Professional Documents
Culture Documents
{{Character
| name = Desdemona "Sventovit" Falkenrath
| faction = templar
| status = active
| player = A Certain Romance
| use_skill_pyramid = no
| timezone = American Mountain
| image = 4grWPIj.jpg
| profession = Interrogator & Honorary Field Commander
| realname = Desdemona
| nicknames = Sventovit
| aliases = Colonel Falkenrath, General Armii Sventovit
| gender = Female
| nationality = Atlantean
| height = 6'3"
| eyes = Gray
| hair = White
| skin = Pale
| birthplace = Atlantis
| residence = London
| abilities = Filth / Atlantean Tech
| superb1 =
| great2 =
| good3 =
| average4 =
| fair5 =
| poor4 =
| equipment = Oxygen Purification Mask
| footnotes = LORE: [http://pastebin.com/5Ksyibzx ILL-FATED] /
[http://pastebin.com/6tMSEAKF NUMBERS] / [http://pastebin.com/f84UiWdD
SURVIVE]<br/>TWITTER: [https://twitter.com/EmbracePoseidon
@EmbracePoseidon]<br/>SOUNDTRACK: [http://www.youtube.com/playlist?
list=PLTqXZbQr7FLjjdjfu5T6h7sVs7704vL1j ATLANTIS IS SINKING]
|}}
''It wasnt her height that they were particularly worried about, though, no
matter how imposing her stature was. It was the tightly sculpted muscle that
stretched over almost every inch of her frame, often times in places that
normal people didnt have muscle. That didnt surprise them, considering
what she was. What made them gawk was how brutally she used her strength
and how quickly it adapted to nearly everything they threw at it. Even now,
her handler could see her ivory skin shimmering with the nanotechnology
that they failed to replicate. It gave her a porcelain sheen that could easily
''Her handler must have been staring again, for they realized that they hadnt
noticed that she was busy tying her white hair back into a ponytail behind her
head. She was scowling at the vampire they brought her. Not that they could
ever see her mouth, but it was the eyes that hard glare that they could tell
was born from pure loathing''</div>
color="Red">POSITIVES</font></div>==
<div align="justify">'''Heightened Physical Attributes:''' While the
nanomachines work at keeping her brain cells alive (though not always
stable), they can actively power Desdemona's physical attributes further.
While the limit isn't well-known, there is a direct causation between how
much Filth exhaust is put out and how much the nanomachines power her
physical abilities. It should be known that she hasn't been seen to do
anymore than what the average Bee is capable of with their magic when it
comes to the amount of force she puts out, which results in a Filth miasma of
medium thickness and toxicity. Medium toxicity has been noted as being as
extreme as as a Bee standing in a common pool of Filth.</div>
mind of a victim through their eyes. Under Desdemona's guidance, the Filth
begin to pilfer all they can from the subject's brain until the knowledge that
Desdemona wants is secured and delivered. To the victim, it feels like a dull,
rusty knife is being used to slice apart sections of their mind, so it's not a
comfortable experience to say the least and often leaves the subject mentally
exhausted with a very intense feeling of violation. This can easily be
bypassed by breaking eye contact.</div>
'''No Personal Relationships:''' These are outright impossible. The closer that
Desdemona gets with anyone on an emotional, spiritual or physical level, the
more dangerous it is for them it becomes. Worst case scenario is that the Filth
devours the mind and sanity of those that Desdemona gets close with. She
also knows that if there was something that she cared about other than the
current Age itself, the Filth would try to use that against her. This has made
her into a social wreck. She's outwardly abrasive and uncaring to people
because it keeps them both safe. This, unfortunately, has come to include
herself.
'''Dreamless:''' The first thing that the Filth took from Desdemona was her
ability to rest peacefully. The Filth, in all of its hunger, devours whatever
Desdemona dreams. This has ensured that the Atlantean never gets to
mentally rest as most people do. She feels exhausted most of the day, at the
edge of her insanity most of the time and sleeping has no real mental
difference to her than staying awake. Because of this, she often goes without
sleep until her body collapses wherever it is and she wakes up whenever she
has enough strength to.
without sleep, the more likely she is to suffer hallucinations. Slightly different
from the normal breaks in reality that people normally experience, her
'hallucinations' are fueled by the Filth looking through her. She has come to
believe that the Dark Dream is a mirror reality to the one fueled by Anima
and that the greater the influence that the Filth has over her senses, the
more she's transported into the Filth's alternate reality. Though she can rarely
gain useful information while enduring hallucinations, it is by far such a
horrifying experience that it's not worth it to her.
=<font face="courier">History</font>=
==<div align="right"><font face="verdana" size="3" color="Red">THE
THIRD AGE</font></div>==
<div align="justify">It's no secret to any of Desdemona's employers that she
is an Atlantean. The pale skin, the inability to age, the heightened
intelligence, ancient knowledge, enhanced strength and incredible healing
abilities all give her away rather quickly. Even if it didn't, that is the first piece
of information that she comes forth with and for good reason: She makes it
clear that she wants something specific from her employers and the only way
to make it worth their while is to show why ''she's'' worth the
effort.</div><br/>
Screeches from pedestals line the air with sticky note passages planted on
the forehead of the adults first, but the children come later.
A war, but a cover. The death of millions a blanket that covers the secret with
blood and screams so not even Hosts can see through the ash and despair.
A body concealed in a box gets laid across a table and touched with brutal
severity of scalpels. Vulture eyes overlook the lithe body, disconnect
disintegrating muscle from frail bones and reconnect it with metal.
Elsewhere, sons are dying in trenches. They write letters to families and
girlfriends, but scream for blind gods. They sleep and when they dream, it's
of stars and a blackness that is still a comfort to the gore around the battle
field.
Revival has been set. A second messiah. A strong arm that leads the victory.
With no cause for the veil, the devil bites down on cyanide capsules and
makes sure with bullets that scramble brain matter. His woman joins him.
Secrets should not be shared and the white haired woman that looks over this
new age sees only locked boxes and eaten stares. With a generation of
craters in the shape of human bodies, she sets foot upon the earth again and
remembers the voice of her father. Survive, her father says, as she listens
to new ocean winds.</font></div>
{{player-spoiler}}
<br/>
[[File:Thule desdemona.jpg|thumb|left| "bermensch?"]]
<div align="justify">The signing of the Treaty of Svres created more terrible
problems than it solved. Coupled not only with defeat of their nation, the
Germans were also bludgeoned with the responsibility of the First World War.
Broken and beaten, Germany fell into an economic crisis the likes of which it
had never seen before. In the midst of this chaotic and depressing time, the
idea of a German identity was the taste of everyone's tongues. The Thule
Society, created by Rudolf von Sebottendorf, was one such organization that
sought to find something to use as the base to raise Germany up again and it
was one of their expeditions that found Desdemona's Time Tomb in the sea.
When they opened up the tomb, they believed that what they'd find was
evidence of their dreams: remains of the bermensch, from which they could
officially proclaim that all pure-blooded Aryans originated from. They got
much more. Imagine the cheers when, after pulling off Desdemona's mask
and much of her armour, that they found a pale, muscular woman with hair
as white as distance stars and eye so blue that they took a steel-gray color
under most lights? Imagine their excitement as they inspected the small bits
of technology that came on Desdemona's person and the Time Tomb itself.
The Atlantean was not so pleased. With her last conscious memory of seeing
her world being torn apart and having suffered countless of years suffering in
her nightmares, she lashed out immediately after gaining consciousness.
Several died, but soon her fear and angered ebbed just enough that those
strange, small men could talk her down. The German language was easy to
understand but hard to speak for Desdemona: she had the mind to easily pick
up anything she heard, but she was not used to ''speaking''. The Thule
Society would not wait for her to be able to speak clearly to them. They
managed to convince Desdemona to trust them, then sedated her before
transporting her elsewhere.
Countless tests were run and Desdemona eventually learned to speak once
more, yet on the precipice of declared success, the Thule Society was publicly
disintegrated. World War Two was declared soon after. Desdemona was no
fool, however. She knew very well what had occurred: She had been woken
up by a people desperate for meaning and power. Those same people took
what they could from her and they fell down a path to create the sort of
utopia that Desdemona had described. The flung themselves feverishly at the
idea and she should taken their obsession as the first sign. She knew that it
would be flawed and she saw it all unfold: The bermensch. Adolf Hitler. The
Nazis. The Final Solution.
She became Colonel Falkenrath, but she cared for none of it. She saw the
world being thrust towards complete obliteration, but she had other aims.
The world as it looked in the 4th Age was still young, it seemed. It had grown
over the ashes of the 3rd Age and there seemed to be no recollection that the
3rd Age managed to stop its own destruction. Logically, what had come for
the 3rd Age may very well be coming for the 4th. So, she searched. What she
found was the Filth. Was it the Filth that had devoured the 3rd Age? She
couldn't be sure, but she ran into it again and again during her adventures.
Guided by a dark whispering in her mind, she followed the black ink wherever
it crept. Through battlefields and concentration camps, she followed despair
and the Nazis funded her travels, wanting to use The Filth as they had used
Desdemona's knowledge.
Desdemona, however, suspected that the Filth had always been inside of
them. With the end of the Nazis came the end of The Thule Society and the
trail of the Filth seemingly disappeared. Had The Thule Society really
vanished? She couldn't be sure but she didn't care to be sure. They were a
tool. Had the Filth vanished? No and something begged Desdemona to find it
again.</div>
{{endspoiler}}
<br/>
Prosperity pulls apart the shadows. Light seeps through. The truth is near!
The honey flows freely and the buzz is a catastrophe of old languages and the
formation of new ones. The intelligent apes, self-aware, never forget the cost
and while they remember, the blinds are pulled. The sunken city is near.
Technology is being uncovered. Tombs excavated. The white haired angel of
death looks upon the dust of her father against ageless sands and then helps
concoct a sickle and hammer to cut down faith and bludgeon security.
Distracted, bipedals take to space and close shores and claim victory against
the red devil. The secrets are kept.
A bloodied hand. Blood drinkers. Ghouls take to the earth and dig up graves
and artifacts. Transfixed by their queen, none know of the hypnotism. They
excavate those who know the secrets and grind their bones into a fine dust
so that our honey cannot bind together sinew and flesh. We cannot know
what she knows. Secrets are kept. Still, the Devourers creep. Does she know
of The End? She must. She hides it from us. From Anima. She exists, but
individually. Separate, but together. Severed from us, but still looking in our
glass. When we look in her eyes, we see Hungry Nothingness!
Blood runs dry, as it always does. The body can only hold so much. The
physical form is limited. The secret structures we found have closed just as
we catch a glimpse. In their markings we see her face, her touch, and her
desires. She wishes to defeat us! A step behind. A step forward. We are not
sure. We only catch whispers from where she is and has been, but her mind is
closed. Communication severed. Messenger pigeons flock in great waves but
lead nowhere before they plummet to the ground. Blood and feathers. The
hand has crushed them. We can only see the plumes and the blue eyes and
the word SURVIVE.</font>
</div>
{{player-spoiler}}
<br/>
[[File:Red Hand Desdemona.jpg|thumb|right| Bosnia, 1981]]
<div align="justify">When World War 2 ended, Desdemona did not notice at
first. The passage of time, the frequency in which things changed in the 4th
Age was something that she hadn't gotten used to. What she did notice was
that the trail of the Filth no longer huddled around Germany where the wails
of millions of innocents were smothered by flames, but instead, the dark
whispers pulled her behind an iron curtain.
Like so many others, she discarded her Nazi uniform and escaped in secret.
Unlike so many others, she did not seek to hide out her days in other
countries, where they enjoyed the beach or took scraps of barely usable high
technology to American Companies in exchange for amnesty. Instead, she
found The Red Hand waiting for her with open arms, stony faces and the
nickname "Sventovit".
In the company of the Soviet Union, she did not find the religious fanatics
that had define the Nazis. The lot in which she cast herself was still as
passionate, but they were driven by science and logic rather than legends
and mythologies. True, they found interest in Desdemona's status as a living
Atlantean, but they did not seek to create a utopia based upon her memories.
What they wanted to create, they wanted to create with their own hands,
based upon their own genius. Desdemona was not cast to the side, but after
they named her Sventovit and gave her the rank General, they did little else
with her.
They had other, bloodier interests with origins in Romania. Still, they knew of
the danger that Desdemona could pose and since they couldn't kill her or
keep her hostage, the funded her personal missions. She wore their uniforms
and she was "loyal". Free to follow the whispers of the Filth wherever she
could find it, she soon came across The Facility, which had been kept secret
for her despite her knowledge of The Red Hand. She didn't mind. The secrets
of the Soviets were theirs to keep. However, the Soviets were not as
comfortable with Desdemona, who was on a very thin and ineffective leash,
knowing about their greatest project. She was caught unaware and turned
into a test subject.
A preliminary test was run on Desdemona, (as they did with each prospective
cosmonaut) and at first, nothing out of the ordinary showed itself. As an
Atlantean, anything that they did to her either had no effect or was quickly
rejected. Wounds healed too quickly to properly study; poisons were forced
back out harmlessly through her pores or digested; whether it be by training
or an Atlantean brain, her mind was withstood any sort of abuse.
Perhaps they would have found a way to kill her. They had to, eventually, for
they believed that she could escape at any moment and when she did, she
would surely destroy them. If she was honest with herself, she wanted to, but
a voice kept telling her to wait. And wait. And wait. When the voice became
deafening is when the signs first showed up to one of the Red Hand's
scientists: that Desdemona was harboring Filth inside of her and had been for
an unspeakable amount of time. Yet, she clearly wasn't deteriorating.
The Red Hand within the Facility planned to use that information for their
project concerning Anima and Anti-Anima. If they had managed to,
Desdemona did not know. There was a terrible accident that rid her of
consciousness. Instead of being shackled in a secret facility by the Red Hand,
she found herself in the grip of The Templars.</div>
{{endspoiler}}
<br/>
Watch. We watch. We have found her. London streets and British libraries, her
touch has touched upon several things. Her path is marked with blood. The
Ancient Maws, The Dark Tentacles, The Hungry Eyes, The Tar Mouths! They
watch her, closer than we do and they whisper to her, but she rejects.
Somehow, she takes for the Age but doesn't give herself and she remains yet
untainted. White-haired devil. Blue-eyed angel. Ash and bone and war and
strife, she lines herself with red and white. We watch but do not intercept.
Outside, but inside. Cosmonaut. She looks through us behind towers of books
and tradition:
To Desdemona, they are the epitome of military might and order. Within
them, she sees passion, discipline and a respect for customs that had been
lacking in her benefactors. It was clear why the Templars had survived for so
long, (though she had regarded them as little more that nuisances when she
had come across them previously): they were so tenacious that if they could
not win through civility, they did so with brutality. That brutality came so
thunderous and swift that there was often no fear of revenge.
The Templars regarded Desdemona with suspicion and worry, however. They
immediately could tell that she was infected by the Filth, but they found no
way to get rid of her. If she were to be left by herself, it was entirely possible
that one of the other factions would pick her up. They had to find a way to
keep her in their midst somehow, for a tool's natural instinct is to find a way
to be used. After intense discussion, Desdemona found that they were of
similar goals: the keep the 4th Age safe and Desdemona was proud to know
that the Templars would do anything to make sure that happened.