Perennia Beresford

The Animation of the Clockwork Ghost
Perennia is nothing more than a soulless mockery of a human being. But, this destructive machine in denial of what it truly is was not always this way, no. Once a creature of grand beauty and impeccable elegance, Perennia is the result of a brilliant mind driven mad by a crazed lust for power and control that disguised itself as fatherly love.

Caine Beresford, Perennia's father, was a man that found himself torn between his studies as a Magus of Dalaran, and his almost obsessive affinity for tinkering. But soon, he found himself combining the two to revolutionize his world of invention. It was this epiphany that brought about Perennia's demise.

She was a sickly and premature child whose entire life was dictated by a strange, rare illness that targeted her immune system, which caused it to falsely attack her own body. By the time she was in her early teens, many of her organs were failing, and Caine took up drastic measures in an effort to preserve his only child.

He created bionic substitutes for the dying organs, but the hastily-made prototypes were rejected and destroyed by her immune system every time. The process was excruciatingly painful for Perennia, but Caine clung to his desperate hopes that he could save her. When his daughter eventually succumbed, he was devastated.

Perennia's death completely shattered Caine's mind, and he felt as if he had failed his daughter, and himself. But the bittersweet coping mechanism of denial soon set in, and Caine had convinced himself once more that he could preserve her. If he could not keep her body alive, surely he could keep her personality alive, right?

And so, he did - or at least he thought he did. He created a Clockwork construct that was animated by both Arcane and Shadow magic in the likeness of his own daughter. Her porcelain skin was replaced with synthetic material... Her bones were replaced with saronite... The ligaments that held her metal joints together were made from adamantium-infused wiring... He even managed to create a very realistic head of synthetic hair that replicated her boisterous black curls... And deep within the inner configurations of the construct sat the core that held the programmed simulation of his pride and joy, Perennia.

But, like those barbaric imitations of organs that only made her death more tragic, Perennia's configured personality was incomplete. She could think deeply, but feel very little. She could analyze every situation from a purely scientific and logical point of view, but all emotion was lost on the poor automaton, except for the deep, burning knowledge that she was not truly real. She was not truly Perennia.