Phobia

Player: @Twi

NAME:Jennifer Aurore Dietrich
ALIASES:Witch of the Wastes, Sentinel of Twilight, Styx
BIRTHPLACE:Houston, TX
OCCUPATION:Business Owner
BASE OF OPERATIONS:Croatoa
DOB:April 15th, 1987
HEIGHT:5'0"
WEIGHT:230
MARITAL STATUS: Divorced
AFFILIATION: Invictus Academy
FORMER AFFILIATIONS: All-Star Teen Sentinels, Young Gods of the Golden Age, Golden Age Heroes, Spectrum, The Wonders, The Society

POWERS

• SHADOWKINESIS
  

Able to conjure and manipulate shadows to varying degrees.

• FEAR PROJECTION

Able to manifest the fears of others to the forefront of their mind and overwhelm them.

• ANIMAKINESIS

Can move and manipulate the spiritual energy inside of a target.

 TUNES

THEN:

Jennifer Dietrich grew up in a nuclear family in a suburb on the outskirts of Houston, TX in a nice, fairly quiet neighborhood. Her father, Kevin, was assigned to a branch of the Revenant Hero project. Although not as super-infused as Paragon, being a major city, Houston had it's share of fallen heroes to choose from. Kevin's group was given the stasis-held body of an unknown hero and were given the task of finding a way to reverse-engineer the hero's abilities, creating a scientific control for his mystic abilities. This would give Crey an easy method of amping up even their most basic security forces, as when mass-produced, the entirety of their guard force would be able to access a myriad of powers in abilities, once all the results from the participating groups were together. Similar to their "Power Tank" series, but more portable and easier to manipulate.

A prototype device was finally created, one that had the ability to open a gateway into darkness. The device was mounted, security called in, as others watched from behind safe walls. With a flip of a switch, a dimensional rip into the netherworld began to form. Horrors spilled out, spectral beings, tormented spirits, darkness manifested itself into the room, terrifying those who watched it. The scientists behind the walls, including Kevin, were safe. The security and the scientists in the room who were needed to activate the device were not. A security guard managed to keep enough sense about him to turn off the device. He collapsed shortly after, killed by an abundance of darkness in his system.

Of the twenty two personnel that had been within the room, the bodies of seven were recovered. The others had been dragged, screaming, into the abyss before the device had managed to be turned off. The surviving scientists were ordered to continue on with their research, to develop the device. Through their haunted nightmares and failing health, they continued to work. More months passed.

The prototype power gauntlets had been developed. All that was needed was a tester... the scientists glanced among themselves. None were eager to duplicate the results of the last test. The reminder of what had happened gave them strength, and they agreed to trash the research and scatter off in the evening. Kevin, the project lead, personally destroyed the data they had spent over a year developing, dedicating themselves to, and took the prototype gauntlets from the lab.

The Crey security forces fanned out. Though the research was destroyed and the prototype lost, they had one remainder from all the resources they had poured into the project: The netherworld portal opener.

Jennifer, getting ready for a date, put on her earrings and headed out of her room. She froze at the sight as she looked over the balcony, guns leveled at her family and her date, the security flanking a frail scientist. The scientist triggered the device, opening a small tear into the netherworld. The security gripped her mother, and threw her in, screaming, nails breaking off into the guard's suit. Without a word, the guard moved to her crying brother and did the same. To her date. Then, finally, to her sunken, defeated father.

Jennifer ducked back into her room, shaking, scrambling into her closet and hiding. However, Crey had come to get rid of four people. They got rid of four people. The security departed.

The young teen wandered the quiet house in a daze, until she felt flames licking at her face, suddenly bringing her out of her shock and back to the present. As she snapped back into reality, all she could think about was grinding Crey out under her heel, and to that end, she'd need to go where they were most active. Armed with her school backpack, and limited to the top floor of her house as the stairs burned, she tossed clothes into her pack and tore apart the house, looking for whatever valuables she could find to help fund her path.

In her parents' closet, she found the prototype gauntlets, and stuffed them away into her backpack. As prepared as she'd ever be, she grabbed hold of a chair, and threw it through the bedroom window. With a running leap, she followed through the remnants of the glass, grabbing a hold of the tree branch she hit, and worked her way down. With blood on her face and nearly nothing to her name, she started to head east to her goal, one foot in front of the other.

NOW:

Over a decade and a half of active experience, friendships, and forming a family has helped to slowly temper her former desire to charge whole-heartedly into self-destructive vengeance, her revenge-obsessed mindset brought down to a slow simmer. Her former heroic persona was retired, publicly, providing a bit of a safety net in terms of keeping her family safe. As "Phobia," she keeps the mystery of her real ID close to the chest, rarely unmasking even in front of long time friends.

After shying away from learning about the mystic aspect of her powers in her early career, she's now well versed in most matters of the arcane, though she does not consider herself a full fledged expert by any means.

Publicly, as Jennifer, she owns a local Paragon-based ice cream chain called "Super Scoops," using local super promotional tie-ins as flavors to drum up sales. A hefty donation is made toward charities supporting orphans left in the wake of the fall of Praetoria.

Her body, formerly dependent on the utilization of the prototypes, has been slowly transformed, able to innately project and manipulate shadow energy. In her eyes, she walks an ever-thinning line of balancing the demands of her shadowy powers with the transformative effects it slowly seems to take on her body and mind, with friends remarking on her return to Paragon that seems more distant than before. Whether this is due to experience and her new regard for her identity or due to her abilities however is anyone's guess.

As a result of constant exposure to a prototype device used to harness and project energies from a dimension of shadow, Phobia possesses the ability to channel and store vast amounts of mystical shadow energy within herself.

SHADOW ENERGY PROJECTION

Phobia has the ability to conjure and throw energies from a dimension filled entirely with shadow energy. Often used as her primary method of attack, as by now it comes relatively effortlessly. She can fire palm blasts or indirect blasts, summoning a blast from around a corner or behind cover to hit targets, though this is more telegraphed than when emitting from her own body.

SHADOWKINESIS

Phobia can shape and manipulate shadows, extending them to obscure movement, reshape them to create objects, utilize them to block projectiles, cheat at hand shadow puppetry, etc. Extends to functioning as low-grade telekinesis, able to use an objects' shadow to lift or manipulate it further. Her "flight" is essentially this being used on herself, carrying herself by the energy stored inside her.

EYES OF THE GOLDEN ABYSS

Phobia's eyes are sensitive to extradimensional oddities, rifts, and horrors and can tell whether or not an object or person is associated with such things or beings at a glance, regardless of employed glamours.

Phobia can instill a sense of pure fear directly into the minds of people she sees. With a glance, she can render groups of people paralyzed with fear, unable to further attack.

Phobia also possesses exceptional nightvision, and is able to see through most mystic forms of shadow.

All of these effects are accompanied with a brief period in which (in costume) her glowing eyes flare up or (out of costume) her irises momentarily become gold.

ENERGY VAMPIRISM

Phobia can, to an extent, manipulate life energies, redirecting them to induce healing or induce harm as she sees fit. Often used to stimulate an ally's own regenerative powers by tapping either a foe or another ally with enhanced regenerative abilities. Functions on a very low level passively, substantially increasing her ability to take hits in a big melee but not providing much in a one-on-one fight without more direct calling. Could theoretically utilize this to halt her aging entirely, but she hasn't experimented with that as she finds the idea distasteful.

SPIRIT MANIPULATION

Phobia can bind a target in place by utilizing its own spirit energy to wrap around the body, muddying the mind while hampering the physical form of the assailant.

Phobia also utilizes the passive spirit energy in an area as a means of defense, using it to lessen the impact of dark energies on herself, or hamper the ability of psychics to assault her mind.

OTHER

Phobia has trained in hand to hand combat for years, although due to her abilities lending themselves to ranged combat or avoiding combat altogether, it is rarely utilized.

Phobia is an exceptional liar, stemming mostly from getting lots of practice in as an insufferable teenager.

In combat, she tends to adopt a philosophy of trying to get maximum effect with minimal effort, utilizing environment with minor cantrips to try and defeat an opponent to save her strength.

The Cowl of Harpocrates, which is the source of the impenetrable dark veil that surrounds her face, functioning even if lowered or worn under her outfit. Functions also as a security system against scrying attempts past the veil, offering up false images of her face to mislead or confuse those who manage to break through the initial protections. This tends to prove greatly disorienting, leaving people wishing they just hadn't peaked in the first place.

Anti-Magic greatly hampers her ability, taking away her primary methods of offense and defense. Her fear abilities however will still function, albeit it nowhere near as potent. If sufficiently cut off from her abilities, she will be rendered somewhat feeble, as magic now helps keep her body going from day to day.

Powers related to her eyes require her to be able to see her target, neutralizing a potent part of her arsenal.

For Soul-sight viewers: Nothing unusual when in costume. When out of costume, the energy is jittery. It twitches and jerks in an unnatural way. If you've ever seen a ragdoll physics object get stuck in a door then freak out, same sort of energy.

For Aura-sight viewers: Nothing unusual when in costume. When out of costume... still not too unusual. Although, there does seem to be a single beam of darkness just extending infinitely south into the horizon. Huh, weird. Probably nothing.

Phobia - Hellfire Gala inspired outfit