Jiva - Messenger of Orcus
Name: Jivantika Corpsemaker
Age: 38 years old
Race: Zombie
Hair Color: Muddy brown
Eye Color: Hazel brown, with red, dilated pupils
Height: 5' 7"
Weight: 132 lbs
Occupation: Slavering Monster
Personality: There isn't much that matters to Jivantika, with the lone exception of her terrible hunger. Even after her run in with Huyana, and her cognitive abilities progressed beyond the simple "shuffle, moan, bite," routine of your everyday undead, it's still her primary concern. She doesn't play well with others, but part of that might just be because she's a decomposing corpse. While forced to obey Caduceus Grimaldi at the moment, there is part of her that fights with those chains, wanting to be free, and above all, wanting to eat his brains.
Appearance: Jiva might once have been an attractive woman, true, but now death has played its part. Her skin is a sickly green, one cheek rotted clean away, and the rest of her skin peeling and infected. Her eyes burn with the hunger of the damned, her hair matted and tangled with mud and unbrushed knots. She wears a tattered linen sun dress, the edges fraying, and walks without protection for her feet. The nails of both her hands and feet are long, yellowed and lined with jagged edges.
Skills:
Raiaera's Bane: Her bite is infectious with the plague that eventually turned Raiaera's denizens to the walking dead. Current Level: Her bite must break skin to take hold, and will only infect characters with low constitutions. Higher leveled and constituted characters may get a passing sickness that does not result in zombihood, and for this skill to take hold on any character, it must be at the consent of their writer. Cannot be bunnied or forced.
Clothed in Understanding: Her voice can call to those who have died before in an area. Their carcasses will rise from the ground to cover her in a bone, hide and flesh armor. Level 5: This armor is the equivalent to Dehlar.
The Blade of Anubis: For two posts, Jiva is gifted with a large ethereal dagger in the style of an ancient decorative embalmer tool. It is the equivalent of steel, but has a 50% chance of causing a strange exhaustion in those it cuts.
Abilities:
The Embrace of Santa Muerte: Unless decapitated, death does not touch her. She has no need for organs or breath, only for what's left of her rotting brain. This includes her ability to survive underwater without drowning.
Oath to Orcus: From her run-in to the Punisher of the Wicked, she has been gifted with great strength by Orcus. Her strength is equivalently 4 times stronger than the average man.
No Equipment
History There is power in a name. Jivantika means "Ressurection", though her parents didn't know it at the time. She was born a human to humans in Raiaera, living in a small colony away from the elves. Under the cursed boughs of the Red Forest, she grew up in the normal way, with family and town dramas unfurling like the first petals of a soul flower, quick and bleak, and then calming down in the way these things do. There were crushes, and loves, and eventually a husband. She worked as a teacher to the children, and carried a torch that shined with the light of her life for all to see. She was strong of will and gentle of voice, a soul that all loved and admired. Like many good people, she was the first to fall.
The Plague came, and so did the sick. Teaching the children was a duty put on hold behind mending the sick. It was a terrible disease they had, turning men of sound mind into shambling madmen. The first few bites came as a surprise, and were given to those who spent most of their time trying to help. The very first bite to the village came to Jivantika. The sickness was terrible, with fevers and nausea. She couldn't move from her bedside because of the pain, and while she begged her husband to kill her, he could not. He would not live long to regret that decision. When she died, she was given a wake. The mourning lasted long into the night, and it was with great surprise that her coffin, laying by the hole dug for it, opened up, revealing the young woman inside. She sat up, looked around, and let the hunger take over.
Eventually, she stood before her husband, so hungry, so terribly needful of his flesh. His pleas went unanswered, for she knew him not anymore.
When she and the rest of the hungry had devoured the village, they shambled out into the forest, searching for more. There was always the need for more. One day, she met Huyana. Though the horse had barely any flesh on her, Jivantika attacked, wanting to eat what remained of the creature. They clashed, a battle that lasted hours, when finally, the horse spun in and slammed her horn deep into the zombie's flesh. While Jiva clawed at her face, she could feel something entering her, mingling with the dark hunger inside of her. She could feel something cleansing wash over her. As the purity came, so did the shock wave of Damon Kaosi ridding Raiaera of it's curse.
Something happened that day, when Huyana and Jivantika were locked in battle. Both creatures were held just between purity and curse, and the cleansing light that came from the Obsidian Tower could not touch them.
-- Even after the undead no longer walked through Raiaera, Jiva and Huyana struggled for survival as a new minority. She has lived in caves, eating rabbits and mice, until the day she was called. One moment, she was dozing fitfully in the morning sun, one eye lazily watching a cardinal as it sang high in branches above. Quick as a sigh, she was standing before the magician Caduceus, some new flower of loyalty blooming in a void within her that once was empty. She stepped forward to attack; it had been so long since the sweetness of humanity had passed by her lips. She found, however, that she could not turn against him. Frustration and anger burning deep within her, she was led by the Qabbalist to the Tournament of Champions.
On their journey she dreamed for the first time since her humanity. The images came and went like the Raiaeran winds. Sometimes mere whispers, and other times she was shocked to waking with their intensity. A great man with chain and sword came to her. He called himself Orcus and she was charged with an unholy quest. Jivantika Corpsemaker was the mighty hand of the underworld, to bring pain and grief upon those who defied death with the help of the Ai'Bron. She would punish all that knew life in this new place. In return, he promised to break her chains to Grimaldi, letting her consume the magician for daring to put such a decimated, decaying bird into the gilded cage of servitude.
