RE: Masks 2
08-26-2018, 07:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-09-2018, 08:09 AM by Corn.)
Bursting onto the scene for continued adventure and fresh Eagletime blood I see... Very well...
Howdy folks, and welcome to the ALMOST COMPLETE (just need to finish the timeskip part of the bio to tie up stuff) mess that is: Coyote.
Name: Maria Maldonado Bezos
Aliases: Maria Maldonado Moritz (It’s her name now alright, but certainly not a legal change), The Aztec Killer, La Sonrisa, Coyote, Pahtiameyalli, Katerina Campbell, Hikin’ Helena, Petra Cisneros
Date of Birth: February 17, 1993
Place of Birth: Mexico City (Raised in Miami)
Place of Residence: Ft Diligence, West Virginia. A settlement along the Greenbriar River in the section along Watoga state park.
Appearance: Maria is short and kinda buff, though not really as much as she used to be, with tan skin with cool undertones. Her eyes are large and dark brown, and her hair is nearly black and goes down to her mid back when undone (been going crazy with a haircut). It is rarely un-done however, as she generally keeps it in a low ponytail pulled to the side like a dead anime mom. Wears a plain silver wedding band that has a skull engraved into the inside. She has a birthmark on her right shoulder blade that looked vaguely like a marigold, and she has since tattooed over to accentuate that. Physically, she looks like she did when she was 25, despite being 57, and when she has to be in like, a city, with people, she often dresses herself and does her makeup to appear her age. It’s not perfect, but she’s managed to come off like she’s trying to cover up wrinkles and is kind of bad at putting makeup on, so it works out. No need to pull that in the fort though.
Personality:
She’s come a long way from the collected, unaffected schemer she was at Masks gamestart. She’d gone into a place of emotional extremes and poor coping mechanisms, and appeared to mellow out with age. In her reality, she’s still... her. Afraid of the woman she used to be and the villain that is nonempathy, still sort of paranoid about the safety of her loved ones so long as she’s still alive to have them targeted, and how safe they’d be if she wasn’t. She’s introspective and prone to melancholy, and yet, thirty years of things actually going well for once does wonders on the psyche. She’s not as bad off as she used to be. Hadn’t had a horrible self-induced self harm dream in... 20 years maybe, and paranoia has been dampened by ‘hey we all made it THIS far’. She hates lying and loves fiercely, and generally comes off as... tired, but hopeful.
Also, she’s got a habit of trying to... get superpeople to start talking about their issues with SOMEONE. She’s of the firm belief that there needs to be a supertherapist, because every superperson she’s met CLEARLY needed one. Let’s see how much we can make her cry THIS time!
Powers, Skills, and/or Resources:
Biography: Abandon hope all fresh Eagletime faces who enter here. Maria is an Aztec goddess of Rain, and it’s been a long ride to get there.
Background/Masks 1 events for my own memory/anyone who gives a crap. Legitimately, this is absolutely ridiculous, you really don’t have to read this, I’m so sorry. Some of it may be a bit out of order, whoops.
TLDR: Maria was... bad and mean... and then... she got morals and stuff because her sister said “thas mean...” ... and she cried a lot... and kinda became a superperson... and also a god, twice.... and made a bunch of weird friends... and then Masks ended.
Timeskip stuff for Cid and Legacy Characters and you know whoever:
Friends, Family, Acquiantances, Rivals, Enemies, and anybody else: Abandon hope again. Maria has two major solutions to her problems. Kill them, or befriend them. She did an awful lot of the latter.
Family:
Friends:
Acquaintances/People she hasn't talked to in a while:
Local Groups:
ENEMIES:
Trivia i wanna keep around
Howdy folks, and welcome to the ALMOST COMPLETE (just need to finish the timeskip part of the bio to tie up stuff) mess that is: Coyote.
Name: Maria Maldonado Bezos
Aliases: Maria Maldonado Moritz (It’s her name now alright, but certainly not a legal change), The Aztec Killer, La Sonrisa, Coyote, Pahtiameyalli, Katerina Campbell, Hikin’ Helena, Petra Cisneros
Date of Birth: February 17, 1993
Place of Birth: Mexico City (Raised in Miami)
Place of Residence: Ft Diligence, West Virginia. A settlement along the Greenbriar River in the section along Watoga state park.
Show Content
Spoiler
Taking liberties because it’s the cyberpunk future and also I don’t wanna map out that entire river. :p
Much of West Virginia outside the capital is overgrown, and in fact it’s suspicious to find a perfectly clear and somewhat maintained road because that leads one to believe they’re in road bandit country. It’s a bit Mad Maxish over there, but in forests and mountains instead of unending outback.
The roads may be a consistent danger, but the rivers are a more mixed bag, seeing the traffic of both bandit types and the folk who have either been there or found it a good spot to escape the cities. The Bluestone and Summersville lakes in particular are hubs of off-grid activity in the southern watersheds. Places to meet, get outside news, trade goods, get mail and send it out in an age without infrastructure outside of the capital of most landlocked states. Small settlements are built onto the docks, but most business gets done boat-to-boat. Lawless, but people don’t tend to have a tolerance for Bullshit Pulled, so bandit activity is at a minimum. After all, anyone with a lick of sense in Bluestone is packing.
Most of these people don’t live primarily in the lakes however, and live in settlements built in some proximity to the feeder rivers. The Fort is no exception, and it should be noted that banditry has had a rough time on the Greenbriar (due to them), and that the river is fairly peaceful these days.
![[Image: fa5ad926407cd6d245428d380fe23285.jpg]](https://i.gyazo.com/fa5ad926407cd6d245428d380fe23285.jpg)
The fort itself is built around an artificial lake pulled away from the river. Black hatched boxes on the entrance and exit turn the force from the water flow into energy, which powers the place. Red boxes and line between them is water purification/sewage exit, and there is an underground cistern to keep the clean water in. Green boxes are watchtowers, usually only the front two and one of the back ones are manned, but the rest are ready when times are uncertain. Red striped sections are where people do work which requires a proper shop, and where things for the community may be stored, that sort of thing. There’s also a library somewhere in there because book collecting’s been pretty popular. Black lines along the waterways are foot bridges, tall, the sides plated in sheet metal. Tall enough so that someone on a small raft could crouch and pass under, but a hindrance for a sailboat or anything large. Purple boxes are houses, most of which have a regular floor and a cellar. Each section has a common area in the center. Maria, Claire, Adrasteia, and Smith (used to be the Doctor lived there, until he moved in with Claire) live in the inhabited section up beside the lake, as that’s where they started this place. Everything else has just sort of been built up. The one in the middle left section is a barn with a fenced off area where chickens are kept. East of that is farmland, and then wilderness. There’s also a one lane road toward the south where they can get vehicles out onto a... not exactly a main road, but into the road system in general. Not something they do much anymore. Tall lights in the center of every section which can be individually turned on/off or remotely via a switch in Claire's home. There's also a graveyard to the north, where several pets, a couple old folk, and a couple courageous young folk are buried.
One can expect to find some dogs running around, often along with kiddos, people out and about, doing repairs, tending the farmland, teaching kids or gabbing out by the library, cleaning out the guns... It’s a lot less severe than the name makes it sound. Work gets done and gets done pretty well, but the air's pleasant. Everyone knows everyone, and only the youngest were born there, so there's an understanding for weary travelers.
As for leadership. Claire is the defacto leader of the place, and for most things practical is the person to look to. If you're concerned about distressing news about bandits you heard at the Bluestone Bazaar, or you think you've spotted some weird tracks at the edge of the farm, you bring it to her. Maria and John do a lot of organizing though, and join command whenever needed, and are looked to for a more delicate approach or community organization. If you're having a dispute with your neighbor or you want to hold a gathering or even just want to set a date to get everyone to finish harvesting the tomatoes, they're the ones to go to. A tag team of community upkeep.
Taking liberties because it’s the cyberpunk future and also I don’t wanna map out that entire river. :p
Much of West Virginia outside the capital is overgrown, and in fact it’s suspicious to find a perfectly clear and somewhat maintained road because that leads one to believe they’re in road bandit country. It’s a bit Mad Maxish over there, but in forests and mountains instead of unending outback.
The roads may be a consistent danger, but the rivers are a more mixed bag, seeing the traffic of both bandit types and the folk who have either been there or found it a good spot to escape the cities. The Bluestone and Summersville lakes in particular are hubs of off-grid activity in the southern watersheds. Places to meet, get outside news, trade goods, get mail and send it out in an age without infrastructure outside of the capital of most landlocked states. Small settlements are built onto the docks, but most business gets done boat-to-boat. Lawless, but people don’t tend to have a tolerance for Bullshit Pulled, so bandit activity is at a minimum. After all, anyone with a lick of sense in Bluestone is packing.
Most of these people don’t live primarily in the lakes however, and live in settlements built in some proximity to the feeder rivers. The Fort is no exception, and it should be noted that banditry has had a rough time on the Greenbriar (due to them), and that the river is fairly peaceful these days.
The fort itself is built around an artificial lake pulled away from the river. Black hatched boxes on the entrance and exit turn the force from the water flow into energy, which powers the place. Red boxes and line between them is water purification/sewage exit, and there is an underground cistern to keep the clean water in. Green boxes are watchtowers, usually only the front two and one of the back ones are manned, but the rest are ready when times are uncertain. Red striped sections are where people do work which requires a proper shop, and where things for the community may be stored, that sort of thing. There’s also a library somewhere in there because book collecting’s been pretty popular. Black lines along the waterways are foot bridges, tall, the sides plated in sheet metal. Tall enough so that someone on a small raft could crouch and pass under, but a hindrance for a sailboat or anything large. Purple boxes are houses, most of which have a regular floor and a cellar. Each section has a common area in the center. Maria, Claire, Adrasteia, and Smith (used to be the Doctor lived there, until he moved in with Claire) live in the inhabited section up beside the lake, as that’s where they started this place. Everything else has just sort of been built up. The one in the middle left section is a barn with a fenced off area where chickens are kept. East of that is farmland, and then wilderness. There’s also a one lane road toward the south where they can get vehicles out onto a... not exactly a main road, but into the road system in general. Not something they do much anymore. Tall lights in the center of every section which can be individually turned on/off or remotely via a switch in Claire's home. There's also a graveyard to the north, where several pets, a couple old folk, and a couple courageous young folk are buried.
One can expect to find some dogs running around, often along with kiddos, people out and about, doing repairs, tending the farmland, teaching kids or gabbing out by the library, cleaning out the guns... It’s a lot less severe than the name makes it sound. Work gets done and gets done pretty well, but the air's pleasant. Everyone knows everyone, and only the youngest were born there, so there's an understanding for weary travelers.
As for leadership. Claire is the defacto leader of the place, and for most things practical is the person to look to. If you're concerned about distressing news about bandits you heard at the Bluestone Bazaar, or you think you've spotted some weird tracks at the edge of the farm, you bring it to her. Maria and John do a lot of organizing though, and join command whenever needed, and are looked to for a more delicate approach or community organization. If you're having a dispute with your neighbor or you want to hold a gathering or even just want to set a date to get everyone to finish harvesting the tomatoes, they're the ones to go to. A tag team of community upkeep.
Appearance: Maria is short and kinda buff, though not really as much as she used to be, with tan skin with cool undertones. Her eyes are large and dark brown, and her hair is nearly black and goes down to her mid back when undone (been going crazy with a haircut). It is rarely un-done however, as she generally keeps it in a low ponytail pulled to the side like a dead anime mom. Wears a plain silver wedding band that has a skull engraved into the inside. She has a birthmark on her right shoulder blade that looked vaguely like a marigold, and she has since tattooed over to accentuate that. Physically, she looks like she did when she was 25, despite being 57, and when she has to be in like, a city, with people, she often dresses herself and does her makeup to appear her age. It’s not perfect, but she’s managed to come off like she’s trying to cover up wrinkles and is kind of bad at putting makeup on, so it works out. No need to pull that in the fort though.
Personality:
She’s come a long way from the collected, unaffected schemer she was at Masks gamestart. She’d gone into a place of emotional extremes and poor coping mechanisms, and appeared to mellow out with age. In her reality, she’s still... her. Afraid of the woman she used to be and the villain that is nonempathy, still sort of paranoid about the safety of her loved ones so long as she’s still alive to have them targeted, and how safe they’d be if she wasn’t. She’s introspective and prone to melancholy, and yet, thirty years of things actually going well for once does wonders on the psyche. She’s not as bad off as she used to be. Hadn’t had a horrible self-induced self harm dream in... 20 years maybe, and paranoia has been dampened by ‘hey we all made it THIS far’. She hates lying and loves fiercely, and generally comes off as... tired, but hopeful.
Also, she’s got a habit of trying to... get superpeople to start talking about their issues with SOMEONE. She’s of the firm belief that there needs to be a supertherapist, because every superperson she’s met CLEARLY needed one. Let’s see how much we can make her cry THIS time!
Powers, Skills, and/or Resources:
Show Content
Spoiler
Powers:
Water control - She can’t control it to the fine degree Catalina can, but she can make it rain, as long as water is actually present or in the air anyway, feel its presence in range, and she can move around a whole lot of the stuff. Height of her power: the signature 50 foot water ghoul.
Immortality - She just doesn’t age. No old people brittle bones here. Possibly the only reason the stress hasn’t killed her.
Dream communication - When she sleeps, she can enter the dreams of anyone else who’s sleeping. On earth anyway. Can only reach so far, even with 32 years of stretching that. That’s still a lot of people to sift through though, so she kind of needs to have an idea of where to search, and who the search is for. People she’s most familiar with seem easier to find.
God Voice - Last of the Basic Earth God Perks. They can talk like this which, for them, means it’s just a far louder, kind of weird ethereal voice. If you’re not a big stupid poser, it’s mostly just pretty sweet for yelling real far and getting people’s attention. Sometimes just for being dramatic. :3c
Skills:
Weapon training - Basic weapons training (sword/shield/spear/hammer/bow/atlatl) And PHD in knife fights (daggers), of some rust.
Hand to hand training - Kickboxing, weird old Aztec shit, Krav Maga, wrestling moves, not a ton from any of them but enough bits and pieces that she can usually hold her own. Rustier.
Could possibly keep an already flying hovercraft from nosediving, probably.
Resources:
Armor - Forged by dwarves at Ragnarok. Collecting dust (which she is very happy about tbh.)
Home - In the middle of a settlement containing a couple of the most competent women she knows, which is off the grid, so suck on that, government, corporations, anti-supernatural groups, and bandits, just try and take that from her. ((I’m excited for the part where they do))
Weapons - A ridiculous amount of outdated ones (mostly knives) including an 8 foot long sword she CANNOT wield.
A surfboard - You know what the fuck is going on.
Powers:
Water control - She can’t control it to the fine degree Catalina can, but she can make it rain, as long as water is actually present or in the air anyway, feel its presence in range, and she can move around a whole lot of the stuff. Height of her power: the signature 50 foot water ghoul.
Immortality - She just doesn’t age. No old people brittle bones here. Possibly the only reason the stress hasn’t killed her.
Dream communication - When she sleeps, she can enter the dreams of anyone else who’s sleeping. On earth anyway. Can only reach so far, even with 32 years of stretching that. That’s still a lot of people to sift through though, so she kind of needs to have an idea of where to search, and who the search is for. People she’s most familiar with seem easier to find.
God Voice - Last of the Basic Earth God Perks. They can talk like this which, for them, means it’s just a far louder, kind of weird ethereal voice. If you’re not a big stupid poser, it’s mostly just pretty sweet for yelling real far and getting people’s attention. Sometimes just for being dramatic. :3c
Skills:
Weapon training - Basic weapons training (sword/shield/spear/hammer/bow/atlatl) And PHD in knife fights (daggers), of some rust.
Hand to hand training - Kickboxing, weird old Aztec shit, Krav Maga, wrestling moves, not a ton from any of them but enough bits and pieces that she can usually hold her own. Rustier.
Could possibly keep an already flying hovercraft from nosediving, probably.
Resources:
Armor - Forged by dwarves at Ragnarok. Collecting dust (which she is very happy about tbh.)
Home - In the middle of a settlement containing a couple of the most competent women she knows, which is off the grid, so suck on that, government, corporations, anti-supernatural groups, and bandits, just try and take that from her. ((I’m excited for the part where they do))
Weapons - A ridiculous amount of outdated ones (mostly knives) including an 8 foot long sword she CANNOT wield.
A surfboard - You know what the fuck is going on.
Biography: Abandon hope all fresh Eagletime faces who enter here. Maria is an Aztec goddess of Rain, and it’s been a long ride to get there.
Background/Masks 1 events for my own memory/anyone who gives a crap. Legitimately, this is absolutely ridiculous, you really don’t have to read this, I’m so sorry. Some of it may be a bit out of order, whoops.
TLDR: Maria was... bad and mean... and then... she got morals and stuff because her sister said “thas mean...” ... and she cried a lot... and kinda became a superperson... and also a god, twice.... and made a bunch of weird friends... and then Masks ended.
Show Content
Spoiler
Intro/Biker Intrigue:
Maria- she had an aight childhood. She didn’t have any friends because she was like Fucking Weird but that didn’t bother her, she discovered an interest in community organizing and decided to go to school for politics, and whilst finishing up her degree abroad, picked up a hobby. Homicide. You know, just girl stuff, and she found herself spoiled for choice as to targets, generally going with ‘people who think jumping little ladies in alleys at night is ok’. It was kinda rad! Back in those days she had a strong sense of home and family and a complex theory on morality as it applied to human lives which justified her actions and made living and stuff kinda awesome for her. Took the hobby home, and for a couple years just lived it up as a poorly paid intern at City Hall, living with her sister, killing dudes sometimes, life was great! Until Spring of 2017 anyway.
She came home one day, WOAH, there was a big blue dude in the room. He was like “Haha hey kid, I’m your dad!” And she was like “You’re not my dad get out of my apartment!” But he was totally her dad, the god Tlaloc, and he drowned her a little gave her the potential to have magic powers and a booklet that explained the rest. The gist? Specific sacrifice gives specific gods souls, which will give you specifc powers.
Cue: Maria doing that a bunch. To throw a lot of things together not necessarily in order: She killed the most annoying person on earth! Blackmailed her jackass boss and got to be city planner which honestly she did baller work with! Obtained the unofficial world record for ‘amount of times drowned’! Wrestled for fun and dough on Saturdays! Started learning how to actually fight and stuff! Which was all pretty excellent, uuuuuuntil her boyfriend got targeted by??? Someone??? And put in the hospital. And then there was like a fake doc who tried to poison the IV? It was a mess, she had to team up with the Skulls (the gang he was a part of) to try and keep him from dying, turned out it was an inside job, there was some light torture and cannibalism, and at the end of the day everybody cheered and was alive (John even got to lead his Boys after that) and everything was great- except that she got home and of COURSE she had to tell her sister, stuff was ramping up!! ... Rosa was a lot more upset than she thought she’d be. It was even more of a mess, Rosa left her, what was she going to do?!
My Big Fat Greek Assassination/The Trouble with Demigods:
She was going to become a superhero, that was what. She was going to take these terrible powers and do something GOOD with them, so that Rosa could ever stand to look at her again (and yeah maybe a LITTLE bit just... just because... ehh... maybe she wasn’t exactly doing great stuff before...). She was going to GO TO MOUNT OLYMPUS, SEEK OUT THE GODDESS OF WISDOM, AND OBTAIN INFORMATION TO SLAY A GREAT BEAST THAT PLAGUED HER PEOPLE. (Which was Florida Man, spoiler, they never actually got dealt with so have fun with that Floridian players ;p)
Dad was supportive. Athena was cool. Sent her on a quest that introduced her to a bunch of jerks, gave her her new best friend (Adrasteia, her daughter), and put her at odds with Ares whoops who knew. In return for the end of a vicious warlord in Aleppo, Athena gave her the wisdom she sought, and also fighting lessons for a long time. She was a patron of heroes after all. (That was all very exciting for a young Demigod trying to pull herself out of Pretty Explicit Evil.)
Upon arriving back home, Maria was greeted by KNIGHT. They’d been watching her for a while, and had sort of been on the fence about her for obvious reasons but it was a good time to introduce themselves because hey your sister’s been kidnapped by your semi-divine cousin you met at the beginning of this. Thanks for the tip, Knight. She killed a lot of people, ate a dude, had a really cool fight for Rosa’s life, John came in the clutch by completely ignoring her plea for him to not come help, she almost Freaking Died but he DOUBLE killed it by bringing a dude for her to sacrifice for health, everyone goes home and cries and talks about how they’re committing to this not being so Fucked Up thing anymore, Rosa moves back in, everything’s actually looking pretty great for once.
The Punisher Part Two/Dad's Depression and Other Things to Fight For:
Not long afterward, on an unassuming workday, Maria saw an interesting headline. Gangland Massacre, Six Skulls Found Dead or someshit, anyway she freaks out, and finds out John is fine but someone’s going around absolutely DESTROYING the criminal underworld of Miami. Which... Honestly Maria kinda murdered.... All of the mafia... and all the rival biker gang... so it’s not like she was the MOST upset but it wasn’t the BEST idea and also her boyfriend was one of those goons so like, SOMEONE had to put a stop to that. Since she was doing her whole ‘I’m not gonna kill people who don’t deserve it’ thing and she didn’t really have time to prepare, she got her ass beat, and you can read about the rest of that in the “Claire Lawson” part of the friends section. Dropped her back off and let her hobble back to John and Adrasteia, and shit was... Kinda tense for a while? Maria was certain she couldn’t stop Claire in a fight, and Claire had wronged her and people she loved, but she was also sympathetic, and wanted her to be able to just... stop living like that. Being caught in the middle of two people who wanna kill each other kinda sucks though. Anyway, rough shit aside, in a way it was useful. John had been wanting to turn the Skulls into a more legitimate thing for a while now, and this was a good time to do it.
On another side of things- hey! We haven’t talked about Tlaloc in a hot minute. He’s been in the background being weird and lazy and callous. As Maria re-evaluated herself and what she was willing to do and put up with, she came to a point of “Hey, if we’re gonna be family and you’re not just gonna be some weird guy I do soul business with, I take that very seriously, and you’ve gotta act like it.” Which set them developing a better relationship, learning about each other, Tlaloc doing his part to guide and help her, Maria doing hers to watch out for his emotional health and get him to go out more. This kind of culminated later, Maria bringing him out on the raid of a ganglord’s hideout with Claire. There Maria very nearly died, her father going into a completely unlike-him display of competency and anger, calling upon a colleague to accept an unorthodox sacrifice and save his daughter’s life. Later they have a talk, because that had been some emotional, serious stuff. Through him and a later conversation with Quetzalcoatl, Maria learned the political landscape of the Aztec pantheon. The summary of the summary: Tezcatlipoca was and continued to be a Huge Bastard that most folk took issue with but didn’t feel they could take down, had started and continued upholding the practice of sacrifice in the first place, and he’d personally wronged Tlaloc and his late first wife to such a degree that he’d fallen into the depression Maria’d found him in. Rough shit. And this all gets the cogs turning in her head. They made themselves a pact. Maria was going to kill Tezcatlipoca. She would end his reign of terror, get revenge for the wrongs he’d done, take his divinity, and give Tlaloc his soul. In return, Tlaloc was to help her prepare, and train himself that he could finish the job if she failed. And when she has ascended, the practice of sacrifice in the pantheon would be abolished. No more unnecessary blood, no more demigods like her shoved into situations that meant one life or another. Grand plans forged in top tier drama, dudes.
Maria Hates Playing Scion:
So that all happened and was good- remember the Ares thing? From two arcs ago? Yeah, that was still an issue apparently. Ares’ daughter’s soul was still in Tlalocan, and he very much wanted it back. What better way to take it than to have someone take the assailant herself to Tartarus to host a soul ransom and trade? Ugh. Turns out it was the..... cousin/boyfriend of the Aleppo warlord had signed up for the task, and... Have I said ‘it was a mess’ enough yet? Well it was still a mess. She had to kill a guy cuz she couldn’t trust him to be alive, delivered his body to his dang dad Hermes HERSELF befause the situation was so lame and it felt like the nice thing to do, and basically had a grumpy conversation with Ares, on Olympus because she had balls of steel, that went roughly like: “Hey, I had to kill your lackey and it was really lame, clearly I’m not gonna die like that, are you fucking done? Are you good yet?” And him grumbling and saying the extended equivalent of “fine whatever asshole.” And that was that.
Except it wasn’t but just read the “Hector” part of the acquaintances section it was fine.
Also around this time is when KNIGHT contacted her and offered her a contract-worker sort of thing, and she went out on a mission with them. They discovered a Hive (aliens, symbiotic bugs that take on hosts) scout ship and investigated, finding some interesting information on it... Looked like the Hive and Confederacy out in space were concerned about the other violating the DMZ around the solar system... Which led them right into:
BUG WAAAAAAAAAAAAR:
This wasn’t actually bugs it’s just what we called it OOC. The One Day War, See the codex and/or the first section of crisis in the original Masks thread for literally everything that went down. Her dad died while she was out. That sucked and was great drama for the whole family.
STORM SUCKS:
From here it gets a little fuzzy because I wasn’t documenting as well but hey less also happened. There was a one year timeskip of rebuilding, getting things in order, getting TOUGHER. Jackass boss was replaced by better boss, Rosa started going to college, John had managed to get the Skulls into semi-legitimacy, stuff was good. And then. STORM happened, and you can read about that in the codex. Attacked her and Rosa, and after a rescue by Agent Chen (her local KNIGHT contact) and Claire, everyone kinda scattered to the winds. Looked like STORM wasn’t interested in chasing her and losing men so long as she kept her head down. So for the time being, she did. Had people to keep safe, needed time to figure out how to take them down.
Biker Intrigue Two: Electric Boogaloo/No We Weren’t Done With STORM:
God- John- THE DAMSEL, he runs into issues AGAIN when for the SECOND TIME, he gets targeted and put in the hospital. There’s crying, there’s snipers firing into hospital windows, there’s Claire dressed up as a nurse having a rad hospital fight with an assassin (because she likes Maria THAT MUCH for some reason), the detective on the hunt for the Aztec Killer finally got her in a room for all of three seconds (kudos to you, Detective Frank Miller, you were on a doozy), this one had it all. End of the day, John rigged the guy’s bike to explode on him, and once again, it was a fucking inside job. Fool me twice, you know? John spent some time off screen, and quit the gang life for good. Aaaaaafter taking care of the punks that wanted him done in.
STORM wasn’t done yet though. And neither was Claire, which didn’t turn out well for her. Maria opened the door one night to find Claire’s perfect wonderful beautiful loyal smart Good Boy (Duke) pawing at her door, in distress! He led her back to a bloodied cave a bit out from Claire’s (destroyed) home, containing her near-dead body. With some help from her sister, she brought her back home to hide from STORM and heal up. Lots of “No Maria...... you and Rosa will only be in danger if I stay here.... let me go be a stupid loner.........” and “Claire Jesus Christ just let me take the bullets out of you. Have some fucking lasagna. Don’t do surgery on yourself.” (Spoiler: She did surgery on herself. :/) During the healing process, it appeared that STORM had figured out Claire was hiding there, and had surrounded the place, intending to end it there. Maria, with the biggest balls and the most unreasonably high Charisma score... opened the door, and invited a couple of them inside. To talk. Which they were kind of weirded out by, but hey- it worked! They made a deal. If neither party took shots at the other, they’d be alright, but things would escalate significantly if they did, and the ladies both lied out their asses and said that was done. Cool... PSYCHE.
Apotheosis, The Best Bad Decision:
Yeah no Athena came up to her a while later and was like “hey wanna help us destroy a STORM base” and Maria thought ‘oh if she’s asking then she must be confident I can keep my identity hidden and do this safely’ which was very stupid, but she was down. She, Petra, Hector, and Athena teamed up to just decimate the STORM base in Orlando, and Maria realized... She hadn’t been so full of power since the war. She’d spent the past year preparing for a goal so important to her, she was getting older and wouldn’t be at her peak forever, and due to her refusal to kill most folk and the lack of organized criminal activity in Miami... She never had the magic to even think about it. But with enough STORM souls under her belt, it seemed like time. Athena went to get Adrasteia ready (turned out she was also planning on taking a god down, and they’d made a pact to do it at the same time so as to not hurt the other’s chances). And while she did, Maria (with help from John), took out another STORM base. Partly because “more power good,” partly because driving STORM as far away from her home as possible seemed like a good idea. The past year or so had her doing a lot of prep work, and the night looked a little something like such. A pact with her father and the appropriate souls brought the tide to her call. Her trip to the second STORM base and the deal with Tez’s rival brought flame to command. And after a plane ride, on the hike to his cave, she razed the ground, tribute to Quetzalcoatl, a man with whom she had an understanding. Winds now at her back, she finished the climb, and look I’m not gonna write about the fight but it was cool as shit, dudes. Lord of Smoke, darkness n wind shit, versus the goddamn Avatar, it was rad. In the end, Maria barely managed to best him, but she did, and her claim on his soul renewed her.
So like, she was a goddess now, and there was a whole lot of hoo haw about what that meant in a pantheon without strict roles and what that meant in the modern world, but for then? It was super cool. She drove STORM out of Sourhern Florida! She got revenge for her father and so many old loved people lost, and sacrifice was just over. Lots of work to do sorting out all the dead in her realm, seeing who needed and wanted to go where. She told her family, she played around with new powers (gods used to be... too much.) and stuff was great!
If you actually read this far, you know damn well stuff doesn’t ever STAY great.
Ready for the next big mess? Cool, of course you didn’t actually drive STORM out, Maria. Not too long afterward she found a letter addressed to her basically saying “haha you fuckin THOUGHT you could pull that on us, you’re a liar and our deal is off, if you bring us the heads of all these people then we’ll give you your sister back you’ll NEVER find her.” List of heads included a lot of player characters, a lot of top tier fuckers she wouldn’t have a chance with, and unbeknownst to them an avatar of ATHENA, so like, that wasn’t happening. A panic attack later, it’s plan time. Rough events: lots of interrogating STORM souls in her afterlife (death god PERKS), gathering pals who also hated STORM (easy work), lots of shape shifting in order to sneak into a STORM prison out in the Rockies (gods used to be able to shape shift to a degree they used to be WAY TOO MUCH DUDES), having her family covertly get to safe places to hide cuz shit was gonna be real for a while, and then basically a REAL shapeshifter who got brought on for it killed most of the dudes inside and there was a big battle to get everyone OUT. Lots of hugs and tears. They found Beville in there, chained up to a ridiculous degree, I’m still afraid of him. But whatever, only minor injuries, they get out and find a place to figure out how to get everyone back to a safe place, aaaaaaaand turns out her mom (who was a secret assassin back in the day, so she trusted her, say it with me kids, it was a mess) died. Her leaving town with the two youngest Maldonado’s was intercepted, she was killed, Martín was paralyzed, Patricia’s legs got plasma’d off, and they were in a Miami hospital. Maria was given a choice, to bring herself out freely for execution, or get to watch the newscast about their death. It was a rough decision, and ultimately, she went. Let them video the damn thing, she didn’t care. She let them put a bullet in her head, so her sister could go home freely, and her family could be together.
It was a fucking ruse, and STORM fell for her shit AGAIN. Rough decision indeed, between attempting to dupe them or not. In the end, she knew her family wasn’t going to be safer if she was dead, just poorer defended. So, she sent an avatar to die, praying they wouldn’t be able to tell her soul wasn’t in that body. Worked out. Rosa got to take the kids home, get custody, Athena landed her a decent job that let her kind of deal with everything. For a month on earth, there was no sign of Maria. But for 7 months in her realm, she hid. Not good for mental health, very good for letting STORM’s hackles settle. But, eventually, it was time to start preparing again. She found her friends who had gone into hiding, had a chat with her family (disguised as her father, complicated plotting ok), and started going, disguised, around the country basically setting up divine teleportation pads (another god perk that got taken out jfc they used to be so much).
On the way, she had a nice run-in with a time traveler/timeline cop on vacation. They had a nice chat. She saw some shit that made her cry and also some other stuff that made her think about her feelings and relationships. I won’t get into it but that experience really stuck with her and made her think about shit and anyway Journeyin’ Joe is the best short-lived NPC dudes. A hero. A spot of something NICE amid the MESS that is this long-ass summary.
While on this trip she also discovered something alarming. Gabriel Matrose, a colleague she’d deeply respected and had wanted to collaborate with more before she. Uhh. Well before he REASONABLY stopped wanting to hang out, he’d been murdered. That didn’t sit well, especially in light of the circumstances, and she teleported to his secret base to find it was being raided. Teaming up with Her Favorite Greeks, they helped the scientists fight their way out and escape. Shortly after, she teleported to Max Volts’ place. A while back, she Adrasteia and Gabe busted him out of prison for STORM related horsepoop, and he was working for Gabe and thus may have had his location leaked. They packed up shop and started moving on out, when the police arrived. In an attempt to keep a dangerous portal machine out of STORM hands, they decided to blow it up in their escape, and uhh. That uhh. That made for.
The AI Invasion:
Which was totally their fucking fault. Yikes. Everyone teamed up, and like, fought robots at the pentagon, and then fought eldrich abominations in a sunken city under Rainwalk, YEESH. Final battle with the AI was kind of spooky and Maria’s not convinced it’s Actually Gone but whatever. Aftermath was more death, but not for her personally, and also new friends made. Doctor Emily Hartmann was the best friend ever and fixed her siblings. Thanks doc. You’re the best doc. I owe you a life debt doc.
Aftermath:
Sooooo there was an issue sitting around for a while that went unaddressed. At one point Maria attempted to get information on Tezcatlipoca’s current activated kids to see if any of them were trustworthy in case of a disaster, and to see if any needed to be dealt with. The answer was no to the former, but as for the latter, well. One of them. Was ten. Ten years old. Through more poking around we find out he’s been orphaned for some time, he was activated at five, and was both a tiny assassin and Tez’s contingency plan. Basically got a ‘hey if I die here’s who killed me, do something about it.’ Which is obviously a huge issue. She eventually cuts a deal with this kid. Hey. If you promise to stay away from my loved ones in the attempt, and don’t pull bullshit on me, then I don’t have to try and murder you right now. In turn, I’ll take care of you, make sure no harm comes to you, and get you ready so that when you’re old enough you can have a fair shot. We good?
It was good. So, with a new identity ol President Bald Eagle afforded her, she adopted this kid and just lived. For two years. Taught him how to read. Made sure he was eating and tried to get him into kid stuff and sports and like, good constructive shit, to only marginal success. One night he went missing, her door broken down, neighbors informing her some dudes in robes came and took the kid. They’d left a note telling her to come to some dockhouse in the night, lest the kid get it. And. She. Did. Armed, armored, ready for whatever. Of course it was a huge setup. An old Maya god seeking revenge for wrongs done to his by the Aztecs found an interesting, exploitable situation. Mateo, the kid, was ordered to take her life, and for her to allow it. One or both of them could die there. Maria attempted to get the kid closer to shield him so they could get out, but. She. Promised. She swore to him she’d let no harm come to him. And when he didn’t, or wouldn’t, take the hint, she got tranqued. When she was aware of anything again, her soul was in the afterlife she spent so long making... nice. She’d wait. This was fine. She could guide this kid from death, she was ready, damn it she’d make a good person of this boy yet... only she didn’t have the chance, because some time later, she was in Tlalocan.
Her father plopped her soul down in a nice little spot, and she needed a little time to process, so he left. And never came back. She only got second hand information at this point, from Chalchi, the true hero. Tlaloc hadn’t taken this well. He’d tricked Mateo into his own death at the hands of her sister, the people who orchestrated it had been dealt with, and he was now on a quest to flush out and kill all remaining children of Tez. Wasn’t himself, wouldn’t listen to reason, wouldn’t listen to Chalchi, and after all this, she was done, and leaving him. Maria wished her well. And couldn’t wait for him to stop being a coward and see her, to get the chewing out he surely knew was coming. Three weeks passed in this way, and then the skies above Tlalocan started to crack and open.
Ragnarok, Armageddon, The Visitation.
Suddenly she, along with everyone else in the realm and whatever had been real, were dumped onto a plateau in central Mexico. The magic holding the realms together had come undone. She watched as Tezcatlipoca died a second time, and watched Mateo killed in turn. And then she got to her father, and split his lip. A monster that wouldn’t listen then, either. Wasn’t time for the hell she wanted to give him though, the dead trapped in godly realms would only be up again until this was over. She grabbed some shit and started making her way out, eventually making her way to Mt Kilimanjaro with the Bald Eagles and her siblings. There, Lex instigated a wrestling match, and a lot of good heys and hugs were had, and then it was up to everyone to fight the onslaught of undead armies and figures from Ragnarok and also Angels while the old gods attempted to undo the wild broken spell that put the realms in place. It sucked, dudes.
Maria found herself teaming up with The Raven, fighting off fire giants. Surtr, the biggest bastard of them all, nearly toasted their asses, when her father rode in on one gnarly wave. Cool as hell, did some damage, until he was swatted out of the air like a fly and went crashing (crunch) into the ground. She ran to her father as Lex joined the fight. He was. Oof. He was fucked up, my guys. On death’s door, he apologized, told her he loved her and their family, and told her to kill him. Something she hadn’t considered. In one of the nastier tear-jerkers we got to write, Maria swore vengeance on Surtr, to fulfill what he’d asked of her, and that someday, she would find him again. And then, of course, took his life, and his divinity, which, as divinity had before, renewed her. New body. New life. Power enough to make good on her promises. She rejoined the heroes, and combined, they defeated Surtr. As he hit the ground, the Visitation began.
It was sad and it was sweet. This bitch had a lot of baggage relating to dead people. She cried. I cried. Fuck. She came out of that one feeling... not great, but a little more prepared to handle the future, a little less willing to die at the drop of a hat. This god dude was... sketch, but they came off to her as kind of alright. See you in a million years, dude.
It ended, and everything was weird and rough and all, but honestly? Kinda hopeful. Particularly for the gaggle of fresh new gods with which she was familiar. A lot of the past felt resolved, the dead could stay in their graves and not in cycles of vengeance, it was kinda... their turn, to make good with the world. Cool shit. Everyone went to a Denny’s and got tipsy and Maria won 20 grand off a blasted Raven in a DDR competition. Good last crossover.
Eventually, everyone got to go home. Maria searched out Claire, who seemed... a little better, after all this. Her poor sister who really deserved a break from this crap. And John, about whom she’d made an important decision during the Visitation. She proposed.
Lots to think about. Where could they even live, both of them being who they were? What were they going to do with their lives, now that they finally found themselves out of the clutches of fear and revenge? It was going to be a lot of work ahead of them, but for once, it seemed like things would actually turn out alright.
To be continued in..... Masks 2....... Flight to Eagletime.............
Intro/Biker Intrigue:
Maria- she had an aight childhood. She didn’t have any friends because she was like Fucking Weird but that didn’t bother her, she discovered an interest in community organizing and decided to go to school for politics, and whilst finishing up her degree abroad, picked up a hobby. Homicide. You know, just girl stuff, and she found herself spoiled for choice as to targets, generally going with ‘people who think jumping little ladies in alleys at night is ok’. It was kinda rad! Back in those days she had a strong sense of home and family and a complex theory on morality as it applied to human lives which justified her actions and made living and stuff kinda awesome for her. Took the hobby home, and for a couple years just lived it up as a poorly paid intern at City Hall, living with her sister, killing dudes sometimes, life was great! Until Spring of 2017 anyway.
She came home one day, WOAH, there was a big blue dude in the room. He was like “Haha hey kid, I’m your dad!” And she was like “You’re not my dad get out of my apartment!” But he was totally her dad, the god Tlaloc, and he drowned her a little gave her the potential to have magic powers and a booklet that explained the rest. The gist? Specific sacrifice gives specific gods souls, which will give you specifc powers.
Cue: Maria doing that a bunch. To throw a lot of things together not necessarily in order: She killed the most annoying person on earth! Blackmailed her jackass boss and got to be city planner which honestly she did baller work with! Obtained the unofficial world record for ‘amount of times drowned’! Wrestled for fun and dough on Saturdays! Started learning how to actually fight and stuff! Which was all pretty excellent, uuuuuuntil her boyfriend got targeted by??? Someone??? And put in the hospital. And then there was like a fake doc who tried to poison the IV? It was a mess, she had to team up with the Skulls (the gang he was a part of) to try and keep him from dying, turned out it was an inside job, there was some light torture and cannibalism, and at the end of the day everybody cheered and was alive (John even got to lead his Boys after that) and everything was great- except that she got home and of COURSE she had to tell her sister, stuff was ramping up!! ... Rosa was a lot more upset than she thought she’d be. It was even more of a mess, Rosa left her, what was she going to do?!
My Big Fat Greek Assassination/The Trouble with Demigods:
She was going to become a superhero, that was what. She was going to take these terrible powers and do something GOOD with them, so that Rosa could ever stand to look at her again (and yeah maybe a LITTLE bit just... just because... ehh... maybe she wasn’t exactly doing great stuff before...). She was going to GO TO MOUNT OLYMPUS, SEEK OUT THE GODDESS OF WISDOM, AND OBTAIN INFORMATION TO SLAY A GREAT BEAST THAT PLAGUED HER PEOPLE. (Which was Florida Man, spoiler, they never actually got dealt with so have fun with that Floridian players ;p)
Dad was supportive. Athena was cool. Sent her on a quest that introduced her to a bunch of jerks, gave her her new best friend (Adrasteia, her daughter), and put her at odds with Ares whoops who knew. In return for the end of a vicious warlord in Aleppo, Athena gave her the wisdom she sought, and also fighting lessons for a long time. She was a patron of heroes after all. (That was all very exciting for a young Demigod trying to pull herself out of Pretty Explicit Evil.)
Upon arriving back home, Maria was greeted by KNIGHT. They’d been watching her for a while, and had sort of been on the fence about her for obvious reasons but it was a good time to introduce themselves because hey your sister’s been kidnapped by your semi-divine cousin you met at the beginning of this. Thanks for the tip, Knight. She killed a lot of people, ate a dude, had a really cool fight for Rosa’s life, John came in the clutch by completely ignoring her plea for him to not come help, she almost Freaking Died but he DOUBLE killed it by bringing a dude for her to sacrifice for health, everyone goes home and cries and talks about how they’re committing to this not being so Fucked Up thing anymore, Rosa moves back in, everything’s actually looking pretty great for once.
The Punisher Part Two/Dad's Depression and Other Things to Fight For:
Not long afterward, on an unassuming workday, Maria saw an interesting headline. Gangland Massacre, Six Skulls Found Dead or someshit, anyway she freaks out, and finds out John is fine but someone’s going around absolutely DESTROYING the criminal underworld of Miami. Which... Honestly Maria kinda murdered.... All of the mafia... and all the rival biker gang... so it’s not like she was the MOST upset but it wasn’t the BEST idea and also her boyfriend was one of those goons so like, SOMEONE had to put a stop to that. Since she was doing her whole ‘I’m not gonna kill people who don’t deserve it’ thing and she didn’t really have time to prepare, she got her ass beat, and you can read about the rest of that in the “Claire Lawson” part of the friends section. Dropped her back off and let her hobble back to John and Adrasteia, and shit was... Kinda tense for a while? Maria was certain she couldn’t stop Claire in a fight, and Claire had wronged her and people she loved, but she was also sympathetic, and wanted her to be able to just... stop living like that. Being caught in the middle of two people who wanna kill each other kinda sucks though. Anyway, rough shit aside, in a way it was useful. John had been wanting to turn the Skulls into a more legitimate thing for a while now, and this was a good time to do it.
On another side of things- hey! We haven’t talked about Tlaloc in a hot minute. He’s been in the background being weird and lazy and callous. As Maria re-evaluated herself and what she was willing to do and put up with, she came to a point of “Hey, if we’re gonna be family and you’re not just gonna be some weird guy I do soul business with, I take that very seriously, and you’ve gotta act like it.” Which set them developing a better relationship, learning about each other, Tlaloc doing his part to guide and help her, Maria doing hers to watch out for his emotional health and get him to go out more. This kind of culminated later, Maria bringing him out on the raid of a ganglord’s hideout with Claire. There Maria very nearly died, her father going into a completely unlike-him display of competency and anger, calling upon a colleague to accept an unorthodox sacrifice and save his daughter’s life. Later they have a talk, because that had been some emotional, serious stuff. Through him and a later conversation with Quetzalcoatl, Maria learned the political landscape of the Aztec pantheon. The summary of the summary: Tezcatlipoca was and continued to be a Huge Bastard that most folk took issue with but didn’t feel they could take down, had started and continued upholding the practice of sacrifice in the first place, and he’d personally wronged Tlaloc and his late first wife to such a degree that he’d fallen into the depression Maria’d found him in. Rough shit. And this all gets the cogs turning in her head. They made themselves a pact. Maria was going to kill Tezcatlipoca. She would end his reign of terror, get revenge for the wrongs he’d done, take his divinity, and give Tlaloc his soul. In return, Tlaloc was to help her prepare, and train himself that he could finish the job if she failed. And when she has ascended, the practice of sacrifice in the pantheon would be abolished. No more unnecessary blood, no more demigods like her shoved into situations that meant one life or another. Grand plans forged in top tier drama, dudes.
Maria Hates Playing Scion:
So that all happened and was good- remember the Ares thing? From two arcs ago? Yeah, that was still an issue apparently. Ares’ daughter’s soul was still in Tlalocan, and he very much wanted it back. What better way to take it than to have someone take the assailant herself to Tartarus to host a soul ransom and trade? Ugh. Turns out it was the..... cousin/boyfriend of the Aleppo warlord had signed up for the task, and... Have I said ‘it was a mess’ enough yet? Well it was still a mess. She had to kill a guy cuz she couldn’t trust him to be alive, delivered his body to his dang dad Hermes HERSELF befause the situation was so lame and it felt like the nice thing to do, and basically had a grumpy conversation with Ares, on Olympus because she had balls of steel, that went roughly like: “Hey, I had to kill your lackey and it was really lame, clearly I’m not gonna die like that, are you fucking done? Are you good yet?” And him grumbling and saying the extended equivalent of “fine whatever asshole.” And that was that.
Except it wasn’t but just read the “Hector” part of the acquaintances section it was fine.
Also around this time is when KNIGHT contacted her and offered her a contract-worker sort of thing, and she went out on a mission with them. They discovered a Hive (aliens, symbiotic bugs that take on hosts) scout ship and investigated, finding some interesting information on it... Looked like the Hive and Confederacy out in space were concerned about the other violating the DMZ around the solar system... Which led them right into:
BUG WAAAAAAAAAAAAR:
This wasn’t actually bugs it’s just what we called it OOC. The One Day War, See the codex and/or the first section of crisis in the original Masks thread for literally everything that went down. Her dad died while she was out. That sucked and was great drama for the whole family.
STORM SUCKS:
From here it gets a little fuzzy because I wasn’t documenting as well but hey less also happened. There was a one year timeskip of rebuilding, getting things in order, getting TOUGHER. Jackass boss was replaced by better boss, Rosa started going to college, John had managed to get the Skulls into semi-legitimacy, stuff was good. And then. STORM happened, and you can read about that in the codex. Attacked her and Rosa, and after a rescue by Agent Chen (her local KNIGHT contact) and Claire, everyone kinda scattered to the winds. Looked like STORM wasn’t interested in chasing her and losing men so long as she kept her head down. So for the time being, she did. Had people to keep safe, needed time to figure out how to take them down.
Biker Intrigue Two: Electric Boogaloo/No We Weren’t Done With STORM:
God- John- THE DAMSEL, he runs into issues AGAIN when for the SECOND TIME, he gets targeted and put in the hospital. There’s crying, there’s snipers firing into hospital windows, there’s Claire dressed up as a nurse having a rad hospital fight with an assassin (because she likes Maria THAT MUCH for some reason), the detective on the hunt for the Aztec Killer finally got her in a room for all of three seconds (kudos to you, Detective Frank Miller, you were on a doozy), this one had it all. End of the day, John rigged the guy’s bike to explode on him, and once again, it was a fucking inside job. Fool me twice, you know? John spent some time off screen, and quit the gang life for good. Aaaaaafter taking care of the punks that wanted him done in.
STORM wasn’t done yet though. And neither was Claire, which didn’t turn out well for her. Maria opened the door one night to find Claire’s perfect wonderful beautiful loyal smart Good Boy (Duke) pawing at her door, in distress! He led her back to a bloodied cave a bit out from Claire’s (destroyed) home, containing her near-dead body. With some help from her sister, she brought her back home to hide from STORM and heal up. Lots of “No Maria...... you and Rosa will only be in danger if I stay here.... let me go be a stupid loner.........” and “Claire Jesus Christ just let me take the bullets out of you. Have some fucking lasagna. Don’t do surgery on yourself.” (Spoiler: She did surgery on herself. :/) During the healing process, it appeared that STORM had figured out Claire was hiding there, and had surrounded the place, intending to end it there. Maria, with the biggest balls and the most unreasonably high Charisma score... opened the door, and invited a couple of them inside. To talk. Which they were kind of weirded out by, but hey- it worked! They made a deal. If neither party took shots at the other, they’d be alright, but things would escalate significantly if they did, and the ladies both lied out their asses and said that was done. Cool... PSYCHE.
Apotheosis, The Best Bad Decision:
Yeah no Athena came up to her a while later and was like “hey wanna help us destroy a STORM base” and Maria thought ‘oh if she’s asking then she must be confident I can keep my identity hidden and do this safely’ which was very stupid, but she was down. She, Petra, Hector, and Athena teamed up to just decimate the STORM base in Orlando, and Maria realized... She hadn’t been so full of power since the war. She’d spent the past year preparing for a goal so important to her, she was getting older and wouldn’t be at her peak forever, and due to her refusal to kill most folk and the lack of organized criminal activity in Miami... She never had the magic to even think about it. But with enough STORM souls under her belt, it seemed like time. Athena went to get Adrasteia ready (turned out she was also planning on taking a god down, and they’d made a pact to do it at the same time so as to not hurt the other’s chances). And while she did, Maria (with help from John), took out another STORM base. Partly because “more power good,” partly because driving STORM as far away from her home as possible seemed like a good idea. The past year or so had her doing a lot of prep work, and the night looked a little something like such. A pact with her father and the appropriate souls brought the tide to her call. Her trip to the second STORM base and the deal with Tez’s rival brought flame to command. And after a plane ride, on the hike to his cave, she razed the ground, tribute to Quetzalcoatl, a man with whom she had an understanding. Winds now at her back, she finished the climb, and look I’m not gonna write about the fight but it was cool as shit, dudes. Lord of Smoke, darkness n wind shit, versus the goddamn Avatar, it was rad. In the end, Maria barely managed to best him, but she did, and her claim on his soul renewed her.
So like, she was a goddess now, and there was a whole lot of hoo haw about what that meant in a pantheon without strict roles and what that meant in the modern world, but for then? It was super cool. She drove STORM out of Sourhern Florida! She got revenge for her father and so many old loved people lost, and sacrifice was just over. Lots of work to do sorting out all the dead in her realm, seeing who needed and wanted to go where. She told her family, she played around with new powers (gods used to be... too much.) and stuff was great!
If you actually read this far, you know damn well stuff doesn’t ever STAY great.
Ready for the next big mess? Cool, of course you didn’t actually drive STORM out, Maria. Not too long afterward she found a letter addressed to her basically saying “haha you fuckin THOUGHT you could pull that on us, you’re a liar and our deal is off, if you bring us the heads of all these people then we’ll give you your sister back you’ll NEVER find her.” List of heads included a lot of player characters, a lot of top tier fuckers she wouldn’t have a chance with, and unbeknownst to them an avatar of ATHENA, so like, that wasn’t happening. A panic attack later, it’s plan time. Rough events: lots of interrogating STORM souls in her afterlife (death god PERKS), gathering pals who also hated STORM (easy work), lots of shape shifting in order to sneak into a STORM prison out in the Rockies (gods used to be able to shape shift to a degree they used to be WAY TOO MUCH DUDES), having her family covertly get to safe places to hide cuz shit was gonna be real for a while, and then basically a REAL shapeshifter who got brought on for it killed most of the dudes inside and there was a big battle to get everyone OUT. Lots of hugs and tears. They found Beville in there, chained up to a ridiculous degree, I’m still afraid of him. But whatever, only minor injuries, they get out and find a place to figure out how to get everyone back to a safe place, aaaaaaaand turns out her mom (who was a secret assassin back in the day, so she trusted her, say it with me kids, it was a mess) died. Her leaving town with the two youngest Maldonado’s was intercepted, she was killed, Martín was paralyzed, Patricia’s legs got plasma’d off, and they were in a Miami hospital. Maria was given a choice, to bring herself out freely for execution, or get to watch the newscast about their death. It was a rough decision, and ultimately, she went. Let them video the damn thing, she didn’t care. She let them put a bullet in her head, so her sister could go home freely, and her family could be together.
It was a fucking ruse, and STORM fell for her shit AGAIN. Rough decision indeed, between attempting to dupe them or not. In the end, she knew her family wasn’t going to be safer if she was dead, just poorer defended. So, she sent an avatar to die, praying they wouldn’t be able to tell her soul wasn’t in that body. Worked out. Rosa got to take the kids home, get custody, Athena landed her a decent job that let her kind of deal with everything. For a month on earth, there was no sign of Maria. But for 7 months in her realm, she hid. Not good for mental health, very good for letting STORM’s hackles settle. But, eventually, it was time to start preparing again. She found her friends who had gone into hiding, had a chat with her family (disguised as her father, complicated plotting ok), and started going, disguised, around the country basically setting up divine teleportation pads (another god perk that got taken out jfc they used to be so much).
On the way, she had a nice run-in with a time traveler/timeline cop on vacation. They had a nice chat. She saw some shit that made her cry and also some other stuff that made her think about her feelings and relationships. I won’t get into it but that experience really stuck with her and made her think about shit and anyway Journeyin’ Joe is the best short-lived NPC dudes. A hero. A spot of something NICE amid the MESS that is this long-ass summary.
While on this trip she also discovered something alarming. Gabriel Matrose, a colleague she’d deeply respected and had wanted to collaborate with more before she. Uhh. Well before he REASONABLY stopped wanting to hang out, he’d been murdered. That didn’t sit well, especially in light of the circumstances, and she teleported to his secret base to find it was being raided. Teaming up with Her Favorite Greeks, they helped the scientists fight their way out and escape. Shortly after, she teleported to Max Volts’ place. A while back, she Adrasteia and Gabe busted him out of prison for STORM related horsepoop, and he was working for Gabe and thus may have had his location leaked. They packed up shop and started moving on out, when the police arrived. In an attempt to keep a dangerous portal machine out of STORM hands, they decided to blow it up in their escape, and uhh. That uhh. That made for.
The AI Invasion:
Which was totally their fucking fault. Yikes. Everyone teamed up, and like, fought robots at the pentagon, and then fought eldrich abominations in a sunken city under Rainwalk, YEESH. Final battle with the AI was kind of spooky and Maria’s not convinced it’s Actually Gone but whatever. Aftermath was more death, but not for her personally, and also new friends made. Doctor Emily Hartmann was the best friend ever and fixed her siblings. Thanks doc. You’re the best doc. I owe you a life debt doc.
Aftermath:
Sooooo there was an issue sitting around for a while that went unaddressed. At one point Maria attempted to get information on Tezcatlipoca’s current activated kids to see if any of them were trustworthy in case of a disaster, and to see if any needed to be dealt with. The answer was no to the former, but as for the latter, well. One of them. Was ten. Ten years old. Through more poking around we find out he’s been orphaned for some time, he was activated at five, and was both a tiny assassin and Tez’s contingency plan. Basically got a ‘hey if I die here’s who killed me, do something about it.’ Which is obviously a huge issue. She eventually cuts a deal with this kid. Hey. If you promise to stay away from my loved ones in the attempt, and don’t pull bullshit on me, then I don’t have to try and murder you right now. In turn, I’ll take care of you, make sure no harm comes to you, and get you ready so that when you’re old enough you can have a fair shot. We good?
It was good. So, with a new identity ol President Bald Eagle afforded her, she adopted this kid and just lived. For two years. Taught him how to read. Made sure he was eating and tried to get him into kid stuff and sports and like, good constructive shit, to only marginal success. One night he went missing, her door broken down, neighbors informing her some dudes in robes came and took the kid. They’d left a note telling her to come to some dockhouse in the night, lest the kid get it. And. She. Did. Armed, armored, ready for whatever. Of course it was a huge setup. An old Maya god seeking revenge for wrongs done to his by the Aztecs found an interesting, exploitable situation. Mateo, the kid, was ordered to take her life, and for her to allow it. One or both of them could die there. Maria attempted to get the kid closer to shield him so they could get out, but. She. Promised. She swore to him she’d let no harm come to him. And when he didn’t, or wouldn’t, take the hint, she got tranqued. When she was aware of anything again, her soul was in the afterlife she spent so long making... nice. She’d wait. This was fine. She could guide this kid from death, she was ready, damn it she’d make a good person of this boy yet... only she didn’t have the chance, because some time later, she was in Tlalocan.
Her father plopped her soul down in a nice little spot, and she needed a little time to process, so he left. And never came back. She only got second hand information at this point, from Chalchi, the true hero. Tlaloc hadn’t taken this well. He’d tricked Mateo into his own death at the hands of her sister, the people who orchestrated it had been dealt with, and he was now on a quest to flush out and kill all remaining children of Tez. Wasn’t himself, wouldn’t listen to reason, wouldn’t listen to Chalchi, and after all this, she was done, and leaving him. Maria wished her well. And couldn’t wait for him to stop being a coward and see her, to get the chewing out he surely knew was coming. Three weeks passed in this way, and then the skies above Tlalocan started to crack and open.
Ragnarok, Armageddon, The Visitation.
Suddenly she, along with everyone else in the realm and whatever had been real, were dumped onto a plateau in central Mexico. The magic holding the realms together had come undone. She watched as Tezcatlipoca died a second time, and watched Mateo killed in turn. And then she got to her father, and split his lip. A monster that wouldn’t listen then, either. Wasn’t time for the hell she wanted to give him though, the dead trapped in godly realms would only be up again until this was over. She grabbed some shit and started making her way out, eventually making her way to Mt Kilimanjaro with the Bald Eagles and her siblings. There, Lex instigated a wrestling match, and a lot of good heys and hugs were had, and then it was up to everyone to fight the onslaught of undead armies and figures from Ragnarok and also Angels while the old gods attempted to undo the wild broken spell that put the realms in place. It sucked, dudes.
Maria found herself teaming up with The Raven, fighting off fire giants. Surtr, the biggest bastard of them all, nearly toasted their asses, when her father rode in on one gnarly wave. Cool as hell, did some damage, until he was swatted out of the air like a fly and went crashing (crunch) into the ground. She ran to her father as Lex joined the fight. He was. Oof. He was fucked up, my guys. On death’s door, he apologized, told her he loved her and their family, and told her to kill him. Something she hadn’t considered. In one of the nastier tear-jerkers we got to write, Maria swore vengeance on Surtr, to fulfill what he’d asked of her, and that someday, she would find him again. And then, of course, took his life, and his divinity, which, as divinity had before, renewed her. New body. New life. Power enough to make good on her promises. She rejoined the heroes, and combined, they defeated Surtr. As he hit the ground, the Visitation began.
It was sad and it was sweet. This bitch had a lot of baggage relating to dead people. She cried. I cried. Fuck. She came out of that one feeling... not great, but a little more prepared to handle the future, a little less willing to die at the drop of a hat. This god dude was... sketch, but they came off to her as kind of alright. See you in a million years, dude.
It ended, and everything was weird and rough and all, but honestly? Kinda hopeful. Particularly for the gaggle of fresh new gods with which she was familiar. A lot of the past felt resolved, the dead could stay in their graves and not in cycles of vengeance, it was kinda... their turn, to make good with the world. Cool shit. Everyone went to a Denny’s and got tipsy and Maria won 20 grand off a blasted Raven in a DDR competition. Good last crossover.
Eventually, everyone got to go home. Maria searched out Claire, who seemed... a little better, after all this. Her poor sister who really deserved a break from this crap. And John, about whom she’d made an important decision during the Visitation. She proposed.
Lots to think about. Where could they even live, both of them being who they were? What were they going to do with their lives, now that they finally found themselves out of the clutches of fear and revenge? It was going to be a lot of work ahead of them, but for once, it seemed like things would actually turn out alright.
To be continued in..... Masks 2....... Flight to Eagletime.............
Timeskip stuff for Cid and Legacy Characters and you know whoever:
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Aight no need to buckle up, this one won’t be so bad as the other.
First off like, literally every Masks 1 character that was alive that she knew got a text a while after the Visitation with a picture of a wedding invite on it. No brawls unless in good fun and approved by bride/groom, masks optional but encouraged for non shape shifters. It was wild, thanks for paying for it Desmond, if anyone has Shenanigans they want to have happened with their character, throw ‘em at me dude I wanna know.
After the party of the century and a lot of sappy bullshit though, the Maldonado-Moritz’s needed to figure out what the hell they were going to be up to, because there was no way they could stay in Miami, there was probably going to be difficulty getting Maria to be a legal entity if they wanted to stay in a city, it wasn’t just sort of a crazy time. They decided they were going to travel for a bit, maybe check out some backwoods areas and find a place to settle for a while. She went to tell Claire and like, Claire... wanted to come too... Which was strange and a hard sell for John but she did! They found their way to West Virginia, and ended up finding a decent area to set up.
Bla until I stop feeling like ass
-they set up living area, work on making it habitable
-make the lake
-doc joins
-get a couple kayaks, few more people join
-stressful dual pregnancy
-more people join, start building Shit up
-wv starts going to shit, bandit problems
-kid two
-more buildup
-scary people show up when tino is 10, find Adrian in ruins of fleeing Menace
-Heightened clearing of river
-more people come to them
-shit, they’re here now.
Aight no need to buckle up, this one won’t be so bad as the other.
First off like, literally every Masks 1 character that was alive that she knew got a text a while after the Visitation with a picture of a wedding invite on it. No brawls unless in good fun and approved by bride/groom, masks optional but encouraged for non shape shifters. It was wild, thanks for paying for it Desmond, if anyone has Shenanigans they want to have happened with their character, throw ‘em at me dude I wanna know.
After the party of the century and a lot of sappy bullshit though, the Maldonado-Moritz’s needed to figure out what the hell they were going to be up to, because there was no way they could stay in Miami, there was probably going to be difficulty getting Maria to be a legal entity if they wanted to stay in a city, it wasn’t just sort of a crazy time. They decided they were going to travel for a bit, maybe check out some backwoods areas and find a place to settle for a while. She went to tell Claire and like, Claire... wanted to come too... Which was strange and a hard sell for John but she did! They found their way to West Virginia, and ended up finding a decent area to set up.
Bla until I stop feeling like ass
-they set up living area, work on making it habitable
-make the lake
-doc joins
-get a couple kayaks, few more people join
-stressful dual pregnancy
-more people join, start building Shit up
-wv starts going to shit, bandit problems
-kid two
-more buildup
-scary people show up when tino is 10, find Adrian in ruins of fleeing Menace
-Heightened clearing of river
-more people come to them
-shit, they’re here now.
Friends, Family, Acquiantances, Rivals, Enemies, and anybody else: Abandon hope again. Maria has two major solutions to her problems. Kill them, or befriend them. She did an awful lot of the latter.
Family:
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Rosa Maldonado Mach - 55. The eldest of Maria’s younger siblings, and the closest (bond-wise) family she’s got. This woman’s been through a lot of crap, and deserves a break. Hard to be anything but hardworking and tired and scared and angry when your sister is kind of destroying your family and life and stuff, but Rosa’s often managed to be kind despite it. They don’t get to see each other much due to the unsafe nature of the roads and sheer distance between Oakland and the Fort, but they catch up in dreams. Married to. To. To. Chris Mach. Have fun with that.
Chris Mach - Solar Flare. Maria’s brother in law now, the best decision Cid and I ever made. The only possible way to make Lex HATE the extended Maldonado family any more than she did. They met at Maria’s wedding, and recognized Rosa later when she moved out west to be closer to Martín, and all subsequent hangouts were apparently pretty excellent. A super nice dude. Took the traditional sibling death threats (all three sets) in stride. As such, they don’t exactly talk much, but they’re on good terms.
Elena Alejandra Mach - Rosa/Chris's kid, 18, a little fireball. Quazi-homeschooled, a bright little shit with enthusiasm and drive unbefitting the gritty cyberpunk future. Rosa's mentioned she's been a bit weird lately, and they have to wonder if it's a weird hereditary thing from the old man.
Patricia Maldonado Bezos - Youngest sister, 50. Anti corporate mercenary turned caller-of-shots for spryer things. Works out of Miami. Somehow the last one there. Those Maldonado’s are crazy sons of guns.
Martín Maldonado Bezos - Youngest sibling and only brother. 48, out in Los Angeles living the dream, fighting the man via illegal street art. Which, actually, is a lot crazier than it used to be. Always higher stakes and greater works with that one. And getting it done in a world of security drones, increased city populations (and thus, eyes to see) and with fresh new mediums makes it all the more interesting.
And we all thought the Maldonado boys were the lame ones. He still doesn’t seem entirely comfortable with her, so they don’t talk much, but that’s... fine. Always exciting to catch up. He’s had an on and off thing with a partner in crime, apparently? For like 20 years? That’s cool. All Maria’s gotten out of him on that front is that their name is Sam, they write some baller poetry, and they kinda suck, apparently. He has a terrible uncle mustache.
Other Maldonado’s/Bezos’s - There’s also a small gaggle of her extended family living in Mexico City, but she also hasn’t spoken to them really since... Well, shortly after the Visitation. Checked to make sure they were ok, and then checked right out of their lives.
Catalina & Rafael - Aztec goddess of Mist and god of the Sun. Children of Tlaloc, Slayers of Mateo (via Maria via Tezcatlipoca) and Kinich Ahau. Twins, Maria’s half siblings, also fresh baby gods. Basically attained godhood by avenging her death. They’d heard of each other, but only finally got to meet on the way to Ragnarok, and hit it off pretty well. Like most of the other young gods, they’re often off adventuring, but visit from time to time to catch up, sip some moonshine, and see their niece and nephews.
Chalchiuhtlicue - Aztec goddess of water. Ex wife/sister of Tlaloc. A real sweet lady. They kept fair distance (mostly because Maria was worried about being some weird bastard of her husband’s just... running around her home...) until Maria’s mother died and she had to go into hiding. Then she earned her not-mom of the year award, and went on to win it again two years later when Maria died and Tlaloc was being a Huge Monster about things. Anyway, the kindness hasn’t been forgotten, and Chalchi is one of the more Welcome In Her Life people Maria knows.
John Moritz - Maria’s Big Dumb Biker Boyfriend Husband. 63. Once went by Phantom for a little heroics stint, but is mostly just a regular human guy who’s into Bikes and Books and can be very community oriented. Was once a member and then leader of a local chapter of a nationwide biker gang, the Skulls, but that really didn’t turn out well as you may have read.
He’s gotten heavier in his age, and now sports a bushy, grey beard. Wears a plain wedding band with a coyote head engraved in the inside.
And also he’s not the worst and he made that dang crazy journey out of vicious blood cycles with her and she loves him, I’m so tired of all the John roasts, I’m gay too you philistines I’m just as upset about that as you- BUT I’ll fight you all on it still.
Kate Moritz - John’s mom. OLD. A monster hunter. Monster hunting. That’s the family business, and she gives John a bunch of shit for not being into that. (Thus, why he moved so VERY FAR AWAY.) She’s a gruff grizzled old lady from Arizona who wouldn’t quit until her daughter (with chiming in from the son and the in-law) told her to “Knock it off mom, you’re 70, you aren’t going to come back with that werewolf, just let someone else do it.” Which she has finally obliged. Lives in some commune out in AZ with Caroline.
Caroline Moritz - John’s younger sister, ex-assassin. A very fun gal who, to her mother’s disappointment, was also disinterested in the family business. She’s got a lovely wife and a gaggle of Moritz-Foster’s out in a commune in AZ.
Valentín “Tino” Moritz Maldonado - 23, Maria and John's first son who she thinks is weird because she was VERY anxious during the pregnancy. Looks more like his dad, and just as tall. Definitely more docile than the others, and more inclined to quiet textile work than, erm, the pushback of bandits. Good thing mama keeps the river clear. He now lives in settlement up north with his wife and their family. He has a baby, their first grandson, Lucas, who is precious. For now. Time will only tell if he'll end up less Ugly than his predecessors.
Ramona Moritz Maldonado - 20, Their first daughter, 5'6" (thank God), Doc Lawson's apprentice. Easily frustrated, but with determination in spades and her parents' sense of high octane duty. Loves getting to travel, Westerns, and does the bow thing pretty well in particular. She's the more water-inclined of the two bio kids, and learned how to ACTUALLY sail with Adrian and their mother. Looks more like her mom.
Adrian Piran (Moritz Maldonado) - 21, adopted, a lanky ginger. The most adventurous (but barely,) of the three kiddos, a little closer to Ramona than Tino. He was a quiet kid who blossomed in his teens, taking interest in everything to do with the water. Currently doing lessons with Smith to get good at carpentry, and is working on the construction of a small watercraft of his own. Not as good at asskicking as the Lawson kids or Ramona, but he's certainly gung-ho about it. A terrible chef and an excellent sculptor.
Rosa Maldonado Mach - 55. The eldest of Maria’s younger siblings, and the closest (bond-wise) family she’s got. This woman’s been through a lot of crap, and deserves a break. Hard to be anything but hardworking and tired and scared and angry when your sister is kind of destroying your family and life and stuff, but Rosa’s often managed to be kind despite it. They don’t get to see each other much due to the unsafe nature of the roads and sheer distance between Oakland and the Fort, but they catch up in dreams. Married to. To. To. Chris Mach. Have fun with that.
Chris Mach - Solar Flare. Maria’s brother in law now, the best decision Cid and I ever made. The only possible way to make Lex HATE the extended Maldonado family any more than she did. They met at Maria’s wedding, and recognized Rosa later when she moved out west to be closer to Martín, and all subsequent hangouts were apparently pretty excellent. A super nice dude. Took the traditional sibling death threats (all three sets) in stride. As such, they don’t exactly talk much, but they’re on good terms.
Elena Alejandra Mach - Rosa/Chris's kid, 18, a little fireball. Quazi-homeschooled, a bright little shit with enthusiasm and drive unbefitting the gritty cyberpunk future. Rosa's mentioned she's been a bit weird lately, and they have to wonder if it's a weird hereditary thing from the old man.
Patricia Maldonado Bezos - Youngest sister, 50. Anti corporate mercenary turned caller-of-shots for spryer things. Works out of Miami. Somehow the last one there. Those Maldonado’s are crazy sons of guns.
Martín Maldonado Bezos - Youngest sibling and only brother. 48, out in Los Angeles living the dream, fighting the man via illegal street art. Which, actually, is a lot crazier than it used to be. Always higher stakes and greater works with that one. And getting it done in a world of security drones, increased city populations (and thus, eyes to see) and with fresh new mediums makes it all the more interesting.
And we all thought the Maldonado boys were the lame ones. He still doesn’t seem entirely comfortable with her, so they don’t talk much, but that’s... fine. Always exciting to catch up. He’s had an on and off thing with a partner in crime, apparently? For like 20 years? That’s cool. All Maria’s gotten out of him on that front is that their name is Sam, they write some baller poetry, and they kinda suck, apparently. He has a terrible uncle mustache.
Other Maldonado’s/Bezos’s - There’s also a small gaggle of her extended family living in Mexico City, but she also hasn’t spoken to them really since... Well, shortly after the Visitation. Checked to make sure they were ok, and then checked right out of their lives.
Catalina & Rafael - Aztec goddess of Mist and god of the Sun. Children of Tlaloc, Slayers of Mateo (via Maria via Tezcatlipoca) and Kinich Ahau. Twins, Maria’s half siblings, also fresh baby gods. Basically attained godhood by avenging her death. They’d heard of each other, but only finally got to meet on the way to Ragnarok, and hit it off pretty well. Like most of the other young gods, they’re often off adventuring, but visit from time to time to catch up, sip some moonshine, and see their niece and nephews.
Chalchiuhtlicue - Aztec goddess of water. Ex wife/sister of Tlaloc. A real sweet lady. They kept fair distance (mostly because Maria was worried about being some weird bastard of her husband’s just... running around her home...) until Maria’s mother died and she had to go into hiding. Then she earned her not-mom of the year award, and went on to win it again two years later when Maria died and Tlaloc was being a Huge Monster about things. Anyway, the kindness hasn’t been forgotten, and Chalchi is one of the more Welcome In Her Life people Maria knows.
John Moritz - Maria’s Big Dumb Biker Boyfriend Husband. 63. Once went by Phantom for a little heroics stint, but is mostly just a regular human guy who’s into Bikes and Books and can be very community oriented. Was once a member and then leader of a local chapter of a nationwide biker gang, the Skulls, but that really didn’t turn out well as you may have read.
He’s gotten heavier in his age, and now sports a bushy, grey beard. Wears a plain wedding band with a coyote head engraved in the inside.
And also he’s not the worst and he made that dang crazy journey out of vicious blood cycles with her and she loves him, I’m so tired of all the John roasts, I’m gay too you philistines I’m just as upset about that as you- BUT I’ll fight you all on it still.
Kate Moritz - John’s mom. OLD. A monster hunter. Monster hunting. That’s the family business, and she gives John a bunch of shit for not being into that. (Thus, why he moved so VERY FAR AWAY.) She’s a gruff grizzled old lady from Arizona who wouldn’t quit until her daughter (with chiming in from the son and the in-law) told her to “Knock it off mom, you’re 70, you aren’t going to come back with that werewolf, just let someone else do it.” Which she has finally obliged. Lives in some commune out in AZ with Caroline.
Caroline Moritz - John’s younger sister, ex-assassin. A very fun gal who, to her mother’s disappointment, was also disinterested in the family business. She’s got a lovely wife and a gaggle of Moritz-Foster’s out in a commune in AZ.
Valentín “Tino” Moritz Maldonado - 23, Maria and John's first son who she thinks is weird because she was VERY anxious during the pregnancy. Looks more like his dad, and just as tall. Definitely more docile than the others, and more inclined to quiet textile work than, erm, the pushback of bandits. Good thing mama keeps the river clear. He now lives in settlement up north with his wife and their family. He has a baby, their first grandson, Lucas, who is precious. For now. Time will only tell if he'll end up less Ugly than his predecessors.
Ramona Moritz Maldonado - 20, Their first daughter, 5'6" (thank God), Doc Lawson's apprentice. Easily frustrated, but with determination in spades and her parents' sense of high octane duty. Loves getting to travel, Westerns, and does the bow thing pretty well in particular. She's the more water-inclined of the two bio kids, and learned how to ACTUALLY sail with Adrian and their mother. Looks more like her mom.
Adrian Piran (Moritz Maldonado) - 21, adopted, a lanky ginger. The most adventurous (but barely,) of the three kiddos, a little closer to Ramona than Tino. He was a quiet kid who blossomed in his teens, taking interest in everything to do with the water. Currently doing lessons with Smith to get good at carpentry, and is working on the construction of a small watercraft of his own. Not as good at asskicking as the Lawson kids or Ramona, but he's certainly gung-ho about it. A terrible chef and an excellent sculptor.
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Adrasteia - Greek goddess of War. Daughter of Athena, Slayer of Ares. Maria’s best friend in the whole world. Lives in the same fort once or twice a year (she leaves her shit here basically) but often leaves to go adventuring and tend to Business because that’s kind of her thing. Godmother (haha) to her children, who are aware of what she is. She’s huge and hot and can cut whole vans apart if she’s in the mood to, so she’s a perfect woman and everyone ooc wonders why Maria settled down with John of all people instead of her.
Ulrika - Norse goddess of Death. Daughter of Thor and slayer of Hel. An old friend from the Demigod Days. Maria met her (and coincidentally almost died at her hand) discovering her powers in a ‘fight club’- cage match situation. She was very excited to find a whole second Demigod who was nice, and showed her some ropes, and then she just sort of disappeared after the One Day War. Turns out she’d finally decided to try and get to Asgard, and after Maria’s first apotheosis she returned with adventure stories, and prophecies from Odin, predicting the rise of STORM and Tezcatlipoca’s death at her hand. Radical. She’s a sweet cinnamon roll who didn’t deserve Maria the Goblin or her dad (who was SOOOOOO excited to die by her in Ragnarok, but didn’t.) or the dead family or like- anything, she’s perfect. These days she kicks it with her Norse family, goes adventuring, and once in a while comes over to say hi. And see the little ugly goblin kids. Who don’t know what she is.
Claire Lawson - The Seaside Slayer. Ex CIA, settled down in Miami with her husband, got all kinds of knocked up, and then had a brutal run in with the absolutely abysmal gang activity in the city, leaving her a widow, without child, and a very... cold sort of Punisher. She burst onto the scene a couple years after, killing six of John’s bros, kind of decimating the local gang population in a single night, it was a huge mess, Maria went after her to try and end it to avoid another instance of manpain, but Claire was way better than her (Dumb, underprepared) ass, shot her, knocked her out, and then uhhhhh Maria woke up chained up in her basement. They had a big talk about the futility of just killing people, the sources and ethics of gangs, Claire revealed her backstory and Maria discovered that she was basically a copycat killer of her own creation. It ended with a list of demands for continued activity and Claire leaving a number in her phone. Cool. Maria had ever since been a really persistent pain in the ass friend. I know you can’t go to therapy because you’re a wanted criminal, Claire, but why don’t you get out of your hideout and come over. Oh, you found a dog while we were out razing a mob fortress? Guess you’re just gonna have to keep him, Claire. You gotta keep the dog Claire. Claire. Adoption rates are really low for fighting dogs of aggressive breeds. He’ll die, Claire. You gotta. This isn’t just because it would be good for you. (Side note? RIP Duke, you were the goodest fictional boy but no dog survives a 30 year timeskip.)
Claire has been an equally difficult and helpful friend. And also good reinforcement for Maria, who enjoys having a collection of friends who would 100% kill her if she started being Evil Again.
Anyway, the Visitation did her a lot of good. She’s lived a hard life, and at that point she was finally ready to... really try and get back into something healthy. So she ran off with her pal to West Virginia, which is detailed better above. At some point in there, she remarried (the Doc, who took her name) and had a couple brats of her own. They’re around the same age as the Moritz brood, and more hardcore, but less so than their mom.
Alexandria Escher - Lux. The Starbright Prince. The shitkid to end all shitkids only like she’s 50 now??? Gosh does the time fly. Their relationship in Masks is best described as a series of incidents comprised mostly of Lex being mad and Maria crying like a dumb baby, sprinkled with fights and well intentioned heroes and KNIGHT agents. Fools that they were. Her well of patience for Lex ran out during the Pregnancy Arc, in which Lex was distressed that having a child was in fact a long-con suicide attempt, and encouraged her to not go through with such a thing, which ended in a 4 year period in which she would not speak to her, and a shotgun mounted above the Moritz hearth upon which is engraved, ”For Auntie” Later after things had cooled down, Lex came over to finally see her and meet the gremlins, offering a boon, and erm. Discouraging them from violence with a cheerfully-spoken threat, which ended in her being chased out and nearly shot. Another 5 years would pass before Maria was willing to speak again, but after that Lex didn’t really seem to want to hang or talk much. That was. Uhh. It was fine, totally, she still kept hearing about her through Adrasteia so at least... she was well...? Little bit of a downer, but that’s the relationship limbo as of 2050.
Adrasteia - Greek goddess of War. Daughter of Athena, Slayer of Ares. Maria’s best friend in the whole world. Lives in the same fort once or twice a year (she leaves her shit here basically) but often leaves to go adventuring and tend to Business because that’s kind of her thing. Godmother (haha) to her children, who are aware of what she is. She’s huge and hot and can cut whole vans apart if she’s in the mood to, so she’s a perfect woman and everyone ooc wonders why Maria settled down with John of all people instead of her.
Ulrika - Norse goddess of Death. Daughter of Thor and slayer of Hel. An old friend from the Demigod Days. Maria met her (and coincidentally almost died at her hand) discovering her powers in a ‘fight club’- cage match situation. She was very excited to find a whole second Demigod who was nice, and showed her some ropes, and then she just sort of disappeared after the One Day War. Turns out she’d finally decided to try and get to Asgard, and after Maria’s first apotheosis she returned with adventure stories, and prophecies from Odin, predicting the rise of STORM and Tezcatlipoca’s death at her hand. Radical. She’s a sweet cinnamon roll who didn’t deserve Maria the Goblin or her dad (who was SOOOOOO excited to die by her in Ragnarok, but didn’t.) or the dead family or like- anything, she’s perfect. These days she kicks it with her Norse family, goes adventuring, and once in a while comes over to say hi. And see the little ugly goblin kids. Who don’t know what she is.
Claire Lawson - The Seaside Slayer. Ex CIA, settled down in Miami with her husband, got all kinds of knocked up, and then had a brutal run in with the absolutely abysmal gang activity in the city, leaving her a widow, without child, and a very... cold sort of Punisher. She burst onto the scene a couple years after, killing six of John’s bros, kind of decimating the local gang population in a single night, it was a huge mess, Maria went after her to try and end it to avoid another instance of manpain, but Claire was way better than her (Dumb, underprepared) ass, shot her, knocked her out, and then uhhhhh Maria woke up chained up in her basement. They had a big talk about the futility of just killing people, the sources and ethics of gangs, Claire revealed her backstory and Maria discovered that she was basically a copycat killer of her own creation. It ended with a list of demands for continued activity and Claire leaving a number in her phone. Cool. Maria had ever since been a really persistent pain in the ass friend. I know you can’t go to therapy because you’re a wanted criminal, Claire, but why don’t you get out of your hideout and come over. Oh, you found a dog while we were out razing a mob fortress? Guess you’re just gonna have to keep him, Claire. You gotta keep the dog Claire. Claire. Adoption rates are really low for fighting dogs of aggressive breeds. He’ll die, Claire. You gotta. This isn’t just because it would be good for you. (Side note? RIP Duke, you were the goodest fictional boy but no dog survives a 30 year timeskip.)
Claire has been an equally difficult and helpful friend. And also good reinforcement for Maria, who enjoys having a collection of friends who would 100% kill her if she started being Evil Again.
Anyway, the Visitation did her a lot of good. She’s lived a hard life, and at that point she was finally ready to... really try and get back into something healthy. So she ran off with her pal to West Virginia, which is detailed better above. At some point in there, she remarried (the Doc, who took her name) and had a couple brats of her own. They’re around the same age as the Moritz brood, and more hardcore, but less so than their mom.
Alexandria Escher - Lux. The Starbright Prince. The shitkid to end all shitkids only like she’s 50 now??? Gosh does the time fly. Their relationship in Masks is best described as a series of incidents comprised mostly of Lex being mad and Maria crying like a dumb baby, sprinkled with fights and well intentioned heroes and KNIGHT agents. Fools that they were. Her well of patience for Lex ran out during the Pregnancy Arc, in which Lex was distressed that having a child was in fact a long-con suicide attempt, and encouraged her to not go through with such a thing, which ended in a 4 year period in which she would not speak to her, and a shotgun mounted above the Moritz hearth upon which is engraved, ”For Auntie” Later after things had cooled down, Lex came over to finally see her and meet the gremlins, offering a boon, and erm. Discouraging them from violence with a cheerfully-spoken threat, which ended in her being chased out and nearly shot. Another 5 years would pass before Maria was willing to speak again, but after that Lex didn’t really seem to want to hang or talk much. That was. Uhh. It was fine, totally, she still kept hearing about her through Adrasteia so at least... she was well...? Little bit of a downer, but that’s the relationship limbo as of 2050.
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Hector - Greek god of Thunder. Son and slayer of Zeus. Back when they were demigods he broke into her house and threatened to kill her in front of her dad, before learning (through an angry, mortified Maria) that her capture had been called off. Not his fault Ares was a dick though, and through a series of letters, some battles fought together, and his support of Adrasteia during the Olympian Civil War, they’re cool now. He’s a big jockish kinda guy, but he’s kind of a goober.
Petra - Greek goddess of Wisdom/strategy. Daughter and slayer of Athena. Slayer isn’t quite accurate, she just took Athena’s soul when Zeus had nearly killed her during the war, it’s fine. A very serious-looking older sister of Adrasteia’s, one of few gods who actually looks kinda old. Maybe 50sish. Maria hasn’t actually interacted much with her but you know. A friend of a friend and an enemy of an enemy are both friends.
Xipe Totec, Huitzilopochtli, and Quetzalcoatl - Her three OG (old god) weird uncles. Aztec pantheon in Masks was less Role Oriented (it was less a structure full of jobs to complete and more a congregation of several equally important dudes with different specialties) than the Greeks so they don’t get fun titles for the most part. But! They do still keep vaguely in touch. Quetzalcoatl in particular (best weird uncle, with the more agreeable moral code and the most audacious fashion sense.)
Norse assholes - I dunno, she knows Thor and Odin, the good OG Norse guy kinda died in the war.
Greek assholes - She knows most of the remaining Greeks but doesn't exactly hang with them. Hermes she's still uncomfortable with because of his loyalties in the Olympian civil war but she can deal with him being around, Hestia's been by for tea, rest, and a couple quilting bees, Hephaestus and Aphrodite she hasn't seen in a bit but they're.... They're fine... As long as Aphrodite chills around her peeps it's fine... Yeah.
Matt - She actually hasn’t spoken to this dude in like 32 years, I just wanted him to be on the list cuz he’s PROBABLY still alive. He’s a hobo in the woods north of Orlando who can talk to animals.
Marcus Loxley - Vigil. The Underaged Drinking Wraith. Some old hobo with a bow she met during the One Day War. Is part of the group of adults that were concerned about but terrible with Lux, which included Gabriel Matrose, himself, Maria, Isidora Cruz, and so so many foolish KNIGHT agents. After the Visitation they visited each other once in a blue moon, being not too terribly far from each other. Oversaw the individual commune-amassing of the other, you know, fun stuff. Vigil did a nice 'scared straight' stunt with the kids once when they were younger and getting into the moonshine, and is thus in the Pantheon Of Weird Aunties And Uncles. He's stopped coming by for a bit, and knowing he likes his privacy, Maria hasn't checked up. He knows where she is if something's wrong. He's the reason she has so many bomb jars of pickled onions in her cellar.
Isidora Cruz - Another friend from previous world-threatening crises. Not one she's comfortable working with in many cases, but it seems she's sort of... Expanded her worldview in the past few decades, so they're on pretty decent terms. She was there when Adrian was found. They used to talk fairly frequently, about life, the changing world, existential shit... Honestly they were weirdly good pals for an ex-nun and a god. Lately Isidora's been away from where she normally sleeps, and Maria's been unable to find her. Not sure what's up with that, and can only hope she's alright.
Desmond - The Raven. Maria's best, most infuriating frienemy. They're... very good at being pissed at each other, but keep in loose contact. May have gone on an adventure over the timeskip? Consider each other good allies, and like, shoot, they're still war buddies. And like, furry-fanart survivors. Still, they haven't talked in a good while.
Max Volts, Casey Kane, Emily Hartmann, - and many other people who've gone off and disappeared. :(
Journeyin' Joe - A time cop. Has a jacket covered in paint handprints, of people he hangs with on his vacations. Weird, kind little gremlin man.
Hector - Greek god of Thunder. Son and slayer of Zeus. Back when they were demigods he broke into her house and threatened to kill her in front of her dad, before learning (through an angry, mortified Maria) that her capture had been called off. Not his fault Ares was a dick though, and through a series of letters, some battles fought together, and his support of Adrasteia during the Olympian Civil War, they’re cool now. He’s a big jockish kinda guy, but he’s kind of a goober.
Petra - Greek goddess of Wisdom/strategy. Daughter and slayer of Athena. Slayer isn’t quite accurate, she just took Athena’s soul when Zeus had nearly killed her during the war, it’s fine. A very serious-looking older sister of Adrasteia’s, one of few gods who actually looks kinda old. Maybe 50sish. Maria hasn’t actually interacted much with her but you know. A friend of a friend and an enemy of an enemy are both friends.
Xipe Totec, Huitzilopochtli, and Quetzalcoatl - Her three OG (old god) weird uncles. Aztec pantheon in Masks was less Role Oriented (it was less a structure full of jobs to complete and more a congregation of several equally important dudes with different specialties) than the Greeks so they don’t get fun titles for the most part. But! They do still keep vaguely in touch. Quetzalcoatl in particular (best weird uncle, with the more agreeable moral code and the most audacious fashion sense.)
Norse assholes - I dunno, she knows Thor and Odin, the good OG Norse guy kinda died in the war.
Greek assholes - She knows most of the remaining Greeks but doesn't exactly hang with them. Hermes she's still uncomfortable with because of his loyalties in the Olympian civil war but she can deal with him being around, Hestia's been by for tea, rest, and a couple quilting bees, Hephaestus and Aphrodite she hasn't seen in a bit but they're.... They're fine... As long as Aphrodite chills around her peeps it's fine... Yeah.
Matt - She actually hasn’t spoken to this dude in like 32 years, I just wanted him to be on the list cuz he’s PROBABLY still alive. He’s a hobo in the woods north of Orlando who can talk to animals.
Marcus Loxley - Vigil. The Underaged Drinking Wraith. Some old hobo with a bow she met during the One Day War. Is part of the group of adults that were concerned about but terrible with Lux, which included Gabriel Matrose, himself, Maria, Isidora Cruz, and so so many foolish KNIGHT agents. After the Visitation they visited each other once in a blue moon, being not too terribly far from each other. Oversaw the individual commune-amassing of the other, you know, fun stuff. Vigil did a nice 'scared straight' stunt with the kids once when they were younger and getting into the moonshine, and is thus in the Pantheon Of Weird Aunties And Uncles. He's stopped coming by for a bit, and knowing he likes his privacy, Maria hasn't checked up. He knows where she is if something's wrong. He's the reason she has so many bomb jars of pickled onions in her cellar.
Isidora Cruz - Another friend from previous world-threatening crises. Not one she's comfortable working with in many cases, but it seems she's sort of... Expanded her worldview in the past few decades, so they're on pretty decent terms. She was there when Adrian was found. They used to talk fairly frequently, about life, the changing world, existential shit... Honestly they were weirdly good pals for an ex-nun and a god. Lately Isidora's been away from where she normally sleeps, and Maria's been unable to find her. Not sure what's up with that, and can only hope she's alright.
Desmond - The Raven. Maria's best, most infuriating frienemy. They're... very good at being pissed at each other, but keep in loose contact. May have gone on an adventure over the timeskip? Consider each other good allies, and like, shoot, they're still war buddies. And like, furry-fanart survivors. Still, they haven't talked in a good while.
Max Volts, Casey Kane, Emily Hartmann, - and many other people who've gone off and disappeared. :(
Journeyin' Joe - A time cop. Has a jacket covered in paint handprints, of people he hangs with on his vacations. Weird, kind little gremlin man.
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Spoiler
Residents of Ft Diligence - Situation where everyone knows everyone, only about 35 homes worth.
Robert Smith - Referred to exclusively by his surname. 40, a bachelor who is an excellent carpenter despite his name, and the new head of such things after Old Greg passed ten years back. Pretty jolly dude, with hands so calloused you have to tell him he's all splintered.
'Doc' Clement Lawson - Previously Doc Clem Davis. An older, pleasant gentleman with an infectious chill attitude. First guy to join them in their settling that section of the Greenbriar, and a good pal for it. Half a year after Duke passed, he came back from the Bazaar with two young hounds, and a request that Claire help him train them since he didn't know how. Definitely wasn't REALLY for her or anything. Anyway, well respected, greyed old sweetheart. Mentors Ramona, and glad someone's got the interest.
Bluestone Postal Service - Mail's the only way to get anything, physical or information, in or out of the place. These dudes? They have the southern West Virginia watersheds covered. Safer than anybody else in the state, they take their jobs very seriously, and nobody messes with them. There's a whole system of off-grid mail delivery across the nation that's been highly successful. The local branch is headed by Hayden, Kayden, and Zayden McEntire, brothers native to the area. Nice dudes, they do the weird 'talk in unison' thing to fuck with people.
The Bluestone Bazaar - What parts of the Bluestone lake aren't for residence are taken up by the biggest market in West Virginia. Some shops crammed into buildings on the docks, some on wide barges where one can hitch their own boats, some small canoes peddling vegetables, floating down the whole thing, calling out their wares. Some take money, some take goods, most'll take either. Some folk in particular:
Simone Walker - Makes just about any drink you can think of in a stand on the North Main dock, along with a cousin, an in-law, and her kid. Known gossip, and so long as you're a paying customer, she's the best place to get the feel of the bazaar at the moment.
Randolph DuPont - The oldest son of a gun, keeps a book shop on land. Not once since they started visiting the lake have they not come into the shop, if not to make a purchase (and SO often to make a purchase), than to stop in and see how he is. He's got a couple great grandkids, and he's a stubborn old goat who doesn't let the family help as much as they'd like.
Crossbush - Settlement farther north along the Greenbriar, further in the mountains. Where Tino lives.
Settlements of the Greenbriar - Love them or hate them, most larger settlements along the river know that the Fort is the reason their river's as clear as it is.
Residents of Ft Diligence - Situation where everyone knows everyone, only about 35 homes worth.
Robert Smith - Referred to exclusively by his surname. 40, a bachelor who is an excellent carpenter despite his name, and the new head of such things after Old Greg passed ten years back. Pretty jolly dude, with hands so calloused you have to tell him he's all splintered.
'Doc' Clement Lawson - Previously Doc Clem Davis. An older, pleasant gentleman with an infectious chill attitude. First guy to join them in their settling that section of the Greenbriar, and a good pal for it. Half a year after Duke passed, he came back from the Bazaar with two young hounds, and a request that Claire help him train them since he didn't know how. Definitely wasn't REALLY for her or anything. Anyway, well respected, greyed old sweetheart. Mentors Ramona, and glad someone's got the interest.
Bluestone Postal Service - Mail's the only way to get anything, physical or information, in or out of the place. These dudes? They have the southern West Virginia watersheds covered. Safer than anybody else in the state, they take their jobs very seriously, and nobody messes with them. There's a whole system of off-grid mail delivery across the nation that's been highly successful. The local branch is headed by Hayden, Kayden, and Zayden McEntire, brothers native to the area. Nice dudes, they do the weird 'talk in unison' thing to fuck with people.
The Bluestone Bazaar - What parts of the Bluestone lake aren't for residence are taken up by the biggest market in West Virginia. Some shops crammed into buildings on the docks, some on wide barges where one can hitch their own boats, some small canoes peddling vegetables, floating down the whole thing, calling out their wares. Some take money, some take goods, most'll take either. Some folk in particular:
Simone Walker - Makes just about any drink you can think of in a stand on the North Main dock, along with a cousin, an in-law, and her kid. Known gossip, and so long as you're a paying customer, she's the best place to get the feel of the bazaar at the moment.
Randolph DuPont - The oldest son of a gun, keeps a book shop on land. Not once since they started visiting the lake have they not come into the shop, if not to make a purchase (and SO often to make a purchase), than to stop in and see how he is. He's got a couple great grandkids, and he's a stubborn old goat who doesn't let the family help as much as they'd like.
Crossbush - Settlement farther north along the Greenbriar, further in the mountains. Where Tino lives.
Settlements of the Greenbriar - Love them or hate them, most larger settlements along the river know that the Fort is the reason their river's as clear as it is.
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Spoiler
Bandit groups - There are still many. Most have lessened activity in the Greenbriar due to the persistent and deadly efforts of the Fort, but many still linger in the state, most sticking to roads. One stands a cut above the rest, however. A group that as of yet has no known name, no presence detected, no camp to be certain of their presence. Whoever they are, they're good at what they do, and what they do is make people disappear. Men, women, children, never the elderly. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's a whole family, sometimes entire camps go missing. Neither Maria nor Claire have skill naming things, and have taken to referring to them as the Menace until... someone thinks up something better to shorthand them with. It's infrequent that bodies are found, and it's suspected that people taken are being taken... far away.
The Cyberpunk Government/omnicorp - Obvious reasons. Twice dead, and no longer a legal entity, but also an immortal criminal? Not fantastic stuff.
V’rek Amirth - FLORIDA MAN. A monster that lives in a cave in Florida, some eldritch being that causes people to go NUTS. Athena revealed that he's not the only of his kind on earth, just one so ancient and insane that he is unable to be spoken to, reasoned with, or really do much else than he does. Highly dangerous. Gods are known to have a resistance to his specific sort of mind control, and Athena (losing several demigods along the way) was able to kill one in Europe said to have been the cause of the first world war.
Bandit groups - There are still many. Most have lessened activity in the Greenbriar due to the persistent and deadly efforts of the Fort, but many still linger in the state, most sticking to roads. One stands a cut above the rest, however. A group that as of yet has no known name, no presence detected, no camp to be certain of their presence. Whoever they are, they're good at what they do, and what they do is make people disappear. Men, women, children, never the elderly. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's a whole family, sometimes entire camps go missing. Neither Maria nor Claire have skill naming things, and have taken to referring to them as the Menace until... someone thinks up something better to shorthand them with. It's infrequent that bodies are found, and it's suspected that people taken are being taken... far away.
The Cyberpunk Government/omnicorp - Obvious reasons. Twice dead, and no longer a legal entity, but also an immortal criminal? Not fantastic stuff.
V’rek Amirth - FLORIDA MAN. A monster that lives in a cave in Florida, some eldritch being that causes people to go NUTS. Athena revealed that he's not the only of his kind on earth, just one so ancient and insane that he is unable to be spoken to, reasoned with, or really do much else than he does. Highly dangerous. Gods are known to have a resistance to his specific sort of mind control, and Athena (losing several demigods along the way) was able to kill one in Europe said to have been the cause of the first world war.
Trivia i wanna keep around
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Scarlet Johansen played her in the earliest film and she doesn’t know about that yet but she’ll be pissed when she finds out.
Scarlet Johansen played her in the earliest film and she doesn’t know about that yet but she’ll be pissed when she finds out.