Arella Despana

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Arella Despana (Scenesys ID: 7410)
Arella.jpg
Quote
"Justice? There is no justice. Only revenge."
Profile
Full Name: Ahr'ela Despa'nah
Gender: Female
Species: Svartalfar (Dark Elf)
Theme: Original (OC)
Occupation: Inventory / Mercenary / Business
Citizenship: Svartalfheim (formerly)
Residence: New York City
Education: Offworld equivalent PHD in Applied Science, Chemistry and Linguistics
Status: Approved
Groups: {{{Groups}}}
Other Information
Apparent Age: {{{PAge}}} Actual Age: {{{AAge}}}
Date of Birth Sometime before 2988 BC Actor:
Height: 177 cm (5'10") Weight: 68 kg (150 lb)
Hair Color: White Eye Color: Green
Theme Song: "Evil Ways" by Blues Saraceno

Profile

Arella Despana a high born noble Dark Elf was the 'Grand Shaper' a master of the technology and magic of her people. She designed many of the weapons deployed in her antagonistic peoples numerous conflicts. Her pursuit of profane knowledge to construct deadly technologies led her to conduct innumerable unethical experiments on her own kind. This had the discrete approval of Malekith until Arella had the unfortunate lack of sense to disagree with Malekith about the deployment of the Aether some five thousand years ago. She was branded a criminal for her experiments a 'Grand Shaper' no more called from this point on the "Abominator'. A brief period of self imposed exile followed where Arella did her best to avoid her kin. She experimented on herself in the absence of test subjects with measured success. Then they found her blasted her ship into deep dark space. Escaping narrowly her ship damaged she was forced to lock herself in a damaged stasis pod. Her body was preserved but she did not drift off into the miasma of sleep. She remained awake in a frozen nightmare trapped for eons within herself. Until at last her ship broke atmo and smashed into the third rock from the sun in the Sol system. A little place the Asgardian's call Midgard.

Current Character Approved: July 31, 2023

Sheet

Description

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A noble Dark Elf fair of visage with intimidating intelligence and charisma. And a horribly chequered past. She has crashed into Earth quite by accident after millennia in a deep sleep.

History

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What does it take to become a despised criminal in a society of the possibly the most ruthless creatures to ever have lived? Arella Despana is the ignominious answer to that question. She rose to the highest highs before plummeting to the lowest lows in their society. Born a few centuries before the battle between the Asgard King Bor and Malekith (when the latter attempted to release the Aether) Arella was a high born Dark Elf in a clan that might have had a member that occupied the position of King or Queenship had they the drive and ambition. But those of the 'Despana' clan sat back and played the role of Duke and Duchess supporters of the king in Svartálfar society.

Arella was raised as a soldier a noble fighter in the armies of Svartalfheim she was the equal of any of the elite of the soldiers in the army but her intellect and adaptability set her apart. She was obsessed with mechanical and biological science and its interaction with the dark magic of her people which produced their unique technologies. Initially she produced a series of superior melee and energy weapons for the Svartálfar but was not content with this moderate accomplishment (in her eyes). Using her success in these endeavours as a platform she obtained permission and backing for further more ambitious experiments. She was in particular interested in cybernetics, constructs and dark energy and matter.

Her experiments started as ones that animal rights activists might have objected to. Early success with upgrading these nonsentients with her own brand of prosthesis led to experiments on kidnapped sentients from other realms. Then finally when she believed she was ready she began experimenting on her own people. Arella not for reasons of magnanimity but perhaps intellectual vanity wanted to come up with a soldier superior to the corrupted and ultimately (in her view) wasteful Kurst warriors. She took exception at the loss of a potential soldier to the darkness. The sacrifice involved in becoming one of these creatures was something that many regarded as sacred but Arella was something of an iconoclast.

Her Iconoclastic tendencies in the end would prove to be her downfall. When Malekith wanted to unleash the Ather Arella vociferously objected against the better advice of her peers. She had grown fairly arrogant and thought little would come of her rebellion. They were only words. But they turned out to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. She did not like a plan that would likely align ever capable sentient against the Svartálfar. Her objections proved wise as it took only the Asgard to bring her people to their knees. However before this occurred Arella who had been given the honorary though informal title of 'Grand Shaper' for her innovations was rebranded the 'Abominator'. Her experiments conducted with both tactic and explicit approval of the elite were labelled crimes. She was hunted and her death was sought.

She narrowly escaped in a mid-sized vessel. Using her viable accumulated knowledge she was able to augment her own body over the course of her exile. She wound up possessing a variety of low key but effective augmentations. A suit of armour she could self generate and a variety of melee weapons she could create from dark matter and energy seemingly from the ether (her favourite being a flail but a wicked scimitar coming in close second). She used these and her combat skills (which she had not neglected but maintained) to avoid the Dark Elves that were sent in pursuit of her. She travelled widely and managed to take her pursuers on quite a ride but eventually her luck ran out. She was attacked by a set of fighter craft. She evaded them but had to place herself inside of a damaged stasis chamber to avoid perishing after they shredded her space craft. She had stepped into a personal hell.

For five thousand years Arella drifted completely awake and aware in the stasis pod when she should have been rendered unconscious. It was an icy prison of self recrimination. At first she deconstructed her decisions logically. She thought about her miscalculations and her habit of being impolitic. Then the worst of all fates befell her as she started to consider her decisions ethically and here she fell apart. She started to hate herself. Her indifference to the sentients and Dark Elves she experimented on and how torturous it was. How she had more or less directly aided the Dark Elves and the disastrous trajectory they were on with the weapons and constructs she had developed. That hatred grew then finally by a horrible and Ironic twist of fate not long after the Asgardian refugees reached Earth she smashed into Midgard. Surviving barely she awakens from the stasis. The dark dream had finally ended. Would only nightmares await her in this her new involuntary home?

Personality

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There is a serene and relaxed exterior to Arella that masks an inner turmoil spanning from her crisis of morality. Conscience rearing it's belated and unwelcome head is something she is having trouble adjusting to. Occasionally her wretched inner state breaks through but to most people she is on a detached subtle charm offensive. She is rarely flustered and cool as a cucumber even under great physical duress. She is clever with a laconic sense of humour and appears well socialised for a person of a scientific and hermetic bent.

Abilities

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CONJURATION
Called Reality Hacking by some Arella can summon mid to small sized objects from the aether. She developed this ability to help manufacturing her constructs usually to obtain critical parts she is missing. She can only summon inanimate objects no larger than a standard bucket size thus far placing her well below many of the best Sorcerers of her kind. These objects can be of considerable complexity but are unfortunately limited to the conventional so anything from a hinge to a CPU. The objects are actually drawn from a subspace storage facility that she has secreted away in a form of pocket dimension. She adds to it periodically with bits and pieces she scavenges. Limited in to objects mass to around ten kilograms she can use this ability around three times a day. Whilst the amount of articles she has in storage is limited this rarely comes into play as she has ample supply to fix small issues related to objects she is constructing or repairing. A bit of wire has come in handy for effecting an escape on occasion with security devices and restraints. Cold iron restraints can nullify this ability see weaknesses below).

DARK ENERGY ARMOUR
Similar to her weapons Arella has a jagged grey-black set of sorcerous-cybernetic armour that is a part of her and can be summoned at will. It covers every part of her but her head (an oversight that she constantly chides herself for). The armour has similar properties to her weapons it can stop almost all conventional weapon damage to Arella's body and is self-repairing in a matter of seconds with this capacity again to fix itself three times a day. Conventional weapons include almost all small arms fire. Higher calibre sniper rifles that are effectively cannons and artillery style weapons as well as RPGs might be repelled from breaking the skin on much of Arella's body by her Armor but the impact of these weapons would still be enough to cause impact related injuries. Irrespective of her natural durability it is possible Arella would succumb to said injuries. Special metals like Vibranium again can penetrate it. At will it can also be life draining on contact with similar properties to her weapons afflicting mostly the strength and energy levels of opponents inducing a profound lethargy. Really extended contact is required for death (ten minutes or more as with her weapons). Her Armour can be penetrated easily by cold iron (see weaknesses).

span style="color:#00CED1">DARK ENERGY WEAPON
From either or both hands Arella can summon forth weapons she usually prefers a flail with a chain length she can magically vary between zero to fifteen feet. Usually the chain is at a practical length for such a weapon but she may extend it if she chooses to hurl it dart like at an opponent or try to tangle someone up in it. Her next preference is a long wicked looking one bladed scimitar. She can also make other weapons and objects for pounding, stabbing and slicing but not in an instantaneous timeframe taking a few seconds to concentrate. These weapons are stronger than any conventional steel on Earth though might break in contact with Vibranium or other special materials. Arella can resummon her chosen weapons within seconds of them breaking around three times a day. They are effectively a part of her body through a unique mixture of sorcery and cybernetics. The weapons also have life draining properties which physically weakens most conventional opponents (up to peak human capacity but not necessarily beyond) upon contact with a dancing purple energy that dances around them. Whilst not enough to kill an ordinary human without direct contact lasting more than ten to twenty minutes (depending on the strength of the victim) this life draining property does reduce combat effectiveness of most opponents that get struck by her weapons. Weapons and body armour become heavier and an overwhelming need for sleep afflicts her enemies. She can turn this life draining property on and off at will. This property is likely not very effective against opponents who have superhuman levels of strength to drain. Since these weapons are effectively a part of her they also cannot leave her person for more than a couple of minutes before disappearing and becoming part of her again. Her weapons can be broken or rendered non functional by Cold Iron for at least a couple of hours. (See weaknesses Cold Iron).

DURABILITY
Arella has higher tissue and bone density than a human again akin to that of an Asgard. She can still be killed by conventional means (if she is unarmoured) but it would take quite a bit more punishment to lay her low. A battle rifle or high powered machine gun would be required to do as much damage as a conventional handgun.

IMMORTALITY
Elves barring being murdered live an exceptionally long time immune to the ravages of age. Arella was a few hundred years old already when she entered into stasis slowing down her already slow aging process. She is now in excess of five thousand years old. An impressive tally unfortunately she was not doing much for the majority of that period - merely drifting in the frozen hell of stasis.

POLYMATH
Arella is a genius and master of multiple fields with a restless mind. If she weren't so cool and calm about her postulations many might think her insane. She is also highly adaptable learning language and custom in unfamiliar environments at an astounding rate.

STRENGTH AND SPEED

Roughly equivalent to that of an Asgardian Arella has superhuman strength and speed. This is mainly due to her cybernetic augmentation as Dark Elves are usually weaker than their Asgardian counterparts. She can lose this advantage for as much as two hours after coming into contact with Cold Iron (see weakness Cold Iron below). With her Cybernetics disabled she is only about four times as strong and fast as a Human of similar size and weight.

Skills

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ACROBATIS
Elves are a naturally dextrous bunch and Arella can climb and move around with the flexibility and speed of an elite human athlete. Arella will not be winning any medals in this field but could hold her own at a professional meet of gymnasts or parkour athletes.

APPLIED SCIENCE
Applied science is the closest label for Arella's practical knowledge though she throws in a little of what Earth folk call sorcery and doesn't recognise neat divisions between physics and chemistry. Arella was amongst the best of her kind when she had a kind. She's no Tony Stark but her knowledge of alien technology would give her an advantage over many of her earthly contemporaries. She is beyond dispute a genius in these fields - it being her primary strength.

CHARISMA
Of course it is a matter of taste an opinion in the end but Arella is notable as a likeable sort for a Dark Elf and this is beyond an appeal to her own people. She is fairly laid back and has an infectious albeit dry sense of humour. Having any humour at all was rare amongst her people setting her apart.

CYBERNETICS
Arella's unique take on artificial augmentation is a combination of sorcery and technology unique to her people. The development of this science was her magnum opus and it's eventual dismissal and marginalization along with her own was a great betrayal from her perspective. She has a capacity to augment provided the right materials are present almost any sentient humanoid with malleable tissues. Her primary experience is with augmentation of other Dark Elves despite her having used numerous other sentients in her initial experiments. Her ultimate prototype is of course herself with her own armour and weapon augmentations. She wanted to build in energy weapons but was never able to perfect her craft to the extent that she wished. She never developed a technology to displace the Kursed as a military strategy. *Note this ability will be used mainly to repair her own and existing cyborg's augmentations on the grid. Modifying or improving a non-cyborg is not a likely scenario unless staff approval is obtained.

LINGUISTICS
Arella being adaptable in the extreme is capable of picking up languages and customs with impressive speed. She was well traveled for a Dark Elf engaged in sensitive research and got to see a lot of the galaxy whilst on the run from her people. During this time she picked up a great many languages. She has a reasonable grasp of the 'All speech' of the Asgard giving her a diplomatic advantage.

MELEE WEAPONS
Arella has a strong preference for melee weapons and demonstrates a high degree of skill - well above average for a Dark Elf and elite by any other standard. She prefers flails with a scimitar style curved blade as a close second. She's well short of legendary human capacity and would not stand long against a Deathstroke but could hold her own in an Olympic level fencing match relying heavily on her biological advantages.

PILOTING
Primarily familiar with only Dark Elf vessels Arella can pilot a space vessel and many of the varieties of ship that her people fielded. As with her other abilities given the relative lack of her peoples technology post their extinction and she would have to fall back on her intrinsic adaptability to learn how to fly new vehicles.
RANGED WEAPONS
Arella had a high degree of proficiency with the energy weapons of her kind. She only has a couple of these on hand but given her adaptability and physiological similarity to humans she would not have too much trouble dealing with Earth produced firearms. Her level of ability would be comparable to an elite marksman of an Earth special forces. She is no Deadshot however her abilities remain at a high but respectably terrestrial level.

UNARMED COMBAT

Given her cybernetic weapons she is rarely unarmed but Arella also has a largely redundant advanced degree of ability with her own races brand of fighting. Perhaps her skill is not as high as many of the professionals of Earth but she has an oppressive level of strength and speed to make up for that (see above). If faced with a peak human capacity opponent of considerable skill like Steve Rogers or Black Widow she will likely lose but give the hero a run for their money before doing so.

Resources

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CRASHED SHIP

For however long she has it Arella has her own broken husk of a ship it having crashed into Earth. She will likely grab what she can off it before whatever earth authority snatches it from under her (if not her as well with it). The cargo contains a few medical devices and a couple of energy projectile weapons as well as her broken stasis pod. Other than this at the moment she has a whole load of nothing. The energy projectile weapons have the equivalent rate of fire of a high powered assault rifle with a similar range (around 300 metres effectively or 985 feet). Despite the conventional range of the weapons they are horrendously effective burning through even highly advanced vehicular armour. Without alien or especially sage human design specifically with her weapon in mind she can cause considerable havoc even on a well armed squad of human soldiers. The other advantage that her energy weapons have is that they are fusion battery powered. Whilst not limitless the cells she has last close to a century without need for replacement. The only limitation on firing the weapon is its tendency to overheat if used for a duration of firing for over a minute. The gun then seizes up and won't fire for a good couple of minutes. This can be avoided by altogether by firing in bursts rather than pursuing a 'spray and pray' tactic.

Weaknesses

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ARROGANCE
It is the first sin according to Abrahamic faiths. Arella knows what she knows and heaven help anyone who tries to tell her otherwise. Fortunately she is often right her being possessed of an abnormally high mindful IQ. Unfortunately when she is wrong this can have devastating consequences.

COLD IRON
The cold Iron in it's raw form is a racial weakness of Dark Elves and Arella did not have the time to fully research a solution to this particular problem. Iron can cut through her weapons and armour and her body. Mixed into an alloy it retains no such effectiveness. It amounts to a readily available kryptonite for the Dark Elves. Once the damage has been done by cold iron to Arella's weapons and armour it can regenerate as per normal after a couple of hours provided contact with said cold iron has been terminated.. If she is exposed to such a cold iron weapon even anything as basic as a shovel of cold iron can shut down her cybernetics and sorcery at least for as long as contact continues. Arella is reduced to normal Dark Elf strength and speed after contact with cold iron which whilst slightly better than human does not match Asgardian abilities in strength and speed an advantage conferred by her cybernetics. Again a couple of contact free hours have to pass for her to return to normal. Skin contact with cold iron can also cause Arella considerable discomfort making it an ideal albeit torturous form of restraint for her. Cold Iron weapons have become quite rare on Earth given the prevalence of more durable alloys fortunately for Arella. However having so mundane a weakness is no good thing. It can potentially instantly kill her with the right weapon and the right amount of force (enough to kill a normal human) applied to the right part of her body quite easily by a mundane human.

CONSCIENCE
Arella is a late bloomer with her conscience although it stands in opposition to her intermittent arrogance she can be frozen with self doubt. She has finally started to see her crimes against her own sentient test subject as crimes. How this will manifest in her behaviour has yet to be seen. It is likely she is no longer the villain that she used to be.

INFAMY
Even with the death of her people Arella has a reputation that is likely to have endured. She is to many other sentient races the very worst of war criminals. Her experiments on kidnapped sentients and her involvement in producing the weapons her warlike people deployed are a prominent piece of galactic history. The Asgard especially are likely to not have forgotten this.

PHYSIOLOGY
If injured and incapacitated it will be difficult for Arella to find medical help outside of a few specialized avenues on Earth. Her traditional enemies in the Asgard could treat her but might not be inclined to. If she is conscious she can advise people on how to help her but as specified above if unconscious even clever medical professionals might be at a loss as to how to help her. This is because of her alien physiology. There are notable similarities between the Svartálfar and other races including humans. She can eat the same food. They have compatible reproductive processes and can breed with most other humanoid races. The same intoxicants work though generally Arella would have to consume a lot more alcohol to get inebriated than your average human. However they are alien enough that treatments which work on humans may not be as effective on them.

TECHNOLOGY

Arella has a lot of advanced technology that is not instantly compatible with the materials she has on Earth. Though being incredibly intelligent this absence of viable materials for repair could prove to be a significant impediment to her. It is not a problem that in the long term she does not have the capacity to overcome given her absurdly high intelligence and adaptability but in the mid to short term it could prove quite crippling to her unless she is able to obtain extra-terrestrial or other special help. Only perhaps her cybernetics are immune to this being naturally a part of her. Her energy weapons and other tech on her already crippled ship are at risk however.

Logs

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Title Date Scene Summary
The supermoon! August 2nd, 2023 Willow meets Arella.
The Swashbuckler and the Elf February 4th, 2020 Zorro meets Arella
After the thunder, rain January 26th, 2020 On the way home, Sam and Colossus stumble upon something unexpected.
Log 8248 July 10th, 2019 Summary needed
LexHub: Impressions May 25th, 2019 Dracula is invited to LexCorp Tower to discuss LexHub, along with Arella.
Everyone's gotta eat! May 18th, 2019 Summary needed
Fm'latgh nilgh'ri! April 20th, 2019 Summary needed
Back to drinking April 12th, 2019 Summary needed
What's New Pussycat April 4th, 2019 A true ca-tastrophe struck Tribeca as feline hordes invaded during lunch hour and a brave band of .. well not heroes but they were brave dealt with it.
Spleunking in The Narrows April 2nd, 2019 Summary needed
Duck! Duck! March 29th, 2019 When a giant foam bath toy attacks the city, Kid, Arella, and Dusk come to the rescue.
Svartalfar and Amazons March 21st, 2019 Summary needed
LexHub: Status Updates March 17th, 2019 Lex brings Arella in on the secretive Project LexHub
Friday Night Fever March 16th, 2019 Mikey is out alone and receives an offer he cannot refuse! For more Pizza.
NYC Convoy Caper! March 15th, 2019 Impulse, Spider Woman, Animal Man, and Arella stop an attack on an Alchemax convoy.
Masquerade Ball March 9th, 2019 Selina Kyle holds a charity event for a big cat sanctuary. Lots and lots of people attend. Lots of money is raised.
Club Mjolnir. March 4th, 2019 Summary needed
Perilous Plots Primed in Pursuit of Power February 28th, 2019 Criminals attempt to ambush an armored car convoy but are stopped by the timely intervention of Snake Eyes, Mon-El and Arella Despana
How not to do Industrial espionage. February 23rd, 2019 Summary needed
City Fall: Mutant Job Fair February 21st, 2019 Saki holds a job fair for mutants. Some are happy, some are not.
Three Ladies at a Bar Fight February 19th, 2019 Summary needed
Just Doing Science, Don't Mind Me. February 18th, 2019 Arella and Steve cross paths on the street outside of the mansion. No violence ensues, but students from rival campuses colliding in a snowfall of papers provide enough 'tribal' entertainment for all.
Curious Coffee February 17th, 2019 Summary needed
Refugee blues February 17th, 2019 Arella gets a first day orientation for her arrangement at LexCorp... and some ground rules and intentions are given.
Prisoner Transfer February 15th, 2019 Just when Alpha Flight was about to grant Arella Despana a refugee status, Lex Luthor waltz in after pulling all sorts of political miracles, and getting himself permission to walk away with Arella, as something of a guardian overseeing her integration with Earth society.
Alpha Flight: Interrogating Alien Visitor - Dark Elf Edition February 11th, 2019 Carol interrogates the Dark Elf prisoner Alpha Flight got a hold on, determining she must speak to Thor before making a ruling.
The Abominator arrives in Midgard. February 10th, 2019 Arella Despana's ship crash lands on Earth

Cutscenes

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Title Date Scene Summary
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Gallery

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