AlteredTundraAlexandra Pauline Cooper
a.k.a.
"Poet"
a.k.a.
"Poet"
"Everywhere I've tried to live always winds up being under somebody's thumb. I just want to feel like I can wake up someday soon and know that isn't true. Is that really what we were trying to work towards tonight? Because if not, screw you Simon, and screw your stupid One Saturday Morning bad guy team too." - Poet, to Simon, after carrying out her last mission for Dark Shadow the previous summer
Name: Paulie "Poet" Cooper
Gender F
Age: 27
Alignment - Reformer/Cooperator
To Paulie, The Guild is just another good idea with a hierarchy that doesn't have the best interests of its people in mind. Dark Shadow might exceed her means and sound like a terrorist cell plucked from a Hollywood blockbuster, but the most realistic outcome of its success is clear; instability wide enough for nicer people to make a real difference and be heard in the community--a true reform.
Rank(s) - Guild = Member(strained) - Dark Shadow = Recruit (In grooming)
-Wbile Paulie has served as a defacto Guild agent for years, she's taken advantage of her incognito status among both the Guild and Dark Shadow to ingraciate herself with Aloysius' ranks. Details can be found in her bio/relationships entry, but to summarize here, Poet is just now making headway into Dark Shadow, and will be meeting most player characters over the course of the story.
Birthmark Shape: the silhouette of what looks from most angles like a pair of glasses, about four inches long and two inches high.
Location of Birthmark: Just above her left knee along the inside of her thigh.
Magical Abilities
-Tongues: Manifesting at a very young age was Paulie's ability to understand and speak/write any language she encounters. It is a gift many have mistaken for mere heightened lingual aptitude but it extends much farther. Poet can intuit ciphers at a glance, draw concrete conclusions about local graffiti, and even parse and replicate contrived dialects like twin if she hears a single syllable or sees only fragments of writing/iconography.
-Suggest Absence: Her true power manifested during her first years of puberty. Paulie can seem to be invisible to people. This ability can manifest in multiple ways, but only one way at any given time.
- ---Latent Blank: Anyone who can see Paulie doesn't see her in their direct vision. She can still be seen in reflections (but Blank doesn't fade unless they directly notice Paulie), and anyone looking through multi-lense (telescopics, flash cameras) or digital instruments (phone cameras etc). Once a person sees her this way, they are immune to the effects of Latent Blank for a long time. Paulie has no knowledge of when someone has overcome this ability, but she knows every way to circumvent it and can often guess when the jig is up or she's unlikely to really evade people this way.
---Controlled Blank: As long as Paulie concentrates, any surveillance equipment (digital cameras, motion sensors, laser detection, physical photography etc.) she can see or knows the field of view for. This requires enough concentration that Paulie can't use any other magic (Tongues won't function alongside Controlled Blank). Paulie always knows when this ability fails, including when it doesn't work at all. When there are too many devices to obstruct, say, ten cameras observing a vacant lot, the ability can't function when called on. Device limit is up to the GM and may vary depending on the size of the space Paulie is trying to Blank through, i.e. in a ten foot corridor, Paulie might be able to Blank two dozen separate pieces of equipment; in Tiananmen square, she might be able to Blank three cameras at best.
---Selective Blank: As long as Paulie concentrates, she can choose exactly one person to be unable to perceive her with any senses other than touch, nor by any external means. Selective Blank includes reflexively manipulating devices and even magics so that they can't find her. She can only use this on a person she can see, and once it is active she can concentrate on it indefinitely. Once she stops concentrating, she has to see the person again to Blank them again. The only trump for this ability is for whoever she's targeting to have a mommet of her hair, a small sample of her blood, or some other similar totem of her flesh to focus on. Paulie has no knowledge of when someone has overcome this ability. Most importantly, Paulie has no idea that this ability can be overcome.
Concentration can be broken by pain intense enough to cause shock, falling unconscious, or chemical inmbalances from drugs, alcohol, sugar rushes, etc. Paulie strictly avoids certain psychedelics as they interact very strongly with her suggestive abilities in ways she doesn't know how to control. She has killed people when Blanking goes wrong. She doesn't want to lose control.
Poet's experience with psychedelics indicates that there are clearly capabilities in her magic that exceed her mastery. More may come to the fore as she gains experience, but her isolation as well as her reluctance make it difficult for her to work outside of her magical comfort zone.
Poet's experience with psychedelics indicates that there are clearly capabilities in her magic that exceed her mastery. More may come to the fore as she gains experience, but her isolation as well as her reluctance make it difficult for her to work outside of her magical comfort zone.
Non-Magical Abilities: Paulie has a fair amount of practice on firing ranges with pistols and a small amount with conventional shotguns. She also has a hobbyist's understanding of Tai-Chi (she has played recreational Push-Hands for fifteen years). She supplements any combat she engages in with Blanking, to deadly effect when she intends to kill.
Place of Birth: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Present Residence: A home van: currently just a few hours out of New York City.
Personality: Paulie is a happy soul with an acerbic exterior.
Apathetic toward society - "Life is sacred, nothing else. Screw your church, screw your money, screw your car, and screw your phone. Buy me a drink, I'll roll you a joint, and we'll have a good day."
Hopeful - "What are you apologizing for? You're not a jerk and you're not an infant. Don't sweat the small stuff. Be better. You usually are."
Generous - "I want to make a difference in people's lives. If you need food I'll take you out to eat. If you need a night to crash I have a van. That's my life."
Anarchic - "That crap doesn't work. Once enough people get an idea how to manipulate other people they'll always have more attention at their disposal. You miss things, other people see opportunity and just take advantage, and the schemers walk away with whatever means the most power at the time. Tax evasion, stock markets, ponsy schemes... they're all symptoms of a flawed system. Education is about giving other people the means to exercise enough attention to not be victims. Fuck that shit. The system is fixed. We need to break it. Education should be about giving people the means to reject it."
Vengeful - "When word got out how things went down and that he'd told her to 'Bite the pillow and take it like a champ?' Yeah. Atticus doesn't get to come to that gathering next year. If he shows up there he won't leave with both of his testicles I swear to god."
History/Bio: Paulie was born into a large, non-magical family during late November of 1989. Her parents were liberal arts advocates in the community, her father a faculty member at what would eventually become the Chattanooga Center for Creative Arts magnet school and her mother a singer/guitarist who would go on three month tours around every other year, and Paulie grew up the youngest of six siblings, nine years apart. Her early childhood was privilaged and comfortable, but around six years of age her talent for language began to manifest. At first her parents accepted this as a fortunate aptitude, encouraging her studies and delighting in each stride she made. By age eleven she could speak French, Spanish, Mandarin, and had developed a particular love of Latin American Portuguese.
but Paulie's eldest sister was the first to notice how extraordinary her abilities were. Paulie had stayed up with Sasha one evening while Sasha was watching Run, Lola, Run, a german film, subtitles off, for her deutsch studies. At first Paulie just seemed fascinated by the visual spectacle, but when Paulie started asking Sasha pointed questions about the dialogue, Sasha became suspicious and deduced that Paulie was a polyglot. It was the only explanation--Paulie had never expressed an interest in learning German.
After Sasha exposed Paulie to the rest of her family, they were both delighted and concerned. Her parents used their influence to contact local linguists, but wound up drawing the exact wrong sort of attention. A local Guild agent responsible for maintaining their anonymity in the southeastern United States. He was a powerful mentalist, and his investigation into her abilities meant the end of her normal life. Alongside other Guild agents, Paulie was abducted, her history and the memories everyone had of her erased, and relocated in a remote area of West Virginia, where she was forced to remain while she was educated about Magic and The Guild.
Her caretaker was a radical anarchist but, paradoxically, a fervent believer in The Guild's methods and goals. In short, a mageocrat. She grew into adolescence with a benevolent but strict and often times physically and mentally abusive teacher. Ultimately, their relationship grew too toxic, as he began succumbing to a blooming opioid addiction and was unable to care for her as a growing teenager and himself as a person. This coincided with her mastery of Blanking. At the age of seventeen, she executed a careful plan of escape that took advantage of the guild's reluctance to share records with non-magical beurocracies and her caretaker's newfound incapability. She hasn't seen or heard from her caretaker since, and has never returned to West Virginia.
Paulie's adult life is a carefully controlled cycle of espionage and hermitage. 'Pauline Cooper' is a well known member of most circles in the Earthskills Gatherings community, and enjoys friendships with a cast of characters throughout the eastern United States from all walks of life. To the normal world she is a political activist, an environmentalist, a dirty, dumpster-diving hippie, and a self-made scholar of music and political history. To the magical society, 'Poet' is a rather mundane urban legend known throughout eastern North America. To the Guild, 'Alexandra Cooper' is a wanted defector whose activities seem dangerously visible to the more radical isolationists among them. What The Guild intends to do with or to her if she is found is largely up to the cell that finds her. Intentions vary widely.
Paulie's three years of dealings with Dark Shadow largely extend from her direct interactions with with one of her best friends and current sexual partners. Simon MacCaffrey is a prodigious telekinetic based in Queens whom Paulie met during a debauched bender at Lightning In A Bottle. Paulie is in love with Simon and has considered the possibility of settling down for the first time in her life. It would be a huge compromise for her to make given how much pride and comfort she takes in her freedom to travel and the ties she has all over the continent. Simon does genuinely care about her, but since the beginning of their relationship has been instructed to play her for her powers of Suggestion. He is secretly fanatically invested in Dark Shadow and will do his best to keep Paulie from getting in their way if she becomes troublesome. He would not hesitate to kill her, but he would have to be ordered to directly by a superior.
Paulie doesn't know that Dark Shadow is engaged in violent activities nor that they are intent on doing more than merely subverting and destabilizing The Guild. She carried out what she feels are several harmless infiltration missions in New York City. These were done during the summer months when she is most reluctant to travel. Last year Paulie struck a particularly harsh blow by inciting a drug raid that resulted in the arrests of two Guild members and their cell of non-magical sympathizers. The repercussions of the event lead to the first time she'd ever questioned Dark Shadow's goals. If she found out that all of the people she'd framed had been quietly executed behind closed doors, it would break her heart.
Currently, Paulie has three hours left on her return to New Yourk City. She is excited to see Simon again and needs to take her van to a mechanic for what she suspects will be an expensive job replacing her transmission. Simon has hinted that this visit could mean a lot for her advancement within Dark Shadow.
but Paulie's eldest sister was the first to notice how extraordinary her abilities were. Paulie had stayed up with Sasha one evening while Sasha was watching Run, Lola, Run, a german film, subtitles off, for her deutsch studies. At first Paulie just seemed fascinated by the visual spectacle, but when Paulie started asking Sasha pointed questions about the dialogue, Sasha became suspicious and deduced that Paulie was a polyglot. It was the only explanation--Paulie had never expressed an interest in learning German.
After Sasha exposed Paulie to the rest of her family, they were both delighted and concerned. Her parents used their influence to contact local linguists, but wound up drawing the exact wrong sort of attention. A local Guild agent responsible for maintaining their anonymity in the southeastern United States. He was a powerful mentalist, and his investigation into her abilities meant the end of her normal life. Alongside other Guild agents, Paulie was abducted, her history and the memories everyone had of her erased, and relocated in a remote area of West Virginia, where she was forced to remain while she was educated about Magic and The Guild.
Her caretaker was a radical anarchist but, paradoxically, a fervent believer in The Guild's methods and goals. In short, a mageocrat. She grew into adolescence with a benevolent but strict and often times physically and mentally abusive teacher. Ultimately, their relationship grew too toxic, as he began succumbing to a blooming opioid addiction and was unable to care for her as a growing teenager and himself as a person. This coincided with her mastery of Blanking. At the age of seventeen, she executed a careful plan of escape that took advantage of the guild's reluctance to share records with non-magical beurocracies and her caretaker's newfound incapability. She hasn't seen or heard from her caretaker since, and has never returned to West Virginia.
Paulie's adult life is a carefully controlled cycle of espionage and hermitage. 'Pauline Cooper' is a well known member of most circles in the Earthskills Gatherings community, and enjoys friendships with a cast of characters throughout the eastern United States from all walks of life. To the normal world she is a political activist, an environmentalist, a dirty, dumpster-diving hippie, and a self-made scholar of music and political history. To the magical society, 'Poet' is a rather mundane urban legend known throughout eastern North America. To the Guild, 'Alexandra Cooper' is a wanted defector whose activities seem dangerously visible to the more radical isolationists among them. What The Guild intends to do with or to her if she is found is largely up to the cell that finds her. Intentions vary widely.
Paulie's three years of dealings with Dark Shadow largely extend from her direct interactions with with one of her best friends and current sexual partners. Simon MacCaffrey is a prodigious telekinetic based in Queens whom Paulie met during a debauched bender at Lightning In A Bottle. Paulie is in love with Simon and has considered the possibility of settling down for the first time in her life. It would be a huge compromise for her to make given how much pride and comfort she takes in her freedom to travel and the ties she has all over the continent. Simon does genuinely care about her, but since the beginning of their relationship has been instructed to play her for her powers of Suggestion. He is secretly fanatically invested in Dark Shadow and will do his best to keep Paulie from getting in their way if she becomes troublesome. He would not hesitate to kill her, but he would have to be ordered to directly by a superior.
Paulie doesn't know that Dark Shadow is engaged in violent activities nor that they are intent on doing more than merely subverting and destabilizing The Guild. She carried out what she feels are several harmless infiltration missions in New York City. These were done during the summer months when she is most reluctant to travel. Last year Paulie struck a particularly harsh blow by inciting a drug raid that resulted in the arrests of two Guild members and their cell of non-magical sympathizers. The repercussions of the event lead to the first time she'd ever questioned Dark Shadow's goals. If she found out that all of the people she'd framed had been quietly executed behind closed doors, it would break her heart.
Currently, Paulie has three hours left on her return to New Yourk City. She is excited to see Simon again and needs to take her van to a mechanic for what she suspects will be an expensive job replacing her transmission. Simon has hinted that this visit could mean a lot for her advancement within Dark Shadow.
Paulie still thinks of Dark Shadow as a benign group of rough customers with something new worth saying in the magical community. She doesn't have the full breadth of Guild knowledge about its members, so hasn't had the opportunity to make an informed decision. This is how she's come so close to joining their ranks and leaving the Guild behind. The only members she's become aware of are the ones it's easiest to lie for, and her groomer, Simon MacCaffrey (NPC), has done an excellent job keeping her in the dark.
Name: Aloysius Leighton
Relationship - Warm - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "Look, Leighton's a twisted up rich kid. He needs people like you to put things in perspective. Everybody in our organization knows that. It takes a lot of rudders to steer that kind of ambition. Just think of what we can do with the right ones!"
Name: Circe Masers
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "If Paulie finds out about Circe before she's well'n truly stuck in with us there's no way she'll join us."
Name: Lana Ryder
Relationship - Warm - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "Lana's exactly the kind of energy we need and that's a fact. She's not afraid to get her hands dirty, doesn't subscribe to the Guild agenda, and doesn't want hurt people to further our ends, just defend us. Also if you're looking for someone to train with, I swear she'll be better able to help you figure your shit out than anyone else in our organization. You owe it to yourself to meet her before you make up your mind."
Name: Tiberius Delamar
Relationship - Dislikes - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "Tibbers is fucking nuts. You can trust him to be nuts, if you can trust him. You'll probably get along great."
Name: Rufus
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Circumstances: Simon hasn't met Rufus. Can't coach Paulie about members he doesn't know.
Name: Luka Mostovoi
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "I really don't know how to bring up Luka to Paulie without telling her he's a magocrat. So I haven't yet. We'll cross that bridge when we come to him."
Name: Aloysius Leighton
Relationship - Warm - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "Look, Leighton's a twisted up rich kid. He needs people like you to put things in perspective. Everybody in our organization knows that. It takes a lot of rudders to steer that kind of ambition. Just think of what we can do with the right ones!"
Name: Circe Masers
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "If Paulie finds out about Circe before she's well'n truly stuck in with us there's no way she'll join us."
Name: Lana Ryder
Relationship - Warm - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "Lana's exactly the kind of energy we need and that's a fact. She's not afraid to get her hands dirty, doesn't subscribe to the Guild agenda, and doesn't want hurt people to further our ends, just defend us. Also if you're looking for someone to train with, I swear she'll be better able to help you figure your shit out than anyone else in our organization. You owe it to yourself to meet her before you make up your mind."
Name: Tiberius Delamar
Relationship - Dislikes - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "Tibbers is fucking nuts. You can trust him to be nuts, if you can trust him. You'll probably get along great."
Name: Rufus
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Circumstances: Simon hasn't met Rufus. Can't coach Paulie about members he doesn't know.
Name: Luka Mostovoi
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Thoughts (Simon): "I really don't know how to bring up Luka to Paulie without telling her he's a magocrat. So I haven't yet. We'll cross that bridge when we come to him."
Paulie has been a member of the Guild for most of her adult life in a state of defacto-servitude. She behaves, she does favors now and again when she's in a local area that needs Guild hands... and in return the Guild doesn't incarcerate her as a dissident that knows too much. Her behavior within this relationship could be described accurately with words like "cooperative," "efficient," and "uninspired." The sub-member nature of her relationship and her unique magical talents mean most Guilders aren't aware of her presence in the organization... and are also why Dark Shadow hasn't pin-pointed her as an agent.
Name: Aliira Van Drauga
Relationship - Warm - Old Friends
Thoughts: "She's the reason the Guild doesn't want me locked up in a safe house somewhere. I got lucky, meeting her when I did, how I did. She represents everything about the Guild worth saving--if only she would look and see what others see in her. It's her strength keeping Salem from shoving her own head up her own ass year after year. God knows somebody has to."
Name: Salem de Silva
Relationship - Hates - Enemies
Thoughts: "The de Silva legacy is how I wound up sequestered in the middle of Nowhere, Virginia until I could break out on my own. You wanna tell me Salem inheriting the organization means that the kind of isolationist extremism they permit is going to change? We put scientologists to shame when one of us steps even a fraction out of line. That makes Salem the lightning-powered Tom Cruise of our generation of mages, with all of the self-importance and wasted potential to match."
Name: Zeke Deshotel
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Name: Lizzie Muyers
Relationship - star-struck - Acquainted
Thoughts: "I... I want to play push-hands with her. I saw her in action on a mission once where I was spotting. Magic can be a lot of things, but I always find it at its best when it makes you think about people differently. She can be things. She can be you. It's some classic Mystique shit. How doesn't that seem awesome?"
Name: August Donovan
Relationship - Warm - Acquainted
Thoughts: "Augie's fucking rad. He... he reminds me of my mom honestly. I've only talked to him a couple of times, but man... what a catch. Smart, musical. I dunno dude... he's fabulous."
Name: David Smith
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Name: Aliira Van Drauga
Relationship - Warm - Old Friends
Thoughts: "She's the reason the Guild doesn't want me locked up in a safe house somewhere. I got lucky, meeting her when I did, how I did. She represents everything about the Guild worth saving--if only she would look and see what others see in her. It's her strength keeping Salem from shoving her own head up her own ass year after year. God knows somebody has to."
Name: Salem de Silva
Relationship - Hates - Enemies
Thoughts: "The de Silva legacy is how I wound up sequestered in the middle of Nowhere, Virginia until I could break out on my own. You wanna tell me Salem inheriting the organization means that the kind of isolationist extremism they permit is going to change? We put scientologists to shame when one of us steps even a fraction out of line. That makes Salem the lightning-powered Tom Cruise of our generation of mages, with all of the self-importance and wasted potential to match."
Name: Zeke Deshotel
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted
Name: Lizzie Muyers
Relationship - star-struck - Acquainted
Thoughts: "I... I want to play push-hands with her. I saw her in action on a mission once where I was spotting. Magic can be a lot of things, but I always find it at its best when it makes you think about people differently. She can be things. She can be you. It's some classic Mystique shit. How doesn't that seem awesome?"
Name: August Donovan
Relationship - Warm - Acquainted
Thoughts: "Augie's fucking rad. He... he reminds me of my mom honestly. I've only talked to him a couple of times, but man... what a catch. Smart, musical. I dunno dude... he's fabulous."
Name: David Smith
Relationship - Unknown - Unacquainted