Her Creation Sometime during the Song Dynasty: Northern Sung (960 - 1127 AD) [note: she might have been created a while ago but much of the time from her birth to present day was spent being sheltered. She only really began exploring rather recently.]       The night that Malanvt took Cirynia without consent was the night Avemano first existed. The first week of Avemano's existance, her father was put on trial. The first month of Avemano's existance, her father was sentenced and the second month of Avemano's existance, her father was stripped of his abilities and cast into the world of mortals, to die a mortal death. When Avemano finally emerged from her mother's womb, her birthing also caused her mother's death. She was the destruction of her parents; ruined them both simply by her existing. By the forced union of her father, The Manipulator and her mother, The Shadow, so she was The Manipulator of Shadows, Avemano. Her Flaw       Because her birth was through a forced encounter between her mother and father and her existance caused both their deaths, the higher beings did not acknowledge her with a soul. She is simply the union of The Shadow and The Manipulator, nothing more. She cannot return to the higher realm and must feed off the souls of the dead to preserve herself. If she did not do as needed, she would first succumb to The Fault: a hunger so blinding that she would feed off the living to sate the pain her body feels. If she still resisted through The Fault she would slowly fade, her abilities diminishing until she was simply unable to shift from her three forms. If she was trapped in her doll body, she will become that doll, looking out at the world but unable to participate in it. Were she trapped in her shadow body, she would remain that way, as similar as this is to her human form she still must be hidden from humanity as her additions wouldn't allow her to be seen. (Even though in this form she could've retracted her claws, in her drained state she would not be able to). Though, in this form, if she was lucky enough to grab a soul before she faded, she could, in fact, drain them to regain some of her strength. Once past this stage, she fades into non-existance. One recent dead soul is more 'fresh' than an old dead soul. Her Mothers       With no relative to take care of her, she was given to the care of the midwife. But this was not what they wanted. They, the shadows, knew the child was theirs and one night, when the midwife wasn't looking, they stole the child away to raise as their own. For they were as much a part of Cirynia as the child was her daughter, thus they, too, were the mothers of Avemano. The Meal       She slipped into the graveyard, having heard there was a recently buried body within; she needed to sustain herself, this body. She dipped her head down and sniffed at the air, tracking down the scent of the freshly dead she followed it to a plot in the cemetary, close to the center, under one of the trees. She grinned and licked her lips; the hunger within her stirring an itch as she moved closer. Upon reaching the grave, stood over it, regarding it with a cool look, almost as if she didn't realize, or care, that she was preventing the souls of the dead to move on. She let the hairs hang loose from her fingers for a moment; only a few this time: this soul will last longer than the few old souls she took in. The hairs lay limp for only a moment before she flicked her fingers and they immediately drove down into the ground and, with the manipulation of her fingers, she worked the fine strands into the coffin and to the body itself. From then on, the hairs wrapped around each other forming a serpent-like form, similar to the tattoo that adorned Avemano's arm, which hovered around the body's mouth, almost like breathing breath into the dead except instead of breath it, it took the soul out: a soft glowing orb, visible only as a soft ripple in the air to the human eye. It drifted upwards through the fabric, wood and dirt towards Avemano; she cupped her hands under the orb, and glanced down at it almost tenderly before she brought the orb close to her lips and absorbed it into herself. Refreshed.       [There are two ways she can gather souls. One is described above while the other, she can use when dead souls are not available in the immediate vicinity. She is able to call up on the dragon tattoo on her arm to help her gather souls. In this purpose, a total of three of the "dead soul catchers" are able to be produced .. usually the travel through shadows as not to be detected but they are able to travel through air as well. If they travel through air, they are often seen as long whisps of cloud-like things; one that could see supernatural things more clearly would see a long, thin and small Chinese-like dragon .. white in colour.] The Doll       There she sat. The doll, in its perfection, watched the world pass by with glass eyes. Its straight black-blue hair hung down to its small waist when undone, the pale ivory skin was flawless, unmarred by time like many antiques were. Yes, this doll was old, hundreds of years old, perhaps even more. It was a slender doll, limbs graceful and long, its body in proportion. Realistic. Even the clothing was realistic, ancient oriental wear adorned its body, flowing sleeves hung off its limbs, even its hair was done up perfectly. Realistic, of course it was. This was Avemano after all.       [This doll is her home, in essence. Here is where she retreated to when her energy was spent as this form provided her the least amount of time to regain her strength. Fast recovery state but a defenseless one. She may extract herself from this form but once this form is destroyed, it takes approximately a week for it to reform again. During this time she must feed much more often than normal to sustain the energy that she burns up. While her other two forms still allow some amount of energy to be regained, it is not nearly as fast as this form, so, in order for her to keep up her daily strenght, she must absorb it from someone or something rather than rest and wait for it to be regained on her own. Also, the form described above is not the only form she has, it is merely the most common doll/puppet form she takes. In this form she is unable to speak for ears; she can speak to the mind though. Vision and hearing are only slightly impaired. Not nearly as good as her human form.] The Human       She stepped out of the shadows, a sleek but petite asian woman. Thick lashes adorned wide eyes while short, spiked blue-black hair framed her face. Her features were strikingly familiar to the doll's, so much so that it could hardly be a coincedence but then again, who was studying dolls to really see the similarity? She stood approximately at 5'3", just under the shoulder of an average male and couldn't be over a 100lbs; she was small, yes, but she was quick, relatively strong and knew how to use all three to her advantage.       [Simple. She mainly uses this form to get by in the human world unnoticed by mortals. This is basically like a mask for her shadow form. Her hearing and smell are better than a normal human's but not nearly as good as her shdow form.] The Shadow       She stepped out from the confines of her shadow home, a small, wiry figure. She stood no taller than her human form and had the general shape though that is where the similarity ended. This time she had bright red hair flowed out from her scalp; short strands spiked up in nearly every direction mixed with longer strands that flowed down to her waist. Shadow leather encased nearly her whole body, wrapped so tightly that it would render a mortal short of breath; the only visible part of her body were her eyes. There was a flick of her wrists and from her fingers extended claws a third of a meter long; these also wrapped in the shadow leather her body was in. In truth, the form that she is most natural in is nearly sexless; there are no identifying features in this form of hers to distinguish her from male or female; the only hint that they would know she was female was if one saw her in her human form previous to the viewing of her shadow form.       [This is her natural form. It can take a variety of looks and I've only described the most common one of them. In all forms she wears the shadow leather though that can vary in the amount of her skin covered (ie: as in from skanty under garments to the full body suit) and her claws (the claws are encased in the shadow leather which extends halfway up her forarm, much like gloves). She's basically sexless in this form; the higher beings having saw no reason gift her with a soul and without a soul, her sex is only partially determined. Reproduction (I'll get into that section later) is limited only to her human form unless it is with another shadow-type demon/being. Thought I might mention, when she is not wearing the full body shadow leather, her features are nearly similar to her human form's; so she is female. Also, in this form she is able to switch from a solid to a mist-like form. Hearing, vision and smell are at its strongest in this form.] The Reproduction       [When I actually decide to make progeny, I'll post it up here ^^]       [There are two ways she is able to reproduce. Sexually and childering. First: Sexually - I don't think I need to describe the process here. She can do it with anyone in her human form. In her shadow form, however, it is restricted to other beings like her or other beings of the shadow variety. Progeny created this way will not be as pure (unless she produced with one of her own kind) as ones created by childering. Childering is similar to how a vampire creates his chyld. She drains the prospective progeny of everything they have, including their souls .. at this point the body is an empty husk and she changes it to a doll for convineince. The she inserts a shadow into it and puts it in safe keeping. This actual process takes less than a few moments but for the progeny to regain its strength, it'll need at least a few day's rest depending on how strong they were in their mortal life. However, Avemano is not fond of creating others like herself and will avoid it as much as possible.]

Quick Stats age: unknown -- but looks about 21 sex: female race: Chinese real name: Xiao Hei Long western name: Avemano height/weight: 5'3" / ~ 100 lbs languages: Various Chinese Dialects, English (Asian accent; not perfect), Japanese weapons: ((in progress)) A Note on Hearing, Vision, Smell and Healing       In her doll form: hearing, vision and smell are dampened slightly. She is able to sense movement, smells and noises but she will be unable to define them precisely. Things will be "fuzzy" in this form.       In her human form: vision and hearing is the same as human's if without the natural deterioration that occurs.       In her shadow form: vision, hearing and sense of smell is at its strongest. She uses the help of her 'mothers' with her vision/hearing so it is not so much as having 'eagle eyes'/'cat ears' than it is having another source of vision/hearing .. her 'mothers' are able to convery what they see and here to her if she allows them (otherwise they'd function as normal) .. this is not to say that she uses them often simply because it makes it hard for her to function effectively (eg. seeing one image with one eye and an entirely different image with the other ..same with hearing). Her sense of smell is now able to distinguish between supernaturals. She isn't able to distinguish the supernatural kind itself but she can tell, if a vampire and a werewolf were standing together, she'd be able to tell they're both not human and were of different types of beings.       Accelerated healing in all forms. In shadow and human form (but in human form the shadows will be visible), she can call upon shadows that will patch/wrap themselves around a wound to temporarily stop the bleeding until she can get better care for it. A large wound, say a hole punched through her stomach (if she manages to get away), will take about a week to heal well enough that she'll be able to fight again. But it'll not be complete. Abilities Note: I'll be using the terms caster and victim, casting etc but that does not mean that each ability is cast like a spell, some involve direct physical contact, a posession, etc etc. The bold type at the end of each ability just indicates which form she is able to use it in. From the Manipulator Web       This is a network of "hairs" that spans as large an area as there is places for the "hairs" to form a web. But there are two types of "hairs." One are just hairs that, once placed, don't move until they're broken or dissolved and these are relatively weaker than the other type of hairs. The other are hairs that are attatched to her fingers and these hairs she can control. Hairs that are simply placed, simply imobilize the victim while hairs that are attached to her fingers can be used to trap and move, etc .. or used in conjunction with Marionette. [Human/Shadow] Marionette       Like a marionette, the victim becomes like a puppet to the caster. There are three ways that she can gain this control, each with varying degrees of control. One is used in conjunction with Web and that is, after she cast it, she also casts Marionette. When the victim becomes ensnared in the web, instead of becoming simply imobilized, the victim becomes a puppet for the caster. This is relatively weaker than the other two methods and mainly used in a fight to avoid an attack and buy some time. The next method is similar to the previous except that instead of using the web, it is simply the caster sending out the "hairs" towards the target. The "hairs" wrap around the target and control is given up to the caster. This is moderately more effective than the latter method. The last and most effective method is the one using both the hairs and a possession from the victim. The more items from the victim the caster possesses, the stronger the hold the caster has on the victim but only to a maximum of five items and then things get rather cumbersome, carrying so much. Control can be acheived by the "hairs" and manipulating them with her hands or with her mind. [Doll/Human/Shadow as long as the object is with her in all forms] From the Shadow Message       This ability just allowes the user to talk to another telepathically whether the receiver has this ability (or similar) or not. [Doll/Human/Shadow] Shadow Leather       She already wears some in her shadow form but this ability fortifies it. When cast, it helps absorb some of the attack she takes. It ebbs away with each attack and she will have to recast it if it disperses too quickly. This is accumulative up until the third casting at which point it'll not have any affect until damage is taken. [Human/Shadow] Manipulator of Shadows Shatter       All things can break. So can she. This ability allows her form to shift quickly from Shadow to Doll thus allowing the doll to be destroyed but not her. This, of course, can only be done once per doll. (Ie: she uses shatter at the beginning of a fight, she can't use it again for the duration of the fight as well as the subsequent week that it takes for the doll to reform.) This simply means that the doll will take the attack and that she is then free to make her own, where ever she chooses to appear (as once the doll is destroyed, she is absorbed into the shadows for the moment.) [Human/Shadow/Doll] Claws of Antipathy       Claws are built into her shadow form already, and like 'Shadow Leather' this ability serves to enhance her extentions. When cast, it strengthens her claws to the point that it could easily slice through steel with a swipe. This is mostly physical and won't be able to counter a magical barrier as easily but would increase her defense against a magic attack. Being damaged with this ability would cause aggravated wounds. [Shadow] Whispers of Shadows       A time buyer. This ability simply causes shadows to swarm up against the opponent like bees in attack mode. The shadows will whisper anything and everything to distract the victim from making an attack (or to fumble one). The shadows do not 'enter the opponent's mind' it simply whispers in their ear and whisps past their sight (much like when you're trying to count and someone is flashing up numbers in front of your face and whispering other numbers to you). This is not a physical attack so it wouldn't be easily dispelled with a physical counter (take previous example: try to dispell the ability without waving away the two distractions - like concentrating *really* hard). [Human/Shadow] Cresent Blood       Often used in conjunction with Claws of Antipathy (stronger claws). When she is at a distance from her opponent, she is able to slash at the air and send out a number of dark blades in the shape of her claws towards the opponent. Attack can be greatly enhanced if some of her own blood gets onto her claws. [Shadow] Weapons ((in progress)) Additional Notes: mostly combative abilities here 'cause I'm lazy and I didn't feel the need to write down -everything- she's able to do since most of it I'll describe completely in my posts. Most everything she can do is meld into shadows, speak with 'em (since they're like people to her)..yeh