“How dare you lay your hands on me you disgusting pirate.” Anna accused First Mate from twenty feet out into the sea. Her Irish brogue, usually light and lilting in a barely there sort of way, came out in full force as she cursed the sodden man sat down at the waters-edge. She was still submerged up past her waist, which made for a strange sight as she stood in her frayed white dress berating the sailor in front of her. “You had no right, no one does, not anymore.” Her left hand went unconsciously to grab her neck as her right continued to point at him, shaking as her anger flowed through her. She wasn’t screeching as such, but she was definitely working her way up to it as her voice raised and grew more grating with each word.
Though it was pretty clear what the woman’s problem with First Mate was, if he remembered the misdemeanour was really uncertain. Anna was not the sort of woman a man would forget, provided he had the choice, but enough drink could knock the visage of an angel out of someone’s mind. Her rage was such that the waves around her broke with growing ferocity, almost as if a storm was brewing. In actuality, her spiritual energy was suffusing itself with her element, her emotion feeding itself into the sea.
Anna looked on as the ship ruptured in front of her, wood splintering and a small hole appearing from which a man was expelled into the Ocean. Her stormy eyes narrowed as the source for her most recent campaign of destruction and indiscriminate drowning splashing around in the Sea only a short distance away. She glided through the water, an unnatural movement that betrayed her supernatural status, and quickly placed herself within comfortable speaking and killing distance to the man. Her approach had gone unnoticed as the man reached the beach and began to swear profusely. The Wraith floated in the sea, about forty feet from shore and in line with the man, waiting patiently.
When it became apparent the man was more interested in swearing at his useless crew, she roughly seized a cresting wave and lengthened its break, dropping it in the vicinity of the man in a shoulder-height blast of water that could knock a grown man off his feet. There was no danger to the assault, it was merely her way of getting the target of her anger’s attention before she gave him a piece of her mind, and then murdered him.
“You!” She yelled, pointing one accusing finger at First Mate, only her upper body visible as she remained strangely stationary in the moving waters around her. She slowly began to move towards shore as she waited for him to take notice of her.
Gateway is where I met the Skally. And began the impressive losing streak I'm on now. I still want to fight with him again, a serious one. As well as Melon aand KhandyKhan. And yoshy, nuey, Tuuj, you, and IN.
Yeah, I was looking forward to our fight, I think it had the potential to be one of my favourites. Oh well.
Timber creaked and bellowed as the ship suffered on the beach-edge, its keel stove in by a partially submerged rock. With each new wave lapping alongside its hull the ship teetered, at risk of breaking apart and being carried out to sea. It was only a matter of time, eventually the tides would turn and the ship would be lost like half its crew out to sea. Strangely, it was late morning and there was hardly a cloud in the sky, with clear conditions one would think the captain was a fool to lose his ship in such a fashion. However, one aboard her had made a grievous error just a few hours previously in port, and so they had not made it past the first leg of their journey.
It was a small thing really, a lewd remark, unwanted hands. Something the majority of women who live and work in port towns understand, and while they may not be fond of the men who abuse them they understand the realities of their situation. However, to anger this woman was a mistake, one that had cost over twenty lives and could cost many more as the shouts and curses of the crew faded into the dense vegetation at the end of the beach. Only one man had failed to emerge from the stricken ship thus far, and that man had a reckoning coming.
Anna remained half submerged herself a stones-throw from the hull of the ship, off to starboard. She peered at the ship with hateful eyes, having allowed some of the crew to escape with their lives there was one still that would not be so lucky. Only her shoulders and head were visible above the water, her dark-red hair glistening and her pale face furrowed in concentrated anger. Tugged at by the waves, the frayed wedding dress adorning her body billowed beneath her, somewhat exaggerating her diminutive size. She wore her anger well.
I think it might be interesting if that ship was his ship and he was bringing it somewhere before she destroyed it, which of course killed everyone but him in the process.
Also.. she could have destroyed it because she was on it and he made some sexist remark and slapped her ass? lol
Hmm, alright, Anna was at the port where your character disembarked and he insulted her, she pursued him and vengefully attacked the ship while at sea, driving it onto the beach. Most of the crew fell into the sea or fled the area after the ship beached, and Anna leaves the ocean to murder First Mate on a more personal level.
I'll introduce the scene, however it might be worth working out motivations now. It's in Anna's nature to just try and murder your character if he happens upon her, particularly if he's irritating. However, did you want to have a more poignant reason for combat? Anna could have been the cause of the ship your character was on ending up beached, or he could be searching the beached ship for some reason and happen across her on the beach? It's up to you.
What is a Water Wraith: A Water Wraith is a spirit which has possessed the body of a human, specifically after they have drowned. They have a tendency to target those who have died in particularly tragic circumstances, as the amount of emotional trauma caused produces a larger rift into the spirit world. These wraiths also have a tendency to be more powerful as a result of this. The personality of a Water Wraith is usually a confusing mix of the genderless spiritual entity and the residual emotions of the deceased.
Age: Unknown
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Irish-Caucasian
Appearance: Beautiful and near flawless feminine features accentuated by a full mane of flowing red hair and piercing pale blue eyes would be the envy of any woman and own the heart of any man if not for the pale near translucent quality of her skin. Even this perhaps could be forgiven as an unusual beauty if not for the fact that she seems constantly saturated with water, and those piercing eyes echo a sadness so unbearable that it drives life away. The frayed wedding dress sticks to a petite body, adding an octave of sorrow to an already striking visage.
Personality: As mentioned, Wraith’s have a confusing plethora of emotions, usually linked to the sorrow which brought them into the world. Anna could be described as emotionally compromised, constantly, providing a target for smart enough opponents, though one which can backfire pretty quickly if they can’t withstand her vengeance. Some words to describe Anna’s personality.
Anna’s voice is a curious mix of her southern Irish brogue in life and something older and darker, quiet and hard to discern, it slightly distorts her words if one listens carefully enough.
Physical Traits: Unsurprisingly, a Water Wraith shares little in common with the human being it used to be. Though their bodies can be cut or shot if one survives getting close enough the attack meets a supernatural resistance and the wounds flood with water rather than blood. The regenerative qualities of the Wraith are huge, allowing it to bring itself back to one piece after pretty much any degree of mundane physical harm. Though some say they prefer this to the completely intangible body of most ghosts. Understandably, stabbing, cutting and shooting at a wraith with mundane weaponry is almost pointless. Poisoning a wraith or using other biological entities is also somewhat pointless, as it has long since abandoned biological function, it is driven by spiritual energy.
However, this regeneration in Water Wraith’s is completely dependent on water, imbued with the spiritual energy of the Wraith, which is contained in their body. In any large body of water this regeneration is near limitless because it can be replenished, but in dry conditions the regeneration is finite. Wraiths are most effectively dispatched by dragging them from any source of water. In a large body of water, such as the sea, a Wraith is near unstoppable and will almost certainly kill you.
Strength: Anna is not physically strong, her body is barely capable of lifting its own weight, but fortunately the Wraith can manipulate water to carry out any task she wishes.
Speed: Anna cannot move particularly quickly on land, roughly the speed of any ordinary human, though in the water she can move far more quickly, at speeds of up to 100mph, she doesn’t swim but rather ‘glides’ through the water.
Agility: Anna has no greater reflexes than any ordinary human, but the spiritual entity within her has an innate connection with water and reaches out for any around it. Through this it can react many times faster than a human, by sensing movement and activity through the liquid it’s connected with.
Senses: Water Wraith’s can choose to abandon the ability to feel pain from anything other than holy magic and electricity, fire can cause them pain if they are relatively dehydrated. Anna can see clearly through water and has perfect human vision, however she also accentuates this with her ability to ‘sense’ through water around her, providing a greater degree of vision. Her hearing is normal outside of water, and superhuman within. Her sense of smell is ordinary.
Skills: Anna has the basic skill-set of an ordinary modern day human. She is intelligent enough, especially with the supernatural cunning of the spirit, and capable of forming traps and avoiding them as well. Though she cannot perform any particularly amazing physical feats, she can use water in ways to make up for it. Anna fights with water, she cannot use weapons or fight with her hands, making her vulnerable in close quarters. However, even in close proximity she is capable of making blades of water, and she usually has a plentiful supply from her saturated body.
Supernatural Abilities: Not technically magic, a Water Wraith like Anna maintains supernatural abilities to manipulate the world around them with spirit energy. Anna is a fairly powerful Water Wraith, so her supernatural abilities are varied and powerful.
Spirit of Water: Literally the most important and basic of her abilities, Anna is capable of imbuing water around her with spiritual energy connected to her which she can manipulate. This allows her to move water at will, and enforce it with supernatural strength, turning it into a potent weapon even in small volumes. The water she manipulates resists being frozen or evaporated, and she can return water in either of those two states to its liquid form with relative ease. This makes her dangerous in humid or even frozen environments as well. Her effective range of control is only one hundred feet however, meaning one can in theory just run away from her fairly easily.
Pond Hopping/Water Walking: Anna can move in a spiritual watery form through any body of water at speeds of up to 500mph instantaneously. If an area is saturated enough this allows her to move from one area of water to another, hence the legends of Water Wraiths appearing in water sources as if by magic. She can’t attack while moving in this fashion, and it takes around two seconds to degenerate and then regenerate from the water, providing a window of opportunity to any fast opponent if she attempts to water-walk in combat.
The Draining Waves: If Anna manages to cover an opponent in water imbued with her spiritual essence it slowly wanes away their strength. Not quickly by any measure, but like swimming as opposed to walking it increases the effort of carrying out normal actions, making the opponent feel heavy and cumbersome.
Saturation: Anna can sacrifice half the water within her (significantly reducing her ability to regenerate outside of water.) to soak the earth around her in a forty foot radius. This is not an immediate effect, the water creeps across the ground like an unholy blight, and tends to make its way from the second layer of earth up, making it not immediately apparent by ordinary eye-sight to tell what she’s doing.
Weeping Wraith: Anna’s unique ability, after suffering injury Anna may begin to weep uncontrollably, preventing her from doing anything for a turn but defending herself with water. Over the next two turns torrential rain will fall on the battlefield, provided its outside, and dark clouds and fog will cover the battlefield for the remainder of the battle.
Weaknesses: Water Wraith’s are particularly powerful supernatural beings, but this power comes at the cost of significant weaknesses. 1. Anna requires water to fight effectively, the more water she manipulates the more sluggish her attacks become. 2. Fire based attacks directed at her person, especially when water supplies are scarce, are particularly effective. This allows even an ordinary person with some smarts to kill her with a flamethrower or similar long-duration high intensity flame weapon. 3. Electricity is heavily effective against Wraiths because of the conductivity of water, it causes them immense pain, interferes with their ability to use their abilities and can even kill them after a great enough duration. (Though this requires an incredibly powerful charge over an extended period of time, it is far more effective to use it as a prelude to another attack.) 4. Constant attacks require her to direct her attention to defence and regeneration, so little and often tends to be more effective than one or two powerful attacks. This could in theory allow a fast opponent with an ordinary sword to kill her just by overcoming her regeneration factor, provided she was outside of water (and therefore it was finite.) 5. Holy magic is effective against the spirit within Anna, causing the same damage is would cause against any undead. 6. Modern day explosives can do significant enough damage to prevent her from regenerating using water, though it does require a fairly large bang. 7. She is most effective against organic opponents, opponents who are heavily armoured or non-living having an advantage against her attacks.
Backstory: Anna was born in Ireland sometime in the 1800’s. Her backstory is not really something most people would want to read, though one can assume that she died either on or shortly after her wedding day by drowning, and the circumstances were incredibly tragic. This likely means she was either murdered or committed suicide, perhaps time will reveal more.
For this battle Anna's regenerative qualities have been reduced so that she can only recover from three fatal wounds (on an ordinary human) from her opponent's sabre.
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Nytefall