(no subject)

[investigations]

[Player information]
Player Name: hyenas
Age: 23
E-mail: hyaenid@gmail.com
Other characters played at Cape Kore: none

[Character information]
Name: Rosa Martelli/Rosalind Hammett/The Queen
Canon: World of Darkness OC (from the same game/canon as Mina Barrett, Anna Demirovna, and Jones)
Canon Point: the end of the chron/the end of her canon
Age: 27

Appearance: For the most part, Rosa looks extremely ordinary. She is about 5’3” and a little on the thin side of average, with dark hair and dark eyes. She isn’t a great beauty (most of the time; more on that later), but is reasonably pleasant to look at. The two oddities about her are that she’s extremely pale – her skin could accurately be described as milky, and on the rare occasions she isn’t wearing lipstick, her lips are nearly white – and that at certain angles, her canines look rather longer than normal.

As a general rule, Rosa wears a lot of loose, practical clothing in dark colors. She most often wears long skirts, comfortable shirts, and low-heeled boots. She hates having her arms and hands constricted in any way, so her shirts are often quite loose.

She has a tattoo -- the Valkyrien Amazon symbol is branded onto her back, between her shoulder blades.

Inventory:
Rosa has her handbag with her; it includes her Pinkerton ID, a wallet with ID and money from the early 30s, a set of lockpicks, and a small pearl-handled revolver.

Abilities:
OH BOY HERE WE GO

Standard vampire skillset:
While vampires drink blood, they don’t actually use blood. When blood enters a vampire’s system, it is transmuted via wacky vampire powers into vitae. Vampires can use vitae to heal themselves or to boost their physical abilities. Additionally, vitae has strong effects on mortals; if Rosa were to feed her blood to a mortal or another vampire, it would create a strong emotional bond to her. If this is done to a mortal, they become a ghoul; they stop aging, and are able to learn certain vampiric powers. If they lose access to vitae, on the other hand, they suddenly age to their true age essentially overnight.

Specialties:
Thanks to aforementioned fae gift/curse, Rosa now has a portion of the Queen’s powers. She can create a glamor on herself to make her look more beautiful. In theory this is controllable; however, she’s only had the power for about a month, so as it stands, she really doesn’t have any say in whether it happens or not. Currently, if she is angry or upset she starts getting prettier. It is obviously supernatural, so Rosa tries to keep as tight a rein on it as possible.

Additionally, when she gets particularly emotional, butterflies and moths appear around her.

2) Auspex – Rosa is shockingly good at looking at things. She can enhance any one of her five senses far beyond an average human’s (although this comes with some risks; when she’s using her powers, bright lights or loud noises can literally incapacitate her); she can read auras and ascertain what type of creature someone is, what their mood is, and whether they’ve lied recently; she can touch an object and see a vision of who handled it last and under what circumstances; and she can use telepathy both to read minds and to communicate with people silently.

3) Obfuscate – Rosa can hide really well. She can conceal small objects by essentially rendering them invisible by touching them; this applies to things people are not actively searching for and will not cause harm or put someone’s life in danger. For example, she can hide a gun that happens to be in the room so that someone who is looking for a weapon can’t use it; she can’t hide a specific pearl-handled revolver from someone who is looking for that pearl-handled revolver in that area, and she can’t hide a revolver while she is aiming it at someone with the intent to cause harm. She can hide her vampiric presence so she “feels” like a normal human; vampires are predators and feel like predators, but she reads as nothing unless someone cares to take a closer look. She can’t render herself invisible exactly, but she can make herself unnoticeable; people will just overlook her or be unable to register her presence. This makes her equally “invisible” to touch and hearing; if she’s crammed in close with someone while hidden, they will automatically make room for her without realizing she’s there. Finally, she can make herself appear different. She can’t disguise herself as specific people, but she can change her features so that she looks entirely unlike herself.

Weaknesses:
Vampires are extremely flammable in general, and Rosa is even more flammable than most. Being exposed to sunlight or to fire will lead to serious injury, and probably death.
Additionally, vampires are no longer human; if vampires are pushed too far outside of their comfort zone, they turn into ravening beasts. If Rosa is starved and then looks at or is able to smell blood, she may snap and blindly attack any potential source of food. If she is seriously threatened (as in, she is exposed to fire or something equally dangerous), she will flee and attack anything in her way. Finally, if she’s really furious, she may attack the source until she can destroy it. As long as she’s a good person and retains her humanity and moral sense, she is mostly okay; the more she becomes a monster, the harder it is to keep herself under control.

Non-supernatural talents:
Rosa is handy with lockpicks and quite a talented bomb-maker. She isn't a great fighter or particularly strong, but she's a decent shot with a revolver and could probably pick up archery or other related skills quickly enough.

She's also a great liar.

History:

Timeline:

1904 - born in Chicago
1926 - joins Pinkerton Detective Agency
1929 - sent to Wichita
1931 - embraced, returned to Chicago

Rosa Martelli - real name Rosalind Hammett. Rosalind is extremely dedicated to the idea of detective work and sincerely believes the Pinkertons can be a force for good, even if in practice they fall a little short of that goal. She believes the ends justify the means, and she can be quite ruthless when she is pursuing something.

Rosalind was born in 1904. Her father had been a carpenter and her mother had been a Pinkerton agent. She has one surviving older brother, John, who is 39 and who used to be a Pinkerton as well. Her parents had two other children -- Eleanor, born 1898, who died of a childhood illness, and Mark, born 1900, who died in WWI.

Rosalind had a relatively unremarkable childhood. She and her brother grew up listening to stories of the adventures of their mother and her friends; eventually, both siblings ended up joining the Pinkertons. Disillusionment set in quickly; the agency was changing from detective work to union-busting by the time she joined, so she spent three boring years occasionally spying on the wives of labor organizers in the Pacific Northwest before her brother came to her rescue.

John had been sent to Wichita to infiltrate a gang. He mentioned some of the specifics to Rosalind -- the gang was growing fairly rapidly, and John thought it might be a good idea to bring another agent along -- and, in a fit of desperation, Rosalind begged her boss to let her go. It took some convincing, but he eventually assigned her to the case. Rosalind was already quite good at picking locks and explosives came naturally to her; she took to safecracking like a duck to water, and soon she had been put to work.

About a year after Rosalind moved to Wichita, John's wife got very sick and he had to rush home to Chicago to take care of her and their two children, leaving Rosalind stayed behind to finish the job. She spent the remaining year of her life filtering information back to the Agency while worming her way further into the gang.

Unbeknownst to her, the leader of the gang had allied himself with the Prince of Wichita. The leader disobeyed several “requests” from the Prince; after about six months of disrespect, the Prince decided to retaliate. One night in December of 1930, Rosalind and several gang members were attacked by Emily Walker, the Hound of the city. Rosalind was given a choice between being Embraced and joining the Valkyrien Amazons or death; she chose to survive. Everyone else was killed.

As Rosa discovered after the fact, the Valkyrien Amazons were a group of female warriors formed during the Roman Empire to uphold and protect the Camarilla, an ancient vampire society. The Camarilla eventually fell, but the Valkyrien Amazons remained. Their mission statement changed somewhat with the rise of another group of warriors, this one all men -- a splinter group of the Lancea Sanctum, called the Centurions. The Centurions actively opposed peace, order, the Masquerade, and even existence itself -- as such, the Valkyrien Amazons were tasked with opposing them. Individual Amazons are expected to serve the group for 25 years, then take 25 years off to enrich their lives and hone their skills.

None of this really mattered to Rosalind. Between the shock of almost being destroyed and actually, seriously, for-real dying, after her Embrace she was barely functional at best. After about a month and a half, however, she managed to shake off her shock and decided to return to Chicago and the Pinkertons to figure out what to do next with her existence, against Emily’s wishes. After a series of spectacular fights with her sire, Emily finally agreed to give Rosalind a year to herself to get her affairs in order before properly joining the Amazons; Rosalind had exactly no intention of returning to Emily or Wichita or the Amazons, but agreed to the arrangement anyway.

After returning to Chicago, Rosalind immediately went to see her boss. It took her a little while to convince him she was telling the truth (she eventually had to kill and eat a cat in front of him), but eventually he agreed to keep her on as an agent, despite her recent demise. They came up with a false identity, the Agency supplied her with a tiny (and windowless) apartment, and she went to work.

She had originally intended to continue her work for the Pinkertons; she would infiltrate kindred society as a whole, and the vampire Mafia in particular. Things quickly changed. Rosa quickly found out that not only did vampires exist, but other, much less human things as well -- the Fae had chosen Chicago as their playing field and prize, and they had launched a game, using vampires as their pawns.

Through an accident she became deputy sheriff, and somewhat despite herself began to get more and more involved in Valkyrien business. She soon began to make friends among the Amazons, as well as tentative connections to other members of Kindred society. Rosa did her best to continue doing her job, as well as help the city of Chicago keep from burning itself to the ground, while the Fae grew to be more and more of a threat.

Things came to a head for Rosa personally after her friend Brie's fiance, Luke, got turned into a chair. In order to restore him, Brie agreed to become part-Fae and fight for a Fae being named the Queen in the upcoming final confrontation between the Fae. Something went wrong, however, when the Queen gave her powers to Brie, and Rosa and Mina Barrett both also received Fae powers. At that point, making deals with the Fae was punishable by exile or possibly death; understandably, it was a little traumatic. Along with her two sisters, and two other vampires who had been turned into part-fae, she went about trying to stop the fae from taking over the city.

Things came to a head in a climactic confrontation with the fae; after a protracted battle and quite a bit of bloodshed (and burning down half the city, and blowing up the water tower, and so on), the Queen took control of Chicago and moved the city to Arcadia.

Rosa was technically in Waukegan when the city was moved; she was far enough from the epicenter that, instead of ending up a plaything of inhuman fae, she got transported to Cape Kore instead.

Personality:

Despite being a vampire, Rosa still has very strong ties to the mortal world; at her canon point, she has been a vampire for slightly less than a year. This manifests in a couple of ways. For one, she isn't all that comfortable with how other supernatural types treat mortals. She doesn't have a problem with reading people's minds, or using powers to influence a person once; she does have a huge problem with having stables of ghouls or owning mortal institutions like the police force or bankers. For another, she still really enjoys using her powers -- she's had them long enough that she no longer forgets they're available to her, but they're still new enough that she gets a little thrill every time she successfully uses her superpowers.

Rosa has a strong sense of personal honor and justice, albeit a somewhat hypocritical one. She believes in treating (most) people well and respectfully in (most) situations – except in the sense where she deliberately obscures who she is and what her life has been. It’s a combination of believing the ends justifies the means, and believing criminals and wrong-doers don’t deserve respect.

Despite her job-related deception, Rosa has an extremely strong sense of fairness and responsibility; if she thinks something is her fault, and she doesn’t have to keep it on the down-low for her job, she doesn’t like letting someone else take the blame.

She tends to be cautious, sometimes to the point of being indecisive. She likes to have all the facts and details about a situation before she makes a move; she tends to err on the side of caution rather than rushing ahead. She is willing to take as much time and effort as necessary to understand what is going on.

In terms of her outward personality, Rosa is generally friendly, although she prefers to keep her head down and avoid notice. She doesn't offer up information about herself very readily; often she will only tell people what they need to know about her, and then let them assume whatever they want. She may have opinions about people's behavior, but due to the nature of her job, she has gotten into the habit of keeping her thoughts to herself.

For close friends and family, Rosa will happily go to the ends of the earth. Even as a vampire she protected her family; now that they’re out of her reach and she will almost certainly never see them again, she will cling to her friends twice as hard.

Rosa is really good under pressure. She is pretty good at keeping her composure and she has, to date, never dropped character. On the other hand, when she’s pushed far enough, she tends to snap pretty dramatically – she yells, screams, shoots butterflies out of her hair, and generally flips her shit.

[Samples]
First Person:

[The camera switches on and Rosa’s face appears in the view screen, her expression grim. She is walking somewhere; the view bobs gently as she moves. A tattered moth struggles after her.]

This is a private message for Brie Cormac or Mina Barrett. Once either of you get this, contact me immediately. I’ve found some information on our... [her mouth twists, like she’s about to spit in disgust] esteemed hosts that may interest you.

I can give you the details in person, but in short – they have written up the contract that governs their little game. The contract is here in the city; if we can find it, we may be able to destroy it and send them back to wherever they came from. Whatever little game the fae are playing is coming to an end tonight, one way or the other. We may have a chance to sway the odds in our favor.

[For a second Rosa looks like there’s something else she wants to say; she shakes her head minutely and the screen abruptly shuts off.]

Third Person:

There are footsteps in the hall.

If Rosa still had a heart that worked, it would be pounding. She flattens herself against the wall; she is reasonably sure the things coming towards her aren’t human, which means they may be able to see her, and she can’t afford to be caught.

Several hooded figures enter the room. They’re all male, and they’re talking to each other in Latin. Despite her fear, Rosa’s lips curl up into a smile – she’s found her targets. As they pass her, she silently gathers up the documents she was reading and tucks them into a pocket before following the men deeper into the building.

The men are clearly not expecting guests; Rosa trails them easily through the hallways, slipping through doors behind them. She studied Latin, but not as a spoken language, so she doesn’t understand much – all she can pick out is something about a prisoner.

They wind through the building, descending several flights of stairs. Rosa’s nose twitches; it smells like mildew and old blood. They have reached a long stone hallway, with several strong iron doors with small windows to each side. Curious, she moves away from the men to peek into a room.

An iron cage is positioned in the center of the room. Inside is a man. He looks vaguely familiar, but Rosa can’t place him. She checks the other rooms; everything is empty.

She’s done all she can here. Taking one last look around, she turns and exits the hallway, going back the way she came.

Anything Else?