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In Paradigm Shift: Agents of Fate [Currently Accepting!] → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Adrian has been updated in line with OP recommendations and, I believe, is ready for review!

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

 - 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.

 - 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.
	 - 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.

 - 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.
	 - 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 activation and the process as a whole are all normally disorientating and, for many, profoundly unsettling, especially if they are unused to it.

 - 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.
	 - 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.

 - 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.
	 - 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.

In Persona ~ The Beholder → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Appearance

Alistair’s physical form is fairly average; he’s perhaps a touch shorter than medium height, is neither scrawny nor bulky and has a face somewhere between broad and angular.  His hair is jet black and his eyes are a dull green.  He’s normally at least somewhat well-kept – he washes his face enough to avoid outbreaks of acne but does get the occasional spot; has his hair cut every four or five months or so; and shaves once every two days.

In regards to clothing, Alistair’s wardrobe isn’t extensive or especially varied, since he isn’t exactly fashion-conscious and lets his parents and grandparents buy most of his clothing for him.  His school uniform is worn according to Evergreen’s policy; when dressed casually he prefers mostly plain and fairly dark clothes, favouring mostly forest greens, maroons and deep blues, though he’s also a fan of burnt orange.  Where he does wear more colour is on his t-shirts – which most people don’t know because he also favours heavier clothing, to the point that he’s been known to wear jumpers during heatwaves.  Given that he enjoys walking, he possesses very rugged and practical footwear and sees little need to use anything else beyond his school shoes.

Alistair’s gear in the World of Fog will almost certainly skew towards the pragmatic and practical, favouring his usual rugged clothing and gradually augmented by what armour happens to be available.

Biography

Alistair’s life did not begin favourably.  His biological parents died in a car crash when he was about three.  Both were only children and, by a stroke of misfortune, all of his biological grandparents had died already; with no family to care for him, Alistair was thus put up for adoption.  This, in most cases, would not have set him up well for the future.

Enter Henry Parton and Steven Daniels, a young, kind couple who had just entered into a civil partnership, as soon as the law allowed, and were now looking to adopt.  Their application came through and, after warming quickly to Alistair and he only slightly less quickly to them, the two became his new parents and their mid-sized apartment in Manchester his new home.

This would be precursor to the best part of Alistair’s existence thus far.  Proving bright, he was placed into private education funded by Steven’s job as a civil rights lawyer, something which he enjoyed thoroughly.  At the same time, Henry’s work running a youth club in Manchester’s heart, where he kept watch over Alistair each day after school, kept the young boy from becoming snobbish – in fact, he became something of a little brother figure to several of the teenagers who frequented it.  Through them, Alistair learned about many of society’s social ills, an education that was redoubled by his participation with his parents in Manchester’s Pride events and their telling him about their experiences when they were younger and society was less tolerant.  Indeed, Alistair only knew two of his parents’ parents; Steven’s were heavily religious and had ostracised him upon his coming out.  Nonetheless, that was the past and this was now; now the two of them were happy together and now they had a son who was quickly developing the fire to confront obstacles to his own and others’ happiness head-on.

Several wonderful years passed.  Eventually, Steven secured a high-profile job at a law office in London and, Henry assuring him that one of his fellow youth workers was actively eager to take on a leadership role, the family moved southwards.  Fortuitously, this was just before Alistair was due to start secondary school; while he did shed some tears over leaving his friends at his old school and at the youth club, some parts of the transition would have been inevitable even without the move, making it somewhat less painful.  Performing very well in his SATs, he more than passed the threshold for entrance to the pre-eminent Evergreen Grammar School.  Indeed, life could seemingly only get better; Henry and Steven married in 2014 as soon as same-sex couples gained the legal right to do so and Alistair also took the surname ‘Parton’ at his own insistence, binding their family yet more closely.

And then things got complicated.

Alistair never quite learned to love London – the place was unfamiliar, yes, but Alistair also found it more claustrophobic than Manchester; there were noticeably more people and buildings packed into any given space.  It all felt rather hostile and, unfortunately, that set a tone.  He didn’t really secure a friendship group at Evergreen in the same way that he had at his last school.  Nor did he find himself with much social activity outside of school hours; not one to fall into gang activity, he instead started exercising his independence in walking through London’s many parks (one of the few things he preferred about the city).  Richmond Park quickly became one of his favourite places to be and he’d often spend hours traversing its pathways.

That gave him time to contemplate, and he needed it, for his beliefs were also under assault.  In 2016, when Alistair had just turned 15, the United Kingdom held a referendum on membership of the European Union.  He and his parents, like most others, expected a Remain victory.  They were proved wrong.  For Alistair, this was a shock; Brexit, and especially the surge in racist abuse afterwards, presented a profound challenge to his previous belief that humanity was moving towards a more open future and would continue that way if only there were people to strive for it.  He came to question whether fighting for a cause at all could in fact do more harm than good; after all, in Brexit’s case, the backlash against the values that he treasured had actually become more powerful than the case for those values.  This wasn’t helped by his increasing predisposition towards philosophy, especially existentialism, and his hardening certainty that there could be no such thing as an objective right or wrong – meaning that all of the beliefs that he considered abhorrent were, in fact, as justifiable as his own.  They could still be fought against, of course, but then he was reluctant to do that now.

Alistair thus began a search for answers that continues to this day – or, perhaps more accurately, for the answer, one to the question of society.  His investigation fuelled him to near breaking point; what was distance before became active separation in an attempt to limit the perceived threat that any positive effort would entail, even as his conscience cried out that those efforts were needed now more than ever.  This internal struggle motivated him, if self-destructively, such that his GCSEs, then A-Levels, were all great successes, or at least deemed as such.

This brings us to the Alistair of today, headed to Thames’ Edge – close and eminent, the obvious choice.  His great struggle continues, caught between his desire to provoke change for the better and his fear that attempting to do so has an equal chance to bring about change for the worse.  This fight and its self-imposed conditions have closed him off, despair creeping towards his heart for, within it, he still wants the chance to act, to dedicate himself to the justice, truth and harmony that he remains hopeful the world can one day embody.

Perhaps he’ll have that chance.

Personality

Once extroverted and constantly cheerful, Alistair is now a considerably more muted and deeply extrospective young man, questioning everything about the world around him to try and make some sense out of the growing chaos and contradiction.  For now, that contradiction has rendered him more than a little mechanical, simply going through the motions of daily life.  He rarely attempts to make friends anymore; that said, should one take the effort to crack his shell and get to know him, they would find someone who is still very personable, kind and warm – even fun-loving!  What was previously his main drive, the determination to push society to be open and more welcoming, has been stifled; his primary goal now lies in finding the answers to the questions which are stifling it.

That stifling, naturally, is what has generated his Shadow.  Alistair’s Shadow is what he has suppressed in his uncompromising search for answers: his desire to act, to strive to make the world a better place rather than trying to avoid making it a worse one.  Like most Shadows, it is impulsive and reckless; unlike most, one could hardly call it selfish and, unlike most, Alistair does not reject it out of ignorance or fear alone but out of perceived necessity.

Education

Studying BA Philosophy and Sociology

Affiliations

Henry Parton – adoptive father
Steven Parton – adoptive father

Alistair has had a wonderful relationship with his adoptive parents for the vast majority of his life, a bond forged over many years of shared thought, trust, hope and laughter.  However, that bond is now under strain; Alistair’s relentless search for a way to enact change without risking its opposite has left him little time for regular interaction.  Alistair, of course, knows full well that they worry after him; though he regrets it, he believes it another necessary sacrifice.

Janice Parton – adoptive grandmother
Terence Parton – adoptive grandfather

Henry Parton’s parents have always doted on Alistair and that remains true today, something which Alistair appreciates.  That said, he doesn’t see them terribly often any longer, given their home in the North of England.  He’ll make more time for them at some point soon; such does he tell himself.

Relationships

To be determined!

Theme (Solemn)

“The world’s just too ambiguous to live in...”

Equipment

Alistair’s first choice of weapon system upon entering the World of Fog will be ranged, supportive and easy to use.  The pavise and crossbow, therefore, will suit him well, allowing him to shelter out of others’ way and strike from a distance.  He will also carry a basic first aid kit, enabling him to help others from behind cover.

Given the above, Alistair will initially reject his manifested weapon: a montante with a blade of beautiful silvery steel and spiralling script in that same silver running around the grip – an ever-growing list of the names of each of those for whom he has taken on the role of protector.  Almost as long as he is tall, upon accepting it Alistair may either grasp the blade and use the crossguard to strike at armour like a pollaxe or, more conventionally, whirl this surprisingly defensive two-handed sword in great slashing arcs to keep multiple Shadows at bay and allow his teammates to work and fight unimpeded.

Once he has abandoned the crossbow and pavise in favour of the montante, Alistair will not carry any true ranged weapons; instead, he’ll keep a bag of caltrops on hand to scatter immediately before a fight and collect afterwards.  These small tetrahedral spikes always land with a point up, significantly limiting the mobility of Shadows which move across the ground.  This can be used to simply slow them down or to concentrate them into chokepoints – where Alistair will almost certainly be.

Theme (Defiant)

“I promise: if I’m still standing, you’ll be standing too!”

‘Horatius alone remained where he had first taken his stand, and directed Herminius and Larcius to tell the consuls, as from him, to cut away the bridge in all haste at the end next the city... the rest, he said, would be his concern.  Having given these instructions to the two men, he stood upon the bridge itself, and when the enemy advanced upon him, he struck some of them with his sword and beat down others with his shield, repulsing all who attempted to rush upon the bridge. For the pursuers, looking upon him as a madman who was courting death, dared no longer come to grips with him...  Finally, when he was overwhelmed with missiles and had a great number of wounds in many parts of his body... he heard those behind him shouting out that the greater part of the bridge was broken down. Thereupon he leaped with his arms into the river and swimming across the stream with great difficulty (for the current, being divided by the piles, ran swift and formed large eddies), he emerged upon the shore without having lost any of his arms in swimming.

Horatius, who had shown so great valour upon that occasion, occupied as enviable a position as any Roman who ever lived, but he was rendered useless by his lameness for further services to the state; and because of this misfortune he obtained neither the consulship nor any military command either.’Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Background and Symbolism

Publius Horatius Cocles (the last part, meaning ‘one-eyed’, coming from the fact that he had previously lost an eye in battle) was a junior officer in the legendary earliest days of the Roman Republic.  After the Romans lost a battle against an army of Etruscans seeking to restore Rome’s former king and their own forces fled into the city, Horatius fought first alongside two more senior officers and then alone to hold the Pons Sublicus, the wooden and at the time only bridge across the River Tiber, as it was torn down behind him.  Though battered by enemy missiles and wounded in many places, including being run through entirely with a javelin above the hip, he stood steadfast against the entire Etruscan host until the bridge began to collapse; at that point he jumped into the Tiber itself, trusting himself to the god of the river.  At this point tradition diverges.  According to Polybius Horatius died in the waters, swept away under a hail of spears; according to Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he reached the bank despite the weight of his wargear but was crippled by his injuries.  Whatever happened, Rome survived.

Appearance

As Alistair’s Persona, Horatius takes the form of a man with bronze skin, wearing sandles, a bronze breastplate, greaves and a broad-brimmed, crestless helmet over a deep red woollen tunic; all are battle-worn, marked with innumerable scratches and dents.  Highly prominent are two holes that run straight through his body, one above the hip and one through his eye-socket; the latter of these is the only properly visible part of his face, as the helmet casts an unnaturally dark shadow over it.  He wields a bronze Italic sword, stained with blood, in his right hand.  Most notable, however, is the shield that he wields in his left: of the Republican style (a heavily bowed rectangular shape that bends backwards less than its later evolutions) but absolutely massive, easily as tall as Horatius himself and proportionately wide.  Its face is similarly bloodstained, stuck with dozens of broken and half-broken javelins and, like Horatius’ armour and skin, covered in scratches and gashes, as is its rim.  The one exception is the entirely untarnished central bronze boss and its plate, formed in the shape of an outward-facing, halting palm, which gleams defiantly against oncoming foes.

Symbolism

Horatius represents Alistair’s ability to dedicate himself to his allies and friends after realising that he need not understand every facet of the causes for which they fight to do so.  Horatius also reflects the potential pitfalls of that approach, however, both in his semi-historical origins and his appearance: broken and known only for his martyrdom, leaving nothing of himself to the world.

Skills

⚔ Uses Fear-inflicting multi-target Phys Skills ⚔
☄ Wields weak Tera and Psy Skills ☄

⛋ May access Rakukaja, Matarunda and Defence Master and eventually Tetrakarn, Endure and Firm Stance ⛋

⛉ Resists Phys and Gun Skills ⛉
⛶ Weak to Aqua Skills ⛶

In Persona ~ The Beholder → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Appearance

Alistair’s physical form is fairly average; he’s perhaps a touch shorter than medium height, is neither scrawny nor bulky and has a face somewhere between broad and angular.  His hair is jet black and his eyes are a dull green.  He’s normally at least somewhat well-kept – he washes his face enough to avoid outbreaks of acne but does get the occasional spot; has his hair cut every four or five months or so; and shaves once every two days.

In regards to clothing, Alistair’s wardrobe isn’t extensive or especially varied, since he isn’t exactly fashion-conscious and lets his parents and grandparents buy most of his clothing for him.  His school uniform is worn according to Evergreen’s policy; when dressed casually he prefers mostly plain and fairly dark clothes, favouring mostly forest greens, maroons and deep blues, though he’s also a fan of burnt orange.  Where he does wear more colour is on his t-shirts – which most people don’t know because he also favours heavier clothing, to the point that he’s been known to wear jumpers during heatwaves.  Given that he enjoys walking, he possesses very rugged and practical footwear and sees little need to use anything else beyond his school shoes.

Alistair’s gear in the World of Fog will almost certainly skew towards the pragmatic and practical, favouring his usual rugged clothing and gradually augmented by what armour happens to be available.

Biography

Alistair’s life did not begin favourably.  His biological parents died in a car crash when he was about three.  Both were only children and, by a stroke of misfortune, all of his biological grandparents had died already; with no family to care for him, Alistair was thus put up for adoption.  This, in most cases, would not have set him up well for the future.

Enter Henry Parton and Steven Daniels, a young, kind couple who had just entered into a civil partnership, as soon as the law allowed, and were now looking to adopt.  Their application came through and, after warming quickly to Alistair and he only slightly less quickly to them, the two became his new parents and their mid-sized apartment in Manchester his new home.

This would be precursor to the best part of Alistair’s existence thus far.  Proving bright, he was placed into private education funded by Steven’s job as a civil rights lawyer, something which he enjoyed thoroughly.  At the same time, Henry’s work running a youth club in Manchester’s heart, where he kept watch over Alistair each day after school, kept the young boy from becoming snobbish – in fact, he became something of a little brother figure to several of the teenagers who frequented it.  Through them, Alistair learned about many of society’s social ills, an education that was redoubled by his participation with his parents in Manchester’s Pride events and their telling him about their experiences when they were younger and society was less tolerant.  Indeed, Alistair only knew two of his parents’ parents; Steven’s were heavily religious and had ostracised him upon his coming out.  Nonetheless, that was the past and this was now; now the two of them were happy together and now they had a son who was quickly developing the fire to confront obstacles to his own and others’ happiness head-on.

Several wonderful years passed.  Eventually, Steven secured a high-profile job at a law office in London and, Henry assuring him that one of his fellow youth workers was actively eager to take on a leadership role, the family moved southwards.  Fortuitously, this was just before Alistair was due to start secondary school; while he did shed some tears over leaving his friends at his old school and at the youth club, some parts of the transition would have been inevitable even without the move, making it somewhat less painful.  Performing very well in his SATs, he more than passed the threshold for entrance to the pre-eminent Evergreen Grammar School.  Indeed, life could seemingly only get better; Henry and Steven married in 2014 as soon as same-sex couples gained the legal right to do so and Alistair also took the surname ‘Parton’ at his own insistence, binding their family yet more closely.

And then things got complicated.

Alistair never quite learned to love London – the place was unfamiliar, yes, but Alistair also found it more claustrophobic than Manchester; there were noticeably more people and buildings packed into any given space.  It all felt rather hostile and, unfortunately, that set a tone.  He didn’t really secure a friendship group at Evergreen in the same way that he had at his last school.  Nor did he find himself with much social activity outside of school hours; not one to fall into gang activity, he instead started exercising his independence in walking through London’s many parks (one of the few things he preferred about the city).  Richmond Park quickly became one of his favourite places to be and he’d often spend hours traversing its pathways.

That gave him time to contemplate, and he needed it, for his beliefs were also under assault.  In 2016, when Alistair had just turned 15, the United Kingdom held a referendum on membership of the European Union.  He and his parents, like most others, expected a Remain victory.  They were proved wrong.  For Alistair, this was a shock; Brexit, and especially the surge in racist abuse afterwards, presented a profound challenge to his previous belief that humanity was moving towards a more open future and would continue that way if only there were people to strive for it.  He came to question whether fighting for a cause at all could in fact do more harm than good; after all, in Brexit’s case, the backlash against the values that he treasured had actually become more powerful than the case for those values.  This wasn’t helped by his increasing predisposition towards philosophy, especially existentialism, and his hardening certainty that there could be no such thing as an objective right or wrong – meaning that all of the beliefs that he considered abhorrent were, in fact, as justifiable as his own.  They could still be fought against, of course, but then he was reluctant to do that now.

Alistair thus began a search for answers that continues to this day – or, perhaps more accurately, for the answer, one to the question of society.  His investigation fuelled him to near breaking point; what was distance before became active separation in an attempt to limit the perceived threat that any positive effort would entail, even as his conscience cried out that those efforts were needed now more than ever.  This internal struggle motivated him, if self-destructively, such that his GCSEs, then A-Levels, were all great successes, or at least deemed as such.

This brings us to the Alistair of today, headed to Thames’ Edge – close and eminent, the obvious choice.  His great struggle continues, caught between his desire to provoke change for the better and his fear that attempting to do so has an equal chance to bring about change for the worse.  This fight and its self-imposed conditions have closed him off, despair creeping towards his heart for, within it, he still wants the chance to act, to dedicate himself to the justice, truth and harmony that he remains hopeful the world can one day embody.

Perhaps he’ll have that chance.

Personality

Once extroverted and constantly cheerful, Alistair is now a considerably more muted and deeply extrospective young man, questioning everything about the world around him to try and make some sense out of the growing chaos and contradiction.  For now, that contradiction has rendered him more than a little mechanical, simply going through the motions of daily life.  He rarely attempts to make friends anymore; that said, should one take the effort to crack his shell and get to know him, they would find someone who is still very personable, kind and warm – even fun-loving!  What was previously his main drive, the determination to push society to be open and more welcoming, has been stifled; his primary goal now lies in finding the answers to the questions which are stifling it.

That stifling, naturally, is what has generated his Shadow.  Alistair’s Shadow is what he has suppressed in his uncompromising search for answers: his desire to act, to strive to make the world a better place rather than trying to avoid making it a worse one.  Like most Shadows, it is impulsive and reckless; unlike most, one could hardly call it selfish and, unlike most, Alistair does not reject it out of ignorance or fear but out of perceived necessity.

Education

Studying BA Philosophy and Sociology

Affiliations

Henry Parton – adoptive father
Steven Parton – adoptive father

Alistair has had a wonderful relationship with his adoptive parents for the vast majority of his life, a bond forged over many years of shared thought, trust, hope and laughter.  However, that bond is now under strain; Alistair’s relentless search for a way to enact change without risking its opposite has left him little time for regular interaction.  Alistair, of course, knows full well that they worry after him; though he regrets it, he believes it another necessary sacrifice.

Janice Parton – adoptive grandmother
Terence Parton – adoptive grandfather

Henry Parton’s parents have always doted on Alistair and that remains true today, something which Alistair appreciates.  That said, he doesn’t see them terribly often any longer, given their home in the North of England.  He’ll make more time for them at some point soon; such does he tell himself.

Relationships

To be determined!

Theme (Solemn)

“The world’s just too ambiguous to live in...”

Equipment

Alistair’s first choice of weapon system upon entering the World of Fog will be ranged, supportive and easy to use.  The pavise and crossbow, therefore, will suit him well, allowing him to shelter out of others’ way and strike from a distance.  He will also carry a basic first aid kit, enabling him to help others from behind cover.

Given the above, Alistair will initially reject his manifested weapon: a montante with a blade of beautiful silvery steel and spiralling script in that same silver running around the grip – an ever-growing list of the names of each of those for whom he has taken on the role of protector.  Almost as long as he is tall, upon accepting it Alistair may either grasp the blade and use the crossguard to strike at armour like a pollaxe or, more conventionally, whirl this surprisingly defensive two-handed sword in great slashing arcs to keep multiple Shadows at bay and allow his teammates to work and fight unimpeded.

Once he has abandoned the crossbow and pavise in favour of the montante, Alistair will not carry any true ranged weapons; instead, he’ll keep a bag of caltrops on hand to scatters immediately before a fight and collects afterwards.  These small tetrahedral spikes always land with a point up, significantly limiting the mobility of Shadows which move across the ground.  This can be used to simply slow them down or to concentrate them into chokepoints – where Alistair will almost certainly be.

Theme (Defiant)

“I promise: if I’m still standing, you’ll be standing too!”

‘Horatius alone remained where he had first taken his stand, and directed Herminius and Larcius to tell the consuls, as from him, to cut away the bridge in all haste at the end next the city... the rest, he said, would be his concern.  Having given these instructions to the two men, he stood upon the bridge itself, and when the enemy advanced upon him, he struck some of them with his sword and beat down others with his shield, repulsing all who attempted to rush upon the bridge. For the pursuers, looking upon him as a madman who was courting death, dared no longer come to grips with him...  Finally, when he was overwhelmed with missiles and had a great number of wounds in many parts of his body... he heard those behind him shouting out that the greater part of the bridge was broken down. Thereupon he leaped with his arms into the river and swimming across the stream with great difficulty (for the current, being divided by the piles, ran swift and formed large eddies), he emerged upon the shore without having lost any of his arms in swimming.

Horatius, who had shown so great valour upon that occasion, occupied as enviable a position as any Roman who ever lived, but he was rendered useless by his lameness for further services to the state; and because of this misfortune he obtained neither the consulship nor any military command either.’Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Background and Symbolism

Publius Horatius Cocles (the last part, meaning ‘one-eyed’, coming from the fact that he had previously lost an eye in battle) was a junior officer in the legendary earliest days of the Roman Republic.  After the Romans lost a battle against an army of Etruscans seeking to restore Rome’s former king and their own forces fled into the city, Horatius fought first alongside two more senior officers and then alone to hold the Pons Sublicus, the wooden and at the time only bridge across the River Tiber, as it was torn down behind him.  Though battered by enemy missiles and wounded in many places, including being run through entirely with a javelin above the hip, he stood steadfast against the entire Etruscan host until the bridge began to collapse; at that point he jumped into the Tiber itself, trusting himself to the god of the river.  At this point tradition diverges.  According to Polybius Horatius died in the waters, swept away under a hail of spears; according to Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he reached the bank despite the weight of his wargear but was crippled by his injuries.  Whatever happened, Rome survived.

Appearance

As Alistair’s Persona, Horatius takes the form of a man with bronze skin, wearing sandles, a bronze breastplate, greaves and a broad-brimmed, crestless helmet over a deep red woollen tunic; all are battle-worn, marked with innumerable scratches and dents.  Highly prominent are two holes that run straight through his body, one above the hip and one through his eye-socket; the latter of these is the only properly visible part of his face, as the helmet casts an unnaturally dark shadow over it.  He wields a bronze Italic sword, stained with blood, in his right hand.  Most notable, however, is the shield that he wields in his left: of the Republican style (a heavily bowed rectangular shape that bends backwards less than its later evolutions) but absolutely massive, easily as tall as Horatius himself and proportionately wide.  Its face is similarly bloodstained, stuck with dozens of broken and half-broken javelins and, like Horatius’ armour and skin, covered in scratches and gashes, as is its rim.  The one exception is the entirely untarnished central bronze boss and its plate, formed in the shape of an outward-facing, halting palm, which gleams defiantly against oncoming foes.

Symbolism

Horatius represents Alistair’s ability to dedicate himself to his allies and friends after realising that he need not understand every facet of the causes for which they fight to do so.  Horatius also reflects the potential pitfalls of that approach, however, both in his semi-historical origins and his appearance: broken and known only for his martyrdom, leaving nothing of himself to the world.

Skills

⚔ Uses Fear-inflicting multi-target Phys Skills ⚔
☄ Wields weak Tera and Psy Skills ☄

⛋ May access Rakukaja, Matarunda and Defence Master and eventually Tetrakarn, Endure and Firm Stance ⛋

⛉ Resists Phys and Gun Skills ⛉
⛶ Weak to Aqua Skills ⛶

In Paradigm Shift: Agents of Fate [Currently Accepting!] → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Greetings, one and all!  Been in discussions with Bazmund and Stitches and, being intrigued by the world, have come up with this!  Hope it's at least somewhat engaging!

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.

________________________________________

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 life; 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 sorrowfully 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 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.

________________________________________

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 and then too erratic to focus on 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 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 first 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.  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.

 - Bond: Only by dedication may one find understanding.  Adrian forges an empathic bond with one other being of whom he is aware.  This ends Circle, if Circle is active; any of his 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.  Once Bond is active, neither it nor any of his spells which he uses through it may be dismissed until he no longer possesses the energy required to maintain them.

 - 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.
	 - 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 (though not granting him any innate knowledge to do so) into the singular spells that the being with whom he shares a bond with possesses or to combine their properties to form new merged spells.

 - Exchange (Circle): Adrian switches places with another being within his Circle.
	 - 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.

 - 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 and their reserves of physical energy are 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.
	 - 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 and their reserves of physical energy are shared.  Moreover, upon tiring or being wounded, the red magical energies of both restore them until those energies are exhausted, allowing them to perform greater feats and shrug off greater harm than they would otherwise be able to.

 - Manalink (Circle): Adrian links his reserves of magical energy to those of another being within his Circle, causing them to equalise and allowing either to cast spells with them.  These effects 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.
	 - Manastorm (Bond): Adrian links his reserves of magical energy to those of the being with whom he shares a Bond, causing them to equalise and allowing either to cast spells with them.  Each spell cast by either may draw upon the magical potential of both, effectively doubling its power (assuming equal levels of magical potential).

In Persona ~ The Beholder [Interest Time!] → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Interest Checks

My sword and caltrops are yours!

In Iliad City: A Magical RP in an Original World (Resuming) → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

In one hand, Nika Pešek holds a mid-size pouch that rings with the sound of jangling metal.

In her other, she clasps a stand, the pole tucked underneath her arm and a flat panel covered in dials, sliders and switches marked with symbols raised on one end.

In her mind, she holds just under a fortnight’s worth of research into music theory and composition.

And upon her face, she bears her smile of calm determination.

With these things, she will conquer the obstacle before her.

Nika nods to William.  “I can divide my focus.  Should hardly be impossible to notice the odd motion and slow it down if we need.  Much as it hopefully it won’t come to that, I would hardly be surprised.”  After all, we’ll be giving them a shock; their team is skilled, professional – they won’t expect us to match them.  She has, of course, put some research into their competitors, too.  One responds to shock by instinct – and we all know what Ishtar’s instinct will likely be.  Beyond that, little can be known.  Impersonal fact-finding can only extend so far, after all.

Despite this, Nika Pešek exudes confidence as the team from Marduk stride out into the light of the arena.  This is, after all, but one more obstacle, of which she has faced many and always succeeded.  No matter that this is the last, that she is so close as to almost hear her tender, comforting and oh so painfully familiar voice whispering in her ear.  She will overcome it, as she has done all the others.

Her heart thunders in her chest.

In Iliad City: A Magical RP in an Original World (Resuming) → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Name: Nika Pešek

Age: 18

Nika Pešek was born an ordinary girl, or as ordinary a girl as one might find in Iliad City, where the rhythms of the Epic of Making echo as though it had been sung only minutes before.  She found her start in life as the daughter of Pavel Pešek, a stoic, methodical crafter of armour, tools and weapons for the city’s elite – after all, no amount of industrial precision can improve upon the technical mastery, or ability to produce custom orders, of a mage-smith – and Atanasija Pešek, herself daughter of Pavel’s major supplier of raw materials with a finely honed business sense and a wicked sense of humour.  Though a match primarily made for commercial reasons, the two found that they were not only a capable team but also emotionally complementary and quickly became a mutually reliant, perhaps some might even say loving, couple.  Nika was thus born into a moderately wealthy household with two capable and affectionate parents.  Things seemed to be looking up for her.

For the first years, they were.  Nika learned to take in information, manipulate it and communicate it quickly, picking up reading and writing earlier than most children and extrapolating concepts that she hadn’t learned elsewhere from her previous knowledge; indeed, one of her earliest memories is Atanasija’s delight (and Pavel’s horror) at her having figured out the basic premise behind foreign exchange trading.  As such, when her parents announced that they were having a second child, she took quite a bit of reassuring that she wouldn’t lose out on affection as a result.

In the end, though they did manage to convince her, it wouldn’t matter.  For all the magic of the healers at the hospital and the advancements of modern medicine, Atanasija and her son died in childbirth when Nika was six.

Life carried on.  Pavel’s work continued, even if he couldn’t negotiate such good prices for his pieces as his wife used to be able to and often found himself waking to a pillow wet with tears.  Nika still did relatively well in school, even if her mind, whose keenness let her understand what had happened better than many of her age, became clouded.  Forward they marched.  That cloud, however brewed lightning.  Nika’s grief quickly became determination.  Her mother was gone – and thus she had to make up for her loss through effort; so went her child’s reasoning.  For all her father saw this and first tried to quell this feigned strength born of pain, then to channel it safely by having her help him in the forge, it only grew more powerful and all-consuming within her as she aged.

Seeing that he had to do something, and also noticing her burgeoning magical ability, Pavel decided that it would be best to send Nika to one of Iliad City’s famous magical academies; there she might be able to find a place for herself, out of her mother’s shadow, he reasoned.  Of the two, he decided to send her to Marduk; he had always liked the idea of the place more than Ishtar and, moreover, he felt that the sense of order there might be stabilising.  Nika, of course, passed the entrance exam with flying colours and was thus enrolled at the Marduk Academy for the Mystic Arts at the age of twelve.

Unfortunately, two things stood in the way of Marduk being a good place for Nika.  Firstly, though Nika’s style of thinking was primarily logical and systematic, like the one that Marduk espoused, that logic was incisive rather than constructive or stabilising.  Where Marduk sought to impose rules for its students to follow, Nika tried to prove them flawed or circumvent them as she believed right; where Marduk laid out a system of magic for its students to rely upon, Nika sought to tweak and customise it for her own ends.  She quickly became known as a maverick to the staff and a smart-alec to her peers, though she was at worst a bit prickly to those who actually got to know her.

Indeed, as a result of the second factor keeping her from aligning fully with Marduk, she didn’t have much focus left over to hurt anyone or engage in the school’s social landscape.  Over the last few years, Nika’s goal had gradually shifted from filling the void that her mother had left in her and her father’s lives herself to simply bringing her mother back.  She was a strong mage, after all, and stories abounded in this most storied of cities of strong mages challenging the dictates of fate and the natural order; why could she not do the same?  Once she arrived at Marduk, she dived into the academy’s library, searching for ways in which that might be done.  Necromancy Nika quickly dismissed; its abilities, she found, tended to be unpredictable, bringing about a facsimile of life as often as real life from beyond death.  She would not risk her mother for that; she needed something predictable and consistent.  Thus Nika turned to chronomancy; she borrowed some books on the subject, read them cover to cover and began to practice.

Now, chronomancy is a stable magic, bound to some of the simplest rules of the universe, but it is also a highly dangerous one.  Nearly every book Nika borrowed was filled with warnings and cautionary tales of mages freezing themselves in time only to be unable to think and thereby loose the spell or people pushed into the wall of a slowed zone and shredded into chunks as individual parts of their body sped up going through to the other side.  For this reason, Marduk itself only typically teaches chronomancy as a subject in students’ final years and only then to those who have excelled elsewhere and are of a cautious, considered disposition, for they, in the staff’s opinion, are most able to approach it successfully.

Nika?  If it was dangerous for her to use it on people, she reasoned, she’d just do so with objects instead.  That’s what she’d been doing for most of her life, after all.  

Taking a dozen books on chronomancy out of the school library over the course of a term would have obviously raised some alarm bells with the librarians anyway but the school really took notice when Nika began using her new magic in her practical Elemental Magic classes, hastening the velocity of her projectiles to a degree that became suspicious to her teacher in the subject.  Of course, when he asked her, she told him exactly what she was doing; there wasn’t any sense in hiding what wasn’t wrong in her eyes.  This gave him sufficient cause to raise it with the remainder of the staff and, before long, Nika found herself embroiled in something that wasn’t quite a disciplinary process, given that this wasn’t against the rules, per se.  The school, meanwhile, was left with the problem that Nika had apparently been skilful enough to use chronomancy on her own and would undoubtedly carry on using it, potentially endangering herself and others, but to let her do so publicly might be seen as condoning it generally and cause the rest of the student body to plunge headfirst into the discipline.

The solution that they came up with was to prohibit Nika from using her chronomantic spells in her regular school life until she was able to take chronomancy as a regular class but to assign her private tutoring with the specialist teacher who taught it as a subject, one Doctor Hannah Baumann, up to that point alongside it.  Irritated but with little choice in the matter, Nika complied – at school; when she was at home she continued her practice – and started attending the sessions.  These became the major reason that she stayed at Marduk.  For all that she chafed at the school’s more structuralist tendencies, Dr Baumann, a patient, analytical and empathetic soul, in line with the archetype of most chronomancers, had a disposition that was perfect for focussing Nika’s passion.  It was she who, deconstructing Nika’s understanding of chronomancy, tailored their private lessons to expanding that ability to its fullest; she, alongside Nika herself, is responsible for guiding her to alter her frame of reference to move objects in space by moving them backwards and forwards in time.  The two have developed a close bond over the years, one that they retained even after Nika joined her class properly a few years later; from the outside looking in, one might even regard her as a mother figure.

Nika would be horrified at this perception.  She hasn’t forgotten her original goal, not in the slightest, and, even as darkness begins to suffuse Iliad City, it remains her foremost objective.  Now eighteen, only a few months from graduating, she believes that she has all the power and prowess that she needs to return Atanasija Pešek to her life.  The long wait, years of lost connection, could be over, if only she can end them.

It’s time to see if she’s up to the task.

- Forge Adept: Nika spent much of her life with her father, watching him ply his trade as well as helping out in various places and, increasingly, moulding the iron herself.  Though she was around his forge less and less as she grew up and attended the academy, she’s still a capable mage-smith with the understanding necessary to craft tools and weapons, though, unlike her father, she is less capable of producing high-quality armour.

- Chase-Cutting Mind: Nika rarely takes the difficult path, not because it is difficult but because it tends to be slow.  This sometimes means following in others’ footsteps and putting in little effort of her own but, as a dynamic thinker, if she feels that current solutions aren’t superior to what she can come up with herself, she’ll take the latter and damn the consequences.  This combination of apparent laziness and maverick puts her somewhat at odds with the traditionalist factions of the Marduk Academy but gets her the results she wants quickly and occasionally in places that others could not.

Chronomancy

- Revert: Nika is capable of moving an object, objects that once were an object or several objects conceptualised either as one or a collection of objects, other than herself, backwards or forwards in time up to the first or last point that she interacted with it/them.  She may not do so to other sapient beings unless they are willing or unconscious.  Once this process begins, she may not chronomantically influence anything else until she halts it and lets time resume for the objects in question.

- Recall: By changing the frame of reference within with she uses her reversion, Nika can cause something to move backwards or forwards in time spatially relative to other things, effectively allowing her limited control over their spatial position, with all the limitations of her usual reversion.  Nika’s signature ability, this allows her to do such things as summon things of importance to her person and perform tricks not dissimilar to those of a telekinetic.

Enhancement/Enchantment

- Magic Infusion: Nika has an excellent grasp of basic enhancement magic to change a material’s properties like weight and strength, as might be expected from a mage-smith’s daughter, and is fairly skilled at transmutation, changing an object’s fundamental nature.  She is far more capable in altering inanimate objects in these ways as opposed to living matter; moreover, doing so takes more energy, focus and time the more complex the alteration or larger or more complex the object being altered is.

- Disintegrate: By lowering a material’s ability to resist stress to close to nothing, Nika is able to cause a small object to crumble to a powder, an ability she learned from her father as a necessity for creating alloys.  Doing so takes more energy, focus and time the larger or more chemically complex the object is.

- Spell Infusion: Nika is able to place spells into objects, either for one-time use or indefinite reactivation (with more energy, focus and time) by either herself alone or anyone.  She can do this with her own spells or, with their help, can infuse objects with the spells of someone else according to her own design.  Should the spell have a cost in energy, this is drawn from the original caster of the spell upon the item’s activation.

Elemental Magic

- Temperature Manipulation: Nika has been able to magically heat and cool materials from an early age – taught it by her father, given its crucial role for a mage-smith – and, like her father, is particularly good at raising small and mid-sized objects to very hot temperatures.  Naturally, Nika was a little smug at being already adept with this in her early years at Marduk while her classmates were still studying the less advanced pyromantic magics.

- Metal Manipulation: Nika is able to telekinetically move and reshape small amounts of metal with a heightened level of precision, again taught by her father as a vital aspect of mage-smithing.  Given that she was taught to do so with heated metal and rarely uses the skill outside the forge, she finds reshaping non-molten metals more difficult than a mage of her ability otherwise would.

- Elemental Generalism: Though she prefers the versatility of channelling and refocussing the magic of others into objects to supplement her own spellcasting ability, Nika did go through the basic Elemental Magic courses at Marduk and is thus able to summon and project small amounts of fire, summon and manipulate small amounts of water, manipulate small amounts of air, manipulate small amounts of rock or earth and summon small amounts of light.

Nika has infused several items with magic and spells and stored them in the basement of her house.  By recalling them through time with herself (or her gauntlet) as the frame of reference, she can summon them to her person, use them as she wishes, then return them to storage.

- Receptor Gauntlet: A somewhat crude gauntlet, made largely of steel enchanted for lightness and strength and padded with linen, with four midsized tubes built into the outer structure; each has an lip attached to an end that unscrews from its tube.  Internally, a chain connects each finger to a lever within each tube, enabling the activation of non-magical mechanisms.  Nika has forged this to act as a framework for use of several of her infused items; by placing them within the tubes, storing them and then moving them backwards through time using the gauntlet as the frame of reference, she can summon them for immediate use without having to worry about accidentally getting them stuck inside an errant limb.

- Blasting Pipes: Steel tubes enchanted for lightness and strength, each containing a unique firing mechanism activated by its internal lever, pre-loaded with a single round/material and rifled where it is useful.  After activation, Nika may revert the pipe and round to their original state, ready to fire again.

-Wax Rounds (4): Shoots small arms bullets made of wax; intended to subdue.

- Standard Rounds (4): Shoots regular small arms bullets secretly acquired from her father’s stock; for potential future lethal engagements.

- Fire Siphon (1): Uses an infused water spell to displace a naptha-based fuel through a nozzle.  A small flame is generated in front of the nozzle when Nika activates the non-magical trigger, allowing her to use it as a flamethrower; if not, she may simply spray the fuel and ignite it with her fire magic.

- Switch-Sword (1): Takes up the two central tubes for purposes of stability and consists of a thin box of steel, infused for lightness and strength, mounted above them.  An infused water spell may generate water to extend what is effectively a shortened estoc blade, infused for lightness and strength and used primarily for stabbing.

- Regenerating Shield (1): This takes up the two central tubes for purposes of stability and is mid-sized, flat and circular.  Made of a single sheet of steel, it would likely be too heavy for Nika to use effectively were it not infused for lightness, as well as for strength; it is also infused with a chronomantic spell that slowly reverts damage done to it upon activation by its user.

- Manipulator Arms (4): A simple arm-like construct with a claw at the end, made of steel infused for lightness and strength.  Nika uses these to help her work on her various projects, as well as to practice either her fine chronomancy or non-molten metal manipulation.

- Self-Repairing Truncheon: A simple cudgel made of oak infused for strength, infused with a chronomantic spell that automatically reverts damage done to it.

- Chronomagnetic Generator: A fist-sized mechanism that uses a combination of a solenoid, a magnet and infused chronomantic magic to generate electricity at a rate desired by the user.  Nika created this as a project for her practical chronomancy class and, though it isn’t especially better than just using a battery, she has kept it for sentimental reasons.

- Blasting Pipes:

- Stun-Strike Wire (1): Launches a wire infused with electromantic magic provided by another mage; used to stun.

- Lifeguard Amulet: An amulet worn on the body.  Should its wearer be close to death, the amulet drains the remaining energy from them.  After a few minutes, it generates a protective layer of water, lifts them into the air so as to get them clear of obstacles and then reverts them to a few minutes prior to their death.  The amulet at this point breaks from the strain, which also alerts the wearer to what has happened.

- Self-Repairing Armour: Armour infused with a chronomantic spell that slowly reverts damage done to it upon activation by its user.

Personality: Nika never quite got over her grief for her mother’s passing; somewhere in her heart it still burns, flaring up every so often to remind her of the absence.  This she treats as motivation; for this reason she is a profoundly determined young woman, used to self-sacrifice and putting off immediate pleasures for longer-term goals.  She is also perhaps a little conceited and overly trusting in her own capabilities.  These factors mean that she has few friends; to those she trusts, however, she is loyal and demands their loyalty in return.  Most of all, though, she is quick-minded, never failing to take an option that others would consider ‘easy’ if she believes it wouldn’t be a detriment to herself and then squeezing it dry for every single benefit she possibly can (though Dr Baumann has managed to ease her towards rating long-term gains and forward planning a little more highly) and, in the same vein, cutting through pre-existing thought if she believes that she’s found a better way.  She’ll make it work.  She always has.

Faction: Marduk by schooling, though her philosophy is far less one of structure for order’s sake than structure (imposed by others or herself) for convenience’s sake.

Are you a Descendant of the Illuminated Poet?: No

Character Themes:Purposeful (non-combat), Reclaimant (combat)

In Iliad City: A Magical RP in an Original World (Resuming) → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Name: Nika Pešek

Age: 18

Nika Pešek was born an ordinary girl, or as ordinary a girl as one might find in Iliad City, where the rhythms of the Epic of Making echo as though it had been sung only minutes before.  She found her start in life as the daughter of Pavel Pešek, a stoic, methodical crafter of armour, tools and weapons for the city’s elite – after all, no amount of industrial precision can improve upon the technical mastery, or ability to produce custom orders, of a mage-smith – and Atanasija Pešek, herself daughter of Pavel’s major supplier of raw materials with a finely honed business sense and a wicked sense of humour.  Though a match primarily made for commercial reasons, the two found that they were not only a capable team but also emotionally complementary and quickly became a mutually reliant, perhaps some might even say loving, couple.  Nika was thus born into a moderately wealthy household with two capable and affectionate parents.  Things seemed to be looking up for her.

For the first years, they were.  Nika learned to take in information, manipulate it and communicate it quickly, picking up reading and writing earlier than most children and extrapolating concepts that she hadn’t learned elsewhere from her previous knowledge; indeed, one of her earliest memories is Atanasija’s delight (and Pavel’s horror) at her having figured out the basic premise behind foreign exchange trading.  As such, when her parents announced that they were having a second child, she took quite a bit of reassuring that she wouldn’t lose out on affection as a result.

In the end, though they did manage to convince her, it wouldn’t matter.  For all the magic of the healers at the hospital and the advancements of modern medicine, Atanasija and her son died in childbirth when Nika was six.

Life carried on.  Pavel’s work continued, even if he couldn’t negotiate such good prices for his pieces as his wife used to be able to and often found himself waking to a pillow wet with tears.  Nika still did relatively well in school, even if her mind, whose keenness let her understand what had happened better than many of her age, became clouded.  Forward they marched.  That cloud, however brewed lightning.  Nika’s grief quickly became determination.  Her mother was gone – and thus she had to make up for her loss through effort; so went her child’s reasoning.  For all her father saw this and first tried to quell this feigned strength born of pain, then to channel it safely by having her help him in the forge, it only grew more powerful and all-consuming within her as she aged.

Seeing that he had to do something, and also noticing her burgeoning magical ability, Pavel decided that it would be best to send Nika to one of Iliad City’s famous magical academies; there she might be able to find a place for herself, out of her mother’s shadow, he reasoned.  Of the two, he decided to send her to Marduk; he had always liked the idea of the place more than Ishtar and, moreover, he felt that the sense of order there might be stabilising.  Nika, of course, passed the entrance exam with flying colours and was thus enrolled at the Marduk Academy for the Mystic Arts at the age of twelve.

Unfortunately, two things stood in the way of Marduk being a good place for Nika.  Firstly, though Nika’s style of thinking was primarily logical and systematic, like the one that Marduk espoused, that logic was incisive rather than constructive or stabilising.  Where Marduk sought to impose rules for its students to follow, Nika tried to prove them flawed or circumvent them as she believed right; where Marduk laid out a system of magic for its students to rely upon, Nika sought to tweak and customise it for her own ends.  She quickly became known as a maverick to the staff and a smart-alec to her peers, though she was at worst a bit prickly to those who actually got to know her.

Indeed, as a result of the second factor keeping her from aligning fully with Marduk, she didn’t have much focus left over to hurt anyone or engage in the school’s social landscape.  Over the last few years, Nika’s goal had gradually shifted from filling the void that her mother had left in her and her father’s lives herself to simply bringing her mother back.  She was a strong mage, after all, and stories abounded in this most storied of cities of strong mages challenging the dictates of fate and the natural order; why could she not do the same?  Once she arrived at Marduk, she dived into the academy’s library, searching for ways in which that might be done.  Necromancy Nika quickly dismissed; its abilities, she found, tended to be unpredictable, bringing about a facsimile of life as often as real life from beyond death.  She would not risk her mother for that; she needed something predictable and consistent.  Thus Nika turned to chronomancy; she borrowed some books on the subject, read them cover to cover and began to practice.

Now, chronomancy is a stable magic, bound to some of the simplest rules of the universe, but it is also a highly dangerous one.  Nearly every book Nika borrowed was filled with warnings and cautionary tales of mages freezing themselves in time only to be unable to think and thereby loose the spell or people being pushed into the wall of a slowed zone and being shredded into chunks as individual parts of their body sped up going through to the other side.  For this reason, Marduk itself only typically teaches chronomancy as a subject in students’ final years and only then to those who have excelled elsewhere and are of a cautious, considered disposition, for they, in the staff’s opinion, are most able to approach it successfully.

Nika?  If it was dangerous for her to use it on people, she reasoned, she’d just do so with objects instead.  That’s what she’d been doing for most of her life, after all.  

Taking a dozen books on chronomancy out of the school library over the course of a term would have obviously raised some alarm bells with the librarians anyway but the school really took notice when Nika began using her new magic in her practical Elemental Magic classes, hastening the velocity of her projectiles to a degree that became suspicious to her teacher in the subject.  Of course, when he asked her, she told him exactly what she was doing; there wasn’t any sense in hiding what wasn’t wrong in her eyes.  This gave him sufficient cause to raise it with the remainder of the staff and, before long, Nika found herself embroiled in something that wasn’t quite a disciplinary process, given that this wasn’t against the rules, per se.  The school, meanwhile, was left with the problem that Nika had apparently been skilful enough to use chronomancy on her own and would undoubtedly carry on using it, potentially endangering herself and others, but to let her do so publicly might be seen as condoning it generally and cause the rest of the student body to plunge headfirst into the discipline.

The solution that they came up with was to prohibit Nika from using her chronomantic spells in her regular school life until she was able to take chronomancy as a regular class but to assign her private tutoring with the specialist teacher who taught it as a subject, one Doctor Hannah Baumann, up to that point alongside it.  Irritated but with little choice in the matter, Nika complied – at school; when she was at home she continued her practice – and started attending the sessions.  These became the major reason that she stayed at Marduk.  For all that she chafed at the school’s more structuralist tendencies, Dr Baumann, a patient, analytical and empathetic soul, in line with the archetype of most chronomancers, had a disposition that was perfect for focussing Nika’s passion.  It was she who, deconstructing Nika’s understanding of chronomancy, tailored their private lessons to expanding that ability to its fullest; she, alongside Nika herself, is responsible for guiding her to alter her frame of reference to move objects in space by moving them backwards and forwards in time.  The two have developed a close bond over the years, one that they retained even after Nika joined her class properly a few years later; from the outside looking in, one might even regard her as a mother figure.

Nika would be horrified at this perception.  She hasn’t forgotten her original goal, not in the slightest, and, even as darkness begins to suffuse Iliad City, it remains her foremost objective.  Now eighteen, only a few months from graduating, she believes that she has all the power and prowess that she needs to return Atanasija Pešek to her life.  The long wait, years of lost connection, could be over, if only she can end them.

It’s time to see if she’s up to the task.

- Forge Adept: Nika spent much of her life with her father, watching him ply his trade as well as helping out in various places and, increasingly, moulding the iron herself.  Though she was around his forge less and less as she grew up and attended the academy, she’s still a capable mage-smith with the understanding necessary to craft tools and weapons, though, unlike her father, she is less capable of producing high-quality armour.

- Chase-Cutting Mind: Nika rarely takes the difficult path, not because it is difficult but because it tends to be slow.  This sometimes means following in others’ footsteps and putting in little effort of her own but, as a dynamic thinker, if she feels that current solutions aren’t superior to what she can come up with herself, she’ll take the latter and damn the consequences.  This combination of apparent laziness and maverick puts her somewhat at odds with the traditionalist factions of the Marduk Academy but gets her the results she wants quickly and occasionally in places that others could not.

Chronomancy

- Revert: Nika is capable of moving an object, objects that once were an object or several objects conceptualised either as one or a collection of objects, other than herself, backwards or forwards in time up to the first or last point that she interacted with it/them.  She may not do so to other sapient beings unless they are willing or unconscious.  Once this process begins, she may not chronomantically influence anything else until she halts it and lets time resume for the objects in question.

- Recall: By changing the frame of reference within with she uses her reversion, Nika can cause something to move backwards or forwards in time spatially relative to other things, effectively allowing her limited control over their spatial position, with all the limitations of her usual reversion.  Nika’s signature ability, this allows her to do such things as summon things of importance to her person and perform tricks not dissimilar to those of a telekinetic.

Enhancement/Enchantment

- Magic Infusion: Nika has an excellent grasp of basic enhancement magic to change a material’s properties like weight and strength, as might be expected from a mage-smith’s daughter, and is fairly skilled at transmutation, changing an object’s fundamental nature.  She is far more capable in altering inanimate objects in these ways as opposed to living matter; moreover, doing so takes more energy, focus and time the more complex the alteration or larger or more complex the object being altered is.

- Disintegrate: By lowering a material’s ability to resist stress to close to nothing, Nika is able to cause a small object to crumble to a powder, an ability she learned from her father as a necessity for creating alloys.  Doing so takes more energy, focus and time the larger or more chemically complex the object is.

- Spell Infusion: Nika is able to place spells into objects, either for one-time use or indefinite reactivation (with more energy, focus and time) by either herself alone or anyone.  She can do this with her own spells or, with their help, can infuse objects with the spells of someone else according to her own design.  Should the spell have a cost in energy, this is drawn from the original caster of the spell upon the item’s activation.

Elemental Magic

- Temperature Manipulation: Nika has been able to magically heat and cool materials from an early age – taught it by her father, given its crucial role for a mage-smith – and, like her father, is particularly good at raising small and mid-sized objects to very hot temperatures.  Naturally, Nika was a little smug at being already adept with this in her early years at Marduk while her classmates were still studying the less advanced pyromantic magics.

- Metal Manipulation: Nika is able to telekinetically move and reshape small amounts of metal with a heightened level of precision, again taught by her father as a vital aspect of mage-smithing.  Given that she was taught to do so with heated metal and rarely uses the skill outside the forge, she finds reshaping non-molten metals more difficult than a mage of her ability otherwise would.

- Elemental Generalism: Though she prefers the versatility of channelling and refocussing the magic of others into objects to supplement her own spellcasting ability, Nika did go through the basic Elemental Magic courses at Marduk and is thus able to summon and project small amounts of fire, summon and manipulate small amounts of water, manipulate small amounts of air, manipulate small amounts of rock or earth and summon small amounts of light.

Nika has infused several items with magic and spells and stored them in the basement of her house.  By recalling them through time with herself (or her gauntlet) as the frame of reference, she can summon them to her person, use them as she wishes, then return them to storage.

- Receptor Gauntlet: A somewhat crude gauntlet, made largely of steel enchanted for lightness and strength and padded with linen, with four midsized tubes built into the outer structure; each has an lip attached to an end that unscrews from its tube.  Internally, a chain connects each finger to a lever within each tube, enabling the activation of non-magical mechanisms.  Nika has forged this to act as a framework for use of several of her infused items; by placing them within the tubes, storing them and then moving them backwards through time using the gauntlet as the frame of reference, she can summon them for immediate use without having to worry about accidentally getting them stuck inside an errant limb.

- Blasting Pipes: Steel tubes enchanted for lightness and strength, each containing a unique firing mechanism activated by its internal lever, pre-loaded with a single round/material and rifled where it is useful.  After activation, Nika may revert the pipe and round to their original state, ready to fire again.

-Wax Rounds (4): Shoots small arms bullets made of wax; intended to subdue.

- Standard Rounds (4): Shoots regular small arms bullets secretly acquired from her father’s stock; for potential future lethal engagements.

- Fire Siphon (1): Uses an infused water spell to displace a naptha-based fuel through a nozzle.  A small flame is generated in front of the nozzle when Nika activates the non-magical trigger, allowing her to use it as a flamethrower; if not, she may simply spray the fuel and ignite it with her fire magic.

- Switch-Sword (1): Takes up the two central tubes for purposes of stability and consists of a thin box of steel, infused for lightness and strength, mounted above them.  An infused water spell may generate water to extend what is effectively a shortened estoc blade, infused for lightness and strength and used primarily for stabbing.

- Regenerating Shield (1): This takes up the two central tubes for purposes of stability and is mid-sized, flat and circular.  Made of a single sheet of steel, it would likely be too heavy for Nika to use effectively were it not infused for lightness, as well as for strength; it is also infused with a chronomantic spell that slowly reverts damage done to it upon activation by its user.

- Manipulator Arms (4): A simple arm-like construct with a claw at the end, made of steel infused for lightness and strength.  Nika uses these to help her work on her various projects, as well as to practice either her fine chronomancy or non-molten metal manipulation.

- Self-Repairing Truncheon: A simple cudgel made of oak infused for strength, infused with a chronomantic spell that automatically reverts damage done to it.

- Chronomagnetic Generator: A fist-sized mechanism that uses a combination of a solenoid, a magnet and infused chronomantic magic to generate electricity at a rate desired by the user.  Nika created this as a project for her practical chronomancy class and, though it isn’t especially better than just using a battery, she has kept it for sentimental reasons.

- Blasting Pipes:

- Stun-Strike Wire (1): Launches a wire infused with electromantic magic provided by another mage; used to stun.

- Lifeguard Amulet: An amulet worn on the body.  Should its wearer be close to death, the amulet drains the remaining energy from them.  After a few minutes, it generates a protective layer of water, lifts them into the air so as to get them clear of obstacles and then reverts them to a few minutes prior to their death.  The amulet at this point breaks from the strain, which also alerts the wearer to what has happened.

- Self-Repairing Armour: Armour infused with a chronomantic spell that slowly reverts damage done to it upon activation by its user.

Personality: Nika never quite got over her grief for her mother’s passing; somewhere in her heart it still burns, flaring up every so often to remind her of the absence.  This she treats as motivation; for this reason she is a profoundly determined young woman, used to self-sacrifice and putting off immediate pleasures for longer-term goals.  She is also perhaps a little conceited and overly trusting in her own capabilities.  These factors mean that she has few friends; to those she trusts, however, she is loyal and demands their loyalty in return.  Most of all, though, she is quick-minded, never failing to take an option that others would consider ‘easy’ if she believes it wouldn’t be a detriment to herself and then squeezing it dry for every single benefit she possibly can (though Dr Baumann has managed to ease her towards rating long-term gains and forward planning a little more highly) and, in the same vein, cutting through pre-existing thought if she believes that she’s found a better way.  She’ll make it work.  She always has.

Faction: Marduk by schooling, though her philosophy is far less one of structure for order’s sake than structure (imposed by others or herself) for convenience’s sake.

Are you a Descendant of the Illuminated Poet?: No

In ~ Phantom Thieves of London: The Calling ~ → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Alistair is taken aback a touch at Tyler’s comment.  Of course, his thoughts immediately turn to the dark: If only they knew why…  All that and I remain stuck.  And then darker: Perhaps this is impassable.  Perhaps the world is just…  Irredeemable chaos by complexity, all cause and effect with no trace between them.

Hume.  Ha.

Alistair sighs, closes his eyes, and then looks up again.  For a moment, he clenches his fist, his eyes smouldering.  No.  The surface is barely scratched.  Give up and…

You can’t.  You can’t give up.  You can’t.

It is in this state of mind that he listens to Tyler carefully step around discussing Mikhail – around his latent anger, his fragile self-control, his – his past…  That…  That could be useful.  Shaking his head idly at Tyler’s question, his mind’s mechanisms suddenly slot into place, forging and throwing off ideas as a tempest throws off lightning: That implies broken processes, unintended consequences.  Analysed structures alone to now, lacking context – focus on a specific case could be useful for clarity, to create and test theories, to break established patterns of thought.  He raises a hand to the side of his head, fiddling with a strand of hair.  Even beyond, another event akin to today would be best avoided.  The ability to avoid or diffuse – could be gained through knowledge.

And thus, Alistair begins to entertain an almost heretical thought.

He looks at Tyler again, eyes flashing with worry.  Do I know…  Can I risk it?  Do I have the right?  He winces.  Gah.  Balancing long-term harm for short-term – but it wouldn’t be short-term, would it?  Not potentially…   Agh, this is dangerous!  The fingers on his hand twitch, just a little.

Alistair shuts his eyes.  No.  No, you’re overreacting.  This would be a tiny, tiny aspect of his life.  It is time he is evidently spending anyway, you do not necessarily have to provide any input at all, he is even able to talk about something that concerns him.  Which could also backfi- no.  This will be fine.  This will be fine.

Alistair breathes.  Then he offers that same half-smile to Tyler.

“I’m currently walking up to Richmond Park…  You can join me and talk on the way, if you’d like.”

In Noble Arms: Restoring Hope - With Gratitude to TheHangedMan → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Interest Checks

Appearance:

Name: Caroline ‘Callie’ Lidmann
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Bisexual, as far as she is able to tell.
Height: 165 cm
Weight: 63 kg
Age: 23

Nationality: British

Noble Arm Name & Appearance:

‘Charter’

Noble Arm Abilities:
Leaguespanner: Wielding Charter allows Callie to realign the fabric of the universe to join one space to another, effectively creating a two-way portal.  She may only do this between places that she is able to visualise.  Whenever she does so, Callie must anchor each end of the portal to an object in space in relation to which they will remain static; she frequently uses the ground, the Earth as a whole or some part of her body for this purpose.  Creating a connection takes no energy but keeping it open does; the larger the portal is the more energy it will consume from Callie until she releases it.  Distance, on the other hand, has no bearing on the energy required.
Sight Unbounded: Charter is far more capable than a spyglass of its apparent age or, indeed, any spyglass at all has any right to be: it has the potential for near-infinite magnification.  Whereas Callie can by now manage this intuitively, anyone else attempting to do so would find the spyglass insanely sensitive to any adjustment.  She also sometimes finds herself drawn to things are pertinent to her and her goals when seeing them through Charter, whether she knows how they are important or not.

Personality: Callie is determined and unrelenting by nature.  Unlike many of this archetype, however, she doesn’t naturally chafe against authority to any great extent; she instead demands that she be accomplishing something in every waking moment, set by others or, if they do not, by herself.  If that is achieved, she is an invaluable asset to any team – focussed, personable, unfailingly, effortlessly energetic and downright inspiring.  If not, she can be impersonal, quick to anger and generally utterly horrible to be around.  She is, needless to say, a little polarising.
Likes: Achieving short-term goals, feeling capable, learning, using her Noble Arm, dogs, Ribena.
Dislikes: Vagueness, duplicity and secrets among friends and teammates, purely utilitarian goods, cats, alcohol.
Fears: Being powerless, causing harm to those she cares about.

Bio:

Callie Lidmann never knew her mother, who died in a terrorist attack caused by an Arms Master under the banner of a splinter faction of the IRA only a month after her birth, and instead grew up with her father, a designer of cameras used for aerial archaeology, and her stepmother, a military veteran, who married when she had just turned two.  Her early life was uncomplicated and carefree and she, like most children, developed a profound curiosity about the world around her.  Unlike most children, that curiosity never really went away; she dove into books and the internet, ran her own science experiments in the garden and begged her parents to take her to museums and art galleries where most of her peers wanted to go to theme parks and the cinema.

By her teenage years, Callie’s path seemed to be set; she was receiving ‘A*’s and ‘A’s across the board in school and had her heart set on going into academia, even if she wasn’t entirely sure where yet.  For many people in that situation, receiving a Noble Arm would change that entirely – and yet for Callie, summoning Charter for the first time while on a walk in the hills outside her home only kicked her plans into high gear.  Perceiving the Arm’s abilities as obvious symbolism for her identity, she invested days in theory-crafting and experimenting to see just what she could do with it.  Only a few weeks after she first manifested it, she was in contact with a major energy company to use her portal to generate electricity through perpetual motion; that, she thought with significant glee, would make her more than enough money to pursue education for as long as she wanted while simultaneously providing clean power for thousands.  With this as her goal, Callie pressed on with school and, with her A-levels under her belt, began her preparations for university.

Unfortunately, this was the moment at which the energy company she’d been in contact with cancelled the deal.  Despite having had extensive talks and already done a small interest piece for the BBC, the company in question was informed late by its lawyers that any accident resulting from Callie’s powers would leave it open to severe legal ramifications.  The only way to alleviate this would be to have Callie herself in the building with the portal for every second that it was active, watching for anything to go wrong so she could dismiss it; that not being an option for somebody in full time education, the project was canned.  Her dad and stepmum stepped in to fill the gap that this and the lack of a student loan had created – and ultimately succeeded – but the psychological damage was already done; Callie, having never really failed at anything on this scale before, was thrown totally off balance, her once-unshakeable motivation declining and her work’s quality fading with it.

To this difficulty her stepmother offered an unconventional solution: join the military, the one place where you weren’t allowed to be demotivated.  She’d honestly been a little concerned about Callie’s mental fortitude for several years and, knowing and exceedingly grateful for what service had done for her, she thought that her stepdaughter might benefit from something similar.  There was extensive back and forth in the Lidmann household over that year’s course but, in the end, Callie was becoming more and more frustrated with herself and her lack of success and it became clear that, even if she could probably pull herself through university, she likely wasn’t going to enjoy or gain much from doing it.

As such, Callie found herself dropping out at the end of her first year at university and instead signing on as a sapper in the Corps of Royal Engineers, taking communications as her trade.  She expected that she’d complete her four years of service and, her mind fortified, return to civilian life.  Instead, she found herself far more fulfilled than anyone close to her could have predicted.  Her choice of heading into the Engineers was in part based on her quickness of mind, in part because it had developed a strong Arms Masters community, and both of those certainly panned out well; more than that, though, with her actions planned out for her, she could commit to doing in a way that she never really had before while still being able to bring her mind to bear within that and possessing enough free time for unstructured thought when she needed a break from the relentlessness of it all.

It was thrilling – thrilling to the extent that, after spending time with the ISAF in Afghanistan, Callie decided to stay on with the military.  She was in the middle of debating whether to try for a leadership position or apply for the Special Reconnaissance Regiment when she was offered a place in Operation: Symbiosis.  She took it.  Quickly.

Current Goal: Aid the cause of and ingratiate herself with the members of Operation: Symbiosis.

Military Rank: Formerly Sapper, as of now undetermined.

Theme:
Calm:youtube.com/watch?v=wzvV-ezvyu4
Battle:youtube.com/watch?v=wmdnpbmM4pc

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