Penance

**"I'm Penance, and sometimes I can be a real *Witch.*"**

### Look

A 17 year old Caucasian girl with pale skin, dark hair, and green eyes. She has an asphodel tattoo on her neck and wears dark, comfortable clothes.

Penance is a witch who uses inherent magic improved by study and research to act as a hero. She ran away from her home in Seattle to find a city more able to handle her level of power and now lives at PCOY. She is among the first PCs created for Protean City Comics and is played by Elsbeth Denman.

## Personality

Penance is passionate and focused, taking on a frequent leadership role in the team. She has shown a tendency to flare into anger when her friends are threatened or failing to live up to her standards.

### Appearance

Sage is a 17 year old Caucasian girl without a visible physical mutation. She has pale skin, dark hair with purple at the ends, and green eyes. She has an asphodel tattoo on her neck. She usually wears eye makeup. Overall, she is "a pale person with a lot of dark accents".

#### In Costume

Penance's costume is black and white billowy clothing, but no capes.

#### Out of Costume

Sage tends to wear dark, comfortable clothing and stompy boots. At times, these end up being her costume when surprised into action.
She has a leather jacket with a pentacle on the back when she rides her motorcycle.

### Alternate Costumes

#### **Dilettante Ball:**

When all fancied up, Sage wore a black gown with slits up the sides, a high front neckline, and a lower back with thigh high black boots. Her black pentacle choker is still on. The limited edition action figure included her motorcycle helmet with a pentacle on the back. Additionally, she wore a black and gold mask with filigree on it and a crystal between the eyes.

#### Night Owl Costume:

After the events of Vol. 11 Rogue Code, Penance adopts a costume that consists of dark biker leather and old, bird themed hand-me-downs from Lunar Lens.

During Vol. 20 F.AL.C.O.N. DOWN, she adds blasters pilfered from the Sage Eagle Costume to her repetoir, and her motorcycle trails purple smoke.

#### Sage Eagle:

During Vol. 19 Powder Keg, Sage gets her hands on knockoff Striped Eagle Armour, which looks like regular Striped Eagle Mark 2 armour with fake wings, and is clunky due to Sage's lack of super strength.

## History

Penance grew up primarily in Seattle, far away from the capital of superheroics that Protean City represents. It was clear from birth that she was different, taking after her mother in having in-born witchcraft. From the beginning, she was a handful, her emotions leading to bursts of magical energy even when she was a child.

Try as he might, her father wasn't able to keep her safe and taken care of. Injuries started piling up, danger kept escalating, and finally Penance decided she didn't want to hurt him anymore. To keep her father safe, she ran away at age 13 to a city where she knew she could get the training she needed.

She ended up at PCOY, The Protean City Orphanage for Outstanding Youth where she was mentored by Lunar Lens and given the resources she needed to study magic to try to learn to control her powers.

## Abilities

### Magic

Penance's powers are innately magical requiring study for fine effects, but emotional outbursts causing powerful bursts. When shown on the page, they manifest in a variety of colors, showing her emotions like a mood ring.

#### Healing/Shielding

Penance is attempting to make up for the harm she so easily causes in anger by focusing on magic related to healing or shielding.

#### Potions

When given time, Penance can create a variety of potions that provide a number of different effects.

#### Post-Hexworm:

After the fight with Hexworm, Sage is left without her powers, and uses the depowered costume change. However, when she is passed out or asleep, Hexworm can emerge from the subconscious recesses of her mind, and wield more influence over the surroundings. Sage can confront Hexworm inside her mind palace.

## Relationships

### **Mentor/Stand-In Parent: Lunar Lens**

Since arriving in Protean City, Penance has been living under Lunar Lens's roof and receiving instruction from her. Although Lunar Lens is not terribly happy with Penance being a superhero, she is doing all she can to ensure that Penance receives access to the books and knowledge she needs to control her magic.

## Trivia

* The asphodel tattoo on Penance's neck is representative of the Underworld in Greek mythology and is an antivenom.
* Penance loves photography and is a member of the photography club at school.

### Ships

* Parcana: The intensity with which Arcana and Penance clearly care about each other has sparked a shipping of their characters and quite a bit of concern that even if they don't end up together they could friend-break-up which would be horrible.