Still Heart (Virtue)
| |
| The Startling Still Heart | |
| Player: @Dyne | |
| Alignment: |
Hero |
| Origin: |
Magic |
| Archetype: |
Scrapper |
| Level: |
37 |
| Super Group: | |
| Created: |
2005-01-15 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: |
Still Heart |
| Known Aliases: |
Still |
| Species: |
Human ... ish |
| Date of Birth: |
Circa mid-1980s, exact date unknown |
| Eye Color: |
Violet |
| Hair Color: |
Red |
| Sexual Orientation: |
Bisexual |
| Marital Status: |
Single |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: |
American |
| Place of Birth: |
Dark Astoria |
| Base of Operations: |
Talos Island |
| Occupation: |
Hero |
| Allies: | |
| Foes: |
The Banished Pantheon, Dreaming Heart |
| Powers Data | |
| Known Powers: |
Dark Melee, Dark Armor, Flight |
| Known Abilities: |
Guardian of the Antithesis |
| Theme: |
Rob Zombie, Dead Girl Superstar |
| [ Source ] | |
Contents
Overview
Still Heart is a Dark Melee/Dark Armor hero from the Virtue server, played by @Dyne.
Biography
The Girl in the Mists
Some years after the abandonment of Astoria, reports periodically surfaced of a slender figure that roamed the haunted town. These sightings were never very clear -- rarely more than a half glimpse of a face at a window, a silhouette vanishing into an alley, or a shadow in the fog -- but there was enough secondary evidence to determine that this mysterious figure was apparently neither a ghost, nor a known hero, nor in league with the usual villains infesting the area.
Word slowly spread about a possible civilian in need of evacuation, and heroes working in the area began to keep an eye out.
In late 2002, a small team of heroes made a definitive sighting of the elusive individual, and discovered that she was an unclothed teenage girl, presently fleeing (with remarkable agility -- from a pursuing group of Banished cultists and their zombie minions. The heroes sprung into action, rescuing her from her pursuers, and -- after some coaxing -- convinced her to accompany them out of Astoria and to tell them about herself. Though she had not complained about the chill in the air, she seemed in imminent danger of hypothermia. Lacking spare clothing, they wrapped her in a cape as a blanket for warmth and to preserve her modesty (such as it was) until they returned to Talos Island and could arrange more suitable attire.
Still Heart's Story
For as long as Still Heart could recall, she had lived in Astoria. She did not remember her parents, or in fact anybody living at all, apart from the ubiquitous cultists. She grew up in the fog, naked and alone. Alone, that is, apart from the ghosts and spirits. As a child, friendly ghosts had taught her to speak and read, and kept her safe and fed as best they were able.
While the ghostly contact was sufficient to develop her mind and prevent her from turning feral, this upbringing perhaps explained her incomplete vocabulary and odd habits of speech, and why she had little in the way of a cultural background or understanding of human interactions. It is good that she did not seem to require much in the way of sustenance and had never known amenities, for such things grew scarce in Astoria following its collapse.
Life After the Dead
The most likely sounding theory that the team tossed around was that Still Heart's parents had probably been trapped in Astoria when the town was lost to the fog, and they had died at the hands of the Banished Pantheon while their daughter was still very young. The town's ghosts had then taken over; the heroes were more than a little amazed that she had survived at all, much less had become surprisingly civilized. They decided to leave the strange girl in the care of the proper authorities, and she promised to remain there ... as long as they in return promised to visit when they could, and to tell her about the life of heroes like themselves.
Still Heart lived in a city orphanage for the next several months, which gave her some basic socialization and a remedial education. Doctors quickly discovered that, for unknown reasons, the girl had no natural body heat or heartbeat (which is how she earned the name "Still Heart"). After the initial alarm, they realized that caused her no discomfort or ill effects. During their visits to check up on her, her hero friends discovered that she also possessed a remarkable facility for combat, and the promised tales of heroism soon became informal training.
Many strangers who learned about her unusual traits quickly turned hostile, but Still had grown up in a very hostile environment and knew how to handle or avoid the more dangerous ones. She didn't hold a grudge against those who reacted more with discomfort; she was all too familiar with that emotion herself. She was still set on the path of following the example of her rescuers and helping others when she could.
Invasion!
Unfortunately, her remedial socialization did not progress far before the first Rikti portals appeared. During the invasion, the orphanage was destroyed, and she was forced alone onto the streets of Paragon City. Fortunately, the instincts and skills developed before her rescue paid off, and she managed to thrive there. Even with her limited training, she began helping those that she could, further developing her abilities. She even had success striking at some of the weaker Rikti forces, before quickly fading away.
After the end of the invasion, Still Heart was at loose ends. The only career she wanted, really knew, or was qualified for was that of the hero, so she registered herself with the city. Paragon City never knew what hit it.
Finding a Path
Eventually, Still Heart encountered the heroes congregating in Galaxy City's Gemini Park. Many were fellow outcasts and people with unusual traits, just like she was. For the first time, she felt she could (somewhat) relate to the lives of others. Ever since she joined The Dauntless Reverie, Still Heart's best friend has been her fellow Daunt, Anne Raiche, aka Anomy.
Personality
Still Heart is a fairly stoic girl. She is never terribly impressed by things that would terrify any sane person, but she has been known to become deeply concerned by the most minor of issues (like ordinary housework). Of course, for Still Heart, deeply concerned often merely manifests as a faint frown and a puzzled brow.
Still is quite caring, especially when looking after her friend Anne, who is prone to bouts of melancholy and carelessness. On the other hand, she has very little concept of propriety or personal space, and the Dauntless have had many a chuckle at conversations Anne and Still have willingly or accidentally had over the group's comms.
In-game Description
((RP)) Born under circumstances best left unexplored, and fostered by the spirits of the dead, Still Heart has always been considered peculiar by her peers -- probably with good reason. It was discovered during her first visit to a doctor that she had no heartbeat, and her body temperature was invariably slightly below that of her environment. Later experiences have demonstrated that Still Heart is neither dead nor undead by any magical measure (she reacts as any other human might to magics that specifically target those categories), though what she actually is is not widely known.
To those who use certain forms of spirit sight, her forehead is marked with a blackly glowing rune of ancient, prehuman origin. A rare, almost unheard of symbol which -- even in the blackest, most unspeakable tomes -- is only included with sudden and unexpected terror in the words and penmanship of those unaccustomed to fear, and then only to deliver an ominous warning:
- "DO NOT DISTURB"
Movement in the Dark
After Still Heart began her career as a hero, the connections that she began to make eventually helped uncover more about her origin. This information can be viewed by expanding this box.
- Still Heart was actually conceived and born in Dark Astoria under circumstances best left unexplored. She is an accidental creation of a small group of Banished Pantheon cultists, who intended to use the infant as a host vessel for awakening one of their dark gods. Unfortunately, their ritual was far more successful than they hoped, and they awoke something far worse... the Antithesis -- the ultimate source of entropy and all negative energy, and the ultimate destination of all that is past, destroyed, or forgotten.
- ((In Lore AMA 2014, Chris Beherens mentions the First Primordial, an entity bound to The Source, the font of creation. In the Hegelian cosmology that Still Heart operates under, The Source and Thesis would be synonymous. Antithesis is the opposite side of the coin, and is no more inherently Evil than Thesis is inherently Good. They are simply the pure concepts that generate the dichotomy that underlies all existence, interacting at their border to form Synthesis, aka reality.))
- This entity was not pleased to be awakened. It obliterated the intruding cultists with less than a thought. Being entropic in nature, Antithesis preferred to expend the minimum effort necessary to prevent a recurrence of their offense, which is fortunate, because it might very well have obliterated the planet as an encore. Instead, it decided to imbue the infant with a connection to itself, setting her up to become Guardian of the Antithesis after she grew up (a barely noticeable amount of time). It then returned to sleep and left her to fend for herself.
- Still Heart gains her powers by drawing on potent -- and extremely pure (untainted by concepts like "evil") -- dark energies from her patron. If she senses a threat to her patron's repose, a stronger "Guardian form" (which is also more socially skilled, thanks to greater access to the immense forgotten knowledge possessed by Antithesis) can manifest itself. The Guardian is roughly on the power level of a Well.
- It has rarely been seen, but her patron can also directly occupy her body, even while it slumbers. This is a completely black, Still Heart shaped silhouette known as the "Antithesis form". Even mostly asleep, this entity can channel power surpassing the Dimensionless. Should anyone be so foolish as to deliberately awaken it further, it will be capable of feats that are beyond even the Primordials (likely demonstrated by the immediate and total destruction of whatever woke it up, no resurrections or take-backsies, possibly to be joined shortly by the responsible party's home galactic supercluster. If Antithesis is in a lenient mood.)
- Still Heart doesn't seem to be able to retain more than a basic awareness of the existence of her patron or even her Guardian form, which is probably exactly as intended. She only knows that it is extremely dangerous to meddle with them. Neither she nor any other external force can shift her into her alternate forms or otherwise cause them to appear; the choice is entirely at the whim and discretion of her patron and the criteria it set up.
- As a side effect of Still Heart's connection to Antithesis, her heart does not beat (thus her name), and her body temperature is invariably several degrees below her surroundings (no matter whether she is in the Sahara or the depths of space). She's essentially a walking energy sink. In spite of this, she is still alive; spells targetting corpses or undead have no particular influence over her.
- Still Heart's forehead, to those with magical perceptions, is marked with a blackly glowing rune of impossibly ancient origin. It is so old that it has made appearances, unchanged in form, for as long as records have existed. It was said to be ancient even when the oldest of these records was made, and may well predate the universe itself -- or perhaps all of them, according to some accounts). The rune is simply the symbol for Antithesis, and it is associated with a warning of extreme danger and apprehension, even in the records of the vilest of evil sorcerors: DO NOT DISTURB
Notes
- — This section pertains to out-of-game information and is included for the benefit of the reader, or to include other OOC information.
- I'm hand-waving a bit on the timeline here. In the original bible, I believe that Astoria fell to the Pantheon during the First Rikti War, not years before that (Still Heart needed time to grow up). In practice, the game always seemed to be rather vague on the topic of what had happened to Astoria and when, especially back in early 2005. I always imagined it as an anachronism, frozen in time just like the ghosts that inhabited it. I figured that limitations on artist time and game size were the only thing keeping it from looking older.
- Still Heart's patron was invented primarily because I got a little tired of dealing with cosmological one-upmanship in character backstories. I decided to short-cut to the end of the process by tying Still to the most fundamental entity I could think of, which I realize sounds an awful lot like one-upmanship itself. The difference was that I then proceeded to make it almost entirely uninvolved in the world, mainly interested in sleeping in that day. It isn't really meant to come up in game (though it has on at least one occasion). By coincidence, the setup that I envisioned aligns pretty well with what little is known about the Incarnate/Well/Dimensionless/Primordial hierarchy after the game shut down.
- Costumes
