Arkanna

Arkanna
Player: Fujiwarah
[[Image:|300px|]]
Teenage Witch
Biographical Data
Real Name:	Melanie Reed
Known Aliases:
Gender:	Female
Species:	Human
Ethnicity:	White American
Place of Birth:	Saltbrink City, Utah
Base of Operations:	Millenium City
Relatives:	Thomas Reed (father), Sally Reed (mother), Robert (sibling) Egdar (sibling) Emily (sibling) Franklyn(sibling)
Characteristics
Age:	17
Height:	5ft3
Weight:	95lbs
Eyes:	Hazel
Hair:	Black (Dyed)
Complexion:	Pale (Cosmetics)
Physical Build:	Slender, Petite
Physical Features:	None
Status
Fame:	██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ Unknown
Alignment:	LG LN LE NG TN NE CG CN CE
Identity:	Secret
Years Active:	0.5 (sporadic)
Citizenship:	USA
Occupation:	Personal Assistant
Education:	Saving for College
Marital Status:	Single
Known Powers and Abilities
Witchcraft and Sorcery
Equipment and Paraphernalia
Torch, First Aid, Palmtop, Protective Amulet

Physical Attributes
	Strength			Weapon
	Durability			Armor
	Speed			Reflexes
	Resistance			Stamina
	Dexterity			Agility
	Combat			Regeneration

Non-Physical Attributes
	Energy			Psionics
	Telepathy			Willpower
	Sorcery			Technology
	Intelligence			Knowledge
	Charisma			Bravery
MaekadaBox created by @Maekada

Appearance

Arkanna is a slender, albeit short, raven-haired young woman who favours make-up that accentuates her naturally pale skin, including very pale foundation, black eye-liner and mascara and black or else very bright-red lipstick. Though she prefers to wear her hair long when off-duty, she frequently gathers her hair in a ponytail. Especially when working-out, working in her civilian job as a PA or when actively heroing as Arkanna. Mel's ears have been pierced only once each, and she prefer small, stud earrings. However, she does have a hoop in the centre of her lower lip and another in her left nostril which she claims she is unable to remove (but does remove in her heroic persona) and even wears to work. Finally, as Melanie, Arkanna is rarely seen without a small, silver crucifix that she wears on a thin leather band around her neck. She does not wear this as Arkanna.

Although just seventeen, Arkanna looks somewhat older, easily passing for a woman in her early twenties with the right selection of cosmetics, but generally appears to be closer to nineteen or twenty than her actual age. In part, this is due to her slim, distance runner's build, her bearing, and the definition of her facial features. She's entirely lacking any of the "puppy fat" most girls her age still have a trace of around the cheeks, jaw and chin. Her breasts are a constant source of embarrassment and consternation to her, although this has more to do with her own sense of dysmorphia than any real lack of proportion to her figure. Not because she's believe them to be too small, but because she believes them to be too large. Despite her discomfort, she still tends to wear figure hugging dresses on formal occasions and when actively dating. Otherwise, she tends to favour baggy jackets, sweat-tops and other clothing which obfuscate the curves of her torso.

When dressed for work, Arkanna (as Melanie) tends to wear well-tailored, inexpensive (but respectable) business clothing rather than the designer wear one might expect of Mr Christian Troy's Personal Assistant. On such occasions her make-up is relatively subtle, but still tends towards pale foundation and dark mascara. When dressed casually, she prefers Jeans, baggy tops and leather jackets, often with a colourful t-shirt beneath. She does favour the less-extreme "Goth" clothing styles, but doesn't consider herself to be either a Goth nor an Emo: she just likes the look and feels comfortable with pale cosmetics and darker clothing.

Arkanna's initial costume is simplistic and mostly shop-bought - consisting of an angled black skirt, black leggings, black boots, a black halter top and a thin, black domino mask, all with white detailing. Over this she wears a white corset around her waist and beneath her breasts. As the costume is made of normal fabric, it provides very little protection and she frequently has to replace various items due to wear and tear. Around her neck she wears a leather choker with a golden Roman coin displaying the head of Marcus Aurelius on the outward facing side. On the inward side, the charm is inscribed with protective runes against magical attack.

Personality

Arkanna is a young woman at the cross-roads of her life, caught between being a teenager and early adulthood. She's tormented by the various possibilities open and available to her and also undergoing a crisis of faith that involves her challenging everything she ever thought she knew about her place in the universe. This same crisis of faith has left her feeling emotionally distanced from her family, in particular from her mother with whom she was particularly close. In this regard, she is looking for a new family, at least in a sense, and is desperately seeking to recapture that sense of acceptance and belonging she felt when in the presence of her parents and siblings.

Despite her current identity crisis, Melanie remains a compassionate, dedicated, intelligent young woman keen to find her place in the world. Now that she has taken the first steps as a hero, she is slowly coming to realise that she likely will never be content with a normal life again. Her inability to selected a college course for herself is one manifestation of this realisation. Her unwillingness to simply follow the rules of the religious sect in which she was raised is another. As much as Melanie sometimes dreams of a family and children of her own, she's already coming to the dawning realisation that she could never be happy in normal life. Any family she ever has would, by it's very nature, have to fit around her heroic career.

For the time being, Melanie is content to work for Christian Troy as his Personal Assistant. The pay is good, and the work both interesting and fulfilling. Part of her is leaning towards taking up business studies when she does, eventually, make her way to college. But she's worried that returning to full time education will take up so much of her time that she'll have to give up her current role and that thought terrifies her. In Christian she feels she might be about to find almost a second father - one with whom she can be open about her true feelings with regards to "God" and the nature of humanities place within the universe. Likewise, Gordon Bryce, her employer's butler, is swiftly becoming something of a grandfatherly figure.

While Melanie has only been a part of this odd little family unit for a very short time, she's disturbed by the thoughts that it might have to come to an end -either because she goes to college or because Gordon and Christian finally get sick of her constant fatigue and bruises and decide to get rid of her and hire someone else.

She's almost, almost ready to confess to them about who she really is. But she's so frightened of rejection that whenever she even considers the idea in their presence, she becomes paralysed with indecision. She's almost certain that they'd understand and keep her secret. Even support her. But the little inistent voice niggling in the back of her head stops her from admitting the real reason for her constant fatigue everytime.

History

Pre Arkanna

Melanie was born in Saltbrink City, Utah; a small town on the edge of the Great Salt Lake. The second of five children, Melanie lived a relatively normal life for a mid-western teenager in a religious household. At least until the birth of, first, her younger sister Emily and then her youngest brother Franklyn; both of whom were born with physical and mental disabilities (Emily has Cerebral Palsy, Frankly has Downs'). At a very young age Melanie became an assistant carer for her younger siblings, filling the rest of her days with school and extracurricular activities such as Chess Club, Lacrosse and Bible Study Group. At night, when her younger siblings were abed, she and her mother would spend time alone, while her father and older brother watched sports. Her mother took great delight in passing on her knowledge of Beauty Therapy and classical music, in particular taking the time to teach her daughter to sing and play the Cello. Melanie and her mother remained close, perhaps drawn together more so than most mother's and daughters by the knowledge that Emily would never be able to join them in their nightly activities.

Although a close-knit nuclear family, as a pre-teen Melanie often wondered why her parents were not closer to her Grandmother, Mel's name-sake only surviving grandparent. It wasn't until the elder Melanie, Melanie Ossman, fell ill with cancer that she and her granddaughter were able to form much of a bond. Taking over most of the carer duties from her mother, young Melanie would visit her grandmother every day after school. The two Melanie's discussed a great many things, including many things that the younger Melanie felt she could never discuss with her own mother, despite their close relationship. This included boys, puberty and her doubts about religion. It was these latter conversations that explained the distance between Mel's grandmother and the rest of the family. Melanie Ossman despised organised religion, calling it a curse on humanity. She was especially bitter, it seemed, about Sally Reed's conversion to the Church of Latter Days Saints as a young woman. She encouraged young Melanie to question everything she thought she "knew" about science and religion, and to seek her own answers to difficult questions rather than relying on the opinions of others and "irrelevant, dusty old books". When Melanie Ossman passed away two years ago, it had a profound effect on her granddaughter's life. It wasn't merely that her grandmother had left a small fortunate to Melanie -enough for her to move away and life modestly in a big city for a few years- but more so the utter void in her lift left behind by the old woman's absence.

Early Career:

Even so, the course of Melanie's life might have followed the direction of so many young woman from decaying, dying mid-western towns were it not for the contents of her grandmother's attic. Therein Melanie found details of the old woman's secret life as a member of something called the "White Lodge", a collection of sorcerers and magic-users. Melanie was fascinated by the contents of one old wooden chest in particular -a moth-eaten, faded super-heroine costume and a series of books and tomes outlining the arcane arts and how to use them. For weeks, Melanie devoured these books and their contents every evening, to the point of distressing her mother and neglecting her school work. Various hobbies fell away by the wayside -once considered for captaincy of the lacrosse team, she dropped out of the squad altogether. Her grade point average began falling and she took to neglecting her church duties, rarely attending any meetings other than Sunday service and never seeming to engage with the rest of the congregation entirely even then.

Her buying habits changed completely. Instead of buying book on teenage fiction and romance (the Twilight series having once been a favourite of hers)she began buying new age books, books on Hermetic Wizardry and Witchcraft and even books by writers of popular science debunking religion. She even took to wearing alternate styles of clothing, beginning to favour black fabrics and pale foundation. Shortly after her seventeenth birthday she returned home one evening with her left nostril and her lip pierced, and found herself grounded for a month. Mel merely used the extra time available to her for more reading, and more practice at spell-craft.

Then, after eighteen months of study, she finally felt she was ready. Taking to the streets of Saltbrink for the first time late one evening, she got herself in over her head and spent three nights in hospital. Thereafter, she was more careful, developing a healthy respect for the limitations of her powers and venturing out only once or twice a week. Most nights she found no trouble at all. Others, she found enough to sneak home bruised and battered. Her fatigue, bruises, muscle and joint pains did not go unnoticed either by her family, her church of her school and social services soon came to visit. Their investigation uncovered nothing untoward however, and "merely" resulted in considerable shame and embarrassment for her parents.

No doubt it was almost a relief for them when Melanie graduated high school, albeit with a 3.5 GPA rather than the 3.8 she'd averaged prior to the death of her Grandmother. Upon moving to Millennium City, Melanie bought herself a modest, run down little apartment on the west side with the money her grandmother left her and set about finding a room-mate and a job while she pondered about college.

Millennium City & Forge Incorporated

Melanie came to the attention of Forge Incorporated and Christian Troy not long after moving to Millennium City. She registered as a silver service waitress with Millennium City Temps while she looked for a job that would pay enough to fund her college education and let her send money home to support the family with medical bills. Mrs Ofea Iskandu, the interviewer, was so impressed by the young woman that she contacted the office of Mr Troy directly, knowing the philanthropist's interest in furthering the careers of remarkable young people short on funds for their education. Consequently, Melanie was interviewed by Christian's butler, Gordon Bryce, and offered work as an intern. In the meantime Christian contacted her family, for permission to offer her a permanent position on her staff. Following a charity fund raising event during which Melanie acted as an intern and hostess, she was personally interviewed by Christian and offered work as her personal assistant.

Melanie has no real idea of why, and it utterly unaware that Mr Troy knows (or at least, suspects) more about her night-time activities than she realises. While she and Christian Troy have a friendly, if professional relationship, Melanie is growing especially fond of the elderly and childless Gordon Bryce, who has taken her under his wing and begin training her in self-defence. Melanie immediately began putting those lessons to good use in her near-nightly skirmished with the Purple Gang and Maniacs, blissfully unaware of her employer's suspicions. It's perhaps only a matter of time before Christian Troy or his butler, Gordon, have her placed under surveillance.

Powers

Melanie has spent much of the last two years of her life studying her grandmothers books on witchcraft and hermetic sorcery. Consequently, given enough time and resources (and access to the required arcane ingredients) Arkanna can find and prepare a spell for almost any occasion. Whether or not she'll be able to successfully (or safely) cast it however is another matter.

Additionally, she's mastered three particular spells well enough that she can cast them instantly, without any preparation or tools whatsoever. While each has a particularly convoluted arcane sounding name, Arkanna refers to them simply as "Manaball", "Flight" and "Aegis". The first of these is a ranged attack in the form of a swirling ball of purple magical energy, designed to stun or disable and opponent rather than do permanent harm. The Flight spell was the first she ever learned, and it took her nearly six months to master. Even so, it provides a relatively slow form of flight no faster than 30 mph. Aegis refers to a spell which she maintains continuously in costume, producing a subtle magical shield around her which makes everything inside it's protective bubble appear purple. At present, Melanie is only able to project the aegis a few feet from her body, although she is working hard in order to increase this radius.

Finally, and only as Arkanna, Melanie wears a protective amulet around her neck in the form of a black leather choker with an ancient Roman coin bearing the portrait of Marcus Aurelius. This golden coin is inscribed on the transverse side with runes of protection versus magical spells. Even in her civilian identity, Arkanna keeps this amulet close by, often in a pocket or bag, so that she can benefit from it's presence. The amulet is rather distinctive however, and it's the only thing she routinely carries that could possibly connect Melanie Reed with the super-heroine Arkanna.

Note that while Melanie, given time, can prepare and cast almost any other conceivable spell in the form of a ritual, she is every mindful of the "Threefold" rule of magic, which states that any physical harm inflicted by a spell is eventually returned three-fold upon the caster. Consequently, she restricts herself to non-lethal spells. Some of her grandmothers older books hint that that the threefold rule does not apply to harm inflicted by enchanted items however, and she is presently engaged in research to determine whether or not this is true. Melanie has no wish to inflict permanent harm or injury to her opponents, but she is smart enough to realise that she may one day be faced with the choice between killing or maiming, and letting an innocent die.

Skills

• Silver-service waitress
• Excellent secretarial and organisation skills: can type 115 words per minute and genuinely loves organising things. Set her down in front of a filing cabinet in need of sorting, and she's happy.
• Excellent people skills. Melanie (and Arkanna) are hard-working, dedicated, charming, warm, enthusiastic and downright friendly teens and consequently very difficult to actively dislike.
• Basic (but steadily improving) knowledge of the arcane world, not extending to awareness or knowledge of magical secret societies other than DEMON.
• American High School Graduate
• Very good Cello Player with a good singing voice for classical music and opera, although she tends to butcher most of her favorite rock and metal songs since they don't suit her register.
• Basic First Aid.
• American Driving Licence (automatic only, no stick).

Gear

Aside from her protective amulet, Arkanna goes into combat equipped with nothing more than a first-aid kit, a flashlight, pepper-spray and a cheap palm-top computer.

Weaknesses

• Arkanna suffers from claustrophobia. Consequently, in moments of high-stress, she often discards her helmet. Even in combat.
• Melanie is a *very* minor sorceress with a power level compared to a DEMON initiate.
• Arkanna isn't a very capable melee combatant. She's still learning how to defend herself under the tutelage of Gordon Bryce.
• As friendly and outwardly self-confident as she is, Arkanna is still a teenaged girl. It's remarkably easy for an older villain (or even a hero) to make her doubt herself and her capabilities.

Family and Friends

Civilian

• Christian Troy: Melanie's boss and CEO of Forge Incorporated. Also secretly the Forge Inc. Corporate-Sponsored Hero "Forge".
• Gordon Bryce: Christian Troy's Butler. Presently teaching Melanie basic self-defence skills.
• Thomas Reed: Mel's father, a Podiatrist in Saltbrink City, Utah. Also a Church Elder.
• Sally Reed: Mel's mother, a Beauty Therapist in Saltbrink City, Utah. Main carer for Melanie's disabled siblings.
• Robert Reed: Mel's older brother, a 19 year recruit in the US Navy.
• Edgar Reed: Mel's 13 year old younger brother.
• Emily Reed: Mel's 9 year old sister. Blind and confined to a wheelchair by Cerebral Palsy.
• Franklyn Reed: Mel's 7 year old brother. Has Downs' Syndrome.

Costumed

Enemies

• The Purple Gang, Westside, Millennium City.
• The Maniacs, Westside, Millennium City

Tropes

• Action Survivor: Despite her initially weak powers, Arkanna is able to think up ways to come out ahead against extremely powerful and dangerous foes. She seems to thrive the more impossible the fight is.
• Adorkable: Melanie is prone to putting her foot in her mouth in various sweet and adorable ways.
• Apologetic Attacker: Ark tends to feel guilty about hitting people too hard.
• Ascended Fangirl: Ark loves and admires Superhero's, especially Thundrax.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her resultant feelings of Guilt, Ark is *not* afraid to hit hard.
• Blithe Spirit: She recognizes that bad things happen. But she's confident that good things will happen too.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Shortly after being recruited as Christian Troy's PA, his butler, Gordon Bryce, begins teaching her self-defence.
• Closer to Earth: Her optimism is not ditziness: she has a good deal of common sense and a genuine fondness for people that is usually reciprocated.
• Clueless Dude Magnet: Ark a gorgeous and vivacious young woman with a great many admirers: but she's usually too busy or distracted to notice.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Ark is almost incapable of not helping people, given the opportunity.
• Deuteragonist: Arkanna swiftly becomes a side-kick to a more powerful hero, but she still has her own plotlines and villains gallery to complicate the lives of her teammates)
• Ingenue, The: Although a stunningly attractive young woman, Melanie grew up in a very religious household in a fairly Christian small town. Many innuendo's go right over her head and those which don't frequently make her blush. She's also easily flattered/distracted by male attention. Especially hot young male attention.
• Keeping Secret's Sucks: Ark is extremely guilty about keeping the truth of her nightime activities from her parents, who naturally assume the worst.
• Heart, The: Everybody loves Arkanna. Even some of the villains feel bad about fighting her.
• Mystical Waif: She's a seventeen year old witch.
• Plucky Girl: It takes a lot to make Arkanna back down from a fight. Even when she's utterly terrified (most of the time) she just keeps battling on.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin
• Silk Hiding Steel: Melanie might not look or act tough and she's certainly not a very capable combatant. But she's determined, motivated and daring.
• Squishy Wizard: Melanie isn't going to last long toe-to-toe against most common thugs, let alone villains. What's more, she knows it, so she tries to keep her distance.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: Given enough time and resources, Arkanna can find a spell for any occasion.
• Think Nothing of It: Is embarrassed by compliments.
• Weak but Skilled: Arkanna is a 95 pound girl who can be knocked off her feet by a light breeze. But she can also fry your brain with magic bolts.

Trivia

• Arkanna's hobbies include Chess, Lacrosse and playing the Cello.
• Arkanna grew up in a Mormon household: she doesn't drink anything containing coffee or tannin (although she has started experimenting with alcohol).
• Arkanna has a reasonably good singing voice. She'd never make it as a stat, but as a lounge singer she does the trick.
• Despite being a very attractive young woman, Arkanna is very self-conscious about the size of her breasts. Being well endowed, she believes her breast make they make her look lop-sided in profile. Hence all her official publicity photographs are taken from the front and back, never from the side. (She doesn't look top-heavy or lop-sided at all. It's merely a case of teenage body dysmorphia).
• Arkanna cannot cook and is very impressed by people who can.
• Arkanna idolises certain older heroes, such as Thundrax, but the real hero in her life was her grandmother.
• Arkanna's parents have no idea what she gets up to at night - she feels intensely guilty, knowing they probably think she's up to no good when she stays up so late and comes home covered in bruises.
• When at home, Arkanna helps her parents care for her two disabled siblings: Emily has Cerebral Palsy whereas Franklyn has Downe's Syndrome.
• Arkanna is presently having a crisis of faith -while raised a Christian, she's angry at God for taking her grandmother and organised religion for all the harm it causes in the world. While she's trying to convince herself she's a woman of science, ultimately most of the the magic she casts derives from spells dedicated to the "God and Goddess". Hence, she's extremely conflicted with regards to matters of religion.
• Arkanna has something of a crush on her boss, Christian Troy, but she's smart enough to know that a crush is all that it is and would never dream of letting him (or Gordon Bryce, the Troy family Butler) know a thing about it.
• Arkanna is saving for college, but she has no idea what she wants to study: Nursing, Social Work, Child Psychology, City Planning, Environmental Health, Microbiology, Mid-wifery. It changes from week to week. Consequently she keeps delaying filling out her college applications. It's never occurred to her that maybe what she really wants to be is a full time Hero.
• Arkanna graduated from highschool with a GPA of 3.5, down from the 3.8 before her grandmother died and she began training to be a hero.
• In her civilian life, Arkanna likes to dress in black clothing, wear pale foundation, red lipstick, black eyeshadow, mascara and nail varnish. Yet she insists she's not a Goth. She just "likes the look". Even so, she's always smartly turned out in business wear when working as a P.A
• Arkanna's taste in music is diverse -ranging from Classical and Opera to Hard-Core techno and Thrash Metal as suits her mood.
• She likes playing Rock and Metal compositions on her cello.

RP Hooks

Forge Incorporated Plot Hooks:

In her civilian persona, Arkanna is the Personal Assistant to Billionaire Technologist Mr Christian Tory of Forge Incorporated. The typical duties of a PA provide a host of adventure and RP hooks:

• She reads, monitors and responds to her boss's email.
• Answering calls and liaises with Christian's clients.
• Preparing draft correspondence on her boss's behalf.
• Delegates work in the absence of Mr Troy and Mr Bryce.
• Assists the secretarial team .
• Manages Mr Troy's electronic diary.
• Plans, organises and schedules meetings.
• Organises travel and prepares complex travel itineraries.
• Attends meetings on Mr Troy's behalf when he is otherwise engaged.
• Records action points and writes minutes.
• Preparing documentation for meetings.
• Takes dictation,
• Plans, organises and manages events, including acting as a hostess at social and business functions.
• Conducting marketing research.
• Drafts communications.
• Prepares presentations.
• Managing and reviews office filin and operating systems.
• Preparing news updates for Troy Ind. intranet.
• Typing documents.
• Sources and orders stationery and office equipment.

Consequently, Arkanna is a person of interest for anyone wishing to learn more about Christian Troy or Troy Industries and their activities.

Other Plot Hooks

• Melanie has two disabled younger siblings whom she often accompanies on day trips and outings either in Utah or when they visit her in Millenium City.
• Melanie's sister Emily has cerebral palsy, and receives specialised treatment at Millennium City Memorial Hospital. Melanie can often be found visiting her sister there.
• Melanie is still deciding which college she wishes to attend in Millennium City, and consequently can often be found on campus during open days and conducting research about the available courses.
• Anyone who works for Troy Inc is likely to recognise her as the boss' Personal Assistant.
• Mel goes for a run near her home in West-side at least twice a day (usually in the mornings and before it get's dark)and tends to hit the gym for half-an-hour every day on her lunchbreak.
• Melanie frequents New Age stores and similar locations in Millennium City, trying to locate a place that deals in actual magical paraphernalia.
• Someone from the White Lodge might have finally heard about the death of Melanie's Grandmother, and come to investigate what happened to her books.

Theme Songs

• "Gimmer of Hope (New Version)" - Ivan Torrent feat. Aurelia Brighton
• "Bright" - Echosmith and Lindsay Stirling
• "Uncover" - Zara Larsson
• "Nightingale" - Demi Lovato