MAIN GOAL ⫻ To be free of the apparition he’s adjoined to. After that he just wants to live his life, enjoying all the things he was unable to - spending time with his family, playing soccer again and just using a phone without worrying that he’ll destroy it.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Live life as if everyday could be your last. Luca has always focused on living life to the fullest, without getting dragged down by the small things. This has only grown stronger when they realised how short their life might be. They believe in focusing on the good and in enjoying himself, rather than the inevitable end. Because everyone dies eventually, some just sooner than others.

SECRETS ⫻ Luca’s biggest secret is his shortened lifespan, and how ill his abstraction has made him. He keeps on a strong front as if it isn’t slowly eating him from the inside. He hasn’t told any of his family, because how could he even begin to explain it? He also hides that sometimes he feels that it's all pointless. This is a feeling he tries to hide from even himself, shoving it deep down everytime it rears its ugly head.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Probably attracted to men, but Luca has never had the chance to be in a relationship. When he was younger he was struggling with his gender, and now he can’t get physically close to anyone without hurting them.

FEARS ⫻ The Rot possessing them. They can constantly feel it prodding their mind, looking for a weak spot to take advantage of. They fear it more than dying, though they also fear dying like most people do. They also fear harming their loved ones, especially their family.

REPUTATION IN OLD COVEN ⫻ Neutral, or slightly positive. Luca joined the coven late, a short time before the final battle. He was helpful and friendly which would’ve given the others a good impression of him but also standoffish as he learned the effects of his abstraction. He stuck with the old coven until it dissolved and while he wasn’t contributing to the petty squabbles his attempted positivity didn’t help towards the end.

ROLE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE STYGIAN SNAKE ⫻ Luca joined the coven late, but from then he was very useful in the battle against the Stygian Snake. His abstraction was one that allowed him to directly weaken the emotions fueling apparitions and the Stygian Snake itself through touching them. With this he was able to help them defeat and seal the Stygian Snake on the day of the eclipse.

FLAWS ⫻ Luca has absolutely no filter. He says what he thinks, whether positive or negative. This can come across as blunt and is incredibly tactless. He hurts others often because of this, regardless of his intentions. He is almost toxically positive. Luca hides difficult emotions from even himself, burying them deep down so he doesn’t have to think about them, ignoring all his problems. He can often invalidate others emotions because he doesn’t understand why they’d dwell on the negative. As he’s grown older Luca has become more self sacrificial, and become worse at looking after himself. He’ll neglect his health frequently and in a situation where sacrificing himself would save others, he’d probably do it. While generally optimistic and cheerful, Luca can be somewhat erratic thanks to the apparition adjoined to him that’s constantly trying to corrupt him mentally. This mostly manifests in sudden mood swings and acting outside of his normal, especially under stressful situations since he’s essentially always under mental stress.

Luca was born in Brazil, but his parents moved to St Portwell, and the USA, when he was only two for work. Luca has very little memory of his home country, and has only visited a couple of times as a child.

From a young age, Luca knew that he wasn’t who he was born as. His parents called him Isabela, but that wasn’t right. He didn’t have the language to explain it then so he settled for being a tomboy, refusing to wear anything girly and making everyone call him El - it was slightly less feminine, at least. It wasn’t until his teenagers that he began to figure it all out. He wasn’t a girl like everyone thought he was. He wasn’t really a boy either, but he was closer to that than a girl. He settled on somewhere in between and the name Luca. Just, he didn’t have the confidence to tell anyone.

Luca was fifteen when the Stygian Snake’s rampage began, something he was very unaware about until a week before the eclipse. It was just another day for Luca, heading home from school, when he was attacked by a group of Apparitions. He was thrown to the ground and almost killed there but a girl from a few years above him tried to defend him… Before getting injured herself. Both Luca and this girl, Olivia Ruiz, were saved by Britney Williams. Luca passed out from shock.

When he woke up, his entire world had changed. There was something else inside of him, whispering to him. When he grabbed his phone it turned to dust in his hands. Good, goaded the voice in Luca’s head. Destroy everything. Confused and scared, Luca managed to find the girl, Britney, who had saved him. She explained everything to him - that magic existed, that she was part of a coven protecting the city and that a thing called an apparition (which called itself the rot) had adjoined itself to him while he was injured. She invited him to join the Sycamore Tree coven, to help defeat the Stygian Snake that was attacking the city. Partly out of gratitude, and partly out of not knowing what else to do, Luca joined the Sycamore Tree coven. It was the first place he could truly be himself - being Luca, not a girl, from the start.

In the short time he was part of the coven, Luca threw himself into helping. He learned his abstraction quickly, figuring out that he could weaken apparitions and destroy abominables, though he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t dwell too much on anything outside of using it to help the coven and on the day of the eclipse he used his abstraction to weaken the Stygian Snake so that Ashley could stab it with the Apparition Killer. He had his memory wiped with everyone else, and was glad it was over.

He could live peacefully now, right? Except he still had an apparition attached to him - one constantly trying to get into his mind and whispering to him. The uncontrollable nature of his abstraction was more obvious too. He destroyed everything he touched, and everything around him slowly decayed. He felt weaker too, but he put that down to exhaustion.

Luca couldn’t exactly live a normal life like this.

So he stuck with the coven, hoping they could help him. He grew closer with Olivia, the girl who’d defended him what had felt like a very long time ago, who was now in a similar situation to him. They had a shared goal of splitting from their aberrations, though hers wasn’t as debilitating.

Luca was enraged when he found out that Britney was the one who’d forcibly adjoined him. It could hardly be called saving him with the life he had now. Luca didn’t treat her as badly as some of the others - instead he just didn’t talk to her at all. He stuck with the coven till it dissolved, hoping against hope that they’d help him instead of squabbling. But they didn’t. Luca was disappointed when it ended, but it was fine. He’d find another way. There was no point in dwelling in the negativity, as much of it as there was.

So he moved on, deciding to try and figure out how to get rid of his apparition. Olivia followed him, the only person he had left for him - he’d cut himself off from his family out of necessity, as painful as it was. Just being near him would kill them. He took some online courses at college while trying to research the paranormal as much as possible.

Then Olivia found out, through going to the same college, that Emily had formed her own coven. Luca didn’t particularly like Emily (not many did), but his need to get rid of the rot was stronger. He managed to convince them to let him join a seemingly all woman coven… And it was good, at first. They were learning about magic, and with that making progress in understanding adjoined. But it didn’t last. 8th Street’s agenda changed, and Luca couldn’t stay for it.

So they went back to just the two of them trying to figure it out, back to what it had been like just after the Sycamore Tree coven dissolved. At this point he hardly left the apartment he and Olivia shared. Every outing was a risk of hurting someone. He threw himself into research in his spare time, trying to find everything he could, while working a completely remote job. He managed to figure out a setup that worked for him - a desktop and large screen far enough away to not be affected by his abstraction, and a pile of cheap keyboards and mice on hand for when the ones he was using were destroyed. He gained more control over his decaying touch, learning how to turn it off… Even if it exhausted him. It was difficult, but that was fine. It wouldn’t be like this forever. He stayed optimistic and focused on the positives.

After a year of almost no results, Olivia decided to call it quits. Her family was moving to the other side of the country and she wanted to go with them. There were no hard feelings between them when she left, and they promised to keep in touch.

Luca’s life continued much the same. He found joy in the little things - his weekly calls with Olivia, the days where he could control his abstraction enough to do some wood carving without instantly destroying the wood in his hands, and the late night research that seemed to be getting him somewhere. He would go on walks late at night when very little else (human at least) was outside. He tried to meet with other paranormal, or ex-coven members - just anyone who could resist his abstraction a bit. It was relatively peaceful, if a bit lonely.

Of course, there were so many negatives. He never really got a peaceful moment, with an apparition inside of him constantly trying to erode at his mental state so that it could take over. He’d just gotten good at blocking it out and thinking positively. He was also growing weaker and weaker, struggling to walk around the block on some days. It was as if his muscles were wasting away. It was terrifying, and he had no one to talk to.

Finally, a year ago, it got bad enough that he went to a hospital. His uncontrollable aura wasn’t strong enough to destroy anything instantly, and as long as he didn’t touch anything it would be fine. He felt bad for putting the doctors and nurse through the pain of it, but he needed checked. What had started as occasional exhaustion and weakness had grown worse, and he was constantly in pain. Somewhere always hurt. The doctors ran their tests, so many of them, and took his blood.

The results weren’t good. They’d never seen what was happening to him, so they couldn’t give him a diagnosis, but it was as if his entire body was slowly decaying. A new kind of degenerative disease they’d never seen before. The outcomes didn’t look good. At this rate he probably had a few years left. If he was lucky he’d reach thirty. They said they could recommend him to a more cutting edge hospital that would research it and work with him, but Luca declined. He took a prescription of strong painkillers and went home.

After all, he knew the cause. Normal medicine wouldn’t help. He needed to get rid of his abstraction first before it could be treated.

Luca continued trying to find a way, speeding it up. He tried to talk to some of the paranormal groups in St Portwell, namely the Elite, Greenwood Coven and 8th Street again. The Elite was useless, 8th street was concentrating on its new ventures and the Greenwood coven didn’t take too kindly to Luca… after all his abstraction was one of the many destroying nature, even if he couldn’t control it. It was fine. He resigned himself to never getting rid of it, and resolved to enjoy the rest of his life. No point dwelling on what was out of his control, after all! He’d do what he could and that would be enough.

Then he heard that ex-coven members were dying. Then Olivia went missing. There was no news of her death, but she wouldn’t pick up his calls and wasn’t at home. Luca didn’t know what he could do, until he got contacted by Auri. It was an easy decision to join again. Maybe they could help him get rid of this abstraction that was eating him away, and if not, why wouldn’t he use the time he had left to help save others?

TYPE ⫻ Aberration - Adjoined

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Rotting Decay, the ability to decay and damage all living things, to corrode and weaken non organic materials and to decay the emotions that fuel magic.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻



LIMITS ⫻


WEAKNESSES ⫻

Luca has no preference between he or they pronouns.
Luca is mostly fluent in Portuguese.
Luca has a box filled with cheap phones in his apartment because he has to constantly replace them. In fact most of his salary (after essentials) goes into replacing all the items that he destroys with his abstraction.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Jack doesn't have a damn clue what he's doing with himself these days. He doesn't have a goal that directs where he goes, and as such, he goes wherever he wishes. But having heard about the recent murders of his home, he has taken it upon himself to do what he can to help, even if he could put infinite distance between himself and St. Portwell.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Nothing will last forever. Not the good times, not the bad ones, and everything has its season. Jack believes that just because some things are not meant to be now doesn't mean they won't have a place in the world later. So he chooses to enjoy the world as a whole while he occupies it, knowing that he won't do so forever. Jack goes where life takes him, never in a hurry to live too fast. There is a time and a place when it is appropriate to push against the direction that fate is pulling you in, and there is a time to flow with the current, and Jack believes it is best to help those who are drowning as they do either.

SECRETS ⫻ While it isn't the most immediately dire secret, Jack prefers to keep the details of his world-hopping magic close to the chest. It's old news among the coven that he found a way to make this travel nigh effortless, but Jack isn't particularly eager to teach someone else how it works. If the wrong entity learned that spell, it could cause some problems.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Homosexual, as far as he's aware, anyway.

FEARS ⫻ You would think someone who wanders a realm of eldritch horrors like its a sidewalk would fear absolutely nothing. But honestly? Jack is scared of drowning.

REPUTATION IN OLD COVEN ⫻ Jack was always seen as a bit of a nerd. He was more fascinated by magic and the way it worked than most people. He'd always be found pouring over books and making up new spells for the sake of curiosity. Most of these spells turned out to be hits and misses, but Jack was always the one other Adepts went to when they needed a bit of advice on how to go about using magic.

ROLE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE STYGIAN SNAKE ⫻ Sometimes you've got to fight fire with fire. It was almost uncanny, the way the Stygian Snake seemed to mimic his own magic. Hiding in shadows, snuffing out the sun with a thought, warping the fabric of reality and more. Jack theorized at one point that the Stygian Snake was some manner of human twisted into an Aberration, as the things it could do were unsettlingly similar to the things he could do. Jack helped find the Apparition Killer, and joined the coven members who went to retrieve it, leveraging his purple Lux to ensure their safe passage back to Shimmer. During the fight against the Stygian Snake, Jack followed it into the shadows beyond the normal world, ensuring it had no peace and that his comrades were kept up to date after time was warped. He was injured during one of these jumps, costing him an arm and most of his left shoulder.

FLAWS ⫻ Above all else, Jack is proud of his magical capabilities. He has just a bit of an ego when it comes to his accomplishments and what he’s discovered, and he’s not afraid to back that up. But beyond that, he had trouble with staying convicted in things. He’ll pack up and leave if he can’t see things working out, before a conclusion is in sight.

Jack is also, for lack of a better term, out of time. In the Void, time does not flow. He has inadvertently displaced himself to an extent, not being as caught up on events as others. The Void has also eroded parts of him, he can’t remember most of his life before the coven, and he hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep in a decade.

When he was young, Jack had a kindling event that felt like a dream. It's hard to remember that far back, due to the Void's effects on his mind, but he remembers seeing visions of a horse one minute, and of a bull the next. His homelife was questionable at best, so once he started grasping magic, Jack just ran and ran. He never looked back, since it just felt right to him. The important events begin shortly after he discovered a certain snake terrorizing the mortal world. Ashley Stone and the Sycamore Coven ran into him, and from here he connected with the paranormal world. He met likeminded people and dove deep into studying all that he could, hoping to understand magic on a deeper level and use his shadowy magic against that of the Stygian Snake's days were spent pouring over books and scouting out the city at night, to the concern of a few coven members. No one was entirely sure where he came from or when he’d stop learning so much, but it worked out in the long run, as the Stygian Snake was one day banished into the coven’s namesake. Everything was fine, until it wasn’t.

The coven began falling apart in the following weeks. Leadership lost faith, people couldn’t agree on what they should do with the coven, and some just wanted to move on. Jack personally believed the coven should’ve dedicated itself to protecting St. Portwell from other supernatural threats, not just the ones that reversed time and his in shadows. B t it was never meant to last, so having learned to compensate for the lack of a left hand, Jack made plans to find greener pastures. He packed his things and assured his friends in the coven that he’d keep in touch. On the day he set out, Jack finally broke out the spell that, to this day, is considered his magnum opus: A portal into the Void. Some of the coven members were skeptical, but it worked. He said his goodbyes, opened the portal, and he was gone.

The Void is many things to many people. A land of nightmares, a place that does not exist, or even a purgatory. But to Jack, it was nothing short of magnificent. The horrors of the Void were not so horrific to him, and as the portal snapped shut, Jack hoped he’d stay a while. He wandered with fascination, embracing the eldritch nature of this world and learned so much. Jack stared incomprehensible entities in the eyes, dredged up remnants of distant universes and slept peacefully every night. Any other person would succumb to madness, but not him. He rebelled in this. The god of the Void, an entity known simply as the Child one day crossed paths with Jack. The Child found Jack’s amicability towards incomprehensible nightmares baffling, and decided to send him home after a conversation. When Jack returned to Shimmer, he discovered that time passed differently- He thought he was only gone for two days, but he was actually gone for a month.

He found this fascinating, but decided to spend a some time in Shimmer. But Jack could never simply let things be. Eventually, he trespassed again. The Child eventually got fed up with him, and left Jack to fend for himself. This was the cycle of Jack’s life for the next decade: Enter the Void, explore and bask in the horrific majesty of it, and return home for a while. During his time in Shimmer, he travelled just as extensively, seeing the world and all it had to offer. But in the Void, time got further and further away from him. They say time flies, but ten years passed in what should’ve only been two, or even three. It shouldn’t have surprised him, then, when Auri managed to find him and was very surprised that he never checked in. Ten years, and no one heard a word out of him back home. She called him for help, explaining that the old coven members were slowly being picked off from all over the world. Concerned, and happy to reconnect with old friends, Jack got a location and planned a trip back home.

TYPE ⫻ Adept

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Red-Purple Lux. Jack's channeler is a curious book.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Jack blurs the lines between red and purple Lux into a form unique to him, allowing him to weave supernatural darkness into a variety of spells that allow him to manipulate his surroundings, protect people, and trespass into the Void.

Voidwalk ⫻ The spell that Jack considers his greatest work. As a kid, Jack developed a way to open up a doorway directly into the Void, and back into Shimmer. Doing this displaces him chronologically, meaning he could spend what feels like a day on the other side, but actually return several days later. The exact details of how he achieved this are a mystery. To open a portal, Jack requires several minutes to focus in a dimly lit area. During this time, he uses his shadowy red Lux to pull away at the "net" between worlds. The portal can only stay open for a few seconds at a time, after which the proverbial net will snap back like a rubber band. This spell is based on the concept of the Gloomy Step, and as a result of this, he can pick and choose certain regions of the Void to enter. One such region is a place he calls the Shadowzone, an area that is relatively untouched by the horrors of the Void, where Jack lives during his extended trips. If Jack does not actively decide where he wants to go in the Void, then his portal will place him somewhere at random.

Umbramancy ⫻ The oldest form of Jack's Abstraction is the ability to transform otherwise normal darkness into something tangible through red Lux, within roughly 100 feet.. He can pull a shadow off the wall, and shape it into strictly solid objects, use it to blind others or play tricks on someone. This expression of his Lux partly explains the amount of layers he tends to wear, as the shadows under his clothes make for a quick and dirty source of power. Jack can also create darkness, dimming down a normally well-lit room to the point that it becomes difficult to see. The light that would be rendered nonexistent by this magic does not go away permanently- Jack doesn't destroy light sources. Rather, he simply replaces it with magical darkness, meaning lights will return to normal when he wants them to, almost like something out of a horror movie.

When Jack makes something solid out of shadows, it has about as much durability as hardwood. You could swing a hammer at them and you might not punch a hole through them but a gun would shoot right through.

Gloomy Step ⫻ If Jack can find a particularly dark area, he can walk into it to vanish on a whim, and appear at an exit point of his choosing. He has to picture this place in his mind, meaning he needs to have been there before, or have a picture of it that he can commit to memory. This means that Jack can suddenly appear on the other side of St. Portwell, but he can’t appear in Dollhouse’s basement. There are two main factors that Jack must consider when using this spell: Distance and light. The more there is of either, the longer he was to wait before teleporting again. Jumping across a city at midnight twice is one thing, but doing the exact same thing at midday would be drastically slower.

Shadow Hand ⫻ Less a spell, and more a permanent replacement for the arm he lost during the battle with the Stygian Snake. Jack's left arm is made of magic darkness, and feels like solid rock when touched. He could use it to punch through windows and not feel a thing, crush tin cans with it, and carry things that would be too awkward to lift for others. The advantages stop there, since having a fake hand isn't the same as being supernaturally strong. It also makes blending in slightly challenging, since people tend to notice when your hand is solid black. For this reason, he'll often walk be seen with just one arm in public, because he can get rid of his magic one and make it appear again at a moment's notice.

LIMITS ⫻ Jack's Abstraction comes with the territory of staying concealed and staying mobile. Intense light effectively starves him of his ability to use most of his magic. Put him on a beach at midday and the best he can do is start looking for shade. In worse cases, the poor bastard can't even open a water bottle, having lost a hand to the sun.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ WEAKNESSES ⫻ The Void is easily the most dangerous element that is known, home to unimaginable horrors and God-like Eldritch abominations. Opening a door there can end badly if he uses it willy-nilly, and something can come through - or quickly kill him if they will it. Umbramancy is countered by light-based magic or magic that generates light, which means Photomancy hard-counters his Umbramancy, and the constructs are far easier to destroy with magic. The Gloomy Step does not indicate what is on the other side and can leave him in a sticky situation if he does it willy-nilly. Light-based magic can, again, render him unable to teleport altogether, if he's being exposed to it.

Also, people will make fun of him for how edgy he is.

Anyyyything else?

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Back in the day Sully had big dreams of being a pro football player. He was so committed to chasing those dreams that even a dimension devouring serpent couldn’t stop them. Nowadays Sully dreams much smaller, visions of making rent and not moving back in with his mom dancing in his head. Really he is just focusing on working on himself at this time, doing what he can to get out of the rut he feels like he has been stuck in since he dropped out of college.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Try to make things better, and if you can’t do that, at least remember that the last thing the world needs is another asshole. Sully always tried to treat everyone with kindness and respect even if they did not show him the same, adhering to the old adage that you never know what people are going through or where they came from. While he might not agree with certain people, he often tries to understand the whys behind their beliefs while others might rightfully write them off as simply being wrong. Also, while Sully feels that the world is largely full of assholes, he believes that almost none of them are beyond redemption. He’s known to be too forgiving of people to the point of destructive naivety.

SECRETS ⫻ A large number of “workplace accidents” caused by Sully that ruined expensive construction or logging equipment and would wind up getting him sacked from the job were intentional. In fact, over the years Sully has gotten away with causing a significant amount of property damage in the name of environmentalism and, as of lately, the Greenwood Coven. Sully aligns neatly with many of their beliefs and he’s happy to be part of another team, although he has yet to be fully admitted into the Greenwood Coven.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Sully is gay. Although he had confided this to a few close friends while in high school, he did not fully come out until after he’d quit his college football team.

FEARS ⫻ Being inadequate. Sully fears that he is destined to be one of those guys who peaked in highschool. It’s already the case for him with football, and topping the Stygian Snake is a tall order—especially when he firmly believes that the Coven would’ve beaten the beast without him.

REPUTATION IN OLD COVEN ⫻ Largely well-liked. Having been lifelong friends and neighbors with Ashley, Sully was in pretty early with the Coven. Ashley might’ve been the one cheerleading when he was playing football, but Sully was essentially the cheerleader when it came to the Coven. He was always friendly and welcoming to the new members, often going above and beyond to make sure that they felt comfortable with their transition to the paranormal world and the nightmare that was battling the Stygian Snake. He was also seen as an apologist for Ashley’s temperamental behavior and a bit too sympathetic when it came to dealing with Britney. Still, Sully was the one that always got the Coven beer, so if he occasionally sidled with the wrong person it never really mattered to the group.

ROLE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE STYGIAN SNAKE ⫻ Sully, like Britney, served as a recruiter for the Coven. Unlike Britney his methods were above board, typically working with other members of the Coven to patrol St. Portwell and rescue anyone targeted by the Stygian Snake’s minions. During the final fight against the Stygian Snake, Sully worked alongside Jade to keep the Coven on their feet with his healing magic.

FLAWS ⫻ Sully is reliably unreliable and is horrible at making commitments. He has never been early to anything before in his life and ‘on time’ loosely translates to ‘within the first thirty minutes’. He often agrees to plans solely because he doesn’t like turning people down and then either forgets or cancels moments before it starts. If Sully ever has to make a choice on his own it is often an agonizing experience. He typically latches onto the first idea someone gives to him, fully championing it up until the moment someone presents a counter argument. Then, he can be easily ping-ponged for eternally between the two options until one of the others eventually backs down.

Sully had a fantastic childhood. He grew up in a small two-bedroom home in St. Portwell where he shared a bunk bed with his older brother Sammy. His mom worked part time as a grocer while his dad was often away for weeks at a time working on a crabbing vessel. Sully lived for the time whenever his dad returned, because it typically meant the family was going to spend the weekend camping. His dad would teach him how to fish and hunt and kayak. His dad would also tell him stories of the sea. Later on Sully would realize his dad had just been pulling his leg, but as a kid he was amazed by the sea creatures pops had to do battle with just so he could bring home some dough for his family. Mostly, however, mostly his dad just taught Sully how to slow down and appreciate the world around him, stopping their hikes to breathe in deep and say cheesy dad stuff like, “Wow. This is it, isn’t it kiddo?”

Sully grew up next door to Ashley Stone. The two would go around riding their bikes, skipping stones on the river, and, when they were a little bit older, finding a hidden spot to smoke cigarettes that Ashley had swiped from her mom or drink beers that Sully had gotten from his brother. He doesn’t remember how they became friends. His mom had pictures on the fridge of them as kindergartners holding hands while waiting for the bus, of them as toddlers covered in mud, of them as babies laying on a carpet. They would go to the same high school together and had the same group of friends. Ashley would go on to become a cheerleader. Sullivan would play football.

Football is where Sully would fall in love—not with Ashley, gross man, she was like a sister. He fell in love with being on a team. The comradery, the shared emotions, the shoulder to lean on or the hand to help you up. Plus, the team was pretty good—state champions during Sully’s second and third year. It was always when playing football that Sully began to come to terms with the feelings he had towards the kicker, as well as realizing that while St. Portwell was overall fairly friendly towards gay men, it still wasn’t something that one could share with a highschool boys’ locker room. He came out to Ashley instead, who was a good enough friend to keep the “Oh, I already knew” to herself.

The summer before his senior year was going to be perfect: parties, road trips, and romantic flings. It started with a massive beach bonfire with plenty of booze and drugs to go around. Sully stumbled away from the party to answer nature’s call and walked out to the ocean. After he finished up he stubbed his toe against what he at first thought was a rock, but as he grabbed it to chuck it into the water he realized it was an old cup. No, not just any old cup, his drunken brain told him—it was the king’s cup! He rinsed the sand off of it with beer, filled it up with cheap whiskey, returned to the group, and declared himself king of the beach. “And when the king of the beach drinks from the king’s cup, all drink with him!” was his first royal decree and the last thing he remembered from that night.

During that summer wherever Sully went to party the “king’s cup” came too. It became a running goof amongst his friends to bet how many drinks until Sully would pull the stupid glass out and declare himself king of the party. One party near the end of summer Britney Williams grabbed Sully and dragged him away from the party when he produced the cup, with the two of them getting hooted and hollered at as he proclaimed, “She wants to be with the king!” She did not. She wanted to know how he got his hands on the Chalice. She wanted to know if he was the Cupbearer. She kept saying weird things, about a snake, about how he needed to drink his own blood, creepy shit. She, Sully thought at the time, was clearly high.

Then, life became a nightmare. The Stygian Snake attacked his neighborhood shortly thereafter. His house got destroyed but his family was away. He, however, was inside. Ashley, covered in blood that wasn’t her own, found him under a pile of debris with a metal pipe speared through his stomach. He was going to die, but he remembered what Britney had said and, well, a massive fucking snake destroying his house made him a believer. Ashley thought he was losing it when she told him to grab the cup, one final bit before he bit the dust, but she did so anyway. Together they pulled the pipe out. Then Sully had Ashley pool his blood into the cup and he drank. And, just like Britney had said he would, he lived.

Everything was a whirlwind after that. Ashley formed the Coven and Sully tagged along, dreaming of the one day the world would return to normalcy. Somehow, it did—the Coven defeated the Stygian Snake and saved his hometown. He remained with them through the rest of the school year and following summer, playing peacemaker and throwing raucous parties in their hideout when Ashley would allow him, but being a witch wasn’t really his scene. He still dreamed of being a pro athlete, so when the time came he headed off to a state college. The king’s cup, or the Chalice as Britney insisted on him calling it, stayed in St. Portwell at the request of Sloane Faris. She insisted that if was abandoning the duties, whatever the fuck that meant, then the least he could do was ensure that the Chalice remained with someone who would keep it safe. He obliged and went on to achieve his dreams.

Assuming, that is, if his dreams were to gain a shit ton of weight, develop a drinking problem, drop out of college, and move back to his hometown without a dime to his name or a future ahead of him. Let’s face it, Sully partied too much and worked too little and at the end of the day he just wasn’t good enough to compete on a collegiate level. He was benched and when his grades or his focus on the field didn’t improve he was cut. His dad was able to get him some blue collar work around town, but none of the jobs ever really panned out.

He spiraled into a funk, feeling like a total loser and struggling to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning. His depression was only deepened when his dad passed away. Lung cancer. His dad hadn’t smoked a day in his life. The doctors said it was possibly aggravated by some of the chemicals used on the crabbing vessels. At the time Sully was working on a logging crew. He watched as thousands of trees were chopped down, the same trees that he and his dad would hike through, the same trees that made his dad stop and look in awe, and something inside of Sully snapped.

After the workday ended Sully went home, got his tools, and returned. He dismantled the equipment. When he arrived at work the next day he was frustrated to find out that the logging company had easily fixed his sabotage. His coworkers laughed about how the tree huggers always thought a monkey wrench was enough to get between them and a job. Sully reached out to Sloane, asking if he could have the Chalice back. He was able to toe her line of questioning, promising her that it was for a good purpose. She eventually relented, claiming that she was only holding it for him anyway.

Sully snuck back to work after acquiring the Chalice. Loosened bolts and jammed cogs weren’t enough to stop the logging equipment, but corrosive acid would eat enough through enough of the mechanics to call the thing a total loss. Little did he know he was being watched. As he went back to his truck he was approached by a group of cloaked figures with their faces hidden by masks. The tension eased as Sully chatted with the Greenwood Coven, discovering that they shared a common mindset. He accepted an invitation back to their camp, and by the morning it felt like he had found a potential new team.

Sully was fully ready to give himself completely over to the Greenwood Coven, but they were a little skeptical about accepting new members until they proved himself. They said they would call him the next time they needed help. In a way, Sully found himself once again benched. It was nearly a month after meeting them that Sully got the call, and immediately after he got news that one of his friends had been murdered. Sully bailed on the Greenwood Coven, but he was able to get back in their good graces after explaining the situation and promising them he’d help another time.

When Ashley died, Sully became unreachable as he tried to find the bottom of the Chalice. A voicemail was left by Auri Auclair to no response.

TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Agent)

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Chalice, an artifact that can produce a never ending amount of any kind of liquid including a healing elixir.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ The Chalice is an artifact that has been around since ancient times, held by kings, messiahs, and so-called god and known by many other names. It somehow became lost, spurring many seekers of its powers to quest for it but never find it. Eventually, the Chalice became little more than a myth, believed to be little more than a flowery metaphor written down by a poet of yore and misinterpreted by the simple masses of days gone by. In reality, the Chalice somehow ended up being discovered by a jock in Oregon.

The Chalice is a large, empty silver goblet that is covered with runic symbols; the inside is stained a brownish red. The Chalice is a normal cup unless it is held by the Cupbearer, who is the only person able to activate its magical properties. A small blood offering is required to become the Cupbearer—about 3 drops in the goblet—and they are able to use the Chalice until another person performs the ritual. The Chalice cannot be damaged by normal means or by the contents summoned by the Cupbearer.

The Cupbearer can fill the Chalice with an endless supply of whatever liquid they want. This can range from mundane uses, like creating water or wine to drink, to dangerous, like calling forth lava or acid and splashing it upon a foe. The most notable liquid the Chalice can produce is an elixir, a magical concoction that can heal recent wounds and restore energy if drank. It’s worth noting that the Chalice is “self-cleaning” in the sense that creating another liquid obliterates whatever of the previous liquid was left in the cup. This also happens when the Cupbearer stops touching the Chalice. Therefore, the Cupbearer cannot accidentally poison others or unintentionally cause chemical reactions.

How much liquid appears is dependent on the wishes of the Cupbearer. Typically, one cupful is what is summoned on each use, but they could continue to call forth more liquid as long as they remain in contact with the Chalice.

LIMITS ⫻The Chalice produces liquid one cup at a time, so while theoretically someone could use it to flood an area it would take an excruciating amount of time. The normal liquid created by the Chalice disappears after a day unless it was consumed by a living creature, so it cannot be used to create stockpiles. Likewise, the healing elixir created by the Chalice becomes benign within a few minutes, so it cannot be used to create potions.

The healing offered by the Chalice is strong but it is not absolute. It is capable of closing any wound and reversing life-threatening injuries, as well as counteracting and eliminating infectious diseases. However, it cannot be used to end curses, it cannot regrow or reattach lost limbs, and it cannot prevent the effects of aging or natural diseases such as cancer or heart disease. As well, the elixir only works if the recipient is capable of drinking it—pouring the elixir on an unconscious person will only result in getting them wet.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ Sully has to live with the knowledge that the Chalice is also a Cum Chalice and a Piss Chalice. Sully possesses no special resistances to what he summons so he can easily injure himself by summoning lava and acid.