Drifter
"Quote."
— Speaker, context
Alias: Drifter Real Name: Unknown Secret Identity?: Yes Age: Unknown Gender: Female Occupation: None Base of Operations: None
Overview
Drifter is a kind of mythical figure. There are tales of her appearing, helping to resolve a crisis, and then vanishing again in a way that makes people wonder if she was actually real. Attempts to find her are inevitably dead ends, and even stranger, where records of her are found they are sometimes from a totally different planet or century.
Description
Drifter's appearance is a combination of styles from many different places and times. Head scarves mix with goggles, with a body suit, with a tactical harness, with a medieval gauntlet. She does try to color-coordinate, so a theme of black and purple with gold accents ties the eclectic mix together. A long blonde ponytail is the only part of herself open to the elements.
Origin Story
Don't be rude to witches. That's the moral of the story Drifter took away when her thoughtless remarks provoked a curse to be bestowed upon her: She would never have a home. Far from merely condemning her to street-life, this manifested in her becoming unmoored from spacetime. For an unknown number of years since, she has drifted from time to time and place to place in a most literal fashion. Along the way, she learned techniques and gathered equipmemt necessary to survive wherever she may be thrown to next. With no point in building for herself, she instead makes marks for others, doing what she can to assist whatever time and place she finds herself next.
Personality
Drifter remains emotionally distant from those around her – a defense mechanism from knowing that she can never have stable, long-term relationships.
Powers
Drifter's curse has also become her power. Over time, she has learned to exert some degree of control over it, triggering the effects at-will. Through this, she can teleport and make micro-jumps to the future and past. She has become adept at using this knowledge of the future to inform her combat techniques.
She also occasionally develops short-term powers related to the spacetime locations she has been to. She is uncertain if this is a side-effect of the curse or simply from exposure to a wide variety of the universe's energies.
Borne from necessity, she has also developed a variety of survival and combat skills.
Equipment
Drifter wears a light environmental bodysuit, designed for use in everything from scorching alien deserts to thick jungle to the vacuum of space. This keeps her safe should she sometime suddenly find herself in an inhospitable place.
She also carries weapons and tools from advanced and future societies she has previously found herself in. Most notably, she utilizes a kind of gyrojet pistol, using her spacetime micro-jumps to compensate for the weapon's traditional weaknesses.
Complications
Drifter's curse has and continues to alter the trajectory of her entire life.
Relationships
Drifter actively avoids developing relationships, knowing they can never last. She will work with others on a short-term basis.
Notes
- Despite years of attempting, she has been able to find no consistent pattern to when her curse will trigger next or where it will take her. However, there does appear to be certain biases – she seems to disproportionately find herself amidst places with conflict or crises, and she has returned to certain time/places on multiple occasions. Neither of these should statistically happen if the curse was truly random. Alas, it is still too inconsistent for any prediction.
