Blind Justices
08-11-07, 02:39 AM
Vitals
Name: Melancholy Valencia
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Height: 5’ 11â€
Weight: 128 lbs
Race: Human
Diseases: Lycanthropism
Occupation: Monster Killer
Appearance Attributes
Human Body: Melancholy is naturally pretty, though it’s a tamer sort of beauty. Her hair falls to her waist, unbrushed and a little frizzy in wild sun-kissed waves. Her hair is a soft honeyed mead color, somewhere between blond and brown with the barest hints of auburn highlights. Her face is without lines despite her years of stress and hardships, her dark brows relaxed with just the slightest arch of something more mischievous. Her eyes are a dark brown, and give little away. Her lips are always held in a lazy, soft smile, even in anger. She is not prone to showing her emotions on her face, and it’s easy to sometimes believe she is a simpleton for it. Her body itself is slender, and without much muscle tone, and silhouetted with soft, graceful curves.
Garments: The tattered remains of what had once been a long white sleeveless tunic sit on her frame, perhaps a couple of sizes too large. The shirt’s V neck front dips lower than her modest sensibilities would like and the hem hangs nearly to her knees. It is belted around her waist with a length of rough, thin rope that lopes around her hips several times before the ends through the knot fall to the bottom of the tunic. While they are unseen, she wears a pair of denim cutoff shorts under the tunic, giving the impression that the over-large shirt is a dress. Her feet are clad in the simple rope sandals that monks and island sailors prefer.
Lycan Body: The Lycanthrope blood that has tainted Melancholy is weak at best. In the light of the full and new moons, she is unable to control her change. She is pulled fully into the form of the wolf woman, standing bipedal but a slavering monster that doesn’t resemble a human otherwise. Bowed over from the backbone changes, she stands a little shorter than her human form, with her full body covered in soft, honey colored fur. Her teeth elongate into the sharp, jagged weapons of a dog. Her eyes are bloodshot, the black iris’ lost in a wash of red, her glare narrowed on anything that moves. Her hands shape into claws, the nails broken and yellowed. She gains nothing in muscle, her body as slender and weak as it is in human form. The only thing she has, the only thing she knows, is the hunger.
Personality
Disposition: There was once a time in her life when Melancholy Valencia was a sweet, friendly person. Things have changed since those times. While she has always been the kind to protect those who were innocent, the old Mel could see the good in all. Now she is colder. Her need to protect comes from selfish means and she is quick to pass judgment, even when she knows that there are facts that haven’t been presented in the story yet. Most of the things she believes and holds to are the complete opposite for what she believes of herself. She’s a hypocrite, but after all these years she’s gotten good at turning the facts in her head.
Humor: She is a very serious person, not prone to cracking jokes. As such, sometimes she expects the same level of seriousness from other people and another person’s humor is more likely than not to go right over her head.
Likes: Melancholy is a woman who likes things to be simple. She likes knowing all the facts, an easy puzzle, and clear cut lines of right and wrong. She is addicted to raspberries, prefers a sunny autumn morning and the taste of spiced apple cider. While she isn’t prone to keep animals, she’s always loved horses and one day plans to own one. Her favorite things in the entire world are wildflowers, hot spring baths, and the smell of just cut grass. She loves to read, though she isn’t very good at it.
Dislikes: Mel doesn’t like her name, the smell of blood and fear or undercooked meat. She hates liars, con artists and above all, unnatural things that think their monstrosity makes them superior. While she’s never quite figured out why, ribbons offend her and she believes the only good use for alcohol is to make monsters burn more quickly and to light those dangerous nights. She doesn’t like music, for she believes that the emotions that come from the spinning of tunes is just as deceptive and cowardly as a lie from the tongue of men. She cant stand women who fail to show chaste morality, and the men who exploit women for sex. She finds herself offended by sexuality in general. She is disgusted by weak men, and thinks that if a woman is going to be simpering and submissive, she should also be silent.
Favorite foods: Raspberries, Apples, Fresh baked bread, Cinnamon, Sweet Plums, Smoked Sausage, and Scrambled Egg and Tomato sandwiches.
The Laws of Melancholy Valencia:
Personal laws that are so ingrained into her soul, they cannot be forgotten or moved against.
1. The needs of the flesh are another pull towards the darkness. They are to be ignored.
2. Silence is the true friend that never lies.
3. Never forget kindness or transgression. The time of returning these things comes quick.
4. Never surrender, for it is the loss of hope that creates the true monsters.
5. Never forgive. There is no reform.
Weapons
Oaken wood stakes (3) - 7 inch long wooden stakes, sharpened into points on one end.
Silver Knife - A small folding knife, the blade made of silver. The blade itself is a mere 4 inches long, sharpened on both edges.
Armor
Thin chain-mail mantle. Concealed under her tunic, this strip of iron chain mail loops around her chest, and under her arms to provide cover for her chest and upper back only. The top of it can be seen at the bottom of her tunic’s V neck, and as in quick movements it can pinch her skin, she wears it per necessity.
Items
Smert’s Suffering - On a long, thin corded strand, Melancholy wears a small steel icon. It is the image of a man being pulled across a rack, his limbs stretching to horrific contortions. Because of her strong faith in the followings of Brother Smert, the crucifix-like symbol has a special repelling quality towards the undead and those things that don’t much care for holy things.
Skills
Monster Sensing - When Melancholy’s eyes pass over a monster/undead in disguise or hiding in very close vicinity, the hair on the back of her neck will stand up and a tingling sensation will start in her shoulder blades.
History
To understand what has happened to Melancholy Valencia, it is first important to understand the faith of those who follow Smert. Corone is an island that is sometimes too crowded for itself. Cultures, customs and ideals from all around the world are crammed together like fifty pounds of shit stuffed into a ten pound rucksack. Searching a place where quiet could reign in the pious living that was all but impossible to find in Radasanth, a small group of purist monks, devoted to Thimite, went to sea. They didn’t make it far before their small ship crashed into the rocks of a tiny island just off the Coronian shoreline. As it happened, their goddess of Justice felt she should intervene that day, for the pious men found they were not alone. It had long been inhabited by families of fishermen, and the monks found the peaceful, happy community to be a welcoming one. The island soon became a colony for the small religion that wasn’t welcomed so warmly on the larger island of Corone. The monks and the island converts, however, were a stubborn folk. There came a day, however, when this dogged determination brought great tragedy to the small religion.
Radasanth had come home victorious from a small campaign in Lavinia. It was a skirmish barely worth mentioning in the history books, but the city was still celebrating heavily with the return of it’s heroes. One such commander was a man with an ethereal handsomeness. His name was Fereal, and there was no mistaking that he was indeed the target when a small impish man in white tunic stepped into the path of the commander’s parade procession. Brother Smert pointed to the man and made grave accusations that day. He deemed that Fereal hailed from Concordia, which was common knowledge. The scandal, he declared, as that the Commander was a demon, an exiled Moontae incubus who used his wiles to win battles. Brother Smert said words that he couldn’t take back, even if he had wanted to, and when he called for the execution of Fereal as a monster, the force of popular opinion made him eat his hard words. He was put to death by torture, but for Brother Smert, death was not quite the end.
The imagery of his suffering fueled the movement back on the smaller island. Born into this great fire of gospel and a strengthening of moral code came a child. She was born to a simple fisherman and his wife who spent far too much time listening to gossip from Corone’s capitol city. Merriam Valencia was a woman who was fond of the big, fancy words she heard the cream of Radasanthia’s lords and ladies tossing about on the wind, and one such word was melancholy. She had no idea what it meant, that it was another word for sadness. With this ignorance, she gave the name to her daughter. Perhaps it was this lack of knowledge that sealed the child’s fate.
Melancholy grew up in the fishing village as most children did. School was practical, teaching the children to count, because taking a count of the fish coming in was important. She learned to tie ropes, to make nets, to tell where the best fishing spots were and to swim. She learned modesty and respect and she learned that the greatest sacrifice of all had been made by a man who refused to stand back and let a monster be lauded as a hero. Above all, she learned these things well, and when a priest for the order of Thimite asked her to be his bride, she accepted. It seemed to be just what fate and Thimite had in mind, for the two of them fell madly in love. He taught her to read, and she taught him to fish. Their passion was only kept in check by their vows to Thimite, and on Brother Smert’s name that they would stay virgins until they were joined in matrimony.
Their engagement was long, for he traveled to Radasanth himself to see the things that Brother Smert had written about before his untimely death. He gave her the only piece of jewelry she’d ever owned, before he left. His Suffering, the necklace that depicted the last moments of poor Brother Smert, was hung around her neck. With promises to return and make her his bride, he left. He was gone far longer than he said he would be. For three years she waited, hanging on every word that came from scant letters he would send. The letters stopped, and still she waited for him for another year. Her hopes were nearly dashed when he returned to her, different but alive.
Against his arguments that his journey had left him exhausted, she insisted that they marry three days after his return, by the sea in the light of the full moon. It was then that she found out just how different he had become. The night of their wedding, the sky was clouded. While he seemed ill, her dear sweet Kellon insisted they rush the ceremony. With the clouds obscuring the light she’d so desperately wanted to see him by, it was a dreary wedding. As their lips pressed together quickly once they had become man and wife, the clouds parted, and moonlight shone down. Within moments of ripping flesh and a low growl of rage, Kellon was no more. In his stead, his slavering jaw so close to her face, a monster stood.
It was only because they’d been surrounded by dozens of strong men of the sea and the temple that she survived. Scratched, bitten, but alive, she sat by Kellon as his blood flowed down the rocky shore and into the waiting waves. When her new husband lay dead on the ground, his human form coming back to him in death, something inside her changed drastically. She swore vows that she would take up the mantle of Brother Smert. She swore that she would take down every last monster that had taken anything from the world and gave nothing back. Above all, she swore a death to lycans that was fueled by both her hate for the creatures that had robbed her of a life happy and simple and by the horrific discovery that the wounds she’d sustained that night had passed on the cursed disease to her as well. Before the others could figure out the change in personality and habits that was fast coming over her, she fled into Corone, into the dreadful Concordia that held myths of demons hidden within a magic city.
It was there she found the last thing she wanted. She found the pack of werewolves that had turned Kellon into the monster that had to be put to rest, the werewolves that had robbed her of the greatest love she had ever known. The pack was reluctant to let her in, but it wasn’t long until she found out that there were worse things in Concordia than a few wolf men. The pack was in a bitter battle with a local group of vampire, and they needed a warm body. It didn’t take much pleading before she was part of the system and outfitted for vampire slaying.
Without a second thought, she jumped headlong into this test that Kellon had never been given a chance to train her for.
Name: Melancholy Valencia
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Height: 5’ 11â€
Weight: 128 lbs
Race: Human
Diseases: Lycanthropism
Occupation: Monster Killer
Appearance Attributes
Human Body: Melancholy is naturally pretty, though it’s a tamer sort of beauty. Her hair falls to her waist, unbrushed and a little frizzy in wild sun-kissed waves. Her hair is a soft honeyed mead color, somewhere between blond and brown with the barest hints of auburn highlights. Her face is without lines despite her years of stress and hardships, her dark brows relaxed with just the slightest arch of something more mischievous. Her eyes are a dark brown, and give little away. Her lips are always held in a lazy, soft smile, even in anger. She is not prone to showing her emotions on her face, and it’s easy to sometimes believe she is a simpleton for it. Her body itself is slender, and without much muscle tone, and silhouetted with soft, graceful curves.
Garments: The tattered remains of what had once been a long white sleeveless tunic sit on her frame, perhaps a couple of sizes too large. The shirt’s V neck front dips lower than her modest sensibilities would like and the hem hangs nearly to her knees. It is belted around her waist with a length of rough, thin rope that lopes around her hips several times before the ends through the knot fall to the bottom of the tunic. While they are unseen, she wears a pair of denim cutoff shorts under the tunic, giving the impression that the over-large shirt is a dress. Her feet are clad in the simple rope sandals that monks and island sailors prefer.
Lycan Body: The Lycanthrope blood that has tainted Melancholy is weak at best. In the light of the full and new moons, she is unable to control her change. She is pulled fully into the form of the wolf woman, standing bipedal but a slavering monster that doesn’t resemble a human otherwise. Bowed over from the backbone changes, she stands a little shorter than her human form, with her full body covered in soft, honey colored fur. Her teeth elongate into the sharp, jagged weapons of a dog. Her eyes are bloodshot, the black iris’ lost in a wash of red, her glare narrowed on anything that moves. Her hands shape into claws, the nails broken and yellowed. She gains nothing in muscle, her body as slender and weak as it is in human form. The only thing she has, the only thing she knows, is the hunger.
Personality
Disposition: There was once a time in her life when Melancholy Valencia was a sweet, friendly person. Things have changed since those times. While she has always been the kind to protect those who were innocent, the old Mel could see the good in all. Now she is colder. Her need to protect comes from selfish means and she is quick to pass judgment, even when she knows that there are facts that haven’t been presented in the story yet. Most of the things she believes and holds to are the complete opposite for what she believes of herself. She’s a hypocrite, but after all these years she’s gotten good at turning the facts in her head.
Humor: She is a very serious person, not prone to cracking jokes. As such, sometimes she expects the same level of seriousness from other people and another person’s humor is more likely than not to go right over her head.
Likes: Melancholy is a woman who likes things to be simple. She likes knowing all the facts, an easy puzzle, and clear cut lines of right and wrong. She is addicted to raspberries, prefers a sunny autumn morning and the taste of spiced apple cider. While she isn’t prone to keep animals, she’s always loved horses and one day plans to own one. Her favorite things in the entire world are wildflowers, hot spring baths, and the smell of just cut grass. She loves to read, though she isn’t very good at it.
Dislikes: Mel doesn’t like her name, the smell of blood and fear or undercooked meat. She hates liars, con artists and above all, unnatural things that think their monstrosity makes them superior. While she’s never quite figured out why, ribbons offend her and she believes the only good use for alcohol is to make monsters burn more quickly and to light those dangerous nights. She doesn’t like music, for she believes that the emotions that come from the spinning of tunes is just as deceptive and cowardly as a lie from the tongue of men. She cant stand women who fail to show chaste morality, and the men who exploit women for sex. She finds herself offended by sexuality in general. She is disgusted by weak men, and thinks that if a woman is going to be simpering and submissive, she should also be silent.
Favorite foods: Raspberries, Apples, Fresh baked bread, Cinnamon, Sweet Plums, Smoked Sausage, and Scrambled Egg and Tomato sandwiches.
The Laws of Melancholy Valencia:
Personal laws that are so ingrained into her soul, they cannot be forgotten or moved against.
1. The needs of the flesh are another pull towards the darkness. They are to be ignored.
2. Silence is the true friend that never lies.
3. Never forget kindness or transgression. The time of returning these things comes quick.
4. Never surrender, for it is the loss of hope that creates the true monsters.
5. Never forgive. There is no reform.
Weapons
Oaken wood stakes (3) - 7 inch long wooden stakes, sharpened into points on one end.
Silver Knife - A small folding knife, the blade made of silver. The blade itself is a mere 4 inches long, sharpened on both edges.
Armor
Thin chain-mail mantle. Concealed under her tunic, this strip of iron chain mail loops around her chest, and under her arms to provide cover for her chest and upper back only. The top of it can be seen at the bottom of her tunic’s V neck, and as in quick movements it can pinch her skin, she wears it per necessity.
Items
Smert’s Suffering - On a long, thin corded strand, Melancholy wears a small steel icon. It is the image of a man being pulled across a rack, his limbs stretching to horrific contortions. Because of her strong faith in the followings of Brother Smert, the crucifix-like symbol has a special repelling quality towards the undead and those things that don’t much care for holy things.
Skills
Monster Sensing - When Melancholy’s eyes pass over a monster/undead in disguise or hiding in very close vicinity, the hair on the back of her neck will stand up and a tingling sensation will start in her shoulder blades.
History
To understand what has happened to Melancholy Valencia, it is first important to understand the faith of those who follow Smert. Corone is an island that is sometimes too crowded for itself. Cultures, customs and ideals from all around the world are crammed together like fifty pounds of shit stuffed into a ten pound rucksack. Searching a place where quiet could reign in the pious living that was all but impossible to find in Radasanth, a small group of purist monks, devoted to Thimite, went to sea. They didn’t make it far before their small ship crashed into the rocks of a tiny island just off the Coronian shoreline. As it happened, their goddess of Justice felt she should intervene that day, for the pious men found they were not alone. It had long been inhabited by families of fishermen, and the monks found the peaceful, happy community to be a welcoming one. The island soon became a colony for the small religion that wasn’t welcomed so warmly on the larger island of Corone. The monks and the island converts, however, were a stubborn folk. There came a day, however, when this dogged determination brought great tragedy to the small religion.
Radasanth had come home victorious from a small campaign in Lavinia. It was a skirmish barely worth mentioning in the history books, but the city was still celebrating heavily with the return of it’s heroes. One such commander was a man with an ethereal handsomeness. His name was Fereal, and there was no mistaking that he was indeed the target when a small impish man in white tunic stepped into the path of the commander’s parade procession. Brother Smert pointed to the man and made grave accusations that day. He deemed that Fereal hailed from Concordia, which was common knowledge. The scandal, he declared, as that the Commander was a demon, an exiled Moontae incubus who used his wiles to win battles. Brother Smert said words that he couldn’t take back, even if he had wanted to, and when he called for the execution of Fereal as a monster, the force of popular opinion made him eat his hard words. He was put to death by torture, but for Brother Smert, death was not quite the end.
The imagery of his suffering fueled the movement back on the smaller island. Born into this great fire of gospel and a strengthening of moral code came a child. She was born to a simple fisherman and his wife who spent far too much time listening to gossip from Corone’s capitol city. Merriam Valencia was a woman who was fond of the big, fancy words she heard the cream of Radasanthia’s lords and ladies tossing about on the wind, and one such word was melancholy. She had no idea what it meant, that it was another word for sadness. With this ignorance, she gave the name to her daughter. Perhaps it was this lack of knowledge that sealed the child’s fate.
Melancholy grew up in the fishing village as most children did. School was practical, teaching the children to count, because taking a count of the fish coming in was important. She learned to tie ropes, to make nets, to tell where the best fishing spots were and to swim. She learned modesty and respect and she learned that the greatest sacrifice of all had been made by a man who refused to stand back and let a monster be lauded as a hero. Above all, she learned these things well, and when a priest for the order of Thimite asked her to be his bride, she accepted. It seemed to be just what fate and Thimite had in mind, for the two of them fell madly in love. He taught her to read, and she taught him to fish. Their passion was only kept in check by their vows to Thimite, and on Brother Smert’s name that they would stay virgins until they were joined in matrimony.
Their engagement was long, for he traveled to Radasanth himself to see the things that Brother Smert had written about before his untimely death. He gave her the only piece of jewelry she’d ever owned, before he left. His Suffering, the necklace that depicted the last moments of poor Brother Smert, was hung around her neck. With promises to return and make her his bride, he left. He was gone far longer than he said he would be. For three years she waited, hanging on every word that came from scant letters he would send. The letters stopped, and still she waited for him for another year. Her hopes were nearly dashed when he returned to her, different but alive.
Against his arguments that his journey had left him exhausted, she insisted that they marry three days after his return, by the sea in the light of the full moon. It was then that she found out just how different he had become. The night of their wedding, the sky was clouded. While he seemed ill, her dear sweet Kellon insisted they rush the ceremony. With the clouds obscuring the light she’d so desperately wanted to see him by, it was a dreary wedding. As their lips pressed together quickly once they had become man and wife, the clouds parted, and moonlight shone down. Within moments of ripping flesh and a low growl of rage, Kellon was no more. In his stead, his slavering jaw so close to her face, a monster stood.
It was only because they’d been surrounded by dozens of strong men of the sea and the temple that she survived. Scratched, bitten, but alive, she sat by Kellon as his blood flowed down the rocky shore and into the waiting waves. When her new husband lay dead on the ground, his human form coming back to him in death, something inside her changed drastically. She swore vows that she would take up the mantle of Brother Smert. She swore that she would take down every last monster that had taken anything from the world and gave nothing back. Above all, she swore a death to lycans that was fueled by both her hate for the creatures that had robbed her of a life happy and simple and by the horrific discovery that the wounds she’d sustained that night had passed on the cursed disease to her as well. Before the others could figure out the change in personality and habits that was fast coming over her, she fled into Corone, into the dreadful Concordia that held myths of demons hidden within a magic city.
It was there she found the last thing she wanted. She found the pack of werewolves that had turned Kellon into the monster that had to be put to rest, the werewolves that had robbed her of the greatest love she had ever known. The pack was reluctant to let her in, but it wasn’t long until she found out that there were worse things in Concordia than a few wolf men. The pack was in a bitter battle with a local group of vampire, and they needed a warm body. It didn’t take much pleading before she was part of the system and outfitted for vampire slaying.
Without a second thought, she jumped headlong into this test that Kellon had never been given a chance to train her for.