Still Heart

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Still Heart
Player: Dyne
Origin:	Magic
Archetype:	Scrapper
Security Level:	37
Personal Data
Real Name:	Still Heart
Known Aliases:	Still
Species:	Human-ish?
Age:	Unknown, probably early twenties
Height:	Confidential
Weight:	Confidential
Eye Color:	Violet
Hair Color:	Red
Biographical Data
Nationality:	American
Occupation:	Hero
Place of Birth:	Dark Astoria, Paragon City
Base of Operations:	Paragon City
Marital Status:	Single
Known Relatives:	None
Known Powers
Dark Melee, Dark Armor, Flight
Known Abilities
Transform into Guardian or Antithesis forms
Equipment
Confidential
No additional information available.

FBSA Data

• Paradimension ID Code: Virtue
• Registered Name: Still Heart
• Registration Date: 2004/??
• Department: MAGI
• Group Affiliations: The Rovers (current), The Dauntless Reverie
• Theme Song: Dead Girl Superstar (Rob Zombie)
• Nemesis: Dreaming Heart, The Banished Pantheon
• Status: Active
• Quote: None listed
• Holographic Costume Data: Still Heart/Costumes

Additional Data

Backstory

For as long as Still Heart can recall, she lived in Dark Astoria. Her parentage is unknown; she grew up naked and alone in the fog with the ghosts and spirits, some of whom taught her to speak and read and tried to keep her safe and fed, as best they could. It is good that she did not require much in the way of sustenance or amenities, for such things are scarce in Astoria.

This upbringing perhaps explains her incomplete vocabulary and habit of speaking as little as possible, and while the ghostly contact was sufficient to develop her mind and prevent her from turning feral, it provided her little in the way of cultural background or understanding of human interactions.

Eventually, a group of heroes encountered a nude teenage girl in the mists, fleeing from a group of cultists and their zombies. They rescued her from the pursuers, and after some coaxing, convinced her to accompany them out of Astoria. They left her in the care of the proper authorities.

Still Heart lived in a city orphanage for a time, which gave her some basic socialization and remedial education, as well as some combat training from her rescuers whenever they checked in on her. It was during this time that it was discovered that the girl had no heartbeat or body heat, and possessed some remarkable abilities. It was also when she discovered that people who learned these things quickly became uncomfortable around her.

Unfortunately, she did not progress very far before the first Rikti Invasion came. Still Heart's home was destroyed, and she was forced back onto the streets of Paragon City alone. Fortunately, she managed to thrive there, further developing her abilities, helping those that she could, while striking weaker Rikti forces and fading away quickly.

After the end of the invasion, Still Heart had to decide what to do with her life. The only career she really knew (or was qualified for) was that of the hero, so she registered herself with the city. Paragon never knew what hit it.

Ever since she joined The Dauntless Reverie, Still Heart's best friend in the world has been fellow Dauntless Anne Raiche, aka Anomy.

Still Heart was actually conceived and born in Dark Astoria under circumstances best left unexplored. She is a creation of the Banished Pantheon, who intended to use the infant as a host vessel after they awakened one of their dark gods. Unfortunately, their ritual was far more successful than they hoped, and they awoke something far worse... the Antithesis, the ultimate source of entropy and all negative energy, and the ultimate destination of all that is past, destroyed, or forgotten.

This entity was not pleased to be awakened, and it obliterated the intruding cultists with less than a thought. Being entropic in nature, Antithesis preferred to expend the minimum effort necessary to prevent a recurrence of the offense (which is probably the only thing that prevented it from erasing the entire planet). It decided to imbue the infant with a connection to itself, setting her up as the Guardian of Antithesis when she grew up. It then returned to sleep and left her to fend for herself.

Still Heart can access potent -- and extremely pure (untainted by concepts like "evil") -- dark energies granted by her patron. She can assume a more potent Guardian form (which is also more socially skilled, thanks to greater access to the immense forgotten knowledge possessed by Antithesis). Her patron, should anyone be so foolish as to reawaken it, can occupy her body (possibly followed by the immediate destruction of whatever woke it up), which is called the Antithesis form.

As a side effect of Still Heart's connection to Antithesis, her heart does not beat (thus her name), and her body temperature is invariably several degrees below her surroundings (no matter whether she is in the Sahara or the depths of space). She's essentially a walking energy sink. In spite of this, she is still alive; spells targetting dead bodies or undead have no particular influence over her.

Still Heart's forehead, to those with magical perceptions, is marked with a blackly glowing rune of impossibly ancient origin. It is so old that it has made appearances, unchanged in form, for as long as records have existed. It was said to be ancient even when the oldest of these records was made, and may well predate the universe itself, or perhaps all of them, according to some accounts). The rune is simply the symbol for Antithesis, and it is always associated with warnings of extreme danger and apprehension, even in the records of the vilest of evil sorcerors.

Creator's Notes

• Still Heart has an opposite number, the villain Dreaming Heart, who serves the other cosmic pole, Thesis (this cosmology is obviously Hegelian in nature). Thesis is the underlying wellspring of energy, the birthplace of all things and ideas, and the home of everything unknown, not yet created, or unimagined.
• Like the fractal boundary of the mandelbrot set, the known universe (Synthesis) forms in all its complexity along the border between Thesis and Antithesis. Neither Thesis nor Antithesis are either good or evil (as demonstrated by the "dark" side having a heroic avatar, and the "light" side having a villainous one). They are far too large and self-absorbed for such concerns. Instead, concepts like good and evil come into being closer to their border, as the two forces interact with and upon each other.
• Still Heart was created because I wanted a gothy sort of character. Originally (for no real reason), I made her a Katana scrapper, but I eventually rerolled her into her current form. I gave her the Astoria origin because it felt like the perfect gothic setting. I made her Patron so potent simply because I needed it to be bigger than what the Pantheon was trying to awaken ... and because I was mildly tired of watching the bouts of deific one-upmanship that sometimes happened in backgrounds. I decided to skip to the end of the process and then ignore it. Nearly all of Still Heart's RP has been centered around her personality and unfamiliarity with normal society, not her Patron's power level.