Note: Some characters are described as correct in 2014. Other, as in 2024. For a good number, it does not really matter.
Note: Paranatural and Supernatural are different things. The former assumes science can not currently describe the reasons for a thing happening, but might be able to in the future. The latter assumes science will never be able to fully describe a phenomenon. And it would be improper for either to be labeled magic.
Note: Observations of limits may not mean actual limits. Understanding can change, skills may be developed or allowed to decay.
Kshitij Umang Khanakarii (ক্ষিতিজ উমাং খনকারী)
Usha’s Father
Provides the dark brown eyes in the family, not the greys. Frequently works in construction, usually carpools (read: rides in the back of a truck) with several other men from the village – falls back on day labor/small jobs, which are to be found across the main road a few kilometers from the village.
On his own he does handyman work around local homes. Meaning his own non-essential home repairs… languish.
Jyoti Tiyasa Khanakarii (জ্যোতি তিয়াস খনকারী)
a.k.a. Jyo is Mina’s… well, if her daughter Usha is a Niece, and she’s not a sister, that’s going to make her a niece.
She is pretty self-sacrificing as a mother. Which is compounded by having a lot of kids. She is the mother she wants to be.
She is pretty… tightly wound. Prone to freaking out, breaking down at every bit of wierdness – she’s still on the edge that rare grey eyes don’t make her a monster. So there are times – plenty of times – her family gingerly dances around the fact that her aunt is a hundreds-of years-old boneless formerly-proclaimed-to-be-demigod.
Usha Alikadi Khanakarii (উষা আলিকাদি খনকারী , they made up this middle name, didn’t they)
Jyoti’s oldest child. Mina’s favorite niece – Not quite sure if that would be just grand-niece, grand-grand-niece, or… still scheduled caste in Jharkhand, India, for sure
She is in Upper Primary – 8th class. End of middle school. 14.
She… is a little bitch. Bossy. Overconfident. Doesn’t seem to respect her elders too much. If she can do something better than you can, or knows someone who can, you’re going to know it.
While she definitely is a human with bones, unlike her aunt, Usha does push her asanas pretty far. Not that she practices them for any religious or self-awareness reasons.
Aishwarya Virika Khanakarii (ঐশ্বরিয়া বিরিকা খনকারী )
Second child of the family, almost two years younger than Usha, but only 1 grade lower due to cutoff dates. Brown eyes.
Will wear a tie with a dress. Of course, the tie supposed to be worn with a dress shirt, but the school dress code is only sometimes enforced.
If her older sister is the confident one, she’s the subversive one – be the objective for good or ill. She’ll root for the orgasnized crime boss in a movie, the sabateur, or the spy protaganist. Personally, though, She would prefer to be mook #3 in the movies. The one that gets to look cool but doesn’t have to be shot by the good guy.
So the whole situation between her Aunt and her Mother is a subversive thing where she can either be clever in trying to continue the facade, or try and expose it. Whichever she chooses to do seems to be decided on a minute to minute basis.
Though. I don’t think she intenended for her mother to see those OC doodles yet. If ever.
Kayam Pralhalad Khanakarii (কায়েম প্রালহলাদ খনকারী)
Third child, 7 years younger than Usha. Grey eyes.
Doesn’t have a strong sense of he he looks like. That is, he looks the most dumb when he’s concentrating. Which honestly, doesn’t seem to be much of the time. If he can’t run anywhere, or eat somthing, he’ll just. Zone out. Can’t seem to remeber to do two things in a row without a reminder or sing someone else lready doing the next thing.
Dhanya ??? Khanakarii (ধন্য ??? খনকারী)
Dhanya is Jyoti’s fourth child, and third daughter. She is 10 years younger than Usha.
Her parents have tried to keep pants on her. It doesn’t work.
Those pictures of kids wandering around the street naked? That’s her. It was a choice. One they wish she’d stop making.
Kalpanika ??? Khanakarii (কাল্পনিক ??? খনকারী)
#5
Will this kid just be born already
Sister Baphiwe, “Baph”, Baphiwe Izandla (Xhosa)
Xhosa, family migrated to south of Durban after conversion to Catholicism decades ago.
The darkness of her skin? Noticeable, might have caused her to be singled out occasionally. Being 4/3 of a person? Her whole live was handled discretely, with the help of the local Church. After an extended search, Peredharna (an ocean away) was where she chose to make her vow.
~
Under bright light, her skin is darker than her clothes – her habit, or ‘civilian’ clothes.
Her visible head has 4 eyes, which can be mistaken as pure white in contrast to the surrounding skin. The have almost no brown iris, and the pupil is usually so close to the eyelids as being indistinguishable.
The visible head *does not* have a mouth, though it has a rather flat nose. She can “smile” because there is a little of a jawbone that can move.
Her actual mouth lines up with the navel of her upper torso – her upper ribcage pulled around where her head should be like a too-large Ushanka.
She talks, she eats. But tries to avoid both around strangers. She’s had medical complications before – duplicate organs with not enough use.
Legal Name
Haseena Al-zaher
Religion
Catholic
Converted From
Hindu
Occupation
Nun (Novice)
Gender (Pronouns)
Female (she/her)
Original Parish in India, adjacent to Lahore, Pakistan. Publicly feigns total blindness and stigmata, walking with a hooked cane (plain wood, no religious imagery, though it is long). Frequently called on to recite long passages of scripture she has “memorized” – and she has memorized a lot, but it’s like keeping sheet music in front of you when you already know how to play a piece.
As a child, was given to a local hindu temple, the eyes in her palms being interpreted as hamsa. Fled to the local parish in her teenage years, when there was a series of Hindu/Muslim riots with multiple fatalities – which those who actually ran the temple encouraged – around 1910.
She has received special dispensation multiple times to remain a Novice in the order, not wanting to give any impression of having power in the order; later bishops, seeing her lack of aging, have taken less convincing.
Legal Name
Megara Floras
Nickname
Meg
Religious Name
Sister Philothei
Age
27
Birthday
december 18 (sagittarius)
Gender (Pronouns)
Female (she/her)
Height
4’11”, 150cm (not including horns)
Orientation
Gay
Species
“goat”, “In the old days we probably would have blamed Zeus for this”
Occupation
Nun
Ehnicity
Greek (Austrailian Diaspora)
Religion
Greek Orthodox
Born part of the Australian Greek Diaspora – Megara’s family was forced to sever ties with the local orthodox church over her appearance when she was a baby. A little hairy? Ok. two extra pairs of limbs? Uhh. Those eyes? Those horns?
Perhaps that would have been enough to keep an unusually close-knit family together as she homeschooled growing up. But her parents kept on getting ‘unpleasant’ responses when trying to keep their daughter in line.
The cross on her forehead is makeup (as of late, khol, due to availability) over what remains of a suture scar. Thankfully all that remains of an attack on her when she was young.
Peredharna is not where she originally took her vows. Peredharna was where people could ignore her physical features to help her work on her other… deficiencies in character.
~
Polycerate Horns similar to Manx Loaghtan or Jacob sheep.
Mina Rupaka Bhramana (মীনা রুপক ভ্রমণ, From third husband, Uddyam Bhramana, 1992-current)
Formerly,
“Mina Messenger” During Governess years
Mina Rupaka Jadia (মীনা রুপক জাদিয়া, From second Husband, Efren Jadia, Late 1800s?)
Meena Rupaka Hurkaru (মীনা রুপক হুরকু , from first Husband, early 1800s? Surely she choose रूपका herself ? )
Meena ??? (Has she ever mentioned an original family name?)
is an elastic woman (boneless, if you will), a Dalit of a scheduled tribe of scheduled caste member of the “Other Backward Castes” in Jharkhand, India.
Mina is significantly older than her face makes her look – the very infrequent statements placing her birth somewhere between 1605 and 1720, during the Mughal Empire. Her light grey hair certainly wasn’t the color she was born with – even if her light grey irises were. Her face is no exception to her stretchy skin, though, so she tends to behave the age people interpret her as. Her niece gets another grandma. The idiot cat-caller on the street? Too aggressive and he’ll get somthing.
She is currently married, but her husband Uddyam – not her first – works with a touring tent (movie) theater, which keeps him away for post of the year. He at least writes home, sends most of his earnings. Both were glad neither really wanted children after their arranged marriage. Extended family was enough.
Mina is a saree weaver, using a hand loom. While one might think her capable of some rather elaborate patterns, being able to manage each thread – and she is capable of it – it is a lot quicker to weave and sell local commodity patterns.
The past few years, Mina has tried to participate in local yoga competitions, but been refused – except by occasional special invitation, which means she’s not actually competing. Which, incidentally, means she never wins any recognition, or progresses to larger competitions. Supposedly because her seeming lack of bones is more a monstrosity than a talent – certainly not because of her caste. Or not being Hindu.
~
Emotionally, Mina tries to be pleasant but reserved. She’s done all the stupid stuff she can think of. She’s attracted all the fame she cared to have, and lost it all in subsequent generations. She calls cell phones “wireless phones” and understands that society advances faster than she can keep up with it. So it’s better to blend into the background then attract ire, or the wrong attention. Usually.
~
Mina’s powers somewhat mimic those of Ms. Incredible/Elastigirl of The Incredibles, Or Kamala Khan of Marvel Comics. Four? notable variances being;
- Her hair – 3m of it, normally in a single strand braid- is not really effected by her stretching. It not getting shorter (read: cut) unless there’s an emergency, and it’s been decades since there’s been anything that merited it. 1/2m bangs? those might be due for a cut.
- Her stretching doesn’t – and can’t – significantly change her mass. She’s been about 55kg since India switched to metric. If she appears to shrink or grow, there’s some misdirection going on.
- Her eyeglasses are not for looks. Her Collection of eyeglasses has many different prescriptions – at best she has to swap monthly, and potentially will see what works best after any time a stretch effects her face. A certain pattern of damage persists from over a century ago.
- Certain stretches that require skin to cover a lot more area temporarily leave stretch marks on her skin – looking like the stretch marks that can happen to much less elastic skin. These can be somewhat disguised by emulating bumpy or rough textures (like snake scales can distract the eye). If such elongated dimensions are held for a few hours, these eventually diminish.
Samvrita Niju Kachwaha (संवृत निजु कछवाहा) Is currently a self-employed private investigator.
Previously, she was a senior constable in Jharkhand (read: barely promoted), hired in a push to get 1000 women on the force for better gender equity. Because of heath problems (She’s known to have collapsed multiple times on her rounds), she was relegated to a desk job, which she was found to be very efficient at. But after multiple years service, and seeing the lack of promotion within her class, she left the police force and the state.
She is currently the only employee of the “Aabsami Investigation Group” – named such to get in at the top of alphabetically sorted searches. A majority of her work is for the hospital right by her office – investigating their client’s ability to pay their bills. Incedentally, part of her reimbursment is medical care, as her health is pretty closely monitored these days.
She also takes cases from SAMMANA – though these tend to be checking in with their VIPs – woman’s touch or whatever, wedging her gender into doors that their mooks are afraid to. She’s used to it by now. At least she’s her own boss.
~
She also suspects she herself is of importance to SAMMANA – and thinks she knows why. Which, she is, and she’s right. While her teens were relatively healthy, her heath issues as a child were similar to what they are now. She’s believed to be a nascent “Speedster” – She can go fast. But not all parts of her keep up. She can easily deplete the oxygen in her blood or her energy stores in less than a minute – a fraction of the time it’d take for natural exhaustion and lactic acid to stop her.
One of her favorite tricks at her office is lighting a cigarete on a knife-sharpening whetstone. Which she used to do all the time as a constable – even if she’s lost most of the cigarette on the cement or brick she was strinking it on.
She also has this thing were her eyes go blurry searching a crime scene.
She’s always carrying a chocolate bar. Or several.
She is farsighted – she has a pair of glasses for paperwork, but does not like to wear all the time. She’s too young to wear glasses.
Sardari was getting started in the minor god business about the time Mina was forced out of it, an overlap of a few years. This would put her at being born sometime earlier than 1790.
She is not elastic like Mina – though it’s obvious that some form of healing factor is among her “powers”, or she would look a lot older than she does. She also has some sort of space warping abilities. Which were used to “Seal Evil”.
She is currently considered a god of gates. More specifically, of gate guards. That is, most of of the donations to her temple come from bribes given to said guards- unofficially, she dictates fair rates while combating any government crackdowns on corruption.
Mina lent Sardari a significant amount of gold over 30 years ago when her temple washed out during a bad monsoon season. It was either that, she realized, or be threatened with a long term house guest. At the time, the temple was in an Indian enclave of Bangladesh’s Rajshahi Division. Which would now just be Rajshahi.
Isobelle Reddy (ఐసోబెల్ రెడ్డి)
Nisha Reddy (నిషా రెడ్డి)
Riya Reddy (రియా రెడ్డి)
They were raised in Andhra Pradesh, speaking Telugu, so they don’t have the middle names frequent in Bengali. They do speak English though. Isobelle is the youngest, Riya the oldest.
They were raised as triplets – a whiny set that didn’t have a great sense of time, and were often bored. Their parents still consider them such.
After registering for Aadhaar – all at the same time (15-ish) – Suspicions were raised at SAMMANA. The three had exactly the same biometrics – DNA, which was expected, but also fingerprint and iris patterns, which is impossible for identical twins or triplets, as they aren’t genetically based.
SAMMANA hired them in short order (17-ish). At the point they meet, Isobelle & Nisha are secretaries, Riya is office manager where Usha works (35-ish).
They are, in fact, the same person. Isobelle (which she refers to herself in private) is not quite sure at which age she figured it out, but thinks it was during her teenage years. Every fourth night, Isobelle travels two days into the past – so she’ll experience a week as
Monday Tuesday Wednesday | Tuesday Wednesday Thursday | Wednesday Thursday Friday | Thursday Friday Saturday | etc.
On Wednsday, Riya is the persona that has experienced a day three times, and Nisha two times. Even in their office uniforms, people use their jewelry to distinguish between the three – an intentional ploy.
Riya can be extremely proactive with the day’s problems – while not being exactly in a groundhog day scenario – from her corner office. Which is not perfect protection from paradox, but hey.
The next day she puts on her Nisha jewelry, following up on leads in the office and the drivers out in the field.
The next day it’s Isobelle jewlery, for her first pass. of a new day. Tomorrow, for ther, the cycle restarts.
…she cycles beds based on tomorrows roll. Over the years, in fits of insomnia, she’s thought she’s seen the transition a few times.
…
Tripura Sundari is on the home temple, yes.
Uddyam Hirama Bhramaṇa (উদ্যম হীরাম ভ্রমণ) is Mina’s current husband.
He operates & maintains projectors at a Tent Cinema – job that keeps him away from home most months of the year (Monsoon season being the exception). He was a migratory worker before, and… he’ll say he still is, as the cinema moves it’s tent rather regularly, setting up to show movies – mostly older ones, the reels are cheap if you can find them – to the rural population across Central Western India (primarily Chhattisgarh and Odisha).
He know Mina’s had at least one previous husband, who died. Uddyam never met him.
Peredharna (पेरेधरना) is a convent (and formerly monastery) near Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. It is known to predate Shima being appointed summer capitol of the British Raj, but has had to be reestablished on multiple occasions.
The original is held to have been founded by Saint Petroc, by it’s own records, but this has not been recognized by the Holy See.
Peredharna seems to be one of antiquity’s answers to the same questions SAMMANA Transport NPO was founded to answer – in this case, being a permanent retreat from the world.
The nuns of this order are under Constitutional cloister, though only a few choose to mix at all with the wider world. Many Peredharna Nuns come under recommendation – or rejection – from other orders, on all continents. Due to appearances, they are dubbed both monsters and distractions from God’s work. Regardless of the fact they have dedicated themselves to God.
~
None of the nuns are currently on SAMMANA’s inactive gods list – not due to respect of their religion. They simply aren’t powerful enough to be a threat – merely be threatened.
SAMMANA Transport NPO is not a goverment orginization.
It is headquartered in West Bengal, neighbor state to Jharkhand.
It’s board are all members of the West Bengal Department of Information & Cultural Affairs, yes. It is not goverment.
It is a private contractor, primarily operating in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh – providing transportation, security, and logistics for a number of VIPs that could cause widespread issues if not placated.
Some of these VIPs currently identify and are identified as gods; they and their associated temples usually have significant means, and do not need SAMMANA‘s resources. It’s the less influential, the niche, those fallen out of favor with the general public that are the issue. Especially if the have legitimate powers. Having the power to disrupt society and having public acclaim have no correlation to each other.
There are more of these VIPs than statistics say there should be, because they tend to not conveniently die along with their popularity, nor age with their image.
~
SAMMANA Transport NPO will also contract its drivers out for short term engagements in the public and private sectors but like hell you’re going to get them out of the company uniform. These are trained Evasive drivers. If they have to leave their AC, somebody’s gonna pay. No wait phrasing – this is premium service, someone has already paid, and vengance is theirs to take.
They are at Elite mooks.
~
Both drivers and SAMMANA management would also would really like you to sign up for Aadhaar.
