PLAYER↴
Name: Trik
Contact: Trik #8100 on discord
Other Characters: Nada.
CHARACTER↴
Character Name: Sophie Welman
Age: 24
Species: Human/Experimental Pseudo Vampire
Canon: OC (Shares a canon with Raile’s OC Foster).
Canon Point: After leaving Foster.
Character Info: We affectionately refer to this setting as Shitty Vampire Government because the whole world’s political system is controlled by various groups of squabbling ancient vampires. There’s ~6 generations of Vampires divided up by when they were turned. Generations 1-5 ruled and controlled most world politics from behind the scenes for...all of recorded history, with something of a hiatus during the 11/1300’s when generations 1 and 2 were at war with gens 4 and 5. Gen three had mixed allegiances. A while after this kerfuffle stability returned, and around the time of the industrial revolution most of the competing factions of vampires agreed that for various reasons, the cloak and dagger act was no longer needed. They revealed themselves, made the presence of their and other magics in the world common knowledge as opposed to guarded secrets, and sired a new generation of vampires specifically designed to bridge the gap between mortals and vampires. Most of these new vamps were strategically chosen again for political power, wealth, or popular influence, however a handful of spouses/lovers/children were turned with them upon request (within reason).
Poppy was one of those ‘extra’ gen 6 vampires. She eventually ditched her sire, fled to America, and opened a boarding school to gain semi unsupervised access to mortal children. Her goal was to use experimental and highly illegal magic to make a subspecies of vampires that were less magically powerful than standard vamps, but less susceptible to vampire weaknesses, and most importantly easier and faster to sire. Eventually she began to succeed and her boarding school became a grooming grounds for her to hand pick particularly useful children to turn and create her own private army of pseudo-vampires.
Sophie Welman was not picked to be turned, but rather got turned by accident due to a violent confrontation with Valerie, a student who HAD been turned. Since the process for creating the new kind of vampire relied heavily on inflicting and receiving significant amounts of suffering, Sophie was not happy at all once she learned the truth. She, a handful of mortal students, and 2 defectors from Poppy’s ranks worked together to take down and expose Poppy’s operation. A lot (but not all) of Poppy’s pseudo vampires as well as Poppy herself were killed in the process. Sophie and Valerie both survived and were promptly imprisoned until the vampire government figured out what to do with them. This is when Sophie made her first contract with the Ringmaster, which was to be able to escape from anyone or thing who wanted to keep her captive. Upon the completion of her year’s service she returned to her world, liberated, but a highly sought after fugitive from (some parts) of the Vampire Government. She became an assassin/spy and started living a comfortable if slovenly life as a career criminal. She then met Foster through craigslist, and they started up a casual sex relationship that slowly simmered until it was approaching an actual relationship with feelings and everything. Sophie panicked and fled to Europe where she stumbled back into the carnival and made her second deal.
Personality: Sophie Welman is a brusk, closed off person. As a bastard child sent off to a hellish boarding school at a young age and quickly singled out as the prefered target for the administration encouraged bullying, she shut down emotionally. Rebecca, who reacted to the hostile environment of the school by becoming very shy, withdrawn, and non confrontational, was a classmate that Sophie took a fascination with. She didn’t actively bully Sophie, nor did she generally participate in the group mockery or exclusion that was so common. Unfortunately, keeping the students segregated into victims and perpetrators of abuse was necessary for Poppy’s purposes, so designated targets would be rotated through class groups to avoid them making any long term friends or support groups. With no close friends, she didn’t get socialized very well. She’s blunt, often fails to read the tone of a situation, and tends not to notice when she’s upset people. Especially as a child, she had trouble wrapping her head around what made something rude. Being naturally belligerent, she soon developed a very nasty temper in response to her social isolation, which only made it easier for her bullies to get a rise out of her.
This rage was brought to a boiling point after she was turned. Her new supernatural durability let her be as extreme and reckless as she felt without particularly lasting consequences, worsening her habit of acting as a human wrecking ball. Her crusade against Poppie’s vampire production was the first time she really got close to anyone. Rebecca, a person Sophie had effectively pined after from afar for years, had come forward to help her along with a small handful of others. Not only was she really cooperating with other people for the first time, but she found herself become fiercely protective of the people on her side. Her anger however easily outweighed these newer impulses, and her ‘no plan, just wing it’ style of problem solving saw other people get hurt far more often than she took any real damage. When all the dust settled, Rebecca was her only ally left standing. At the time she was functioning under a ‘the means justifies the end’ mentality, but imprisoned with her sociopathic counterpart Valerie in the wake of all this she had a decent amount of time to stew in regret and self evaluate. He served as a picture of exactly who she didn’t want to become, and indirectly showed her how necessary virtues like empathy and compassion were. He is effectively, the motivation behind her ongoing attempts at self improvement.
After returning from the carnival and then her subsequent freedom from both the government facility and Valerie’s awful company and horrible influence, she’s grown up quite a bit from her hyper aggressive teenage self. She still has a temper, and is still only tangentially familiar with the concept of tact, but she makes a conscious effort to think about how her actions affect other people. Being an illegal undead, and now a legitimate fugitive from the government, her employment options were limited.
Governments however are rarely a united front, and she found several officials willing to help keep her hidden in exchange for espionage, and the occasional assassination. This line of work takes a toll on her new attempt at becoming moral and compassionate, but her old hatred of Poppy, authority, and vampires in general, helps her wave away some of the guilt. Her relationship with Foster, although it started as just a casual sex thing, has become very important to her as well. He, like Valerie, is severely lacking in the empathy department, but contrary to Valerie’s sadistic and manipulative choices and actions, generally avoids negatively affecting those around him. He shows her that the traits she shares with Valerie do not inherently make her, (or Foster himself), a bad person Aided by the fact that she is in a unique position to guide him away from some of his worst tendencies, over time the two of them develop a close understanding and friendship.
Which, when she realizes how much she depends on him, freaks her out immensely and she decides to cut and run. Emotional vulnerability is something she is unused to, and has very few positive experiences with. Foster’s own issues with returning feelings with similar intensity is another reason she decided terminating all contact was the best choice. Joining up again with the carnival was the perfect way to give herself some space to think, without leaving Foster in the lurch in the meantime, thanks to the relative time adjustments. Or so she thought. Him being there, (especially since he comes from an earlier point in their relationship), is going to be a BIG source of distress for her.
Abilities:
Immortal with unusually rapid healing. Not lightning fast. Minor things like cuts/ bruises/sprains take up to a day to heal, broken bones or important organ damage can repair itself over the course of a few weeks, and major reconstruction of body structure or parts is some number of months depending on severity and parts in question. The only way to kill a vampire like her is starvation, or to cause such heavy damage that they cannot regenerate enough to feed by the time they starve. A vampire can survive a little less than a year without food however, so that’s pretty rough to do. Burning (with fire OR acid) are more likely to be able to achieve this, but it’s still tricky.
Excellent night vision, enhanced strength, stamina, and reflexes. Sharp teeth. Heightened sense of smell. She can tell if someone has human blood or not, but outside of that it’s not hyper specific. Her own blood tastes vaguely carbonated. (It’s not, vampire blood is just largely magic as opposed to hemoglobin and plasma, so it’s...funky to ingest.) As for weaknesses, direct sunlight causes fatigue and continued exposure (like multiple hours multiple days in a row) leads to migraines and gnarly (like bordering on second degree) sunburns. Any ‘sufficiently blessed holy item’ cross shaped or not, can cause nausea at close range, and the smell of garlic causes dizziness and impacts balance. Ingesting garlic is not lethal, but it will get a vampire bedridden for a few days. Additionally, their digestive systems are not set up to handle solid foods, so apart from the magical effects of garlic, it also just impacts their health physically if eaten. Sophie did once say ‘fuck it’ and eat a piece of garlic bread, which subsequently had her bedridden for 2 weeks. As much as she hates to admit it, it was not worth it.
Limited phasing from her first deal with the RM.
CARNIVAL↴
Soul Colour: Dark reddish brown.
Ideal Jobs: Bouncer/Patrol/Mercenary
Relevant Experience: She’s got a glare that could figuratively melt steel, mildly superhuman strength, can take and dish out physical punishment in equal measures, and will be absolutely ruthless if necessary. Once pried open a guy’s ribcage with a crowbar to get at a dude’s heart bc he didn’t die the first time she killed him. (He also didn’t die the second time, turns out he was not a Normal Vampire™. )
Carnival History: Sophie was at the carnival from the visit to the Summerlands three years ago, through the Demolition Derby. She spent the year recovering mentally and emotionally from her ordeals at the hands of Poppy and then the Vampire Government in succession. Initially a self righteous, defensive asshole, Sophie mellowed out at least on the self righteous front. Working with other people with no real enemies or immediate pressing dangers was a first for Sophie, and despite the excitement and activity that comes standard with any stay at the carnival, she managed to actually use her time there to relax. Once her contract was up, she briefly considered making a new one to stay on longer, but ultimately decided that she did miss her home world. The carnival had been a learning experience for her, and she wanted to see what kind of life she could make out of what few pieces of her old one that were left.
Her ‘multiverse’s got tallent’ shirt has a special place of honor in her wardrobe back home however.
Existing Contract: To keep Rebbeca safe.
Details: Sophie returned to the carnival in a state of emotional distress in the midst of running from her problems. She probably would have worked for room and board, but since she knows the scope of the Ringmaster’s powers she decided to use them for the benefit of her former girlfriend while trying to reevaluate her current relationship.
Current Changes: Common: Tasmanian devil ears, claws on fingers, patches of fur along collarbone and on each elbow, larger fangs, scar on her forehead and neck outlined in fae marks.
Uncommon: Tasmanian devil tail, shadow can move independently, slightly squashed and animal-ish nose.
Rare: none.
SAMPLES↴
http://livinglot.dreamwidth.org/8854.html?posted=1&thread=1234070#cmt1251222 |
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
