Jezebel - The Origami Assassin (Old Concept Resurrected!)

So it’s been… a couple of years (at least) since I popped into the forums and poked around. Also noticed they’ve changed!

Since it’s been so long, and since my thread for Jezebel was last updated probably 2012-2013 and seems to have vanished with the update, I’m going to go ahead and remake it. With all… the updates. :scream_cat:

Jezebel was first introduced in a fanfic inspired by Borderlands 2. I loved how much BL2 filled out the world of Pandora, and it gave me a lot to consider about other places in the Borderlands universe.

Fanfic: Borderlands Story - Jezebel I want to note it hasn’t been updated since 2014. A lot has changed since then.

Jezebel has evolved from a loose assassin concept into a much more refined one:

Character Overview

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: Jezebel
NICKNAME: The Origami Assassin, Jez, Jezzy
AGE: Early 20s
BIRTH DATE: Unknown
ETHNICITY: Oriental (whatever that might be in Borderlands)
GENDER: Female
ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: N/A
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: N/A
RELIGION: None
SPOKEN LANGUAGE: Common, Native, Mercury’s native language.
CURRENT LIVING CONDITIONS: Transient
OCCUPATION: Assassin
RELATIONSHIPS

PARENTS: Unknown; Deceased, Father: Pending Name, Mother: Deceased
SIBLINGS: Possibly half older brother. Pending.
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Deceased, None
CHILDREN: None

PHYSICAL TRAITS

EYE COLOUR: Lavender/Violet
HAIR COLOUR: Ebony
HEIGHT: 5’3, 160.02cm
BODY BUILD: Lean, nimble, athletic
TATTOOS + PIERCINGS: Runes in lower left forearm (carved in some verses, tattooed in others)
NOTABLE PHYSICAL TRAITS: More thin than average, lot of scars on her body

PHOBIAS AND DISORDERS

PHOBIAS: Haphephobia - Fear of being touched
MENTAL DISORDERS: Borderline Sociopath
WHEN WAS THIS DIAGNOSED?: N/A

PERSONALITY

INTELLIGENCE: -
LIKES: -
DISLIKES: -
DISPOSITION: -
EXTRAS: -

DARK SIDE OF ME

Jezebel has never been quite normal no matter where she comes from. Her mind has been trained to be that of a killer, her heart sinking into a nearly endless pit of darkness, hidden behind a wall; a mask layered thick with detachment. From her earliest memories, all the way to the present, she has always felt completely alone save for her small ally - an origami crane which holds a single, small shard of her soul in it giving it sentience and the ability to communicate and work with her, and a boy she had met after being taken by Mercury.

As someone who has never truly experienced the world, she doesn’t understand what it means to experience joy, or laughter. To say thank you, to hug, or to know how it feels to not be alone or afraid. She knows how to endure pain, how to survive cruelty, and walk through brutality at its worse. She knows how to inflict suffering without thinking twice, and how to extract information that may be of value to her. It doesn’t make her heartless, but it does mean she’s cut off from what others would understand as normalcy.

But beneath all that cold exterior where her facade exhibits such detachment and a demeanor that seems impenetrable, there’s a deep longing to be human. A hungering to experience what others have - to taste icecream on a hot summer day, to go swimming at the beach in a cute bathing suit with a bunch of friends and not fear having others see the scars marring her body. To walk the paths at night during festivals with someone special, watching the world celebrate something wonderful without worrying that she has to figure out the best way to kill them and escape without being seen — and without becoming attached.

She just wants to know what it means to be normal. She has a soul. A heart. A yearning to be loved as much as anyone else.

But she also has a deep hatred that drives her forward, and a steady hand willing to wield a blade to the bodies of those she feels were involved directly, or indirectly, in the events leading to her existence. The ripple in occurrences that lead to her being captured, and becoming a killer with a life where she lives broken, afraid, and always looking over her shoulder.

So much anguish follows in the wake of the blood she leaves behind. A trail of sanguine that scatters with each new body crashing down. She won’t stop…

Not until they’re all gone…

Not until Mercury is the final one… And he too… is dead.

Rough summery of events - Background

Like a whisper upon the horizon
A bittersweet song playing in a passive rhythm
So long ago it felt like home
It felt like a place to go
Until he came and took it all away…

She remembers it all. Remembers it too well. The day their ship went down, and she became stranded; lost, and a lone survivor. She was still a young girl no more than eight when they fell from the sky, watched her family go up in flames as she lay near the wreckage with the sound of their agonizing screams filling the air.

It was torture. Her wounds seemed trivial, and all she could do was watch as they vanished into the inferno that once held her family. All she could do was survive and hope someday she might forget.

But what came of her was hardly peace, nor a chance to truly live. She heard the scratching outside the small cabin as the storm howled outside. She saw the shadows play against the ceiling and walls like phantoms dancing their way into her mind. Her one ally, a small rodent-like animal who hissed and spit towards the sounds defensively, stood by her side like a loyal companion.

She was too small to truly fight back; too frail and sick to manage on her own. When the door burst open, all she saw was a shadow, and despite fighting back desperate to survive she could do nothing. Fingernails to skin, and fists to body. She struggled and ultimately fell unconscious.

When she woke, she found herself in a Bandit camp bound like an animal to be slaughtered. One man stood out of those who would come and go. His name was Mercury, and bore a twisted vibe; a terrifying plot to use her for his experiments. The bandits were submissive to the man with those sharp violet eyes, and the scraggly brown locks of hair hung loose around his sharp visage. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a while, but in truth it was possible he simply couldn’t grow much better of a beard than the patchy one decorating his chin and across his upper lip. It looked fitting for him surprisingly.

Mercury offered her no sympathy, or mercy when he took her from the camp. He treated her like a test subject, gave her just enough food to keep her sustained, and exercised her rigerously to maintain her strength. She found out quickly that he wasn’t human, and he had a son the same age as her. A boy who hated what his Father was doing to the girl, and tried many times to show her kindness. Even when they trained together, and when he watched her beaten down to strengthen her will, and drive her survival. His Father taught her to kill, and torture through extreme methods; cruel methods where she was subjected terribly to intense mistreatment and pain.

Ultimately, as they both reached their teens, she felt a bond form with the boy despite the pain she endured on a daily basis. Mercury was pleased by this. His goals were both to create something strong, and capable while also preparing her to become something more for his son. A chance to keep their people alive. But there was still an intense sense of terrible cruelty in who Mercury was. It drove him to do more and more to the woman until finally -

The boy stepped in. A young man who had given his heart to the woman who, through painful experimentation, had become stronger, and gained a strange power. A power that allowed her to use her origami as weapons; creating something that could become something more through the use of her blood, and her will.

The boy had had enough, and the two men fought with terrible rage clashing between them. Jezebel could only watch as the two beat each other senseless, using the abilities of their kind to cause tremendous damage to each other. She tried to stop them, but found herself thrown to the wall where she could do nothing but watch it progress.

Mercury gained the upper hand, and threw his son into an airlock where he stood by with a hateful gleam aimed at the boy. He preached of once loving him, and having done it all for him. But now, he saw his real plan. He saw what his son intended - to kill him, and take everything for himself. In his madness, she could only watch as the man slammed his hand to the airlock button – with his son begging for him to let him back in.

The air vanished, sucked out into the void of space and with it - the boy who Jezebel had come to love.

Mercury, ripe with fury, went after Jezebel next but he didn’t send her after the boy. No, he had invested too much into her. He returned her to her training, and forced her to endure far worse than he had ever before.

In her grief, she broke. She felt her heart fade, and her thoughts grow icy, plottig the demise of the man who had taken everything away from her. For years she remained his prisoner, honing her skills as an assassin, and bringing her origami magic to life. It took years before she finally found a means to escape, and vanished, hoping to find what little humanity she still held, and return to a normal life.

But Mercury is persistent. He fully intends to find her, and claim what he believes is his.

Artwork -- There's a lot

You can click the images to be taken to the pages they’re on, on my DA.


A really awesome artist I knew here named Mirror, drew these. Her DA can be found here. This one and the one below are both concept art for Jezebel.


I colored this one.


I drew this in 2013


Commissioned art. Artist doesn’t have a tumblr anymore :frowning:


Commissioned from RuneScratch on tumblr.


Art of Jezebel. Artist doesn’t seem to have tumblr anymore.


Jezebel wearing her animal skull, and hood. My artwork.


Borderlands Outfit Concept. It was later altered into the one below.


Might eventually color it.


Side profile sketch.


Front profile.


My awesome friend drew a chibi version of her :smiley:

More WILL come. Hopefully a combination of my art, and commissioned stuff.

Weapons and Things

Keep in mind a lot of this has changed to work in roleplay settings. For Borderlands, if she were applied as a Vault Hunter (someone you could actually play), I’ve been considering having it so weapon proficiency is based on her class mod - which would also heavily influence what origami she can access and potentially apply to weapons she’s using.

Her strength is in her origami. I’ll have to go over everything and see how I can apply it, and possibly set up the skill trees for her once I get the time.

That said -
She has one physical ‘weapon’ which is a clawed glove. It’s primary use is being able to scale locations so she can reach better vantage points for assassinations. However it can be used in melee combat too, allowing her to latch into her opponents to move around them more readily, or to cause substantial damage to vital points. Eyes, throat, etc.

She does have a rather large list of origami and their uses. Obviously it’s a bit tricky to apply these during actual game play and that’s something I’m working on. Again, she was designed for roleplay after I had slowed down on the fanfic. Doing all the ‘technical’ stuff now, which means cutting down a lot of what she can do, and figuring out a good application for it.

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Quick sketch of Jezebel I did today.