(no subject)

Player name: Nara

Player age: 28

Method of contact: Nara#9651

 

Character name: Sonia Aragona (full title: The Good Alder Aragona, Viscountess of Bel-Air, Head of House Aragona, Almoner)

Character canon: World of Darkness OC

 

Canon summary:

Paula Elena Pacheco Ruiz was born in the Los Angeles area in the late 1930’s as the human daughter of two immigrants and wishing to rise to a better station in life. Enter Grace Yi. The two met in 1952 at a church event, with the older woman (who was actually a vampire) conversing with Paula on politics. She offered her a chance to study law at the University of California under her mentorship.

 

Paula became a skilled writer for political activism, but Grace had an ulterior motive – to experiment with the rituals of the Ordo Dracul, an order of vampires dedicated to conquering their monstrosity and ultimately the sun. After Paula received her J.D. in 1960, she gradually revealed her condition. She continued to teach her vampire morals (greatly biased through her own philosophy) and secretly prepared her for a novel ritual she developed, which included isolation from other vampires and long lectures, and Paula underwent the Chrysalis process, fully trusting Grace to keep her safe.

 

They don’t know what went wrong, A leyline, an earthquake knocking things off-balance, whatever the cause, the opposite effect was achieved. The Coil of the Soul was supposed to make a vampire “feel” more human when around mortals. Here, humans felt an uncanny need to run away at the sight of Paula because she just felt wrong. Grace deemed her a failure, and Paula ran away to the streets, vowing never to trust anyone that claims to be a friend.

 

She spent a few months wandering the scary world, upset and going against all of Grace’s peace-loving teachings to stick it to the woman. She was eventually found by a member of House Aragona, a family of vampires who see themselves as aristocracy. She devoted herself to supporting the House and rose in its ranks over the next 50 years, vowing revenge once she grew powerful enough. She changed her name to Sonia, after one of her mentors, and took on the family name of Aragona. She took the role of “Almoner” – a role dedicated to supporting the lower-class Kindred and mortals, though not entirely due to altruistic motives.

 

In 2012, vampire society was discussing dropping the Masquerade and publicly showing their existence. Just as the announcement was meant to come on worldwide, the apocalypse came. Satellites fell from the skies, destroying major cities and killing a large portion of the population in an event called “The Rain”. Sonia was the only surviving Aragona. In the following year, she forged alliances with other aristocracy-based vampires and odd NPCs, and slowly grew her power base. She helped uncover the mystery behind The Rain – a species of supernaturals called The Prometheans were behind it, but that was nothing a few exploding power stations couldn’t solve.

 

In the end, society was being rebuilt, but Grace had fallen from grace after her group announced that they were vampires and part of a larger society, becoming wanted dead or alive. Sonia was happy with her followers and large territory in Bel-Air.

 

Character in canon:

Sonia’s surface motivation are contradictory: she has sympathy for those who were taken advantage of by the system. Humans born into poverty are lied to constantly, like she was lied to by Grace Yi, but she is not above using the masses for her own gain. She admits that society puts down the weak, but she is proud of her ability to pull herself up by her own bootstraps. Her main driver was spite, and spite is what drives her to be better, to show Grace Yi that her failed experiment has surpassed her in glory. In the end, it’s all for attaining glory, with maybe feeling bad for those that remind her of her old self, but really it’s all about Sonia Aragona. When fighting Prometheans, she used her own abilities to keep them attacking her as long as she made no move against them, watching her teammates handle things with their unlives on the line. As they were not official allies of hers, their survival did not matter to her - if she died, all her work was for nothing. She would step in if they were close to their goal, but it was fortunate that no one was actually killed when she was standing on the sidelines.

 

She’s incredibly driven as a vampire, teaching herself how to code when computers became a thing. If there’s a problem, she’ll force her way to a solution, and if she can’t, she’ll break something in rage. She goes after scary vampires  requesting alliances and bringing along people with abilities to aid her. She trained in the ability to magically manipulate people into paying attention to her and feeling positive in her presence to counteract her cursed aura. She also did that to deliberately spite Grace’s teachings about how using that sort of manipulation is morally wrong.

Sonia was raised in her second life as an Invictus, a believer in the inherent goodness of having people in power rule the masses. She believes her position to be more of a benevolent dictatorship than someone using the unfortunates for their own gain. She's different, really! Besides, being in a position of power means doing all the hard word, like making alliances and fighting for the favor of the people. She did provide safe spaces for vampires and mortals alike after The Rain, partially because of her old position of Almoner, partially because it would make her popular, and partially to get a new support base for the House of Aragona. Despite this, she respects those that outrank her, no matter how eccentric they are. Gareth was more of a religious sort with an interest in collecting occult objects, but because she wanted to work with him, she had to perform favors, such as accompanying he and his friend to an unerground cavern to collect a golden egg from the Cowatrice. It was an actual monster created by an NPC and she thought it was very stupid, though she never voiced it. As she grew closer to her coterie, she treated them with the respect as dictated by the code of the Invictus.

Without this power structure, Sonia Aragona is just a awkward mess around people. She feels guilty for having ever trusted Grace and allowing her to ruin her life, and because of that betrayal, she mistrusts anyone who approaches her with a smile and friendly demeanor. She relies on her magic abilities and status to get her through the day, and even then she dislikes speaking more than she has to.  
 

Character in Imeeji:

Being a vampire, Sonia is still under the effects of the botched ritual. By default, she is awkward around people and feels like she shouldn’t be around others, but she won’t remember why. There’s a lot of frustration at her core, but without a single target to focus on, it becomes more of a general irritation. 

No longer having her status as a member of House Aragona, she has nothing to keep her motivated. She's likely to fall into a detached state without a clear goal, but once she makes gaining points or beating Person X her main goal, she will have the motivation to get to work. It won't drive her as much as her canon thirst for vengeance, but it will be enough for her.

Because of this aversion to interacting with others, she will have trouble performing Lives that she can’t do alone. It will take a support structure to get her to put in effort, but in games with clear win conditions, she will be able to fight to save herself. At her base character as a vampire, Sonia doesn’t have direction and is a mess of anger and desperation, so her approach to challenges will be to rush in, do what she can to get by, and hide away.

Depending on the unit she’s assigned, she could be given a good found family to help her through her unease and the memories she regains memories. They could direct her to healthier habits and tone down her self-centeredness. Otherwise, she could continue being a loner, dealing with her past on her own and generally following her development as in canon. Even if she isn’t aware of why she joined Imeeji, if she can imagine herself beating up Grace once this is over, she can be persuaded to perform in Lives as long as she wins what was promised.

 

Unit Preferences:

Priority: Taisho Roman Revolution, avante en garde

Acceptable: LiliS (for irony), pep!pep!, BAD END=DEAD END, future is now, BARiTONES, ☆ZRAEL

Do not place: sensitive, WILD CITY, Heart Soldier Senshi, AlcheME!

 

Voice Samples:

 

SURVEY:

Evaluate yourself honestly: what do you think your soul is worth?

I don’t have one. I’m a member of the Kindred, so it’s not worth much. [A shrug] What, you want me to assign a value to it? Whatever my life is worth.

 

Is there anything you would do anything to achieve?

Yes. What kind of question is that? I did everything I could to rebuild the House of Aragona! Well…apart from earning the ire from other Kindred.

 

What does hell mean to you?

Suffering. Loss of power.

 

Which of these nine words is the most meaningful to you, and why? Idolatry, lies, transgressions, vengeance, sorcery, plague, devastation, inquisition, or temptation?

Vengeance. It’s a strong motivator. Hasn’t failed me.

 

Do you want a puppy?

[A scowl.] No.

 

Have you previously owned a puppy?

Just the stray dogs that ate trash in my childhood neighborhood.

 

Are you worried we've been recording this conversation?

You what? Why? What are you planning to do?

 

Do you have any last words for us?

[She pulls out a rapier.]  You’ll regret this.