Crazy Hex-Ghoulfiend

"I'm not 'UN-dead'. I'm FUN-dead. 'Necromancy'? More like Necro-FANCY."

The Wanton Ethereal Crazy Hex-Ghoulfiend Midnighter Archivist
Player: User:AmeliaHealsYa
Origin:	Magic
Archetype:	Brute
Security Level:	Confidential
Server:	Everlasting
Supergroup	None
Personal Data
Real Name:	Current Alias: Penelope Mavros Alias At Time of Death: Alessandra "Alessa" Esposito (chosen name) Legal Name: Gaetano "Guy" Valenti (deadname)
Known Aliases:	None
Species:	Current: Vampire; Former: Human
Gender	Trans Woman
Pronouns	She/Her
Age:	Physical Age: 24 Chronological Age: 43 in 2024 (Born: 1981; Died: 2005)
Height:	5ft 9in (175.3cm)
Weight:	120lb (54.4kg)
Eye Color:	Black
Hair Color:	Black
Biographical Data
Nationality:	American
Occupation:	Current: Petty Criminal, Socialite, Vigilante, Witch; Former: Academic, Petty Criminal, Student
Education:	PhD candidate at time of death
Place of Birth:	Newark, NJ, USA
Hometown:	New York, NY, USA
Base of Operations:	Paragon City, RI, USA
Marital Status:	Deceased; Single at death
Known Relatives:	Estranged
Known Powers
Dimensional Travel (Netherworld); Emotion Control (Fear); Immortality; Invisibility; Psychometry (Blood); Regeneration; Resurrection; Shadow Control; Super-Senses; Super-Strength; Super-Toughness; Telepathy (Blood); Teleportation (Shadows)
Known Abilities
Scholar; Sorcery
Equipment
None

WHAT YOU KNOW

CASUAL OBSERVATION

• She has dark, prominent veins
• She has an abnormally long tongue and similarly long canine teeth, neither of which appears to affect her speech
• She never yawns
• She never coughs or sneezes
• She never cries
• She never sweats
• She never eats or drinks
• Her skin is pale and always feels cool
• Animals react to her with fear and hostility
• She only ever wears gold jewelry, never silver

EXTENDED OBSERVATION

• She never snores or even moves while sleeping, instead appearing to be a fresh corpse
• She does cry, and when she cries, her tears are blood
• She does drink, but only blood
• She doesn't age at all, unless she is deprived of blood and/or restful sleep; feeding and/or rest repairs any damage and restores any lost youth

OBSERVATION WITH POWERS/TECHNOLOGY

• She never breathes, except to talk
• She has no heartbeat
• She has no body heat; to Infrared Vision, she always appears to be colder than her surroundings, regardless of the ambient temperature
• She sleeps, but she never dreams
• Any attempt to use machines to analyze her tissues yields only error messages, or, on rare occasions, damage to the machine
• She is exceptionally resistant, but not completely immune, to probing or influence of her mind by psychic powers or similar magics

AURA/RESONANCE

• Blood
• Death
• Entropy
• Magic
• Murder
• Stasis

ACCESS TO LEGAL RECORDS AND/OR FACIAL RECOGNITION

• Legal Name and Other Aliases (see sidebar)
• Status: Legally Deceased
• Criminal Record: Multiple Non-Violent Petty/Survival Crimes
• Academic Record: Doctoral Candidate at time of death

BACKGROUND

Empusa. Gello. Lamia. Mormo.

Across the ages, the goddess known to the Greeks as Hekate and to the Romans as Trivia has transformed many wronged women into monsters, forging their anger and anguish into instruments of divine wrath. Many of these creatures, these women, existed as the goddess herself (or at least, some aspect of her) seemed to, in a liminal space between life and death, a state known in the modern world as "undeath". Many of them were immortal, their long lives and eternal youth sustained by the blood of the living, taken by guile and force alike, from unsuspecting mortal men in their beds, and, when a mortal woman offended the goddess, from those women, or even, to their everlasting horror, from their children, born and unborn alike.

After being disowned by her Italian Catholic family and struggling for years to support herself and pay for her education by means legal and otherwise, Alessa stood on the precipice of finally earning her doctorate when a coward's blade cut short both a promising academic career and her life. That blade was wielded by the jealous wife of one of Alessa's lovers, a cis woman infuriated that her husband not only lied to her and betrayed her, but that did so with a lesser person, someone so far beneath her. She couldn't suppress the smug sadistic smirk that spread across her face as she left Alessa laying in the street to bleed out into the gutter.

There was no investigation to speak of. The life of a trans woman, not worth much to most even today, was worth even less back then. Alessa's death was ruled a suicide. Her actual murderer was never even a suspect. The authorities didn't even bother to perform an autopsy. Alessa's remarkably and in fact unnaturally well-preserved corpse was buried in a potter's field and forgotten.

With her dying breaths, Alessa had whispered a prayer, to no deity in particular, expecting no response. And indeed, the deity whom Alessa was raised to worship had remained silent, as always. But Hekate The Masked, The Dreaded, The Savior, The Witch, The Poisoner, She of Three Faces, of The Moon, of The Crossroads, of The Gates, of The Borders, of The Underworld, She Who Protects, Who Avenges, she heard, and she answered.

Three days after her unceremonious burial, Penelope grasped and clawed and pulled herself up and out of her own grave, overwhelmed with a new and all-consuming thirst. Learning to control it took time, as did re-assembling a proper moral code from the blood-soaked spare parts she wad left to work with. During that time, she would have been considered a villain, albeit a relatively low-profile one. Eventually, gradually, she also discovered that her new state of being brought with it not only substantial inherent power but also a new and profound aptitude for the witchcraft in which she'd previously only dabbled. Having emerged into the light both physically and metaphorically, as uncomfortable as she finds both, she now helps to protect all the innocent people who dwell in Paragon City, whether or not they have offended her goddess.

NECROPHYSIOLOGY

Penelope is now as much a creature of The Netherworld as of the mortal realm. The dark energy of The Netherworld animates and fortifies her corpse, and the blood of the living sustains the metaphysical conduit that connects her to that dimension.

BLOOD

Penelope's own blood is dark, almost black under most light, which causes her veins to appear dark as well, contrasting noticeably against her pale skin. Her blood is thick and viscous, resembling burnt motor oil. It is highly caustic, reacting to living flesh as if it were acidic or alkaline and of especially high concentration. Living tissue touched by her blood doesn't merely burn; it necrotizes.

Her blood is concentrated in her heart, which appears large and healthy (though it does not beat), in stark contrast to the majority of her internal organs, which have withered and atrophied into vestigial husks, mere echoes of her former state as a living creature. Wounds to her heart, throat, or head bleed profusely as they did in life, while cuts to other areas of her body bleed little if at all.

DAYLIGHT

Penelope finds the presence of any amount of sunlight, even indirect sunlight, to be uncomfortable, even painful, and almost blinding. The amount of discomfort is directly proportional to the intensity of the light and to the extent of her exposure. In addition, she feels a powerful compulsion to sleep whenever the sun is in the sky, whether she is exposed to it or not, although the presence of sunlight renders her unable to fall asleep even as it inflicts fatigue upon her. Sunlight likewise prevents any wounds that she suffers from healing, and saps much of her supernatural strength. However, sunlight does not actually harm her, aside from inflicting the same sort of superficial burns that any fair-skinned mortal may suffer under the same circumstances. She can function during the day, but as a creature of the night at her core, she prefers not to, to say the least.

DEATH

Penelope does not know how she could be permanently destroyed, or even marred. Since emerging from her grave, she has recovered from all manner of injury. Wounds heal without scarring. Lost and destroyed body parts regenerate. Some wounds take longer to heal than others, or do not heal until she has sufficiently fed and rested, or even obtained external assistance. When she has been impaled through the heart, she has been rendered immobile and unconscious until the implement was removed by another. When she has been decapitated, she has likewise been incapacitated until another re-united her head with the rest of her body. When she has been burned to ashes, another has restored her by gathering some of those ashes and mixing them with mortal blood under the light of the full moon. She does not even know whether or not it is possible for her to ever be truly "killed" beyond any means of resurrection.

FEEDING

Penelope is physically incapable of partaking of any mortal food or drink, and it would provide no nourishment if she tried, with such an attempt quickly resulting in violent and bloody regurgitation.

Her undead body gradually metabolizes the blood that she drinks to sustain her eternal youth and to fuel her powers. The use of her powers is analogous to intense and prolonged exercise for a living person, consuming stored energy faster and leaving them feeling hungry, or in her case, thirsty.

In addition, the act of drinking blood is the most intense and pervasive pleasure that is possible for her to experience. She describes it as simultaneously eating the finest meal, smoking or injecting the purest drugs, and having the most powerful orgasm. She has on occasion fed not out of necessity but purely for the pleasure of the act.

The idiosyncrasies of her tastes are many. The blood of sentient, sapient beings tastes far better and provides far greater nourishment than the blood of animals. Blood taken directly from "the source" likewise provides far greater pleasure and value than blood that has been extracted and stored. Spoiled blood is as useless to her as spoiled food is to mortals. Physically healthy prey generally taste better than prey who are frail or sick. Any heightened emotional state experienced by her prey, positive or negative, makes their blood taste better. The flavor can also be enhanced by Penelope's attraction (if any) to the person in question. If her prey has recently consumed mind-altering substances, then the effects of those substances may be passed along to her when she drinks their blood. She can no longer drink alcohol, but feeding from a drunk person can still get her drunk.

If she is deprived of blood for too long, then her wounds will stop healing, and then her body will begin to age, experiencing over a matter of days all of the years that have passed since her mortal life ended. If she starves past that threshold, then her body will begin to decompose. This process is uncomfortable, even painful, and an assault on the senses of everyone around her, but even if she withers down to a skeleton, she will not perish, or deteriorate further, and she will continue to be capable of movement and speech, in defiance of mortal physics. The dark energy of The Netherworld will sustain her existence in such a state indefinitely, and she will be ravenous the entire time.

POWERS

BLOOD DIVINATION: She possesses a limited form of telepathy and psychometry tied to blood as a medium. By tasting blood, she can view past events involving or observed by the person whose body that blood came from, experiencing them as if they were her own memories. If she is drinking blood directly from the person, then she can read their mind in real time, both surface thoughts and deep probing.

EMOTION CONTROL: Most mortals feel a justified instinctive terror toward The Netherworld and the beings who dwell in that dimension of darkness and hunger. By opening up conduits to The Netherworld in the shadows around her, she can force nearby mortals to face that overwhelming horror, often breaking their minds entirely.

REGENERATION: Most wounds heal as quickly as they are inflicted. Lost body parts grow back.

SHADOW CONTROL: Every shadow is a potential gateway to The Netherworld, and she can open those conduits with a thought, infusing mundane shadows with dark energy and transforming them into a force that she can then mentally manipulate, creating dark force constructs such as tentacles to grapple her foes. The Netherworld is always hungry for life force, and her constructs can drain it from her victims.

SORCERY: Her supernatural nature gives her an (un)natural aptitude for learned spellcasting.

SUPER-SENSES: All of her senses are heightened compared to their mortal equivalents. From across the room, she can smell a person's breath and sweat and hear their heartbeat. She can see in total darkness, and discern fine detail at distances that would normally require binoculars or microscopes. She can see dust-sized objects clearly.

SUPER-STRENGTH: She can pick a car up off the ground and lift it over her head. She can punch through brick and stone walls. She can literally tear mortal bodies apart, limb from limb. She can jump between city rooftops.

SUPER-TOUGHNESS: The state of her body defies multiple laws of physics. Her skin is as soft and supple as that of a mortal human, but far more resistant to puncture or cutting, with far greater tensile strength. Similarly, her bones are as light, while being as hard as diamonds. Against her skin, needles and flimsy blades can bend or break without piercing her skin, and even better quality blades more often than not fail to penetrate as deeply as expected, while bullets tend to get caught in her skin and fail to penetrate any deeper. Against her bones, blades and bullets alike tend to shatter.

TELEPORTATION: Time moves differently in The Netherworld. She can use shadows as portals, moving into The Netherworld at one location and instantly emerging from another shadow in another place in the mortal realm.

PROCREATION

Penelope is dead. She can take life, or preserve it, but she cannot create it. She is a predator, existing specifically to snuff out the fire of life, not to create such a spark anew. Even before her death, she lacked the capacity to contribute to any role in human reproduction. As a trans woman, she was born without a uterus, and years of hormone replacement therapy had rendered her sterile. She has no idea whether or not she has the capacity to transform other mortals into vampires like herself, and to her knowledge, she has yet to create any undead progeny. Regardless, she lacks any such desire, so she has not investigated that possibility.

The properties of her own blood (see above) make it seem unlikely to her that it could be used to initiate or facilitate such a transformation.

SLEEP

When Penelope sleeps, she appears to be a fresh corpse, completely lifeless. She does not dream; she is barred from the realm of Morpheus. In sleep, she finds naught but oblivion.

She will not die from a lack of restful sleep, but such deprivation will affect her body in the same manner as starvation (see above).

As previously stated, she can only fall asleep in the total absence of sunlight. Even indirect sunlight will prevent her from falling asleep.

In addition, she requires soil from her "ancestral home". The region in which she was born as a mortal qualifies, as do the birth places of her mortal ancestors. She does not require a large amount of soil; even a handful spread beneath her will suffice. However, she achieves the greatest quality of rest through complete immersion.

Soil from "holy" or "sacred" ground, or ground which has been "blessed" / "consecrated" / "sanctified" etc. is not only useless for her purposes, but immersing herself in it is actively uncomfortable, even painful. "Unholy" ground, by contrast, provides the easiest and most refreshing of rests.

WEAKNESSES

Wounds inflicted by these sources take longer to heal, and consume more blood in the process.

She feels an instinctual aversion to these items, sometimes to the extent of needing to consciously suppress an urge to flee their presence, destroying anything and anyone that might bar her path.

The mere touch of these items, or the touch of their shadow, can be painful, even harmful, and she may not be able to force herself to touch them voluntarily.

The presence of these items can render her unable to pass through entrances where they hang or over circles where they lay, open containers where they sit, or feed upon certain individuals. The act of will required to overcome these aversions can inflict physical damage both upon her and upon the item in question.

Consuming blood infused with these substances can cause her to violently regurgitate, and can even inflict harm upon her.

METALS

• Silver

MINERALS

• Jade
• Salt

PLANTS/HERBS

• Aconitum / Aconite / Monk's Hood / Wolf's Bane
• Belladonna / Nightshade
• Garlic
• Mandrake

OTHER PHENOMENA

• "Blessed", "Consecrated", "Holy", "Sacred", or "Sanctified" Items or Places
• Fire
• "Holy" Symbols, especially for deities of "Life" or "Light"

The "natural weapons" (claws, fangs/teeth, horns, etc.) of the following creatures can inflict wounds which are similarly difficult to heal as those inflicted by the "Weaknesses" listed above, but they do not have the potential to repel her as those items do.

SUPERNATURAL CREATURES

• Angels / Celestials
• Deities / Gods
• Demons / Devils
• Djinni / Genies
• Dragons
• Fae / Faeries / Fairies / Nymphs
• Vampires
• Werebeasts

GAME MECHANICS

BRUTE

DARK MELEE
DARK ARMOR
SOUL MASTERY
SORCERY
FIGHTING
LEAPING
TELEPORTATION

CORRUPTOR

DARK BLAST
DARK MIASMA
DARK MASTERY
SORCERY
FLIGHT
LEADERSHIP
TELEPORTATION

POWER GRIDS

GALE

PARAGON

Power Grid
	Statistic	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
	Survivability
	Melee Damage
	Ranged Damage
	Crowd Control
	Support
	Pets

MARVEL

Power Grid
	Statistic	1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	Intelligence
	Strength
	Speed
	Durability
	Energy Projection
	Fighting Skill

COSTUMES

WITCHY

CLUB

VIGILANTE

PAJAMAS

SWIMSUIT

OUT-OF-CHARACTER NOTES

I think it's pretty obvious that this character is based on ones I've previously played in tabletop role-playing games.

This isn't a value judgement, merely an observation: One fundamental difference I've encountered between myself and many other marginalized players of RPGs, tabletop and videogame alike, is that many of them seek sanctuary in fiction from the bigotry and oppression they face in their real lives, preferring settings where such things don't exist at all, whereas I find catharsis and entertainment in exploring such things in-game, and having solutions at hand that I lack in my real life. In other words, some trans people prefer to play games where TERFs don't exist, while I prefer to play games where TERFs exist and I can throw Fireballs at them.