Real Name: Helena Howard

Rank: 4
Karma: 4

Initiative: +3
Speed: 6 (run), 6 (climb), 3 (jump)
Occupation: Educator
Origin: Weird Science
Teams: None
Traits: Weird, Connections – Community, Font of Information, Presence, Free Running, Surprising Power (Penance Stare), Loner, Sneaky
Tags: Hunted, Immunity – Fear, Mysterious, Secret Identity

Powers 

Basic: Combat Trickery, Mighty 2, Sturdy 2, Uncanny 1

Illusion: Darkness, Invisibility (in shadows or darkness only)

Magic: Sense Trauma, Leech Life (heals herself by absorbing the fear and trauma from others), Penance Stare

Spider-Powers: Wallcrawling

Teleportation – Through Shadows Only: Teleport 1, Teleport Blind, Teleport Together, Blink

Biography

Helena Howard was an ordinary woman living in Atlanta during the catastrophic events of The Dark Society Book 5: Egregore, when the egregore known as Eve spread itself through viral media, driving thousands into paranoia, madness, violence, and suicide. Her husband Daniel became one of the infected. Over the course of several agonizing weeks, Helena watched him mentally unravel before ultimately taking his own life in front of her.

Something in Helena broke that night… or, perhaps, something awakened.

The psychic fallout created by Eve and Spring-Heeled Jack saturated the collective unconscious so deeply that Helena became permanently altered by the trauma surrounding her. Unlike Noomancer, whose abilities emerged as a form of psychic awakening, Helena became something stranger: a living resonance of grief, fear, and emotional suffering.

Now known in whispers as the Crimson Widow, Helena stalks the forgotten corners of the modern world: suicide hotspots, cult compounds, abuse shelters, or violent crime scenes.

She senses emotional pain the way sharks sense blood in water. The Crimson Widow is neither hero nor villain in the traditional sense. She despises the casual destruction left behind by superheroes and supervillains alike, believing the world’s “great battles” are fought atop the broken bodies of ordinary people. While the Dark Society confronts cosmic horrors and occult threats directly, Helena deals with the emotional wreckage left afterward. She often kills the criminals that she faces and is wanted by the authorities, though privately, many in law enforcement see her as a force for good.

Her presence has become the subject of urban legends and conspiracy theories. Survivors claim to see flashes of crimson moving silently across rooftops. Murderers have confessed in tears after encountering her. Others simply disappear into the dark.

Though not truly supernatural in the undead sense, Helena increasingly resembles a wraith:
silent, graceful, impossible to corner, and terrifyingly difficult to kill. She rarely speaks above a whisper but her words are often enough to drive strong men to immediate surrender.

Helena teaches high school literature in Atlanta, a profession she once approached with warmth and genuine emotional investment. In the years following the Eve Incident and her transformation into the Crimson Widow, however, she has become increasingly withdrawn from both coworkers and students. Though still respected as an intelligent and compassionate teacher, Helena now keeps others at careful emotional distance, terrified of what prolonged exposure to suffering awakens within her.

Unfortunately, trauma has a way of finding her. The emotional distress of abused, neglected, or self-destructive students often draws Helena’s supernatural senses toward them, dragging the Crimson Widow into deeply personal situations far removed from the costumed conflicts of traditional superheroes. This has earned her a quiet reputation among certain students as someone who “just knows” when something is wrong.

They are not entirely mistaken.