River Elemental (Virtue)

The Remarkable River Elemental
Player: @Dyne
Quote:	You're all wet, $target!
Alignment:	Hero
Origin:	Magic
Archetype:	Defender
Level:	29
Super Group:	Dauntless Reverie (Virtue Supergroup), Dauntless Consortium (Virtue Supergroup), Kinetics Revolution (Virtue Supergroup), Rovers (Virtue Supergroup)
Created:	2005-01-21
Personal Data
Real Name:	River Elemental
Known Aliases:	Fred
Species:	Water
Date of Birth:	Unknown
Eye Color:	Blue
Hair Color:	Red
Marital Status:	Single
Biographical Data
Nationality:	Native American...?
Place of Birth:	Galaxy City
Base of Operations:	Gemini Park
Occupation:	Body of Water
Allies:	Azra Acacia
Foes:	Vahzilok, Skinny Dippers
Powers Data
Known Powers:	Water blast, Kinetic Energy manipulation, Teleportation, Invisibility (Transparency)
Known Abilities:	Being wet, Making things wet, Embodying the Gemini Park river
Theme:	Seven Mary Three - The Water's Edge CCR - Proud Mary
[ Source ]

River Elemental is a Kinetics/Water Blast hero from the Virtue server, played by @Dyne. She is the personification and spirit of the small river running through Gemini Park in Galaxy City.

Biography

Awakening

In the days before enough of Paragon City was repaired to allow for Supergroup bases (i.e. they weren't yet added to the game), the northern bank of the Gemini Park river nearest Galaxy City's eastern War Wall became known as The Spot. It was the primary meeting spot for the early Dauntless Reverie, a supergroup composed entirely of magical and magic-touched heroes. All present on January 21, 2005 were startled when the nearby river awoke as a side effect of the intense magical runoff flowing into the water from the large number of sorcerers, witches, wizards, ghosts, magical artifacts, angels, demons, kitsune, and other supernatural beings constantly lurking around The Spot.

Friends and Foes

River's awakened form

Given the slightest opportunity, River will rant on the topic of skinny dippers ("Rude! I'm not that kind of river!"), Vahzilok ("Yuck!"), or worst of all ... the dread Skinny Dipping Vahzilok.

Initially cross at the Daunts for disturbing her slumber, she became much more friendly when she realized that Vahzilok didn't stand a chance with so many heroes constantly on guard. The skinny dippers weren't nearly as common either (though super-powered people often means super-powered libidos, so it was kind of a trade-off).

River eventually met and befriended Azra Acacia, a demoness possessing dubious virtue and intelligence (but a cheerful disposition), who was born in the Hell of Disco (Paragon City has a lot of hells, Jack). They became fast friends when they helped form Kinetics Revolution, a fast-moving group of heroes with kinetic abilities.

Personality

River is fairly young (for a river), but given that she's still older than any living human, this doesn't mean much.

As one might expect from a sentient feature of the landscape, River has a rather strange worldview, and has been known to make many surreal statements and non-sequiturs. She does possess memories predating her awakening, but they are vague and unreliable -- both because she was sleeping, and because things like "people" and "cities" are much more ephemeral when you are a river.

Because she is a fan of Joss Whedon's television shows -- like Firefly and Angel -- River also answers to the name "Fred". Many people have therefore insisted that, logically, Gemini Park must contain "The Fred River". She privately finds this idea a bit dubious, but doesn't really care which name the city puts on their maps. She is River and also Fred, and that's the end of that.

Paragon Chat and Issue 21

In the context of Paragon Chat (which I treat as multiple versions of Paragon City smooshed together), River comes from the same dimension as Heterodyne. In their world, Issue 21: Convergence did not bring the destruction of Galaxy City. Instead, that fate befell Atlas Park.

Physical Characteristics

River is literally made of water ... or she is a spirit inhabiting some water ... or she's a river dreaming that she's a girl ... or something?

The rules are just as fluid as she is.

For example, when River is active, the body of water that she is associated with usually remains in Gemini Park ... but it has also been known to go walkabout when she's away. Likewise, River can remain liquid when the water in the park is frozen solid, and vice versa (she usually wears winter clothes if she plans to be outdoors in freezing weather).

River has almost total control of the shape and behavior of the water that forms her body. Although she can change shape and even gender at will, River almost invariably takes the form of a short, slender girl with almond shaped eyes, pale blue skin, deep blue clothes (sometimes white), red hair, and a black tail. (the tail was added to match Azra's). Normally, she wears a sailor fuku type outfit, but she bundles up in the winter and has also been known to wear costumes for Halloween. It is possible to touch her "skin" or "clothing" (thanks to modified surface tension). It is also possible put your hand completely through her body with only ordinary water resistance. Or anywhere in-between.

River creates coloration (such as her red hair) by altering the refraction of the ambient light like a prism, and she makes parts of her surface more or less opaque by creating tiny vibrating wavelets to break up the surface. She can become "invisible" at will -- i.e. transparent, exactly like you'd expect from a girl made of water. This doesn't mean she's impossible to see, unless she's presently IN water as well as made from it, but it can make her a lot harder to see under some conditions. She thinks of her opacity as essentially her under-underwear, and doesn't like to go transparent in public for no reason; she's not that kind of river. (Though being transparent is a different story, if it makes her difficult to see ... as long as nobody actually saw her do it.)

River has a pet fish named Jerry or Gary that can sometimes be seen swimming around inside her when she goes transparent. It's difficult to say whether the bigger distraction is her fish or her embarrassment at being "naked". She also has been spotted with an unnamed lesser water spirit riding her left shoulder.

When she moves around, she tends to leave a rainbow in her wake.

In-game Description

((RP)) The spirit of the Gemini Park river, awakened by the magical power of the Dauntless Reverie due to magical run-off. Answers to "River" or "Fred". Often wise, usually mysterious, occasionally mischevious, sometimes cynical, frequently playful, and always surreal. River is a fan of Joss Whedon shows, and is not a fan of Vahzilok, skinny dippers, or skinny dipping Vahzilok. Her best friend is Azra Acacia, a demoness of dubious virtue and intelligence, but cheerful disposition.

Notes

— This section pertains to out-of-game information and is included for the benefit of the reader, or to include other OOC information.

River and Azra in an early mission

After the Dauntless formed and began hanging out at The Spot (which was somewhat separate from the main RP site elsewhere in the park), and several of my fellow Gemini Park players had put characters in the group, I considered joining. Unfortunately, I was having too much fun playing Usurper Dyne (my main), he wasn't really magical in any way, and I didn't have any good ideas for anything better suited to the Dauntless, so the notion just sat in the back of my head for awhile.

At some point in mid-January, I'd decided to get involved with some light RP at The Spot. I'd already created Still Heart, but she hadn't yet solidified into an RP character (and as I recall didn't even have a magic origin; she was a Katana scrapper with a mutation origin). I decided to make another new alt. I wanted to poke a little friendly fun at the Daunts, so I came up with the idea of "magical runoff" and wrote River to be irked by it (as her introduction to the players).

Though River is perfectly capable of walking on land, her habit was often to swim in the water near The Spot, listening in on whatever was going on. As such, she was usually parked near the Land Locked badge marker when offline, so she'd spawn in the water. She'd start off muttering or emoting about any nearby events that she found interesting (or annoying), and converse with people if anyone took particular notice of her. So pretty much just like any other Gemini Park roleplayer without an active story, only with more water involved.

River was originally created as a Kinetics/Dark Defender. The idea behind her Kinetics powerset was that rivers are used for transportation of goods, or in other words, moving things around. The Dark Blast set was simply because it was the closest thing that looked like water-based powers; even Tenebrous Tentacles seemed relevant. I simply decided that in order to produce water blasts and so forth, River could open portals to other bodies of water, such as the ocean abyss. She could also reform anywhere in any body of water directly either her body or her Gemini Park manifestation was in direct contact with. This is why I gave her Teleportation as a travel power (though I probably could've justified super speed instead) In Paragon Chat, she has finally been given the Water Blast primary set instead of Dark Blast.

Thanks to her primary set, River was later part of the formation of the all-Kinetic supergroup Kinetics Revolution. As I recall, Azra Acacia was created by Malevelyn's player partly for the purposes of forming this group, and partly just for general shenanigans arising from that character's concept.

Eventually, River became Dauntless herself.