Verada

Basic Statistics

Name: Verada Eyanna Blackheart
Species: Silver Inkling Shadow
Subspecies: Half Wolf / Coyote
Height: Variable, 4-7 ft
Weight: 4 pounds
Eyes: Silver

For more general racial data, please see IAS Shadow For the broadest class of shadows that include Verada see Soul Shadows

Origin and Background

Verada is not native to Spindizzy but instead comes form the worlds In Azure's Memory. When Talon tasked Celeste with a journey meant to help his mate grow in spiritual strength, Eyanna sent her daughter along with the recently awakened Isaac and her shadow brother, Klatu. While Klatu was ejected from the back of the great silver phoenix and landed elsewhere in the universe, Isaac and Verada were deposited on Spindizzy while Celeste moved on.

Verada is a silver eye shadow (see IAS Shadow) and thus started her younger years hiding her silver eyes as green to match those of her brothers. She greatly feared having silver eyes because she felt it would keep her from ever knowing what was right or true, and in doing so made a self-fulfilling prophecy. It would not be until she joined the SED that events would transcend leading to her acceptance of her eye color.

Becoming an Inkling: Verada's Truths

As a ritualist, Verada was able to perform a dangerous ritual that brought everyone including herself in contact with one of the devouring stars, a sentient menace of deep space. IN trying to hold onto her allies as they sought to become shadows, she lost many and was nearly killed along with them. She invoked the names, hers and her brothers, which rung a great alarm back home and drew her mother's attention. Seeing Verada in peril beyond the means of those present, she sought Talon for aid. Talon deployed one arrow from his bow which struck the devouring star, but in the process also struck Verada. This changed many things, and in the same way Eyanna became an inkling, so too did Verada when exposed to the silver light such that it struck her core.

The instant she was struck was an eternity for Verada in which she leanred several painful truths:

• The Plight of Aissia Seeing her friends killed during the ritual and the others turned shadow in the way the first green eyes were made, Verada came to understand the loss of the ancient goddess that was part of her own lineage.
• Fear of the Deep Dark The deep dark, a term used to refer to places and beings of a darkness so deep that it kills even shadows, Verada came close to being taken by it. In her fear she also found the truth that she must learn to fight it for her sake and for others.
• Light From Within The least obvious and the most important, Verada learned, to the best of her knowledge, why shadows persist as they do. Like all shadows, they are formed when something blocks a light, so then where does the shadow of someone like Verada come from if they absorb all light from the outside? They should be a hole not a being. The answer is in the light of their eyes. They are the shadow of a soul created by a light of some kind within. It also means that all truths of being complete must come from within.

These revelations have a strong effect on shadows when they are properly understood, and no two shadows will take them the same way, so these are Verada's personal interpretation. The effect, however, was a strengthening of the spirit that can endure a brighter 'soul shine' at its core without being damaged. THe forced keeping the shadow intact become greater than the effect of sunlight shining in, and so something new is born. Inklings are called as such because they possess an inkling of truth but they do not yet grasp all the necessary mysteries to grow further.

Psionic Skills

Physically weak and relatively frail, Verada instead possesses a powerful intellect and incredible wisdom and senses. While she does not know how to or have the ability to use arcane magic, she does comprehend it and can affect it. Instead, Verada has taken a gift honed it into a deadly art. The force of Verada's thoughts vastly outstrips her physical limitations as a psion, and she has spent her life specializing in telepathic skills with telekinetics as a secondary skill set.

Telepathy

• Mindlink Verada can directly contact not only one but whole groups of minds at once for the sake of communication. Through these links, she can sense surface thoughts and emotions within the minds of the willing. Against unwilling minds, she can prove to be a dangerous intruder with the ability to engage and defeat the mental defenses of some of the best focused minds.
• Perceptive Hole IN this form of mental intrusion, Verada can delete herself and adjacent allies from the perception of a living mind. This cannot defeat a cold machine or simple camera, but is very effective. As a simple attack, it is useful when Verada senses an incoming attack as she can seem to blink out to avoid the attack or at least make the attack second guess themselves
• Forceful Suggestion While Verada does not generally directly control the minds of others as it is quite taxing and lower yield, she can implant sensations, desires, and emotions that do not belong to the victim. These can range from making someone think they smell something revolting to causing them to run screaming in terror. This skill is most often used playfully in what she calls The Game, but she has and will employ it in combat to break the ranks of attackers and otherwise deflect attackers.
• Infectious Madness The is one of Verada's most powerful assault abilities, and the probability of recoil after deployment is so high that she will only use it once in a day without resting and meditating to wash the after effects from her mind. This is a much more powerful application of Forceful Suggestion in that it strikes the mind of a victim and causes complete lost of coherent perception and replaces it with an auto-adapting waking nightmare so strong that it can cause lasting insanity. Worse yet is that those that Victim Zero physically attacks can be subjected to the effects up to three passages from the initial target. On an open field this is nothing, but if used on target in the middle of a formation, it can cause absolute chaos and high casualties. A substantial number of victims are permanently damaged by this attack and a significant number may later commit suicide. This is generally a weapon of last resort.

Telekinesis

• TK Lift Just as it sounds and perhaps the single most used ability that Verada possesses. This can range from moving small objects with precision to tearing armored doors off hinges. It can be used as a lesser attack, but more often she uses it to annoy people by knocking their hats off their heads or giving them wedgies.
• TK Hammer This is the attack variant of TK Lift and takes the physical outline of a giant invisible mallet. With Verada's mind, the TK Hammer strikes with more force than most dedicated melee soliders can manage, and it can be lethal. As a low-demand ability, she can use this for hours on end without being exhausted.
• TK Bladestorm The second most powerful ability in Verada's non-ritual abilities. It is best imagined as a cube up thirty feet on a side filled with a sea of high speed lawnmower blades that don't get snagged if they strike and bounce but just keep coming. This power requires continuous concentration, and the box can be moved slowly at about the pace of someone walking with the sole purpose of destroying anything that gets caught in the effected area. Like Infectious Madness, Verada can only use this once per day for about fifteen minutes solid before she has to stop or risk explosive and deleterious loss of control.

The Game

The Game is a simple and playful game meant for psions, especially telepaths, to 'hunt' and attack without causing any hard. The goals of the game are simple:

• Don't Get Caught
• Implant sensations in your target that annoy but do not harm
• Continue attack until suspicion rises or you are found
• Acknowledge the victim and congratulate them on becoming aware.

The long you can go and the more oddness you can cause before being noticed is best. Verada plays this on all kinds of people, but she often loved to play it most with those she cares for the most.

The Silver Arrow of Talon

This is a staff that Verada carries as a focus for her power. Six feet tall with a broad head on one end and white fletching on the other, it is actually a arrow that Talon, the primary creator God of IAM who happens to be a rat over seven feet tall, gave to Verada on her birthday after Eyanna had deemed her ready. The staff is the same silvery white color of Verada's eyes, and this is a very important detail as it pertains to a truth. As Verada would describe it, "The light that makes shadow comes from within." This implies the power in the arrow an the power that gives Verada life are the same.

The staff has some simple but important properties:

• The staff can move with Verada when she shadow walks
• The staff is a tuned amplifier for Verada's abilities
• The staff makes all of Verada's powers capable of piercing the defenses of aberrant creatures including the devouring stars and Lovecraftian sorts of monsters.