Oougel
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| Oougel | |
| |
| Codex Operative | |
| Player: @FlashToo (Flashrains) | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Arachnos Widow |
| Security Level: | 50+3 |
| Identifying Data | |
| Real Name: | Oougel |
| Aliases: | the Shard Widow, the Free Child |
| Species: | Human/Soldiers of Rularuu Hybrid |
| DOB or Age: | May 9th, 2010 |
| Height: | 5'8" |
| Weight: | 140 lbs |
| Eye Color: | Red |
| Hair Color: | None |
| Additional Data | |
| Birthplace: | Now-defunct Arachnos laboratory under Nerva Archipelago |
| Citizenship: | None |
| Residence: | Paragon City |
| Relationship: | Engaged to Mister Muppy |
| Relatives: | None; biological mother is an unknown Arachnos operative |
| Known Powers | |
| Telepathy, psionic attention manipulation, retractable venomous keratinous/crystalline spines | |
| Training / Abilities | |
| Superhuman agility and flexibility, spying, assassination | |
| Equipment | |
| Codex communication pin tucked inside scarf, several small self-made trinkets that seem to aid focus squirreled in various places about her person | |
| Footnotes | |
| Incapable of human speech; communicates almost entirely through telepathy but understands English | |
 | |
| "Virtue et Armis" | |
Oougel is the result of an Arachnos experiment attempting to find a way to mass-produce Widow-class operatives by hybridizing humans with Soldiers of Rularuu.
History
The creature calling herself Oougel was grown in a tube, part of experiments by Arachnos aiming to create a Widow-class operative with no need for training. The intended result was a perfect assassin, able to move quickly without being noticed, instinctively discern weak points at which to strike, and directly extract information from the brain of a target too difficult to catch or too tough to give in to torture. The "Shard Widow Project" aimed to accomplish this via integration of DNA found in the Shadow Shard into a human fetus "donated" by a young Fortunata going into the Tarantula program. With an accelerated growth process, the prototype Shard Widow reached maturity within eighteen months, after which the Arachnos scientists' neural scans disturbed her dormant thought processes and she awakened, shattering her glass tube from within and viciously fighting back both physically and mentally against all attempts to subdue her. The only records of her escape are those recovered from the lab security cameras, as the Arachnos soldiers sent to take her down had no idea what they were dealing with. Some were dead of wounds inflicted between the gaps of their armor, others were simply brain dead, and no survivors were found. The escaped experiment herself was long gone, having stowed away on a cargo ship to Paragon City. Since then, Oougel has been classed "extremely dangerous and at large" by Arachnos, who continue to hunt for her with little success.
Once in Paragon City, Oougel, afraid, homeless, and visibly monstrous, spent most of her time hiding and watching. She developed a rough sense of right and wrong from watching heroes at work, and without showing herself, began endeavors to be a hero herself... leaving a trail of corpses belonging to small-time criminals, whose brains had been irreparably damaged by her unhoned psionics and whose bodies had been slain by her venomous spines. A few of her victims who were found soon enough to receive medical treatment were able to return to normal function eventually, albeit with no recollection of anything that had happened to them for the past several weeks. This amnesia-inducing effect is what attracted the attention of the secret organization called the Codex, and with their guidance Oougel has been able to curb her inherent lethality and become an effective hero.
Continuing to mature under the Codex's care and supervision helped to solidify Oougel's view of the world and Paragon City as her personal charges. This, possibly combined with the mind-link that formed between her and the ex-Bane Spider, now-Codex Operative Mister Muppy, brought about behavior that grew more and more wrathful in combat and eventually made itself known as the influence of her Rularuu heritage. She became obsessed with finding out what she was and where the whispered chant came from, grew impatient, and finally disappeared. When she was discovered in the Shadow Shard surrounded by a small storm cloud, a small group of Codex officers including Kitai, The Hour Thief, Westford, Gillian Hastings, and Eightpence accompanied by Mister Muppy and Shandian mounted a rescue expedition. By their actions Oougel was guided to The Chantry where Faathim the Kind answered her questions. Now in full control of both halves of her mind, Oougel was able to return to Primal Earth of her own accord as the "Free Child," with an even greater conviction that the world belongs to her and those who spoil it must be punished, and newfound strength to aid and even heal those who would protect it.
Personality
Above all, Oougel is shy around strangers, usually endeavoring to go unnoticed when in open, public spaces. However, those who earn her trust find her generally pleasant, if somewhat difficult to understand: Oougel communicates primarily through telepathy, and her telepathy is a direct thought transfer that is not encoded into words. To supplement understanding she often attempts to speak aloud in conjunction with her mental messages, especially when proper names are involved. She occasionally comes off as slightly dim, but the apparent dimness is simple naivete; she is in fact quite intelligent and enjoys tactile puzzles such as Rubik's Cubes. The Internet fascinates her, since she sees it as a safe way to observe people and learn the many things she does not know.
Oougel envies those able to live a normal life, which is part of her reason for trying to learn to talk - even though she knows that won't make her anywhere near fully human. While not powerful enough to be called an Eldritch Abomination rather than a mere Thing That Should Not Be, she was once briefly mistaken for one by an actual Eldritch Abomination, which did nothing for her view of herself.
As she has matured mentally and grown in power, Oougel has begun to grow possessive of Paragon City and Earth. Crimefighting behavior that was originally a picked-up desire to do good by destroying evil has evolved into punishment of those who would damage or try to take the world that belongs to her.
Opinions On Crimefighting
Minor Threats: People who do bad things
Those whom Oougel categorizes together range from small-time street crooks to members of organized crime syndicates: specific examples include Skulls and Hellions, the Family, Tsoo, and Sky Raiders. These are the people who, by means of circumstance or bad decisions, have been brought to a life of crime but still have the same kinds of feelings and attachments as those who are innocent. Sufficient observation has convinced Oougel that they don't deserve to die, just to be stopped from doing bad things anymore, and thus she is unlikely to kill them in a fight. For these criminals, second (but usually tenth) chances often work.
Real Threats: The fanatical or depraved
Regardless of whatever personal power they may have, some enemies are often sufficiently unlikely to surrender or change if captured that Oougel has trouble seeing the point of leaving them alive - in fact, some (such as Malta, Nemesis, and Council agents) often kill themselves rather than be captured. In the company of heroes whose morals dictate nonlethality, Oougel will avoid killing these types when possible, but will rarely bother when alone - that Vazhilok butcher, that Banished Pantheon shaman, they are too far gone and leaving them alive and able to kill in the future is downright irresponsible. Hostile Praetorians and Rikti are generally in this category, though with the knowledge she's gained on their extradimensional origins Oougel sees killing them as an unfortunate necessity rather than merely a necessity.
True malevolence: Monsters to exterminate
Most of this category is occupied by literal monsters: Redcaps, Devouring Earth, and Snakes, for instance. The Circle of Thorns and the Carnival of Shadows are also in this category - despite their once being innocent or fairly-innocent humans, returning them to that state is generally impossible due to the supernatural control exerted over them and Oougel regards them as effectively already being dead. All Arachnos agents are also placed in this category, despite that they generally still have their own free will. Oougel's hatred of Arachnos is personal and she cannot be swayed from the position that by signing up with Arachnos, a person gives up his right to live. Occasionally, Crey higher-ups are regarded as being as bad as Arachnos, but the majority of Crey employees are as human as other "minor" criminals.
Other groups
Oougel does not trust Longbow half as far as she can throw them - though their zealotry doesn't bother her, the number of times she's been shot at by folks in red-and-white spandex certainly does. This applies equally to Wyvern and she makes little to no distinction between the two groups.
The supernatural war in Croatoa is something Oougel tries to avoid. While she's as uneasy around the Cabal as she is around Longbow agents and she wishes the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha de Danaan would just go back to their own world, the Redcaps' evil is enough to involve her on occasion.
The Soldiers of Rularuu are, to Oougel, not the horrifying alien things they are to full-blooded humans. At first it disturbed her that other human beings' reactions were of instinctive, fundamental terror while hers was not, but this was dispelled after her talk with Faathim. She sees them now in the same light as she sees Arachnos: a purely malevolent force that would, if it could have, enslaved her and taken her world from her, that must be killed on sight.
Abilities and Physiology
Morphology 
Externally, completely alien and surreal. Oougel has eight main eyes at the front of her face and several more minor ones spread around the sides and back of her head, allowing both depth perception and 360-degree visual awareness. Instead of a nose, she breathes through two rows of spiracles located on either side of her face, running diagonally between her ears and mouth, which is jawless and largely unable to form human words. Her skin is tough and rubbery, reinforced with spiny plates on her cranium, forearms, shins, and tail. Her hands have four digits each and her feet are two-toed digigrade claws. Her tail is muscular and nonprehensile, and often used for balance. The exact number of Oougel's minor eyes, as well as the number and exact shape of her spines, is variable and can be shifted based on convenience.
Internally, her skeleton is partially cartilaginous, which in conjunction with her ability to make minor rearrangements of her own physiology allows an uncanny level of flexibility. Oougel can outbend a trained human contortionist with ease. Her digestive system is mostly human and she is omnivorous, though with a radula instead of teeth and a tongue she tends toward being a messy eater. She does not possess a functional reproductive system - the organs are there, but vestigial. Her respiratory and circulatory systems are highly efficient; Oougel can run for long periods of time, and her springy muscles and joints give her a top speed near ninety miles an hour and the ability to jump forty feet straight up.
Venom and spines 
The plates and spines on Oougel's forearms and tail are composed mainly of keratin, with hard, sharp edges of a brittle black crystal of apparent unearthly origin. The spines are similar in structure to the quills found on Watchers' backs, and like Watchers' quills, they can be launched at a distance and regenerate quickly when lost. Oougel's quills, like her spines and minor eyes, are somewhat mutable, and with minor mental effort she can reshape them into claws or blades for close combat. Venom glands, surgically implanted before Oougel reached maturity, are located along her forearms and in the barb at the end of her tail. Oougel's venom contains similar toxins to those produced by some spiders.
Telepathy 
Telepathy is Oougel's primary form of communication, given her general inability to produce coherent words using her mouth and spiracles. Oougel's telepathy is not encoded into exact words; rather, it is a rough, direct transference of intentions, feelings, and ideas that isn't generally terribly pleasant to receive. If messages aren't deliberately focused into a more controlled form, weaker minds can experience blackouts, loss of motor control, or even outright amnesia (especially when unfettered telepathy is delivered in conjunction with a dose of induced inattention - see below) if the message is "loud" enough. Oougel knows this and uses it to her advantage - when she needs to fight nonlethally, she yells at them until they collapse instead of using her spines. Even when speaking to friendlies, Oougel can sometimes cause headaches in those who are more psychically-sensitive, though with practice the rate has gone down.
Precognition 
An ability common to all Widows, naturally included in her creation. Oougel's precognitive abilities are useful in combat but not very precise beyond a minute or two into the future; beyond that, only very important negative things register at all, producing a Bad Feeling About This. This precognition is used as Oougel's creators intended: knowing enemies intentions and movements several seconds in advance allows her to more easily hit weak points and dodge attacks.
Attention manipulation 
While she cannot truly vanish from sight, Oougel can effectively invisible by means of induced inattentional blindness: she can easily observe or slip by unnoticed, but attacking someone or manipulating an object that is being watched will break the effect. In these cases she is often able to employ a stronger, direct psychic manipulation of a target's focus to shift it away from her long enough to escape or land a second unexpected strike. In conjunction with her precognition, Oougel can aid her allies' aim and ability to dodge by directing their attention toward weak points and threats and generally making enemies less alert. Disrupting attention becomes an even more powerful tool when used in conjunction with telepathic screams, and can cause enemies to trip, miss, and otherwise lose coordination.
Aversion to touch 
Oougel's Wisp DNA is the source of her psionic abilities, and most are similar in nature to Wisps' abilities, though she lacks powers of levitation and phasing. However, despite her inability to phase, she retains the Wisp's aversion to touch, and because she cannot cease to exist as a Wisp would, the touch of a living, thinking being can bring about outright panic and a reflexive attempt to kill whatever touched her. She describes the sensation as being like an intangible slime that leaves a sensation similar to a pinched nerve or banged elbow. Less powerful minds - for example, the minds of insects or fish - affect her less, producing only mild pins and needles, and an artificial, impermeable barrier of sufficient thickness can diminish or even eliminate the sensation. Inorganic life such as magical constructs and sentient robots do not produce the sensation, nor do undead creatures. Stony and crystalline Devouring Earth monsters do produce the sensation; despite being inorganic, they are very, very alive.
Demi-divinity 
As a being of Rularuu possessing free will, Oougel has powers similar to Rularuu's own aspects though on a much smaller scale. She seized control of these abilities during her time in the Shadow Shard; first, the creation of her own quasi-real Soldiers as a push back against the assault by Rularuu's will, second, an ability to heal injuries by willpower mimicked from Faathim the Kind after she spoke to him. These abilities function both on and off the Shadow Shard. While on the Shadow Shard Oougel is also able to stand in midair as if it were solid ground, as Wisps and Rularuu's aspects do, but she cannot hover while off it.
Friends and Affiliations
Oougel regards The Codex and all its members as an adoptive family of sorts, and understands their secrecy perfectly.
Psi-Dome and Mister Muppy, both fellow Codex members, are the first two people Oougel has been able to call true friends. She feels an intense attachment to both of them, especially Muppy, due to their being "the horrible experiments together," as Psi-Dome once put it. They often work as a trio and are extremely effective at doing so. She soon developed feelings for Muppy, for reasons including a sense of sympathy with him, the fact that he's one of the few people she can actually touch with his thick grafted armor, the delicious hamburgers and mashed potatoes he's cooked for her, and his referring to her as a "lady" early on in their acquaintance. It later became clear that Muppy returned her feelings and in fact legitimately finds her pretty. Oougel has become Muppy's "designated Widow" and they behave as husband and wife though they are not legally married.
Since Kitai returned to the Codex and met Oougel, Oougel has come to regard her as a highly valued family member and possible new friend, and finds Kitai's slowness to open up completely understandable and not at all off-putting.
Timesplice is the most significant target for Oougel's envy of normal people, since she manages to have amazing innate abilities and still be a pretty blonde. Oougel does not dislike Timesplice, she just wishes she could be more like her.
