Player Info

Name Triss
Age 21+
Timezone EST
Contact Dropbox
Discord Foxglove #7344
PB Dichen Lachman

Rhys Mara

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced,
not because it has been sober, responsible, and
cautious, but because it has been playful,
rebellious, and immature.
—Tom Robbins

Appearance In the Fae Otherworld, Rhys presents as a vividly blue, golden-eyed cat roughly the size of a German Shepherd, with a long peacock tail. While the shape she'll be using primarily within the Orpheus is human, Rhys' single fae ability grants her access to any mammalian form of her choosing. She can take the shape of a perfectly ordinary black cat and pass unnoticed in the mundane world. This is how Cat Sidhe are characterized in old lore. However, the further she strays from simpler feline shapes, the less realistic her transformations become. There is always a little bit of blue in Rhys' animal shapes, indicative of her natural fae coloring. The further she stretches her mimicries, the more blue will be present on the animal. Pushed further still, the animal will start presenting with feathers, despite being inappropriate for the species. It's not great for blending in convincingly, but it does get a lot of attention. (Ex: She could pull off a tiger shape, but the stripes may be blue, not orange. If she were to attempt a direwolf of the same size, it'd probably be cobalt blue with a peacock tail, etc) She's particularly proficient in mimicking a Carbuncle after over two decades of having done so, although her version is brightly turquoise.

Personality All Fae tend to be enamored with beauty and luxury in one way or another, but Rhys takes this to an extreme. She's a cat at heart. She adores comfort, all things lovely and shiney, and being pampered and lavished. She's a hedonist in prime form. Her feline nature extends to other aspects of her personality as well. She's adventurous and playful in bursts, and will never ever accept shame or judgement for it. She is who she is, and is entirely happy with that. If you're not? Pffft. She doesn't need you anyway. She oozes confidence. Self-reliant and a natural survivalist, whatever it takes to care for her own interests very rarely approaches the threshold of 'too much.'

What's yours is hers. You should know that now. Rhys doesn't have well-defined boundaries. She isn't rude about it. In fact, she's terrifically charming and graceful about her social deviances. She'll tell you that she's not cunning, either. She's just good at seeing around obstacles. Such obstacles include closed doors, locks, safes, intentionally hidden caches and lunches in the employee fridge with names written clearly on top or tagged with post-it notes with 'DON'T EAT MY LUNCH AGAIN.' If it's shiney or sparkly and left unattended, it's as good as gone. You've been warned.

Also like a cat, Rhys picks her people for reasons known only to her, but she loves them absolutely. This doesn't mean she won't toy with them and give them crap, but her adoration is concrete. It's not something she telegraphs (because she's not a moron, alright?) but she misses the people she loves terribly when they're not around, will do almost anything she has too to be in company she values, and could absolutely not care less if she comes across as rude if you don't qualify. She has her priorities straight. That same lavishing and joie de vivre she holds in such high esteem for herself she'll gladly extend to worthy parties. She's an aggressive snuggler, the sort to curl up with people just because she wants too, or it feels nice. Very physical, touchy and sensual without using it to cover any weird pathologies, she can still be a bit of a wrecking ball despite her grace. She's unapologetically devious and has next to no concept of time. Things get done on her schedule ... which is to say, whenever she feels like it.

Powers & Abilities

Fae / Transformation

Within the boundaries listed above, Rhys can take any mammalian form she pleases, whenever she pleases. Transformation is nearly instant and painless. She lacks a Fae's usual elemental abilities entirely, but there is no time limit alloted to her transformations and access to so many forms is a serious boon (ex: sneaking; mouse, jaw strength; hyena, climbing; jaguar, speed; cheetah, tracking; bloodhoud, etc etc etc) She can stay in whichever form she chooses indefinitely. Like the rest of the Fae, she's allergic to iron and can be badly hurt by it. Iron to the heart will kill her, without a doubt.

Nine Lives

This old wives' tale wasn't all smoke and tall tales. Cat Sidhe live for nine human lifetimes, during which they age at a rate fairly typical of a human as well. They are not as long lived as the Aos Sí. After each death they are reborn from the forests in the Otherworld, and have no parents. They can remember the details of their past lives like recalling drunken memories; there are blackouts, empty spaces and inaccuracies, but the general picture is typically sound enough. Rhys is currently on her third life, after her second was ended prematurely. They get no more or less than nine lives - so if they die at one year all nine times, they've had nine years of life, and they're done for good.

Cold & Heat

Old Scottish Legends claimed that Cat Sidhe could steal the souls of the dead. This is just more nonsensical black cat paranoia. Cat Sidhe steal plenty of other things, but not human souls. The legends did get one thing right; they're drawn to warmth. Rhys is uncomfortable in too much cold, and will go to great lengths to keep herself warm. Fire and heat attracts for her, so much so that a large enough fire will temporarily hypnotize or enthrall her. It's a weakness she carefully guards.

Magical Well

While Rhys may not be able to work any magic of her own outside of her transformationabl abilities, she is a deeply magical being, and can act as a sort of wellspring or mana pool for active users. This made her an ideal familiar in a past life, but those that draw from her have to be careful. Go too far, consume too much of her magic without giving her time to recuperate, and borrowing from her can kill her.

Conditioning

While no stronger than an average human, Rhys is considerably faster, can fit through tiny spaces that would blow some people's minds, sees exceptionally well in the dark and is naturally flexible in ways most trained contortionists would have to practice for decades to match. She's superhumanly graceful and has an impeccable sense of balance.

History - Born of the Otherworld forests 150 years ago, Rhys has limited memory of her first two lives. The first is a blur of black hair stuck with brambles and wildflowers, barefeet running in peat moss and mischief by the full moon. It was a sort of infancy and feral childhood. She learned survival skills and how to interact with the world as she gradually grew interested in it, but it wasn't until her second life following her first natural death at around 80 years old that she really got her feet wet.

- Memories of her second life are clearer. She became more aquainted with the Fae culture and Court, their mannerisms, mysticisms, pride and downfallings. When she became accustomed to that, she ventured into the human world. As her kind are often used as spies and infiltrators, her long absences raised no eyebrows. She was particularly enamored with humans in the middle of the 20th century; they were so busy making advancements, renovating their culture and leaping ahead in their growth. She enjoyed being in the thick of it.

- Rhys was captured by a witch in the 70s. Her memory of it is fuzzy and frustratingly unhelpful, but she does recall that she'd been a simple black cat at the time. Somehow, the witch had recognized her. In her enormous vanity, she'd thought to make the Cat Sidhe her unwilling familiar - not just any animal would do, but a Fae creature would reflect on her power nicely.

- The years that followed were miserable. Stubborn to a fault, Rhys never stopped fighting, which meant her leash was never lax enough to provide any opportunity for escape, if such a thing were even possible. Finally, the witch tired of Rhys and the effort it took to keep her. Taking the last of what the Cat Sidhe had to offer before disposing of her, the witch drained her of her magic, then left her to die.

- Rhys was reborn in the Otherworld with enough recollection of her recent death that she thought she wouldn't return to the human world for several decades, at the very least. It had soured for her, and the idea of being recaptured terrified her. For the first decade, she was so weak as a result of what had happened to her that she kept to the forests and avoided conflict like plague. It was a crash course in existing unseen, deception-as-necessity, and drawing little to no attention to herself. It was working out well for her, and was renewing her confidence, when she was abruptly pulled through a summoning portal.

- A preteen warlock in the human world was testing the waters of his summoner's arts, and had been grasping at something he perhaps didn't understand at the time. Panicked, she took the first and least useful form she could think of in transit; a carbuncle. Grayson Brisk was not nearly so terrible as the last witch she'd met, and he could understand her from an animal shape. When asked, she lied about who and what she was, calling herself 'Roger'. Naturally, she wanted to go home, but didn't trust any of the summoner's portals he generated to send her back. He could have just been pretending to be nice, after all. Those could have lead anywhere. So she stayed for a while, trying to figure out a way to get back on her own.

- She stopped trying to work out how to go home when she felt someone else's magic trying to reach her; the witch who'd once kept her. As long as she was associated with another magic user, she was cloaked. A false life with Grayson until it was safe for her to leave was an infinitely better option than being on the run, so she stayed. Over time, she grew fond of the warlock. When she wasn't torturing him for her entertainment, she could help him with his magic, or provide stabilizing boosts where needed. She would sometimes sneak away to take human shape and stretch her legs, but never for long. Always, that grasping sense of a magical net haunted her.

- Six months ago, Gray joined The Orpheus. At first it was just an entertaining change of pace she quite enjoyed, but a few weeks ago, that sense of creeping, seeking magic dissipated. Thinking it was a trick, she did nothing, lying in wait. But the magic hasn't returned, and Rhys can think of no safer place to try to reintegrate herself in the world as a Fae, not a carbuncle, than a supernatural haven that relocates weekly. And so, she's coming out of hiding for the first time.

Miscellaneous

Mundane Skills

Pickpocket, slight of hand, thievery in all its glorious varieties, sneak skills, infiltration. Remembered from past lives - unicycle, motorcycle, catching, scaling and prepping fish, fair knowledge of witch's proceedings and the use of arcane artifacts.

Story / Plot Hooks

Fae stuff. Freakshow peeps. She's generally wary of witches, aside from the ones she's known for a long time and has decided she trusts, so interaction with the Coven may be prickly. Stealing things from people (past present future), overstepping her bounds and having to adjust and learn. Eventually dealing with lines pertaining to the witch who ended her last life, and how she's all but abandoned the Fae could be fun down the road.

Gallery