Post by Petrosinella on Jun 7, 2015 16:44:02 GMT
HUMANS
BASIC INFORMATION
Name: Damayanti Padmanabhan
Aliases: Padma, most of the time. Priya is her go-to fake name.
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Class: Hybrid
Faction: Martial Forest Coalition
Style: Unrefined. Interested in Varma Kalai.
Rank: Student. Of a student.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Image:
Normal:
Sun Suit:
Appearance: Padma is a small woman with dark skin, short black hair, and bright green eyes. She’s far too thin for someone who eats as much as she does, which is something she can blame on her disturbingly fast metabolism. Her prettiness isn’t so much the result of luck as it is the result of her being designed to tempt. Rakshasi mixed bloods are typically easier on the eyes than full-blooded ones even without illusions, which is likely part of the reason that Mother went to the trouble of having so many mixed daughters. She doesn’t see this as being special – most of the ladies in her family look almost exactly alike—and so she doesn’t put much effort into primping herself. Short hair has made her life so much easier.
She’s fit, but not really muscular until you get a good look at her. The definition is there, but her skinniness detracts from it. On her back there’s a large, detailed tattoo that her family uses as a kind of brand. They can of course elect not to get it – it’s very conspicuous – but in her younger years she was much more daring than she is now. It seems to be a very specifically shaped mandala. It’s very nice looking for something drawn by monsters.
As for clothing, Padma prefers simple and practical things. She’s always got some kind of jacket, jeans, tee shirt, and sneakers. If it’s not that, it’ll be a uniform that she’d gotten from one of her various jobs. She sees no point in spending money on trendy clothing – the basics work just fine.
If you manage to catch her outdoors during the day, she'll more often than not be wearing her sun suit. It's a form-fitting black outfit designed to keep her in the dark.
Due to her skill with illusions, you might never catch a glimpse of her transformed appearance despite the transformation occurring every night. Usually the changes are pretty subtle anyway, at least as far as hybrids go. Her teeth and fingernails strengthen and elongate. In the right light, her eyes seem to glow.
Every now and again, she’ll have a bad day. Maybe something came along and weakened her, maybe she didn’t get enough to eat by sundown – who knows. On those nights the changes to her appearance are much more drastic. Her claws and fangs grow longer, her eyes glow an ominous red, and the air around her begins to smell strongly of rotting flesh. Needless to say, she avoids that when she can.
Personality:
Boisterous Bruiser :: Though she’s not very big, Padma has easily fulfilled the role of “the big guy” on pretty much every team that she’s ever been on. She’s loud, energetic, and very, very into punching stuff.
Brooklyn Rage :: She’s from India, but she’s spent the majority of her life in New York and thus considers herself a New Yorker. When she moved to the city she settled in Brooklyn and developed the regional accent on purpose to avoid being called a foreigner. That combined with her typical somewhat aggressive demeanor make it so that she really can’t avoid fitting this trope.
The Lad-ette :: Padma is admittedly sort of rough around the edges. She drinks like a fish, swears like a sailor, and can’t see herself mellowing out any time soon. It might be done at least partially in an effort to differentiate herself from her elegant older siblings.
My Species Doth Protest Too Much :: Rakshasa are well known for their natural inclination toward violence and cruelty. Though Padma has certainly been violent in the past, she isn’t evil. At least, she doesn’t want to be. She’s very interested in finding a safe way to suppress her hunger. Maybe in the meantime she can do some good. Like Batman. Or something.
Angst? What Angst? :: Her life so far hasn’t been great, but she’s not one to dwell on that sort of thing. A lot of people have shitty parents. Granted, most people’s shitty parents don’t, like, eat people. Still.
History: Padma, or Damayanti Padmanabhan, is actually one of many “Padmas” – mixed blood daughters of one of the most notorious Rakshasi that India has seen in the last sixty or so years. The lady is said to be so fearsome that no one dares speak her name. She’s always “that woman”, or “the woman”, or something similarly vague. To this day Damayanti can’t muster up the courage to call her anything but Mother, not that she’s ever been all that maternal. The existence of the Padmas itself is typically enough to turn potential challengers away. Each and every one of them is said to be the offspring of a hero that had been sent to slay her and wound up enthralled. Today there are thirteen.
Mother’s methods were simple and effective. Her Padmas – all of them pretty, and vicious, and altogether more difficult to detect than full-blooded Rakshasa – spent years picking off India’s rich and powerful. In doing so they tightened Mother’s grip on the regions that she targeted…and inflated her ego. Eventually she made one too many missteps. The family was forced to leave India or face certain death at the hands of the many, many people that they had wronged.
Damayanti was something like two or three years old – she can’t quite remember – when she and Mother and the rest of the Padmas set out to establish themselves in the United States. They settled quietly in upstate New York, gained a number of allies, and resumed business as usual if on a much smaller scale. She honestly can’t tell you much about those days – she was too small. All she remembers for certain is that meals tasted even better in America than they ever had in India. Say what you will about the Americans and their unhealthy diets – most of them are extremely flavorful.
As she grew she began to realize that her values and philosophies didn’t necessarily line up with Mother’s. Things that barely fazed her sisters bothered her for days. At first she couldn’t say exactly why. Their lifestyle was the only “normal” that she’d ever known and so, in her mind, she was the unreasonable one for questioning certainties and refusing simple tasks. Still, she resisted.
Her resistance frustrated Mother, who insisted on changes that she couldn’t make. There were consequences, and they were awful, but not nearly as awful as giving in to expectations.
She left them two months shy of her sixteenth birthday and never looked back.
Unfortunately there’s not a lot of opportunities out there for a fifteen year old immigrant kid with no money and no formal education even if you forget the whole Rakshasi thing. She spent a good amount of time staying in New York City homeless shelters while she looked for work – any work.
Since poverty and crime tend to go hand in hand, it wasn’t long before she found herself sliding back into dangerous territory. A couple of acquaintances that were aware of her unique skillset pulled some strings and got her involved with the Arlotti – a local crime family. They weren’t normally the sort to go around recruiting foreign teenagers, but the vast majority of foreign teenagers don’t turn into clawed hellbeasts when the sun sets.
She didn’t kill anybody – she’s determined to make certain that everybody knows that. Sure she roughed them up a little, but murder? Not her job. That was the nasty shit – the stuff she made sure that she didn’t see. In a lot of ways it reminded her of home.
Still, they paid well. They took care of her. That’s special, not to mention hard to find. And so, while she was definitely aware that she was once again working for psychopaths, the Arlotti made it much easier to digest.
But all good things must come to an end, as must all moderately okay things. Padma was with the Arlotti for about four years before she caught on to the fact that she was being watched. By Jesus. Or something. Truth be told she doesn’t know as much about the Catholic Church as she probably ought to given their stance on her kind. A group of Church hunters cornered her a few hours after paranoia drove her to leave the Arlotti. She escaped, but only barely.
Padma figures that if she’s going to live to see thirty she needs to better herself. There’s this one guy that teaches yoga a few blocks down from the pizza place she works at that seems to know a thing or two about that sort of thing.
She’s gonna look into it.
STATISTICS
Od: FStrength: F
Endurance: F
Agility: F
Transformation Stats:
Od: D [30 units]
Strength: E
Endurance: E
Agility: E
LOADOUT
Equipments:Name: Vivi
Rank: N/A
Description: Padma's beloved motorcycle. She’s almost constantly on the road, so he’s done her some good over the years. Whenever it comes time to replace or repair the bike, she’ll take one piece from the old one and built it into the new one. That way, Vivi can live on – he just gets a makeover.
Name: Perfume
Rank: N/A
Description: Her Rakshasi blood gives her a bit of a strange scent, so she buys a lot of perfume with which to mask it. It’s usually the cheapest she can find, so it’s likely to be some concoction intended for little girls that smells like cotton candy and licorice. If she had her pick, though, she’d always choose peach and citrus scented ones.
Uniforms:
Name: Sun Suit
Description: Padma doesn't like the sun. Direct contact with it will weaken her, and so during the day she'll cover herself up with a black jumpsuit and a large, yellow helmet. With cat ears on it. Beggars can't be choosers.
CAPABILITIES
Skills:
Name: All Hail The Vivi [Bike Acrobatics]
Description: Padma is extremely skilled on two wheels. Give her a motorcycle, preferably her own, and she can work miracles. She’s a bit of a daredevil, though she insists that it’s only because she’s never actually fallen – she has no reason to worry. When you ride with her expect her to attempt all kinds of ridiculous jumps. And of course she can repair it once she’s done, because goodness knows those kinds of stunts aren’t great for the hardware.
Rank: E
Name: Parkour
Description: In her own words – “I can do some Assassin’s Creed bullshit.” That’s essentially what this amounts to. Parkour is, in a nutshell, getting from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible. There’s a whole lot of running, jumping, climbing, and flipping involved. Padma didn’t actually know what to call it until recently. Her siblings are quick, strong, fearless warriors. They’ve never thought much of jumping between buildings, climbing walls – anything to get to their target before he’s had the opportunity to run too far. She’s not as good at it as they were, but it’s a nice workout. Surprisingly useful too.
Rank: E
Name: Friends in Low Places
Description: Seeing as she used to work for the mob, Padma knows all kinds of useful lowlifes. The vast majority of her friends are criminals. While she’s no longer a part of that lifestyle herself, she knows it inside and out. You need something done? She probably knows where to go and who to call. In return she keeps her people protected. No names, no cops.
Rank: E
Abilities:
Name: Monstrous Heritage
Description: Padma is a first generation Rakshasi hybrid. The transformation is involuntary – it occurs every night at sundown. Her heritage makes her quite powerful, but there’s baggage. Hunger, rage – all that good stuff.
Rank: D
MONSTROUS HERITAGE
Lineage: Rakshasi - a kind of Indian domestic demon.
Generation: Post-1945
History: Apparently her father was a pretty accomplished warrior. His guru sent him to slay Padma’s mother, a fearsome Rakshasi that was at the time attempting to enslave the people of his village. When he got there she turned out to be really, really attractive, so they figured they’d just bang instead.
Synchronization: The natures of Rakshasi vary, but on the whole they tend to be pretty damn bloodthirsty. Padma struggles quite a lot with her natural inclination toward violence, especially when she’s hungry. She finds that hunger and anger tend to build up inside of her over the course of the day, which often results in very difficult transformations when the sun sets and her strength skyrockets. To combat this she eats a lot during the day and does her best not to get too excited by little things. Varma Kalai appeals to her mostly because there's a strong emphasis on inner peace. Perhaps if she were to reach that she'd feel more balanced.
Weaknesses:
Name: Pure Brass
Description: Pretty self explanatory. In the same way that Werewolves don't like silver, Padma doesn't like brass. In small quantities she's merely "allergic" to it. Her skin will become irritated as a result of short-term contact while long term contact will actually burn her. If it's ingested or if she's been penetrated by it, she'll become extremely ill for a week or so. Not fun.
Name: The Sun
Description: It won't kill her unless she decides to go sunbathing or something equally stupid, but it weakens her significantly. During the day she is much, much weaker than she is at night. In the strangest of ways she is sort of thankful for the sun though, as it more or less forces her Rakshasi blood to become dormant when it's light out. Still, she wears her sun suit to keep from having to deal with those rays.
Name: Holy Relics
Description: Obviously - she's a demon. Hindu relics are actually the most effective in this case. Relics that come from other religions will annoy her and will thus often times succeed in repelling her, but they can't kill her as easily as something appropriately Indian.
Name: Horror Hunger
Description: You won’t like her when she’s hungry. And honestly she doesn’t like herself much when she’s hungry either, so she’ll do whatever she can to avoid going into this state. When Padma really hasn’t had enough to eat, especially if delicious fleshy humans are within smelling distance, she’ll fly into an animalistic rage that isn’t likely to die down until she’s properly fed.
It’s due to this hunger of hers that she’s able to consume all sorts of un-foodlike things and still be relatively alright. Her teeth can and will crush rocks. Rotten meat, which is something of a delicacy to Rakshasa, will not make her sick. Still, when she’s wrapped up in her fury she’s very unlikely to reach for something odd if there’s perfectly good meatbags – erm, people – around.
It’s worth noting that this special sort of hunger isn’t triggered by mild hunger, but actual starvation. When she’s less hungry, not quite at this level, then delicious smells might distract her, but they will not set her off.
Coming down from this state is extremely unpleasant. It will render Padma completely unable to respond to anything for 2-5 posts depending on how active she was while caught up in her hunger. This ability is in a sense the source of all of Padma’s problems. She’s trying very hard nowadays to find a way to gain better self-control.
Associated Traits:
Name: Maya
Description: A very old art practiced by a variety of Indian supernatural creatures. It isn't tied exclusively to Rakshasa, but they are known to be very skilled with it. What this does is allow for "Maya" techniques to be used. These are old, nontraditional abilities that manipulate the world around the user, causing illusions and disruptions.
Rank: D
Name: Shadow Stalking
Description: Padma becomes very, very difficult to detect in the dark of the night. To the naked eye, at least. You might be able to hear her or even to smell her if it's a particularly bad day and she's doing the whole "smells like rotten flesh" thing, but unless you've got some sort of eye augmentation she's hard to pinpoint until she's right on top of you. So basically, you merely adopted the dark. She was born in it. Molded by it. And it will cloak her if she wants it to.
Rank: E
Techniques:
Name: Maya Illusionist
Description: The Rakshasi are some of the most accomplished illusionists in the world, and it shows. Padma's illusions cannot cause real harm in the sense that an imagined sword could actually stab you. They will never cause real physical pain. They can, however, trick a victim into thinking that they have been stabbed when they really have not. In your state of distress, you might just imagine some pain that isn't and has never been there. The human mind is amazing.
Frightening or exciting illusions can sometimes cause heart attacks in unprepared victims. Pleasant illusions can charm a victim into sluggishness or reluctance to attack. At this rank, an illusion can usually be broken if the victim comes to understand that they are indeed stuck inside of an illusion. A single illusion lasts for about five posts.
Rank: D
Cost: 8 Units
Type: Hybrid Lineage
Name: Maya Curse
Description: Rituals automatically fail around Padma. Note that this doesn't mean spells. It only means that, if you have prepared an area to perform a ritual and Padma is within a few feet of it, the ritual will not work.
Rank: E
Cost: 5 Units
Type: Hybrid Lineage
Name: Cloak
Description: Padma can, for about five posts, quiet her movements and mask that aforementioned rotting flesh smell that tends to give her away. For those five posts she is even harder to detect.
Rank: E
Cost: 3 Units
Type: Hybrid Lineage