Post by ludmila on Apr 13, 2010 16:48:31 GMT -7
THE HANDLER
NAME: Ludmila Rusalka Ilyukhin.
NICKNAME: None.
CLASSIFICATION: Rusalka.
GENDER: Female.
AGE & BIRTHDAY: 655 years old, "born" some time in March 1355.
APPEARANCE: Most of the time, Ludmila looks like a normal human with short dark red hair, which she wears tied up in a bun with an ivory white comb in it, and of fairly small stature. She is very thin, bordering on skinny, and has a somewhat angular but beautiful face with pretty, full lips of a somewhat pale colour. Her features are perpetually set in a cold, calculating expression, which can sometimes turn to a cruel smirk, althoughthis mask of coldness is not permanent as she will sometimes let her sadness or happiness break through.
She has very fine hands and watery grey eyes whose gaze can often make people uncomfortable, probably due to the fact that these are not real pupils (like all Rusalki she does not have pupils).
She is very pale, and almost ghostly, and she walks in a graceful, delicate manner which belies her speed and agility on land and in the water. A notable feature of hers is her voice, which is crystalline, very melodious and almost bewitching in a way.
ATTIRE: She is never seen without her comb, which is always fitted into a neat bun of hair and hidden under an olive green military cap. She often wears unremarkable clothes like a pair of jeans, leather boots, a tank top with a (imitation) black leather jacket and a pair of aviator sunglasses. Wears a black greatcoat in colder weather with leather gloves. When performing certain missions, she will wear black combat gear with a balaclava.
PLAY BY: N/A
THE CREATION
NAME: "Нева", or Niva after the river she originally came from.
POWER LIST:
-Supernatural affinity with water.
-Speed and agility.
-Seduction.
DETAILED POWER: Being a Rusalka, Ludmila has great affinity with water and can move with incredible ease in that element. It is impossible for her to drown and she can easily swim in freezing cold water without suffering (she cannot tolerate boiling water though). Water gives her strength, physical and spiritual as she has a strong tie with this element. Her tolerance for freezing water comes from the spiritual link she has to her "Mother River" the Niva, which often freezes over in winter.
Ludmila is also very fast and agile on land due to , which enables her to easily outrun her opponents or climb up a wall with great speed and ease. This is due to her semi-spiritual nature, as although she can be affected by physical attacks, she is the product of the merging of the spirit of her mother river and the distressed final emotions of a drowned young woman. This gives her some physical substance (given to her by the river), but not as much as a normal human. This makes her very lightweight (at the cost of physical strength), a great advantage when running, jumping and climbing.
Rusalki are great seductresses, and Ludmila is no exception. She exudes a captivating aura which is almost irresistible for men, and also has some effect on women as they will often feel sympathy for her. Her aura is the product of the deceased maiden's original attractiveness, which is increased into a powerful aura of seduction after death and during the creation of the Rusalka. This enables Ludmila to trick her enemies into doing things they usually wouldn't do or lure them to their deaths. That power is particularly useful in airports as customs officers will turn a blind eye on the gun she might be transporting in her suitcase...
Women will feel sympathy for Ludmila as it is part of a subconscious female feeling of solidarity for a fellow woman betrayed by a man (hell hath no fury like a woman scorned), a feeling which is of course turned into a semi-magnetic power in Rusalki.
THE POTENTIAL
ALIGNMENT/OCCUPATION: Unaffiliated (occult and paranormal division of the FSB).
WEAPONS: Usually a silenced Makarov PM (semi-automatic pistol), an AS VAL special assault rifle or a VSS Vintorez special sniper rifle or an APS amphibious rifle. Also carries a dagger and sometimes uses two PP-93 submachine guns.
PERSONALITY: Rusalka being inferior creatures of the magical realm they do not really have the same range of emotions as higher creatures like elves. They are the result of the sudden exteriorisation of a young maiden's pain, confusion and sometimes hatred blending with a river's spiritual whole, thereby creating a Rusalka. Ludmila was no exception, as she felt no emotions other than a certain hatred for men, sadness and a desire to drown male victims in the Niva. This lack of emotion was broken after she fell in love with the young vityaz and was subsequently betrayed by him.
This fact is an important influence in her personality. It made Ludmila feel closer to humans as she was able to experience the same feelings: greed, jealousy, vanity, hatred, arrogance...so many typically human traits that other "loftier" magical creatures do not experience or look down on. Ludmila on the other hand experiences these things regularly and fully, and her opinion of these things are best summed up by her own words: "Greed? Envy? Arrogance? Human traits destested by my so-called 'kin'. To feel my blood seethe with hatred for another living creature or my heart twist itself with greed for material objects is something I could never experience as an inferior member of the magical realm and which I now can...and I LOVE it."
Despite this abundance of feeling, Ludmila is a rather cold person, preferring to put her emotions away so that they don't get in the way when she's on duty. This is also due to her betrayal by the young vityaz all those centuries ago, which left her heartbroken and burning with sadness and hatred. Even today she still feels bitter and sad about it. She is not keen on human relations, preferring to keep simple professional relations with her colleagues, and sometimes allowing a friendly relation with some select individuals. She also sees love as a weakness, for obvious reasons.
This icy facade clashes with the strong, even violent emotions she can feel as a result of her 'liberation' all those centuries ago, and sometimes her cold facade can collapse in a spectacular way, usually when something goes wrong and her frustration is pushed into anger, giving way to a very violent, passionate outburst during which nobody is safe.
She is closer to humanity than to her supernatural kin, and feels no sympathy for the creatures she kills during her missions as she was banished from their realm by her own volition. Humanity is the race who dragged her out of the simple-minded state of a vengeful by-product of a dead young woman's pain and sorrow. She harbours a healthy disdain for creatures like elves which sometimes borders on hatred, a feeling which is all part of a greater inferiority complex.
She is also very nostalgic about the Soviet Union and her days in the NKVD and the KGB, which she considers her "glory days". Her days working for the USSR were her first genuinely happy days in her life, as it was the first time she was ever treated as something more savoury than an evil spirit/demon. The people in the GPU, NKVD and KGB actually treated her as a human being, albeit a special one). She feels no remorse for the crimes she comitted under Stalin and Brezhnev (assassinations, torture) as the truth is that she enjoys killing things, especially by drowning. It is a trait she kept from her Rusalka nature, and it will often lead her to killing all her opponents without feeling any remorse or sympathy. During the act of killing she will feel a rush of adrenaline and spiritual energy not dissimilar to that felt by some human soldiers or murderers, a rush she evidently enjoys.
This strange blend of cold professionalism and nihilistic hedonism has lead to the development of some strange quirks in her personality. For instance, her musical tastes include Classical music from the 19th century (the passionate, stormy music of the Romantic movement 'speaks' to her in a way), and Opera as well as more modern 20th century Rock (with a marked and varied preference for Johnny Cash, the Dead Kennedies, Fear Factory and Rammstein).
Another strange quirk of hers is love of ice cream, a love that sometimes borders on addiction.
Another very human trait of hers is the consumption and abuse of alcohol, a substance she enjoys drinking when off duty (especially wine). She also smokes a lot of tobacco, a habit that helps her curb and control her emotions as well as maintain her cold facade and demeanour.
SKILLS:
-Ludmila has good knowledge of the occult as well as in depth knowledge of Nazi and Soviet paranormal research, two things she was either a spectator of or was actively involved in.
-she also received excellent stealth and infiltration training during her years in the NKVD and KGB, which enables her to avoid detection by her enemies, a useful skill during assassination missions.
-Ludmila is fluent in English and French as well as the Elven language.
STRENGTHS: Ludmila is a great sniper, spy and infiltrator, three things she was trained to do during her years, or rather decades, in the GPU, NKVD and KGB. When armed with a Vintorez, she can take out multiple moving targets with single shots before vanishing without a trace. Her agility and speed make it particularly easy for her to enter buildings through unconventional means (ventilation ducts etc), and enable her to dodge attacks with ease.
Underwater she is a formidable opponent, more so than on land, as it is her natural element and it lends her strength and speed.
WEAKNESSES: Ludmila's life and human appearance depend on her comb, a magical gift she got from a witch. It keeps her alive and enables her to go for indefinite periods of time away from water. If taken away from her, lost or destroyed, she will have to find water to bathe in or she will die. Losing the comb would also make her revert to her Rusalka appearance.
Ludmila is not reknowned for her physical strength. Her agility and speed are mostly due to her being rather "weightless", which means she is weaker than a human and will not be able to last long in a battle of strength.
Her aura only works if the target is unaware of her true nature. If he or she knows Ludmila is a Rusalka, her aura will be powerless. It is also rather inneffective against other supernatural creatures and psychics who are either immune to her charms or can sense that something is wrong.
She is also vulnerable to holy icons (both Catholic and Orthodox), as it was one of these who caused her downfall. A man or woman wearing a holy icon can evade Ludmila's powers of seduction. The icon of the Christ Pantokrator is particularly dangerous for her, as it will reveal her true nature and drain her of all strength.
THE STORY
HISTORY: Born from the death of a heartbroken young maiden who drowned herself in the Niva in 1355, Ludmila spent her early years as a normal Rusalka: swimming in her mother river, dancing in the fields at night with other Rusalki and luring young men to watery deaths in the Niva. Everything changed for her in 1587 when a handsome young vityaz (Russian knight) stopped by the quiet river bank she and her friends frequented most. The vityaz spent the night there, and Ludmila's friends considered trying to seduce him, but Ludmila's interest in the young knight was such that she stopped her friends from doing so, causing a terrible argument.
The knight left the next morning, travelling upstream by following the Niva's banks. Little did he know that Ludmila was quietly following him from the river. As the journey progressed, Ludmila became quite infatuated with the vityaz and eventually fell desperately in love with him. She sought the help of a witch who lived near the Niva, setting out one night while the vityaz was asleep and going to the witch's small house under a hill. She begged the witch to help her, and the former finally accepted to help her by giving her an enchanted comb in exchange of her own comb. The comb the witch offered her had the power to hide her true nature, disguising her as a human, and would enable her to live in the world of Man by giving her the ability to live without bathing in water.
Ludmila hesitated at first, as giving away her comb would put her at risk of being banished from her world forever, but she accepted. The following night, wearing her new comb, she emerged from the Niva and approached the vityaz, soaking wet and naked and tried to pass herself off as a young woman who had barely escaped drowning. Sadly, the vityaz was wearing an icon representing the Christ Pantokrator around his neck, which made Ludmila collapse to the ground and revealed her true nature to him.
Horrified, and a fervent Orthodox Christian, the vityaz was about to kill her when he took pity of Ludmila, who was begging him to spare her life. He took her to a nearby chapel, where the priest sealed her under the altar. The vityaz left, and Ludmila was imprisoned in the chapel for 281 years until she was unearthed during restoration work on the chapel in 1868.
She was subsequently transferred to a secret "chamber of curiosities" under the Winter Palace as a part of Czar Alexander III's private collection of supernatural oddities. She remained imprisoned in a tank filled with water, seeing many important members of the Russian court, including Rasputin, until the Russian Revolution. After the Bolsheviks took power, the GPU made a thourough search of the Winter Palace, discovering the secret chamber in which Ludmila was kept.
At first, they considered destroying Ludmila as a dangerous supernatural creature, but decided to keep her in order to study her.
Despite being a guinea pig, Ludmila was well treated by the scientists the GPU handed her to, and one of them named her after his daughter who had died during the civil war, thus giving Kudmila her current name.
In 1929, the GPU, under the initiative of Vladimir Fedorovsky, created its paranormal and occult branch, and Ludmila was recruited. A couple of years later, she was given Soviet citizenship and a proper last name, the first time she had been given a proper identity, as before that she had only been known as "Rusalka". Now known as "Comrade Ludmila Ilyukhin", she worked for the GPU until its integration into the NKVD in 1934, Stalin's secret police.
Ludmila was taken into the NKVD's own paranormal and occult branch, and worked throughout the 1930s until World War 2 broke out. She was actively involved in the Soviet's own struggle against Nazi occult and paranormal research, and was aware of projects such as the Nazi Space Program and Ragnarok. In 1943, she took part in a mission that stopped the Nazis from summoning an army of dead German soldiers, saving Stalingrad and Moscow in the process.
In 1946, she was part of the Soviet delegation sent to Berlin to speak to the BPRD and Professor Trevor Bruttenholm about Hellboy and Nazi "doomsday projects".
Following the death of Stalin in 1953, and the replacement of the NKVD by the KGB in 1954, Ludmila was integrated into the KGB's occult and paranormal branch, heralding the beginning of the "golden years" of her career.
In 1967, she was put in charge of a large scale mission in a small town of Siberia to combat an outbreak of vampirism. Many of the agents died during the operation, and she was one of the only survivors. The mission was accomplished, and all the vampires were destroyed. She was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal for her performance during said mission, a medal she has kept to this day.
In the 1970s, she was involved in a case of paranormal espionage opposing the KGB and the BPRD. She was also involved in the infamous "psychic assasin" projects of the Soviet Union, various psy-weaponry projects and attempts to find mystical objects.
During the 1980s in Afghanistan she was in charge of a commando whose mission was to beat the CIA and BPRD to an ancient tomb of unknown content. When the Americans reached the tomb first and accidentally released its occupant, the ancient Mesopotamian demon Pasuzu, Ludmila attempted to seal the tomb again by dynamiting it. Unfortunately, Pasuzu escaped by possessin one the American agents. After returning from Afghanistan she was awarded the Order of Lenin for her services to the Soviet Union and its people.
In 1990, she was found guilty of trying to use occult means to preserve the Soviet Union from decline and jailed alongside several other members of the plot. In 1991, the USSR was dissolved along with the KGB, and Ludmila was released from prison in 1993.
Having nowhere else to go or anything else to do, she applied for a post in the FSB, and was made a part of its paranormal and occult branch. In 1999, she was sent to a small island in the Artic Ocean to look into the mysterious disappearance of all the people working in an underground research complex.
Her last notable mission was the elimination of a member of the Ukrainian mafia who was involved in the smuggling of ancient and potentially dangerous artefacts, and who had used occult means to establish his power.
