MAIN GOAL ⫻ (What does your character hope to accomplish in life?)

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ (What is your character's outlook on life?)

SEXUALITY ⫻ (Your character's sexual preference?)

FEARS ⫻ (What does your character fear?)

REPUTATION ⫻ (What is your character's reputation in Araminta and in the Vanburen family?)

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ (What is your character's relationship with James like? What did they think about him?)

FLAWS ⫻ (What holds your character back?)

Pretty standard affair. I'm not going to expect a super long essay here, just the basics and whatever. Make sure you explain how and why they got their abstraction.

TYPE ⫻ (Put Adept, Awakened, Apparition, Aberration (Afflicted/Affixed/Agent/Adjoined/Abscised), Blind or One-Eyed-Open)

ABSTRACTION ⫻ (Put the name of the Abstraction here, with a one sentence description of what the Abstraction does. If Adept put what color their light is and what their channeler is.)

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ (Go in-depth with how the ability functions normally. Explain everything I need to know.)

AURA SENSING ⫻ (Optional. What auras can your character see, how far, and under what circumstance?)

LIMITS ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

Anyyyything else?

What is your character hiding from the rest of the Vanburens?

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Sabrina guesses her main goal is to become a model, but deep down she wants to escape from her father's shadow and to that extent the Vanburen family's. All her life she was just known as one of his children and then the little publicity stunt. Sabrina wants to step out of that shadow and establish to the world that she is her own person and that she isn't some political statement.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Sabrina is a very spiritual person, despite the fact that she doesn't really believe in any religion (it's still a fun little hobby of hers to research them). She believes that everyone needs to explore their own spirituality and find a deeper meaning in things. Sabrina believes that there are so many layers to a person's soul that it's impossible to decipher in its entirety. The world is a big place, bigger than all of them, but to Sabrina, it's much smaller and less daunting if she connects to other people. Sabrina just loves to explore the symbolism and meanings of animals and even the most mundane things such as colors.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Sabrina is pansexual. Before she transitioned, Sabrina thought that she was attracted to just men but realized that she's attracted to people. All people regardless of what they identify as or even look. The idea of a relationship is kind of daunting to her because she has never been in a serious one... and wonders if she even wants one.

FEARS ⫻ Sabrina constantly fears the growing looming thought that society would reject her for what she is. Sabrina just desires the ability to step out of Vanburen's shadow, but when she gets down to it; they are what made her into what she is. And she will always find herself crawling back to them when she needs them the most.

REPUTATION ⫻ Sabrina's known in Araminta as that one child of James that transitioned. Her reputation varies as some people who are a bit more archaic see her rather poorly (and at worst, a freak). However, the newer more forward-thinking citizens of Araminta see her as brave, as a shining example... and that doesn't really make Sabrina think any better of them. Online Sabrina is seen a bit more positivity among the LGBT and other such people.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Sabrina loves father unconditionally and with all of her heart. James accepted her with open arms and paid for everything that she needed to be the best person that she wants to be. Sabrina is very taken back by his death... but she asserts that she's going to love him regardless of how many skeletons they find in his closet.

FLAWS ⫻ At her worst, Sabrina is very naive and it shows in her decision making. While she sees herself as an open-minded free thinker, she's very green in a lot of ways. She doesn't have a lot of experience dealing with situations that put pressure on her and she's quick to crack. And the result will end in her fleeing from the situation or exploding in rage towards the aggressor. Sabrina tries a bit too hard to ignore the ugly parts of life and focus on the good, even when it comes to people. Because of this, she's quick to trust people, far too quickly, which can be very dangerous. At the end of the day Sabrina is only trying to do the right thing, even if it can cloud her judgment to doing the more aggressive, harsh things in life.

Sabrina Vanburen was born as Tyler Vanburen in Araminta... to his wife Willow Price, the daughter of a football star that hit it off with James. They married and had one child... Tyler Vanburen. The family was nice and snug under their father's care, as he provided everything for them. Although he would go on trips abruptly for months at a time, he made sure his children were happy, well-adjusted people. The family was close-knit and most of the time, the Vanburens only interacted with each other. But, the young Tyler already felt like an outcast among his peers growing up.

It started as a fascination with femininity - the color pink, their clothes, and their toys. It started relatively harmless, but he felt like an alien in his skin. The Vanburens forced conventional gender norms on Tyler but he didn't exactly gel too well with it. The Vanburens had a lot of power and influence in the city of Araminta and, thus, that meant Tyler was sent to the best schools that Araminta had to offer. Of course, it was private intuitions and other such places. It was there that Tyler learned that these thoughts of his had to be... suppressed. Mainly because acting like a girl in public only meant that he was seen as some kind of a weirdo and ended with him being bullied.

This was where Tyler put on the facade of being one hundred percent male and merely hiding his interests. Tyler started growing up to be fairly tall... and thus the most logical conclusion was for Tyler to join his school's basketball team. Sports wasn't exactly in his interests, but man, he sure found it fun. Joining the school's basketball team he found himself getting closer to his fellow teammates and thus met a man that would change a huge chunk of his life: Zachery Gordan. Zachary and Tyler just vibed... they were both two shy rich kids that just got along. Throughout the months, they got along more and more... and eventually the two shared a kiss. This threw Tyler into disarray... was he just gay or something, or what? The one thing that he had to keep in mind was that he had to keep this a secret from the Vanburens and the school.

Unfortunately, life wasn't that simple when word got out... and it was relentless bullying and other such mean pranks. It was a huge weight on Tyler, but his only comfort was the Vanburens... and father. James Vanburen himself got involved and decided to take it up with the school and when that didn't work; Tyler was plucked out of the academy and sent to an international boarding school in France. Where Tyler was free to learn about himself as he chose and the one person that he made bonds with was a girl named Linda Liu. Now the Lius were a loose associate of the Vanburens, they attended each other's parties. Linda was Tyler's closet friend during his time in France... and eventually helped Tyler discover himself.

Or more accurately, herself.

With the help of Lin, Tyler realized that he had gender dysphoria and everything that came with that. Tyler was profoundly uncomfortable in his skin and didn't like being something that he was, well, not. It was not possible, not even in the slightest, for Tyler to go on like this. Even if people were to hate him for this, make fun of him, he would still be in a better place than before. He began to buy female clothing and started using female pronouns as he demanded that people call him... Sabrina. And this was where Tyler Vanburen "died" and Sabrina Vanburen was born anew. Like a butterfly that broke free of its cocoon.

Going home for summer vacation was a doozy as they were expecting Tyler but got Sabrina instead. This was when she came out as transgendered and expected the worst, but with the feeling that, whatever happened, she would be happy with the choice. James Vanburen took her in with open arms, and so did the rest of the family. James paid for everything that Sabrina wanted so that she would be happy... even if he didn't entirely understand it. James paid for Sabrina's Estrogen therapy and then paid for her surgery almost a year later. It was daunting going under for the first time, but Sabrina knew that she would be happy.

And that she was officially Sabrina Vanburen, her name was legally changed to that and now she was a very happy woman. There were some comments from the general public that she was merely a "publicity stunt" but Sabrina didn't care even in the slightest. Sabrina had graduated from high school, but she didn't know what to do with her life afterward. Sabrina wanted to go into the fashion world, and not just that, she wanted to become a model. James would, naturally, pay for everything that she wanted so the world was her oyster.

Eventually, Sabrina went into school for Fashion and intended to become a master's in it. She kept her past a secret as she lived a glorious life that was new and renewed. On the side, Sabrina found her true calling: being a model. The first thing that she did was try to get herself in shape... to mixed results but she wasn't some fat slob. It started as an amateur thing on the side but eventually became more and more of a free time consumer. It was to the point where Sabrina would pass out in class due to being so tired.

Most of her work was posted on Instagram and other places where she gained a following, but it came out that she was transgendered. And that was when the hate comments started to the point where she had to disable them... however, she also gained a following in the LGBT community. So hey, at least it was something. Sabrina, after many painful and stressful years of college, earned her master's degree in fashion and entered the insane, insane, world of the fashion industry. As a stylist for a modeling company in LA, she came up with kooky outfits for these models. And it was a fun, stressful, time for Sabrina.

On Christmas Eve, Sabrina went home with the rest of the Vanburen family to enjoy a nice time in the Vanburen estate before they went home. Tensions rose and eventually a fight broke out but Sabrina went back to her old room. She fell asleep and that morning, she found out that James... was dead. She was devastated by this. She took some time off, got her head straight... then buried James along with the rest of the Vanburens.
She got some time off to grieve and spent it in the Vanburen estate... and wandering it she got to learn about Jame's rather colorful collection. She was confused by the existence of them... magic and ghosts and shit aren't real, why is this locket talking?

Sabrina went outside to get some air when she saw a shirt flying through the air... and then it attached itself to her like some kind of parasite and understandably freaked out. However, it introduced herself... as Mary Roberts. And it introduced itself glowingly: like a total pretentious twat. Mary called herself the spirit of high fashion and wanted to find James for personal reasons. However, finding out that he was dead was not good with her plans, but she knew James personally... and latched onto his daughter. She saw Sabrina as a fellow connoisseur of high fashion and worthy of working with her.

Mary's ability was incredible... except not like shooting lasers or being supergirl. Sabrina made use of it as she practiced and made herself acquainted with an apparition from the God damn early nineteen-hundreds. Sabrina didn't feel the effects of the curse as she stuck around in the Vanburen estate...but she was the one there to coordinate her family coming home and heard all about the curse of the Vanburens.

Maybe she'd get to the bottom of this.

TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Affixed)

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Clothing Manipulation, Sabrina is affixed to an Apparition that has the ability to manipulate clothing near limitlessly and even generate it.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Mary Roberts in her life was a red Adept that focused on the manipulation of fabrics and after her very untimely death she returned as an Apparition. One with similar abilities that changed and altered in time, but remained as the manipulation of the materials clothing is comprised of. Mary Roberts is an apparition that inhabits clothing and thus has the ability to manipulate herself. Her favorite thing to do is be the clothing for her current host that'll constantly shift depending on their form. And she and Sabrina are really close and thus she can more or less channel Mary Roberts power (Something like that, it's really confusing). This allows Sabrina to change her outfit on the fly.

Now to begin, Mary's ability at its basest is that she can telekinetically manipulate all fibers/fabrics (wool, silk, cotton, etc), denim, nylons, polyester, rayon, flannel, leather, feather down, linen, and spandex. Naturally, she can move large quantities of this along with the ability to more or less create all sorts of constructions out of it. It's limited only by the materials that she has on hand. This is fairly versatile... just not in a combat setting. She can create barriers, ropes to swing with, and a kickass wardrobe. This ability is naturally on the lower end of the scale, but it has a large amount of versatility... and can still take on the strongest Extra-Normals with a bit of versatility.

One aspect of Mary Roberts's abstraction is the ability to create fabric from her body, and also absorb this fabric. She can create several meters worth of cloth near instantly from her body, and it appears that Sabrina's outfit stretched. This ability mainly allows Sabrina to have an outfit for any situation, at any time. Most likely the most powerful aspect of Mary Roberts's abstraction is the ability to manipulate the tensile strength of clothes. Basically, tensile strength is how much stress a single thread can withstand before it snaps, Mary Roberts can adjust how much it takes before it snaps. She can, at most, give a single thread the tensile strength of diamonds, or she can make it shred like wet tissue paper.

AURA-SENSING ⫻ In life, Mary Roberts was a very egotistical and vain woman that took far too much pride in her handiwork as an Adept. Which is why she can sense the auras of any outfit or piece of clothing she creates while it's being worn. Now how far she can aura sense depends on how much of an outfit she created for a person, if it's just a shirt (or pants) then she can sense them in a fifteen-meter radius. If it's something insignificant like a hat or shoes then five meters. If it's a full outfit, on the other hand, she can sense them within a fifty-meter radius.

LIMITS ⫻ Emotional-Fields are a very difficult thing that hampers her ability... normally, Sabrina could use Mary to strangle anyone, but with the existence of the Extra-Normals, she has a hard time penetrating emotional fields. To make it short, she can't do anything like strangling someone with clothes (Unless they're into that). Sabrina/Mary can manipulate large amounts of clothes at a time in an effective range of around fifteen meters, outside of that her abstraction is a bit harder to use. Mary Roberts can instantly create around six meters of cloths, but at the very most she can create around twenty-six meters. After she reached that limit she has to retract it and it'll take her a while to "replenish" her supply. Mary Roberts's ability to manipulate a clothing's tensile strength is temporary, and it will wear off after she stops applying the effect. How fast it wears off is dependant on how durable she makes it, if she gives it the tensile strength of diamonds it'll more or less instantly wear off. It's also a huge drain of her stamina and requires a lot of focus to maintain.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ There's not really a whole lot of weaknesses to her abstraction due to it's relatively low nature. Regardless of how much she changes the textile strength clothing can still be destroyed by fire and other corrosive materials. Of course, she can be destroyed by such things. Also getting clothes wet is not ideal as it makes manipulating clothes a lot heavier, which makes it difficult to manipulate.

Sabrina smokes weed.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Justin's primary goal is to honor his grandmother's last wishes and stop the illusive Thorton Walters. He loved his grandmother more than anything and now that he understands where she comes from and what she's done, he understands what he must do. He's going to do all he can to help the Vanburen family break their curse and stop Thorton Walters in the process. Afterward, he plans on getting his fucking degree.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Now, Justin knows that there are horrors and powers out there much, bigger and frightening than him. Shit that makes him an insect. Does that make him a nihilistic mess? Hell no! He knows those threats can be conquered with passion alone - he's seen it done himself! He believes that strength, passion, and love are everything and they'll conquer the coming storm. Besides, he defeated an eldritch God, the most powerful thing in the multiverse; anything else is going to be a cakewalk. He also believes in bloodlines and family names, so that puts makes him a bit sympathetic to the Vanburen family blight. However, he believes in nothing ventured, nothing gained... you can't get anything done without some risks. In the past, he was a lot more hot-blooded, aggressive, and headstrong but now he can stop and take a look at things.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Justin used to spend a lifetime not being sure of himself. Originally he thought that he was into women but he realized that it was his family making him think that he should be into women. Every time he touched a girl he felt something that couldn't exist. Eventually, Justin realized that he must be gay but was repressing it until he could no one do so. Justin's homosexual and proud of it, but he's still a bit unsure of how to proceed in this new world of his given that his whole life he was raised to romance women. He keeps it to himself, however, given that there are bigger and more important things right now than finding love and sex.

FEARS ⫻ Justin fears that his life will forever be a puppet at the hands of his grandmother's whims and wishes. He feels that he'll forever be facing whatever comes his way because he knows with the return of magic the world's a lot different... a lot more dangerous. He also fears that he'll never be able to continue the bloodline and the Zhao-Liao family name because of his sexuality but he'll find a way. Also Justin does not like needles.

REPUTATION ⫻ Given that he's an outsider: none.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Justin never met the guy! But he heard a lot of good things about him from his grandmother and her recollections. And his grandmother rarely slung praises. So that must mean he's something.

FLAWS ⫻ Justin has made strides in acting without thinking, however, he still makes actions without considering how people feel about them or how they affect other people. He still has a hard time grasping that even the smallest actions have consequences and some people might not see them the way he does. Justin, as a trait that's passed down his family, is prideful and overconfident in his abilities - believing that because he conquered a supernatural God that he's seen worse. That he can handle anything less real easily - and sometimes lords that over other people who haven't. He also really hates things being out of his control... his grandmother's death was the biggest thing on his mind, and he beats himself up for not being there to stop it. This leads to Justin being very prideful, and has a hard time asking for help - he wants to handle everything himself

Also, he's haunted by some of the memories he's received from his grandmother's abstraction.

Justin's early life didn't have much of note, Meifeng was at home raising them while his father was making the money for them to live comfortably. This built up a deep innate connection between the twins and their mother, who imparted many of her ideas and philosophy upon the twins - though she was unhappy with staying home by herself. Their grandmother, Lihua, stepped in and offered to take some of the workloads off Meifeng so she could pursue a career as a forensic scientist. Their dual-earner family is what earned them a lot of money, and in turn, helped them live comfortably in Los Angeles.

Though the absence of his mother didn't impact him that much, what did was his first bullies at a young age. Just a group of young thugs that thought it'd be funny to pick on Justin. It started light, then it got more intense as Justin let it continue. Eventually, it got violent, and Justin came home bruised and battered, as the teachers didn't seem to care. Well, Meifeng caught wind of it and was having none of it. She decided to sign Justin up for martial arts lessons - specifically Kick-Boxing. After a few months, Justin felt a lot more confident in himself and stood up to the bullies. It ended with some broken noses and teeth, but it also ended.

This earned the attention of Lihua Zhao... whom he had a relationship he'd call "weird". He enjoyed driving his grandmother up the wall and Lihua returned the favor. By screwing with him in her way, but he loved her nonetheless. She tried to discipline him but she was... unused to raising boys. What she was used to was girls, and his sister, Kaitlyn, got most of the attention. Now, the two of them were the shadows of each other: Kaitlyn was wild and emotional. A force to be reckoned with when combined with Justin. Their relationship was great, they screwed with their grandmother, got into trouble, and had fun. But, once she got of age her grandmother started grooming her. Teaching her all sorts of lessons on "nobility" and being ladylike... and this put a wedge between Justin and Kaitlyn. As she was getting all the attention of their beloved grandmother and she changed a lot too.

Which caused him to go to other places for companionship. Justin's confidence helped him make a scene for himself, and find people like him. He made a friend or two in the skater scene, and after a lot of fumbling, and falling on his ass, became a confident skateboarder (The coordination training from Kick-Boxing helped). Falling into the skating scene meant he fell into the punk crowd. The kind of kids that liked to smoke (both tobacco and weed). It leads him to become, in his own words, "an impetuous shithead." His behavior took a nosedive as he also became wild and disrespectful. Which wasn't going to fly in the Liao household. Meifeng took all sorts of measures to discipline Justin, but nothing short of drastic measures did anything to curb this ill behavior.

After getting through school and graduation through sheer dumb luck, Justin didn't have any real commitments, so Meifeng sent him to stay with his Grandmother in Farmer Hill. A little shithole of a town in the middle of nowhere, Montana: perfect for somebody who doesn't like to be bothered. Of course, Lihua appreciated Justin's company... while Justin hated the town. He hated everything about it. From its location to the people in it. He wanted to get the hell out of there, but Meifeng didn't want to send him home until he learned how to act. Lihua made sure to discipline the child and give him a bit more perspective on life.

It took him a while, but Justin adjusted to life in this backwater shithole of a town and was humbled over time (after many ass whoopings). Eventually, he came to like it over time, after making a few friends in the town, he decided to change. To try to become the best person he can be because of life's short. He decided to try to attend college, and get started on his education. His first attempt was to get into a college in Los Angeles that failed horribly and his mother got him into Grand Ridge. He was salty as any human being could be but accepted that this town would never let him go no matter how hard he tried.

He aimed towards a master's degree in psychology, because of his interest in how the human mind worked (and because he wanted to have something to brag about). He bounced back and forth between school, hanging out with friends, and his grandmother's house... until one day he came home from class, and saw a bunch of police outside his grandmother's house... carrying out a body in a black bag. Justin was immediately filled with dread, and he asked a cop what had happened, only for his suspicions to be confirmed: Lihua was dead. They said that somebody had broken in and killed her, but stole absolutely nothing. They said that they had no idea what could have happened to her, and absolutely no leads. Which was, from the way Justin interpreted it, their way of saying they were completely useless. The Liao family was devastated by Lihua's death, and they all had no idea how to cope with it.

But, Justin wouldn't let it go. Even as the months passed, and he ended up getting a dorm in Grand Ridge, the haunting sight of what happened to his grandmother made it hard to focus. He felt that this was his higher calling in life: figuring out the mystery of his grandmother. He made a lot of friends in Farmer Hill... but the town got weird after a camping trip. Well, it started with the dickweed of the town, Scott Reese, hulking out and going on a rampage and ended with a godlike eye in the sky knocking them out.

That was when he got close to the town misfit, Claire O'Sullivan, as he was dragged along by the support group from A to B... where they found out the real problem was this ancient thing known as the Glutton. They battled the thing where ever they could and Justin fought his hardest to avenge all the people who were killed by it. After it was defeated the deceased were resurrected and Justin talked with his ghostly grandmother who told him everything. Along with giving him her Abstraction and some resolution about who killed her. And his task: Defeating Thornton Walters. He was unsure of his task, but she shunted him to Araminta, Pennsylvania, and told him to go find a man named James Vanburen.

Cool.

He managed to get in contact with the Vanburen Family and agreed to help them with their little plight. Justin would love to help anyway.

TYPE ⫻ Awakened

Justin carries around a bunch of steel bearing balls to supplement his ability. Justin is trying to break his smoking habit... by switching to using Juul's.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Oscar’s main goal at the moment is to become good enough to take over his mother’s pharmaceutical business, and continue its success. Below that he wants to further pursue his own interests, particularly in science outside of Pharmacology. Since he discovered the Extra-Normal he has wanted to learn more about it and get as much knowledge as he can.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Oscar believes in the importance of relationships and connections, and what makes a person is who he is close to and who he knows. In general he thinks you should treat others as you wish to be treated and not expect to get something from someone unless you give them something in return. To him, family is very important as in his opinion it is one of the strongest relationships that can be formed. As a result in his mind, family is a priority - especially those family members who give you the most. In regards to individuals he is strongly for pursuing what you are interested in and not giving time to mind numbing tasks you don’t care about. He also wants to one day have his own family.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Oscar is bisexual, with a preference for men, but it’s not something he’s told his family.

FEARS ⫻ One of Oscar’s greatest fears is boredom, to end up stuck in a life of drudgery forced to perform tasks he couldn’t care less about. He fears that he will never find the one thing he wants to do in life and will always be jumping between different interests. He is also scared of snakes.

REPUTATION ⫻ Oscar has an overall positive reputation in Araminta, though it is directly tied to his parents. He’s one of the many Vanburen children, and the heir to his mother’s long standing business. He’s well received due to his intelligence and friendliness. Within the Vanburen family he has a decent reputation, as he gets along well with most of his siblings, but he’s also known for getting weirdly passionate about specific things along with easily brushing off conversation with others if it doesn’t interest him.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Oscar respected his father, and he got on with him even when they didn’t always see eye to eye. The main contention in their relationship was that James didn’t agree with Oscar’s plans for the future - not because he disapproved of Oscar’s plans, because he thought Oscar was submitting to his mother’s wishes rather than doing what he wanted to himself. On the other side, Oscar was close to his mother and disliked how easily James dismissed the women he had been with. He spent much more time with her and this caused something of a distance with James. However they still had a good relationship… he just regrets how he left it before James died.

FLAWS ⫻ With Oscar’s intense, borderline obsessive, passion for his most recent interest comes a lot of self destruction. He will pour everything of himself into this at the expense of all other aspects of his life, including even eating. It will often be all he can think about and, much to the chagrin of others, the one thing he wants to talk about. Even when he isn’t intensively into something there is almost always something he is interested in more than other things. On the other hand, Oscar is too relaxed in many ways. He doesn’t really care if someone wants to talk shit about him, everyone’s welcome to their own opinions. His laidback attitude contrasts with his intense interests and he can be quite lazy, not willing to put the work into anything he isn’t passionate about. If it’s not something he’s interested in he won’t bother. This includes relationships - he is incredibly friendly in person but won’t make the effort to actually meet with people, or keep in contact when he’s not physically with someone. While he puts a lot of importance on his relationships he can be fairly insensitive in times, struggling to understand difficulties that others have gone through and not putting in the effort to understand someone else. He is a man of extremes: obsessive when it comes to things he’s interested in but incredibly lazy with things he’s not. Often he will switch between the two in the blink of an eye, making him a rather unpredictable person to be around - one who is easily bored and switched off from a conversation.

Oscar was the result of a short lived relationship between James Vanburen and Eloise Price, owner of a small, family run pharmaceutical business that was saved by James. They got together in between his marriages (probably) and didn’t even last the full length of Eloise’s pregnancy. Things ended between them amicably but with one main contention - where Oscar would live and grow up (as his mother refused to consider moving to the Vanburen Estate) along with whose name he would take. Eventually they had to compromise and as a result Oscar was mostly raised in his mother’s home, but spent just under half his time in the Vanburen Estate and took the Vanburen name.

Of course, this wasn’t much of an issue for the young boy since he could easily travel between both in Araminta. In many ways it worked out well due to his mother working full time - he could spend time with his siblings when he wasn’t at school but his mother was at work. This meant that he was never lacking company as a child, growing up to be an incredibly sociable boy.

As expected of a Vanburen, and with a mother who was setting him up to take over her business, Oscar was sent to some of the best schools in Araminta. Here he flourished, both academically and socially. He was intelligent with particular strengths in the sciences. Along with this he made a good group of friends - you couldn’t call him popular, as he was a bit nerdy and got along best with people with as much passion for science as he had. However his natural friendliness meant that there were very few people that disliked him.

He flew through school without any troubles, until he reached the point that he had to decide what to do when he finished. He realised he didn’t know because there was a lot he was passionate about but he also wanted a degree so he could help his mother when he was finished. While he considered a lot of physics based degrees along the lines of his interests, but in the end he decided on getting a degree in Biochemistry (which his mother encouraged). This was the first time he properly left Araminta, moving to College in a completely different location. It was strange for him but enjoyable to be outside the influence of his family (as much as he enjoyed time with them). He spent the four years making more friends and working hard (maybe less than he should have), and managed to graduate with a good degree. Once again he was left uncertain of what to do: his mother was pushing him to do a Pharmacology PHD while he wasn’t certain if he could dedicate around six more years to school when there were other things he had much more interest in. After some uncertainty he went for it: since he got paid for tutoring and he did still find it interesting. It was that, or doing a different postgraduate degree anyway.

He was one year into his PHD when he was home for Christmas Eve, spending the night with the Vanburen family (to avoid his mother’s nagging). What was meant to be a normal discussion looking for advice from his father turned into a large argument between the two, and Oscar stormed out of the house in a fit of rage early on in the evening. It was on his walk back to his mother’s that he was hit by a vision in which his maternal grandmother, who he’d never met, appeared. She explained to him that he was an adept just like she was, along with his mother. Once the vision was over suddenly his eyes were opened to a world entirely outside of the normal one he was used to. He hurried back to his mother’s and questioned her on it, getting an even more in depth description of the Extra-Normal world along with what it was like to be an adept.

The next morning he woke up regretting what had happened the night before, the harsh words he’d said to his father. But he arrived at the Vanburen Estate to find that the unthinkable had happened: his father was dead. This was a shock to him, like it was to many, and he took days to recover from the grief combined with regret before attending the burial along with the rest of the Vanburens.

After this he went back to College, barely scraping by the rest of his second year. Instead of concentrating on his PHD all he could think about was the Extra-Normal. He threw himself into learning about it and ended up taking a year out (much to his mother’s annoyance), returning to Araminta and moving back in with his mother. To make up for it he’s been spending half his time working for her while the rest he spends learning to use his spells and learning more about the Extra-Normal. While he has mostly been in Araminta, Oscar felt the effects of the curse when he tried to visit a college friend: as he travelled out his hands slowly began to turn to stone. He headed right back to Araminta as this happened and quickly realised he went back to normal when he got there… and that it was happening to his siblings too.

Whatever it was, it was Extra-Normal in nature, which means that Oscar is dead set on figuring out the cause.

TYPE ⫻ Adept

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Red Lux. Channeler: An intricate, metal bookmark that his mother gave him at a young age, that he now always keeps on him rather than using as a bookmark.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Oscar’s spells tend to fall under two categories, those that reflect him when he is at his most passionate, with incredibly high energy and those that reflect him when he is more relaxed. His fairly changeable nature means that the spells that



LIMITS ⫻



WEAKNESSES ⫻

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Surprising considering how she generally acts, but Trisha ultimately wants to find something to get married to and settle down to start her own family. She wants to have kids and treat them right, unlike how she was as she grew up. Along with this, she secretly wants to change her degree and instead pursue computing since she discovered she was talented at this… which would require her getting over her shame at that fact.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Trisha first and foremost believes that you have to look after yourself, and that no one else will bother. Ironically she thinks that everyone has their purpose and it’s perfectly fine to discard them after you’ve used them. You should use whatever skills you have, whatever they are, to benefit yourself and your life. Along with all these you shouldn’t show others how what they say affects you, but instead remember it and make them regret it.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Pansexual, Trisha has been with many people with no care for gender. Though she often questions how much she actually likes boys beyond the attention and easy compliments they give her.

FEARS ⫻ Trisha fears that she will never be good enough. She fears being alone, even when she is often the one that causes herself to be alone. Most of all she fears that she will live the rest of her life constantly in the shadow of others and never find anything, or anyone, that is truly her own.

REPUTATION ⫻ Within Araminta Trisha doesn't have a great, or widely known, reputation. As one of the Vanburen kids she was always in the shadows - never making any big noise, negative or positive. Those who went to school with her (or know of her school results) would think of her as one of the less impressive Vanburen. Within the family, her reputation is negative. Trisha has always been incredibly standoffish at best and mean at worst, especially to certain people. What didn't help was her bad reputation with James himself which soured her reputation with many of her siblings.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Trisha is one of the few Vanburens that views James negatively. At a young age her opinions were twisted by her mother, who’s relationship was ruined by his affair, and this continued into a bitterness towards him as she grew up. Still, she is upset that she never had a chance to fix their relationship even if it was unlikely to happen.

FLAWS ⫻ Trisha is quick to anger and blame, with her rage coming in a cold and scathing manner. Unlike others she doesn’t blow up but instead resorts to incredibly harsh, biting words. When something goes wrong she is one of the first to point fingers as she’s grown up being taught that someone is to blame for what happened in her life (namely her father’s affair). Trisha is very bitter and holds a lot of resentment towards certain family members, and very much is one to hold grudges. Aside from this she tends to close herself off when it comes to sharing anything but the surface level of herself - even to those she would call her closest friends. Along with all this she’s very quick to jump between relationships, quickly dropping one person for the next all with the aim to get validation. As much as she outwardly projects confidence and don’t give a fuck attitude, she has crippling self confidence issues in relation to other people which have lead to her heavily relying on her looks to get her through situations.

Trisha was born to James Vanburen and his wife at the time, Maria Mendoza. The two had met while James was on one of his trips outside of Araminta and “fell in love”. Or, more accurately Maria one sidedly fell head over heels for James. So much so that she put her career as a Professor at MIT (in Mechanical Engineering) on hold to marry him and move to Araminta. Shortly afterwards, she was pregnant with Trisha and happily gave birth. Sadly this happiness was short-lived as it was only a year later that James had an affair with another woman (that she found out about, he undoubtedly had more as well), resulting in her pregnancy. The events that followed ruined any love Maria had for him and completely destroyed their marriage.

This ended with Maria leaving Araminta, and her daughter there in the Vanburen Estate. She went back to the job she’d had previously. Trisha spent most of her early years in Araminta. She would visit her mother for around a month a year during various holidays, which involved minimal time spent together around her research. Even in these short times Maria was sure to tell Trisha who was at fault for the situation: her father and his wife afterwards. As a young and impressionable girl it wasn’t hard to influence her and instill a bitterness towards those that stopped her from having a mother that was around. Even with the short time spent together, Trisha was incredibly attached to her mother. There was always a hope that once she got older she would be able to move out of Araminta and into her Mother’s in Massachusetts. On the other hand as soon as she could think for herself she did her best to avoid her father, which wasn’t exactly difficult.

There was one thing that Maria wished for when it came to Trisha: that she would excel in school just as she had. So Trisha started learning young from her, and kept this up when she started school. Most of her time was spent locked in her room trying to learn and completely ignoring the family she lived with.

Trisha wasn’t good at school.

No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t wrap her head around the most basic concepts. She was near the bottom of the class for learning to read and write, the only thing she was slightly above average for was mathematics. None of it was good enough to satisfy Maria - who even at a distance kept a constant check on how she was doing. It was obvious by the time she reached highschool that she wasn’t academically gifted. It didn’t matter that she went above and beyond when it came to effort. She had a whole folder of “tried the hardest” awards but nothing important came of it.

With her daughter not improving, Maria gave up. The already short visits Trisha got to her mother got shorter and their relationship quickly grew tenuous. Suddenly she was blamed for everything that went wrong. Because the least she could’ve done was be smart enough to make up for what had happened.

This left Trisha going into her teenage years already full of anger. She was ridiculed by her mother, basically shoved aside by a father she’d always disliked for her better siblings. She felt angry towards everything and would often lash out with sharp, cold words towards her siblings and parents that got her in trouble more than once. Still, she didn’t give up and continued to try even when it didn’t yield results. There was only one thing that kept her going: the small number of friends she’d made at school.

It was when she turned 16 that she realised she did have something. She had her good looks, something that may not help with her family but drew in friends and those interested in her for other reasons. She quickly began to use this for some form, any form, of validation. It wasn’t extreme throughout highschool, just making loads of friends (especially boys) and dating a few of them. It never went anywhere. Somehow she managed to get into college, a below average one doing Mathematics.

Trisha was glad to finally escape Araminta and the Vanburens. While she didn’t excel academically at college, she did when it came to friendships. Along with this she delved deep into the world of romance… or more accurately, short flings and one night stands with no feelings from her part. She found it was easy to feel good about yourself when you had people complimenting you for your looks among other things. She no longer tried her hardest as she had, instead spending her time with friends, partying and doing… other things.

Christmas Eve of her second year came, and Trisha reluctantly went home because she wasn’t allowed to stay in her dorms. To her it was a horrible time spent with people she wanted to avoid the most. But that didn’t mean she wanted to wake up the next morning to find out that James was dead. She was conflicted with how to feel, grieving in her own way and suddenly realising there was no chance to fix their relationship now that he was gone. She didn’t stay long in Araminta, returning to college immediately after the funeral.

During the next year she pretended it didn’t happen. She didn’t know about the world of the Extra Normal until just a few months ago, while she was in the computing department of her school she found an old looking laptop hidden in a closet when poking around. She was shocked when it talked to her and introduced itself and after talking, it explained that it was an Apparition sealed inside the laptop and that it could lend her its powers through that. Not quite believing this Trisha took the laptop and spent all her spare time, outside of socialising, learning how to use it.

Then almost a year after James’ death she was forced to go back to Araminta, because she suddenly started to turn to stone.

TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Agent)

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Trojan, an Apparition that allows Trisha to create multiple "workers", minions to do small tasks for her.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ With the creation of the computer, computer code and viruses came the Trojan, an apparition that is the embodiment of that which makes technology run (and destroys it). He’s lent part of his power to Trisha in exchange for a price. This gives her the ability to perform a specific ability through the use of computer code. The basis of this is that Trisha must first write the code for the specific thing she wants to do, in the laptop that the Trojan is sealed in, and “run” it to have the effect come into place. While she can write a basic code framework in advance, saving it to be pulled up later, all the specifics need to be filled in at the time she wants to use the abstraction. Under time pressure this could be difficult without causing errors in the program. The Trojan has given her access to one program.

Master / Worker ⫻ Based on a pattern used in Parallel Programming, Trisha can create up to 5 “workers”. These are little creatures that are essentially two blobs on top of each other, with dinky arms and large eyes (kinda like this). Through the code that Trisha wrote when creating them, they can perform basic tasks for her. This could be collecting something, sneaking in somewhere, listening to a conversation, cleaning, seeing far away for her ect. They can communicate with very basic words to her and more complicated information they get is shown through the computer terminal, which she would have to figure out. Each worked can do something different assuming she codes it correctly and are all controlled through the 'master', her computer. They will follow what is written out in the code, nothing more and nothing less.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Trisha can sense the auras of people using a device connected to the internet within around 50 metres of where she is, assuming that she also has a device connected to the internet.

LIMITS ⫻ Trisha can create up to five Workers and they can travel around a hundred meters away from her. They are limited in what they can do by what code Trisha writes for them, and in order for Trisha to give them a different command, she'll have to change the code.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ The Workers are frail and not suited for combat, even a Blind can easily handle them. Other than that, due to the low power nature of the ability, it doesn't have a whole lot of drawbacks or weaknesses.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ If Tuyen is honest, she’s unsure what her goal is anymore. She still wants to become a published author somewhere down the line but that seems even harder to achieve now. So her current goal, really, is to rediscover herself. Work on her self confidence

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Tuyen believes in helping others - especially with all the supernatural shit that she’s been through. She strongly believes that she, as someone who’s got experience in it, has to be there to try and help with other problems that might come up - helping beat the next bad guy that appears. She still believes in putting on a brave face and smile, even if it’s just an illusion - because you shouldn’t worry other people over personal matters. She believes that being positive around others is important and will almost always put others feelings, and happiness, above her own in an attempt to not bring them down.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Gay, something she accepts but isn’t open about.

FEARS ⫻ Never truly being able to be herself or discovering what she wants to do in life, forever being aimless. This comes hand in hand with her continued fear of failure - no longer that she’ll constantly be compared to her cousin, but that she’ll never get anywhere in life. She also fears all the supernatural that may now be out there - and what will happen when more and more people begin to awaken.

REPUTATION ⫻ None, Tuyen’s a newcomer to Araminta.

FLAWS ⫻ As much as she’s improved a bit, Tuyen’s lack of self confidence is still one of her biggest flaws. She’s no longer the girl to take all criticism without questioning it and she doesn’t hate herself as much as she did before. However she is still plagued with self doubts and her insecurities. She may have come to accept some things she previously couldn’t, such as her sexuality, there are still many things about herself she dislikes. This is not helped by the presence of her Shadow - which may not torment her in such a dramatic fashion anymore, but is still always bringing up deep feelings of dread in an effort to stop her from ever truly accepting herself. Still, she’s taking steps forward in accepting herself even with the massive setback that it is. Along with this she is very private about her problems, unlikely to tell anyone when she has a hard time. She likes to put on a brave face until she can’t anymore. She also has some form of trust issues after everything that happened - very few people she’d trust (most fellow survivors of the glutton group), and even fewer that she’d talk to about her problems. This is added to by her not always trusting that something is real, having gotten too used to seeing shadow created illusions in her everyday life.

Tuyen was a bit of an accident. Her mother was a farmer hill native, with parents who moved over from South Korea to set up business. Her father, on the other hand, was a postgraduate student who had moved over from Vietnam to study. The two hit it off and hooked up after a little too much to drink, resulting in Tuyen. It was safe to say her mother’s parents weren’t too happy about the child out of wedlock.

Things didn’t get much better after her birth – her mother had always been poorly and the pregnancy took its toll on her, meaning she passed away when Tuyen was only a few months old. Her father did everything to try and raise her himself – including submitting to the whims of her mother’s family. Tuyen doesn’t have many memories of this time, but what she has are happy ones.

Tuyen was only four when her father disappeared without a trace. His name was added to the list of people in Farmer Hill who had just gone missing and everyone went on without saying anything. Tuyen was taken in by her mother’s brother and his wife, since they had a son just a bit older than her.

After this her life wasn’t anything spectacular. She got on very well with her cousin, Min-Jun, even as they became very different as the years proceeded. She was always in his shadow – she couldn’t live up to her aunt and uncle’s expectations. She couldn’t be as smart as Min or as perfect as Min. She pretended she didn’t care, especially to him, but deep down it slowly chipped away at her self confidence. It didn’t help that they disapproved of what she was good at.

Still, Tuyen pursued her dreams and managed to get a place to study English Literature and Creative Writing at the college. Here she’s managed to get out of her cousin’s shadow just a little bit, easily making friends in different circles from him.

After murders that happened during a camping trip Tuyen was haunted by her shadow and constant hallucinations. Still, she joined a group of fellow students in investigating – discovering that this was some kind abstraction she had. During the fight with Scott her shadow manifested physically – allowing her to help finish him for good. But like all the others she wasn’t prepared for what was to follow and barely made it out alive.

Things continued to go more and more downhill as they tried their best to defeat the Glutton. Eventually through working together, though not without losses, they managed to defeat it. Through ascending Tuyen got to speak with her father again and gained some semblance of confidence in herself, accepting parts of who she was. After it was defeated Tuyen made the decision to strike off on her own, refusing to move with her Aunt and Uncle. She ended up offering to help Justin with his next “adventure”, and surprisingly he accepted, so she set off with him to Araminta.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ In a narrow and immediate sense of the word ‘goals’ all Shane seemingly wishes to do is drink and forget. Shane’s long term goals have shrunk little by little since he moved back into Araminta and truthfully he has given zero thought to any future plans.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Although never fully being much for religion and never considering himself a particularly spiritually intelligent person, Shane held himself to the lessons imparted by his father, in his own way: Help and protect others, family especially. Nowadays he seems to regard this previous line of thinking with contempt for his naivete.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Shane's heterosexual (as far as he's aware). But hasn't made any romantic effort in quite some time. Initially when he first moved to New York he had some plans to find a girl and maybe even start a family of his own but seems to have given up that possibility since his return.

FEARS ⫻ Shane doesn’t really have any traditional fears, aside from being slightly uncomfortable in enclosed spaces. He does carry a degree of inward anxiety and shame around his family however, instead of his boorish and angry personality he usually tends to be more quiet and cold around them when forced to share the same space, inwardly regarding the situation and himself as pathetic.

REPUTATION ⫻ It is an open secret and subject of ridicule or sadness for the majority of people living in Araminta that Shane Vanburen has become a washed alcoholic since his return to the town. Although he keeps largely to himself, Shane’s past as a friendly and outgoing child growing up and prior to his leaving has left his supporters disappointed and his friends alienated at his current state. Although harbouring no animosity towards his brothers and sisters it is an unspoken fact among them that Shane is difficult to get a hold of and extremely short if they do.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Although still holding his father in some high esteem and thinking of him fondly as both a man and his sole caregiver, Shane’s experiences in life have shaken him to the point where he has quietly begun to wonder if he ever really knew James.

FLAWS ⫻ Naturally Shane's alcoholism is the primary one, keeping him from getting steady work and using it as a damaging form of self medicating. Shane's incredible caginess and inability to relate to his friends or family anymore does not help in this regard, even possibly becoming aggressive if pushed repeatedly into discussing uncomfortable subjects. Ironically his pre-New York flaws have more or less reversed, where once he was overly defensive of his family and somewhat overbearing he is now apathetic and isolated, closed off and depressed.

James Vanburen was a magnetic man, even disregarding his wealth and countless acts of charity, people couldn’t help but be drawn to him. Naturally this extended to the help on his estate, so loyal to James where they that at times they would place his happiness above their own far beyond any professional obligation. A maid by the name of Cait Ryan was one such help. She had immigrated to America seeking a fresh start to her life and had found James Vanburen, who took her in readily and helped her when she struggled, and believed in her when her own family did not, and said such wonderful things to her. Then she discovered she was pregnant.

They would go back and forth often, James Vanburen offering everything in his power to keep a maid in his life. Cait refused to allow the situation to tarnish James Vanburen’s name despite his protests and even offers of marriage to keep her in his life, but she also could not seem to bring herself to be rid of her son. Eventually, Shane was born and soon after Cait Ryan left in the night, a note left behind apologising to her beloved James and reaffirming her faith in the man that their son would have a better life with him. Cait felt that by leaving she would spare any scrutiny and subsequent hurt on the man she cared so deeply for, but James would have much rather kept her regardless of what it may have done to his name. He had made a few attempts to track her down in the months after Shane was named and made a Vanburen, to no avail. To curb the possibility of Shane being affected emotionally from a lack of maternal figure compared to his siblings, James told his son that his mother passed in childbirth. A fact Shane still believes to this day.

Shane grew up as hoped, happy and curious of the world around him. Looked after by his siblings and his father in spite of none of them knowing who had birthed him besides James. There were the odd murmurs from high society of James Vanburen’s “Bastard” but it did not ever seem to weigh on Shane any. If anything, Shane was significantly more defensive of his family than of himself, usually getting into fights on behalf of his siblings at even the slightest remark from students at the preparatory schools the Vanburens attended. Eventually James had to sit his son down and explain to him that while his loyalty and desire to protect his family was admirable it was something he had to temper with patience and dignity.

Although never quite being able to shed his over-protectiveness in regards to the other Vanburens, Shane did take his father’s words to heart and would start applying himself in outlets that would keep him out of trouble. It was then his interest in track and field grew which would later lead to him seeing his desire to help and protect others as a viable career path, becoming a police officer.

James supported the goal even if he would sometimes gently nudge his son to slow down on his ambition or seek out a career path he could still do good in while being safer, but Shane wouldn’t be deterred. His training regime was seemingly constant and he applied for the police academy more or less the second he finished high school. But, Shane had no desire to coast off his family name and decided to move out to New York state. Tearful goodbyes and a going away party later and Officer Shane Vanburen, was ready to finally make something of himself, help people and apply the lessons his father taught him in a way that would make him proud.

Then, four years later he was back in Araminta. Shane was a stranger in near every sense of the word, distant, quiet, melancholy and a much heavier drinker. Though he lived in the same city as his father he refused to move back into the family home despite his father’s requests. He avoided seeing his family wherever possible and only saw James once when returning from New York, which was when he first arrived back in his hometown. Shane had changed and despite the attempts of family and friends, he refused to divulge anything that happened to him out of state beyond deciding to quit the force.

From there it became a monotonous routine. Wake up in a dingy apartment, do any available odd jobs to earn some money, drink from late afternoon to the dead of night. It went on for the remainder of the year until Christmas Eve, where Shane found himself woken up from his drunken stupor early Christmas morning with the news that his father was dead. It felt like a blur, the news, hugging his family for the first time in years, the funeral. Like some sort of sped up dream that he would wake up from before seeing the conclusion. But there was no conclusion, James Vanburen was dead.

Time passed after the fact, his siblings returned to their homes and Shane was alone once again, drinking, alone and empty. He found himself one night using his key to get into the empty Vanburen Estate. Walking around the halls with the night sky flooding in through the windows and illuminating the white sheets over every bit of furniture that had once been so regal yet welcoming. Shane stumbled to the highest part of the tower, bottle in hand, and when he could climb no more he went up to the nearest window. Opening it as wide as it’d go and letting the cool night breeze wash across his face. He climbed up onto the window sill and closed his eyes. His left leg twitched to move forward before his entire body had some unknown force propel him back into the house.

With some (painful) discovery, Shane would come to learn he had awakened. He had never been the most intelligent of his siblings but the tattoo that appeared on the side of his neck compelled him to comb through his father’s books and records, it was something certain people were capable of doing in extreme emotional situations, it would grant them abilities. In Shane’s case he wasn’t clear, but it gave him the jolt of reality to leave the house before he did something else stupid.

Following that night, Shane found the events rattling in his head more than his usual thoughts while drinking. Noting that no one seemed to care about his new tattoo, normally he’d chalk it up to apathy but the fact that he didn’t even overhear any snide comment of Vanburen’s son becoming even more of a thug was strange. Even still he would have resigned himself to burying it down without a word, before he begun turning to stone like his siblings. After receiving a call from his sister, things became unfortunately clear.

It was time to come home.

TYPE ⫻ Awakened

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Guardian Angel, a light blue sheen that can envelope Shane or appear as a wall in front of him, able to withstand physical pressure and explode it back at attackers. The Awakened tattoo appears as a circle resembling a shield on Shane’s neck.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Shane’s abstraction enables him to surround himself in a light blue aura which can soak up damage from attackers and throw it back in a kinetic blast when it accrues enough physical trauma, this technique is called a Guardian Release. The shield can be altered to take the form of a translucent blue wall which can be held up by Shane and enables others to hide behind it if need be.

The more damaging/greater amount of trauma Shane or the wall receive while active will determine how powerful the Guardian Release becomes. At its lowest being essentially a knockback to being powerful enough to throw enemies through solid objects with ease.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Shane can feel the aura of those about to be struck by physical damage, supernatural or otherwise, a few moments before it happens. The range of this sensing is short however, around ten feet before this sensing begins to fall off.

LIMITS ⫻ The barrier can only manifest on Shane and thus cannot be used to protect someone. The kinetic blast can travel around twenty or so feet ahead of him. The barrier can only absorb physical damage and so attacks from energy such as fire, electricity, are not absorbed - but are still blocked. The barrier can expand to around thirty feet. However, there's only so much that the barrier can take and if it absorbs too much energy then the barrier will explode - injuring Shane in the process. Shane's barrier also can't do much to save him from being grabbed and other low kinetic energy attacks.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ Shane's barrier takes extra damage from any non-physical/energy-based damage. A constant barrage of damage will pin Shane in place and force him to stand still... which may expose him to even more damage. Now, taking too much energy into his barrier can be dangerous as he can overload and cause all that kinetic energy to explode out. Injuring himself and anybody around him.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Georgie wants to be an art curator, especially at the Louvre. Georgie loves art movements that came before the 1920s and most of those works are at the Louvre. Art was elegant then and had interesting historical events at that sparked the movements. Now a piece of tissue stuck to the wall with gum can be called art if there's a contrived enough meaning attached. She's well aware that art movements during the 20s and afterwards are influenced by social issues at the time, but she could careless about anything involved with WWI and after.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Georgie believes that objectivity and logic are the keys to life. It's human nature to get attached to someone or something and it could easily ruin a person's life goals. However, if people were to take a step back and consider what they'll gain without certain attachments they're more likely to get what they want. Useless things lead to useless ends.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Asexual with a side of aesthetic attraction. Some days Georgie wants to vomit just thinking about swapping bodily fluids with someone else, and on others she can't think of a less stimulating experience than sex (no one could do better at pleasing her than her own hand). She'd rather listen to WWI enthusiast. There are times when she sees someone that makes her heart flutter. It could be the way they wear their hair, or their outfit is just right, or maybe a physical feature is absolutely beautiful. Bring aesthetics to the table and she'll wanna flirt.

FEARS ⫻ Georgie fears attachments that lead to failure. For every goal she's set in her life she had to sacrifice personal relationships to get there. She couldn't be close with her friends, because she used her free time to study. England had one of the best schools for art, so she didn't live with her family growing up and as consequence doesn't know them well nor do they know her. She broke up with her boyfriend, because they were going to different universities in different countries and she wouldn't make the commitment to try long distance if it interfered with her studies. Her sacrifices will not be in vain for people that aren't permanent.

REPUTATION ⫻ Georgie is James's foreign child that Araminta citizens tend to forget exist. She's only around during the summer and some Christmases if it isn't too inconvenient. She doesn't see it as home. More of a vacation spot if anything. In the family she is the sister her siblings don't really know anymore. She used to be the annoying little sister that followed them anywhere, but she grew out of that when she went away. Any attempts to get to know her are met with superficial answers and general disinterest. It's not hard to be away year after year if she doesn't truly know who they are and vice versa. However, she does leave a bouquet of flowers from her garden every Monday morning, during the summer, in each of their bedrooms. She may not know them well, but she does still care in her own half-hearted way.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ James is more so a sponsor that funds her education at private schools and university, than a father. She ask for monetary support for her goals and he gives it freely with the stipulation that she comes to spend her summers in Araminta every year. Two months out of a year of her time isn't a big sacrifice on her part. She threw in a personal garden she can tend to and is well kept by a gardener when she's not there as part of the deal. She resents him a smidge of a bit for not coming to see her in private school. She doesn't think it's genuine for him to want her around once a year just to leave on some escapade when she's around. Whatever. Vaguely wanting the attention of a man she hardly knows doesn't pertain to her goals.

FLAWS ⫻ Georgie's unwillingness to have emotional attachments keep her from fully experiencing love the way normal people do. It's always business, 'What can you do for me?' and 'What can I do for you?' Anything that's not gainful isn't worth her time. She misses out on birthday parties, vacations, real human connections. She thinks logically when she's emotionally overwhelmed. She's prone to shutting down, resetting herself, and using logic to solve her problems. People tend to thing she's a heartless robot with a pleasant smile, but she's not. She buries negative emotions deep. She'll express positive emotions, because that means something went right. Achieving goals makes her happy. She doesn't know if anything else can. Things that should make her happy don't. Not birthdays, holidays, her family, friends, and lovers when she has them. Here and there thoughts of whether she's broken slips through and she pencils in when she's available for her next breakdown.

Georgie can say with confidence she doesn't know her mother. She was some woman from somewhere that stayed with James at the Vanburen estate at sometime. James couldn't tell her anything other than Georgie looks like her and that she was set on naming her baby some iteration of George. Georgiana is the name she settled on, before leaving her with James. She'd nearly forgotten there was something James could tell her. Her mother was hellbent on a goal she had to complete. As much as she talked about it at length with James it went in through one ear and out the other. Money exchanged hands, Georgiana was born, and her mother was off in the wind. She's not surprised. Up until she left she's seen plenty women come and go from James's life. Whatever he wanted from them at the time, they gave it, then they left. Georgie played with her siblings when they had the time for her. Tyler and Shane were almost a teenagers by the time she was old enough to keep up, she and Oscar didn't share the same interest, and Trisha didn't like her so much. Oh yes, Ezra does exist. He's fuzzy in her memories. There was a disconnect, but she was still the annoying little sister that wanted her big brothers' attention.

Georgie got into art when she was five. James, on the occasion he wanted to bond, would take her to the art museum in downtown Araminta. The portraits were beautiful, the sculptures magnificent, the most visually gratifying thing she's ever seen. James, taking an interest in Georgie's interest, read her books that explained different art movements throughout history. Her favorite was the Classical period. Everything was crisp, clean, and perfect. Georgie likes perfect. Around the time James sent Tyler to boarding school in France he got the idea to send Georgie to England to study at a prestigious art school. Only children with rich enough parents and an aptitude for the arts could get in. That wasn't an issue for Georgie. She passed the interview with flying colors. Of course she did. There's no doubting her knowledge on art, even as a child.

The first year Georgie had a hard time adjusting to British culture and their way of speaking. While she was a well spoken child, she was still too American, so she adapted. Catching onto the accent was easy, she's heard James's accent all her life. The posh way of speaking was the hard part. She had to broaden her vocabulary, pronounce words the Southern English way, she even had a tutor that taught her RP English, though she doesn't have a practical use for it if she's not meeting the Queen. She doubts that's ever going to happen. Slowly, but surely anything she was like at home shifted into a new girl that wasn't annoying and in her siblings' faces. She was posh, proper, darling Georgie. She was afraid of going home during her first year for fear that being in America would ruin all the hard work she put into being acceptable in the eyes of her British peers. For three years she didn't come home and James had to bribe her with continuing to pay for her school and a personal garden to get her to come back. Gardening was a hobby she picked up at school. There was a club that did arrangements out of the flowers they tended to and they were an aesthetic Georgie was attracted to.

In the three years she was away, Georgie learned bullies were starved for emotional reactions, so she stopped reacting. If they said anything about where she came from, her family, or anything to insult her she'd smile and politely insult them, then go about their day. Most of the time she'd forget their name. No better way to hurt a bully's pride than to ask "Who are you again?" She became known as a steel wall at her school.

When she came home for the first time in three years she wasn't expecting Tyler to be Sabrina. It was a change she hadn't seen coming. Quite jarring actually with England's anti-trans stances. Not that she bought into bigotry. Like anything she adjusted. It'd been so long, since she'd last seen Tyler that he would've been just as much a stranger as Sabrina is if she didn't transition at all. Georgie still kept her distance, even though it ate at her little by little not to have the relationships she used to with her siblings. She sucked it up and dealt with it. She didn't put in all that work to become Americanized. She did what she could to show she cared from her corner of the manor. She tended to her new garden and made flower arrangements she left in her sibling's bedrooms every Monday morning to show off the skills she learned in club.

Through the years, Georgie excelled in her classes and when she graduated from Secondary school James was ready to bring her home, but England was her home now. It'd be too weird to permanently be around people she didn't much care to be around minus the obligatory presents during Christmas and birthday cards. She'd built up an outline of her life to succeed in becoming an art curator:
- Further Education
- University of Edinburgh for a History of Arts degree
- Internship at the Louvre
- Louvre art curator

Her life of art was set and James's wants to bring her "home" weren't going to derail her plans. James relented and got her a condo to stay in while she took her A-level classes in art, history, and design.

During her two years of study, she established a relationship with a boy from secondary school. Lucien was nice, he had floppy blond hair, and baby blue eyes that twinkled when he smiled at her. He treated her well, even during arguments about not spending enough time together, ones she shut down every time. He even accepted her when she blew him off to study. Lucien wanted to be a patisserie, she loved that he had a dream for himself. He was her first everything. They had sex whenever he was in the mood, but she didn't enjoy herself. It got to the point she didn't want to anymore, because it was gross or she was bored. Heavy petting was good on occasion. Other than little hiccups their relationship was fine. The downside was that she was going to university in Scotland after she passed A-levels and he was going to France. She couldn't get distracted from her goals by splitting her attention between university work and a long distance relationship. Lucien didn't want them to be over, but it wasn't up for discussion. She promptly broke his heart, then forgot he ever existed.

University was much the same as all her education exploits, best grades, brightest future, each goal checked off the list. Everything changed when James dropped dead. She was home for Christmas that year, sipping her wine, and ignoring the argument between James and Oscar. She didn't care what it was about. Had nothing to do with her, ergo not her business. Oscar stormed from the house like an upset maiden and she retreated to her room when she finished her food. She didn't know that'd be the last time she'd see James alive. The news was shocking and she cried not for his death, but not knowing the content of his will. What if she didn't get a dime for being away for so long? That wasn't a problem after the reading of the will stating most of the money went to the biological children along with ownership in the family business, and the orphans got the scraps. Good. She can continue her goals without disruption. She had gone out to her garden to take care of her winter flowers and found a gold carnation ring in the dirt. When she touched it a spirit whispered in her ear, said that it watched her take care of flowers for years and that it thought her garden was perfect. She put the ring on and spoke to it every day for the duration of her visit. She didn't think about it too hard. James exposed her to supernatural artifacts and happening young. She said she's take care of it always if she could bring it with her everywhere. The spirit agreed with her. Before she left back to Scotland, a dimension opened in her ring and sucked it in.

After his death she had no intentions of ever stepping into Araminta again, unless someone else died, but her joints stiffen up around the anniversary of James's death. At first she thought it was arthritis, which was weird. She wasn't aware that it was a medical condition James suffered, then again it could be from her mother's side, but the next morning she couldn't move her right hand. It was solid stiff like stone. She felt it had something to do with James and magic, so she booked a flight home. The moment she stepped foot on the Vanburen grounds her hand healed. She learned she couldn't leave the estate and had to request her school to put her education on hold for medical purposes. This is not perfect.

TYPE ⫻ Aberration: Agent

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Garden is a dimension of Georgie's own creation with all the flowers she can control or summon for attack and defense.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Georgie moved the personal garden James made for her to a different dimension after his death, so she could have it with her always. It's her way of grieving, but she hasn't processed it yet. The Garden is accessed through her gold carnation ring. She can summon a big portal to fit people through or a small one the size of a sunflower. If anyone gets caught in her dimension they're in a spot of trouble. She can control all the flowers there to do her bidding, such as root and petal manipulation, size manipulation, and petal imprisonment. Outside the dimension she can't control her flowers the same way. The flower petals she summons shoot out from the small portal like razor sharp bullets. Bigger portals release a blizzard of razor sharp petals. Anyone in the path gets cut up. She can escape through the portal to get out of a situation, but she'll come back in the same spot she left. And she can summon a giant flower that's as hard as steel to protect her.

LIMITS ⫻ Emotional-Fields prevent Georgie from closing her portals on other extra-normals, however, she doesn't have too many limitations from Emotional-Fields. Opening a portal to her Garden isn't an instant process. She can open a portal in a few seconds, however, the process strains Georgie. She can have the portal to the Garden open for about five minutes straight and afterward, she'll have to take a break. Once Georgie opens a portal, it's completely static and she can't make it turn or change its size. Meaning if she has a portal opened parallel to the ground and there's an opponent above her, she'd have to close the portal and open a new one facing in the same direction and is the same size. Rapidly opening and closing portals exhausts her. In the Garden she can manipulate all plant-life in her field of vision. However, if she's not present in the Garden the ability is greatly limited and she can't manipulate plants as she normally could.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ Fire is a huge weakness for Georgie's ability. Fire can even destroy the petals that are hard as steel. The portal can also be destroyed by fire and extreme heat. When Georgie grows plants, she's putting a bit of herself into it - literally. She uses her life-force to cause rapid plant growth and it'll run if she uses it excessively. It replenishes an hour, but overuse can cause exhaustion, hair-loss, starvation/dehydration - and even kill her if she goes too far.

Georgiana is a terrible name. Quite dreadful. For someone as magnificent as her she could've been an Alexandria, Victoria, or Olivia. Something pretty and strong sounding. Georgiana is what she's stuck with, so she settled for at least making it cute. Georgie is what she prefers to be called. Not Georgiana, George, Geordie or Geor, a cheeky boy called her that once. Georgie.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Arabelle just wants to find a piece of life for herself. She’s thought about visiting her family back in England. Maybe she’ll move there to live a different life, but she couldn’t stand to lose her teaching position. To name a specific goal, she wishes to cut her ties to the Vanburen’s eventually.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ The past defines you, but it does not define your future.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Bisexual. Arabelle has only been with men, but she does feel attracted towards women as well.

FEARS ⫻ Arabelle doesn’t have much to lose, but she fears losing her purpose for this world. She also fears that her awakened magic will affect her life in the real world. She even fears that one day she’ll wake up, and it will all have been a dream.

REPUTATION ⫻ Arabelle was always with her mother within the Vanburen estate, so she was known as Marie’s daughter by most of the staff and Vanburen family until she could speak for herself. Among the staff, she was a vibrant and extremely helpful colleague. To the Vanburen children, she was quiet and distant. She may have played with the youngest Vanburens, but today she isn’t sure if any of the children even remember her.

THOUGHTS ABOUT JAMES VANBUREN ⫻ James was a distant father figure to Arabelle. She’d see him around the estate and he was kind to her, but he was a busy man. She only grew close to him after her mother’s passing and her awakening. His death brought a different kind of pain. She didn’t have another emotional breakdown, but she grieved for the loss of her last connection to her mother’s past.

FLAWS ⫻ While the Vanburen children grew up with everything they could ever want, Arabelle did not. Her jealousy and subconscious bitterness towards them have emerged now that the Vanburen’s are returning to the estate. She even spites them for taking too much of her mother’s time, although now that she is older she understands that her mother may have been the only constant in their life other than James.

Arabelle’s mother moved from England to the US to find a better life. How she ended up in Pennsylvania, Arabelle has no idea, but she knows that at 17 it was hard for her mother to find work. She travelled the east coast working part time as kitchen staff for small diners and restaurants until a staff position at the Vanburen estate was advertised in the newspaper. Her mother, recognizing that the pay would be substantially better, immediately convinced the estate’s manager that she’d been a servant to countless Dukes and Duchesses in England. She was hired on that day.

Her mother remained a member of the staff for years. She cooked, cleaned, nannied the kids, served dinner, and tended to the gardens wherever she was needed. She didn’t mean to stay forever. She was putting money away on the side to go to school. She had just been about to sign up for her first year when she found out she was with child.

Arabelle was born, and her mother put her college savings away not for herself, but for her little girl. She continued to work at the Vanburen estate. Arabelle grew up helping her mother with the morning preparations, then she’d go to a nearby public school, and then she’d come home to help her mother with the evening dinner. It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was their own.

Arabelle’s mother never told her who her father was. The only father figure in her life was James Vanburen himself, but he had many children to care for and she often felt jealous of them. Her mother helped raise them after James would find new lovers. Arabelle would be busy helping her mother with work, or she would stand to the side, as she watched her mother care for his kids. She was never sure if any of them returned the same care for her mother or herself, but at some point she stopped caring. She was an outsider within the Vanburen walls. Once she was old enough, she’d leave them for a better life.

As she grew older, Arabelle withdrew herself more and more from the Vanburen’s. Once she was eighteen, her mother surprised her with college funds. She was sad to leave her mother behind, but her mother decided that Araminta was her home. Most of James’s children had left by then. She felt like she was the only thing that remained of James’s past still within the walls. Arabelle left for college that same year.

Arabelle will always remember the night she heard that her mother passed. It was James Vanburen himself that showed up at her door. He was quite distraught, himself. He brought the news that would shatter her world. He told her that she would always be welcomed back to the estate, but Arabelle told him to leave. In her grief and shock, Arabelle smashed the nearest mirror to her and found herself sobbing over her broken reflection. She found herself wishing to be by her mother’s side more than anything. She’d never gotten to say goodbye.

Arabelle slowly moved on. She finished school and began to teach, but she still carried the weight of her past with her. She began to visit the Vanburen estate, and had quietly awkward dinners with James. She wanted to hear stories about her mother, from before she was born and after she left the estate.

She continued to visit him until his death. After his passing, Arabelle couldn't stand to see the estate wither away. Her mother would be turning in her grave. So after school and on the weekends Arabelle would return to the Vanburens to help with the cooking and cleaning. A month after James Vanburen passed she came across a letter from her mother. It had fallen behind a dresser at some time and was forgotten. Arabelle was overcome with the same anguish she felt the day her mother died. She felt an energy from herself erupt and smash a nearby window. As she cleaned up the pieces, she suddenly found herself within the mirror. On the other side of it was the old room she used to share with her mother in the estate. When she reemerged from the first mirror, the broken glass cut her as if she'd broken through it herself.

Over time, Arabelle discovered that she could do much more with mirrors. She never really understood why she was able to do it until she did some digging in James's office. Slowly, Arabelle became aware of the world of magic, the sealed apparitions within the house, and his troubled past with the Harrisburg family.

His children slowly returned because of his death, but Arabelle remained an outside observer. The Vanburens life was never her own, so why bother with it now but to continue her mother’s legacy? Even if she knew the secrets of James Vanburen.

TYPE ⫻ Awakened

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Looking Glass: Arabelle uses mirrors to move over long distances, to see into another space, and to listen into conversations.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻

Mirror Portal: Arabelle is able to create a pocket dimension within a mirror. By stepping into this dimension, Arabelle can open the portal to any mirror in a place she has been before. She must come into contact with the mirror before she steps inside, and the mirror must be intact unless she will risk serious injury. She has not yet tried to bring anyone else through a mirror with her, and she most likely will not try it because she worries for their safety.

Mirror Spying: Arabelle can use a mirror's pocket dimension to hear or see into different spaces. She doesn't have to be inside of the mirror in order to do this. Instead, she just needs to be in contact with the surface. As before, Arabelle must have seen or been in the place that she’s spying into.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Arabelle is able to sense the aura of anyone standing in front of a mirror before she chooses which mirror to emerge from or spy on. This makes it easier for her to hide her abstraction and to go from one place to another without suspicion.

LIMITS ⫻ Arabelle can only scry on one location at a time, and her ability only works on locations that she has been to. The act of teleportation is more straining the further away she teleports - theoretically, she can teleport any distance long as she has been there, but teleporting far distances will tire her out. Teleporting from one end of Araminta to the other will feel like she just ran a mile at top speed, but say teleporting from one end of the Vanburen manor to the other will be easy.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ If Arabelle teleports through a broken mirror then she'll receive a cut from it. If the mirror is broken while she is inside of it (before she teleports) then Arabelle will be forced out of it and injured in the process.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Really, the man just needs a break. Ezra is looking to escape the current responsibility he has as the business head of the family, but he has stated many times over that he won’t relinquish control until he is certain that stepping down won’t hinder the future of Araminta or the Vanburens.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Ezra views the world through a scope of negativity that sets his expectations low, because he knows that high hopes only makes the fall hurt so much worse. However, he is not strictly a pessimist, or at least he doesn’t consider himself one. He’s a realist, and reality can be a pain in the ass. His views fall in line heavily with Stoicism, believing that the bad in life is unavoidable, natural, and yet wholly possible to survive through. Therefore, he shouldn’t even worry about the terrible things. Instead, Ezra tries his hardest to only worry about the things he can control—namely, his own actions and feelings—and strives to be a virtuous, just person who always does the right thing. In other words, he wants to be perfect. Sometimes, it’s a maddening task.

SEXUALITY ⫻ If it ever was questioned or brought up, Ezra would likely shrug and say that he was straight. If Ezra was to consider his sexuality with more than just a shrug he would identify more as a demisexual than a heterosexual.

FEARS ⫻ In theory, Ezra believes that he has nothing to fear. It’s the creation of an overactive imagination, a negative emotion heightened by the desire for a different outcome. Things happen, and that’s all they ever do. He has a sense of indestructibility. In actuality, he is terrified of being hypocritical. He strives to be a good person that isn’t controlled by his emotions, but he questions his own authenticity all of the time. It’s a fear that feeds upon itself. The more he worries about being a hypocrite, the more of a hypocrite he sees himself to be.

REPUTATION ⫻ Reliable but severe. Ezra served as a business consultant and occasional manager for the many mom and pop stores James acquired. James Vanburen might’ve been Magnanimous, but he didn’t want his investments to be money pits. If a business was in a bad enough spot that it needed a bailout to survive, then something needed to be changed about its management and focus—and Ezra was the one who helped execute the change. Although he was often a boon for the businesses, his strict no-nonsense professionalism could be grating.

Generally too busy to ever even be present, Ezra was often quiet and reserved around the Vanburens when it came to large family gatherings. Many thought he bore some kind of grudge towards his half-siblings, but he has proven that impression wrong many times throughout the years. Almost every Vanburen can recall at least one time that Ezra has gone out of his way to help them. Be it as simple as offering a shoulder to cry on to privately posting bail so that their father doesn’t have to hear about them drinking and driving, Ezra has proven himself time and time again to the guardian angel for the Vanburen children. Yet despite his benevolence, nearly none of them can say for certain if he truly cares about them or if he is just begrudgingly following some kind of brotherly obligation.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Ezra will give him this: James was a decent businessman and a kindhearted, charitable individual. Unfortunately, those things do not make him a good person nor a good father. If anything, they only serve to highlight how their dad was kind of a huge piece of shit. In the last couple of years it was obvious to anyone that there was bad blood growing between Ezra and James, but neither of them ever spoke about what it was over. However, despite their growing animosity, Ezra is seemingly incapable of openly saying a bad thing about his father. There’s still a deeply seated respect, admiration, jealousy, and fear rooted in Ezra for the man. He doubts he’d ever manage to shake it, no matter how hard he tries to remove the man’s influence from his life.

FLAWS ⫻ Ezra is jackknifing off of the highest diving board straight down into the empty pool of a massive burnout. Between work, family, a goddamn curse, and his own perfectionist idealism, he is spread to his absolute limits. He sees himself as too much of a protector of the other Vanburen children to share his burden with them, but unfortunately it has gotten to the point where his stress and exhaustion has worn him down to a near breaking point. He forgets things regularly, even seeming to blank out on people he’s known for years, and easily gets frustrated. While he doesn’t get visibly angry or openly snap at others, the silent treatments he implores when he has reached his limits with someone or something have become nearly legendary. It’s amusing when it’s used against the paparazzi, but downright terrifying when turned on the family.

The rivalry between the Harrisburgs and the Vanburens was already burning between the two, but Ezra was the can of gasoline that turned the flame into a raging bonfire. Ezra was the product of a secret affair between James and Slyvia, the aunt of Richard Harrisburg and sister to his father. The two, against the wishes of the Harrisburgs, got hitched not so long after Slyvia started to show, and for a spell the couple seemed happy. At least, they were until James’ business ventures began bleeding her family dry and his eyes started to wander towards other women. By the time the divorce came Slyvia could barely even look at her son, only ever referring to him as “the mistake” while looking straight through him. She went back to the Harrisburgs; James was stuck with the mistake.

James ended up sending his son to a prestigious boarding school, both to prep his son for one day taking over the family business and to ensure that he wasn’t left alone at home for months at a time to be raised by the staff. Ezra may have hated school, but he was a bright kid and an even better student. However, it didn’t take too long for the kid to realize that he was practically being cultivated by James. That occurred when Ezra told his dad he was going to join the basketball team. Sports were trivial, said his old man, you’re joining the debate team. So he did. It became the song and dance for the rest of Ezra’s life. When deciding on a major for college Ezra expressed an interest in studying art. While art was seen as a nice hobby, it wasn’t a respectable profession according to James—his boy would go for business. So he did.

Ezra attended Wharton, where he studied and drank and dated and did the usual college shit while on the path towards getting his MBA. When Ezra graduated, he planned to move to New York with his girlfriend Autumn against the wishes of James, who wanted him back in Araminta to work for him. The goal was to establish a base, make some money, and open up an art gallery on the side. However, for the six months he lived there Ezra was unable to find a job, despite his connections, his legacy, and his degree. Eventually, he was forced to take his father’s offer to come work for him as his business manager, overseeing the various mom and pop stores he owned around Araminta.

Autumn joined him in Araminta and the two were married in a small ceremony that Ezra’s mother did not attend. However, Ezra soon found himself practically married to working for James, trying to work miracles on the charity cases he took in to turn them around into actual functioning businesses. There were a few failures here and there, but for a vast majority of them the acquisition turned into a brilliant success. While Ezra didn’t necessarily enjoy his work, he was good at it and there was something rewarding to helping the little guys out...even if the little guys ended up kicking them some cutback after. Of the “independent” boutiques operating downtown, nearly a third of them have had Ezra meddle in their business affairs at some point.

However, bad blood began to form between father and son. Normally, his time spent in Araminta was so short Ezra barely had a chance to even speak to his siblings, let alone actually get to know them. By being back in Araminta for good, Ezra was able to see how James pandered and bent over backwards for his other children; meanwhile, he’d hammered his oldest into a James-shaped mold. It planted a bad seed in the depths of Ezra’s mind that blossomed into the idea that, like his mother, his father also viewed him as a mistake, one that he was retroactively trying to fix by turning him into little more than a carbon copy. The worst part was that he succeeded—which only occurred when Autumn cited him turning into a James Jr. for being one of the reasons why she was leaving.

They were divorced before Thanksgiving. When James passed away on Christmas Day, Ezra almost looked relieved—or he did until he was assigned the executor of James’ will and left in control of all of James' businesses. In horror, Ezra realized that by dying and leaving him in charge James had trapped him: Ezra would always be working for his father, indefinitely, until he himself croaked. He would become the new magnanimous man, but it would be James, not Ezra, that people saw when they asked for a bail out. Ezra was just the hand that fed them, puppeted by James’ ghost from the afterlife.

Screw that.

To escape Ezra began setting to work to dismantle his father’s empire, but he had to find the proper balance to not destroy the businesses or the lives of others in the process. It has been slow going, but he has started to turn full independence back to some of the stores and pass responsibility down on to people he can trust. Ezra imagined that in a handful of years he’d be able to leave Araminta in the hands of someone else and to start living his life for once. Maybe he’d even try and get Autumn back.

Turning into stone kind of threw a wrench in that plan. Ezra was hit by a wave of despair. He went to his father’s office to search for any sort of clues as to what was happening to his family. When he searched through his father’s desk he found an old childhood puzzle of his, one of those annoying metal ones where they’re locked together and you have to somehow untangle them. In a flash of youthful impatience and ingenuity he’d gone to the shed, grabbed some bolt cutters, and cut the puzzle in two instead of banging his head against the solution. Seeing it now made him laugh, in part because he was surprised James would save such a thing but also because of his own reaction to the curse. It was stupid to waste time moping. Every problem had a solution. They just weren’t always obvious.

As he touched the broken puzzle, he flashed to a memory that wasn’t his own. He was still in his father’s office but it looked different, as if a fog had encroached through the window and filled up the edges of his periphery. He saw hands reassembling an antique rifle, aligning the sights and sliding back in the bolt. He watched as they affixed a bayonet to the end and slowly leveled the rifle up against their shoulder. It felt good; almost perfect. There was just one more touch. A glow of orange radiated around the rifle and then faded. The bayonet slashed through the air, there was a cackle of energy, and the world tore open in front of it. Ezra felt a wave of satisfaction hit him. There! Now it was a Masterpiece.

The vision faded, but the orange glow lingered around the broken puzzle. Ezra still didn’t know why his family was cursed, but he had a feeling he was already on the path to curing it. All he needed to do was put on a brave face and endure his responsibilities a little bit longer.

TYPE ⫻ Adept

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Orange Lux. Ezra’s channeler is a broken wire puzzle that he’d cut apart with bolt cutters in frustration when he was a child. It has been looped through a leather strap to become some kind of wristband.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Ezra attributes characteristics to items and people, making them wondrous by thinking outside of the box. His spells require physical touch to cast and can continue indefinitely as long as he maintains a small amount of concentration that can be canceled by emotional turmoil, physical pain, or loss of consciousness.

Masterpiece ⫻ Ezra infuses an object and turns it into a perfect version of itself, better than it ever could possibly be. For example, a pencil would never go dull and the eraser would completely remove any errant graphite. Likewise, a lock would become unpickable or a door would become unbreakable while affected by the spell. A Masterpiece spell affects the whole, not just a part. A Masterpiece car would make the entire car perfect: the tires would never go flat, the engine would never rust, and the windshield would never crack. Once an item has become a Masterpiece it no longer has to operate in the realm of logic, like a Masterpiece jug of milk would never empty or spoil while a Masterpiece computer would still operate without any electricity or wi-fi.

Masterpiece is largely ineffective on a person. They only appear perfect on a surface-level, like an airbrushed version of themselves designed to sell ads. Masterpiece items vary in effectiveness against Apparitions, but are generally more useful than normal items.

Currently, he can keep one Masterpiece item and one Masterpiece person spell going at a time. The cast time requires channeling Lux from one to five minutes, depending on the complexity and size of the target, and requires a decent amount of concentration.

Configure ⫻ Ezra can dramatically increase or decrease the size of an item while allowing it to continue to perform its function, including Masterpiece items. Configure does not change the weight of an item. Like Masterpiece, a Configure spell affects the whole. Therefore, if he has a box full of clothes, the clothes will shrink or expand with the box. However, the moment that a sweater is pulled from the box it will return to its original size because it is no longer contained in the field of the Configure spell.

While people can have Configured items used against them, they themselves cannot be Configured. Likewise, their bodies act as a natural barrier against things when they are being Configured. Therefore, Ezra could Configure a necklace to shrink and become uncomfortably tight, but he cannot push it to the point of being smaller than that person’s neck until they take it off. Configured items typically amplify the usefulness of items against Apparitions, and while they are Configured they are extremely difficult to destroy outside of Extra-Normal means.

Currently, he can keep one Configure spell going at a time. The scale of an item can range from 1/5th to 5x. The cast time is instant, but items take a few seconds to change in size.

Prodigy ⫻ Ezra makes a person an instant expert on a subject relating to any Masterpiece item they are currently using. A person with a Masterpiece scalpel will become a top level surgeon, while that behind the wheels of a Masterpiece car would make any Hollywood stunt driver jealous. The moment their connection to the Masterpiece item is severed they return to their base skill level with no residual hold over in talent, regardless of how long they were using the Masterpiece item. So, while the person might know they are performing brain surgery, they won’t know what lobe to poke at until they pick the scalpel back up.

Prodigy is curbed by someone’s own physical limitations. A person decked out in Masterpiece boxing gloves might know how to fight like Ali, but if they’re weak they’ll hit and go down like Glass Joe. Prodigy can only be cast on a person. He can only have one Prodigy spell up at a time. The cast time is instant.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Ezra can detect the location of an item or person he has enchanted within 100 meters.

LIMITS ⫻ Naturally, Emotional-Fields protect the Extra-Normal from some of the nastier effects of his spells like being shrunk, strangled, and so forth. Ezra can only have one type of spell cast at one time, and if he has cast Configure and he wants to cast Masterpiece; then he'll have to drop Configure. His imbuing spells have a range limit and if he goes further than twelve meters from an object or person that he has imbued with his magic then it'll revert back to normal.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ It seems that improving objects have a cost, that Erza has to give something. To make something a masterpiece, he weakens himself in the process. He finds that he has shortness of breath, that he's a lot more susceptible to pain, not as strong as usual, and so on. He finds out this debuff is active as long as he has the spell going. The Configure spell changes Erza's weight, as making an object larger makes him heavier, and making an object smaller makes him lighter - easier to toss around and stuff.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Goals are for nerds and responsible adults. Nisha is just after the thrills, to see what comes next, and most certainly nothing else whatsoever.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Life’s rather dull, really, and the only thing that makes it worth living are the little odd surprises that pop up when one forces themselves out of their routine. Nisha is always looking for the next: the next adventure, the next opportunity, the next romance, the next temporary boost of dopamine to keep her brain from thinking about how none of this really matters in the end. She finds people who consider themselves content to be the most miserable creatures in the world. Happiness exists only in moments, and Nisha is going to capture as many of those moments like the good little hedonist she is.

SEXUALITY ⫻ While open for experimentation, Nisha identifies as mostly heterosexual.

FEARS ⫻ Nisha’s fears having to rely on others, which just happens to coincidence beautifully with her fears of being used by others. The idea that someone would help another out just for the heck of it doesn’t compute with her. Clearly there’s some kind of ulterior motive, a hope of gaining some sort of favor, and she isn’t the kind of person who wants to rack up debts that tie her down.

She is also afraid of spiders.

REPUTATION ⫻ Literally nobody in Araminta has ever heard of Nisha, and she’s probably not the first person who’s arrived in town claiming that James Vanburen might’ve gotten freaky with their mom.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Oh, yeah, James, he was a really shit dude, you know, never being there for her and all. Mostly because he didn’t even know she existed, which would be a horrible thing for a father to do except in this case James wasn’t her father so technically it should be all right, shouldn’t it? Still, Nisha believes he could’ve maybe sent her a fake birthday card or fake Christmas check every now and then.

FLAWS ⫻ Nisha is an impatient, impulsive, and immoral person who is largely driven by little more than her personal pursuit of happiness. She’s not above lying, cheating, or stealing if it gets her to the finish line faster, but she lacks the foresight or the deviousness to cover her tracks. On top of that, she’s scattered and easily distracted, prone to jumping from one harebrained scheme to another without ever fully executing either of them. Due to her never thinking things through, It’s not very difficult to manipulate Nisha—although it’s always a question of how long she’ll follow along until she jumps to the next trend.

The momentary rush from the freefall turned to absolute terror a heartbeat before Nisha’s skull cracked against the rocks with the sickening sound of jello being plopped onto a plate. As she lay dying, Nisha was honestly surprised she made it to twenty five. Dad had threatened to kill her a hundred times over when she was growing up near Liverpool. He roughed his family up every now and then, but he wasn’t the kind to really follow through his word on anything. Still, she found it every bit as ironic as it was horrific to watch her old man get gutted by a gang of toughs he got in an argument with when she was eleven. The image of him dying soaked in to her like the blood soaked his shirt and the ground around him. It forever reminded her that no matter how big or tough or scary you are, life can still take you out seemingly at random.

So why waste it on boring, trivial shit, yeah? That’s what Mom did. She worked two jobs to take care of her kids, neither of whom ever appreciated it. Samesh, Nisha’s brother, spent most of his time in and out of prison for petty crimes, while Nisha joined up with a group of awful teenagers that weren’t too dissimilar to the lads that ripped up dear ol’ Dad for stepping out of line. Her adolescent years came to her as a blended mix of boys, booze, bongs, and needles. They would’ve been hard to remember even if her brain wasn’t leaking out from her skull. The key thing she remembers from her youth is waking up in a hospital after a particularly bad bender that resulted in an overdose, hooked up to some kind of weird machine, with her Mom crying over her.

The near death experience dissuaded Nisha from furthering her experimentation, but it didn’t stop the need for constant thrills to make life worth living. Hard drugs were swapped for extreme sports. Soon, she found that there was nothing more addicting than an all natural adrenaline rush. Nisha fell into the niche of rock climbing, working her way up from all of the boring, lame safety equipment featured in a gym to the death-defying act of free soloing a cliffside in the middle of nowhere. It was always exhilarating, but the few number of close calls never made Nisha quit. In hindsight, as the blue sky darkened above her, maybe that had been a mistake.

What hadn’t been a mistake was becoming a bartender. She worked her way up from shitty dive bars and gross clubs in Liverpool to nice, respectful cocktail bars in London that served a different class of people than the kind she had surrounded herself with her whole life. Nisha had plenty of opportunities to become the attractive little arm piece for some kind of stuffy banker or lame lawyer, but those relationships never lasted long—too safe, too unimaginative, too approved of by her Mom. But what did her Mom expect? Nisha was in her twenties. She could give up on finding the right one when she got grays. Besides, most of them were jerks anyway, and being faithful was difficult. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t make good choices when she was drunk, nor was it her fault that she drunk most of the time

Just like it wasn’t her fault that the rock she’d firmly gripped slipped from the cliffside and sent her falling several dozen meters off of what would otherwise have been her greatest rock climbing achievement. Why she wasn’t dead yet was a mystery to her. Her life had already flashed before her eyes, and if she knew what she did now she would’ve tried that acid that had been offered to her the other week. Or perhaps she had taken it. That would explain the wrinkled, graying old woman with thin, spindly arms standing over Nisha. She wore a ragged brown dress and appeared to be soaked to the bone, her long, thinning gray hair sticking to the side of her face.

Only it wasn’t a hallucination. The old woman introduced herself as Nel, told Nisha that she was dying, and that she could save the girl if she allowed it. Nisha gurgled out a yes and watched as the old lady’s arms stretched out to an inhumanely long length, reached around to the back of her skull, and thrust themselves into her brain as she blacked out. When Nisha came to she was at the top of the cliff, her clothes still wet with her own blood. She reached to the back of her head and felt nothing more than matted hair.

However, as she went to pull her hand away she felt fingers grip her wrist and a voice like running water whisper in her ear: We’re in this together now, love, only you owe us. Do us this one wee little favor and we’ll let you go back to your stupid human life. Otherwise... Nisha fell to her knees as she felt the fingers from inside of her head push through the back of her skull and pry open the head wound. As she screamed the fingers disappeared and with it, moments later, the pain.

As it turns out, Nel just wanted Nisha to buy a plane ticket to America and lie about being some dead rich guy's long lost daughter. How difficult could it be? Creepy ghost fingers aside, it sounded like a fun little adventure. Hey! Maybe they’d even give her a bit of inheritance. Rich people are always so generous.

TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Affixed)

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Long Arms of the Slaugh, more commonly referred to as Phantom Limbs, is the ability for Nisha to manifest spectral arms from her body. .

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Nisha is affixed to a water spirit named Nel that allows her to manifest up to four long, spindly arms, two appearing from her shoulder blades while the other two appear from underneath her actual arms. The spectral arms are somewhat transparent with a blue hue to them and tend to wave and flow like they’re made out of some kind of liquid. Due to their seemingly fluid nature, the arms can compress and expand, allowing them to slip through small spaces that water could flow through. As well, Nisha can extend one of her phantom limbs well beyond her normal reach, upwards to 10 meters.

The limbs are capable of lifting up to twice of Nisha’s weight, assuming they all work together. Likewise, they can be used to rapidly pull Nisha through an area or up to places she normally wouldn’t be able to reach. She can swing around all day like the Friendly Neighborhood Asshole assuming there are enough things within reach, and she can use her phantom limbs to catch herself from falling and breaking her back. She can theoretically use them to fight, but their punches are weaker than her own and her right hook isn’t really that up to snuff in the first place. Even if someone didn’t have Emotional Fields getting hit by a phantom limb would be about as bad as getting hit by a wet pool noodle.

While Nisha’s phantom limbs are fairly easy to sever, they are just as equally easy to manifest new ones. However, while they appear to be made out of some kind of mystical water, the limbs are actually manifested from the spirits of victims drowned by the water spirit Nel. Therefore, Black Lux could easily render the phantom limbs ineffective if not even outright hostile towards Nisha.

Interestingly enough, Nisha appears to have some kind of healing factor linked to the same energy used to manifest the arms. Any wound she takes will slowly mend itself overtime, including ones that would normally be fatal.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Nisha is capable of sensing if someone is dying within 10 meters of herself. It doesn’t tell her what they are dying from or how immediate their death will be, just that they aren’t doing so hot. There is nothing precognitive about her aura sensing, so someone in a dangerous situation won’t trigger her aura until they are severely injured.

LIMITS ⫻ Creating the limbs and stretching them is an enormous drain on energy. While she can create these limbs fairly fast, over time she'll end up exhausted.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ The arms are weak against two different types of damage: slashing and electrical damage. A blade or knife can easily cut through the arms, while electricity can travel through it and electrocute Nisha.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ If asked Junior may say his dream is to grow up, to show all the fools in the world that if he was only a bit older they would revere his ideas and suggestions, that his own body was a crux that people hung below him as a sign of their authority and superiority. In actuality his goal is rather more simple, to be accepted so he doesn't need to shout to be heard. You could argue that they are similar goals, and Junior won't deny that they are, but he would rather find a true family that would accept his regardless of his age or faults, instead of needing to change first for them to embrace him.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ "Dumb, stupid idiots. Why can't they just SEE." In his eyes, it is not Junior who is slow, but the people around him. The truth is besides the point as the boy sees himself as the only sane person around- if they point out the flaws in his plan it's them who aren't seeing the strategy in the proper way. The idea is flawless in his eyes.

SEX ⫻ Sure Too young and sheltered to really interact with other kids his age beyond the stuck up kids at his school and football practice, Junior really hasn't has much chance to experiment or realise who and what he is attracted to- though recently boys have danced throughout his thoughts.

FEARS ⫻ Junior fears the unknown, that what he has amounted to cannot match what is to come, that the encompassing future will swallow him up and spit him out a broken man like many of his siblings. For Junior the future is a very real threat; while his brothers or his sisters may have lived, loved and learned, his future is still an untrodden path that may twist and change with every meeting, every event, every action he can take- some things which he cannot control or even predict that will shape his being and the path he will walk.

And that scares him.

The pages of his future are unwritten, but he does not hold the pen.

REPUTATION ⫻ Junior is seen simply as another child of the late James Vanburen around the city of Araminta, although most people don't know him personally those that do hope he grows into a capable man in the future- but for now he is no more than a pest most would love to see cry... Not that anyone would admit that.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ "They always tell you not to meet your heroes or you'll be disappointed. He was the exception." James was one of the few people Junior had personally gotten to know that he respected, though more for his character than as a father as he had little time for that. He allowed his son to grow up in his home, even as the affair with his mother fell through. His charitable deeds, business ingenuity and boundless wealth let Junior be as content as he could possibly be, able to accommodate all his needs with ease.

FLAWS ⫻ "What's wrong McFly? Chicken?" Junior can be riled up relatively easily, seeing his older siblings ignore or refute his suggestions- as wildish or inconsiderate as they can be, and has a habit of going off on his lonesome to carry out his plans. It's the flaw of arrogance and being young, blaming your youth when others ignore the ideas you have, and it is a flaw Junior expresses more than could be healthy.

Junior is the love child (of course) of James Vanburen and Elenor Tate, a French exchange student studying Marine Biology in the later years of the 2000s. An affair short lived that it seemed his mother wished to forget, so much that she left her newborn son with the father that sired him. While the man himself was usually busy managing his business empire or caring for his other children he made sure his servants could care for his son by proxy, they worked to the best of their ability but even then nothing comes close to the attention and care a child could desire from the ones they recognise as their true parents and family- it was a shame neither had the time for him. Growing up yearning for the care and attention of a mother had no interest in building bridges and a father who didn't have the time to care beyond a few pleasantries Junior grew up as you would expect, bitter and grasping at straws for any attention that he could gather. His frustration only grew as his misplaced arrogance remained unchecked, where he began growing tired of hearing of his siblings' tales and frustrations that he felt he could fix. Growing tired of how the servants pampered him, not raising their voices, but angering at expressing their doubts about the wrong things. As he grew older and tired of those that managed his well being, seeing them only as substitutes for the parents he could only dream of, is carers suggested that sports could help him make friends beyond those in school and the walls of the house, or at least tire him before he could make another tirade or argument to one of them- in face he found himself enjoying soccer even if he wasn't some natural talent at it. He found his weekends filled with training, and his wardrobe with sports gear and trainers, he was enjoying himself.

Then came the Christmas party- and his whole world shattered.

Gone was the father, the one parent who he knew was at least there for him. There was no mother to hold and cry on, he had never seen her, had never spoken a word, never shown he was worth her affection, only a hollow shell of a vague shadow- a role no one ever came close to filling, and now a dead father. Why was he even here, nobody would care, nobody even liked him it was just money that kept them around, there was no love, no care, no mother, no father, nothing.
The flurry of emotions he felt that night and all the nights after were fuel for his awakening, and a month after his late father's passing Junior found himself with a strange ability. And a many siblings that moved into the manor home, speaking of a strange power that compelled them back here, for fear they would suffer the consequences.

TYPE ⫻ Awakened

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Valence Control, Junior has the ability to control attention by manipulating how important events, people or things seem- from incredibly uninteresting and more difficult to notice or remember, to impossible to ignore. His tattoo is an abstract compass, appearing on the inner thigh of his left leg.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Within a large area Junior's abstraction can freely manipulate the affective quantity of valence, the essence of how intrinsically good or bad something seems, that surrounds a person, object, event situation or even a thought, that he is aware of. He may will a greater amount of valence into the target of his choice, making it more noticeable to an observer, or lower the amount so that it acts as a dampening field; That a target becomes mundane to onlookers, an idea becomes a vague or an event becomes more forgettable and unnoticeable. The amount of valence builds up like pressure in a heated pan, and beyond a threshold Junior must exert himself to increase the effect his power has. See it is not as though valence is a switch, that can be memorable or forgettable; If we are to return to the idea that it is a heated pan, increasing the temperature in the stove is akin to increasing the amount of valence onto the target, and cooling a pan off is the reverse- and the target becomes forgettable.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Junior can see the auras of attention, who is the center of it and who is watching them. Both auras appear the same colour and there is little difference to discern between the two. He can feel this aura from up to fifty feet before it quickly fades out.

LIMITS ⫻ Junior's ability bypasses emotional-fields so it can affect the Extra-Normal freely. However the ability has a range of around twenty-five meters, and its effects gradually build up. For something to be the center of everyone's attention, he has to be working on it for a bit, and vice-versa - however, when he drops his abstractions the effects will quickly fade away. The ability has zero lasting effects whatsoever.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ When Junior uses his abstraction, he seems to get the opposite effect from it. Such as when he makes something unnoticeable, he'll find it hard to pay attention to anything but that. When he makes something very attention-grabbing, he finds it really easy to be distracted by other details.

Ghost is the unfunny.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ To be honest, Alexander is not sure what his goals are anymore. Sure, he does everything to help anyone that asks for his aid, but what does he want for himself? Maybe he'd like to finally find the love of his life.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Alexander is an honest man, one that will not hesitate the truth even if it hurts. He believes that lies will always continue to fester as long as they are kept, and the results of their unraveling will become worse and worse. In addition, he is rather sentimental, and has indomitable loyalty to friends and family. Alex is quite devout, and often does the sign of the cross when in distress.

Despite being unable to tell a white lie to make anyone else feel better, he does believe in comforting others in time of need, even if his ways are less on the talking side, and more on simple listening, and, well, touch.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Straight. Seeks for love but has always failed in it.

FEARS ⫻ Alexander fears clowns. And heights. Seriously, however, he fears that his nightmares of losing the function of his hands would come true, as his entire livelihood and career are built upon them. He also fears going deaf.

REPUTATION ⫻ As one of the first children to be sired by James Vanburen, Alexander commands some measure of respect from the rest of the family, at least from those that know he existed. He is known to spoil the younger ones with chocolates and candy, and is well liked. At least until he talks about how much he dislikes their father.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ The last time that Alexander has seen his father was when he was just ten years old, when James abandoned him and his mother for another of his uncountable affairs. Thus, they have a nonexistent relationship, having only come to the funeral just to see if the old man was really dead. He blames James for everything wrong with his life; his mother's drug addiction, his incapability of finding a girlfriend, and… well, everything.

FLAWS ⫻ Alexander is quite straightforward in both speech and thinking. As such, he usually won’t understand most idioms, and would go as far as break them by explaining how one cannot jump upon a gun. In addition, he is quite impulsive, and may end up in trouble because of it. He also has frequent bouts of depression, which holds him back from getting better at what he does, or just accepting that he is already good at things.

Alexander Karamazov Vanburen was one of the first set of children that James Vanburen brought into existence. He was the child of a certain Svetlana Sergeyevna Karamazov, who met James while in a club. She was a Russian immigrant who had come to America right after the breakup of the Soviet Union, as the country had been thrown into civil and social unrest after the downfall of Communism. James’ charm was irresistible, and soon enough, she was pregnant. She gave birth to a boy, whom she named Alexander after her late father.

For all its worth, Alexander, most usually known by his Russian nickname of Sasha, knew James as his father. They had a decent dad-son relationship for the most part; it was nothing special, nor was there anything particularly terrible with it. That was, when James disappeared from their lives when Alexander was 10. He kept on asking where his dad went, only to be met with silence. Apparently, his mother did not know that she was not the first, or would she be the last. It didn’t take the boy long to realize that they had been abandoned, and over the years, he would grow to despise James Vanburen, going as far as using only his mother’s maiden surname in legal documents.

Since then, he would lead a mostly normal life in New York City, studying music in the university (it was in his high school days when he had those self defense classes). It was here that he found his passion for life; the keys of the piano, the strings of the violin, and the assembled voices of the choir. Eventually, he would become a professional musician, living an idyllic existence in a clean apartment. He was a violinist of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, the pianist of his church, and the owner of a YouTube channel that had garnered a moderate following of 120,000 subscribers. However, his mother had soon gone down the path of drug addiction. There was nothing more devastating for him than to see that the woman he loved the most go to rehab again and again. He blamed himself, as he hadn’t been a good son all these years, and then proceeded to blame James for leaving them. Then, she overdosed and died. This would be the driving force for Alexander to slide into a depressive state, though he was very good at hiding it from friends. After all, the pills that the psychiatrist had given him were doing their purpose well… for now.

Then he was informed by his half-siblings that their father was dead. Alexander had come to know that his father was one hell of a harem maker, and had met a few of his half brothers and sisters for some time before that. He had been on a lull of activity during that time; he had taken a few days of leave, and was just relaxing. He did not like his father at all, but he decided to come along anyway just to see if it was really true. It was.

For some reason, he was saddened by James’ passing, even if he told himself that he detested the old man. Sitting down on a couch with his anti-depressant pills on hand, he would find himself surrounded by shifting darkness, a cloud of black shrouding the entire room like a storm with no wind. Out of the shadows emerged a face; it was an Apparition. It fed upon sadness and guilt. It was a comforting presence, even if it was a dark entity, as it had good intentions. There and then, the Spectre promised one thing: he could see his mother again, and whenever he wanted. Ah, and he had this weird tattoo on his neck for some reason. Oh, no...

A year after the funeral, he found himself slowly being turned to stone, his movements beginning to slow down as his hands began to show signs of being turned to hard rock. Panicking, he spoke to the Spectre, asking what was happening to his body. The Apparition took a while to answer, but it concluded that the death of James Vanburen had triggered some kind of curse in everyone that bore his name, and the only solution was to stay in Araminta, or become a statue. Distraught that his father still screwed up other people's lives after death, Alexander hastily moved to Araminta, at which he found that the curse receded the closer he got to the city. He resigned from the New York Chamber Orchestra, instead opting to teach children and teenagers instruments. He didn't earn as much as before, and he had to live in the one place that reminded him of his father. Still, all of these were a small price to pay for not dying...

TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Affixed)
ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Spectre; a ghost-like shadow that hangs around Alexander as a cloud of black and green. It seems to be nice...

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ First and foremost, the Spectre allows Alexander to speak with the dead, summoning their ghosts from the afterlife in order for them to have a conversation. Secondly, it also allows him to become a ghost, granting him immunity against non-magic attacks and the ability to phase through solid objects. However, he is unable to breath while incorporeal, nor could he interact with the universe while in that state.

When Alexander is in a normal corporeal state, the Spectre also allows him to conjure a pair of chains made of magical metal, which are usually channeled through his bracelets.
AURA SENSING ⫻ None

LIMITS ⫻ Alexander can only summon one spirit at a time, and can only do it once an hour. He can keep a ghost summoned for a short amount of time, probably for like one insightful conversation! Afterward, the ghost will go back to the other side - however, it's possible for certain spirits who don't necessarily want to come back to resist it. Alexander's immune to physical attacks while in his ghost state but other magical attacks can still damage him. He can maintain his ghost state as long as he can hold his breath.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ While in his ghost state he is susceptible to non-physical magical attacks such as fire and electricity.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Ray seeks to fix the turning-to-stone problem, so that he could go back to his life of vlogging and travel. After that… well, guess he wants to keep it that way.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Ray is something of an enigma, as he keeps up a nice exterior with that bright smile and optimistic attitude. However, beneath that wry smirk is a mind that is actively seeking the best ways to neutralize a foe, whether it is through using geokinesis to stop them from using magic, or making them keep shut with blackmail. He may appear as an eccentric man with a love for tea and a friendly face, but make no mistake; threatening him, or those around him will make him go all out.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Asexual. What's with wanting to exchange fluids anyway?!

FEARS ⫻ Ray has an irrational fear of little holes. Ironically enough, he is also heavily claustrophobic. Plus, he fears that the curse of the stone will never leave the Vanburens, which means… he can't travel.

REPUTATION ⫻ Ray is generally well liked amongst the Vanburens, as he is faithful in being a regular in family reunions. While he isn't usually much of a talker, when he does speak, it would be obvious that Ray cares for everyone. Yes. Even Junior.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ He had a more or less stable relationship with James, though Ray does not think of him as the perfect overlord like many people do; he sees James as irrevocably flawed, and someone that did so many mistakes that there was no point in trying to right them all.

FLAWS ⫻ Ray often forgets about himself in his quest to make others feel better. It is like he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and won't let anyone help him with it.

Raymond was born in Araminta, the only child of James Vanburen and Felicita Salazar, an expatriate from Cuba. James and Felicita didn’t seem to last long after that (oh wow, who would have guessed?!), and the two broke their relationship rather amicably. Ray would see his father on weekends, coming along with his mother to the Vanburen estate just to see how many other children that the haremizer had progenitated over the decades. He was just a young child back then, though, and did not understand the circumstances they were all in. He thought of them as friends and playmates at the time, and of course, they were. What he did not learn at the time, however, was that they were all half siblings of his; the products of dozens of failed marriages and affairs.

As he grew up, he would see that his father was an incredibly flawed man, and though he carried the Vanburen name, Ray didn’t tell anyone about it unless they asked, as he thought that it was extremely unfortunate to be someone from such a messed up family. Either way, he then took on journalism in college. In the end, he finished with decent marks; though Ray did not have flying honors, he was still quite good at both. He went around the world, filming documentaries and expanding his rock collection.

He would awaken his abstraction during that fateful day, when an explosion of unknown origin occurred in the place where he was staying in. Ray had been filming there with a team when the quake struck, destroying the building they were in and burying him and some others under debris.

There he was, trapped under rocks and metal, dealing with a diminishing air supply. He prayed and cried, as if there was one feeling that all humans shared, it was the fear of death before achieving something great. Hours passed, and he felt his air tightening as the oxygen in the little enclosed space he was in was running out.

And then it happened. A tattoo of golden light appeared on his wrist, and the power of instinct awoke within him. With a simple gesture, Ray threw off all the debris that was keeping him and his friends trapped. They had passed out, but he had not. This was not a coincidence.

Ray would keep his abilities a secret as he went back to Araminta, keeping a more or less regular job for his education. At least, until his siblings went back to the city, saying that they're turning to stone...

TYPE ⫻ Awakened

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Terrakinesis; an ability that he gained after getting trapped under debris after an explosion. The Awakened tattoo appears as a globe on his wrist.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Ray has the ability to control and shape any earth derived materials around himself. Thus, metal, stone, earth, and mud are fair game. He is able to control them as long as he could see it, and could wield up to 500 kilograms of materiel at a single given time. Wielding his powers also requires hand gestures and lower body movements. In combat, he will always have shoes and gloves made from earthen materials, which allow him to rapidly slide on the ground, crawl on inert surfaces like a lizard, and make improvised cuffs with his gloves. (In other words, basically an Earthbender)

AURA SENSING ⫻ Ray is capable of seeing the auras of people that are currently stepping on earth based materials within ten meters.

LIMITS ⫻ Emotional-Fields interfere with the ability to a degree, and he has a hard time using his ability on the Extra-Normal. He can hit them with a rock just fine, but can't seem to bind them in stone regardless of how hard he tries. The ability has a range of around ten meters, and he has a weight limit of around 500kg. The act of lifting up stone and moving it is incredibly taxing, so he finds it draining when he uses his ability.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ When Ray uses his abstraction, he finds himself weighed down and this really hurts him in confrontations against faster foes. The act of bending earth also causes nasty cracks to form on his skin, and they could get easily infected if they aren't treated.

Anyyyything else?

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Aileen desperately wants to be a part of the Extra-normal world. She's always felt out of place in normal life among normal people, and she feels that the extra-normal world is where she belongs.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ She believes in fate and destiny, but also believes that it doesn't just come your way. You have to fight for it and take it.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Heterosexual virgin who does not actively seek out attention. It's not that she isn't interested in romance, quite the contrary, but she would rather focus on other things for now.

FEARS ⫻ The Extra-normal is her love, but it's also her fear. She fears creatures from the shadows such as ghosts, demons, monsters, and is even a little afraid of the dark itself.

REPUTATION ⫻ Many of her siblings see Aileen as a crackpot or at the very least, annoying. She is rather gullible, excitable, cheery, and a bit of a coward. She is often at the butt of her siblings' jokes.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ For most of her life, she didn't even know who her father was because her mother kept him a secret, and kept her a secret from him. It wasn't until her death that her mother told her who her father was. While she doesn't agree with him lying about his marital status to her mother, she wished she had the chance to get to know the man while he was alive.

FLAWS ⫻ Aileen is highly superstitious and gullible. She'll believe just about anything she reads on the internet about aliens and the supernatural. It was only just recently she got introduced to the world of the Extra-normal, and she struggles to separate facts from fiction. She is also highly sensitive and tends to cry if people question her beliefs.

Aileen was born of one of Father's many affairs. He and her mother, Aine Orla, met at an Irish pub while he was traveling. Her mother was the barmaid. They hit it right off and the two stayed together every night while he was in town. But when he was done with his business, he returned home to Araminta. Nine months later, Aileen was born.

Aine was a good, kind mother, but they were poor. She taught Aileen how to garden, sew, cook, clean and be frugal. She made sure that Aileen was fed and that she made it to school and had clean clothes every day. They both worked hard and saved money to one day move to America.

But Aine was a highly superstitious woman and she passed those beliefs on to Aileen. Her mother often claimed to see fairies, sprites, and leprechauns. While Aileen couldn't see them, she believed her mother. Especially because strange, unexplainable things happened around the both of them. She always told Aileen to be happy with what she had, because if she wasn't, the fae would take it away.

Because of her old fashioned upbringing, many of her fellow classmates branded her and her mother as "crazy" for their beliefs. Aileen was often excluded from social events and didn't manage to develop any real friendships because of it. She tried desperately to fit in and was kind and bubbly and cheerful, never showing the pain inside. But as her efforts went to waste, unable to undo the damage done to her reputation, she grew to resent her mother and the father who abandoned her daughter.

Just as Aileen turned 18 and finished school, her mother came down with a mysterious illness. She grew tired, weak, and devoped a bloody cough. As time went on she only got worse. One day, her mother explained that she saw her doppelganger and her time was running out. She confessed the story of her daughter's conception, then handed her a golden locket. She closed her daughter's hand around it, urging her to find her father before something like this happened to her--Aileen-- as well. Only moments later she passed away.

Heartbroken by her mother's death and angered by her lies, Aileen ran from home into a raging storm for miles in the pouring rain. When she could run no more, she fell onto her hands and knees in the mud and sobbed, clinging to the golden locket and cried her heart out.

But then the storm began to clear, and a beam of light fell onto Aileen and it grew and grew until Aileen found herself gazing into the most beautiful rainbow she had ever seen, that seemed to take up the entire sky. A mysterious power surged through her she clenched her new necklace in her palm. She looked into the locket at the picture of her father, knowing she had to find him. She looked into the locket, finding her parents' pictures and a tiny piece of paper: "Araminta."

With the help of their entire life's savings, Aileen found herself following her only clue to a place called Araminta, Pennsylvania. A little research lead her to find news articles about James Vanburen, a man who shared her last name. Taking a leap of faith, she took the next year preparing to immigrate to her new home. As the end of her journey and the end of the year approached, Aileen began to notice something strange happening to her--her body was turning to stone, just as her Mother forwarned her.

By the time she arrived at the front door of the Vanburen Mansion, there was no doubt that she was one of them, as she had the Vanburen curse and half of her skin had turned grey and hard as stone. They took her in, and she's been staying with them ever since.

TYPE ⫻ Awakened

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Rainbow Light Manipulation: The user manipulates a beautiful but deadly rainbow with surfaces and cutting edges potentially as strong as bulletproof glass, yet can become as flexible and fragile as mica.
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻
Aileen can absorb light energy from the sun and her environment, growing stronger the longer she goes without use. When her abstraction is activated, her eyes and Sigil glow bright white. When she reaches her capacity, she starts to glow in all colors of the rainbow. As her stores are diminished her body becomes pale and sickly looking. Her stores are usually depleted in 20 minutes of use or less. If she gets sick or injured, her abilities can be severely impacted.

She can create either soft or hard light but usually uses hard light. The rainbows can vary in width from less than an inch to her arm span (about 5') and are less than a centimeter thin. The abtraction is initiated by using one or both hands to focus light between her two hands or thumb and index finger, determining the height. She then motions with her hands or both arms for the direction and speed of travel. It can be as long as 20ft.

Hard-light ribbons have comparable durability, sharpness, and traction to that of bulletproof glass when flat, but grows weaker the more twists and turns there are. fades to soft light at the end. The rainbow can be manipulated to form a slow moving elevator, small wall or shield, staircase or path, or used offensively as sharp blades. Its poor traction does not lend itself to use as a vehicle, and it gets very slippery when wet.

Alternatively, Aileen can form soft-light ribbons for show or practice. These ribbons pass harmlessly through anything. If something were touched by it, it would feel a slightly warm and tingly sensation.

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Light Sacrifice: The user gives up her energy in part or whole for the benefit of another person, usually an Adept.
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Aileen can sacrifice her light energy to an Adept, powering any Lux except for black. When Aileen lends her power to an Adept, she loses the ability to use her power for herself. This instead allows others to go beyond their limits, or essentially replenishes their magic if they ran out. The use of this ability typically renders her out of commission for at least a day.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Aileen has a weak sense of empathy and can sense auras of those within one body length (5 ft). If they have an affinity for a certain lux, she can detect what kind.

LIMITS ⫻ Aileen's ability has clearly defined ranges and limits (about twenty feet long, arm's length, and a centimeter thick). Emotional-Fields prevent her from creating her rainbows inside of Extra-Normal beings. Aileen's rainbows are the strongest when they are straight, bending them in any way lowers their durability and makes them much easier to be destroyed. She is not capable of switching a solid rainbow into an intangible one, she would have to destroy it and then remake it. Aileen creating her rainbows is dependant on her stamina.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ Aileen's rainbows can be interfered with by reflective surfaces. If they touch a reflective surface, they will be scattered, sent in several different directions, and will be difficult to use and will be much more fragile. Creating the rainbows interferes with her vision as it renders her colorblind and makes it harder for her to see far distances.

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Basil wants to turn his life around. He knows he’s been a piece of shit in the past, a mightily terrible person who doesn’t deserve forgiveness and he doesn’t ask for it, and there are problems with him he’s still trying to work out. But if for no one else, he wants to be better for his daughter and to keep her safe from it all so that she can grow into a genuinely good person. If that means finding a way to get her out of this town, then so be it.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Two things are simultaneously true: bad people can and do improve themselves and deserve the ability to do so, but even if they improve themselves, they are not entitled to the forgiveness or second chances of those they’ve hurt.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Heterosexual

FEARS ⫻ He's really just afraid for the safety of his daughter and the possibility that she might inherit the mistakes of her parents. This extends to him being afraid for his own life, because if he dies, then what does that leave for Abby? Also cockroaches. He fucking hates cockroaches.

REPUTATION ⫻ Among Araminta? Mixed, probably. He's on the good side of some people, on the bad side of quite a few. However, that's just on the east and west ends of town who know him as kind of a bastard, but also as a bastard you can bargain with. The folks on the North and South sides don't need as much policing and haven't seen him nearly as often and don't know much about them; and there's something to be said about the privilege of not having to interact with the police very often and the luxury of being able to greet them with a wide, happy smile. As far as the Vanburens? No personal connections with any of them except for Eve, who was estranged from the family. He doubts they have much of an opinion of him. It might be a sore awakening for them to find out he doesn't bend the knee to the family name.

THOUGHTS ABOUT FATHER ⫻ Well James ain’t his dad, so he ain’t got much reason to care for him aside from the man being Abby’s grandfather. The street says he’s good, Eve says he ain’t shit; neither one is necessarily a reliable source of information.

FLAWS ⫻ Basil’s just a piece of shit. Granted, he’s getting better. He’s a far cry different from the abusive drunk he was back in the day, but he still has issues with his temper, and he finds himself bending the rules and being far more morally flexible than he ought to be. He makes snap judgements about people, he’s difficult to befriend, has trust issues, and he relies on alcohol, caffeine, and cigarettes to get through the day. Just because he found his nurturing, softer side for his daughter doesn’t mean he wouldn’t put the fear of pain into someone if it meant getting what he wanted.

Basil was a runaway kid. A violently abusive and later absent dad and drug-abusing mother does not lend itself to a happy childhood. Apparently pops left a trail of kids in his wake, including a pair of half-sisters he didn’t know very well. Having to take care of himself while mom was high didn’t leave much energy for caring about his school grades, and he fled Maine, and ended up being picked up by officers in Massachusetts to be put into a foster care program when he was around 15 years old. He was a difficult kid to wrangle and get to behave, he had an attitude even when he was this young and he made it deliberately difficult for foster parents to take care of him because, in his experience, he couldn’t rely on authority figures and caretakers. The kids he associated with weren’t that different from him either; they all had troubles at home and hated being told what to do by adults who were ruining their own lives—what could they possibly know? So, when you’re told not to smoke when you’re 16 years old, you take that as a challenge and as an order to blatantly refuse.

Having teenage gangs skating downtown on skateboards who break into cars to steal shit they can pawn off isn’t a rare occurrence. Running interference for actual crooks was part of the gig. Basil wasn’t much of a brain for these types of ops, and he wasn’t much of a muscle; he was just one of the goons who was willing to do the stupid shit, like being a distraction or taking the fall for others. The very least he managed to do was study enough to get his GED, because as he started getting older, he had to have an actual job because foster agencies let you out on the street when you’re 18, and as reality began to sink in and hit him, it took at least a GED to get any decent-paying, braindead job. So, for a few years he managed to land a dockworker job driving forktrucks out in the cold and moving shipments back and forth. This was supplemented by his more illicit activities on the side, such as playing enforcer or thug for some slighted crook and collecting debts via intimidation, vandalism, or roughing someone up. Basil’s street smarts helped him here though, always being able to play the card of plausible deniability. The local cops knew of course he was no good, but without catching him in the act of having evidence of wrongdoing, they couldn’t arrest him for anything.

He never worked the same job for very long. Coming into work either intoxicated, shitty behavior, or simply not doing his work would find him fired after a few months, and he’d find someplace else that would take him. A warehouse or a dock of some kind since they pay better than most beater jobs with low requirements. He’d eventually find his way into the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania looking for work, eventually finding it in West Araminta when he was just a little older than 22 years old. The problem though with living the kind of life Basil has in a smaller town like Araminta is that people notice when you’re an outsider, and they notice quickly. One of the first of these people was one beautiful mistake by the name of Eve Vanburen. Apparently, she was one of the many kids of some big shot Basil didn’t know or care about, a man not so different from his own father, and she was estranged from the family for a very long time. She was a mixed woman about as inked up as he was, and at first it was simply a physical relationship. Then it went on to be his first long-term relationship. Then it became his worst relationship.

It turns out that putting two people together who’ve never had long-term relationships, both had family traumas, and unhealthy coping mechanisms, poor communications, and a reliance on soft drugs, it doesn’t lend itself to a healthy relationship. Full of yelling, manipulation, hurtful words and tears, stealing from each other, breaking up and hooking back up again—but it wasn’t physical then. Not that it made the relationship any healthier of course, they were both awful and spiteful people and perhaps they deserved each other in that regard. Besides that, the makeup sex was always pretty amazing. To think that they lasted year without throwing hands was a miracle.

The second time someone noticed him, after a life of being a professional piece of shit, he and a friend got caught stealing a package from someone’s porch. The po-pos start blaring their whoop-whoop horns. He takes the package to let his buddy get away, he gets tackled, and put in handcuffs. He’s been in them before, but he was a kid all those other times and they returned him home, to foster care, or let him off with a warning or something. The adult world was different—had consequences, and he spent the night in the city jail.

The third time someone noticed him was when he was approached by Lieutenant Kreese while sitting behind those bars. He kept asking Basil for the name of his buddy in exchange for going easy on him, but Basil didn’t budge. When asked why he wouldn’t turn in a good-for-nothing like the guy who left him behind, and why Basil would take the fall for someone who didn’t think twice about him, he answered it was because you don’t turn on a brother. This prompted a sympathetic nod of respect from the lieutenant, and it was then he learned that they ran his name through the system and found the trail of misdemeanors he left as a kid, but more importantly, Kreese was interested in the backgrounds of people like him. Found everything he could ever want on his parents—his father the abuser, his mother the vegetable stoner—and suddenly Basil found Kreese’s sympathy that he didn’t really deserve. Sacrifice was an admirable trait, he said, but only if it’s in service to something greater, and the past doesn’t have to define your future.

“I think you’re here because no one’s ever given you a chance,” he said, “and I want to be the one to give you that chance.”

It was probably the most memorable thing anyone’s ever said to him, and since the package as returned and no harm was done, he was offered to let this whole ordeal pass by without going on his record and personally appeal to waive his past misdemeanors as a kid if he made an attempt at attending the police academy. He didn’t even have to pass—just make an honest effort, and if he failed, he would at least walk away with a tempered discipline and self-respect, and if he failed, he’d have a promising career ahead of him. Either way, it was an opportunity to live honestly.

So, he took Kreese up on the offer. The report was basically thrown out, and Kreese would send a trooper out to make sure Basil attended the academy. Which he did as he worked his dockworker job. His relationship with Eve was as tumultuous as ever, the stress of what was basically two jobs weighing on, but before the year ended, he graduated the academy as a cadet. By no means was he the top of the class, and it was incredibly grueling, but he was already physically active and that gave him a slight edge relative to some other cadets. He finished out that year with additional training as an officer under sergeant Kreese. He stopped hanging around the bad influences of his life which helped his mental state and the camaraderie of the police force was a refreshing feeling for him—it was like having a family. There were some negatives of course; suddenly he wasn’t welcome at his regular haunts since he was the new bad guy.

Training drilled into his head a “me-versus-them” mentality against the citizenry, and he started off with a chip on his shoulder already, and here he was with a gun. Having been on the opposite side of the police, it was a moment of cognitive dissonance for him. He knew what it was like on being the other end of pepper spray and the like. His career began as a beat cop, where he’d walk around the poorer parts of town and getting to know the community, stationed at a different location from Kreese. He had a regular set of rounds, and here Basil’s street-smarts payed off, because he had an empathy for people on the west and east ends that other officers on the force didn’t have. The ability to make friends with even the slimiest meant he had his back covered, and if he needed something, he knew who to talk to. It wasn’t even a year into new career though did things begin to go south for him.

He was dispatched at night to answer an emergency call. Someone brandishing a knife broke into a woman’s house. Basil and his partner, Officer Dennings, were the first ones at the scene with sirens in the distance. The front door was broken down and there was a commotion inside, which meant that there might’ve still been someone inside. Hands on their guns, they approached, and Basil announced their presence, trying to coax everyone out. Only one man answered, and it was by sprinting around the corner, covered in blood, and lunging straight toward him. Hundreds of hours of muscle memory spurred Basil to drawing his gun and firing half of his magazine into the man’s body in a second before they were on top of each other, the former apparently unable to feel the pain. Basil barely managed to disarm him and throw him off with the help of his partner, and, driven by fear, adrenaline, anger, and a desire to survive the night, beat the man to death with his baton. Then came an inexplicable guilt. Even with all the adrenaline pumping through his body and emotions swirling onto him, he could feel as if something latched onto him. They later found out that night that the woman who called the emergency line was dead.

So that is when his life and relationship went from shit to worse. He was increasingly irritable and short fused, and the stress of policing was slowly taking its toll on him. He’d find ways to blow off the steam whether it was at the gym, tracking down suspects, or an increased use of force. At first it was on drunkards and thieves and the like—people he could get away with it on, with practiced plausible deniability and a culture of brotherhood on his side of the force to help him get away with it. “Those bastards had it coming,” they’d say. He had dozens of people behind his back, even if they understood him as the precinct’s resident “bad boy.” He was offered to be put on light duty, but Basil insisted he’d be too restless.

Worse yet, he’d come home and release his stress on Eve. As if following in the footsteps of his father, the fights intensified as he became physically abusive. It was a trend that became more frequent, and occasionally fueled by alcohol. She’d fight back too, sometimes even starting the fights, but never able to fend off Basil who was much larger than she was. Stealing and cheating became more frequent as well, which in turn fed itself into more fights. With either one too afraid to leave, this cycle of abuse would continue for two years. The number of times he’d walk into work with bruises on his face and been asked if he was alright and needed to be checked on, he lost track, but he always declined their offers and said everything was fine. Occasionally, he’d tell them it was a sex thing and that’d be enough to get those squares to shut up for a week or so. Mostly he just didn’t want them to see the sort of shape he left Eve in.

Then, of course, Eve got pregnant. It was enough to spook him, and he suggested to Eve that she should get an abortion, but she felt too afraid and too guilty to follow through with it. So, halfway through the pregnancy, Basil chickened out and bailed, leaving Eve to deal with the coming child on her own—just like his own father did with his own mother. To distract himself from that reality, he drowned himself in his work. He isolated himself from others to try to get a hold of his emotions now that it was clear that leaving Eve didn’t help him at all, and he was finding other people’s voices to be an irritating itch he wanted to scratch out. Being alone was the safest option, but in drowning himself in work, he managed to bring in a record number of criminals, getting him a reputation for being a VPD hound dog.

His previously built rapport with the community, including its rotten parts, meant people owed him favors for looking the other way over petty drug use, spray-painting a building. He was in business with some crooks who’d pay him to stay off their backs and occasionally thin out the competition with anonymous tips—his corruption ran deep. He had a nose for trouble, having been on the other side of the chase before, too. Also helping him was a liberal use of force, having brought in more than just a few guys with black eyes. He was as guilty of profiling as any other cop, and one of his chief strategies was making one of his suspects a living hell by writing citations, tickets, or even slashing tires (and when confronted about it, he simply told them to come down to the station and write a police report) until they finally gave him a confession or the information he wanted. Any one of the multitudes of Vanburen kids running around, still embittered by his relationship with Eve, Basil had a tendency for treating them worse than the usual citizenry.

A turning point in his life was when he received a call about a little over a year later. Eve Vanburen was in the hospital for drug-overdose, then currently comatose. Assuming she wakes up, she was to be forcibly admitted to a strict rehab facility. Leaving behind her a baby, barely a year old: Abby Baker. Apparently even after everything Basil’s done to her, she’d still rather the child have his name before her father’s, but more glaring to him was the chain of events that ran parallel to his own life: absent, abusive dad and a drugged-out mom. The guilt was… overwhelming, and now that life had finally caught up with him, it was time he faced some consequences and accepted responsibility. The child was to be under his custody, and he submitted himself to becoming a father at 25—not that the courts would’ve given him an option anyways.

The next three years had its ups and downs. Basil had no idea how to be a father while starting out, and he spent his only two paid vacations weeks that year trying to learn how to be one. He spent quite a few sleepless nights trying to do his research while Abby ate baby food from a little jar on top of his lap, carrying her everywhere he went before he learned to buy a stroller—but it was a long three years, and he had a lot of time to think about himself and his life up to this point. Becoming a father? It changed him. At least that’s what he wants to think. That guilt he remembers feeling when that child was left alone reminded him of himself, and if he didn’t do something about it, Abby could one day end up just like him.

So, even if fatherhood didn’t change him, he forced himself to change. Just because he was a piece of shit didn’t mean he had to pass that on to an innocent little girl. He grew to love her. That much was clear when he nearly had his head cleaned off his shoulders when he was dispatched to remove a fired worker refusing to leave company property while he was taking a joyride in a forktruck. Suddenly, he finally felt the fear of mortality since it would have meant leaving the kid behind. He was put on light duty ever since then and worked primarily as a dispatcher for the last two and a half years. He relies quite a bit on babysitters to take care of Abby while he’s at work, and he makes sure to let Abby visit Eve every week or two in the rehab facility, and although he still hated the woman and she rightfully hated him back, they were at least civil while in front of the child. He just couldn’t bring himself to forgive her, as hypocritical as it was, for leaving the child the way she did. He might’ve failed Abby, but he thought that didn’t give Eve the right to neglect her too in the way she did.

Some weird things happened a year ago though. It started with some strange reports—crime scenes that didn’t make sense. Stolen goods with no signs of forced entry and the store workers themselves having alibis. Crime scenes that left no clues. Arson without evidence of accelerants or electrical malfunction. People appearing in places they shouldn’t be in. The force was stretched thin and it was one of those rare occasions that Basil had to be put to work in the field again. All evidence pointed to an animal mauling, but there were no animals around here who could do that much damage. The only thing that came close was a black bear, but they typically came nowhere within city limits. Stomping through the forest to the east, it seemed he came across the suspect: there was a rabid dog covered with blood from its face to its shoulders. It lunged, and Basil discharged his firearm as it bit into his arm. From that moment, he felt something latch onto him. That was his first experience with an apparition.

He could see it whenever he gazed into a mirror. It looked like a dog… sort of. It was at least dog shaped. Whatever he was seeing, it didn’t go around hurting people around him, but he did feel something in himself change. Not bad or evil necessarily, just different. He was a bit hungrier, ran a little hotter, but he hadn’t felt so physically strong in a long while, if ever. He could eat just about anything, but vegetables never did sit quite right with him again. He has no idea what the hell happened to him since then, but it’s been nearly a year ago from today and things are just getting weirder in Araminta, and he’ll be damned if he lets anything happen to Abby. With this weird shit happening to the Vanburens suddenly turning to stone around the city limits, he’ll have to sit tight in town until he figures out a way to get Abby out of here. That is one risk he is not willing to take.

TYPE ⫻ Affixed Aberrant

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Predation

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Predation is a type of Abstraction where the apparition affixes itself to the aberrant and usually imbues them with rabid aggression and ravenous hunger; where seemingly anything can provoke and light the aberrant’s shortened fuse and cause them to violently lash out at others. This was seen when the apparition affixed itself to an animal, being attracted to adrenaline, hunger, and survival. It affixed itself to Basil the moment the dog was killed as it bit him, drawn to his own survival impulse. Being a human with greater control over his base instincts and impulses, Basil doesn't suffer the same consequences as an animal would, and he has learned how to managed his own aggression even before becoming affixed.

The Abstraction comes with a set of benefits too: The apparition imbues the aberrant with a highly corrosive digestive acid that can enable them to digest nearly anything, a stronger, break-resistant skeleton including his teeth to endure greater bite forces that can shatter bone, and a denser muscular system which grants greater power and speed. He also has a sharp sense of smell that is sensitive enough to detect and differentiate the differences in sweat. This essentially enables him to become an apex predator to hunt down prey, which is also useful for literally sniffing down criminals and suspects. On the flip side, he can't stomach fruits and vegetables like he used to, and anything that's overcooked tends to give him a stomach ache too. So, he uses drugs like alcohol, caffeine, and cigarettes to help him suppress his appetite. He can recover from injury faster if he eats raw meat or blood, but because the thought of it makes him gag, that's a facet of his abstraction he will likely never utilize.

AURA SENSING ⫻ Basil senses people by smell, and he smells people through fear and adrenaline. While ordinarily he could do this anyway, its usually a subtle difference. A change in acidity, slightly sour. But when that person has an aura, it is distinct, pungent, and nearly overwhelming. It weakens with distance, but he can smell a fearful aura from a half-mile away.

LIMITS ⫻ Predation is a curse that isn't inhibited by Emotional Fields in any way. Basil has similar abilities to that of predators with this abstraction. His muscular system makes him strong and durable as a grizzly bear and fast as a coyote (but on two legs, don't think too hard about it). He can also smell twice as good as a bloodhound. Basil's Affixation also drives him to hunger the longer he has gone without eating meat... a few hours at most before he can no longer ignore it. If he goes a few days then he's probably going to eat somebody alive.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ There isn't a particularly large amount of weaknesses of the ability, however Basil is more susceptible to poison or other such things if consumed.

Basil drives a shitty old beater car with a child seat in the back, and he likes to play music like...