u/OppositeDemand2318

Name: Violet Regalia

Gender: Female

Race: Human

Birthplace: Atlas

Age: 24

Semblance: Wraith Slip. Violet can disappear into a void through shadows. The void acts like an ocean with a seemingly infinite depth, however its width is restricted by the shadow itself only extending as far as the shadow. Using her semblance Violet can disappear and reappear whenever she likes. Her semblance works best during the Night or in dark enclosed areas like tunnels. Each shadowy area will act like its own void that Violet cannot travel through meaning she would have to re-emerge then disappear again if a light beam separates the two shadow zones; shining a light to erase the shadow will forcefully eject her from the void. Despite this, Violet uses her semblance to perform her role as a stealth infiltrator exceptionally. She has trained for years to minimise the telltale ripple her form makes when entering or leaving a shadow, and can hold herself suspended within the void for extended periods, listening to conversations above her or waiting out patrols without ever being detected.

Weapon: Silent Storm. Violet's katana is charged with a variant of hard light dust that can be used to create ranged slashing attacks and extend the length of her blade through hard light, often catching opponents off guard. She also carries a tanto for defensive duelling and kunai for stealthier takedowns. The tanto is sheathed on her upper thigh for rapid draws when someone closes the distance. Her kunai are weighted for both throwing and close-quarters stabbing, primarily kept across her waist she also keeps several concealed across her body for surprise attacks. Each blade is coated in a fast-acting paralytic agent she brews herself, allowing her to incapacitate targets who might otherwise alert others before they can be silenced. She also houses smoke pellets and other tools used to artificially create the shadows for her Semblance when operating in well-lit environments in several pouches on her back.

Combat: Violet is a stealth and infiltration specialist; as such, most of her "combat" involves quick and silent strikes meant to take out opponents in one move. However she is no slouch in standard engagement, with her arsenal giving her a wide range of attacks. Violet fights best in dark areas where she can make use of her semblance to catch opponents off guard, disappearing through the shadows before they can retaliate. In open engagements she favours hit-and-run tactics, using her hard light extensions to strike from distances opponents misjudge, then vanishing before the counter lands. When forced into a straight duel she relies on precise, efficient swordplay drilled into her since childhood, her katana work clean and textbook rather than flashy. Her greatest weakness is prolonged fighting in brightly lit, open areas; without shadows to retreat into, her Semblance is useless and she is forced to rely on pure skill, and while she is still dangerous in this state, she is nowhere near the threat she becomes in the dark.

Personality: Violet is cold, composed, and deeply resentful. Years of being held up as the Regalia standard have calcified her into someone who expresses almost nothing openly, projecting an air of quiet superiority that masks constant, gnawing exhaustion. She views her siblings with thinly veiled contempt; Jamie as a blunt instrument who coasts on the family name, and Rebecca as a disappointment who embarrassed the family by being talented at the wrong things. Outside the family she is largely indifferent to people, treating most as obstacles, tools, or targets depending on the mission. She shares her father's disdain for Mantle and its citizens, blaming the lower city's unrest for the pressures placed on her shoulders, and has been known to take out her frustrations on its residents during patrols and "cleanup" operations. Behind the detached facade is someone who has never been allowed to fail and consequently has no idea who she would be without the Regalia name, something she refuses to examine too closely.

Backstory 

Violet was born shortly after Ironwood's appointment as General. Her father was still very bitter about the decision, and as his eldest child he expected Violet to carry on the Regalia Legacy. The high amounts of pressure forced Violet to work herself half to death, however the results paid off. As leader of her own team during her time at Atlas Academy, top of her class and an expert in stealth and infiltration ops, Violet became the standard Cardinal held over his other children, and neither Rebecca nor there brother Jamie managed to surpass her. However, all of Violet's achievements left her exhausted and constantly on edge, and she would often take out her frustrations on the citizens of Mantle, whose instability she saw as the cause for her constant need to do more.

After graduating from Atlas Academy, Violet was recruited directly into the Extra Solitas Expeditions under her father's command, where her Semblance and skillset were put to far darker use than any academy instructor had prepared her for. Her assignments ranged from scouting hostile territory and neutralising Grimm advance scouts, to reconnaissance on political rivals of the Regalia family, to the quiet removal of individuals Cardinal deemed threats to Atlas and whose deaths he could not afford to publicly order. Violet carried out every assignment without question, telling herself each one was for the kingdom, and the ease with which she convinced herself of this scared her less with every passing year.

By the time of the fall of Beacon she had become her father's most trusted asset, working alongside Jamie to coordinate the groundwork for Cardinal's plans against Ironwood. While Jamie handled the public-facing elements of the scheme through his task force, Violet operated in the spaces between, gathering intelligence, silencing loose ends, and preparing the infiltration routes that would be needed when the time came to move against the General.

Art by Coma (Fiverr)
Emblem by Me

Name: Cardinal Regalia

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Birthplace: Old Mantle

Age: 56

Semblance: Commander's Voice. Cardinal's voice echoes with a wave of authority that will make anyone hesitate. Men stop in their tracks and soldiers may lapse in their judgement to follow orders creating a moment of hesitation that will be exploited. The effect scales with the target's own discipline and mental fortitude, meaning trained Huntsmen and strong willed individuals can shake it off within seconds, while lesser soldiers, criminals and civilians may find themselves paralysed for longer. Cardinal has honed this ability not just for the battlefield but for the boardroom, using subtle inflections in conversation to tilt negotiations and council votes in his favour without his opponents ever realising they were manipulated.

Personality: Cardinal is cold, calculating, and obsessed with legacy. To him, the Regalia name is a weight that every member of the family must earn the right to carry, and he shows affection only in the form of expectation. He speaks with clipped precision, measures time in military intervals, and views emotion as a weakness to be managed rather than expressed. Beneath the composed exterior, however, sits a deep, unresolved resentment, toward Ironwood for taking what he believes was his, toward the council for passing him over, and toward a changing Atlas that seems to have left men like him behind. He genuinely believes himself to be a patriot acting in the kingdom's best interests, and this conviction makes him dangerous; he does not see his scheming as betrayal, but as duty. His love for his family is real, but twisted into something possessive and controlling, measured in obedience rather than affection.

Backstory

Cardinal is the Patriarch of the Regalia family and he has followed the tradition of enlisting in the military like the generations before him. However Mantle was going through great change by the time Cardinal took up the role of patriarch; with the end of the Great War a portion of the city had been lifted with the better refinement of gravity dust and a new council was formed to replace the kings of old. Cardinal's father had kept his role in charge of the new Atlas military and he would work to spearhead the rapid technological advancement of the kingdom. Years later after his untimely death the council was set to make Cardinal the new General of the Atlas Military, but before the decision was finalised Headmaster Ozpin of Beacon Academy fronted a relatively unknown candidate, James Ironwood, and with Ozpin's reputation James was instead chosen as General of the Atlas military.

In order to appease him after the decision, Cardinal was granted the role of Commander of the Extra Solitas Expeditions, placed in charge of all Outposts and Regiments who operate outside Atlas' borders. Unable to do anything, Cardinal took to his new role watching Ironwood closely.

The years that followed only deepened his bitterness. Cardinal poured himself into his new command, expanding the Extra Solitas Expeditions into a sprawling network of outposts, intelligence assets, and loyal officers, many of whom owed their careers entirely to him. Publicly he played the role of the dignified elder statesman, attending council galas and funding charitable causes under the Regalia name, while privately he cultivated a web of allies within the military, the SDC, and Atlas aristocracy who shared his view that the kingdom had grown soft under Ironwood's leadership. He married Amet, a decorated officer of equally pedigreed stock, and raised his three children as extensions of the family legacy; Jamie and Violet groomed in his image, and Rebecca dismissed as a disappointment when she failed to match her siblings.

The fall of Beacon was, in Cardinal's eyes, the final proof that he had been right all along. Ironwood's Atlesian Knights, the very symbol of the kingdom's technological supremacy, had been turned against their own people in full view of Remnant. Where others saw tragedy, Cardinal saw opportunity. He began funding the development of a new generation of new Knights through Regalia family channels, cultivating contacts like Dijon Reed and other disgruntled Huntsmen, and slowly laying the groundwork to replace Ironwood by whatever means necessary, whether through political pressure, public humiliation, or something far more direct. He tells himself that everything he does is for Atlas, for his family, and for the legacy his ancestors built, and he has long since stopped considering whether any of those things still want what he is prepared to give them.

Art by Coma (Fiverr)
Emblem by Me

Art by Cidolfuss (Fiver)

Anathema Grimm Bestiary

Name: Anathama

Grimm Classification: Titan Draconic

Length: 2km Wingspan: 3km

Region: Volcanic

Danger Level: Cataclysmic 

Physical Description
The Anathema is the 2nd largest Grimm ever confirmed on record behind the Monstra, but otherwise dwarfs all other known species by several orders of magnitude. It is a colossal draconic creature with a body spanning approximately 2 kilometres in length, with four limbs and a pair of broad, leathery wings with a total span of approximately 3 kilometres. Its tail transitions from deep black at the body into vivid red-orange toward the tip, which burns with a low, persistent flame. The body is encased in layered black scales interspersed with bone-white armour plating along the back and forelimbs. Glowing orange-gold fissures run across the creature's hide, radiating heat from within. The head bears the characteristic white bone skulls of Grimm being broad and heavily armoured, with multiple glowing red eyes and rows of large teeth. The Anathema's most distinctive anatomical feature is its Flaming Core which burns hot enough to be seen through the creatures flesh and armour. This blazing mass of molten energy glows intensely orange-white and appears to serve as the biological heart and primary power source of the creature. Nothing comparable has been observed in any other known Grimm species.

Behaviour
Very little can be concluded about the Anathema's wider behavioural patterns with only a single encounter recorded. The specimen found in late 82 AGW was sedentary at the time of contact, having apparently taken up long-term residence within a large magma cavern beneath a lake in northern Solitas. It appeared dormant or in a resting state, sustained by Fire Dust deposits within the cavern rather than by active movement. The creature was in a slumber and did not react to the infiltration by 2 huntsmen. However the creature did awaken when it was later on attacked by the AAS Divinity with its Primary Plasma Beam. This behavior suggests the Anathema ignores standard Grimm behavior and will only attack when threatened, though the full scope of its offensive capabilities could not be fully assessed before the creature was destroyed.

Abilities
The Flaming Core is unique among all recorded Grimm biology. It appears to be the source of the creature's life force as well as the fuel for its primary offensive capability  a sustained flaming breath of unknown range and destructive output, consistent with the creature's titanic scale. The Core requires either constant physical movement to sustain itself  likely driven by the heat and pressure generated by flight or locomotion or an external fuel source. Fire Dust was observed being used as a substitute to keep the Core ignited while the creature remained motionless, suggesting this had been deliberately arranged as a life-support mechanism. 

Grimm Dominion. When threatened, the Grimm horde nesting within the Anathema's cavern immediately mobilised to defend it. Whether this reflects an active command ability analogous to the authority wielded by a Comandante Grimm or a passive dominance exerted by the creature's sheer size and presence is unclear. Unlike a Comandante's tactical intelligence, the Anathema's influence appeared instinctive and environmental rather than directed. Regardless of mechanism, the effect of drawing and holding the loyalty of an entire Grimm horde warrants serious consideration in any future engagement planning.

Scale and Physical Force. At 2 kilometres in body length with a 3-kilometre wingspan, the Anathema's sheer mass alone represents a threat of unprecedented magnitude. Huntsman Samouri assessed that the creature, had it reached Atlas, would have been capable of overwhelming the kingdom's outer defences entirely. The aerodynamic and physical force exerted by a creature of this size in flight or locomotion would be catastrophic to any structure or formation.

Habitats and Origins
The sole confirmed sighting placed the Anathema in a large magma cavern beneath a lake in the northernmost reaches of Solitas. How a creature of this scale came to occupy such an enclosed space remains entirely unexplained. 
Three possibilities have been theorised:
• Unprecedented growth rate: The Anathema may have reached its current size after entering the cavern as a smaller specimen, implying a rate of biological growth entirely unlike any observed in known Grimm life cycles.
• Massive Grimm pool: A Grimm pool of extraordinary scale in northern Solitas could theoretically have produced a creature of this size directly within the cavern system.
• Unknown origin: The possibility that the Anathema represents an anomalous or artificially produced Grimm  outside standard Grimm generation cannot be ruled out. No further investigation of the site was possible following the creature's destruction. Whether the cavern harboured additional specimens or conditions conducive to producing further examples remains unknown. 

Weaknesses
• The Flaming Core: The Core is simultaneously the creature's greatest asset and its most critical vulnerability. Disruption or destruction of the Core appears fatal to the Anathema. Denying fuel by eliminating Fire Dust sources during dormancy or preventing movement may destabilise or extinguish the Core over time.
• Movement dependency: Under natural conditions the Core requires constant movement to remain active. An Anathema confined and denied its Fire Dust supply would theoretically face Core failure, though the timeframe for this is unknown.
• Extreme rarity: Based on all available records the Anathema appears to be exceptionally rare, possibly singular. The destruction of the North Solitas creature may represent the elimination of the only specimen.