A friend of mine asked for my help in creating a Spinnerette OC, so I made an archenemy to their hero in the form of this lady: Antaeya, self-declared Goddess of Humanity's End!
Art and design by Jacob Blackmon.
Born in a rural part of Northern Kentucky, Ria Gibson grew up thinking she had been granted a raw deal. Her parents were local drug suppliers, which was the only source of income they had in a tiny town far from the rest of society. Ria would often never see the point in trying to better herself, resigned to her fate…until fate gave her a reason to change.
One evening, Ria smashed what appeared to be a cockroach with her notebook, only to discover that the insides were those of a machine. Immediately after, she heard gunshots in her backyard and discovered a rival drug baron’s forces had murdered her parents and were now burying their bodies. And then they shot her too and tossed her in the hole.
Through a latent C-K reaction, an alien pathogen carried on the insect-like robot, or sheer hate and determination, Ria’s body became one with the soil she had been entombed in. As the enforcers had finally gathered up the product they had come to steal, they found themselves faced with a colossal earthen humanoid, eyes glowing green with caustic rage. It slaughtered them to a man, burning down the Gibson home as it left.
Over the course of a few weeks, the soil elemental patched together her own identity from fragmented memories and an idealized vision of a goddess. She named herself Antaeya, a feminine form of the Hellenic giant Antaeus, and considered herself the favored child of the Earth itself. She discovered how to turn herself into a human form, where she could feel sensation again, taking the name Leslie DeSoto and moving to Southeast Ohio to restart her family’s drug operations.
Now, from a secluded facility in the deep woods, Antaeya sends potent drugs out into the world, relishing in poisoning those who would seek out such a thing. Her hatred has developed into misanthropy, and a megalomania has taken root in her mind. She envisions herself ruling over a humanity brought low by the loss of civilization, dependent on her for survival, giving her the adulation deserving of the Goddess of Humanity’s End. In the meantime, she builds her power, and buries those who would stand in her way.
Antaeya can be thought of as equal parts Sandman, Swamp Thing, and Elexis Sinclaire of SiN fame. Domineering, quick to anger, megalomanical, but just clever enough to recognize her limits. As Leslie DeSoto, she poses as a private detective who sometimes helps her archenemy Owlmoth, providing an inversion on the femme fatale archetype.
Spinnerette is gonna have a heckuva fight on her hands if she ever goes to Southeast Ohio...