Tara Steele
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SUBJECT: Tara Steele
Contents
Summary
The most important things to know about Tara Steele are that she is a vampire, and she is eternally immature. Fluctuating easily between carefree merry prankster and intensely violent murderer, few who know her would consider Tara a hero of any kind, yet she was chosen by UNTIL due to her inner moral compass as much as her incredible supernatural abilities.
Known Information
Personal Data
- Real Name - Tara Steele
- Aliases - None known (subject seems to prefer legal name)
- Species - Human (Vampire, Clan Gangrel)
- Ethnicity - Caucasian; Scottish, Irish, and Russian descent
- Apparent Age - 18
- Actual Age - 41
- Height - 4' 11" (150 cm)
- Weight - 90 lbs. (41 kg)
- Eyes - Green (glowing red with slit pupils when in her warform.)
- Hair - Red, typically worn in pigtails
Biographical Data
- Nationality - American
- Occupation - Unknown (assumed unemployed)
- Birthplace - Boise, Idaho, USA
- Marital Status - Single (although there are rumors of many flings, dalliances, and affairs)
- Relatives - Unknown
Skills
- Powers - Vampiric Disciplines of Protean, Fortitude, Animalism, Celerity, and Potence.
- Abilities - Talented thief, convincing con-artist, skilled unarmed combatant, moderate computer skills
- Assets - Unknown
- Disadvantages - Weakness to sunlight and fire, requires blood to survive and fuel powers, short-tempered and prone to losing self-control,
Public Data
Publicly Known
Not much is known about Tara Steele, but those who are familiar with her know she is irascible, mischievous, vexatious, flirtatious, and provocative in just about every way.
Press Comments
- "In other news, over the last week MCPD in West Side has reported a string of robberies and burglaries commited against various criminal elements, including the New Purple Gang. Witnesses have spotted a previously unseen young red-haired girl prowling the streets and alleys of Westside, and some speculate there may be a connection."
- "And on the lighter side of things, late last night a disturbance was reported at Leo's Bar in West Side, where a barroom brawl erupted between alleged members of the Maniacs and the Cobra Lords. According to eye-witnesses, the fight was broken up by an unnamed young red-headed woman who was upset by the gang members breaking the jukebox, and who ended the night leading both gangs in rounds of drinks."
Quotes
- "Ever wonder if maybe why there's so many bad guys is because the civvies got tired of being ruled over by autocratic supes?"
- —Tara Steele
- "Furries are friends, people are food."
- —Tara Steele
Traits and Peculiarities
Personality
Tara is a bit of a conundrum. She justifies stealing and killing from those she believes are deserving, yet will bend over backward to help those less fortunate than herself. She is a fighter, a warrior, a vicious animal with a true heart of gold. She is also a prankster who loves to make people laugh - or laugh at the expense of others she looks down on. Tara absolutely despises drama; she has been known to murder those who cause interpersonal drama when she's around. Heaven help you if you try to cause drama with her. She is also flippantly sexual, and seduces anyone willing to fall for her idiosyncratic charms. Often her seduction is simply a tool, a weapon used against those she wants to get close to so she can either take advantage of them or hurt them. Other times she simply wishes to engage in lust for lust's sake, despite being dead. A vampire for almost a quarter century now, she still behaves as if she were a teenage street urchin.
Appearance
Tara is diminutive but cocky, not even coming to five feet tall or one hundred pounds in weight. Tho a bit over 40 years old and still using her real identity, she relishes taking advantage of her non-threatening facade and letting others assume she is a weak and harmless teenage girl. Her red pigtails and bright green eyes, youthful countenance, along with extremely pale skin covered in tattoos, are all quite striking and tend to draw lots of attention, unwanted or otherwise. Tara does not dress in any manner considered modern or typical. A product of '90s alternative culture, she remains stuck in the '90s. She is often seen wearing a black leather vest covered in patches from her favorite bands (Type O Negative, Danzig, and Motörhead being chief among them), a green plaid skirt, heavy boots, and lots of leather and spikes. She is quick to smile and laugh, and equally as quick to snarl and bare her fangs.
History
Childhood
Tara was born to a single mother in Boise, Idaho in 1981. Growing up in poverty, she learned early on to fend for herself and to take what she wanted when she could. Learning from her mistakes quickly, Tara realized it was almost always better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission, and even better to simply not get caught. Her mother was an addict who had a lousy track record of bringing home worse and worse men, eventually taking a live-in boyfriend who was abusive to both young Tara and her mother. In her early teens, after having been in and out of juvenile corrections multiple times for larceny and petty theft, Tara grew tired of the abuse and angrily set fire to her childhood trailer home while she thought her mother was out at work and her "step-dad" was asleep in bed. She never looked back and never knew that her mother had actually been home that night. Tara spent the next few years living on the streets or couch-surfing with friends she made at rock shows and other hangouts, surviving by thieving, conning, and occasionally blackmailing or home-invading abusers and molesters. Her favorite victims became corrupt and hypocritical clergy, as she had many bad experiences with the churches her mother attended to take advantage of for financial support.
Embrace
Tara's Embrace was somewhat unique in that unlike most Kindred of her Clan, it was informed and consensual. Her sire, a Camarilla warrior called Raven, had grown fond of her and felt sorry for her lot in life. After ghouling her (a practice of feeding vampire blood to mortals to bind them and give them some semblance of Kindred power) and trying to make her his apprentice as a tattoo artist, she asked what it was like to be undead. They spent many nights discussing his experience as a vampire (him trying to paint it as a negative) and the more she heard, the more enraptured she became with the concept. Eventually she asked him to Embrace her, and having received permission to sire as reward for services rendered to the Prince, he did so. The night after Tara's 18th birthday, she was drained of her blood and given some blood of her friend, now sire. Of course, Tara chafed under the new rules imposed upon her by the Camarilla and she quickly took up with the Anarchs, severely disappointing her sire, whom had spent most of his time as a vampire fighting.
Rise
Having rapidly earned a reputation in Boise's Kindred society as an upstart troublemaker, Raven strongly advised his childe to leave town and experience the world as a vampire on her own terms, telling her of the domains he knew to be under Anarch control (or at least Anarch friendly). Tho she frequently returned to her hometown to visit her friends and sire, Tara spent the next few decades wandering the country, honing her vampiric abilities and learning how to not only survive but to thrive. Her early life may have been cruel and miserable, but in death she found new purpose - to simply have fun. Run out of many towns, wholeheartedly welcome in some others as well, Tara's unique blend of cheer and psychopathy garnered her a reputation as someone who was fun to be around until she wasn't.
Millenium City
Tara came by bus to Millenium City about a year ago and almost immediately began hunting her usual victims in West Side. The sudden drop in crime rate and whispers of a "crazy fanged avenger" in the night drew the attention of UNTIL, who quickly realized a vampire had taken up residence in the district. Due to Tara's transient nature, it took UNTIL agents some time to finally ascertain her identity and location. Their first meeting was fortuitous for the agents, as they had unintentionally run afoul of Kevin Poe and Tara wound up having to save them. When confronted with what they knew of her, the UNTIL agents were able to convince Tara that it would be in her best interest to continue doing what she was doing under their guidance and direction, tho of course she chafes, as always, under any kind of yoke. Her arrangement with UNTIL keeps the local Kindred and law enforcement off her back, and she gets to slake her thirst and bloodlust on the villains and bad guys that have long hindered West Side's potential as a thriving community. Some have wondered if the local community would balk at knowing their safety, their "guardian angel", came from a chaotic but good-natured undead creature of the night. Tara can be found most nights sitting cross-legged atop the bar at Leo's Bar in West Side, either people-watching or trying to instigate trouble with local ruffians. Most regulars know now to avoid making her angry, to the point that some old-timers have come to paying what they call the "Tara Tax" - playing one of her known favorite songs on the jukebox when someone does something stupid that would piss her off.
Soundtrack
In Character
Many of the favorite songs of the vampire Tara Steele.
