Adrian Towner
Basics
Name: Adrian Towner
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Height/Weight: 167 cm/70 kg
(Former) Occupation: Schoolchild
Appearance: Short, gaunt and pale of face, Adrian is most often found dishevelled in both clothing and hair, not out of any recent event but due to a general lack of self-care beyond the mechanical. His eyes frequently bear bags and he rarely meets those of others.
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Biography
To say that Adrian has had a poor life would be something of an understatement.
This was not set in stone from the beginning, of course; nobody’s future is. Adrian was born into a loving family in Sussex, consisting of a mother, father and elder brother, with whom he spent the first five years of his life – more than enough time to form numerous happy memories, faded but still warm. That, sadly, is all he now has of his first family, for Adrian’s biological parents and sibling died after being struck by a car while on their way back from a friend’s birthday party.
Adrian was being taken care of by his grandmother, Marjorie Towner, at the time, now his only living relative, and it was with his grandmother whom he would now stay. Ordinarily, this would have still set him up well for life; Marjorie doted on the young boy and had the wisdom to both support him through his confused grief and to allow him to forge his own path in school and life. Adrian, for his part, was hardly unhappy with his new existence; he loved his grandma and the next few five or so years were very enjoyable for him.
This made it even more painful when she was slowly, excruciatingly torn away from him. Marjorie fell ill; it transpired that she had an incurable cancer and, as her condition deteriorated, Adrian took on the role of her caregiver. This was a role that he was more than happy to fulfil, despite it being stressful and time-consuming for someone so young, given the care that she had lavished on him. Indeed, his mental state remained strong and his performance in school stable. Of course, it was at this point that social services involved themselves, deciding that Adrian could not be expected to take care of Marjorie and that both would be best served if she were placed in a home and he with a foster family. Thus, he never properly got to stay with her in her last months or say goodbye to her before she died, a fact which haunts him to this day.
Instead, Adrian was moved from one family to another, grief renewed and warm memories turning searing hot. Those which found themselves unprepared for a new addition to their family only reinforced a burgeoning paradoxical mixture of self-loathing, fear of loss and desperation for connection; those which ordinarily would have been found him alternating between sorrowful coldness and clinging warmth that nonetheless did not extend to sharing the burdens of his past. His grades slipped, badly, and he pushed away what few schoolfriends he had.
Then, of course, came the waves of power, and with them the painfully vivid dreams of what could have been, the families that he could have had, sundered by each dawn. Adrian told no-one, for fear of what they might herald. And then he Awoke.
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Skills and Weaknesses
Skills:
- Hardened to Sorrow: Adrian has suffered sufficiently and is normally reserved enough that the outside world can’t do much more to hurt him should he choose to not let it.
- Wanderer: Adrian has spent the last years of his life drifting from home to home, unwilling and unable to form lasting connections. Adaptability to new or difficult situations is hardly a problem for him.
- Magical Anticipant: Despite the deaths of his family, and though he hid it, the advent of bittersweet dreams of his former family in the immediate aftermath of each Wave began to make him suspect that he might be due for Awakening before it happened; he is thus less blindsided now than he might otherwise be.
Weaknesses:
- Lost and Alone: At his core, Adrian is still a person in deep conflict with himself – desperate for the affection that he had as a child and simultaneously fearful that gaining it will only mean the pain of losing it again. Should his defensive shell crack under stress, results will tend towards the self-destructive.
- Discordance: Adrian’s personal complexes render him difficult to communicate with at the best of times and actively sabotaging of personal relationships at the worst. This is somewhat anti-synergistic with his magic.
- Untrained Form: Adrian’s physical abilities are less than stellar, first too focussed elsewhere and then too erratic to leave room for exercise or sport; he possesses below-average strength and stamina.
Spells: -
Circle:
Only by harmony may one find strength. Adrian creates a telepathic space in his mind in which surface thoughts and emotion are shared. He may then invite other beings of whom he is aware into this space; such an invitation makes itself known as a feeling of mental resonance in the mind of the receiver, which can then be briefly focussed on by the receiver to bring themselves into the space and, in turn, briefly blocked out to leave the space. The more beings within this space, the greater the mental strain on Adrian, which can cause headaches and migraines. Adrian may use and dismiss any of the Circle variants of his spells on any of those in the space; their effects end for any who leave the space.
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Bond:
Only by dedication may one find understanding. Adrian forges an intense empathic bond with one other being of whom he is aware, with whom he has a social connection and who is willing to forge such a bond, which first makes itself known in the same way as Circle, if more powerfully; forging and maintaining this bond is incredibly difficult and mentally taxing, resulting in head pain like Circle even if held for short lengths of time and permanent damage to the nervous system if used too frequently or for too long or especially if the other being forcibly removes themselves from the bond at any point, but becomes somewhat less so if the social connection between Adrian and the other being is particularly strong. This ends Circle, if Circle is active; any of the spells which Adrian is using through Circle end, unless they are directed towards the person to whom Adrian is applying Bond, in which case those spells switch to the Bond variant. Each of the Bond variants of his spells requires more energy than its Circle equivalent. Bond’s empathic link can also cause aspects of Adrian’s personality and the personality of the other being to pass through, manifesting as a permanent influence on either, particularly if used frequently or for long periods of time and particularly for people with weaker senses of their own identity.
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Conduit (
Circle): Adrian opens a magical channel to another being within his Circle, allowing them to use him as a focus for their spells. When casting a spell, instead of directing it themselves, this being may transfer the spell through the channel, allowing Adrian to direct it instead. Conduit gives Adrian no knowledge or intuition of how the other being casts this spell or what said spell is, resulting in profound risk of backlash or miscasting, especially if used recklessly or without communication.
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Spellweave (
Bond): Adrian opens a magical channel to the being with whom he shares a Bond, allowing them to share their spellcasting potential with him. The being may direct any of the colours of magical energy which they are capable of harnessing and, with it, the basic metaphysical patterning of their spells through the channel, allowing him to rework this energy into the singular spells that the being with whom he shares a bond possesses or to combine their properties to form new merged spells. Like Conduit, Spellweave gives Adrian no knowledge of what energy and spell patterning is being transferred before he receives it or how it may be reworked beyond Bond’s normal effects, risking backlash or miscasting if not used carefully.
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Exchange (
Circle): Adrian switches places with another being within his Circle. This typically results in some level of disorientation for both, particularly for those unused to magical teleportation.
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Synchronicity (
Bond): Adrian and the being with whom he shares a Bond enter a state of metaphysical mirroring, causing them both to simultaneously exist in the two places that they were originally in as individuals. Both direct the motion of each of the resulting superimpositions, though neither gains any innate ability to cooperate in doing so beyond their Bond’s mental closeness. Upon the spell’s end, the beings separate into the positions of the superimpositions whose space the other originally occupied; this, the spell’s acivation and the process as a whole are all normally disorientating and, for many, profoundly unsettling, especially if they are unused to it.
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Lifelink (
Circle): Adrian anchors his physical wellbeing and endurance to that of another being within his Circle. Any wounds that either takes are rendered half as grievous as they otherwise would be but also appear on the other, while their reserves of physical energy become shared. These effects may be extended to other beings within Adrian’s Circle, mitigating and sharing wounds equally and pooling stamina among the larger group, by casting the spell upon them as well.
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Lifeblaze (
Bond): Adrian anchors his physical wellbeing and endurance to that of the being with whom he shares a Bond. Any wounds that either takes are rendered half as grievous as they otherwise would be but also appear on the other, while their reserves of physical energy become shared. Moreover, the red magical energies of both continuously restore their stamina and vitality, allowing them to perform greater feats and shrug off wounds more easily than they would otherwise be able to; this does not, however, amount to healing or last beyond the duration of Lifeblaze’s effect.
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Manalink (
Circle): Adrian links his magical energies to those of another being within his Circle such that either casts spells with the energy from both. This effect may be extended to other beings within Adrian’s Circle, pooling magical energy between the larger group, by casting the spell upon them as well. Maintaining the integrity of this central pool of energy is taxing for Adrian; moreover, it loses the efficiencies of each being’s practiced use of their own magical energies, causing the casters’ overall energy to be drained more quickly than it otherwise would be.
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Manastorm (
Bond): Adrian links his magical energies to those of the being with whom he shares a Bond such that either casts spells with the energy from both. Each spell cast by either may also draw upon the magical potential of both, effectively doubling its power (assuming equal levels of magical potential). Maintaining the integrity of this central pool of energy is taxing for Adrian; moreover, it loses the efficiencies of each being’s practiced use of their own magic and neither being receives any knowledge or intuition for managing the increased power of their spells.
