Stingyr
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Fwoosh | |
| Stingyr | |
| Player: Enantiodromos | |
| Origin: | Natural |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Defender |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Vera Bowen |
| Known Aliases: | Quatrixie, Sister Vera |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 31 |
| Height: | 5'9" |
| Weight: | 148 lbs |
| Eye Color: | brown |
| Hair Color: | black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | U.S. |
| Occupation: | Engineer |
| Place of Birth: | ' |
| Base of Operations: | Tuscon, AZ |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | unknown |
| Known Powers | |
| archery, traps, flight, leadership | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Visual-spatial genius, Zen No-Mind, engineering and archery mastery | |
| Equipment | |
| Various munitions and forcefield devices, bow, VR headset | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
Origin
Arthur Bowen was born in 1955 in Greenville SC, studied at Clemson University, and moved to Arizona to teach high school science in 1976. The following year he married a former student, Lotsee Fish, originally from Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Their son Leonard, later known as the villainous scientist Dr. Quatrexin, was born in '78 and their daughter, Vera, in '82.
Vera was a tomboy and struggled with social anxiety as a child. She had a 'bad habit' (verbal stimming) of monotone humming that earned her the name of "busy bee." She was very good in geometry and gymnastics, and developed a love of ants, bees, and wasps, admiring their easy pro-social behavior, and about which she memorized all available information. As a teen she even built a wattle-and-daub treehouse. She also met Mary Temple Grandin, who became her idol and mentor, and inspired her interests in engineering and animal welfare.
Graduating Highschool early, Vera enrolled at the Fulton School of Engineering, where she excelled academically, but her councilors and therapist felt it was important for her to explore life outside of coursework, and gradually coaxed her into a number of different hobbies and social engagements. Eventually, she found archery. And became obsessed with it.
Quitting school, she travelled to Japan in search of a teacher, and was eventually accepted by an elderly Korean living in Tokyo, who continued her training for nearly a year. Eventually, the Knives of Artemis-- dangerous foes of the old man, came calling, and murdered him and tried to kill Vera, but she escaped. They chased her around the globe, and time and again, she narrowly escaped with her life. Finally, they cornered her in NYC, and as a new tactic threatened innocents. One died.
In this moment, she heard the old man's oft' repeated admonition: Resist that which resists in yourself. Become yourself.
Taking up her trusty bow, and developing sophisticated gadgets and munitions as she went Vera fought back, and eventually, the Knives stopped coming.
Appearance
Vera Bowen is a small but athletic woman in her early 20s. She wears a red and black insect-themed costume and carries countless pieces of technology that help her fight crime, including several forcefield applications-- a generator, a personal field enhancer, and an antigrav & propulsion belt module that allows her to fly. She also wears VR goggles that supplement her visual senses to 360 degrees, do sophisticated environmental mapping, and pair with the laser sight on her bow.
Personality
Vera remains shy, terse, and philosophical. She will argue questions of ethics vehemently, and like her good friend Lan Maningzhoue, can be heard describing her real superpower as moral clarity; a faculty that allows her to stay one step ahead of those she fights in and around Paragon City.
Powers
Possibly the highest visual-spatial IQ on the planet, rigorously trained in electronics, explosives, materials engineering, and similar fields, natural genius in computer assisted design and 3-D lathe technology, master of zen innocent mind, rigorously trained archer, equipment including
- Anti-Gravity and Propulsion Harness
- Fully mobile Deflection Field Projector
- Deflection Amplifier
- Numerous sophisticated arrowhead munitions
- Toxic munitions mortar
- FEDA -- Fast Environmental Digitizer-Analyzer
- Spectrum VR with recognition and AI-assisted web lookup
- Web grenades
- Stingyr Drones
Subsequent Development
Over years of fighting superpowered foes, the systems that constantly map and analyze threats and the environment in order to modulate and reconfigure Vera's energy shield have risen to a state of near intelligence; indeed when Vera is 'in the zone' (achieves the deepest level of no-mind) she is aware of this parallel consciousness. It remains primitive, but occasionally she has hallucinated or dreamt that it is a bodhisattva.
More recently, Vera was contacted by her archery mentor, who it turns out is still alive and was himself an operative for a faction within the Knives of Artemis still loyal to the old ethical code of the founding cult. The Knives, it turned out, were being subsumed by the Talons of Vengeance. Naturally Vera was drawn to intervene, and in the process was exposed to existential distortions of the Well of Furies.
