”I will admit this to you: Wakanda must change. I will not say what, or how--not now in the midst of war--but I know there must be change. But I cannot do it alone.”
P O W E R S A N D A B I L I T I E S
THE HEART SHAPED HERB An herb native to Wakanda that is blessed by Bast which grants the current Black Panther all of their enhanced abilities.
ENHANCED STRENGTH While nowhere near strong as any powerhouse, T”Challa is capable of wrestling rhinos, gorillas, lions, tigers, and is able to subdue them.
ENHANCED SPEED Fast as his namesake, T’Challa is capable of north-south speed of around 60-70mph. His top speed is not sustainable for long periods of time and he often opts to use the surrounding area to capture whoever/whatever he is chasing.
ENHANCED REFLEXES T’Challa’s raw reaction time coincides with how quickly he runs. Already a peak athlete, the boons afforded him by the Heart Shaped Herb have made it possible for him to evade and react to most manner of superhuman being. Those faster than him prove difficult to detain.
ENHANCED AGILITY Light as his namesake, T’Challa can change directions quicker than many. He transitions from low surfaces to high surfaces without much issue, and his body goes through its kinetic chains with less rigidity than many. Scaling trees, jagged surfaces, and any manner of natural divit and contour is no arduous task.
ACCELERATED HEALING His body’s ability to recover from injury is several times faster than the average human. This is not to be confused with regeneration; he cannot regenerate lost limbs nor instantaneously heal from bullet or knife wounds. He can recover from major injuries in around half the time it takes a normal human to do the same.
ENHANCED SENSES Acute sensory abilities pervade the whole of his five senses. He can see from around a mile and a half away with some focus, but mere sight affords him the ability to see from around a city block away. His smell allows him to collect a scent within a crowd of a few hundred people. His hearing allows him to intercept sound from within the next room. Hs touch allows him to feel the thinnest cracks and subtle shifts in air pressure and temperature.
ENHANCED DURABILITY Muscle tissues and bones thickened and strengthened, T’Challa can withstand greater punishment than normal; it is harder for bones to break or ligaments to tear.
ENHANCED STAMINA It takes him longer than the average human to tire as his body produces less lactic acid. Where the average human can become tired from rigorous physical exertion after a few hours (and sometimes a few minutes), T’Challa can expend energy continuously for a day at maximum before he tires and must rest.
MASTER MARTIAL ARTIST T’Challa is--among earthbound, human-born combatants--one of the best hand to hand martial artists in the world. Boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, Jiu Jitsu, these and more are members of his arsenal. His duties as Black Panther require mastery of a wealth of styles that will allow him to attack and counter most foes he comes across. Those with superior physical advantages can prove a challenge for him to subdue regardless of his depth of technical skill.
BLACK PANTHER HABIT MK.II The ceremonial garb of the Black Panther’s religious and militant Habit has seen a myriad change over its lengthy existence. In its most recent incarnation that his sister designed, the Habit can store and expel kinetic energy and materialize over T’Challa’s person at whim. A Vibranium mesh weave, the foremost properties of Vibranium: sound absorption, kinetic energy absorption, enhancement of magic, are present within this recent incarnation.
Projectiles of any natural type, including lasers, are absorbed into the suit (up to a point) before they must be expelled lest the suit forcibly release the energy with violent results. A set of small retractable Vibranium claws are present in the hands and feet of the Habit. The suit has yet to be tested against magics or extraplanetary energies.
MONEY Wakanda is quite rich, one of the richest foreign nations in the world. T'Challa, as the King's son, has access to Wakanda's amassed fortune.
D.O.B.
03/15/1992.
ORIGIN AND BACKSTORY
Born to King T’Chaka and Queen N’Yami of Wakanda, their eldest son, T’Challa, grew up under the loom of kingship. All his life he has been raised to take the reigns of leader and protector of Wakanda. Bred from solitude and his body strained beneath rigorous martial training, T’Challa had no normal childhood and it manifested in him a distant and detached sense of his own being in relation to to others.
By the time T’Challa was in his early twenties, his duties as aspiring Black Panther--leader of the Panther cult and military leader of Wakanda--careened his focus toward the martial part of the two mantles he is planning to assume (that of king and Black Panther). Yet to become King, T’Challa oversees all military operations within Wakanda.
WHAT MAKES THIS CHARACTER 'ULTIMATE'?
This T’Challa does not stray from who he is in 616 in terms of personality. He has yet to become King in the Ultimate universe; his father, T’Chaka, still occupies the throne and so T’Challa has recently required the mantle of Black Panther as his elderly father can no longer fulfill the physical tax the role takes on the body (even with the aid of the Heart Shaped Herb). This first arc will focus on the duties of the Black Panther and I will try and add some flesh to the various tribes and the other cults around Wakanda, something that does not often happen in T’Challa’s own books.
The Wakanda of the Ultimate universe will not be one of peace and will be a country torn by war and betrayal and insurrection as it is in the comics, but these will bellow beyond simple uprisings within the nation’s borders as is often the case and will scale more as full fledged wars between Wakanda and one, two and sometimes three other neighboring nations at a time with political implications abound. I do not know if I will have T’Challa become king of Wakanda in Year One. Wakanda’s members will all be much younger than their counterparts and all of them will have to adjust to their roles as the next generation of leaders for their country.
T’Challa’s story is one of political turmoil, leadership, failure, triumph. All of these are things I hope to accurately represent in a mini Nation RP scale story.
S U P P O R T I N G C H A R A C T E R ST’C H A K A
T’Challa’s father and current king of Wakanda. Age 55.
N’J O B U
Present prince of Wakanda and N’Jadaka’s father.
Z U R I
The king’s longstanding hulking bodyguard.
S H U R I
T’Challa’s younger sister who is around a decade younger than he is in 616 canon. For my purposes, she will be in her early twenties.
D O R A M I L A J EI
Though adherent to the whim of the incumbent king of Wakanda, the Dora Milaje are also at the disposal of the Black Panther in times of war. The Dora Milaje number in the thousands, though the Black Panther and the king tend to interact only with the group’s general and her immediate underlings. Upon their creation, they functioned as ‘ladies-in-wait’, girls from each tribe would be selected as part of this harem in order to appease tribal relations as each tribe had at least one representative within the king’s quarters. These women were raised to be married off to the king but later the Dora Milaje were repurposed into the royal guard that they are today.
O K O Y E
A fierce, loyal, and rising member of the Dora Milaje, the king of Wakanda’s elite personal bodyguard and fighting force. She is not the Milaje’s general in Year One.
W’ K A B I
Wakanda’s resident security officer who is also rising through the ranks of Wakanda’s national defense division.
M’B A K U
Leader of the Jabari, an antagonistic mountain tribe who worships the Ape God Ghekre that, like the Panther God Bast, grants the Jabari otherworldly abilities (namely superhuman strength and durability).
N A K I A
A spy and former member of the Dora Milaje. T’Challa’s main love interest.
Q U E E N R A M O N D A
T’Challa’s stepmother and the woman to whom he goes for guidance and wisdom.
H U N T E R, T H E W H I T E W O L F
T’Challa’s older adopted brother. He is a zealot who was adopted by T’Chaka after his parents died in a plane crash in Wakanda. Hunter’s relationship with T’Challa is tumultuous as Hunter’s love for Wakanda more intense than some native Wakandans. He will go to lengths no one else in Wakanda will. Hunter leads the
Hatut Zeraze.
- Hatut Zeraze: Or the War Dogs, Wakanda’s resident and longstanding secret police, spy, infiltration, and assassination force. They are some of Wakanda’s best warriors and mercenaries. Many are installed in rival nations as spies.
A member of the Dora Milaje.
A N E K A
Another member of the Dora Milaje, known for her temper.
U L Y S S E S K L A U E
Wakanda’s most persistent villain next to Killmonger. One of the few men who knows Wakanda’s true value to the world from which it hides and seeks the nation’s precious metal for himself.
N’ J A D A K A A K A E R I K K I L L M O N G E R
Lifelong antagonist of T’Challa and T’Challa’s equal in martial ability and intelligence. Whether or not he will show up in this season I do not know, but his motivations will be a mix of those from the MCU and 616.
D J E M B E
Leader and dictator of Niganda, a larger rival African nation to Wakanda’s west. He is also aware of the Vibranium in Wakanda and seeks to get his hands on it.
N A R O B I A
Ruled by Princess Zanda, Narobia and Wakanda’s tenuous relationship results in persistent tension between the two nations which often sees its ruler at odds with Wakanda and often allying with its enemies.
A Z A N I A
Bordering Wakanda to the East, Azania is like Narobia, sometimes an opposing force to Wakanda’s welfare. A remnant of Apartheid Africa, its members and its leaders are a nation whose governing body is a group of superhumans. Its leader, General Magnus Moore often dispatches the members of his team, the Supremacists, to invade Wakanda and levy political favor from its other enemies.
- Barricade: A metahuman who can erect massive shields and barriers around himself and his allies.
- Captain Blaze: A metahuman who can eject heated plasma from his body, specifically his eyes and hands.
- Voortecker: A trained spy and infiltratiotor. Whether or not he is enhanced is unknown.
WDG for short. Led by his sister, Shuri, it is the heart of Vibranium licensing, trademarking, selling, mining, refining, and weaponry manufacturing for Wakanda. It is the nation’s largest homegrown corporation and has upwards of several thousand employees. It is headquartered in Birnin Zana, the capital city of Wakanda, but the corporation also has operations in Mena Ngai and Birnin Bashenga.
N E C R O P O L I S
The City of the Dead, where all of Wakanda’s past Panther’s souls rest, guarded by the Panther God, Bast.
C R O C O D I L E C U L T
A group of arcane worshippers who pray to the Crocodile God, Sobek. He is brother to Bast, the Panther God of Wakanda. They are practitioners of sacrificial magic.
H Y E N A C U L T
Unlike the other cults of Wakanda, the Hyena Cult are nonreligious. They are scavengers, hunters, and robbers who reside on the furthest reaches of the nation’s borders. Through use of a teleporter built by their ancestors from scraps of Vibranium, the Hyena Cult steal and pillage from neighboring tribes. Their accrued wealth make them one of the richest and largest tribes who reside outside of the Golden City (Birnin Zana).
O R IS H A
The Gods of Africa: Thoth, God of the Earth; Kokou, God of War; Mujaji, God of Sustenance; Ptah, God of Shaping (creation, molding, etc); and Bast, the Panther God. Their role will be secondary until much later in the plot, and Bast is the only one who will play a major role throughout Year One.
S A M P L E P O S T
Across the Wakandan hills rolled the ethereal looking sun as it smiled over the nation. On the edge of a cliff stood T'Challa, gaze fixed on the sun's annexing of the firmament. There was silence all around him. Today of all days, the country was quiet--no luminous reds could be seen from across the border where rebels were staging their insurrections toward the border armies, no news yet another usurper had graced his ears. On this day, the nation bubbled with anticipation for today was the day that the royal throne was on the line. Today was challenge day.
These were his final moments before he had to prepare. The challengers were always random, and several times did contenders try and cheat. One even tried to attack T'Challa while T'Challa's back was turned. Zuri dispatched the competitor swiftly. Each of the surrounding border nations under Wakandan rule showed up, as usual. The River Tribe from near Nyana Lake, and the finest warriors from Birnin Bashenga, Birnin Azzaria, and even stragglers from the Lion and Hyena cults from the furthest mountains on the edge of the border. Atop the hallowed Warrior Falls is where the challenge would take place--many a men had lost their lives atop that mountain. T'Challa had not yet been one of them.
Just as he always did, he got ready in silence. Each challenge day was more laborious than the last, T'Challa knew it was less the weight of having to conquer one's own people to retain a throne that was not truly his but more that the mounting duty that came with a prolonged reign made him feel stretched thin, like butter spread too far over warm rolls. He spent all day stuffed in the palace dealing with internal matters: potential rebellions, budgets, foreign diplomats who dressed their lust for Vibranium as "foreign policy improvement."
It was all beginning to grate T'Challa's nerve--he realized now why on those nights when he used to sneak around the palace and could hear his father crying: it was not because he was weak, it was because he was tired. The stories T'Challa's father told him about the Greek tragedians and their vaunted, faulted kings who crumbled beneath the pressure of the crown were all beginning to make sense now.
Nonetheless, his duty was his duty. Besides, his people were waiting for him and he certainly couldn't defeat his opponent by waiting for him to starve to death. He got dressed: white war paint, red dots peppering the cheek bones and the eyebrows, traditional Wakandan loin cloth, spear and shield. Outside he went, the cloaked Nightangel ship awaiting him. Okoye, his most trusted Adored One awaited him,
"My king." She greeted him with the customary Wakandan salute.
"Okoye." T'Challa reciprocate the gesture.
"You will not freeze this time, will you?" Okoye grinned through her full and wide lips.
"I never freeze." T'Challa revealed his pearl white teeth.
"Nakia says oth--" T'Challa gave her a stern look, he couldn't help but laugh internally. Okoye shut up.
The Royal Talon Fighters lifted into the air and unfurled her many small wings, in a matter of minutes the two had arrived at Warrior Falls. When the jet landed, T'Challa stepped off to the song of some hundred Wakandan natives awaiting his arrival; Burundi drums beat a war rhythm, their cadence an anapest. Women, men, and children all danced and sang the kwai. As T'Challa descended the Royal Talon fighters ramp and stepped atop the waterfall's crescent, he was greeted by Zuri, former warrior and now instituted shaman charged with conducting challenge day among other duties. He was adorned a purple floor length cloth with black stitch, white odigba ifa beads and his face too was caked white with war paint. Before T'Challa people from all different ethnicities stood--their faces colored with reds, oranges, purples, limes, pinks, greys, blacks--all symbolizing different beliefs and walks of life, but all Wakandan. All unified. It was the most beautiful thing T'Challa had ever seen.
Zuri stepped forth and gave the ceremonial rights, "Do any tribes wish to bring forth a warrior to challenge for the throne?" and without missing a beat,
"I, M'Baku, leader of the Jabari tribe, challenge King T'Challa for the throne of Wakanda!"
There was silence. The Jabari tribes had been exiled long ago for their fanatical worship of the White Gorilla cult that preceded them. It was on the whim of several "visions" from their revered leader, M'Baku, that the Jabari had tried to usurp the throne. None of their attempts succeeded and a wedge was driven between the Panther clan and the Jabarri which spanned centuries. The only time they ever came down from those snow tipped mountains was during challenge day, the day that all people from every part of Wakanda could offer up their finest warrior to challenge for the throne no matter that tribe or nation's diplomatic standing with the king. It was the law, and all respected it.
This was the second time M'Baku had challenged for the throne, the first occurring before T'Challa had ascended to the throne was but but a teenager. T'Chaka, T'Challa's father, defeated M'Baku then and T'Challa would defeat him again. M'Baku was a man almost a foot taller than T'Challa and inhumanly muscular. T'Challa would not win this with sheer strength, and so when Zuri removed the power of the heart-shaped herb from T'Challa (which gave him all of his superhuman abilities) and T'Challa and M'Baku crossed blades--a ceremonial show of respect even if the two disliked one another--there was no turning back.
M'Baku quickly gained the upper hand, for possessed deceptive speed in addition to his raw strength. He overwhelmed the much smaller and lighter T'Challa with heavy shield bashes and body shots. It was T'Challa's agility which saved him from being knocked unconscious all but five minutes into the fight. T'Challa made another crucial error and let his rage get the best of him where he charged M'Baku head on and was nigh-immediately lifted off his feet and over M'Baku's head where T'Challa was powerbombed back into the jagged rocks below.
M'Baku wrapped his gargantuan hands around T'Challa's throat and hoisted him once more off the ground,
"Not as skilled as your father! You place this child upon your precious throne! BAHAHA!" and as M'Baku gloated, T'Challa went for his eyes. M'Baku wailed a banshee song and dropped T'Challa, who landed wobbly on his feet. Blinding M'Baku worked long enough for T'Challa to attack M'Baku's knees with a series of oblique and teep kicks.
M'Baku dropped to his knees without much resistance, and T'Challa finished him with a few hooks. Adrenaline is all that let him forget the fact that he had two broken ribs, several contusions, and a concussion and a slipped disk. He blacked out soon after--but he retained the throne. . . for now.
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