Altogether lean and at a modest height at 5' 4.5" (163.5 cm), Aoife's is a body wrapped in supple muscles that hint at a lifestyle of high-paced athleticism, providing her with a rather pleasing figure and silhouette with her build metaphorically comparable to that of a large predatory cat. Aoife is possessive of bright red hair neatly cut into short locks, with contrastingly cool grey-green eyes that appear to be capable of quite a good range of expressions. While rarely described as being intense in aura, owning a sharp stare that seems to dissect those under her gaze, Aoife much more commonly displays a varied combination of charm, curiosity and craftiness, carrying a dichotomy where she appears to bear experience in many matters while still carrying an almost child-like intrigue with the world surrounding her, constantly watching her surroundings and other people.

Being something of an honor student, Aoife's choice of wardrobe is modest and functional, often covering much of her skin while affording her a deal of mobility and practicality. Her primary outfit manages to compliment her figure while providing her preferred skin-coverage. Aoife often wears a belt with a clip to hold a grimoire and can be seen carrying a magic amplifying staff that can shrink itself into the size of a wand.

Intuitive, experienced, and highly capable in her fields of study, Aoife is a prime example of a functional Magestrava and a “great success” as far as an academic institution can be concerned. Powerfully efficient and efficiently powerful, Aoife is a Magestrava who uses her sharp mind and toned physical features in conjunction with superior magical talents to attain any goals she has set for herself.

The Halloran Family
The Halloran family had throughout its lineage dating back several centuries found itself blessed with the fortuitous luck of a high amount of Magestrava births. In a world where the capacity for the skilled use of magic is gifted to 10% of the popultation and even with that number is a completely random occurrence, a reputation for “producing Magestrava” can be looked at with high expectations and envy toward both their luck and to the individual skill of such progeny.

In vain of this, the Hallorans have experienced both good and bad reputations with different heads taking different approaches to their the conduct of their lineage. Perhaps due to the will of gods or merely just the ultimate equalizer of time, the occurrence of Magestrava in the past few generations has begun to dwindle and the noble household has begun to see decline. While this decline is gradua, a series of two generations without a single Magestrava and several generations with ever fewer low quality Magestrava has brought worry that the line was fast approaching the end of its fortunes. To add fuel to the fire, actions taken by the family some time ago lead to a few scandals, associating the Halloran name with that of “trouble”.

In the current generation, two surprises appeared: the fortunate birth of an apparently high quality Magestrava child, and the simultaneously unfortunate sudden occurrence of spirit problems that would come to vex even hired Ouramancers.

Early Life
Younger of two children and the first Magestrava in nearly a century, Aoife was born and raised in a warm household going through a troubled time. The duality of the family’s circumstances brought about two separate yet equal needs: that the child be sent to an academy—any academy, though hopefully one of some reputation—that she might perhaps learn the ways of powerful Magestrava in order to help boost the family standing, and that she might somehow eventually come about to help fix the second need; the family’s sudden disposition with demons and other spirits.

As neither her parents nor her older brother knew of spellcraft and spiritual activities kept suitable tutors away, there was little hope to develop Aoife’s magical abilities in the Halloran household, much less any hope to find answers to their situation where all the Ouramancers they could afford became stumped or were scared away. The somewhat farfetched hope was, that by sending Aoife to an academy of repute, she would befriend or come to know an Ouramancer of some skill. As the family had its name and Aoife was already known to have a measure of potential, getting her into some prestigious academy should have been easy and it would have presented an equally important benefit of giving their child a pleasant place to learn.

Responsibilities and the expectations of maturing were thrust on Aoife earlier than most; to some this may be a source of bitterness or resentment, but Aoife instead would later look upon these times fondly and found herself enjoying her earliest years. The concerns of the adults—these always slightly depreciated from their true brevity—were always softly made known to the growing Aoife. The concerns helped instill within her a sense of familial duty and overall loyalty wherein she was instructed by her father to prioritize spellcraft and practical knowledge over any other budding interests. At the same time, many of the world’s wisdoms were revealed to her at an earlier age than many, and Aoife found herself taking an active interest in what she was being taught and told, and any questions she had about any topic were always given with honesty and bluntness. To her, the sometimes gritty realities of the world weren’t traumatizing or mind-bending, but were instead like the kindly fairytales that other kids were taught. To the very-young girl, her family’s problems were like the promise of adventure, and the goal of having her admitted into an academy was where the first adventure would take place.

In the meantime, with her early traditional educational needs being fulfilled by her parents, Aoife managed to scratch at the itch to try and develop her magical powers through reading what books she can. The child had a thirst for knowledge, though she still had yet to develop the interest in magic crimes of her later years. Aoife pored through the illuminated manuscripts, grimoires, tomes and notes found within her family’s library, she began to teach herself a little bit about spellcraft to give herself a head start and so that she could possibly make her parents proud.

The Search for an Academy
Initially optimistic that Aoife would easily get into an Academy, the Hallorans’ hopes were brought into question when using their name garnered little—even negative—attention, and the problems with spirits only continued to grow. Despite setbacks, Aoife continued her limited self-study of spellcraft undiscouraged, while her parents continued their tutoring when possible to the best of their abilities, all while seeking an academy to take Aoife in without too many questions or concerns.

As Lismos was a country that heavily supported the development of magical abilities, it was less of a question of if Aoife would get into an academy with her potential, and more of when. Still, everyone was rather eager to get her in as soon as possible, Aoife included.

Eager to prove herself, though humble enough to know that she was only scratching at the surface of Spellcraft without a teacher, she grew somewhat impatient with her lack of fast progress and bit off more than she could chew with one spell. Invoking energies she wasn’t prepared for, and biting at too much energy at once, the much too advanced spell exploded in her face.

Typically, such an accident would have resulted in the loss of limb, life, or some other important piece of the girl. Strangely, despite initially catastrophically building energies, nothing happened. As Aoife was the only one present, the seven year old couldn’t tell just why she had come out of the accident completely unharmed, but what she could tell was that it seemed like something ate the catastrophe. With crisis seemingly averted, Aoife thought she and everyone that she could have possibly involved were in the clear.

She was wrong.

The immediate effects would not come to light until later. Fearing that her parents might lose faith in her, the seven year old kept quiet about the event. In a way, this did help teach her the importance of sticking to the foundations rather than cut corners and skip to the advanced magic. The biggest problem, however, was that she had exhausted the books that she could learn from at her level of linguistic and analytical skill. Most of the books in the library were meant for much more advanced Magestrava, and she had read all of the ones that made sense to what she knew. It was painfully obvious that she would need an academy to continue.

Unforeseen Circumstances
The Hallorans’ growing spirit problem was strange to begin with. To start, it didn’t appear that anyone in the family or involved with the family were harmed. Ouramancers were perplexed because most of the spirits involved were Cursing Spirits and Demons, yet they all seemed to temporarily retreat, then come back some short time later. This was markedly odd behavior for spirits, who weren’t normally attracted en masse to a bloodline or household without any apparent reason, and most certainly not without harming anyone.

Up to a point, the spirits did absolutely nothing, had absolutely no pattern, and did not bother anyone beyond just having their presence known.

Several weeks after Aoife’s isolated accident, the spirit’s modus operandi had changed for the worse. Even more scarily, the actions of people involved with the family changed as well. Members of Aoife’s family, being herself, her elder brother, and her mother suddenly gained a unique propensity toward meeting, being targeted by, or otherwise pestered by cursing spirits, demons, and even divine spirits—though never gods—along with a host of lower classes of magical beasts.

The spirits’ actions varied between family members. For Aoife, she had inexplicable run-ins with humanoid demons that were known in their circles and amongst Ouramancers to be very dangerous or downright murderous under specific circumstances. Yet despite their dangerous reputation, the creatures almost always tended to be completely harmless to her, and even offered to help without the contracts normally associated with them. Contrastingly, her elder brother was plagued by lesser known demons that would often try and completely fail at killing him. Strangest yet, Aoife’s mother appeared to strike fear into all forms of spiritual life without having to take any actions herself, leading to conflict between spirits trying to run away from her or ones agitated by her presence.

Finally, while no spirits seemed to bother Aoife’s father, the man appeared to change overnight. While physically the same, and with the same priorities, her father Doyle became distant and aloof. He remained with his intentions to have Aoife admitted into an academy, and diligently worked towards this, but it appeared as if the once loving husband and father lost his sense of strong emotions. Doyle became austere and impersonal, serious to a fault, as if stoicism had suddenly become his life creed. It was inexplicable and made him seem strange to all those around him, but as he did no harm and offended no one, the sudden change was taken without too much resistance, if not with slight reluctance.

Still, those with more extreme views took these events as a sign that perhaps the Halloran family was contracting themselves with maligned beings. Those around the family and associated with the family would occasionally get injured, and the tarnished name continued to lose its luster while further associating them with the word “trouble”. Worse yet, whenever a magic related crime would occur in the area surrounding the Halloran estates, it would be blamed on them or “their” demons. It was a matter of fortune that the family members didn’t get arrested, as more sensible people with power supported them, not so easily swayed into believing the Hallorans would stoop so low.

The accident from weeks back still fresh in mind, Aoife easily put two and two together and blamed herself—if only in part, as she understood that these problems had been around prior. With magical crimes being committed near her doorstep, and considering herself as a small-time criminal for her accident, Aoife was even more eager to join an academy, get her learning together, and fix her family’s problems by any means necessary.

Aledine Academy
It was fortunate, then, that Aledine Academy had a somewhat ill reputation. It was home to misfits, accepted non-Magestrava, and seemed to still manage to produce quality Magestrava. It would surely accept the Halloran girl when no other academy would consider the prospect anymore. Best of all, it’s not like it was a poorly performing academy, it merely had the same sort of reputation as the Hallorans themselves.

Initially, the family hadn’t considered Aledine due to its reputation, though they had quickly changed their minds as their reputation continued to take a nosedive, with no small thanks in part to Aoife’s father’s lessened emotional capacity. It was an academy, and perhaps the unorthodox methods that the academy employed would bear fruit? Aoife herself had begun to treasure outside of the box methods, and thought that maybe a slightly unstable Ouramancer might be able to help better than some orthodox floozy.

In short, Aoife completely accepted the suggestion to enroll into Aledine Academy, and finally got her life’s first adventure started…