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PLAYER NAME: Emm
CONTACT: sprucemoose#7026 or PM
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: from Jesse (Vanessa Ives)

CHARACTER: Caitlyn Kiramman
CANON: Arcane
CANON POINT: after The Shower Scene in 1x08

BACKGROUND:

"Caitlyn is a Kiramman. And that's all anyone ever bothers to learn about her.
If you're a fellow member of the Piltovan elite, the Kiramman reputation
is all you need to know." (x)

Caitlyn is the scion of House Kiramman, one of the founding families of Piltover, a prosperous merchant city-state in the world of Runeterra. Piltover was founded 200 years ago as a refuge against a great war fought by mages, which decimated entire populations and drove some peoples nearly to extinction. It is composed of a utopian overcity, Piltover proper, and a dark and improverished undercity built down into fissures, referred to by its inhabitants as Zaun. Piltover is governed by the Ethos, a code of laws that, among other things, very strictly prohibits any tampering with magic. Caitlyn's mother sits on the Council, the oligarchic ruling body of the city, and Caitlyn is expected to one day inherit her mother's position.

When Caitlyn was a child, her parents decided to sponsor a promising young Academy student named Jayce Talis, with whom Caitlyn became very close. Secretly, Jayce was studying a way to harness the power of magic through technology. Though this was very much against the Ethos, his eventual success led to his instant overnight celebrity and cemented Piltover's place as the City of Progress.

As a young adult, Caitlyn joined the police force of Piltover, the enforcers, and dedicated herself to the investigation of crime in Zaun. But despite her over-zealous desire to solve every crime and right every wrong, Sheriff Marcus thwarted her at every turn. She was reduced to little more than a glorified crossing guard, relegated to "herding drunks." Unbeknownst to her, Marcus was in the pocket of a Zaunite drug lord, Silco, and couldn't allow her to investigate anything that might lead her towards Silco's operations.

And so, as punishment for her insolent desire to do her job, Caitlyn was assigned to the graveyard shift on the night the city's fairgrounds were bombed. A mysterious terrorist with a calling card of a distorted monkey's face blew up a tent and killed six enforcers. Caitlyn barely escaped with her life. It later came out that the terrorist had also stolen one of Jayce's newly-refined hexgems, stones that could power portable magical devices. Marcus took this as opportunity to fire her at the behest of her overprotective parents.

Caitlyn threw herself even more deeply into her work. She had, at some point, come to the radical - and correct - conclusion that the bulk of the undercity's crime was organized by and stemmed from the efforts of one individual. And now this monkey had shown up at multiple crime scenes, and she knew it was the key to everything. She followed the trail to Piltover's maximum security prison, Stillwater, where she met and freed a prisoner named Vi, who claimed to know the criminal mastermind Caitlyn was hunting.

And so Vi and Caitlyn embarked on a journey together across Zaun, Caitlyn hunting for evidence of Silco's crimes and Jayce's stolen hexgem, Vi hunting for her long-lost sister, the terrorist known as Jinx. Over the course of their adventure, they saved each others' lives a few times, grew closer, and eventually Caitlyn developed romantic feelings for Vi.

The two were kidnapped by a group called the Firelights, led by Vi's childhood friend Ekko. Silco and Marcus had framed the Firelights for several terrorist attacks that had actually been carried out by Jinx. Caitlyn convinced Ekko that the Council would leave the Firelights alone if Ekko returned the stolen hexgem to them. This plan didn't work out; Marcus intercepted them and both Caitlyn and Ekko were nearly killed, first by Marcus and then by a series of bombs set off by Jinx.

After Caitlyn and Vi failed to convince the Council to help, Caitlyn returned home by herself, only to be kidnapped by Jinx.

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Sharpshooter. Caitlyn is, in her own words, an excellent shot. Someone put a gun in this girl's hand when she was 4 or 5 and now it's her whole personality. See this scene for a precocious gun-toting child.

Detective. Caitlyn has an impressive analytical mind. She manages to unravel a criminal empire that no one else even believed existed while being actively thwarted and disallowed from properly questioning a single witness and barely able to investigate crime scenes.

PERSONALITY:

“I’m a misfit,” is Caitlyn’s response to the question of why, on a dark and rainy night, she’s sitting outside waiting to see her only friend, a man who was recently banished from high society and with whom she has been forbidden to speak. Despite being born in the highest echelons of Piltover’s aristocracy, Caitlyn has never felt she belonged there. Dishonesty, corruption, and manipulation run rampant amongst the most wealthy and powerful. Caitlyn, by contrast, values nothing in her relationships more than sincerity. While she can hardly claim that she’s never told a lie, she is anything but manipulative, and will always prefer honesty in her dealings with others. She lacks the skill to play political games, and she has no desire to learn. And though she doesn’t fit in with her peers, she doesn’t fit in much of anywhere else, either. Her working class coworkers certainly don’t accept her as one of their own; they mock and belittle her, seeing her as a noblewoman slumming it in a job that she must know is beneath her. Caitlyn was a lonely kid, with Jayce seemingly her only friend in the world, and she grows up to be an equally lonely adult, with no indication that she made any new friends in the interim.

She may not feel like she belongs, but Caitlyn is an aristocrat, and it shows in many ways. She’s clearly schooled in public speaking, comfortable in front of a crowd and able to express herself eloquently when necessary. She’s used to being shown a certain level of respect; Vi’s coarseness and insolence earn her contempt, scorn, and an angry lecture. Caitlyn never addresses anyone with deference – except the Sheriff in her capacity as an enforcer, and even then, she talks back at him until he gives her a direct order. She has an unfortunate tendency to say derisive things without knowing better, such as looking at an undercity bar and saying it “clearly has bodies buried in the basement.” Her reaction to encountering street food for the first time to is visibly recoil at being offered a taste and to call it “slop.” She also does what she wants with no fear of repercussion. While Zaunites are thrown through windows for the high crime of spitting on an enforcer's shoes or are tossed in maximum security prisons for life based on no evidence, Caitlyn commits multiple felonies and her only punishment is a stern talking-to from her mother. The rules don’t apply to her, so, as Marcus says, “she does whatever she wants,” completely oblivious to the idea that she might ever suffer a consequence.

Part of being privileged is never really learning to take no for an answer, at least when it comes to pursuing her goals. She has a strong desire to uncover the truth and will follow that desire wherever it takes her, no matter how dangerous, hopeless, or reckless a road it leads her down. She is a focused, goal-oriented person, who frequently deflects from uncomfortable situations or emotional conversations by steering the topic back to whatever the goal at hand is. After being caught in an explosion, she barely seems bothered by the fact that she nearly died and several of her coworkers actually did die - she’s busy, immediately back to working while covered in bandages. There’s always so much to do, and Caitlyn is going to do it, and no one is going to stop her.

Caitlyn has also been horribly sheltered by her parents. She has never really seen or experienced “the real world.” As a result, not only does she have very few life experiences, she also has no perspective of the world outside the very narrow one she grew up with. She doesn’t question the power structures that exist in Piltover and Zaun, seeming to think that the tension between the two stems from a few bad individuals rather than from deeper systemic issues. And even then, she’s more prone to suspect innocent mistakes than active bad will, even insisting to Ekko’s face that Marcus hunting the Firelights is just a “misunderstanding.” She also has a very rigid view of the world. Good people are good and bad people are bad, and therefore good people can’t be bad. She’s never had her preconceived notions of the world challenged and is blind to even the most obvious clues that some of the “good” people are not actually all that good. She seems oblivious to the fact that her mother is neck-deep in the corruption that permeates the Council. She doesn’t realize Marcus is corrupt until he shoots an innocent person right in front of her. When it comes to “bad” people, conversely, she’s very open to seeing the good in them, quickly realizing that Vi – despite how rude and violent she is – has a good heart, and that Huck is just an innocent victim of Silco’s drug trade. She’s quick to trust, even when she shouldn’t, and very slow to distrust, even when she really should. In general, she views the world through the lens of her own experiences, and isn’t always quick to understand other perspectives.

Despite how sheltered she is – possibly because of how sheltered she is – she is enamored with the idea of “the real world.” She wants to experience life outside the confines of her wealth and privilege, with no clue how harsh and cruel “the real world” can be. Jayce only wants to keep her safe, but his offer of a desk job is seen as a betrayal, because Caitlyn doesn't want to be kept safe. She wants to see the world for herself and to make her own way in it, standing on her own merits rather than relying on her wealth or status. She feels so stifled that, as confident as she is in her skill, she can never be truly sure that any of her accomplishments are her own - her first instinct upon winning a shooting competition is to assume that her parents paid her opponent to lose. As a result, she distances herself from her parents wherever possible. Her mother’s name could easily open every door for her, but instead she always chooses to use Jayce’s name. She never voluntarily gives her surname when introducing herself. She wants to stand on her own two feet, out from under her mother’s shadow.

That said, she is very confident in and proud of certain abilities. She’s an excellent detective, and she knows it. She’s an excellent shot, and she says as much. When talking about her conspiracy theories, she’s excitable and happy. When she has a rifle in her hands, she's calm and confident in a way she hardly ever is without it. When she’s less certain – usually when interacting with someone intimidating or in a social situation that’s outside her comfort zone – she tries to hide her unease with exaggerated toughness. When she’s really out of her depth, she turns into an awkward mess, barely able to string a sentence together.

In addition to her strengths, she knows her own limitations. She doesn’t have the reflexes to deal with a crisis, and things happening too suddenly will overwhelm her. And while she’s fit and agile, she’s nowhere near as fast or strong as someone like Vi. Because of this, she’s better at using her brains to get out of tight situations, and knows how to assess danger and use the resources she has to her advantage in clever ways, such as noticing a steel beam is weak and that Vi could hit it hard enough to collapse the building, or sneakily grabbing a broken glass to cut the rope tying her to a chair.

So much of Caitlyn’s personality, goals, and desires are bound up in her privilege and social status. But who Caitlyn is, at heart, comes from somewhere else. As a child, her mentor asked, “What are you shooting for?” She never answers in words, but she does in action, over and over. Moreso than justice or righteousness or any other high-minded ideal, Caitlyn is kind. She doesn’t judge, appraise, or admonish people. She isn’t chasing after revenge. While Jayce speaks of making the world a better place and improving lives in the broadest, most idealistic of terms, Caitlyn is motivated by something much more concrete: who is hurting, how she can help them, and if she can't help, how can she minimize the damage. She never shoots to kill, or even to injure. She goes out of her way to avoid hurting people even in situations where it would be justified. When Vi is bleeding out, Caitlyn doesn’t hesitate to trade her rifle for medicine - symbolically trading away something meant to harm for something capable of healing, but also in a practical sense giving up her only way of protecting herself in a very dangerous area, because she prioritizes Vi's health over her own safety. She's almost eager to jump in front of bullets or offer herself up to be tortured in Vi's stead. If someone needs caring for, unless they are actively threatening her, Caitlyn will try to help them no matter who they are. Caitlyn’s mentor said, “Knowing how to handle this weapon means being able to protect people, to be of service to the city,” and Caitlyn shaped her entire moral worldview around those words.

SAMPLE:

» Eastbound TDM
» The Return Journey TDM, solving cold cases
» Apocalypse How, doing some detective work

INVENTORY:

» enforcer uniform, including the silly hat
» a stupidly fancy custom made lever-action rifle (with her family crest embossed on the stock, naturally)
» a carrying case for the rifle
» a badge identifying her as a member of the Piltover Enforcers Division
» a flashlight
» an old-timey polaroid camera
» a notebook and pencil

NOTES: n/a

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I'd be happy either way!