Nero is the 95th Archbishop of Canterbury as of 1896 A.D., making her the de facto head of the Anglican Communion. She is currently living in the underground city of Fallen London.
Name: Nero Keller
Full title: The Most Reverend Nero, by Divine Providence Lady Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England and Metropolitan
Short title: "Your Grace" or (uncommon) "Mother"
Ethnicity: German
Age: 39
Eyes: Green
Hair: Greyish-white
Height: 4' 6"
Build: Thin, but healthy rather than frail
Voice: Deep, soft, and mature. It can sometimes be hard to hear Nero without her raising her voice.
Attire: Either austere dresses or modest shirts with long skirts. Almost exclusively wears boots, and always carries a bone harpoon with her, sometimes styled closer to a walking stick. In official clerical business, she wears a full purple cassock, immaculately cleaned and pressed, and specially made for her unusual size compared to most clergypersons.
Abilities:
Personality:
It is rare to see her without a smile on her face. Whether warm and welcoming, soft and nonchalant, or condescending and smug, she has a sunny disposition much of the time. The most common times you'll see her without a grin is when she's deep in contemplation, being too focused on her thoughts to worry about how she presents herself to others. While she tries to be polite, her ego can often get in the way of that. After all, if she is meant as a reflection of the Church, it wouldn't do for her to seem timid or weak, and she's hardly exaggerating to say she's better than other people. Less than in abilities, it's her virtues that she prides herself in. She grew up to be a nun originally, though instead left for missionary work before taking permanent vows. Even still, she holds true to her austerity, such that even with her current position she doesn't engage in excess, luxury, or hedonism.
That's not to say that she's always happy. She can get fierce when it comes to devils, holding a deep hatred for their entire existence. On the other hand, she can be very caring for people in need as well, not as a façade of charity but from sincere goodwill. She's certainly willing to offer sermons on any number of topics, even if her speeches can be a bit eccentric (such as a Valentine's Day sermon about the universal love for your fellow man and how one should aspire to be like Saint Valentine the Martyr in that regard, rather than focusing on romantic love which she has no experience in). Her sermons are typically quite optimistic, inspiring, and well-received, with most complaints spoken about them merely being disdain for a woman as Archbishop.
When it comes to her height… yes, she knows that she is small. No, you do not have to remind her of that fact. She was small as a kid, and she's small as a woman going on to her 40's now too. She does not need to be treated differently because of her height. She might be small, but that doesn't make her a child, and she doesn't look like one either. She will grow irritated very quickly if she needs to explain this to you. If you do decide to treat her like a child, then she will take it as an insult and respond accordingly. God forbid you decide to bring any physical contact into it like ruffling her hair. She can, and will, commit grievous bodily harm unto you, and it will be ruled as self-defence on her part as you made contact first. As you might imagine, it's a sensitive issue that can easily be avoided.
Misc.:
Her harpoon is one she carved herself from a sea monster's bones. How, exactly, is hard to say considering how stupidly durable the things are. It happened as part of a ritual for her to become a Monster-Hunter, sometime after her excursion into Hell. Bizarrely, she still has green eyes. Monster-Hunters all, without exception, end up with Peligin eyes, the colour of the deepest seas and nearly black, yet Nero somehow lacks those. It leads to some Monster-Hunters calling her a fraud, despite her outstanding feats of hunting, though some people claim that they have seen her with the blackened eyes years ago. Other hunters theorize that she somehow dyed them, or maybe uses contact lenses (which did indeed exist by 1899) to hide the true colour, but nobody can say for sure.
Until recently, there was a form of dueling allowed in London known as "lethal sparring bouts", where the duelists were legally allowed to kill one another by almost any means mutually agreed upon. Each duelist affixed a single white ribbon to their collar, and the winner would pluck the now-sanguine ribbon from their defeated foe. As death is usually not permanent anymore, this was a preferred form of conflict resolution among violent, but civil, society. By the time it was outlawed, Nero already had 250 ribbons to her name, each proudly covered in dried blood. She never wears ribbons, but she has had them adorned to a decoration in her home as a menacing reminder of how easy it was for her. Her most famous incident with it was entering a tournament of lethal spars, and again using only her bare hands managed to win the thing against some of the most dangerous and heavily-armed opponents there. She then donated the prize money back into the prize fund, instantly making herself the highest contributing donator and allowing her to not-so-humbly demonstrate how magnanimous she is… after just winning a tournament of killing others. She misses lethal sparring, but she understands why it had to be outlawed.
(I'll add a backstory section if need be, but I think this is enough for now)
Name: Nero Keller
Full title: The Most Reverend Nero, by Divine Providence Lady Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England and Metropolitan
Short title: "Your Grace" or (uncommon) "Mother"
Ethnicity: German
Age: 39
Eyes: Green
Hair: Greyish-white
Height: 4' 6"
Build: Thin, but healthy rather than frail
Voice: Deep, soft, and mature. It can sometimes be hard to hear Nero without her raising her voice.
Attire: Either austere dresses or modest shirts with long skirts. Almost exclusively wears boots, and always carries a bone harpoon with her, sometimes styled closer to a walking stick. In official clerical business, she wears a full purple cassock, immaculately cleaned and pressed, and specially made for her unusual size compared to most clergypersons.
Abilities:
- Immense strength — she is impossibly strong for a human, let alone for her size. From being able to lift entire ships out of the water with one arm to being able to kill sea monsters with her bare hands. With her harpoon, which is somehow stronger than steel, she can break through nearly anything. Despite performing feats of strength for the public eye, she's never actually tested her limits.
- Preternatural reflexes — includes reflex time and dexterity. She has been known to deflect bullets with her harpoon before, though it doesn't seem like she can actually dodge bullets on her own.
- Calculating intellect — her mind works different from normal people. Certainly faster, but it also seems like she can perceive more than she should. If presented with a complex situation, she'll somehow have thought of a well-calculated plan after closing her eyes for little more than a second. She is a complete nightmare to play chess against.
- Force of personality — while not an ability in and of itself, she has enough charisma along with her inhuman feats to cement herself as a living legend. While not every individual loves her, she definitely has immense influence within London and still a healthy amount of it elsewhere too.
- "Miracles" — she refuses to give any further explanation on these, but she is certainly capable of otherwise-impossible acts. Altering the flow of time to her advantage, striking unreachable targets, even somehow altering noncorporeal concepts. While there are a few cases of "laying on of hands", they don't seem the most common ones at all.
-
Connection with a reality-bending god machine — The truth behind the miracles is that the Holy Spirit she worships is a man-made machine capable of producing and altering laws of reality itself, known as the Dawn Machine. It is also what gives her all of her impossible physical and mental abilities; this is not a boon given to any followers except her, as she was chosen to serve as the avatar of the Dawn Machine. Nero knows this, and fully believes that it is the Holy Spirit incarnated into a mechanical husk to bring about a new era for mankind. To that end, she serves with complete faith and tireless zeal.
Personality:
It is rare to see her without a smile on her face. Whether warm and welcoming, soft and nonchalant, or condescending and smug, she has a sunny disposition much of the time. The most common times you'll see her without a grin is when she's deep in contemplation, being too focused on her thoughts to worry about how she presents herself to others. While she tries to be polite, her ego can often get in the way of that. After all, if she is meant as a reflection of the Church, it wouldn't do for her to seem timid or weak, and she's hardly exaggerating to say she's better than other people. Less than in abilities, it's her virtues that she prides herself in. She grew up to be a nun originally, though instead left for missionary work before taking permanent vows. Even still, she holds true to her austerity, such that even with her current position she doesn't engage in excess, luxury, or hedonism.
That's not to say that she's always happy. She can get fierce when it comes to devils, holding a deep hatred for their entire existence. On the other hand, she can be very caring for people in need as well, not as a façade of charity but from sincere goodwill. She's certainly willing to offer sermons on any number of topics, even if her speeches can be a bit eccentric (such as a Valentine's Day sermon about the universal love for your fellow man and how one should aspire to be like Saint Valentine the Martyr in that regard, rather than focusing on romantic love which she has no experience in). Her sermons are typically quite optimistic, inspiring, and well-received, with most complaints spoken about them merely being disdain for a woman as Archbishop.
When it comes to her height… yes, she knows that she is small. No, you do not have to remind her of that fact. She was small as a kid, and she's small as a woman going on to her 40's now too. She does not need to be treated differently because of her height. She might be small, but that doesn't make her a child, and she doesn't look like one either. She will grow irritated very quickly if she needs to explain this to you. If you do decide to treat her like a child, then she will take it as an insult and respond accordingly. God forbid you decide to bring any physical contact into it like ruffling her hair. She can, and will, commit grievous bodily harm unto you, and it will be ruled as self-defence on her part as you made contact first. As you might imagine, it's a sensitive issue that can easily be avoided.
Misc.:
Her harpoon is one she carved herself from a sea monster's bones. How, exactly, is hard to say considering how stupidly durable the things are. It happened as part of a ritual for her to become a Monster-Hunter, sometime after her excursion into Hell. Bizarrely, she still has green eyes. Monster-Hunters all, without exception, end up with Peligin eyes, the colour of the deepest seas and nearly black, yet Nero somehow lacks those. It leads to some Monster-Hunters calling her a fraud, despite her outstanding feats of hunting, though some people claim that they have seen her with the blackened eyes years ago. Other hunters theorize that she somehow dyed them, or maybe uses contact lenses (which did indeed exist by 1899) to hide the true colour, but nobody can say for sure.
Until recently, there was a form of dueling allowed in London known as "lethal sparring bouts", where the duelists were legally allowed to kill one another by almost any means mutually agreed upon. Each duelist affixed a single white ribbon to their collar, and the winner would pluck the now-sanguine ribbon from their defeated foe. As death is usually not permanent anymore, this was a preferred form of conflict resolution among violent, but civil, society. By the time it was outlawed, Nero already had 250 ribbons to her name, each proudly covered in dried blood. She never wears ribbons, but she has had them adorned to a decoration in her home as a menacing reminder of how easy it was for her. Her most famous incident with it was entering a tournament of lethal spars, and again using only her bare hands managed to win the thing against some of the most dangerous and heavily-armed opponents there. She then donated the prize money back into the prize fund, instantly making herself the highest contributing donator and allowing her to not-so-humbly demonstrate how magnanimous she is… after just winning a tournament of killing others. She misses lethal sparring, but she understands why it had to be outlawed.
(I'll add a backstory section if need be, but I think this is enough for now)
