Black Queen
| Selene Gallio (Scenesys ID: 314) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Quote | |||
| "Countless thousands have gone to the fire in my name. Which of you will be the next?" | |||
| Profile | |||
| Full Name: | Selene Gallio | ||
| Gender: | Female | ||
| Species: | Mutant | ||
| Theme: | Marvel (VFC) | ||
| Occupation: | Idle Rich / Unknowable Horror | ||
| Citizenship: | European States | ||
| Residence: | New York | ||
| Education: | Privately Tutored | ||
| Status: | Dropped | ||
| Groups: | Hellfire Club, Mutant-OOC | ||
| Other Information | |||
| Apparent Age: | Actual Age: | ||
| Date of Birth | Don't Worry About It | Actor: | Dita Von Teese |
| Height: | 177 cm (5'10") | Weight: | 57 kg (125 lb) |
| Hair Color: | Black | Eye Color: | Blue |
| Theme Song: | "Big Bad Wolf" by In This Moment | ||
Contents
Profile
A mysterious woman hailing from somewhere in Europe, rumor goes Selene Gallio is a member of the mysterious and highly exclusive Hellfire Club. Charming, sophisticated, and strikingly worldly, she has a way with words -- and an even greater way of getting what she wants, when she wants it. Rumor has it she's a member of the idle rich; the truth is even more horrifying than that. Somehow.
Current Player Approved: Available for Application
Sheet
Description
History
History:
After Atlantis had been embraced by the lightless cold of the ocean depths, before the Sons of Aryas rose to stake their name, a child was born to a small tribe in Central Europe. A child born with a very special gift, one of a kind in a land where superstition still reigned at the dawn of civilization. Her mother gave her her name, and her life. Because the tribal elders saw that gift in the child as a sign of godhood. A sign that required worship... and blood.
And so it was that the mother was sacrificed for the sake of the child. But that would not be enough. No. As she grew, the the child's people were sacrificed to her, one by one, to nourish her, to strengthen her, to give her the sustenance her godhood demanded. Reverence. Life. Each one shuffled off their mortal coil and into hers until there was none left.
None but Selene, the girl named for a goddess.
The days after she came of age and of power were spent simply exploring. Learning. Being. Living whatever life she chose, seeing the world around her... and seeing the countless, frail mass of humanity. So different from her. So fragile. So short-lived. Even those mighty few, vile sorcerors and great adventurers who would earn her ire and eternal grudge, were no different in the end. And as years stretched to decades, stretched to centuries, Selene knew: she wanted more. Much, much more.
She set her sights upon one of many fledgling cradles of civilization, a growing empire within the European peninsula known as Rome. A place teeming with life ripe with corruption and a wellspring of emotion -- the perfect location for what she needed. Insinuating herself amongst the influential members of the Senate, Selene began to set things in motion to enact a ritual of dark magic that would engulf the whole of Rome, subsuming all that bustling life to ascend her to a place of true, untouchable divinity. To do this, she drew in a willing thrall -- a Senator by the name of Eliphas, lured in by the promises of eternal life and the undying love of his goddess -- and instructed him to etch her arcane workings throughout the city in his own blood. He knew what would happen. That she would devour all of this -- an entire civilization, for them (for her). And while he convinced himself it was worth it for her love... one pang of conscious would undo years, decades of work in an instant.
That pang was a young slave girl Eliphas took pity upon. Taking her aside, he told her of what would happen. And she told her father. And he, the authorities. And so both Eliphas -and- Selene were arrested and sentenced to execution, burned at the stakes like godless heretics. And Selene's fury was like no other's. When the flames came, she directed them against her would-be executors, burning down everything within her endless wrath. And when the flames flickered into a smolder, and only ashes and her pitiful Eliphas remained... she gave him a fate so much worse. To live life in eternal hunger and desperation as a vampiric shade of the man he once was. Forever living a ravenous life... and forever denied the sight of his goddess who he so loved.
Things likely would have proceeded apace from there... but the unexpected interference of outside forces. Her stand-in puppet leader / loving husband (one-sided love is still love) Senator Marcus Gallio slain by rivals, and Selene ousted from Nova Roma, anyone else would see this as a set back. But Selene saw the powers of the people who thwarted her. Power ripe for the plucking.
And so, her attention turned back towards the world at large...
Personality
Personality:
This is the very foundation of Selene's existence, and it has colored her outlook on the world ever since. People are sacrifices, and her life, her existence, her enjoyment -- that is what is paramount. To call her self-absorbed would be to compare a hurricane to a mild storm. Everything exists for her, in Selene's mind, a solipsistic viewpoint that colors her every interaction and relationship. People are not just prey to her, to say such would be overly simplistic. They are the building blocks upon which she shall build the eternal story of her life.
Because she -enjoys- this life. This freedom to experience anything and everything she wants to with impunity. She has played many roles throughout the passage of civilizations, and if she has her way, she will play many more yet. Because every life she lives, every life she takes, every thing she nourishes or ruins, leaves her indellible mark on this world. And she relishes in it.
Living for nearly twenty thousand years, though, will ultimately warp one's perspective; this is especially true of Selene, saddled as she is with the memories of the countless lives that have been sacrificed to her throughout all those years. She has a gift for manipulation, of appearing however people want to perceive her -- and a silver tongue like no other. But at some fundamental aspect of her personality, Selene is decidedly alien. Her life is essentially a patchwork quilt of many lives knit together to support one whole -- because even if they're extinguished, those memories still remain. It leads to a unique perspective at times, but still, one that is not -so- different in the end. After all, for all her posturing, she is still human.
And that is what frightens her, in the deep dark reaches of her soul. That her life -isn't- infinite, that one day it will run out, that one day even she might die, just like a star must eventually gutter out and collapse. And this is at least part of what drives the immense wealth of ambition within her. This existence isn't good enough for her. She wants more. More power, more influence, more life. She wishes to ascend to godhood to have a true piece of eternity so that she can walk the stars and be creator and destroyer, merciful queen and hideous tyrant, for as long as she wishes, wherever, whenever she might like. And she will never be satisfied until then. And even then...
Is a glutton ever really, truly satisfied?
Abilities
Black Magic:
Selene's people practiced witchcraft and sorcery when man was still young and civilizations were barely a twinkle in their eye. For tens of thousands of years, she has honed that craft and supplemented it with the styles and innovations of great sorcerers throughout history. Usually the bad, forbidden kind.
The end result has made Selene a consummate master of magecraft, one of the most potent and skilled on Earth; her skill and the breadth of her knowledge is enough to consider her a possible candidate for the role of Sorcerer Supreme (if not for her non-existent morality). Her skillset is vast, and includes summoning of entities chiefly demonic in nature to use as thralls, the creation of relics and artifacts of power, teleportation, manipulation of raw magic, creation of transformative disguises, the creation and implementation of rituals, and extensive shadow manipulation to the point of condensing her own body into a shadowy-like substance of malleable, inky darkness.
Enthrallment:
Selene's vampirism does not only sustain her; people she drains but does not kill are marked by her psychic taint, allowing herself a presence in the victim's psyche. Through this, Selene is capable of exerting some small measure of control over the target and, depending on their own willpower, subvert them to her will to create loyal thralls.
In a variation of this, Selene is also capable of creating weaker psychic vampires out of her victims subordinate to her, but this is a much more deliberate and involved process.
Immortality:
It's hard to say just what gives Selene her extremely long life, whether it be her psychic vampirism or something more, what is clear is that Selene Gallio is very, very, extremely hard to kill. She has been shot through the heart, the head, most any vital organ you can think of; burned, broken, even disintegration -- though it takes her a considerable amount of time to recover from such grievous injuries. While Selene is not wholly immortal, and can be killed, she can survive and eventually recover from most conventional forms of injury.
Psychic Vampire:
The crux of the Black Queen's mutant powers and perhaps her first gift, Selene is a vampiric entity; rather than blood, however, Selene sustains herself by draining the life force of others in a form of psychic parasitism, psionically draining what constitutes a person's soul to supplement her own abilities. People who are completely drained will crumble away into nothing but dust in the absence of life that sustains them, and Selene retains both the memories and skills of those she absorbs, essentially making her a strange amalgamation of stolen life.
Selene's powers revolve around her vampirism: the more life she absorbs, the stronger she becomes, and her abilities grow more and more vast the more souls she has devoured. Not only this, but the life force of others physically empowers Selene, restoring her vitality and and increasing her strength, speed, and stamina relative to the amount of psychic energy she has drawn into herself.
Selene's ability to absorb souls is limited only by her access: through sorcerous rituals, she had once planned to absorb the entirety of Rome simultaneously, though such methods are costly and time-consuming; generally speaking, Selene can only absorb those she has direct contact with.
Pyrokinesis:
The Mistress of the Fire, one of Selene's more prominent expressions of her telekinetic power is the ability to manipulate flame. Selene can generate and project intense heat from her body or the air surrounding her, directing and propelling flame to a variety of effects, whether to amplify or quell them. These flames grow weaker and lose heat the further they are projected from her body, while Selene herself remains immune to the effects of her flame thanks to a subconscious, psychokinetic barrier imposed between her and them while she is projecting them.
Telekinesis:
An extension of her psychic nature, Selene is a master of the manipulation of matter through psychokinetic force. The most utilized of her powers in direct confrontations, Selene can influence inorganic matter at a molecular level by projecting slivers of her life force into them. She can use this gift towards a variety of ends, from the standard fare of force projection, construction of psychokinetic fields and levitation, to the manipulation of matter to create constructs to fight in her stead, to simply discorporating inorganic matter. Her psychic abilities wax and wane depending on how sated she is, but her technical skill with psychokinetic powers are not to be trifled with, having millennia of experience with it under her belt.
Telepathy:
Skills
Historical Scholar:
As someone who's been alive for over seventeen thousand years, Selene basically -is- history. Forget renowned scholar -- between her own experiences and the memories of those she's absorbed over the years, Selene has personal accounts of most of the major happenings of the world, and was probably a part of more of a few of them herself. When you conspire to eat the entire civilization of Rome, you tend to be an expert on these matters.
Manipulation:
Selene may be more of an immortal monster than a person at this point in her long life, but one thing is certain: she knows people. Thousands of years has given her experience with countless facets of humanity. She knows how they tick. She knows what compels them. She is adept at seeing and knowing a person, what they want, and just the right buttons to push to get what -she- wants. She can seem relatable, sympathetic, loving -- and she is adept at using these skills to manipulate people and even the course of events to further her own agenda. Selene sees things in larger perspectives, but more importantly... she has a silver tongue that many a person have killed for, and many people will yet give their lives to.
Occult Lore:
Selene has dedicated much of her life towards the more mystical side of life, and her knowledge of subjects of the occult is vast indeed. Necromancy, demonology, ritualism, the and knowledge of esoteric subjects like the mystical planes are all within her wheelhouse, and those she does not know she has the mind to assimilate and pick up in alarmingly quick order. Being as old as she is helps with knowing how to break a thing down to its core concept.
Polyglot:
Between her own lifespan of experience and the lives she's absorbed, Selene knows countless different languages, including a multitude of dead tongues. Typically she settles towards Romantic and Germanic languages when establishing a cover for herself simply due to believability, but it's safe to say if the language exists, Selene has at least passing understanding of it.
Polymath:
Selene has accumulated a good deal of knowledge and skills over her years, and while she is far from a scientific expert in anything, she has a good understanding of most fields of knowledge and a very wide umbrella of facts and skilltrades that she can apply towards a variety of situations.
Sorcery:
Resources
Connections:
Unsurprisingly, living a long time means you've essentially put down roots practically everywhere. Selene's tendrils spread far and wide, and there are many people she knows, or knew the great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of, or has otherwise established some kind of link to, affording her widespread connections to call in favors with in a variety of different fields, from political to the arcane and everything in between. Not everyone hates Selene. Some just know they ought to give her what she wants.
Hellfire Club:
As the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle, Selene has access to all its resources and connections it has at its disposal, which are considerable, because there's nothing rich people like to do more than create secret illuminati groups and conspire. Sometimes it pays off to be an evil socialite.
Magical Relics:
Selene has a variety of magical items of power, some of which she has made herself, some of which she pretty much just stole because she decided she could use it better. A lot of these items of power are evil or corrupting in some way. At least she remains fairly consistent.
Demonic Soul Stones:
There are 5 of these stones. They are abundant with demonic and prime material magic. In particular, each one represents dozens of souls that were prevented from leaving to their rightful place - whether that be hell, or whatever heaven that exists for them. Each can only be used once, and contain enough energy to revitalize and empower Selene. Together, in a ritual, they could be used to focus or empower the ritual along with whatever other rare or mysterious components that would be necessary.
Thralls:
Nothing's better than fanatically loyal minions that worship you as a living god. Selene has a number of followers who have either dedicated themselves to her wholecloth or have been very gently encouraged to be obsessed with her. Through history, she's had a number of cults rise and fall around her, because being worshipped is pretty damn nice. These loyal followers (bound thralls) are there for her to call upon as necessary. It never hurts to have disposable minions.
Wealth:
Weaknesses
Focus:
Most of Selene's powers require some degree of mental concentration to be able to use effectively. Her psionic powers such as telekinesis and telepathy require a clear mind, and spellcasting both requires focus and free hands or a voice to be able to truly make use of it. While Selene has a tremendous willpower and single-minded drive, if she ever finds that focus compromised somehow, she will be made that much more vulnerable, despite her power.
God Complex:
There is no one in this world greater than Selene. No one more beautiful, more intelligent, more generous, or powerful -- and no one more worthy of all the good things of life than her. Selene sees herself as infallible and something separate from the riffraff of humanity -- even from her fellow mutants. Her viewpoint has been warped by thousands of years of life and the consumption of a legion of souls and identities and memories not her own, to the point that she is borderline solipsistic. This world is her stage to indulge in as she pleases -- and this fundamentally self-centered pride and delusions of perfection can ultimately cost her greatly, in the end, if not only because it underscores how vainglorious and ultimately untrustworthy she really is. Everything she does is for her own benefit. Even if it doesn't look like it.
Obsession:
Selene has lived a very long time. Selene has accomplished a very great deal. Selene still thinks it is far from enough. She wants to build civilizations, to collapse them, to live every life that is possible to live. To walk the stars, create life... be one with the fabric of creation and send it all toppling on a whim only to spend lifetimes rebuilding it anew. On some very fundamental level, Selene subconsciously fears the fact that she is not as eternal as she would lead some people to believe, and one day her end will come. In part because of this, Selene obsessively seeks out godhood, wanting nothing more than to reach a point that she is truly untouchable and truly free to experience absolutely everything that this world can offer her, without anyone else to interfere and cut it off preemptively short. No matter what, what Selene wants, what she is obsessed with, and what will oftentimes be her undoing, is that singular fixation on having 'more.' Having it all. Literally.
Otherworldly Presence:
Selene makes for a striking presence, no matter how you look at it. But that's not always a good thing. No matter her physical appearance, there is something just fundamentally off about the Black Queen. In a mystical sense, she's just wrong, perverted and twisted by thousands of years of devouring souls and practicing strange and forbidden magic, and it seeps down to a palpable, otherworldly sense that makes her often set off 'do not engage!!' alarm bells to the discerning. Her relative inhumanity, for all her silver tongue, can do her disservice sometimes.
Psychic Vampire:
Vampirism has its downsides, and Selene's mutation is no different: Selene requires the psychic energy of others to sustain her vitality and her powers. The longer she goes without it, the more she will weaken. All of her powers hinge around this supply of life energies -- of souls, not to put too fine a point on it -- and their strengths are directly proportional to how much energy she has absorbed at any given time.
Selene must regularly feed to sustain all this, and using a more of her powers over a short amount of time will cause that energy to be expended all the faster and require more frequent feeding If she does not, she will begin to physically degrade; it's hard to say if she would truly die from a lack of psychic nourishment, but in the end, being reduced to a shriveled, living mummy of a person might just be a fate worse than death.
Reputation:
Logs
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| Title | Date | Scene Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Gloriana Tenebrae | October 30th, 2023 | The Black Queen taunts and feeds upon Meggan, brilliantly citing not-vaguely-remembered-and-out-of-context characters from 'The Faerie Queen.' |
| Overlapping Interests | May 1st, 2021 | Selene checks in with Lex after a long period of silence. |
| Bastet of Kittens | October 8th, 2019 | Catwoman and Selene start a beautiful friendship |
| Interview in the Study, by the CandleStick | May 5th, 2019 | Summary needed |
| The 'Vampire' and the 'Werewolf' | April 16th, 2019 | Summary needed |
| Doom, Light, and the Black Queen | March 21st, 2019 | Summary needed |
| Bar's Are Interesting Places | March 17th, 2019 | Summary needed |
| Park Benches and Conversation | March 1st, 2019 | Summary needed |
| Who Dares Disturb My Slumber | February 2nd, 2019 | Summary needed |
| Out shooping with the Future girl | February 1st, 2019 | Summary needed |
| A Long Walk on the Beach | January 12th, 2019 | Summary needed |
| Unlikely Bar Guests | January 8th, 2019 | Summary needed |
| Bad Medicine (Act 2) | December 30th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| An introduction to the hellfire club | December 9th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| What Has Become of Midgard | December 9th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Her Domain | December 8th, 2018 | Blackout stumbles upon Selene who portrays a fangirl of extreme intelligence. Blackout doesn't have a clue. |
| Black Queen to White Prince...Check. | December 1st, 2018 | Summary needed |
| A Botched Date | November 17th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Shakedown in Manhattan | November 10th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Haunted House of the Wealthy | October 20th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Boilermakers | September 26th, 2018 | Drinks at McAnally's. Plays on words abound! |
| In The Bush With Ghosts | September 22nd, 2018 | At a remote encampment in the backcountry of Southern Somalia, two immortal monsters forge a pact in blood, marking day one of a new empire which threatens to drown the continent in chaos.
A FLASHPOINT KENYA scene Trigger warnings: gore, masculine posturing, old-timey comic book language |
| A Speedster meets an Immortal | September 16th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Into Hellfire | September 13th, 2018 | Janet meets Shaw, Selene, and Mysique (after a fashion) at a Hellfire Club open event. |
| Externals - Duck Soup | September 4th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Ash meets Deadite-ish Selene. | August 18th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Magic in the Flute | August 12th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Stranger Meetings | August 12th, 2018 | Finding his attempts to recruit Dresden, Doctor Strange finds himself rebutted yet again. |
| A meeting at the Hellfire Club | August 4th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Redcap | July 27th, 2018 | A Police investigation gets complicated |
| Dragon Ball... Selene | July 26th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Walker's Cay | July 21st, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Deal with the devil | July 19th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Council of the Light | July 15th, 2018 | The Inner Circle of the Light meets in Council for the first time. Agendas are discussed. A charter is ratified, making the Light official. |
| Clandestine Conversations | July 14th, 2018 | Taskmaster meets with Selene. She offers him an opportunity to prove himself. |
| Apartments and Relationships | July 14th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Revelations in the Rain | July 5th, 2018 | Selene and Lar open up to each other on a rainy day in Central Park. |
| Drunkard at the Docks | July 4th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Lifestyle of Rich and Famous: Jessica Jones (who is neither) | July 1st, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Rook and Queen | June 25th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| SHIELD Prison Riot! | June 23rd, 2018 | Summary needed |
| A Bigger Gun | June 2nd, 2018 | Summary needed |
| The Shredders invitation | April 21st, 2018 | The Shredder joins the Light |
| Late Night Potstickers | April 15th, 2018 | Lar visits Selene again. |
| The Black Queen, L5 | April 13th, 2018 | Selene joins the Light |
| Store Days | March 13th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Log 4034 | March 10th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Long time, No see | March 9th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| A god meets a vampire in Chinatown | February 17th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| At Your Leisure | January 30th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Guotie | January 30th, 2018 | Drake, Lar, and Kara meet Selene at a restaurant in Chinatown. |
| Dial 911 for Nine Wicked Witches | January 28th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Black Tags - Confederate Rifle - Tony Russo | January 27th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Awakening: The Gateway Opens | January 27th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Demons are bad for business | January 26th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Awakening: Preparations | January 26th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Hunting down the Trafficers. | January 26th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Tidepool: Ripples on the Water | January 24th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| The Duck - Return of Stolen Goods | January 20th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Highway Robbery - Ancient China style | January 13th, 2018 | Shadowlite and Juggernaut take a job to hijack an armored truck with some really fancy mercenaries guarding it. Wonder Woman shows up. Chaos ensues. |
| Chinatown mysteries | January 10th, 2018 | Summary needed |
| Everything Old is new again | December 11th, 2017 | Selene & Lucifer catch up as 'old friends' |
| Log Titles Are Gauche | September 14th, 2017 | Summary needed |
| Patronage | August 30th, 2017 | Summary needed |
| A Cat and a Queen | July 25th, 2017 | Two women in black meet. An offer is extended. |
| Run Kitty run | May 30th, 2017 | Tigra encounters a pair of mutants, Kitty Pryde and the Black Queen. |
| The coffee shoppers | May 28th, 2017 | Summary needed |
| Hey it's a bar scene | May 23rd, 2017 | Summary needed |
Cutscenes
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| Title | Date | Scene Summary |
|---|---|---|
| No logs submitted yet. | ||