Vespertilia
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.... | |
| Vespertilia | |
| Player: @Rose in Winter | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Corruptor |
| Security Level: | 21 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Vesper Halifax |
| Known Aliases: | none |
| Species: | Human Mutant |
| Age: | 35 |
| Height: | 5’ 9” |
| Weight: | 140 lbs. |
| Eye Color: | amethyst |
| Hair Color: | lavender |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | British subject in the Rogue Isles |
| Occupation: | mercenary, dilettante |
| Place of Birth: | Dunblaine, Scotland |
| Base of Operations: | The Rogue Isles |
| Marital Status: | engaged |
| Known Relatives: | parents (names unknown), grandparents (names unknown) |
| Known Powers | |
| Sonic/Dark | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Flight, Stealth | |
| Equipment | |
| Heavy dark glasses; Vespertilia is blind | |
| No additional information available. | |
Vespertilia was created by Rose in Winter for use in RP in the City of Villains game. Vespertilia’s concept is that of a bat. She is blind, and her powers are sonic and dark. She also has the “demon wings,” which are the closest to bat wings available.
Contents |
Affiliations
The Five Houses, five powerful and wealthy Rogue Isles families, all of whom practice Shadow Magic. Shadow magic is not dark magic or light magic; it is in between, magic for magic’s sake. The Five Houses have dabbled in Shadow Magic for long enough that when a child of great magical potential is born, he or she is born with grey skin, grey hair, and amethyst eyes.
Personality
Vespertilia is not a very nice person – those villains (and, around Valentine’s Day, heroes) who have met her generally describe her as a bitch. She is self-absorbed, self-centered, insulting, petulant, and considers herself better than everyone else. She is aware of her grotesque appearance and capitalizes on it whenever possible. She disregards the feelings of others, unless those feelings comply with her own or in some way make her life easier or more pleasurable.
The only people Vespertilia seems to consider her peers are the other mage-class young people of the Five Houses. She has been engaged to marry Darius Devereaux for several years. It is unlikely the pair will marry anytime soon; the mage class children of the Five Houses are exceptionally long-lived. Towards all others she is imperious at the least and deliberately rude to most. She gives orders and expects them to be followed, but she is not above paying to ensure obedience.
She herself has no need of money, although she will accept payment for jobs well done, and all her jobs are well done.
Coddled due to her blindness and an only child, Vesper grew bored of the life of a wealthy dilettante. She had developed her Sonic powers well enough to use them as a bat does; while she does not “see” per se, she uses the reverberations of her sonic frequencies (most too high for humans to hear) to judge her surroundings. She decided to set out on the life of a mercenary, but found out early on that she prefers trading information for favors. Usually, that favor is to accompany her on a job, acting as her muscle – after all, Vespertilia wouldn’t want to break a nail. She was raised to be a lady.
Powers
Vespertilia displayed a marked talent for the Shadowplay element of Shadow Magic early on, which her parents encouraged her in. This resulted in her developing abilities similar to the heroes who have power over the Dark. On her own, she found that she could magically enhance her voice to create sounds that stunned others, practicing frequently on the servants of her House. She can also fly, and bend shadows around herself so that she cannot be easily seen.
Primary Power Set
Sonic, which Vespertilia calls "Voice Magic." Vespertilia can use her voice to stun and/or cause intense, wounding aural pain to a foe. Several of her attacks hurt more than one foe at once. With enough of these cries, Vespertilia’s foes will be knocked unconscious, sometimes bleeding from the ears. She considers killing messy and beneath her, but she has no problem with letting others do so. One has to keep the scum from sneaking up from behind somehow.
Secondary Power Set
Although Vesper’s family encouraged her to pursue her abilities in Shadow Magic and focus on Shadowplay, it never interested her as much as her Voice Magic did. In addition, Shadowplay did not help her independence as Voice Magic did. Voice Magic allowed her to see; Shadowplay did no such thing. Since becoming a mercenary, she has found that Shadowplay is an exceptionally useful thing, and has increased her study of it, to her parents pleasure. Of course, they don’t know why she is studying it so hard.
Other Abilities
Use of her voice to “see.” Flight powers, using her powerful wings. Slightly enhanced senses of hearing, smell, touch, and taste, due to her complete loss of sight.
Character History
There has always been some rivalry between the five strongest Houses of Shadow Magic. When the Rogue Isles were established, each House was eager to expand their power base, before limited to their own country. From Great Britain, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain came representatives of the Five Houses. They established themselves quickly and eyed each other with suspicion, as was the case with the European Houses. However, relations between the Five House swiftly changed, as the Patriarchs and/or Matriarchs of the Houses formed an all-encompassing alliance. This was for the simplest of reasons. Each of the Houses overseas had numerous families within it, and did not often wed outside of the House. Not so the case with the Houses in the Rogue Isles, where the Houses were small and isolated. The alliance grew and matured into friendship; all members are friends and the children of the Houses have a greater variety of mates to choose from. When a child is due to be born to members of the Rogue Isles Houses, the parents return to the country of the father's House for the child's birth, giving the children of the Rogue Isles the same citizenship as children from the European House the Rogue Isle House stems from.
Not all children of a House of Shadow Magic are born with mage-class abilities; some are born with a weak talent, or no ability for Shadow Magic at all. Very rarely, a child has the ability to use other forms of magic. When House Halifax in the Rogue Isles produced no powerful magical heir in the “Boomer” generation, politics in the British faction of House Halifax began to burn. The only child of House Halifax, a non-magical son, married a daughter with a weak talent from another of the Five Houses. Since these sort of unions had never produced a mage-talented child in the past, all involved assumed there would be no mage to head House Halifax in the Rogue Isles once the current Patriarch died (father of the non-magical son), as the Patriarch's wife had a rogue magical talent, but no talent for Shadow Magic. The various families within the British House began to vie to see which mage-class second son or daughter would go to the Rogue Isles to become Patriarch or Matriarch House Halifax there.
The Houses around the world were stunned when House Halifax announced the birth of a mage-class child –- her coloring and wing buds proved it. Her parents named her Vesper (which means "evening") even before they knew she would spend her life in the dark. Even when they did realize that she was blind it was of no matter –- she would be able to use Shadow Magic and House Halifax in the Rogue Isles again had an heir. As the savior of her branch of House Halifax, as a mage-class child, as a blind child, and as an only child and future House Matriarch, Vesper Halifax was pampered and spoiled from birth. The family’s wealth ensured that she had everything she wanted the moment she wanted it. She not only never knew lack, she never knew true desire.
Her playmates, while perhaps not as coddled as Vesper, were the children of the other Five Houses, both mage-class and not. These children were as spoiled as Vesper was; the group personified the stereotype of the snotty rich kid. They were educated by private tutors rather than attending school with “ordinary” children (even the non-mage-class children of the Five Houses were taught they were special, as they might produce a mage-class child someday). They grew up in the rarified atmosphere of the neighborhood the Five Houses created, waited on hand and foot. Most of them loved this life and never wanted to change it, although often they did develop a passion for “slumming” -- by which they mean going to clubs in the rest of the Rogue Isles. Every mage-class child knew how to cast a glamour on him or herself to cover the grey skin and hair so that they did not stand out, but most of the time they were too proud to bother – Vesper foremost among them in refusing to hide her grotesque appearance. She knew her parents thought she was beautiful, and that Darius Devereaux (as powerful a mage as she) found her attractive, and so she did not worry what others said about her appearance –- although she did take to dying her hair lavender, much to her mother’s dismay.
Vesper differed from her peers in one crucial way. Perhaps because of her extra-special treatment, she grew bored with her comfortable life. Although she kept a seeing-eye dog she called Duchess (perhaps the one being she adores more than herself) and could use a white cane, she found that using her voice allowed her to "see." She did not share this with anyone, but honed the power until it she could move around as easily as a sighted person without the dog or the cane. It was at this point Vepsertilia decided to become a mercenary, and add a little spice to her life.
She was never actually in the Zig, but successfully started a rumor that she, like so many others, had been. Knowing that Arachnos had not planned a breakout for her, she passed over the chance to sign on with them and went straight to an independent contractor on Mercy Isle. She enjoyed early success, but it was not until Threat Level 11 that she found her true calling outside of the Houses.
Early on, she had rescued a Council Archon called Winter, and later he contacted her with a special request. Vespertilia, along with a man calling himself Fuergo, infiltrated a building full of Lost and recovered a file on the hero known as Rose in Winter. While Vepsertilia herself had no interest in the hero, the Archon’s desire for this file intruiged her. She had the encryption broken and the file put into Braille. She then used the fact that she had read the file to pressure the Archon into occasional favors . . . it seemed he wanted no one else to know of his interest in Rose in Winter. Vespertilia enjoyed the feeling of power she got from blackmailing him, and she decided to become an information broker. Through listening (her hearing being more than normally acute), sneaking in where she didn’t belong, and listening some more, Vesper has collected a lot of information that should be secret, and enjoys trading on it.
In fact, she enjoys it almost as much as a spa day.
Trivia
Vespertilia is fanatically loyal to all Five Houses. She considers every member of each to be part of her family. She protects the interests of each, even when it puts her in substantial danger.
Vesper can fight when need be, but much prefers to let others do the fighting for her, while she assists in a backup role – of course, she still takes all the credit.
Vesper sometimes moves around in disguise, using a simple magical glamour to hide her standout coloring and calling herself " Rose in Summer ". She is known to appear in Pocket D both in her true form and in a glamorous, more human-looking form. She is often accompanied there by one or more of the other children of the Five Houses.
Vespertilia’s name comes from the Latin word for bat (the animal), vespertilius. She chose it partially for the meaning, enjoying how a bat's natural abilities coincide with her own, and partially for its echo of her given name of Vesper, which means “evening.”
Weaknesses and Limitations
Vesper can be easily tricked if one plays to her vanity enough. She is not a perfect information broker yet, and sometimes lets slip more than she should. This is due in part to her conviction that she is perfect.
Hobbies
Clothes, shoes, manicures, pedicures, infiltrating “secret” bases and “abandoned” buildings, collecting information, and making her own life both easier and more enjoyable.
