Njoki Rainmaker

Name: Njoki "Trixie" Rainmaker
LJ Name: "La Dame de Pique" is French for 'The Queen of Spades', a term used in traditional blues music to refer to a hoodoo woman, specifically one with a connection to the dead.
Fandom: OC loosely based on a WoD concept.
Photo: Various - open to pb suggestions.
Alignment: Neutral

The 10 Second Background

Her father was an oil-worker from the American West who was shipped over to Northern Africa to work with the local governments on the oil refineries. In time, he found a wife over there, got married and had a child. Years passed and when his contract was over he opted to move back to America. Her mother recently passed away, her father lives in New York and she's gone out to make her fortune in the world.

Appearance

  • Bodytype: Short, solid, from a distance can easily be mistaken for male. As her daddy said, "Built like a brick shithouse, no wind'll ever blow her down."
  • Coloration: Black hair, black eyes, dark skin. If caught in low-light, her eyes often reflect green. She has a pair of contacts to wear to help hide this, but she usually doesn't bother because they itch and cut down on her nightvision.
  • Clothing: Heavy blue jean like work pants, work boots, button-up work shirt, belt with her favourite knife, all her jewelry is carved bone. She really likes bones.
  • Scent: sandalwood, bonedust, blood, sweetgrass, something musky and vaguely cat-like (civet oil?), horse, coffee, tea, rose petals, and who knows what else.
  • Scars and other identifiers: Oh, lordy yes. She is covered in traditional scarification - in a North African/Himba style.
  • Accent: A strong North African French accent - not entirely incomprihensible, but it takes a little getting used to. She's also fond of the out of date slang her father uses. e.g. "Well, shitbrindle me, darlin'!"

How to Pay The Bills

Njoki practices hoodoo, an 'underground stream' of African American spirituality; shamanistic folk magic practiced by many irrespective of religious belief. She makes her living as a rootworker — someone who lays and removes tricks, does simple divination and what might be referred to as 'hedgecraft'.

It's certainly not a glamorous job but it (usually) pays the bills. Her real talents of working with the dead, protection, tracking, hunting magics aren't as necessary or useful. She is next to useless when it comes to working with love spells, legal cases or healing.

She will gladly remove a trick from most anyone, but will take the time to think over whether she wants to lay one. Nasty stuff, but she's usually willing to do it.

Skills and Screw-ups

She has an affinity with the dead.
* Pro: Talking to the dead is a good way to get advice and learn about things, helps her with her job.
* Con: They're not always going to tell the truth, opens you up to scary things from Beyond (or what-have-you), makes dealing with the living more difficult.

She is a rootworker in the hoodoo tradition.
* Pro: A good job that pays the bills.
* Con: Respected, but not well liked in the 'normal' community.

  • She is not entirely human, but unless your pup is very powerful, all-knowing, etc, they will not know this just by looking at her. There is something fundamentally 'off' about her. If she's upset about something, even a baseline human can pick up that something is wrong.
  • Her English has a heavy North African French accent.
  • She is not physically attractive. However, she does have a sort of charisma to her. It's not entirely unlikely, after all, women threw themselves at Henry Kissinger.
  • In a fight against an evenly match opponent, Njoki would lose. She is not a good fighter. That being said, she's (usually) intelligent enough to pick the right battles.

Personality

At her core, Njoki is an opportunist, trained to take advantage of the weakness of others and that requires sharp wits. Her English may not be that good, but that does not mean she is slow or stupid; in fact, she often plays up her accent to make people under estimate her.

As previously stated, she has a temper and isn't always able to control it. However, she's more likely to wait and curse someone that offends her than snarl and immediately attack. It's a little of both cowardice and prudence.

Recommended Reading

Haskins, James. Voodoo & hoodoo : their tradition and craft as revealed by actual practitioners. New York : Stein and Day, 1978. — A good introductory guide to the history of hoodoo and voodoo in America.
Onishi, Norimitsu. "Deep in The Republic Of Chevron". Sunday New York Times Magazine. July 4, 1999. — An editorial on American oil workers in Nigeria.
Pickrell, John. "Rebranding the Hyena" Science News. Vol. 161, No. 17 , p. 267
Yronwode, Catherine. Hoodoo in Theory and Practice: An Introduction to African-American Rootwork. [http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html]

Soundtrack

Robert Johnston, Janis Joplin, David Bowie.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License