Post by skybright on Dec 12, 2005 18:37:44 GMT -5
Character's Name: Regina Dawson
Mutant Nickname: Grimalkin, Daws, or "Reggie" if you want to get seriously injured
Mutant Power(s): feline appearance, enhanced night vision, better-than-average senses (including an innate sense of time)
Occupation: Private Detective; Owner/Operator, Grimalkin Investigations Inc.
Gender: Female
Age: 28
Height: 5' 7"
Hair Color: Black, cut short and perpetually tousled
Fur color: mottled gray and brown
Eye Color: Grey with slitted pupils
Physical Description: Moderately tall and wiry, with a tendency to slouch. Her ever-present fedora and trenchcoat serve to help conceal her gun and physical mutation (particularly the tail), but they're also a nod to her fascination with Philip Marlowe and similar characters.
Country/Hometown: New York, NY, USA
Immediate Family: Parents both deceased. Stepmother (Glynnis) and one step-sister (Laura), both estranged.
Personality: A self-styled "shopworn Galahad" after the tradition of Philip Marlowe, Regina Dawson is tough, cynical, proud and self-reliant. She distrusts cops and other forms of outward authority despite being ostensibly a member of "law enforcement". Daws calls herself neutral, but draws limits on who she will work for (like Marlowe before her, she does not do divorce work). Her past experiences as a victim make her fiercely protective of the 'little people' of the world. She is intensely loyal to her friends; once she considers someone to be "one of her people", there is little she will not do to protect them.
Weaknesses: Beneath the cynicism of her persona, Dawson is secretly an optimist; she wants to believe the best about the world, even after seeing the worst of it. She'll believe a client's story even if it seems wildly improbable (at least until the evidence starts to say differently). She is a very weak swimmer (having only recently learned) and doesn't have a driver's license or car.
Additional (Non-Mutation) Skills: Daws is a decent markswoman and carries an S&W Model 67 revolver which she calls "Sweetie". She's been trained as a private eye and has developed a keen eye for detail and a logical bent to her thinking. She also possesses a working knowledge of the finer points of breaking and entering.
Hobbies/Interests: hard-boiled detective novels, classic films (particularly Bogart movies), guns, poetry. She is also a chronic people-watcher.
Personal History:
A native New Yorker, Dawson had a difficult childhood. Her mother died when she was an infant and her father remarried a domineering, volatile woman with a daughter several years Daws' senior. In contrast to this pretty, vivacious stepsister (Laura), Regina was melancholic and solitary, often retreating into a vivid personal world populated by characters from the novels she read. She and Laura, quarreled often (in one case leading to a near-drowning incident which prevented Daws from learning to swim until very recently). Daws' childhood was also marred by constant verbal (and occasionally physical) abuse by her stepmother, attacks which only worsened after her father's death when she was eleven.
Two years later Daws' latent mutation exploded during a fight with her sister, by then a seventeen-year-old cheerleader. As Daws struck out at her sister, sharp claws suddenly sprouted from her outstretched fingers and ripped the older girl's face open. Dawson, terrified and in pain from the changes wracking her body, fled the house and never returned. She spent a painful night in the bushes of Central Park, undergoing a tortuous physical metamorphosis. Awakening next morning, she discovered that she had sprouted fur, fangs, pointed ears and a tail.
Dawson spent the next several weeks on the streets of New York. Wary of handouts and shelters, she might eventually have turned to thievery if not for the intervention of Jack "Sparky" Knight, a hard-drinking, kindhearted private detective who caught the young mutant lurking around the entrance to his offices one night. Jack was a mutant himself (albeit a mundane one; "Sparky" interfered mildly with electrical fields and the biggest manifestation of his abilities was a tendency for streetlights to go out when he walked by) and he took pity on the young Dawson, taking her in and teaching her the ins and outs of the detective trade and the mutant underworld. Grimalkin, Inc. was Jack's baby and Daws soon took as deep an interest in it as her mentor did (the irony that 'grimalkin' is an archaic word for a stray or ill-tempered cat was not lost on her). The revolver, "Sweetie", was Jack's gift to Daws when she turned eighteen and could officially be listed as a "partner".
Jack was killed during an investigation when Daws was twenty and all her attempts to find his killer or killers have proven fruitless. He left her as the full owner of Grimalkin, Inc. and she has kept the business thriving ever since.
After being approached by then-Deputy Medical Examiner Miriam Van Linden, Daws began an investigation into Tiernan Enterprises which confirmed Van Linden's belief that Tiernan was a murderer and criminal kingpin. Another case, contracted by Alex 'Foxy' Malone, proved to be related and led to the death of Caroline Rosenstein, the wife of Malone's friend Sid Rosenstein.
A sense of responsibility for Caroline Rosenstein's death cemented Daw's already-firm resolve to bring down Nicholas Tiernan by whatever means possible, and she is now a dedicated member of the resistance against him. Daws (having been 'brought in' to Tiernan's illicit doings in the course of her initial investigation) now lives a dangerous life as the resistance's source of information within Tiernan's organization.
Shortly after undertaking this role, Daws came into contact with Joey Falco, one of Tiernan's errand boys. The two quickly hit it off, with Daws making an effort to get Joey "out of the house" (and away from Tiernan's influence). This led to Joey's discovery of the resistance against Tiernan and his subsequent decision to join them: in an effort to help protect the teenager, Daws had Tiernan assign him as her personal assistant at Grimalkin.
Anything Else: Because her hands are covered in fur, Dawson doesn't leave fingerprints on the objects and surfaces she handles. She is left-handed. Her tail is not prehensile; in fact she considers it more an annoyance than anything. The claws that were the first sign of her mutation are retractable. Daws also has an inborn 'time sense' that keeps her constantly aware of the time of day. She's generally called "Grimalkin" only by the (oddly significant) portion of the mutant population that thinks *everyone* should have a 'code name'. Daws drinks alcohol and smokes tobacco, but does neither heavily.
Formerly self-described as a "pseudo-Catholic", her perilous position as a member of the resistance has driven Dawson to take her faith more seriously; she now attends Mass semi-regularly at Our Lady of Refuge.
Mutant Nickname: Grimalkin, Daws, or "Reggie" if you want to get seriously injured
Mutant Power(s): feline appearance, enhanced night vision, better-than-average senses (including an innate sense of time)
Occupation: Private Detective; Owner/Operator, Grimalkin Investigations Inc.
Gender: Female
Age: 28
Height: 5' 7"
Hair Color: Black, cut short and perpetually tousled
Fur color: mottled gray and brown
Eye Color: Grey with slitted pupils
Physical Description: Moderately tall and wiry, with a tendency to slouch. Her ever-present fedora and trenchcoat serve to help conceal her gun and physical mutation (particularly the tail), but they're also a nod to her fascination with Philip Marlowe and similar characters.
Country/Hometown: New York, NY, USA
Immediate Family: Parents both deceased. Stepmother (Glynnis) and one step-sister (Laura), both estranged.
Personality: A self-styled "shopworn Galahad" after the tradition of Philip Marlowe, Regina Dawson is tough, cynical, proud and self-reliant. She distrusts cops and other forms of outward authority despite being ostensibly a member of "law enforcement". Daws calls herself neutral, but draws limits on who she will work for (like Marlowe before her, she does not do divorce work). Her past experiences as a victim make her fiercely protective of the 'little people' of the world. She is intensely loyal to her friends; once she considers someone to be "one of her people", there is little she will not do to protect them.
Weaknesses: Beneath the cynicism of her persona, Dawson is secretly an optimist; she wants to believe the best about the world, even after seeing the worst of it. She'll believe a client's story even if it seems wildly improbable (at least until the evidence starts to say differently). She is a very weak swimmer (having only recently learned) and doesn't have a driver's license or car.
Additional (Non-Mutation) Skills: Daws is a decent markswoman and carries an S&W Model 67 revolver which she calls "Sweetie". She's been trained as a private eye and has developed a keen eye for detail and a logical bent to her thinking. She also possesses a working knowledge of the finer points of breaking and entering.
Hobbies/Interests: hard-boiled detective novels, classic films (particularly Bogart movies), guns, poetry. She is also a chronic people-watcher.
Personal History:
A native New Yorker, Dawson had a difficult childhood. Her mother died when she was an infant and her father remarried a domineering, volatile woman with a daughter several years Daws' senior. In contrast to this pretty, vivacious stepsister (Laura), Regina was melancholic and solitary, often retreating into a vivid personal world populated by characters from the novels she read. She and Laura, quarreled often (in one case leading to a near-drowning incident which prevented Daws from learning to swim until very recently). Daws' childhood was also marred by constant verbal (and occasionally physical) abuse by her stepmother, attacks which only worsened after her father's death when she was eleven.
Two years later Daws' latent mutation exploded during a fight with her sister, by then a seventeen-year-old cheerleader. As Daws struck out at her sister, sharp claws suddenly sprouted from her outstretched fingers and ripped the older girl's face open. Dawson, terrified and in pain from the changes wracking her body, fled the house and never returned. She spent a painful night in the bushes of Central Park, undergoing a tortuous physical metamorphosis. Awakening next morning, she discovered that she had sprouted fur, fangs, pointed ears and a tail.
Dawson spent the next several weeks on the streets of New York. Wary of handouts and shelters, she might eventually have turned to thievery if not for the intervention of Jack "Sparky" Knight, a hard-drinking, kindhearted private detective who caught the young mutant lurking around the entrance to his offices one night. Jack was a mutant himself (albeit a mundane one; "Sparky" interfered mildly with electrical fields and the biggest manifestation of his abilities was a tendency for streetlights to go out when he walked by) and he took pity on the young Dawson, taking her in and teaching her the ins and outs of the detective trade and the mutant underworld. Grimalkin, Inc. was Jack's baby and Daws soon took as deep an interest in it as her mentor did (the irony that 'grimalkin' is an archaic word for a stray or ill-tempered cat was not lost on her). The revolver, "Sweetie", was Jack's gift to Daws when she turned eighteen and could officially be listed as a "partner".
Jack was killed during an investigation when Daws was twenty and all her attempts to find his killer or killers have proven fruitless. He left her as the full owner of Grimalkin, Inc. and she has kept the business thriving ever since.
After being approached by then-Deputy Medical Examiner Miriam Van Linden, Daws began an investigation into Tiernan Enterprises which confirmed Van Linden's belief that Tiernan was a murderer and criminal kingpin. Another case, contracted by Alex 'Foxy' Malone, proved to be related and led to the death of Caroline Rosenstein, the wife of Malone's friend Sid Rosenstein.
A sense of responsibility for Caroline Rosenstein's death cemented Daw's already-firm resolve to bring down Nicholas Tiernan by whatever means possible, and she is now a dedicated member of the resistance against him. Daws (having been 'brought in' to Tiernan's illicit doings in the course of her initial investigation) now lives a dangerous life as the resistance's source of information within Tiernan's organization.
Shortly after undertaking this role, Daws came into contact with Joey Falco, one of Tiernan's errand boys. The two quickly hit it off, with Daws making an effort to get Joey "out of the house" (and away from Tiernan's influence). This led to Joey's discovery of the resistance against Tiernan and his subsequent decision to join them: in an effort to help protect the teenager, Daws had Tiernan assign him as her personal assistant at Grimalkin.
Anything Else: Because her hands are covered in fur, Dawson doesn't leave fingerprints on the objects and surfaces she handles. She is left-handed. Her tail is not prehensile; in fact she considers it more an annoyance than anything. The claws that were the first sign of her mutation are retractable. Daws also has an inborn 'time sense' that keeps her constantly aware of the time of day. She's generally called "Grimalkin" only by the (oddly significant) portion of the mutant population that thinks *everyone* should have a 'code name'. Daws drinks alcohol and smokes tobacco, but does neither heavily.
Formerly self-described as a "pseudo-Catholic", her perilous position as a member of the resistance has driven Dawson to take her faith more seriously; she now attends Mass semi-regularly at Our Lady of Refuge.
