Name
Eliza Moore
Nickname
Lizzy, Liz
Secret Identity
Dragoness
Gender
Female
Age
20
Date of Birth
February 12th, 2000
Height
5’9”
Weight
142 lb.
Themes
Fantasy, Responsibility, Partnership, Balancing Normal Life and Superheroing
Appearance
Eliza is a pale girl with red hair and a sense of fashion that can best be described as ‘vaguely hipster-ish’. She’s on the tall side, with an angular jaw and heavy-lidded blue eyes, and almost always wearing an expression of weary resolution or a mocking smile. When she talks, she barely ever gesticulates, usually keeping her arms at her sides or folded in front of her chest.
Costume
Eliza’s costume is the result of many, many hours of work on her part, something Tharinoq still mocks her about on occasion. Consisting mainly of a skintight red and black bodysuit with an orange dragon insignia in the middle, it has holes in the back over the shoulder blades to make room for her wings. After a few messy accidents, she made the entire thing out of fireproof material (which did not come cheap, occupying most of her textbook budget this semester), while the skintight nature of the costume provides minimal drag when flying. On her feet she wears heavy black boots, while her hands are kept free to allow use of her claws. She’s experimented with a few means of hiding her identity, such as masks or bandanas, all of which seemed by her reckoning to be completely ineffectual, and has instead settled on hoping nobody gets a super clear picture of her and the natural tendency of everyone who knows her to not assume their friend is a draconic superhero to protect her secret, at least until she has a better idea.
Personality
Eliza is sharp as a tack and sarcastic to a fault. She goes about her life with an irreverent cynicism and sense of dark humor, always quick with a jab or a pessimistic prediction. She’s jaded beyond her years and tends to assume that everyone around her that isn’t a close friend is incompetent, a dick, or an incompetent dick. Deep down, she’s a person of deep passion and moral conviction, with a strong sense of responsibility and right from wrong that she keeps insulated from a world she fears has no room for such things.
Tharinoq, the dragon she hears inside her head, is almost the exact opposite. He’s earnest, brash, and always eager to act, obsessed with his need to fight the good fight and constantly haranguing Eliza to get out and go on patrol. He’s also a bit of a blowhard, insufferably arrogant and prone to rambling about the ‘good old days’ and asserting the strangeness of modern humanity. The two have settled into an easy, if slightly vitriolic, friendship – he has accepted that she cannot be fighting crime all the time (and has begun to take an interest in her personal life in spite of himself) while she has fallen into the role of his champion with a great deal of sarcasm but no real resistance. Lately, she’s been feeling a good deal of stress trying to balance her academic career, social life and crimefighting, and has started to wonder if every moment she doesn’t spend superheroing represents a kind of selfishness on her part.
Backstory
Eliza grew up in a small town on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and enjoyed what could be fairly characterized as the most bog-standard middle class upbringing imaginable. She had two parents, an older brother, a younger sister, decent grades and a secure membership in the school debate team. After graduating high school, she was accepted into NYU to study chemistry, and had every reason to believe she was on track for a normal, boring life.
That all changed during her freshman year, when she and her two best friends stopped by an antique shop downtown on their way to the movie theater. For the most part, the inventory was exactly what you’d expect – creepy dolls, old chairs, dusty music boxes. But in the back, on a rack full of old but unremarkable jewelry, was something very special indeed – an amulet on a silver chain, shaped like a reptile’s scale and composed of some red metal like nothing Eliza had ever seen before. It felt like it was calling out to her, like it always had been, and she reached out to touch it.
Images flashed before her eyes, and a deep voice spoke to her. Thousands of years ago, it explained, the great kingdom of Atlantis had flourished, guided by a creature as mighty as he was wise – Tharinoq, the Dragon King. The dragons were the protectors of humanity, noble beasts that fought against the monsters and dark powers that would see them destroyed. Though their foes were fearsome, the dragons stood firm, and peace and prosperity reigned for many years.
Ultimately, Atlantis’s downfall came not from without, but from within. The sorcerer Nelkarian, prominent noble and trusted confidant of Tharinoq, grew envious of the dragons’ power and leadership, and conspired against them in secret. Lacking the power to defeat the dragon king, he instead deceived him, sealing him inside a magical amulet – the same amulet Eliza had found. Without its mightiest protector, Atlantis was overrun by its enemies and lost to the waves, and the remaining dragons scattered to the corners of the earth; few, if any, remain.
When Eliza came to, she was in a hospital bed – apparently she had passed out in the antique store and been unconscious for several hours. She still heard Tharinoq’s voice in her head, a fact she did her best to conceal – as she had seen into the dragon’s mind, he had seen into hers. Though Atlantis had fallen, his desire to protect wayward humanity was still strong, and he knew that this modern world was as imperiled as the one he left behind. Over the next few days, they worked out a deal – though he could not escape the amulet, something about Eliza made him capable of granting her some of his power, and she began her budding career as the superheroine Dragoness with a little hesitation and a great deal of trepidation. It wasn't until her first big act of day-saving, flying thirty office workers out of a burning building, that she truly accepted her new double life and the profound responsibility she had been gifted. The gratitude in the eyes of the people she'd saved was unlike anything else, as was the guilt at her earlier hesitation to do whatever needed to be done.
Not long after, while on her way to a class at her university, she was accosted by three strange figures, in hooded black robes, who Tharinoq identified as the servants of Nelkarian. She narrowly managed to avoid them and stop her secret identity from being revealed, leading them in a chase throughout the city and eventually changing to Dragoness in an alleyway. Their dark magics made them formidable opponents, but eventually she was able to drive them on the retreat, bounding through a shadowy portal that had appeared as if out of nowhere. This was a sinister power they had commanded, according to Tharizdun, born of the monsters that had destroyed Atlantis and threatening to damage the fabric of the world.
In an attempt to flush the Dragoness out, Nelkarian resorted to more desperate means. He unleashed a great monster to attack the city, one of Tharinoq's oldest foes, Sulithar, the shapeless beast of a million mouths. He burst out from underneath Central Park in the dead of night and began his rampage, devouring several pedestrians and leveling three buildings before Dragoness arrived. She ripped Sulithar apart with her claws and burned him with her fire, shredding him into pieces that could only wriggle back to the abyss from whence they came, and the nightmare was once again vanquished. Nelkarian himself appeared before her, taunting the pair as an old fool of a dragon and a child playing with powers she did not deserve, informing them that he had searched for the amulet for hundreds of years and demanding she surrender it to him. She refused, and though it nearly cost her her life, Nelkarian was banished in the struggle, consumed by the dark powers he called on to defeat her.
In the aftermath of this struggle, speculation has abounded as to the source of the disaster in central park; the official story is that the buildings were destroyed and the earth overturned by a catastrophic failure of the plumbing system, though stories of the bizarre monster have been impossible to suppress. The Dragoness herself has also become a media darling, a local celebrity whose wings inspire courage in uneasy times. Eliza continues to attend school now, struggling to balance her life as Eliza Moore with the time she spends flying around the city in a skintight black costume.
Superpowers
In order to access any of her powers, Eliza needs the amulet – with it, she can shapeshift into ‘Dragoness Mode’, granting her enormously increased strength, speed and durability. The Dragoness can lift a car over her head or outrun one on foot, or walk it off if one were to ram into her (though not without a fair bit of pain). Her fingers are tipped with claws that can slice through steel, and from her back sprout leathery red wings that let her fly at great speeds. She’s completely immune to heat and fire in this form – in fact, exposure to fire re-invigorates her and heals her wounds. Naturally, she is capable of breathing a jet of fire up to five meters hot enough to soften metal. Finally, though Eliza is inexperienced in battle, she is able to draw on Tharinoq’s skill and knowledge from a hundred victories and hears his voice at all times, making him a valuable (if occasionally irritating) source of wisdom and insight.
Talents
Eliza is still a chemistry student, with all that that entails – though her studies have been slipping since she began her superhero career, she still has a respectable knowledge base on scientific matters. She used to sew her own clothes as a hobby and is a decent tailor, which is how she made her costume. Finally, she’s a talented guitar player and singer, though she mostly does backup vocals in her student band.
