ILYUKHIN, ludmila {Basil}

[LUDMILA ILYUKHIN]

Ludmila Antonova Ilyukhin

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of the B.P.R.D.. [/color]

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CLASSIFIED INFORMATION[/color]
"And your name is... oh, dear." -Nuala. [/color]

»»FULL NAME:[/b] Ludmila Antonova Ilyukhin.
»»AGE:[/b] 778 (nope, not an immortal, just very long-lived).
»»OCCUPATION:[/b] Agent.
»»FACTION:[/b] B.P.R.D.
»»SPECIES : [/b] Rusalka.
»»ALIGNMENT:[/b] Good.


Powers:

Aura of seduction: Ludmila, despite being somewhat similar to a mermaid, does not have voice-related powers. Instead, she has an aura which she projects about her to seduce and embezzle men (and some women). With this power she can convince her victims to do things they usually wouldn’t, lure them into traps, obtain secret information from them or even make them attack their allies.

Immunity to cold and drowning: Ludmila can submerge herself in water whose temperature is below zero degrees and suffer no ill effects whatsoever. She can also stay indefinitely under water and is an excellent swimmer.

THE DETAILS[/color]
"Give it up nasty, we can see you." -Hellboy. [/color]

»»EYE COLOR:[/b] Blue. Completely white when in her original form.
»»HAIR COLOR:[/b] Blonde. White when in her original form.
»»HEIGHT:[/b] 1 m 73
»»PLAY BY:[/b] I'd rather not have a play by if that's possible... Scarlett Johansson.

»»APPEARANCE: [/b]

Ludmila looks like a perfectly normal human being, albeit an exceptionally pale one. Despite her great age she looks like she’s in her She is of average height and slight build, and always seems to wear her hair tied up in a bun with the same, ivory white comb. Her pale face and rosebud lips seem perpetually set in a cold, severe expression. She is almost perpetually dressed in grey or black, and never wears skirts. When outside, she wears a black leather trench coat over her usual clothes. Her eyes are strikingly blue, but have a distinctly cold quality to them. When her comb is removed from her hair, her physical appearance changes drastically from that of a normal human being to an altogether different creature. Her eyes become big, white orbs and she becomes more emaciated. Her hair also turns silvery white. The only things that remain unchanged are her ghostly pale skin, her humanoid shape and her cold and crystalline voice.

»»PERSONALITY: [/b]

Ludmila is an outwardly cold and rigid person. She seldom smiles, talks little and seems to prefer work over having fun. Her dress is always impeccable and her behaviour in the workplace is practically militaristic. She is extremely punctual and hates being late, and will often reprimand others for not showing up on time. She also has an enduring and very strong devotion to the USSR and Communism, which takes the form of her putting on her old uniform to celebrate the anniversary of the October Revolution as well as Labour Day. This behaviour has already been reprimanded several times by her bosses at the FSB, but she has never dropped it, partly due to the fact that Ludmila has and always will view the Soviet Union as those who got her out of the Winter Palace’s basement and gave her an actual identity.

However, despite having the behaviour and appearance of an ice queen, Ludmila is a boiling vat of barely suppressed emotions. Despite her incredible age, she is emotionally inexperienced, and does not know how to properly handle her raging emotions other than by suppressing them. This can result in explosive outbursts of grief, anger or joy when put under considerable emotional strain, and those are almost always followed by extreme embarrassment and withdrawal. The fact Ludmila acts so coldly in every day life is also due to an inferiority complex she has had ever since she was sealed under a church altar. She greatly envies humans and elves for their elegance and control, and sees herself as a blubbering, simple-minded wreck of a being. This envy has also transformed into a passionate and jealous hatred for elves.

Ludmila is also surprisingly generous and helpful to those less fortunate, and will almost always give money to a beggar on the street. She also considers selfishness, greed and ambition as fatal sins, which is why she never asked for a promotion of any kind during her entire career in the USSR. She is also very respectful of authority and will seldom contradict those above her. During her time with humans, she has picked up many of their vices and pushed them well beyond what would be considered “healthy” by a normal human being. She is a hardened and almost pathological smoker, going through almost a packet a day, and she is also addicted to caffeine and sugar. One of her hobbies in life is the consumption of ice cream in all its forms and flavours, sometimes mixing the dessert with seemingly incompatible foods (ever tried oven baked herring with vanilla and chocolate ice cream?). Another vice picked up from humans is the consumption of alcohol, alcohol being a substance Ludmila will always consume unhealthy amounts of if exposed to it.

THE BACKGROUND[/color]
"I'm not a baby, I'm a tumor." -Tumor. [/color]

»»FAMILY TREE:[/b]

Mother: the river Niva, in Russia.

Adoptive father: Antonov Ilyukhin, a low-ranking member of the Communist Party and founder of the Tcheka/NKVD’s Occult Research Committee which was later incorporated into the KGB. Antonov was responsible for naming Ludmila, educating her in the ways of Man and training her to become one of the Soviet Union’s top paranormal investigators. He was later replaced as the head of the Committee by Varvara, by order of Stalin, in the late 1930s. He has since then been leaving a quiet life in a dacha outside Moscow.

»»IDOLS:[/b] Her adoptive father. Ludmila was technically nothing before Antonov Ilyukhin took her under his wing. He taught her many of the things she knows and also taught her to think beyond her condition as an “inferior” supernatural being.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: Even though she only met him a few times before his death, Lenin made a deep and lasting impression on Ludmila and partly contributed to her almost infallible loyalty to the USSR up till 1992.

»»HISTORY: [/b]

Ludmila was born many centuries ago, the product of a young maiden’s grief and subsequent drowning in the waters of the Niva. This took place approximately in the year 1233 in the Novgorod Republic, in the 13th century. Ludmila spent the first years of her life in the waters of her mother river as well as on its banks, playing with her sisters in the river’s reeds, and occasionally luring male travellers into the river and drowning them. One summer, Ludmila and her sisters drowned so many young men that the local lord gathered his best soldiers and hunters to track the dangerous rusalki down. However, Ludmila and her sisters evaded capture, and the lord gave up the hunt.

Ludmila’s demise came a few years later when she happened to spot a bogatyr (Slavic version of the errant knight), riding along the banks of her mother river. He was young and handsome and after following him for several days, Ludmila fell madly in love with him. She had never experienced such a powerful emotion before, and with it came other emotions she had never experienced such as fear, anger, sadness and hope. By experiencing these feelings, something changed in Ludmila. Where she had only experienced confused grief and hatred for men brought about by the diffuse and dying memories of the drowning maiden whose death made her, Ludmila was experiencing something entirely new. A sense of individuality.

The bogatyr was travelling to a town several miles up the river Niva, and Ludmila knew that soon he would be gone and she would never see him again. Her sadness and despair grew with every passing day, and soon she resolved to find a way of approaching the knight. She knew that he would never let a Rusalka approach him, so she sought the help of a local witch, begging her to help her win the knight’s heart. Amused by the Rusalka’s plight, the witch agreed to help her, and crafted a magical comb similar to Ludmila’s. The comb the witch made was ivory white and made out of the bones of a child lost in the woods. It had the power to give Ludmila the appearance of a beautiful human woman as well as keeping her alive without contact with water, or her mother river. In exchange for the comb, the witch asked for Ludmila’s original comb. Ludmila knew that by giving up the comb she’d received at birth she would be shunned by her sisters and kin for the rest of her existence, but she accepted and handed it over to the witch with a heavy heart.

The very same night, as the young knight lay down to rest by his camp fire, he saw a beautiful maiden emerge from the river. He was bewitched by her beauty, fragility and vulnerability, and it seemed as if Ludmila was going to win his heart after all, but when she got close to the bogatyr, her disguise vanished and she found herself on the ground and incapable of moving. The knight had around his neck a holy icon representing Christ, and the object’s power was enough to reveal Ludmila’s true identity and put her at the bogatyr’s mercy. Horrified by the abject creature that lay before him, the bogatyr was about to slaughter Ludmila when her pleas for mercy made him change his mind. Binding her in straps of leather and putting the icon around her neck he lead her to a nearby village with a church. With the priest’s assistance, the knight sealed Ludmila under the church’s altar, having enchained her and put a cross around her neck. Once the deed was done, the knight rode away, and the priest continued to preach to his flock from the altar under which Ludmila lay imprisoned. The centuries passed, and the village was abandoned when famine and sickness struck. The winter snows engulfed the now empty houses, and the church slowly fell into ruin. And Ludmila stayed imprisoned, suspended in a a state of inertia while ice crept over her skin and the wind howled savagely in the outside world.

In 1870, people again came to the abandoned village and cut back the forest that had encroached on it. As people rebuilt the houses, a priest came to inspect the church as well as investigate a local story that told of the imprisonment of a supernatural creature within the building’s walls. The church’s ruins were thoroughly searched, and the priest and the workmen he had hired finally discovered the small chamber in which Ludmila was imprisoned beneath the altar. As they raised her from her prison, the priest and his men thought she was dead. This was quickly proved wrong when one of the workmen removed the cross from around her neck and she opened her eyes to stare speechlessly at her impromptu liberators. The Patriarchate was contacted, and it was decided to burn Ludmila alive. However, she was saved when Czar Alexander II caught wind of the case and intervened, claiming Ludmila as an item for his personal collection of strange creatures and objects located in a secret chamber beneath the Winter Palace. Ludmila was then transported to the Palace, put in a tank filled with water and displayed as a curiosity to high-ranking members of the Czar’s court.

During her years in the basement of the Winter Palace, Ludmila saw many important people. Czar Alexander III, Czar Nicolas and the Czarina and even Rasputin visited the basement of the Winter Palace. It seemed as if Ludmila would remain forever imprisoned, but political events in Imperial Russia soon marked the end of it. In October 1917, the Bolsheviks stormed the Palace and dissolved the provisional government. After this, the Palace was thoroughly looted, but it was not during the looting that the secret basement was discovered. The basement was discovered by members of the Bolshevik Party who were tasked with getting rid of the wine stored in the Palace’s cellars. A heavy iron door was found in the cellars and was opened, enabling the Bolsheviks to access the basement. Amongst them was Antonov Ilyukhin, an anthropologist and a member of the Party who, upon discovering Ludmila, took an immediate interest to her. Most of the items and creatures in the secret basement were destroyed, but Antonov was able to save Ludmila after convincing the Bolsheviks that she was a sentient and intelligent creature.

After being liberated from the Winter Palace, Ludmila was taken to a small institute outside of St Petersburg where she was given a name (Antonov named her after his deceased niece). There she was taught how to read and write, she was taught the history of the world and Humanity, technology, mathematics, literature, and philosophy (especially Marxism). She proved to be a fast and enthusiastic learner, and soon after her education was complete, she was enrolled into the ranks of the GPU’s newly created Paranormal Research Committee. There she was taught the occult history of the world, as well as how to fight and use a firearm. The following years were spent travelling around the USSR to combat various occult threats. The 1930s were marked by an increase in espionage missions in Nazi territory, as Stalin was worried about Hitler’s obsessive pursuit of the occult. When the flames of the Second World War reached the Soviet Union, Ludmila was mobilised to fight the Nazis own paranormal specialists, leading to a decisive showdown at Stalingrad. After the war, Ludmila was part of the Soviet delegation sent to Berlin to exchange information regarding Nazi doomsday projects with the Americans and the British, making her one of the most informed people on the matter.

World War 2 marked the start of Ludmila’s golden age. After Stalin’s death, the NKVD was reorganised into the KGB, and Ludmila was quickly transferred to the new agency. In the 1950s and 1960s she took part in many field operations, facing foes like vampires, trolls, elves, zombies and other supernatural creatures. The zeal with which she hunted those creatures quickly earned her the nickname of “Traitor”, and she soon grew to despise most magical creatures. She was decorated several times for her services to the USSR, and was made a Soviet citizen on April 3rd 1960. However, her fall from grace came with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. She was arrested for participating in the Soviet Coup Attempt of 1991 and imprisoned for three years before being released. She was then incorporated into the FSB’s Paranormal Research Committee, but the damage had been done. The Committee underwent serious restructuring and reorganisation, and, as part of a cooperation program with the B.P.R.D., was tasked with sending several agents over to the USA to work for said agency. Ludmila, after exceptionally getting into an argument with the director of the Russian agency, was sent packing to the USA and the B.P.R.D.

THE PLAYER[/color]
"I can't smile without you...." -Abe & Hellboy. [/color]

»»YOUR NAME:[/b] Basil.
»»GENDER:[/b] Male.
»»AGE:[/b] 21
»»TITLE:[/b] Meanwhile, back in the USSR…

»»POST SAMPLE:[/b]

Here is a post I made on my Metro 2033 RPG:

It had been one long and very tiring trip. Going to the surface always was, but Balalaika was used to it. She was used to the cold, the desolation, the omnipresent danger of mutants and the radiation. It was all part of her life, her job, her "role" in the metro. It was that or nothing. As she approached the blast door that shut Kievskaya off from the surface, a light was switched on and pointed at her face.

"Who goes there?", said a gruff voice from somewhere in the obscurity. Balalaika, blinking in the harsh light, raised her hands above her head and shouted:

"-Turn that fucking light off, I'm human!"

The light was, much to her relief, immediately switched off, leaving her in complete darkness before the blast doors behind the guard post were opened, letting a flicker of light into the dark tunnel. Balalaika picked up the bag she'd been carrying and had dropped on the ground when the guard had bade her to stop and walked into Kievskaya, nodding at the three guards stationed at the entrance. As usual, Kievskaya was burgeoning with activity, with people selling their wares from wooden stands in some of the station's alcoves while others hurried about their daily business.

"-Well if it ain't Balalaika", said a voice that made Balalaika's hair stand on end. "Didn't think I'd see you again..."

Balalaika turned around and sighed as she recognised the governor of the Arbat-controlled half of Kievskaya. They both got on like cats and dogs, and Balalaika smirked insolently before answering:

"-Well if it ain't Petrov. Still sucking on Hansa's c**k?"

Balalaika did an obscene gesture with her hand and cheek to illustrate her gibe, which made Petrov scowl menacingly. Feeling the storm clouds gather, Balalaika switched to a more cautious attitude. Why was Petrov out here? And why did he have two armed guards with him? Everything about Petrov spelled trouble.

"-You won't be so gabby once I tell you what me and my comrades are here for", said Petrov, his mouth twisting into a nasty smile. "You owe the Arbat Confederation 5000 bullets, and you have to pay them up now or face imprisonment.

Oh shit. So that's what Petrov was so happy about. Balalaika looked quickly around her like a cornered rat looking for an exit. Her only hope was to reach the Hansa controlled part of Kievskaya, since Hansa always listened to what she had to say. Here, she was at Petrov's mercy.

"-Well err, shit", said Balalaika. "But I'm afraid I don't really feel like cooperating..."

And with that, the small woman bolted, leaving Petrov and his two guards behind. The trio quickly caught on though, and began to give chase.

"-Stop her! She's trying to reach Hansa!"

[THE STAFF]