Lydia

Lydia is a tattoo artist in Serpent Isle's Monitor, during Ultima VII Part Two.

Description
A member of the Bear Command, Lydia was a tattooist who had learned her craft from her mother, often practicing on her own body that she might perfect her art. Swirls of ink were tattooed all over her form, spelling out ciphered messages about her past deeds. When she was but eight years of age, her older sister, Selene, was abducted by the  Magister of Moonshade, who had detected magical potential within the girl and required her to be raised as a mage. The children's mother, devastated by the loss of her daughter, eventually grew sickened and died.

Now an orphan, Lydia presumably grew to maturity alone, passing the Knight's Test at the age fifteen and quickly replacing her mother as tattooist for the city of warriors. It was her hand that gave each initiated knight the mark of their command, and she also did further work to demarcate the deeds the fighters accomplished in their later years.

Sometime before the Avatar's arrival on the Serpent Isle, Lydia was at long last reunited with her sister, now named Selina. The young adept had come under the employ of the sage Batlin, and, expecting the hero of Britannia to pursue them, she contracted Lydia to assist in assassinating Lord British's champion, should they arrive. Lydia, who had seduced Shmed, the administrator of the Knight's Test, had her lover rig the dungeon with magical traps and creatures, hoping this would kill the hero when they inevitably attempted to pass through it to gain the acceptance of Monitorian society.

When this avenue failed and Shmed was slain attempting to kill the prevailing hero, Lydia took matters into her own hands, mixing a rare poison into the ink with which she gave the triumphant knight their totemic tattoo. When the Avatar was able to overcome the resulting sickness with the aid of Harnna and Fawnish herbalist Delphynia, the hero approached the artist, having been informed that the ailment had been inflicted. Thus confronted, Lydia attacked the Avatar with an envenomed dagger, denouncing the new-made pikeman as the servant of "Beast British." She was cut down in the ensuing struggle by the champion of Britannia.

Trivia

 * It is technically possible to simply ignore Lydia's attack and thus avoid killing her, although she will remain a hostile NPC for the remaining duration of the game.
 * The picture of Lydia in the Serpent Isle Clue Book omits the character's many tattoos, which feature prominently in her in-game portrait.
 * Lydia is named after the 1939 song Lydia the Tattooed Lady by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, which was featured prominently in many Marx Brothers films.