General Information

Name: Anmar al-Nibal
AKA: Once she transforms, she'll start calling herself Seaspray,
Gender: Female
Age: 19
Place of Birth: Giza, Egypt
Inoculated: Yes

Personality:

Intrapersonal Interactions: I refuse to acknowledge most forms of authority- I resents having most any aspect of my life controlled. That isn't to say I'm stupid about it, though- I doesn't disobey orders for the point of doing so. And if an order makes sense, I'll do it- but I'll still chafe at the idea of being ordered around. Naturally, I'm not a big fan of our less-than friendly neighborhood Dr. Frankenstein.

I also refuse most kinds of authority, unless it's a rather informal position without anything in the way of a binding agreement, or if said authority has proven itself to be worthy of me following it. Or if it's suicidal for me not to do otherwise.

I once wondered what I would do if put in a dedention camp or something, and realized that mostly likely I would attempt to annoy the police at every single turn until I was beaten up, at which point I would be more subtle. If I can be subtle.

I treat allies on an informal basis unless formality is necessary. I also typically give an ally what they request and keep them in the loop, unless I am unsure of their sincerity.

If someone's my enemy, I either ignore them, go out of my way to make their life humiliating, or disable them (depending on the kind of enemy). Unless it's Dr. Evil's Super-Secret Underground Complex. Then I'm in favor of killing him, killing all his guards and cronies, and burying the entire place under tons of rubble.

Fears/Likes/Dislike: I'd have to say that the major hatred/fear I have is fire. Anything larger than a candle closer than a few feet makes me start to panic. I also hate mustard and loud noises.

History: Quite a while before I was born, my parents moved from Egypt when it became clear a war was about to happen (smart move- they lived in Sinai). They lived in the US for a decade or two before moving back to Egypt for vacation, during which time I was born.

After the age of three years or so, I lived in Boston. Most of my life was pretty average before my teenage years, though at a fairly young age I watched a zombie film and ended up being sucked into preparation for a zombie attack (later it became a Dalek attack, since anything capable of killing one of them can kill a zombie). I took an interest in transcendentalism around the age of 13, after spending a very long time staring at a tide pool. My parents were less than thrilled, but they knew enough about my personality to know that they couldn't force anything on me, even if they had really wanted to. So they tolerated it. Besides, I never thought it in a religious way, simply that observation of nature was the best way to understand the world.

I started eskrima for the purpose of self-defense, so my parents would feel better about my habit of getting a bit turned around and taking walks by myself, when I turned 16. I've been taking it ever since, and have become rather adept at it. I can knock out your run of the mill mugger, but I'd have very little chance against a soldier. But now that I have phytokinesis, that may change if I'm wielding wooden weapons. But like everything, it will take time. Time I don't have.

School was fairly simple in an academic sense. Assignments were fairly easy- not just for me, but for the entire school. Socially, it was a different matter.

When you look different than everybody else, people give you odd looks, wondering about who and what you are. I knew, of course, and I told them- but it didn't make much of a difference. I was foreign, and looked it. I was defiant towards authority, causing people to give me even weirder looks, which I hadn't thought possible but obviously was incorrect about. I spoke Arabic (sometimes, it's certainly useful to swear in it, since no one knows what you're talking about), and that also marked me. The fact that I wasn't very religious marked me further- here's an Arab walking around in a T-shirt and jeans, not seeming religious in the least. It upset the worldview some had of Arabs being incredibly devout.

Sensing that I had decided that life sucked, my parents dragged me off to India, then a few regions of Africa, attempting to demonstrate what actually counted as life sucking. I didn't complain again, but did begin to have a resentment towards those who would impose their social structures on other peoples- after all, that's what caused so many wars and genocides in the developing world. I also noticed that whenever anybody went and tried to fix it, they made things worse. The Cold War, the modern situation in the Middle East... to me they stem from a root cause, which is the tendency of a powerful nation to interfere, using the military, with the affairs of smaller ones. After that I got to go to Australia, which was nice. The sun there was as good as in Egypt. And unlike in Egypt, my parents weren't going to worry about my sleeves being too short or something like they usually did. Not that they were that short in the first place.

And thus my anti-authoritative streak was strengthened.

I graduated, and didn't go to college immediately as my parents suggested, instead hopping on a plane and going to Montana, intending upon seeing the world, but first the Bridge Wilderness, which one of my classmates had recommended. I was in there for about five minutes, then was ambushed. I managed to take down one person, who was stupid, and drunk, and let his guard down, with a great big stick, but then that same person tased my ankle as I was stepping over him to attack his buddy.

The Bridge Wilderness is overrated. Rangers are extremely unfriendly and tase hikers. Rooms at lodge are tiny. Toliet facilities are nearly nonexistant. Very little wildlife, almost all of it exotic, sentient, mutated, and in small cages. Lowest possible recommendation.

Physical Information

Visual Appearance (completely optional):





Physical Appearance: In human form, I have rather olive-colored skin, black hair that is usually in a male haircut, and lime-green eyes. In dolphin form, I'm sleek, with a white underside, pinkish sides, and a gray upperside. There's a lighter gray area coming in from my eye.

Clothing and Armor: I wear a cotton T-shirt and denim blue-jeans. Both are organic due to my mother insisting upon it.

Weapons I am trained in eskrima, and thus an adept with short rattan poles.

Inoculated only

Alternate Form Spinner dolphin

AbilitiesPhytomancer, or:

* The ability to change the color of wood and carve it.
* The ability to take a plant and modify its genetic structure so it grows into a device that takes nutrients from the air. Any device she must understand, unless she uses Serum 43x, in which case she can have one thing she had no clue as to the workings of involved. Fortunately, it seems that her ability to comprehend technical schematics has skyrocketed.


Growth time depends on complexity. A rough scale:

* Small knife: several days
* Big, sharp knife: week
* Gun: several weeks
* Computer: several months

Each individual object shall be submitted unless it contains no moving parts and can fit in the palm of the hand. In other words, if it's the size and effectiveness of a knife.

Other Information
Faction: I hold the position of 'I wish to kill Dr. Evil.'
Bonus Section:

Phytokinesis sounds good, as long as you set limits. So does levitating, to a certain extent. But both together is a bit much, to be honest.

Otherwise, it looks good. History looks a bit awkward for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, but it works.

Except that if Anmar wasn't capable of levitation, her powers would be useless as long as her enemies stayed away from water. As it is, she's got to dunk herself in water on a regular basis to avoid her skin drying out (so she can't stay in dolphin form for very long out of water). Her sonar isn't functional on land, she still sets off pressure-sensative tiles due to the fact that she's creating an area of high pressure under her body, any trip wires would be impossible to circumvent using her form... It's more of a required secondary power type thing if one's going to be a dolphin shapeshifter and fight land-based enemies.

Here's a thought: Why not make levitation your primary power? Being able to "swim" through the air could give you the edge you need to stay alive in combat.

Also, flying dolphin = pretty sweet.

I agree with the others on the "pick one and stick to it" thing with powers. I know the levitation seems purely for survival, but consider this: the scientists aren't actually interested in trying to help you. They probably wouldn't give you two powers, not at this stage of experimentation. If you really want a plant-based power, I would suggest switching animals. (Also consider when we escape - we may or may not be near water. You may or may not have an opportunity to transform, and therefore might not even have an opportunity to use your chosen primary power.)

(Although Lithas obviously has final say on the matter - just consider that you might want a second option ready to go, because our lovely GM doesn't have very much internet time right now.)

flying spinner dolphin = win ^^

I love your originality with a dolphin transformation but I have a couple of nagging things...
1. Dolphins and whales overheat if they are out of water for a long time.
2. Dolphins skin needs to be constantly hydrated. (like frogs, otherwise they die)
3. Dolphins rely on water support to support their body, opposed to body support.

I think you might have curred no 3 with your levitating ability, but you may want to think something up for the overheating and hydration bit... Maybe you could put that she can extract water from plants or something and transfer it to her skin?

I've removed the levitation ability. I suppose later I could have her grow something that allowed her to not have to crawl around on the ground, and released water and kept her cool.

Would McFarland even do that? I don't know what purpose he intends for us, but the issue of developing secondary and tertiary powers in one subject, simply for the sake of getting around the animal form's shortcomings, just seems to me like too much hassle for too little return.

It is with this in mind that I second the suggestion that you pick a different animal. If you must have an aquatic-based mammal, I suggest an otter; at least they have a chance of surviving on land.

Actually, I was referring to her using her abilities to grow a plant-derived object allowing her to do so. It would require an inordinate amount of time and energy to grow, but she might be able to do it, depending on what the power limit is. If that's too powerful, though, I'll make her an otter.

Oh... that kind of growing. My mistake; I thought you were referring to your character developing those powers on her own, not growing plants to help her out.

I still think it would take more time than is feasible, given that you have to be in water to sustain yourself while you expend that effort and energy.

Due to the obvious disadvantage of dolphin form, she's better than normal at casting in human form, though she lacks raw power.

I've created a list of what Anmar can do with phytokinesis, listed in order of how long it will take to master. This will provide a basic idea of how powerful she is (which is quite a bit, with plenty of practice and time).

* Move plant matter around. If there's a huge amount of pollen in the air (by huge I mean the pollen count's so high that even people without allergies are sneezing their heads off), then she can push large things around with the force of a fairly weak punch- not enough to knock someone out, but enough to drive them back a step if aimed at the stomach. After a week of training she can use a pencil, paintbrush, or similar wooden object to reproduce something she imagined or is seeing with a fair degree of accuracy. Holding it all in her head at once isn't necessary. She can also remove bits of paper with pencil marks on them, removing the mark at the cost of the integrity of the paper.
* Change plant matter- add a color image to a flute or carve an image on wood, for example. This will take a week or so, and requires the same amount of time to carve or paint the image that it would without the aid of her abilities.
* Use plants to create devices. This will require a power source and an understanding of how the device works (in otherwords, a blueprint, preferably physical). It takes a month to learn how to make each new device, and at least a week to grow, more depending on size and complexity. She also requires some Serum 43x to work with for things that aren't invented yet (in which case she can add one component that doesn't exist yet) and don't have a solid ground in modern day technology (if she can do it at all- if she can't, I'll change her to an otter). Also, she can only know how to make ten things at a time (she can write down instructions, however). Her levitation/grav-reduction device, for example, will take a month or two to grow, maybe more. It will, by the way, work by reducing graviton flow via an innate power given by an ounce of Serum 43x injected into the seed, then maybe a quart more given during watering. It requires two hours of exposure to a strong electric field to charge up for eight hours of continuous use, though, and requires water and sunlight as well.

Like Will, Anmar is also fairly good at casting while human, due to the obvious disadvantage of being a dolphin (this is due to training). She is better at raw power when in dolphin form, but is better at subtle applications of her ability in human form (the ability to color wood, for example, allows ever-so-slightly finer detail when in human form).

I removed the ability to animate plants and the ability to make them grow at astounding rates. I've kept the last part because that's what I originally imaged her as- an artificer-type who worked with plants instead of technology.

EDIT: Though I might re-add the ability to make plants grow quickly, though it would require a plant and take longer, if that isn't too OPed. I also removed some of her artificer-type abilities.

I don't feel like a good judge of OP powers so I'll ignore that bits (sounds interesting though)

If you wanted a more marine animal that can move on land you could try going for a pinniped, which are semi-aquatic. Something people don't think of is that in water senses are different, light is refracted by the water and as water is more dense than air the way sound travels is different too. So you're poor dolphin would be pretty much blind (or need glasses) and a hearing aid to hear and see out of water. Also breathing would be difficult, not sure on dolphins but I know some fish's internal organs collapse when take out of water. While I think McFarland would make such a test subject (easy to lock up) it wouldn't be easy to play.

Actually, dolphins have acute eyesight in and out of water. I don't know about hearing, though.

By the way, since most of the potentially OP stuff needs weeks to get down, I could fix it on the fly. Right now she only has weak telekinesis that applies to plant matter.

Also, in relation to being easy to play, I had actually planned a character that was easy to play- a lion shapeshifter with the ability to manifest a ruby disk that shot heat rays (think Eye of Ra). But I decided against it because it would be easy to play, and I wanted a bit of a challenge.

Since it's ultimately Lithas's job to approve characters, and since he's the driving intelligence behind Dr. M, I'm going to put this question to him:

While freshwater dolphins do exist, Spinners are purely saltwater-based. In his attempts to create super-powered animals, is the not-so-good doctor really going to use the DNA of a creature that requires such a specialized environment to survive? And would he really give it powers that aren't compatible with its species type?

And also, while it wouldn't be that difficult to fill a tank with freshwater(they are under a lake), it's far more difficult to replicate the chemical composition of tropical ocean waters. Would Dr. M. go to all that trouble for a human that can't access her forest power otherwise? And for that matter, would he do it for a critter that basically has no business being in the forest in the first place?

I know my place, Lithas; if you can see it working, I'll withdraw the question entirely. But to my mind, it makes about as much sense as the story of Rumplestiltskin.

First off: The fact that she can't survive long (Though saltwater dolphins have to remain in fresh water for a while before anything bad happens, and that bad thing is that their skin sloughs. Which would cause irritation and possibly disease, but she could turn into human form and deal with it that way. Not comfortable, though.) is exactly why they gave her the ability to make plant constructs. She could potentially be dangerous, thus they gave her a form that put her at a tactical disadvantage. By making her dependent on Serum 43x for highly advanced constructs they put another limit on her. And really- Mc engineered an underground base. He can build a saltwater tank once it becomes necessary for testing her powers. But in the meantime, it keeps her from using them to their full extent outside of testing. Once again, perfect for Mc.

And if she does become interesting that they want her to work for long periods? Well, she can create the levitation device I mentioned.

Second: As several people have already decided, the powers of Serum 43x work to a significantly greater extent than Serum 43's outside of animal form- enough, for example, to detonate a roomful of methane early. They'll start out testing her by having her throw pencils with supernatural accuracy and other activities similar to that. Will she have raw power? No. But it is enough for Mc to decide if she's worth pursuing as a test subject. If she is, he has her do brief tests requiring her to turn into animal form, with a doctor on hand to keep her moist and cool. She wouldn't survive long beached, but once it became life-threatening she would most likely turn back into human form automatically.

Third off: Serum 43x isn't exactly the easiest thing on the planet to get. But she can still steal it.
And in relation to the effect on plants, ordinarily, unless Lithas says otherwise, it would have no effect. She slightly alters the genetic structure to make it accept the serum. And she only requires it for constructs out of science fiction. For example, one of her first projects will be to try and over several days shape wood into a small platform. That doesn't require Serum 43x.

Fourth: Her ability helps her survival a great deal- admittedly not in water, but her abilities enable her to create a secure shelter. All she needs is a tree and time. The role of her power was never battle, she has eskrima for that. Her power enables her to fortify herself and her allies with a base of operations (she can create a 10x10 platform in the trees in several days, if Lithas says yes), weapons (she can grow a gun, given enough time- and it doesn't have to be a normal gun, if she has serum, it can be a boomstick), food (fruit), water (leaves that collect rainwater), and shelter (by covering the platform). She can provide a place to study, in the form of a sound-proof area with books, perhaps books relating to better understanding powers. She can create a memorial to those who have died, if any do- a place to remember what people are fighting for (their lives). She can create a place to train in combat, and a laboratory of sorts for people to experiment with their powers. That's the role I have planned for her. It will take months, maybe even years. But she can do it. She has the ability to carve wood and shape it.

Of course, McFarland's eventually going to notice. Hopefully by then, though, she'll either be able to cloak it, or have it combat capable.