nitemare shape — Roleplayer Guild

Slipstream watched as the Iron Knight fired grapple lines around the mountain of a man’s ankles, and then struggled to fly off with him, only managing to get several feet off of the ground as he took off out toward the ocean.

“Well, that’s not something you see everyday…” Slipstream said to herself as she watched the almost absurd scene play out in front of her. “Unless you’re me, of course.” she finished her thought as she remembered the captives in the van. She made her way over to the van and opened the back door, revealing about a half a dozen people tied up and gagged on the inside.

“Didn’t your parents warn you about strangers in creepy vans?” Slipstream quipped as she went about freeing the captives inside. Once she was able to get a better look, she noticed that four of the victims had animalistic traits, or otherwise obvious meta human traits. Once she had freed the six captives from their bonds and climbed from the confines of the van, several of them immediately ran off in different directions, while the others remained.

“Who were those guys, and what did they want with you?” Slipstream asked the remaining metas.

“I-I don’t know.” a young girl of about fifteen years of age confessed. “I was walking home from a friend’s house and they grabbed me. Mentioned something about ‘The Hounds.’ I don’t know what they were talking about.” 

“Why don’t you guys get out of here? You’ve had a long night, get home and stay safe.” Slipstream told them as she was suddenly aware that the iron suited hero had returned from taking the man-mountain to wherever it was that he had taken him.

“Took you long enough.” she said as he touched down behind her.

“Well, things got hairy there when he started to recover from that energy burst and to tug on the cable. But it wasn’t anything a cold, salt water bath in the Pacific Ocean couldn’t solve. Then I had to wait for STRIKE to send down a containment squad. What’s the point of taking him down if he can just run off right after you have left the scene? But now that’s done with, the only question that remains is who are you? You wouldn’t happen to have two speedster cousins in Lost Haven, would you?”

“Lost Haven? What?” Slipstream asked completely taken off guard by the Iron Knight’s line of questioning. “No, I don’t have any speedster cousins...you’re strange, did you know that?”

“Me? Strange? It never crossed my mind!” Iron Knight chuckled after he heard Slipstream’s response. “The only speedsters I have known were siblings, so you can’t blame me too much for assuming that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Oh, I didn’t know. I just assumed I was the only one.” She told him. “They call me Slipstream.” she said as she extended her hand.

“Well, I’m Iron Knight, if you didn’t already know who I am.” Iron Knight accepted Slipstream’s handshake, although he had to be careful not to crush the poor girl’s hand because of the mechanical nature of his armor. “So, any ideas who these creepers are?”

“I have no clue. But they did say something about someone called ‘The Hound, or Hounds.’ Mean anything to you?” she said, ignoring the first part of his introduction. Although she had never really been into superheroes, she did know a few of them, and he was certainly one of them. He was too high profile to not know who he was. And because of that, she hoped that he might know something about what was going on.

“Hmm…” Iron Knight pondered for a few moments,  “That does not ring a bell, unfortunately. They obviously must be a new upstart group or have been operating in the shadows for quite some time. I wish I had some more answers, but I need to look into it a little more.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Something tells me that this won’t be the last we hear from them.” she agreed, then a disturbing thought came to mind. “They were rounding these metahumans up for something, but what could that be?” 

“It is not entirely clear, but it must be sinister in nature.” Iron Knight concluded, “Metahuman Trafficking is a likely possibility, although it is not the only explanation. A human weapon is probably quite the commodity on the black market.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t like it. We have to find these guys and put an end to it before it escalates any further.” Slipstream said, the thought of someone dealing in metahuman trafficking sent chills up and down her spine. 

“I’ve got the feeling that these guys aren’t going to hang up a sign saying ‘we’re right here’ for us. ”

“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. But with your connections, I’m pretty sure you have the best shot of finding these guys.” Slipstream told him.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Iron Knight promised Slipstream, “I doubt this problem can be solved overnight, but that shouldn’t deter us from trying to solve it.”

“Exactly. We should hurry though, I think that this...whatever this is, is just getting started.” she sher voice accented with a slight edge of worry.

“I’ll get my peeps to start working on this ASAP.” Iron Knight told Slipstream as he prepared to depart. “In the meantime, I have some prior obligations that need my attention. Can’t keep the nightlife hanging!”

Without any delay, Iron Knight rocketed up into the sky, soaring away from where Slipstream and he had apprehended these unknown criminals. While he was departing, he sent a data report on the situation, alerting S.T.R.I.K.E. to the situation at hand. However, instead of personally overseeing the investigation, at least for that night, Iron Knight allowed S.T.R.I.K.E. to start digging into the problem. As he said, Iron Knight had other places to be.

Slipstream stood in the middle of the roadway near the van which had held the captive metahumans. She watched as the man known as the Iron Knight vanished from sight, and all she could think about was how cool this whole experience was. Not only had she saved the metas, but she had done so with the help of Iron freakin' Knight. However, her excitement was tempered by the fact that they still didn't know who was behind this ordeal, or what they might be planning next. All she could do was hope that she would be ready when the time came. And with that last thought, she began running. She didn't know where she was going to go, or what she would do when she got there, but nonetheless, she was gone in a flash.

Character you have created:
Katarina von Rysech / Katarzyna z Ryzsecz

Alias:
Various names that have been bandied about in the ages, though most simply call her The Red Countess.

Speech Colour (Actually say what you're using):
#921111

Character Alignment:
A true Villain of the ages, Katarina is bent on unlocking the deepest secrets of the arcane and of the ultimate goal of unlife - to be free of the need for blood and to no longer fear the sun... And she will do *anything* to get it.

Identity:
Only known to a handful of those versed in the dark arts of necromancy and vampirism.

Character Personality:
Selfish, undependable and duplicitous, von Rysech is not a woman to be trusted or relied upon for important duties, though she is capable of loyalty to some causes, so long as they suit her own purposes ultimately. She plays the long game, willing to allow the mortals about her play along with their own little flickers of energy, their brief moments of glory before the cold embrace of death takes over. She is willing to grant others the mercy of the Blood Kiss, though any that are turned by her are subservient to her every whim and desire, no matter how dangerous or damaging it may be. When in battle, she is utterly merciless and ruthless to a fault, willing to sacrifice even the largest and most powerful of their servants in her search for power and her birthright - her lands in what is now Kaliningrad, the old Holy Roman county of Preussen-Konigsberg. Ultimately, she wishes to create her own vampiric paradise, where the hateful rays of the sun are obscured by the mists of undeath, and those in her thrall toil for her benefit, and finally, von Rysech will rebuild the Tower of Spires, and within, she will retire to her libraries once more. She lusts for knowledge and arcane arts, and will not hesitate to jump at any opportunity to expand her collection of spells and arcane magicks.

Uniform/costume:
Katarina often sports Renaissance-style clothing (in spite of the changing times) as she is more comfortable with the clothing that she knew in her mortal life. 

Origin Info/Details:

Countess Katarina von Rysech was born on the Spring Solstice in 1494 in the town of Neuhausen, a Teutonic fortified settlement founded by the knightly order on their invasion of Prussia in the later 13th century, into an unsettled era of violence and war within Prussia. The Polish-Lithuanian King Jan Olbracht Jagiellon had recently consolidated the gains Poland had made during the Thirteen Years War, in which Katarina's parents had supported the Teutonic Order against the Prussian Confederation and subsequently had suffered devastation of their lands by Polish and Prussian soldiers. Katarina's own birth was surrounded in rumours of secrecy and sorcery - Graf Johann von Rysech was thought to be an impotent imbecile, and his wife Anya was of low-born stock: there were those who suspected that Katarina was either a bastard child or birthed through dark magics brought upon the couple by their Lithuanian doctor, Vytautas Revinskas: a pagan worshipper of the Romuva faith and thought to be part doctor and part sorcerer, Revinskas somehow was able to get the couple to conceive a child, which the parents predicted would be a boy. Though the pregnancy was trouble-free, the sex of the baby was wrong - nine months to the day of conception, a healthy baby girl was born - Katarina.

	 Her childhood was a troubled one, to match a troubled child. Revinskas often meddled with her education in the Christian arts, planting seeds of doubt that God truly was who the Bible dictated, or that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and not, say, an impostor? Revinskas encouraged the young girl to question those beliefs that were considered truths, and to be skeptical of all that the Church decried as heretical or heathen - were they simply afraid of the real truth? These seeds of doubt would, in time, blossom and bear fruit, Revinskas thought, for he was playing the long game. The castle itself and the lands surrounding it began to warp and twist over the coming months and years, though so slowly that it was barely noticeable even to the trained eyes of the clergy - though the appearance of the Comet of the Feast of St. Peter and Paul in 1499 and 1507, on the very same day of the year no less, the 29th of June, began to arouse suspicion and fear from the superstitious peasantry. At the same time, rumours of Luciferian cults and dark magics began to emerge in late 1507, with several women burned in the local area for witchcraft: the weather was unusually wet, cold and above all dark. Some days, it was said, the sun barely reached over the horizon, and in the winter of 1507-1508, some days the sun was not present whatsoever. Even those well-versed in astronomy and science could not explain this freakish phenomenon, and so, in March 1508, it was decided that the pagan priest had to die, for it was he who was causing these inexplicable occurrences, and it was he who was bringing the wrath of God upon the lands, and the Graf was abetting this wrath by allowing the priest to remain in his court! The burghers, clergy and peasants gathered together in a great throng and rose up in revolt, in defence of faith and land. They besieged Castle Neuhausen, seat of their absentee Graf, in the hope of seizing both the priest Revinskas and the "Demon Child" that he had helped bring into this world - Katarina. The Graf and his soldiers manned the walls and defended admirably against the motley cannon that the peasant revolt was able to muster, and for three months, the siege of Neuhausen was underway, as the Graf stubbornly refused to surrender the castle, for he thought the peasants would simply sack it and destroy the riches of the aristocracy. However, unbeknown to all involved, the three month delay was a carefully crafted plan by Revinskas and the Luciferians within that area of Prussia. The siege would have been unsuccessful regardless: Revinskas and Katarina had fled the area before the siege had even begun, hurrying away deep into the Lithuanian hinterland in Zemaitija and Klaipeda on Katarina's 14th birthday. There, Katarina had undergone a radical change, perhaps signifying the corruption within that had been brought to the fore by Revinskas and his cultists; her hair was white as snow, her eyes two glowing orbs of smouldering red, and she was now well-versed in forbidden necromantic lore, taught to her by the Luciferians and by Revinskas. She had even had the Black Mass performed, her naked form lying on a black stone table, with a sigil of her own blood painted on her breast, a dagger in her right hand and a silvered chalice on her stomach, a ring of chanting cultists praising the Fallen Angel. She watched now as Revinskas put his plan into action.

	The date was the 30th of May, 1508, and as the sun slowly rose over the fields surrounding Castle Neuhausen, all natural light was suddenly snuffed out, replaced by a fell green-glowing skull in the sky providing the only light for the panicked revolting army. The moat surrounding the castle turned into a broiling lake of blood before their very eyes, whilst the castle's drawbridge opened seemingly by itself. The revolters turned to fight their enemy, but what they saw was not at all what they expected - the legions of the living dead. Zombified corpses clutched crude clubs and shambled forth, whilst beside them, the creaking of animated bones as skeletal figures took up rusted arms and donned tattered scraps of mail and cloth. At their head was a grotesquely-obese creature, sitting upon a defiled throne stinking of sewage and disease: the Graf had been turned into a near-amorphous blob of pustule-ridden flesh which belched forth its commands, whilst beneath the throne, a nude, spidery-limbed woman shrieked at their foe, seemingly piercing the very air around the revolting army and sending some mad there and then - Katarina's dear sweet mama, Anya von Rysech. The Luciferians had succeeded in their rituals, and the dead walked once more. Though their spirit was valiant, the revolting army had no chance. The living dead fell upon the revolting army as a pack of wolves would fall on an undefended flock of sheep, tearing and gnashing at those who dared stand in their way. Thousands of Prussians were ripped apart in gouts of bloodied gore as the living dead gorged themselves in an orgy of destruction and bloodshed, in the name of the Fallen Angel. The skull in the sky began to cackle; a horrific, grating cacophony of laughter mixed with human screams - the screams of the dying of Neuhausen. As the last few realised their dreadful mistake, they turned to flee, but the very earth itself seemed to turn against them - grass became deep mud beneath their feet, clinging to them like concrete, leaving them all but helpless against the overwhelming tide of the undead. Soon, the revolt had been slaughtered to a man. His raven servants providing sight for his obsidian scrying ball, Revinskas cackled with glee as his plan to corrupt the Count and Countess had at last come to pass. Katarina, for her part, impassively watched as generations of her subjects were slaughtered before her eyes, many by their own ancestors that they had not long buried. She stared at the carnage and slaughter, and barely even moved. 

	Revinskas began to spill the beans, so to speak... it was he who had rendered the Count all but impotent and feckless, and it was he who had been machinating behind the scenes to ensure the match between the Count and Countess, and the birth of Katarina. Then, he would fulminate rebellion and discontent amongst the peasantry, and then watch as the peasants turn upon the corrupted rulership, before unleashing his trap at Castle Neuhausen. Then, with the Count and Countess out of the way, he would marry Katarina and rule Neuhausen in their stead, promulgating a great demonic bloodline from whenceforth a new generation of the undead would rule, as in Romania... The last step in Revinskas' plan was the turning of Katarina herself. The Bloody Kiss was Revinskas' reward for her service and her studiousness, and he eagerly gave it, seeing that at last his prize was in his grasp... For three long, agonising days, Katarina slowly wasted away, her body unable to fight the vampirism wracking it from the inside, her immune system turning on itself and destroying that which it needed to continue functioning normally. Finally, on the third day, after hours of feverish sweats, blinding pain and uncontrollable spasms, Katarina von Rysech died, with a final, heart-wrenching scream. For a few nerve-wracking moments, it all hung in the balance. Was she strong enough to turn fully? Revinskas stepped forward with a black rapier in his hand, and Katarina opened her eyes, and smiled a rueful, fanged smile. The Red Countess was born from the death of the 14-year old girl. She sat up, and looked at her mentor, who nodded once and held out the sword. "My darling, this is for you." Taking it in both hands, she turned it over, chuckling to herself as Revinskas turned away to begin making plans.

"Revinskas, you old fool. My destiny is my own... I will not have some halfwit Lithuanian dictating to me what I will and will not do!" In less than a heartbeat, Katarina had taken the sword and plunged it into Vytautas Revinskas' back, piercing his old, blackened, corrupted heart. Wrenching his head back so she could whisper in his ear, Katarina laughed, a low, sultry, seductive laugh accompanied by a shake of the head. "My destiny is mine, do you hear me? Mine. Forever." And with that, she withdrew the sword. Vytautas Revinskas sank to his knees, his form slowly crumbling, flesh sloughing from bone as he was unable to maintain himself... and finally, he simply crumbled to dust.

"I am Katarina, Countess of Neuhausen. Though you sought to use me for your own ends, I will seek to continue your work. Perhaps you will find this sweet succour as your soul burns in Hell."


With Revinskas dead, the county of Neuhausen thoroughly under the control of Lucifer's cults and Katarina still in the Lithuanian hinterlands, the stage was set for another bloody and difficult conflict. The Luciferians refused to hand over power to Katarina after they discovered Revinskas' murder at her hands, and declared that she was apostate in the Luciferian Brotherhood; effectively casting her out and attempting to disavow her of any of her vampiric power under the rituals that Revinskas had performed. At the head of the Luciferian cults was a man named Stefan Grenzer, a man from Konigsberg who had been elected Arch-Priest of the Luciferian Brotherhood within Neuhausen and who now had the loyalty of supposedly all who followed him. However, Revinskas' spells were not infallible - Katarina knew how to counter them and how to gain control of the army of the dead that he had created at Castle Neuhausen, including the spells which he had placed upon her parents to corrupt them into their current forms. After slaying the Luciferians that had accompanied Revinskas to Lithuania, Katarina set out on the journey to return to East Prussia to reclaim her rightful lands, and destroy these arrogant believers. In truth, it was not Lucifer that Katarina followed; far from it, for Katarina had begun to question all religion and saw much of it as the root of the blasted world's problems (little did she know that 100 years later, the most terrible of European wars would prove her right) and so she dedicated her time to magic, rather than relying on boons from gods she neither knew nor cared for. Katarina reached the outskirts of Prussia in late November 1508, and could already feel the rotting canker at the heart of the Baltic Sea - Lucifer's roots had grown deep in the region, and his corruption was endemic. She would, somewhat reluctantly, have to purge it, lest the Holy Roman Emperor send his Imperial armies to cleanse the lands of heresy and witchcraft, as they had done so in Bohemia in the days of Jan Hus. Then all would be for naught, and the Red Countess would rule over nothing but her own coffin. Therefore, in great secrecy, Katarina returned to Neuhausen and hid, conducting several rituals that Revinskas had taught her in the deep dungeons of the castle, and subsequently taking over control of the army of the dead that her mentor had built for her, and disguise them as living troops. In addition to this, she sent missives to the Margraves of Pomerania and Brandenburg, begging them to help her against this new heresy that threatened the stability of Prussia and threatened to spill over into their own lands. Boguslaw X Gryf agreed to send an army to assist her, and in early 1510, Katarina revealed herself to the Luciferians, storming the nearby town of Neuhausen with her father and his army and slaughtering the local garrison and clergy. Reeling from the shock of her sudden re-appearance, Arch-Priest Grenzer rallied his allies and marched on Castle Neuhausen itself, seeking to cut off this new threat at the head, not counting on the intervention of Duke Boguslaw or the Pomeranian army, which invaded Prussia in April, meeting up with Katarina's forces in May. Later on that month, both the Prussians and Pomeranians marched on the Brotherhood's main base of operations: the castle of Osterode. The Luciferians and Prussian Alliance clashed outside Osterode on the 19th of May, 1510, with both Katarina and Stefan Grenzer present on the field. Grenzer's army of zealots and heretics tried to call upon the dark magics of Lucifer to aid them in the battle, but it was here where Katarina revealed one of her most potent weapons against divine warriors; with a gesture, she cut off the magical powers that Grenzer was summoning to support his allies, and rendered them vulnerable to attack. The Battle of Osterode was a crushing defeat for the Brotherhood - scattered to the winds, and with Grenzer dead, Katarina was able to solidify her hold over her new state with the aid of Boguslaw Gryf. The Pomeranians returned home with a nominal oath of fealty to Boguslaw from Katarina in their hands as recompense for his assistance, but it seems the message was never officially delivered to the Duke - a sore spot for many years to come, and something that would ultimately prove to be her downfall much later.

	Though externally, Neuhausen seemed to be safe from any threats, internally, Katarina knew there was much to do. The Red Countess had not yet earned her name, and the Prussian nobility had not yet been made to know the glory of the Blood Kiss... throwing off the disguise of the living, Katarina revealed herself as her true form in 1512, when she re-invoked the old pacts that Revinskas had initially bound to Castle Neuhausen, transforming it from a once-noble fortification to a barracked charnel pit of death and fear - she invited all of the minor nobles and clergymen of her region to a great feast, and once they were inside, she ordered the doors sealed and allowed herself to feast and sate her lust on each one, implanting each with the Blood Kiss in turn. The Feast of the Nobles, as it became known, was Katarina's first true act as Vampire Countess of Neuhausen - she had bent the nobility and the clergymen to obey her every whim, and she sent them forth into the countryside to begin her grand plan of corruption, repression and fear. Slowly, the nobility began to corrupt the very essence of the earth itself, whilst Katarina relaxed in her throne room, supping from an ever-present glass of 'aged red' as she began to read through the ancient tomes that her agents had procured from the Luciferian Brotherhood and from heretical collections that had been condemned by the former clergy. When rumours of witchcraft began to leak out from Neuhausen into the surrounding regions, Katarina ordered her agents to hunt down and eliminate the spreaders, hoping to contain knowledge of the truth of the nobility to only those who were required to know - none could truly learn of the Red Countess and her extravagant manners. At the same time, Katarina began work on what would be her magnum opus of achievements - the construction of the Tower of Spires, a monolithic masterpiece of stone and Gothic architecture, as well as containing one of the largest collections of forbidden lore in Europe. The Tower's construction lasted from 1519 to 1560 (such was the complexity of its design and the difficulty of its building) and it replaced Castle Neuhausen as the centrepiece of Katarina's court. However, Katarina devoted less and less time to her courtiers, and more and more to her expanding library of forbidden knowledge and the arcane arts, in her quest to explore undeath and potentially free herself from the confines of blood and darkness, to spread her wings far and wide into new lands and new pastures.


TBD


Hero Type (Select one):
Supernatural.

Power Level (Select one below):
Possibly as powerful as World-Level, given the right resources and time.

Powers (Be Specific):
- Can shift shapes from humanoid to beast (bat swarm) to monstrous (known as the Gheist) forms.
- Superhuman strength.
- Blinding speed and reflexes.
- Can raise and control the dead, even in very advanced stages of decay or even skeletal remains.
- Can summon arcane creatures of necromantic power to assault her foes, including giant smoke skulls that cough forth poisonous gas, or massive scythes that sweep across the battle, cutting through all in their path.
- Can control darkness and shield herself for a short amount of time from the sun's influence.
- Can impart the Bloody Kiss upon others, vampirising them and enslaving them to her will and her every desire, though it can be broken out of.
- All of Katarina's abilities can be strengthened when she has fed from one of her unfortunate victims.


Attributes (Select one at each category):
Height: Five feet and eleven inches.
Weight: 148 pounds, or 67.1 kg.
Strength Level: About 60 to 70 tons at maximum strength, though at risk of tiring herself quicker.
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 100+ MPH at maximum reflexes, though at risk of tiring herself quicker.
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: About 4 hours per feeding.
Agility: 15X Normal
Intelligence: Not quite Genius, though she plays the long game...
Fighting Skill: Mastered. The Red Countess is a vicious and powerful fighter, particularly with her rapier or when she transforms into the Gheist.


Resources:
Limited at best currently. Katarina is slowly returning to power, and lacks much of her repertoire and her infrastructure, including her library of ancient tomes. Katarina currently has herself, her power and that's about it.

Weaknesses:
Though a Vampire, Katarina is still susceptible to physical damage and if her mortal form is destroyed, she will flee back to Neuhausen as the proverbial mist to regenerate. Depending on her level of power, this can take any time between minutes and weeks, during which time she is still vulnerable to her coffin being attacked and destroyed, which will kill her. None but the most powerful gods can save her undead soul after that. Katarina is still vulnerable to the sun and will suffer very serious consequences in direct sunlight, though she can somewhat tolerate overcast conditions due to her power. Christians beware, however, for she is no stranger to the symbols of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Some say it is because of her Prussian heritage, others that even God has a plan in mind for her, others still that her latent atheism protects her, but whatever the reason, crosses and religious artefacts will not stop Katarina.

Supporting Characters:
- Lord Franz Siegfried Philipp Ludwig von Sigmaringen, Katarina's beloved fiance and vampire of Swabia. Franz Siegfried has been Katarina's constant companion since early in her reign, and accompanied her as she fled into the catacombs of the Tower of Spires. Weaker and bent to Katarina's will, Franz Siegfried is nevertheless a potent physical adversary in battle, though he lacks much of Katarina's power.


Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: I've already posted two of them, damn it.

Theme Song:Katarina, The Red Countess

The Blood Kiss is the von Rysech terminology for their bite. Anathema to mortality, the Blood Kiss can be utilised in several ways.

The primary, and most commonly thought of, method is the Transformation - the vampire injects the victim with a tiny quantity of their own blood through their fangs, which causes a devastating blood disease which invariably kills the victim, allowing their full transformation into a true vampire - how Katarina was turned. 

For those the vampire wishes to keep around as slaves, the Blood Kiss is a simple bite. With the bite, the vampire casts a spell upon the victim, which enslaves and breaks the victim's will and allows the vampire to use the victim as a mobile blood bank, or vampire cattle, if one uses the definition from The Elder Scrolls. However, the Blood Kiss nevertheless slowly corrupts the victim over time, and eventually transforms the victim into something known as an 'Empty' - a hollow corpse that is almost akin to a zombie, only much faster and more bestial. 

A third way is the manner that Franz was turned, in that the vampire's bite causes limited vampirism from the vampire's saliva. This creates a creature known to the von Rysechs as a 'Servant of Darkness' - neither human nor vampire. Blessed with the lesser powers common to all vampires, and yet still eligible for feeding, the Servants of Darkness are the von Rysechs' primary agents in the field. They require human blood for true sustenance, though they are capable of limited sustenance from mortal foodstuffs or animal blood.




It had been almost four hundred years since her Fall. Four hundred years of suffering, slow regeneration and isolation from the world in her coffin. The surface-dwellers, the living, the mortals above - all thought that she was dead, that the Red Countess was perhaps never anything more than a myth, a legend that lived only in folk tales from Prussia. Four hundred years of archaeological digs had failed to unearth her, and so she was allowed to rest in peace... until now. The magics and balance of the world had changed, with the rise of the superheroes and supervillains, and the age of metahumanity had begun. From deep within the bowels of an abandoned ruin, a coffin stirred and slowly came to life, as a dull red glow surrounded it from within.

The Red Countess awakes from her torpor.

Katarina staggered forward and fell to the dusty stone floor, the coffin lid falling to one side and the ashes of her once-sumptuous attire swirling about her in a mockery of her old status and power, brought down by Sigismund Vasa, the Polish bastard. She could feel her old wounds aggravating her, and she thirsted... by God, she thirsted. Her energy levels were such that even opening her eyes felt an unimaginable task, let alone standing up. She lay on the cold stone for what felt like an eternity, before slowly, and painfully, she reached out a nailed hand and tried to drag herself forward, finding no strength in her tired and blood-starved muscles; despite her best efforts, she remained stubbornly immobile, her rage increasing, until finally, her will snapped and she screamed as loud as she could in pathetic defiance of her condition. She found herself practically unable to move from lack of energy, and had anyone been aware of her... they could have ended her right there and then. However, there was only one who was with her - Franz Siegfried, the man who stood by her as her world burned, as her whole dreams were cast down and shattered, as her lands were slaughtered and devastated. And now, it was he who stood above her, looking down, a broad, fanged smile on his face, with a hand extended to help her back to her feet. "Katarina, my sweet love... it has been a long time. "

Her arms protested as she slowly crawled over to his closest leg and gripped it tightly, using his clothes and frame as a structural aid as she slowly crawled to her feet. "Franz... please... help me... let me feed." Her throat was dry, her voice cracking with the strain, but Franz smiled, nodded and proceeded to open up his neck, allowing Katarina to sink her fangs into his throat and drink deeply of his tainted blood, infected as he was by a fragment of Katarina's power. She gasped involuntarily as power began to course through her torpid veins and her old strength returned to her. She withdrew her fangs as Franz staggered back, holding a hand to the bite wound, and she wiped her mouth with her hand. "Thank you. I knew you would come to save me from my torpor one day, Franz. Perhaps there is hope for us yet... hope for Neuhausen. Hope for the Tower. Hope for us to rebuild what we had. Our empire. Our future. Our... our love." Katarina looked over at a glass display case where Franz had laid out her most treasured outfit of luxurious fabrics and leather, as well as her fabled sword, Black Sun. She walked over to the case and smashed through the glass with but a light punch, and took hold of her new clothes and her sword. Dressing herself, she sheathed her sword and turned back to Franz, who looked upon her with adoring eyes, as ever.

"Franz... We have much to do. We must find allies, resources, power, and we must find it elsewhere. We could escape our foes in the New World... And there we could build up our empire with which to strike back at the hated Church, strike back at those who wronged us! Those who envied our power, our glory!The Poles, the Germans, the Lithuanians... they all will die at my hand! Let the world know... The Red Countess returneth!"@Legion X51

I'll go ahead and approve

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