Author Topic: Ferra Mars  (Read 3817 times)

Metroidhunter

  • Global Moderator
  • Full Member

  • Offline
  • ****

  • 359
  • Karma:
    +18/-0
    • View Profile
Ferra Mars
« on: July 10, 2022, 07:54:51 PM »
CHARACTER

Name: Ferra Mars

Age: 19

Species and Gender: Human Female

Symbol:  Sample Text™

Occupation: First Year Student at Beacon Academy

Appearance: Ferra is a young woman of tall stature and muscular physique. She stands at 6’5 (196cm) and weighs around 230 lbs. She has crimson red hair of medium length and feathered bangs across her forehead. Her skin is somewhat pale and her eyes are a bright blue.

Ferra’s sense of style can be best described as ‘military fashion’. In combat, she wears a black tactical vest with a number of pouches along with cargo pants and military boots of a matching dark color. Her casual style is not all that different, minus the vest and combat gear.

Image: ShowHide

(Art by Ruwheeze)

History: Born in Vale, Ferra was the daughter of a huntress and a carpenter. Her parents traveled regularly and hardly ever settled in one place, and as such, Ferra grew up seeing all different parts of the world. She developed a deep appreciation for Remnant and the people in it, and her parents taught her to have a sense of responsibility towards helping those that were less fortunate. She lived a comfortable and quaint childhood, at least until life threw an odd twist her way.

Ferra had just entered her teens when her parents relationship hit a little bit of a rough patch. The details were a bit hard for her to piece together at the time, but from what she could understand, it had to do with an affair that had occurred at a time she was too young to remember. Her father previously had a relationship outside of the marriage, and while they had already managed to get over that in the past, an unexpected complication had suddenly arose: Ferra’s dad learned that he had a second daughter. The girl’s mother had passed away, and with no other known relatives, he was suddenly responsible for her.

Being the benevolent people they were, Ferra’s parents decided that the best thing they could do for this girl would be to adopt her into the family. Ferra was somewhat excited about the prospect of having a younger sister, but her expectations were shattered upon meeting the girl. Ruka was a cold and abrasive person, deeply traumatized by her past. She cared not for Ferra’s attempts at sparking friendship. However, Ferra’s naive persistence proved effective over time. As the years passed and she continued to show Ruka unconditional kindness, they began to bond quite well. They rounded out each others’ personalities and assisted each other with their respective problems. She helped Ruka understand and come to terms with her feelings, while Ruka helped protect Ferra from jerks and bullies.

Ferra’s life has been far from difficult, but she is quite aware of how lucky she is. As soon as she felt capable, she began combat training alongside her sister in order to become a huntress and help the less fortunate. The two of them enlisted in a combat academy together, making a promise to watch each others' back regardless of whether or not they ended up on the same team. She has encountered some obstacles along the way, but none of them have stopped her from striving towards her goals. While she doesn’t yet know what trouble the real world has in store for her, she plans to do everything she can to make it a better place.

Personality: Ferra is a kind-hearted and caring individual. She hopes to help as many people as she can and make as many friends as possible. She is mild-mannered and quite humble, but also very confident in herself and openly supportive of others whenever possible. She believes that helping others is her calling, and she dedicates every ounce of strength she has towards this end. She would be happy to carry other peoples' burdens until the day it breaks her back. She has a great deal of faith in humanity and trusts others to a fault.

Despite the fact that she is an absolute unit on the battlefield, Ferra doesn’t really like fighting others. She believes that conflict against Grimm can be solved with weapons, while conflicts against other people should be solved primarily with words. This philosophy has worked for her a number of times in the past, though she usually only succeeds through pure stubbornness. It’s unlikely that this approach will always work, but it doesn’t stop her from trying, sometimes even at the cost of her own wellbeing. However, if her passive behavior leads to someone else getting hurt, she is willing to put her ideals aside and do what must be done for their sake.

Her passion for being a huntress is matched closely by her love of guns. She owns a vast collection of firearms, ranging anywhere from six shooters to high-caliber machineguns (and just about everything in between). Besides gunsmithing, her other favorite hobbies include bodybuilding and playing guitar.

Aura and Semblance: Ferra’s aura is a deep red color. Her semblance, titled Lending a Hand, gives her the ability to summon floating hands made of aura. These disembodied hands can freely orbit in the air around her up to a distance of roughly five or six meters away from her. They can perform actions independently of her own, so long as it is something she knows how to do already. For example, she can fire several different guns simultaneously and reload them without ever using her own hands, so long as she is well acquainted with those particular weapons.

Ferra can reliably summon and use four pairs at a time, or eight hands in total. Anymore than that and she starts to loose coordination and precision. Trying to focus on more than one target at a time causes similar problems. While relatively small and fast-moving, her summoned hands are not invulnerable to attacks and can be dematerialized if they take enough damage. It typically takes up to two minutes for her to resummon them, so she tries to avoid this at all costs.

Image: ShowHide


Combat Behavior: Ferra’s combat style is centered around her ability to attack and defend at the same time. She will always dedicate a set of floating hands to the task of carrying her shield, turning it into a mobile cover that she moves around herself at will. At the same time, she can use her remaining hands to take control of her guns, allowing her to fire, reload and swap weapons simultaneously without needing to worry about incoming projectiles. Between the constant barrage of bullets and the large shield revolving around her, approaching Ferra is no easy task.

This fortress of steel can be very intimidating to face on the battlefield, but it does come with some drawbacks. Handling all of her equipment at once forces Ferra to maintain a low speed of movement, leaving her vulnerable to attacks that affect a wide area. Despite the large number of firearms that she carries, she still has a finite amount of ammunition that would leave her vulnerable if depleted. She can store her weapons and plant her shield somewhere if she needs to increase her mobility, but her distaste for punching people makes her a little less effective at close range.

WEAPON

Name: Iron Maiden

Primary Form: In its standard form, Ferra’s Iron Maiden acts as a massive shield nearly as tall as her own height. The red-trimmed gray steel plating on the front is nearly impenetrable. The shield is wide and flat at the top, narrowing down to two bladed points towards the bottom. This piece of equipment is heavy enough that it is difficult to carry without two hands. Luckily for Ferra, she has a lot more than two.

Secondary Form: A mechanical door on the backside of the shield slides opens to reveal a large compartment within the metal frame. This acts as storage for Ferra’s many weapons, letting her bring a large loadout onto the battlefield without needing to carry each individual firearm. It is typically filled with several shotguns and a number of handguns, though depending on the situation Ferra may bring a heavier set of arms.

Dust Functions: N/A

History: After it occurred to Ferra that she could practically juggle guns and ammunition with her semblance, she tried to carry as many on her person as she could. This strategy proved to be somewhat effective, but having nowhere to store her equipment was a major inconvenience. At the same time, she realized that her defenses were lacking and that she needed some sort of cover while reloading. Ferra came up with this design to solve both of these problems at once.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2022, 08:06:09 PM by Metroidhunter »
Ferra Mars - The Iron Trooper
Iris Astria - The All-Seeing Eye
Cloe Zeu - The Cyber Speedster

Vision

  • Moderator
  • Full Member

  • Offline
  • ***

  • 402
  • Karma:
    +60/-1
  • Personal Text
    The Unofficial Official Keeper of Statistics
    • View Profile
Re: Ferra Mars
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2022, 05:13:03 PM »
Been a while since the last review.
 
Love the art and think it's a nice history. The only thing I'm uncertain of is when she felt capable did she then attend a primary combat school (like signal) or was she "homeschooled" by her parents, and if there is any specific reason she goes to Beacon at age 19 rather than 17 as most students do? That might just be the age difference between her and Ruka so that they joined together?

Do her summoned hands attack her target or can they find targets and attack them by themselves, could she basically have 8 drones with dust UZI's flying around and targeting by themselves? My main concern is the fact that she can bring 5 times the firepower and physical strength of other characters, with the only downside being that it slows her down.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2022, 05:37:44 PM by Vision »

Diana Levone - Beacon First year - Leader and Medic of team Digital (DGTL)
[color= #839CA5]""[/ color]
Bastet Nin - Haven First year - Blinking Glaive Skirmisher of team Rewind (RWND)
[color= #F2B233]""[/ color]

Metroidhunter

  • Global Moderator
  • Full Member

  • Offline
  • ****

  • 359
  • Karma:
    +18/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Ferra Mars
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2022, 08:08:03 PM »
Ferra signed up for a combat school "late", so she's slightly older than the average first year, but she has an average amount of experience. As for the semblance, her summoned hands cannot target something that she isn't already focused on herself, so it's unlikely that she would be able to attack multiple enemies at once and maintain pinpoint accuracy. Basically, if she can't see an enemy, her extra hands would also be firing blindly.

And yes, she is definitely capable of carrying more firepower than the average student, but she only carries "traditional" firearms. Besides the shield, she has no transforming weapons with secondary functions like most students, nor does she have any melee weapons. Any combatant that has a reliable way of stopping/avoiding bullets would prove troublesome for her to deal with. She could resort to melee, but that might lead to her extra hands being attacked and destroyed.

Added a few lines to the history and semblance to clarify the above points, and I added a cooldown on resummoning her hands.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2022, 08:10:17 PM by Metroidhunter »
Ferra Mars - The Iron Trooper
Iris Astria - The All-Seeing Eye
Cloe Zeu - The Cyber Speedster

Vision

  • Moderator
  • Full Member

  • Offline
  • ***

  • 402
  • Karma:
    +60/-1
  • Personal Text
    The Unofficial Official Keeper of Statistics
    • View Profile
Re: Ferra Mars
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2022, 04:14:05 AM »
Great that addresses my main concerns, +1.

Diana Levone - Beacon First year - Leader and Medic of team Digital (DGTL)
[color= #839CA5]""[/ color]
Bastet Nin - Haven First year - Blinking Glaive Skirmisher of team Rewind (RWND)
[color= #F2B233]""[/ color]

ReaperJoe

  • Full Member

  • Offline
  • ***

  • 478
  • Karma:
    +33/-11
  • Personal Text
    All criticism is valid
    • View Profile
Re: Ferra Mars
« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2022, 03:05:20 PM »
So, my initial concern with Ferra was the amount of firepower she could bring to bear, given that she can hold up to 8 different weapons at once (or potentially 4 heavier weapons). Given that you've addressed issues with coordination, the hands' vulnerability, and Ferra's resulting slower speed, I'll say my concerns are allayed for now. +1

Unfortunately, I can't move profiles, so, like, if someone could do that for me, it'd be much appreciated.
Smokey Emberstone Beacon 1st Year and the Immovable Gunslinger of Team DASE "I've got more than enough firepower to beat you" "You've only got one bullet!" "Like I said, more than enough"

Aurelia Lumen Beacon 3rd year and the Warhorse of Team (TBD)  "Lay down your weapons, lest you wish to taste my steel!"

Wabul "Toast" Paka Shade 1st year and the Acrobatic Swashbuckler of Team (TBD)  "Hey, I'm gonna go jump off a bridge, who's with me?"

Lucas Meridiem Beacon 1st year and the Hermit of Team CLVS  "What's so great about 'bittersweet'?"

Clara Meridiem Beacon 1st year and the Blast Magician of Team (TBD) "No one likes just plain ol' bitter"

August Flare Beacon 1st year and the would-be ruler of the world "Join me, and witness the Brightest Future!"

Hexcodes:
515151
FFD700
E55812
CCE9AE
Cyan
FFA400