Austronaut

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Some of us wear suits, some of us get the job done...

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

For you consideration:

Lenya Von Morganstern - Ritualist

Lenya Von Morganstern

Ritualist

Age:31

Gender: Female

Species: Human(ish)

Appearance:

Lenya is a tall Germanic woman with straw blond hair. She is pretty, although her high cheekbones and angular features seem to conspire to rob her of true beauty. She has a hiker’s lean trim build which bespeak many years of alpine life in her native Austria. Although her eyes are a piercing blue, they are usually kept behind the half moon glasses she wears to aid her with her reading.

Lenya dresses conservatively in stylish but expensive clothing with a particular affection for tailored suits. She is frequently seen carrying a small leather briefcase in which she keeps her research notes and ritual tools.

Despite having lived in the United States for several years, and her best efforts, Lenya has been unable to eradicate her crisp Austrian accent.

Background: Lenya grew up in wealth and privilege in southern Austria with her sisters, mother and grandmother. It is no accident that her family was one of the few to avoid destruction and ruin in the turbulent years following the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire. At some point in the dimly imagined past Lenya’s ancestors gained magical powers through a bargain of some sort. Ever since that day the women of the family have been blessed with certain occult powers. Over the centuries they have grown in power and sophistication through careful training and research.

The female members of the clan stick together in order to create an effective coven for protection and the use of rituals. Men in the form of husbands and lovers are occasionally associated with the coven but rarely remain in the picture for long. Each member is taught the lore of the clan from birth and encouraged to experiment and add to the knowledge of the group.

After receiving an excellent education by the traditional means of expensive private tutors. Lenya attended the University of Innsbruk and earned first a bachelor's and eventually a PhD in Anthropology. During this time she traveled the world, particularly to the old German Colonies in Papua New Guinea and Micronesia to conduct field work. This field work provided an excellent opportunity to gather lore about ritual traditions in far flung corners of the world to add to her family’s impressive collection of grimoires.

After a scandal involving the disappearance of certain valuable cultural artefacts, Lenya left her post at the University of Innsbruck to conduct field work amongst the tribes of the Penobscot in Northern Maine and Southeastern Canada. During this research she first encountered Wells and Raich.

The firm sought out the Penobscot regarding a troubling Wendigo which had been transgressing cultural taboos. Intrigued, Lenya joined the investigation and helped to lay the beast to rest. Since then Wells and Raich has frequently employed the Austrian both for her ritual skill and her knowledge of far flung magical traditions
Current Life:
Lenya had been a guest of the Penobscot for over a year before she began to work for Wells and Raich. After this association became more formalized she purchased a property on nearby Islesboro. She has spent an enormous amount of money, wire transferred in euros with no questions asked, to rebuild the ancient stone cottage into a modern dwelling. Many of her particular requirements, including floors inlaid with strange silver designs, windows at precise spacing and angles, vast skylights and oddly but precisely carved doorways, have set tongues wagging in the small island community.

Lenya spends a good deal of time socializing with other Wells and Raich employees and is always eager to add more to the voluminous notebooks she keeps in neatly handwritten German.

Personality:
Lenya is a driven and professional woman and approaches every situation as an opportunity to learn. This occasionally backfires when people get the impression that she is looking at them like a disector looking at a specimen.

She has a natural caution and tends to underrate the ability of others while overrating her own. She is friendly and personable and willing to help other people out, particularly if this leads to them falling into her debt. The coven mentality means that she is willing to do what is required to help the team succeed and tends to view morality as a luxury to be consumed after survival is assured.

Lenya is almost obsessed by the development of arcane knowledge and power. Her goals usually line up with Wells and Raisch but there is little doubt in her mind that she and her sisters take precedence over any other allegiance.

Lenya has a close relationship with her sisters and frequently calls on them for advice and support in her enterprises.

Following a childhood accident in a hayloft Lenya has a fear of fire and of being burned. She is also somewhat uncomfortable in the presence of men, having spent most of her life among women and then in an adversarial academic environment where her gender counted against her.

Schools of Study: Ritualology/Alchemology

Specialization: Thaumaturgy, Hexes, Arcane Artifice, Brewing.

Spells: Most of Lenya’s arsenal is ritual based and cannot be produced on the spot.

Fortune’s Favorite: Lenya has access to certain hexes which can be quickly produced. These twist probability and chance in her favor or against others. This temporary alteration in probability has to be balanced out later, either by careful ritual dispersal or by a catastrophic equalization of bad luck.

Upon a Starry Mountain - Lenya can cause localized intense wind and storms, particularly if the weather is already bad.

Abilities:

Swiss Army Witch - Lenya has a truly impressive mastery of ritual magic, particularly Thaumaturgy. All of these rituals take time however and thus are not always useful in a crisis.

Arcane Artificer: Ritual craft requires the creation of ritual tools, as such Lenya is well aquainted with the construction of certain classes of enchanted items. She is also able to use these to ‘macro’ rituals for later use. She is reluctant to share these items with team mates without great need.

Coven: Lenya is one of five sisters and can draw on their knowledge and occasionally their assistance in her endeavours. This works both ways of course which occasionally causes problems for her teammates. Only one of her sisters is currently in the US however and they have their own projects to attend to.

Old Money: It is probably better people didn’t ask where it comes from, but Lenya has substantial private means.

Academic Alchemist: Lenya has an interest in alchemy and maintains an extensive lab at her property on Isleboro. Her interest is in understanding her rituals in this new medium. As a result these potions are a little unreliable and have an unhealthy experimental dimension which is not always appreciated.

Trust Me: Lenya is naturally engaging and can augment this by the use of simple rituals and glamors.

Total Recall: Lenya can use her ritual skills to achieve a near eidetic memory of past events.

Combat Virgin: Lenya has no particular interest in or aptitude for physical combat, and much prefers to boil someone's blood from the comfort of a ritual circle. She views guns with a europeans suspicion and will require significant instruction from her teammate to become proficient in any kind of face to face combat.

The Lure of Knowledge: Lenya is fundamentally motivated by a quest to gather arcane knowledge for herself and her coven. This has in the part led to some questionable tactical decisions.

Equipment:

Little Briefcase of Horrors - Lenya carries a briefcase with a variety of ritual implements including knives, blood, incense and other equipment.

There Aren’t Many Like it but This One is Mine: Lenya carries an athamae which was custom made for her on the day of her birth. It’s exact origin is a carefully guarded secret of her coven and she keeps it concealed within an expensive fountain pen.
Rings on Her Fingers and Bells on her Toes: Lenya wears hand crafted jewelry of silver and polished copper. She uses these as vehicles for rituals performed earlier. The materials are expensive and time consuming to prepare.

Point and Shoot: Lenya has recently purchased a glock 9mm because the internet suggested that this was the best choice. It is currently considerably more dangerous to her than to the enemy.

Make a Note of It: Lenya is never seen without a notebook and pencil. She keeps notes obsessively.

Boots on the Ground - A Sci Fi Military RP

Im also going to start a register of characters for everyone's convenience. Ill only bother if they are likely to come up again

Character - Callsign - Vehicle

Sgt Tasha Cole - Item Three-Six - Indigo Girl (Destroyed)

Cpl Gregorie Buren - Item Three-Four - Inchworm

Boots on the Ground - A Sci Fi Military RP

No worries Sarpedon, jump in when you can, the tank element is a little ways off anyway.

Gunther feel free to go ahead and post again.

The bulk hauler pretending to have trouble over head is going to drop a several thousand ton cargo container full off explosives onto the base camp.

Boots on the Ground - A Sci Fi Military RP

Corporal Buren squeezed the butterfly triggers of his tri-barrel in a death grip as he raked the heavy weapon across the building front. Chunks of burning adobe the size of basketballs belew free with explosive violence as they bolts lashed the walls. The mineral deposits in the sand sparkled and blazed in the cyan bursts, at the temperature of copper plasma, nearly everything burned. The building shuddered like a whipped horse with each successive hammer blow. The bandits, two or three of them on the upper story, had ceased firing for a moment.

“Item Three-Four to all Sla…,” the moment the link opened the cacophony of broad spectrum jamming howled in his helmet. After a second the AI cut it out, acknowledging the signal as gibberish. That was very bad. It meant that not only were the enemy using jamming equipment sophisticated enough to block the car's variety of radio transmission systems, which was plenty fucking bad, but also that the wogs had taken out the Slammers communications satellites. That suggested that these were expensive professionals, not some half assed local militia. As if summoned by the thought one of the camo-cloth clad figures leaped into the street, leveling a buzz bomb at the combat car. Without sparing it a thought Bruen dragged his fire across the man. His arms and legs flew sideways as the cyan bolts tore into his chest in a splash of superheated steam and cooked meat.

“Booster!” he yelled triggering the combat cars AI.

“Anti jamming protocol, broadcast on all freqs and in the open,” he commanded. A soft electronic tone told him the AI had complied. Still no assurance it would reach anyone. Bugger all that it would get to command, but maybe the local units might get something.

“Item Three Four to all Slammers Elements, Bandits in the city with buzzbombs and cammo cloth. We are two cars down and withdrawing west.” Bullets , electromagnetic slug throwers, began to ring on the hull. He wanted to look for the source but that was the responsibility of the gunners covering that sector.

The fans howled as the big vehicles rocket westward. Bullets rang around him like bells on the iridium armor. Behind him he heard a scream and something hot and wet sprayed across his back. He risked a quick glance around to see Wiggins slumped across his gun, a gaping wound in his neck where a lucky slug had struck.

“Chalkin,” he shouted at the driver, “Get us the fuck out of here!” Shockingly Chalkins angled his fans horizontal, sacrificing the lift the car had gained. It fell like an iridium anvil, gouging a deep trough into the dusty street. Buren’s ceramic armor smashed into his thighs, leaving bruises that would be real damn impressive in the morning. Assuming he lived that long of course.

“What the fuck are you…!” Buren began to shout but Chalkin ‘s response was lost as he poured every watt of power to the fans. The engines shrieked and dirt in the plenum chamber blew out in all directions like a bomb. Blinding all but the most sophisticated scanners for a few crucial seconds. The combat car slew viciously right and rocketed down the alley at a speed any instructor would consider suicidal. Instructors didn’t learn under combat conditions though and the definition of suicide was surprisingly elastic.

“Item Three,” Buren shouted, hoping the other cars could hear him.

“Get off the street, bandits are laying for us.” They shot out of the self inflicted dust cloud like a rocket, racing across a smaller square. Buren dragged his tri-barrels across a group of men. It registered for a moment that only one of them was carrying a weapon. Maybe just a panicking local, and maybe not. Dead, certainly.

This was bad, he caught a glimpse of iridium as one of the other cars raced past an alley on the other side of the square. At least he wasn’t the only one left. The enemy were still firing sporadically from the upper floors. There must be hundreds of them. Snuck into town a little at a time during the various pilgrimages, hidden god knows where until they were ready to strike. Now they had the high ground. Combat cars were vulnerable from above, where the angle of attack was too extreme for the close in defense system to protect them. That is how Sgt Cole and Corporal Artevelder had bought it. A third of Item Three’s strength gone in a heartbeat. The gods only knew what else the enemy had in store.

As if tempted by his words a massive explosion rocked the adobe city, shattering windows and kicking up even more dust.

“Jehovah’s balls what was that?”

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations (Redux!) - Supernatural Urban Fantasy!

For your reconsideration, its everyones most ambivilent professor! Voted most likely to be that teacher you hate in highschool! Putting the math in mathamagics! Emmaline Von Morganstern!

I will assume everyone read that in a boxing announcer voice.

Dr Emma Stern - Hexen

Name: Emmaline Von Morganstern (Goes by Emma Stern)

Gender: Female

Race/Species: Human

Age (Real and apparent, if applicable): 28

Appearance:

Emma is a tall Germanic woman with straw blond hair. She is pretty, although her high cheekbones and angular features seem to conspire to rob her of true beauty. She has a hiker’s lean trim build which bespeak many years of alpine life in her native Austria. Although her eyes are a piercing blue, they are usually kept behind the large glasses she wears to aid her with her reading.

Emma affects a stern masculine body language and takes pains to limit her femininity. Her hair is kept in a tight bun and her back rigid. She wears tailored suit of an academic cut when she is at work but is equally comfortable in sportswear when off duty or the situation demands it. Her taste in jewelry is her only divergence from strict propriety and she is almost always seen with bracelets and necklaces made of silver or polished copper.

Despite having lived in the United States for several years, and her best efforts, Emma has been unable to eradicate her crisp Austrian accent.

Personality:
Emma is first and foremost an academic and her scholarly career has been the primary influence on her personality. Competition with men and the institutionalized biases against women have encouraged her to do what she can to discount her sex. One of these tactics is to adopt the prim manners of a German Schoolteacher and her speech is frequently pedantic and over exact. Another is to keep her romantic side walled away beneath her professional demeanor.

Playing against these traits is a natural curiosity about the world and the people in it, which drives her closer to others the better to interrogate them. She has a dry and understated sense of humor and has even been known to laugh, though she tries to keep this under control due to her embarrassing tendency to snort when she does so.

In every situation Emma attempts to exude an aura of knowing control expected of a professor. Unfortunately the more uncontrolled a situation becomes, the closer this drives her to panic.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities:

Hexen - At some point in the mysterious past Emmaline’s ancestors acquired certain powers, most notably the ability to manipulate the energies around them. The first Hexen discovered that these abilities passed from mother to daughter and each generation made its own contribution to the craft. For most of recorded history this has required covens of women to work together but with the onset of modern mathematics this has changed. Emmaline can do the traditional tricks, like draw heat from the air to create ice, or call up a wind by creating a pressure differential, but her true calling is in the realm of curses. Emmaline has a talent for altering probability, she can, if she puts her mind to it, ensure that a particular person has a run of unusual good luck, or she can curse someone so that Murphy's Law punishes them with a special viciousness. Unfortunately in both of these cases the luck has to even out somewhere, and for every miracle there is a corresponding tragedy.

In addition to, or in conjunction with, her occult powers Emmaline holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics and has lectured at several major universities.

Background:

Emmaline sat straight backed in her chair, primly sipping at the adequate wine before her. It was expensive, sure, but somehow Americans always seemed to conflate expense with quality. She peered down at a napkin on which she was carefully writing an equation with an ornate fountain pen. The ink spread out through the porous medium in unlovely blobs but it would serve her purpose.

Across from her sat a nervous young man with his awkward date. There was an aura about him that spoke to her, the nervous way he ran his fingers through his hair, the slight sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. He was about to have the worst night of his life. Unless she intervened of course.

Concentration fell away in shattered shards as someone cleared his throat in front of her. With a vexed hiss she looked up and pushed the glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. The man before her was of indeterminate years and he wore a suit that probably cost as much as she made in a year.

“Professor Von Morganstern, I hope I have not startled you?” he asked in a smooth, almost liquid alto. She forced her professional colleague smile to her lips, uncharacteristically reddened by lipstick.

“Of course not,” she lied sweetly, looking down at the menu to give her face time to smooth way the incipient frown.

“You are Mr…” she began but he nodded cutting her off.

“Yes from the Agency,” he concluded before she could speak his name. She clucked she clucked her tongue disapprovingly against the roof of her mouth. He clearly didn’t fear her powers but he was demonstrating that he knew something about them by not speaking his name. The beginnings of a superior smile indicated that he had guessed what she was thinking. She glanced down at the formula on her napkin and then laid it face up on the expensive table cloth. Another sip of resinous wine. He slid into the seat across from her.

“I will be brief Professor Von Morganstern…” he began but it was her turn to hold up an interrupting hand.

“Professor Stern," she corrected, "I don’t go by my full name, also this isn’t a lecture you may call me Emma.” The clipped Austrian accent made the admonition seem harsher than she meant it. People weren’t always her thing. Screw it, served him right for showing off with her real name.

“I invited you here tonight because I want to offer you a job.” Emma sat back a little shocked. When she had received his letter employment was the furthest thing from her mind. It was rare to meet a man who knew about Hexen and rarer still for that meeting to end well.

“I already have a job mien Herr,” she began her english slipping, “As clearly you know by addressing me as Professor.” Her tone was defensive, a faint stirring of anger bubbled within her. He gave her an almost pittying look.

“Yes but I’m afraid that UCLA will decline your application for tenure, and there maybe little opportunity for you to earn it again. Faculty politicking I’m afraid.” He sounded genuinely sympathetic. Emmaline’s stomach plummeted, years of work and academic research for nothing. It was a given that his information was true, there was no lie in his voice and anyone who could discover she was a Hexen could penetrate the flimsy boundaries of University security with ease.

“There are few people with your particular talents in the United States,” he continued, his voice gentle and consoling. He waved away the waiter.

“We could use your more… ahem occult skills,” he concluded pushing a printed letter on expensive paper across the table to her. Fighting to keep her bottom lip from quivering with disappointment at losing her shot at tenure she mechanically scanned the document. When she reached the figure printed on it her eyebrows rose in spite of herself. The elegant man set back with a satisfied look on his face.

“With bonuses,” he added with a mischievous grin, lifting his glass of adequate wine to her. Reluctantly she lifted hers in tacit acceptance of his offer.

Across from her she saw the young man tense. With a hiss she sat down her wine and scribbled frantically on her napkin for a moment more closing the last few parenthesis, then sliced her thumb on a silver ring she wore on her ring finger, dribbling a drop of blood onto the paper with a muttered word. The boy stood up and drew a small box from his pocket before falling to one knee before his date. In the window behind him fireworks suddenly bursts, framing him and dazzling his intended as he knelt before her. Her moment of hesitation swept away by the fireworks, she cried her acceptance and rushed forward to hug him. In the background there was a mechanical pop as the buildings air conditioner coughed and died. Emmaline smiled, a few hours of discomfort for a lifetime of happiness. Fair trade. All the boy had needed was a bit of luck after all. The elegant man raised an appreciative eyebrow at her.

“I think you will make a fine addition to Priest and Hawthorne Professor Stern, a fine addition indeed.”

Ologies: A Study of Arcane Specialists {Paranormal Investigations and more}

Ah and here i was making a demonologist! Back to the drawing board.

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - An Urban Fantasy Adventure!

Excellent! I cant wait!

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - An Urban Fantasy Adventure!

It is all falling into place...

Priest & Hawthorne Investigations - An Urban Fantasy Adventure!

It is all falling into place...