Knight Rain

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Knight Rain
Player: @TalenLee
Origin:	Magic
Archetype:	Defender
Security Level:	32
Personal Data
Real Name:	Cloud Katzenjammer
Known Aliases:	None
Species:	Homo Sapiens and Corvus corax
Age:	20
Height:	5'6"
Weight:	82 kg
Eye Color:	Slate grey
Hair Color:	Silky Black
Biographical Data
Nationality:	Unknown
Occupation:	Senior student
Place of Birth:	Unknown
Base of Operations:	Paragon City
Marital Status:	All-but married to Laurel[1]
Known Relatives:	Unknown
Known Powers
Weather control, life-force manipulation, prognostication, flight
Known Abilities
Acute social sense and marketing skills
Equipment
None
No additional information available.

Contents 1 Character 1.1 Affiliations 1.2 History 2 Powers 2.1 Storm Control 2.2 Life & Death 2.3 Prognostication 2.4 Flight 2.5 Abilities 2.6 Weaknesses and Limitations 3 Metatext 3.1 Themes 3.2 Trivia 4 References

Character

The umbral outline to Laurel's bright star, Rain is a polite, slightly acidic wit. Approaching people with a certain sense of distance, he rarely has to take the lead in a social circumstance, and instead makes do with keeping a position of the observor. Prone to a perhaps dark sense of humour, he would if not constantly tempered by his boyfriend's sweetness, be considered perhaps cynical or nasty. Rain is a young man who sees glimpses of the future. Little peeks into dark futures, disasters that are coming, and the bad things that can happen, even if they don't. This constant sense of foreboding taints what he does and most of his interaction with people. Always seeing the worst that might happen, even in the most vague and haunting sense has given him a certain bleakness when on his own. With that comes a fear of loneliness and yet a distance from people. That fundamental dichotomy means that when Rain finds someone he can associate with, a friend, he becomes devoted to them, loyal and committed.

Affiliations

Knight Rain is a senior member of Project Corona, and is typically rarely seen working without them. His most common partners on the street are Steelcat and Laurel. Rain also has a light-hearted friendship with several other members of the group, particularly Junk Giant, and is known to dispense classical nicknames to everyone, except Laurel. Rain and Laurel's relationship has matured since their graduation, and as Rain pursues his career as a hero, the pair have moved in together in an apartment in King's Row, along with their puppy, Achilles.

History

Rain's history is blurred in many ways, because simultaneous to his memories as a nineteen-year-old boy raised by The Foundation, there are his unfortunate memories as a thousand-year-old, black-winged bringer of death. He remembers flying over London, he remembers the pudding-and-pie fire. He remembers plagues, storms, tidal waves, and even the little deaths. And wars. So many wars.

As far as public record goes, Rain was an orphan adopted by the Project during the Rikti War fracas. He wasn't entirely sure what had left him in his state - but he had walked for several weeks, in sneakers stolen from a clothing bin, to Paragon City, knowing, knowing that there would be some terrible incident here, and that he had to be there to see it, to prove his fears were just that - fears.

He was wrong, and his visions were right.

Rain's senses and memory break up at that point. Initially terrified that he was the cause of the disaster, that his arrival brought about the Rikti invasion, he became very introverted during his time at the Project. It took some changing, but he did eventually shift his focus, becoming more serious and reserved in his behaviour, and eventually, leaning to lighten up. It was during this time that his visions began to refine and become more precise, giving him the opportunity to prevent more than a few disasters, steadily convincing him that he was not, in fact, a cause, but an effect. The universe attempting to subvert disaster.

The crucial change here, however, was that Rain slowly began to perceive the parallels in the world around him, and the stories of those people he knew and observed by fame and reputation, with the stories of myth and ancient history. He couldn't perceive how these things were separate, and it became evident to him that he was a vessel for something great, an observor as the stories of the past brought themselves into new lives. Since his graduation

Powers

Rain's powers derive from the belief of the world in these new gods. In an odd way, he is the harbinger, a sign that the world is changing, that now, the myths of old are being broken down and reforged into a new mythology that will last thousands of years.

One would assume, however, that Rain has no actual powers of his own by the way he speaks of it. He is, after all, the storm crow that comes before the storm; he does not, himself, possess any power of the storm, nor any of the power over life and death that people attach to the crow. Rain has these powers because people confuse correlation with causation; he arrives before the storm, so people assume it follows him. As more and more people believe in his powers in this regard, and he himself accepts the idea, he has steadily come to grasp the powers and do more with them.

Storm Control

Rain is literally, a human metaphor for the storm crow of myth. His steps smell like rain, thunder rolls as his temper rises, and he's never not the center of a breath of fresh air. His hair constantly ruffles in the breeze, and his coat billows with it.

The fact is, Rain didn't originally control the weather. It just followed him around. As he gained power and increased in security level, achieving 12th level, he actually found that he could control and bend the storms to himself, making him more of a centerpoint than a harbinger.

Life & Death

Rain has a limited ability to manipulate the very essence of life itself. As a storm crow brings a storm, so too it brings death, the end of men. Rain has managed to contain this power well, but he's reluctant to try anything too ambitious, because he doesn't want to kill anyone. His blasts tend to work by causing non-lethal, but near-to-it experiences. More than a few of his opponents have honestly thought themselves dead, then wake up in a prison cell.

Prognostication

Rain can see tragedies before they happen. Of course, several haven't come true, but he can generally see how some individual has made a choice that forces the vision to change. They're not universal, or even common, but as he has commented, "If you see me running, follow."

Flight

Even without his wings, Rain can fly, or rather, can feel the edges of the ability coming to him. He knows he will be able to fly, he just doesn't know when that power will come to him.

Abilities

Rain's range of mundane abilities are mainly those that rely on people. He's a very social young man, and tends to observe much about people in a short period.

Rain uses his social sense to recognise exactly what the marketing department can do with a young man like himself, with dark, brooding powers and a potential for existential angst, and the unresolved tension between himself and Laurel (or, in the eyes of many fans, himself and anyone). He's flexible and, it is assumed, bisexual, so there are more than a few female fans of the Project who find his dark mystique and showman style to be appropriately breathtaking. Rain does what he can to avoid disillusioning anyone as to their chances.

Weaknesses and Limitations

Rain's main limiting factors are concentration and energy. Simply put, manipulating the forces of life and death together can be an intense effort, and he can't sustain it for long. This means he shifts gears a lot during fights, depending on who he's fighting - using a hurricane blast to pin someone against a wall in one combat, or simply following Laurel and healing him while providing ranged support.

Rain is a master of many trades; he can control a battlefield, attack an opponent, lower defenses, raise resistances, heal, protect, defend, or ward. On the other hand, he can't do all of them nearly as well as a dedicated specialist in these regards.

Metatext

Themes

Knight Rain's two major inspirations for his final character derive from Steven Levitt's Freakonomics, where he incessantly pounds on the detail that correlation is not causation, and the many myths around crows.

Trivia

• Rain is bisexual, but he's currently very emotionally devoted to Laurel, so it's not likely to be noticeable.
• Rain still owns the sneakers he walked to Paragon with, and evidence suggests he walked all the way from Boston.
• Rain is an amazing dancer. In a city full of the super-fast, time-manipulating, or just plain glamorous, being able to compete on the basis of just having fast feet and great rhythm (and no shame) is pretty impressive.

References

1. ↑ His big schmoopy angel knightypants.

- - Staff -	Project Corona	- The Quad - -
The Vanguard
Bec Querel | Black Caiman | Michiko Yamaguchi | Sahbra | Starbuster | Thermal Sink
Other Students and Associates
Acid Light | Backslide | Caer | Emblazoned | Gator Aide | Hyperbole | Jade Gargoyle
Junk Giant | Knight Rain | Kosava | Laurel | Max-Q | Moloch Tartarus | Prior
Quarter Note | Sabhail | Speedmetal | Silent Steel | Sortiarious | Steelcat