MAIN GOAL ⫻ Arabelle just wants to find a piece of life for herself. She’s thought about visiting her family back in England. Maybe she’ll move there to live a different life, but she couldn’t stand to lose her teaching position. To name a specific goal, she wishes to cut her ties to the Vanburen’s eventually.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ The past defines you, but it does not define your future.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Bisexual. Arabelle has only been with men, but she does feel attracted towards women as well.

FEARS ⫻ Arabelle doesn’t have much to lose, but she fears losing her purpose for this world. She also fears that her awakened magic will affect her life in the real world. She even fears that one day she’ll wake up, and it will all have been a dream.

REPUTATION ⫻ Arabelle was always with her mother within the Vanburen estate, so she was known as Marie’s daughter by most of the staff and Vanburen family until she could speak for herself. Among the staff, she was a vibrant and extremely helpful colleague. To the Vanburen children, she was quiet and distant. She may have played with the youngest Vanburens, but today she isn’t sure if any of the children even remember her.

THOUGHTS ABOUT JAMES VANBUREN ⫻ James was a distant father figure to Arabelle. She’d see him around the estate and he was kind to her, but he was a busy man. She only grew close to him after her mother’s passing and her awakening. His death brought a different kind of pain. She didn’t have another emotional breakdown, but she grieved for the loss of her last connection to her mother’s past.

FLAWS ⫻ While the Vanburen children grew up with everything they could ever want, Arabelle did not. Her jealousy and subconscious bitterness towards them have emerged now that the Vanburen’s are returning to the estate. She even spites them for taking too much of her mother’s time, although now that she is older she understands that her mother may have been the only constant in their life other than James.

Arabelle’s mother moved from England to the US to find a better life. How she ended up in Pennsylvania, Arabelle has no idea, but she knows that at 17 it was hard for her mother to find work. She travelled the east coast working part time as kitchen staff for small diners and restaurants until a staff position at the Vanburen estate was advertised in the newspaper. Her mother, recognizing that the pay would be substantially better, immediately convinced the estate’s manager that she’d been a servant to countless Dukes and Duchesses in England. She was hired on that day.

Her mother remained a member of the staff for years. She cooked, cleaned, nannied the kids, served dinner, and tended to the gardens wherever she was needed. She didn’t mean to stay forever. She was putting money away on the side to go to school. She had just been about to sign up for her first year when she found out she was with child.

Arabelle was born, and her mother put her college savings away not for herself, but for her little girl. She continued to work at the Vanburen estate. Arabelle grew up helping her mother with the morning preparations, then she’d go to a nearby public school, and then she’d come home to help her mother with the evening dinner. It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was their own.

Arabelle’s mother never told her who her father was. The only father figure in her life was James Vanburen himself, but he had many children to care for and she often felt jealous of them. Her mother helped raise them after James would find new lovers. Arabelle would be busy helping her mother with work, or she would stand to the side, as she watched her mother care for his kids. She was never sure if any of them returned the same care for her mother or herself, but at some point she stopped caring. She was an outsider within the Vanburen walls. Once she was old enough, she’d leave them for a better life.

As she grew older, Arabelle withdrew herself more and more from the Vanburen’s. Once she was eighteen, her mother surprised her with college funds. She was sad to leave her mother behind, but her mother decided that Araminta was her home. Most of James’s children had left by then. She felt like she was the only thing that remained of James’s past still within the walls. Arabelle left for college that same year.

Arabelle will always remember the night she heard that her mother passed. It was James Vanburen himself that showed up at her door. He was quite distraught, himself. He brought the news that would shatter her world. He told her that she would always be welcomed back to the estate, but Arabelle told him to leave. In her grief and shock, Arabelle smashed the nearest mirror to her and found herself sobbing over her broken reflection. She found herself wishing to be by her mother’s side more than anything. She’d never gotten to say goodbye.

Arabelle slowly moved on. She finished school and began to teach, but she still carried the weight of her past with her. She began to visit the Vanburen estate, and had quietly awkward dinners with James. She wanted to hear stories about her mother, from before she was born and after she left the estate.

She continued to visit him until his death. After his passing, Arabelle couldn't stand to see the estate wither away. Her mother would be turning in her grave. So after school and on the weekends Arabelle would return to the Vanburens to help with the cooking and cleaning. A month after James Vanburen passed she came across a letter from her mother. It had fallen behind a dresser at some time and was forgotten. Arabelle was overcome with the same anguish she felt the day her mother died. She felt an energy from herself erupt and smash a nearby window. As she cleaned up the pieces, she suddenly found herself within the mirror. On the other side of it was the old room she used to share with her mother in the estate. When she reemerged from the first mirror, the broken glass cut her as if she'd broken through it herself.

Over time, Arabelle discovered that she could do much more with mirrors. She never really understood why she was able to do it until she did some digging in James's office. Slowly, Arabelle became aware of the world of magic, the sealed apparitions within the house, and his troubled past with the Harrisburg family.

His children slowly returned because of his death, but Arabelle remained an outside observer. The Vanburens life was never her own, so why bother with it now but to continue her mother’s legacy? Even if she knew the secrets of James Vanburen.

TYPE ⫻ Awakened

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Looking Glass: Arabelle uses mirrors to move over long distances, to see into another space, and to listen into conversations.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻

Mirror Portal: Arabelle is able to create a pocket dimension within a mirror. By stepping into this dimension, Arabelle can open the portal to any mirror in a place she has been before. She must come into contact with the mirror before she steps inside, and the mirror must be intact unless she will risk serious injury. She has not yet tried to bring anyone else through a mirror with her, and she most likely will not try it because she worries for their safety.

Mirror Spying: Arabelle can use a mirror's pocket dimension to hear or see into different spaces. She doesn't have to be inside of the mirror in order to do this. Instead, she just needs to be in contact with the surface. As before, Arabelle must have seen or been in the place that she’s spying into.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Arabelle is able to sense the aura of anyone standing in front of a mirror before she chooses which mirror to emerge from or spy on. This makes it easier for her to hide her abstraction and to go from one place to another without suspicion.

LIMITS ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Really, the man just needs a break. Ezra is looking to escape the current responsibility he has as the business head of the family, but he has stated many times over that he won’t relinquish control until he is certain that stepping down won’t hinder the future of Araminta or the Vanburens.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Ezra views the world through a scope of negativity that sets his expectations low, because he knows that high hopes only makes the fall hurt so much worse. However, he is not strictly a pessimist, or at least he doesn’t consider herself one. He’s a realist, and reality can be a pain in the ass. His views fall in line heavily with Stoicism, believing that the bad in life is unavoidable, natural, and yet wholly possible to survive through. Therefore, he shouldn’t even worry about the terrible things. Instead, Ezra tries his hardest to only worry about the things she can control—namely, his own actions and feelings—and strives to be a virtuous, just person who always does the right thing. In other words, he wants to be perfect. Sometimes, it’s a maddening task.

SEXUALITY ⫻ If it ever was questioned or brought up, Ezra would likely shrug and say that he was straight. If Ezra was to consider his sexuality with more than just a shrug he would identify more as a demisexual than a heterosexual.

FEARS ⫻ In theory, Ezra believes that he has nothing to fear. It’s the creation of an overactive imagination, a negative emotion heightened by the desire for a different outcome. Things happen, and that’s all they ever do. He has a sense of indestructibility. In actuality, he is terrified of being hypocritical. He strives to be a good person that isn’t controlled by his emotions, but he questions his own authenticity all of the time. It’s a fear that feeds upon itself. The more he worries about being a hypocrite, the more of a hypocrite he sees himself to be.

REPUTATION ⫻ Reliable but severe. Ezra served as a business consultant and occasional manager for the many mom and pop stores James acquired. James Vanburen might’ve been Magnanimous, but he didn’t want his investments to be money pits. If a business was in a bad enough spot that it needed a bailout to survive, then something needed to be changed about its management and focus—and Ezra was the one who helped execute the change. Although he was often a boon for the businesses, his strict no-nonsense professionalism could be grating.

Generally too busy to ever even be present, Ezra was often quiet and reserved around the Vanburens when it came to large family gatherings. Many thought he bore some kind of grudge towards his half-siblings, but he has proven that impression wrong many times throughout the years. Almost every Vanburen can recall at least one time that Ezra has gone out of his way to help them. Be it as simple as offering a shoulder to cry on to privately posting bail so that their father doesn’t have to hear about them drinking and driving, Ezra has proven himself time and time again to the guardian angel for the Vanburen children. Yet despite his benevolence, nearly none of them can say for certain if he truly cares about them or if he is just begrudgingly following some kind of brotherly obligation.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Ezra will give him this: James was a decent businessman and a kindhearted, charitable individual. Unfortunately, those things do not make him a good person nor a good father. If anything, they only serve to highlight how their dad was kind of a huge piece of shit. In the last couple of years it was obvious to anyone that there was bad blood growing between Ezra and James, but neither of them ever spoke about what it was over. However, despite their growing animosity, Ezra is seemingly incapable of openly saying a bad thing about his father. There’s still a deeply seated respect, admiration, jealousy, and fear rooted in Ezra for the man. He doubts he’d ever manage to shake it, no matter how hard he tries to remove the man’s influence from his life.

FLAWS ⫻ Ezra is jackknifing off of the highest diving board straight down into the empty pool of a massive burnout. Between work, family, a goddamn curse, and his own perfectionist idealism, he is spread to his absolute limits. He sees himself as too much of a protector of the other Vanburen children to share his burden with them, but unfortunately it has gotten to the point where his stress and exhaustion has worn him down to a near breaking point. He forgets things regularly, even seeming to blank out on people he’s known for years, and easily gets frustrated. While he doesn’t get visibly angry or openly snap at others, the silent treatments he implores when he has reached his limits with someone or something have become nearly legendary. It’s amusing when it’s used against the paparazzi, but downright terrifying when turned on the family.

The rivalry between the Harrisburgs and the Vanburens was already burning between the two, but Ezra was the can of gasoline that turned the flame into a raging bonfire. Ezra was the product of a secret affair between James and Slyvia, the aunt of Richard Harrisburg and sister to his father. The two, against the wishes of the Harrisburgs, got hitched not so long after Slyvia started to show, and for a spell the couple seemed happy. At least, they were until James’ business ventures began bleeding her family dry and his eyes started to wander towards other women. By the time the divorce came Slyvia could barely even look at her son, only ever referring to him as “the mistake” while looking straight through him. She went back to the Harrisburgs; James was stuck with the mistake.

James ended up sending his son to a prestigious boarding school, both to prep his son for one day taking over the family business and to ensure that he wasn’t left alone at home for months at a time to be raised by the staff. Ezra may have hated school, but he was a bright kid and an even better student. However, it didn’t take too long for the kid to realize that he was practically being cultivated by James. That occurred when Ezra told his dad he was going to join the basketball team. Sports were trivial, said his old man, you’re joining the debate team. So he did. It became the song and dance for the rest of Ezra’s life. When deciding on a major for college Ezra expressed an interest in studying art. While art was seen as a nice hobby, it wasn’t a respectable profession according to James—his boy would go for business. So he did.

Ezra attended Wharton, where he studied and drank and dated and did the usual college shit while on the path towards getting his MBA. When Ezra graduated, he planned to move to New York with his girlfriend Autumn against the wishes of James, who wanted him back in Araminta to work for him. The goal was to establish a base, make some money, and open up an art gallery on the side. However, for the six months he lived there Ezra was unable to find a job, despite his connections, his legacy, and his degree. Eventually, he was forced to take his father’s offer to come work for him as his business manager, overseeing the various mom and pop stores he owned around Araminta.

Autumn joined him in Araminta and the two were married in a small ceremony that Ezra’s mother did not attend. However, Ezra soon found himself practically married to working for James, trying to work miracles on the charity cases he took in to turn them around into actual functioning businesses. There were a few failures here and there, but for a vast majority of them the acquisition turned into a brilliant success. While Ezra didn’t necessarily enjoy his work, he was good at it and there was something rewarding to helping the little guys out...even if the little guys ended up kicking them some cutback after. Of the “independent” boutiques operating downtown, nearly a third of them have had Ezra meddle in their business affairs at some point.

However, bad blood began to form between father and son. Normally, his time spent in Araminta was so short Ezra barely had a chance to even speak to his siblings, let alone actually get to know them. By being back in Araminta for good, Ezra was able to see how James pandered and bent over backwards for his other children; meanwhile, he’d hammered his oldest into a James-shaped mold. It planted a bad seed in the depths of Ezra’s mind that blossomed into the idea that, like his mother, his father also viewed him as a mistake, one that he was retroactively trying to fix by turning him into little more than a carbon copy. The worst part was that he succeeded—which only occurred when Autumn cited him turning into a James Jr. for being one of the reasons why she was leaving.

They were divorced before Thanksgiving. When James passed away on Christmas Day, Ezra almost looked relieved—or he did until he was assigned the executor of James’ will and left in control of all of James' businesses. In horror, Ezra realized that by dying and leaving him in charge James had trapped him: Ezra would always be working for his father, indefinitely, until he himself croaked. He would become the new magnanimous man, but it would be James, not Ezra, that people saw when they asked for a bail out. Ezra was just the hand that fed them, puppeted by James’ ghost from the afterlife.

Screw that.

To escape Ezra began setting to work to dismantle his father’s empire, but he had to find the proper balance to not destroy the businesses or the lives of others in the process. It has been slow going, but he has started to turn full independence back to some of the stores and pass responsibility down on to people he can trust. Ezra imagined that in a handful of years he’d be able to leave Araminta in the hands of someone else and to start living his life for once. Maybe he’d even try and get Autumn back.

Turning into stone kind of threw a wrench in that plan. Ezra was hit by a wave of despair. He went to his father’s office to search for any sort of clues as to what was happening to his family. When he searched through his father’s desk he found an old childhood puzzle of his, one of those annoying metal ones where they’re locked together and you have to somehow untangle them. In a flash of youthful impatience and ingenuity he’d gone to the shed, grabbed some bolt cutters, and cut the puzzle in two instead of banging his head against the solution. Seeing it now made him laugh, in part because he was surprised James would save such a thing but also because of his own reaction to the curse. It was stupid to waste time moping. Every problem had a solution. They just weren’t always obvious.

As he touched the broken puzzle, he flashed to a memory that wasn’t his own. He was still in his father’s office but it looked different, as if a fog had encroached through the window and filled up the edges of his periphery. He saw hands reassembling an antique rifle, aligning the sights and sliding back in the bolt. He watched as they affixed a bayonet to the end and slowly leveled the rifle up against their shoulder. It felt good; almost perfect. There was just one more touch. A glow of orange radiated around the rifle and then faded. The bayonet slashed through the air, there was a cackle of energy, and the world tore open in front of it. Ezra felt a wave of satisfaction hit him. There! Now it was a Masterpiece.

The vision faded, but the orange glow lingered around the broken puzzle. Ezra still didn’t know why his family was cursed, but he had a feeling he was already on the path to curing it. All he needed to do was put on a brave face and endure his responsibilities a little bit longer.

TYPE ⫻ Adept

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Orange Lux. Ezra’s channeler is a broken wire puzzle that he’d cut apart with bolt cutters in frustration when he was a child. It has been looped through a leather strap to become some kind of wristband.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Ezra attributes characteristics to items and people, making them wondrous by thinking outside of the box. His spells require physical touch to cast and can continue indefinitely as long as he maintains a small amount of concentration that can be canceled by emotional turmoil, physical pain, or loss of consciousness.

Masterpiece ⫻ Ezra infuses an object and turns it into a perfect version of itself, better than it ever could possibly be. For example, a pencil would never go dull and the eraser would completely remove any errant graphite. Likewise, a lock would become unpickable or a door would become unbreakable while affected by the spell. A Masterpiece spell affects the whole, not just a part. A Masterpiece car would make the entire car perfect: the tires would never go flat, the engine would never rust, and the windshield would never crack. Once an item has become a Masterpiece it no longer has to operate in the realm of logic, like a Masterpiece jug of milk would never empty or spoil while a Masterpiece computer would still operate without any electricity or wi-fi.

Masterpiece is largely ineffective on a person. They only appear perfect on a surface-level, like an airbrushed version of themselves designed to sell ads. Masterpiece items vary in effectiveness against Apparitions, but are generally more useful than normal items.

Currently, he can keep one Masterpiece item and one Masterpiece person spell going at a time. The cast time requires channeling Lux from one to five minutes, depending on the complexity and size of the target, and requires a decent amount of concentration.

Configure ⫻ Ezra can dramatically increase or decrease the size of an item while allowing it to continue to perform its function, including Masterpiece items. Configure does not change the weight of an item. Like Masterpiece, a Configure spell affects the whole. Therefore, if he has a box full of clothes, the clothes will shrink or expand with the box. However, the moment that a sweater is pulled from the box it will return to its original size because it is no longer contained in the field of the Configure spell.

While people can have Configured items used against them, they themselves cannot be Configured. Likewise, their bodies act as a natural barrier against things when they are being Configured. Therefore, Ezra could Configure a necklace to shrink and become uncomfortably tight, but he cannot push it to the point of being smaller than that person’s neck until they take it off. Configured items typically amplify the usefulness of items against Apparitions, and while they are Configured they are extremely difficult to destroy outside of Extra-Normal means.

Currently, he can keep one Configure spell going at a time. The scale of an item can range from 1/5th to 5x. The cast time is instant, but items take a few seconds to change in size.

Prodigy ⫻ Ezra makes a person an instant expert on a subject relating to any Masterpiece item they are currently using. A person with a Masterpiece scalpel will become a top level surgeon, while that behind the wheels of a Masterpiece car would make any Hollywood stunt driver jealous. The moment their connection to the Masterpiece item is severed they return to their base skill level with no residual hold over in talent, regardless of how long they were using the Masterpiece item. So, while the person might know they are performing brain surgery, they won’t know what lobe to poke at until they pick the scalpel back up.

Prodigy is curbed by someone’s own physical limitations. A person decked out in Masterpiece boxing gloves might know how to fight like Ali, but if they’re weak they’ll hit and go down like Glass Joe. Prodigy can only be cast on a person. He can only have one Prodigy spell up at a time. The cast time is instant.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Ezra can detect the location of an item or person he has enchanted within 100 meters.

LIMITS ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Goals are for nerds and responsible adults. Nisha is just after the thrills, to see what comes next, and most certainly nothing else whatsoever.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Life’s rather dull, really, and the only thing that makes it worth living are the little odd surprises that pop up when one forces themselves out of their routine. Nisha is always looking for the next: the next adventure, the next opportunity, the next romance, the next temporary boost of dopamine to keep her brain from thinking about how none of this really matters in the end. She finds people who consider themselves content to be the most miserable creatures in the world. Happiness exists only in moments, and Nisha is going to capture as many of those moments like the good little hedonist she is.

SEXUALITY ⫻ While open for experimentation, Nisha identifies as mostly heterosexual.

FEARS ⫻ Nisha’s fears having to rely on others, which just happens to coincidence beautifully with her fears of being used by others. The idea that someone would help another out just for the heck of it doesn’t compute with her. Clearly there’s some kind of ulterior motive, a hope of gaining some sort of favor, and she isn’t the kind of person who wants to rack up debts that tie her down.

She is also afraid of spiders.

REPUTATION ⫻ Literally nobody in Araminta has ever heard of Nisha, and she’s probably not the first person who’s arrived in town claiming that James Vanburen might’ve gotten freaky with their mom.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Oh, yeah, James, he was a really shit dude, you know, never being there for her and all. Mostly because he didn’t even know she existed, which would be a horrible thing for a father to do except in this case James wasn’t her father so technically it should be all right, shouldn’t it? Still, Nisha believes he could’ve maybe sent her a fake birthday card or fake Christmas check every now and then.

FLAWS ⫻ Nisha is an impatient, impulsive, and immoral person who is largely driven by little more than her personal pursuit of happiness. She’s not above lying, cheating, or stealing if it gets her to the finish line faster, but she lacks the foresight or the deviousness to cover her tracks. On top of that, she’s scattered and easily distracted, prone to jumping from one harebrained scheme to another without ever fully executing either of them. Due to her never thinking things through, It’s not very difficult to manipulate Nisha—although it’s always a question of how long she’ll follow along until she jumps to the next trend.

The momentary rush from the freefall turned to absolute terror a heartbeat before Nisha’s skull cracked against the rocks with the sickening sound of jello being plopped onto a plate. As she lay dying, Nisha was honestly surprised she made it to twenty five. Dad had threatened to kill her a hundred times over when she was growing up near Liverpool. He roughed his family up every now and then, but he wasn’t the kind to really follow through his word on anything. Still, she found it every bit as ironic as it was horrific to watch her old man get gutted by a gang of toughs he got in an argument with when she was eleven. The image of him dying soaked in to her like the blood soaked his shirt and the ground around him. It forever reminded her that no matter how big or tough or scary you are, life can still take you out seemingly at random.

So why waste it on boring, trivial shit, yeah? That’s what Mom did. She worked two jobs to take care of her kids, neither of whom ever appreciated it. Samesh, Nisha’s brother, spent most of his time in and out of prison for petty crimes, while Nisha joined up with a group of awful teenagers that weren’t too dissimilar to the lads that ripped up dear ol’ Dad for stepping out of line. Her adolescent years came to her as a blended mix of boys, booze, bongs, and needles. They would’ve been hard to remember even if her brain wasn’t leaking out from her skull. The key thing she remembers from her youth is waking up in a hospital after a particularly bad bender that resulted in an overdose, hooked up to some kind of weird machine, with her Mom crying over her.

The near death experience dissuaded Nisha from furthering her experimentation, but it didn’t stop the need for constant thrills to make life worth living. Hard drugs were swapped for extreme sports. Soon, she found that there was nothing more addicting than an all natural adrenaline rush. Nisha fell into the niche of rock climbing, working her way up from all of the boring, lame safety equipment featured in a gym to the death-defying act of free soloing a cliffside in the middle of nowhere. It was always exhilarating, but the few number of close calls never made Nisha quit. In hindsight, as the blue sky darkened above her, maybe that had been a mistake.

What hadn’t been a mistake was becoming a bartender. She worked her way up from shitty dive bars and gross clubs in Liverpool to nice, respectful cocktail bars in London that served a different class of people than the kind she had surrounded herself with her whole life. Nisha had plenty of opportunities to become the attractive little arm piece for some kind of stuffy banker or lame lawyer, but those relationships never lasted long—too safe, too unimaginative, too approved of by her Mom. But what did her Mom expect? Nisha was in her twenties. She could give up on finding the right one when she got grays. Besides, most of them were jerks anyway, and being faithful was difficult. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t make good choices when she was drunk, nor was it her fault that she drunk most of the time

Just like it wasn’t her fault that the rock she’d firmly gripped slipped from the cliffside and sent her falling several dozen meters off of what would otherwise have been her greatest rock climbing achievement. Why she wasn’t dead yet was a mystery to her. Her life had already flashed before her eyes, and if she knew what she did now she would’ve tried that acid that had been offered to her the other week. Or perhaps she had taken it. That would explain the wrinkled, graying old woman with thin, spindly arms standing over Nisha. She wore a ragged brown dress and appeared to be soaked to the bone, her long, thinning gray hair sticking to the side of her face.

Only it wasn’t a hallucination. The old woman introduced herself as Nel, told Nisha that she was dying, and that she could save the girl if she allowed it. Nisha gurgled out a yes and watched as the old lady’s arms stretched out to an inhumanely long length, reached around to the back of her skull, and thrust themselves into her brain as she blacked out. When Nisha came to she was at the top of the cliff, her clothes still wet with her own blood. She reached to the back of her head and felt nothing more than matted hair.

However, as she went to pull her hand away she felt fingers grip her wrist and a voice like running water whisper in her ear: We’re in this together now, love, only you owe us. Do us this one wee little favor and we’ll let you go back to your stupid human life. Otherwise... Nisha fell to her knees as she felt the fingers from inside of her head push through the back of her skull and pry open the head wound. As she screamed the fingers disappeared and with it, moments later, the pain.

As it turns out, Nel just wanted Nisha to buy a plane ticket to America and lie about being some dead rich guy's long lost daughter. How difficult could it be? Creepy ghost fingers aside, it sounded like a fun little adventure. Hey! Maybe they’d even give her a bit of inheritance. Rich people are always so generous.

TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Affixed)

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Long Arms of the Slaugh, more commonly referred to as Phantom Limbs, is the ability for Nisha to manifest spectral arms from her body. .

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Nisha is affixed to a water spirit named Nel that allows her to manifest up to four long, spindly arms, two appearing from her shoulder blades while the other two appear from underneath her actual arms. The spectral arms are somewhat transparent with a blue hue to them and tend to wave and flow like they’re made out of some kind of liquid. Due to their seemingly fluid nature, the arms can compress and expand, allowing them to slip through small spaces that water could flow through. As well, Nisha can extend one of her phantom limbs well beyond her normal reach, upwards to 10 meters.

The limbs are capable of lifting up to twice of Nisha’s weight, assuming they all work together. Likewise, they can be used to rapidly pull Nisha through an area or up to places she normally wouldn’t be able to reach. She can swing around all day like the Friendly Neighborhood Asshole assuming there are enough things within reach, and she can use her phantom limbs to catch herself from falling and breaking her back. She can theoretically use them to fight, but their punches are weaker than her own and her right hook isn’t really that up to snuff in the first place. Even if someone didn’t have Emotional Fields getting hit by a phantom limb would be about as bad as getting hit by a wet pool noodle.

While Nisha’s phantom limbs are fairly easy to sever, they are just as equally easy to manifest new ones. However, while they appear to be made out of some kind of mystical water, the limbs are actually manifested from the spirits of victims drowned by the water spirit Nel. Therefore, Black Lux could easily render the phantom limbs ineffective if not even outright hostile towards Nisha.

Interestingly enough, Nisha appears to have some kind of healing factor linked to the same energy used to manifest the arms. Any wound she takes will slowly mend itself overtime, including ones that would normally be fatal.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Nisha is capable of sensing if someone is dying within 10 meters of herself. It doesn’t tell her what they are dying from or how immediate their death will be, just that they aren’t doing so hot. There is nothing precognitive about her aura sensing, so someone in a dangerous situation won’t trigger her aura until they are severely injured.

LIMITS ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

MAIN GOAL ⫻ To be honest, Alexander is not sure what his goals are anymore. Sure, he does everything to help anyone that asks for his aid, but what does he want for himself? Maybe he'd like to finally find the love of his life.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Alexander is an honest man, one that will not hesitate the truth even if it hurts. He believes that lies will always continue to fester as long as they are kept, and the results of their unraveling will become worse and worse. In addition, he is rather sentimental, and has indomitable loyalty to friends and family. Alex is quite devout, and often does the sign of the cross when in distress.

Despite being unable to tell a white lie to make anyone else feel better, he does believe in comforting others in time of need, even if his ways are less on the talking side, and more on simple listening, and, well, touch.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Straight. Seeks for love but has always failed in it.

FEARS ⫻ Alexander fears clowns. And heights. Seriously, however, he fears that his nightmares of losing the function of his hands would come true, as his entire livelihood and career are built upon them. He also fears going deaf.

REPUTATION ⫻ As one of the first children to be sired by James Vanburen, Alexander commands some measure of respect from the rest of the family, at least from those that know he existed. He is known to spoil the younger ones with chocolates and candy, and is well liked. At least until he talks about how much he dislikes their father.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ The last time that Alexander has seen his father was when he was just ten years old, when James abandoned him and his mother for another of his uncountable affairs. Thus, they have a nonexistent relationship, having only come to the funeral just to see if the old man was really dead. He blames James for everything wrong with his life; his mother's drug addiction, his incapability of finding a girlfriend, and… well, everything.

FLAWS ⫻ Alexander is quite straightforward in both speech and thinking. As such, he usually won’t understand most idioms, and would go as far as break them by explaining how one cannot jump upon a gun. In addition, he is quite impulsive, and may end up in trouble because of it. He also has frequent bouts of depression, which holds him back from getting better at what he does, or just accepting that he is already good at things.

Alexander Karamazov Vanburen was one of the first set of children that James Vanburen brought into existence. He was the child of a certain Svetlana Sergeyevna Karamazov, who met James while in a club. She was a Russian immigrant who had come to America right after the breakup of the Soviet Union, as the country had been thrown into civil and social unrest after the downfall of Communism. James’ charm was irresistible, and soon enough, she was pregnant. She gave birth to a boy, whom she named Alexander after her late father.

For all its worth, Alexander, most usually known by his Russian nickname of Sasha, knew James as his father. They had a decent dad-son relationship for the most part; it was nothing special, nor was there anything particularly terrible with it. That was, when James disappeared from their lives when Alexander was 10. He kept on asking where his dad went, only to be met with silence. Apparently, his mother did not know that she was not the first, or would she be the last. It didn’t take the boy long to realize that they had been abandoned, and over the years, he would grow to despise James Vanburen, going as far as using only his mother’s maiden surname in legal documents.

Since then, he would lead a mostly normal life in New York City, studying music in the university (it was in his high school days when he had those self defense classes). It was here that he found his passion for life; the keys of the piano, the strings of the violin, and the assembled voices of the choir. Eventually, he would become a professional musician, living an idyllic existence in a clean apartment. He was a violinist of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, the pianist of his church, and the owner of a YouTube channel that had garnered a moderate following of 120,000 subscribers. However, his mother had soon gone down the path of drug addiction. There was nothing more devastating for him than to see that the woman he loved the most go to rehab again and again. He blamed himself, as he hadn’t been a good son all these years, and then proceeded to blame James for leaving them. Then, she overdosed and died. This would be the driving force for Alexander to slide into a depressive state, though he was very good at hiding it from friends. After all, the pills that the psychiatrist had given him were doing their purpose well… for now.

Then he was informed by his half-siblings that their father was dead. Alexander had come to know that his father was one hell of a harem maker, and had met a few of his half brothers and sisters for some time before that. He had been on a lull of activity during that time; he had taken a few days of leave, and was just relaxing. He did not like his father at all, but he decided to come along anyway just to see if it was really true. It was.

For some reason, he was saddened by James’ passing, even if he told himself that he detested the old man. Sitting down on a couch with his anti-depressant pills on hand, he would find himself surrounded by shifting darkness, a cloud of black shrouding the entire room like a storm with no wind. Out of the shadows emerged a face; it was an Apparition. It fed upon sadness and guilt. It was a comforting presence, even if it was a dark entity, as it had good intentions. There and then, the Spectre promised one thing: he could see his mother again, and whenever he wanted. Ah, and he had this weird tattoo on his neck for some reason. Oh, no...

A year after the funeral, he found himself slowly being turned to stone, his movements beginning to slow down as his hands began to show signs of being turned to hard rock. Panicking, he spoke to the Spectre, asking what was happening to his body. The Apparition took a while to answer, but it concluded that the death of James Vanburen had triggered some kind of curse in everyone that bore his name, and the only solution was to stay in Araminta, or become a statue. Distraught that his father still screwed up other people's lives after death, Alexander hastily moved to Araminta, at which he found that the curse receded the closer he got to the city. He resigned from the New York Chamber Orchestra, instead opting to teach children and teenagers instruments. He didn't earn as much as before, and he had to live in the one place that reminded him of his father. Still, all of these were a small price to pay for not dying...

TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Affixed)
ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Spectre; a ghost-like shadow that hangs around Alexander as a cloud of black and green. It seems to be nice...

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ First and foremost, the Spectre allows Alexander to speak with the dead, summoning their ghosts from the afterlife in order for them to have a conversation. Secondly, it also allows him to become a ghost, granting him immunity against non-magic attacks and the ability to phase through solid objects. However, he is unable to breath while incorporeal, nor could he interact with the universe while in that state.

When Alexander is in a normal corporeal state, the Spectre also allows him to conjure a pair of chains made of magical metal, which are usually channeled through his bracelets.
AURA SENSING ⫻ None

LIMITS ⫻ Alexander can only summon one spirit at a time, and can only do it once an hour. He can keep a ghost summoned for a short amount of time, probably for like one insightful conversation! Afterward, the ghost will go back to the other side - however, it's possible for certain spirits who don't necessarily want to come back to resist it. Alexander's immune to physical attacks while in his ghost state but other magical attacks can still damage him. He can maintain his ghost state as long as he can hold his breath.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ While in his ghost state he is susceptible to non-physical magical attacks such as fire and electricity.