[Character] Redthorn

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[Character] Redthorn

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REDTHORN

Real Name: Rohana Nitya-Sundara
Other Aliases: Rhona McGregor; Kali
Gender: Female
Birthplace: Glasgow, Scotland; United Kingdom
Nationality: British
Date of Birth: 3rd December, 1892
Height: 5 ft. 1 in.
Weight: 100 lbs
Allegiance: Scottish Irregulars, United Kingdom; formerly Les Anges de Sang

Biography

Origin
Rohana Nitya-Sundara was born out of wedlock to the nineteen-year-old daughter of an Indian restaurant owner during a particularly nasty Scottish year; the 3rd of December in the year of 1892, after a one-night stand in which her mother was seduced. Specific details of her mother are almost never divulged, except for the name of Amati. Her father was mostly unknown except for two details; that he gave out the name McGregor from which Rohana derived her new surname, and that he wasn't human. Early in life, she showed certain distinguishing features inherited from his bloodline; her skin was always pale, she was able to smell the presence of spilled blood, and she was always fearful and resentful of sunlight. It soon became very apparent that her father had passed on elements of vampirism to her, making her a dhampyr. Indeed, after the encounter, her mother Amati awoke with some fading signs of a vampire-bite to her breast. The family was originally unwilling to part with Rhona over this and put her up for adoption, however, and acquiesced to feeding her blood from the meat that they served in the restaurant, and saw fit to shield her from sunlight. Eventually however, she was cast out at the age of fifteen due to fears that she was going to turn and become the evil and unrestrained monster that they expected she'd become. It was at this time that she abandoned her final ties to her religion.

Relying on her natural attractiveness, she took to the streets and became a prostitute, taking up the surname of McGregor from what she knew of her father's identity and altering her first name to the similar-sounding Rhona. Though successful as she was whilst she took money easily from easily-swayed men, she had no real taste for the job; the attentions of men weren't what interested her as much as the money that lined their pockets. In addition to that, it didn't take her more than a month to begin using her clients to feed upon and satiate her natural bloodlust. She didn't kill many of them; only those who she knew to be rapists and murderers. But she was most certainly not willing to settle for the life of a street-walker, and she began to organise herself into a more favourable position of society. She began stealing from the homes of those she slept with, manoeuvring herself to have enough money that she didn't have to worry about life. A few months after she became twenty-four, she had become one of the primary owners of a private brothel in east Glasgow, being able to select from a far more influential and wealthy set of clientèle for herself. It was a few months onwards when she finally discovered her taste for women after a younger woman came to her during the Great War; she had finally found a more hedonistic outlet for herself in other women. Though not too ignorant nor disliking towards men, she felt that women were far more interesting and far more liberating to sleep with, revelling in what she saw as a controversial and rebellious move as much as a way of gaining pleasure. She didn't drink from women as often as men, however, but began to realise that she wasn't even attracted to men and could find no pleasure with them.

Vampire Agent
Although she was always discreet and intelligent in her actions both as a vampire and as a prostitute, she eventually attracted some attention. Les Anges de Sang, already knowing of her, began to take an active interest upon her thirtieth birthday. In the year in which a German filmmaker released the immortal (but emphatically inaccurate) Nosferatu, she was approached by an envoy; a French vampire who called herself Genevieve. Infamously, though the encounter between them was meant to be merely an offer of placement, it took on a more romantic approach as Rhona became suddenly enamoured with the vampire woman before her. Having never truly encountered another living vampire, she was taken aback by the beauty, grace, ferocity and power of a full-blooded vampire. Not only did she join the Angels of Blood, but she entered the first long-term relationship she'd have in her lifetime. Her joining with the Angels of Blood allowed her to retire from selling her body, allowing her more easy and luxurious access to blood and various forms of shelter. However, as with all things, there were duties she had to do in return; it wasn't enough for her to be a member of the Angels of Blood, but she also had to work for them. Though she was originally offered envoy duties akin to her lover Genevieve, she displayed more interest in expanding her field into something that was far more adrenally stimulating. She was accepted after she requested to be trained as an infiltrator-assassin, and studied a series of various forms of combat, diplomacy and acting, being trained to take on and abandon different artificial personae at will. She spent several years training herself to become a weapon, for the first time truly feeling the benefit of her myriad of vampire powers, such as strength, speed and shape-changing.

Given her training, a series of very successful jobs, and a little personal hype, she soon managed to establish herself as a powerful and influential individual by the time she was forty years old. She also trained to become a Cleaner; able to go after the vampires, frequent werewolves and occasional metahumans who went rogue and became highly dangerous to society as a whole, and not nearly subtle enough to keep the supernatural world hidden from the general public. Of course, this proved to be pointless given the sudden rise of what had been termed the 'superhero' and she discontinued her various activities as a Cleaner. Though she was quite happy with her new life, enjoying her love with Genevieve. Her life remained this way until the second World War, where both she and Genevieve were employed together to help deal with the darker elements of Nazi Germany's project list. In the last year of the war, they had to deal with something supernatural that wasn't either a vampire or a typical metahuman, but instead was a far deadlier foe. They were both forced into a fight with an Austrian sorcerer called Woden who'd been employed to create talismans to aid the failing Nazi war effort. It was, for Rhona, the first real encounter with a magic-using foe, or a magic-user in general. Choosing Genevieve as the deadlier foe due to her full vampirism, the sorcerer expended as much power as he dared in order to kill her. Genevieve was reduced to ashes within seconds, beyond the point where she'd even come back given a blood ritual. This sent Rhona into an unstoppable rage, and she unleashed her full fury at the sorcerer, taking both him and herself by surprise by revealing a level of magical power and talent that she wasn't formerly aware of.

What she did in around a decade after that fight is still unknown in exact terms, as she vanished into obscurity shortly after declaring her departure from Les Anges de Sang. Though it became apparent after eleven years to the more fearful members of the clan that she most certainly was not dead by the hand of one of the clan's assassins, having been spotted working as a freelance mercenary of sorts in London under her original name. Their fears heightened when their rival Adam Thorne approached her with the offer to join, but she threw the offer back in his face, blaming him and his ilk for the death of her lover and saying that the most he would get out of her were her services as a freelance assassin if they were willing to pay a rather hefty fee. And only if she were in a particularly generous mood at the time, at that. He agreed to leave her alone, though displayed some regret at not being able to win her over from the opposite side. He did keep an eye on her, however, and it became suddenly clear that he had been doing for some time. For the next few decades, she had a score of lovers; usually human women, but she did sleep with the occasional sorceress or metahuman that caught her eye, never really committing to any real relationship in case she ever fell in love again. Losing someone else would likely have broken her.

Becoming a Superhero
In the early 1970s, Rohana began to resort to her old way of stealing for money, sometimes being more brazen than stealing from individuals, instead occasionally stealing from bank vaults and performing a series of high-profile jobs wherein she stole expensive works of art. With her various vampire powers, she was highly effective at stealing and leaving not so much as a trace, and took great pleasure in the challenge of it. Though she only took enough so that she could live comfortably for a century or so, and she finally retired to living in a wealthy Manor in the Highlands in 1975, living a life of decadence without having to work for much other than to satiate her far more predatory instincts.

Within ten years she had decided to fake her own death and passed on most of her assets to a local charity out of a lack of anything better to do. She took the rest to live off of, and again adopting the name of Rhona McGregor, she decided to return to work as a freelance mercenary or 'trouble-shooter' as she called it, taking a little bit of time to reacquaint herself with modern technology and techniques. She also began to study the ways of magic a little further and soon became a powerful sorceress, having a natural aptitude for it, though she wasn't nearly as skilled as most. As a note of whimsy, however, she decided to adopt a general 'superhero' identity, Kali. She started travelling and fell back in love with her old lifestyle as a free, wandering agent who went where she wanted to go, did what she wanted to do, shagged who she wanted to shag and drank who she wanted to drink. After all, anything less would be boring, and that would be unforgivable.

In 1991, she adopted another moniker, that of Redthorn, and eventually joined the Scottish Irregulars in 1996, settling in Glasgow and then choosing to open a nightclub. She labelled it the Crimson Chronicle, and offered to use it as a hideout for the Scottish Irregulars, who she found to be a more interesting team than the typical superhero group. Though she often disagreed with the occasional member of Section 20 who aided them, most prominently Gladiator, due to his association with sunlight.

However, she's still having fun, so she doesn't mind. She's also found another long-term relationship in the shape of Cassandra MacLennan, a fellow sorceress and member of the Scottish Irregulars.

Personality
Anyone who would meet Rhona in the street would immediately notice her, and really wouldn't have a choice. She is very often outgoing, cheerful and sensual around most individuals, and she acts most especially seductive towards women who she would consider to be attractive. She isn't noted, however, for having much of a temper, and it takes a lot to truly anger her. When something does make her angry, she reacts either very calmly, or very violently, depending on how angry she is. She often likes making jokes and commenting wryly on everything around her. However, she is rarely actually friendly with people, having had over a century to have become jaded enough to see the world as an unpleasant one. She has a particularly misanthropic streak because of this. She also has a tendency to speak in a slightly Scottish accent, though can adopt almost any accent she needs to at will.

Rhona is far from virtuous, and suffers from numerous vices, such as her manipulative ways and willingness to betray people for her own causes. She is also very stubborn, and very used to getting her own way. However, she has bound herself to an odd code of honour in which once she trusts someone or has made a deal with someone, she will not betray that until she herself is betrayed. She does, however, have a strongly protective streak towards her current lover Cassandra, who she appears to have more fondness for than someone who is just 'the latest in a long line of women'. She also suffers from a love of literature, particularly about vampires, and revels in the life that being a dhampyr allows her to have. Her favourite book is often stated as In a Glass Darkly, an anthology by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu in which the novella Carmilla appears, and its first appearance outside of a magazine.

She is very attentive, as well, and has a good enough memory that she is able to recognise and remember almost everyone who was at a dinner party, or the lyrics of a song that she hasn't heard in decades. She comes off as eccentric, and sometimes accidentally slips into archaisms while speaking, but given her pretty face, it merely paints her as someone unique and interesting. Though raised into a society of law and circumstance, she doesn't have much use for either of them, and will often ignore the legal system when it suits her to, though knows just enough about it to play it like a violin and bend the rules for her own purpose. She has very few other reasons for listening to the rules of a society that already wrote her off when she was fifteen. She is also known for an interest in classical music, both listening and performing, and can indeed play a violin or the piano quite well. Though her singing voice is said to leave much to be desired.

Appearance
Rhona is distinctively beautiful, with pale brown skin owing both to her Indian descent and lack of sunlight exposure. She has just-longer-than-shoulder-length black hair that is often kept straight and neat, and her eyes are dark, giving out the impression of a mysterious past and age that far exceeds her physical presence. She is shorter and slimmer than many would expect, given her impressive levels of strength, standing at five and a half feet at most. Her canine teeth are notably less fang-like than one might expect from a dhampyr, but they extend whenever she chooses to feed. Her eyes also sometimes become silvery-blue while she is in combat or feeding, and her skin even more occasionally becomes stark white.

She often dresses in a particularly Gothic style in social environments, enjoying the idea of playing out the old vampire lesbian stereotype, and she does indeed cite the vampire Carmilla as one of her favourite characters in literature, though notes that she was unrealistically frail for a vampire, and of course for the real-world figure who died under similar circumstances. Her clothing consists typically of black, red or purple Victorian-styled dresses, though she doesn't wear corsets often as she still tends to have to breathe. She also tends to wear make-up to heighten the Gothic image of vampirisim. She is also seen always wearing a diamond necklace that was given to her by the late Genevieve on her fortieth birthday.

Powers and Abilities

Powers
Like many of vampire blood, most of Rhona's abilities are physical in nature. She has metaphysically-enhanced strength, speed, and agility, being naturally talented enough to do complex acrobatics and gymnastics while wearing a tight dress and stiletto heels. She also has the ability to walk on any solid surface and fly under her own power, able to metaphysically manipulate her own personal generation of gravity. She can also see in the dark without much difficulty, and can also dilate her own perception of time, giving her more chance to react to a certain type of situation. One of her primary abilities is her ability to heal rapidly after feeding, and she is able to heal from wounds that would take months to heal within as little as minutes. Especially in the repairing of damaged flesh, which progresses far faster than the mending of damaged bone. She can also use her vampire abilities to change shape, even to the point of altering her molecular structure so that she takes on a gaseous state.

Abilities
She is a capable and well-trained assassin, and has had some amount of training in various weapons, vehicles, infiltration methods and demolition methods. Though these methods are only formally and officially up to date as of WWII, and she has mostly been relying on personal training since then. She has also had a lot of formal training in classical melee weapons in addition to training in various guns and explosives, though rarely uses them in combat. She is widely fluent in numerous languages, ranging from Japanese to Scottish Gaelic.

Weaknesses
She lacks many of the traditional vampire weaknesses, but must drink blood regularly in order to survive. She also appears to have a problem with enchanted weaponry, but not to any really major extent, and she has a problem regenerating from severe burns.
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'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

-Anomander Rake and Ganoes Paran in Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
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