Ithuriel


Alias: The Angel of Second Chances
Gender: Female
Race/Species: Angel/Were-Rhino. Still has some traces from her past as a vampire and the brief time she spent as a demon.
Age: 90
Alignment: Good, of the Law-abiding sort. No stick up her butt though.
Class/Profession: Angel of Redemption. Also an Intersection officer.
Power Rating: Probably A rank? I find it hard to judge in any meaningful sense.

Description:
Spoiler: Description
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Ithuriel stands a little over 6 feet tall. Her body is toned and muscular, though it falls a long way short of accurately reflecting her strength. Her skin has a sort of unnatural paleness to it, one of a couple of hints to her past life as a vampire. Her hair is a bright and vivid blonde in colour, almost verging on golden. Off-duty she tends to let it hang loose, stretching down to about halfway down her neck, on-duty she keeps it tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes have unusually wide irises that are a deep purple in colour. Being an angel, her body is immune to the ravages of age, leaving her with a permanently youthful appearance without any noticeable scars or significant imperfections. However there is a certain look of weariness to her expression that suggests she's seen a lot in her time. If ever caught smiling, she has another little tell of her vampire days in the form of rather pronounced, slightly lengthened and pointed canine teeth. Ithuriel's wings are rather large, stretching well above her head when folded in. The feathers are a light, bright golden brown in colour. Being the servant of a deity, Ithuriel has a small amount of divine power at her disposal, which is often manifested as a faint aura of golden light surrounding her.

When off duty, Ithuriel generally wears a set of plain white robes with the hood pulled up over her head. Beneath the robes, she wears a set of light, flexible leather clothing to give her more mobility in combat with a thin, shaped white breastplate to give her vitals a little extra protection. On duty, she wears a standard Intersection Officer's uniform and baseball cap.

Being a were-rhino, Ithuriel can shift into both rhino and hybrid form. As a full-on rhino, she looks...like a rhino, but with wings. Her hybrid form causes her to gain thick, grey, leathery skin and she grows considerably in volume, looming over the average human and running into serious issues when trying to fit through regular-person-sized doors. The phrase "as thick as a tree trunk" becomes applicable when considering her arms and legs, with how much she bulks up in the process of transforming. She does also gain a little rhino-tail and a relatively modest horn on her snout in the process. Ithuriel has taken the time to ensure that all her regular clothing can shift in size and shape as she transforms to avoid any embarrassing "hulking out" wardrobe malfunctions. While Ithuriel is decidely muscular rather than busty in shape to begin with, it is perhaps worth noting that the transformation leaves her completely flat-chested as well.
Personality: Ithuriel comes across as a relatively calm and peaceful individual. Having seen far too much violence in her life and having been responsible for quite a lot of it during her demon days, she'd much rather resort to non-violence means of conflict resolution where possible. As the angel of second chances, she'd rather try and help others change their ways where possible. On a more personal level, it can be difficult to get particularly close to Ithuriel. A combination of her troubled past and having spent a long time in the Nexus has left her reluctant to make many particularly close friendships. She does still have a lingering fear that she could get re-demon'd some day, or that her family may come after her some day - they're not very nice vampires. Anyone who does get close to her, though, will find she has a modest talent for art and poetry and never quite lost her noble family's taste for the finer things in life...and that she's dedicated a lot of time to keeping herself calm, because it doesn't really come naturally to her.

Equipment: Ithuriel's regular amour and clothing have all been enchanted to change in size with her when she transforms. For weapons, she has a pair of short swords - when on duty she also has a standard-issue Intersection handgun and a handful of tools for detaining lawbreakers. Her armour and swords have also been given some fairly standard magical enhancement - no fancy effects or special abilities, but it makes them durable and adds an extra little bite to her blades. Ithuriel's home exists in her own personal demiplane - she possesses a pair of horns, one a white ivory horn, the other a black wooden horn carved from the same wood as her coffin, that can be used to summon her from her plane. She can also make one-use horns from the fir trees that grow there. Given a little time to do so, she can open a portal to her demiplane for herself or others to use, but will always reappear where she left unless a horn summons her to a different location.

Abilities:
Spoiler: Abilities
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Ithuriel does an excellent job of living up to a rhino's tank-like status. Her various transformations have collectively granted her superhuman strength, impressive durability and extremely potent regenerative abilities. She can recover from what should be mortal wounds and can regenerate body parts within the space of a few hours. Being an angel also gives her resistance to various effects that would be lethal to a mortal. Being well aware of her own abilities, her approach to combat is generally to skip any sort of defensive measures on the basis that she can probably incapacitate any opponent through overwhelming strength quicker than they can figure out a way to do enough lasting damage to incapacitate her.

When Ithuriel transforms into her hybrid form, she gains another multiplier to her strength and durability, her skin now being tough enough to take some serious effort to cut through. Any reasonably well-made weapon will still find purchase, but the additional layer of resistance makes it that much harder to really hit anything vital. During combat, particularly if she taps into her more animalistic traits, Ithuriel is at risk of entering a rage state where any degree of self-preservation is thrown out the window and collateral damage becomes highly likely. She's devoted a lot of time to learning how to calm herself to keep it from happening, but the risk is there. It does little to enhance her combat abilities, but the resulting disregard for the safety of herself or others can be very dangerous.

Ithuriel can also tap into her divine power to perform a number of feats. She can spread her aura out, bathing an area in golden light to try and soothe and calm those around her with her divine presence, or potentially intimidate them as they feel the wrath of an angel wash over them. She has also been able to turn her aura to healing, though while she may be able to stabilise someone at risk of death or gradually aid someone's recovery, she's by no means capable of instantly mending major wounds or other such feats. The more she has to call upon her aura and the greater the "miracle" she performs, the more drained she feels by it. While she's usually capable of hiding how drained she is, she is a lesser angel and as such her powers are quite limited.

Backstory:
Spoiler: Backstory
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Ithuriel started life under a different name as Slythynia, adopted child and unsuspecting victim of the aristocratic family of vampires who took her in. A feral creature who had been living in the wild before she was taken in, she was killed and raised as a vampire by her parents when she turned twenty. A dutiful and obedient thrall, she was steadily taught the ways of the aristocrat, her parents intending that in time she be used to expand their sphere of influence, becoming a countess of her own territory, subservient to them.

It was perhaps about a decade later when a deity became aware of her and took pity on her plight and sought to free her from her parents' influence. This god of redemption sought to prove that even the most wicked of creatures could redeem themselves. With a few nudges on the way from her divine benefactor, Slythynia freed herself and began a lifelong campaign to rid the country of her family.

It did not go well. Slythynia came to the Nexus a broken woman. Her parents had grown weary of her attempts to thwart them and chose instead to simply kill all of the peasants under their control and move on. Over time, Slythynia healed. She found people in the Nexus, in the Town as it was then known, a lot more accepting of her. At one point she even adopted a young girl that she rescued from harm, and raised her until such time as deadtime forced her to move on.

Over time, Slythynia became accustomed to life in the Nexus. A little too accustomed, as it happened, as one day she let her guard down and was converted against her will into a demon. The process served as proof that she had done enough to redeem herself, having regained some form of soul back, only for it all to be snatched away as her animalistic nature took over, turning her into a monstrous predatory creature that revelled in hunting, killing and devouring people.

How she rid herself of her demonic form is something of a mystery. She's never really been sure if she managed it herself or if her god intervened once more. One day she just woke up to find she was back to being a vampire. Shortly after, however, the demon she'd taken as a mate and hoped to keep as a lover confessed that she wasn't the same person to him any more. He left and something inside of her snapped.

Slythynia died shortly thereafter, having assaulted a community of vampires on her own to rather predictable results.

For a vampire, there is no afterlife. Even Slythynia's pseudo-soul wouldn't have been enough. However her deity successfully argued that on the whole, Slythynia had done enough to restore herself. Though others in his pantheon challenged and objected to his claim, ultimately they were unable to debunk it. Slythynia was then reborn as Ithuriel, the angel of second chances, lesser angel in service to the god of redemption.

Since her rebirth, Ithuriel has tried to find a way to serve her deity in the Nexus. On the whole it's been a mixed bag so far, but she did sort-of-convince a Magtok to change his ways, or at least start wearing a set of wings, so that's something.

Miscellaneous: Ithuriel currently serves as an Intersection Officer and spends a lot of her free time providing aid and support to those in need in the Red Zones of Inside.

(Figured I'd try putting some of this in spoiler tags to keep the size down. Nothing actually spoiler-y in there. First one of these I've done in a looong time, so may be subject to extensive re-writing if I look at it later and decide it's awful.)