Virginia

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"Virginia is a deviless of particularly refined tastes, and particularly elaborate cunning."

Virginia is a fashionable, knowledgeable, and high-ranking deviless, and a former Lord Mayor of London.

Infernal Archaeology

Virginia has a taste for the souls of the learned and well-known. She has a significant interest in the histories of the Fallen Cities and the language of the Correspondence, and can often be found conducting research in the Forgotten Quarter. This puts her in frequent rivalry with other archaeologists, including Dr. Orthos, a scholar who has headed many expeditions.

Virginia is a player of the Marvellous. Long ago, she was a heroine of Hell's Season of Revolutions, helping overthrow a Prince of Hell after having an affair with him. The exiled prince still has an interest in her, but sadly for him, he is imprisoned alone on Corpsecage Island.

Infernal Elections

"Virginia's followers don't preach abstinence, nor even restraint. They advocate exercises, physical and spiritual, and spread the twin practices of penitence and callisthenics wherever they go."

Virginia successfully ran for Mayor of London in 1897, under the slogan Good for the Soul. Despite her status as a deviless, the Brass Embassy quickly disavowed any involvement with her candidacy and made an official statement to the press saying that she "was [London's] problem now." She became London's first Lord Mayor, a position renamed by the Jovial Contrarian as his last act in office.

Virginia's platform encouraged a "Clean Bill of Health," and promised to improve the lives and health of London's soul as a whole, using modern medicine and by opening a public spa to allow the "honing of the self, like a knife on a whetstone." Despite their rivalry, Dr Orthos chose to support Virginia's campaign, partly out of support for her policies and partly because if she won, he would have less interference in his Forgotten Quarter expeditions. He was not her only surprising ally; Virginia gained a motley crew of support, with society figures, lower-ranking devils, and even some members of the clergy campaigning on her behalf. She even garnered support from Temperance campaigners, who were nervous about Virginia's strategies but found that their views aligned with her agenda. Some of Virginia's more fervent allies put up posters depicting her as a new Queen Elizabeth, emblazoned with the caption "Rex Virginia;" these posters were quickly confiscated by the Ministry.

The motivations for Virginia's campaign were more complicated than mere public health. She and Orthos both expressed disgust at the corruption and debauchery of London as a city, but Virginia also hinted that she wants to prepare London for an unspecified future calamity. Perhaps, however, this was all simply to further her studies, or to harvest healthier souls, as devils do.

At the conclusion of the election, the Jovial Contrarian, London's mayor at the time, said that the office of mayor was "corrupt, shambolic and altogether unfit for purpose," and declared that he had abolished it. He immediately created the new title of Lord Mayor, and announced that Virginia would be the first person to hold it.

Rex Virginia

"Is this what London does to its mayors? Jenny's term was only three years ago. Did anything last? […] It doesn't matter. I refuse to be measured by the work of my predecessors. What I shall do will stand so high above them that it will not be necessary."

After the election, Virginia immediately started working on her spa. She bought and renovated a townhouse for the purpose and made an agreement with the Dynamite, a revolutionary faction of devils, to hire a group of devil "physicians" of sorts. Visitors were often surprised by the odd treatments offered; they might be asked to sit in a copper bathtub and guess the number of people it had ever held, stay in a waiting room filled with terribly boring literature on Rubbery physiognomy, "read a range of dreadful 'improving' works of literature," eat "some kind of sour-cream porridge," "drink a litre of room temperature water," or "lie still and think of anything – anything at all – other than a Rubbery Man." Needless to say, these recommendations didn't seem to have much of an effect at all.

During the Fruits of the Zee Festival, Virginia searched for a mask used by an orderly in the Orphanage, which Mrs Plenty was said to have taken with her after she left that place, and which was disposed of shortly after. Virginia wanted to use the mask to uncover the memory of that event.

Towards the end of her term, Virginia stated, "I know that my Spas have not produced such immediate results as London might have hoped. The work proceeds." Then out of the blue, she announced that a deal had been struck with Hell; it seemed that regardless of the inefficacy of her plans, electing a devil as Lord Mayor had made Hell's attitude toward London more relaxed. Virginia negotiated the opening of the Hinterlands to Londoners and founded the Ministry of Upper River Development, leading to the foundation of the Great Hellbound Railway, which constructed a second rail line between London and Hell.

At the end of her term, at the conclusion of the Election of 1898, she announced that Londoners, in their "unique and incomprehensible genius" had chosen The Viscountess of the Viric Jungle as their next (and, as it turned out, final) Lord Mayor.