Moira Dirge

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Moira Fortunata.JPG
Moira Dirge
Player: Scarlet Redemption
Origin: Natural
Archetype: Arachnos Widow
Threat Level: 50
Personal Data
Real Name: Moira Dirge
Known Aliases: None
Species: Altered Human
Age: Unknown / Believed to be around 30
Height: 5'8”
Weight: 128 lbs
Eye Color: Dull Brown
Hair Color: Dull Brown
Biographical Data
Nationality: Arachnos National Republic / Citizen of Etoile Isles
Occupation: Soldier
Place of Birth: Unknown / Believed just outside of North Omaha Warzone
Base of Operations: Unknown
Marital Status: Never married
Known Relatives: None known
Known Powers
Aggressive Fortunat Training, Latent Seer abilities (Highly Repressed)
Known Abilities
Assassin grade Widow Training, Grand Master Widow Fighting Techniques, Attack of Opportunity and Improvised Weapons Supreme Specialist, Ancient History, Standard Arachnos Schooling and Enhancement Training, Hostile Environments: Survival Specialist, Standard Temporal Travelers Grade Skills.
Equipment
Standard Issue Widow Equipment.
In addition to her special equipment Moira carries with her an assortment of odd and specialized tools. She also keep more mundane equipment on her person at all times.



Contents

Appearance

Moira's appearance has changed recently. Upon first arrival in the Rogue Isles, Moira looked just like any other standard Arachnos Widow. Her uniform seemed slightly old and somewhat in need of care. Her standard issue helmet was woefully obsolete for the times. It lacked built-in communication devises and even night-vision scaling and auto-thought processing activation technology. She still used old facial muscle twitching techniques to activate her obsolete built in defensive systems for her suit. Her suit was made with an obsolete Kevlar/Duraweave mesh that hadn't been used since the late 90's. Further her suit's electrical systems still used solar battery panel back up arrays.

Recently she has seriously changed her attire and upgraded both her suit and weapon systems. For a time she no longer hid her face behind a Widow Mask but since has reverted back to using it to hide her face. Deciding to deal with people as a person and not as a faceless Mask proved to be difficult for her to handle since the break up of her and Markel.

Beyond her equipment and suit, Moira looks to be a lovely if somewhat plain-looking woman. Her face is marred with premature care-lines around her mouth and eyes. Her hair is of medium length and a plain brown. She wears her hair with no particular style and it often looks unkempt. Moira's teeth are perfectly straight and have a somewhat yellowish tinge. Her posture and musculature are nearly perfect. At one point her hands were criss-crossed with scars and puncture wounds also her left arm and back housed massive and hideous looking scar tissue. But recently those scars have been removed.



Character

The Cursed Ones

Moira's one driving force is to destroy the threat of the Cursed Ones. This all-consuming drive for a time nearly drove all those around her away or to become her enemy. She was aloof and secretive. She often showed open disdain and mistrust of those she called 'Magic-users'.

She often used her skills to infiltrate and gather information about all those around her. She also associated with dangerous and subversive practitioners of magic and those that hated them. She openly defied and challenged the Mu and various organizations allied within her own group, the Shadow Spiders.

After a time all of her actions caught up with her and she was brutally tortured and interrogated by members of the Shadow Spiders. It was then she informed them of her mission and the reasons behind it. Shortly afterward a few members of the organization stepped forward, much to her surprise, to offer their help.


Stunted Emotions

Moira's emotional development has progressed by leaps and bounds lately. When she first arrived in the Rogue Isles she was cold and distant. She never spoke and never removed her uniform (not even to sleep). She was deferential to the citizenry and superiors and was never haughty or cruel.

When confronted with raw and uncontrolled emotion she recoiled with disdain and confusion. She had little connection to other people and absolutely no empathy. Everything was cold logic with her and almost no humanity.

Her training with the Widow Corps emphasized aggressive suppression of all emotions that threaten the survivability of the team. Every emotion except aggression and anger was scrubbed from her mind. All other 'weak' emotions were replaced with anger or aggression. No sadness, no loneliness, no fear.

For a time she believed this to be normal but was shocked at the lack of control that people displayed. This confused her and her training. Later she was confronted about her lack of emotion and was offered help.

After some convincing she began to unlearn her Widow training. Right now she is not nearly as cold and distant as she began but still struggles with certain feelings that she has and cannot control. Unfortunately she has learned pride and refuses to seek help with her strange turmoil. She often sees her confused state as embarrassing and shameful.


Widow Training

Moira's extensive and deadly Widow training seems to be unique and odd. Her movements aren't fluid and graceful like normal Widow training. It seems spastic and random. During trial sparring matches though she easily bested many Elite Night Widows and even their teachers. Her style, though similar to Widow training, diverges and is unpredictable. She never seems to fight the same twice in a row and her style seems to change as she uses it.

Often masters would try to fix her chaotic style only to be floored time and again by it. It is not known where and how she learned to fight so unpredictably and deadly. Those that have studied her fighting videos see many elements of various fighting techniques and specialties. They also see her use her unorthodox and seemingly sloppy style to easily crush her opponents.

The most odd bit about her fighting is that she simply states that is how all Widows were trained where she was from. Except she is the only Widow that displays such abilities and tendencies.


Fortunat Training

Moira's mental training and combat abilities have been compared to that of a nuclear powered chainsaw. Unlike other Fortunatas and Widows Moira has almost no telepathic or empathic abilities. Her mental and physical conditions have seemingly been trained for one purpose. Quick and efficient murder. Her mental conditioning is all aggressive psionic lashing or telekinetic blasts. She shows withering efficiency and brutality when using her psionic abilities as a weapon, but little to no talent when using it in any other way. To put it bluntly, her purpose is to turn others' brains to pudding or flay the skin from their bodies, not be their shrink. She's a sledge hammer not a scalpel.


Psychological

Dressed to kill. Literally.

Moira was trained and indoctrinated since she could remember. Her mental conditioning has been for total war her whole life. Every moment she remembers has been on a knife's edge. She was prepared, at any moment, to be combat ready. She is a light sleeper and is always assessing her surroundings in expectation of an attack. Every unknown individual is a potential enemy or deadly threat and should be treated as such.

Give no mercy and expect none from others, friend or foe. Rely on yourself, first and foremost. Never burden others with your incompetence and never let others' incompetence burden you. You are only as useful as the blood in your veins, the breath in your lungs and the skills in your head. Once those are compromised you are a liability and will be treated as such. You will remain silent. You will be obedient. You will remain anonymous. You are a not a real person. You are a soldier.

Moira has been slowly unlearning her harsh training. Though she is still honored when people actually speak to her and treat her like a 'real person'.


Mindscape

Due to her harsh mental conditioning and Widow training her mind is constantly closed and her defenses are never knowingly down (not even in her sleep). Most people with mental defenses put up an image of some sort of wall or barrier to keep people out. Her defenses are nothing so mundane. Those that attempt to attack her mind are nearly drowned in vicious rage and primal aggression. Chaotic and horrific memories pummel the assailant while they are not merely kept out but actually pulled in.

The phantom terrors in her mind are actual and real memories. These memories are so strong they seem to have wills of their own and actively try to overwhelm and entrap those they can. These defenses actually can turn into a relentless and exhausting attack (to both Moira and her assailant). Moira has to actually exert herself mentally to break of her mental defenses.

Lately her mental defenses have lost some of their viciousness and usually break off their attacks after a few seconds of effort. It is not known why her previously almost predatory defenses have calmed.

Those that make it past her defenses will find themselves in a regular wasteland of death, burning and rot. Nothing in her mindscape seems remotely comforting. The sky is shale colored and almost starless. The moon is in pieces and some of it rings the night sky. Stars are almost nonexistent. The odors are nauseating and toxic. People huddle in terror under stones and inside nooks. The sound is a furious and constant low moan. Numerous horrors fade in and out of existence randomly and wreak as much havoc as they can before dissipating.

Pieces of her past and thoughts scatter this landscape like wreckage. Nothing grows and everything slowly breaks down. Even projected thought images. Occupying her mind for long periods of time often leaves psionicists exhausted and despondent. The despondency usually stems from the knowledge that the images in her mind are not delusional. They are very real memories.



Powers and Abilities

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Widow Training: Moira's odd Widow training makes her incredibly flexible and limber. Her unpredictable movements and constant feints and pulls make her very difficult to hit.

She always arranges herself and aligns her body to deliver critical strikes to her foes. She literally coils herself and strikes using near pin-point accuracy. Her movements and attacks telegraph her opponents weak points to others around her. Her reckless fighting form often confuses and confounds her victims causing them to hesitate slightly giving those around her a better ability to dodge attacks.

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Fortunata Training: Moira's brutal physical attacks often lead those to believe that she is Widow trained and not a threat psionically, but her psionic attacks are both powerful and devastating mentally and physically.

Her brutal conditioning and mental training have honed her mind into a lethal weapon. She is perfectly capable of reducing a victim's mind to pulp in seconds. Her attacks often cause painful aneurysms and can cause stroke.

Her telekinetic attacks are capable of creating violent whirlwinds of psionic disruption. She can also slam people with over 10 tons of force both mentally and physically.

She can also explode out with a wave of pure withering thought. This brutal attack often leaves her fatigued but it is capable of flaying the skin from those too close to the epicenter. Moira has such minute control over this attack that she can actually choose those she wishes to affect.

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Seer Ability (Heavily Repressed): Moira has manifested primitive Seer abilities in the past. When under the influence of pentathol and other mind effecting drugs she is able to actually hear the thoughts and experiences of those around her. She does not have control over this and it often torments her and causes her agony. She is fully aware that the thoughts aren't her own but reacts as if she were experiencing those thoughts. She is not reading minds as much as the minds are forcing themselves upon her. This ability is heavily repressed by Moira and she readily dismisses her fits of 'deja vu' and synchronicity as nothing more than coincidence.

She readily denies any ability to read thoughts or minds and openly mocks those that think her visions are prophetic.

FortunataTeamwork MaskPresence.png

Unusual Anatomy: Moira's bones are not made of organic material. They are an ultra-hard yet very flexible sort of ceramic. This ceramic is made up of multi-bonded and complex molecular solution that mimics the properties of a liquid but is a solid. It has shown resilience against even industrial-grade impervium cutters. The material when cut oxidizes and becomes corrosive to non-organic material and emits noxious vapors of ozone, argon and chlorine.

It is unknown what her 'bones' are actually made of or even how they came to replace her actual skeleton. The material is not organic and does not self-repair if actually broken or fractured. Essentially if she breaks her arm it will stay broken forever.

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Unusually Intelligent: Though Moira never claims any special schooling or training, her knowledge of chronal science and temporal physics is on par with those who have actually innovated the field. Her complete understanding of multi-dimensional dispersion mechanics and duel singularity event-horizon cross-over physics seem elementary to her. She also has knowledge of String Physics and Time-Space distortion fields. Her knowledge of other sciences and mathematics also seem unusually advanced. Though she claims not to be a specialist she finds most modern electrical and mechanical systems to be 'frightfully simple'.

Her knowledge of anatomy and body chemistry theoretically is almost of PhD level. She even has vast knowledge of brain chemistry and biology.



Spoiler warning: Details about a player-created storyline, or information currently unrevealed about a character, follow.

Origins

Time Traveler

Her mender uniform.

Moira's strangeness and awkward demeanor comes from the fact that she is not native of this time. She is an Ouroboros mendor sent back many thousands of years to the past. She was originally part of a team of 5 but the other members did not make it through and were absorbed into the time stream. Moira was the only one who made it to this time.

Her history is slightly confusing considering that her 'past' has yet to happen in the present. She also considers the time that she is in 'ancient history'.

In her time humanity is waging a losing war against creatures of vast power. These creatures are called 'Cursed Ones' by Moira and her fellows. Currently humanity only exists in special shelters scattered around the world. The population numbers somewhere in the hundreds. Moira's team was one of ten other teams sent back in time to try to stop the 'Cursed Ones' from coming to power.

It is known that in her time there are no magic-users and no magic. Many dimensions and different planes no longer exist. Many billions of solar systems and even galaxies have been wiped out. The earth's atmosphere is toxic and nearly unlivable. The moon is shattered and rings the earth and there are very few stars left in the sky. Finally, humanity and almost life itself is in decline. Everything is falling to the abominable presence of the Cursed Ones.

Personal History

Moira was one of seven survivors found after the battle of North Omaha. That battle claimed 18,000 lives and not one 'Cursed One' was slain. Moira was found dying of exposure under some rubble. She was immediately evacuated to the Mid-American Hospitality Zone for immediate exposure treatment.

Though Moira was only two at the time she was already suffering from severe calcium deficiency and muscular degeneration. She was also riddled with various diseases. The Arachnos Surgeons got to work on her and set her up immediately for the Widow program.

After her bone-graft procedure and various muscular enhancement regiments she was ready to receive the beginning stages of Widow training. She was worked night and day for two years to hone her body and mind into a perfect fighting machine. She was educated for those years with extensive and rigorous mental exercises and stress tests. When she was five she was given the number 249 and an official Widow rank. Her education continued but she was considered an active recruit.

When she was six she was instructed in the many forms of war and fighting. She also began her rigorous physical training regiment. At this point she had been in training almost ceaselessly for four years and she still had not spoken one word.

At seven she was enrolled in Intense Aggressive Acclimation and Assimilation Training. For the next five years she was administered total immersive studies and personality enhancement therapy. In the IAAAT Program she was under constant learning stimuli, even in her sleep. The Program crammed the equivalent of a Doctoral education into her head in a few years. Coupled with intense and rigorous physical and mental education, Moira at the age of 12 knew more than most 20th century scientists about any subject and could easily break the neck of the most highly trained 20th century mercenary as well.

At the age of 12 she began her Social Training. She was taught to articulate speech and nuances of speech to convey the maximum amount of information in the minimal amount of words. Soldiers are meant to fight not to speak. She was also taught to never converse with 'real people' or show her face to anyone (even other soldiers). This is also when she was officially recognized as a citizen and allowed to pick her first name. Her last name was assigned to her and she forever became Moira Dirge.

Personal Record

Moira's first assignments were called Zone Perimeter Explorations. ZPE's are the most simple duty a soldier could undertake. It consisted of a squad of 7 soldiers to simply make a sweep of the zone around the Hospitality Zone to detect any pockets of humanity still surviving. These sweeps take around 3 years to complete. Moira and her squad were assigned 3 sweeps before they could return to the Hospitality Zone.

Midway through their second sweep her squad was assaulted by a Cursed One named Shizuul. It slew all of her squad-mates, mangled her and then left her dying for a day. It returned and placed a relic in front of her eyes and explained that with it all the pain would end and she could have her revenge for everything. Moira refused and began preparations to set off her personal thermowave device (a raw lump of hydrogen nuclei with a plutonium trigger). Shizuul once again savaged her but left, taking its relic.

Moira was found by another ZPE squad almost 8 days later and was taken back to the Hospitality Zone for immediate euthanization assessment. She was deemed useful and given full medical treatment. The scars on her arms and back did not heal properly no matter how many thermal grafts they gave her and they simply allowed her to keep them.

Moira was sixteen when she was enrolled in Aggressive Earth Reclamation Tactics. There she was taught most strategies of survival against the 'Cursed Ones' and basic philosophy on how to destroy them.

At seventeen she was assigned SeeTack duty along with three other squads. For almost eight years her assignment was to seek-out and attack any known hostiles in the area. In those years she has had violent encounters with over thirty different 'Cursed Ones'. Her platoon suffered eight casualties and quickly realized how useless the destruction philosophy was. They never managed to even harm one and the only reason they escaped was because the 'Cursed Ones' allowed them to. Two of her platoon were condemned for 'defeatist' speech. Moira carried out the executions herself.

By the time Moira was twenty-five she had succeeded in nothing. No 'Cursed Ones' dead and nothing but casualties. When she was reassigned she was relieved.

When Moira was given the assignment called 'Destiny' she could not believe that scientists had actually uncovered some of the ancient time dilation rings and various Ouroboron temporal signal devices. But what came also as a shock was the fact that Ouroboros still functioned as a subsidiary of Arachnos. Moira was given over to Mender Training for the next five years.

After learning the ins and outs of the chronosphere she was given her final assignment with a squad of five. To travel back to late 2007 and gather information on the long dead magic-users and the 'Cursed Ones'. To locate specific individuals and influence them to do something about them before they rise to power. Everyone in the squad knew this to be a one-way trip.


Schooling and Knowledge

Moira is not a diviner or precognitive. The events that she knows of are ones that she actually studied in her 'ancient history' texts. She recognizes people and places from her histories and shapes her opinions often from them first. She takes for granted the ignorances of people from this time and assumes they are mostly naive or just stupid.

Though she has genius level intelligence by today's standards she is woefully average for her time. The great knowledge and understanding that she has is all learned from her training. Obscure philosophical and scientific knowledge to this time is common knowledge to her from her time. Her simple 'common' knowledge is often better than the most recent breakthroughs of the present day.

It has also been stressed by Moira on many occasions that she is not some 'elite' trained super soldier or specialist. She is just an average everyday soldier of her time. When questioned about why she was 'sent' her answer has been “It was my squad's turn.”


Errata and Temporal Sliding

Some events that Moira has studied have not happened exactly as they should have and some have not happened at all. While other events have happened that she never anticipated.

Moira's knowledge of her 'ancient history' is not complete and comprehensive. Also she has been educated in Temporal Sliding. The fact that she is here will cause changes in the future. This is anticipated and expected. Hopefully one change she will effect will be the destruction of the 'Cursed Ones' from our existence.


Affiliations

Shadow Spiders: Though reluctant to accept any aid or assistance when the offer came to her that a historically significant and infamous sect of Arachnos was interested in her she quickly took the offer. She immediately went about assimilating and learning as much about ancient ways of life.

Her first act upon joining was to immediately hack their computer and download every individual's file that she could. She then used their secure server status to hack the Arachnos records and use her wrist supercomputer to parse any information that could signal any analogs with known 'Cursed' activity. Her private data stores still hold all information from the Shadow Spider and Arachnos database. Though much of the data was dumped as being redundant to her computer's given data.

Ouroboros: Moira spent five years training as a mender and has traveled all about her tether in those years. Yet in this timespan none of the menders have any knowledge of her. Some menders don't even think she exists in real time-space. They see her as a dimensional traveler. This has lead to many debates and arguments between her and Ouroboros. She has no knowledge of them but all knowledge of their methods and network. They claim no knowledge of her time-line but insist that there are no such things as 'Cursed Ones' and that they are not the 'Coming Storm'.

Moira continues her studies.

Midnight Squad: Her unquenchable thirst for arcane knowledge leading up to the destruction of the 'Cursed Ones' lead Moira to the hallowed halls of the Midnight Squad Library. Her constant and pointed questions have raised curiosity and some discussion amongst Midnighters. Her methodical study and research methods have become well acquainted in all five of their library complexes. She devours any and all arcane texts and on occasion has recovered a few for the Midnighters.

Oddly enough the Midnighters are the ones who have tried the hardest to get her to 'reconnect' with people. Often kicking her out of the library to go 'have fun' or 'get a life'. She often treats these occurrences as an assignment more than a heartfelt suggestion.



Death

Due to Moira's steadfast independence, self-reliance and seemingly unnatural survival ability her death came as quite a shock to many. It was a quiet and unassuming death unknown and without fanfare, much like her life. She did not die in the heat of battle or in some moment of glory. Some would say that her sacrifice was senseless and useless.

Her smashed and destroyed body was discovered underneath Mercy Island among some destroyed Snake caverns. The cause of death was massive trauma to the body. Though her skeletal structure was made up of an unknown and seemingly impervious material, several of her bones were snapped, pulverized or had been vaporized. The only thing found on her was an artifact known as the Mage Stone.


Friends

Moira had a very skewed version of friendship. The idea that people actually valued her company for no other reason than to have company was very difficult for her to grasp. She wanted to believe that these individuals genuinely value her as a person, but a small part of her couldn't let go of her training that she was only worth the blood in her veins, the breath in her lungs and the skill in her head.

Moira constantly pushed herself when performing for her friends and analyzed their every reaction to see if she behaved correctly and pleasing. She was obsessive, single-minded and relentless when in the pursuit of her friends' best interests. Fear, regret or even common decency did not hinder her in the least as long as she achieved her desired goals to win support, approval or safety for them.

Her final act was to return the Mage Stone to her friend Markel Smythe (whom she knew as Markel Darkweaver) but was killed before she could return it properly.

Emotion

Moira's understanding and utilization of emotion still weighed heavily on her. In one instance she has displayed behavior that she found quite pleasing; pleasurable even. She found herself able to actually laugh and not feel shame about it. She felt some connection with people around her when she observed them. She actually enjoyed the company of others for more than just information or training.

Moira's emotional outlook had not come without its share of problems though. Her sleeping had become more and more plagued by nightmares brought on by guilt over her past dealings. She found herself hesitating in battle more often and feeling mercy and compassion for those around her at inappropriate times. Worse yet she couldn't stop these feelings. She began to display self-destructive behavior around people. She actually welcomed physical pain or death in lieu of the emotional pain of losing someone she cared about. She found herself manipulated by others not through brute force or willpower, but by emotional weakness.

She was often wracked with feelings of worthlessness and guilt. Her remembered time as a soldier only reinforced her feelings of complete failure. The fact that she allowed others around her to come to harm only furthered her own confused and angry feelings. Her core training didn't allow her to tolerate 'defeatist' thinking so she put on a smile and continued to work tirelessly and always remain positive.

Her only bastion of strength and pillar are those she saw as her friends. Those that actually wanted to see her face and let her speak to them. Her appreciation of that simple human kindness was unquestioning. She told them time and again, “I will -not- die for you. I will live! Forever if I have to. And you along with me! Dying is easy. It is failing. I will -never- fail you.” Moira was quite savage and determined when helping her friends.


Love

Better days with Markel.

Moira had to look the word 'love' up in the dictionary to get a definition of it. She only knew infatuation or selfish desire and sneered and curled her lip at anything else. She then began to see those of her friends put themselves into harm's way for her time and again without any desire for compensation.

Even her cold and indifferent attitude with some only spurned them on further to associate with her. Basic human contact caused her unreasonable terror and an odd sensation of breathlessness and pain that she couldn't find any physical reason for.

At first, her seemingly irrational thoughts and emotions frustrated her and caused her shame while simultaneously making her feel fearless and genuine passion. After some time she figured out that she was in love with Markel Smythe. Her reasons were simply that he treated her like a 'real person' and was actually gentle and protective (though, in her mind, he seemed physically frail).

Moira had no real experience with love so she did not expect anything from anyone, especially Markel. She was very simple and honest and often blunt to the point of being rude, but she genuinely didn't want to be alone anymore. She held on to her love like a protective mother grizzly and was extremely overprotective of Markel or those he cared for. Moira tried her best to be presentable and positive around Markel. She strove to be physically, mentally and emotionally strong to keep his admiration.

When Markel expressed that he no longer felt for Moira in the same way she felt for him she did not know what to do. Her mind and training immediately screamed 'failure' and she attempted to try to change Markel's mind by explaining that she could do better. She could not see that in her attempts to be 'perfect' for Markel she was cold and aloof. She effectively alienated Markel and never shared her feelings with him. Moira could not understand how she failed so completely. Her only real reaction was simply to mutter, “Ouch.” It was the most horrific pain she had ever felt and Markel had not even touched her.

Moira's concept of love and emotion were merit based in her mind. She believed that if she was not useful, helpful or beneficial she would lose the love and kindness of those around her. Most of the time she was desperately alone and well aware of it. Her almost inflexible and unreasonable mindset often pushed people away.


Obsessive

Moira had always been obsessive about finding a way to destroy the 'Cursed Ones' and it affected her behavior. She became so consumed with her investigations that she disregarded her friends and loved ones. She constantly used stim-packs to keep herself active and working. During particularly frustrating weeks she used stim-packs constantly and ended up going through 'stim sickness' as a result.

She becomes moody and violent when people hindered her investigations and she was reckless in her methods. Moira constantly worried over this research and it was often on her mind.

Her obsession coupled with her heavy usage of stims to stay active sometimes made her unstable and violent. She often suffered from severe sleep deprivation, hunger and illness. She was not consciously trying to hurt herself she only let her work consume her to the point that she did nothing else.

Allies


Thoughts and Opinions on Moira

(Add IC thoughts about Moira)

--Markel Smythe
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