Nadia Kravets

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 *A Rogue Slayer*

* Overview
* Sheet
* Background
* 'Ships
* Logs

 Seven billion humans. One Earth. You sure the vampires arn't doing us a favor?

— Nadia

Nadia is what one might call a rogue slayer. She wants nothing to do with the Watchers Council and generally isn't out hunting for vampires to slay. If she sees an asshole attacking a woman in front of her, human or supernatural -- she'll do something about it, of course. But that's not specific to being a slayer in her mind; that's called being a decent person. Consequently, she sees vampires as far less of a threat to the world than your average corporate executive or politician. She's well known in extremist environmental circles as an unusual young woman of extraordinary abilities that can do things few others would do. She's probably even known to the FBI. She's wanted in several countries for violating laws and has spent short stints in prison for environmental activism: sabotaging pipelines and mining equipment, ramming speedboats into whaling ships, that sort of thing. Not exactly the sort of reputation the Watchers Council would probably prefer.

## Personality

Nadia doesn't give a shit what the world thinks -- not anymore. She has little patience for arguments from authority, patriotism, or even necessarily the preservation of civilization. She cares about people, per se -- but she's an anarchist. Not like a "violently overthrow the world" anarchist -- those people are assholes -- but she thinks that large-scale centralization -- whether it be corporations, the U.S. military, or nationalistic governments as a whole -- have had their chance at history and have been historically !@#!@# things up for a long, long time now. That isn't to say that she doesn't care; on the contrary, she cares deeply about suffering.

But most of humanity /doesn't/ seem to care, seems indifferent to compassion and the rights of humanity, let alone nature or the world, and it's hard to muster the effort to protect the wealthy, powerful, relatively privileged citizens of the U.S.A. from vampires, when those same citizens use their wealth and power to enrich themselves and oppress others. She hides her compassion in an air of indifference, redirecting her efforts towards those she describes as the least powerful: the flora and fauna of the natural world, suffering to the point of breaking beneath the yoke of an unrestrained and uncaring humanity bent on consuming everything in the world until all that is left is money and dirt.

Consequently, she's a minimalist. She takes her pleasure in simple things. Yoga, running, swimming, hiking, gymnastics -- kicking the shit out of corporations in the middle of the night. You know, the simple things. She doesn't have a Facebook account, she doesn't have a cell phone (too easy to track those if you're a powerful enough corporation), she doesn't watch Netflix or keep track of sports. She tries to keep her life simple and relatively free of personal possessions. She doesn't plan on having kids, as the world doesn't need more kids. She's spiritual, but not religious. She tries to find joy in what small things she can, because in the end, the small things are all that matter. Anything else is ephemeral, and will fade away.

## SKILLS

Nadia has a B.S. in Environmental Geoscience and a B.S. in Ecology from UCLA. She has a Masters Degree in Geophysics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She doesn't know everything, but she's pretty educated.

Nadia is a seasoned athlete. She's good at running, swimming, climbing and yoga. She's done freeclimbing, parkour, and even some gymnastics. Mostly, she uses this to keep in shape, and as a slayer, she picks up athletic skills far faster than an equivalent human would. She also uses it professionally, as she spends most of her time sabotaging corporations she thinks are harming the environment; so being able to climb into a third-story window is pretty practical and handy.

Nadia is a slayer, and learns combat skills far faster than most -- picking up in weeks what would take others years or decades to master. She's particularly good with unarmed combat, knives (including throwing knives), and staffs. She has little experience with guns, crossbows, swords or more exotic weapons. Most of her experience is fighting humans (in particular security guards) -- so while she's slightly less good at fighting say, vampires than an average slayer probably should be, she's pretty good at facing off against mooks, so to speak, when outnumbered.

A useful skill when one dabbles in environmental terrorism. Nadia knows the basics of creating very simple explosives. She can't do anything fancy, and anything she makes is the sort you could get from household chemicals and is pretty simplistic to disarm, even for someone whose never seen an explosive before. She's not working with naplam or plastic explosives or anything like that; this is the sort of homemade explosive used to sabotage something by skilled amateurs and dedicated activists.

Nadia speaks English, Spanish, Russian and French.

You can't really get a Masters degree in a science field without /some/ programming experience these days. Nadia isn't very good at it; she's no hacker. But she knows the basics of programming, so is better with a computer then most.

Nadia is pretty damn good at figuring out how to break or wreck shit. Oil pipelines, whaling boats, chemical plants, mining operations - its a mixture of spotting 'what looks important' with 'what looks delicate' with 'how to really, really wreck shit'. One might think that simply hitting things would be sufficient - and in many cases it is. But anyone can just randomly hit shit. It takes someone whose been around the block a few times to figure out how to wreck something complicated, that they've never seen before, that's specifically designed to resist damage, in such a way that it won't be immediately obvious until they go to use it, or attract immediate undue attention.

Having taken part in several cruises designed to sabotage international whaling efforts, fishing efforts, and oil rigs, Nadia knows the basics of sailing on a variety of boats.

Sneaking in and out of places corporations and private security don't want her to get into (mostly so she can take pictures of illegal activities or break shit) is what Nadia is best at. She's pretty good at sneaking in and out of places and remaining unseen.

## POWERS

Especially paired with their heightened senses, a slayer has exceptional reflexes. They have increased physical agility and manual dexterity, as well as moving faster in general. They are able to outrun a motorcycle, leap several times higher and farther than a regular human, and can even potentially dodge or catch projectiles.

Slayers have dreams steeped in history and lore. These may teach them things, reveal insights, or even be prophetic glimpses into the future. They may also experience the same dream as someone else, usually for a specific reason.

Slayers can take a beating that would land a regular human in the hospital, then keep fighting. They are highly resistance to traumatic force. It's difficult to break their bones, and they can survive falling from several stories, electric attacks, and being hit by moving vehicles. They are also resistant to natural disease and sickness.

If a slayer is injured or somehow becomes sick, they recover very quickly. More serious injuries, which would most likely kill someone not gifted with such superhuman abilities, may take longer or even render them comatose until they have recovered. More minor wounds typically heal within seconds or minutes.

With reflexes and a tremendous awareness of their surroundings, slayers are able to operate at a higher sensory level a regular person. They are, consequently, able to respond to stimuli faster and more effectively, which among other things is a tremendous advantage in battle. They can sense the presence of non-humans, although they typically have to first encounter each kind discovered its nature.

Slayers are strong enough to bend metal with little effort, throw hundreds of pounds a significant distance, and crack reinforced concrete with unarmed strikes.

## ADVANTAGES

For most people, anger is probably not an advantage. For Nadia however, its something she can use and channel. She tries to act like an indifferent badass - but in actuality, she's got a big heart, and is pretty much a softie. What keeps her going is an intense, burning rage at how much humanity has fucked up the world, and how much of an inhuman, horrible mess we've made of society, politics, the environment - everything, really. She's a softie who has not given up on the //world// par se, and has not ceased to care about humans as individuals - but has ceased to care about civilization. Her rage at the willfull ignorance of man is what gives her strength to keep going.

Slayers are gifted with formidable fighting abilities. Even before the potential slayer is activated, they have a natural ability to defend themselves, which seems to be triggered by supernatural threats. This ability further allows slayers to learn combat skills and tactics at an astounding rate, learning in days or weeks what would take the average human years or decades to master.

Nadia has a wide range of environmental contacts. Well, 'environmental' might be the wrong way to put it. There are plenty of environmental groups that would want nothing to do with her and would be alarmed if they even saw her show up to one of their events. The sort of groups she hangs out with these days are the ones that give the rest of them a bad name; the sort of people who ram speedboats into whaling ships, set bombs in pesticide plants, break pipelines in the middle of the night, and try and stir up workers in third-world countries against the corporate masters using them as slave labor. The sort of people who get arrested in Japan for trying to prevent butchery of dolphins for food. Those sort of people.

## WEAKNESSES

Nadia has a rather long criminal rapsheet. In the USA, its mostly a series of short arrests for activism; where she's more careful about her actions. In some other countries however, she's wanted for much more. In Japan, for instance, she's wanted for sabotaging efforts at whaling and dolphin fishing, and would potentially face several years in prison. She'd likely have similar trouble in several South American nations for sabotaging corporate mining efforts. Suffice it to say, she has a rap sheet. She's careful to make sure its nothing she'd be extradited for, and it wouldn't stop her from trying to sneak into those places with an activist group if the cause was right - but it is something that might come up.

Slayers are infused with a powerful magical essence, drawn from the same wellspring that created the First Slayer. Those with sufficient mystic knowledge or perception may be able to detect or even track that essence. In a broader sense, it makes them stand out from a crowd of normal humans, even before seeing their superhuman abilities.

Nadia is what you might call a rogue slayer. She has nothing to do with the Watchers Council if she can help it and is not primarily out slaying vampires or even terribly interested in doing so. I mean, if one happens to attack her or she witnesses one attacking someone, sure -- she'll give it a shot. But she's not actually out there looking for trouble from supernatural creatures not making big waves, carnivorous or not. Its not true to say that she couldn't care less; she does care -- but as she sees it, she has bigger fish to fry.

When her slayer powers awakened, she was a double major at UCLA studying Environmental Geoscience and Ecology. Not exactly what you'd call dangerous material. She didn't know any martial arts, she'd never even punched anyone, and aside from taking dance lessons through 'til high school, she'd never done anything remotely athletic. She was a bionerd; she cared more for stray kittens, puppies and climate change then she did for people. After all, there are over /seven billion/ people -- and with several species going extinct every hour, it's always the apocalypse for someone other then humanity. Humanity will be fine. Even a nuclear war, a major plague, or a meteorite probably wouldn't wipe out humanity at this point... but it might save the rain forests.

Her slayer powers activated under unusual circumstances. She was attending a minor sit-in during her sophomore year of college to protest the wasteful use of water to grow cashews in the driest part of the desert of California, which was not only bad for the local ecology and wasteful for the people of California, but simply stupid. Fairly minor-league stuff, here. She was very sincere, but not one of those "crazy environmentalists" -- at that point, at least. Well, the local big agricorp escalated it a bit past what the kids were expecting and called private security, who showed up with tear gas.

Well, as it so happened, one of the other members of the sit-in was, secretly, a half-demon. Nadia had always known there was something "off" about the boy but thought it was just because he spent too much time playing videogames -- and he turned yellow-purple-ish when exposed to the tear gas, and began to freak out. This in turn further freaked out the private security, who resorted to clubs and rubber bullets -- and the situation escalated from there. That was when Nadia's slayer instincts kicked in, and without having raised a finger in anger a day in her life, she proceeded to kick the snot out of the security guards. Usually, when slayer powers activate, it's because of a direct attack involving the supernatural. Usually, being attacked. In this case, the supernatural was present -- it just wasn't what was attacking her, and this has flavored how she's approached "being a slayer" ever since. She doesn't assume that the supernatural is necessarily a threat by itself.

She ended up in jail for a week. I mean, she had slayer strength and agility but still knew literally zero about fighting and had already been hit with tear gas and rubber bullets; she wasn't going to perform any miracles. Her friend, however, got away -- and that was how she learned about the supernatural. The Watchers Council found her a few months later, but by that point she'd already signed with an extremist breakoff branch of Greenpeace; the darker parts of the environmental movement could use people like her, and she had an easy time demonstrating that she could do things normal people couldn't. She told the Council to go to hell. That was five years ago, and she's gotten more experienced and more extreme since -- not less.

Today, she has a Masters degree in Geophysics, three black belts, and ... a rather long, criminal rap sheet for a host of counts of environmental activism (and in some cases, outright ecoterrorism) in half a dozen different countries. She'll never get an academic job; even if she wanted one, who would hire her? She's smashed open pipelines, planted bombs on whaling ships, and kicked the /absolute shit/ out of corporate security abusing the shit out of poor people in third world countries. She knows about vampires, she knows about the slayer thing -- but she doesn't go looking for supernatural trouble.

She has to live in the world, and that doesn't do her much good if the world is on track for 5-7 degrees of global warming by 2150. Three degrees of warming, what the world is on track for by 2050, is enough to cause 2+ billion people to need to migrate and to render everything between 20 degrees north/south latitude uninhabitable to mammalian life during the summer. Are vampires really as bad as oil executives and politicians? In the grand scheme of things, the world could use a few less people.

But if she sees someone in need of help, she helps them.

Logs featuring Nadia Kravets:

*Coming soon!*