HexBane
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Quick Reference
Description: Jill is a short young woman with blue eyes and extremely pale skin. She is heavily tattoed, and tends to wear clothes that cover her body, not showing that much skin. Goth or punk in her stylings, her hero garb is usually everyday clothing with gadgets, accessories, and light body armor.
Powers:Jill has telepathic and magical powers. Her magic focuses on shadow manipulation and can debilitate her enemies with their own shadows. She can perform other magic as well, but usually needs preparation. Recently, she has added a cybermagical arm and some control over electricity. Her lightning is always red for some reason. She does carry tech devices as well, but hasn't learned to use more than a handful.
Defenses: Jill has nanoweave body armor to mitigate physical and energy damage, as well as a variety of magical defenses against special attacks. Note that she possesses heavy mitigation against bullets and other common sources of damage.
Biography
Early Life
Jill was born in Millennium City to Eva and Aleister Blackthorne. Like most metahumans, she manifested some hints of her powers early. The infant Jill didn't sleep much, even compared to other infants. She would often focus her tiny eyes on things that weren't there, and scan the empty corners of her room, as if observing something. As a young child, Jill displayed much the same behavior, and was often withdrawn from her peers. She was often described as a "creepy" little girl. She often casually knew things about people she couldn't have. Jill seemed reluctant to show it, somehow understanding the idea of stigma, even from a young age.
Jill's father died in a hit and run accident when she was four. Before he left the house to walk to the bus stop that day, Jill begged him not to go. When Jill's mother, Eva sat her daughter down to tell her the news of her father's death, Jill said that she had had a bad dream of the event. Four years later, Eva met Jill's new best friend, Katie. When she met Katie's father, Jason, they hit it off so well they were married in less than a year. Katie and Jill enjoy being sisters and never call each other "step" anything.
Katie was (and is) brilliant, a certified genius. With her in the house, Jill felt like learning was fun. They skipped several grades together. However, as Katie began to pull ahead, Jill found it more difficult to keep up with her academically. Further, she often felt like the odd person out in advanced placement courses. In high school, Jill decided to take standard classes apart from her sister. Surprisingly, Katie finished high school in two years and made it to college at age 14, though she continued to live at home while working on her bachelor's at MCU. For her part, Jill found social life daunting. The situation wasn't helped at all by Jill's sleep habits.
Since very early childhood, Jill hadn't been able to keep up a normal sleep schedule. She continually had night terrors, vivid dreams that felt real and had terrifying themes. In her early teens, she began to have dreams of what she calls her past lives--many of which she claims ended all too soon in bloody orgies of violence. At her sweet 16 birthday party, Jill vanished in full view of her friends and family. Chaos erupted and terrified party guests fled their own animated shadows. Jill later found herself in her own closet, hiding. To this day she only remember brief glimpses from that day. As a senior in high school, Jill dozed off in class and a similar incident occurred, with her nightmares spontaneously manifesting in shadow form, assaulting her classmates. No one was seriously injured, but Jill was asked to leave school. She would earn a GED later, and started college months before her 18th birthday. She hopes to attain a bachelor's in computer science, the one subject where she did not feel completely at a loss when compared to Katie's genius.
Heroics Begin
Born with little pigment in her body, Jill was labeled an albino. She sunburns very quickly, and has to dress in clothes that cover as much of her body as possible. She has only recently become aware that her albinism could be related to her powers. As she is sensitive to light (especially sunlight), this doesn't seem like an accident to her at all. She is intelligent and driven, but often awkward or reactionary in social situations. Still afflicted by nightmares, Jill has sleep issues and often goes on “runs” or patrols when she can’t sleep.
Jill understands her powers as the manifestation of a powerful, inhuman force. Jill draws power from what she terms the Nightmare (or occasionally, the Dreamer, which manifests itself as a young woman through various, interconnected lives. Jill was born with an odd sense that she had lived this life before. Many of her nightmares are glimpses of past or future lives wherein she dies, often in a horrifying manner. Jill’s dreams hint that not all her previous incarnations have been heroes, and this leaves her wondering exactly what this entity’s goals are. Lately, Jill’s dreams have expanded, and she seems to be having the nightmares of everyone around her. She could dream about having an abortion if a teen neighbor is having a pregnancy scare, or of a kidnapping if someone is concerned about losing their children.
Jill joined the unfortunately short-lived supergroup, the Offspring. She made friends there, like Minnow the fish girl and Kid Harrier, but the mundane world kept getting in the way of teen heroics, and the group eventually broke up. The Offspring gave Jill the support she needed to begin to blossom into the hero she was meant to be. During these months, Jill managed to summon a strange entity from a plane of darkness. The entity's only name was Doomsheep--a fitting name for a football-sized winged sheep made of shadow. Originally Jill's familiar, the creature passed to Katie when Jill died. Well...
Jill was technically dead for a few moments. She nearly perished when pursuing a strange entity called the Ragman through a haunted neighborhood. As one would expect, her parents "flipped the eff out". Jill's stepdad, now an ambassador, pulled some strings and got her some training. An infernal heroine--the Devil's Cheerleader--tutored Jill in the basics of magic. Jill always was good at shadow magic, but she learned a lot from the strange half-demon. Jill took to the magical arts well, learning quickly and intuiting some of the more strange aspects of the practice. When the Cheerleader decided to live off-plane for a while, she said that Jill was ready to progress without the need for a tutor. Jill's combat tutor was Sully, former Navy SeAL and UNTIL recon sniper. For a guy that never had kids, he certainly knew enough about how to motivate Jill as a teenager to do her best. Jill received training that ranged from merely better than average to excellent in topics such as Self-Defense, threat assessment, and survival and evasion tactics.
The Progeny
In recent history, Jill has joined a superteam of teen heroes known as the Progeny. She has several people she considers friends on the team, but finds it difficult to interact with some of the members. Recently, the team lost two members--the Orgoolian, K'lvin and the Malvan, Taffi--in a clash with a goddess. This clash also cost Jill her arm, and has reminded the young witch that she has to maintain focus and control of her powers. The aftermath of the event crystallized for Jill something she'd always suspected but never knew: using too much magic could kill her.
As a result of this last incident, Jill has put the more powerful of her shadow abilities behind an unconscious wall. Drawing on negative energy and creating massive shadow constructs is now out of her reach without a great deal of concentration to break through the binding. Her other powers do not have these effects, and Jill often wonders what it is about the shadow specifically that stresses her body so.
Powers and Skills
Shadow Control
Jill pulls extra dimensional magic from the Nightmare, or the Dreamer. She alternately refers to it as a place or entity. Though entropic in nature, the energy is not Qliphothic, nor is it completely the stuff of the Netherworld. According to her, the energy and substance of the shadow is a manifestation of entropy shaped by the world around it. The anxieties and fears of people leave their mark on the world. Eventually these bits of anti-reality can form their own tiny pockets of anti-reality, which sometimes can coalesce into Nightmare realms.
The most basic levels of shadow control are fairly natural to Jill, and she can do simple manipulations all day long without issue or much concentration. She manipulates existing mundane shadows, and can create shadows where they are impossible. Her more powerful abilities require quite a bit of concentration and sometimes time to build up enough energy to perform feats. Her control will develop throughout her life. There are two basic powers inherent in the control of shadows, and Jill has learned some extra abilities to extend these powers.
Shadow Manipulation
Jill can animate shadows as shadow matter. When animate, shadows generally feel sticky or gel-like, but possess great tensile strength. They are also uncomfortably cold to any being that is not cold resistant. She can solidify shadows and cause them to cling to opponents, shape solid shadows into simple structures, and imbue these shadows with a basic level of volition. Another interesting attribute of these shadows is that they are similar to liquid, able to flow into places and displacing air just like any other material. Jill can breathe when in contact with her shadows, but most people cannot.
Shadow Step
Jill can step from one shadow to another, effectively teleporting herself and a small amount of gear almost instantly. Jill can perform jumps like this almost effortlessly, though it may tire her if she has to jump repeatedly in a short period of time. It is possible for her to take others with her on these trips, but this drains her for a time. Further, Jill can use the same principle to enchant her pockets, allowing her to carry a varied assortment of gear, if necessary. Jill has one such shadow space with several changes of clothes. Another of Jill’s tricks is the ability to open small shadow portals while being attacked, allowing her to redirect enemy fire. This does take a great deal of concentration.
Life Drain
Jill learned Life Draining as an extension of negative energy projection. Though she no longer engages in negative energy projection due to the recent binding of her powers, Jill can still break down living and nonliving compounds and use the resulting energy in order to heal herself. She can conceivably use this ability to heal any wounds, but there is typically a price. The use of this power is still considered shadow energy, which requires concentration and could still be fatal. The name, Life Drain, is a bit of a misnomer, as it can feed off lifeforce, the energy from loosing molecular bonds, or a variety of other energies.
Psychic Powers
A natural result of Jill's connection with the Nightmare is a sensitivity to certain psychic impressions and, with practice, the ability to modify some of those impressions far beyond the normal or natural.
Empathy/Telepathy
Jill’s psychic powers are rooted in telepathy and empathy. The addition of telepathy is a rather recent development, and she relies more on empathy at the current time. Jill is able to sense emotions and thoughts. She doesn't have the experience to do a deep (telepathic) scan of someone's thoughts unless they will it, though her empathy is beyond this point. Jill can also radiate emotions to immobilize and disorient her foes. Jill currently lacks more than the most basic levels of training with these powers. With time, Jill's psychic powers have the potential to kill a living target through systemic panic and strain. To do so would take an extended, purposeful effort not within her normal capabilities. Typically, her attacks inflict vertigo or sensory overload on her opponents. Currently, Jill cannot affect machines and similar things without minds with these abilities.
Danger Sense
Jill isn’t as sturdy as many heroes, but her psychic abilities allow her to evade damage and find cover at the appropriate times. This is an extension of her extrasensory abilities. She is typically able to dodge damage at least once in a situation. Jill has to get behind cover, or make some, quickly though, as extended use of danger sense isn’t as reliable in a pitched firefight. Danger sense does not normally extend to Jill’s companions. A sniper targeting someone next to Jill will not trigger danger sense unless the bullet would pierce the target and hit Jill. A person about to step on a mine that would harm Jill would trigger danger sense, but someone slightly out of range will not.
Electrokinesis
After the battle of her life, Jill's circle of friends had grown smaller with the death of the Malvan, Taffi. Jill was in contact with Taffi at the moment of her death, and somehow had carried the young woman's power away with her, for a time. After using it in battle to help her friends, the power faded for the last time. However, Jill has begun experiencing electrical disturbances in the form of red sparks, and the ability to generate and control electricity, specifically with her cybernetic left hand. So far, all she can manage is some colored, though painful, sparks and the occasional jolt. This power is currently understood as electrokinesis.
Other Magic
Jill can perform other spells above and beyond shadow manipulation. The catch is that she often has to use material components for maximum effect, or spend time etching sigils in some surface, bloodletting, etc. Jill is a capable witch for her young age, but she does not have the same exceptional talent for these other types of magic, however. Thus she has to study hard. She is young, and has only picked up a small smattering of other spells, though she is well-read with regard to magic in general.
Skills
While Jill is technically a normal seventeen year old girl, she does have skills of note, as a result of her teenage crime fighting experiences.
Jill has combat training from her dad's old bodyguard, a former Navy SeAL. (This does not mean that she has the exact same training as a SeAL, which would be ridiculous at her age.) She knows how to handle herself under pressure, take cover in a firefight, and a variety of self-defense techniques. She is in excellent shape, and skilled in parkour and diving. She maintains her training now without personal instruction.
Unlike many traditional mages, Jill has nothing against technology and really loves computers. Currently, she is planning on a computer science degree at the local community college. As a high school dropout, however, she does have some prerequisites to work on, which she is planning on starting this fall. Jill is good with her hands and brain, and likes to tinker with hacking and similar activities. She still has much to learn about these enterprises, though, and so isn’t very good. She also has access to a hacking machine that is separate from her normal computer and is protected by a variety of countermeasures.
Equipment
When the situation calls for it, Jill has been known to use firearms, specialized gear, flashbangs and other custom ammunition. Her sister, Katie, is a certified genius and has given her easy-to-follow instructions for making a variety of devices potentially useful to crimefighters. Typically, she has a couple flashbangs and smoke bombs on her person, as well as one or two custom grenades. She is known to use “glop” grenades to restrain enemies, “blind” grenades that scramble robotic sensors, and “cryo” or freeze grenades. Others may be available on a case by case basis.
The Arm
Jill lost her left arm the one time she battled a bona fide goddess, Teotihuacan. During this event, Jill channeled much more power than she had before, and lost full control of her actions. Through her body, she watched her body call Qliphothic fire into being and smite the goddess. This act destroyed her left hand and her arm to the elbow, and further amputation was necessary because of signs of potential cancer later that week.
Jill's sister, Katie, got top people in their field together, including a Malvan cybernetics expert, a gifted human surgeon, and a psychic healer to replace Jill's lost arm. How she managed this is a mystery best left to the imagination. Katie somehow procured a unique metal alloy that wouldn't interfere with Jill's magic. Barely a week after the initial injury, Jill was surgically altered with the cybernetic limb. At present, it only has a single hand, though the modularity exists for other hands to be swapped out. The material resists damage with ease, and is only ounces heavier than Jill's original limb. It doesn't currently have any gadgets, other than a chemical sprayer for mace and a protected area with the same functionality as a high grade cell phone.
Weaknesses
The Dreamer
The origin of Jill's power is shrouded in mystery, and no one can say exactly the Source of her mastery of Shadow Magic or why psychic abilities seem so closely-related to them. When Jill uses too much shadow power, the shadows seem to whisper lazily to her. This is audible to any in the area. Using more and more power seems to "power her up", in terms of abilities, as if she is Awakening some sort of Sleeping power. However, when this happens, Jill is less and less in control of what the power does. The power nearly took over in one instance, costing her an arm. Jill is certain that enough of the Shadow will kill her.
Sometimes she can be heard ranting in her sleep about a Dreamer, and the dreams that keep it asleep, for now.
Celestial Light and Fire
As a being of shadow, Jill also has problems with celestial magic. She cannot be healed by celestial means, and attempts to do so actually cause her pain. Celestial fire and light are also more effective against her as attacks. Her inner shadows can compensate against such things, but she has to use a great deal of energy to do so. When confronted by such attacks, Jill often flees. Note that Jill is not evil, and attacks that specifically target evil creatures do not harm her. It is the fact that celestial fire and light are diametrically opposed to darkness, which infuses Jill in significant amounts.
Albino
Jill suffers from albinism. Her body does not produce enough pigment. As such, she sunburns very easily, and has to cover up from the sunlight as much as possible.
Friends and Allies
Rogue Gallery
[Name here]
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Soundtrack
Coma Grey (remix of Coma White and Coma Black) - Marilyn Manson
Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
Nobodies - Marilyn Manson
Incubus - Recoil
Gothic Lolita - Emilie Autumn
Sleepless Lullaby - Bright September
RP Hooks
Jill is tormented by nightmares of her own past, present, and future. She also has nightmares based on other people's fears and anxieties and often tries to check people out if she can figure whose nightmares she is having.
Trivia
Gallery
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Chibi by Eryck Webb
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Desecrated Dreams by Eryck Webb
Comment Wall
"Jill was the first to step up to my defense when others questioned the source of my powers and my beliefs. She barely knew me at that point. She's been my friend ever since. She's... the first best friend I've ever had. I think that, together, we sort of balance each other out, not just in terms of powers but in personality as well."' ~ Faith
"What's next? Vampires? Werewolves? I'm waiting, reality. *scoffs* Yeah, Jill is - she's alright. Creepy, but alright. Whatever it is she does - whatever it really is? It's useful. I wouldn't mess with her. Unless she pulls that voodoo crap on me again..." ~ Kid Ballistic
"Jill's pretty badass. Though I worry it's not healthy. I also don't think she likes me very much." ~ Luctus
"HexBane's powers are the stuff of nightmares. Though regardless of her somewhat unsettling, finger wiggling powers, she strikes me as a pretty tough chick." ~ Black Ice
Coma Grey (remix of Coma White and Coma Black) - Marilyn Manson
Welcome to the Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
Nobodies - Marilyn Manson
Incubus - Recoil
Gothic Lolita - Emilie Autumn
Sleepless Lullaby - Bright September
RP Hooks
Jill is tormented by nightmares of her own past, present, and future. She also has nightmares based on other people's fears and anxieties and often tries to check people out if she can figure whose nightmares she is having.
Trivia
Gallery
Chibi by Eryck Webb
Desecrated Dreams by Eryck Webb
Comment Wall
"Jill was the first to step up to my defense when others questioned the source of my powers and my beliefs. She barely knew me at that point. She's been my friend ever since. She's... the first best friend I've ever had. I think that, together, we sort of balance each other out, not just in terms of powers but in personality as well."' ~ Faith
"What's next? Vampires? Werewolves? I'm waiting, reality. *scoffs* Yeah, Jill is - she's alright. Creepy, but alright. Whatever it is she does - whatever it really is? It's useful. I wouldn't mess with her. Unless she pulls that voodoo crap on me again..." ~ Kid Ballistic
"Jill's pretty badass. Though I worry it's not healthy. I also don't think she likes me very much." ~ Luctus
"HexBane's powers are the stuff of nightmares. Though regardless of her somewhat unsettling, finger wiggling powers, she strikes me as a pretty tough chick." ~ Black Ice
