Whirda Windstrom

[PepsiWhirda]

Name: Whirda Windstrom
Level: 5
Spent OM: 20,900

Base stats:

ATK: 2
DEF: 2 (+1 Tarrasque Scale Buckler)
SPD: 5 (+1 Purchased SPD)
TEC: 4 (+1 Purchased TEC)


Powers: (7,100)

Master Acrobat (400)

Healing (3,000)

Basic Teleport (1,500)

Stealth (1,200)

Suppression (1,000)


Proficiencies: (4,000)

Physical Strength (1,000)

Debuff Proficiency (1,000)

Ranged Proficiency (1,000)

Area Attack Proficiency (600)

Area Defense Proficiency (400)


Moves: (4,200)

Weapons

Umbral Dagger of Ahn'Thrix (300) (Physical Strength, Area Defense Proficiency): Whirda received the dagger of Ahn'Thrix after slaying the shade in The Pale Moors.  The dagger is roughly twelve inches long, carved from obsidian, and honed to a razor's edge.  With a thought, Whirda can command the dagger to leak a trail of opaque ash which hovers in the air, strategically obscuring vision.  Otherwise, this functions as a normal dagger.

Shadechill Dagger (300) (Physical Strength, Debuff Proficiency): This dagger is roughly twelve inches long and honed to a razor's edge, suitable for dealing quick light cuts.  The dagger is also coated in a diluted Shadechill Toxin. When dealing piercing or slashing damage, Whirda's target is afflicted with Shadechill for 5 seconds.  The toxin functions as a minor paralytic, causing opponents to experience a chilled sensation and blurred vision, slightly reducing their reaction time and dexterity.

Pre-Shade

Gust (300): Whirda conjures a quick burst of wind capable of hurling her or an enemy in the direction of her choice.  This move may only be applied to enemies as a touch attack.

Cyclonic Prison (300): Whirda captures the target in a cyclone of buffeting winds.  This move deals no damage directly, but is capable of picking up nearby debris and battering the target with it.  This move may only be applied to enemies as a touch attack.

Contagion

Improved Umbral Serpents (600): After one second of concentration, during which Whirda can move normally but cannot attack or use other moves, Whirda summons a pair of shadow serpents which wrap around her wrists. The serpents can be used to deflect incoming projectiles or grapple with enemies in melee range.  While in umbral form, Whirda creates six serpents instead.  The additional serpents will find a place coiled around her torso or on her shoulders.  They do not gain any additional strength or capability.

Umbral Clone - Distraction (600): After two seconds of concentration, during which Whirda can move normally but cannot attack or use other moves, Whirda summons a shadow clone identical to her in every way.  The clone will attempt to draw the attention of her enemies using a combination of taunts and kiting.  Sustaining a strong, solid blow to any limb causes the limb to shred into wisps of shadow. Sustaining a strong, solid blow to the head or torso causes the entire clone to shred into wisps of shadow.  The distraction clone can perform attacks but cannot deal damage.  Its blows will bounce harmlessly off of the target.  While in umbral form, Whirda creates three clones at once instead.  These clones all function as they normally would.

Umbral Clone - Detonation (600) (Ranged Proficiency, Debuff Proficiency, Area Attack Proficiency): After three seconds of concentration, during which Whirda can move normally but cannot attack or use other moves, any active shadow clones created by Whirda detonate, dealing high damage in a small radius of roughly ten square feet.  The resulting shock waves from the force of the explosion either push or fling affected enemies back depending on their size.  The detonation deals damage as blunt trauma, but does not possess the force necessary to create open wounds or cripple/kill affected enemies.  Enemies damaged by the detonation will feel similarly to someone who has been beaten with a club.  While in umbral form, Whirda's clones detonate into dozens of shadow serpents.  At the cost of drastically reduced concussive force, the shadow serpents will swarm all targets within a range of ten square feet, binding their arms and legs and attempting to pin them helplessly to the ground.  The shadow serpents maintain all drawbacks of the original move, and will last the same amount of time.

Umbral Clone - Swap (300) (Teleport): After one second of concentration (equivalent of a teleport at 5 SPD), Whirda swaps places with any one of her shadow clones within the range of her shadow step (same as first rank of Teleport, but will scale if I purchase higher ranks of Teleport).  The clone will continue to function as it normally would once reaching its new location.  The swap occurs seamlessly enough that any but the most perceptive of primes and secondaries would not notice.

Umbral Knives (600) (Ranged Proficiency): After a brief moment of concentration, Whirda summons three throwing knives. Although made of shadow, the knives function as normal metal, dealing similar piercing or slashing damage depending on the nature of the throw.  While in umbral form, Whirda creates and unleashes a steady stream of knives which lasts until she cancels the spell.  While casting Umbral Knives, the knives will travel along the trajectory of her outstretched hand, originating at a point just beyond her palm.  If sustained for more than ten seconds (roughly two dozen knives), Whirda will begin to experience exhaustion, reducing the accuracy of the knives and the damage they can deal (would bounce harmlessly off of sturdy targets and deal only shallow cuts to flimsy ones).

Umbral Tether (300) (Teleport, Debuff Proficiency): Concentrating for three seconds, during which time she can move normally but cannot use other moves or powers, Whirda creates a tether between her and a single target.  Whirda must touch her opponent at the end of the concentration period to establish the tether, and the tether will then remain active for fifteen seconds even if Whirda and her opponent move away from each other.  While the tether is active, when Whirda teleports, her target travels with her to the destination.  If the target is unsuspecting and does not have the Teleport power, they will experience disorientation and dizziness for about one second while they reorient themselves.  If the target has moved further from the destination point than the range Whirda charged her teleport for, they will be teleported toward the destination point a distance equal to that range.  A single teleport breaks the tether, and only one tether can be created per round. 


Super Moves: (2,200)

Umbral Maelstrom (Tier One Utility Super Move, 600) (Area Defense Proficiency): After about five seconds of concentration, Whirda creates a maelstrom of powerful wind and concealing shreds of shadow (roughly twenty by twenty by twenty feet). Nearby enemies are dragged into the maelstrom and pulled toward its center. Enemies cannot see outside the maelstrom due to the concealing shadow, and will remain inside buffeted by the strong winds for about one minute or until they find another way to escape. Enemies will not sustain any significant damage from the maelstrom itself, but Whirda can choose to enter the maelstrom herself where she will exhibit more stability and control than the typical enemy.  Items and debris pulled into the maelstrom become extremely dangerous projectiles, capable of bludgeoning or skewering distracted foes.

Umbral Cocoon (Tier Two Defensive Super Move, 800) (Area Defense Proficiency): Whirda draws on the thrumming leylines of umbral magic surrounding her, weaving an impenetrable cocoon of utter darkness.  Whirda can expand the cocoon to approximately three square yards, allowing her to protect adjacent allies as well. The cocoon lasts 30 seconds and is capable of blocking any moves or a Tier Two Super Move.

Shadechill (Tier 2 Super Utility) (Ranged Proficiency, Debuff Proficiency) (800 OM)
Whirda breathes a gout of Shadechill, enveloping a single opponent within 30 meters in an aura of darkness and cold.  The aura remains surrounding a struck opponent even if they try to move away. Enemies caught in the breath experience freezing temperatures and blurred vision, reducing their TEC by 4 for a full round.  This move can be blocked by a Tier Two Super Defense.


Transformations: (1,000)

Umbral Form [ATK: +2, DEF: +2, TEC: +1]


Artefacts:

Tarrasque Scale Buckler [+1 DEF]


Unlocks: (3,000)

+1 SPD (1,000)
+1 TEC (2,000)

[PepsiWhirda]

Post-Contagion Description:

After suffering a near-fatal wound at the hands of the shade Ahn'Thrix, Whirda was infected with a shadow contagion.  When she is holding the contagion at bay she appears much like normal, with dusky skin, pale gray eyes, and gray-white hair, except that her veins are black and seem to pulsate.  As the contagion spreads and she loses control that blackness spreads outward into her skin and floods the whites of her eyes (until she appears much like my avatar, without the pointy ears).  Whirda carries the dagger of Ahn'Thrix in her right hand and a buckler fashioned from a tarrasque scale fastened to her left forearm.  She wears black leather armor lined with chainmail, crisscrossed with the pockmarks and gouges of decades of combat.  Brown boots and bracers complete her ensemble.  

Note: Whirda has signed on with PepsiCo, along with Yuuka, to replace PepsiMan as the mascot and brand ambassador for Pepsi for Dante's Abyss.



Personality:

Since contracting the shade's contagion, Whirda is a frustrating companion, prone to dour moods and long bouts of silence.  When the contagion is held at bay she is quiet and observant, speaking formally when prompted but preferring to watch and listen.  Her humor is dry and sardonic when it makes an appearance.  It is quite difficult for anyone to get Whirda to open up, but with some prompting she will divulge details about her past and her struggles with the contagion.  However, when the contagion takes hold fully Whirda becomes a brutal killer who struggles to differentiate between friend and foe.

Fighting Style:

Whirda epitomizes the stealth and subterfuge fighting style.  Preferring to wear her opponents down and dance tantalizingly out of reach, it is rare that Whirda will engage in close combat (although she is no novice when it comes to sword play).  Combining the prudent use of Stealth, Suppression, and Teleportation with deceptive shadow clones to reposition and disorient her enemies, her guerilla tactics are best complimented by a brawler who can take advantage of the resulting confusion.  Whirda knows that frustrated enemies make mistakes, and uses this knowledge to her advantage.

Character History:

Born in the city of Waterdeep, the daughter of an influencial lord and his mistress, Whirda's life has always been a study in contrasts. On one hand, bred for a life of genteel aristocracy, schooled in politics, history, and etiquette, taught the final art of charisma and social engineering from a young age. Her father was protective, not of his daughter, but of the blow to his reputation she represented. She was cloistered, and told little of her past. She never knew the lord's wife, the woman she called her mother, was, in fact, not.

When Whirda was fifteen, and her father was embroiled in an election threatening to see him dethroned, the secret finally came to light. Her mother, an accomplished mercenary and battle-mage, returned to Waterdeep to see her daughter freed from a life of hollow pomp and circumstance. The illusion shattered, Whirda's father lost the election and descended into shame and social rejection.

When Whirda met her mother, she was enchanted. The sharp blades and battle-pocked armor, the complex spells calling the very wind to her mother's command, all of it fascinated her. Furious with her father's deception and desperate to escape the quiet refinement of life in Waterdeep, she chose to go with her mother to her home in Luskan, eight hundred miles to the north.

In Luskan, things were different. The city was ruled by pirate lords and thugs, a place of constant battle, suspicion, political treachery. Her mother taught her the way of the sword and of simple magic, and she proved almost prodigally apt. By seventeen, she was the agent of a powerful pirate lord, flitting over the rooftops of the city to carry out missions and deliver messages, often with a heavy dose of violence. She was in love.

Whirda and her mother, both separately and as a team, soon garnered a reputation as two of the most cunning, able mercenaries in the city. Still in her early twenties, for Whirda this was a blessing and a curse. She loved the notoriety, but it brought with it a fair share of envy and desire for vengeance from competing agents.

On her twenty-third birthday, disaster struck in the form of a poisoned crossbow quarrel. Whirda survived the attack, barely. Her mother did not. She was killed, and Whirda was forced to flee the city, cast into exile by the very reputation she fought so hard to cultivate.  Whirda came to find it was her father who ordered the attack, filled with ire at the loss of his daughter to a woman he considered a whore and a derelict.  He hoped her death would bring Whirda back to him.

She plans to return to her home, to the city, to topple the house of the lord who took her mother, to kill his agents and see his head on a pike on the city walls. For now, though, she answers a call to the Omniverse, to see what adventures lie in store for her there.

[PepsiWhirda]

Stories:

The Scramble

[spoiler]Whirda is called from exile to enter the Omniverse, but she is not alone.[/spoiler]

The Blight

[spoiler]Whirda enters The Tangled Green, meets a mysterious ninja, battles a goblin war party, and accepts a quest from Lady Tyrande, leader of the elves.[/spoiler]

The Shade

[spoiler]Whirda and Nyx enter The Pale Moors, seeking a shade who is suspected to be the cause of The Blight. After enlisting the help of Dobson and Professor Abraham Van Helsing, they enter the shade's lair to destroy the creature.[/spoiler]

The Contagion

[spoiler]Awakening from a regenerative coma more than a year after her battle with the shade, Whirda discovers she is infected with a shadow contagion, granting her some new and admittedly exciting abilities. As the contagion spreads and her power increases, Whirda is faced with a choice: give herself over to the shadow, or fight to preserve her very identity.[/spoiler]

The Cure - I

[spoiler]Whirda and a new companion seek the source of the Blight, a powerful archdemon whose actions are reminiscent of Diablo's reign. Meanwhile, the shadow contagion spreads, consuming more of her each day. Whirda must complete her mission and find a cure, before the contagion consumes her for good.

The pair encounter a band of drow who inform them of the existence of a tarrasque, with potential ties to the archdemon. They trek to an abandoned village to investigate further.[/spoiler]

(Tarrasqing a Question)

[spoiler]A parallel storyline to The Cure, including some of the site's most notable Primes.[/spoiler]

The Primordial Weapon

[spoiler]Whirda and Blues join forces with a second group of Primes to defeat the tarrasque, a colossal abomination Scylla plans to use to conquer The Tangled Green and assume control over the Verse.[/spoiler]

Awakening

[spoiler]After three years in a coma, fiercely battling the contagion within her, Whirda awakens in the Vasty Deeps. Here she encounters Tia Dalma, a voodoo priestess who knows where Whirda might find a cure.[/spoiler]