Mei-Ri Nightdancer
"There are as many different definitions of demon as there are human cultures in the world, and there are as many cultures in the world as there are humans in it to invent them. Is it really such a wonder that your demonologists don't know everything there is to know about us? After all, you've got a thousand scientific disciplines dedicated to understanding yourselves and you're not there yet."
"Hehe...besides. It worked for Hellboy, why can't it work for me?"
- Mei-Ri Nightdancer, during an interview with a UNITY-appointed demonology panel.
| Mei-Ri Nightdancer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player: @DevilLordLaser | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| See? Even demons can have bad fashion sense | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Character Build | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Class Focus: | Avenger | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power Level: | 30 (and rising) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Research & Development: | Mysticism | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Biographical Data | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Real Name: | Mei-Ri Nightdancer | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Known Aliases: | 'Violet Typhoon' | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gender: | Female | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Species: | Unknown Infernal variant | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ethnicity: | N/A | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of Birth: | Millenium City | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Base of Operations: | Millenium City | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relatives: | Brian Peterson(Uncle Yeller!) Kyle de la Roya(Uncle Fuzzy!) Chris Constantine(Uncle Crazy!) Tanya Zachary(Auntie Scary!) Danielle Richards(Auntie Frills!) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Characteristics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Age: | 19 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height: | 5'6" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight: | 116 lbs. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Eyes: | Gold | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hair: | Pale grey, worn short | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Complexion: | Lavender, well cared for | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Physical Build: | Slender, almost slight | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Physical Features: | None beyond species differences | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Status | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alignment: |
Neutral Good | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reputation: |
Reputable | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Identity: | General knowledge | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years Active: | 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Citizenship: | ...complicated | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation: | Law enforcement | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Education: | G.E.D. equivalent | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marital Status: | Single. And not interested, either. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Known Powers and Abilities | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Demonic Nature Atmospheric Distortion | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Equipment and Paraphernalia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reactive trauma system Replica 'Nimbus Force' barrier charm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Attributes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Psyche |
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| ReldinBox Template | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Contents
Creation
Ahhh, Mei-Ri. The first character I ever created in Champions, though due to a later delete and recreation, not technically my oldest. She was my first foray into Champions' character creation system, and due to me not having a single clue what I was doing about anything back then, she was also a terrible mess in her early incarnations. Mei-Ri started life as an extradimensional refugee slaved to the Marksman Archetype rather than the out-and-out Hellspawn she later became, demonic in appearance more because I wanted to play with the creator's nonstandard items and features than because I felt she needed to be a demon. Her earliest iterations featured cybernetics for no good reason and had her wearing heavy goggles and a full hood to try and deal with the painful brightness of Earth's sun, as compared to the dim red star her own homeworld orbited around.
Putting it shortly, she was the sort of character whom, upon encountering in the world, you'd shake your head at once, sigh in dismay, and promptly forget if you noticed her at all. Nevertheless, after I deleted her following a botched Retrain when I first went Gold, I always rather missed her. That first iteration made for a terrible character, but there were a few sparks of potential there I'd always wished I could have drawn out. Much later, after several new powerset releases, a bunch of costume packs, and some much-needed education, I finally felt like I could give Mei-Ri a decent shot.
The dimensional-wanderer angle had already been picked up by Koro though, and since Koro had indisputably become my main character in Mei-Ri's absence, poor Mei-Ri needed a new schtick. I settled on a Hellboy-inspired origin and the Wind powerset, in an attempt to preserve the feeling of freedom and mobility the Marksman archetype offered and which had become inextricably linked in my mind with Mei-Ri herself. A few costume packs and some judicious short-bio editing later, and Mei-Ri was back up and running.
It'll certainly be interesting to see where she ends up, at least for me.
Short-Form (In-Game) Bio
An enigmatic creature with a soft voice, a warm heart, and an odd passion for gaming, Mei-Ri Nightdancer was actually summoned into being by a small group of EXTREMELY fortunate Dungeons & Dragons players, experimenting with a book of the occult one night.
They were successful - very nearly disastrously so, given what they COULD have called up - but the creature they actually ended up with was a mere infant, too small to cause havoc. Too small, it would seem, to have learned the wickedness so many thought inherent to her breed. Or at least she never tried to bite off their fingers or swallow their souls or some such.
The group was scared spitless; none of them had been prepared for their fooling to really accomplish anything...but as they realized they WEREN'T going to die, they also realized that they had a problem. The spell had been quite specific - the demon they'd called was bound to them until it gave them a boon to win its freedom. Well, at her age she couldn't be giving anyone a boon that wasn't fertilizer. Only then did the weekend summoners realize that THEY were as trapped as their charge - they were as bound to the demon as it was to them.
And so it was that a group of four Dungeons & Dragons players found themselvs raising an infant demon together. They gave her a name straight out of one of their splatbooks and argued long into the night over what job class she'd turn out to have even as she ate the bedsheets. Occasionally aided by a fantastically amused Alicia Blackmun, the group managed to raise Mei-Ri into as close to a law-abiding citizen of Millenium City as a purple-skinned devil could get, whilst Mei-Ri herself took shameless advantage of being FAR more powerful than all of her four surrogate parents combined to ensure she was spoiled rotten as a child.
As for Mei-Ri's job class, when she grew up? Why, she would turn out to be what every little kid wants to be at some time in their lives.
A superhero, of course!
Physical
Mei-Ri Nightdancer is a Devil of the Abyss, clearly inhuman. She makes no real attempt to hide this fact - her purple skin, the unusual, digitigrade structure of her legs, and her hooves are quite difficult to hide, as is her tail. As well, Mei-Ri has found that being open and up-front about her species earns her points - whether honesty points or surprise points depends on the individual in question.
Standing at 5'6", Mei-Ri is short even by human standards. She's positively diminutive next to the more common breeds of Hellspawn encountered by humanity, with a slender build, a shockingly human face, and almost delicate-seeming limbs. She is, by the 'expert' opinions of those demonologists who've looked at her case, "not very impressive." After taking offense to their tone, Mei-Ri herself tends to agree. She's built for speed and agility over raw physical force; while she is stronger than her size would suggest, she's swiftly outmatched in a purely physical brawl by sufficiently burly inmates, let alone supervillains.
In general, Mei-Ri's body follows human patterns. She has most of the major organs in mostly the right places, with a few hair-raising exceptions that panicked the hell out of the doctors when they were discovered, and a slight majority of basic medications will have at least some of their usual effects on her. She can eat ordinary food just fine and her major organic functions are at least recognizable by modern medical science. This hasn't stopped her from having her share and more of Adventures in Biology...but she hasn't managed to fatally poison herself yet, and the doctors have been able to put her back together in the wake of her more exciting criminal apprehensions.
Powers and Combat
Demonic Nature
Mei-Ri's demonic nature gives her certain edges over the average human when it comes time to get violent. Her lithe body is built for speed, and is damn good at it - Mei-Ri is possessed of inhuman speed and agility, faster and more maneuverable than any human acrobat ever could be. She's not much stronger than a well-trained human soldier and is as unable to throw cars as any other civilian, but she can keep up with those cars she can't throw in a race, and can very likely outlast their gas tanks. That, of course, is the other major facet of Mei-Ri's demonic nature - her physical endurance is almost as impressive as her speed. She can sustain a pace of physical exertion which would exhaust a human being in minutes for hours at a time, pushing herself far harder than any civilian could survive. Her devil's body is built to sustain incredible speed for impossible durations - Mei-Ri is a marathon sprinter extraordinaire who has actually won long-distance races against out-and-out speedsters using her impossible endurance to offset their greater top speed.
Why her particular breed of demon is built this way, she doesn't know. No other examples of her species have cropped up in recent enough times for anyone to have any previous experience with it, nor has anyone managed to find themselves in whatever lower dimension is home to Mei-Ri's race.
Mystic Acuity
Mei-Ri has a natural grasp of the intricacies and structure of magic; she's attuned to mystic energies in a way few humans are. Magic comes easily to her, or at least as easily as it comes to anyone. Mei-Ri isn't a trained battlemage by any stretch of the imagination, but she is something of an enchanter. She enjoys tinkering with mystic artifacts, creating charms and talismans to help her on the job when she's off the job, and has some ability to directly invoke spellcraft when not getting shot at. On the whole, magic is more of a fun toy, or perhaps a hobby, to Mei-Ri than a serious tool. At least for now - she's only nineteen, who knows how much her knowledge will grow as she continues to train. She's already bound a pack of spirit-hounds to herself, able to call them from the Mists to hunt her prey, savage her foes, or play with her on slow days. See, there they are now - Eenie, Meenie, Mynie, and Jehosephat.
Atmospheric Distortion
By far her most potent trick, Mei-Ri possesses an instinctive ability to manipulate the atmosphere around her, creating powerful localized weather phenomena - read: microstorms and lightning bolts. Whether this is a natural talent of her species or a meta...devil?...trick inherent to her alone is unknown, and largely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Mei-Ri can create and control punishing streams of intense wind and discharge bolts of electricity at will, trapping her enemies in the smallest severe thunderstorm they've ever seen. Foes brought down by Mei-Ri typically require severe exposure treatment, afflicted by frostbite, electrical shock, and a massive profusion of small injuries brought about by being in the center of a powerful windstorm.
Police Training
Unlike many of the costumed idiots who ostensibly share Mei-Ri's profession, this li'l devil is not ignoring centuries of painful learning where it comes to law enforcement. Mei-Ri has enrolled in several training programs designed to teach her necessary and vital skills in her field, including both combat elements such as S.W.A.T. training and hostage negotiations as well as less violent skills such as detection and the basics of law and jurisprudence. These courses are ongoing and eat most of Mei-Ri's downtime; unfortunate, given her penchant for gaming. Still, Mei-Ri does not intend to be one of those Spandex-clad ignoramuses whose every 'arrest' is thrown out of court in ten minutes and whose name is deepest profanity to proper law enforcement. If she's going to do the job, she's going to learn how to do it properly.
Psychological
Mei-Ri is astonishingly grounded and well-adjusted for someone who is, in fact, a Spawn of the Infernal Pits. She's adapted frighteningly well to life in Millennium City and to her highly unusual family unit, taking in all around her with a frank and open curiosity that's been with her since her earliest days. Trained from the cradle by both her adoptive parents and Millenium City mystics to be deeply introspective and brutally honest with herself as a means of regulating and revealing any malicious tendencies her demonic blood may incite in her, Mei-Ri knows herself far better than any nineteen year old really has a right to. She's already wrestled with her issues, and while she's not immune to doubts, misgivings, regrets and indecision, she is not paralyzed by such things, nor does she allow them to undermine the being she knows she is. Very few people can say anything about her Infernal heritage that she has not said to herself and worked her way through.
In large part because of this early training, Mei-Ri's ability for logical analysis and critical thinking is very nearly inhuman itself. Concealing no truth of her own, no matter how painful or humiliating, she's developed a distinct talent for ferreting out those truths others would like to hide. She acknowledges her strengths and weaknesses with a frank, objective clarity at once both refreshing and unsettling. This same blunt objectivity finds itself applied to most everything Mei-Ri decides to do; she is a phenomenal actor, able to compartmentalize her personality with unnerving efficacy and get inside the heads of those whose motives and ambitions seem utterly impenetrable to others. She shows all the signs of being an absolutely fantastic detective, once she completes her training, and those members of the MCPD which are not put off by her appearance and origins are positively salivating over her potential.
