Wisp Warden
| Wisp Warden | |
|---|---|
| Author | /u/ShdwPppt |
| Pronouns | She/Hers |
| Civilian name | Hazel Hargeaves |
| Alignment | Villain |
| Affiliation | Noncanon (Devilfish) |
| PRT Classification | Master |
| Born |
August 20, 2003 Milwaukee, WI |
| Status | Noncanon |
Hazel is the daughter of two of the wealthier members of Devilfish’s upper crust. She has occasionally appeared in tabloids when dating a new boy in the past when news weeks were slow. More often she has appeared as a member of the local orchestra, but lately has failed to make an appearance.
Certain mysterious acts of arson have been attributed to the ‘Wisp Warden’ due to them burning their name into the ground at several crime scenes, though she is rarely seen. Her targets are mostly corporate art installations and unused commercial property. Law enforcement and the media are currently trying to figure out how such large acts of arson are never noticed while they’re happening.
Character Sheet
Appearance
Hazel has her mother’s medium complexion and jet black wavy hair, and her namesake brown-green eyes, which are characteristic of the women on her father’s side. She is slightly taller than the average woman with a slim, inverted triangular body type. She tends toward expensive and recent fashions.
In-costume, Wisp Warden wears a slim-fitting black turtleneck with a crimson leather bodice overtop. Her bottom-half is adorned with black leggings, a crimson skirt and boots. Her face is covered by a yellow scarf and her head is covered by a red hood that flows down into a cape that obscures the rest of her body.
The wisps themselves are like pale yellow, semi-translucent, basketball-sized candle-flames.
Equipment and Resources
- Six figure trust fund and very rich parents.
- Mace.
- Burner phone.
- Violin and bow.
- Temporary apartment in the city.
Skills and Specializations
Hazel is a highly disciplined musician and she understands the finer points of music theory. Her instrument of ‘choice’ is her violin. She is also a decent dancer. She is light on her feet and relatively stealthy.
Mentality
Hazel is highly competitive, and rarely shies away from a challenge. While she tends to strive under pressure, her competitiveness can often get the best of her. She would like to create and entertain, and reach others through that, but she craves affection so badly that it tends to frustrate her and she becomes defensive.
Power
Wisp Warden’s power allows her to summon and control up to five minions, each able to ignite fires that are completely invisible.
Each minion, known as a Wisp, begins as a softball-sized flame when first summoned, and quickly grows to be campfire sized. They are semi-autonomous, having no free-will to speak of, but they are capable of carrying out complex commands. The wisps possess a suite of pyrokinetic abilities related to the invisible fire they can produce. Usually this manifests as a pulsating aura of flame, igniting a small area around the Wisps, repeating every few seconds. She may also choose to have the Wisps wreathe themselves in flame, so they only ignite upon contact.
Control of her minions requires a good deal of concentration on Wisp Warden’s part. The more minions she summons, the less they respond to complex commands and begin to require more broad instructions instead. The larger any fire they make grows, the more strain it puts on her. Wisp Warden can command the wisps through mental commands and simple gestures when a small number are present, but she requires more interpretive and elaborate gestures and a steady stream of instruction when a greater number are summoned. Wisp Warden usually accomplishes this with an instrument and a performative dance, although at this capacity this is about all she can accomplish. Wisp Warden can handle a fairly large inferno, anything over 90 meters tends to be her limit.
The flames created by her Wisps are invisible to the human eye and give off no light, otherwise they behave and interact just like standard fire. If Wisp Warden unsummons her Wisps, any flame that originated from them will be instantly extinguished. Wisp Warden cannot see her flames, but she has an innate sense of where it is currently burning. The manton effect also excludes her and her personal equipment from being burned.
Backstory
Hazel is the daughter of Bennet and Ginerva Hargeaves. Her father is a wealthy investor from Milwaukee who owns a large stake of the GeoPulse mining company as well as multiple commercial properties in Devilfish, and her mother was once a famous concert violinist from Italy.
Ginerva’s car was struck by a drunk driver at a high speed after returning from a concert in Chicago when Hazel was young. When the car landed, part of the vehicle had landed on both of Ginerva’s hands, crippling them both. While she did regain enough control of her hands and fingers to manage her daily life, she would never play the violin again.
Ginerva, being a prideful and perfectionist woman, sought to take out her pain on her young daughter. Ever since Hazel has been able to hold the instrument, her mother has given her lessons. Ginerva could be a cruel teacher, not afraid of using corporal punishment or manipulation to correct any errors.
Hazel, desperate for her affection, but lacking her mothers’ apparent natural talent, worked tirelessly to perfect her violin skills, but nothing ever seemed good enough for her. She was always second in her classes, never first. She was always able to achieve a good seat in her school’s orchestra, but never the best. This has caused her to grow competitive and resentful of others more successful than her.
By contrast, Emma, Hazel’s little sister, is practically a savant. Emma is years ahead of where Hazel was at her age, and Ginerva could not be more proud. Even their father, Ben, who has always ignored everything except for his business, deigns to rain constant praise on Emma.
As if Hazel’s mother wasn’t cruel enough, her grandmother was worse. She was an absolute dragon of a woman, a more stark, blunt and abrasive version of Ginerva. One fateful year, she flew to Minnesota to attend an important concert for Hazel. Despite having practiced for months, her grandmother could only criticize everything she did wrong, even going so far as to say it’s too bad she wasn’t more like Emma.
That had been the final straw. Ignored, alienated and yet berated and criticized at the same time, she let loose on her family. She snapped her violin bow in half and threw the violin itself at her elderly grandmother and stormed out of the house. Burning with simultaneous white hot fury and embarrassment, walking into the dark of Devilfish, she summoned the first of her Wisps.
Since then, she has taken on the persona of the Wisp Warden, going out at night to release tension and rebel while couchsurfing between friends and draining her parent’s credit cards during the day, too ashamed to go back and face them.