Application
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Stacey
AGE: you got it
JOURNAL: and this
IM: this too
E-MAIL: yup
RETURNING: May Parker/Spider-Girl, George Weasley, Azula, Eddie Blake/The Comedian
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Talia al Ghul
FANDOM: DC comics
CHRONOLOGY: Right after Nightwing #146
CLASS: Villain, tossing the tags
SUPERHERO NAME: NA
ALTER EGO: Talia al Ghul, crimelord
BACKGROUND:
Talia is from the DC universe. A world much like our own, except filled with superhero and villains, aliens, metahumans, time travel, interdimensional war, and all the rest of that sci-fi excitement. Like any good comic character, Talia’s history has been written, retconned, rewritten, and riddled with more conflicting information than you can shake a stick at. The (currently) accepted history of her, however, goes like this:
Talia was born to the 700 year old leader of the Demon organization, which includes the League of Assassins, the Demon’s Head Ra’s ah Ghul sometime shortly after Woodstock took place in 1969. Her mother was either one of the loves of Ra’s life that was later murdered before Talia’s eyes, or a random woman he was briefly enchanted with that died of a drug abuse shortly after Talia’s birth. Considering the latter story is most recent in publication history, we’ll go with that one being right. Talia was raised as the princess of assassins, trained in hand to hand combat, weaponry of all kinds, mental and mystical defenses, and the ancient art of alchemy (which the league had helped purposefully discredit throughout the middle ages so that only they would have the real magic, while the rest of the world stopped believing). Included in this education was how to prepare the magic which kept her father alive century after century, the Lazarus Pit. Though her father wished to mold her into the perfect daughter that would one day wed the perfect mate and produce the perfect heir that would one day lead the remainder of humanity once Ra’s killed most of the race in the name of creating a more perfect world, Talia retained a very strong stubborn, opinionated streak that would often be displayed in her interactions with her father.
Talia spent her teens helping her father run his criminal empire, at times directly running his organization in areas such as China. It was not until Talia was 18 that she met the man that would help shape the course of the rest of her life, Bruce Wayne, also known as the Batman. Both Batman and Talia had been apparently captured by Dr. Darkk, a man who, unknown to Batman, had held a small coup against Ra’s and stolen control of the League of Assassins from him after he had failed a mission and been sentenced to death by Ra’s. Talia unmasks Batman while he is unconscious, then the two escape, culminating in Talia shooting and killing Dr. Darkk. This act was both to protect the pair and, as Batman observes, to keep Darkk from sharing what he may know with the Batman.
The pair don’t meet again until Ra’s contacts Batman after Robin has been kidnapped, claiming that the same entity had kidnapped Talia. Ra’s in fact contacts Batman by visiting him in the Batcave, explaining that he had deduced his identity as Bruce Wayne. Batman investigates the kidnappings, eventually finding the pair, when it is then revealed that this was a test created by Ra’s to see if Batman was worthy of marrying his daughter, who had fallen in love with him during their first meeting. Despite expressing love for her himself, Bruce refuses the marriage.
Talia and Bruce meet many times over the years after this initial encounter, mostly resulting in Talia turning against her father at the last moment to save or otherwise assist Batman against him as Ra’s attempts to murder off 90% of humanity again and again. Each time Talia is torn between the love for her father and for Batman but, as Batman does not kill and Ra’s very much does, the choice is typically between Ra’s plan failing or Batman dying horribly, resulting in Talia taking Bruce’s side. One of the more notable occurrences was when Bruce lost a duel to Ra’s in the desert due to a scorpion sting, and Talia saved his life by administering the antidote to him under the guise of a ‘good bye kiss.’ This is actually the start of a pattern where Talia helps men escape her father through making out with them, but Ra’s somehow never seems to quite catch wise to this trick. These encounters also somehow almost always ended with Ra’s dying- at times apparently through near murder like behavior of Batman- but Talia or a henchman always returned his body to a Lazarus pit, thus resurrecting him.
Sometime during this period of fight-be emotionally torn-rescue Batman-return to Father’s side behavior, Talia apparently drugs Bruce up and rapes him. There was once a nice story about how they had all kinds of consensual sex and developed respect and mutual understanding about a lot of things over the course of it, but, hey, who needs that when you can give a female comic character more rape in her background. Anyway, from this one night assault Talia became pregnant with Bruce Wayne’s child. This fetus was quickly turned into a test-tube baby, where Ra’s scientists made it a ‘genetically perfect’ child, the ideal heir to Ra’s empire...which is never mentioned for the first ten years of its life, despite Talia and Ra’s continued quest to try and force Batman into the family for the majority of that time period. Talia has no interactions with the child, named Damian, in person until he is eight, watching him grow from afar instead.
When Jason Todd (the second Robin) died at the hands of the Joker, Talia was distraught over the emotional ramifications this would have for Batman, but was forbidden to see him by her father. In a fully obedient mode at the time, Talia refrained from going to Gotham, choosing to keep even closer than normal tabs on Batman and Gotham in general instead through her spy network. This observation-only method met a violent dead when Jason was resurrected thanks to Super-Boy punching the universe (I’m really just going to skim over that whole mess as the only thing that directly impacts Talia is Jason). Contacted by a man who recognized the boys fighting style and knowing who would pay a reward for that information, Talia is the one that pulls the apparently brain damaged boy off the streets and takes him in under the care of the League of Assassins. Though Ra’s is, to put it lightly, less than fond of Talia’s new pet project, he lets her keep and attempt to heal Jason for a year while he investigates how this return to life was possible without the use of a Lazarus pit.
At the end of this time, however, Ra’s informed Talia she had allowed the boy to distract her from her actual duties too much, and, partly concerned over retaliation from the Batman should he hear of Jason’s return, orders that she send him away with a care taker. Talia agreed, only to then perform an act she had previously only reserved for Batman himself, and totally disregard her father’s orders in order to help Jason, throwing him in a Lazarus pit in a desperate attempt to heal him. This it did...more or less. Talia initially worried she has resurrected a sociopathic monster when Jason claimed to wish to, and then set about perfectly planning and very nearly succeeding to, execute Batman in revenge for the man not killing the Joker. She managed to convince Jason to take more training, stalling him from going after Batman again, until Jason found a different path. And then at the conclusion of this, yes, they sleep together, but this is skipping a head a few major canon points.
Before and while the whole Jason thing was going on, Batman is not the only daddy approved suitor Talia has had, though he remains the only one she has ever actually loved. For a short time Talia was engaged to marry Bane, though he proved to be too savage to be considered worthy, much to her relief as she violently loathed the man. Then she was briefly promised to Azrael, only to have the fact he was part-animal result in Ra’s ordering his death. Having developed a small soft-spot for the man, Talia once again saved her suitor’s life by giving him a good-bye kiss, slipping a key to his chains in his mouth. During this time Ra’s and Talia also briefly align with the Joker, who Talia instantly loathed, and ended in Talia shooting the clown point blank four times, with Batman then resurrecting him in a Lazarus pit.
After siding with Batman one too many times, most notably during the Tower of Babble fiasco in which she, at first, hacked into Batman’s computers, attempted assassinating the Justice League by using the techniques he’d outlined, then had a change of heart about betraying Batman and was shot for it, Talia became briefly disillusioned with her father’s plans and left him (and apparently her young son) to live on her own, adopting the name Talia Head. She was shortly thereafter approached by Lex Luthor, then president of the United States, to act as CEO of his company while he was in office. Though initially unwilling, a ninja attack convinced Talia that she could not run from her father forever, and she accepted the job. Despite acting the part of a perfect minion to Luthor, Talia loathed everything about her new position and fed information about LexCorp’s evil doings to Batman and Superman (she was aiming for Clark Kent, but it is how it is) during her tenure. When Lex’s plans inevitably failed, Talia sold the company out from under him to the Wayne Foundation.
Sometime shortly after this Talia met her older sister Nyssa for the first time. Posing as just her neighbor, Nyssa slowly earned Talia’s trust and affection- only to drug and kidnap her then murder her over and over again. As always, the al Ghul family stands as a pinnacle of dysfunction. Nyssa actually wished to murder her father for all the evils he had visited upon her in her long life, and recruited Talia into this plot by basically driving her insane by killing her, tossing her in a Lazarus pit, then repeating this process over and over until Talia had a complete mental and emotional breakdown. Talia was then nursed back to health by her ‘too kind and loving sister,’ and convinced that the only way to save Ra’s from continuing to live in the terrible pain that Talia had just experienced was to finally put him to rest, or kill him once and for all without resurrecting him. And murder him they do. Batman, having been distracted by Nyssa’s other plan of assassinating Superman, arrives too late to stop what is happening, and is actually taken out of the game by Ra’s himself when Ra’s stabs Talia with a sword. This leaves Bruce to either save her or stop Nyssa and Ra’s from fighting, with Batman making the choice to help Talia. Nyssa kills Ra’s and thus becomes the new Head of the Demon.
Talia is shortly thereafter healed by her and apparently forsakes Batman and her love for him once and for all (this, of course, lasts all of two months). It was at this time that Talia returned to Jason as mentioned above. She left him with a challenge to become a better defender of Gotham than Batman was capable of being, and gave him the information to contact an interesting new player to the Batman game going by the name of ‘Hush.’
The previously mentioned betrayal of Lex Luthor did not stop Talia from now, under her sister’s advice, joining ‘Lex’ (actually an alternate reality Alexander Luthor Jr. posing as Lex) in becoming a core member of the Secret Society of Super Villains, or just the Society for short. Nyssa’s plans involved using the Society to take over the world, then transforming it into a more perfect existence under her iron fist. Talia has many an adventure with the Society, but generally serves as the head of the ‘PR’ department for the organization, keeping her hands clean from most of the day to day work.
While helping to run the Society, Talia more or less neglected the Demon organization, and was pretty much totally uninvolved in the struggle for power between Cassandra Cain and her sister Nyssa over the League of Assassins. Nyssa is apparently killed by Cain through a car bomb while Talia is occupied elsewhere, with Talia’s reaction to this event never being shown. The new Demon’s Head in the wake of her sister’s death, Talia only gains control over a fraction of the organization, the rest following either Cain or the Sensei, an old enemy of Ra’s that is later revealed to be his father (and, therefore, Talia’s grandfather). During her time as leader of the League, Talia decides to introduce Bruce and Damian, shoving Damian into Batman’s life in a flurry of ninja man-bats and abductions of the wives of world leaders. She makes Bruce one final offer, that he attempt to redeem her and they join forces, insuring that their son will one day rule the world. Shockingly, Batman refuses, and Talia and Damian vanish from his life for a time once more.
Her time as the Demon’s Head is short lived, however, as Ra’s al Ghul, despite being Dead Forever at the hands of Nyssa, returns. His initial plan was to possess Damian, as with this new method of resurrection (with his original body having been cremated by Batman, thanks Bruce) he needed to transfer his soul into the body of a male blood relative. Talia is really not for this idea, and flees with Damian. This ends up in a large confrontation involving nearly every living member of the Bat and al Ghul family, with Ra’s ultimately ending up in the body of his semi-loathed albino son and Batman being killed and resurrected himself. Talia manages to knock Damian unconscious, fleeing with the boy away from the encounter after solidly scolding Batman on choosing his obsession with his villains over the lives of his children.
Talia then moved her base of operations to New York for a time, once more living actively on the run from her father in order to protect herself and her son from retribution. She still held control of a good portion of the Demon organization, but lacked an army strong enough to defend them from the League of Assassins. Therefore she started experimenting in new ways to produce an army quickly, clashing with Nightwing in her pursuit of this. Of course, the man she paid to make an army for her pulled a sudden yet inevitable betrayal and refused to stop production when Talia became outraged at the sight of a ‘death camp’ for infants, causing Talia and Dick to team up to take him down. I’ll be pulling her from right after the end of this event, and before the death of Batman.
As an end note, sometime ‘three years before’ Bruce’s death (whatever that means in comic time), Talia also instructed Selina Kyle on mental defense techniques so that she could not be coerced into revealing Batman’s identity as Bruce Wayne. I wasn’t quite sure where to fit that in, but it did occur.
PERSONALITY:
Talia is a complicated woman. Raised to think of herself as royalty (and when your family has been as rich and powerful for as long as Ra’s al Ghul has been, it’s hard to argue with the term) and one who was destined to have a huge impact on the world, either through her own actions or that of her children, it’s safe to say she has no lack of confidence in her own abilities and goals. When Talia decides on a goal, she is prepared to move heaven and earth to achieve it, and it would take something far more than divine intervention to shake her from her path. Her way of achieving such goals is (typically, though there are exceptions) not through sheer brute strength or force, but rather she far prefers the use of subtle manipulation and conniving to achieve her goals. When she decided she wished to take down Lexcorps, for instance, (the very company she was at the time running), rather than do anything overt she attempted to manipulate an employee into going to the press with scandalous information of an underhanded project (that Talia has conceived of and promoted in the organization) that would lead to a full investigation of all the other evils the company was ,and had been since long before she arrived, doing. That plan failed to work as she wasn’t aware the press agent she had selected, Clark Kent, was actually Superman. When Superman showed up and just went all vigilante on it instead of writing an expose, Talia’s fit of rage was at herself for not plotting well enough to make the plan go exactly as she wanted, rather than at the pawns she had chosen to achieve her end game. This is a demonstration of both her preferred method of action, and the very high demands she places on herself as, in her own eyes, she is the Daughter of the Demon and is held to a far higher standard than the rest of the world because of it.
That she, even when she is currently warring with her father, views herself more as the Daughter of the Demon than her own, separate entity, speaks volumes about her relationship with her father. A vast majority of Talia’s views and beliefs have been shaped, if not outright designed for her, by her father, and she is very aware of this fact. Certain items, like the general failure of humanity to correctly manage the Earth, an innate sense of pride and sophistication, a respect for those clever enough to make their own mark and transform themselves, and a general distaste for those she considers beneath her, she has kept more or less perfectly intact when it comes to her own view point. The items she does take issue with when it comes to her father are ones she is fast to argue with him about, but slower to actually rebel against him regarding. The item that most seems to divide them (and, in truth, divide Talia and Bruce as well), is that, traditionally, Talia places and emphasis on ‘reality’ (primarily her family) while Ra’s places an emphasis on ‘ideology.’ Talia has frequently chastised her father for picking his ‘games’ over his own blood, and she has scolded Bruce for having a similar obsession with his villains over his children. This isn’t to say she believes family must always be put above all else and everything forgiven- Talia plotted to kill her father and later disowned her child, after all- but she still holds that attending to what already has is a higher calling than blindly following some ideal.
Despite her emphasis on family and loyalty, however, Talia has a very distinct game plan of her own, which has developed slowly over the course of her life. She was ever aware that she did not agree fully with Ra’s ideal world of ‘a barren dessert,’ wherein 90% of humanity would be destroyed as he lead the rest. In her own words, she would rather die in Batman’s world than live in her father’s. However, she is very far from being ‘one of the good guys’ when it comes to how to fix the worlds problems. The media friendly activities of icons such as Superman, or even the narrower, blindly driven ambitions of her beloved Batman, were not to her taste any more than her father’s proposed genocide. Initially, she was more or less content to keep more to the sidelines once she had determined once and for all her father’s path was not her own, but after the mental mind fuck that was her sister killing her literally hundreds of times, Talia’s plans have become slightly more concrete and- in part due to the influence of that sister- a bit more sinister.
The ideals of the al Ghul family have ever been more about the long-term and the future, using their potentially endless amount of time and the next generations to bring about their plans, and Talia is no different in that regard, placing her hopes for the salvation of the world on the shoulders of her son, Damian. And, in the end, that is what her goal is. She does not wish to personally rule the world or possess unlimited power, she wishes to save it from itself and pass it along to her son. And as the expression goes, one cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. The world has proven incapable of helping itself, and so her desire is for her son to stride across it as the new Alexander the Great, unifying and saving it from itself. The Society was simply the best vessel through which to start this plan, as, to her, manipulating from the shadows and changing the world from the bottom up is far more effective and powerful than sitting a top the world in the JLA watchtower.
POWER:
Non-canon power: Majesty.
Not going to lie, this is getting pretty much ripped straight from the World of Darkness by White Wolf. Essentially, the power is a manifestation of Talia’s force of will and personality. Depending on what she desires, this power has a few main effects:
*She can will her presence to be more ‘powerful’ than normal, essentially drawing attention to herself simply by being there (or showing up on video) and causing those effected to be more inclined to listen to/agree with her. The cost of this, of course, is that people affected are more likely to remember details about her.
*By focusing this presence onto one target, that person will, for a time not to exceed 24 hours per use of this power on them, feel as though they are deeply in love with Talia, and will do their best to fulfill whatever wishes and desires she has because of this. This cannot force them to do anything horrifically out of character (like convince an average, law abiding citizen to go on a murder spree), but it makes them very, very open to manipulation and suggestion to actions that they may not typically do, but now seem far more reasonable because Talia is asking it of them. When this power wears off, the person feels more as though they have simply naturally gotten over an initial, though very powerful, infatuation, rather than feeling as though they were mystically manipulated. This is case by case, of course, someone who has a history with Talia would likely notice this weird rush of emotion that hasn’t happened before.
*Through focusing the power slightly differently, rather than create a feeling of love there is simply a deep feeling of trust and understanding, resulting in the target being willing to spill their guts on a topic of Talia’s choosing. While the subject will not lie to her, half-truths, omissions, and other non-direct falsehoods can still be used by those that are, by inclination, not open or trusting, or have a reason to dislike her.
*If Talia has met someone in person before, she can extend her force of personality to summon them to her, no matter where in the world they may currently be. That person is free to make phone calls, etc, etc, but has a driving urge to go see Talia as quickly as humanly possible.
*And finally, Talia can manifest her physical presence powerfully enough that people simply cannot bring themselves to harm her. The emotional reason why is up to the individual and their thought process (ie, she’s too intimidating to strike at, she’s too beautiful to harm, she’s too cunning to dispose of), but the end result is the same: those in her presence cannot bring themselves to give her so much as a paper cut, in fact even insulting her verbally seems a difficult task to manage. They are free to still attack anyone with her, and this refusal to harm her ends the instant she attacks, since all is fair in self-defense.
This will require a permissions post, obviously. Also, those ‘strong of will’ are able to resist her for longer than others/completely, and will demand more concentration and energy on her part to make it work. I mainly intend to use this power on NPCs to help her build up the cult following the Demon’s Head expects to have, in all honesty, and I will discuss it with a player every time before I try to use it on their character. Also, in the case of mod plots, I’ll discuss with whoever is running the NPCs before she, for instance, tries to walk unscathed through a battlefield by using the power.
Power:
Lazarus Pit
The pit is a staple of the al Ghul family, and serves as a resurrection ability. To keep this from being too insane, Talia’s blood (only a few drops required) can mix with certain ingredients (those which were required in the DC universe) to form a bubbling, glowing, highly dangerous pit of liquid which, when used properly, can resurrect the dead from using their remains, save the life of the mortally wounded, or, depending on the person, heal more crippling mental wounds. If a person is not one of the above and falls into the pit, they will die a horrible, painful death, one which they cannot be resurrected from. If a person’s life is saved by the pit, the first half hour to an hour after they emerge from it they are completely insane, capable of seeing their own actions but incapable of controlling them as they go into a wild frenzy. Alternatively, if a person is already insane this time is spent being ‘driven sane’ for a time.
As ley lines don’t exist in CnC in the same way, Talia has no need to build these pits in specific places. It will take her a while to figure out her own blood is the new key ingredient, however, and she will likely still build them in places of mystical significance. As such, no one can simply learn how to make a pit from her (unless she starts shipping her blood around in vials or something to use as the final ingredient), though her other alchemy skills remain up for grabs. As mod approved, she can substitute ingredients that don't exist in CnC, the main idea is her blood is the catalyst.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[Anonymous Text]
Death is a concept which has been part of the human psyche since the instant our ancestors were able to grasp the concept of their own mortality. We all deal with this inevitability in our way. Apathy, denial, acceptance. Some will die violently, others by their own hand or machinations, yet others from the ravages of time alone. But death will come for us. Of this, even deep in the deepest, most primal regions of the mind, we are certain.
Or so it was. Now we have all captured some small essence of the gods. We slip through death’s grasp as effortlessly as grains of sand, and so death is stripped of its essence to stand as little more than a momentary convenience. Perhaps this should be seen as a cause for relief. Celebration. Yet my mind turns only to Tithonus. Years some of you have lingered here with death defeated, but with the endless flow of time still ushers you forward. For how long, I wonder? Do the forces which have brought us here distinguish from the violent deaths we suffer and the simple toll which time must take? Is it now our fate to reach infirmary within a strange land, our shoulders hunched beneath the weight of the years, our minds slowly unraveled, only to be forced again and again from our natural rest to return to such a state of existence, called back from death by this force unknown? Shall the commentary over this device stand in sad testament to our former glories as the tides of time pull us ever further towards oblivion? To spend eternity as some dementia riddled husk of your former self, the few, fleeting moments of cognizance spent grasping the full horror of your decent…
What a terrible thought.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
She was behind the times. For the daughter of the Demon, it was a something terribly close to an uncomfortable feeling. Information had been her very life blood for as long as she could recall. Even when her father and she were at war, sections of the vast network he had so carefully constructed over the centuries remained at her disposal, updates on Gotham and the rest of the criminal world open to her at a moments notice. Failing that, her name alone was enough to demand some respect, some consideration from those she requested favors from. Even that was meaningless here, however, save to a handful of individuals she would rather not cater to until she had more information. It was a source of irritation, to say the least.
But it wasn’t only here. Perusing the past which was laid out before her in the form of the network, she could tell from that alone she was behind concerning home, as well. That was not Bruce the stood before her in the cape and cowl. No, Richard was the Batman. A day ago he had been Nightwing, shouldering his way into New York and her own life with the muscle the detective lent him in the form of finances and training. Now he was Batman. Now her son stood at his side as Robin, the son only hours before that same Nightwing had proclaimed he would prevent her from defending from the wrath of her own father. What had become of the world? For the first time in her life, Talia could honestly say she didn’t know. More troubling, she had precious few resources to determine it in her current state.
She closed the device, ending her perusal of the network for the evening. Too much. She had missed too much, here and in the reality that mattered. There was no time for regret. Now was the moment for action. It was a shakier ground to build upon that she was accustomed, to be sure, and her resources stood far below that which she would have preferred. But she was the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, not some rogue in a gallery that existed only to toy with an icon in a cape. The Demon’s Head was inevitable. And the resurrection of that destined empire began tonight.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
She has also been trained by Ra’s to have exceptional mental defenses, and is therefore more difficult for telepaths and the like to read.
NAME: Stacey
AGE: you got it
JOURNAL: and this
IM: this too
E-MAIL: yup
RETURNING: May Parker/Spider-Girl, George Weasley, Azula, Eddie Blake/The Comedian
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Talia al Ghul
FANDOM: DC comics
CHRONOLOGY: Right after Nightwing #146
CLASS: Villain, tossing the tags
SUPERHERO NAME: NA
ALTER EGO: Talia al Ghul, crimelord
BACKGROUND:
Talia is from the DC universe. A world much like our own, except filled with superhero and villains, aliens, metahumans, time travel, interdimensional war, and all the rest of that sci-fi excitement. Like any good comic character, Talia’s history has been written, retconned, rewritten, and riddled with more conflicting information than you can shake a stick at. The (currently) accepted history of her, however, goes like this:
Talia was born to the 700 year old leader of the Demon organization, which includes the League of Assassins, the Demon’s Head Ra’s ah Ghul sometime shortly after Woodstock took place in 1969. Her mother was either one of the loves of Ra’s life that was later murdered before Talia’s eyes, or a random woman he was briefly enchanted with that died of a drug abuse shortly after Talia’s birth. Considering the latter story is most recent in publication history, we’ll go with that one being right. Talia was raised as the princess of assassins, trained in hand to hand combat, weaponry of all kinds, mental and mystical defenses, and the ancient art of alchemy (which the league had helped purposefully discredit throughout the middle ages so that only they would have the real magic, while the rest of the world stopped believing). Included in this education was how to prepare the magic which kept her father alive century after century, the Lazarus Pit. Though her father wished to mold her into the perfect daughter that would one day wed the perfect mate and produce the perfect heir that would one day lead the remainder of humanity once Ra’s killed most of the race in the name of creating a more perfect world, Talia retained a very strong stubborn, opinionated streak that would often be displayed in her interactions with her father.
Talia spent her teens helping her father run his criminal empire, at times directly running his organization in areas such as China. It was not until Talia was 18 that she met the man that would help shape the course of the rest of her life, Bruce Wayne, also known as the Batman. Both Batman and Talia had been apparently captured by Dr. Darkk, a man who, unknown to Batman, had held a small coup against Ra’s and stolen control of the League of Assassins from him after he had failed a mission and been sentenced to death by Ra’s. Talia unmasks Batman while he is unconscious, then the two escape, culminating in Talia shooting and killing Dr. Darkk. This act was both to protect the pair and, as Batman observes, to keep Darkk from sharing what he may know with the Batman.
The pair don’t meet again until Ra’s contacts Batman after Robin has been kidnapped, claiming that the same entity had kidnapped Talia. Ra’s in fact contacts Batman by visiting him in the Batcave, explaining that he had deduced his identity as Bruce Wayne. Batman investigates the kidnappings, eventually finding the pair, when it is then revealed that this was a test created by Ra’s to see if Batman was worthy of marrying his daughter, who had fallen in love with him during their first meeting. Despite expressing love for her himself, Bruce refuses the marriage.
Talia and Bruce meet many times over the years after this initial encounter, mostly resulting in Talia turning against her father at the last moment to save or otherwise assist Batman against him as Ra’s attempts to murder off 90% of humanity again and again. Each time Talia is torn between the love for her father and for Batman but, as Batman does not kill and Ra’s very much does, the choice is typically between Ra’s plan failing or Batman dying horribly, resulting in Talia taking Bruce’s side. One of the more notable occurrences was when Bruce lost a duel to Ra’s in the desert due to a scorpion sting, and Talia saved his life by administering the antidote to him under the guise of a ‘good bye kiss.’ This is actually the start of a pattern where Talia helps men escape her father through making out with them, but Ra’s somehow never seems to quite catch wise to this trick. These encounters also somehow almost always ended with Ra’s dying- at times apparently through near murder like behavior of Batman- but Talia or a henchman always returned his body to a Lazarus pit, thus resurrecting him.
Sometime during this period of fight-be emotionally torn-rescue Batman-return to Father’s side behavior, Talia apparently drugs Bruce up and rapes him. There was once a nice story about how they had all kinds of consensual sex and developed respect and mutual understanding about a lot of things over the course of it, but, hey, who needs that when you can give a female comic character more rape in her background. Anyway, from this one night assault Talia became pregnant with Bruce Wayne’s child. This fetus was quickly turned into a test-tube baby, where Ra’s scientists made it a ‘genetically perfect’ child, the ideal heir to Ra’s empire...which is never mentioned for the first ten years of its life, despite Talia and Ra’s continued quest to try and force Batman into the family for the majority of that time period. Talia has no interactions with the child, named Damian, in person until he is eight, watching him grow from afar instead.
When Jason Todd (the second Robin) died at the hands of the Joker, Talia was distraught over the emotional ramifications this would have for Batman, but was forbidden to see him by her father. In a fully obedient mode at the time, Talia refrained from going to Gotham, choosing to keep even closer than normal tabs on Batman and Gotham in general instead through her spy network. This observation-only method met a violent dead when Jason was resurrected thanks to Super-Boy punching the universe (I’m really just going to skim over that whole mess as the only thing that directly impacts Talia is Jason). Contacted by a man who recognized the boys fighting style and knowing who would pay a reward for that information, Talia is the one that pulls the apparently brain damaged boy off the streets and takes him in under the care of the League of Assassins. Though Ra’s is, to put it lightly, less than fond of Talia’s new pet project, he lets her keep and attempt to heal Jason for a year while he investigates how this return to life was possible without the use of a Lazarus pit.
At the end of this time, however, Ra’s informed Talia she had allowed the boy to distract her from her actual duties too much, and, partly concerned over retaliation from the Batman should he hear of Jason’s return, orders that she send him away with a care taker. Talia agreed, only to then perform an act she had previously only reserved for Batman himself, and totally disregard her father’s orders in order to help Jason, throwing him in a Lazarus pit in a desperate attempt to heal him. This it did...more or less. Talia initially worried she has resurrected a sociopathic monster when Jason claimed to wish to, and then set about perfectly planning and very nearly succeeding to, execute Batman in revenge for the man not killing the Joker. She managed to convince Jason to take more training, stalling him from going after Batman again, until Jason found a different path. And then at the conclusion of this, yes, they sleep together, but this is skipping a head a few major canon points.
Before and while the whole Jason thing was going on, Batman is not the only daddy approved suitor Talia has had, though he remains the only one she has ever actually loved. For a short time Talia was engaged to marry Bane, though he proved to be too savage to be considered worthy, much to her relief as she violently loathed the man. Then she was briefly promised to Azrael, only to have the fact he was part-animal result in Ra’s ordering his death. Having developed a small soft-spot for the man, Talia once again saved her suitor’s life by giving him a good-bye kiss, slipping a key to his chains in his mouth. During this time Ra’s and Talia also briefly align with the Joker, who Talia instantly loathed, and ended in Talia shooting the clown point blank four times, with Batman then resurrecting him in a Lazarus pit.
After siding with Batman one too many times, most notably during the Tower of Babble fiasco in which she, at first, hacked into Batman’s computers, attempted assassinating the Justice League by using the techniques he’d outlined, then had a change of heart about betraying Batman and was shot for it, Talia became briefly disillusioned with her father’s plans and left him (and apparently her young son) to live on her own, adopting the name Talia Head. She was shortly thereafter approached by Lex Luthor, then president of the United States, to act as CEO of his company while he was in office. Though initially unwilling, a ninja attack convinced Talia that she could not run from her father forever, and she accepted the job. Despite acting the part of a perfect minion to Luthor, Talia loathed everything about her new position and fed information about LexCorp’s evil doings to Batman and Superman (she was aiming for Clark Kent, but it is how it is) during her tenure. When Lex’s plans inevitably failed, Talia sold the company out from under him to the Wayne Foundation.
Sometime shortly after this Talia met her older sister Nyssa for the first time. Posing as just her neighbor, Nyssa slowly earned Talia’s trust and affection- only to drug and kidnap her then murder her over and over again. As always, the al Ghul family stands as a pinnacle of dysfunction. Nyssa actually wished to murder her father for all the evils he had visited upon her in her long life, and recruited Talia into this plot by basically driving her insane by killing her, tossing her in a Lazarus pit, then repeating this process over and over until Talia had a complete mental and emotional breakdown. Talia was then nursed back to health by her ‘too kind and loving sister,’ and convinced that the only way to save Ra’s from continuing to live in the terrible pain that Talia had just experienced was to finally put him to rest, or kill him once and for all without resurrecting him. And murder him they do. Batman, having been distracted by Nyssa’s other plan of assassinating Superman, arrives too late to stop what is happening, and is actually taken out of the game by Ra’s himself when Ra’s stabs Talia with a sword. This leaves Bruce to either save her or stop Nyssa and Ra’s from fighting, with Batman making the choice to help Talia. Nyssa kills Ra’s and thus becomes the new Head of the Demon.
Talia is shortly thereafter healed by her and apparently forsakes Batman and her love for him once and for all (this, of course, lasts all of two months). It was at this time that Talia returned to Jason as mentioned above. She left him with a challenge to become a better defender of Gotham than Batman was capable of being, and gave him the information to contact an interesting new player to the Batman game going by the name of ‘Hush.’
The previously mentioned betrayal of Lex Luthor did not stop Talia from now, under her sister’s advice, joining ‘Lex’ (actually an alternate reality Alexander Luthor Jr. posing as Lex) in becoming a core member of the Secret Society of Super Villains, or just the Society for short. Nyssa’s plans involved using the Society to take over the world, then transforming it into a more perfect existence under her iron fist. Talia has many an adventure with the Society, but generally serves as the head of the ‘PR’ department for the organization, keeping her hands clean from most of the day to day work.
While helping to run the Society, Talia more or less neglected the Demon organization, and was pretty much totally uninvolved in the struggle for power between Cassandra Cain and her sister Nyssa over the League of Assassins. Nyssa is apparently killed by Cain through a car bomb while Talia is occupied elsewhere, with Talia’s reaction to this event never being shown. The new Demon’s Head in the wake of her sister’s death, Talia only gains control over a fraction of the organization, the rest following either Cain or the Sensei, an old enemy of Ra’s that is later revealed to be his father (and, therefore, Talia’s grandfather). During her time as leader of the League, Talia decides to introduce Bruce and Damian, shoving Damian into Batman’s life in a flurry of ninja man-bats and abductions of the wives of world leaders. She makes Bruce one final offer, that he attempt to redeem her and they join forces, insuring that their son will one day rule the world. Shockingly, Batman refuses, and Talia and Damian vanish from his life for a time once more.
Her time as the Demon’s Head is short lived, however, as Ra’s al Ghul, despite being Dead Forever at the hands of Nyssa, returns. His initial plan was to possess Damian, as with this new method of resurrection (with his original body having been cremated by Batman, thanks Bruce) he needed to transfer his soul into the body of a male blood relative. Talia is really not for this idea, and flees with Damian. This ends up in a large confrontation involving nearly every living member of the Bat and al Ghul family, with Ra’s ultimately ending up in the body of his semi-loathed albino son and Batman being killed and resurrected himself. Talia manages to knock Damian unconscious, fleeing with the boy away from the encounter after solidly scolding Batman on choosing his obsession with his villains over the lives of his children.
Talia then moved her base of operations to New York for a time, once more living actively on the run from her father in order to protect herself and her son from retribution. She still held control of a good portion of the Demon organization, but lacked an army strong enough to defend them from the League of Assassins. Therefore she started experimenting in new ways to produce an army quickly, clashing with Nightwing in her pursuit of this. Of course, the man she paid to make an army for her pulled a sudden yet inevitable betrayal and refused to stop production when Talia became outraged at the sight of a ‘death camp’ for infants, causing Talia and Dick to team up to take him down. I’ll be pulling her from right after the end of this event, and before the death of Batman.
As an end note, sometime ‘three years before’ Bruce’s death (whatever that means in comic time), Talia also instructed Selina Kyle on mental defense techniques so that she could not be coerced into revealing Batman’s identity as Bruce Wayne. I wasn’t quite sure where to fit that in, but it did occur.
PERSONALITY:
Talia is a complicated woman. Raised to think of herself as royalty (and when your family has been as rich and powerful for as long as Ra’s al Ghul has been, it’s hard to argue with the term) and one who was destined to have a huge impact on the world, either through her own actions or that of her children, it’s safe to say she has no lack of confidence in her own abilities and goals. When Talia decides on a goal, she is prepared to move heaven and earth to achieve it, and it would take something far more than divine intervention to shake her from her path. Her way of achieving such goals is (typically, though there are exceptions) not through sheer brute strength or force, but rather she far prefers the use of subtle manipulation and conniving to achieve her goals. When she decided she wished to take down Lexcorps, for instance, (the very company she was at the time running), rather than do anything overt she attempted to manipulate an employee into going to the press with scandalous information of an underhanded project (that Talia has conceived of and promoted in the organization) that would lead to a full investigation of all the other evils the company was ,and had been since long before she arrived, doing. That plan failed to work as she wasn’t aware the press agent she had selected, Clark Kent, was actually Superman. When Superman showed up and just went all vigilante on it instead of writing an expose, Talia’s fit of rage was at herself for not plotting well enough to make the plan go exactly as she wanted, rather than at the pawns she had chosen to achieve her end game. This is a demonstration of both her preferred method of action, and the very high demands she places on herself as, in her own eyes, she is the Daughter of the Demon and is held to a far higher standard than the rest of the world because of it.
That she, even when she is currently warring with her father, views herself more as the Daughter of the Demon than her own, separate entity, speaks volumes about her relationship with her father. A vast majority of Talia’s views and beliefs have been shaped, if not outright designed for her, by her father, and she is very aware of this fact. Certain items, like the general failure of humanity to correctly manage the Earth, an innate sense of pride and sophistication, a respect for those clever enough to make their own mark and transform themselves, and a general distaste for those she considers beneath her, she has kept more or less perfectly intact when it comes to her own view point. The items she does take issue with when it comes to her father are ones she is fast to argue with him about, but slower to actually rebel against him regarding. The item that most seems to divide them (and, in truth, divide Talia and Bruce as well), is that, traditionally, Talia places and emphasis on ‘reality’ (primarily her family) while Ra’s places an emphasis on ‘ideology.’ Talia has frequently chastised her father for picking his ‘games’ over his own blood, and she has scolded Bruce for having a similar obsession with his villains over his children. This isn’t to say she believes family must always be put above all else and everything forgiven- Talia plotted to kill her father and later disowned her child, after all- but she still holds that attending to what already has is a higher calling than blindly following some ideal.
Despite her emphasis on family and loyalty, however, Talia has a very distinct game plan of her own, which has developed slowly over the course of her life. She was ever aware that she did not agree fully with Ra’s ideal world of ‘a barren dessert,’ wherein 90% of humanity would be destroyed as he lead the rest. In her own words, she would rather die in Batman’s world than live in her father’s. However, she is very far from being ‘one of the good guys’ when it comes to how to fix the worlds problems. The media friendly activities of icons such as Superman, or even the narrower, blindly driven ambitions of her beloved Batman, were not to her taste any more than her father’s proposed genocide. Initially, she was more or less content to keep more to the sidelines once she had determined once and for all her father’s path was not her own, but after the mental mind fuck that was her sister killing her literally hundreds of times, Talia’s plans have become slightly more concrete and- in part due to the influence of that sister- a bit more sinister.
The ideals of the al Ghul family have ever been more about the long-term and the future, using their potentially endless amount of time and the next generations to bring about their plans, and Talia is no different in that regard, placing her hopes for the salvation of the world on the shoulders of her son, Damian. And, in the end, that is what her goal is. She does not wish to personally rule the world or possess unlimited power, she wishes to save it from itself and pass it along to her son. And as the expression goes, one cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. The world has proven incapable of helping itself, and so her desire is for her son to stride across it as the new Alexander the Great, unifying and saving it from itself. The Society was simply the best vessel through which to start this plan, as, to her, manipulating from the shadows and changing the world from the bottom up is far more effective and powerful than sitting a top the world in the JLA watchtower.
POWER:
Non-canon power: Majesty.
Not going to lie, this is getting pretty much ripped straight from the World of Darkness by White Wolf. Essentially, the power is a manifestation of Talia’s force of will and personality. Depending on what she desires, this power has a few main effects:
*She can will her presence to be more ‘powerful’ than normal, essentially drawing attention to herself simply by being there (or showing up on video) and causing those effected to be more inclined to listen to/agree with her. The cost of this, of course, is that people affected are more likely to remember details about her.
*By focusing this presence onto one target, that person will, for a time not to exceed 24 hours per use of this power on them, feel as though they are deeply in love with Talia, and will do their best to fulfill whatever wishes and desires she has because of this. This cannot force them to do anything horrifically out of character (like convince an average, law abiding citizen to go on a murder spree), but it makes them very, very open to manipulation and suggestion to actions that they may not typically do, but now seem far more reasonable because Talia is asking it of them. When this power wears off, the person feels more as though they have simply naturally gotten over an initial, though very powerful, infatuation, rather than feeling as though they were mystically manipulated. This is case by case, of course, someone who has a history with Talia would likely notice this weird rush of emotion that hasn’t happened before.
*Through focusing the power slightly differently, rather than create a feeling of love there is simply a deep feeling of trust and understanding, resulting in the target being willing to spill their guts on a topic of Talia’s choosing. While the subject will not lie to her, half-truths, omissions, and other non-direct falsehoods can still be used by those that are, by inclination, not open or trusting, or have a reason to dislike her.
*If Talia has met someone in person before, she can extend her force of personality to summon them to her, no matter where in the world they may currently be. That person is free to make phone calls, etc, etc, but has a driving urge to go see Talia as quickly as humanly possible.
*And finally, Talia can manifest her physical presence powerfully enough that people simply cannot bring themselves to harm her. The emotional reason why is up to the individual and their thought process (ie, she’s too intimidating to strike at, she’s too beautiful to harm, she’s too cunning to dispose of), but the end result is the same: those in her presence cannot bring themselves to give her so much as a paper cut, in fact even insulting her verbally seems a difficult task to manage. They are free to still attack anyone with her, and this refusal to harm her ends the instant she attacks, since all is fair in self-defense.
This will require a permissions post, obviously. Also, those ‘strong of will’ are able to resist her for longer than others/completely, and will demand more concentration and energy on her part to make it work. I mainly intend to use this power on NPCs to help her build up the cult following the Demon’s Head expects to have, in all honesty, and I will discuss it with a player every time before I try to use it on their character. Also, in the case of mod plots, I’ll discuss with whoever is running the NPCs before she, for instance, tries to walk unscathed through a battlefield by using the power.
Power:
Lazarus Pit
The pit is a staple of the al Ghul family, and serves as a resurrection ability. To keep this from being too insane, Talia’s blood (only a few drops required) can mix with certain ingredients (those which were required in the DC universe) to form a bubbling, glowing, highly dangerous pit of liquid which, when used properly, can resurrect the dead from using their remains, save the life of the mortally wounded, or, depending on the person, heal more crippling mental wounds. If a person is not one of the above and falls into the pit, they will die a horrible, painful death, one which they cannot be resurrected from. If a person’s life is saved by the pit, the first half hour to an hour after they emerge from it they are completely insane, capable of seeing their own actions but incapable of controlling them as they go into a wild frenzy. Alternatively, if a person is already insane this time is spent being ‘driven sane’ for a time.
As ley lines don’t exist in CnC in the same way, Talia has no need to build these pits in specific places. It will take her a while to figure out her own blood is the new key ingredient, however, and she will likely still build them in places of mystical significance. As such, no one can simply learn how to make a pit from her (unless she starts shipping her blood around in vials or something to use as the final ingredient), though her other alchemy skills remain up for grabs. As mod approved, she can substitute ingredients that don't exist in CnC, the main idea is her blood is the catalyst.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[Anonymous Text]
Death is a concept which has been part of the human psyche since the instant our ancestors were able to grasp the concept of their own mortality. We all deal with this inevitability in our way. Apathy, denial, acceptance. Some will die violently, others by their own hand or machinations, yet others from the ravages of time alone. But death will come for us. Of this, even deep in the deepest, most primal regions of the mind, we are certain.
Or so it was. Now we have all captured some small essence of the gods. We slip through death’s grasp as effortlessly as grains of sand, and so death is stripped of its essence to stand as little more than a momentary convenience. Perhaps this should be seen as a cause for relief. Celebration. Yet my mind turns only to Tithonus. Years some of you have lingered here with death defeated, but with the endless flow of time still ushers you forward. For how long, I wonder? Do the forces which have brought us here distinguish from the violent deaths we suffer and the simple toll which time must take? Is it now our fate to reach infirmary within a strange land, our shoulders hunched beneath the weight of the years, our minds slowly unraveled, only to be forced again and again from our natural rest to return to such a state of existence, called back from death by this force unknown? Shall the commentary over this device stand in sad testament to our former glories as the tides of time pull us ever further towards oblivion? To spend eternity as some dementia riddled husk of your former self, the few, fleeting moments of cognizance spent grasping the full horror of your decent…
What a terrible thought.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
She was behind the times. For the daughter of the Demon, it was a something terribly close to an uncomfortable feeling. Information had been her very life blood for as long as she could recall. Even when her father and she were at war, sections of the vast network he had so carefully constructed over the centuries remained at her disposal, updates on Gotham and the rest of the criminal world open to her at a moments notice. Failing that, her name alone was enough to demand some respect, some consideration from those she requested favors from. Even that was meaningless here, however, save to a handful of individuals she would rather not cater to until she had more information. It was a source of irritation, to say the least.
But it wasn’t only here. Perusing the past which was laid out before her in the form of the network, she could tell from that alone she was behind concerning home, as well. That was not Bruce the stood before her in the cape and cowl. No, Richard was the Batman. A day ago he had been Nightwing, shouldering his way into New York and her own life with the muscle the detective lent him in the form of finances and training. Now he was Batman. Now her son stood at his side as Robin, the son only hours before that same Nightwing had proclaimed he would prevent her from defending from the wrath of her own father. What had become of the world? For the first time in her life, Talia could honestly say she didn’t know. More troubling, she had precious few resources to determine it in her current state.
She closed the device, ending her perusal of the network for the evening. Too much. She had missed too much, here and in the reality that mattered. There was no time for regret. Now was the moment for action. It was a shakier ground to build upon that she was accustomed, to be sure, and her resources stood far below that which she would have preferred. But she was the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, not some rogue in a gallery that existed only to toy with an icon in a cape. The Demon’s Head was inevitable. And the resurrection of that destined empire began tonight.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
She has also been trained by Ra’s to have exceptional mental defenses, and is therefore more difficult for telepaths and the like to read.