cute balls of fluff, they are both still only a little bit bigger than their initial sizes as Eevee. She hatched them as an experimentation and study on the hatching and birth of Pokémon. That is not to say that she doesn't love the two Pokémon to bits and pieces in her own way. Contrasts of each other, Aelia is curious and rambunctious, often getting into great amounts of trouble when she should know better. She is particularly fond of a certain blonde visitor that often comes to the library...
—Hatched in the Scarlet Mansion.

Ability: Synchronize
Nature: Brave
Move Pool: Calm Mind, Morning Sun, Psychic, Shadow Ball, Trick

Laelia [Male Umbreon] — ...The Earth says, "Hello!"
Hatched at the same time as his sister, Aelia and Laelia are twins. Both small, cute balls of fluff, they are both still only a little bit bigger than their initial sizes as Eevee. She hatched them as an experimentation and study on the hatching and birth of Pokémon. That is not to say that she doesn't love the two Pokémon to bits and pieces in her own way. Unlike his sister, Laelia is more calm and laid back, often sticking to Althea's side most of the time and shaking his head at the trouble his sister gets into. He is decidedly not fond of a certain frequent library visitor.
—Hatched in the Scarlet Mansion.

Ability: Synchronize
Nature: Calm
Move Pool: Heal Bell, Payback, Protect, Toxic, Wish

Trilithon [Male Shuckle] — Have you ever seen the sky so blue?
Althea captured Tril purely as an aide to her medicinal workings. Given Shuckle's natural knack for "processing" berries and substances, Trilithon is typically found in Althea's work shop when she is mixing different remedies and the like. Tril is a sleepy little thing, but takes his job quite seriously. Needless to say, though, Tril doesn't serve any purpose in battle and is therefore always kept out of his Poké Ball. He sleeps and lives in the workshop.
—Captured on Route 224.

Ability: Sturdy
Nature: Serious
Move Pool: Encore, Power Trick, Rest, Rock Smash, Withdraw

Himawari [Female Shiny Musharna] — Don't cry, my dear.
A special case out of Althea's Pokémon, she has had Himawari since her father's death. The Pokémon he has used in his life, Himawari came with Althea out of concern when the girl began to wander after her parent's death. Now the Pokémon currently resides in the Scarlet Mansion and keeps the remaining Pokémon of the former mistress of the mansion in a deep slumber, where their mistress and trainer still exists... in their dreams.
—Befriended in Celestic Town.

Ability: Telepathy
Nature: Bashful
Move Pool: Helping Hand, Imprison, Protect, Psychic, Trick Room

All of Althea's boxed Pokémon reside inside the Scarlet Devil Mansion instead of residing within a physical PC, due to them being more of a utility Pokémon in place of battlers. When Althea does battle, however, she uses those listed in her party.

Standing a motley five feet and four inches tall, Althea is not the tallest around. She has long purple hair that falls well past her back and that she usually pulls away from her face. Typically, she wears bows and a crescent moon shaped pin in her hair in varying degrees of normal routine. Her eyes are also purple in color and her face is rounded with low cheek bones. She is not one to show much expression and she usually comes off as mild to others around her.

Her clothing usually consists of a striped lavender dress with frills and what is known as a mage's robe over the top, signifying her interest in alchemy. On her head she wears a plush, floppy bonnet-like hat with bows on it. She generally goes barefoot when she's in her library, but when she does venture outside, she'll don a pair of brown shoes that have seen better days. Also, while she doesn't need them, she sometimes wears reading glasses.

Artwork by Shirofox (front and left).
VS Sprite by Kou 2008.

Artwork by Satori (left), Risa Hibiki (middle left), Xefy (middle right) and Banpai Akira (right).

Althea was born with moderate asthma and doesn't typically participate in athletic or highly-outdoorsy endeavors. She travels rarely and keeps a garden, but she doesn't do much more than such. She is not one to show much outward emotion, preferring to keep her reactions and actions mild. This doesn't mean she is not a nice person at heart, just that she typically doesn't show it to many people around her. Generally, her love is reserved for her Pokémon. She is extremely protective of those she considers her family, however, and refuses to let harm come to them.

The bookish girl is also incredibly smart, borderline genius. She is skilled at various alchemic and medicinal fields. Though she prefers the traditional fields, she has dabbled in more modern practices. Because of her knowledge, she has developed a kind of know-it-all attitude. Not in the sense that she'll flaunt it, but just in the sense that she will correct you on something if you're legitimately wrong.

Name: Richard Carinthea — I will stand by you.
Age: 52 (Deceased)
Gender: Male
Relationship: Father
Trainer Orientation: Lawful Good
Trainer Class: Doctor

A very loving man, he spent much of his time tending to the affairs of his business and work. He loved his daughter with all his heart and wanted only the best for her.

Name: Melaa Carinthea — I will dry your eyes.
Age: 49 (Deceased)
Gender: Female
Relationship: Mother
Trainer Orientation: Lawful Good
Trainer Class: Clerk

Exactly like her husband, Melaa loved and tended to her daughter's needs with all her soul and heart. She worked as a secretary.

Althea, or as her parents called her, Patchouli, grew up in the small community of Celestic Town in central Sinnoh. She lead a relatively quiet life in her youth and grew up in a family of moderate wealth.

Irregardless, she didn't want for much and she had a fantastic education. In fact, her parents became well aware of her love for knowledge early on in her childhood. She simply devoured texts and information presented before her and she strove to learn more at every instance. She simply tore through all the books in her parent's already extensive library and began to seek our more. By the age of ten, she was reading at a near college level of literature. Needless to say, she was well at the top of her classes in school.

Graduating early, Althea began to spend much of time studying the older texts and stories of the world. Taking a great interest in medicines (partly because of her condition and partly because it simply was her favorite field of knowledge), she began to experiment in various methods and employments of traditional medicines. This equated to her beginning to collect various books and tomes on herbalism and ethnobotany. She has dabbled in more modern types of medicine, but she greatly prefers traditional forms.

During her research, Althea came across one type of "medicine" in particular that interested her greatly; the Elixir of Life, or, more appropriately, the Philosopher's Stone. Compelled by the large amount of texts that described the Stone (and, conversely, the exceedingly few that detailed its creation) she began the pursuit that many others before her had walked... that of the creation of a real Stone.

From the time she was fourteen to the time she was eighteen, she amassed a collection of every text she could find that mentioned the Stone, its properties and its creation. Why was she pursing it? Her thirst for knowledge proved too great and too unquenchable to just read about it. She had to know if it could be done and how it was done.

Taking every precaution and proper measure, Althea mapped out the most complex and detailed alchemic drawing she had ever conceived. Comprising the majority of her workshop wall in her parent's house, she then began to collect the necessary ingredients for the process.

What she didn't know, however, is that there were a few key notes on the Stone that had long since been lost to the vast expanses of history, destroyed long ago by an ancient community. What she didn't know, that fateful day that she began the creation of her Stone, was that one of the vital ingredients of the Stone was that of the human essence.

She might realize later that she herself came close to a brush with death that night, that the lost of her parent's souls as they watched and admired their daughter's ambitious undertaking from the sidelines was very minimal to the possible lost of the entire community around her. But when she woke to the disarray of the remains of the procedure around her, to the absolute absence of her loving parents and the bittersweet creation of an incomplete form of the Philosopher's Stone, Althea felt nothing but grief for her accomplishments. She did not feel that she had managed a miracle at the most minimal of costs. She hardly knew such was the fact. Instead, she became a depressed state of herself, questioning everything she had ever achieved.

For a long time, Althea did not even use the stone she had created, a faint liquid silver and red-flecked thing that she keeps in a glass container. It would take her meeting the individual Calanthia Scarlet before she began to use it. Befriending the older girl, Calanthia invited Althea into her own estate. There, Althea took to calling herself Patchouli, her parent's pet name for her, and began once again to practice her alchemy and medicine.

Today, she still currently lives at the Scarlet Mansion and continues her pursuit of knowledge of all kinds... but she is certain and determined never again to cost something so dear as her parents in her experimentation once more...

Regular Abilities______________________________________
└-Skills, professions, knowledge and talents.

Alchemy: Having dabbled in alchemy since her discovery of it in a book in her school's library, she does not work things in the sense of magic and spellcraft. Rather, Althea's alchemy is a very chemical process, a simple working of bring together appropriate materials to create one thing out of its base attributes. She is quite good at it and has even succeeded in creating a working Philosopher's Stone. She does not use this skill much anymore, as it were.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Skill
└─Power Level: Master

Craft (Medicine, Modern): Not nearly as talented at creating modern medicines as she is traditional, given the much more mechanical processes involved, Althea has this knowledge simply to remain up-to-date with the modern practices of people in the healing industry. She prefers to know what new medicines will harm or heal for a given ailment. She does sometimes use the ingredients found in newer formulas to make her own.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Creative
└─Power Level: Journeyman

Craft (Medicine, Traditional): Althea's strongest suit, she makes most of her curing implements with her adept ability to craft high quality medicine. This is typically in the form of poultices and teas, though she uses other traditional methods such as acupuncture as well. She also prefers traditional methods of mending and tending open wounds, using sinew for stitching rather than modern wire or synthetic fibers.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Creative
└─Power Level: Expert

Knowledge (Alchemy): Althea's knowledge of alchemy comes from her extensive collection of tomes and materials from across the world. It would suffice to say that she has literally every documentation of the Philosopher's Stone still around in modern day. She also possesses tomes of other formula and procedures and has studied them extensively for the past number of years.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Knowledge
└─Power Level: Master

Knowledge (Herbalism): Keeping not only a large number of books on herbs and medicines that can be made from them, Althea also keeps a herb garden on the grounds of the Scarlet Mansion. She tends to it daily with the help of Li-Fen. Her knowledge of herbs is of an expert level.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Knowledge
└─Power Level: Master

Knowledge (History): Having a great interest in history, Althea focuses primarily on the history around the warfare of the regions and the battles that took place. That said, she has a general knowledge of history on pretty much everything, though she prefers warfare.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Knowledge
└─Power Level: Expert

Knowledge (Lore): Growing up in Sinnoh, the land of mythos, Althea has a pretty good grasp on the legends of the world around her, as well as the current going-ons. While not nearly adept as her historical knowledge, she did keep up with the local lore. In part, this is why she had heard of the Scarlet family before coming across Calanthia.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Knowledge
└─Power Level: Expert

Knowledge (Medicine): Althea's other strongest suit, her knowledge of medicinal processes rivals her knowledge of alchemy, being surpassed by only a smidgen, given her accomplishments in the field of alchemy. Still, her knowledge of medicine is nothing to sneeze at.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Knowledge
└─Power Level: Master

Knowledge (Nature): Something she dabbles in given her interests in herbalism, her knowledge of nature in general is decent. She could tell you what to eat and what not to eat, as well as where an animal is natively from.

│
├─Classification: Talent
├─Category: Knowledge
└─Power Level: Journeyman

Books.

And dust.

One could say much about the high walled libraries that composed of Althea's rooms in the mansion. But the easiest two words to use were, as always, books and dust. Granted, the woman took much great effort to ensure that her tomes remained dust and wear free, the general qualities of old libraries demanded that there was dust in there somewhere... so we mustn't break tradition.

Althea, turned the page of the tome before her. It was an ancient thing, its pages the size of a typical bedroom pillow. Illuminated with drawn of a civilization long past, with archaic writing and wording on it, she studied over the vast book with an acute attention. It depicted a set of old legend from the northern reaches of Kanto, where the lands of Rota reigned command. One involved a centuries old war and the famous Lord Aaron. But that was not the tale she was interested in.

There was very little information on the stories she wanted to know about, the tales of a civilization believed to have been in that area millennium before Aaron defended Rota's boarders. But what she would give to divine that information from the unknowns of the realm of knowledge. A society of alchemy, the rumors spoke... those that knew the true nature of a stone she had once wanted to create.

But that was neither here nor there.

The woman did not look up as the maid entered. They often came and went, bring food or cleaning and the like. So she continued to read. But when the servant approached her and placed the modern-yet-old phone before her on its cushion, she noticed. Taking the moment or two to finish the page, she placed a silk ribbon within the tome and closed it shut gently.

Then she peered to the phone with an arching eyebrow. Most did not know she was here. Though her name was remember amongst the business world due to her parents, most believed the daughter dead along with husband and wife. That being said, it was strange to receive a call. She lifted the phone gently, placing the device to her ear.

"This is Althea Carinthea," she clarified simply, "who is calling upon me?"