Pandora

The Lady of Rebirth

Pandora Eve's-Daughter, First Woman Born

"Put that gun down, dear. The most you could hope to do with it is kill me. We need to talk."

A young woman- almost a girl- walks among the dead and dieing on the battlefield, inspecting bodies, occasionally checking for a pulse. She looks too young to be out here, until you catch a glimpse of her eyes- there is something ancient and wise about her gaze, as if some fundamental part of her was much older than the flesh. Only as the gathering dusk deepens do you notice that the darkness never falls upon her…

Physical Appearance

Pandora's physical appearance varies with each new rebirth… Currently she is a young woman of (apparently) about 25 with inky black skin, short curly brown hair, and striking emerald green eyes. She always dresses stylishly in "retro" or "vintage" fashions- the fashion cycle is a distant correspondence to her own estate.

Personal Code

Code of the Light

  1. Humanity Must Live, and Live Forever
  2. What Must be Done, Ought be Done Cleanly
  3. Humans Must be Protected (Particularly From Themselves)

Design

A creeper vine with red flowers of Life throttling an ancient tree bearing black flowers of Death.

Miraculous Abilities

  • Aspect 2
    • 5 Permanent Miracle Points
  • Domain 5
    • 6 Permanent Miracle Points
    • 2 spent on party
  • Realm 0
    • 5 Permanent Miracle Points
  • Spirit 0
    • 5 Permanent Miracle Points

Gifts

Instant Rebirth (3 CP)

The moment Pandora is killed, she will be born anew through the power of her focus.
(Major Creation of Self: 7 + 1 Automatic - 3 Oneself Only -3 One Trick + 1 Uncommon)

Purifying Flame (4 CP)

With a holy word of command, Pandora can unleash the power of her ancient spirit in an inferno of volcanic proportions, scouring the earth for many leagues around. That no force on Earth could prevent such forces from consuming their own wielder… Is irrelevant.
(Major Creation of Fire: 7 - 3 Hard Miracle - 1 Local - 3 One Trick + 3 Penetration + 1 Uncommon

Worldwalker (2 CP)

Pandora's occasional role as a psychopomp requires her to go many places, so her Imperator has prepared her to do so.

Eternal (Free)

Pandora could live forever… If she ever got the chance.

Flight (1 CP)

Pandora can take to the air on wings of ghostly flame.

Limits

Focus: Scarab of Hope (+1 MP)

The small golden scarab charm which the Light slipped into the Box of Ills ages ago has remained intertwined with Pandora's fate, even through many mortal lives… In her current existence, it serves as the focus for her gift of reincarnation.

Restrictions

Double

The ancient curse of the Box of Ills has stalked Pandora down all the ages, reborn in new forms- sometimes twists of fate, and sometimse flesh and blood adversaries- into each of her lives. When her soul was caught up into the immortal essence of the Power of Rebirth, the curse too became its Dark and twisted reflection, wearing its quarry's own face…

Compromised

They're relatively discreet, but still too many people know of her relationship with Marcus.

Telltale

It's always clearly visible when Pandora uses her gift of Flight.

Bonds

  • The Scarab of Hope 3
  • Humanity 4
  • Marcus Oroboa 5
  • Her own graves 2
  • Her recent offspring 2
  • Collectively, the organizations working to arrest the African crisis 4

Estate Correspondences

Restoration, The Fashion Cycle, Recycling

Personality

Pandora is a quiet, intense person. Most people find her charming, but also a bit cool. Her love for all of humanity is obvious and strong- after all, seven thousand years of intermarriage later, essentially all of them are her children. Her love for her husband is fiery and intense. Yet, even for all of that she clearly has a different set of priorities that mortals often don't like. Life doesn't matter so very much to her; she sees people as entire strings of lives stretching down the ages, and death as a mere transition between them. Even her greatest acts of charity aren't necessarily appreciated…

She's also surprisingly modern. Though her soul is ancient- and her mind and spirit are a mix of the ancient Pandora and the antebellum Ruth Oroboa- constant rebirth keeps her fresh and young; she changes and grows with the times. Thus, while she can explain the proper way to stoke a Babylonian brick oven, she can just as comfortably log onto a computer and check her email.

History

Pandora is an ancient soul indeed- the First Woman Born, the first girl child of Adam and Eve. In that first form, miraculous and untainted by the touch of the beasts, she was beautiful and radiant; she was treated as a queen by the other things of the Earth, and given many gifts by the inhuman things which came to pay tribute. Though some among the very learned remember this today, most know her for her role as an unwitting dupe in one of the very first Dark plots against humanity. For among the gifts she was given, the most beatiful was a deadly trap…

The Box of Ills was a golden coffer, intricately engraved and bejewelled- and filled with a terrible curse. So that the Dark's requirement that Humanity destroy itself could be met, it was bestowed upon Pandora with an injunction that she must never open it. Yet, of course, the Dark agent knew no mortal could resist her curiousity toward such an object… And eventually, her resolve failed and she did so. It is well know what happened next- the curse emerged in the form of a million insects and worked their ills upon humanity.

The young race of Man was devestated by the curse unleashed upon it, and the plot might have succeeded altogether- had it not been foreseen by the light. Yet it was, and one of their greatest and cleverest agents had slipped a charm of his own into the Box of Ills, a golden scarab. It crawled out of the coffer last of all, and through its power shielded humanity from the worst power of the curse… But not Pandora herself. What she had unleashed, she could not be protected from, and The First Woman Born was similarly the first to die.

Pandora has been reborn many, many times since, living a thousand mortal lives… And each has been short and dangerous, for the Curse she unwittingly released has remained bound to her soul down all these years. Save a few, none made much impact; even those few have been lost or deliberately obscured in the annals of history by her enemies.

In her last Mortal life she was Ruth Oroboa, daughter of one freedman and son of another in antebellum America. The Oroboas may have been free, unlike many of their own relatives, but they lived in oppressive poverty; indeed, the Curse stalked the earth as a cruel banker in that time. That life ended badly, and for a long while Pandora's soul wandered the beyond rather than being reincarnated. That ended when the Phoenix, searching for a suitable power of Rebirth, decided to go for the brass ring and pluck the second eldest human participant (Abel's fate is… another tale) from the cycle to stand over it.

Pandora has served since- quietly, for the most part. She anchored her husband and has kept him at her side; she works in the world to make it a better place; she works toward her Imperator's ultimate goal. Soon, though, will come the day on which that battle is won or lost…

Anchors

Marcus Oroboa (Love)

Marcus Oroboa is Pandora's husband, married in her last mortal life, and they are passionately in love even two hundred years later. After her ennoblement, Pandora used her miraculous powers- recklessly, perhaps- to bring him back to her side. They're a danger to each other, really- her Nobility a lightning rod for terrible things which would not hesitate to use him as a pawn in their dark games; his continual return evidence enough for the Locust Courts to break her. Yet even were she not joined to the Phoenix, neither could ever abandon the other simply for fear.

Marcus still appears roughly as he did in the life that first entangled his fate with Pandora's- though being recreated through his lover's eyes has served to idealize his form somewhat… He is a huge, muscular man (he wasn't, particularly, in that first life) with chocolate skin and a lively face. He wears a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee and shaves his head, in the current fashion. He's an MD, and works for Médecins Sans Frontières, usually in sub-Saharan Africa.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License