Shadowgreen

Context

This character is an original creation. We often call these “homemades” or “homebrewed” – think home cooking or craft beer.

Many of these characters were created to take part in tabletop role-playing game sessions. Others were invented as a creative writing exercise, often as part of a community event.

This specific character was part of a RPG campaign run by writeups.org contributor Bil.

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Background

Powers and Abilities

Shadowgreen is a bizarre hybrid of human and plant material. She was created by a freak combination of her latent metahuman DNA and the plant DNA her father introduced into her system in vitro . She has woody constructs inside that simulate human organs. She can pass for human (save for her wings and skin color), but these organs are not vital, not even her brain.

She is also somehow tied in to a mystic field that approximates a plant “group mind”. Furthermore, she can generate psionic[glass] fields that can enlarge and manipulate plant material. This field does not affect her thanks to her remaining human DNA. But it does accelerate her healing rates, and makes her resistant to most toxins.

The four leaves on her back are as tough as he rest of her, and utilize the stored energy of sunlight to somehow generate a psionic field that enables her to fly. She also relies on the wings to control her flight, and cannot fly if her wings are somehow encumbered.

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History

Shadowgreen’s father was a biochemist, striving to replicate the photosynthesis of plants in human beings. To that end, he manipulated his daughter’s genetic structure while she was in the womb. She was born normal, but with little green nubs on her back. Dismayed, he shelved his entire project, and burned his notes. He also told his wife what he had done, and they divorced.

Growing up, Catherine always loved plants. One day, shortly after the hormones of puberty had died down to normal adult levels, her back started itching fiercely. Over the next several days, two pairs of huge leaves sprouted from her back, and her skin slowly turned green. Terrified, she left the hospital where she was an intern. She fled to Shelby Forest, in Memphis.

There, she learned that she not only didn’t need food, but she also could control and communicate with plants. Eventually, she was found by the vigilante, Tracker, and helped her regain her humanity. He was one of the heroes that would found the Alliance. Later, she married Tracker, but divorced him after he attempted to abuse her.

While with the original incarnation of the Alliance, she resumed her internship, and managed to set up a decent private practice. Now, however, with the new, mobile version of the Alliance, she has given up her practice, and is in fact doing course study for a double PhD in Botany.

Description

A black-haired beauty, wearing a green, leaf-patterned leotard. Two leaf-like wings sprout from her shoulders. She has a faintly greenish cast to her skin. Though externally totally female, has been partially converted into plant matter.

Personality

Extremely emotional at times, she enters a far more level-headed state in a crisis scenario, whether it is a fight, or a medical emergency. She has a history of co-dependency, but is learning to stand on her own two feet, thanks to her friends in the Alliance.

DC Universe History

Gee, which side of the DC Plant People should she fall into – a nature-born elemental and “sister” to the Swamp Thing, or another creation of Jason Woodrue ? You decide…

By William Chamberlin.

Source of Character: Homegrown.