Profile

Character Name: Stephanie Isabella Shaw
Character Journal:
Physical Description: About 5’7 tall, mid-length dark hair, dark eyes. Olive-ish complexion that becomes more notable in the summer. Very physically fit.
Age: 21 years.
DOB: December 11th, 1991.
PB: Camilla Belle

Character Location/Home: Penthouse located in Shaw Industries Tower, New York.
Alignment: Neutral.
Relatives: Sebastian Shaw (father, deceased), Isabella Lorca (mother, estranged), Alistaire Shaw (nephew)


Abilities: Like her father, Stephanie Shaw has the ability to absorb kinetic force and metabolize it into a useful form with an exceedingly high level of efficiency. However, her abilities have manifested slightly differently than her father.

Physical Uses of Absorbed Energy: Charged with kinetic energy, Stephanie has the physical strength to lift between 800 and 1000 pounds. All of her other physical attributes can be increased to approximately or slightly greater than the possible achievable for a non-superhuman physical being, with the major exception of her fatigue tolerance, which is vastly superhuman. Stephanie only requires one eight-hour period of rest every seventy-two hours and she can easily exert herself for several hours without tiring, so long as she remains charged with kinetic energy. The absorption of energy is an intensely positive feeling and has a considerable analgesic effect, allowing her to ignore considerable levels of pain.

Pyroplasmic Energy Generation: The primary use of her mutant absorption power, however, is to fuel the creation of pyroplasm, a semi-solid construct of incredible potential heat and force. The blue-white pyroplasm can be used as a simple energy blast or molded into shapes, though shaped pyroplasm will lose its form a few seconds after being separated from her and she cannot create it remotely- ie, she must physically generate it from her person. A pyroplasmic blade has heat and sharpness sufficient to slice through six inches of tempered steel and a pyroplasmic jet has enough force to propel her over a hundred feet into the air. While it is quite possible for her to use pyroplasmic jets to travel rapidly, it is too clumsy and destructive for true flight.

Invulnerability: As concussive impact of any sort actually empowers her, she is nearly immune to all but the greatest physical forces. Direct impact from a high-powered rifle may leave a shallow bruise- a typical handgun would barely register as painful. A fall where she is capable of reaching terminal velocity would hurt, but probably inflict no real injury aside from a certain degree of stiffness the next morning. While she does not “feed” off of heat per se, her pyroplasmic powers have also resulted in a significant resistance to heat attacks that would have been problematic for her father.

Resources: While she does not currently have full legal control over Shaw Industries, she has a considerable degree of influence in the company already, and has access to its resources and contacts. Needless to say, money is not an issue for her.

Weaknesses and Flaws: If Stephanie absorbs too much physical force (say, after being hit repeatedly by a Hulk-like creature), she will involuntarily discharge all stored energy. If somehow prevented from doing so while overloaded in such a manner, she will essentially self-destruct. Her abilities have accelerated her metabolism somewhat, which means that she needs to eat significantly more than a typical woman of her size. Rather than the 2000-2500 calories a woman of her size might require, she requires in excess of 6000 calories and even more if engaged in intensive use of her powers. Deprived of food, she would probably enter into a starvation coma within a week. She has no organic protection against psionics, and no means of protecting herself against magic. Her extremely high metabolism also lends itself to a certain restlessness and it’s sometimes difficult for her to acknowledge her need for recreation, or that she’s exhausting people she’s with.


Personality: If Stephanie could be described in one word, it would be “ambitious”. She is a woman with unapologetically vast aspirations who is quite in her element apprenticing to run Shaw Industries. Though not legally able to control the industry entirely for another year as stipulated in Sebastian’s will, she has already acquired significant influence on the board. She does not seem to have inherited her father’s studied amorality and is generally significantly less brutal, an interesting fact considering both of her parents were ruthless individuals. She is a perfectionist and drives herself and others extremely hard, and occasionally she imperfectly accounts for her vastly superior amount of personal energy vis a vis the average individual. Though she typically has too much class to really be called “hyper”, she is extraordinarily energetic and determined when she starts upon something, preferring to see a task through to completion.

Stephanie is confidant almost to the point of arrogance sometimes, though she has a deep-seated fear of a few powerful individuals she has run into in her life- she still has nightmares of her brutal, domineering Uncle Francisco, and also, Nathaniel Essex, whose entanglement with the affairs of the Hellfire Club resulted in the death of her father and the de facto disbandment of the New York chapter.

Backstory: Stephanie was the product of a relatively brief affair that Sebastian had with a prominent Spanish business and political family- probably one of many bastard children of Shaw’s. Her childhood was somewhat atypical, mostly spent in a variety of strict Catholic private schools and during holidays, isolated on the family lands in Andulasia, learning etiquette and other necessary skills from a private tutor. It is believed that, somehow, the family patriarch, Francisco became aware of her mutant potential previous to her manifestation of them, and immediately after they manifested, he began privately training her in the use of her mutant powers, pushing the limits of her powers, including, in one terrifying incident, shooting the terrified, weeping 13-year old girl in the kneecap to test the limits of her invulnerability.

Four years later, Sebastian Shaw became aware of the mutant potential of his daughter and decided to take a personal interest in her. While at first the Lorcas seemed to be hesitant about letting her go, ultimately, it was realized that angering a man as powerful as Sebastian was a foolish endeavour indeed and she was allowed to go to New York with her father. While she had received some training, it was clear to Sebastian that she needed considerable refinement of her abilities, not to mention socialization (despite her intelligence, she was shockingly shy and socially awkward), so he made the unusual decision to enrol her at Xavier’s Institute, where she spent her senior year. Over the next year, she gradually emerged from being a shy social recluse to a confident, determined young woman, much to her father’s pleasure. After all, his legitimate son, Shinobi was a complete failure on any front …

As she neared the end of her senior year, she slowly emerged into the social spotlight, attending several society events, where at one of these events, she met Marcelo Joaquim Alencar da Silva, the scion of a prominent Brazilian technology company, and asked him out on a date- something that would have been unthinkable mere months ago. Their relationship rapidly blossomed, and they became a steady couple, so much so that the gossip columns became bored with them. As she graduated from the Xavier Institute, she took on valuable work in R&D at Shaw Industries, helping to develop a next-generation battle tank. Her associations with the Hellfire Club were largely limited to social duties, though she had some interest in potentially joining the Club in the future. She also began full-time studies at Columbia University.

It was at this time that the unthinkable happened, and her father was assassinated, most likely due to his entanglement with Mr. Sinister, whose use for the Hellfire Club had elapsed. His assassination had an incredible impact on her life, convincing her that the Hellfire Club was a dangerous endeavour at best and also due to his recently-updated will, which provided for her inheritance of the Shaw Industries empire upon her undergraduate graduation from Columbia. Sitting on the board of the company and pursuing full-time studies, she and Marcelo no longer had the necessary time to invest in their relationship and they eventually broke it off, though they remain close and she still has feelings for him.

Currently, she is less than a year away from gaining full control of Shaw Industries and from graduation from Columbia. She has turned her hand to the tricky world of mutant-human relations and has begun considering political aspirations. However, the ghosts of the past have not been fully laid to rest …