Nightshade Teregrina/Keiko

Nightshade Ariachna Teregrina (a.k.a. The Tailor)

"A terrifying giant spider picked off our unit one by one, I was the only survivor. It made no sound but moved fast like an arrow. We stood no chance." - Imperial report from a mostly KIA scouting party

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Nightshade is just below peak performance for someone of her race, she has the physical capabilities and upgrades but lacks the knowledge to use them properly. She's also still very young and therefore still not at her full physical potential.

Body Features

Nightshade shares body features with other half-driders. The most important anatomical trait is the 2-way knee joints that let her easily climb over walls with the speed and efficiency of a real spider. Also like spiders, Nightshade has an auxiliary system of hydraulic vessels in her legs and arms which lets her remain mobile even when paralyzed. When using the hydraulic vessels and her muscle mass at the same time, Nightshade is capable of pretty impressive feats of strength.
Another very important trait that is also why Nightshade is surprisingly strong is her chitin which is extremely lightweight. Her muscle mass is roughly equivalent to that of a human her size but her chitin weighs only 1/8th the full weight of mammalian bones, leaving her with much more expendable strength. Her chitin, despite being fairly fragile functions well as armor, easily deflecting slash, stab, and piercing type damage due to the angled shapes at the expense of being much more vulnerable to crush, blunt, and elemental damage.
Nightshade, like any spider, has no feet but rather just needle-like legs that are perfect for stabbing into enemies with a high-powered kick. The lack of feet in combination with her lightweight chitin reducing her weight allows for virtually soundless mobility. Due to her weight, she can not use momentum to put force into a stabbing kick, she will have to rely on the strength of her other leg to do damage.
Half-Driders like Nightshade are optimized for stealth. Their thin frame, lightweight, and needle legs reduce the odds of being detected but they are tipped over the edge into natural assassins due to a specific toolset. First, Nightshade can turn fully invisible, she does this by essentially turning her chitin body parts into mirrors, making it hard to actually find her even after being detected. Secondly, being cold-blooded, Nightshade can bypass basic thermal vision as her body temperature will match her surroundings. Her needle legs and lightweight will completely bypass sound detection technology and by using advanced stealth technology she can even circumvent motion detectors. She can even temporarily halt her own heartbeat to fool pulse monitors and play dead.
She also has tools for detecting others rather than just avoiding them. All driders have more than one pair of eyes each with specific uses. Some driders have magnification for higher detail, others simply have a broader field of view. Nightshade has 2 pairs of eyes, one of which is comparable to that of other humans but her second, much smaller eyes are essentially binoculars. Both her eyes work in total darkness and using the luminescence, they can be used to trick enemies into thinking she is further away than she is.
Driders aren't usually well known for a poisonous bite, let alone a lethal one, but due to upgrades to her body Nightshade also now has hypodermic needle teeth that can inject a paralyzing poison into an enemy. Nightshade also got an upgrade to her webs at a young age, where her lowest pair of arms shoot acidic wires that melt flesh while her upper pair fires ordinary webs. In addition, Nightshade also has pointy fingertips made of chitin that are perfect for slashing.
Lastly, in accordance with her spider biology, Nightshade is not a herbivore or even an omnivore, she is strictly carnivorous and requires large quantities of meat to stay strong. While she can digest small amounts of plant matter, if she were to eat a full vegetarian meal she would become very ill. Hunger is a very present variable in the life of Nightshade, as she will get more and more irate the hungrier she gets and when starving, instead of growing weak and frail may begin to attack other people (usually enemy soldiers).
She also requires a lot more water compared to other races, not just to stay hydrated but also to maintain an adequate supply of poison and webs ready for use. Nightshade will dehydrate faster if she's actively using poison and webs. When dehydrated, her chitin will become more rigid and easier to break.
All riders, both half and full blood have features and traits resembling actual spiders. Nightshade's equivalent is a common house spider, and much like it she is generally unimpressive but has the potential to grow quite powerful.

Facial Features

Nightshade has a fairly round face with her specialized eye set situated above her standard pair of eyes. Unlike most half driders, she has no mandibles or retractable fangs, she has an ordinary mouth. Her regular mouth means she has more startup lag when biting a target but can use her lower jaw to dig deeper into flesh and cause brutal injuries in addition to delivering poison.
She typically has a kind smile on her face. Her fangs protrude about half an inch out of her mouth and are almost always visible, although the gums are only visible when she bares her teeth (which is how driders flush their needle teeth with poison). 
Lastly, Nightshade has somewhat curly hair that is typically died in a bun.

Special abilities

Every spider known to both earth's and jeslore's science has an acidic poison that liquefies organs which lets the animal drain its meal from the body of the prey. Driders are usually no different, although some of them have secondary glands that produce a paralyzing poison or deadly neurotoxin. Nightshade is different in that she essentially has a neurotoxin that causes a nearly instant loss of consciousness. This means that whereas other driders use their bites to force an enemy into retreat or surrender in exchange for an anti-venom, Nightshade can win a fight if she can only get a bite in. It does mean that her bite is not lethal and if she intends to kill, she must still use her normal weaponry after biting.

Apparel & Accessories

Nightshade, being a failed fashion designer, delights in making her own clothes and equipment. She generally dresses very sharp, wearing a stately suit with a stretchy skirt and shorts below them. Her vest has ribbons hanging over her sleeves, somewhat resembling spider legs and her cufflinks have tiny spiders on them. It is also rarely seen but Nightshade wears a watch on the left wrist of her upper pair of arms. This watch in addition to telling the time activates Nightshade's invisibility field.
In keeping with the theme of sharply dressed, Nightshade wears a pair of augmentations on her legs that increases her jump height, further reduces sound, and as a nice bonus boasts needle-sharp tips perfect for stabbing into enemies with powerful kicks.

Specialized Equipment

Nightshade is very rarely seen using any other weapon than her needlers and her scissors. Both her weapons are in honor of her failed ambition. 
Whereas most assassins would simply use a knife or some other type of sharp weapon to stab enemies, Nightshade uses a pair of highly modified scissors. Both sides of the blades are razor sharp and they can be swung around like a knife but also obviously be used in a shearing motion. The scissors offer a bit more utility in certain situations and are obviously also used to cut fabric for Nightshade's many fashion projects.
Nightshade also has 4 pistols she has named needlers. They are essentially highly modified under double barrels that use slugs instead of shells. They are modified to resemble the needle of a sewing machine. The needlers are fairly primitive weapons, using an external firing pin that needs to be manually cocked with tons of accessories that make it fairly unwieldy to someone not familiar with them. The crudeness of it is one of its strengths as it is easy to maintain and will never really jam.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

As is typical with spiders and by extension driders, Nightshade came from a large family, being the last to be born in a brood of 50. Contrary to spiders though, despite being (the only) female of her brood, she was considered the runt that had to be protected by her much larger and more powerful brothers. Her brothers all developed spectacular abilities seen in spiders, such as Blondi who had chitin hard enough to stop bullets, Mactan who's razor-sharp rapier was only matched by his even sharper wit and debilitating poisons, and Merus who like his namesake could leap incredible distances to capture enemies with unbelievable accuracy. 
Compared to her siblings, it seemed likely Nightshade would be a deadbeat. Her chitin was fragile, she had very weak poison and was not very dexterous. She grew up with an interest in arts and crafts, aspiring to be a fashion designer and stylist. But it wasn't to be.

Employment

Nightshade has been fairly active as a mercenary throughout most of her life, particularly taking jobs that necessitate stealth and careful planning. She was originally part of the Lorrian's leopard seal unit before being picked up by Klaut. Once recruited into the Neo-Immortals, Nightshade still did mostly the same work but with aspirations for something much more ambitious.
Her unique racial abilities lend themselves perfectly for clandestine wetwork and she's later on considered to be the most efficient assassin to serve in a war.

Personality Characteristics

Virtues & Personality perks

Nightshade's defining strength that makes her excel at everything she does is precision. She can cut fabric perfectly, stitch with pinpoint accuracy, surgically cut through an enemy's artery, or draw lines with flawless stability because she has the eyes for detail and the patience to persist. Both in fashion design and assassination, precision is key to a successful procedure and it is what Nightshade has in droves.
She can also be described as motherly (despite being only 17). With Koizumi the way she is, it has typically been up to Nightshade to offer emotional and moral support to her younger siblings Glitch and Maul. She has a very tight bond with Glitch and takes care of her to the best of her ability. Even when faced with immense baggage, Nightshade can maintain composure for Glitch and Maul.

Vices & Personality flaws

The most obvious weakness Nightshade has is that her emotional stability is completely dependent on whether she's well fed or not. As a drawback to all her racial perks, Nightshade needs tons of food to stay healthy. Humans can survive up to 3 weeks without food but Nightshade will starve if she doesn't meet a certain intake of meat every 2 days. On top of the additional pressure for food, Nightshade can digest vegetarian options (plants, eggs, dairy, bread, etc) but will not gain nutrition from it and, like all spiders, is an obligate carnivore. This leads to a piss poor diet where Nightshade predominately survives on her favorite: salami sandwiches. She's also fond of junk food like hamburgers, boulets, and curryworst speciaal* (Translates to dutch frikandel). Due to her reliance on meat, she'll end up eating loads of meat waste. On top of that, not just any type of meat will do, it has to be red such as pork, beef, and of course, humans (though she's not known to have actually eaten someone).
When Nightshade gets hungry, she will become more and more irate and may even get violent outbursts if she's starving so for the sake of morality alone she is constantly worried about keeping herself fed. She generally becomes moody about 12 hours after having last eaten, oversensitive after 18 hours, extremely irate after 24, and violent after 48 although even when starving she does not exactly lose control of herself.
Nightshade also consistently has to deal with the fact that she's creepy, not in her behavior but just the stigma driders face of being cannibalistic and just generally her spider-like appearance. While this occasionally plays to her advantage (her enemies are terrified of her), she finds it difficult to deal with people that are her allies and still fear her, even if she tries her hardest to be as kind as possible. Even things as trivial as an open mouth smile is enough to give some people nightmares, and in a lot of cases, her outward friendliness works against her and makes people even more scared of her.
To add to the fact that her friendliness is creepy to some, she's also incapable of frowning as she could end up biting herself with her fangs if she pulled her mouth corners down too far. This means that at best she can have a neutral face to convey unhappiness. To convey anger or even hate, Nightshade can't do much more than just kind of squint her eyes. She generally relies on body language a lot to express herself (for example when enraged she'll have a hunched posture with her arms ready to swipe or in front of her but when neutral she has an upright posture).

Hygiene

Nightshade has excellent hygiene, showering daily and even seeing to the needs of Glitch and Maul if they let her. Nightshade keeps her hair well-groomed and in style but pays just as much attention to her skin, chitin, make up and teeth.

Social

Contacts & Relations

• Klaut Nickolas Rosefield - Effective grandfather, employer, mentor
• Koizumi Keiko - Legal guardian, adoptive sister
• Glitch - Younger sibling
• Maul - Younger sibling
• Kugz Warguard - Friend, Co-Worker
• Vayelyth Sunshard - Girlfriend, Co-Worker
• Luttgarde Rosefield - Effective Grandmother
• The Lorrian - Former Employer
• James Hector Orwell - Effective employer
• Percy Wright - Caretaker
• Hannah Von Hammersmark - Adoptive sister
• Cassie Webb - Accomplice
• Mayhem - Accomplice

Family Ties

• Ariachna Teregrina (Deceased) - Mother
• Mactan Teregrina (Deceased) - Brother
• Blondi Teregrina (Deceased) - Brother
• Merus Teregrina (Deceased) - Brother
• 40+ Unnamed Brothers (Deceased)
• Tower Charlot (Deceased) - Distant Ancestor
• Citadel Charlot - Distant cousin

Social Aptitude

Nightshade is well behaved and displays extensive etiquette and composure in any situation. She is often mistaken for a much higher social status than she actually is due to her manners. She very much dislikes having to resort to eating without silverware and is always ready to remind people around her of good manners, especially her little sister who effectively wipes her ass with good manners. Unfortunately due to her posh accent, strict hygiene, fondness of table manner and overall her own presentation, she's often seen as arrogant and insular in spite of her actual personality.

War-Hero

Species

Half-Drider

Ethnicity

Elders

Other Ethnicities/Cultures

• Human races

Currently Held Titles

• Badasses

Age

17

Circumstances of Birth

Nightshade was the runt of a 50 numbered brood, being the only female. She barely survived infancy and was also the only half-drider of the brood.

Birthplace

Bittercross

Pronouns

She/her

Gender

Female

Eyes

Monochromatic red

Hair

Curly brown hair

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Nightshade's skin has a light purple coloration while her chitin is a much darker shade of purple

Height

1.8m

Weight

20kg

Quotes & Catchphrases

"In the absence of light, danger can't find me."
"You can blame the empire for turning me to assassination because I wanted to be a fashion designer."
"I love being born in a time where all I can really do is stare into the nightmare rectangle to see morality collapse in real-time but the most important thing is to stay hydrated."

Aligned Organization

Council Commando

Other Affiliations

• The Galactic Council

Class: 
Assassin

Theme