Judith Artemisia

Early life

Judith was born into a Hebrew family as a chattel slave for the Heri-Tep A'a of the eighteenth Sepat, or Province, of the Two Lands called Imty Khenti, 'Prince of the South.'  Hezekiel is likely not her biological father, as her mother was expected to serve her master in other ways.  But he loved her all the same.  Her primary role was to clean, serve the master and his guests by bringing drinks and food, and like her mother, serve her master in other ways.

Events lead her to become interested in investigating ill omens happening in the city.

She was born sometime during the reign of Hatshepsut and lived when Thutmose replaced her.  Roughly 1480BCE.

How she became a dhampir

This is intentionally left vague due to plans to roleplay out more details.  But the idea-sketch is that Judith's investigations became too deep and some monsters decided to teach her a lesson.  They found her in her father's home where she was meditating and praying and committed her to full desecration, which included forcing her to violate kashrut and forced her to feed on tainted blood.  She transformed into a monster, and was rejected by her master and family.

Innate dhampir abilities

Bast took pity on Judith and stabilized her curse, along with giving her a gift.  Judith retained an innate ability to desecrate all things that she touched, and so she developed strict purification rituals to keep it under control.  The type of desecration can change, and include the ability to suck all life force out of mortals and corrode undead to ash, cause blight, curse, or other debuffs.  Because of this, she often prefers hand to hand combat, but can also add these curses to any weapons she chooses.

Judith may walk through daylight, but can still occasionally struggle with daylight.

Increased speed, agility skills, and immunity to all poisons and diseases.

Weakness to fire.

Walk on water.

Drinking blood brings her to a more vampiric state, refraining from drinking brings her to a more human state, but only to a limited extent.  She resists blood for as long as she can.  It is possible that in refraining from drinking blood and failure to upkeep her purification rites and humanistic behaviors may bring about the original monster that her attackers intended her to become.  It is always preferable to be more vampiric than her cursed self.  At this time what her monstrous form was meant to be is ambiguous and mostly unknown.

Can eat food, but does not really get much nutrition out of it.

She can jump heights such as up to the tops of telephone poles, but cannot fly.

She can neither reproduce since she is undead, nor can she create other vampires.

Bast gave her the neko curse which stabilizes Judith's inner monster, and comes out when the goddess deems that the slayer has become too uptight and highstrung or logical, and needs to lighten up.  She can purr, have claws, ears and tail.  On some occasions, Judith can turn into a full black cat.

Jewish practice

Religious involvement in hunting vampires and the like is different from the way a Catholic priest typically would employ.  She is not genocidal with the creatures she hunts and does not believe in the idea that all things that "go against God" should be eliminated.  She is not a Crusader.  The primary reason that she would hunt a monster is because it is causing suffering to others or that it is itself suffering.  The Star of David is also the Shield of David, and so this is only employed defensively.  She keeps a mezuzah on her person.  Combating monsters is dependent entirely on their weaknesses versus her strengths, etc, and far too varied to encompass all details in a short description.  Her faith is involved predominantly to keep herself purified, and to purify others who may ask for it.  Her mythos is based on the notion that strength of faith, not specific faiths, is what truly empowers an exorcist.

It is uncommon for Judith to fail her resistance to blood, and in doing so she breaks kashrut.  When this happens, she performs a purification ritual which at minimum involves visiting a mikvah.

Judith is henotheistic, meaning the worship of a single god while not denying the existence or possible existence of other deities.  Other gods are recognized as gods, but her interpretation sets God as the highest above all others, and she does not forbid herself from petitioning the assistance of other deities, though she is unlikely to worship any of them.

She is a kabbalist, and so many of her beliefs are central to Jewish Mysticism.  Her poise of orthodoxy is flexible depending on circumstances, and so while Kabbalah forbids seeking divination, she may accept it if she can sense it is from a pure source.  She may be more orthodox if it is necessary for her soul, and less so if she doesn't need it.  She is knowledgeable in occult and much of her practice centers around this.

She is an avid believer of pikuach nefesh.  Her personal rule of thumb is that if something contributes to good, it is worthy of recognition.

She regards the modern level of reverence of the Bible as idolatry.  In her opinion, the Bible may be the word of God, but it is still not God itself.