---------------------------------------------------------------------------1)
Real Name and Age:
John Doe, 27
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2) Email Address: doe@nowhere.com
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3) Character's Name and Type: Melissa Stanovich,
Shadowlord Ragabash
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4) Character's Description:
She is tall, just an inch under six feet, with long black hair and deep blue eyes that look out of a face that
could belong on a queen, proud jaw under full lips, heart shaped face perhaps balanced by her slightly overprominant
nose. She is voluptuous but with a play of muscles under those men's magazine curves. Her clothes seem almost
out of place, a loose, almost silky blue blouse with a red miniskirt and a red leather jacket. On her feet are
knee length red high heeled boots, and what almost look like, but surely can't be sapphire earrings are in her
ears. She carries herself easily but always seems to somehow extend a vague invitation...if you don't look too
closely at her eyes. They are watching. Always watching.
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5) Character's Personality Traits:
PATIENT:
Melissa has learned the hard way that to deal with the situations she puts herself in, patience is a necessity.
Bringing down the great does not come easily, and it does not come quick.
RELENTLESS:
Melissa does not accept failure. Once she sets herself to do something, she will continue to worry at it, even
if she has to approach several times and from different directions. She may conduct a strategic retreat, but she'll
be back--and soon.
SEDUCTIVE:
Since the frontal approach has obviously been a loser for her, Melissa has learned to come in from inobvious directions.
The easiest of these has been to make herself an attactive toy, and wait for someone among her opponents to want
to play with her. She has developed a personality that always seems faintly seductive and sultry, and comes across
as quite...accessible...if you go about it correctly.
SAD:
While Melissa feels a certain satisfaction at bringing down the plans of her kin and kneecapping the Wyrm, she
cannot help but feel a certain guilt at the same time regarding the former. Her life is not one that really makes
her happy, and her melancholy surfaces from time to time, usually privately but not always.
PROUD:
The great irony is that for all her hate of them, Melissa is vintage Shadow Lord. She is proud of her abilities
and what she has managed with the limited resources at her hand. Sometimes this cannot help but leak out, and
it comes as a noteable contrast with her surface persona.
VINDICTIVE:
As her history shows, Melissa never forgets and rarely forgives. She will sometimes ignore a slight if it suits
her purpose, but often she saves them up and waits for the right time. While her kin and the Wyrm have been the
chief recipient of this, as diverse a group as a vampire prince and a Son of Fenris theurge have felt her wrath.
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6) Character's Background:
On the day of my Rite of Passage I first learned what it meant to be a Shadow Lord. And I first learned to hate it.
My father had concealed my true nature from me until the time came on me; as a young girl, I had only known that he was a member of some group he did not speak about, that none of the servants ever spoke about. But then the strange dreams began, ending in the day I woke on the lawn back of our house, dressed in rags and cold, with my father looking down at me.
"Yes," he said, "it is time." And he took me away to meet with the rest of his pack, and the two other cubs who would be taught with me, taught what we needed to be the proper masters of creation that is the right of a Shadow Lord.
Camra was of lupus stock, wild and strange as they are, and if she was frightened, I will never know. But David was another homid like myself, and much as he tried to bury his terror, it was written plain on his soul for one who could see. My mother died when I was a child, and my father was one of the pack, but Donald was a stranger to us, and though he wanted to be brave, deeper in his heart, he wanted to go home.
The Rite of Passage is a cruel thing for any among the garou, a hardening and testing. But for the Shadow Lords, it is a forging, a burning away of the impure. What never occurs to those smiths of souls is that while a hot fire forges hard, if it forges wrong, there will be no turning back.
I'll not speak of the deaths of Camra and Donald on that day, of the sister and brother I had so shortly known. But when my father held my hand up for all to see, as the newest member of the pack, buried in my heart was a hate so deep and cold that nota well on this world or any other could match it. How I hid it from my face, I do not know. But hid it I did, and the machinerybegan to turn on a plan, a plan that would take many years to complete, and leave me with the knowledge of just how much a Shadow Lord I was.
I was born of the New Moon, you see, and the way of the Trickster was as much in me as any other. So I played the fool and the flirt, and after a time my father's disappointment turned to resignation. I never bothered much with the gifts of the garou; a touch of ability to move unseen, the gift of convincing others, and an eye for the fatal flaw in others, the ritual to adapt things to my true form at need were studied and put away for need, but otherwise I did not bother. The ways of the mystic were not for me.
But all the lessons my father and my packmates tried to teach me to better fit my lofty station--those did not wash off me the way it seemed. The way of weapons. The art of stealth. But more importantly, the art of moving others to my will, of convincing them I was not as I seemed. Concealing my intelligence until they saw nothing but an attractive body that could perhaps be used to breed a better Shadow Lord in the future.
As my father finally chose to do. I met the man who chose for me; an arrogant businessman with dreams of political power. Two gains with one, perhaps. But not for me.
I was determing what I should do when my father began a ritual one night. Perhaps I hesitated on the brink, wanting some reason to not do what I was planning to do. And he spurned me, condescendingly telling me that it would be too much trouble to lead me through the intricate steps. Now be a good girl and bring me my klaive, would you?
He did not look up from his preparations when I returned with the klaive. Did not see the white-hot rage in my eyes, with no room for other concerns, no remenent of love, nothing but unlimited hate. But he did look up for a moment when I told him I had brought him what he deserved, just long enough to be suprised when I plunged the klaive into his heart.
I took what money I had and fled the house, the town, my life. Since I have wondered from place to place, being the harmless bimbo I obviously am. But wherever I wander, the plans of the Wyrm and my vicious kin in the Shadow Lords seem to fail. Such a coincidence, is it not?
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7) Character's Attributes:
STRENGTH
Melissa is far stronger than she appears. Even in her human form, she is easily stronger than even most athletic
men, strong enough to compete in weight lifting if she was interested.
DEXTERITY
Melissa often uses a cover job as an exotic dancer, and her limberness and agility makes this easy. The fact
that it also has helped her when it is time to put a klaive in someone or something is coincidence of course...
STAMINA
The same hidden muscle tone that give her her abnormal strength also supplies Melissa with a durability and
endurance beyond what one might expect, though not as dramatically so.
CHARISMA
Melissa doesn't particularly have an attractive personality; while she can be pleasant, it's counterbalanced
by her moodiness and dark moments. On the whole it just breaks even.
MANIPULATION
Melissa has early on learned to get people to do what she wanted in subtle ways. While not a natural master
at it, she has a distinctly above average talent in this area.
APPEARANCE
Melissa is, simply put, beautiful. Well built and with a pretty face, she is quite popular when working as a
dancer, and usually functions as an effective lure to get herself closer to her targets.
PERCEPTION
Though not imperceptive, Melissa has spent too much time developing her other abilities to focus much here.
INTELLIGENCE
Melissa is not stupid, but she's never spent too much time on intellectual pursuits.
WITS
One area Melissa acutely feels some lack in is how fast she thinks on her feet. Though no worse than the average
person, this often isn't quite adequate for the sort of operating procedure she's chosen, and she's had to handle
some problems with violence because she was a little slow on the take.
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7) Character's Skills: <Simply list all desired skills and follow them with a short explanation of where, why, and how the character picked them up.>
Athletics: Melissa has spent all too much of her last few years climbing walls, running from people, throwing bombs, and generally doing athletics of the most practical sort. She's fairly experienced in most physical activities.
Unarmed Combat: Melissa has found herself having to get out of troubles with her fists all too often, and is a capable and effective unarmed combatant.
Dodge: Melissa is all too familiar with being shot and swung at, and has learned how to get out of the way very well.
Empathy: One of the keys to her whole operating procedure, Melissa is attuned to fine nuances in the behavior of others and can very quickly pick up on others interests and motivations.
Streetwise: Given her her usual cover stories, and her attempts to paint herself as either a Glass Walker or Bone Gnawer if she gets made as a garou, Melissa has learned her way around the street culture pretty well.
Subtrefuge: The absolute key of her operations, Melissa is an expert at confusion, misdirection, and conveying one idea while saying another.
Firearms: Originally taught to shoot by her father, she has since developed her skill with guns to an adequate if not outstanding level. Guns aren't a solution to all her problems, but sometimes they're useful.
Melee Weapons: One things pickle, Melissa's solution of choice is neither her hands, her claws, nor a gun: it's the klaive she slew her father with long ago. She has practiced with the weapon extensively, and has had all too much experience with it given her activities.
Performance: Melissa is a skilled and experienced dancer, both exotic and more commonly accepted forms. She is generally able to earn a living off this almost anywhere she goes.
Stealth: Another skill originally taught by her Shadow Lord kin, she has had every reason to develop additional
capability in this area since.
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8) Character's Contacts/Resources/Technology:
Except for a certain amount of money and the great klaive that belonged to her father, Melissa is lacking in
any significant resources.
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9. Notes:
<Please include any incidental information not covered in the above application form. Anything at all you would
like the staff to see in order to get a better grasp on the character. This section is optional, but we -strongly-
encourage you to at least give us an idea of what you want out of this character and where you intend to take it.
Remember, creativity counts for a lot.>
Melissa has never much developed the more mystical abilities, beyond the perception of flaws that is the
gift of her tribe, the benefit in hiding from others that is the gift of her auspice, and the persuasive gift of
her breed. She did, however, learn the rite that allows her to prepare her clothing and other items to merge with
her garou nature.