Apologies again for redoing stuff, but I keep on getting caught up on wanting to implement Hex in my character's background. This concept is really based on the idea that even someone as lawful good as Hex as to have made a mistake at some point, with the best intentions in mind of course ([i]*cue spooky arcane rituals*[/i]). [hider=We Are Entranced, Spellbound] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/owVQLcm.jpg[/img] "[i]Cats. Cats are nice.[/i]"[/center] [indent] [b]Name[/b]: Nina Nikolayevna Noskova. // Nina to her friends. // Ninenka to her intimate friends. [b]Alias[/b]: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9otg_Cm50RE]Spellbound[/url] [b]Age[/b]: Nina was in her mid-twenties at the time of her death some twenty years ago. If she were still alive she would be in the middle of her forties. [b]Powers[/b]: Undead Physiology, Regeneration, and Limited Resurrection Neither alive nor truly dead, Nina is an undead creature trapped in an unwelcome cycle of reincarnation by Hex's powerful but ultimately flawed ritual magic. Gifted with an undead physiology, Nina has superhuman strength and stamina. Lacking the physiological needs of a living, breathing human being Nina is highly resistant to physical damage. She possesses a healing factor and has gained a measure of immortality thanks to the elemental energy that imbues her form with undead life. Wile Nina has been destroyed a number of times, she always returns to life after some time, reawakening restored in her crypt in Norwood Cemetery. However, each time that she is resurrected Nina is touched by the magic woven through her soul and she is irrecoverably changed. With each new life, her powers, memories, and personality have been twisted, leaving Nina unsure if she's even the same person that she was before her death. [b]Weaknesses[/b]: In her current incarnation, Nina lacks any ranged abilities. Altered by the magic that keeps her among the living, Nina is slowly losing herself to the powers that Hex accidentally gave her with his flawed ritual. The magic surging through her have stripped her of not just her mortality but her very essence of being. Her memories have begun to change, fading into the darkness. Her personality and her form have been gnarled and reshaped into something that she can not recognize. Power, dark, unbidden power pools within her. Standing between the living and the dead, Nina is troubled by the voices of the recently dead. Less often, she finds herself drawn to unwelcome communion with long dead spirits. [b]Appearance[/b]: exceedingly pale, unhealthy pallor to her skin elfin build average stature moves with an inhuman grace, practically floating above the ground when she moves serious eyes that offer a promise of grim deeds to come brown hair that reaches just above her shoulders [i]Typical Clothing:[/i] leather boots formal dresser, prefers a good suit [i]Costumed Appearance:[/i] As Spellbound, Nina wraps herself in a coarse funeral shroud that she has fashioned into a hooded cloak and several layers of black clothing. Over her hands she wears gel-lined fingerless gloves that protect her hands and wrists from the immense forces she generates with each punch. She wears black leather boots. The most modern aspect of her costume is her helmet, a tasteful number in black with darkened glass that casts shadowy reflections of all that she sees. [url=https://i.imgur.com/vMX0EEV.jpg]Back in Black[/url] [url=https://i.imgur.com/ViLsfRl.jpg]Spooky Costume[/url] [b]Equipment[/b]: [b]Origin[/b]: [hider=I:Into The Light] [center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx3JG9M25tU]Into The Light[/url] [i]"Standing in the light I never wanted to be right Now I'm attracted by the light And blinded my the sight"[/i][/center] Nina was born to a family of unremarkable nobodies in Cedar Fort sometime in the early 2020s. A middling student, she stood out only for her magical abilities at a young age. She was a contemporary of Hex, that is, until he killed her. She was initiated into the magical arts by the Witch Zita. The wizened Slovak witch was her teacher for many years and taught Nina most what she knows about magic. [/hider] [hider=II:Arcane Delights] [center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0juzZl1YFA8]Arcane Delights[/url] [i]"Here in the garden of the arcane delights, Dark shadows overwhelm us and we become blind. Blind to the needs of those who would be free From the grip of fear and the prisons of the mind."[/i][/center] - Becomes an arcane hero - Meets Hex - Budding friendship/team-up - Several years in, she is cursed/gravely wounded fighting some BBEG of a magical sort. - Realizing that she is slowly dying, she attempts to find a cure/solution. - Hex manages to come up with a plan, suggests using an old occult ritual to heal her. [/hider] [hider=III: Now I'm feeling zombiefied!] [center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfm7cOJfOjk]Now I'm feeling zombiefied![/url] [i]"Some present you gave me, the bitterest pill My eyes is all grey And I haven't slept in days Locked up in your dungeon Running around in your maze Now I'm feeling zombiefied"[/i][/center] - Hex's arcane ritual ends up being flawed. Perhaps, Hex made a mistake. It is also equally possible that the ritual was tainted by the dark eldritch energies already affecting Nina (this is something that Nina refuses to entertain) - Nina ends up neither alive nor fully dead (undead/unlife) - The magic ritual rather than heal her twisted her into an undead creature. Caught between life and death, she was also imbued with additional powers. Most of these powers/changes would only become apparent with time. - Predictably Nina and Hex have a following out. She accuses him of turning her into a monster. Hex is distraught and unable to accept that his magic could have done this (and the implication that a good deed or good intentions can result in greater tragedy) - Nina leaves [/hider] [hider=IV: Haunted] [center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-jYnU-UPcA]Haunted[/url] [i]"Of freshly dug grave and death and night These things are her essence"[/i][/center] - At first, Nina simply hides out the Cormack Cemetery of Autumn Hills. Cursing her own fate, despairing, and generally throwing a super great tantrum. - Eventually, Nina decides that she will keep Autumn Hills safe and become the protector of the neighborhood. - Nina spends the next 20 or so years protecting Autumn Hills - Fights criminals and supernatural spirits that encroach upon her domain - Occasionally ends up in conflict with the police, but largely they come to learn when Autumn Hills is "off-limits" to them - Runs into other superheroes ever so often. Talks little, reveals less, and generally most of them will know nothing more than maybe that she goes by Spellbound. - Thanks to a residual connection to Hex (stemming from the magical ritual which created her) she feels his death and also receives the recorded message. - Fighting off a growing torpor, she decides that she owes Hex. Her anger/feelings have faded somewhat and her memories themselves have become disjointed. [/hider] [b]Personality[/b]: Bitter, jaded, and angry; Nina is all of these things in great abundance. The grand adventure of being a wizard and superhero has trapped her in what she perceives to be her own personal hell. Slowly losing herself and her memories to the eldritch energies which swirl through her. Beneath the fearless confidence of the undying, Nina hides all that she has lost and all that she desires. Memories are twisted, memories fade, and with each passing moment Nina despairs that she is losing more of herself. Nina can no longer deny what she has become. A monster, something less than human; a creature of the night. She can feel her emotions unraveling, becoming undone, and she no longer knows how to change or return to the woman she once was. She struggles to resist her darkening thoughts and can feel a gnawing hunger, inhuman desire, unhurriedly consume what little remains of her soul. She can sense the fractures that deepen within her, slowly tearing her apart. Weakness and fragility that can only be mended with further lose of her humanity. Another heavy price to pay. As Spellbound, Nina has retreated from humanity and other superheroes. Long since divorced from her humanity she cares little for the laws of men or the lofty morals of other superheroes. Instead, she acts of her own violation, following what she can remember of her own conscience. Withering with the dying light of her own spirit, it is becoming increasingly hard for Nina to call upon this inner voice. In Cedar Fort, Spellbound has become a legend, a mysterious vengeful spirit that keeps a nightly vigil over the neighborhood known as Autumn Hills. Cedar Fort Police Department database files detail Spellbound's activities protecting the residents of Autumn Hills, but also note several encounters with the vigilante that devolved into violence when officers attempted to impede her efforts. While rarely violent, Nina's encounters with other heroes have been sparse, terse, and full of otherworldly tension. Those that have met her, remember only a faint whisper of a voice that offered nothing more than a few cryptic words in parting. However, despite her reclusive nature, Nina sometimes seeks the assistance of mundane mortals, supernatural creatures, and superheros to fulfill her enigmatic goals. Further, having spent too long languishing in the crypt that she calls home, she has unintentionally adopted some of the mannerisms ascribed to ancient undead creatures and to those that provide her with a service of some kind she will return the favor by allowing them to call upon her in times of great need using grim magical charms carved out of bone. [b]Misc Facts[/b]: Following her death in 2027, Nina has acted as the protector of the Autumn Hills neighborhood in Cedar Fort. Private, bordering on isolationist, she has largely avoided interaction with all other heroes or vigilantes since the start of her unlife. As an undead creature, Nina does not have any of the physiological needs of a base human being. She doesn't need to breath, eat, or sleep. She has no pulse and her skin is as cold as the grave to the touch. [b]Relationship with Hex[/b]: Hex had promised. He had promised to help her. He had promised that he would find a way to save her. He was wrong. He made a mistake. He didn't save her. He cursed her. He bound her. He trapped her between life and death. He failed her. When she learned the truth she ran away. She ran away from Hex. She hated him. He had damned her. For all his ideals and good intentions, he'd sealed her fate. He'd turned her into a monster. He'd made her into a creature of the night. Far from the neon lights of Fort Cedar she found a new place and a new purpose. The Autumn Hills belonged to the Spellbound. She kept them safe. She was a monster, but not a villain. Her hatred for Hex tempered. It was so hard to remember what it was like to be alive, to be so full of feeling. She didn't need to see the encrypted video message to know that Hex was dead, she had felt it. She had to act. She owed him that much, for all that he had done for her and for all of his failures. [/indent][/hider] - [hider=Autumn Hills] Settled in the early 1700s by Eastern European immigrants, Autumn Hills, is one Cedar Fort's many ethnic neighborhoods. Tinged with a darker reputation it is rumored to be home to organized crime elements and occult spirits that tend to discourage outside visitors. Which is a shame, because Autumn Hills is heaven for any visitor who likes charming and/or cluttered curiosity shops, spicy pierogis, or fresh, flavorful pirozhki just out of the oven. Night falls early here though, and Autumn Hill's mystic and crime-ridden reputation keeps most non-residents away after dusk. Brave souls may venture out at night to catch a glimpse of Spellbound, the mysterious guardian of Autumn Hills, on one of her nightly patrols. Adjoining the neighborhood is the Cormack Historical Cemetery. Largely abandoned, the once sprawling cemetery has slowly turned into a dark, twisted forest as the landscape has been relinquished to nature. The grand mausoleums and elaborate tombstones of a bygone era remain standing, crumbling slowly as they lay hidden beneath years of foliage and dust. [/hider]