...yes, I love making (or adapting in this case) characters...sorry about that....
Character: Heigou (real name is Tse). Heigou was one of two sisters, daughters of an 18th century Chinese aristocrat, who decided to go into the haunted woods near their manse. They'd been drawn there by an insane witch. The elder sister, about ten years old, died trying to escape, while the younger was made to survive a mad ritual that the witch believed would make her into the witch's daughter. In truth, another power was using the witch to create a weapon, transforming the human girl into...something else.
The ritual was partially successful and the girl's blood was drained and replaced with some sort of shadowy stuff. In between life and death, Tse had a choice: continue on to death and whatever lay beyond, or listen to one of two voices in the darkness about her. One voice encouraged her to choose life under its service, insisting that there was no other choice and the best way for her to get vengeance on the witch that had killed her sister and put her through this torture. The other voice encouraged her that she had a choice and that she could choose to live and reject the sinister voice, keeping her human soul, or she could choose to follow it, or she could choose to die.
If she chose to live and follow the sinister voice, then she would be it's tool and servant until eternity had passed or she had died. And it would be unlikely that she would ever get another chance to turn away and free herself.
If she chose to die, the sinister voice would have lost a tool and be free to attempt the same thing again.
If she chose to live and reject the voice, then her existence would keep a measure of power away from the sinister voice and make it her own, to chose to use for good or evil and to keep the sinister voice incapable of inflicting the same torment on another child.
She was an eight year old girl....she chose to live....but she was also full of anger and wrath and she turned away from the sinister voice to turn to her own path.
The insane witch never realized quite what happened once the girl woke up, but kept her contained and controlled for many years, using a device to store her, a sort of spirit trap for the creature that Tse had become. Eventually, the witch was hunted down and her lair attacked (she might have survived, however, shrug) and the spirit trap that held Tse, a delicate-seeming sculpture of an egg, left the witch's control. It changed hands over many years, acquiring a reputation for being haunted (people would see the image of a morose and silent chinese girl, sometimes bloody and torn to shreds, sometimes whole, sometimes in between) as various owners were seemingly driven insane in its ownership.
Eventually, the egg reached an antique shop that had no idea of what it was or its value. A child and his mother were in the store and the bloody ghost appeared at just the right point for the boy flinch away and cause the egg to fall to the ground and shatter.
Tse was freed in that point and immediately started running out into the night. She eventually took shelter on the grounds of a church, unable to get in past the threshold herself, until some of the priests took her in.
Tse is something between human and spirit, a rather severe victim of a breach of the Second Law. She looks human for the most part, and has a human will, however, she is tattooed from neck to ankle and wrist with black images of darkness that seem to change when people look away. Some of the "tattoos" appear over what seem to be severe scars from where Tse has tried to remove them.
The images on the Tattoos fluctuate based on Tse's attitudes or mental state. For the most part, due to the fact that she sees herself as a corrupted and unholy creature, they appear as horrid scenes of depravity and terror. However, the tattoos closer to her heart show a ring of black warriors, usually Chinese soldiers or Christian shield-bearing knights, and in between them, there are other images of peaceful, soothing darkness, usually with Christian symbolism given her having been cared for by Catholic priests for the last few years. Dependent on her own self-image, the knights are confident and pushing forward or else pressed and falling back. This section, representing all together her self-confidence, free will and morality, is rather small given her own self-hating nature.
Tse refuses to give anyone (even the priests that raised her after her escape from the egg) her birth name. She went by no name for a bit, and then chose the name "Heigou" after hearing about the dread "Black Dogs" of some myths.
Tse is still haunted/protected by her elder sister's ghost, though she herself does not know that. Apparently, the other ghost can't manifest if Tse is watching. However, the ghost is old and powerful, a match for some demons, and she cares only about "protecting" her sister, which can sometimes be troublesome for others.
Powers: Heigou is a creature of shadow and wrath. She is physically more powerful than she appears and tends to blend into shadows as if she were part of them.
I'm thinking:
Cloak of Shadows (-1)
Inhuman Strength (-2)
Inhuman Speed (-2)
Inhuman Toughness (-2)
Inhuman Recovery (-2)
Catch: Toughness and Recovery don't operate in bright light (+2)
does that sound appropriate for powers?
