Name: Santo
Gender: Male
Age: 14
Personality: You'd not think Santo a fourteen year old with how he acts, but that is a side effect of his nature and upbringing. Level headed and thoughtful, Santo watches situations unfold with an aware and critical edge to his gaze. While a hint of the child he is/was shines through every now and then, he may as well simply be an adult in a small body.
Biography:As one of the last shaman of the Shuar with a connection to the founder, Tsunki, Santo's life is hardly his own. It belongs to the land its self, and to the primordial shaman. Fighting against Church and Association influences is a role which the shaman of Peru have been acting on for years, rarely in actual direct confict but resisting them none the less, and Santo is simply the continuation of the tale the Spanish started.
Born before the Sacred Waterfall, his fate was sealed before he could take his first breath. He was birthed into the system established by the Tsunki, going through the trials and training designed to turn boys like him into a fully fledged Shaman by their teens. Rather than spend his life in the isolation of the amazon, Santo eventually chose to live in Cusco, setting himself up in the slums of the city. Taking up the mantle of a healer, Santo became rather invested in the city of Cusco, and with news of the Second Owner's passing it presented an opprtiunity for Santo.
The oppritunity to return the land to its rightful owners.
Family History: The line of Shaman Santo was born into is pretty long, but it's not too important considering they all do the same thing with varying degrees of strength.
Origin: Tsunki*
Elemental Affinity: Water
Number of Magic Circuits: D
Quality of Magic Circuits: A
Od: B
Magecraft: Shuar Shamanism- A near enough lost practice in the world, the once powerful shamans of the Shuar people have all but moved on with only few remaining as they once were:
Tsentsak - Spirits of death and illness, able to inflict both unto humans. Shuar shamans both contained these spirits within their own body and controlled them, using them to make conceptual darts enforcing the concepts of "suffering" and "death", resulting in a weapon which kills any target it hits within three to seven days.
Alternatively, the Shuar shaman may remove an already present Tsentsak from another, removing them of any illness, suffering and harm they may be enduring. Injesting "Ayahuasca", a psychoactive brew, allows the Shuar shaman greater control of Tsentsak, enabling them to send Tsentsak after a target directly rather than through a dart - this is also the best time for a Shuar shaman to heal another. While sorcerers may use tsentsak for malevolent purposes, healing shamans use these magic darts to create a barrier of protection around their body.
Tsantsa Creation - You know how you see shrunken heads in things about voodoo and other weird magic stuff? Yeah, well, thank the Shuar for that. They're the people who did that stuff - and they did it for good reason. The Tsantsa of the Shuar capture the soul of the "departed" inside, keeping them in a perpetual state of "living" to use the power of the individual soul towards their own end. It can effectively make a mystic code out of a magus' head, allowing them use of the circuits and crest, recreating the craft they employed through themselves, able to do so as long as the shaman has the shrunken had.
Tsantsa - The process for making a Tsantsa is rather gruesome and difficult, especially in the modern area. As such, any remaining Shuar shaman are likely to only have one at hand. In Santo's case, it's the head of the magi who he took his catalyst from. A bigwig from "some important forgein clock family" who was, in their own right, a rather impressive magus - now just a shrivelled head. The magus once specialized in mental interference, placing powerful illusions upon and hyponotizing others with his family's craft. While deception of the senses is simple enough, hypnosis only really extends to normal humans, animals and low-level magus - including Santo, oddly enough.
Arútam Wakaní - The spirits (wraiths) of powerful Shuar dwell in certain locations through out the Amazon, most notably at a place simply known as the "Sacred Waterfall", a supposed gateway to the realm of spirits which a Shuar boy must visit and interact with at the age of six in order to be called an adult. If the boy is brave enough to reach out and touch such a spirit, then he would become powerful - to make contact with several would make the boy invincible.
Naturally for a boy currently living in Cusco, maintaining upkeep on the Arútam Wakaní usually entails quite a trip. Currently he contains two Arútam Wakaní, the wraiths empowering him physically to the point where he could easily crush bone with single blows, small firearms bruising him more so than actually making him bleed.
Possession, and enduring the act without being consumed by the spirits/wraiths, is a key element of South American magecraft, and the ability to resist the usual downsides of it lays in how the Shuar shaman come into being and their origin.
Tsunki - An integeral part to Santo's shamanism is the entity known as Tsunki.
Before his birth, Santo has the potential to be many things - but when he was presented to the Sacred Waterfall at birth, his destiny was set in one direction. Any origin he had before was meaningless, for he began with Tsunki and he would end with Tsunki.
The entire system of Shuar shamanism was created by the Tsunki, a Holy Spirit (or several, depending on who you ask) which has come to define the South American system of Magecraft. It is everpresent in their practice, and all practicioners of it/her art carries within them the Tsunki its self. The shaman's alignment with the Tsunki makes them almost inherently adept at spiritual magecraft, their minds and body naturally grown to be capable of containing several spirits at once with no issue.
It dwells at the bottom of the waters before the Sacred Waterfall.
Equipment: Tsantsa: Magus - The shruken head of the magus who was intending to take part in the grail war. Not anymore, evidently.
Slum Home - Santo has a home in the slums of Cusco, hidden among the run down, half constructed buildings along the hills. It's a good hiding spot.
Inner City Home - Wait, what? How'd he get tha- oh, the shrunken head. Right. In a much nicer spot where people with money live. Stocked kitchen, television and everything.
Funds - Thanks for the dosh, magus head.
Reagents - Santo keeps a stock of plantlife and other bits and bobs which are used in his rituals
3x Death DartsSkills: Cooking, local savviness, navigation and map reading, keeping a low profile, counselling, detecting dishonesty and negative intents.