Ghiza (Vessiel)

Ghiza (Gertrude Givens)

Description

Race: Human, English

Age: 20s / 120s

Height: 5'4" feet, Weight: 130 pounds; Hair: Black; Eyes: Brown; Build: Athletic

Complications

Secrets: So many secrets. If the full depth of Ghiza's knowledge were to become known, many are the mystical powers that would want her dead.

Quirk: Married to a ghost, and this has given her a somewhat... unorthodox opinion on the morality of lingering a while in this mortal coil.

Enemy: The Illuminati will quickly learn their old nemesis is no longer buried in the sands of Egypt. Perhaps they will think at first she is someone who took up the Curse of Ghiza's legacy, but then again, this is a strange world. Maybe they will not.

Out of Time: It has been 90 years since Ghiza walked the world. The future is a strange country. Secret Identity: Without papers or records that would be believed, Gertrude Givens is just another illegal immigrant trying to stay below the notice of the law.

Responsibilities: As one of the very few who can walk the lands of the dead and the gardens of the gods, strange beings sometimes come up to her with even stranger requests it would be foolish to refuse.

Stats (150 points, 148 used)

Abilities (40 points)

Strength 0, Stamina 0, Agility 5, Dexterity 0, Fighting 0, Intellect 10, Awareness 5, Presence 0

Defenses (15)

Dodge 10, Parry 5, Fortitude 5, Toughness 5 (0 w/out defensive roll), Will 5

Offense Hand to Hand, Rank 0, +15 Improvised Weapons, Rank 5, +15 Rifle, Rank 5, +5

Skills (36)

Acrobatics +10, Athletics +10, Close Combat (HtH) + 10, Deception +5, Expertise (History) +15, Expertise (Magic) +15, Expertise (Conspiracy) +15, Insight +5, Investigation +15, Perceptions +5, Persuasion +5, Ranged Combat (Rifles) +5, Stealth +10, Technology +11, Treatment +11, Vehicles +5,

Advantages (25)

Agile Feint Set Up 1 Benefit 1 Cipher Defensive Roll 5 Fearless Improved Disarm Improvised Weapon 5 Ritualist Second Chance 2 [Dramatic Leaps, Avoiding Traps] Skill Mastery History Skill Mastery Magic Takedown 2 Uncanny Dodge Equipment 2 Adventuring Gear

Powers (29)

• Secrets of the Sphinx (13 points) All Tongues of Earth and Heaven: Comprehend 5 [Languages (Speak and Read), Spirits] Until All Is Revealed: Immunity 1 [Aging] Alt: No door barred: Movement 3 [Dimensional Travel (Mystical Dimensions), Permeate (Rank 1); Affects Others] Alt: Foundations of Magic: Quickness 6 [Limited to Rituals]

• Tomb Raider (5 points) This belongs in a museum! Senses 2 [Magical Awareness, extra: Dimensional] Alt:Action Archaeologist (1 points): Movement 2 [Sure Footed,Swinging]

• Guardian Amulet (11 points) Renenet's Justice: Luck Control 1 (Forced Reroll, take worst) [Area +1; Luck 6] Favored Plaything: Senses 1 (Danger Sense)

• Rifle (10 equipment points) Ranged Damage 5

Base (3)

Character Beats

-Almost as good a detective as Batman and far more inquisitive. She'll often be found poking her nose into the most amazing places. -She can travel through and to the Lands of the Dead and other mystical dimensions, talk to anyone, and take others with her. -She's likely to know some secrets about just about anything, though she doesn't have Eidetic Memory. -What she doesn't already know, she's got every advantage to figure out. -Ritual Magic lets her turn that knowledge into power. She may not be a threat the first time you meet her... -She is a mook massacre waiting to happen. +15 to attack, 5 damage with improvised weapons and Takedown 2. Think the "captured" Black Widow scene in Avengers. -There isn't much of anywhere she can't break and enter with a lot of atheticism, a little planning, and some good old Egyptian magic.

Background

Meta History

Gertrude (no last name) first appeared in the (misnamed) "Curse of Ghiza", a three part action/horror story published in Marvel Tales #71-73, 1950. Never intended to be a super-hero origin story, it followed the adventurous newlyweds Hank and Gertrude Storey in a thrilling cautionary tale of not trusting foreigners and the dangers of ancient dark magics. It was fairly well regarded, but being it ended on the very strong implication of the terrified Gertrude being eaten by the Sphinx, there was no expectation it would ever see a sequel.

Fast forward to 2002. Tomb Raider has exploded in popularity, and writers at Marvel are looking to bring in their own sexy action-hero archaeologist. Someone remembers the old "Curse of Ghiza" and says, hey, what if Gertrude had answered the Sphinxes riddle? Thus "Ghiza" was born. At first a minor character who was a barely disguised Laura Croft ripoff, she bounced as a minor supporting character between multiple writers and stories, slowly accumulating additional character traits and a great deal of inconsistency in how she talked and even looked. As time went on, she became more of a mystical character, a source of strange hints and ominious warnings.

It was 2012 before "Ghiza" got her own solo story. A retro-history set in the 1920s, it recapped her origin with her cast in a much more heroic role, and then introduced her as fighting against a vast international inter-war conspiracy to steal mystical artifacts from the illuminati. The Indiana Jones pastiche was shameless. It kept the much more mystical side to her character though, and used it to explain the inconsistencies in her characterization and speech as mystical bans and costs for the use of the magical secrets of the Sphinx.

The solo title was cancelled in 2015, but it revived her popularity and ended with her sealing herself in a tomb to sleep the "Sleep of the Dead", a clear invitation/setup for her to be fast forwarded from the 1930s to the 2010s.

Long Background

Avid egyptophiles both, it was not surprising (if slightly scandelous) to their friends and families that Gertrude Givens and Hank Storey should announce their intention to join an expedition to Egypt in the same letter as their formal engagement. It was 1920, after all, and what could be more romantic than to dig in the sand for ancient secrets? Certainly there were stories of unrest among the natives, but by all accounts the British army had it all well in hand.

Through the winter and spring of 1920, Egypt was everything the couple had dreamed. Travelling further and further up the Nile, they eventually joined an exciting new expedition aiming for a rumored tomb on the Blue Nile of a forgotten pharoah. The company may have been sketchy, the historical records suspect, but the excitement was irresistible. Many months of wandering later, the find was unbelievable. A buried pyramid in the sand, only it's still golden-sheathed tip peaking above. Digging began immediately. Unfortunately for everyone involved, so did the rumors. The bandits must have been waiting and watching, for they attacked the very day the entrance was unearthed. Only seven - including Gertrude and Hank - were kept alive. Four died to the deadly traps inside the tomb's entrance and another killed himself, driven mad the bandits said by the curse of the pharoah within. Gertrude and Hank were the last, using their obsessive knowledge of ancient egyptian culture and techniques to navigate deeper and deeper down the passage way, the guns of their captors always trained on them from the entrance above. Finally, they reached the stone door straight beneath the capstone, and shouted back to their captors that all the traps had been removed.

It was a lie, of course. Both had agreed long ago that it was more than worth their lives to keep the secrets of this pyramid - for they had become convinced it was no tomb, but a temple to a god unknown - from the hands of their brutal captors. As the bandits crowded round behind them, impatient to see the riches within, the lovers triggered the final trap, collapsing the entire corridor and burying themselves and the bandit's leader alive. In the darkness and the confusion, Gertrude heard a sudden struggle and two shots in the tiny corridor, and then silence. Crawling until she found the bodies, she cried alone in the dark, waiting for death. Only when her raw throat could no longer speak did she fall silent. Broken and in the dark, she heard breathing. Crawling blindly towards it, her fingers found an invisible indentation in the unmovable doors, and she stepped through into a chamber of wonder.

No gold was in there, but the very walls seemed to glint and shine like metal though there was no light to reflect. There were no elaborate sarcophogi, but thirty great slabs upon which lay what Gertrude took first for sleeping lions. Approaching them without fear, for she had long passed the ability to care for her life, Gertrude saw that, but for one, they were not breathing. Closer still, and she recognized what her eyes had seen but her exhausted mind not processed. Upon each lion's body lay two great eagles wings, and upon their shoulders the heads of handsome men or beautiful women. And one, just one, who raised still living eyes up to the intruder into her domain.

What was told to Gertrude in the pyramid of the last sphinx is a secret, for it is secrets that were imparted to her. Secrets of ancient days and ancient magics long forgotten or never known by mortal men. Secrets of the world of stone and flesh, and the world of spirits and gods. Secrets that Gertrude swore to take to her grave - to guard past life until she also is the last of her kind, and another should come to learn them of her.

Gertrude left that pyramid by the secret paths through all stones, and spoke the secret tongue of the dead to her fiance, marrying herself to his spirit by secret rites. Travelling across the desert, she returned to Egypt to wage a secret war against the secret masters who had set the bandits upon the expedition and wrested from them the secret treasures they had gathered. They called her the Curse of Ghiza, and all who would plunder secrets ancient or profane feared here.

When the time was right, she built herself a secret tomb and laid down to rest, confident she would awaken again if the time was right. That time is now and the place, she has been told by whispers in her dreams, is New York. But the reason is a secret even to herself.

Friends

TBD

Other Loved Ones

Hank Storey, Ghost Husband