Background[]
Prologue - Over a millennia ago, when the ancient Greek gods still roamed a daughter of Poseidon, commonly known as water nymphs or narieds, fell in love with a mortal man. She ran off with him and birthed a girl child. Her and her mortal lover hid from Poseidon for two years before she was found. Poseidon, ever a wrathful god, turned the mortal male into a seahorse and banished his daughter back to the sea. The toddler female child he put into a magical stasis to forever sleep and sealed her in an undersea grotto never to be seen again. Prologue - Over a millennia ago, when the ancient Greek gods still roamed a hand-maiden of Poseidon, commonly known as water nymphs or nereids, fell in love with a mortal man. She ran off with him and birthed a girl child. Her and her mortal lover hid from Poseidon for two years before she was found. Poseidon, ever a wrathful god, turned the mortal male into a seahorse and banished his hand-maiden back to the sea. The toddler female child he put into a magical stasis to sleep and sealed her in an undersea grotto never to be seen again.
Fast forward, keeping going... more.. more.. there...stop the summer of 1991, the Aegean Sea. An earthquake shakes the Greek Islands and the main lands Greece and Turkey for months, aftershocks go on for several more months. A fisherman, Stefanos and his son are walking along the beach on the island Tinos, one of the smaller islands in the Greek island chains, picking up debris caused by the earthquakes and aftershocks. While on the beach the two see a strange sight, a small girl sitting in the surf wearing nothing but a strange necklace. The two look for the child's parents but no one in the local villages claim the child as there own. Prologue - Over a millennia ago, when the ancient Greek gods still roamed a hand-maiden of Poseidon, commonly known as water nymphs or nereids, fell in love with a mortal man. She ran off with him and birthed a girl child. Her and her mortal lover hid from Poseidon for two years before she was found. Poseidon, ever a wrathful god, turned the mortal male into a seahorse and banished his hand-maiden back to the sea. The toddler female child he put into a magical stasis to sleep and sealed her in an undersea grotto never to be seen again.
Weeks past and the local authorities and government look for the child's parents or any other family but no one comes forward to claim the child. Stefanos and his wife Helen, having volunteered to care for the girl officially adopt her as their own, they name her Maris, meaning "Of the Sea" since that is seemingly where she came from.
Maris lives a normal life for the daughter of a fisherman in Greece, but it isn't long before her parents discover that their child is special. At six she goes out fishing with her father and brother. While they haul in the nets she slips over the side of the boat and goes for a swim. Nothing unusual there, she had always known how to swim she seemed to know how when they found her. It was after not coming up for over five minutes that her father and brother started to worry. They both went diving down after her and found her happily digging up scallops on the sea floor (25' down) and putting them in her mesh bag. They brought her up to the surface and after a bit of questioning it was determined that she could breath water as easily as she could air.
Fast foward... not so fast. Here she is at 12. Normal girl except for the water breathing part, which comes in quite handy for her father. Her ability allows him to not only sell fish at market now, but also a choice selection of oysters, scallops and other mullosks. Like the rest of the island kids she goes to school, which she doesn't like, she would rather be surfing or out on the boat with her father, than going to school. Despite that she gets good grades and is allowed to go on an over night field trip with the school to Athens, Greece to see the ancient Greek exhibit going on at the big museum there. While there they listen to a lecture about the lives of the ancient greeks and such. After the lecture the teacher takes several of the students to talk one on one with the lecturer, Maris included. The lecturer notices the pendant Maris is wearing, the same one she was found with. He questions where she got the thing and tells her that the engravings on it are ancient greek for Oceana. He tells the story of the nymph and human and how their child was sealed up forever. According to his story the girl was named Oceana.
Fast forward another five years. She hasn't given much thought to the museum man's tale but gradually over the next few years Maris discovers her other abilities and she begins to wonder about who her parents really are. On a whim she sends a DNA sample to one of those gene testing places that tell you whether your ancestors were from Europe or Asia or where ever. Being a female they will only be able to tell her where her mother's ancestors were from, but it is a start. Several months pass, she graduates high school and starts to work with her father. When she finally hears back from the genetics company it is a scathing letter about wasting their time. The sample she had sent in was not human DNA at all. They couldn't tell her what it was but it wasn't human. Needless to say she was confused so she sent another sample to a competing genetics company with the same results. After the second testing she came clean to her parents about the test results. They were not surprised. They had always though their daughter was a gift from the sea especially for them. The fact that some stupid tests said she wasn't human didn't matter. Being human wasn't what you were, it was who you were.
Fast forward another couple of years. Maris wants a college education, she doesn't want to be a fisherman's daughter her whole life. Her parents encourage her so after some research she joins the foreign exchange student program and is sent to the USA to go to college at New York University. She does well her first year and continues in the program studying Biology and gets a job at the aquarium.
Personality[]
Extroverted - Oceana is a people person. To her a stranger is a friend she hasn't meet yet. She is far from shy and has no problem being the center of attention. She is a kind person and beleives that everyone has a streak of kindness in them somewhere, though she does realize it can be very deeply hidden.
Quirky - Oceana gives the first impression of being a bit of an air head but she is not. She has a good common sense and is not afraid to use it.
Spontaneous - Oceana isn't much of a planner she is more of a doer. Not to say she isn't responsible, she takes her commitments seriously but she also likes to have fun in doing so. She gets to work on time, does the best job she can. About the only thing she really plans out is her trips and her aquarium show.
Reliable - If Oceana says she is going to do something you can bet she will do it no ifs ands or buts. She is loyal to those she thinks of as friends and expects the same in return.
Values/Morals - She is the typical person when it comes to morals, she doesn't willingly or knowingly break the law and if she were asked to she would look at the person suggesting such a thing as if they were crazy and get away as quickly as possible.
Misc Personality Traits - She is very adept at picking up on situations and has become good at turning potentially bad situations ggod, or at the least neutral. She is always willing to give a helping hand to those in need and will go out of her way to help a friend if they are in need of anything reasonably within her means.
Powers[]
Create Water - Oceana can create up to 1 gallon of water per minute. This water can be either fresh or salt water.
Control Water - Oceana can control up to 10 gallons of water at a time. In some ways this can be considered a telekinesis that only effects water. She can lift it into the air, throw it around, make the water into a variety of shapes including blunt weapons that can be used to bludgeon. She has no control of water that is inside a living creature.
Water Breathing - She can breath under water. She can also prevent other people from drowning by pushing the water away from their heads creating a pocket of air so they can breath.
Water Form - Oceana can take on a liquid form. In this form she is impervious to blunt force trauma, and certain kinetic based attacks. Someone or something hitting her would go right through her, be it bat, bullet, sword or fist. In this form though heat, cold and electrical attacks do twice as much damage.
Unique Metabolism - Oceana'a metabolism treats all liquids as if it were water, any liquid no matter what it is, short of caustic acids and the like, are metabolized and have as much effect on her as water. She has very little need of actual food as long as she drinks plenty of liquids. She can do just fine on one meal every other day or so, but she likes food so she rarely goes without eating.
Skills[]
Water Sports - Oceana loves to any kind of activity that involves water; swimming, surfing, windsurfing, body surfing, boating, water skiing, SCUBA, etc, she has done them all and is well skilled at all of them. She has never tried to get good enough to compete, but she probably could if she put her mind to it.
Biology - Oceana is a college sophomore currently majoring in Biology, later when she graduates she will be focusing on Marine Biology.
Marine Biology - On a scale of 1 to 10, one being no knowledge and 10 being best marine biologist ever, her knowledge rates about a 4. She has always been interested in ocean life and grew up on a small island surrounded by ocean, or the Aegean Sea in her case.
Cooking - Oceana can cook quite well. She is no 4 star chef or anything, but she is capable of cooking your home style comfort foods, specifically those she grew up on in the Greek Isles.
Multi-Lingual - She is fluent in two languages of the Greek Isles, Greek and Turkish as well as fluent in English.
Powers - She is quite skilled in using her powers for defensive purposes and entertainment, but not so skilled in the offensive uses of her powers.
Backgammon - She is really good at Backgammon. There is a big tournament on her island in Greece. She participated every year. She never won or even came in the top ten. She has been in the top twenty a few times though.
Boons[]
College Student - Oceana is a student participating in a foreign exchange program. The program pays her tuition, housing on/near campus and gives her a monthly stipend of $500 to pay for incidentals. In exchange she teaches a non-credit language class twice a week in Greek and also assists in ESL tutoring.
Employment - Despite the fact that $500 is more than enough for someone who's housing is paid for and who isn't required to eat, Oceana does have some rather expensive hobbies and has taken a part time job at the New York Aquarium. She started out just running errands, than being assigned as assistant in the sea lion show. She now has her own show at the Aquarium which has become quite popular. In this show her alter-ego, Oceana, performs water stunts and tricks using her powers with the sea lions and dolphins. She performs twice a week and is paid enough to fund her hobbies.
Flaws[]
Exchange Student - Oceana is in the US on a student visa which could be revoked at will. Any trouble with the law could have INS sending her packing back to Greece. She normally is a good person and doesn't cause any trouble or break any laws but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. She could just be in the wrong place at the wrong time and become suspect.
Dehydration - Oceana is easily dehydrated and needs to drink a lot more water (or other liquid) than the average person. If she doesn't get enough water in a day she suffers from debilitating headaches and muscle pain.
Power Flaws - When in her water form Oceana takes much more damage from heat/cold/electrical attacks than they would cause her in her normal human form.