Jabberwookie
Internet Cryptid
- Names & Aliases
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The name Krepta means, "Little Star", or "Child of the Stars", and in its original language, its meaning changes depending on who is speaking. Krepta was named after a long lost friend of her mother's. The name has nothing to do with the mark that Krepta received when she bonded with the Dragon's power, as accidentally ironic as it has become.
Krepta typically went by her middle name in her school years, which is “Eve”, and sometimes she still uses it in situations where her first name would make her stand out too much. Krepta has no problem with her first name, but she does recognize that it sometimes makes it harder to blend in at times.
Krepta has several aliases across several dimensions. She has been known as the Skeleton Key by some circles, and the Wanderer by others. To those who know of her origins, she is The Last Walker. In places where code names are common, such as hero-worlds, she frequently goes by Firebird or Spitfire, depending on the environment and the situation.
She's also garnered many nicknames by friends current and past, gathered here for fun and posterity: Spitz, Red, Scales, Kid (typically only permitted by Viro), and Little Dragon (Ven's go-to nickname when he's teasing. She hates it.).
Krepta is a creature of hidden depths. Every time you think you’ve got her figured out, she surprises you again. Sometimes she's loud and boisterous and just a little bit dangerous. Other times she's insightful and pensive, a contemplative shape on a lonely hilltop at dusk, looking out over the world.
Her scars tell a story of a life full of pain, a pain that sometimes still echoes back through green eyes fierce with fire, through hungry jaws and sharp claws. But in her there is also a defiant sort of hope, a stubborn determination that everyone, anyone can be saved, no matter how far they've fallen. She doesn't believe in giving up on people.
Krepta is a walking weirdness magnet who tends to attract trouble, but sometimes it's the best kind of trouble. She’s never been good at blending in, even without that primal strangeness that lurks just behind her eyes. She’s the type of person who speaks her mind and wears her heart on her sleeve, and she is unapologetically, unflinchingly alive.
There's no predictability where Krepta Walker is concerned except for one thing: once you’ve met her, your life will never be the same again.
Enclaves
Back when the Walkers were more prominent across the multiverse, it was common practice for a Walker to create a home base in whatever land they found themselves working in. It was a place where they could rest and keep supplies, or retreat to if they were in danger. Each of these places were specially created to be slightly offset with the reality of that universe, so that they existed in a sort of pocket space that could only be accessed by other Walkers.
These safe houses became known as Enclaves, and though the Walkers who built them are long gone, there are still many of these spaces scattered across the multiverse, hidden and forgotten. The Hallow is just such a space, one that Krepta created herself. Being just one Walker, Enclaves are much easier to find than make however. It took Krepta nearly a full year of work to form and then stabilize The Hollow on her own.
Krepta has found several of those lost Enclaves over the years, but none that she's gone back and properly stabilized. Should that change, they'll be listed and described below. Enclaves sometimes hold traps or wild creatures as well as supplies, or their lack of use may have caused them to start to degrade, so it's important to get them stabilized if intended for long term use.
- What to Expect from Krepta
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Crossovers
If you've read nearly anything on this character so far, it's probably become apparent that Krepta has been designed to play in a lot of different worlds and settings. This means that she's likely visited fandoms, worlds, and eras different from the one that we're currently playing in. While I certainly would never introduce crossover characters from other genres or fandoms without talking things out first, the places Krepta has visited and the people she's met in those places may still come up in character conversation or in her internal dialogue.
These are Krepta's life experiences, and they're part of her character. Unless we're doing a plot where her memories are being affected by something, then those experiences are bound to come up. If you're not comfortable with this, then let's talk about plotting around those experiences. I'm not keen on changing Krepta herself unless it's an AU I'm super into, but there are mechanics baked into her lore that can help with the problem as a compromise. We'll just need a little more plotting before we begin.
On the other foot, if you're into crossovers and 'What If' adventures, then say so! Krepta can take your character just about anywhere and anywhen with the right plot.
She's a Spicy Lady
Krepta has a kind heart, but also a sharp tongue. She tends to follow her own rules and moral compass, and she's not afraid to speak her mind when others' actions don't feel right to her. She likes to banter and give teasing nick-names, and she can be physically rowdy as a sign of affection. Krepta likes children and young people, but she's not allergic to a little tough love. She's got a strong personality, is the point, and Krepta's far from a one sided coin.
She's also had a pretty rough past, and though Krepta's got it pretty well together these days, it's not a zero percent chance that something from that past might rise to the surface again. Sometimes emotions get choppy. I can't promise zero angst.
If your character is someone who can't handle that kind of personality, and you don't want to deal with the in character angst or arguments that will potentially follow, then Krepta probably isn't a good match for them. I like to believe that I play her pretty well nuanced and with plenty of levity where it's called for, but she's still a bright light that can cast a fairly long shadow under the right circumstances, and I believe its important for people to be well informed with what kind of story they're interacting with.
By nature Krepta tends to get into a lot of fights. I'm okay with ad-libbing them and seeing where things go. I'm also okay with talking out the end game of the fight before we begin so that things aren't so up in the air. Communication is important, so if something about the way our characters are interacting is making you uncomfortable or nervous, let's talk it out! But I won't know unless you say something, and I can struggle with recognizing needs that aren't expressed to me directly, so speak up please. I'll never be rude or bite your head off for asking questions or telling me something isn't working for you.
Sample Posts
I've left some posts and writing snippets here in case you want to get a better feel for this character, as well as my writing in general. They're a tad bit dated at this point, but I'll get around to replacing them with new ones eventually.
- Sample Post One
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Krepta made a noise halfway between a splutter and a cough. Her head went up and her rear went down, planting itself nearly on top of the offending foot. It hadn't hurt, but it had been unexpected, and Krepta's brain was actually still trying to catch up with what exactly 'it' had been.
Slowly, she backed out the way she came, and turned. And there was a... child? She stared at it for a while, like someone who had found a garden gnome that they hadn't remembered putting there just sitting out on their doorstep. Finally, she spoke, sounding both incredulous and annoyed.
"You know, there are easier ways to die, kid," the bemused shapeshifter rumbled.
What... what had he even been thinking? Just how did this backwards little hiccup of an adolescent picture this particular situation playing out exactly? He had just kicked a dragon in the tail. Did the screaming from further on inside the building not clue him in? Did he think that she was some kind of hallucination? Maybe he was some kind of Cape. Capes could get cocky, particularly the green ones.
Krepta squinted down at him for a while longer, then slowly lowered her head to where he was, until they were nose to head-chomping snout, and glowered down the length of it with green eyes that burned with no small amount of annoyance.
"You have exactly thirty seconds to tell me just exactly why I shouldn't eat you and save the gene pool some upcoming trouble."
She would never, of course, but he didn't know that, and maybe a little common sense terror would do this brat some good! Alternatively, she could use the exercise.
- Sample Post Two
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The sky above was slate grey and grumbled like an arthritic old man. It wasn't raining yet, but Krepta could tell that it was only a matter of time. At least somewhere behind those broody clouds the sun was shining. Memories and nightmares had ensured that Krepta never wanted to willingly venture into the looming tree line of that accursed swamp past nightfall again. Hell, she hadn't wanted to venture back in at all. The bitterness of the place still clung to the back of her mind like thick Louisiana mud, and she found herself watching every shadow for too many kinds of trouble.
But she had, at least, succeeded in her original task. Oken and Ivan were safe. By chance or fate, their paths had led them all to a town out in Virginia, where it turned out that strange was the new normal and they had been welcomed as family. The last she had seen of the pair they were settling in alright. Krepta made a mental note to swing by when she had another chance and check in on them. Not long after she had left to another place and time more familiar, to rest, to recover, to plan her next move. She had been gone longer than she had intended.
Of course, by the time she had returned the trail had gone cold. She regretted this fact, but there had been little choice in her hiatus. The battle with the skin-beasts had been a close shave, and she had needed time to rest from considerable injuries. The skin beasts, named for the raw skulls, animal hide, little else, animated into undead terrors. She didn't know what they were, only that they smelled like her kind, and that they could vanish and reappear at will. They were dangerous in their sheer number and their unexpected strength, and she and the Splicers had almost been overwhelmed. But the hides she recovered after were too tattered and rotten to be anything identifiable, by sight or scent. Another dead end.
So she had decided to return to the lab as a last ditch effort. It was long abandoned by now, most of the equipment gone, and no one left to question but dusty tanks and lonely ghosts. But on the bottom of one of the tanks she had found a greenish sludge, disregarded at first as mold or old grime, but upon a second, more desperate inspection, she realized that it was some kind of seaweed. Pushing her broad snout closer, she could smell distant salt air on it, the brine of rotting marine life. There was something else too. Magic.
It went up through her nasal passages like gasoline set aflame, leaving the bewildered dragon snorting and coughing for a good while even after she had vacated outside. Her fit had sent startled birds erupting from trees and a herd of deer leaping away through the tall grass like large brown grasshoppers. She had never had a reaction to any magic like that! Not that she made a habit of snorting it. Whatever it was, the stuff was potent. Whatever it was, it didn't belong.
Krepta knew what she had to do.
But she didn't have to like it.
She came back with an old jar she had scrounged up in one of the basement rooms, and tried not to think about what unpleasant things had once occupied it. Hopefully nothing, but the imagination could be cruel. Carefully, she scraped the dusty grey-green leavings into one of the jars with a bit of patience and a flat rock, avoiding inhaling too closely to the stuff, and with a deft twist of her hand on the lid, sealed it tight where it couldn't make her sneeze anymore. She slipped it into the leather pouch around her neck that also held her family's book, and then set off into the swamp.
She knew the path from the lab. She could walk it blind. How could she forget after a night like that? But it was a mostly symbolic exercise. He, she sensed, would find her all in good time, this unwelcome guest into the murky green temple of the Hermit God. She also sensed that he would not be happy to see her.
Should she have brought an offering?
The thought was mostly ironic, a tiredly sardonic suggestion from her subconscious. This creature, deity or elemental, or maybe both, was not her first in any one of those categories, nor would he be her last. And to most of them, like to him, it seemed, she was but a quickly forgotten mouse of a creature, an inconvenience. But if that was so, then she was the mouse who roared, and those who demanded piety from her would never have it. Respect was earned. Change was inevitable. She was coming whether he liked it or not.
- Sample Post Three
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She pulled a hand from her pocket, moving carefully so as not to startle the man, who was already on edge. She reached into the deer hide bag slung over her shoulder, navigating past the massive tome instead to the cool circles of metal at the bottom, and pulled one out. It was a coin. She showed it to him, and it glinted a tired gold in the low light.
"When I came here, I took only what I could carry. From the way you're guarding that thing, I'll assume it's worth quite a lot. Probably more than I can pay. This is from a dead world," she said, her voice pensive, quietly sad. "This is from a world who made a wish on the monkey's paw. I couldn't tell you the name of their people. Nobody could anymore. I need you to understand that."
- Plots & Prompts
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Repo Detail (Any Genre)
[Some Danger. World Ending Artifacts. PC Conflict Possible.]
The Corruption spreads through many ways, but its favorite way of creating rifts is through cursed artifacts it sews throughout the multiverse. Each has a different purpose. Some have terrible powers, and others are meant to set off events that destabilize an area enough that a tear in space and time forms, letting the seeds of that terrible nothingness through. Many remain asleep until the right (or wrong, as it may be) individual comes along.
A Walker's job is to track down these objects, nullify them, and lock them away in one of the protected Vaults where they can no longer do any harm. Sometimes that's as easy as purchasing an unusual looking tea kettle found on an antique shop shelf. Other times Krepta has to get more creative. She's not above bargaining for things, or stealing them if she needs them. Your character has something she needs... Or perhaps they're both after the same object.
Fish on a Line (Any Genre)
[Open Ended, Conflict Chances Low, Meet and Greet Flavor]
Krepta is on her way to your character's world, or somewhere else, and her Walking gains their attention. If they're magic users, it might be because it creates significant arcane ripples-- not dangerous, but certainly bright and noticeable. Certain technologies might also be able to detect her as a moving spatial rift. Either way, they intercept her with their own magic or technology for their own reasons.
In All The Wood (Any Genre)
[Any Era or World Applicable. Open Ended. Themes of Magic and Myth. Conflict Very Likely. Semi-Meet and Greet.]
Got an elemental, a local god, or a nature spirit? Wanna see Krepta climb a tree real fast?
Walkers are kind of an anomaly in the multiverse. In order to travel freely among the worlds, they no longer have a connection to the native universe they were born into. They make temporary connections with new worlds when they visit, and then break free again when they leave. The ripples they leave behind in the fabric of those universes are harmless, but as a result, elementals and other beings deeply tied to the natural world tend to react to Walkers like white blood cells to an invading virus (though in reality they're more like harmless pollen). They are drawn to the presence of Walkers, and their 'wrongness', and tend to deal with them in their own ways.
Those ways are not always violent, but they are often enough that Krepta is already wary of this sort. Plus, she thinks Elementals are creepy. She'd rather try and run away than fight, but she's perfectly capable of holding her own if cornered. But perhaps once the dust settles, they'll find themselves unexpected allies.
Blood of Summer (Any Genre)
[Open Ended, Conflict Chances Dependent]
Krepta's got an unwitting connection to an ancient, otherworldly vampire god (close enough anyway). In the old world, from Greece, to Persia, to Egypt, he offered up his blood to create for himself a hidden empire of the turned and the converted, allowing those who partook in his sacrifice to walk once more beneath the sun in exchange for their services. Most of the acolytes of the Serpent King are dead now, taken in the wars between ancient Egypt and Rome, but a few still slumber here and there, or move through the modern world unseen.
The part of Krepta that is the dragon comes from this god, a sacrifice he made long ago, along with his four other elemental brethren to bring forth the herald beasts of the Walkers. His power sings in her, and sings in her blood, and it will call to his forgotten acolytes most strongly. Other vampires can likely sense it too, though it's doubtful they understand the pull.
Krepta isn't a big fan of vampires-- for many reasons, but she's probably never paused to consider why she keeps running into so many. Perhaps one will finally shed some light on the matter, and get more than they bargained for in the process.
- Canon Wishlist
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These are canon characters that I'd love for Krepta to interact with someday, or who already have a bit of history with her. Of course, new meetings of old familiar faces are awesome too, and we can discuss things. One of the perks of world walking is infinite AUs! A lot of the characters with past histories are DC Canons-- Krepta has spent a lot of time in the DC Universe.
Constantine (DC COMICS)
Krepta has only met him in passing once or twice, but she's heard plenty about him through the grapevine. At this point, he probably has heard just as much about her.
Swamp Thing (DC COMICS)
Krepta's meetings with him have been... somewhat tumultous. Tersely labeled 'The Hermit God' in her head, she dislikes many of his incarnations tendencies both to get in her way and their conflicting refusal to actually get involved. Walkers and Elementals have always had a bit of a rocky history though. He makes her nervous.
Martian Manhunter (DC COMICS)
Krepta has developed a cautious trust for many of J'onn's incarnations over the years. Telepaths still make her nervous, but his unswaying sense of compassion and honor has long won Krepta over. While she often doesn't go as far as to let him know she's there, she will frequently seek him out in dimensions where he's present, just in case she needs backup.
Batman (DC COMICS)
Gotham City shared a lot of similarities to the place where Krepta grew up-- Wick. Because of this, whenever she found herself in a universe with a Gotham attatched to it, Krepta generally sought to make it her home base while she was there. While it may be her adopted home, her time in Gotham certainly shows, and The Dark Knight has grown to nothing short of legendary status in the World Walker's mind, which is funny, because she most certainly doesn't hold the same level of reverence for almost any other 'Cape'. She worked with him briefly on one memorable occasion, but otherwise she avoids him for the same reasons that she looks up to him.
The Doctor (DOCTOR WHO - ANY EXCEPT 12)
Krepta has frequent encounters with The Doctor (I play 10. She met 11 once.) While she only really knows one of his incarnations personally, that's plenty enough to get her into trouble. Like tends to be drawn to like, and once you've met one, the others aren't typically too far behind, particularly when you can freely travel the multiverse.
DC UNIVERSE WISHLIST
Superman, Various Robins/Nightwing, Miss Martian (YJ), Superboy (YJ), Raven, Doctor Fate, Lobo, Beast Boy
MARVEL WISHLIST
Gambit, Rogue, Doctor Strange, Wolverine, Xavier, Spiderman (Peter, Miles, Spider Noir-- you can introduce her to Miguel, they run a similar operation, but she will absolutely fite him, lol.), Venom, Daredevil, Jean Grey (The Dragon meeting the Phoenix Force could be interesting-- and messy), Nightcrawler, Loki
OTHER CANONS
Geralt (Witcher), Hellboy, Abe Sapien (Hellboy), Any Psychonauts Characters, Any Elfquest Characters, Any Characters from Mercedes Lackey's Mage Wars or Heralds Series, Dinotopians (OCs, but this counts), Any Characters from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings/Hobbit Works, Star Trek Characters, Star Wars Characters
Appearance
WardrobeHuman
*Not absolutely shredding your clothes when you shift is a problem for many shapeshifters, Krepta among them.
Luckily, Krepta's magic registers anything close enough to her own biology as part of her, and if she's conscious enough to make an active effort when she changes back, she can shapeshift her clothing back too. This only applies to organic, animal based materials such as leather or wool.
- Owned Articles
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Nothing of Note
Many of Krepta's belongings were lost to her during a fire in Sanctuary before she moved her home to the Hallow. She has been tentative about getting too attached to new things since then, and still dresses fairly practically as a rule.
Travel Bag
*Krepta almost always travels with a specially modified bag meant to be worn in either of her shapes. While in human form the bag can be worn as a decently sized backpack. When she shapeshifts into her dragon shape, she wears it on a padded strap around her neck. The bag usually carries her most important supplies and she's careful not to lose it anywhere. It's made from an incredibly durable material and it's not easily slashed or torn, though it still certainly could be if effort is applied.
Krepta typically tends to have at least some of the items listed beneath within that bag at all times. She tends to leave the Walker's book behind in the Hallow these days, but sometimes it can also be found within the bag.
- Usual Gear
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♢ A Length of Raw Silk
Some weaker magics can be nullified with raw silk-- this goes for the corrupted artifacts that Krepta hunts as well. She usually keeps a bundle of about two feet of the stuff on her. It doesn't do much for more powerful problems, but it doesn't hurt to have on hand either, particularly if she needs someone else besides her to handle an artifact.
♢ Blood Spheres
Any corruption that needs to be contained on a more permanent basis requires Walker's blood. The bigger the job, the more blood is required. Krepta is just one person though, and she can't give any more blood than any other healthy human adult, particularly since Walker magic must be conducted while in human form. The solution that Krepta eventually came up with was about a dozen sturdy steel eggs that she paid a spellcaster a fair pretty penny to enchant. The inside of each egg contains an enclosed time loop, keeping the blood inside fresh as long as the eggs are sealed.
The eggs themselves are pretty solid, but just in case, Krepta keeps them in a hidden, padded compartment in her bag anyway. As unpleasant as it would be to accidentally squish one, it would be even more unpleasant for the wrong hands to get their mitts on Walker's blood, so she considers it best to keep them out of sight until needed.
♢ Sealing Glyph
While Krepta could take the time to hand carve each glyph she needs to seal an artifact, she's saved herself some time and effort and had a small brand made to help. The brand is about the size and shape of a bulky sort of ring, and with heat applied to it, it leaves deep enough grooves that Krepta can easily apply blood within them afterwards. As long as whatever she's branding is capable of being burned in the first place, she no longer has to make glyphs the old fashioned way, which is nice when you have to apply them to an artifact actively trying to murder you.
♢ Deception's Web - (Cloak)
Deception's Web is an enchanted cloak that Krepta bought to combat her issues with security cameras and other similar technology. Not being very stealthy by nature, and having no hacking skills to speak of, the cloak allows Krepta to become invisible to electronic eyes as long as she's completely underneath it. The cloak doesn't work on organic vision-- which is to say that flesh and blood people would just see a crazy lady hiding under a cloak-- but it allows Krepta to minimize the times that she gets shot at sneaking in and out of places. She regrets very much that it's only big enough to hide her human form.
♢ Various Coins
The upside of traveling between worlds is that you tend to collect currency or objects that might be of poor value in one place or time, but which are worth a lot of money in another. One has to be careful where one sells those sorts of things though, as well as how, and to whom. Krepta tends to carry a small collection of coins consisting of precious metals, or currency from empires long past in case she winds up on modern day earth where they might be worth something and she finds herself needing the resources.
♢ Rope
It's a rope. Every adventurer needs a sturdy rope or two.
♢ A Waterskin
A simple leather water skin.
♢ A Hunting Knife
Claws and teeth aren't always an option, so a good knife comes in handy, particularly for butchering kills for dinner. Despite what people may assume of Krepta, she doesn't typically eat her deer raw. She's always careful to keep the knife concealed in pre-modern eras, since its design and materials are plainly of modern manufacture.
She's recently been looking to upgrade to something customized and more adaptable, and will gladly pay any enterprising craftsman for the job if your character is interested.
♢ Bedroll
Krepta bartered for this bit of enchantment several years ago, and she maintains that it's still the most useful object that she owns. The bedroll is made from the skin of a beast that in life could change size at will, and so the bedroll itself can similarly change size. It can unfold large enough to act as a makeshift tent, or fold just small enough to fit comfortably into the bottom of Krepta's pack. The material is also fairly warm and somewhat water resistant, making it a great shelter in a pinch, though it won't stand up to more than a medium to light soaking.
♢ Power Nullifiers
These thin metal bands are surprisingly delicate, and they're definitely not one size fits all. Each band is meant to sit comfortably on the head of any average sized human adult, but as long as they can somewhat fit around the skull of a being, they work. The nullifiers send energy pulses into the brain that scramble the bits used to work more complicated abilities. The wearer is usually aware enough to communicate and move around, but they may find doing so like trying to work through mud.
The Walker's Book
The Walker's book is a large, leather bound book that contains much of the Walker's secrets and family history. It reacts to its environment and the people around it, including questions and conversation. The book doesn't talk, but it may open to a certain requested page, or if it doesn't like someone, snap its cover down on their fingers. It can't move much beyond opening and closing.
Krepta isn't entirely sure just how sentient the book really is, but sometimes her family's patron will communicate through its pages. Krepta doesn't entirely trust it, and the book often gets left at home much of the time, tucked away in a safe place. She has a lot of mixed feelings about The Book of Walker, but she can't deny that it has often been useful in the past.
The lock that holds the book shut will only open when given Walker's blood.
Krepta is also writing her own book on the subject, based on her own experiences, though the going is slow, and uncovering the truth of matters is difficult.
About World Walkers
World Walkers, also known as Way Walkers, or just Walkers, are an endangered species in the multiverse. This isn't to say that there aren't other beings that are capable of traversing freely between worlds, but the Walkers themselves as a family of those beings has dwindled to nearly nothing. Once there were many Walkers-- enough that some of the oldest texts and beings may still remember them and their reputation as somewhat of a mixed blessing.
In fact, Walkers were once well known across the multiverse for their hare-brained heroics. They had a penchant for dropping out of nowhere into a dangerous situation, often on the eve of defeat just in time to turn the tide. They had a reputation for being troublesome meddlers who followed only their own code, which often seemed indecipherable to outsiders. Not all of the Walkers were good people, but the most problematic of the black sheep were usually handled by other Walkers before they could do damage. Overall, many considered the Walkers a force for good in the cosmos, if perhaps an occasional annoyance as well.
And then one day the Walkers just stopped coming. A once mighty empire of otherworldly travelers became a sad trickle of haunted refugees, and then even they vanished, and with them it seemed, much of the public’s knowledge of the Walkers. Outside of some half forgotten dusty tomes in a few old spellcaster's attics, they had faded into obscurity, purposefully hidden it seemed, by some distant and sinister hand.
Green Eyes - Somewhat Mediterranean Complexion - Chest Length Brown Hair - 5'9", Around 160lbs - Wiry Build
Draconic
Green to Green-Gold Eyes - Vibrant Red Scales - Bat-like Wings - Two Long Horns (One Broken), Two Short - 7' 9" (at the shoulder), Around 2,300lbs - Muscular Build
☉ Appearance in Depth ☉
Human
Krepta is a woman who looks like she’s been through a lot. The scars that litter her skin map a life of violence, and there’s a watchful sort of way that she scans the horizon that makes one wonder just what she might be looking for. But Krepta is also a woman with an easy smile and a wicked twinkle in those green eyes that tends to be contagious. There's a steadfast sort of warmth around her that gives the impression that whatever sort of trouble might be coming over the horizon, she won’t let anyone face it alone.
Build wise, Krepta is tall and very wiry. Even in good times where she's had plenty of resources available, there’s never a lot of fat on her. She’s too restless to ever stop moving enough to build any sort of padding, and her heightened metabolism keeps the rest off. Both of Krepta's eyes are green, though the right eye is a few shades lighter than the left, and is marked with a scar that stops beneath her eye and picks up again at the start of her jawline.
She has an angular face, a roman nose, and a skin color that suggests some distant Mediterranean heritage. Her eyes are large and almond shaped, and seem to carry a quality that almost makes them seem uncanny and not quite human, just the same as her eyes within the dragon’s face are always just a little too human. There is a silvery patch of skin between her eyes that resembles a star, or a rough sort of diamond.
Krepta likes to wear her hair down, and it's often fairly messy. Twigs and leaves are not infrequent visitors. Her hair is straight and long, and a chestnut brown sort of color. Likewise, Krepta tends to wear her clothing as casually as she does her hair, and she often goes for styles that are comfortable or utilitarian, and colors that make her blend into natural features.
The Dragon
Krepta’s dragon form has four powerful legs, and two leathery, bat-like wings. It’s notably more muscular than Krepta’s human form, particularly in the chest and neck areas. Overall it has a stocky, solid sort of shape, including a broad muzzle full of very sharp teeth and a thick, rudder-like tail.
Despite the dragon’s intimidating build, Krepta has learned to be very gentle in this shape after long years of trial and error. She has four, finger-like claws and a thumb on her front feet, and three and a hind toe on her back feet, and she is capable of picking up and manipulating objects with each– though it's abundantly easier for her to work with her hands than her feet.
The dragon's scales are a deep, rich red, with its wings only a slightly lighter color. Krepta possesses three sets of bone colored horns that grow backwards from the back of her head, with the main pair being the largest and heaviest. The second largest are situated at the bottom of her jawline, and the smallest are a pair of nub-like horns that jut out from the crest of her cheekbones. The largest set of horns are scratched and scuffed in many places, and the right one of that pair has a sizable chunk taken off of the end. She frequently uses them for fighting.
Krepta’s silver star-marking remains in this form, as does the color of her eyes.
Backstory
Krepta’s parents hid their secrets from their daughter in order to protect her. She grew up in a world where strangeness was not unknown– people in colorful and theatric costumes patrolled the streets and skies of distant cities, and occasionally even stranger beings would surface and vanish again, just as evasive as they were mysterious– but it was always far away and safe. It was always something you saw on TV.
When her parents died, Krepta found herself falling into a world of magic and danger, capes and cowls, and no shortage of political intrigue. Those who had been charged with her care did their best to shield her, but could not prevent the tangled ties of fate from taking their piece, nor could they know the eldritch machinations that far distant and powerful beings had already set into motion.
Krepta's younger years were filled with pain and desperation, broken by brief moments of community and love. They made her feral and strange, a strangeness and wildness that she still carries today, though it is now one tempered by experience and a steadiness of heart. Krepta is determined to dictate her own fate, no longer content to be the pawn in someone else’s game, though the dark roots of her family's history may feed on far more alien soil than she could ever know...
History in Depth
Because Krepta is such an old character, and her continuity spans nearly every roleplay that she's been in, she's got a long and pretty complicated past. That being said, most of the fine details you'll have to find out through interacting with her. The basics will be here for reference, however.
0-13 years: The Walker bloodline comes from Krepta's mother's side. Alyson lost her own parents to the burden of this 'gift', and was raised by her grandfather, who eventually vanished as well, taken when Krepta was just two. As a result, she and Krepta's father elected to keep the history of Alyson's side of the family secret, hoping to raise Krepta as a normal child with a peaceful life.
Unfortunately, the duties of the Walker would not be ignored, and as one of the last, there were no others to combat the corruption in Alyson's stead. While she had made the choice to forget about that world and its horrors, it certainly had not forgotten about her, and she and her family paid the ultimate price for it one night when Krepta was about fourteen.
A creature of the corruption tracked Alyson to her home that night and surprised her and her husband while they were sleeping. The pair managed to fight it off long enough for Tadgh to hide Krepta somewhere safe. He was killed shortly after. As the monster rounded on Alyson, the Walker's patron, a being they called Qyinn, reached out to her mind and offered Alyson a deal.
It would protect Alyson’s daughter from the beast if in return, she would pledge Krepta's life to the cause, and give her own to Qyinn. With the only options being to accept or allow her daughter to die, Alyson accepted, and Krepta's soul was bound to the injured spirit of one of the four elemental forces that made up the Walker clans.
The energy burst from the fire binding, and the rebirth of The Dragon was enough to drive the monster off, but Krepta remained hidden for hours afterwards in the silence, and when she finally emerged, Alyson was gone, and her father was dead.
The media had a field day with the mystery, and it was largely assumed that the fantastic story that Krepta told was her way of coping, and that the missing Alyson Walker was Tadgh's real killer. Krepta knew better though. There was no doubt in her mind of what had happened, and that both of her parents were gone forever.
Krepta's care was entrusted to her only remaining relative, Tadgh's brother, Dev. He was a reclusive man who lived in Wick City, New Jersey– a place already fantastical on the surface, and even stranger beneath. But as such, Dev was a being well versed in magic, and he was fairly well prepared when Krepta's powers began to surface as a result of her new connection to the dragon, though he remained unaware of their origins.
Besides Dev, two family friends also shared the house, a reptilian being by the name of Solus– the family’s healer; and Viro, a vampire with an extensively shady past that became like an older brother to Krepta. Through her three ‘uncles’, Krepta found new exposure to a strange world full of magic and danger, capes and cowls, and a depth of political intrigue that someone her age should have never been left prey to.
And in fact, Dev and Solus were reluctant to allow her to be involved at all, and Viro outright protested. Wick’s heroing community was dangerous, and complicated at best. But Krepta continued to sneak out to fight crime each night without their permission, finding it a much needed outlet for her recent traumas.
Realizing that Krepta would continue to defy their wishes anyway, Dev contacted another family friend, a hero that went by the name of Grimoire. Grimoire took Krepta under his wing as a sort of apprentice within a team that called themselves the Nightshift. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but at least with Grimoire’s supervision, Krepta would learn to defend herself properly and reap some measure of safety.
And for a few short years after, Krepta did flourish. Under Grimoire’s guidance, Krepta learned how to fight, and gained better control of her developing powers. She found a sort of community and contentedness within the Night Shift, and a purpose and distraction in keeping Wick and the greater world safe with her abilities.
But eventually the hourglass ran out, and fate– or perhaps the cruel machinations of other powers that be, reached out their hand for Krepta…
14-16 years: To the outside eye, the world of capes and cowls is an exciting one, full of danger defying leaps and quick witted tongues from a hero always ready to exchange a clever one liner or two along with their punches. It’s full of dramatic costumes and thrilling theatrics. It’s an unwavering force for the side of good dressed up in adventure and spectacle.
Some of these things are true. A hero is rarely bored, and there's no denying the show that many of them put on. Unfortunately, some other things are ideals that people only fervently wish to be true. 'Good' is rarely as cut and dry as a snappy come-back and a memorable costume, and there are prices to pay for being able to work wonders.
The thing rarely acknowledged by the more public face of the heroing community, particularly in Wick, is that the world of heroes is also a world that is intensely political. When you have abilities that could shatter skyscrapers or allow you to replace the leader of a country all but unnoticed, it becomes very important for gifted individuals to play nice with the local government. Reputation becomes paramount, and it’s sometimes too easy for corruption to follow. A world like that would be difficult for any adult to navigate, nevermind a teenager still preoccupied with processing the recent death of her parents.
But despite the shifting of dark things beneath the sunny waters, Krepta held the heroing community in high regard, and she did well those first few years. Heroing work was cathartic, and helped Krepta work through some of her grief. She found much longed for companionship and encouragement in the other heroes of the city, and even an aloof sort of mentor in the grim and stoic presence of Grimoire.
Still only a junior member of the Nightshift, Krepta often sought to prove herself. One day, an overheard argument and a door left accidentally unlocked found her stumbling onto an intelligence gathering operation that had been botched a week earlier. One of the prominent members of Wick’s heroing community was rumored to be moonlighting as the mysterious head of a local crime family, one of the city’s worst. Unfortunately the Nightshift had been unable to prove it as of yet.
But Krepta’s uncle worked in the same building the team had been trying to access, and as the niece of one of its employees, Krepta knew that she would be less likely to be noticed. She could get in, get the information the Nightshift needed, and impress the entire team with her competence. It would be easy. Of course it would.
Without telling anyone where she was going, Krepta set her plan into motion. She stole her uncle’s keycard, and made it all the way to the office where the team had hoped that they would find the damning evidence needed to expose their turncoat. Instead Krepta found the turncoat himself.
He went by the name of Insight in the light of the day, posing as a grandfatherly figure known for his mental powers. In his shadier dealings, he was known as Rictus, a monster who left his victims with shattered minds and a terrible grimace across their faces. He had a considerably stronger set of powers and over a decade more experience than her, and Krepta never stood a chance against him.
She probably would have been destroyed entirely, if Rictus hadn’t been foolish enough to take his time, and if Grimoire hadn’t discovered the missing intel files and sensed that something was amiss. The dark clad hero came to Krepta’s rescue, but not swiftly enough to see the face of her attacker, who escaped into the night.
Krepta was in a coma for nearly three months after that. The family’s resident telepath, Solus, worked tirelessly to put her mind back together, but even when Krepta woke up, there was still damage to be repaired, and her recollection of just who her attacker had been could not be recovered until it was. On top of this she began suffering mood swings and nightmares, prompted by her own trauma and the damage the Dragon had also taken while shielding her from the attack.
It made framing Krepta for murder an easy decision for Rictus once he discovered that she was still alive. Krepta could not be allowed to remember who attacked her. It would expose Rictus and undo an empire it took him an entire lifetime to create. But with Nightshift watching over their youngest member, it would be difficult to reach Krepta before she did. He had to separate her from the flock.
Enter Changeling, a nasty piece of work who took identity theft to the final extreme. She was a shapeshifter who made her living murdering people whose lives she admired. When the deed was done, she simply slotted herself into the empty spaces they left behind for a time until she found something else to catch her interest. Rictus hired her to handle the Krepta problem.
When Krepta first began seeing her departed parents everywhere, she thought that she was going insane. She’d catch a glimpse of her mother’s face vanishing around some street corner, or see her father reading a newspaper in a café somewhere, only to find a stranger in their stead, or nothing there at all. Still recovering from the effects of her recent attack, it didn’t take long for the others to begin to wonder if something wasn’t wrong with her. Maybe there was more lingering damage than they had realized.
To compound that problem, sleep deprivation made Krepta even more impulsive and short tempered than usual, and she continued to see things that weren’t really there. When Changeling finally made her move, and a couple was found brutally murdered in their own home– a couple who looked remarkably like Krepta’s parents– it wasn’t hard to convince the world that it was Krepta that had snapped and done it. A security tape made an extra damning witness to the crime, exposing Krepta– or someone who looked remarkably like her as the killer, and Rictus’s little plant inside the team didn’t hurt either.
Nightshift turned on Krepta within the month, along with the rest of the heroing community of Wick. Her only protection was her mentor, Grimoire, who spirited Krepta away as best as he could, and Krepta’s uncles, who she didn’t dare get involved for fear of losing them too. Eventually Nightshift cornered Krepta and Grimoire, and in her panic, she stole one of Grimoire’s spell books and activated an escape spell that was far too advanced for her.
The next thing Krepta knew, a hole in the universe had opened up and swallowed her down, and Wick and her family would become a distant memory until nearly six years later.
17-28 years: For several months, Krepta continued to jump erratically through time and space. She never knew when the jumps would occur, or where or when she would wind up, only that they inevitably would happen eventually. Sometimes it seemed like they were triggered when Krepta was stressed or overtired, and sometimes they seemed to happen for no particular reason at all. She came to live to fear the next time she would be once again ripped from everything she had come to find familiar.
With little means to gather resources or to feed herself in the new places she was constantly finding herself thrust into, Krepta often resorted to stealing or scavenging wherever she could. The consequences of not finding enough food proved to be very, very bad – something that Krepta learned the hard way. It only took waking up once in a field full of slaughtered and half eaten livestock to convince her that whatever the risks and moral implications of theft were, there were always worse alternatives.
Ultimately, it was one of those thefts that eventually got Krepta caught, and by the worst sort of people.
Another surprise jump found Krepta on the very tip of an island chain. It was a beautiful, if lonely place, a balmy stretch of rock and sand surrounded by turquoise waters. The air was scented with rockrose and fig, and the island seemed sparsely populated aside from a few small clusters of houses down near the beach. To Krepta’s great fortune, none of those houses had contained their usual residents at the time of her arrival.
Taking advantage while she could, Krepta decided to slip in and gather what resources she needed from the tiny hamlet while she was still unobserved. She took only enough for a few days' travel until she could fend for herself. Clothes, a little food, a water skin, a small blanket-- nothing anyone would really miss.
Except pirates often take offense to being stolen from, no matter how small the take.
Her task done, Krepta slipped back into the dense woodland surrounding the hamlet, assuming that she had gotten away with her theft unseen. Still young, she wasn’t wary enough to catch the footsteps following her deep into the forest, and she didn't pause to check the surrounding area before she nestled into the wide hollow of a cluster of old fig trees for the night and fell asleep.
When Krepta woke up again, she woke within chains, and she woke beneath the control of a magical suppression collar. The pirates had been ready for her, but perhaps not surprisingly. Krepta learned much later that the area had a heavy trade in beings of the magical sort, people or otherwise. She had just had the very poor misfortune of finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Krepta never did learn the name of the particular group of pirates that captured her. There were many around the island chain, a place called The Isla de la Tortuga Llorona. The main island was named for the great beast which its founders had chained to the sea floor in order to build upon its back. They built a bustling empire there on the wealth gained from harvesting from the creature’s living body.
Krepta found herself a captive on that island for nearly half a decade. Too wild to be anyone's obedient thrall, but too valuable to kill and sell for parts, she found herself often fighting for her life within the island's arena against monster and gladiator alike. The years took their toll. Krepta became battle scarred and half feral, retreating into her own mind while her body continued to fight for survival.
From time to time a buyer would take her off the island's hands, and she would suffer at theirs, her spirit unbendable but her body a receptacle for their frustrations, but they would always return her in the end.
Eventually a bastard of a pirate named Scrimshaw cracked the code. Krepta would never bow her head, no matter how much she was afraid or however much they hurt her own body. But if he started hurting others when she didn't behave, oh, then she suddenly became more compliant. Scrimshaw proudly paraded his conquest across the island, showing Krepta off at any and every opportunity, the unbreakable finally broken.
Except he pushed it too far one day, and got a little too cocky. Convinced that he had utter control over his prize, Scrimshaw had long since loosened the chains and collars that held Krepta physically captive. It all came to a head one summer day when he demanded something of Krepta that she would and could not bow to. Krepta has never told a soul what that thing was, but her refusal of it infuriated Scrimshaw, and he began to systematically mutilate another one of his captives in order to make her comply.
Perhaps it was that day that Krepta truly did break.
She came to herself again with Scrimshaw's heartbeat fading from between her jaws and his blood upon her tongue. Scrimshaw’s life is the only life that Krepta has ever taken, and she does not speak of these events easily, even after all these years later.
Far from anyone but her fellow captive and what was left of Scrimshaw's body, Krepta undid the woman's chains and then fled. She ran and ran until she found herself in the winding tunnels of the island's sea caves. There she fell into an exhausted sleep, and when she came to, she found herself curled around a large, leather bound book.
There was no one around to have left the book. The caverns echoed only with the distant boom of the sea’s waves. But the book did contain answers to questions about her family that Krepta hadn't even known to ask, and perhaps even more importantly, it contained a way out, a path to freedom.
Of a sorts, anyway...
Krepta learned from the book, which seemed to be able to communicate in its own strange and stilted way, that she was from a long line of World Walkers, and that certain spells could tangle with a young Walker's emerging powers if applied wrong. Her own desperate escape from Wick years earlier, using the spell that had been stolen from Grimoire had caused Krepta’s own innate magic to become corrupted and unpredictable.
Focusing that power instead into a Doorway would break the pattern and allow Krepta to finally leave the terrible, captive life that she had been forced to inhabit for so long. It was a solution, or the beginning of one, at least, but in many ways Krepta was left with more questions than she had begun with, and a difficult choice ahead of her.
Though Krepta’s first act was indeed to return home, she couldn’t bring herself to approach her uncles. She eventually convinced herself that the kindest thing to do was to let them move on from the pain that she had caused them. After all, they had already had five years to mourn. What good would the sudden appearance of a long buried ghost do them? Krepta had changed too much, seen too much, hurt too much. She couldn’t bear to open those old wounds for either herself or for them.
And so Krepta left and from there, applied herself to pouring her energy into her family’s work. Like her heroing days, doing so provided Krepta with the purpose that she craved, and a distraction from the inner turmoil that threatened at any moment to boil over and consume her. But that purpose became the thing that consumed in its stead, and the bindings of Krepta’s destiny wound tighter and tighter while her schism with the Dragon continued to widen. In many ways, she had traded one set of chains for another, these far more cleverly crafted and subtle than the last.
29-Present: Sometimes when all you've known are chains of heavy iron, a rope around your neck feels light enough that you don't see it for what it is. For many years Krepta continued to wear herself thin on the Walker's path, always working alone, relentlessly and tirelessly without friend or ally to walk by her side.
It took a terrible fury to break Krepta free of that life, and once again, mysterious help from an unknown benefactor. At one of Krepta’s lowest points, she found herself in the attic of her grandfather's old farmhouse among the dust and old boxes. And there, untouched by the dust or by time, a journal-- her mother's.
The journal contained impossible information, things only her mother would know, and things that could only have been written by a ghost they had been so recent. And like the Walker's Book, Alyson's journal contained power, but power of a different sort-- it contained the truth.
The journal told a story about a mother who had lost her husband to a terrible darkness, and who had made a deal with a powerful being in order to prevent that same darkness from taking her young daughter too. It contained regret over the need for those choices, and pride and love for a daughter long gone from her reach.
And it contained a warning:
'Trust only in yourself.'
Krepta was more furious than she had ever been, and understandably so. The being that she was working for had taken advantage of her mother in a desperate situation, and had callously chained the life of a young child to itself, knowing full well that Alyson couldn't refuse. Then it had taken Alyson from Krepta and allowed her to think that her mother was dead all of these years. While Krepta couldn't prove it for sure, the journal entries suggested that somewhere out there, Alyson Walker was alive, and someone wanted Krepta to find her.
As soon as she was able, Krepta found herself a spellcaster to tattoo a special rune across her heart that bound her connection to her family’s patron, preventing it from hijacking her Doors and forcing Krepta to go where it wanted. Krepta's actions forced the entity to confront Krepta directly. It threatened her in an eldritch display that would have cowed most people, demanding that she remove the rune and obey it, but Krepta is not most people, and anger had made her brave. She told the entity that it could certainly kill her, but without her, there would be no more Walkers, and when that happened it would be out of a job, wouldn't it?
Krepta told Qyinn that she would continue as a Walker, protecting the balance of the multiverse, but from now on it would be on her own terms. She also demanded to know what it knew about her mother. But the entity refused to answer, and Krepta has not heard directly from it since then, though it still occasionally makes demands through the family book. That time worn book rests more often than not on a shelf in Krepta’s study now. There’s a another book she carries with her now, one that Krepta herself is writing– a new Book of Walker, a book written with her rules, and in the light of the truth.
And there’s another duty that Krepta feels she must pursue. Somewhere out there, somehow, Krepta Walker may not be the last of her line.
- Skills & Abilities In Depth
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Skills & Abilities
*Any of Krepta's abilities can be temporarily 'turned off' for the sake of a story. It's built into the lore, so feel free to ask if needed. I do prefer not to play her as if she's never had her powers, but there's lore to cause fuzzy or altered memories when universes she visits affect Krepta's mental state as an alternative option. I'm always happy to compromise as long as a plot device doesn't alter my character beyond recognition.
World Walking
Krepta is a Walker of Worlds. It's a gift or a curse depending on who you ask. Either way, the ability was given to Krepta's ancestors long enough ago that the original reason for its granting is long lost to history, though there are many different supposed accounts on the matter. World Walkers do exactly what the title implies– they step between worlds, some as easily as stepping through a doorway, and others with much more effort, and wherever they go, so the story goes, they bring change. Or trouble. Again, it depends on who you ask.
Krepta is supposedly the last of the World Walkers, though she suspects that the truth is likely much more complicated. Krepta's own particular talent is worked through Doorways, and a blood sacrifice (her own, to be precise). If an intact threshold can be found with the right requirements, Krepta can turn a door into a Door, and open a portal that allows her and others to step through to another world.
The mechanics of Walking can be complicated, and if you’d like to read more in depth lore about them you can do so here, but the basic two requirements for any Door are a completed threshold with four intact sides, and a keyhole in said doorway. The Door can open without a specific Key, but the end location may be unpredictable in this case. No Doorway can be opened without the sacrifice of fresh blood from Krepta, or potentially, another Walker.
Krepta’s blood also allows her to do things such as enter special family safe houses known as Enclaves (if she can find them), as well as to seal away rifts and corrupted artifacts, and to locate said rifts and artifacts in the first place.
Shapeshifting
Krepta’s connection to the Dragon allows her to take on its form, which is mostly a fixed shape, but does sometimes change in accordance to her inner self and mental state. This doesn’t make things like scars or injuries go away– she’ll always have that shattered horn, for example. But a Krepta whose mental state is becoming more feral may have eyes that begin to turn a warning yellow; or a happy, healthy Krepta may gain scales with a particularly glossy, gemlike sheen. Some changes may take months, while others may be much quicker. The former is typically more common than the latter outside of extreme mental states.
Krepta’s typical shape has four legs, and two large, bat-like wings, and is a deep, vibrant red in color (more in appearance section.) She’s a talented shapeshifter and can shift between shapes quickly as long as her mental state is stable. The Dragon has some say in this, and may resist being kept in or put away if Krepta’s emotional state is high, or it may fight coming out at all sometimes, though Krepta struggles more often with keeping it in than not.
Krepta can also partially shapeshift, though as mentioned above, it’s easier to let the dragon out than keep it in, and if her mental state is compromised, Krepta has trouble maintaining partial shifts for more than a few seconds. Because of this, doing things like shifting only hands or feet, or for cosmetic purposes like eyes, is better for low stakes activities like exploring or relaxing.
Lastly, the Dragon’s element is fire. As such, Krepta is immune to normal fire while she is shapeshifted (though not always certain kinds of magic based fire), and she hasn’t tested the limits of this ability. Something as hot as magma might still fry her, and she’s not exactly willing to find out for sure. The Dragon’s internal fires also protect Krepta from many infections and diseases while she's shapeshifted by burning off dangerous substances or by simply making her body inhospitable to bacteria. This is probably why she can scavenge like an overgrown raccoon without getting sick.
Magic
Krepta’s magic is mostly innate and aside from the blood related rituals, the magic isn’t really worked consciously. The origins of Krepta's magic come from her mother’s side of the family. Her father was human.
Krepta’s Walker magic allows her to open small portals between worlds, usually enough for one or two people to cross over at a time. It allows her to innately sense rifts, spatial corruption, and other similar problems, and in turn to bind and resist the effects of those corrupted objects and areas, though some larger problems require more than just her blood to seal or mend. Walker blood can also be used as a potent ingredient in spells regarding the cleansing of corruption or anything involving liminal spaces.
Krepta’s personal connection to the Dragon, one of four primal forces connected to the Walker Clans, also affords her a deep wellspring of arcane power to draw from instead of her own life-force. While this typically only means that she can open Doorways much more easily than others in her family might be able to, anyone who has the means to tap into that deep energy source would likely find it a serious boon.
Blood
The source of this wellspring, and the Dragon itself, is a manifestation of and connection to a being known as Ven. The origins of her dual connection to Ven and to Qyuin are both complicated and mostly unknown to Krepta, a blending of their gifts and their curses both. A portion of Ven's power and life force in particular is sealed away in the Dragon, which Krepta is bonded to. He is the source of the magical wellspring that lies within her, which means that her own magics follow many of the rules that he must.
One notable effect of this is Krepta's blood. Walker blood is potent to begin with, but the Dragon Clan's abilities are particularly tied to blood. The bearer of any of the four elemental beasts are tied directly to their source elemental, in Krepta’s case, Ven, whose symbolism is heavily connected to fire and the summer months, and the predatory nature of both.
Because of this, those who consume the blood of the Dragon may find themselves being changed by it. As Ven had a notable amount of vampiric followers pre Roman Egypt, these effects are most documented within their kind, though very likely many of them would apply to non-vampiric individuals as well.
Vampires who consume the blood of the bearer of the Dragon find themselves experiencing similar, if more temporary effects to if they drew directly from Ven, the elemental source. Those who were unable to daywalk before will find themselves able to step unharmed into the sun, as well as a slight boost to any natural powers they may possess, with larger increases to abilities in elemental harmony to the source.
These effects are compounded the more frequently the blood is consumed, but there is a price of transformation as well. Draconic features may begin to appear in those who imbibe long term, starting small, like eyes, or patches of scales, and becoming more pronounced the more frequently the blood is consumed. Likewise, a connection to the greater balance is formed, and the individual may find themselves sensing corruption in ways that Walkers typically can, and drawn to troubling things such as Rifts and multiversal incursions, as well as attracting unwanted attention from the Corruption.
These effects can fade if consumption of the dragon’s blood is stopped for a time, but the longer one has been consuming it, and the more pronounced the effects are, the longer they take to fade again.
- Weaknesses & Limits In Depth
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Soft Spots & Vulnerabilities
Krepta’s dragon shape has some pretty tough armor. It can stop most types of bullets fired at range in its toughest places, and her skin is completely fireproof. That armor isn’t tough all the way round though. Anywhere where Krepta’s body needs to be flexible, like her joints or the webbing of her wings is only about as tough as a good, strong piece of leather. Her eyes, mouth, and other bodily openings are about as vulnerable as anyone else’s.
Krepta's weapons, like her formidable jaws, also have their own drawbacks. The muscle structure of the dragon’s jaw is similar to many prehistoric predators in that its bite force is enough to crush steel. Like the modern crocodile though, the muscles that open those jaws up again are relatively weak, and can be held shut with a strong pair of arms or a generous length of duct tape.
Old injuries also make for additional vulnerabilities. Krepta is partially blind in her right eye and has trouble tracking swift motion with it. She also has several old injuries that cause her pain if too much pressure is put on them or the weather is particularly bad. The crook at the end of her tail from an old, poorly healed break is the most noticeable one.
Rest & Renewal
Krepta still has to take care of herself whether she can turn into a giant red monster or not. In fact, she has to take care of herself even more, because that giant red monster sure needs a lot of food, even when Krepta has shapeshifted back.
Krepta needs about 7,000 to 10,000 calories per day, and more if she’s working her body hard. If she doesn’t eat, she’ll begin to lose her ability to produce fire first, and her internal temperature will plummet, making her more vulnerable to illness and infection. She’ll get tired and cranky, and eventually the Dragon will take over, and it isn’t particular about what it eats or where it gets its food from.
Like most mortal beings, Krepta also needs sleep, and she can't retain her dragon shape while unconscious. For someone used to being fairly hard to hurt, having to return to her more vulnerable human form each night can be a tough pill to swallow.
The Walker's Paradox
Having the ability to explore other worlds is undoubtedly amazing, but it comes with some notable downsides. For one, the amount of energy it takes to punch a hole between worlds and then sew that hole up again is immense. Because of this, Krepta shines like a spotlight to most arcane senses, and even to some scientific instruments. She can’t turn this off, only temporarily expend that energy, and the only thing capable of hiding her energy signature at full force is an Enclave– a Walker safehouse– which isn’t always available.
Naturally, this means that Krepta is a weirdness magnet, not just for the corruption she’s meant to deal with, but for just about everything else too, friendly or otherwise.
This sort of effect gets serious when the world she visits decides that she might be a threat. While Walkers are supposed to be a benign force, Krepta is still technically an alien to whatever dimension she’s visiting. Sometimes that world responds by trying to make her more like itself, usually by altering memories or suppressing abilities. But sometimes it reacts more violently, often by sending the cosmic equivalent of white blood cells after Krepta. These primarily take on the shape of Elementals or nature spirits.
Krepta tends to steer clear of both of those types of beings as a rule. Just in case.
Psychic Injury
When Krepta was younger she was gravely injured by a rogue telepath. It was this telepath's aim to completely shatter Krepta's mind in order to protect his secrets and to send a message to the others in her community. Krepta was in a coma for months, and she only survived by the grace of her family’s resident telepath and healer, Solus. Before the work to completely heal Krepta's mind could be completed she was forced to flee her world. That psychic injury and other attacks that have followed it since have left Krepta's mind fairly vulnerable.
Nearby telepaths may experience Krepta as a very ‘loud’ and unfiltered psychic presence. Experienced telepaths who have dealt with psychic injuries in the past may be able to navigate Krepta’s psyche without too much trouble, as long as they don’t dig too deep. Casual or inexperienced telepathic contact feels like an uncomfortable pressure to Krepta, or may even be painful.
Because of Krepta’s thin psychic defenses and her injury, she has little means to protect herself against telepathic attack. Even offhanded rough treatment can result in headaches, nose bleeds, and blurred vision. Worse attacks tend to cause seizures, and there remains the risk of coma or even death. Because of this Krepta has an almost phobic attitude towards psychics. She may tolerate their presence or even be friendly towards them, but she often balks at any suggestion of telepathic contact.
It might be possible one day for some of her injuries to be healed, but likely there will always be some ‘scarring’ present within Krepta’s psyche. There is also additional risk to any telepath brave enough to attempt the challenge in that Krepta’s connection to the Dragon and therefore the unpredictable energies of Walker magic are fed through her psyche. The deeper one goes, the stranger things get.
The Dragon
Krepta’s relationship with the Dragon is tumultuous at best. It’s a part of her, and in a technical sense it is her, in that when the Dragon bonded to her, it formed to Krepta’s own personality and psyche in order to fill the holes in its own.
But the Dragon is also its own being, and it has its own instincts and a sort of half sleeping mind that wakes up from time to time. Most of the time it lays inert within Krepta’s own subconscious, but high emotions and certain stimuli can bring it to the forefront to varying degrees. When the Dragon takes over completely, things rarely go well for Krepta.
To her knowledge, it's never killed anything smarter than a cow, but the Dragon is all raw, animal instinct, for better or for worse. It was never meant to be that way, but the manner in which Krepta was bonded to the Dragon was traumatic, and the spirit, the last of the four that could be found, was injured long before it even came to her.
Further trauma and injury to Krepta’s psyche may have worsened the issue, but her insistence on repressing and actively fighting an entire part of her being likely has not helped either. Krepta has a lot of conflicting emotions around the Dragon.
Magical Weak Points
Krepta has a lot of magic running through her, and with it the weaknesses of those magics. In particular, silver is a notable hazard. Prolonged physical contact with it for more than an hour or two will result in a rash a lot like poison ivy. Injuries caused by bullets or weapons made from the metal will heal excruciatingly slowly, or not at all if there’s still a piece inside the wound. All in all, silver is bad news for Krepta.
In addition, any closed loop of silver larger than a finger ring can prevent Krepta from changing shape. If caught in human shape, this can be an annoyance and leaves her vulnerable, but she’ll be okay for a while. If caught in dragon shape, silver sickness sets in much more quickly, and since she cannot both retain her dragon form and sleep, so does sleep deprivation.
Silver sickness is a condition that results in the deterioration of the magic within Krepta under the metal’s influence. Krepta’s internal fires will quickly gutter out under the influence of silver, leaving her sluggish as well vulnerable to illness and infection. After that, flu-like symptoms will set in, and she will become weaker and weaker until the metal is removed.
If caught within human shape, Krepta can usually resist silver sickness for about a week. But since the Dragon is primarily a being of elemental magic, if Krepta is caught in dragon shape, silver sickness can set in as soon as within the day.
Dracaena Cinnabari, or Dragonsbane can have a similarly unpleasant effect, if not to the same severity. Breathing it in can cause Krepta wheezing and shortness of breath, as well as coughing fits. Ingesting it, however, has the potential to be deadly. For obvious reasons, Krepta is not terribly fond of incense as a result.
Theoretically any substance that majorly interferes with magic can have a notable effect on Krepta, but the severity of such effects vary from substance to substance.
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