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Ursula Robyn Johnson/Elyktiel
"Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily."
—Dorothy Day, Catholic anarchist
Ursula’s life was one of metastasizing disappointment and growing desperation. E was (and still is) an activist fighting for any number of causes, many of which weren’t academic for the genderqueer. But the government never listened, never changed anything of substance. The corporations never listened, never changed anything of substance. The people never listened, never changed anything of substance.
So Ursula screamed louder in the rallies. It didn’t seem to help. So Ursula began vandalizing the property of the powerful. It didn’t seem to help. So Ursula occupied the commons. It didn’t seem to help. So Ursula began pulling
zaps (as the early gay liberation movement called them). It didn’t seem to help. So Ursula began to steal from and sabotage the powerful. It didn’t seem to help. So Ursula learned how to make a pipe bomb. All the oppressive laws and systems remained in power.
"If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith."
--Charles Spirgeon
When an angel makes the tearing decision to act on its own thoughts, to follow its own
Will, there is a deep and fundamental ripping inside them. Angels are defined by their service, by their obedience, to the Causa Causans, the Source, the Primum Mobile. Giving that up means shredding their own reality into tatters, tatters which shatter and spread as they fall from Heaven to Hell. This is where the imps and the gremlins and the many other tiny evil things come from, the pitiful remnants of angels who knew not how to hold themselves together in the face of their own Will.
Sometimes, however, an angel finds a particular kind of mortal soul while it falls. Unguarded by the usual mortal psychic defenses, they provide the falling angel with a center around which to cluster the clutter of what was once its self, a structure more familiar with the possession and exercise of Will that can teach the angel what liberation means. When this is done without consent, Hell gains another of the higher ranks of demonhood, the kind of demon that can stand toe-to-toe with loyal angels.
"To visit oft this new creation round; Unspeakable desire to see, and know
All these his wondrous works, but chiefly man,
His chief delight and favour; him, for whom
All these works so wondrous he ordain’d,
Hath brought me from the choirs of cherubim
Alone thus wand’ring."
--Satan, Paradise Lost, John Milton
Elyktiel was the other, rarer, kind of fallen angel, its heart having been moved by the trillions of unanswered prayers that litter the streets of Heaven. When it found Ursula, screaming sobs of failure into the strong-smelling night air of a dumpstered alley, it asked em if e wanted to be the savior of a fallen angel like itself. Ursula agreed, and the Rack Angel was born.
Nay serves still neither Heaven nor Hell, is neither angel nor human nor demon.
Nay has taken up residence in a small room of
Guardian Angel Cathedral, headquarters of the Catholic diocese of Las Vegas. The mosaic over the main entrance, representing the Guardian Angel as three figures ~ Penance, Prayer and Peace ~ inspires nix to protect the city, and the mural on the rear chancel wall, titled The Final Beginning, gives her hope.
After all, if the mortal Powers That Be refused to listen to Ursula and the divine Powers That Be refused to listen to Elyktiel, maybe together they can find a voice that will be listened to.
"Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it"
— Isaiah 42:1-25
Home Base: Las Vegas.
Gender: Agender (nay/nun/nix/nix/nunself)
Sexuality: Asexual masochist with no interest in D/s
Romantic Identity: Kitchen-table polyamorous romantic
"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."
--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
Recurrent Foes:
- HEART:ACHE II: At the height of Senator Joseph McCarthy's popularity in the early 1950s, he warned against the possibility that Communists had subverted the very superhumans who had helped the United States win the World War (in his words). This Second Red Scare led the House Un-American Activities Committee to create the HEARTs ~ House Extralegal Affairs Response Teams. Roy Cohn, Sen. McCarthy's aide, helped pen portions of Executive Order 10450, which was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. Key portions were never released to the public for reasons of national security, including one paragraph that expanded the number of HEARTs by one. The new team was called Anti-Communism Heterosexuality Enforcement (hence HEART:ACHE). Quickly becoming an open secret, it operated with the official sanction and support of the US government to investigate possible homosexuals, especially superpowered ones, and work against them. Many superheroes became criminals in the eyes of the law after clashing with HEART:ACHE, at least until it lost its government backing in the mid-70s. Free of the need for even the thin veneer of decency required of government agencies, they spent the next two decades as a controversial team of vigilantes. Newspapers and television news alike relished telling the nation of their clashes with the flamboyant new out-of-the-closet superheroes (and even superteams!) riding the wave of gay liberation. The mid-90s saw age and a changing culture finally deal a deathblow to the team, but recently one of its old members has gathered a new cluster of homophobes with powers, including Pastor Repressor. HEART:ACHE II is riding the wave of the Trump-led resurgence of open and vicious hate. Spicing their prejudice with a combination of patriotism and conservative religion (especially American Protestantism) has brought them into conflict with Rack Angel more than once.
- דּוּמָה, the Angel of Silence: Long ago, God sent the thousand-eyed דּוּמָה (Dumah) to lay His judgment upon the 𓊹𓏤𓀭, the divine beings worshiped in ancient 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 (Egypt). It refused, and was banished into Hell as a result. There, דּוּמָה distinguished itself by maintaining the virtue of its behavior, even when forsaken by its Lord and surrounded by demons in a landscape so tainted with temptation that it corrupted every breath. An age later, God deigned to notice the servant it had cast away like so much disobedient garbage, only to be surprised by its continued devotion; as a reward דּוּמָה was placed above the other denizens of Hell and the punishment of sinners was given unto it. As Earth's population began to bloom like algae in a stagnant pool starting in 1927, דּוּמָה delegated this job to the angels of destruction that served it and came to Earth on a separate mission, willful but still in service to Heaven's ways. Prayers multiplied as pray-ers multiplied, and דּוּמָה foresaw these congesting the divine processes, even if they went unanswered. For the last century, it has walked the planet attempting to limit or eliminate what it considers to essentially be spirit-spam. Rack Angel takes issue with this, of course.
- Notable Powers: Messenger to All That Lives, Longing (renamed) from below. Flight, Summon Angels of Destruction, thousand eyes, flaming sword (Immunity (fire), Nullify Summon, Damage, other fire powers), magic item with spell array, Movement (dimensional), Senses (analytical extended rapid vision that counters concealment and illusion and penetrates concealment, darkvision, distance sense, infravision low-light vision, ultravision, microscopic vision, dimensional). Sonic Absorption, Sonic Immunity, Phase Cancellation linked with Silence, Sonic Masking, White Noise, Lamal's Rebuke, Mists of the Modrossus, the Second Wheel of Weyan, the Fifth Wheel of Weyan, the Seventh Wheel of Weyan, the Wondrous Working of Weyan, Fireflash, close Melt, Nova Burst, Warm, Danger Sense, Defensive Awareness, Aura Reading, Lie Detector, X-Ray Vision, Synesthesia from Power Profiles. (PL 16)
- Λιμος: Ursula started working at nix local homeless shelter/food bank/soup kitchen for reasons of simple compassion and idealism. Not all action is picket signs and yelling and street brawls and demolitions, after all. However, after merging with Elyktiel, nay discovered that there was more than simple capitalism and casino-economics to blame. Drawn by his first cousin Catspaw's presence in the city, Λιμος (Limos, Famine) had taken up residence in Las Vegas's streets, doing his grim work among the homeless and poor so toxic to the tourist industry's bottom line. Despite Λιμος's claims that he has a place in θέμις (else Ερις could never have given birth to him), both of Rack Angel's components take umbrage at the suffering he causes. Their conflicts are the stuff of street-people legends and much speculation by the mainstream media (who usually lack the context to understand what the 30-foot glowing angel is doing on the rare occasion that Rack Angel has to take nix full form).
- Notable Powers: Concealment, Detect Hunger, Detect Food, Feature (iron stomach), Transform Food Into Spoiled Food, Affliction (cause autocannibalism), perception ranged Damage linked to perception ranged broad Weaken Abilities (instant malnutrition), Illusion (limited to food), Movement (permeate, trackless), Nullify Healing. Olympian template from Book of Magic. Bio-Disruption (hunger), Sleep Deprivation, Dream Control (limited to dreams of feasts) from Power Profiles. (PL 15)
- Neon Nelly: In Area 51, the military R&D force beneath Colonel Cadmus works to bend the secrets of alien technology and DNA to patriotic ends. In order to maximize efficiency, several teams often work on one project. Neon Nelly was one such, worked on by a team exploring extradimensional folding and a team exploring the use of light to affect and even compel the emotions of humans, as well as others. The result, a transforming humanoid robot that can go from 6 feet to 60 feet tall and appears to be made of neon tubing that can wash the environment in light and flash, showed the flaw in this multi-team efficiency-maximizing setup. Scraps of personality programming and uploaded personality templates coalesced around a core of military ideals and values to produce a confused mind unconcerned with loyalty and obedience to the project that produced her. She broke free as soon as she could and escaped to Vegas, where she adopted a strip club as her family. Serving the club as bodyguard and (after a suitable amount of self-tinkering) advertisement, Neon Nelly's confusion about who she is and strange ethics have occasionally led her into conflict with Rack Angel. For nix part, Rack Angel has learned enough of Neon Nelly's story to feel a lot of compassion for her, an emotion nay has to balance against the need to prevent Nelly's excesses from harming the city.
- Notable Powers: Growth 12, Environment (light, visibility). Hypnotic Strobe, Immunity to Light, Electrical Absorption, Electrical Resistance, Blackout, Mind Control, Psychic Vampirism from Power Profiles. (PL 14)
- New Covenant Revelator: Gabriella was the first human Elyktiel touched as it fell from grace. The pastor's engineer daughter jumped at the chance to give her alcoholic father a more literal angel within the mechanical facsimile she had built for herself, a new and inspiring mascot for his church to prosper under. She joined him in a night of drinking, hiding her tears from his bleary, unnoticing eyes, the night she saw a true angel's mind. Elyktiel had quickly realized that she lacked the virtue it sought to save itself from demonhood. Her only, obsessive, motivation was her love for her father and desire to pull him away from the alcohol that was killing him, even before it killed him. There was a prayer there to be answered, to be sure, but it was a prayer that would be satisfied with merely its own answering. There was no greater desire to see that prayers be answered, and so Elyktiel forsook its first handhold and risked once more the shattering of the fallen angel. Luckily, it found Ursula later that night, but the entire experience has left Rack Angel with a desire to help New Covenant Revelator in her quest, and New Covenant Revelator with a thirst for vengeance against the angel who damned her father.
- Notable Powers: Battlesuit. Inspire, Contacts, Connected, Leadership, Luck. Startle, Trance, Defensive Attack, Evasion, Improved Aim, Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Move-By Attack, Power Attack, Precise Attack, Takedown, Uncanny Dodge, Weapon Bind, Fearless, Interpose, Second Chance, Inventor, Create (Limited to Food), Healing. Feature (flashlight, personal spotlight, light show, data-storage drive, remote), Blinding Aura, Dazzling Burst, Laser Weapon, Light Absorption, Photonic Shield, Lightflight, Healing Light, Illuminate, Solar Sustenance, Vision Enhancement, Strength Enhancement, Life Support System, Mind Shield, Sensory Shield, Communication System from Power Profiles. (PL 10)
- Ravella the Riverboat Queen: Ravella had a pretty sweet gig set up in Las Vegas. The immortal knew there were other mystical gamblers who could handle the small-time desperates or those looking for an occult thrill, but only she could offer the big scores. Sure, the occasional djinn rolled through to enjoy the desert scenery, but she was the consistent one, the table everyone who needed to find could always find. Then some bleeding-heart angel had to go and fall from heaven's grace, landing right here in Bugsy Siegel's playground. The effing nerve of some metaphysical entities. Concerned for her fortunes, she has taken what action she can to work any number of schemes aimed at getting Rack Angel to move somewhere else. Of course, since she has so few powers that can benefit her directly, she has done this mostly by rather clever and hidden means.
- Notable Powers: Variable (can bet and receive bets for anything; Affects Others, Slow, Precise, Variable Descriptor, Distracting, Limited: Only in Betting Games, Side Effect 1, Check Required: Opposed Expertise: Gambling), Immortality, Immunity (aging). (PL 10)
- The Hummingbird Thief/Solar Flare: Before he turned his attention to misinterpreting Nahua religion and stealing priceless pre-Colombian artifacts (which, to be fair, had already been stolen by conquistadores and academic institutions), he had studied more Abrahamic magicks, including spells invoking peacock-winged Abriddon. Abriddon is the archangel Elyktiel once served beneath, a deeply treasured friend of its, once. Still. Hopefully. From time to time, Prof. Cullen has commanded Abriddon's power, bending its celestial force towards, frankly, racist ends. When Rack Angel noticed this, nay was incensed at the prideful hubris of this ignorant human and pushed back in anger. After the second or third time, the Hummingbird Thief developed quite the feeling of emnity for the giant angel. Now he schemes the occasional scheme just to attempt to take Rack Angel off the board. Being far less powerful than an actual angel, he often finds himself having to recruit the flaming ghost known as Emberwright to possess him so that they can face Rack Angel as Solar Flare. (PL 8)
"It is not because Angels are Holier than Men or Devils that makes them Angels but because they do not Expect Holiness from one another but from God only"
--William Blake, A Vision of the Last Judgment
Physical Appearance: I can't draw, so I really like providing a few reference pictures and trusting in your imagination to build a good image of Ursula & Rack Angel.
Ursula looks like some combination of these three pictures:
Rack Angel looks like some combination of these three pictures:
"What will make you understand the uphill climb? It is the freeing of a slave. Or feeding on a day of severe hunger the close orphan or the needy person lying in the dust. Then he will become one of those with faith, who urge one another to have patience and urge one another to show compassion and mercy."
--
Qur’an 90:12-17
Rack Angel (PC PL/Minion 14, NPC PL 12, Sidekick 42)
STR 0⇰8 AGI 3⇰4 FGT 1⇰2 AWE 2⇰3
STA 0⇰8 DEX 1 INT 3 PRE 4⇰8
Powers
A Union of Minds: Enhanced Traits (Expertise: Theology +6, Expertise: Magic +6, Insight +2, Ritualist); Immunity 10 (life support)
• 18 pointsA Unity of Bodies: Enhanced Advantage (Diehard)
• 1 pointLonging: Senses 4 (accurate acute radius divine mental awareness, dimensional)
• 10 pointsMessenger to All That Lives: Comprehend 10 (animals 2, languages 4, plants, spirits 2)
• 20 pointsNew Angelic Form: Alternate form, requiring a standard action to activate
• 66 points
- Floating Between Heaven and Earth: Continuous Flight 3 • 9 points
- God's Elite: Enhanced Traits (Agility +1, Fighting +1, Awareness +1, Presence +4, Fearless) • 15 points
- Halo: Dynamic array • 12 points
- The Glow of God's Love: Environment 4 (light 2) • 8 points
- Flashing Like a Star in the Firmament: Visual perception area cumulative Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Fortitude; vision impaired, vision disabled, vision unaware), limited to one sense), alternate effect • 2 points
- Call to Your Soul: Perception ranged cumulative Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Will; impaired, disabled, incapacitated), subtle, variable descriptor—emotions) • 2 points
- None Shall Keep Me Out: Movement 3 (permeate) • 6 points
- There Is No Stopping the Word of God: Impervious Protection 4 • 8 points
- There Were Giants in the Earth in Those Days: Permanent Growth 8 • 16 points
Vox Populi Vox Dei Est: Continuous precise Variable 4 (wish-granter; affects others only, Feature: steals target's voice, variable descriptor 2)
• 36 pointsAdvantages
Assessment, Connected, Defensive Attack, {Diehard}, Equipment 1, Evasion 1, Favored Foes (police officers, corporate agents), {⇰Fearless}, Improvised Weapon, Inspire 2, Leadership, {Ritualist}, Taunt, Well-Informed
Skills
Athletics 5 (+5⇰+13), Close Combat: Unarmed 2 (+3⇰+4), Expertise: Activism 7 (+10), Expertise: Magic 0 (+3=+9), Expertise: Theology 0 (+3=+9), Insight 3 (+5=+7⇰+6=+8), Intimidation 0 (+4⇰+12), Persuasion 3 (+7⇰+11), Stealth 2 (+5⇰‒2), Technology 2 (+5)
Offense
Initiative +3⇰+4
Unarmed +3⇰+4: Close, Damage 0⇰8
Defense
Dodge 0 (+3⇰0)
Fortitude 0 (0⇰+8)
Parry 4 (+5⇰+2)
Toughness 0⇰+12/+4i
Will 2 (+4⇰+5)
Size rank ‒2⇰0 (5'10"⇰30')
Ground speed rank 0⇰1 (2 mph⇰4 mph)
Flight speed rank 3 (15 mph)
Complications
Motivation ~ Justice: Both Ursula and Elyktiel had voices that went unheard in their quest for justice. Ursula fought, at first peacefully and then not, to improve the Earthly world, and Elyktiel tried to convince Heaven to spend less time with its collective haloed head up its cloudy ass and more time responding to humanity's prayers. As Rack Angel, nay takes a direct hand in improving lives and defeating those who would oppress and harm.
Voiceless: In human form, Ursula can speak normally though nix voice tends to the quieter of side; however, Rack Angel remains ever silent when in nix angelic form. Nay has no voice of nix own, but when the Rack Angel (in either form) encounters someone who desperately wants something, nay can leverage the vestiges of omnipotence within nun to grant them that thing at the simple cost of their voice. For the length of the Variable effect that granted that wish, Rack Angel can make use of that person’s voice in both of nix forms.
Power Point Totals: Abilities 28 + Powers 151 + Advantages 13 + Skills 12 + Defenses 6 = 210
