Asah Rantham
“Steps of Unmaking”

Nagah
Kartikeyya of the Vritra
Silken Noose of the Untarnished Crown

Description


Homid
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 120 lb.
Ethnicity: Indian
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Medium simple black
Clothing: Orange casual or blue ethnic
Comportment/Cadence: Welcoming
Distinctions: A lovely and petite woman of northern Indian heritage, she may be found either in fun-loving American clothing or sari-inspired Indian gear; her friendliness and confidence shine through her smile, and the grace of even her simplest gestures is borderline hypnotic
Supernatural Qualities: Moreso, any of her kind can recognize the ancient lineage she bears
Accoutrements: Moderate jewelry
Traits: Appearance 4 (stunning); Style 3; Pure Breed 3

Silkaram
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 130 lb.
Eyes: Black
Hair: none
Supernatural Qualities: None of her kind would deny her ancestry now: Asah's hair vanishes into bony ridges instead; her nails lengthen dangerously while amphibious webbing grows between every digit; her nose recedes while her skin's hue shifts from a golden-brown to a yellow-green, with scaly patches dominating most of her exposed flesh; the pupils of her eyes slit into black and boring orbs; moreso, when she speaks, it is with a lisp, perhaps because her canines have lengthened...
Traits: Appearance 2; Pure Breed 3

Azhi Dahaka
Height: 7'5"
Weight: 295 lb.
Eyes: Black
Hair: none
Supernatural Qualities: Breeding and ancestry aside, in this form Asah is the monster, the killer: a great snake-woman like Medusa, though instead of snakes for hair there is only a ridged crest atop her head and a hood stretching to encompass; all human skin is gone, replaced entirely with armored bronze-colored scales interlocking like any reptile's, with a great black spot on her back; strange glyphs seem blazed or ritualistically scarred into her belly down and around the navel, before the scales thicken into the long and massive tail that encompasses her lower body and impels her movement with shocking agility; her arms end with deadly talons and flex with outrage intent, but most persuasively is the expression of an almost meditated cruelty consuming her inhuman expression, from the flickering forked tongue to the empty eyes and those deadly fangs
Traits: Appearance 0; Delirium; Pure Breed 3

Kali Dahaka
Height: 16'8"
Weight: 305 lb.
Eyes: Black
Hair: none
Supernatural Qualities: Now a massive snake as thick as a man's leg and the length of three men, her arms all but vanish into vestigial limbs; the ritual scarring fades into her bronze scales and the singular monocled spot dominating her serpentine hood becomes more prevalent; indeed, besides her outlandish size, the cunning in those reptilian eyes, and the vestigial arms, she very much looks like a common monocled cobra, though there is nothing common about what her bite could do!
Traits: Appearance 0; Pure Breed 3

Vasuki
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 6 lb.
Eyes: Black
Hair: none
Supernatural Qualities: Her breeding is most evident in this form, which appears to be a normal if dangerous cobra: her bronze scales darken to a rich muddy-brown, lightening closer to the head where the single monocle-shaped marking appears on the back of her head, which only expands into a hood when aroused or threatened, and then you get the hissing and flicker of a tongue and quite possibly a lob of venom right in your eye parts: fair warning!
Traits: Appearance 4 (stunning); Pure Breed 3

“My body brings both beauty and destruction.”

History


Date of Birth: July 17th, 1981
Home: Jasaur Kheri, Haryana, India
Family: Ishwar and Bumati Rantham (parents), Sharad (older brother)
First Skin: Personal Tragedy (born into a lower middle-class Vaishya family in a village outside of New Delhi, she was raised a devoted daughter and student; she adored her cultural traditions, particularly dance, and enrolled in a Jaipur school of Kathak "storytelling" dance; the only tradition Asah did not care for was the marriage her parents helped arrange, neither the tradition nor the groom himself; on their wedding night, she tried to play along but lost her cool and in the process, lost her human skin, shifting to Azhi Dahaka and slaying the terrified young man outright), 1997
Mentor: Vinod Bhatta
The Test: Trial by Knowledge (utterly freaked out, she fled, unconsciously returning to Balaram form, but luckily the Wani anticipated the dharma of her change, and alerted a Vritra elder, who found her hiding in the fields and calmed her, helping her clean up both herself and the body of her dead newlywed husband; they began her instruction that night, and Asah's meditations and reflections brought her a sense of peace through the passion and sentiment she long loved; she excelled through the trials Vinod and the Crown put her through, testing her knowledge of the law and her duties, as well as her ability to adapt her many years of dance to combat)
Comrades: Mekong Cara Cam, Raisa Nurlaneva, Tivra Mayadev
Key Event #1: Awe & Wonder (the Sesha directed her to fill into a Nest based out of New Delhi, called the Waters of the Gate, who had recently lost one of its members; they bonded quickly and Asah served her first Nest loyally over her first few years, developing a variety of skills to assist)
Key Event #2: War (but the Nest was devastated in battle with Kin-jin of the Ravnos clan, as they stepped in to defend their mortal kin who were scamming a local temple devoted to the river goddess, Ganga; only Asah survived, while the vampires were all slain in the battle at least)
Key Event #3: Awe & Wonder (due to this tragic experience with Kin-jin, the Sesha reassigned her to a newly formed Nest abroad in America, called the Custodians of the Jade Coil, formed of Vritra to oversee a hengeyokai Beast-Court, so she had to first take up the Great Burden and accept a scar fetish to help disguise her true nature from the intolerant Sunset People)
Key Event #4: Awe & Wonder (once in America, she adapted well, and befriended her Nestmate Mekong Cara Cam very closely over the next few years of policing both hengeyokai and Sunset People, per their mandate)
Key Event #5: War (the Nest often found itself at odds with Sunset Ratkin, though Asah knew she needed to monitor Cam's behavior with this foe due to her past)
Key Event #6: Treachery (the Sesha then rearranged Nests in the region, creating a second Nest just in that city region due to the number of shapeshifters in need of judgment, and the new Nest, the Untarnished Crown, was detached from the Beast-Courts; only Venkatakrishnan, the Sesha's lieutenant overseeing the area knew of it, as well as Asah herself since she was assigned to it)
Transition: Reassignment (yet Asah maintained her romantic relationship with the Vietnamese Nagah in Little Asia, and Cam grew suspicious that Asah's frequent visits meant she wasn't assigned far away; fortunately, Cam didn't mind at all, and Asah rejoiced in the maintained sentiment they could share while performing their difficult duties)

Ananta


Location: Blue River, Kansas City, Kansas, United States
Structure: Wilderness Den
Stock: An amphibious and muddy enclave located under the bank in the western curve of the river, in a marshy and overgrown area off from the main current, creating a cave with a few creature comforts that Balaram forms might appreciate, but largely intended for serpentine rest and communion with the Wani

Past Life


Magnitude: About 200 years into the past, before British control
Details: She chiefly recalls her ancestor known as Grace-of-Kali, also a dancer but far more destructive than Asah

Battle Scars


Class: Superficial
Description: Pale six-inch gash
Location: Torso under the right ribcage
Origin: Ratkin's fiery Pain Dagger
Effects: none

Fetishes


Scar Fetish
Appearance: A swirling Nagah glyph ritualistically branded into her belly that, to the unschooled eye, would look like any other hengeyokai-ish marking
Origin: Gift
Effects: Fool Gifts and magical powers like "Scent of the True Form" into making the scanner believe she is one of their kind or, at most, Mokolé
Activation: Automatic (like most scar fetishes)

Significant Others


Names: Mekong Cara Cam, 2003; Raisa Nurlaneva, Tivra Mayadev, 2011
Nature: Romantic; Companionship

Cam



Raisa



Tivra



Weakness
Story Yet Told


Asah loves her life and feels at peace both through dance and the cold-blooded killing expected of her. This is not a weakness for her kind, but she is very much a creature of the moment. With only a vague interest in the future, she does not plan very far ahead in life.

Likelihood of Corruption

Very low.

Her purity and passion, discretion and wisdom, help her identify and destroy threats far before they can threaten the sanctity of her soul.

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