Margaret Mackinald
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Margaret Mackinald | |
| Player: PlaidMage | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | man I dunno |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Confidential |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Species: | Homo sapiens (deceased) |
| Age: | 31 (96) |
| Height: | 5'8" |
| Weight: | 146 |
| Eye Color: | green |
| Hair Color: | black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | superhero, ex-singer, lazy ass |
| Place of Birth: | Watervliet, New York |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon City |
| Marital Status: | single |
| Known Relatives: | none surviving |
| Known Powers | |
| elemental control over fire and ice | |
| Known Abilities | |
| marvelous singing voice | |
| Equipment | |
| sunglasses, gloves, hat | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
History
Life
Maggie, as she prefers to be called, was born to an Irish-American family in the city of Watervliet, New York in 1914. Her family ran a small bakery, and she was called on to help with the basic preparation of food as well as putting it out in the shop and managing the cash register almost as soon as she could walk and talk. Her two older brothers had both been called to fight in the Great War, and only one returned - he was never quite the same, and his condition left Maggie essentially an only child. The stress of the workload put upon her caused her to develop a cigarette habit early on. She only attended elementary school, dropping out of the educational system afterwards to assist more fully in the shop as well as working on her developing vocal skills.
By the time she was twenty, she sang like an angel. One thing followed another, and she began to sing in small bars near her home - during Prohibition, a local speakeasy called, to those in the know, the Piper frequently paid her well to entertain its patrons. It was there that Maggie got her real start, and when alcohol again began to flow through America's veins, the Piper became an official club, well-traveled by many bigwigs. In the six years between the end of Prohibition and the start of World War II, Maggie became a star. She toured the Northeast, enjoying her fame and fortune, belting out songs from the real greats. When the next war broke out, she became a sort of morale figure for the soldiers. She was flown out to bases in every theater of the war to entertain the soldiers, her sweet voice boosting their confidence in God and country. Even now she remembers the time she traveled with fondness.
Death
May 8, 1945 was VE Day, and Maggie had been flown to Washington, DC to sing for returning soldiers, dignitaries, and various other people - it was her biggest gig yet, and it went off without a hitch. She sang her heart out, and the afterparty was unlike any she'd ever experienced. In between drinks, she schmoozed with record producers and other stars; she was thirty-one and she was finally about to make it really big. Unfortunately, the Prussian Prince of Automatons had other plans. When he invaded the city, Maggie and several of her entourage were caught in the crossfire, and she was killed by a musket ball to the eye by a particularly vicious sniper. The commotion of heroes, villains, and innocents afterward was just too much, and to the outside world, she simply seemed to vanish.
The view from Maggie's side was quite different. Her spirit had managed to hang on to the world of the living, though it was torn from her body by the trauma of death. It took her days to even realize what had happened and that she still had her mind. By then, her body had vanished. Finding it was an ordeal, to say the least - it took almost all she had to simply hang on, and as such the mortal world was a cloudy blur nearly all the time. She wandered aimlessly, and it was more than sixty years before anything of note happened. She was drifting along in the currents of life and death, as per usual, when suddenly something like a beacon caught her eye. It was something crystal-clear in a world of fog, and when she got closer, she discovered it was the body she had lost so long ago.
But she had yet another hurdle to jump through. Her body had become a footsoldier to the Banished Pantheon; it was inscribed from head to toe with the glowing runes that gave the Pantheon's zombies their hideous unlife, and indwelt by a pair of their most minor spirits - those of fire and ice. Maggie's spirit followed after its house, unable to do anything, as lost as the day she died. She lucked out, though - it wasn't long before a hero rolled through, his golden hair coiffed and his aura visible even to the dead woman, and defeated the cadre of zombies and shamans with almost insulting ease. The spirits controlling her body were weakened enough by the attack for Maggie to oust them, though some residue remained. Maggie was now one of the undead.
Now
Maggie had been dead for so long that trying to use her body again was like learning how to work a marionette. She had to think harder about moving, at least at first - eventually her movements became more natural, but there was still a certain strangeness to her. That was the first step on her journey to becoming human again. She covered her body to hide her pale skin and the arcane runes on her body, and she took to wearing a hat and sunglasses to hide her pale face and the ruin of her eye. Every cent of money she could make went to cosmetics to make her look more human and preservatives to keep her corpse-body from rotting away, but all the treatments had an unintended effect - her body now looked too perfect, and even if she was wearing the wound-hiding sunglasses, no one could mistake her for a real, living person.
Now outcast even further than she had imagined, Maggie lived for months on the streets, one of the innumerable underprivileged supernaturals living in the gutters of Paragon City, the "City of Heroes" she'd found herself in after her resurrection. Shelter, food, and companionship were hard to come by, and she just drifted, making money wherever she could. Eventually, she gained access to the superhero club known as Pocket D, and there she met Uruare by way of the cigarettes she'd retained a liking for during her long death. She had been smoking one of the very cheap cigarettes that were the only ones she could afford, and Uruare offered her an expensive, imported variety - thusly a friendship was born. Through further conversations, Uruare found that Maggie had no place to live, and offered her a safe home in the underground base of the Discordian Society of Other Guys. Now with a warm bed, good friends, and a purpose in unlife, Maggie can finally start to get back on her feet.
The Physiology of a Zombie Superhero Lounge Singer
Maggie and the Supernatural
Theme Songs
Hook - Blues Traveler
Point/Counterpoint - Streetlight Manifesto
Celebrity - Barenaked Ladies
