This is BloodFlower a poisonous crime boss.

Art and Background: Thom Chiaramonte

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BloodFlower

Name: Inez Higaldo
Affiliation: n/a

Attributes:

Melee: 10
Reflex: 10
Muscle: 5
Vigor: 10
Acumen: 20
Observation: 20
Will: 30

Life: 35
Influence: 70

Abilities:

Pheromones: Bloodflower produces a strongly seductive pheromone that affects all mammals of any gender, drawing them to her and into a reduced state of brain activity. She can release the pheromones at will, and control their overall concentration and dispersal. These pheromones affect all mammals within range (one meter radius per round, up to 5m maximum), who must make a Will Save vs. Bloodflower’s Will or become submissive and controllable. They will perform her commands limited to performing tasks and hurting others, though murder and actions against friends or loved ones require additional Will Saves to force them to do so. A Will Save that the victim successfully performs, either done once every 24 hours or when commanded to perform a personally destructive act as described above, will release them from the effects of Bloodflower’s pheromones, making them immune to the effects for approximately one year.

Poison Secretion: Bloodflower’s skin secretes a mild contact poison that can cause skin irritation, nausea and mild paralysis. However, while not directly toxic, she wears a unique cloak that leeches her secretions into absorbent layers of contact material, increasing the intensity and viability of the secreted toxin considerably. This allows her to envelop a target with her cloak and transfer the intensified toxins to their exposed skin, which can yield fast-acting paralysis, vomiting, dementia and in some cases, death. This toxin acts on physical contact, and like the pheromones is released at will, not involuntarily. Direct skin to skin contact causes mild paralysis (-2CS to physical Attributes), nausea (Vigor Saves each round to prevent vomiting) and is harmful, but not generally toxic [10 DP]. The secretions stored in Bloodflower’s cloak, however, are much more powerful. An enveloped victim must make a Red Vigor Save or be overwhelmed by the toxin, halving all attributes, taking 30 points of damage per round, and making an additional Vigor Save at reduced rank once every five rounds starting with the subsequent round, or begin to die (Life drops to 0, and the victim will die without medical attention) Regardless of the means of toxin poisoning, the victim may only recover with swift medical attention. Bloodflower’s secretions are not powerful enough to survive transfer to other surfaces and expire rapidly with exposure to air. Some insulated areas, like bedsheets and other clothing, may allow her skin secretion to remain potent for several minutes before expiration.

Body Armor: Due to the targeted nature of her posthuman treatments, and their incomplete nature, Bloodflower’s body only partially began to adapt physically to the process. As a result, while she enjoys resistance against physical and energy attacks with an Armor of 5, it is a fraction of the amount of resistance other posthuman candidates in similar courses experienced.

Origin:

Inez Higaldo was the Undersecretary of Interstate Commerce in her native Mexico, serving for two years under a largely corrupt regime before the government shake-up that resulted in Mexico’s pro-American, anti-immigration status for the years to come. As a result of the government’s collapse, many former members of the cabinet fled the country, seeking asylum in neighboring nations with less appreciation for America’s harder, aggressive stance in the region. Higaldo, however, was stranded in Mexico City because of her responsibilities caring for her ailing mother whose illness prevented her from being transported, despite Higaldo’s financial capability of maintaining a private compound and access to transportation from connections within the airline industry remaining from the lucrative partnership between government and private enterprise the previous regime had secured.

Her funds dwindled fast without income or government protection, spent on maintaining the compound and employing a small security force to protect her against militia and law enforcement charged by the new government to take all high-level officials of the previous regime into custody. Her mother’s illness worsening, Higaldo, who had attempted to live a reasonably uncorrupt life despite the reality of her government’s wealth being largely ill-gotten, eventually began calling on her contacts within the trucking industry, now reeling under pressure of increased scrutiny and security as part of the new government’s reform policies. She brokered new means for some of these companies to launder funds, exploiting weaknesses in the government’s intelligence database she knew still existed. This gave her money to live on, but increased her exposure to a government eager to crack down on corruption, never more so than when undergone by former government officials.

When Brazilian celebrity posthuman Gila, a member of Polaris, visited Mexico to meet with the new President and aid in reform efforts at a propaganda level, Higaldo, desperate to reach out for help after surviving three consecutive assassination attempts on her life perpetrated by members of the municipal police, arranged for her secret transport out of her compound and into a Mercado near where Gila was to be holding a press conference. Two of her men attempted to reach out to Gila, but the posthuman hero captured them, entered the Mercado, and in turn captured Higaldo, who was waiting in an armored sedan nearby. Despite her protests, Higaldo was handed over to the Mexican government as a symbol of reform progress. While in custody, Higaldo’s mother died.

Bitter and recalcitrant, Higaldo was tried and convicted of racketeering, embezzlement and trafficking, and sentenced to death in a puppet court loyal to the President. While awaiting her execution in a secret, rural holding facility for sensitive political prisoners, she was handed over to the American government and placed in the custody of unidentified federal agents, who brought her across the border and into a secure facility in Texas, where she was forced into an excruciating posthuman development process as one of several candidates in the second stage of the government’s secret ‘Confrontation Team’ program, designed to create conflict agents intended to be deployed into American cities to perform simulated terrorist acts, in order to give the country’s posthuman defenders a physical opponent to fight and capture. Unlike the first phase of conflict agents, who were merely actors in costume, the second phase were true posthumans, chosen for various psychological, physical and emotional factors, and given greater freedom in engaging in crimes that would provide greater realism in their eventual capture.

However, Inez Higaldo was maddened by the loss of her mother, the brutality she met while in Mexican custody, and to some degree by the invasive posthuman process itself. Her treatments yielded a toxin secretion ability, as designed, but at lower concentrations than desired. Considered a failure, she was detained at the facility while awaiting extradition back to Mexico for execution, never understanding why she had been a person of interest to the American government in the first place.

While in transport back across the border, Higaldo’s other ability matured, a powerful pheromone release which caused her guards to become docile and submissive. Her transport bus lost control and crashed into a ditch, and Higaldo escaped into the countryside, leaving her captors dead or dying.

While laying low in the criminal underground of El Paso, Higaldo developed a small, loyal army to protect her and do her will, using her increasing control of her pheromones to bind them. She ordered a cloak designed to absorb her mild secretions and weaponize them, and developed the identity of Bloodflower for herself, quickly becoming sensational among the criminal network in Texas for the loyalty of her men, her personal presence and beauty, and her generosity in distributing profits from heists performed by her gang.

Being a crimelord was not Higaldo’s primary objective. She blamed the American government for the death of her mother, and Gila in specific, and would continue to seek revenge against both in future encounters.

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You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Universe Gallery.

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