Dame Aedith is an Agent of the Forces of Good against the Foul Undead- not constructs, but vampires.
A Woman With a Mission[]
No one else seems ever to have seen any trace of vampirism anywhere, including the authors[1] (although Ardsley Wooster and Carson von Mekkhan have a ... disturbing ... exchange[2] on the possibility), but Aedith hasn't let that stop her. She's been traveling with Master Payne's Circus of Adventure for reasons of her own, where her skill with weapons is appreciated both on and off the stage despite a regrettable knife throwing incident.[3]
Either Conquer or Die!
She dresses for her Mission, in red with a high collar marked with a cross, and possesses an interesting Gatling-gun-like weapon which appears to fire wooden stakes.[4] This may indicate that she too is a Spark, since it's exactly the sort of thing she would invent if she were.
As seen in her picture above, she permanently acquires an unwanted and rather ironic admirer after she idly turns the crank ✣ on a small musical device which Agatha has been fiddling with. The novel Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess makes it explicit that the device is in fact a bat-summoner.
When the Circus decamps to England, she is enthusiastic about the idea, having heard (very unsubstantiated) rumors that Albia's submerged kingdom is crawling with vampires.
The Novels[]
Clockwork Princess notes that Aedith's circus wagon is covered with holy symbols and artifacts from a multitude of religions, and is equipped with a long dragging chain as it keeps getting hit by lightning. The vehicle also advertises an unspecified "cure" for anemia, sleepwalking and garlic allergies.
The Works[]
The Works Includes a card for Dame Ædith which depicts her holding a large wooden stake and warding off the aforementioned bat. Her epithets are Mad and Vampire Hunter.
The rules for The Works are at pains to point out that they adopt a literal text-based mechanism for determining to what cards the "Instructions" on a given card apply, and thus (this is the actual example cited) Dame Aedith[5] should be considered a Vampire as well as a Vampire Hunter. Of course, hers is the only card in the deck that actually makes reference to Vampires, and thus the card can only ever affect itself.
Possibly relevant outside information[]
Dame Aedith is no doubt a backhanded homage to (not to say travesty of) Vampire Hunter D.
References
- ↑ WoG: Dame Ædith is insane. There are no vampires in the Girl Genius universe
- ↑ Beneath Castle Heterodyne ✣
- ↑ "How was I to know that guy was joking?" ✣
- ↑ Seen here ✣ used against the Monster Horse Beastie.
- ↑ sic; the ae ligature appears only on the card itself