Create-A-Hero
PCs
Character you have created: Nicole MacNamara
Alias: Walker
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): Azure F0FFFF
Character Alignment: Walking the Line
Identity: Secret, trying to keep it that way
Character Personality:
Nicole is a scrapper, born and bred in the rough neighbourhoods of Hell's Kitchen to a poor family of workers. She knows life is tough, sometimes overwhelmingly so, but she battles on because really, what other choice do you have? She tries to maintain a positive attitude and see the good in the world, but the past three months have not been kind to her, and it's starting to wear pretty hard. It doesn't help that her hormones are raging about, and not showing any signs of cutting back soon.
There are many things that aggravate Nicole, and those fluctuate day to day. But several things drive her at this point. She thirsts, desires like nothing else she's known before, to satisfy her sense of justice. She knows gangs are horrible, and senseless violence bad, but otherwise her sense of justice is entirely based out of what her working-class father managed to teach her, mainly that 'hard work's rewarded, and good prevails'. She is somewhat arbitrary in what she believes might be just or not, and, for example, will happily smash a man in the face for shoplifting. In short, her responses will most likely be physically violent, and sometimes not proportional.
She has found over the last couple of months that she generally enjoys fighting, which is probably not going to endear her to her idol. Also on her list of not-so-heroic traits: She has no problems stealing to live, though not from the poor. Sneaking her way into places, killing those she thinks deserve it, fighting with the police if they try and take her in; None of this is beyond her. She will do anything to achieve her goals.
Uniform/costume:
Origin Info/Details: Nicole grew up the youngest of three girls born to a poor electrician and his wife in Hell's Kitchen. She had, as far as she could tell, everything she wanted from life, even if she didn't necessarily eat every night and never got to see parks. But she was happy, and tha was important. She did...okay in school, though she was neither exceptional nor all that motivated. Early on, she got the bug to read her older sisters comics books, and when her mom taught her about Lady Liberty, she was fascinated. She grew up thinking that the only thing she wanted to do was to be a superhero. She got her wish in the most horrific way she could imagine.
She missed the news broadcasts warning that Pax MetaHumana was coming, and Nicole was busy bringing groceries back to her house when she had to take cover from a gang fight that broke out nearly on her tenement building's front step. As she crouched, waiting for everything to calm down at least long enough for her to get inside, the crackling green energy washed over her street, and for just a moment, she knew everything. Just as quickly, that knowledge and her memory of it was gone, and she was left feeling slightly nauseous. Trying to figure out what was going on, she peeked up over the dumpster she had taken cover behind. Which was when the street exploded.
Later, she pieced together what had happened. Apparently, one of the combatants near her had gained the ability to explode forward and detonate like a rocket, somehow without taking damage. One of the opposing folks had developed lightning powers, and a host of minor physical abilities may have occurred on both sides. All Nicole knew at the time was that the dumpster had launched into her in a cloud of flying debris, launching her through the brick wall behind her, and everything went dark as a corner of the building collapsed onto her.
Her parents were both killed in the building's collapse, and one of her sisters was killed by fighting in the streets during the mass panic that occurred. When she woke up and found out what happened, Nicole nearly lost her mind then and there. But the news broadcasts in the area included mentions of the heroes fighting to stop what had killed her family, and somewhere deep down, her mind latched on to the hero Icon as the one who stopped it from happening to any further cities, despite the reality of it being a whole confederation of heroes. She spent several days learning what she could about him, and then, grabbing some gear to keep herself hidden so she didn't get taken in as a runaway, she began the long trek to Lost Haven. She aims to become his apprentice, or at least learn how to hero, and stop things like the Pax Metahumana event from ever destroying another family. Since she is underage, she has had to make her way to the city on foot
Hero Type (Select one): Brick
Power Level (Select one below): Street
Powers (Be Specific):
Set Adrift: Nicole is caught outside of time, temporally unset. Her position in time varies greatly, so much so that, using the "Trousers of Time" or branching dimensions explanation of Multiverse Theory, she exists as the same person in all possible universes, though not physically, because all of those incarnations of her exists at the same point in time, the present. Mentally and spiritually, she is normal, but anything that attempts to affect her physically would have to affect her for all of time, all at once.
Effectively, she is conventionally invulnerable. Kinetic impacts, energy, poisons; nothing can affect her for her entire existence at the moment it happens, and thus is negated entirely, not even capable of breaking the surface of her skin. This also means nothing can change her body from the point she was temporally destabilised. She cannot starve, cannot suffocate, and will not age. Her muscles cannot be damaged, so she enjoys a slight increase of strength over average humans, and can lift more than she should be able to because she doesn't have to fear bone breakage or soft tissue rupture.
Oddly, this does not affect her memory like it logically should, and neural pathways can still form, though only in her brain(see below about muscle memory). She is also slowly losing any sort of fear, due to her complete inability to encounter things that cause her pain. That could change, given what she might face off against later.
Attributes (Select one at each category):
Resources: Minimal
Weaknesses:
She does not age. She is fifteen. While she might enjoy immortality for a little bit, she will never be physically an adult. She will never be taken seriously as an adult. And she is permanently in the final stages of puberty, unable to ever escape the ravages of hormonal fluctuations.
Anything that ignores one's temporal position can affect her as per normal. This means she is susceptible to magical enchantment, psionics, having her soul ripped out, and other things like that. Directly damaging magic, such as hurling a fireball at her, however, still has no effect. Theoretically,if one could do enough damage to affect her for all of time, one could wear down her physical defenses and damage her, but in practise this would be almost impossible except for extremely powerful speedsters.
She isn't all that bright, and as a fifteen year old is convinced that she knows exactly how the world works, despite any evidence that other people might know more than her(with the exception of Icon). While that might change a little over time, it will never completely go away.
Despite being undamageable, she is still subject to all of the other normal physics a one hundred and twenty-pound girl might face. She can be buried in rubble and rendered immobile, launched into space to adrift forever, sunk to the bottom of the ocean, tied up, etc. Her natural strength can only go so far.
Speaking of strength, her unchanging body comes with a curse. She was somewhat strong for her age due to some sports training, but she while she will never suffer muscle degradation, she will never gain muscle mass, either. No matter how much she might need out of her muscles, they will never grow any stronger. She will never get any more flexible, never get any faster, never gain muscle memory for martial training.
Being undamageable has some psychological effects, as well. Nicole is completely reckless, having no concern at all for tactics, delicate situations, or really anything beyond completing her task. She also has a tendency to forget what might hurt or kill normal people.
If anything should infect her somehow, while she would be immune to ill effects, she is the perfect carrier for disease. And no known medical test can possibly work on her, returning nothing but errors or blank screens, needles unable to puncture her skin, etc. Though she can produce saliva, so that's something.
She has no sense of internal timing anymore, saving for those reflexes needed for combat. So while she can time and dodge a punch if she needed to, she is constantly late, having no idea what time it might be even from moment to moment. This effect of her displacement also causes her vision to be slightly blurred in a way no corrective lenses can correct, as her eyes see everything both slightly ahead and behind of its actual position in the present.
Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?): Her sister Alice is missing and presumed dead. Everyone else is dead, and as she is also presumed dead, no one is looking for her at the moment.
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Think I got it down, now.
Alias: Walker
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): Azure F0FFFF
Character Alignment: Walking the Line
Identity: Secret, trying to keep it that way
Character Personality:
Nicole is a scrapper, born and bred in the rough neighbourhoods of Hell's Kitchen to a poor family of workers. She knows life is tough, sometimes overwhelmingly so, but she battles on because really, what other choice do you have? She tries to maintain a positive attitude and see the good in the world, but the past three months have not been kind to her, and it's starting to wear pretty hard. It doesn't help that her hormones are raging about, and not showing any signs of cutting back soon.
There are many things that aggravate Nicole, and those fluctuate day to day. But several things drive her at this point. She thirsts, desires like nothing else she's known before, to satisfy her sense of justice. She knows gangs are horrible, and senseless violence bad, but otherwise her sense of justice is entirely based out of what her working-class father managed to teach her, mainly that 'hard work's rewarded, and good prevails'. She is somewhat arbitrary in what she believes might be just or not, and, for example, will happily smash a man in the face for shoplifting. In short, her responses will most likely be physically violent, and sometimes not proportional.
She has found over the last couple of months that she generally enjoys fighting, which is probably not going to endear her to her idol. Also on her list of not-so-heroic traits: She has no problems stealing to live, though not from the poor. Sneaking her way into places, killing those she thinks deserve it, fighting with the police if they try and take her in; None of this is beyond her. She will do anything to achieve her goals.
Uniform/costume:
Jacket: 
Pants:
Boots:
Add a black bandana across her lower face, blackened goggles, and a baseball cap.
Obviously, once she starts heroing, this should change, but this is all she can get for a disguise for now.
Pants:
Boots:
Add a black bandana across her lower face, blackened goggles, and a baseball cap.
Obviously, once she starts heroing, this should change, but this is all she can get for a disguise for now.
Origin Info/Details: Nicole grew up the youngest of three girls born to a poor electrician and his wife in Hell's Kitchen. She had, as far as she could tell, everything she wanted from life, even if she didn't necessarily eat every night and never got to see parks. But she was happy, and tha was important. She did...okay in school, though she was neither exceptional nor all that motivated. Early on, she got the bug to read her older sisters comics books, and when her mom taught her about Lady Liberty, she was fascinated. She grew up thinking that the only thing she wanted to do was to be a superhero. She got her wish in the most horrific way she could imagine.
She missed the news broadcasts warning that Pax MetaHumana was coming, and Nicole was busy bringing groceries back to her house when she had to take cover from a gang fight that broke out nearly on her tenement building's front step. As she crouched, waiting for everything to calm down at least long enough for her to get inside, the crackling green energy washed over her street, and for just a moment, she knew everything. Just as quickly, that knowledge and her memory of it was gone, and she was left feeling slightly nauseous. Trying to figure out what was going on, she peeked up over the dumpster she had taken cover behind. Which was when the street exploded.
Later, she pieced together what had happened. Apparently, one of the combatants near her had gained the ability to explode forward and detonate like a rocket, somehow without taking damage. One of the opposing folks had developed lightning powers, and a host of minor physical abilities may have occurred on both sides. All Nicole knew at the time was that the dumpster had launched into her in a cloud of flying debris, launching her through the brick wall behind her, and everything went dark as a corner of the building collapsed onto her.
Her parents were both killed in the building's collapse, and one of her sisters was killed by fighting in the streets during the mass panic that occurred. When she woke up and found out what happened, Nicole nearly lost her mind then and there. But the news broadcasts in the area included mentions of the heroes fighting to stop what had killed her family, and somewhere deep down, her mind latched on to the hero Icon as the one who stopped it from happening to any further cities, despite the reality of it being a whole confederation of heroes. She spent several days learning what she could about him, and then, grabbing some gear to keep herself hidden so she didn't get taken in as a runaway, she began the long trek to Lost Haven. She aims to become his apprentice, or at least learn how to hero, and stop things like the Pax Metahumana event from ever destroying another family. Since she is underage, she has had to make her way to the city on foot
Hero Type (Select one): Brick
Power Level (Select one below): Street
Powers (Be Specific):
Set Adrift: Nicole is caught outside of time, temporally unset. Her position in time varies greatly, so much so that, using the "Trousers of Time" or branching dimensions explanation of Multiverse Theory, she exists as the same person in all possible universes, though not physically, because all of those incarnations of her exists at the same point in time, the present. Mentally and spiritually, she is normal, but anything that attempts to affect her physically would have to affect her for all of time, all at once.
Effectively, she is conventionally invulnerable. Kinetic impacts, energy, poisons; nothing can affect her for her entire existence at the moment it happens, and thus is negated entirely, not even capable of breaking the surface of her skin. This also means nothing can change her body from the point she was temporally destabilised. She cannot starve, cannot suffocate, and will not age. Her muscles cannot be damaged, so she enjoys a slight increase of strength over average humans, and can lift more than she should be able to because she doesn't have to fear bone breakage or soft tissue rupture.
Oddly, this does not affect her memory like it logically should, and neural pathways can still form, though only in her brain(see below about muscle memory). She is also slowly losing any sort of fear, due to her complete inability to encounter things that cause her pain. That could change, given what she might face off against later.
Attributes (Select one at each category):
Height: 5'4”
Weight: 127 lbs
Strength Level: Above Human, but not normal meta levels
(Her only augment to strength is not suffering muscle,tendon, or bone damage)
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Human
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Effectively limitless
Agility: Normal human
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Weight: 127 lbs
Strength Level: Above Human, but not normal meta levels
(Her only augment to strength is not suffering muscle,tendon, or bone damage)
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Human
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Effectively limitless
Agility: Normal human
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Resources: Minimal
Weaknesses:
She does not age. She is fifteen. While she might enjoy immortality for a little bit, she will never be physically an adult. She will never be taken seriously as an adult. And she is permanently in the final stages of puberty, unable to ever escape the ravages of hormonal fluctuations.
Anything that ignores one's temporal position can affect her as per normal. This means she is susceptible to magical enchantment, psionics, having her soul ripped out, and other things like that. Directly damaging magic, such as hurling a fireball at her, however, still has no effect. Theoretically,if one could do enough damage to affect her for all of time, one could wear down her physical defenses and damage her, but in practise this would be almost impossible except for extremely powerful speedsters.
She isn't all that bright, and as a fifteen year old is convinced that she knows exactly how the world works, despite any evidence that other people might know more than her(with the exception of Icon). While that might change a little over time, it will never completely go away.
Despite being undamageable, she is still subject to all of the other normal physics a one hundred and twenty-pound girl might face. She can be buried in rubble and rendered immobile, launched into space to adrift forever, sunk to the bottom of the ocean, tied up, etc. Her natural strength can only go so far.
Speaking of strength, her unchanging body comes with a curse. She was somewhat strong for her age due to some sports training, but she while she will never suffer muscle degradation, she will never gain muscle mass, either. No matter how much she might need out of her muscles, they will never grow any stronger. She will never get any more flexible, never get any faster, never gain muscle memory for martial training.
Being undamageable has some psychological effects, as well. Nicole is completely reckless, having no concern at all for tactics, delicate situations, or really anything beyond completing her task. She also has a tendency to forget what might hurt or kill normal people.
If anything should infect her somehow, while she would be immune to ill effects, she is the perfect carrier for disease. And no known medical test can possibly work on her, returning nothing but errors or blank screens, needles unable to puncture her skin, etc. Though she can produce saliva, so that's something.
She has no sense of internal timing anymore, saving for those reflexes needed for combat. So while she can time and dodge a punch if she needed to, she is constantly late, having no idea what time it might be even from moment to moment. This effect of her displacement also causes her vision to be slightly blurred in a way no corrective lenses can correct, as her eyes see everything both slightly ahead and behind of its actual position in the present.
Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?): Her sister Alice is missing and presumed dead. Everyone else is dead, and as she is also presumed dead, no one is looking for her at the moment.
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Think I got it down, now.
Character you have created: Berenice
Alias: Siren, Harpy, Bird-lady, assorted other nicknames.
Speech Color: 82ca9d
Character Alignment: Hero(mostly)
Identity: Known, as that's how she introduces herself.
Character Personality:
Berenice would like to be a good person. Trouble with that is that she doesn't know what exactly constitutes a "good" person yet, and just goes by instinct. In fact, much of her thought process is still instinctual. She has the drive to help others in need, but can get in the way because she's not completely aware of what might be the most effective way to go about that goal. She likes children, will defend the helpless, and in general could be described as helpful, but there are some quirks in there. She doesn't understand the concept of pets, and as a carnivore will happily eat a cat, dog, or other small, furry thing, right up until someone tells her it's wrong. She is inquisitive, somewhat bothersome about it, much like a child who asks repeated questions about things because she is, in essence, at a child's level of understanding the world. Her speech is peppered with chirps and other bird noises. She is very magpie like, and will steal shiny objects regardless of intrinsic value. Those few people she has met that she likes enough, she will include in her "flock", and tends to gift them stolen objects and dead animals, at least until they refuse those gifts. She will keep trying until she finds something they like. She also has an annoying habit of trying to perch on those people.
She has no built in moral compass, really, and has had to develop one as she learns. Since her first real contact with the outside world was children in a poor neighbourhood of West Lost Haven, who had already had contact with strange things and were unlikely to run from a non-hostile bird woman, she has found ample reason to copy and learn from them, so she has become playful, energetic, and rather open-minded. The local parents, having yet to meet the "Bird Lady", have been operating under the assumption that the kids have come up with a community imaginary friend or mascot, and both parties are likely in for a surprise when then meet each other, with variable effects on Berenice's psyche depending on how they react to her presence.
Uniform/costume: Berenice is just coming to grips with the concept of modesty, so designing a uniform is kind of beyond her. She typically wears very loose-fitting, light tank tops cut to allow her wings, and a sort of draped loincloth over her waist. Other than that, she doesn't own much.
A good approximation of her looks, though her plumage goes all the way up to her navel from her talons and she has a fanned tail like a hawk's:
Origin Info/Details: Berenice is the result of a sorcerer trying to channel ancient Greek magic to create a servant for himself. After researching quite a number of possibilities, he decided to try and make a combination of harpy and siren. Gathering what he thought were the correct materials, including several live birds, a female human singer, spell reagents both ancient and modern, and a good bit of raw magic, he focused his mind and cast the almost correct enchantment. Berenice was created, but the resulting backlash of energy blew the unlucky wizard apart and caused a psychic reverberation that destroyed the built-in purpose of serving him in his creation's mind. The only remaining vestige of that is the (incomplete) knowledge of the English language and her name.
The newly born siren meandered about for a bit, fully formed in an adult and with all her instincts in sharp relief, but with no one to tell her what the world she was born into was like, she has had to figure it out on her own. The mage's lair, a shack built on a rocky promontory just west of Lost Haven, was torn asunder by her creation, but she has converted it into a ramshackle nest and hunts and explores from there. Local neighbourhoods would most likely have begun reporting her appearances, were it not for more spectacular displays that regularly happen in and around the city, though curious people could easily find newspaper articles. When she can get away with it, she has begun playing with local children in parks.
She has also begun experimenting with her mystic powers, which are not developed much yet as she has had no formal education. This has, in addition to acting like a sort of beacon letting people with the right senses know there's an inexperienced spell-caster in the area, caused a number of odd phenomenon near her nest, including a sudden increase in non-native plant growth and a growing numbers of people wandering in the area to have memory loss.
Eventually Berenice will probably grow to be a force for good, but for the moment, she is very much in a precarious state, given the wrong influences or experiences, she could very easily become more like the sirens of ancient legend, cruelly luring people to their doom for her own amusement and feeding. This was actually originally the purpose she was created for, and the seed still remains, even if only as a subconscious trigger point for now.
Hero Type: Supernatural/mystic
Power Level: City level
Powers:
Attributes:
Resources: Minimal
Weaknesses:
Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?):
While not having direct knowledge of her, her creator's teacher is very interested in finding out what the hell happened to his student. He is an exceptional magic user, but the student was studying by himself at an undisclosed-to-his-master location, and the man is having no easy time finding the place.
The singer used as a sacrifice for the spell that created Berenice can still be seen in her face. Her mind and personality are gone, but any of her former friends, family, or associates will be able to recognise her face if they see her. Attempts to bring back the "real" girl will be useless, but it'll probably cause no ends of problems. The police are also interested in the reported disappearance, investigation of which has yielded evidence of kidnapping and trace amounts of magic. The detective in charge of her case in George Owens, LHPD Missing Persons Unit.
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Not yet, I only really know how to link urls.
Additional Notes: Berenice has a bad habit of talking to herself to remind herself of things, resulting in an almost constant stream of low-grade muttering if she's thinking hard. She also does not understand toilets. At all. Or really any sort of personal hygiene not directly related to washing of leavings of meals and keeping her feathers well-groomed, thus her hair is a tangled mess and she does not smell pleasant.
Alias: Siren, Harpy, Bird-lady, assorted other nicknames.
Speech Color: 82ca9d
Character Alignment: Hero(mostly)
Identity: Known, as that's how she introduces herself.
Character Personality:
Berenice would like to be a good person. Trouble with that is that she doesn't know what exactly constitutes a "good" person yet, and just goes by instinct. In fact, much of her thought process is still instinctual. She has the drive to help others in need, but can get in the way because she's not completely aware of what might be the most effective way to go about that goal. She likes children, will defend the helpless, and in general could be described as helpful, but there are some quirks in there. She doesn't understand the concept of pets, and as a carnivore will happily eat a cat, dog, or other small, furry thing, right up until someone tells her it's wrong. She is inquisitive, somewhat bothersome about it, much like a child who asks repeated questions about things because she is, in essence, at a child's level of understanding the world. Her speech is peppered with chirps and other bird noises. She is very magpie like, and will steal shiny objects regardless of intrinsic value. Those few people she has met that she likes enough, she will include in her "flock", and tends to gift them stolen objects and dead animals, at least until they refuse those gifts. She will keep trying until she finds something they like. She also has an annoying habit of trying to perch on those people.
She has no built in moral compass, really, and has had to develop one as she learns. Since her first real contact with the outside world was children in a poor neighbourhood of West Lost Haven, who had already had contact with strange things and were unlikely to run from a non-hostile bird woman, she has found ample reason to copy and learn from them, so she has become playful, energetic, and rather open-minded. The local parents, having yet to meet the "Bird Lady", have been operating under the assumption that the kids have come up with a community imaginary friend or mascot, and both parties are likely in for a surprise when then meet each other, with variable effects on Berenice's psyche depending on how they react to her presence.
Uniform/costume: Berenice is just coming to grips with the concept of modesty, so designing a uniform is kind of beyond her. She typically wears very loose-fitting, light tank tops cut to allow her wings, and a sort of draped loincloth over her waist. Other than that, she doesn't own much.
A good approximation of her looks, though her plumage goes all the way up to her navel from her talons and she has a fanned tail like a hawk's:
Origin Info/Details: Berenice is the result of a sorcerer trying to channel ancient Greek magic to create a servant for himself. After researching quite a number of possibilities, he decided to try and make a combination of harpy and siren. Gathering what he thought were the correct materials, including several live birds, a female human singer, spell reagents both ancient and modern, and a good bit of raw magic, he focused his mind and cast the almost correct enchantment. Berenice was created, but the resulting backlash of energy blew the unlucky wizard apart and caused a psychic reverberation that destroyed the built-in purpose of serving him in his creation's mind. The only remaining vestige of that is the (incomplete) knowledge of the English language and her name.
The newly born siren meandered about for a bit, fully formed in an adult and with all her instincts in sharp relief, but with no one to tell her what the world she was born into was like, she has had to figure it out on her own. The mage's lair, a shack built on a rocky promontory just west of Lost Haven, was torn asunder by her creation, but she has converted it into a ramshackle nest and hunts and explores from there. Local neighbourhoods would most likely have begun reporting her appearances, were it not for more spectacular displays that regularly happen in and around the city, though curious people could easily find newspaper articles. When she can get away with it, she has begun playing with local children in parks.
She has also begun experimenting with her mystic powers, which are not developed much yet as she has had no formal education. This has, in addition to acting like a sort of beacon letting people with the right senses know there's an inexperienced spell-caster in the area, caused a number of odd phenomenon near her nest, including a sudden increase in non-native plant growth and a growing numbers of people wandering in the area to have memory loss.
Eventually Berenice will probably grow to be a force for good, but for the moment, she is very much in a precarious state, given the wrong influences or experiences, she could very easily become more like the sirens of ancient legend, cruelly luring people to their doom for her own amusement and feeding. This was actually originally the purpose she was created for, and the seed still remains, even if only as a subconscious trigger point for now.
Hero Type: Supernatural/mystic
Power Level: City level
Powers:
-Magic use: Berenice can, through effort and practise, cause changes in the natural world through the use of mystic forces. These changes include accelerated or decelerated plant growth, attraction and captivation of animals, localised climate variation to make herself more comfortable(very small area of only a few acres), and bewitching weak-willed people into helping her. In addition to those in-born magics, she can learn and utilise written forms of incantations and cast runes and other wards, though she doesn't know any and has no access to them.
-The Siren's Song: Just like those legendary beasts, Berenice can use her voice to captivate those around her. Within a clearly audible range(between 100 and 500 feet, depending on local variables), those hearing her sing become entranced with her, wanting nothing more than to help her and defend her, or even just be near her. While this is a magical, psychic effect, it does not give her control over them, save that most of those bewitched in such away would desire to appease her and grant her requests. This will not cause anyone to do anything they wouldn't normally do, nor does it grant them any sort of abilities they wouldn't normally have. For example, while some carpenter would be more than happy to build a house for her, he could not do the plumbing for it, nor would he turn his hammer and go kill someone for her. A poet would write her a sonnet, but could not suddenly play guitar or use a gun unless he already had those skills.
-Harpy's Scream: As another use of her voice, Berenice can scream. This is extremely loud, noticeable from miles away, and sounds like a hunting hawk's cry. It hits in a flared cone area in front of her, spreading out as the sound waves dissipate and getting progressively less effective the further one is.
At point blank range, up to twenty feet, the combination of sound waves, magic, and wind power create a concussive force capable of breaking bones, stripping air from lungs, and outright killing normal creatures with no defenses. Even those with some survivability will experience hearing damage, burst blood vessels in vulnerable area like the eyeballs and sinus cavity, difficulty breathing, and gale force winds
Between twenty and fifty feet, ear-drums are ruptured without protection and the sound levels can induce unconsciousness, while the magic levels may actually cause temporary psychosis or delusional confusion, as well as being pushed back by force of wind
Between fifty and a hundred feet, the sound levels can cause temporary deafness without protection, and magic effects include dizziness, loss of balance, nausea, and can still knock flying victims out of the air
Between one hundred and two hundred feet, all other sounds are cancelled out, and the decibel level can still cause swift headaches without protection. Magic effects are minimal at this range, though flight can still be disrupted by the wind energy created.
Beyond two hundred feet, this is just an exceptionally loud scream.
This scream will affect any creature that can hear and has no magical defenses against it.
Berenice can keep screaming for astonishing periods of time, up to two minutes with no difficulty. If she goes longer than four minutes, she risks damaging her vocal chords, and after five minutes she can no longer hold the scream and stops, rendering her mute for twenty-four to forty-eight hours while her throat repairs itself.
-Flight: Having wings that are mildly magically powered grants her the ability to fly, even if physics says something of her weight couldn't really get off the ground. As an intrinsic magic, this cannot be dispelled or otherwise turned off unless Berenice is killed, though tying or otherwise binding her wings will still ground her.
-Natural weapons: Berenice's talons are wicked things, easily as capable of piercing flesh as any other raptor might be. Owing to her size, they are around the same claw length and configuration as an osprey, though her grip strength is actually slightly better. They are also well built for both perching or standing on the ground.
-Psychic Immunity: As a magically constructed being of legend with her own pseudo-psychic abilities, Berenice is immune to psychic intrusions of any sort, except those of cosmic or infernal beings. Anyone attempting to read or invade her mind is psychically deafened by birdsong that interrupts all other thought, a cacophony that includes calls of everything from seagulls and crows to parrots and swallows. This assault ceases once they break contact, though it may be disorienting to unsuspecting people just scanning everyone in an area.
-Inheritance: Berenice has some of the natural abilities of the birds used in her creation. She has fairly water-proofed feathers, though she cannot dive like a tern. She can imitate the natural calls of any sea bird, black bird(crows, magpies, ravens, etc), song bird, or raptor. She can dive like a hawk, and has the equivalent level of eyesight. And she can maneuver quite well for her size, moving gracefully like a swallow even if she can't quite change direction as fast because of her inertial force. Her plumage is very hunting-oriented, white on the legs and under the wings, brown black and gold on the tops of her wings and tail. She is capable of subsisting on anything from tidbits of food garbage and week old roadkill to fruits and fresh fish, obviously preferring the latter options. While she has no beak, her teeth are very sharp, and she has only minuscule set of molars, but a triple set of canines and very sharp incisors.
-The Siren's Song: Just like those legendary beasts, Berenice can use her voice to captivate those around her. Within a clearly audible range(between 100 and 500 feet, depending on local variables), those hearing her sing become entranced with her, wanting nothing more than to help her and defend her, or even just be near her. While this is a magical, psychic effect, it does not give her control over them, save that most of those bewitched in such away would desire to appease her and grant her requests. This will not cause anyone to do anything they wouldn't normally do, nor does it grant them any sort of abilities they wouldn't normally have. For example, while some carpenter would be more than happy to build a house for her, he could not do the plumbing for it, nor would he turn his hammer and go kill someone for her. A poet would write her a sonnet, but could not suddenly play guitar or use a gun unless he already had those skills.
-Harpy's Scream: As another use of her voice, Berenice can scream. This is extremely loud, noticeable from miles away, and sounds like a hunting hawk's cry. It hits in a flared cone area in front of her, spreading out as the sound waves dissipate and getting progressively less effective the further one is.
At point blank range, up to twenty feet, the combination of sound waves, magic, and wind power create a concussive force capable of breaking bones, stripping air from lungs, and outright killing normal creatures with no defenses. Even those with some survivability will experience hearing damage, burst blood vessels in vulnerable area like the eyeballs and sinus cavity, difficulty breathing, and gale force winds
Between twenty and fifty feet, ear-drums are ruptured without protection and the sound levels can induce unconsciousness, while the magic levels may actually cause temporary psychosis or delusional confusion, as well as being pushed back by force of wind
Between fifty and a hundred feet, the sound levels can cause temporary deafness without protection, and magic effects include dizziness, loss of balance, nausea, and can still knock flying victims out of the air
Between one hundred and two hundred feet, all other sounds are cancelled out, and the decibel level can still cause swift headaches without protection. Magic effects are minimal at this range, though flight can still be disrupted by the wind energy created.
Beyond two hundred feet, this is just an exceptionally loud scream.
This scream will affect any creature that can hear and has no magical defenses against it.
Berenice can keep screaming for astonishing periods of time, up to two minutes with no difficulty. If she goes longer than four minutes, she risks damaging her vocal chords, and after five minutes she can no longer hold the scream and stops, rendering her mute for twenty-four to forty-eight hours while her throat repairs itself.
-Flight: Having wings that are mildly magically powered grants her the ability to fly, even if physics says something of her weight couldn't really get off the ground. As an intrinsic magic, this cannot be dispelled or otherwise turned off unless Berenice is killed, though tying or otherwise binding her wings will still ground her.
-Natural weapons: Berenice's talons are wicked things, easily as capable of piercing flesh as any other raptor might be. Owing to her size, they are around the same claw length and configuration as an osprey, though her grip strength is actually slightly better. They are also well built for both perching or standing on the ground.
-Psychic Immunity: As a magically constructed being of legend with her own pseudo-psychic abilities, Berenice is immune to psychic intrusions of any sort, except those of cosmic or infernal beings. Anyone attempting to read or invade her mind is psychically deafened by birdsong that interrupts all other thought, a cacophony that includes calls of everything from seagulls and crows to parrots and swallows. This assault ceases once they break contact, though it may be disorienting to unsuspecting people just scanning everyone in an area.
-Inheritance: Berenice has some of the natural abilities of the birds used in her creation. She has fairly water-proofed feathers, though she cannot dive like a tern. She can imitate the natural calls of any sea bird, black bird(crows, magpies, ravens, etc), song bird, or raptor. She can dive like a hawk, and has the equivalent level of eyesight. And she can maneuver quite well for her size, moving gracefully like a swallow even if she can't quite change direction as fast because of her inertial force. Her plumage is very hunting-oriented, white on the legs and under the wings, brown black and gold on the tops of her wings and tail. She is capable of subsisting on anything from tidbits of food garbage and week old roadkill to fruits and fresh fish, obviously preferring the latter options. While she has no beak, her teeth are very sharp, and she has only minuscule set of molars, but a triple set of canines and very sharp incisors.
Attributes:
Height: 4'1" (124 cm) normally, but if splayed out completely she's around 5'11" (180 cm)
Weight: 96 lbs (43.5 kg)
Wingspan: 12 feet(3.6 metres)
Strength Level: Normal Human
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Lower than normal walking(awkward), 40 mph flight
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2 hours
Agility: Below human normal on ground, 5x in the air
Intelligence: Normal human(but uneducated)
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Weight: 96 lbs (43.5 kg)
Wingspan: 12 feet(3.6 metres)
Strength Level: Normal Human
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Lower than normal walking(awkward), 40 mph flight
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2 hours
Agility: Below human normal on ground, 5x in the air
Intelligence: Normal human(but uneducated)
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Resources: Minimal
Weaknesses:
Inexperience is the greatest killer, this holds doubly true for Berenice. While she has the fundamental skills to hunt and fish for herself, she has no formal combat training, and lacks even a basic understanding of most weaponry, having never been exposed to it. This means she will not dodge out of the way of guns pointed at her, though swinging a sword is generally a universal sign of hostility. This translates further than combat, however, and into social areas. She does not understand any normal human social cues of facial expressions. Scowling at her to show displeasure or trying to otherwise use subtle hints of anything will have no effect. Much like a trademarked character fro Guardians, she has no concept of subtleties in speech either, and takes everything quite literally, which can lead to a myriad of errors. This is obviously eventually going to stop effecting her through time.
What won't go away, even with hard training, is her strong tendency to distracted-ness. While just waving a shiny object may work in short term until she gets more combat experience, any sort of reflective surface can actually cause her to lose track of what she's doing, a hold-over from the spell used to create her. Her creator originally intended to keep her captivated with a silver mirror when he didn't need her doing something, and while she can break away from normal glass mirrors with some effort, silver mirrors will still hold her fast until removed from her sight. This will be doubly difficult, as she will follow the mirror, trying to stay within arm's length of it and stare into it, until such a time as it is covered or destroyed. Even a shard can do this. Thankfully, this isn't something even she can articulate, and the sourcerer's notes were destroyed, but experimentation could reveal this.
Music, oddly, can also entrance her, though not to the same extent. While it won't pull her out of combat, playing any sort of rhythmic music will cause her to lose track of time and just sing or hum along, especially wood winds and harp or bowed strings. She'll snap out of it only when someone actively tells her to get a move on, or she gets hungry enough.
Berenice has absolutely no defenses against cosmic creatures, and will have to fight them using her own talons, weapons, and magic. Olympian "gods", especially Poseidon, Aphrodite, and Zeus, can command her unrelenting obedience, as they are from her "pantheon".
Despite being made of magic, Berenice is a flesh and blood creature, and can be hurt by any and all conventional means. Guns, knives, punches, being hit with a car, etc. If she knew spells for it that could change, but she is not naturally armoured in any way, form, or fashion, with the notable exceptions of having a solid skeletal structure unlike most avians, and the hardened plates of her talons.
Berenice has all of the normal mobility limitations of birds. She can't really walk, having to resort instead the the rolling, hopping gait most birds do when on the ground. This is awkward to move about with, and she is easily caught off balance when landed. Perching doesn't cause nearly as many problems. Taking off from the ground requires several beats and hops to get moving enough, and is much easier from a high place.
What won't go away, even with hard training, is her strong tendency to distracted-ness. While just waving a shiny object may work in short term until she gets more combat experience, any sort of reflective surface can actually cause her to lose track of what she's doing, a hold-over from the spell used to create her. Her creator originally intended to keep her captivated with a silver mirror when he didn't need her doing something, and while she can break away from normal glass mirrors with some effort, silver mirrors will still hold her fast until removed from her sight. This will be doubly difficult, as she will follow the mirror, trying to stay within arm's length of it and stare into it, until such a time as it is covered or destroyed. Even a shard can do this. Thankfully, this isn't something even she can articulate, and the sourcerer's notes were destroyed, but experimentation could reveal this.
Music, oddly, can also entrance her, though not to the same extent. While it won't pull her out of combat, playing any sort of rhythmic music will cause her to lose track of time and just sing or hum along, especially wood winds and harp or bowed strings. She'll snap out of it only when someone actively tells her to get a move on, or she gets hungry enough.
Berenice has absolutely no defenses against cosmic creatures, and will have to fight them using her own talons, weapons, and magic. Olympian "gods", especially Poseidon, Aphrodite, and Zeus, can command her unrelenting obedience, as they are from her "pantheon".
Despite being made of magic, Berenice is a flesh and blood creature, and can be hurt by any and all conventional means. Guns, knives, punches, being hit with a car, etc. If she knew spells for it that could change, but she is not naturally armoured in any way, form, or fashion, with the notable exceptions of having a solid skeletal structure unlike most avians, and the hardened plates of her talons.
Berenice has all of the normal mobility limitations of birds. She can't really walk, having to resort instead the the rolling, hopping gait most birds do when on the ground. This is awkward to move about with, and she is easily caught off balance when landed. Perching doesn't cause nearly as many problems. Taking off from the ground requires several beats and hops to get moving enough, and is much easier from a high place.
Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?):
While not having direct knowledge of her, her creator's teacher is very interested in finding out what the hell happened to his student. He is an exceptional magic user, but the student was studying by himself at an undisclosed-to-his-master location, and the man is having no easy time finding the place.
The singer used as a sacrifice for the spell that created Berenice can still be seen in her face. Her mind and personality are gone, but any of her former friends, family, or associates will be able to recognise her face if they see her. Attempts to bring back the "real" girl will be useless, but it'll probably cause no ends of problems. The police are also interested in the reported disappearance, investigation of which has yielded evidence of kidnapping and trace amounts of magic. The detective in charge of her case in George Owens, LHPD Missing Persons Unit.
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Not yet, I only really know how to link urls.
Additional Notes: Berenice has a bad habit of talking to herself to remind herself of things, resulting in an almost constant stream of low-grade muttering if she's thinking hard. She also does not understand toilets. At all. Or really any sort of personal hygiene not directly related to washing of leavings of meals and keeping her feathers well-groomed, thus her hair is a tangled mess and she does not smell pleasant.
Character you have created: Zoé Lambert
Alias: Кузница (Kuznitsa), Wraith, Forge
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): Tomato
Character Alignment: Villain
Identity: Secret
Character Personality: Zoë does not give one iota of care about anyone other than herself. Having no close relations, no one she trusts enough to call friend, and no real job or other form of even marginal social contact has left her somewhat askew on what still counts as good or bad company. She's also a loner, preferring to stay in her lair and play video games, doodle, read, or other activities that require other people to participate. Part of this is the isolation her powers force on her, as even with practise she has not gotten full control of them, and tied as they are to her emotional state, her volatile temper makes her more dangerous than it would in a normal person.
She has no regard for property law, and steals whatever she desires, or the cash to get it. She maintains her cover identity only as a front for where she gets the money, and will happily buy illicit goods from whomever has them. While she doesn't take hallucinogenic drugs due to the loss of control of her powers, she is more than happy to do some of the lighter things. Whiskey, however much she might like drinking it, usually results in her having to buy new stuff or move.
Internally, Zoë is lonely, blaming her powers and not her behaviour for driving away everyone she once cared about. She misses her family, but the way they split left her very much blaming them incorrectly. She drives herself further into villainy every day, trying to drown her problems in wealth and booze, and is extremely self-destructive. If she's not stop, she may begin eroding her own rules, which include no killing women or children, no unnecessary harm (though her definition of necessary is different than the norm), and not robbing the poor. She likes to see herself as a "noble" thief, though she's as greedy as any of them. She also enjoys rubbing her getaways in the faces of heroes and the authorities, sometimes putting herself in more danger than she would normally get into even doing the job she's bragging about.
She is intelligent, far brighter than most, and enjoys logic puzzles and challenges to her mind. She's also bright enough to realise the path she's on is not one destined for a long life, but she depressive enough and far enough along to think she's stuck, and the buzz from getting away with things tends to chase away her doubts, at least temporarily. She is also smart enough to realise the advantages her stealth powers give her, and has attempted to keep them as secret as her identity, and has been so far successful at it.
While working and in combat, she tries to maintain the advantage of surprise as long as she can, manipulating civilians or staying invisible until she makes a decisive move, then fading back into obscurity when she can. If she can't, she will go for a blitz strike, creating heat, fire, smoke, and launching intense, focused attacks to stagger her opponent until they either cannot fight back or lose track of her long enough for her to slip away. She doesn't typically want to fight any longer than she absolutely has to, and will only go toe-to-toe if given no other way out. She refuses to purposefully kill, but she is well aware of how dangerous her fire powers are. She is much more comfortable using the threat of them than actually causing damage, but if she's forced to, she will not hesitate to burn those in her way.
Uniform/costume: Zoë wears normal, everyday colours and clothes when she's not working. When she is, her costume involves greys, browns, and muted other colours, varying clothes between jobs so she never has the same look twice in a row. Her body suit is black and grey with ember red seams. While the bodysuit is skintight(because that's what supers wear, right?), there are strategically placed pieces of armour, that both protect vital areas like her kidneys and joints, as well as disturb her body line enough that anyone who can see through her power can't identify her later on. She also wears a mask that covers her cheekbones, chin, eyebrows, forehead and hairline, bride of her nose, and ears, somewhat like a luchador mask. The nature of her powers make it so that she must leave the rest exposed. The body suit itself and all armour bits and made by an inventor she comissioned to be completely fireproof.
In combat, she will slag metal into plates, cool them off, and use them as armour, either keeping them on her or floating just away from her.
Origin Info/Details:
Zoë grew up very well, in a nice country/suburban home outside Orléans, and spent summers at her grandfather's vineyard along with her brother, though a fight about schooling stopped those visits when she was twelve. While she loved both her parents and her grandfather very much, the rift between them was enough to drive her to sullenness, and she began acting out more than most teenagers would, typically with petty crimes and defiance of her parent's authority. Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, she joined Les Chiens Sanglants, a local gang, and within a year had fought with her brother, had a huge row with her parents, and ran away to be with her gang full time.
Her turning sixteen, after a month with the gang, brought with it unexpected changes, her powers awakening full bloom during a fight with another girl who had insinuated she was sleeping her way up the ranks, an accusation both untrue and offensive. Not knowing what was happening, but having some instinctive grasp on her newfound abilities, not everyone was killed in the resulting blaze, but she found herself homeless. However, power called her subconciously, and after a month of practise, she had mastered all but the more subtle aspects of her powers, and swiftly turned it to making herself more comfortable.
With cunning manipulations and several low profile robberies, she amassed a small fortune, and set herself up as a "mercenary villain", handing out her number to select trustworthy individuals and remaining on call for jobs. She has worked several of these, and her front as a legitimate painter with an unknowing agent, along with private investing, covers her profits quite well. Aside from smash-and-grabs and bank robberies, she has done jobs ranging from blackmail and spy-work to smuggling small, high value items and arson. She is building a reputation as a volatile but trustworthy "co-worker", and is careful to avoid any connection to her civilian identity.
Zoë's hobbies include painting, glasswork, and pottery, cello and oboe (her parent's insistence), and video gaming. Despite her easily frustrated nature, she seems to have enough patience for these tasks. She is also fluent in her native French, Russian, and English, knows her way around a computer, is good enough with numbers to invest privately and successfully, and smart enough to cover both of her identities so their "off times" don't coincide enough to arouse suspicion. She is well versed in physics, as her powers required her to have some knowledge of thermodynamics, and she is also knowledgeable in calculus, biology, chemistry, and geology, though she has no formal secondary schooling in these subjects.
She is power hungry, and is actively attempting to learn how to be a successful criminal mastermind, though it has been slow going because of her cautionary attitude. She is willing to take the long road, however, and has set herself up with a third identity, Wraith, in order to manipulate gangs, villains, and the like and try to gain her own territory in her adopted home of Los Angeles. She is careful to only speak Russian or English on jobs, so as to avoid anyone looking for a French girl.
Hero Type: Energy (fire), Psychic, Other(maybe shapeshifter)
Power Level : World
Powers (Be Specific):
Attributes:
Resources: Large: Aside from a very comfortable savings account in a Swiss Bank, she has several tens of thousands of dollars in cash stashed away, stolen goods worth a few grand in and of themselves, and invested assets that bring her close to a total of one million.
Weaknesses:
-While she is capable of melting knives, and is terrifying if she gets riled up, Zoë has no super power directly related to toughness, and if caught unawares, a single bullet does as much damage to her as to anyone else.
-As stated above, any psychic character can see through her telepathic projections
-While she may be immune to heat and cold, and can burn gases and some poisons out of her system, non-temperature poisons or heat-activated ones are still just as effective. Electricity, as well, maintains its effects, though it won't burn her so much as scramble her nerves, or, if powerful enough, give her seizures or possibly kill her outright.
-She is emotionally unstable, and can be driven over certain edges. Anyone with access to her background and sensitive details could easily push her and manipulate her.
-It is technically possible, if one could find a way to stop her powers from working, to completely disable all of them, excepting that her immunity to temperatures would carry through as a protection against her own powers. Done right, this could trap her in a block of steel.
-She still needs to breathe, eat, sleep, etc, just like normal people.
-While she is immune to smoke inhalation damage itself, anything toxic from burning materials can still harm her.
-Heat from radioactive materials may not burn her, but she is still vulnerable to all the other horrifying side effects from them.
Supporting Characters:
There are plenty of FBI and Interpol agents trying to find her, though not with much luck.
Her estranged family, living in Orléans:
-Mother: Amélie Lambert (43), works at La Scène du Meroubre as a manager
-Father: Hugo Lambert (44), works as a delivery driver.
-Older Brother: Théo (24), an accountant at a law firm in Paris.
-Younger Sister: Émile (18), just starting college, but secretly also has ice powers in almost the reverse of her sister's fire powers
-Maternal Grandfather: Gaspar Moreau (67), owns a small vineyard outside Marseilles
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Yarr
Alias: Кузница (Kuznitsa), Wraith, Forge
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): Tomato
Character Alignment: Villain
Identity: Secret
Character Personality: Zoë does not give one iota of care about anyone other than herself. Having no close relations, no one she trusts enough to call friend, and no real job or other form of even marginal social contact has left her somewhat askew on what still counts as good or bad company. She's also a loner, preferring to stay in her lair and play video games, doodle, read, or other activities that require other people to participate. Part of this is the isolation her powers force on her, as even with practise she has not gotten full control of them, and tied as they are to her emotional state, her volatile temper makes her more dangerous than it would in a normal person.
She has no regard for property law, and steals whatever she desires, or the cash to get it. She maintains her cover identity only as a front for where she gets the money, and will happily buy illicit goods from whomever has them. While she doesn't take hallucinogenic drugs due to the loss of control of her powers, she is more than happy to do some of the lighter things. Whiskey, however much she might like drinking it, usually results in her having to buy new stuff or move.
Internally, Zoë is lonely, blaming her powers and not her behaviour for driving away everyone she once cared about. She misses her family, but the way they split left her very much blaming them incorrectly. She drives herself further into villainy every day, trying to drown her problems in wealth and booze, and is extremely self-destructive. If she's not stop, she may begin eroding her own rules, which include no killing women or children, no unnecessary harm (though her definition of necessary is different than the norm), and not robbing the poor. She likes to see herself as a "noble" thief, though she's as greedy as any of them. She also enjoys rubbing her getaways in the faces of heroes and the authorities, sometimes putting herself in more danger than she would normally get into even doing the job she's bragging about.
She is intelligent, far brighter than most, and enjoys logic puzzles and challenges to her mind. She's also bright enough to realise the path she's on is not one destined for a long life, but she depressive enough and far enough along to think she's stuck, and the buzz from getting away with things tends to chase away her doubts, at least temporarily. She is also smart enough to realise the advantages her stealth powers give her, and has attempted to keep them as secret as her identity, and has been so far successful at it.
While working and in combat, she tries to maintain the advantage of surprise as long as she can, manipulating civilians or staying invisible until she makes a decisive move, then fading back into obscurity when she can. If she can't, she will go for a blitz strike, creating heat, fire, smoke, and launching intense, focused attacks to stagger her opponent until they either cannot fight back or lose track of her long enough for her to slip away. She doesn't typically want to fight any longer than she absolutely has to, and will only go toe-to-toe if given no other way out. She refuses to purposefully kill, but she is well aware of how dangerous her fire powers are. She is much more comfortable using the threat of them than actually causing damage, but if she's forced to, she will not hesitate to burn those in her way.
Uniform/costume: Zoë wears normal, everyday colours and clothes when she's not working. When she is, her costume involves greys, browns, and muted other colours, varying clothes between jobs so she never has the same look twice in a row. Her body suit is black and grey with ember red seams. While the bodysuit is skintight(because that's what supers wear, right?), there are strategically placed pieces of armour, that both protect vital areas like her kidneys and joints, as well as disturb her body line enough that anyone who can see through her power can't identify her later on. She also wears a mask that covers her cheekbones, chin, eyebrows, forehead and hairline, bride of her nose, and ears, somewhat like a luchador mask. The nature of her powers make it so that she must leave the rest exposed. The body suit itself and all armour bits and made by an inventor she comissioned to be completely fireproof.
In combat, she will slag metal into plates, cool them off, and use them as armour, either keeping them on her or floating just away from her.
Origin Info/Details:
Zoë grew up very well, in a nice country/suburban home outside Orléans, and spent summers at her grandfather's vineyard along with her brother, though a fight about schooling stopped those visits when she was twelve. While she loved both her parents and her grandfather very much, the rift between them was enough to drive her to sullenness, and she began acting out more than most teenagers would, typically with petty crimes and defiance of her parent's authority. Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, she joined Les Chiens Sanglants, a local gang, and within a year had fought with her brother, had a huge row with her parents, and ran away to be with her gang full time.
Her turning sixteen, after a month with the gang, brought with it unexpected changes, her powers awakening full bloom during a fight with another girl who had insinuated she was sleeping her way up the ranks, an accusation both untrue and offensive. Not knowing what was happening, but having some instinctive grasp on her newfound abilities, not everyone was killed in the resulting blaze, but she found herself homeless. However, power called her subconciously, and after a month of practise, she had mastered all but the more subtle aspects of her powers, and swiftly turned it to making herself more comfortable.
With cunning manipulations and several low profile robberies, she amassed a small fortune, and set herself up as a "mercenary villain", handing out her number to select trustworthy individuals and remaining on call for jobs. She has worked several of these, and her front as a legitimate painter with an unknowing agent, along with private investing, covers her profits quite well. Aside from smash-and-grabs and bank robberies, she has done jobs ranging from blackmail and spy-work to smuggling small, high value items and arson. She is building a reputation as a volatile but trustworthy "co-worker", and is careful to avoid any connection to her civilian identity.
Zoë's hobbies include painting, glasswork, and pottery, cello and oboe (her parent's insistence), and video gaming. Despite her easily frustrated nature, she seems to have enough patience for these tasks. She is also fluent in her native French, Russian, and English, knows her way around a computer, is good enough with numbers to invest privately and successfully, and smart enough to cover both of her identities so their "off times" don't coincide enough to arouse suspicion. She is well versed in physics, as her powers required her to have some knowledge of thermodynamics, and she is also knowledgeable in calculus, biology, chemistry, and geology, though she has no formal secondary schooling in these subjects.
She is power hungry, and is actively attempting to learn how to be a successful criminal mastermind, though it has been slow going because of her cautionary attitude. She is willing to take the long road, however, and has set herself up with a third identity, Wraith, in order to manipulate gangs, villains, and the like and try to gain her own territory in her adopted home of Los Angeles. She is careful to only speak Russian or English on jobs, so as to avoid anyone looking for a French girl.
Hero Type: Energy (fire), Psychic, Other(maybe shapeshifter)
Power Level : World
Powers (Be Specific):
Temperature Manipulation: Zoë has extremely adept control over temperature, being able to shift the temperature in areas in the following definition:
-As small in volume as a child to as wide as she wishes;
-Within two hundred metres of her, in line of sight only:
-As fast as her maximum within a minute in a slightly exponential graph as she pours more or pulls out energy into an already energetic situation(putting more heat to heat up air that is already heating up the air around it), or as slowly as she wishes;
-The heating can begin to spread to areas out of her control;
-Temperatures between 50F(10C) to 4800F(2648.9C);
-If concentrating on an object only, she can flash the temperature up to her maximum in less than a second. She CANNOT do this to people, however, and relies on heating their clothing, weapons, armour, or the air around them.
Pyrokinesis: She can form, control, and move in apparent defiance of physics, any fires within her range, able to throw fireballs, put out or enlarge flames, start fires on flammable objects, render things fireproof(with concentration), shot jets of flames from her hands, and even go as high as doing the same with plasma. She has enough control to make shapes and little figures out of the flames, though they are not in any way independent and she has to mentally control all of their movements.
Temperature and Disease Immunity: Zoë is completely immune to all heat and cold based effects, from fire and ice, to ambient temperatures, to lasers, radiation, and the depths of space (though she'd still need proof against pressure and the ability to breathe). When infected with any sort of bacteria, virus, or other disease vector, she can heat her body to the point that the offending organism cannot survive. She also is, oddly, immune to any smoke created with her power.
Alternate Form: If pressed, Zoë can turn her body temperature up to the point where the air around her ignites, or even to the point her own flesh ignites, though this does not damage her. At this point, she is incapable of dropping the temperature around her body fast enough to counter the heat pouring off of her body. She has the capability of pushing this far higher, up to turning into a walking form of plasma, but she is too scared of it to try. With her minor telekinesis, this allows her to fly, though not at any spectacular speeds, 60mph at most
Minor Telekinesis: Anything Zoë is controlling the temperature of, she can also move about with her mind, either keeping it hovering around her, or give it enough thrust to launch somewhat like a short toss. She can do this with anything weighing up to 600lbs(272kg), and the lighter the object, the more force she can throw it with.
Minor Telepathic Imagery: Zoë has the ability to project, through broad range telepathy, the basis for any given type of person or profession she wants. So, she can project herself as a CEO who simply belong in the board meeting, the police officer who belongs at the crime scene, or the homeless person who no one pays attention to. She CANNOT take on any specific image or disguise, as this power relies more on the perceptions of others than her own. Everyone sees somewhat different things, depending on what they might believe, but on normal people it is fairly foolproof. Anyone with psychic powers is completely unaffected. People actively looking for her, who know what she looks like, have a chance of shaking this off. This obviously does not have any effect on cameras. She can project on a crowd seemingly without limit, as it subverts the viewer's perception, so there isn't much, if any, energy expenditure on her part, and while she has this going, she doesn't have to concentrate beyond maintaining what type of person she wishes to portray. This does include clothing.
Phasing and Invisibility: Zoë has the ability to shift herself in to a form that allows her to move through solid objects as easily as she would air, though in a slower way than usually. She is also invisible to the naked eye when doing this. People she moves through only feel slightly cold and hot at the same time, noticeably, though the source is indistinguishable. She cannot bring people into this form with her, but small objects (such as knives, bundles of cash, hand grenades, etc) can be in her pockets. No object she brings with her will function in this state (cameras will not take picture, guns will not fire, etc). Shifting back and forth can only be done with her whole body, not parts. When she shifts back, matter where she would be is shunted away until there is space for her. If she lets go of an object while "phased out", it returns to it's normal state after thirty seconds, not before, upon leaving her person. While phased, she can see everything in a blurred, colourless way, with very reduced depth perception, but other things trying to stay invisible cannot hide from her in this state.
Enhanced Physicality: Along with her major power suite, Zoë also enjoys enhanced agility, strength, reflexes, and speed, and although not enough to classify her as a powerhouse in those categories, she is powerful enough to stand her ground in a fist fight with some of the more physical heroes, and can easily trounce unprepared normal humans.
-As small in volume as a child to as wide as she wishes;
-Within two hundred metres of her, in line of sight only:
-As fast as her maximum within a minute in a slightly exponential graph as she pours more or pulls out energy into an already energetic situation(putting more heat to heat up air that is already heating up the air around it), or as slowly as she wishes;
-The heating can begin to spread to areas out of her control;
-Temperatures between 50F(10C) to 4800F(2648.9C);
-If concentrating on an object only, she can flash the temperature up to her maximum in less than a second. She CANNOT do this to people, however, and relies on heating their clothing, weapons, armour, or the air around them.
Pyrokinesis: She can form, control, and move in apparent defiance of physics, any fires within her range, able to throw fireballs, put out or enlarge flames, start fires on flammable objects, render things fireproof(with concentration), shot jets of flames from her hands, and even go as high as doing the same with plasma. She has enough control to make shapes and little figures out of the flames, though they are not in any way independent and she has to mentally control all of their movements.
Temperature and Disease Immunity: Zoë is completely immune to all heat and cold based effects, from fire and ice, to ambient temperatures, to lasers, radiation, and the depths of space (though she'd still need proof against pressure and the ability to breathe). When infected with any sort of bacteria, virus, or other disease vector, she can heat her body to the point that the offending organism cannot survive. She also is, oddly, immune to any smoke created with her power.
Alternate Form: If pressed, Zoë can turn her body temperature up to the point where the air around her ignites, or even to the point her own flesh ignites, though this does not damage her. At this point, she is incapable of dropping the temperature around her body fast enough to counter the heat pouring off of her body. She has the capability of pushing this far higher, up to turning into a walking form of plasma, but she is too scared of it to try. With her minor telekinesis, this allows her to fly, though not at any spectacular speeds, 60mph at most
Minor Telekinesis: Anything Zoë is controlling the temperature of, she can also move about with her mind, either keeping it hovering around her, or give it enough thrust to launch somewhat like a short toss. She can do this with anything weighing up to 600lbs(272kg), and the lighter the object, the more force she can throw it with.
Minor Telepathic Imagery: Zoë has the ability to project, through broad range telepathy, the basis for any given type of person or profession she wants. So, she can project herself as a CEO who simply belong in the board meeting, the police officer who belongs at the crime scene, or the homeless person who no one pays attention to. She CANNOT take on any specific image or disguise, as this power relies more on the perceptions of others than her own. Everyone sees somewhat different things, depending on what they might believe, but on normal people it is fairly foolproof. Anyone with psychic powers is completely unaffected. People actively looking for her, who know what she looks like, have a chance of shaking this off. This obviously does not have any effect on cameras. She can project on a crowd seemingly without limit, as it subverts the viewer's perception, so there isn't much, if any, energy expenditure on her part, and while she has this going, she doesn't have to concentrate beyond maintaining what type of person she wishes to portray. This does include clothing.
Phasing and Invisibility: Zoë has the ability to shift herself in to a form that allows her to move through solid objects as easily as she would air, though in a slower way than usually. She is also invisible to the naked eye when doing this. People she moves through only feel slightly cold and hot at the same time, noticeably, though the source is indistinguishable. She cannot bring people into this form with her, but small objects (such as knives, bundles of cash, hand grenades, etc) can be in her pockets. No object she brings with her will function in this state (cameras will not take picture, guns will not fire, etc). Shifting back and forth can only be done with her whole body, not parts. When she shifts back, matter where she would be is shunted away until there is space for her. If she lets go of an object while "phased out", it returns to it's normal state after thirty seconds, not before, upon leaving her person. While phased, she can see everything in a blurred, colourless way, with very reduced depth perception, but other things trying to stay invisible cannot hide from her in this state.
Enhanced Physicality: Along with her major power suite, Zoë also enjoys enhanced agility, strength, reflexes, and speed, and although not enough to classify her as a powerhouse in those categories, she is powerful enough to stand her ground in a fist fight with some of the more physical heroes, and can easily trounce unprepared normal humans.
Attributes:
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 116
Strength Level: Can lift around a thousand pounds.
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 30 mph on the ground, 60mph flying/ 60mph level reactions.
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2x normal
Agility: 5x normal
Intelligence: Genius
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Weight: 116
Strength Level: Can lift around a thousand pounds.
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 30 mph on the ground, 60mph flying/ 60mph level reactions.
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2x normal
Agility: 5x normal
Intelligence: Genius
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Resources: Large: Aside from a very comfortable savings account in a Swiss Bank, she has several tens of thousands of dollars in cash stashed away, stolen goods worth a few grand in and of themselves, and invested assets that bring her close to a total of one million.
Weaknesses:
-While she is capable of melting knives, and is terrifying if she gets riled up, Zoë has no super power directly related to toughness, and if caught unawares, a single bullet does as much damage to her as to anyone else.
-As stated above, any psychic character can see through her telepathic projections
-While she may be immune to heat and cold, and can burn gases and some poisons out of her system, non-temperature poisons or heat-activated ones are still just as effective. Electricity, as well, maintains its effects, though it won't burn her so much as scramble her nerves, or, if powerful enough, give her seizures or possibly kill her outright.
-She is emotionally unstable, and can be driven over certain edges. Anyone with access to her background and sensitive details could easily push her and manipulate her.
-It is technically possible, if one could find a way to stop her powers from working, to completely disable all of them, excepting that her immunity to temperatures would carry through as a protection against her own powers. Done right, this could trap her in a block of steel.
-She still needs to breathe, eat, sleep, etc, just like normal people.
-While she is immune to smoke inhalation damage itself, anything toxic from burning materials can still harm her.
-Heat from radioactive materials may not burn her, but she is still vulnerable to all the other horrifying side effects from them.
Supporting Characters:
There are plenty of FBI and Interpol agents trying to find her, though not with much luck.
Her estranged family, living in Orléans:
-Mother: Amélie Lambert (43), works at La Scène du Meroubre as a manager
-Father: Hugo Lambert (44), works as a delivery driver.
-Older Brother: Théo (24), an accountant at a law firm in Paris.
-Younger Sister: Émile (18), just starting college, but secretly also has ice powers in almost the reverse of her sister's fire powers
-Maternal Grandfather: Gaspar Moreau (67), owns a small vineyard outside Marseilles
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Yarr
Character you have created: Darya Anat Kamaliazad
Alias: Tiamat
Speech Color: Aquamarine (7FFFD4)
Character Alignment: Hero
Identity: Secret
Character Personality: Darya is a sweet girl, caring and loving of all humans regardless of their faults, though she has a core of hatred for those who inflict needless suffering on their fellow humans and defenseless creatures of the world. Being raised with her grandmother, she grew up believing that magic was still real, and while she has not encountered it yet, she will be delighted to know that her grandmother was correct. She enjoys music and dancing, loves cooking, and is all in all the mother of the multitude of friends she has. Despite how exhausting this is, she would never dream of letting them down.
Her flavour of love, however, is a tough one. She is more than willing to call others out on their stupidity, though out of care for them instead of mocking. She is deeply spiritual, though not necessarily religious. The Islamic mosque she attends in her hometown is more of a way to stay social in her college career rather than a desire to attain Heaven, and she has deeply seated concerns about most religions.
Uniform/costume: She's working on one, but so far, she has not gotten a good design yet, and is relying on a ski mask and baggy clothes.
Origin Info/Details: Darya was born to a caring family who had recently fled the violence and foolishness of their home in Iran, and were making do as they could in America. They settled in New York at first, where Darya was born, but economics forced them further away, until they finally settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There is where Darya and her younger brother grew up. Her father and mother were victims of racially motivated hate crimes when she was thirteen, but thankfully, her family had been steadily filtering over, and several uncles and aunts were around to help her grandmother.
Darya's grandmother always had the air of a mystic, and she raised her grandchildren on stories of the old country, of Persia, of great kings and djinn, and other fantasies. She always held that the family was descended from the Sassanid dynasty, though no proof was ever forthcoming and no one believes it any more than they do her other fairy tales. However, Darya believes at least that magic exists, and that her grandmother has seen it, and her beliefs were further driven home when she developed her powers at age nineteen.
Walking to work at her uncle Yousef's coffee bar one day, the periodic heavy rains of Albuquerque came down hard and heavy while Darya was completely unprepared. She made a mad dash down an alley, attempting to find cover, only to find to her extreme surprise that she was still completely dry, despite water pouring from the sky in buckets. She swept her arms a few times and watched in wonder as the standing water on the ground and that still falling responded to her motions as if she was in that one Nickelodeon cartoon.
She hid her newfound abilities for a few weeks, but finally, guilt and excitement drove her to tell her uncle where she was disappearing to on her breaks, and why. He was relieved, momentarily, to find she wasn't off having sex or smoking drugs, but relief swiftly turned to abject horror as he realised the implications of what had occurred. A family meeting was called, and various comments and demands were made before Darya's grandmother, matriarch and undisputed authority in the family, ordered Darya to decide for herself. Darya, being who she is, decided to balance family and duty and hero-work.
Currently, Darya serves as one of a very limited number of heroes in the southwest, most of whom belong to the United Southwestern Hero Association. They have been actively trying to recruit Tiamat, but the family, even Fatemeh, are concerned about fulltime heroing and what effects that might have on Darya's future. The Hounds attacks on other metas, however, has driven all the fear out of the whole clan; as much as anyone else, they see the same lunacy that threatens their homeland, and no member of the family would dare argue that they nee to be stopped. And so Darya has been thrust onto the world stage, hesitant but ready to do her part.
Hero Type: Elemental: Water
Power Level: World
Powers:
Hydrokinesis: By far the most impressive of Darya's abilities is direct control of water. She is not limited by volume, and can draw it directly out of the air or nearby standing bodies and move it at the speed of thought. Water, being what it is, has an impressive display of forms, and she is practised in transporting herself, making rain, putting out fires, and forming blades. If she were to move to a more humid area, she would have much more to work with, and on the coast, she is capable of making tsunamis and other extremely impressive/destructive displays.
Other Liquids: Darya has not tried to do this before, but her abilities are not limited to water alone, and anything which is a liquid, she can manipulate. Terrifyingly, this includes such things as powerful acids, and even the blood inside living creatures. Semisolids are liquid enough to fall under this control, anything up to and including oobleck.
Ice and other solids: Given enough training, Darya could actually play with other objects as well. She simply needs to learn how to convert them to their liquid form. Water ice being the foremost of those, but as long as it contains water at all, she can get it to it's liquid form, and then manipulate it as normal.
Atomic Manipulation and Fine Control: As evidenced by her ability(theoretical for now) to convert solids to liquids, Darya can employ vast amounts of impossibly fine-tuned control over liquids. At the top of her form, she could conceivably control only a few molecules to move, should she wish to. This particular capability comes with the ability to think on that level, with the reaction speed required for such manipulations.
Enhanced body: The mutation that caused Narya's powers has also enhanced her phsyical body, increasing her speed, strength.
Other Liquids: Darya has not tried to do this before, but her abilities are not limited to water alone, and anything which is a liquid, she can manipulate. Terrifyingly, this includes such things as powerful acids, and even the blood inside living creatures. Semisolids are liquid enough to fall under this control, anything up to and including oobleck.
Ice and other solids: Given enough training, Darya could actually play with other objects as well. She simply needs to learn how to convert them to their liquid form. Water ice being the foremost of those, but as long as it contains water at all, she can get it to it's liquid form, and then manipulate it as normal.
Atomic Manipulation and Fine Control: As evidenced by her ability(theoretical for now) to convert solids to liquids, Darya can employ vast amounts of impossibly fine-tuned control over liquids. At the top of her form, she could conceivably control only a few molecules to move, should she wish to. This particular capability comes with the ability to think on that level, with the reaction speed required for such manipulations.
Enhanced body: The mutation that caused Narya's powers has also enhanced her phsyical body, increasing her speed, strength.
**Note**: Darya is aware of her control over water, though not about its lack of limitations, and is not aware of her control over other liquids or her ability to do much with solids and semisolids except that she has played with ice and steam. She is not at all aware of her molecular control, and is only vaguely aware of how much her body has adapted to her power.
Skills:
Darya is well versed in her native languages, Farsi and English, and passable with Middle Persian (her grandmother insisted).
She is well trained by her uncles in weapons handling for modern small arms such as pistols and shotguns, knives, and hand to hand combat forms (Krav Maga and Aikido).
She is an extremely good cook, especially with Mediterranean dishes but can turn pretty much anything that is food into amazing dishes, if a bit unorthodox.
She is good at playing doumbek, oud, qanoun, and Moroccan oboe, though none at any sort of professional level. She's also a fair turn-of-the-hips at belly dancing, even if she's a bit too skinny for it.
She has some scholarly interest in philosophy, ethics, poetry, biology, chemistry, and physics, but has not actively pursued any of these.
Attributes (Select one at each category):
Height: 5'2" (160 cm)
Weight: 110 lbs
Strength Level: ~1 ton range
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal speed/~3x normal reactions
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours
Agility: 5x normal
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: Expert
Resources: Not a lot. Average college student levels.
Weight: 110 lbs
Strength Level: ~1 ton range
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal speed/~3x normal reactions
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours
Agility: 5x normal
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: Expert
Resources: Not a lot. Average college student levels.
Weaknesses:
The obvious one is that she can only manipulate things in a liquid state, and while she can change some of those, solid objects like steel are impossible for her to convert to liquid, as they contain no water, and thus she cannot control them.
Sand, is, oddly, one of her worst weaknesses, both because of its ability to absorb water and because, whatever mysterious thing causes her powers also will severely weaken or even stop working entirely should she get more than a few hundred grains of it in contact with her skin. Currently, she has not given this knowledge to anyone.
While a bit faster and tougher than most people, Narya is proof against no bullet, blade, or even fist, and takes damage as normal.
Supporting Characters:
Darya has a huge clan she comes from:
Uncles, Aunts, and Cousins
-Ahmad (43) and Farrah (41)(deceased), and their four children
-Hossein (42) and Kiana (41), with three children
-Ramin (40) and Goli (41), with five children
-Yousef (37) and Reyhan (35), with two children
-Zurvan (35) and Sajad (36), with two adopted children
-Farrokh (32) and Anouseh (35), with two children
-Basir (31), unmarried
-Hossein (42) and Kiana (41), with three children
-Ramin (40) and Goli (41), with five children
-Yousef (37) and Reyhan (35), with two children
-Zurvan (35) and Sajad (36), with two adopted children
-Farrokh (32) and Anouseh (35), with two children
-Basir (31), unmarried
Parents
Giv (39) and Zarine (38), both deceased nine years ago.
Their Children
Leila (23), and her husband Martin (25), no children, though Leila is pregnant
Darya (22)
Massoud (18)
Maryam (15)
Darya (22)
Massoud (18)
Maryam (15)
Grandparents
Fatemeh (63), and Rostam (64)(deceased twenty years ago)
Roya (67) and Massoud (69), both deceased
Roya (67) and Massoud (69), both deceased
In addition, Darya has worked alongside the USHA on occasion, whose member include:
Doc Holliday: Fully committed to a cowboy aesthetic, this idealistic young man treats everyone like a gentleman would. He has healing powers and unerring aim with firearms.
Thunderbird: Native American shaman from the Apache. Concerned mostly with environmental threats. Has weather control powers and supersonic flight.
Broadway: Named that way because this Vegas-based hero couldn't really call herself 'Strip'. Light based powers, mostly flashy and not lasers and whatnot.
Rocky: Modelling himself after the boxer and the mountains, this rough and tumble hero is a veteran boxer, “old as the hills”, and has earth and tectonic powers in addition to being super strong and super tough.
Thunderbird: Native American shaman from the Apache. Concerned mostly with environmental threats. Has weather control powers and supersonic flight.
Broadway: Named that way because this Vegas-based hero couldn't really call herself 'Strip'. Light based powers, mostly flashy and not lasers and whatnot.
Rocky: Modelling himself after the boxer and the mountains, this rough and tumble hero is a veteran boxer, “old as the hills”, and has earth and tectonic powers in addition to being super strong and super tough.
Character you have created: Leanna Young
Alias: Blacklight
Speech Color: Medium Violet Red c71585
Character Alignment: Hero
Identity: Secret except for a few comrades
Character Personality:
Leanna is a warm, caring person, though she likes to be left to her own devices. She enjoys being out in nature, helping the community, and is generally the sort of neighbour you'd love to have around.
Blacklight is all business. She draws a hard line on crime, though she doesn't seek to punish criminals and villains, as that is the courts job. She will apprehend anyone she can, even modulating her beams as much as she can to avoid doing lethal damage. However, should innocents be in danger, she has no problems putting someone down. When dealing with other heroes, she has anecdotes for almost every occasion about past battles, but stays quiet when a fight is on.
Uniform/costume: She wear a full black bodysuit, crisscrossed with many lines of the same rainbow of colours her energy beams create as they break light, in a pattern reminiscent of a broken mirror. A full size black domino mask covers her cheekbones, bridge of nose, eyebrows, and everything between them, leaving her eyes exposed.
Origin Info/Details: Back in college, Leanna Young was a promising physics student, the kind with a bright future. Going to Syracuse University in New York, she had excellent grades and was in line to be part of the top percentile of her graduating class of 2005. A good home life and middle class upbringing left her well balanced mentally and physically. All of that changed in August 2004.
A villain going by Overlord broke into the physics lab during a late night experiment with a theoretical beam projector, intent on stealing the device. Young, two grad students, and two professors were in the lab at the time. During the raid, Young and one of Overlord's minions toppled into the path of the beam at the same moment one of the professors set it to overload in order to prevent it falling into the villain's hands. The resulting explosion took out half of the building, killing everyone inside except Young, who was found unconscious in the wreckage. There was no sign of Overlord, though many of his minions were also slain.
After two months in a coma, Leanna woke up feeling better than she ever had. Within another week, she had found her powers working at full tilt. Several accidents ensued, but after some wise words from her parents and a helpful trip to the government, “Blacklight” was working with STRIKE by February of 2005.
Over the course of a decade with the organization, Blacklight has dealt with a number of villains, fighting toe-to-toe with several monstrous ones as well as the more normal types, and fended off threats from the street-level on up. However, in 2016, during a pitched battle with a terrorist group, an explosion slammed her against the wall nearby and broke her spine. During her recovery, she decided she had had enough of the fighting, and at thirty four, retired to a farm outside of Syracuse, NY. She finished her degree, finally, and has been living off the land and enjoying the peaceful life since then.
However, those who have worked with her before have her phone number, should anything come up where they might need her assistance. And, of course, she can't really help but fly around when she can. After all, when you can, why wouldn't you? So the residents of Syracuse know that Blacklight is still around.
Hero Type: Flying artillery
Power Level: World
Powers:
Energy Manipulation: Blacklight creates and controls a unique type of energy not seen anywhere else. While it registers to human eyes, it's not actually light, but a tearing of the visible spectrum in its path that people see. This manifests as a core of utter blackness, edged by a scintillating rainbow effect that scatters beams of visible light in all directions. She can fire this in beams, flat planes, abstract shapes, and more, though the shapes do not take on any properties except the energy itself.
It has fairly strong kinetic properties, though it seems unaffected by gravity or air friction. It also displays slight magnetism and electrical conductivity along it's edges when hit with lightning. Beams fired travel at faster than more than 100,000 meters per second and hit with the force of a jet engine, and also burns with the energy of a 5 exa-watt laser, yet those standing near the beam when it passes report the air feeling “ice cold”. It has shown no radioactive properties that are dangerous to humans, and physicists have yet to come up with a satisfying explanation as to where it comes from, though the prevailing hypothesis is another dimension. The beam power can be modulated, but only so far. Her minimum force of impact is around the equivalent of getting hit with a car moving at fifteen miles an hour, and burns like a ten gigawatt laser beam.
She can fire these beams from her hands or eyes, but she can also cover herself head to toe in the stuff, forming a sort of armor. One of her favourite tricks is to arrest people with “manacles” made of the stuff, since it
Flight: Blacklight can fly at Mach 2, using "feathered" wings of her energy. These leave a trail in the sky that lasts for several moments after she passes overhead.
Physicality: Blacklight has superhuman strength, endurance, agility, and speed on the ground. She can take hits from some of the strongest and still get up.
Mental Toughness: Extreme iron will, intelligence, and training from psychic types in the past have left Blacklight with extremely tough mental barriers against both mind reading and control.
It has fairly strong kinetic properties, though it seems unaffected by gravity or air friction. It also displays slight magnetism and electrical conductivity along it's edges when hit with lightning. Beams fired travel at faster than more than 100,000 meters per second and hit with the force of a jet engine, and also burns with the energy of a 5 exa-watt laser, yet those standing near the beam when it passes report the air feeling “ice cold”. It has shown no radioactive properties that are dangerous to humans, and physicists have yet to come up with a satisfying explanation as to where it comes from, though the prevailing hypothesis is another dimension. The beam power can be modulated, but only so far. Her minimum force of impact is around the equivalent of getting hit with a car moving at fifteen miles an hour, and burns like a ten gigawatt laser beam.
She can fire these beams from her hands or eyes, but she can also cover herself head to toe in the stuff, forming a sort of armor. One of her favourite tricks is to arrest people with “manacles” made of the stuff, since it
Flight: Blacklight can fly at Mach 2, using "feathered" wings of her energy. These leave a trail in the sky that lasts for several moments after she passes overhead.
Physicality: Blacklight has superhuman strength, endurance, agility, and speed on the ground. She can take hits from some of the strongest and still get up.
Mental Toughness: Extreme iron will, intelligence, and training from psychic types in the past have left Blacklight with extremely tough mental barriers against both mind reading and control.
Attributes (Select one at each category):
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 142
Strength Level: 100+ tons
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 200 mph/equivalent reaction time
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours fighting, 48 hours flight only
Agility: 10x normal
Intelligence: Well above average, but not a genius
Fighting Skill: Mastered; Veteran of many metahuman battles
Resources:
Fairly small, given her length of service and breadth of experience, but she has a good amount in savings, and ready assistance from a number of old compatriots should she need it.Weight: 142
Strength Level: 100+ tons
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 200 mph/equivalent reaction time
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours fighting, 48 hours flight only
Agility: 10x normal
Intelligence: Well above average, but not a genius
Fighting Skill: Mastered; Veteran of many metahuman battles
Resources:
Weaknesses: Exposure to more than 1mSv/h radiation (the equivalent of a high radiation area in a nuclear plant) shuts down all of Leanna's powers, including her enhanced strength and toughness, until she has been outside of it for at least an hour, at which point they come back gradually over the course of three hours.
While she is supernaturally tough, anyone with a comparable strength to hers can knock her around pretty well. Gunshots still hurt her, though not as much as they might a normal human. Inside her skull, her brain is as vulnerable as anyone else's, so concussions are a real danger. Her bones are definitely capable of breaking, burns can happen from anything higher than a few hundred degrees C, and she is still as vulnerable as a normal person to cold and electricity.
Some of her previous injuries have left her with weak spots, including her spine, her left hip, both shoulders, her neck, and a worrisome chronic migraine problem. These act up even worse in combat.
Supporting Characters:
Ambrose Smith, MD: A doctor in Syracuse who knows about Blacklight's past, in order to better understand how to treat any issues.
Rebecca and Henry Young: Leanna's parents, both knowing of her powers and very relieved to see her retired. Also extremely proud of her.
She did have contacts at STRIKE, but they have all been killed.
Springheel: A speedster Blacklight has worked with on several occasions, and who stops by to visit regularly.
Denier: A man with incredible gravity and forcefield powers who specialises in area control during fights. Also stops by regularly to visit.
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?:
Character you have created: Abigail Cho
Alias: None
Speech Color:
Character Alignment: Walking-the-line
Identity: Public
Character Personality: Abigail is a loner by necessity. Being around too many people can easily drive her mind to the brink, so she must frequently take breaks from social activity. Most people think of this as her being either depressed or introverted, and they're not entirely wrong. The lack of solid social contact has caused her some depression, but she tries to be as open as possible. After all, it's only fair. If she gets to know a little too much about other people,they should know as much about her. Then again, the people she sticks around with long enough to do so are few and far between.
Given her occupation, she has to deal with a lot of very strange people, and her encounters with otherworldly things have further opened her mind. She is broadly accepting of just about anyone, though she tends to stay away from people who feel too strongly about anything. As for herself, she tries to feel as little as possible when on the job, which has deadened her emotions a little even when she's living normally. This does let her open up more to receiving from others, which is the point, but it means her mood tends to be whatever everyone else is feeling.
She tries to do good, but in the city, good doesn't pay the bills, so she's had to stoop to less-than-legal acts occasionally to make ends meet. She also never works for lower than her normal rate, no matter the situation, though she does accept payment plans. Charity doesn't put food in her mouth. She is very honest, with no softening of blows. “If you can't handle the truth, then why did you call me?”
Uniform/costume: Although she tends to wear a lot of black, Abigail doesn't actually have a “costume”, just normal clothes. She doesn't fly and has no secret identity, and her job doesn't generally get her involved with anything she'd need armour or tools for. That said, she does always have a taser, pepper spray, a Swiss army knife, and a set of lockpicks.
Origin Info/Details:Abigail was born in New York City to a pair of Korean immigrants. The Chos now had a third child, the other two being boys, but they loved all of them equally. Unfortunately, life wasn't going to be easy for any of them. Jung-Hee Cho, the patriarch of the family, died during the 9/11 attacks, Abigail only being five at the time. Without their father, both of her brothers began acting out, though their mother Min-So could reign them in at home. Min-So, however, was not home very often, having to work several jobs to keep the family afloat. When they became of age, her eldest brother Shane got a job to help out, but David did not. He had already joined up with a gang, and ran off, not to be heard of for quite some time.
Abigail first began to notice something wrong when she was just a child. Like many horror movie children, she could see ghosts, but they didn't really bother her. None of them seemed to be malevolent, thankfully, so her parents had chalked it up to imaginary friends. When she was ten, she began to feel the moods of others around her, in a way that she knew they were not her emotions. She also developed the ability to handle an object and see into its past. As she grew older both of these grew stronger. By fifteen, she could idly sift through the surface thoughts of other people, and, if she concentrated, could even send her own thoughts to them, though this has always given her a migraine.
She worked for a year after high school at a 7-11, hated every moment of it, and finally quit to pursue an actual career. Her best friend from high school suggested, having learned about her powers, that she could easily make money by using them as a ghost hunter. She looked into it, and hit upon being a complete Paranormal Investigator. Lots of people make fun of her when she tells them what she does for a living, but it's enabled her to bounce around New England and make a fairly decent living. Recently, a job took her to Lost Haven, Maine, and while she didn't really want to stick around, the place was definitely full of weird things.
Abigail is currently based out of Boston, but makes frequent trips to everywhere on the Atlantic coast. Her website tends to be one of the more popular traffic stops for the business, and James Randi has issued her a challenge, though she's disregarded him up to this point because she doesn't feel she needs to prove anything. She's markedly more successful than most in her field, and only at the age of twenty-two.
Hero Type: Psychic
Power Level: Street
Powers:
Sensitivity: By handling an object with her bare hands, she can get a sense of who has touched it in the last few weeks. Anything that might be worn every day, or has sentimental value to someone, she can get much more information out of, essentially “seeing” the past from the objects point of view, and can go back to when the person in question first got it. Family heirlooms are a bit much for her. She can read them, but they hurt if she goes too far back.
Through the Veil: Abigail can see, hear, speak to, and physically interact with any ghosts, or anything on the Astral Plane. Only by extreme concentration can she suppress this ability, which means that most of the time, she is seeing and hearing quite a few things others can't. This tends to make her look slightly dazed or tired, and occasionally it's necessary to poke her to bring her back into the physical world.
Telepathy: Abigail is constantly receiving the surface thoughts of everyone within a few hundred feet of her. She cannot shut this off at all, but has learned how to ignore it or sift through the noise for a specific type of thought. This is what gives her a faster reaction time then most people, at least in a fight, as she's already picked up on the intent to hurt her. If she pushes hard enough at one person, she can actually send her own thoughts to them, making her capable of communication silently. Doing this, however, gives her a migraine after even a brief exchange.
Empathy: Abigail is constantly receiving the emotions of of people as well as their surface thoughts. Unlike the telepathy, though, this doesn't create “noise”. Instead, she feels the “average” of the area. In a crowded nightclub, this can get really intense, and not only from the emotion. She can also feel a small portion of any drugs in someone's system this way, as though she had taken them herself, though physically there's nothing in her blood and it goes away as soon as they get out of her range. It's great in a bar, but she flatly refuses to enter hospitals.
Telekinesis: Abigail can only effect tiny objects like coins and pens, or very light things like a piece of paper or a Styrofoam block, but those objects she can move, lift, and otherwise interact with using only her mind. She doesn't do it often as a rule, but she actually does use it casually in her day. Occasionally one can spot her spinning a pen in the air while she's thinking about something, as if there was an invisible hand twirling it. Her coffee stirs itself, hair never gets in her face, etc
On the Astral Plane, however, this is much more powerful. She can easily throw several tons of “material” around, and can deal damage to anything within her range.
Mind over Matter: Almost more of a subset of telekinesis than its own power, Abigail can concentrate to rapidly heal damage to her body. While not instant, she heals at more than four times as fast as normal people without concentration, and over twenty-times as fast while concentrating. Doing this too much, however, can cause her powers to shut down until she has sufficient rest, usually a few days, during which she basically only eats and sleeps.
Attributes (Select one at each category):
Height: 5' 1”/155 cm
Weight: 110 lbs/ 50 kg
Strength Level: Normal
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal speed, slightly faster reaction time
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Normal
Agility: Normal
Intelligence: Genius
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Resources:
Average. She has a decent apartment in Boston, and makes enough money that she might even be able to take a vacation in a few years.Weight: 110 lbs/ 50 kg
Strength Level: Normal
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal speed, slightly faster reaction time
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Normal
Agility: Normal
Intelligence: Genius
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Resources:
Weaknesses: No special defenses against physical attacks. Guns, knives, blunt objects, and energy all effect her like they should.
Spending too much time in crowded places gives her a sort of “tinnitus of the brain”, and makes hearing individual thoughts much more difficult.
Her empathy in a hospital, drug den, or anywhere else can mean she suffers the effects of several drugs at once. Even though it's impossible to overdose this way, it can incapacitate her completely.
Literally anything on the Astral Plane can interact with her, as can the dead. While she can defend herself with telekinesis, she is always vulnerable to this.
Supporting Characters:
Min-So Cho, mother. Calls frequently.
Shane Cho. Still lives with their mother, supporting her. Also a good confidant for his sister.
David Cho. Lives in Boston. Abigail is trying to get him to go to rehab with limited success.
Constance Young, Abigail's business partner, who typically runs the business side and lets Abigail get on with the actual work.
Brett Parker, Sam Newman, Theresa Little, and Wendy Smith: The technical crew who tries to keep up with Abigail's exploits. While they all live in Boston and fly with her, they tend to try and stay out of her way. They each get ten percent of any job, which means they also have other jobs to do.
Inactive
Character you have created: Alice Rackham
Alias: Captain Ally “Black Bonnet” Rackham
Speech Color: Not determined yet.
Character Alignment: WTL (She's not overtly evil, anyway)
Identity: Glorying in infamy!
Character Personality: Alice is, in almost every way, larger than life, and loves living to the fullest and in the moment. When she's not off raiding, she enjoys tinkering with anything and everything near by, especially at her workshop. She enjoys both modern and classical music, tending to swing between ballroom waltzes and heavy metal when the mood strikes her. She is utterly fearless, and enjoys hardship and difficult adversaries, sensing adventure in the opportunity.
Alice treats her crew like a bunch of favoured nephews and nieces, and insists that, while not infringing on their freedoms outside of shipboard duty, that they stay healthy. "Just because we're pirates doesn't mean we have to act like we're in the Seventeenth Century, you jackanapes," as she has been recorded saying. She believes fiercely in freedom, well and beyond what modern democracies espouse and hewing much closer to general anarchy, though onboard the Revenge, she maintains absolute authority, even if she doesn't exercise it unless she has to. That said, traitors and mutineers are dealt with harshly. And while she is okay with kidnapping, the slave trade is a thorn in her side, and any other modern pirates who try to take slaves in her territory risk being summarily executed. It is this "freelance privateering", added to the fact that much of her raiding is done to military and/or foreign targets, that has led to a sudden lack of resources to fight her in local governments in the Caribbean.
She, unfortunately, also suffering from bipolar disorder, and from what psychologists will say, some form of severe psychosis and delusional behaviour. While not true entirely, she is very much ungrounded from reality much of the time, as evidenced by her career alone. Thankfully, despite her isolation as a captain, necessarily separated emotionally from her crew, her 'delusions' keep her company and give her guidance. She considers herself a sort of priestess, as well as a protector, of the ocean, and will viciously punish those who abuse the sea.
Uniform/costume: Alice wears full pirate captain regalia, with a wide brimmed hat clipped up on the right side and several long black-dyed peacock feathers running off the black fabric. Her coat is bloody red, hangs down to her thighs, and she wears black pants under it, tucked into the classic knee-high fold-over boots. Her torso is crossed over by two bandoleers carrying custom-made flintlock pistols, and a wide leather belt carries two more pairs of those and her pair of cutlasses. She wears her hair in a loose cloud under her hat, though on occasion she will, in a nod to Blackbeard, braid it down and tie slow-burn fuses into it.
Origin Info/Details: Alice was born into a well-to-do middle class family in Galveston, Texas. The eldest of three children, she grew up knowing very little of her family history, until in high school she was required to read Treasure Island for a book report. She was utterly enraptured by the pirating lifestyle, and swiftly became obsessed. She researched tirelessly, and when she came across the stories of “Calico Jack” Rackham, and noticed the similar surname, she began digging into her own family history, where she made a surprising discovery.
Not only was she directly descended from Rackham and Anne Bonny's child, but several other bloodlines had tied into hers over the last several centuries. Through exhaustive digging through records that had long been buried, she found that she was also the descendant of some of the most illustrious pirates who ever lived. Evidence became solid for her family ties to Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, Bartholomew Roberts, Jean Lafitte, Captain William Kidd, James Avery, Sir Henry Morgan, “Black” Sam Bellamy, and John Taylor. The sheer unlikelihood of this union of trees seemed impossible, but she managed to confirm it multiple times through responsible sources. Her high school project for her senior history class was this entire documentation.
Just before she graduated, her parents managed to win a lottery prize at a whopping three hundred and eighty-five million dollars. Immediately after her graduation, the entire family, inspired by her findings, decided to move to a private residence just outside Nassau, in the Caribbean. This was, however, unfortunate. During a family outing that Alice herself was unable to attend due to illness, the family was kidnapped and killed. Legends about her state this, along with her fever, is was caused her to snap, and become Black Bonnet.
Alice was always a bright child, but following her inheritance, she made massive leaps forward as she feverishly studied mechanical engineering and materials science, ostensibly for college, but she soon figured out that she didn't even need to attend. She managed to actually test out of her entire Bachelor's of Applied Science, and then disappeared for quite some time. The only evidence she was still alive was a steady draining of the interests on her fortune, carefully managed by a hired advisor.
Almost three years to the day of her family's murder, her ship set sail out of Tortuga, raiding and pillaging. She only took volunteer crew, but as it turned out there were many in the Caribbean who were romanced by the idea and grandeur of her ship and by the thought of escaping poverty and the rule of law. Now, Black Bonnet Rackham sails throughout the Caribbean, sowing terror and taking plunder wherever she wishes, seemingly completely unfazed by the multiple attempts of multinational navies to try and bring her in or sink her, and basking in the adoration of those who see her career as a sort of 'reality escape', living a dream most thought long dead: the free pirate.
Hero Type: Grey Matter and (maybe) Supernatural/Mystic
Power Level: Street(on land), world(at sea)
Powers:
The Tortuga's Revenge, her pride and love: The Revenge is designed like the old ships of the line, a two hundred foot long, three masted battleship with two gun decks of twenty-five-a-side and more armaments on the main deck. The whole of it is made of teak, in classic style, though the masts, main deck, hull, and keel are all also impregnated with a special hardening compound of Alice's design that makes them impervious to all but the very largest of naval guns, and even then she takes minimal damage. The material is also lined with a magnesium-foam compounds that reduces her necessary weight by tons The sails and rigging, as well, are made of Dyneema- and asbestos-woven fabric, so as to be tough and fireproof. Other modifications are as follows:
Aside from the armaments, the Revenge also has other wonders, such as a hydrofoil generator/engine combo below the waterline, capable of powering the whole of the ship and pushing her max speed up to 40 knots(46mph/74kph). The engine consumes no fuel itself, an important feature to Alice. The quarters for all the crew resemble modern barracks rooms, though far more comfortable and home-y as they have decorated. The galley resembles that of a modern cruise ship, though it maintains the aesthetic for the furniture, all dark teak and cast iron. She also, of course, has modern medical facilities, and a brig capable of holding even minor metahumans. As a special touch, Alice has managed to procure a device that renders the Revenge invisible to thermal imaging, sonar, and satellite tracking, essentially a ghost ship in the modern age.
Super Inventor – Aside from the ship itself, Alice has numerous other creations to her credit.
The Workshop: This is a sprawling, 12,000 square foot complex in a hidden cove on the island of Tortuga, the entrance to which is disguised as a blank rock through the use of a hologram projection. This dock hold all the materials for repair the Revenge, manufacturing the specialty ammunition, housing the crew, and dumping booty from raids.
Madness, or...: The legends that have already cropped up around Black Bonnet Rackham commonly say that her parents death cracked her brain so badly that she's completely mad. To be certain, her crew regularly hears and sees her talking with things that they cannot perceive. But that may not be all there is to this tale, either.
According to Alice herself, her ship and home regularly host eight spirits, whom she can name and describe fairly well. Those who have heard these names and descriptions assume she did research some time in her past, and her broken mind has conjured them to help her stay somewhat balanced. But sailors are a superstitious lot, and many have begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, she really can see gods. After all, all sorts of other strange things have happened in the world, why not this?
The 'deities' who Alice hosts are:
Alice refers to these spirits as her friends, often in familiar terms, and sometimes even rudely. She especially likes cursing at them during storms, though she reports that this really only makes them laugh. Even those people who claim to be able to see or otherwise interact with spirits and other supernatural beings deny seeing them near her, though she replies to these denunciations by proclaiming them “not worth the Sea's time”. It remains to be seen whether she is mad or some sort of priestess.
- Swivel guns: These are small, rail mounted cannons on the rear and fore decks, capable of rotating to cover about a one hundred degree arc. Paired on the sides of each deck, for eight in total, these little bastards carry a surprising wallop, modified as they are to fire a variety of modern and older ammunition, from HEAT rounds to grapeshot, and require no powder. They can also be switched out for miniguns, as the need arises.
- Deck mortars: A set of twin mortar cannons sit on the rear deck, and are comparable to modern gun howitzers, though they can angle to almost seventy degrees when necessary. These fire 120mm shells of varying loads.
- Main Cannons: The terror of the modern high seas. Aesthetically made to look like Golden Age of Sail ship guns, these heavy guns are actually several different types of modified artillery pieces. The lowest deck has a set of rail cannons, GA Blitzers, which are capable of firing a sabot round at Mach 5. The second deck has larger versions of the deck mortars, essentially howitzers, which fire anything from HE shells up to tactical nuclear shells, though Alice would never authorise such an ammunition(it ruins the booty). The main deck guns, which are only rolled out on special occasions, are the most unique of the Revenge's arsenal. These are actually smaller than the swivels, though not by much, but they do not fire conventional ammunition. Experimental shells filled with cryo-explosives, Dragon's breath shot, ionizing rods that will generate lightning bolts, and gas rounds that can knock out a whole cruise ship in a few minutes; these are reserved for the main deck guns.
- Torpedo Tubes: Four on the bow of the ship.
Aside from the armaments, the Revenge also has other wonders, such as a hydrofoil generator/engine combo below the waterline, capable of powering the whole of the ship and pushing her max speed up to 40 knots(46mph/74kph). The engine consumes no fuel itself, an important feature to Alice. The quarters for all the crew resemble modern barracks rooms, though far more comfortable and home-y as they have decorated. The galley resembles that of a modern cruise ship, though it maintains the aesthetic for the furniture, all dark teak and cast iron. She also, of course, has modern medical facilities, and a brig capable of holding even minor metahumans. As a special touch, Alice has managed to procure a device that renders the Revenge invisible to thermal imaging, sonar, and satellite tracking, essentially a ghost ship in the modern age.
Super Inventor – Aside from the ship itself, Alice has numerous other creations to her credit.
Nanoweave Fibre: Alice's clothes, and all the ropes and sails of the Tortuga's Revenge, are made from her own custom blend of Dyneema and nano-weave carbon/asbestos fibre, rendering them almost completely immune to cuts, tears, punctures, and fire. Her entire crew is outfitted in the same. This special weave, while extremely durable, bends and folds as easily as cotton.
Mono-line Blades: Alice's cutlasses are sharp on their own, and made out of a special alloy that is nigh-unbreakable, but their true strength lies in the microedge they have, narrowing down to almost a single molecule wide, rendering them capable of cutting through almost every conceivable material. The crew carry knives of the same edging, allowing them to maintain the ship despite it's toughness.
The Pistols: While the eight pistols on her seem to be flintlocks, and even look that way when firing, this is purely aesthetic, much like the rest of her possessions. The actually contain tiny electro-magnetic catapults, and fire her pistol shot at super sonic velocities. The shot itself is similar to her basic cannon shot for the ship, rounded cones of tungsten-carbide, capable of penetrating most standard body armour with little difficulty.
Gripping Boots: The soles of her boots are enhanced to grip onto any surface through a combination of magnetism and molecular bonding hairs and pads, inspired by geckos and other climbing animals.
Mono-line Blades: Alice's cutlasses are sharp on their own, and made out of a special alloy that is nigh-unbreakable, but their true strength lies in the microedge they have, narrowing down to almost a single molecule wide, rendering them capable of cutting through almost every conceivable material. The crew carry knives of the same edging, allowing them to maintain the ship despite it's toughness.
The Pistols: While the eight pistols on her seem to be flintlocks, and even look that way when firing, this is purely aesthetic, much like the rest of her possessions. The actually contain tiny electro-magnetic catapults, and fire her pistol shot at super sonic velocities. The shot itself is similar to her basic cannon shot for the ship, rounded cones of tungsten-carbide, capable of penetrating most standard body armour with little difficulty.
Gripping Boots: The soles of her boots are enhanced to grip onto any surface through a combination of magnetism and molecular bonding hairs and pads, inspired by geckos and other climbing animals.
The Workshop: This is a sprawling, 12,000 square foot complex in a hidden cove on the island of Tortuga, the entrance to which is disguised as a blank rock through the use of a hologram projection. This dock hold all the materials for repair the Revenge, manufacturing the specialty ammunition, housing the crew, and dumping booty from raids.
Madness, or...: The legends that have already cropped up around Black Bonnet Rackham commonly say that her parents death cracked her brain so badly that she's completely mad. To be certain, her crew regularly hears and sees her talking with things that they cannot perceive. But that may not be all there is to this tale, either.
According to Alice herself, her ship and home regularly host eight spirits, whom she can name and describe fairly well. Those who have heard these names and descriptions assume she did research some time in her past, and her broken mind has conjured them to help her stay somewhat balanced. But sailors are a superstitious lot, and many have begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, she really can see gods. After all, all sorts of other strange things have happened in the world, why not this?
The 'deities' who Alice hosts are:
- Calypso, the piratical goddess of the sea (who hates her representation in un-named movies as some sort of lovesick mortal). She claims the title of 'chief' deity, and tend to treat Alice like a daughter.
- Namaka, a fierce and domineering Hawaiian lady, with water pooling at her feet.
- Takehaya Susanoo-no-Mikoto, a Japanese man who occasionally shows up with his wife, and always during storms.
- Sedna, a large Inuit woman missing her fingers.
- Ægir and Rán, a huge giant and his mermaid goddess wife, who always appear together and love showing up to parties.
- Samudra, an Indian woman who is temperamental, but typically calm when boarding with Alice.
- Agwé, a black man who is always grinning at her, and refers to himself as her King, unless the Calypso is around.
- Chalciuhtlicue, a gorgeous Aztec woman who is always holding a babe on each hip, one boy and one girl.
Alice refers to these spirits as her friends, often in familiar terms, and sometimes even rudely. She especially likes cursing at them during storms, though she reports that this really only makes them laugh. Even those people who claim to be able to see or otherwise interact with spirits and other supernatural beings deny seeing them near her, though she replies to these denunciations by proclaiming them “not worth the Sea's time”. It remains to be seen whether she is mad or some sort of priestess.
Skills: (Because these really don't count as powers
Navigation, Captaincy, and Seamanship: Alice seems to have an inborn knack for all things relating to piloting a ship. She can read the waves and avoid even the worst swells, can smell a storm before it's even visible on the horizon, can plot courses that shave hours off her travel time, knows every single inch of her ship from bow to stern, and can even read her crew's mood before they know it themselves. She is a commanding presence wherever she goes
Linguistics: Alice can fluently speak Haitian French, Creole, Spanish, and English
Combat: Alice has taught herself, through instructional videos, practise, and sparring, all forms of pirate combat; Cutlass and pistol, knife, boarding pike, artillery combat, naval tactics, acrobatics, nad most modern naval small arms combat.
Engineering: Alice has a dual BAS in Mechanical Engineering and Physics, with all the skills that entails, though her genius adds considerably to this.
Linguistics: Alice can fluently speak Haitian French, Creole, Spanish, and English
Combat: Alice has taught herself, through instructional videos, practise, and sparring, all forms of pirate combat; Cutlass and pistol, knife, boarding pike, artillery combat, naval tactics, acrobatics, nad most modern naval small arms combat.
Engineering: Alice has a dual BAS in Mechanical Engineering and Physics, with all the skills that entails, though her genius adds considerably to this.
Attributes:
Height: 6'1”
Weight: 180 lbs
Strength Level: Above average, but not by much
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: John Woo film hero level(about twice normal human)
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours, because she's used to the hardships of the sea.
Agility: Above Average, but still human
Intelligence: Very genius
Fighting Skill: Experienced/Trained
Weight: 180 lbs
Strength Level: Above average, but not by much
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: John Woo film hero level(about twice normal human)
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours, because she's used to the hardships of the sea.
Agility: Above Average, but still human
Intelligence: Very genius
Fighting Skill: Experienced/Trained
Resources: Extreme; aside from her inherited fortune (most of which was dumped into the ship), she has her financial advisor managing stocks, bonds, and several Cayman and Swiss bank accounts. These are cunningly manipulated so that international authorities can't freeze them. And there's plunder, as well.
Weaknesses: Aside from her armoured clothing, she is a normal human being, and can be killed or wounded as easily as any other.
She is, even if not quite as mad as some fear, extremely delusional, and any attempt to bring her back to modern sensibilities is doomed to failure.
Following with her delusions, Alice has a flashpan temper when it comes to her ship, or her crew, and is fiercely protective of both.
She has a severe peanut allergy.
Pirate Information:
Insignia: Alice's flag is black, with white crossed cutlasses. A white skull looks to the side in profile, at a speared heart dripping blood into a cup.
Code: Alice's Code is as follows:
Code: Alice's Code is as follows:
- I: The Captain shall receive three shares of any retrieved value. The Quartermaster and Doctor shall each receive two shares. The Cook shall receive one and one half share. All regular crew shall receive one share. Provisional Crew shall receive one half share.
- II: No crew member shall engage in any form of slavery. If a crew member of any rank should so engage, The Captain shall deem a fitting punishment.
- III: Any crew member, having been assured the availability of willing mates, who is found to have engaged in rape, shall be keelhauled.
- IV: Any crew member who is found to have aided in the capture or death of any of their Brethren, shall be tied to the mast and left to the depredations of those Brethren who remain.
- V: All complaints, no matter how small, will be listened to. Those crew members who cannot find a satisfactory solution to their complaint shall be put ashore at the nearest safe port and sworn to secrecy on pain of death.
- VI: No crew member shall engage in any activity which may divide the crew. Friendly boxing and gambling is allowed, but all complaints against the results must be settled fairly by an Officer.
- VII: Those who deem fit to poison the ocean with things other than what belong in it shall be given to the next storm.
Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?):
While her family may be dead, there are multitudes of people who interact with Alice on a daily basis, even aside from her Gods.
- Liam Evans, her accountant, who works out of Grand Cayman and calls her whenever he needs a decision about her accounts made.
- Mister Ribbons, a flamboyant man who serves as her quartermaster on the Revenge
- James Kirk MD, who regrets his name but doesn't wish to change it. The Revenge's Doctor.
- Dominique Briggs, the overbearing ship's cook
- Admiral Brian Haliway, the Naval officer of Her Majesty's Navy who heads the task force attempting to rid the Caribbean of Black Bonnet Rackham
- The Kraken, that mysterious creature of legend, who some have reported as following the Revenge, though to what purpose remains unclear.
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?:
Other: I will make NPC sheets for the spirits when and if the story makes it seem necessary.
Nomadic Fist
Currently not active, maybe again later on?
Liễu Huệ Thi Yên
⦋ 22 || Vietnamese || Female ⦌
APPEARANCE & PERSONALITY
APPEARANCE
PERSONALITY TRAITS
BACKSTORY & MOTIVATION
Tall and willowy, Yen moves gracefully despite her handicap, though not all the scars on her long limbs are from training. Though they don't work physically, her eyes still retain their colour, and since she knows how un-nerving it is for her opponents, she likes to fix her "gaze" on them. She dresses in her homeland's tradition, keeping to simple, streamlined robes, though she wears no shoes. What people assume is a sword on her back is actually a giant fan, which she can wield much more quickly than one would assume. When open, the fan is beautifully painted with the image of a dragon and phoenix fighting in the mountains above a harbour.
PERSONALITY TRAITS
-Self-assured
-Serene
-Clever
-Mischievous
-Good-humoured
-Proud
-Frugal
-Kind
-Generous
-Trusting
-Strategic
-Serene
-Clever
-Mischievous
-Good-humoured
-Proud
-Frugal
-Kind
-Generous
-Trusting
-Strategic
BACKSTORY & MOTIVATION
Born without sight, Yen seemed to be destined to stay humble and lowly for her life. Her parents did not have much money, and with a fourth child who was disabled, their resources were stretched to their limit, and they had no idea how to care for a blind child. Her mother made do, though, by taking Yen with her everywhere. It was during a shopping trip when Yen was five that her true destiny was revealed.
A middle-aged man calling himself the Dragon visited their village one day, looking for someone with talents he could teach his martial art so he could retire to monkhood. He spent several days there, and then he spotted little Yen, following behind her mother with very little trouble despite the obliviousness of her eyes. He sensed her using her ki to feel her way around without even knowing she was doing it, and he recognized that here was his long-sought student.
It only took a little bargaining, promising she would be looked out for beyond what they could do, before her parents said their farewells to Yen and sent her off to meet her fate. Yen spent the next fifteen years studying under The Dragon, who affectionately called her Phoenix. He not only taught her all he knew, but also sent for a few other teachers who could help with special techniques that either overcame or utilised her blindness, including the use of her fan. Two years ago, Dragon announced her training complete and sent her out into the world. He challenged her to only ever improve, and to prove to every fighter out there that she was more capable, not less, than any one of them.
Since then she has taken up the Nomad life, going from small town to small town and tournament to tournament. She lost many fights due to the sheer number of strange abilities she didn't realise existed, but now she has adjusted, and is ready to prove once and for all that the blind fighter is the one who sees the most.
A middle-aged man calling himself the Dragon visited their village one day, looking for someone with talents he could teach his martial art so he could retire to monkhood. He spent several days there, and then he spotted little Yen, following behind her mother with very little trouble despite the obliviousness of her eyes. He sensed her using her ki to feel her way around without even knowing she was doing it, and he recognized that here was his long-sought student.
It only took a little bargaining, promising she would be looked out for beyond what they could do, before her parents said their farewells to Yen and sent her off to meet her fate. Yen spent the next fifteen years studying under The Dragon, who affectionately called her Phoenix. He not only taught her all he knew, but also sent for a few other teachers who could help with special techniques that either overcame or utilised her blindness, including the use of her fan. Two years ago, Dragon announced her training complete and sent her out into the world. He challenged her to only ever improve, and to prove to every fighter out there that she was more capable, not less, than any one of them.
Since then she has taken up the Nomad life, going from small town to small town and tournament to tournament. She lost many fights due to the sheer number of strange abilities she didn't realise existed, but now she has adjusted, and is ready to prove once and for all that the blind fighter is the one who sees the most.
FIGHTING STYLE & ABILITIES
FIGHTING STYLE
SPECIAL MOVES & TECHNIQUES
SUPER MOVES
WEAKNESSES & LIMITS
Yen's fighting style involves most long ranged attacks, using the very tips of her fingers and toes or pushing "hardened" wind with her ki. Defensive in nature, it centers around dodging and avoiding the enemy, frustrating them with their inability to connect blows until they are exhausted. All normal strikes are very light in damage, though they are almost exclusive aimed at high damage areas like joints and nerve clusters.
The training was brutally efficient in increasing speed, stamina, agility, and reflexes, but not so much at toughening either her or her blows. As a result, Yen can fight for literal hours, but isn't that great at taking blows.
Her fan is a giant, two-handed affair, which has blades on the rib-ends. She can use it as a club, spear, or in it's fan form to control the wind she puts out.
She "sees" her opponents through a combination of basic ki-sensing and reading the air currents as they move. Unhindered by normal vision, she can even see her opponents weapons, connected as they are to the fighters themselves.
The training was brutally efficient in increasing speed, stamina, agility, and reflexes, but not so much at toughening either her or her blows. As a result, Yen can fight for literal hours, but isn't that great at taking blows.
Her fan is a giant, two-handed affair, which has blades on the rib-ends. She can use it as a club, spear, or in it's fan form to control the wind she puts out.
She "sees" her opponents through a combination of basic ki-sensing and reading the air currents as they move. Unhindered by normal vision, she can even see her opponents weapons, connected as they are to the fighters themselves.
SPECIAL MOVES & TECHNIQUES
■ Bến cảng (Harbor Wind)
Yen dodges to the side of an incoming blow, sweeping her arms in a tight circle and drawing in wind from behind her opponent to throw them past her and onto the ground, or at the very least off balance.
■ Cần cẩu (Crane Leap)
Yen shoves down against the ground with her ki-hardened wind, launching herself into the air and over the opponent in a neat flip, moving fifteen feet up and twenty feet forward. Landing involves another burst of wind to slow her descent just enough to not damage herself.
■ Bẻ sóng (Bend the Wave)
Pulling her fan in towards her knees and away from the opponent, Yen creates a high force wind under the opponent's feet, tripping them and send them flying across the battle field.
■ Thay đổi dòng chảy (Alter the Flow)
While using Bend the Wave, Yen can switch the direction of the throw, either to avoid or send her target into obstacles, smash them into the ground, or even fling them high into the air.
■ Lưỡi vô hình (Invisible Blades)
Whipping her hands out in fast, chopping motions, Yen sends out waves of ki-hardened wind, about the width of a sword's length, speeding towards her opponent. These hit about as hard as a good blow from a staff.
■ Bùng nổ khoe khoang (Battering Breeze)
Yen swings her fan out in a wide arc, sending out a gale-force wind into the area in front of her. She can "harden" this, turning it into a brutal slam attack that hits with as much force as a battering ram, or leave it as simple wind, sending opponents tumbling and taking projectiles out of the air.
SUPER MOVES
■ Bão (Storm)
Spinning her fan around in a wild, twisting pattern, Yen surrounds her opponent with narrow, sweeping blades of wind, inflicting hundreds of tiny cuts on them. The speed and force of these is enough to charge their leading edge slightly, making them visible to everyone as glinting blade of static electricity.
■ Khủng bố (Terror)
Yen speeds herself up by pushing herself along with wind. She then uses this to fling herself around her opponent, bending and twisting much like a ballet dancer, and almost impossible to hit, fast enough to blur. Once the opponent is disoriented, she strikes with a series of rapid kicks at the knees, elbows, and neck, landing a total of seven blows on each point, then kicks one final time into the opponents solar plexus and launching herself back to a safe distance.
■ Đau chia sẻ (Shared Pain)
Yen slams her fan, in spear form, into the ground, then opens the fan . Standing next to it, she plucks out two specific blades from the end and hurls them at her opponent. Guided by wind for unerring accuracy, these are aimed straight at the eyes.
Normally she would never use this. This move is specifically to punish evil and dishonourable fighter
Normally she would never use this. This move is specifically to punish evil and dishonourable fighter
WEAKNESSES & LIMITS
Well, she is blind. While she can compensate for this in a fight to a degree with ki sensing, that only helps with the fighters and their weapons. Even simple rocks near her feet can trip her up, and while she recovers fairly well, if she can't "feel" it, she can't avoid it.
She's also proud of her skills, enough to be a little cocky about it. After a defeat she falls into a fit of self-doubt and worry.
She also has a habit of playing pranks and tricking people, enough to make her a little annoying to be friends with.
She loves her family and her heritage very much, making frequent trips home when she can afford it. Any insult against either of these is very much capable of getting her angry enough to make mistakes, or drop her normal fighting pattern to simply hurt the other person.
She's a dodger, not a tank. A couple of heavy blows could down her pretty effectively.
She's also proud of her skills, enough to be a little cocky about it. After a defeat she falls into a fit of self-doubt and worry.
She also has a habit of playing pranks and tricking people, enough to make her a little annoying to be friends with.
She loves her family and her heritage very much, making frequent trips home when she can afford it. Any insult against either of these is very much capable of getting her angry enough to make mistakes, or drop her normal fighting pattern to simply hurt the other person.
She's a dodger, not a tank. A couple of heavy blows could down her pretty effectively.
Shine City
This seems to have died, but I like Rowan anyway.
Name: Rowan Mackenzie Appleton
Age: 29
Appearance:
Height: 175 cm (5'9")
Weight: 66.6 kg (147 lbs)
Likes:
Dislikes:
Profession: Bartender at the Cornerstone
Party Trick: She can figure out what anyone needs to drink at a glance. May not be what they thought, but it's always good and it always helps.
Bio/Personality:
Rowan is a relatively new transplant to Shine City. She came here at the behest of one of her girlfriends a while back while the girl was going to college, and, having nothing better to do and nothing to really tie her down in her hometown, she decided to come out here and check it out. She enrolled in the Academy, and even managed to pass a few semesters and squeak out an Associates of Applied Science in Chemistry, but dropped out afterwards. Her excuse has always remained "existential exhaustion". Soon after, her and her girlfriend broke up, and she began working at the Cornerstone. She's actually been working there since she was in school, but never really spoke up much. These days she's much more involved in her job.
That breakup was the last in a long line, and as of now, Rowan is much happier helping other people find love than actually finding it herself. Some speculate that it's due to fear of another loss or possible shyness, but she neither confirms nor denies anything when questioned, just blushes slightly and changes the subject, typically to, "Can I get you another drink?"
Some people have accused her of being morose, or living the goth lifestyle, or just being a slacker. Her heavily lidded eyes don't really help the matter, but it's, more than anything else, that she doesn't see the point in dressing up and acting like someone she's not, for dating or any other purpose. If you can't take her for what she is, then she'll just smile, serve you a drink, and leave you alone. Contrary to popular belief, she's not really cold or emotionless, but prefers to keep a moderately professional relationship with the bar patrons, and rarely goes any other places than work and home, though she can occasionally be found at Inky Sparks or the parks around town. She's even been spotted once or twice at Mochavine and LUSH, apparently "to scope out the competition and swap recipes with her brothers and sisters in arms".
She can get poetic, or even ramble slightly, since making drinks is second nature to her and leaves her plenty of free mental power for her mind to wander. She's also quite friendly with her regular customers, not only remembering names and life events, but favourite drink flavours and things they might have only mentioned once to someone else at the bar, storing all of that information to better serve their drinks. Her experimental drinks, while not always tasting great, tend to hit more than miss, and her tailor-made drinks for those who request them not only taste amazing, but leave the imbiber feeling happier, more hopeful, more thoughtful, sober, or whatever else they seemed to have needed most just then. Extreme cases who come in crying or otherwise in distress get those on the house, and that's how she's made regulars out of several locals so far.
If you can catch her in a vulnerable moment, when her guard's down and she's not paying attention to her surroundings, there is quite a bit of loneliness in her eyes resting alongside that caregiver streak. Of course, much like her past, she never discusses her own feelings with anyone but her absolute most trusted friends, which currently include only her pet parrot Aberforth and two people in her hometown she talks to online. Everyone else gets a polite shutdown and a reminder that "some books are better left unread until the author's ready to publish."
Age: 29
Appearance:
Height: 175 cm (5'9")
Weight: 66.6 kg (147 lbs)
Likes:
- RainEspecially warm summer rains, and definitely thunderstorms.
- BeerProbably a bit too much. Rowan's not got very distinguished tastes in this regard, either, so she tends to drink the cheap, easy stuff.
- Helping peopleNot necessarily to move or anything, although she'll do that with the proper motivation. But what she really enjoys is handing out good advice and folksy wisdom, both of which she has in abundance. And while she will never use the skill on herself, she is good at giving that little extra nudge people need when making difficult decisions.
- Small talkRowan's really good at this, and she genuinely enjoys just wiling away hours talking about light subjects. Bonus points if it's armchair philosophy. She's also genuinely interested in what most people have to say, is an excellent listener, and likes hearing other people's stories.
- BirdsAll of them, but blackbirds and parrots especially.
- ChemistryShe studied it in university, and she still enjoys it. And it applies a lot to her job, so she practises it by coming up with new drinks for people to try.
- Her jobWhile some may think it's just a stepping stone career, Rowan has no plans to leave bartending, even if she goes to a different bar. It's something she loves doing, and it's a perfect fit for her.
- CookingExperimentation with dishes is just like cooking, right? And she likes cooking for herself, even if she doesn't have anyone to share with.
- Idle timeRowan likes her down time, and likes having little to do so she can concentrate on...well, nothing. Especially browsing message boards and news sites.
- Peaceful settingsAh, quiet and sleepy settings. Definitely great for idle time. Secluded parks and bookstores are choice locations.
Dislikes:
- Dogs"They are smelly, and loud, and make horrible messes. Tell me why you like them!"
- Useless conversationsMeaningless conversations with no depth or meat to them are bad enough, but political treatises and rants with too much depth are actually an easier way to either bore Rowan to tears or piss her off.
- Nagging/Being pressuredRowan is well aware that some consider her job to be dead-end, but she's happy where she is. Being like her family and accusing her of having no ambition may be accurate is another surefire way to make her hostile.
- KidsShe mostly has the same complaint about children that she does about dogs. She won't harm any, and will even begrudgingly watch any she's forced to and keep them entertained, but she is not going to be happy about it.
- PoliticsRowan really couldn't care less about politics. Or, for that matter, religion, or the economy (aside from the parts that immediately effect her).
- Talking about herself or her pastIt's not that she wants to keep it a mystery, but she just absolutely hates talking about anything like this. She will swiftly and obviously change subjects, but refuse to admit anything and pretend she has no idea what you're talking about if you try and call her on it. Legend has it some have actually gotten her story out of her, but no one knows who and they're not advertising their knowledge.
- Any sort of disturbance or violenceIt's annoying, mostly, but disturbing her peaceful times is a dangerous way to find out what she looks like when she's mad. And woe to anyone who causes trouble in her workplace.
- CoffeeIt just doesn't taste good.
Profession: Bartender at the Cornerstone
Party Trick: She can figure out what anyone needs to drink at a glance. May not be what they thought, but it's always good and it always helps.
Bio/Personality:
Rowan is a relatively new transplant to Shine City. She came here at the behest of one of her girlfriends a while back while the girl was going to college, and, having nothing better to do and nothing to really tie her down in her hometown, she decided to come out here and check it out. She enrolled in the Academy, and even managed to pass a few semesters and squeak out an Associates of Applied Science in Chemistry, but dropped out afterwards. Her excuse has always remained "existential exhaustion". Soon after, her and her girlfriend broke up, and she began working at the Cornerstone. She's actually been working there since she was in school, but never really spoke up much. These days she's much more involved in her job.
That breakup was the last in a long line, and as of now, Rowan is much happier helping other people find love than actually finding it herself. Some speculate that it's due to fear of another loss or possible shyness, but she neither confirms nor denies anything when questioned, just blushes slightly and changes the subject, typically to, "Can I get you another drink?"
Some people have accused her of being morose, or living the goth lifestyle, or just being a slacker. Her heavily lidded eyes don't really help the matter, but it's, more than anything else, that she doesn't see the point in dressing up and acting like someone she's not, for dating or any other purpose. If you can't take her for what she is, then she'll just smile, serve you a drink, and leave you alone. Contrary to popular belief, she's not really cold or emotionless, but prefers to keep a moderately professional relationship with the bar patrons, and rarely goes any other places than work and home, though she can occasionally be found at Inky Sparks or the parks around town. She's even been spotted once or twice at Mochavine and LUSH, apparently "to scope out the competition and swap recipes with her brothers and sisters in arms".
She can get poetic, or even ramble slightly, since making drinks is second nature to her and leaves her plenty of free mental power for her mind to wander. She's also quite friendly with her regular customers, not only remembering names and life events, but favourite drink flavours and things they might have only mentioned once to someone else at the bar, storing all of that information to better serve their drinks. Her experimental drinks, while not always tasting great, tend to hit more than miss, and her tailor-made drinks for those who request them not only taste amazing, but leave the imbiber feeling happier, more hopeful, more thoughtful, sober, or whatever else they seemed to have needed most just then. Extreme cases who come in crying or otherwise in distress get those on the house, and that's how she's made regulars out of several locals so far.
If you can catch her in a vulnerable moment, when her guard's down and she's not paying attention to her surroundings, there is quite a bit of loneliness in her eyes resting alongside that caregiver streak. Of course, much like her past, she never discusses her own feelings with anyone but her absolute most trusted friends, which currently include only her pet parrot Aberforth and two people in her hometown she talks to online. Everyone else gets a polite shutdown and a reminder that "some books are better left unread until the author's ready to publish."
Misthoporoi
Another seemingly dead RP, but I don't think I can use this one anywhere else without a serious rewrite.
Ahk-krat-rahz(only a close representation that humans can pronounce) is from a long-lived and intelligent race of apex predators that has been a member state of the Valnaur Empire for a very long time. While most people tend to assume the Zkz'Karnis are insects due to their hexipedal, carapace covered bodies and mandibled faces, but are actually more a cross between a theropod and an amphibious crustacean, though using either of those words to describe one within earshot may get you killed. Despite their average size of ten feet, with a length of fifteen, and a mass that makes star travel somewhat obnoxious for them, they took to it like Frzi-zashs to liquid nourishment. Tool use is possible because of both very fine motor skills with mandibles and a pair of dangling forelimbs located just beneath where the long neck meets the main body. The head is balanced out by a stubby tail, developed in evolution for that singular purpose. Their heads are generally covered in elaborate crests except for immediately after mating season, though the females tend to keep them on their entire lives. While their carapace makes them impossible to bring down for most of the other species on their homeworld, it turns out that larger calibre modern arms, and especially energy weapons, have little issue killing them. The first years after their conquering by the Empire were particularly difficult, as they do not have many hatchlings during any successful breeding.
Ahk's carapace is mottled with light and dark browns, reds, and greys. Scarring across her thick carapace from multiple sources she does not discuss shines like the inside of an abalone shell, from minerals deposits that cause its growth, and give her a grizzled appearance. Unusual for her species, there are no clan markings painted onto her sides or armoured legs, and she wears no crest at all, leaving the top of her head bare except for the ridged carapace plates there.
The Zkz'Karnis are a caste system society, mostly based on logic and merit. However, Ahk was unfortunate enough to be hatched to the lowest class on the planet, those that are sand-coloured. While originally because food was scare and their colouring made it difficult to hunt well in the jungles, the stigma has stuck with this particular caste so much that they are actually being bred out slowly, as it is rare that they find a mate with their normally green brethren.
Seeing no opportunity for a mate nor a good life on her homeworld, Ahk studied hard at university, in topics as diverse as engineering, art, sociology, and archaeology, once she found out that her university was one of the best for xenobiology, and offered a transfer program to other systems, she knew she had found her answer. Thirty years later, she is a very accomplished xenobiologist and surgeon, capable of performing life saving techniques and stopping virulent plagues in most of the known system. However, no hospital has so far been willing to hire a giant, flesh-eating insect for their medical programs, and she had to do her entire residencies by virtual reality interfaces. To pay for the extremely costly education, Ahk has had to rely on her other well-developed skillset, programming. She is capable of developing tools for several of the most universal languages, and has developed her own assistant AI for dealing with diagnoses and day-to-day problems encountered with communications. The species is not capable of naturally speaking Humanitas, and must rely on translators, something the Empire has used as an economic dampener on their growth by making them prohibitively expensive. Ahk has gotten around this by making her own.
But programming is not allowing her to catch up on her bills, and criminal activity is not in nature. The Empire would make her a grunt were she to try and join the military, as no other species seems to recognise that the Zkz'Karnis are actually smarter than the beasts they look like. So she has put out her name into the mercenary circles, hoping that some enterprising leader will take a chance on one of the more accomplished doctors in the sector. Others were swift to point her to the planet of Taenarum, and seeing no other option, she has added to her already considerable debt to make it there and set herself up in the tiniest possible rooms while awaiting with trepidation for someone to hire her despite her lack of combat experience.
Name Pronounciation: awk-CRAYT-raj tank-izj-RAJ
Actual physical dimensions for Ahk, for easy reference
Height: 8'4", capable of lowering her head down to 6'10" to fit through human sized passages with difficulty.
Length: 13'
width: 9' 6", legs can squeeze in to fit corridors as small as 6'6" with difficulty.
Forelimbs have six digits with four joints each, that fold up into pockets on the carapace for protection.
Ends of legs are blunt, but capable of driving into wood for climbing purposes, though too heavy to climb very high. The two foremost legs are thicker to allow for burrowing.
The mouth is framed by four mandibles with a light carapace plating, capable of finger-like manipulation. Tipped with tooth-ish protrusions.
The head is very much like a Tyrannosaurus, though plated with carapace.
The species evolved on a high gravity planet, so low-grav environs tend to be extremely uncomfortable.
:origin()/pre09/b167/th/pre/f/2008/056/f/1/ancient_acklay_by_voltairearts.jpg)
Closest image I could find.
Ahk's carapace is mottled with light and dark browns, reds, and greys. Scarring across her thick carapace from multiple sources she does not discuss shines like the inside of an abalone shell, from minerals deposits that cause its growth, and give her a grizzled appearance. Unusual for her species, there are no clan markings painted onto her sides or armoured legs, and she wears no crest at all, leaving the top of her head bare except for the ridged carapace plates there.
The Zkz'Karnis are a caste system society, mostly based on logic and merit. However, Ahk was unfortunate enough to be hatched to the lowest class on the planet, those that are sand-coloured. While originally because food was scare and their colouring made it difficult to hunt well in the jungles, the stigma has stuck with this particular caste so much that they are actually being bred out slowly, as it is rare that they find a mate with their normally green brethren.
Seeing no opportunity for a mate nor a good life on her homeworld, Ahk studied hard at university, in topics as diverse as engineering, art, sociology, and archaeology, once she found out that her university was one of the best for xenobiology, and offered a transfer program to other systems, she knew she had found her answer. Thirty years later, she is a very accomplished xenobiologist and surgeon, capable of performing life saving techniques and stopping virulent plagues in most of the known system. However, no hospital has so far been willing to hire a giant, flesh-eating insect for their medical programs, and she had to do her entire residencies by virtual reality interfaces. To pay for the extremely costly education, Ahk has had to rely on her other well-developed skillset, programming. She is capable of developing tools for several of the most universal languages, and has developed her own assistant AI for dealing with diagnoses and day-to-day problems encountered with communications. The species is not capable of naturally speaking Humanitas, and must rely on translators, something the Empire has used as an economic dampener on their growth by making them prohibitively expensive. Ahk has gotten around this by making her own.
But programming is not allowing her to catch up on her bills, and criminal activity is not in nature. The Empire would make her a grunt were she to try and join the military, as no other species seems to recognise that the Zkz'Karnis are actually smarter than the beasts they look like. So she has put out her name into the mercenary circles, hoping that some enterprising leader will take a chance on one of the more accomplished doctors in the sector. Others were swift to point her to the planet of Taenarum, and seeing no other option, she has added to her already considerable debt to make it there and set herself up in the tiniest possible rooms while awaiting with trepidation for someone to hire her despite her lack of combat experience.
Name Pronounciation: awk-CRAYT-raj tank-izj-RAJ
Actual physical dimensions for Ahk, for easy reference
Height: 8'4", capable of lowering her head down to 6'10" to fit through human sized passages with difficulty.
Length: 13'
width: 9' 6", legs can squeeze in to fit corridors as small as 6'6" with difficulty.
Forelimbs have six digits with four joints each, that fold up into pockets on the carapace for protection.
Ends of legs are blunt, but capable of driving into wood for climbing purposes, though too heavy to climb very high. The two foremost legs are thicker to allow for burrowing.
The mouth is framed by four mandibles with a light carapace plating, capable of finger-like manipulation. Tipped with tooth-ish protrusions.
The head is very much like a Tyrannosaurus, though plated with carapace.
The species evolved on a high gravity planet, so low-grav environs tend to be extremely uncomfortable.
Closest image I could find.
