Welcome to Recollections: Where the Folds Meet, another entry in the RP series set within the supernatural horror and urban fantasy universe known as the Recollections Universe. Most people believe reality is solid; one town, one world, one way things are supposed to be. Cornell, Pennsylvania, once shared that belief. A dying Rust Belt town - steel mill by the river, woods encroaching from every side, roads looping back on themselves, and generations of residents who swear they’ll leave but never do. It’s a place that remembers its past even if its people forget. Silence hangs heavy, and the woods seem to be listening. One night, that silence was shattered. At a party in an abandoned warehouse, a single mistake was made. A drunken teenager, acting impulsively and driven by instinct, brushed against Lux just enough to crack it. The tear was small, invisible, but reality doesn’t need much coaxing to falter.
The attack was swift, brutal, and beyond explanation. An unseen force tore through the crowd, smashing bodies against concrete, dragging screaming teens through the air, leaving blood and smoke behind. Before it could finish, something else intervened—an unseen presence that forced the creature to retreat, tearing open reality as it fled. Cornell survived that night.
But it did not remain unchanged. In the weeks that followed, the town warped. Roads stretched too long, windows reflected strangers, phones failed, music echoed oddly. Portals appeared in alleys, fields, and vacant lots - each leading to different versions of reality, another world pressing in. Anyone trying to leave found themselves trapped, pushed into increasingly unstable alternate versions of the same town.
The fractures widened.
And the All-Verse took notice.
Creatures began slipping through—initially cautious, then bolder. Beneath the town, something ancient stirred—buried deep beneath steel, soil, and memory. The Pit was not reaching upward so much as Cornell was beginning to give way downward, cracks forming the path of least resistance as reality weakened under its own weight. And something else arrived. Not from below, and not from within, but external to the collapse itself. An entity that does not create the fall, but recognizes it and enforces it.
The teenagers who survived the warehouse were the first to notice the change. In shared dreams. In fractured memories. In inexplicable alterations. They were thrown into the Paranormal—forced to see reality’s seams, track fractures, remember what the world tries to forget. No prophecies, no chosen ones—just kids standing at the edge of something much bigger than them. Now, Cornell has become a battleground of overlapping realities, hunting monsters, and buried truths. Each street conceals a door. Every reflection might deceive. Every choice risks tearing the town apart further.
Recollections: Where the Folds Meet is a story about small places buckling under impossible pressure, about memory as both weapon and wound, about identity, fear, and the price of knowing too much.
Cornell is breached.
The town knows how to bleed.
The only question: can anyone stop it from bleeding out?
RULES & NOTES
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1. First and foremost, I reserve the right to reject anyone from the RP and boot them out at any time. I hate to do this, and I will try to avoid it, but sometimes, some people are too disruptive to the RP or aren't a good fit and must be removed.
2. Please try to be respectful towards all other players.
3. This is a dark, off-urban fantasy set in the real world. That means magic exists, but it’s wrapped in realism. Characters should make sense in the setting — realistic (or naturalistic) faceclaims, believable behavior, etc. Go wild with identity (gender, race, sexuality, etc.), but avoid exaggerated tropes like emotionless sociopaths or edge-lords.
4. The tone is dark, weird, and sometimes violent — not nonstop grimdark, but there will be disturbing imagery, death, and even nudity. It’s balanced out by surrealism, absurdist humor, and the general chaos of the world itself.
5.No WIP sheets in the OOC. If your character isn’t finished, don’t post it. Message me privately if you want feedback before you’re ready to go live. The character tab is only for accepted characters.
6. Your character can die. If they make the wrong move or ignore danger, there will be consequences. I’m not killing characters for fun, but I won’t save them just because you’re attached.
7.You can play as many characters as you can reasonably handle. Just don’t bite off more than you can chew.
8. This isn’t a standard superhero RP. It’s weird — an off-urban fantasy with horror, multiversal drama, and emotional magic. Powers should feel mystical, thematic, and personal. I strongly prefer abilities that reflect something internal about your character. Scientific powers (like gravity, magnetism, etc.) are discouraged, but I’ll allow them if they make sense.
9. Every character will be aged 16-17, no exceptions.
10. I’m only giving you the essential lore up front. That’s intentional. I prefer to build the world in-character, piece by piece. If you need anything clarified to make your character work, just ask — I’m happy to fill in the blanks.
11. Banned powers: magic negation/replication, instant-kill abilities, reality-warping, anything with “Omni” in the name, complete invulnerability, and any other broken or nonsense-tier power. If you’re unsure, ask. I’ll explain why if I turn something down.
12. This RP is first-come, first-served. I won’t reserve roles, powers, or concepts. Whoever finishes their character sheet first gets it. If a dispute pops up, I’ll decide how it plays out.
13. Minimum activity is one post per week. If you don’t post within a week, your character is considered inactive. After that, I can take control of them, write them out, or kill them off. Stay in touch if you need time.
14. The setting runs on Ambiguous Time Period logic. It blends aesthetics and technology from different eras, so don’t worry about pinning down a specific year. It’s intentionally anachronistic.
15. Don’t fill out the “Weaknesses” section on your sheet. I’ll handle that myself.
16. Optional, but I can design a magical ability for your character if you’d like. It’ll be custom-built and fit their vibe. Just say the word.
17. Everyone will start off with no magic and no prior knowledge of magic for that fish-out-of-water vibe.
18. Power level should stay low. Think street-level supernatural. No chucking buildings or melting cities. Keep it esoteric, personal, and emotionally charged.
19. Some rules are so beaten into your head that it should be obvious. ............................................
“Cornell, Pennsylvania - Built to Last.” ..................................................................................
Cornell, Pennsylvania (In Beaver County) is situated where the river curves like it’s trying to turn back. It’s a steel town that never recovered from its pivotal moment. The mill still dominates the water, with rusted scaffolding ribs exposed and pipes streaking orange into the river. It no longer operates as before; furnaces are half-cold, workers are gone, but it never fully shuts down. It groans at night, and locals say it’s just metal cooling. No one really believes that, but no one argues either.
The town is small enough to walk across in an afternoon if the roads cooperate. A main road cuts through Cornell like a scar, lined with a diner that never changes its menu, a liquor store with bars on its windows, a closed theater showing a decade-old film, and a few storefronts that change owners frequently. Side streets fork unevenly, looping back, dead-ending into woods, fences, or empty lots where houses once stood, lost to fire or foreclosure.
Cornell’s residential areas are cramped and tired—narrow streets, porches sagging with old furniture, satellite dishes on siding that hasn’t been repainted since they were created. Everyone knows everyone, or at least about them. Rumors spread faster than cars. People stare a second too long, trying to remember where they recognize you. At night, porch lights blink out in sequence, and thick darkness settles between the houses.
The woods crowd around the town, not scenic or welcoming—dense, overgrown, tangled with brambles, old paths that don’t appear on maps. Kids party there; adults pretend not to notice. Bonfires leave scorched circles that sometimes fade or sometimes are deep enough that the river and mill drown out everything else. The locals call it “kids being stupid,” but some parts of the forest are avoided even in daylight.
Before everything went wrong, Cornell barely registered on any supernatural radar.
Magic existed, but it was faint, sluggish, half-asleep—no signs, no miracles, just background noise. Some creatures drifted too close and learned to hide. Strange animals seen at dusk. Wrong reflections in windows. People who vanished for days and returned quieter, meaner, or hollow. There were witch cults too—small, disorganized, and unserious on the surface. College kids are home for the summer. Burnouts. Townies needing something to believe in besides the mill or river. They met at night in the woods, painted symbols that didn’t work, drank too much, made love under the moon, told themselves it meant something. Usually, it didn’t. Their rituals were sloppy, fueled by boredom and rebellion. Whatever they touched never stayed long enough to matter.
Cornell was a place where magic passed through, not a place where it stopped.
The high school, uphill from the town center, is a boxy concrete building with flickering fluorescent lights and trophies from decades ago. Everyone talks about leaving after graduation, but most don’t. The river, the mill, and the town’s quiet pull draw them back before they realize. The vibe is stagnant and heavy—as if the town is holding its breath without knowing it. That changed after the incident—but even before, Cornell always felt subtly wrong. GPS lagged. Radios crackled with stations that didn’t exist. Dreams intrude into waking life enough to unsettle. Streets seemed longer than they used to be. Arguments replayed with the same words weeks apart. Cornell felt neglected—like reality had grown careless here, like a seam long overdue for inspection. A town unimportant enough to neglect but not so insignificant as to ignore forever.
Once something was finally noticed, it—the town or what lurked within—there was no clean way to turn away again.
"Open your mind, heart, body, and soul to the universe..." ____________________________________ Beyond the ordinary lies an invisible threshold—a line dividing the possible from the impossible. Some people cross it easily, born with a trait or inclination that draws them toward the unknown. Others are pushed. Regardless of how they cross, those who do discover a truth both exhilarating and terrifying: Magic is real.
This Magic is not pulled from ancient tomes or distant stars; it’s born from within—fueled by human emotion, belief, and personality. Those who awaken to it gain powers that reflect their true nature at their core. These individuals, varied in form and ability, are collectively known as the Paranormal. Their world is a gateway to infinite stories and adventures, where the laws of reality bend and the soul takes center stage.
The abilities granted to Paranormal beings are called Paranormal-Abilities. The most basic of these is the theoretical opening of a “third eye,” a metaphor for perceiving the unseen forces at work. Only the Paranormal can see Magic in action; to everyone else, only the consequences are visible.
One of the most iconic abilities is called a Recollection. This vivid, immersive flashback allows someone to witness events they weren’t present for, as if standing within the memory itself. Recollections can be triggered in various ways: during dreams, upon touching a meaningful object, or in the presence of someone associated with the memory. Sometimes, those with deep magical knowledge can even share a Recollection with others.
Paranormal beings are drawn to one another and magical events, often against their will. Some believe that certain traits make individuals more likely to be drawn into these situations or to encounter them.
At the heart of each Paranormal lies a unique power known as an Abstraction. No two Abstractions are precisely alike, as each is a manifestation of the individual’s soul. Though some may seem to possess multiple powers, these are simply facets of a greater whole. An Abstraction cannot be nullified or replaced—except in one scarce and specific case. To prevent chaos, Paranormal beings are protected from one another by an invisible force called the Emotional-Field. This field acts as a natural limiter, preventing most offensive Abstractions from being used directly on other Paranormals. For example, a pyromancer cannot boil another’s blood, a telekinetic cannot rip out a heart, and a mind controller cannot take over a fellow Paranormal. Some abilities, such as healing or telepathy, are typically unaffected, but others may be weakened, blocked, or require creative workarounds. Specific, rare Abstractions can bypass the Emotional Field, and others may modify it, lessening its protection, stripping it away, or twisting its effects. But these cases are exceptional.
Those who lack both an Abstraction and an Emotional-Field are called the Blind. They cannot perceive, understand, or interact with Magic in any way. However, some who have been exposed to Magic may gain a limited awareness known as Aware. These Aware individuals still lack the protections and powers of the Paranormal, leaving them just as vulnerable as the Blind—if not more so.
ADEPTS
_______________________________________________ "Transcend the limitations you have placed on your mind and soul."
Eons ago, an ancient race of god-like beings known as the Ancients visited humanity and gifted thousands with access to a powerful form of Magic called Lux. Lux is a unique kind of Magic, its properties shaped by color, and it creates a spiritual bond not only with the energy itself but with the generations of users who came before. To unlock Lux, an individual must undergo a Kindling Event—a moment of overwhelming emotion that sparks the connection.
During a Kindling Event, the Adept may find themselves communing with their ancestors, much like a Recollection, forming a spiritual lineage that passes down through their descendants. However, this bond is not unbreakable. If an Adept strays from the values or expectations of their predecessors, they may experience a Severance—a complete disconnection from Lux. In some cases, this severance is forced by the ancestors; in others, the Adept severs themselves during their Kindling. Once severed, they become Aware—still able to perceive Magic, but permanently cut off from their Lux.
Unlike other Paranormal beings, Adepts resemble traditional mages or wizards. They don’t possess a single innate ability but must learn spells, each drawn from the potential of their Lux. While theoretically capable of casting any spell within their Lux’s domain, each Adept has a personal Affinity—a trait or theme that reflects who they are. Spells aligned with an Adept’s Affinity are easier to learn and more powerful. Spells outside this affinity are challenging to develop, and spells that directly oppose it are nearly impossible to master.
Spells are typically discovered through trial and error, but each Adept has a unique method of learning—some through meditation, others through experimentation or emotional breakthroughs. Spells can also be taught, passed down through grimoires, artifacts, or shared by other Paranormals. Over a lifetime, an Adept may master hundreds of spells, though doing so takes years of dedication. Interestingly, close relationships can spark inspiration, allowing Adepts to create spells influenced by those they care about.
To cast spells, Adepts require a Channeler—an emotionally significant object through which they safely conduct their Lux. It’s possible to cast without one, but doing so risks severe injury, as channeling Magic through the body leads to burns and instability. The process of spellcasting is called Casting, and methods vary: visualization, chanting, rituals, or pure willpower. Some Adepts gain access to multiple Lux. While this expands their magical repertoire, it also dilutes their power, making individual spells weaker. Still, combining different Lux can lead to unique hybrid spells.
Most Adepts have only one Lux, a few have two, and those with three or more are exceptionally rare.
Red (Rage): Elemental Lux, the most common type of Lux. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Bull. Examples: Manipulation of fire, ice, electricity, earth, plant, and similar abilities.
Green (Joy): Biological Lux, the third most common type of Lux. The Ancient embodies this Lux: The Deer. Examples Include Healing, shape-shifting, and wing generation, among others.
Yellow (Terror): Stealth & Defensive Lux. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Spider. Examples: Invisibility, barrier generation/forcefields, dumbing sound down, etc.
Pink (Love): Mental & Emotional Lux. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Dove. Examples: Emotion manipulation, mind control, telepathy, illusion creation, etc.
Gold (Pride): Minion Summoning/Creation Lux, the third rarest type of Lux. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Lion. Examples: Creating minions of choice, summoning a defeated monster, etc.
Purple (Anticipation): Movement & Time Lux, the second most common type of Lux. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Butterfly. Examples: Teleportation, time travel, Portal Creation, telekinesis, slowing down time, etc
Orange (Courage): Enchanting/Artifact-Creation, & Abstraction-Strengthening Lux, the second rarest form of Lux. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Serpent. Examples: Creating artifacts, boosting Paranormal abilities, making an object weightless, etc.
Blue (Sadness): Curse Lux, the rarest form of Lux. The ability to cast curses requires a stipulation to be broken. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Swan. Examples: Cursing someone to turn into a monster, creating a deadly illness, cursing someone to be haunted by the dead, etc.
White (Nostalgia): Information Lux. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Owl. Examples include observing locations remotely, seeing into the past/future, reading auras, gaining information about the environment, etc.
Black (Apathy): Necromancy Lux. The Ancient that embodies this Lux: The Hound. Examples: Creating zombie minions, manipulating apparitions, etc.
Adepts are probably my second favorite out of the types, so I'm biased. They're probably the most complex, given how Lux n' shit works. Blue Lux are heavily restricted and require permission from me to make one a player character - otherwise, they will be an NPC-only Lux. I demand a list of spells they can cast in their abstraction section. Keep in mind that the more types of Lux they have access to, the weaker their abilities should be. Also, please run any new spells by me first.
APPARITIONS
________________________________________________________________ "They emerge from a world that shouldn't exist."
Ghosts. Spirits. Angels. Demons. Echoes. Whatever name you give them, Apparitions remain the most enigmatic and fantastical of all Paranormal beings. Unlike creatures of flesh and blood, they are formed entirely of pure Magic, and unlike living things, they are not born—they are spawned into existence. There are three primary ways an Apparition can come into existence. The first is through belief or emotion so powerful that it manifests into being on its own—willpower, grief, or conviction so intense it bends reality. The second method is far rarer: an Apparition can be created directly by another Paranormal being, though this process is ancient, obscure, and nearly forgotten. The third and most common way occurs when a person dies harboring overwhelming emotions; a fragment of their consciousness and scattered memories may linger, coalescing into an Apparition.
In this third case, the resulting entity is not the deceased's soul. It merely contains echoes—faint memories, slivers of personality, and scattered thoughts. These Apparitions begin as blank slates, shaped over time by the Magic and emotion that gave them birth. Many were once Paranormal beings who willingly shed their humanity to become something else—something more. Apparitions are fueled by the emotion or belief that created them. The stronger and more enduring that emotional force, the more powerful the Apparition becomes. But that power is not eternal. If the belief fades or the emotion weakens, the Apparition may fade from existence entirely.
Despite this vulnerability, Apparitions are effectively immortal. They can exist for centuries, regenerating even if destroyed—some in a matter of hours, depending on their strength. By default, they are invisible to the Blind but can choose to reveal themselves. The Aware and Paranormal can always perceive them, though only the latter can see them unconditionally. Most Apparitions possess some form of flight, even if limited to minor levitation, though not all are capable of it. The primary method of defeating an Apparition is through a process called Sealing—imprisoning them within an object, trapping them for eternity unless someone breaks the seal. To avoid this fate, many Apparitions attempt to bind themselves to a human, embedding their presence in the world in a more stable form. However, when bound this way, their Abstraction becomes static and unchanging.
Apparitions are also the primary source of curses, particularly those fueled by grief, hatred, or despair. They are deeply entwined with Black Lux, which can manipulate or even command them. Of all Paranormal entities, Apparitions are the most elusive, both in nature and origin. Neither fully alive nor entirely dead, they drift between memory and Magic, caught in the wake of emotion made real.
Sealing an Apparition is simple but requires careful preparation, belief, and skill. First, the person attempting the seal must draw symbols on the ground or environment — symbols they genuinely believe will bind the Apparition. This belief is crucial, as the seal's power stems from the conviction behind the markings. Once the symbols are in place, an object of any size must be placed within the sigils. The next step is the most dangerous: confronting and weakening the Apparition. The entity must be fought and drained of its strength until it is weakened enough for the seal to activate and draw it into the prepared object. The sealing process is not precise—an Apparition must only be near the sigils to be captured.
When an Apparition is successfully sealed, it is rendered dormant within the object, effectively trapping it in a state of inactivity. This dormancy means the Apparition cannot exert its powers or influence the surrounding environment until it is released from the seal. For particularly powerful Apparitions, larger objects are necessary to accommodate their presence, and sealing multiple Apparitions into a single object is possible, though it is a risky endeavor. The more Apparitions sealed into a single object, the less stable the seal becomes, increasing the likelihood of failure or release. If the object is ever destroyed, the Apparition(s) will be freed immediately. It's essential to note that sealing only affects Apparitions. It does not affect the Abscised (possessed beings), Agents (who wield sealed Apparitions), or the Adjoined (humans bonded with Apparitions). When sealed, the object containing the Apparition allows the Blind/Aware to access their Abstraction upon coming into contact with it, effectively turning them into Agents capable of utilizing the power within.
Apparitions will be heavily restricted for several reasons; you can only make an Apparition if you get my permission. Apparitions apart of an Aberration are fully allowed.
ABERRATIONS
_________________________________________________ "Freak, monsters, predators, prey, Aberrations. Do not take them lightly." .........................................................................
Aberrations are considered beings “outside the lines,” existing beyond the grand design of the universe. They are people or creatures who have come into contact with the Paranormal and, as a result, gained either a blessing or a curse from those interactions. Most Aberrations originate from the Blind interacting with Apparitions, but they can also be created by Adepts or through contact with magical artifacts. Unlike Adepts, animals can become Aberrations because of their unique nature. Since Aberrations are Paranormal beings, they possess all the baseline paranormal abilities; however, only those who are Blind or Aware can become Aberrations.
Due to their unusual nature, Aberrations are divided into five subclasses:
Adjoined: These are Paranormal beings who have an Apparition attached to their soul and can use its abilities. This might mean the Apparition freely uses its abstraction, the Adjoined can transform into the Apparition, or they use the Apparition’s Abstraction by proxy. Sometimes, an Adjoined can do all three.
Afflicted: A person who has gained an Abstraction through a curse.
Agent: Someone who has had contact with a sealed Apparition, has an Apparition sealed within them, or a magical artifact, and can use their Abstraction by proxy.
Abscised: An Abscised is an Apparition that has taken control of a body, whether by possession, removing the original soul, or inhabiting a deceased body, and uses its Abstraction through that host. Abscised beings are various forms of undead.
Abominable: These are unique creatures created by Magic, neither fully human nor Apparition. Some are created by Paranormals, while some are born from existing Abominable, spontaneously manifest from powerful Magic or collective belief, or arise from humans (including Paranormals such as Adepts and Aberrations) through transformation—such as undeath, rituals, or other supernatural means. The Abominable are the only known beings capable of passing down an Abstraction, and some can even breed with humans.
Glamour is an ability mainly used by Abominable Aberrations to hide their true nature from people who can see the Paranormal. Since the Blind usually cannot perceive Aberrations—or their minds interpret them as something else—Glamour isn’t about blending in with everyone. Instead, it creates illusions that mask monstrous or magical traits to avoid detection by the Paranormal.
While most common among Abominable, other Aberrations, and even humans can use Glamour when needed. It’s not a single, simple spell—Glamour varies depending on the user’s power and needs. Some Glamours are temporary and require constant focus and energy, while others are deeply tied to the being’s essence, providing a lasting disguise. Advanced Glamours can change appearance, voice, scent, and aura, making it very hard even for other Paranormals to see through. However, illusions can sometimes falter under scrutiny or physical contact.
Glamour can be created and maintained in different ways: ritualistic rites that call on ancient or personal Magic; drinking special potions that temporarily alter appearance; some Abominable can cast it at will through concentration; enchanted artifacts like rings or amulets can provide reliable disguises; emotional Glamour uses others’ feelings—like fear or admiration—to sustain the illusion; and finally, meditation and mental discipline can maintain Glamour through focused concentration.
My favorite type of Paranormal beings. They'll require a bit more background work, as you'll need to determine how they become an Aberrant (mainly by running into an Apparition, etc.). With Aberrants, you aren't limited by belief or personality or whatever, and can come up with anything; however, you have to come up with Apparitions.
ANCIENTS
_________________________________________________ "They were here before belief—and will remain after it." .........................................................................
The Ancients are ten god-like beings, each embodying the complete and overwhelming essence of a specific Lux color. They exist far beyond mortal comprehension, scattered across the All-Verse as enigmatic forces of immense power and purpose. Though their influence can be felt in the world, they rarely interact directly with sentient life. When they do, it is often through cryptic bargains, supernatural interventions, or brief, reality-warping appearances. Each Ancient holds dominion over a different aspect of existence and resides within their realm—vast, self-contained dimensions shaped by their will. While some view them as distant gods or primal forces, others see them as architects of the All-Verse itself. Their true nature remains largely unknown. Together, the Ancients represent some of the oldest and most potent forces in existence. Whether they created the All-Verse, emerged from it, or are merely its caretakers is a question that remains unanswered.
The Bull: Ancient of Red Lux, is the primal force of creation and destruction. Universes are born from his hammer and end with his hand. Known for his volatile temper and impatient nature, he is both feared and strangely admired. While impulsive, the Bull encourages others to harness power in their fury, to transform their rage into something meaningful. His realm, the Forge, is a smoldering crucible of raw creation—a realm where stars are struck like sparks and broken realities are melted down for parts.
The Deer: Ancient of Green Lux, breathes life into the Bull’s empty creations. Her curiosity is endless, her creativity unbounded, and though her intentions are kind, she sometimes causes harm through unfiltered wonder. New species, sentient life, and strange ecosystems sprout wherever she treads. Her realm, the Plains, is a constantly evolving world of forests, beasts, and wild phenomena—alive in every sense of the word.
The Spider: Ancient of Yellow Lux, rarely seen and steeped in Yellow Lux, serves as the keeper of dimensional stability. He lives in self-imposed exile, tending to the fraying threads of reality to keep darker forces from bleeding through. His realm, the Web, is not a network but a sprawling fortress of mirrored corridors and endless traps—designed to confuse, isolate, and imprison anything that tries to claw its way into the All-Verse from beyond. It is a maze for monsters, and the Spider is its warden.
The Dove: Ancient of Pink Lux, is the giver of sentience. After the Bull shapes the universe and the Deer fills it with life, the Dove breathes consciousness and awareness into beings, granting them the spark of thought and feeling. Her realm, known as The Sanctuary, is a tranquil and ever-changing place that nurtures the growth of consciousness and self-awareness. It serves as a spiritual incubator where fledgling sentient beings can connect with their inner selves, explore their emotions, and develop their minds before fully embracing their place in the universe. The Sanctuary also acts as a refuge for lost or wandering souls seeking clarity and understanding.
The Lion: Ancient of Gold Lux, is the silent sentinel of the All-Verse. Working in tandem with the Owl, he responds to threats from beyond reality, summoning vast armies to repel invaders and protect the balance. His realm, the Bastion, is an endless, sprawling city—an impenetrable fortress where legions gather, prepare, and stand eternal guard against cosmic dangers. The Bastion shifts and expands with every threat, a living defense crafted to endure any assault.
The Butterfly: The Ancient of Purple Lux governs time and space with surgical precision. He monitors every instance of dimensional travel and punishes those who tamper with the timeline. Unforgiving and incorruptible, the Butterfly is bound to duty and knows no leniency. His realm is the Pasture, a deceptively serene expanse where time offenders are imprisoned—forced to relive their worst memories on endless loop, watched always by the one who caught them.
The Serpent: Ancient of Orange Lux, she is the ultimate regulator and source of all artifacts throughout the All-Verse. Every artifact’s power flows from her will, and she alone controls its creation and distribution. The Serpent carefully crafts relics imbued with potent Magic, deciding who is worthy to wield them and when. Her presence ensures balance in the flow of enchanted power, preventing chaos from unchecked artifacts. Her realm, the Chalice, is a vast, shimmering vault filled with endless shelves of glowing relics and ancient tomes—a sacred treasury where the origin of every artifact is recorded and protected.
The Swan: Ancient of Blue Lux, she governs the ebb and flow of fate and consequence. Rather than curses, she weaves the invisible threads of chance and misfortune, subtly influencing events to maintain cosmic balance. Her realm, The Mirror, is a shifting expanse of reflective waters and endless skies, where possibilities ripple like waves—some serene, others stormy. Those who seek to understand fate or bargain with destiny sometimes catch glimpses of her in the depths of her realm.
The Owl: Ancient of White Lux, is the quiet observer of all things. She dwells in the Library, a sentient, endless archive that records the knowledge, thoughts, and histories of every being in the All-Verse. Though rarely seen outside her realm, the Owl watches constantly, cataloging events as they unfold.
The Hound: Ancient of Black Lux, he is the silent guide of the dead—and the most famous and feared of all the Ancients. Few see him, but all eventually feel his pull. As the psychopomp of the All-Verse, he ferries souls into his realm, The Dark, a place where the dead are believed to remain forever. What becomes of them in the Dark is unknown—only that the Hound never returns empty-handed.
Strictly NPCs. Don't even ask.
ARTIFACTS
"In the heart of every artifact lies a story waiting to be told."
Across the All-Verse, amidst the whispers of forgotten civilizations, lie items of unimaginable power and mystery imbued with magical power known as an Artifact - Enigmatic relics deeply rooted in human belief and thought. Across the All-Verse, there are countless artifacts created by Adepts with Orange-Lux, Apparitions, or some artifacts spawned from the collective consciousness of humankind. However, even ordinary objects can become artifacts through the power of beliefs or emotions associated with them. They come in many shapes and sizes, and many hoard them for their raw power and the capabilities they offer.
They take many shapes and sizes, and many horde them for their raw power and what they can do. Artifacts are separated into two different groups: Abstraction-Granting Artifacts, and Non-Abstraction-Granting Artifacts, and the difference is simple.
Abstraction-granting artifacts are relics that, when wielded by an individual, are attuned to their power, bestowing upon the user a specific Abstraction. These can range from elemental manipulation to psychic abilities, reflecting the nature of the Artifact. The main difference between this type of artifact and other kinds is that Abstraction-Granting Artifacts turn the Blind/Aware into Agents and can not be wielded by any other form of Paranormal-Being.
Non-Abstraction Granting Artifacts function differently, and can be used by anyone, even the most potent Paranormal-Being. Their magical abilities lie inside them, not bestowing an Abstraction. When wielded or activated, these artifacts exert their influence through various means, ranging from subtle manipulation to overt displays of power. These range from a magical sword to opening portals, protecting the wielder from curses, etc.
Out there, there is a book of all known artifacts known as the The Compendium.
CURSES
"Curses are the silent whispers of history, the lingering shadows of forgotten sins, and the dark echoes of human suffering. However, they hold a hidden strength waiting to be explored."
There exists a darkness that defies explanation, an evil force that lurks in the dark shadows of the human psyche. These are the curses, ancient and insidious, born from the depths of human belief and emotion. These curses weave a tale of despair and destruction, leaving their mark on the souls of those unfortunate enough to be afflicted by them. They are manifestations fueled by anger, hatred, and/or despair and imbued with the power to wreak havoc upon those who incur their wrath. Curses can be physical, psychological, environmental, or even more abstract. Much like artifacts, there are countless and diverse artifacts throughout the All-Verse. Still, most of them are created by Apparitions - others are created through Blue-Lux users, as well as through rituals or human belief, emotion, and intent, spawning from intense suffering, betrayal, or injustice.
Again, much like artifacts, Curses can be divided into Abstraction-Granting Curses and Non-Abstraction-Granting Curses. Abstraction-Granting Curses, from a certain point of view, can be considered a gift as they can grant a transformation, psychic abilities, and more. While cursed individuals may gain access to newfound powers or skills, these come at a steep cost: the loss of life or a form of corruption. Every Abstraction-Granting Curse has a price, no matter what, and only the Blind/Aware can receive an Abstraction-Granting Curse.
On the other hand, non-abstraction-granting curses are curses that anyone can receive, and they do not grant any boons or power whatsoever. They are strictly curses and come in many different forms, and anyone can receive these types of curses.
"Reality is a wild, unpredictable, beast. Every choice you make leads to a different reality."
Within the Recollections universe lies a vast multiverse known as the All-Verse. This intricate web of parallel dimensions, alternate realities, and diverse planes of existence stretches alongside our primary reality. These dimensions can vary widely, from worlds vastly different to ones almost identical, differing only in the smallest details.
Although the universes were never meant to intersect, Magic enables travel between them. The All-Verse embodies the fabric of reality itself.
Yet, not all realms within the All-Verse are welcoming. Some fragments of destroyed universes have coalesced into a grim and hostile territory known as the Pit. This savage land is composed of broken shards of reality, haunted by entities cast out of existence. Escape from the Pit is rare, and those who do return are often forever changed, their sanity fractured. The Pit itself resists escape attempts, redirecting teleportation back into its grasp, meaning even the most powerful mages cannot escape.
Each universe within the All-Verse bears a name inspired by light or the essence of illumination. The universe where this story unfolds is called Glimmer.
In the intricate weave of the All-Verse, the existence of Counterparts is one of its most enigmatic and metaphysically profound features. Every soul echoes across the infinite tapestry of dimensions, refracted into countless versions of the same essential being. These are not mere doppelgängers or coincidences of fate—they are spiritually entangled entities, linked by threads of shared origin and potential. A person in one reality might be a humble shopkeeper, while their Counterpart in another rules empires or communes with dead stars. Yet despite differences in choices, environment, or even species, certain core traits—ambitions, emotional scars, or particular obsessions—tend to resurface, like persistent ripples from a single stone cast into the multiverse.
This bond between Counterparts is called the Bond, a phenomenon not fully understood even by the most skilled of Adepts. It manifests uniquely depending on the nature of the individuals involved and the distance—temporal, emotional, or dimensional—between them. Some Counterparts are aware of each other only in dreams, through fragmented visions or mirrored memories. Others experience surges of déjà vu when their alternate selves achieve significant milestones or die.
Ultimately, Counterparts are not just narrative reflections—they are integral components of identity within the All-Verse. A single person is not limited to one life, one path, or one reality. The Counterpart system ensures that the All-Verse remains not only infinite in scope but emotionally and spiritually recursive. Every decision resonates. Every version matters.
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Note: This is not a guide or anything like that. You're free to come up with symbolism and your interpretations of what's below, and I've probably gone against it a few times myself. This is just how I interpret mechanics n' shit about abstractions.
Elemental Abstractions:
_______________________________________________ In general: Connection to the world, creativity, focus on the outside, being outrospective, desire to build/shape, change.
Fire: Passion, rage, raw and destructive emotion.
Water: Calmness/Peace, easily influenced, having multiple states.
Telepathy: Invasiveness/lack of boundaries, desire to communicate, wanting information/secrets.
Inventor/Gadgeteer Desire to solve a problem, having a singular goal that cannot be solved with the present tools.
Intelligence/Minds: Lack of Knowledge, perceived worthlessness, presented with problems that cannot be physically solved.
Dreams: Imaginative, wishes, interpretiveness.
Memory: Stress/past grievances, desire to forget/inform, willingness to change things, looking to the past, external struggle.
Emotion Compassion, understanding people (or lack thereof), closer Connection to people, internal struggle.
Mind Control: Desire to control, feeling out of control, social isolation/exile.
Illusions: Deception (on both sides), belief/thought being proven wrong, Desire for something that cannot be gained.
Other Abstractions
_______________________________________________
Animal: Noticeable lack of Connection to people, outcast, Connection to nature/love of nature. (This was going to be its section but I was like, nope fuck that, lol)
Summoning/Minion Creation: Desire for companionship, social isolation/exile.
Transformation/Shape-Shifting: Issues involving identity, self-hatred/wanting to be different.
Teleportation: Feeling trapped/stuck, desire to escape, needing something.
Speed: Impatience, Desire to get to goal instantly, has problem approaching, a problem that can be run from, down to earth.
Flight: Needing to reach goals/expectations, freedom, idealism.
Strength: Being faced with situations that can't be mentally solved, violence/rage, perceived lack of strength/desire to grow stronger, authority.
Healing/Repairing: Desire to help people, compassion/kindness, other people's mental scars/past trauma, seeing beauty in something, restoring something else.
Regeneration: Desire to fix self, fixing own mental/physical wounds, a goal they need to see through, self-restoration.
Time: Past/Future mistakes, pressure of time, having limited time, lack of management
Shields: Protection/desire to protect, danger/damage, caring, imminent threat to self.
Creation/Building: The need for something, wanting to build something new, creativity/self-expression, having problems.
Close-Range: Immediate up-in-your-face issue/question, close and personal problems/struggles, problems/solutions being in reach, single or few problems/threats.
Long-Range: Looming/upcoming problems, threats approaching/attacking from a distance, multiple threats/problems, things being out of reach.
Enchanting/Imbuing: Inadquency, current tools not being sufficient.
Beam: Focusing on one thing/task.
Enhanced Senses: Desiring awareness or understanding of environmental/task.
Death/Necromancy: Loss of family/friend, mourning, going to dark corners, also being an edgelord.
Paranormal Related: Knowledge of the supernatural, problem/goal/question related to the paranormal, Desire to interact with the paranormal.
The PRA assigns individual Paranormal-Beings a threat level (also known as a PTA) on a one to five scale that helps prioritize resources and responses. Each threat level would have corresponding response protocols, including deploying special agents, containment strategies, and potential collaboration with other agencies or international organizations. Here's a list of threat levels the PRA uses:
⦁ Paranormal-Beings with little to no offensive capabilities. ⦁ Non-hostile or benevolent Paranormal-Beings. ⦁ Easily contained or controlled. ⦁ Evacuation is not necessary.
Low Threat (Level 1):
⦁ Mildly hostile Paranormal beings with limited or localized abilities. ⦁ Potential for minor disruptions or localized incidents. ⦁ Beings that may pose a minimal threat to individuals or small groups. ⦁ Typically manageable with standard containment procedures. ⦁ Evacuation is not necessary.
Moderate Threat (Level 2):
⦁ Paranormal-Beings with moderate hostile intent and significant abilities. ⦁ Beings that have the potential to cause harm to a larger area or group. ⦁ May exhibit unpredictable behavior. ⦁ Require specialized response teams for capture or neutralization. ⦁ Evacuation of the area is an option.
Significant Threat (Level 3):
⦁ Highly hostile Paranormal beings with formidable offensive capabilities. ⦁ Capable of causing widespread damage or harm. ⦁ Requires a coordinated effort and advanced technology for containment. ⦁ The evacuation of the area is required.
Severe Threat (Level 4):
⦁ Extremely powerful and destructive Paranormal-Beings. ⦁ Possesses powerful, potentially world-altering abilities. ⦁ Requires a highly specialized and heavily armed response team. ⦁ This may require the evacuation of the entire city.
Maximum Threat (Level 5):
⦁ Paranormal beings of unparalleled power and malevolence. ⦁ Capable of causing widespread destruction, chaos, or even extinction-level events. ⦁ Difficult to contain or neutralize. ⦁ Requires the highest level of government intervention. ⦁ Any city in its range must be evacuated if possible.
Other.Threat.Levels:
Unknown Threat (Level X):
⦁ Unidentified or poorly understood Paranormal-Beings. ⦁ Insufficient data to properly assess the threat level. ⦁ Intentions are not fully understood. ⦁ Requires thorough investigation and assessment to give accurate designation. ⦁ A precautionary approach must be taken until more information is gathered.
Erratic Threat (Level U):
⦁ Paranormal beings with unpredictable behaviors and abilities. ⦁ It isn't easy to assess or anticipate their actions. ⦁ Require ongoing monitoring and adaptive strategies.
Wild Threat (Level C):
⦁ Paranormal Beings that cannot be effectively contained or neutralized. ⦁ Pose an ongoing and unmanageable threat. ⦁ Extreme caution is required.
Evolving Threat (Level E):
⦁ Assigned to initially lower-level threats that show a significant escalation in offensive capabilities over time. ⦁ Unpredictable behavior and capabilities. ⦁ Requires additional monitoring, mobilization of resources, and development of new strategies. ⦁ Eliminating an escalating supernatural threat is determined by the nature of the threat itself, its rate of growth, available resources, and potential consequences.
Inactive Threat (Level I):
⦁ Beings that were previously considered threats but are currently dormant, incapacitated, or contained. ⦁ Require ongoing surveillance but are not an immediate concern. ⦁ All Sealed-Apparitions are automatically considered an Inactive Threat.
ARAMINTA,.PA
............................................................ "The Hidden Crossroads."
Araminta, Pennsylvania, sits in the northern center of Williams County, just a stone's throw from the New York state border. Founded in the 1700s by Richard Williams, who named the city after his cherished daughter, Araminta started as a strategic military base during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Once the wars ended, the base fell out of use and became a tourist draw.
Today, Araminta's primary claim to fame is its once-bustling railroad system. As the central hub of various Pennsylvania railroads, the city was a vital transportation nexus. However, many of these railroads have been retired, leaving their tracks to wind through the town like forgotten veins. Now a haven for dredges and degenerates, the train yard adds a gritty edge to Araminta's quaint suburban facade.
The city is predominantly suburban, with its urbanity confined to a modest downtown area. Despite its small-town charm, Araminta boasts a range of businesses and well-kept homes, attracting those seeking a respite from the relentless pace of city life. It’s known for its attractive houses, which draw retirees and families alike. However, beneath this serene exterior, Araminta grapples with significant issues. Like much of Pennsylvania, the city suffers from a severe drug problem. The drug trade is concentrated in the more rundown areas, where the discrepancy between the city's outward appearance and its inner struggles is stark.
A large portion of Araminta’s area is covered by dense woodlands, where remote houses and hidden places harbor the city's misfits and addicts. The train tracks running through these woods serve as gathering spots for those on the fringes of society. The woods are mysterious, hiding secrets the city’s veneer often obscures. Geographically, Araminta is not highly urbanized but is strategically located near the Williams River, a significant waterway branching from the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers. The river’s namesake is a nod to the city's founder, Richard Williams. Demographically, Araminta is predominantly Caucasian, with notable populations of Asians and African Americans. Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and Pacific Islanders are relatively rare. Despite the drug issues, Araminta enjoys relatively low crime rates, with most incidents involving petty crimes and drug possession; violent crimes are infrequent.
Araminta's Paranormal scene is a tangled web of intrigue and hidden power, overshadowed by the city’s mundane exterior. Beneath the surface of its suburban tranquility, the town harbors a quiet but potent undercurrent of magic and supernatural activity. The old train yard is a hotspot for Paranormal dealings and secretive gatherings. The dense woodlands surrounding the city are a haven for Abominable and Apparitions, along with cults and witch Covens lurking in the shadows. Araminta is one of the Paranormal Hotspots in the northeastern parts of the US, alongside New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Ravenscroft.
MIRAGE.SPRINGS,.NV
............................................................ "The Mirage Metropolis."
Mirage Springs, Nevada, is a city where the allure of Las Vegas is mixed with a distinctive supernatural vibe, creating a vibrant, otherworldly playground nestled in the heart of the Nevada desert. Designed to capture the grandeur and allure of its more famous cousin, Mirage Springs, with its neon-lit streets and lavish casinos, exudes an air of enchantment that extends far beyond its surface glitz. The city has always been a melting pot of entertainment and magical intrigue, but its true essence lies in its paranormal history and current tumult.
Originally envisioned as a glittering oasis in the desert, Mirage Springs quickly attracted attention for more than just its extravagant attractions. The city’s supernatural scene was once dominated by The Society, an influential faction led by the powerful Apparition known as Morningstar and his elite cadre, the Endless Seven. The Society’s grip on Mirage Springs was absolute, turning it into a nexus of magical power where secret rituals, magical dealings, and hidden societies thrived behind the facades of its luxurious casinos and neon-soaked avenues.
Mirage Springs thrives with a vibrant magical theme that infuses every city corner. The town is a grand stage where enchantment and whimsy are part of its identity. Mirage Springs presents a façade of spellbinding charm and fantastical allure, from dazzling casinos to quirky nightclubs.The city's businesses capitalize on this magical theme, with neon lights casting an otherworldly glow and venues styled with elaborate, otherworldly décor. While not truly magical, the casinos feature immersive, fantasy-inspired experiences designed to captivate and enchant their visitors. The nightlife is a spectacle of theatrical flair, where performers and shows play up the illusion of mystical wonders. Even the street performers, dressed as wizards and mythical beings, contribute to the city’s whimsical persona. Mirage Springs is a city of contrasts—a glittering facade hiding a tumultuous underworld. The intersection of luxury and the supernatural creates a unique ambiance where the line between spectacle and sorcery is as thin as the mirage that gave the city its name.
RAVENSCROFT,.MA
............................................................ "The City of Shadows."
Ravenscroft, Massachusetts, thrums with dark, arcane energy, where the supernatural intertwines with urban life. Cloaked in gothic grandeur and shrouded in an eerie charm, the city serves as a battleground for an array of witch covens, mystical cults, secretive societies, and formidable magical crime families. Each entity exerts its influence, creating a complex and ever-shifting landscape.
At the heart of this magical chaos stands the Homunculus Factory, a concealed stronghold shrouded in mystery. This shadowy organization is led by a reclusive and enigmatic figure whose name is only whispered among Ravenscroft's hidden circles. The Factory’s leader is rumored to have discovered a method to channel and harness Lux, infusing it into their creations. This obsession with power and forbidden knowledge drives the Factory’s secretive and often dangerous operations.
Ravenscroft's magical factions are diverse and intertwined, contributing to the city’s chaos in their unique way. With their practices and shifting allegiances, Witch covens pursue hidden agendas, leaving their mark in the city’s shadowed corners. Some engage in clandestine rituals, summoning ancient forces and performing ceremonies. Alongside these covens are various occult cults dedicated to their enigmatic goals. Some cults are known for their elaborate ceremonies to invoke ancient powers, while others worship multiple beings. In addition to these mystical players, Ravenscroft is home to a network of powerful magical crime families. These families operate like a dark mirror to traditional organized crime, employing supernatural methods to control their territories. Their criminal enterprises range from trading illicit magical substances to manipulating the city's magical underworld for their gain. The families are deeply entrenched in the city's power struggles, often clashing with each other and other supernatural factions.
ST..PORTWELL,.OR
............................................................ "St. Portwell: Where Ocean Meets Adventure..."
St. Portwell, Oregon, is set along the rugged Oregon coast. St. Portwell is a city defined by its deep bond with the sea. What began as a modest fishing town has grown into a major West Coast metropolis, wearing its nautical heritage openly in its winding streets, canals, piers, and ocean-facing districts. The city’s layout mirrors the shoreline itself-curved avenues, narrow alleys, and waterways threading between historic buildings and modern high-rises. Anchors, ship wheels, and lighthouse motifs are woven into the architecture, while the constant presence of waves and gull cries gives the city an ever-present sense of motion.
Downtown St. Portwell hugs the waterfront, serving as a vibrant commercial and cultural hub. Markets, cafes, theaters, and repurposed historic buildings line the shore, while ferries and ships from distant ports keep the city connected to the wider world. The western district, home to the famous boardwalk and shoreline, thrives on tourism, while northern neighborhoods fade into dense forests.
In stark contrast, the northeastern districts are marked by decay and high crime, largely controlled by the Wolfpack—a violent biker syndicate involved in trafficking and rackets. Other districts range from quiet residential zones to industrial sectors that quietly fuel the city’s economy. St. Portwell is highly diverse, drawing long-settled families, transients, tourists, and newcomers chasing opportunity or escape. Its streets are alive with competing cultures, cuisines, and entertainment, balanced by green spaces and an intricate transportation network of roads, canals, and ferries that bind the city together. Beneath its picturesque coastal charm lies a volatile supernatural undercurrent. Covens, cults, and occult criminal syndicates operate in secret, locked in constant struggle for influence and control. The sea itself seems to listen—and stir.
_______________________________________________ Tommy Garret Bracken
He/Him | 16 | White | 5'7" | 176lbs _______________________________________________ Estranged _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "God damn... What now?" ___________________________________
Designated Driver ⫻ Tommy got his license about six months ago. He worked his ass off for it, and the freedom of having a car to go places. For a teenager, he's actually pretty stable behind the wheel. Most people his age aren't driving, and why would they? Where are they going? Nowhere, that's where.
Future Stage Magician ⫻ One of Tommy's biggest passions is stage magic. Card tricks, sleight of hand, a performance to wow some kid who can't even tie his shoes... It's the kind of thing that kept him sane growing up in a place as dead as Cornell.
Fixing Shit ⫻ No one in Cornell is paying for a mechanic to come and fix anything, some people can't be bothered to do it themselves. It's the Rust Belt, who the hell has that kind of money? Tommy moonlights as a cheap fixer of things as a summer job. For ten dollars, a WiFi router can be made to relinquish its password, and for twenty, you too can have Tommy Bracken figure out why your car is making that noise.
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "What? I washed it yesterday."
Plain. Simple. Boring. Comfortable. Everything about Tommy Bracken’s appearance suggests laziness or a lack of energy. Baggy sweatshirts are a staple of his wardrobe, along with loose cargo pants and whatever pair of converse shoes he didn’t forget about. He usually has a tired look in his eyes that goes away the moment anyone notices something is off. His hair is blonde, and always a mess, but it’s the part of his appearance that Tommy puts the most effort into. He styles it into a frizzy undercut that’s grown out slightly.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Ho. Lee. Shit. What the hell is that?"
MAIN GOAL ⫻ Before the incident at the party, Tommy dreamed of being one of the few people that ever left Cornell. He dreamed of saving up enough money and finding a place far from Pennsylvania, where he’d connect with the world and make a name as a stage magician. The Tommy Bracken of his vision had friends and a family that he knew held him in high regard, and never had to question that he belonged somewhere.
Now that the world is trying to swallow Cornell up, his main goal is just seeing the end of whatever the fuck is happening.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Tommy believes that everyone can get a happy ending. He comes from the most barren town in the universe, and his life isn’t a complete loss. If he can manage that, he can manage better. And if he can manage better, then so can other people. All he has to do is try.
SECRETS ⫻ In the deepest reaches of the steel mill, one can find the skeletal remains of a man who went missing one year ago. The police never found his body, or the murder weapon. Tommy made sure they never would.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Tommy doesn’t get many chances to think about it. He at least feels an attraction to women, but there aren’t many options in Cornell.
FEARS ⫻ The prospect of growing old in Cornell terrifies him. He never wanted to be stuck here, in a dying town, even before it became a hellzone. And now, he has to grapple with the fear of possibly being killed by monsters.
REPUTATION IN CORNELL ⫻ Tommy is an acquired taste. People know him as a well-meaning, gruff guy who will bitch and grouse one moment, and then go out of his way to give them a lift home or sort out whatever they ask him for help with. His demeanor certainly deters people who don't know him, but he's not really a bad guy. Even if he seems dejected and distant sometimes.
FLAWS ⫻ Tommy has a tendency to get stuck in his own head. A habit he hasn't shaken since Cornell began drifting towards the Pit, in which he goes off the proverbial radar. Leave him be too long, and suddenly he's up on a rooftop thinking about who-knows-what. He goes quiet, fades into the background, and just haunts the place like a ghost. Tommy does these things because he lacks the sense of community that other people in his town have. Like a Texan in New York City, he isn't quite as connected to the people of Cornell as he should be. It's never been home to him, and so he's used to assuming that other people feel the same way towards him. Empathy for other people is what keeps him coming around, more so than a sense of belonging.
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "You can't do worse than here."
Once upon a time, there was a man named Richard Bracken. He was a steelworker, slinging slag and metal with the best of them over the river in the olden days. Old Richie swung hammers and pulled chains, drove forklifts and pulled levers from six every morning to half past eight every evening. Five days a week, he dug in and sought the American Dream. He enjoyed the job, the feeling of making something and powering through was an accomplishment in his mind. The man didn’t do anything halfway, didn’t let the boss man keep him or anyone down. Richard was just the kind of man who didn’t belong in Cornell. And it wasn’t until he crossed paths with Lauren Walker that he learned that.
She was a waitress at the local diner, with dreams of moving out and heading off to Philadelphia when she saved up enough money for college. Her old man wanted her to “marry up,” her mother wanted her to just find some happiness. She was lonely one night, he was twenty-six, neither of them had anything better to do. So they got together one night at Richard’s place, and turned an entire bottle of tequila into a baby. They named it Tommy.
The nine months before he was born were a blurry disaster of a shotgun wedding, weeks without a night free of shouting, and a few fist fights between Richard and Mr. Walker. Ultimately, everyone came together and decided the kid deserved a chance in spite of his parents' bad decisions. Tommy didn't see a lot of his dad growing up, after the man added guilt to his list of motivations for working the mill. He did his best, even if his best wasn't always the best. His early life could've been better, but at least he had both a mother and father. There were very few times when both of them were in the same room, with one parents working the weekends and the other being on the clock most of the week.
As he got older, the steel mill became a rusted husk. His father was one of the last workers to ever set foot there, and before long, the beating heart of Cornell was cold. By the time Tommy was 10, his father had to give up the job. It's said that Old Man Richie died with the mill, but only a piece of him did. He never found another job after that, and took to spending more time with his kid. Tommy took after both his parents and believed that he could have a good life if he earned it. He had the fading drive of his father and the sensibility of his mother, neither of which wanted him to be stuck here. And so he pushed himself to try and get out there. He did the best he could in school, took on odd jobs around Cornell to earn spare cash, and did all the usual things errant kids did with disposable income.
High school rolled around, and Tommy got that itch every kid in Cornell gets. The itch to abandon the town and never look back, to tell himself he'd make it. His parents were behind him in that, even if his own dreams were built on what remained of theirs. He started spending more and more time away from home, feeling increasingly unhappy with the hand life dealt him. One night, he found a homeless guy doing card tricks for money on the street. Tommy emptied his pockets that night, absolutely fascinated by what the guy could do, and even learned how to do a few of them himself. It quickly became a fun hobby of his. A way to pass the time, wow people, and what teenage boy didn't thing it was cool?
Tommy didn't quite mesh with other kids his age the way he should have. All too often, he heard the whispers and gossip about how people were either getting out, or getting trapped. All too often, he'd sneak back into the house after a long night of teenage shenanigans just to catch his parents looking like their souls were snatched by paperwork on the kitchen table. On some of those nights, he just turned around and left again. Tommy tried to skirt around that sadness, but it stuck to him either way. He managed to turn it into anger on occasion, but it dragged him down all the same.
The day he finally managed to afford an old, beat-up, used car was one of the best days of his life. His parents were awfully curious how, but it was easy to explain that he'd been working like a damn robot over the last two summers. They believed him, though they warned him about the insurance. He got his license, tossed a permit into the trash, and started driving to school. He felt like he was somebody, like Tommy Bracken mattered. Most kids his age didn't have a car, but Tommy? Tommy found the American Dream.
That feeling lasted a few days, and that was it.
One step on a mile high ladder, nine hundred and ninety-nine more to go. That was how Tommy felt after he drove too and from school for a week. In the end, he was still in a dying town, he just didn't have to walk everywhere. And it wasn't like anyone really cared. Where was he going? Home? Yeah, so were they. When a certain party rolled around a few months later, Tommy was surprised he even got an invitation. But he showed up all the same, grateful for the thin veneer of belonging that it brought. He didn't drink, he wasn't walking home and he wasn't about to let a few of them do the same after drinking trashy beers. He just hung back without a lot of socializing, occasionally showing off a sweet card trick people didn't know he could do.
Then the Pit opened its jaws wide open.
Tommy didn't really understand what was happening. One moment, someone was talking about a football game, and the next, the air was ripped in half. The ground was in two places at once, he was bleeding, and monsters were spilling in. Some guy whose name he didn't get was the cause of it, causing everyone to run in terror. Tommy had never felt that kind of terror, so potent that it made him dream of golden beasts in a city that never looked the same. Where most people stayed together and run in some semblance of a coherent group, Tommy was running into No Man's Land as if there were demons chasing after him. There was little time to question the golden trails of light weeping out of gashes in his skin like smoke, or the sounds of roaring that drowned out the screams. He was out like fly in the win.
His car was abandoned there by the warehouse. In the woods surrounding Cornell, he climbed into a tree and let his senses do what they would. He spent hours there, eventually calming down enough to feel a source of power coming off the deck of cards in his pocket. There was a warm knot of something in his chest, and he followed it like a thread. He saw visions of armies, coming together at the behest of people whose names he did not know. He saw them invoke names and weave strands of gold light into bestial shapes, summoning monsters. It was a lot to take in, but he figured something out in time.
He was a damn wizard, and he could conjure things like those visions.
When Tommy came out of the woods, back to other people who were getting their own bearings after the chaos, he was followed by monsters of his own making. He wanted answers, and he was going to get them.
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Abracadabra, alakazam, and so on and so forth."
TYPE ⫻ Adept
ABSTRACTION ⫻ Gold Lux, Tommy's Channeler is a deck of cards.
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Tommy is a summoner who creates monstrous minions out of a mix of Gold Lux, the remains of other creatures, and sources of magic that he can get his hands on. These handcrafted summons are bound into the cards of his deck, and brought out when needed.
SIX OF HEARTS: RAPTOR ⫻ The first summon Tommy created was made out of his own wounds. A glowing bird made from a mix of blood and raw Lux, the Raptor attacks with sharp claws and impeccable agility. When it is given a target, it will swoop in and out of close range and make itself as hard to pin down as possible, taking long swipes to bleed them dry.
TEN OF CLUBS: PORTER ⫻ Using an old backpack as base materials, Porter is a four-legged pack mule no smaller than a bear. The woven creature resembles a mustelid, and its body unfurls at long seams. Porter can carry up to 150 pounds inside the pockets of its body before it starts to slow down. Anything stored within is transported to and from the Ten of Clubs when Porter is summoned or returned.
NINE OF SPADES: WATCHER ⫻ A mirror from a pickup truck and a lot of dead branches became a beast of glassy twine, reminiscent of a coyote. Watcher doesn't move much, preferring to meander around an area designated by Tommy. It is smart enough to remember faces and detect signs of trouble, and howls when alerted. The sound is loud, resonates with the Gold Lux coursing through its body, alerting Tommy no matter the distance.
LIMITS ⫻ Tommy is not the sort of Gold Adept who fires and forgets. His summons have personality, a distinctness to them that doesn't begin when tapped or end when retired. For him, the things he creates are lasting and permanent, not simply transient. As a consequence of this, Tommy lacks the ability to improvise on the spot. He requires time to come up with a new summon for his deck, and different materials to create something new. All of his summons are built off of a scaffolding, meaning to make anything particularly flashy, he needs another Adept, a monster he can gut for spare parts, or perhaps an object of magical importance.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Tommy’s summons are inherently linked to his body and life force, not solely his Lux. Damage to a summon reflects as physical injuries—reopened wounds, joint or muscle damage, or even cardiac shock or unconsciousness if destroyed violently. Even in victory, his body sustains damage, and repeated losses cause long-term injuries that don’t heal naturally. The deck functions as a physical part of the abstraction. Damaging a card harms its summon: burns cause instability, tears create missing or deformed parts, and stolen cards enable enemies to misuse or control his creations. Tampering or damaging the deck can cause summons to appear in the wrong order or be incomplete. If too many cards are compromised, his Gold Lux locks completely, preventing summoning to prevent death. Summons embody the emotional and conceptual essence of their materials. Trauma, resentment, or beliefs in source components influence behavior over time. Intelligent or meaningful sources can resist control or subtly sabotage him, and people connected to those sources can psychologically interfere with the summons. The stronger the source, the greater the long-term risk.
Raptor is powered by Tommy’s blood and pain. Each attack reopens wounds, and prolonged use causes internal bleeding and shock. Blood manipulation disrupts Raptor, and restraining him causes severe chest pain. Destroying Raptor results in the loss of a meaningful memory, and repeated losses diminish his capacity to form attachments. Porter has a limited carrying capacity. Exceeding it causes violent structural failure, destroying items metaphysically. Porter experiences what it holds, making volatile or living items dangerous. If immobilized, Tommy’s body mirrors its restraint and weight. If Porter is destroyed while loaded, he suffers serious spinal injuries. Watcher’s howl assaults Tommy’s nervous system. Repeated alerts cause migraines, vertigo, seizures, and dissociation. Reflective environments cause confusion, while silence or sound suppression triggers uncontrollable howling. Destroying Watcher causes a temporary loss of facial recognition.
Finally, each summon permanently diminishes Tommy’s future capacity. Every card reduces his Gold Lux, accelerates aging, and slows recovery. Creating new summons can cost years of lifespan or force the sacrifice of existing cards. Removing a summon feels like an amputation; keeping them all results in early death. No safe balance exists—only how long he can endure.
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Maybe I can conjure up a horse or something, when I run out of gas."
Tommy drives an old Mercury Cougar that used to collect dust in some old guy's garage.
"It’s so hard being this popular. You’ll never get it."
_______________________________________________ Posie Victoria Prescott
She/Her | 17 | German American | 5’5” | 140 lbs _______________________________________________ Pressure _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "I wasn’t even eligible for senior superlatives and I still got voted Most Likely To Succeed." ___________________________________
[ACT ACE] ⫻ Vicky seems like a sharp student. What she lacks in ingenuity and creativity, she makes up for it with attentiveness, a strong memory, and an eye for details. In the world of standardized testing, this means she can crush through a scantron thirty minutes before pencils down and get back to her romantasy novel. In the world of the supernatural, this means she’s typically the first to notice when shit’s about to get spooky. [Rah Rah Fight Fight] ⫻ Go team! There’s a lot more to being a cheerleader than rooting for our boys and hopefully getting a frontline view to see that dick Danny Graham get utterly killed out on the gridiron. Vicky’s strong for her size, loud as hell, and has good cardio. Plus, she can do a backflip. Danny Graham can’t do a backflip. Danny Graham can’t even follow up on his promise to take someone to prom. [Little Miss Swing-And-A-Miss] ⫻ Vicky’s a pitcher for the high school’s softball team. She’s got a lightning fastball, a nasty changeup, and an awful reputation when it comes to her sportsmanship. Vicky’s mid at best when it comes to being a hitter, but if she’s carrying a bat it’s probably best not to say that to her face. [Popular] ⫻ And it’s not just because she’s conventionally attractive or because her parents have a pool. It’s also because her older brother Winston just turned twenty one, he promised to buy her alcohol now that he’s about to get out of rehab, and even if it's gonna be that big plastic bottle of grocery store vodka that tastes like gasoline it still means that they’re all getting wasted!
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Even the girl in the mirror is jealous of me."
In high school, everyone is trying so desperately to blend in so that they don’t get singled out. Unfortunately, this is impossible for poor Posie Victoria Prescott, because she’s been burdened to have the whole world revolve around her.
She has blonde hair and lightly tanned skin. Well, okay, Vicky has brown hair, but now it’s blonde and enough chemicals and expensive haircuts gave that straight shit a "natural" wave. But the tan’s real! Her brown eyes are blue and will remain blue because Diane’s stupid ass bought a yearlong supply of the wrong color contact lenses for Christmas despite Vicky telling her that she definitely wanted green. Vicky has bleach white, perfectly Invisalign-ed teeth surrounded by a dangerously flammable amount of lip gloss that will hopefully pull eyes away from her cleft chin that she absolutely hates. It’s stupid, and gross, and a boy she liked once called it a butt chin, and now she can’t unsee it, she has a butt on her face, and she hates it, hates it, hates it!
Phew. Anyway, Vicky has an athletic build with broad shoulders that rival those of an Olympic swimmer. She’s lowkey jacked thanks to playing sports, exercising every day, and following a rigid, self-enforced diet with no cheat days because cheat days are for fat losers with two stupid butt chins instead of just one and—let’s move on. Visible ab definition easily makes up for it, anyway. She’s proud of her legs, the one good thing her mother gave her. The only thing she seemed to inherit from her father was his stress. She doesn’t wear fake nails just because she finds them cute; she wears fake nails because they stop her from biting her already shredded real ones down to the stubs.
But a nervous habit is positively incapable of hindering the aura of confidence Vicky radiates. She is always “Game Face On”, rocking a kind of self-certainty and focused intensity in front of people that gives her a somewhat earned air of authority. The girl also possesses what might just be the single most withering stare in the entire world, capable of shutting down most dissenters with one hard glare. She’s also the loudest person in the room, her raspy voice basically a built-in bullhorn.
When Vicky doesn’t have to dress to rep Cornell for the big game, she almost exclusively dresses in athleisure. She has the most impossibly clean lily white sneakers in the world, so fresh that she must be taking advantage of some store’s lax return policy. Recently, she’s made waves at school when she showed up wearing the letterman jacket of the best linebacker on the varsity football team, the letters C H E F and the coveted double zero printed on the back. What was once the modern day regalia crowning her as the de facto queen of this stupid ass school is now the greatest piece of evidence used against her in the social courts to accuse her of regicide.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Ever notice when someone says, ‘Relax, it’s just a game,’ that they’re always the one who’s losing?"
MAIN GOAL ⫻ She’s getting out of Cornell. Vicky wasn’t just trapped here recently when reality snapped. She’s been trapped here her whole life, same as her parents, and her parents’ parents, and her parents’ parents’ parents. She’s not a quitter. She’s not moving the goalposts. She’s changing the play. If good academics and a sports scholarship can no longer get her out of Cornell then calculated sacrifices and an aluminum bat will.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Everything is a competition and life is a zero-sum game. It’s stupid and impossible to try and make everybody happy. Someone has to lose so that somebody can win, and winning is the most important thing in the world. Anyone who says otherwise is just either lying or delusional. This doesn’t mean that Vicky doesn’t believe in cooperation. Cooperation is important. Teamwork is important. The best way to keep winning is to surround yourself with other winners. She just has to be the MVP.
SECRETS ⫻ Vicky is a bully. She’s clever enough not to get caught. Typically, her form of harassment is insidious and untraceable: hateful notes left in a locker, vandalism when nobody is watching, mean comments on social media from a fake profile. People need to remember their place, and that’s below her.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Vicky is attracted to anyone, anyone, anyone who isn’t named Danny Graham. She mostly just dates for status, because how can she possibly love someone more than she loves herself?
FEARS ⫻ She is afraid that she’ll become her parents. She’s scared that she’ll be like her dad, who peaked in high school. She’s afraid she’ll become her mom, who thinks that wine in a box is a good deal and buys wood burned signs that say Live, Laugh, Love. She’s terrified that she’ll have children not for the sake of raising a family but as an act of selfish narcissism, a final Hail Mary pass in an attempt to vicariously have some kind of life because her own has fallen apart, pressuring and pressuring her kids to do better and be better until they snap just like her stupid, broken brother.
REPUTATION IN CORNELL ⫻ Vicky was the golden child. She’s “friends” with everybody. She’s pretty. She’s cool. She’s popular. There’s a reason she’s been crowned the Cob Queen of Cornell in a never seen before back-to-back victory at the end of the yearly Corn Har-Fest parade, and it’s only partially because her mother is on the planning committee. Then her boyfriend ate shit and died. Rumors began to spread, whispers saying that they had been fighting, that Vicky was somehow at fault, that it was even intentional. The authorities deemed his death as accidental. It didn’t matter. She was the golden child, but now she’s public enemy number one.
FLAWS ⫻ She’s selfish, overcompetitive, and fueled almost entirely by jealousy, all of which is huddled up tightly beneath one big massive umbrella of insecurity and repackaged to look like confidence. She always has to come out the winner. She always must get her way. Vicky would rather complain than compromise, be right rather than protect someone’s feelings, and have everyone lose rather than let someone else win. Part of her hates that she’s like this. That part of her is a quitter, a loser, a stupid little dumb bitch and Vicky has to CRUSH IT!
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Just great. I really am going to die in this stupid town."
Vicky vividly remembers her first defeat. Her brother never lets her forget it. It was back when she was playing peewee soccer. She was four, maybe five. For once she got the ball out of the mob of little kids and scored a goal, the first one of the summer, the only one of the season, and it was in her own goal. The kids didn’t really care. They still got to eat cardboard cheese pizza at the arcade after the game. But the coach? Coach Prescott? Her dad? He was so utterly disappointed.
She doesn’t remember if he gave her “the speech” after that, but Vicky’s pretty certain her dad would. He would do some variant of it every time she lost a match, or wanted to quit, or dressed “wrong”, or hung out with people that he didn’t like. It always went something like, “There’s no losers in my household. You’re a Prescott, and being a Prescott means you win! And winners dont’...” Riveting, motivating shit from a man who grunted whenever he stood up, fell asleep every night in a recliner after killing a six pack, and had the yawn-inducing job title of logistics manager.
Vicky wasn’t the original plan to define the Prescott legacy. That burden had fallen on her brother Winston’s shoulders since he was the oldest boy, but the boy fumbled the ball so it came down to Vicky to recover it. As her brother burned out, she shined. She won trophies, pageants, and scholastic achievements. She won things that weren’t even competitions. She won so much that everyone else began looking like a loser, including her friends, her teammates, and especially her family. Vicky realized then that she didn’t want to just define the Prescott legacy; she wanted to rewrite it.
Step one was destroying all of the losers in her life that held her back. Vicky was always kind of a brat, but now she’d graduated to being a full on bully. She kept it anonymous when it was aimed at her friends and peers, trashing them from behind the safety of the Internet. She wouldn’t do anything in the real world. She needed them around so that she could climb over their backs, but at home Vicky was an absolute monster. Mom stopped being Mom and became Diane. The first time Vicky made Diane cry it was just, whoa, chills.
“Just you wait until your father gets home.”
So what did he do when he got home? He cracked a beer. That was it. Without her, he had nothing. Vicky was queen of the castle, she was god, and she would remain so as long as she kept winning. She saw what it was like to lose. She saw it in her mother, who realized that her only daughter had grown up to hate her. She saw it in her father, who was no longer the man of the house. Vicky especially saw it in her brother when she found him on the bathroom floor, blood trickling out of his head, as she stood there frozen in fear, terrified that she was witnessing her future.
It's fine. He got better-ish.
Turns out a brother almost dying from an OD was the secret sauce needed to open a seat up for Vicky at the cool kids table. Vicky was, like, so strong and brave. Those words came from the same girls who used to call her Poser Prescott behind her back in middle school. She started to dress like them. She started to talk like them. But deep down Vicky knew she wasn’t like them. She was uglier in every sense of the word and meaner than they could ever imagine, but she was also hungrier, more desperate, more deserving. She wasn’t going to be like her brother, and she wasn’t going to lose her status once the next bitch racked up enough sympathy points to knock Vicky off of her pedestal. She would become unbreakable, untouchable, undefeatable.
So she didn’t crack when that no good, stupid, lousy, worthless piece of shit Danny Graham broke his promise to take her to prom so he could go with Bitchface McBigtits. She didn’t even flinch. She upgraded. She started going out with his best friend, Bray Cooke. Senior. Linebacker. Very big deal. She didn’t really like him. He had a stupid laugh, used 3-in-1 soap, hadn’t read a book since the third grade, and went exclusively by his stupid football nickname. But dating Chef (ugh) solidified her spot at the top of the pyramid, and when he went away to college after summer they could break up. Maybe she’ll say that he cheated on her. Oh, how tragic! Who could blame Chef, boys will be boys right, but still people would feel so bad for her.
It was the perfect plan to remain at the top of the social ladder and kick out all the rungs beneath her. Only Chef didn’t make it to college. He didn’t even make it through the summer. When the party of doom was over, what was left of Chef could be mopped up with a towel and rung out. Most of that blood was on Vicky. Questions were asked. Assumptions were made. Rumors spread. The town turned. She was no longer Vicky Prescott, the Cobqueen of Cornell, softball star, head cheerleader, and future prom queen. She was just that bitch who got Chef killed.
His death was the second worst thing she saw that night. Something else happened at that party. Something that scared the shit out of her. It was proof confirming that nugget of doubt in her mind, shown in the form of a Kindling Event. Even the consultation prize of magic couldn’t heal a revelation so tragic. Vicky wasn’t going to define the Prescott legacy. She certainly wasn’t going to change it. It had been written down in blood centuries ago. It had just been lost, but never truly went away. It said that the Prescotts weren’t winners. They weren't necessarily losers either, but they definitely weren’t winners. They were survivors, scurrying by to struggle some other day, like rats, and cockroaches, and insurance agents.
As the town weirdened and her “friends” started to earn those quotation marks, Vicky knew one thing for certain: she was scared. Scared that she might not live up to her true legacy of being a survivor. Scared of what she might do to become one. Scared that after everything is done and the town is unfucked, if the town could be unfucked, that she’ll still, still, still somehow end up dying in Cornell, survived by those who loved her, a club whose membership was becoming more and more exclusive by the day.
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Watch your own back. Everyone else is just looking for a place to stick the knife."
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Vicky’s fresh to the scene when it comes to magic, but she’s a tried and true hand when it comes to not showing a single ounce of vulnerability. Her magic is as selfish as she is. She has an affinity for spells that protect herself and is either seemingly unwilling to or incapable of crafting defensive magic that directly assists others.
Shutout ⫻ A defensive spell. With a wave of her hand, Vicky wraps a protective weave of crackling Lux around a part of her body or her bat to brace for an impact. When the weave is hit, it absorbs all of the force and momentum of a blow she’d feel to protect Vicky from the impact. This dampening effect doesn’t cut both ways; the harder something hits Vicky, the harder it might hurt itself. Think of the weave like a diamond, incredibly hard but absolutely brittle, as it snaps and vanishes upon impact. She can rapidly cast multiple instances of Shutout on different parts of her body to keep up her defense.
Shout-out ⫻ A stealth spell. Kinda. Casting Shout-out generates a barrier of absolute silence in a 5-foot radius around Vicky that lasts until she cancels it. Sound can exist inside of the barrier, but it cannot travel out of it. A Shout-out zone is visible when it is first cast, appearing like a sparking dome of Lux before instantly fading away, detectable only as a feeling of static cling or by magical means.
Vicky can cast a modified version of Shout-out and target someone else with it by concentrating it into a softball size ball of energy and throwing it their way. She calls this version the Shut Up. Instead of creating a field of silence around them, it briefly silences them as the ball hits them and becomes a bit of weaved Lux that covers their mouth like a piece of tape. The Shut Up spell ignores Emotional Fields.
Strikeout ⫻ A utility spell that can double as an offensive one. Vicky can make an object invisible by touching it. Once cast she doesn’t have to do anything to maintain it, and the effect could seemingly last forever. Vicky can still see this invisible object, which is highlighted to her by Lux sparking around the item. Otherwise it is undetectable by most, if not all, magical means. Vicky can use Strikeout in an offensive manner by turning her weapon of choice invisible. If she had this back in the day, a lot of invisible rocks would’ve been thrown at people’s windshields. They still might. Typically, her Channeler is under a Strikeout spell.
LIMITS ⫻ While some of her spells allow her to target others, Vicky currently is incapable of learning how to cast spells that would directly protect another person.
Shutout ⫻ Shutout only lasts for a brief moment, measured in seconds if not milliseconds. It’s a parry, not a shield. Vicky needs good timing to pull off a successful Shutout, let alone to keep rolling with multiples. Shutout breaks upon impact. While it absorbs the force of an impact, it doesn’t necessarily deny the effect—the thing that hits her still hits her. In other words, if Vicky were to get blasted with a fireball, she could tank the initial explosion but would still be engulfed by the flames. While Shutout could cause some damage through whiplash, it doesn’t enhance Vicky’s own strikes at all.
Shout-out ⫻ While Shout-out blocks all sound within the barrier around Vicky from leaving, it also blocks all sound outside of the barrier from coming in. She must be able to scream to cast the spell, although that original shout is blocked by the barrier. The zone must be refreshed and will fade away after roughly 30 seconds if Vicky does not say anything, although even a whisper will do.
Vicky cannot maintain a Shout-out zone up when she casts Shut Up. While it ignores Emotional Fields, a Shut Up spell must hit the target’s mouth to actually work. Vicky’s a fast pitcher, but this means the spell can still be dodged, blocked, or intercepted even by something as small as a hand over a mouth. It is physically harmless and can be easily ripped off, making the spell more insulting than it is effective.
Strikeout ⫻ Vicky can only have one thing under the effect of the Strikeout spell at a time, the previous item immediately becoming visible the moment she recasts the spell. The spell cannot be cast on objects carried or held within another person’s Emotional Field. The spell also cannot work on anything larger than her, although it can work on separate parts of a large whole. For example, she could Strikeout a door knob, but she couldn’t Strikeout an entire door even if it would make for a truly great prank.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Gimme an L! Gimme an O! Gimme an S! Gimme an E! Gimme an R! What’s that spell? Y! O! U!"
Vicky used to write poetry and publish it anonymously online until she read a comment making fun of it. Now her poems are all locked away inside of a journal she hides underneath her mattress, and she’ll absolutely murder anyone if she ever caught them reading it.
Until freshman year of high school, Vicky just went by her first name. Calling her Posie nowadays is a quick way to get underneath her paperthin skin. Calling her Poser Prescott is a great way to get your locker filled with contents of the trash bin from the girl's locker room.
I would also like to take this time to formally open a poll on whether the high school football team is named the Cornell Cougars or the Cornell Cornballs. Get in the comments.
"Oh yay. Social interactions. I just love being social with you fun people."
_______________________________________________ Evelynn Ann Serenelight She/Her | 16 | White | 62 In | 105 Lbs _______________________________________________ Oracle _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "I feel like I was meant to inherit this curse.." ___________________________________
[Quietly Polite] ⫻ Lynn is unfailingly polite. It is the kind of politeness that feels almost old-fashioned, as years of grief have taught her to speak gently, apologize quickly, and smooth over moments of conflict so that she never leaves a relationship with hateful words being the last thing she uttered. Her teachers have thought this was Lynn being the perfect student they all expected her to be, despite the hardship, yet this is just a mask that she forces herself to wear at all times. Classmates have often taken advantage of this kindness
[Puzzle-Minded] ⫻ Lynn finds comfort in patterns, riddles, and things that have answers, and this takes the form of crossword puzzles, problem-solving apps, and anything that involves logic. These make sense in ways life no longer does. Where others see frustration, Lynn sees something she can untangle. It’s less about winning and more about the quiet relief of pieces clicking into place.
[Lightweight] ⫻ Lynn has little experience with alcohol and absolutely no tolerance for it. Even small amounts leave her flushed, dizzy, and painfully aware of herself. The smell alone carries complicated memories she doesn’t like revisiting. Yet despite this she has developed a taste for it even at her young age. Her family is renowned for their ability to throw back shots, down beers, and consume until the very morning hours. It is only a matter of time before she can handle the amount her grandmother drinks and leaves out within her reach.
[Sleepless Mornings] ⫻ Sleep is unreliable. Some nights she barely drifts off; others are crowded with uneasy dreams she can’t fully remember. Either way, when morning does arrive, it often arrives heavy and with inertia. Lynn relies on strong coffee to get that extra push each morning, and lately she has added in a Gatorade or two after the nights she drinks. This has become somewhat of a normal occurrence for her, and as such she can shake off exhaustion much more efficiently than most.
[Guarded Heart] ⫻ Lynn is cautious with affection. Everyone she has truly loved has died, or is all the way on the other side of the country, back at her proper home. While she may be kind and quietly warm once someone earns her trust, it is an uphill battle to get there in the first place. Proper attention still can make her blush, yet genuine interest currently unsettles her far more than it excites. While it isn’t that she is against forming connections, it is just difficult to allow someone to get close after all that has happened. This has allowed her to stay one step ahead of the bullies in this new school.
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I just hope they don’t look at me"
For someone who wishes nothing more than to disappear into the shadows, Lynn’s appearance is quite the contradiction. Her pale blonde hair falls in untidy waves, with uneven layers that look as though it was cut by her hand, in front of a vanity mirror, at two in the morning. Wispy bangs frame her face, though they never quite rest where she wants them, thus leading to a near-perpetually wind-swept, disheveled look. Her eyes are one of her striking features. They are defined by the dark eyeliner drawn with the practiced precision of one who has spent far too many hours with nothing but her tools, a mirror, and YouTube tutorials. This eyeliner is one of the few consistencies with her appearance, as the slow, steady process of tracing and filling is an area she has complete control over when life is anything but. The makeup gives her gaze an intensity that never quite matches her timid nature. Lynn does not mind if she can give herself a resting bitch face and keep the boys and girls at arm's length. Without the makeup, she looks softer and easier to read, and with she feels more in control of her space.
Jewelry is a sparingly present detail, yet each piece she wears is chosen with deliberate intention. Around her neck, she has layered various necklaces, each one belonging to either her mother or sister, and she places a star-shaped pendant on top. According to her father, to whom it belonged, the pendant is the sigil of her family. All she does with it is twiddle it between her fingers when she gets anxious. A fake, small nose ring is often present over her left nostril. Like the eyeliner and the messy hair, this is used to make her look less approachable. For clothes, she tends to lean towards oversized jackets, dark tones, thrifted designs, and all paired with simple tops and cinched belts. Nothing is ever flashy or loud, but each piece helps her feel slightly less visible while still holding onto the fragments of her own identity.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "If I stay still enough, maybe the world will forget I'm here.
MAIN GOAL ⫻ Once upon a time, Lynn dreamed of greatness, success, and stability, but all she has experienced has been insignificance, failure, and a constant need for reinvention. Thus, her current goal is quieter, heavier, and far more fragile. All she wants in this world, in life, is for the pain of existence to stop noticing her. She wants to move through halls unseen, to exist without probing questions, or pitying looks, and above all else, without that awful pause people make when they learn what happened to her family. She wants to be gone, not physically, but in the social, emotional sense.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ The pain of all she has endured has hallowed Lynn. She leans, perhaps unconsciously, towards a nihilistic viewpoint of life. It is not a dramatic or reckless view, but instead the muted and exhausted variant that seems ever more prevalent with people her age. She has the sense that meaning is a flimsy idea humanity made to make sense of the senseless. She views plans for today and tomorrow as some temporary thing subject to the whims of an uncaring universe that can, and will, take away everything at the drop of a dime without cause or meaning. It would take quite a lot of prodding to get her to reveal this, as being invisible to others means that you can’t quite give them ammunition to fire at you when they do notice your presence.
SECRETS ⫻ Lynn is responsible for the death of her family, or so she thinks. Before the accident that claimed their lives, she had a bitter fight with her mother. She did not want to go out to the woods that night. It was already late, she was tired, and she felt uneasy in the dark woods on a good day as is. She did not want to go; she did not want to have dinner at her family's friend's house, and her mother just did not get it. They both exchanged sharp blows with their words, yet the teenage anger that Lynn had brought to wield was quickly beaten down and broken by the unbridled, uncaring parent who was all too done with their children. They left fifteen minutes late, and then the crash followed.
Not a soul knows the true details of what happened before the crash, and as such, no one has blamed her or held her accountable for her actions that led to it. Yet all through Lynn’s mind, she has chained herself as the cause that led to the consequences of her actions with a merciless certainty.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Straightish. Lynn assumes she likes boys. That is the narrative she understands, the one that feels safest, simplest. Anything beyond that remains an option that she has neither explored nor considered exploring. At least yet.
FEARS ⫻ Lynn truly only has a few fears, and none of them are quite visible. While she fears the eventual questions every kid her ages asks, such as what do your parents do? She fears how a relationship can change when someone learns that you just went through a heavy loss. She also fears sleeping as her dreams can often blur into something too vivid. She has relived the accident more than once.
REPUTATION ⫻ The sad new girl. The quiet one. The outsider on the outside of social circles, without ever quite entering them. Lynn is easy to overlook, easier to misunderstand. Some students ignore her entirely. Others whisper. A few, lacking cruelty’s self-awareness, turn her grief into uncomfortable jokes. She has not been in Cornell long enough to become anything more defined than a body with a name.
FLAWS ⫻
Avoidance: Lynn retreats from discomfort rather than confronting it, whether that means dodging conversations, emotions, or conflict.
Emotional Suppression: She bottles feelings so tightly they emerge with a fiery explosion. This often presents as unexplained bouts of crying, fiery rage, and a burning hatred that can be impossible to put out.
Catastrophic Thinking: Her mind habitually leaps to worst-case outcomes, making even small uncertainties feel giant. This often leads to rumination and a spiral downward.
Self-Blame: Lynn internalizes guilt, accepting responsibility for things far beyond her control.
Social Withdrawal: Connection feels dangerous, leading her to isolate even when loneliness aches.
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "If I could only rewind time, what a treat that would be."
For the Serenlight family, loss has been a persistent stain that has clung to the name like a genetic disorder rather than fate. Even from a young age, she can remember how her parents spoke of her father's siblings, parents, cousins, aunts, and uncles in an increasingly past tense. Often this took the form of a health complication arriving when least expected, an accident that seemingly came out of nowhere, or even violent encounters in places that should have been safe. Thus, in the town they called home, the Serenlight name has often carried sympathy in most circles, and a visible discomfort in others. Despite the chaos of death, in disregard for the cruel hand that fate often delivered, Lynn’s family raged against this seemingly inevitable fate to build a gentle, kind, and loving start to their lives. Lynn remembers the warmth her youth had, the joy she experienced, and the happiness that was all too present.
Growing up in Oregon, in the harbor town of St. Portwell, Lynn remembers the seagulls that shouted so loudly above her head when they went to the beach, and the smell of salt that grew stronger the closer you got. Lynn remembers how the rainy season was more of a cleansing time, rather than the dull grey it ended on, and she fondly recalls the countless nights spent at the Halloween festival, and she still has all the stupid photos that she forced her parents to spend far too much money on so she could always remember her costumes and the nights they enabled. The art district was her mother's favorite place, and the two would often spend their lazy afternoons after school was out browsing and admiring the effort and talent on full display in the city. Her father, meanwhile, often took her and her siblings out to the piers with fishing rods in hand early in the mornings, and the group would work together in silence to catch a small haul. The goal was never to catch the fish; however, it was just a way for this family to spend time together every chance they got.
In school, she was not entirely popular, but she was never disliked. She was often labeled a teachers pet as she had a love of being the one to answer questions. Thus, it was no surprise that she joined the debate team as soon as she entered high school. With her talent and smarts, the school placed on the podium those two years she helmed the ship. She also had a love of music and quickly found a second home on the marching band's field with her trombone. Life was good for quite a long while here, and then the fracture came that broke it all apart.
Her father was friends with many people, and as such, her family would often be invited over for dinner. On the night in question, they were to drive almost an hour out of town into the woods to visit a close family friend. The problem was that Lynn did not want to go. In her mind, this was a punishment that felt like it was neither deserved or appropriate. All she had done earlier that day was ask if she could go hang out with her best friend, and her mom snapped and said that they already had plans. A bitter argument started, stopped, and started again. It was little more than a simple misread of emotions, combined with a teenager's anger and angst, yet the result was that their family left their house almost thirty minutes later than anticipated. And no sooner after they left the city proper did she see headlights, hear the squeal of brakes, the sound of metal crushing, and then silence when there should have been voices. The crash had stolen her parents and siblings in a single, vicious moment, leaving Lynn alone, dangling upside down in the car, with nary a scratch or bruise to show for it. She was taken to the hospital and stayed for a couple of days with a concussion, and then she was placed into an emergency foster home as the authorities tried to figure out where she went next. While this took place, she went to therapy several times a week, and progress was slow.
A few months later, she was shipped across the country to Cornell, Pennsylvania. They had gotten in contact with her last living relative, her mother's mother, and she was welcomed into her home with open arms and with true love. While it was cleaned up for the inspections, by the third night living with her grandmother, Lynn could tell that her mother's death was as hard on her grandmother as it was on her. Alcohol became a constant sight, as her mother was an only child; this meant that her grandmother had also lost almost all her living relatives, all save for Lynn. It has been two weeks since she arrived, and Lynn has yet to ask for a return to therapy. While it was starting to be helpful, the words remained stuck in her throat. Part of her yearns to be free of this burden, while another tries to convince her that she does not deserve peace after what she caused. Instead, she started school in an unfamiliar place filled with unfamiliar faces, and as she drifts through the unfamiliar halls, carrying the memories of a brighter life that has all been lost.
Tonight is a night that might change her fate. An unknown number texted her, telling her about this party that might be fun. As a sort of first step to getting better, Lynn decided to go and put herself out there. She wondered what a party at a warehouse was like?
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I don’t know how to describe it other than confusing. Things that can, will, and won’t happen all presented as absolute truth."
TYPE ⫻ Aberration-Afflicted
ABSTRACTION ⫻ Foresight - Evelynn can pull on her magic to see the possible futures ahead of her, yet she is beset by misfortune in the present.
THE GIFT OF FORESIGHT ⫻ Across the multiverse, certain truths do not bend. The Hound will eventually claim all adepts, monsters lurk in the shadows, and magic only brings conflict to mortals. The Serenelight bloodline is one such constant. No matter the world, no matter the version, those born into that name can awaken the Gift and Foresight and gain the Curse of Misfortune. Not all Serenlights will gain the visions, yet every one of them will experience misfortune. While it has been hard, the blood always seems to survive the misfortune long enough to pass on the curse, and potential gift, to the next generation. Typically, this gift can be awakened during times of intense emotional distress or during chaotic situations. Lynn came the very night the fabric of reality was torn asunder, and she was left defenseless during the resulting carnage.
When she activates her magic, her eyes turn a vibrant jade green. Her body becomes completely motionless, her breathing slows, and her body becomes rigid. In an instant, she is brought to the possible futures. For her, the possible future manifests as a living structure within her perception. It is a vast, branching tree of possibility where the present is the trunk, the roots are the countless paths that led to this exact moment, and above her stretches the canopy, presenting as an ever-multiplying chaotic mess of branches and leaves that are of futures yet to be decided. From here, she can activate her magic again to view a possibility and the outcome by metaphorically grabbing a branch. This is a place apart from our reality. Thus, Lynn has simply begun to call this place The Garden. While the horizon seems to stretch as far as the eye can see she can move nowhere but closer to the tree. If she tries to walk away, no matter how far or how fast she runs, nor how much the ground beneath her changes, she will move not an inch away in reality. She has a strong intuition that directs her to grab specific branches. While this intuition gets her close, she has no idea which one is the true future. This intuition manifest by bringing branches closer to the ground within reach of her arms. When she touches the branch, she witnesses the events as they happen from the moment she entered The Garden.
That’s because within these branch she witnesses possibilities. On one hand, she can quickly dart to the future and see if walking down a street is safe. The buildup to the present has already happened, so something so soon will only have one branch, or a few, branches she can reach. Thus, her ability to discern the future is relatively easy for things about to happen. But the tree does not offer clarity freely. As soon as she aims to see what will happen, fifteen, ten, even five minutes in the future becomes as much as guessing game as trying to win a game of cards. True futures will twist together with false ones, and each branch can split again with every variable. Her decisions, others’ decisions, random chance, invisible interference, the hand of god, and a million, million different possible ways to interfere with what the truth is. The sheer volume is dizzying as each vision becomes more of a ‘could be’ versus the certainty that the immediate future offers.
Interpretation thus is everything, and her interpretation is imperfect. There will only ever be one true future, and often this is hidden in what she sees. Even if everything does not play out exactly as she has seen it, when you have as many variables in play that can affect the future eventually they all can tend to agree on the direction they want to travel as they grow. When she is in the possible future and in front of the tree, time moves differently for her. She can view tens of possibilities in the time it would take to speak a sentence. As well, she can remember the possibilities with a peculiar clarity, able to recite what she saw with an often ominous delivery.
THE CURSE OF MISFORTUNE ⫻ While the Gift of Foresight is a strong, if unreliable, ability, it comes with a high cost. Evelynn is burdened by the Curse of Misfortune. The Gift of Misfortune is either a cosmic balancing force thrust on her bloodline to limit the spread of the seers, or just a natural affect when one views things that are yet to come. Either way, Evelynn is cursed by misfortune. Misfortune comes at the bloodline in many forms. Sometimes, a child is born with a rare, genetic defect that they simply lucked out on when they acquired it. Other times, a falling object will adjust its trajectory to land on them when it would have landed safely away. And death is always lurking one step behind them, ready to send a drunk driver their way, or cause the foundation to fail from underneath them, or cause a normally safe weapon to discharge when pointed in their direction, and so on.
The Curse of Misfortune has claimed almost every last Serenelight throughout their family's existence. It is not something that can be dismissed with a cleansing spell, or protected against, or warded away. It is simply a fact of life for this bloodline. Even before reality was torn asunder, this part of their universal constant hunted them, without giving them their foresight. Which ancient did this family piss off to earn such disdain? Or is this the price of entry to The Garden, one that has to be paid in advance and every day after admission?
LIMITS ⫻
Lynn never sees the future as a certainty, only the possibilities that stretch as far as they do tall. The visions show what might happen, not what will. False futures can appear just as vivid as truthful ones, forcing her to guess which branches hold the weight of truth.
The further she peers, the longer she must remain trapped in her trance-like state, leaving her physically vulnerable. As well, extended use fractures her focus, blurring the boundary between vision and reality, present and possibility.
WEAKNESSES ⫻
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Even with this power, I still can't win the lottery."
Lynn always has a pack of high-quality treats in her purse or otherwise on her body. She will not share..
Gotta be Cougars. I like the way it rolls off the tongue.
He/him | 16 | French-Canadian (Acadian) | 5'6'' | 110 lbs _______________________________________________ Fear _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "You think how I speak is funny? I will make you regret it." ___________________________________
French ⫻ French is Camille's first language, and he can speak, read and write it fluently. His English is a lot clumsier... Fisticuffs ⫻ Camille can and will kick your ass if you piss him off. Or if you scare him. Kinda hard to tell between the 2 with him. Worryingly high pain tolerance ⫻ Camille has learned to power through pain over the years. Bruises and broken bones don't bother him nearly has much as they should. Literature knowledge ⫻ Well-versed in classical and French literature.
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Do not fucking look at me."
Camille is pale, too pale for it to look healthy. He looks skin and bones, too, as if he doesn't quite eat enough. Despite this, and his shorter height, he's surprisingly strong. His hair is long and a bit unkempt, and he's clearly not gotten them cut in a long time. His eyes perpetually dart around, and his gaze is both deeply exhausted and filled with a wild, almost manic gleam. He's often sporting bruises both from fights and general clumsiness.
His clothes are cheap and visibly old, as well as occasionally stained, but never truly damaged. He's always dressed in a variety of plain t-shirts, old discoloured sweaters, and scuffed jeans.
He looks a lot like his mother. He hates it. He also hates being looked at too much. He tries not to think about it.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "So what if I get always angry. I am not scared when I am angry. It is better like that."
MAIN GOAL ⫻ Above all, Camille wants to feel safe. There's always someone, somewhere. Watching him. Wishing him harm. Planning things. He can't take it, can't take being afraid all of the time. He keeps himself from harm however he can, but he's never safe. Never will be, in this town where he doesn't belong.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ You can't trust anyone. Camille doesn't fit in. He knows it. Everyone knows it. And that means that everyone can and will hurt him for it. They stare, they talk behind his back, blame him for things outside his control, and even his own mother... when in this situation, you have to fight back. You have to be able to rely on yourself, and only yourself. You have to get loud and angry, shatter that which threatens you, and show them all that they won't be able to hurt you without being hurt in return.
SECRETS ⫻ Camille hides a lot from people. But most of all, he hides just how afraid he always is, masking it by raging and lashing out. He hides just how scared and resentful he is of his own mother, hides how much her neglect has hurt him, for fear that would make him an even bigger target. And while deep down he knows that his paranoia is irrational, that while some people have hurt him, not everyone will, and that he desperately needs help to get better, he hides that too. Even from himself.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Camille has viciously repressed any kind of attraction he could have felt towards others.
FEARS ⫻ Camille is afraid of a lot of things. He's constantly anxious, mind conjuring up worst case scenarios. But most of all, he's afraid of other people, and especially of his mother.
REPUTATION IN CORNELL ⫻ Camille is an outcast. He's new to the town, and oddity in and of itself, with a heavy accent and clumsy English. He's the one that gets into fights, that yells at people, that always seem to be alone. The one with bruised knuckles and a black eye that distracts from his threadbare clothing and abnormal thinness. He's trouble, pure and simple, and people usually just try to ignore him.
FLAWS ⫻ His paranoia and anger issues understandably tend to drive other people away, and he's very adverse at seeking help for anything. This is partly by design, but these attempts at keeping himself safe is what's stopping him from creating bonds that could actually help him out of his situation.
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "This is not my home. My home is right next to the ocean. This will never be my home..."
Camille was born and raised in the Magdalen Islands, in Canada. His father was Acadian, and his mother is American. They had met while she was on a work trip, and as his father used to say, it was love at first sight. They kept in contact for a few years, and eventually, his mother accepted to move in with him to his hometown and learn the language. They got married soon after, and a baby shortly followed. And so Camille was born, and then raised in a French-speaking household, in a tiny touristic village, with his only knowledge of English coming from school, and some help from his mother for homework.
Life was good. His father was a warm and affectionate man, and gave everything for his family. Despite being something of an anxious boy, Camille managed to make a few close friends over the years. His mother struggled slightly with adapting to her new home, but she did her best. Their village was small, barely a few hundred people, but it was tightly knit together. And the view on the Atlantic was to die for. It was all the young boy could ever ask for.
That changed when he was 12. His father was a tour guide, and during a tour, got into a boat accident. He was brought to the hospital, but after weeks of fighting for his life, he unfortunately passed away. Grief shattered what was left of their family. Their community was very small, a few hundred people only, and so people started talking. His mother tried to keep on, but could not stand to remain in the village and be pitied by her neighbours.
She threw herself into work more and more, beginning to neglect her son, or yelling angrily about her woes whenever he was around, sometimes even vocally blaming him for her life going off the rails. When Camille turned 14, she had enough, and left with her son back to her own hometown, Cornwell. He was forced to cut contact with his friends and what little family he had on his father's side, and all he was left from his village with was a tiny souvenir keychain he had managed to hide in his luggage.
Camille... did not enjoy being separated from all he ever knew to be thrust into a city whose language and culture he did not understand. This only aggravated the conflicts between him and his mother.
They have been living in Cornwell for 2 years now. His mother works in a dead-end job she hates, but pays enough for bills and food. Camille is isolated from his peers, both from being homeschooled for the first year so that he could get good enough at English to attend public school, and from the general difficulties that come with immigrating somewhere. Resentment keeps building in his home life, with his mother barely paying attention to him unless it's to scream at him about something. She fully refuses to even speak to him in French anymore. All the while, he himself has been growing more and more paranoid and isolated over time.
Instead of having to stay around other people, he spends as much time as he can alone in the woods. He goes home as late as he possibly can without prompting his mother into a screaming match. He skips meals whenever his mother actually bothers to cook for more than just herself, just so that he doesn't have to stay around her more than he needs to. he gets to class at the last minute, and leaves as soon as he can. He doesn't even really go online for more than research; he doesn't trust the people there either.
He hates this town. Hates how big it is compared to his village. Hate how dead it is in comparison. There was a dullness in Cornwell, one he's not used to. Such a populous place should not feel like a ghost town, or a pond of starving piranhas...
He tried to reach out exactly once. A party he'd heard of. Most likely an excuse to get drunk, but he wouldn't say no to that as well. Maybe he could find someone there, someone that he wouldn't have to be afraid of. He would go, he would try.
And then the Pit opened. And then Cornwell wasn't so dull anymore. And then he started being able to break more than just things, or people's jaws.
He's terrified of what's happening. Of not being able to leave anymore. Of the monsters. Of himself, and others with powers. But he doesn't have a choice. He has to survive, and if that means having to trust someone else sometimes, then he'll just have to swallow a scream and do it.
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I will shatter everything."
TYPE ⫻ Adept
ABSTRACTION ⫻ Red and Purple Lux. Channeler is a lobster-shaped souvenir keychain from Camille's hometown.
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Camille's affinity lies in lashing out and shattering the fragile parts of reality, whether it be glass or space itself. It comes to him easy; he's used to breaking stuff and having to work around with the remaining shards. He's still more like to punch you in the face than cast a spell on you, though his new magic makes it much easier for him to do so.
Glass Manipulation (Red) ⫻ Can manipulate, move around and throw glass in a 5 meters radius, as well as remotely shatter lager panes of glass. Glass that leaves his range is no longer under his control, but does not lose its momentum. Shards under his control can reach a maximum velocity of around 10 km/h.
Portal Creation (Purple) ⫻ With a strike, can shatter through space like glass to create portals linking two nearby locations together. Anything coming in from one end will come out the other as if no space separated the 2 endpoints. Camille can also move around the openings after creation.
Through the Looking Glass (Mixed) ⫻ Can create long-distance portals by anchoring each endpoint in a pre-existing mirror. The mirrors will still function and look like ordinary mirrors, but will also be linked. Camille will be able to pass objects through or even fully traverse himself.
LIMITS ⫻ Most of Camille's abilities revolve around shattering things and manipulating sharp objects. This of course runs the risk of injuring himself and others accidentally. They're also highly responsive to his anger and anxiety, and Camille risks losing control if he ever gets too angry or scared.
Glass Manipulation ⫻ Cannot manipulate shards of glass much bigger than his hand, unless he is trying to shatter a large pane of glass. Has a maximum manipulation capacity of about 15 pounds of glass. The closer a piece of glass is to the limit of his control range, the less accurate and strong his control, and his max capacity is also diminished. Might cut or injure himself on his own glass if not careful.
Portal Creation ⫻ The portals are not especially huge, with a maximum size of about one person. Like anything shattered, the edges are jagged and sharp, and might injure anyone carelessly traversing through. The portals are not very long-lasting, and will close after about 2 minutes of being opened, or if Camille ceases to maintain them. Has a maximum range of about 20 meters. Shattering space to create portals is a very literal action, and requires a physical effort, like a punch, which can also lead to injuries like cuts or bruising.
Through the Looking Glass ⫻ The size of the portals is determined by the size of the anchoring mirror. The anchor will be destroyed if the mirror is destroyed, and will be moved if the mirror is moved. Camille has to touch the portals with his Channeler for them to be functional: other people, even allies, will not be able to use them if he is not there as an intermediary. Can only sustain about 3 pairs of linked mirrors.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Camille’s magic is directly linked to his emotions. Anger and anxiety cause his shards to move faster and his portals to grow larger, but they also impair his control. The shards fly unpredictably, bounce off surfaces, and can hurt him as easily as enemies. He often bleeds from minor mistakes, and repeated use leaves his hands raw with small cuts. Glass pieces cannot be larger than roughly the size of his hand or 15 pounds without breaking apart or veering off course. Larger shards shatter unexpectedly, scattering fragments. Shards that leave his control retain momentum and may collide with him, embed in walls, or trap his feet. Portals have jagged edges and last for less than 2 minutes. Misaligned or unstable portals can injure anyone who passes through them. Creating portals requires physical strikes; missed or mistimed punches can bruise, strain, or cut his hands and arms. Portals vanish if he loses contact or focus, sometimes leaving him suspended mid-action. The Looking Glass relies on mirrors—moving, breaking, or obscuring one destroys the connection. Keeping more than three mirror pairs active strains his focus, leading to partial failures, lag, or misfires. Any disturbance in the anchor points can trap him or leave him vulnerable. All of Camille’s attacks are destructive, uncontrolled, and environment-dependent. Falling shards, collapsing glass, or misused portals often create hazards nearby. The more he fights, the more chaotic the battlefield becomes, increasing the risk of self-injury.
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "...I miss Papa..."
- Camille loves literature. He however makes a point out of not reading any American or English literature if not for school. - Despite his behavioural issues, he's got good grades in school, except in English class. The language barrier kinda screws him over there. - If he ever was to see a therapist, he'd probably be diagnosed with something along the lines of cPTSD, anger issues, and/or schizotypal personality disorder. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be in the cards for now.
“This all feels like a sick joke. Maybe I’m just dreaming. I hope this is just a nightmare.”
_______________________________________________ Tuyen Thị Đoàn _______________________________________________ She/her | 17 | Vietnamese & Korean-American | 5’1” | 114lb _______________________________________________ Insecurity _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "Oh, no, I don’t really have any talents. Sorry." ___________________________________
Creative Escape ⫻ Tuyen has a vivid, overactive imagination. She channels this into her writing, the one thing she really excels in. Her non-fictional writing, such as essays, is nothing to laugh at, but fiction is where she really shines. She’s written a lot, and has worked on various novels since she was a kid. She doesn’t think any of them are that good - but the talent is there whether she believes in it or not. She also devours books just as much as she writes them.
Faking It ⫻ Tuyen is excellent at hiding her problems. Outside of the obvious grief that comes with losing both parents, everyone thinks she’s just fine. Unassuming, but a happy and normal teenager. It’s easy for her to pretend to be happy. She’s been doing it for so long now.
People Appeasing ⫻ Tuyen is a people pleaser, in the situations that she’s actually around people. She’ll do anything they ask, and even do things they didn’t ask for just to please them. This is beneficial when it comes to preventing people from being mad at her, making sure she doesn’t suffer from the horrendous silent treatment or falling outs that happen so much in high school. Importantly, though, this doesn’t help resolve conflicts. She’s just talented at giving into people in a way that reduces the damage to herself (even if only for a short while).
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I wish I didn’t need to look in the mirror to make myself look presentable.”
Tuyen is short, adding to her unassuming appearance. She’s got a flat, stocky build- minimal curves, but not a lot of weight to it either. She’s had to scrounge for food and feed herself the last few years, after all. Her straight black hair falls to her shoulders, with neat bangs that go to just below her eyebrows. It frames a soft face filled with soft, undefined features. Her eyes are practically black too, double lidded but with an epicanthal fold that makes it clear she's Asian. She wears a pair of circular metal rimmed glasses. They help hide the dark bags underneath her eyes. Tuyen wears makeup, but it’s always minimal- covering up perceived flaws without drawing more attention to herself.
She takes after her dad mostly, something her mom’s family uses against her constantly. But she’s almost always found with a smile- even if it can be a somewhat nervous one. The straight scars on her upper thighs tell a different story- some fresh, some years old. They’re always covered up by her clothes. Tuyen tends to favour longer skirts with a shirt tucked in or simple dresses worn over t-shirts or jumpers. When she doesn’t feel like a skirt, she’ll go for wide legged pants. She doesn’t tend to have colour preferences, but often she goes for more muted tones and simple patterns. Nothing too flashy. She almost always wears a pair of converse, which she’s spent a while scraping the money together to replace her old and falling apart shoes.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "It’s nothing a bit of positive thinking can’t will away."
MAIN GOAL ⫻ Tuyen wants to escape the life she feels trapped in, though she doesn’t feel she’ll ever be good enough to. Her goal is simple enough- graduate high school, go to college, and move away from her aunt and uncle. Maybe then she’ll stop living in other people’s shadow. Maybe one day she could be a published author. It feels incredibly out of reach. Everything does, beyond her current state.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ You have to keep going, no matter what. Tuyen believes in putting on a brave face and smiling even if things seem helpless. This philosophy classes with how she feels about herself and her life, but it’s still something she’s trying to live by.
SECRETS ⫻ Sometimes when she looks at Vicky Prescott, she feels something more than friendship. It makes her feel disgusted with herself, and she keeps that and her actual sexuality locked up inside her. She doesn’t let anyone know about how bad her self doubts are. It’s obvious that she struggles a bit socially, but everything else is carefully hidden behind forced happiness and positivity. She doesn’t want anyone to know how much she needs validation from others, what her family thinks of her, or what she thinks of herself. Her depression is another secret, and the self harm stemming from it is only in places she can keep carefully hidden. Not to mention that her shadow– no she– killed people while trying to survive the party. Nobody knows, because it was so chaotic, just as no one knows about the shadow itself.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Tuyen wants to believe she’s straight. She’s had a boyfriend before, mostly because she never expected anyone to want to go out with her. But she didn’t like him. She’s never liked a boy, not in the way she’s had crushes on girls. But that’s just not right, because she is straight. She just can't accept herself as anything else.
FEARS ⫻ There’s a lot that Tuyen fears. She fears failure and the judgment that follows. Will she always be this worthless? She’s scared she’ll always live in someone else’s shadow, while not being able to see a future where she doesn’t. She’s even more terrified that she’s going insane. Her shadow talks to her, she’s seeing things, what else could it be?
REPUTATION IN CORNELL ⫻ Friendly but forgettable. If asked if they know Tuyen, most people would probably say ‘who.’ If someone pointed to her, they’d go ‘oh, that girl.’ She isn't an outsider by any means, having lived her whole life here, but she's just a face in the crowd. Anyone that bothered to get closer will know about the happy, caring Tuyen. But she’s most well known in relation to others- the younger cousin of the much more popular and incredibly smart Min-Jun, friend slash lackey of school queen Vicky, ex-girlfriend of John Miller (least popular member of the football team, who only really dated her because of the group she’s sort of part of).
FLAWS ⫻ Tuyen is severely lacking in self confidence. She, quite frankly, hates herself. Her self perception is distorted from years of emotional abuse from her relatives. She’s been told how worthless she is, how she’s a failure, constantly compared to her much smarter cousin and even blamed for her parents’ deaths. Of course she believes it, leading to someone who’s only grown more insecure as she grows up. This has developed into a silent, functional depression- the kind that she can hide under long skirts and smiles, but creeps in at night when she’s alone. Now she’s never alone, with her shadow always tormenting her.
Her doubts aren’t just for herself, but for the others around her too. She’s a wallflower who doesn’t try to talk to people because she doesn’t believe anyone would want to talk to her. She’s always friendly when someone approaches her, but always assumes they’re just being polite. In the rare friendships she has, she believes that they’re just doing it to be nice, out of the kindness of their hearts rather than her being worthy of the friendship. After all, why would anyone want to be friends with her? And because she feels she doesn’t deserve the friendship, but desperately craves it, she’ll go along with anything they say no matter how detrimental it is to herself. She hides all her problems underneath a cheerful facade, rather pretending everything’s alright than letting the cracks show. She doesn’t want to affect the others around her, after all.
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "You don’t need to feel sorry for me. There are people out there who have it much worse than me."
Tuyen was an accident, but a welcome one (to her parents, at least). Her mother, Yeon-Seo Lee, was a native to Cornell, with strict and overprotective parents who ran a small business. She’d escaped to university in a bigger city in Pennsylvania. Her father, Liem Doan, was in the final year of his masters degree, having come to the States from Vietnam to study. They’d only been together for a few months when a contraceptive failure resulted in Tuyen. Unsurprisingly, Yeon-Seo’s parents weren’t happy about a child out of wedlock.
To appease them, Tuyen’s parents rushed to marry before she was born, moving back to Cornell. Liem dropped out of university to get a job in the steel mill. Then Tuyen came into the world, to a loving mom and dad- even if they hadn’t expected a daughter so early. They were happy, but Yeon-Seo had always been sickly. The pregnancy took a toll on her, exacerbating other chronic issues resulting in her deteriorating until she passed away when Tuyen was only two.
Her dad did his best to raise her, but with no financial help from either side of the family, he had to work long and hard hours to keep a roof over their head. But the one thing Yeon-Seo’s family did was ‘look after’ Tuyen while he was away at work. Sometimes it was her grandparents, who treated her like dirt and put her to work as soon as they could. The rest of the time was spent with her aunts- the much older sister of her mom, who’d respectably married and had a child at the ‘right time.’ This child was Min-Jun, Tuyen’s one year older cousin.
But the gap between them was much wider than their age. Min was incredibly smart for his age, obedient, the kind of kid adults adored and he had plenty of friends his age too. Tuyen was none of these things. She was loud, energetic and struggled with school. She was constantly compared to Min and belittled by her aunt, uncle and grandparents most of the time she spent at theirs. The only person who treated her well was Min. He treated her like a younger sister, and they were close. But she was eternally in his shadow. Any care from her mom’s family was conditional on her being as perfect as him- or more perfect. After all, she’d killed her mom. She should at least make something of herself, even with her dad’s genes dragging her down.
Her only solace was her dad, who loved her unconditionally. When she was eight, he lost his job at the steel mill as it started to scale back operations. It wasn’t a job he was attached to, but it was a stable one that connected him to the larger community. But there was nothing he could do about it, still needing to put food on the table. After a short period, he managed to get a job as a trucker.
This meant he was away longer, sometimes for days if he was given longer jobs. Tuyen spent even more time with her mom’s family. She didn’t cry when her grandfather passed away when she was nine, or when her grandmother followed him a year later. Being at her aunt’s wasn’t much better, but at least Min was there. The emotional abuse took its toll, however, causing her to grow into a quiet and insecure preteen unlike the bright and happy young child she’d been.
But she endured it silently, because even at her young age she knew how difficult it was for her dad. She didn’t want the time they had together to be anything but happy.
Halfway through her twelfth year, the worst happened. After working longer than he should have to make some extra money, Liem fell asleep at the wheel on his way home to his daughter. He swerved onto the wrong side of the road and crashed into another car. It was a severe crash and he died before he reached hospital.
It felt like her whole world had collapsed. She was taken in by her aunt, and suddenly there was no escape. No dad that loved her. She didn’t have any support anymore, apart from the thirteen year old perfect cousin she was constantly compared to. She couldn’t even dwell in it, because her aunt wouldn’t accept that.
People pitied her at school, but it only lasted so long before she blended back into the crowd. She’s managed to get through the almost five years since. The grief is always there, and her self doubts have escalated to self hatred and an unhealthy dose of depression. She copes by pretending to be happy, forcing an outwards positivity as if that will purge the negative thoughts, along with other unhealthy coping mechanisms. At least she has a friend, and that friend has a whole group of friends Tuyen is sort of part of.
It was that friend that dragged her along to a party in an abandoned warehouse. It seemed that everyone from school was there- at least everyone going into junior and senior year after summer. Tuyen was doing what she did best- running errands by getting Vicky another drink so she could stick with her then-alive boyfriend- when all hell broke loose. A horrendous creature that tore through drunk teenagers.
It wasn’t the only thing that slipped through the tear. A weak, fading Apparition known as the Shadow followed close behind. In the Pit it was starved, torn down from its original strength by other Apparitions. But here it could feast. And it found the juiciest meal of all- Tuyen, with all her self hatred and insecurity. As she stood there panicking it adjoined to her, erupting into life as a horrendous creature from her nightmares.
It didn’t fight the monster that had slipped through. It only stopped Tuyen from being killed by it, giving her the chance to run. But it left its own trail of blood behind on the way out. Anyone who got in the way was torn out of it. Tuyen’s horror and guilt only encouraged it. She survived, but at what cost?
She fled back home- a cold empty home, with the rest of her ‘family’ travelling to celebrate Min getting into Harvard. She’s barely left since, isolating herself completely as the horrible creature that’s attached itself to her whispers poison in her mind. She must be going insane. She’s only left to go to her part time job at the diner, barely making it through before holing back up in her room hoping it will all go away.
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m losing my mind, or maybe my shadow really is haunting me. I just want it to stop."
TYPE ⫻ Adjoined.
ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Shadow, a shadow-like Apparition born from negative thoughts and emotions that sometimes manifests to help her, but otherwise tortures her.
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ The Shadow is a semi-sentient Apparition that’s latched onto her negativity and intense self doubts. It constantly taunts her, torturing her with the feelings of dread and insecurity she has inside. It feeds into her self hatred and tells her horrendous things that she can’t deny. It feeds off her negative emotions, especially her insecurities, and is motivated to drag her down further.
Unlike many adjoined Apparitions, the Shadow is always visible to Tuyen, rather than disappearing into her when dormant. In its inactive state, only Tuyen can see it (aside from paranormals with certain magic). It takes the shape of her shadow, a perfect doppelganger of her. It actively protects her from psychic intrusion by filling the intruder’s minds with screams. It can cloud Tuyen's vision by creating illusions, and fooling her into believing things that are not there, or hiding things. With enough focus, Tuyen is able to suppress the Shadow for a period of time, and get some peace - but it'll always return.
It can also manifest physically when it chooses to, appearing to anyone that isn’t a Blind. Its default appearance is a solid, black shadow version of Tuyen. However, its most basic magic is the ability to manipulate its own shape. It’s limited only by Tuyen’s imagination, up to twelve feet. It can either keep its form as a shadow of Tuyen, or it can become some horrific monster, whatever is spawned from her imagination. In this form the shadow is strong, able to throw a fully grown man around like it's nothing or flip over a car with sheer brute strength. It can grow claws, teeth, and all manners of appendages to harm people. The Shadow will only manifest when it wants to, or if Tuyen is able to plead with it. Normally it’s only interested in tormenting Tuyen rather than helping her. However, Tuyen is the perfect victim for it to feed off, so it will protect her from dying without being asked. Anything more than that? She’ll have to beg.
LIMITS ⫻ While it’s adjoined to her, the Shadow has essentially taken the part of Tuyen’s shadow. It can’t move away from her, always needing to remain physically tethered to her in some way. It can extend out from her, but it’s no more mobile than she is, making her its weak spot thanks to how they’re connected. It can grow to ten feet tall, strong enough to throw cars, and its ability to change its shape is only limited by Tuyen’s imagination. Tuyen cannot control the Shadow. It does as it pleases, sometimes listening if she begs, but often not. There’s a chance that getting over her insecurities and fears could allow her to control it, but it’s just as likely to weaken the Shadow and make it useless.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Of course I can do that for you. I’d be happy to."
Tuyen is fluent in Vietnamese and Korean, though her Vietnamese is a little rusty now.
She sometimes plays in the softball team just to fill in numbers when actual team members are sick (at Vicky’s behest, obviously). Or the year they just didn’t have enough people. She’s average, which is just about enough to not completely drag the team down.
Target practice ⫻ Proficient with hand guns and semi-automatic rifles. Often went to the gun range with her ex and his dad. The gun range being the trees in the forest of their backyard with handmade targets on trees and empty bottles, cans, and spoiled fruits. Dark arts ⫻ Draws people, places, and things. Has been in every art class offered at her school. Has a sketch book full of macabre things like dead kids with their guts hanging out of their body. There's a few faces in the book that might look like a few kids you know. Money management ⫻ Keeps track of household spending to ease the burden on her mom and make sure her mom's shitty boyfriend doesn't spend all his disability checks on booze.
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "'You'd be prettier if you smiled,' they say. What's there to smile about in shitty Cornhole, PA?"
Saylor's fair skinned. She gets a slight tan in the summer, but she's not as dark as she would like to be. Her nose is rounded and her black curly hair has multiple textures throughout. The top half is easier to deal with, but the further back it gets, the curlier and thicker it is. Her kitchen is a joy to deal with. She'd had to learn how to do her own hair from YouTube videos. Her mom could never manage it. Her shrinkage keeps her hair above her shoulders, but if she flat irons it, her hair goes halfway down her back. Her eyes are deep brown, her face full, and her lips thick.
She's average height at 5'5 and pear shaped. Her hips are wider than her top half. Makes buying jeans that fit difficult. She has to fit them to her hips and butts, meaning they never fit in her waist. She envies girls in her class with bigger breast and more curvy bodies. She's small in comparison and doesn't feel like she measures up to them.
Saylor generally wears dark clothes if she can. Grungy fashion, band tee for bands she either knows or doesn't know, skinny jeans with holes in them, tights with rips in them, tattered skirts, and combat boots or black alt style shoes. Sometimes she doesn't have a choice but to wear the hodge-podge of shit her mom gets from donation boxes and thrift stores. If it's cheap, it's in her closet. She always wears a black leather jacket that was a hand-me-down from a neighbor. Her ears are pierced in each lobe. She likes hoop earrings or dangling ones with different horror imagery. She wears wrist bands and multi-colored bracelets on her wrist. There's a plain silver plated ring on her pointer finger, gifted to her by her ex. She keeps her make up light with mascara and sometimes eyeliner.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "You're gonna hate knowing me."
MAIN GOAL ⫻ What's the point in having goals? The moment we're born we're slowly dying anyway. Besides, goals are for people that weren't born in Cornhole, PA.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Shit. It's all shit. Everything's shit.
SECRETS ⫻ She knew her boyfriend's school shooter plan the whole time, and in the case he got caught, she's to go through with the plan instead. She lied to the FBI when they questioned if she knew anything. That was also part of the plan. What wasn't part of the plan was her going off script. She couldn't careless about who her boyfriend wanted to kill
SEXUALITY ⫻ Bisexual. Boys and girls are on her radar.
FEARS ⫻ Fear of dying a violent death. Either at the hands of her mom's shitty boyfriend beating her to death or getting shanked in a prison after she get's caught shooting up the school.
REPUTATION IN CORNELL ⫻ The daughter of a prostitute. Most people assume she's a whore like her mother. That before she finishes high school, she'll be knocked up by one of many men she's probably sleeping with. That the kid won't know their daddy like she doesn't know hers. Dumbasses love their rumors more than the truth. She's a one boy or girl kinda girl. She don't sleep around. Only ever been with her ex, so if she was knocked up she'd very well know who the daddy was. Girls at school whisper behind her back calling her a 'slut' and a 'whore.' Boys cat-call her and proposition her like it's a funny joke, but she knows if she ever said 'yes' they would jump at the chance.
FLAWS ⫻ She doesn't think before she lashes out half the time. Has a tendency to be violent. The people that get in her way see the worst of her. She's anti-social as hell. Keeps to herself. Treats most people like shit. She's not a joy to be around, but there's nothing joyous about her life that would make her a joy to begin with. She doesn't realize that her ex-boyfriend brought out the worst in her. She wasn't this bad before they started dating. She developed new traits and made ones she already had worse.
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Do you really wanna know?"
The whole town knows how Saylor came to be. Her mom, Erin Bradford, was a wild child. Drank, did drugs, was loose and hard to control. She got knocked up by some man passing through town when she was sixteen. Never knew more than a first name. Didn't get his contact information. It was a night of fun and that was it. Nine months later Saylor was born. Before and after that there were other boys and men Erin had been with, but most of them didn't look like Saylor's father. It wasn't hard to figure out who she had a black child with.
By the time Saylor was three, they were kicked out of her grandparents' home, but never lived on the street for longer than a few days. Erin was good at getting men, but never good ones. Hard to come by good ones in Cornell. She chose the men that would take care of them for a price. That price was her body. She was fine to make that sacrifice, until any of them started wanting too much. Erin would sacrifice a lot for her girl, but never her girl.
They moved from spot to spot all over town. Sometimes in houses, other single level apartments. There was that time they lived in a motel on the outskirts for a few months. Never nothing stable. All the while, Saylor built up a heavy resent for the town, her mom, her life. When she was twelve, her mom found her longest lasting boyfriend, Ronnie. Ronnie was a disabled drunk that got injured on a construction project ten years before. He can't do nothing more demanding than a desk job, but he'd be damned if he ever worked for anyone again. He drank himself something awful. His worker's compensation long ran dry. His disabilities checks were spend on booze as long as Saylor could take what they needed to live in his run down trailer home per month. Which wasn't hard to do. He wrote down all his bank account information. Saylor goes into his account when she's at school, put what they need into her mom's account, and leaves him the rest to drink with. The lack of money for food and threats of going without heat and water put Erin on the streets as a hooker. She'd take the Greyhound to a bigger town or city, spend two nights making money, then would come home on the third day to check in and deposit the money she made.
Being away, meant Erin couldn't protect Saylor like she used to. Saylor learned to take a beating. To be on edge around Ronnie and dodge when he threw things at her. After Erin saw the bruises, she was ready for them to leave, but Saylor was tired of going from place to place. Ronnie was slow most of the time. If she learned to stay out of his way, then she wouldn't get hit. She convinced Erin she would be fine. Fine looked like barricading her door at night, because of the first time he dragged her out of bed to beat her. Fine looked like spending the little money they had to get a cheap used tent from a thrift store to set up in the backyard on nights she heard him ranting and raging outside the trailer before she could walk through the door. Fine looked like dodging a beer bottle the moment she walked through the door after her first date with her only boyfriend.
It was that incident that spiraled her into who she became. Saylor had been a quiet and nice girl. Afraid of her own shadow most days. Tried to stay out of everyone's way to avoid the hate she got for her mom's job. But Jared turned that all around. He was a Junior when she was a Freshman, and an outcast like her. He wore his hate on his sleeve and made sure everyone knew about it. Was quick to want to fight anyone that had shit to say about him. Took a few beatings from the football team for running his mouth. He barely had any friends and wasn't likeable at all, but he was nice to her. He made her feel seen and special the few times they talked, so when he asked her out she said 'yes.'
They went to the library after school on their first date to watch a movie on the public computer. They shared earphones and ate popcorn he had in a Ziplock bag he brought from home. They weren't supposed to be eating in the library, but the youth librarian gave them a pass as long as they cleaned up after themselves. After the movie, he treated her a meal at the local diner. It'd been about day since she last ate. There wasn't any food at home, and she couldn't eat lunch in the cafeteria without it being ruined by the kids that hated her. She'd never been happier to eat in her life.
He walked her home, gave her a kiss on the cheek goodnight, and she walked into her home narrowly avoiding a bottle being thrown at her head. She walked right back out. Jared barely had the chance to leave, before seeing her shaken up and crying. That's the first night she spent at his house. It became a pattern. Her on the days her mom was around, she'd text her if it was a good time to come home or not. If not, she'd hang out with Jared until she got the clear. If so, then she'd hang out with Jared and go home later that night. When her mom wasn't around, she stayed with Jared instead. His parents didn't like their son's girlfriend practically living with them, but they saw the bruises and how skinny she was. She was on her best behavior in their house, so they didn't make too much of a fuss about her.
It's in all this time she spent with Jared that he got her into guns, taught her violence was always the answer, changed her style to reflect his, got her into death metal and metal, and nihilism as a way of thinking. The changes were the most stark at school. She would be attached to Jared's hip as often as she could, even if it meant skipping class. If her bullies had anything to say to her face, she'd hit them first. If they said anything behind her back and she heard about it, then they'd be hearing from her. All that got her was detentions and a suspension that one time she knocked Becky's tooth out. The school was shit and wasn't known for expelling students. Even the problematic ones. Cornell High was more of a daycare to keep the old people from having to deal with idle minds, then an institution that cared to teach them anything.
It was the building chip on her shoulder that Jared bred, that lead to him telling her his plan to shoot up the school. She knew it from top to bottom. The plan was supposed to take place the second to last week of school when all Senior class would be there before graduation. They'd been together two years now and he'd been planning it for a few months. However, he never got the chance to do his plan. He went running his mouth on Discord and someone reported him to the FBI. He got arrested two months before the plan was to happen, and sentenced for attempted domestic terrorism. Saylor had been questioned, but she denied knowing anything despite knowing everything. She knew the plan like the back of her hand, but she never liked it. It was too messy. Too meaningless. She didn't hate all the kids and teachers at Cornell High. Just a few. The few that should die in her opinion, so she changed the plan.
She would only target the ones that tormented her for most of her life. She knew their class schedules. It would be easy. As a back up plan, there was a semi-automatic rifle and a pistol Jared stole buried in a hole under a dead bush by her house, along with ammunition. The day before the plan, she told, Tuyen, a girl she liked well enough to "Not come to school the next day." She didn't plan on shooting her, but stray bullets happened and she shared a class with one of the girls she planned on ending. The day of the plan, she dug the guns out, tucked the pistol into her waist band and strapped the semi-automatic to her back, then donned Jared's black leather trench coat he had planned to wear. She only planned to use the pistol, easy to conceal and control, plus she wouldn't need all fifteen bullets anyway. She never got the change to even pull her gun out, before hellish monsters arrived and fucked up her plan.
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "My shadow's my only friend."
TYPE ⫻ Aberration - Adjoined
ABSTRACTION ⫻The Nightmare is an aberration created from Saylor's rage that she can project from her body at will and let's it roam freely.
UNCANNY MIMICRY⫻ When at rest, Nightmare looks like Saylor, sounds like Saylor, and moves like Saylor but in an uncanny way. The eyes might not be just right. Its voice is a little too high or too deep. The way it moves might be slightly off. It's hard to identify what exactly is wrong, but it feels off. It puts Saylor in two places at once, but which one's real and which is the fake?
EYES ARE THE WINDOWS ⫻ At any moment, Saylor can look through the Nightmare's eyes to see what it sees when it's out. Saylor can control the Nightmare in these moments.
THE SHADOW ⫻ The Nightmare's true form is a shadow version of Saylor with glowing white eyes. It stands at 6'5 and has elongated fingers and sharp nails. In this form, it can possess people, act as a haunting in a home, blend into shadows, and attack or defend itself. It's attacks are using it's long nails to stab and/or disembowel. It sinks into shadows to escape from attacks or to travel. It can go from corporeal to incorporeal form and vice versa.
THE POSSESSION ⫻ The Nightmare can possess the Blind when in Shadow form to make them do its bidding. I.e. Attacking other people or paranormal beings, speaking on their behalf, killing themselves, and the list goes on. If the Blind being possessed survives, then they will become Aware.
LIMITS ⫻ The Nightmare can only operate outside of Saylor for two hours at a time, before it needs a rest. It will disappear and become one with her again once it's reached it's limit. The Nightmare needs four hours to recharge. If it maxes out its time limit each time it's out, then it can be out and about four times a day. The shorter amount of time they're out, the more times a day it can come out.
Saylor can only move and see through the Nightmare's eyes and control it when it's at rest. Rest meaning, not on defense or offense. Possession and moving through shadows can be an at rest action. When the Nightmare is on offense or on defense, Saylor has to remain still to see through its eyes and control it. Attacking and defending take up more concentration. When the Nightmare possessions someone or something, Saylor can't see through its eyes at all.
If it takes a lot of damage, the Nightmare will automatically go back to Saylor, even if it's within the two hour time limit.
The Nightmare can only go as far as the town's limits when far from Saylor.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I could've had a worse name."
At the time, Erin was no different than the teenage girls that liked Twilight and named their kids after the characters. Her favorite anime was Sailor Moon. She wanted for Saylor to stand out. Be different than the town that birthed her. Made sure she'd go noticed and remembered no matter what room she walked into, so came the name Saylor Serenity Moon. She didn't even give the girl her last name. She believed Saylor's could be a star all her own. Not even blood could hold her back.
"You’re trash bro, you’re trash. You couldn't cover me even if I threw it to myself, bitch."
_______________________________________________ Tyler Joseph Fox
That/Guy | 17 | White | 6 Feet 2 inches | 225 lbs _______________________________________________ Beast. _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "Hey shrimp, if you don’t finish my homework by the end of the day we are gonna have a problem.." ___________________________________
[Leader of Men] ⫻ As the star Quarterback for the Cornell Steelheads, Tyler is a natural-born leader of men stationed to shepherd the boys on his team. He is confident, persuasive, and motivating. Whether it is first and ten on the twenty-five or fourth and goal, with time about to expire and the game on the line, he knows just what to say to give his teammates the push they need to finish the mission strong.
[Born winner] ⫻ Tyler has never lost. In terms of the sport that he plays, ever since he first started playing Quarterback, Tyler has never lost a game. Whether he is the one to make the game winning play or simply the one to get everyone in the best position to win, Tyler does not take the thought of losing kindly. Thus, he will do whatever it takes to be a winner, even if he has to break a bone or two to do it. He finally got his chance to start in his sophomore year of high school due to some bullshit rule about Freshmen only playing on the freshman team, and he promptly carried a bad team to a State Championship win. As the spring semester ends, there are high hopes that he will repeat in his Junior year.
[A Bully’s Bully] ⫻ Tyler is not the biggest fan of bullying people he deems less than himself. There is no challenge in pushing a skinny nerd into a locker. Instead, he tends to focus what creative energy he has into bullying those who can fight back in some shape or fashion. Whether that is a wrestler who happens to cross his path or someone who isn’t afraid to bark back when he gets going, Tyler will focus his bullying energy on those individuals first. And he will be relentless. He relishes the challenge of picking on someone who won’t just roll over in fear, and he will be very persistent in ruining their day in creative ways. As well, if he sees someone bullying someone who is disabled, hurt, or just unable to defend himself, he will become the bully's bully. It is these individuals who receive his most creative strategies yet.
[You’re so bad] ⫻ Trash talk is an essential part of the football experience. If you are not trying to break someone down mentally while your team is breaking them physically, you will never break them spiritually. Tyler is well regarded for his ability to break down the walls that hold in a person's self-confidence. He will often pick out a couple of players each game, and every time he scores, he looks to where they are on the field and tracks them down, and lets them know just how worthless they truly are.
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I am a bit simple, but I don’t need to do much let’s be real."
Tyler has a light, warm skin tone that is smooth and clear from blemishes. His complexion is clear, and he does his best to keep on top of his skin care. It is all a part of his branding. He wants to be that clean-cut, and healthy looking rising star that the scouts can begin to fall in love with. He has always had a lean and athletic build that he has honed to be more defined than bulky. It is clear that he spends countless hours inside the gym training up his body, and he will often try to show off this progress with sleeveless shirts and shorts. Tyler has a sharp yet still youthful look to his face, and he has a clean jawline and a straight nose despite the constant hits he takes on a yearly basis. Tyler likes to keep his hair short during the season, but during the offseason, he allows his hair to become medium length. It is brown, but the constant days under the sun have lightened the tone. Technically, the pattern is straight, yet he spends time each morning before class working product and weaving it in a casual, simple way. Tyler has a light pair of blue eyes. He always has a focused, steady look to him, whether on the field or in the classroom.
For clothing, Tyler likes to wear simple, clean, and stylish clothes. He tends to gravitate towards name-brand items, and he will often try to match his outfit to itself as best as possible. While he may gravitate towards athletic casual wear, he can dress up if a situation depends on it. During school hours, he may not, but a quick trip to a party might see a nice watch or necklace added to the ensemble.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I want to win. I want to be the best. And I want to make my dad proud."
MAIN GOAL ⫻ Tyler is a one-dimensional man. His goal in life is to win. Whether that is playing the game he supposedly loves, in the classroom, or in every other avenue, if there is a way for someone to come out on top, Tyler will push to be that person.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ If you are not giving one hundred and ten percent of your effort, you are not trying hard enough. If Tyler can wake up at five in the morning, hit the gym, go for a run, eat breakfast, go to school, head to practice, head back to the gym, hit the film room with dinner, finish homework, and study for a test all in the same day, then so can everyone lazy enough to not put in the work. There is only one person to blame for failure and that is yourself.
SECRETS ⫻ While they are good at playing football, they are not sure they like it. While they are as gifted as any top prospect, he feels his heart isn’t fully in the game, nor was it ever. He knows deep down that his father pushed him into this life because of his own injury that took it from him, and no matter what, his father is not currently willing to lose the love of the game twice in one life. Thus, Tyler pushes himself a little too hard at times. Not just to prove to himself that he can, but a small part hopes for a way out through an injury. If he were to have his way, he might like to try the theater or maybe see if there is an artistic side hidden under his physical gifts.
Tyler is also much more intelligent than he lets on. While he always tries to be at the top of the class and consistently tests well, he never lets it be known. His friends all heard about how he barely passed a tough test that Mr. Douchebag made him take, but in truth, he scored a hundred without trying. His 4.0 is good, but his teachers are pushing for him to take classes that might push that weighted score up. If his friends learned how smart he was, he might be treated differently.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Tyler is a big fan of the ladies.
FEARS ⫻ That all this work he has put into himself to be the best quarterback in the state will be for nothing. He knows all too well that there is a jump from one level to the next in terms of skill and work required for success. He has handled the jump from pop warner, to middle school, to high school without much worry. Yet the next jump is the biggest one yet. Each team is filled with people who were some of the best on their own team. The third-string quarterback was once setting records for his school just a couple of years prior, and now he’s holding a clipboard because it was proven he did not have what it takes. What if that is his future? A scholarship that lasts only as long as the illusions his play enables.
Tyler also fears that he is not doing something that he loves, and that it is already too late to back out now. His teammates have it in their heads that with that cannon for an arm, they will fill that trophy case with at least two more. His father is already sending his tape to his prospective schools. The town itself is beginning to herald the arrival of a new superstar. If he were to quit, now, after all that he has done, and all that others have begun to expect of him, he’d never be able to show his face around town again.
REPUTATION IN CORNELL ⫻ The Golden Star with the Golden Cannon Arm. Everywhere he goes, those who pay attention to sports know who he is. He walks with a swagger, and he is constantly told stories about how his game was inspiring to them. That is, until you talk to someone who has been the target of his bullying. To them, Tyler is a jerk. An asshole. The one who thinks far too highly of their own ability.
FLAWS ⫻ Perfectionism: Tyler has impossibly high standards for himself. Anything less than flawless execution feels like a failure. Where others saw the perfect game at State's last season, he saw five passes he left on the field.
Overtraining: He struggles to recognize that even he, himself, has limits. Any rest feels like a weakness that needs to be exercised out of his body, so he often pushes himself well past exhaustion and pain. He has been lucky he hasn’t hurt himself; this luck will not last long.
Control Freak: Tyler tends to be in charge at all times, whether on the field or off. He finds it difficult to trust others to handle their roles in a situation without his interference.
Emotional Avoidance Rather than confronting any doubt, fear, or dissatisfaction with football, he buries it under his work and his training. The pressure is building, and if he does not confront these insecurities, he might explode.
Deflection: Tyler will outright refuse to take success on the chin. He tries to hide with false modesty and tries to gaslight others to fit his narrow view of what caused the win.
Fear of Vulnerability: A genuine connection is like oil to Tyler’s water. Opening up, revealing what he truly feels and how he is currently feeling, feels like surrendering his strength. He is rarely emotionally honest, and this has caused him to miss out on the close friendships he sees all around him.
Risky decisions: Tyler is willing, often unconsciously, to flirt with damage and harm. He actively ignores injuries or pushes himself past limits, all to escape the pressure of his father or prove how strong he is.
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "When we win state again, maybe that will be enough.."
Football.
For some people, football is a simple enjoyment. On Saturday, you watch your favorite college team go to war, and then Sunday you do the same for the NFL. You buy the merch, you go to the games, and at the water cooler on Monday morning, in the office, you have a nice and easy conversation starter that you can whip out with Dave from accounting.
For the Fox family, Football is much more than that. Football is a way of life. From his earliest memories, Tyler remembers little other than the work he has put in to get to where he is today. All across the living room mantle in his parents' home, the fruit of these early years is present. Various trophies, ribbons, and other accolades from nearly ten full years of football are placed with the expert precision of a father who is all too proud of how good their son is. Tyler has played football since he was five years old, been practicing since he was three, and he is confident that his father made his wife watch game breakdowns with him while she was pregnant with Tyler. One might wonder why a father would push their young, first son into so much football so young, yet you would only need to look at the surname to figure out the truth. The Fox name is closely associated with James Fox, the former star running back of the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose career was cut tragically short due to a massive leg injury that he suffered at the end of his sophomore season within the league. The Cornell Steelheads count him among their hall of fame, and there are rumors that they were planning on changing the name of the stadium to honor him before the injury.
Thus, above everything else, football is a constant memory for Tyler. He does not have a memory of playing soldiers in the yard outside with his friends. Instead, all he can remember is football camps, two-a-days, practice, drills, training with dad, training with dad’s friends, private coaching, and time in the gym. This has helped him succeed in this profession and build the foundation for a possible run at the college level, yet this has done little to silence a nagging thought that he is making a mistake by dedicating his life to just one thing. When he hit the fifth grade, he argued with his dad because he saw how his two younger siblings were treated. Sophia was allowed to do whatever she wanted. She was encouraged to explore all her hobbies and to make changes as she moved forward in life. His younger brother, meanwhile, could do no wrong in his father’s eyes as he struggled to play teeball. If they were allowed to fail and explore what they wanted to, why couldn’t he? Winning can silence many things, and in his fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade years, the championships he won did much to push him back on the trajectory his father picked for him. The way his friends chanted his name, the way the coaches flung him praise, and the look on his fathers face as he held those trophies was the final lock on any desire he had to explore who he is further. At least, it did for a time.
When he got to high school, he was dismayed to learn that he was not allowed to try out for the varsity team. Freshmen, no matter how good, were assigned to their own team. Despite him playing lights out, he was not allowed to move forward until his sophomore year. The setbacks did not end there. When he arrived at camp, he was told that the team was the current quarterback's team, a senior named Chad. Despite being the better player, it took a minor injury to Chad to get onto the field, and when he did, there was no denying him his birthright going forward. Tyler led his team on a sensational run that culminated with the school's first state championship since his father played. The high from that game carried him through the rest of the year. Scouts took notice, and the buzz around campus is that next year, if he can repeat, he might be a heavily recruited prospect entering his final year of school.
While he is normally not one to party, his friends are dragging him to one to celebrate his birthday. Tonight will be a fun night to let off a little steam and refocus his energy for the next season.
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Listen. If you are going to be out of position, it is my job to fix it."
TYPE ⫻ Adept - Purple Lux
ABSTRACTION ⫻ Purple Lux, channeler is the championship ring on his finger. Field General is his ability to swap the position of any two objects within his vision with each other.
Field General ⫻ This is Tyler’s ability to be the general on the field. He has a keen awareness of objects, people, and other items within a thirty-foot radius around him. He can channel his magic, put his magic out into the world, and consciously select two objects. With a flip of the wrist, the two objects will swap their place in the world. They will take no damage from the transition, they will not suffer any ill effects, and they will just be in a different place. This can be as simple as two people swapping their place, and as complicated as him throwing a football towards a wall and swapping it with another person. To activate his power, he must first get into the right headspace. He must visualize the field before him and have a clear mental picture of where the two objects are. Without a clear visualization, he will be unable to activate the spell. Then, he must push his magic through his ring, which causes the gem to glow a dull purple color. Finally, once this is complete, he can pick the two objects like one picks which entree they want off a menu, and flicks the wrist with his channeler. The two objects will swap places in an instant without any further input needed, and maintain the other objects relative velocity.
LIMITS ⫻ First, Tyler must have a clear picture of his area. This is easy enough when one is in an open room or field. It gets a bit more confusing when he is in a crowded environment. While he has a passive understanding, he must know where each object is specifically. Thus, things that obscure his vision or distort what he can see effectively make this power worthless.
Second, this power is tied to his confidence. If he is not confident in his own ability to do the spell, the spell will simply refuse to work. While he does not know why, there is a certain definitiveness to the power that requires him to be as in control as possible to execute it.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I will carry this if you just fucking let me."
Tyler has a bag filled with protein snacks. He will share if you ask.
"If this is all part of His plan, I’m- uh, I don’t think I get it."
_______________________________________________ Daniel Elijah Mars
He/Him | 16 | Caucasian | 5'7ft | 148lbs _______________________________________________ Righteous _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "Faith can move mountains!… Don’t know what it does against monsters though." ___________________________________
Son of a Preacher Man ⫻ As would be expected, Daniel is full of knowledge and wisdom from the Good Book. Of little practical use, however its passages and support can provide valuably stabilising mental help in these ever-stressful days.
Fools Despise Wisdom & Instruction ⫻ While not conducive for his social popularity, Daniel is a noted hard worker by the teachers of Cornell High and he accordingly excels at most of his subjects - sans chemistry. His street smarts and common sense may be lacking but Daniel can, if nothing else, provide useful and insightful information academically, provided anyone bothers to listen.
Neurosis Be Damned My Boy Can PLAY ⫻ Despite appearances, Daniel is actually quite good at sports and enjoys playing them. He’s considered one of the better runners on the school’s track team and is an extremely valuable centre fielder on the school baseball team, naturally showing good sportsmanship throughout. His running form is notably very rigid and has more than once been compared to that of the T-1000 from Terminator 2.
Timothy 5:8 ⫻ Though of course his mother and father are infallible and righteous disciples of God, their working hours and divine duty often leave them with little time to look after Daniel’s infant sister, Jerusha. This has essentially forced Daniel into the role of babysitter most days of the week and as a result he’s grown to be surprisingly quite good at childcare, it’s at least one of the few areas in which he does not second guess and mentally self-flagellate over every aspect.
Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Mother tells me to keep a well-ironed shirt so that food stays on our table and my sister isn’t corrupted by demons and Jesus keeps loving us."
Cutting a short - albeit wiry - figure, with thoroughly shampoo’d and conditioned brown blonde hair, warm brown eyes, freckles and a look that perennially screams “please mug me”, Daniel Mars is far from the image of peak masculinity. Every aspect of Daniel’s appearance reads as someone making a concentrated effort to appear neat and presentable despite obvious tells of their neuroticism, his curly hair brushed extensively in the morning only to perpetually look, at least, a little messy due to constant tampering and readjusting with his hands, his fair skin which always looks recently cleaned and maintained yet is offset by things like chewed fingernails or a strain in his eyes when trying to smile through an increasingly worsening problem.
Both due to his self-esteem, upbringing and as a survival mechanism, Daniel’s expressions are almost always neutral and inoffensive, a placid or excited smile as if every day in Cornell were the best day ever, though he does tend to have trouble with eye contact. While on the shorter side for his age, Daniel often appears taller than he is - even coming off gangly at times - due to his thin frame and a drilled-in obsession with good posture, something the school photographers have praised as his rigidity makes him an easy subject to frame even after sometimes hours of set-up.
One might charitably describe Daniel’s fashion style as somewhere adjacent to “geek chic”, a less charitable person would probably say he dresses like an asshole. A universal constant is, of course, his cross necklace while a somewhat close second is a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer or handkerchiefs in his pockets. Daniel tends towards neutral colours, brown, black, white, beige if he’s feeling “jazzy”. Dressed with presentation and the Pennsylvania climate in mind, he often opts for a pressed and ironed shirt beneath a freshly washed and meticulously defluffed sweater or sweater vest, coupled with a pair of formal light coloured pants (also pressed, natch) and some well-shined oxfords.
An additional reason for layering is to hide the faded but still noticeable welts lining his back on account of his father’s predilection for the belt or the more recent markings from bullies.
Psychology ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Study hard, be positive and always listen to father, even when he’s been drinking."
MAIN GOAL ⫻ Daniel Mars is far from perfect, yet an undisputed fact is that he has tried to do good, and the world has rarely stopped punishing him for it. Beneath his enthusiasm and smiles, the abuse, isolation and existential confusion have certainly, most definitely not begun to blossom into a crisis of faith from which has only been exacerbated by recent events. Daniel’s preferred outcome would be to find some sense of renewal and meaning in his beliefs, reconcile the delusion of his family and life as wonderful with his growing desire to flee them forever, exorcise the demon currently residing in part of his soul and, most immediately, put a halt on the strange and sacrilegious goings-on in town. Not asking for much!
PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Shakes to his morale aside, Daniel was and still is a devout follower of Christianity. The sermons from his father and his own personal studies had helped guide him through much of a tumultuous life initially - even with some contradiction of what the correct standard of living is to be, compared to his immediate role models - but that has become less and less of a steady guide as he’s aged. Nonetheless, Daniel genuinely believes in understanding and kindness to others, judging no one for their troubles or beliefs and always striving to improve as a human being. His positivity, non-confrontational attitude and purity can easily come off as annoying but given that much of his free time is spent doing voluntary work or other charitable endeavors, it’s hard to argue the sincerity.
SECRETS ⫻ The fact that Daniel is more high-strung, depressed and muddled than he’d like to present is not a particularly well-kept secret, however, the fact that he has something of a rebellious streak actually is. Seeing morality often be callously flaunted by others - including those with a religious duty to adhere to it - had caused Daniel to test the limits himself, sneaking a few extra sips of the communion wine, borrowing and then NOT returning a pencil in grade school. Of course, the most notable example of this was a certain party in an abandoned warehouse and the events that followed, something Daniel is not wholly convinced isn’t somehow his fault and all the problems since are some sort of divine retribution.
SEXUALITY ⫻ Daniel is, at least, straight, certainly as far as he knows anyway. A highly religious conservative household is not exactly the best environment for self-discovery.
FEARS ⫻ While always willing to stretch himself to fulfill whatever irrational designs others have upon him, Daniel is wary of a great many things in life, chief among recently is the spirit infesting his body. There are however two things above all else that chill Daniel to his core. The possibility that, despite everything he has been told, God is not there, or worse yet, He does exist and He is displeased.
REPUTATION ⫻ To his peers, Daniel is a gullible, overly-cheery and often sanctimonious loser who is, not unwarrantedly, a frequent target of pranks or bullying. To the older generation of Cornell, Daniel is the sweet - if dimly innocent - son of the town preacher, always giving his time and effort for the community and anyone who seeks his aid. To the local homeless, he is known as “The Soup Kid”. None of these perceptions are strictly wrong.
FLAWS ⫻ Daniel is a pushover, his positivity and earnest desire to be a kind, empathetic and helpful presence in the lives of others often means he’ll take people at the word even when he himself knows that it may not be the best course of action. In spite of his positive qualities, he rarely believes in himself and defers to the instruction of others, authority figures in particular. Magically speaking, this new world of abstraction and reality warping is something his tightly wound brain struggles to comprehend and he particularly dislikes cooperating with or especially handing control over to the apparition he is adjoined with.
Backstory ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Oh boy! Time for another GREAT day where nothing bad EVER happens!"
Daniel Mars was born to the perfect father - the charismatic and wealthy preacher, Michael Mars - the perfect mother - the beautiful and personable former pageant star, Aimee Mars - and is the elder brother to the perfect little sister - the bright-eyed and pure one year old infant, Jerusha Mars. Therefore, Daniel is to be the perfect son, intelligent, industrious, athletic, virtuous and most importantly of all, God-fearing.
The truth is, as always, less cut and dry. Michael Mars is indeed a charismatic and well-respected man of God, he is also small, petty, violent, prone to drink and forever bubbling with self-conscious anger that his career in the entertainment industry never went anywhere and he is reduced to singing and preaching for bumpkins in a podunk town like Cornell. Aimee Mars is indeed the picture of serenity, she is also perpetually doped up on a cocktail of pills and largely on a plane of her own reality, all the better to enrage her ranting husband. Between this lies Daniel, armed only with faith that has been drilled into him since birth alongside strict rules of conduct and corporal punishment.
Accordingly, Daniel grew into a teenager with a strong work ethic and maladjusted social skills. His optimism and positive qualities came from natural inclination or a rare positive influence in his upbringing, yet his deference to authority and mild indoctrination has him, for the most part, convinced all of it spawns from the good teachings and firm hand of his parents. Bizarrely, this left Daniel ill and well prepared for the almost ritualistic bullying and teasing that followed him as he entered the education system, both too positive to let it ruin him and too used to arbitrary pain to effectively resist or circumvent the harassment in any meaningful way.
Going into his teenage years, as it does for most adolescents, brought about significant change and confusion to this routine however. Daniel came to find less and less comfort in the psalms, parables and drunken ramblings (helpfully provided by his father) that seemed to make sense of the abuse he suffered. Any routes for introspection and growth weren’t exactly clear however, neither of his parents were the picture of self-actualization nor did they have any desire to confront that fact, which led to Daniel mildly being confronted by the fact that, despite any potential good he could feasibly do, there was little to actually like about Cornell Pennsylvania. If this, the beautiful little town he had been told since birth was blessed by God, was so fraught with flaw, what did that say about the rest of the world?
These thoughts and questions festered into “rebellion”, of a sort. Daniel, still innocent and good-intentioned, started testing the boundaries that his parents had told him would lead to damnation or some other grizzly fate just for considering them. Whether that was such heinous actions as handing in a project a few hours before the deadline, not properly tucking in his shirt at service or even not replenishing the soda cans in the fridge after taking the last one! The problem was, none of these acts gave Daniel much in the way of perspective, that is until he heard of a party happening in the old warehouse. A promising opportunity, if a rather nerve-wracking one. Daniel, unsurprisingly, had never been to a party before, perhaps there he could find some kind of clarity in seeing how the other side of Cornell lived, perhaps he could speak with and save some potential lost souls.
Perhaps, Hell itself would spill forth into Cornell and Daniel would run afoul of a particularly clingy demon.
He could not tell you much of the incident, indeed, Daniel had been ready to flee already from the lights, revelry and underaged drinking. When it seemed that damnation had arrived on Earth, Daniel didn’t even realise he was running until he’d already broken through tree clearings in a mad dash to never again bear his eyes on that warehouse and the horrors within. Out in the twilight, screams of his peers echoing behind him, Daniel fell to his knees and tearfully prayed, a mumbling terror-filled plea that lacked meaning or sense as, for the first time, Daniel believed God was not there.
His prayer was answered. Among the manner of comprehension defying demons that tore into Cornell was one that considered itself above its peers, disdaining their senseless cruelty or especially their gleeful sadism, drawn to a particular font of unjust suffering and desire to protect. In an instant, Daniel Mars ceased to exist, and Valor was given form, rushing off towards the slaughter to deliver righteous judgement.
When he finally awoke to daybreak peeking through the trees, Daniel felt his muscles sting after being pushed past their limits, his hands cracking and black with dried blood and the instinctual knowledge that somehow or some way, many, many things had died by his hand.
“WAKE, APOSTLE,” a voice commanded from the depths of Daniel’s soul, “THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE.”
Abstraction ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "JUSTICE IS NOT BLIND, I WITNESS FOR HER."
TYPE ⫻ Aberration (Adjoined)
ABSTRACTION ⫻ Daniel is Adjoined with and can transform into Valor - an apparition whose considerable raw power grows in response to perceived injustice.
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ Daniel’s body is now, reluctantly, a vessel for both himself and the “avatar of justice” Valor. By seceding control - or having it wrestled from him - to Valor, Daniel’s body takes the form of and is (largely) piloted by the apparition.
Visually, Valor takes a mostly humanoid shape, resembling a savage mockery of a knight templar. His “armour” appears less as shining steel and closer to blackened rock, capable of withstanding powerful blows and magical attacks. Its helmet - still bearing the distinctive cross shape on the front - is wreathed in a volatile azure flame, housing only shadow and two unblinking, perpetually flaring yellow eyes that peer judgingly from within. Appropriately, Valor cuts an intimidating figure at a muscular six feet and seven inches tall, with a shadow cast by its self-sustaining flames that grows considerably larger and seems to fall upon those Valor judges as especially wicked. When Valor speaks, its sentences are to the point and spoken in a powerful, if tinny baritone.
As it pertains to abilities, Valor is, rather fittingly, as blunt and inflexible as the apparition itself. Valor’s form enables greatly enhanced durability, strength and destructive power, all with the potential to grow in proportion with Valor’s righteous anger at the injustices of another. While limited in terms of adaptability, Valor's one-track instrument of karmic retribution tends to serve it fine, particularly when stoically marching through devastating force to deliver punishment.
MY HANDS FOR WAR AND MY FINGERS TO BATTLE ⫻ Valor prefers brute force over traditional magic, however, it can marry the two disciplines by summoning a temporary weapon to its hands for battle. Bathed in “divine” fire, Valor calls forth a traditional weapon to extend its reach and judgement, with usual suspects being a greatsword, greataxe, lance or, rarely, a shield.
THE WICKED WILL PERISH ⫻ As mentioned, Valor’s noteworthy physical power and endurance will grow even further to match with the perceived evil of whatever the target of its wrath is, the greater the sin the greater the boost in strength. Valor claims that, under the right set of circumstances, its might could grow enough in a moment to unmake the All-Verse itself, something Daniel is more than dubious of.
LIMITS ⫻ While certainly powerful, Valor is very much a one-track mind. As the apparition is mostly in control of the form, it lacks any capacity or desire to consider things like lateral thinking. It's spells and powers help it do one thing and thing only - walk down the target of its immediate ire and rip it to death. While Valor is resistant to spells to some extent, it can be fooled, slowed or beaten by wearing it down, occasionally requiring external help to keep it sticking to a plan when facing anything that has sentient thought.
Additionally, in the event it takes too much damage even for its durability to withstand, it will forcibly revert back to Daniel and be unable to reform for at least a few hours. It will also complain incessantly as it is a sore loser.
MY HANDS FOR WAR AND MY FINGERS TO BATTLE ⫻ The constructs are as capable of inflicting pain as their corporeal origins, however Valor's weapons can only be used once before vanishing in a swift blaze. Additionally, these arms take a second to burn into existence and will vanish if “let go” preemptively by Valor, making their use more situational and tactically oriented for an apparition that notoriously favours one tactic.
THE WICKED WILL PERISH ⫻ Valor - even by the standards of apparitions - is of limited imagination and intricate thought when it pertains to the psychology of others. What is evil and what Valor considers evil are generally in line and it is capable of factoring in context but it abhors mercy and believes perfection comes only from punishment, be that a scolding or a beheading. Additionally, beings that act on instinct such as animalistic paranormal creatures give no boost, as while their actions are perspectively evil, Valor notes, to its chagrin, that punishing them for a transgression it has no rationality to consider would not really work.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Valor functions as a blunt judgment tool, lacking subtlety or foresight. It responds to perceived injustice rather than strategic planning and can be baited or misled through manipulations of morality. Ambiguity and clever deceptions confuse it, creating vulnerabilities. Its connection to Daniel means any harm or restraint to Daniel affects Valor directly. Excessive damage causes a reversion, leaving Daniel exposed while it recovers, and environmental hazards or attacks on Daniel can interrupt it or cause it to lose control. Its power intensifies with anger and perceived wickedness, but extreme fury can cloud judgment, leading to overreach, miscalculation, or the ignoring of collateral hazards. Strong opponents can exploit its aggression to isolate or flank it. Weapons crafted by Valor are temporary, slow to appear, and disappear if misused or released, creating offensive gaps. Its focus on "evil" means it often doesn't recognize instinct-driven, chaotic, or morally ambiguous foes, allowing attacks that evade provoking its wrath while threatening Daniel. Finally, Valor’s inability to adapt or strategize makes it predictable.
Other ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "Amen."
Daniel is naturally averse to swearing or blasphemy. He won’t chide others for doing either but will try to muffle his hearing of it or at least censor it in his mind.
To split the difference on the Cornballs/Cougars debate, I like the idea that the team was initially named the Cornballs then in an effort to be taken more seriously they rebranded, but you can still see the old Cornballer paraphernalia they crappily tried to paste over.
No votes necessary because the Steelheads is the official name of the football team. If you don't like it, SMD.@Blizz
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Tommy’s summons are inherently linked to his body and life force, not solely his Lux. Damage to a summon reflects as physical injuries—reopened wounds, joint or muscle damage, or even cardiac shock or unconsciousness if destroyed violently. Even in victory, his body sustains damage, and repeated losses cause long-term injuries that don’t heal naturally. The deck functions as a physical part of the abstraction. Damaging a card harms its summon: burns cause instability, tears create missing or deformed parts, and stolen cards enable enemies to misuse or control his creations. Tampering or damaging the deck can cause summons to appear in the wrong order or be incomplete. If too many cards are compromised, his Gold Lux locks completely, preventing summoning to prevent death. Summons embody the emotional and conceptual essence of their materials. Trauma, resentment, or beliefs in source components influence behavior over time. Intelligent or meaningful sources can resist control or subtly sabotage him, and people connected to those sources can psychologically interfere with the summons. The stronger the source, the greater the long-term risk.
Raptor is powered by Tommy’s blood and pain. Each attack reopens wounds, and prolonged use causes internal bleeding and shock. Blood manipulation disrupts Raptor, and restraining him causes severe chest pain. Destroying Raptor results in the loss of a meaningful memory, and repeated losses diminish his capacity to form attachments. Porter has a limited carrying capacity. Exceeding it causes violent structural failure, destroying items metaphysically. Porter experiences what it holds, making volatile or living items dangerous. If immobilized, Tommy’s body mirrors its restraint and weight. If Porter is destroyed while loaded, he suffers serious spinal injuries. Watcher’s howl assaults Tommy’s nervous system. Repeated alerts cause migraines, vertigo, seizures, and dissociation. Reflective environments cause confusion, while silence or sound suppression triggers uncontrollable howling. Destroying Watcher causes a temporary loss of facial recognition.
Finally, each summon permanently diminishes Tommy’s future capacity. Every card reduces his Gold Lux, accelerates aging, and slows recovery. Creating new summons can cost years of lifespan or force the sacrifice of existing cards. Removing a summon feels like an amputation; keeping them all results in early death. No safe balance exists—only how long he can endure.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Vicky’s abstraction primarily relies inwardly, and this self-focus is a fundamental flaw. Yellow Lux enhances her self-preservation and perception but isolates her from shared defensive space. Her magic actively resists protecting others; attempts to do so often cause spell collapse or feedback. In group settings, this makes her a liability—she can survive situations others cannot, but she cannot stabilize failing scenarios. When allies are injured or killed nearby, her Lux spikes into defensive overdrive, narrowing her focus and increasing tunnel vision and reactivity.
Shutout’s fragility is its biggest weakness. While it prevents momentum, it does not eliminate consequences. Impacts can transfer secondary effects—heat, electricity, corrosion, or poison once the weave shatters. Repeated high-impact Shutouts cause cumulative damage-microfractures, whiplash, and nervous system strain. Poor timing doesn’t just cause failure but can leave her worse off, as the Lux lock briefly contracts her muscles at impact. Because Shutout rewards taking hits, it risks creating a dangerous feedback cycle. Shout-out’s silence proves to be a double-edged sword. When active, Vicky loses all external audio, leaving her unaware of unseen movements or environmental cues she can’t detect. Extended use leads to disorientation, delayed reactions, and balance issues, especially in chaotic settings. Since silence depends on vocalization, injuries that hinder breathing, gagging, choking, or throat damage can break the spell. If she panics and becomes silent, the silence ends with her.
Strikeout does not make an object intangible or self-guiding; it only removes it from everyone else’s perception. Vicky can still see the invisible object, but her awareness of it is entirely internal to her Lux perception. If her perception is disrupted by pain, concussion, sensory overload, disorientation, or perception-altering effects, the Lux highlight that lets her track the object can flicker or collapse. In those moments, the invisible object becomes genuinely difficult for anyone to locate, including her. Additionally, invisibility does not remove physical interaction. The invisible object still displaces air, leaves marks in dust, blood, or water, and collides with the environment.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Evelynn’s foresight demands complete physical vulnerability. When she steps into The Garden, her body stiffens, becomes unresponsive, and is essentially defenseless. She cannot move, speak, or react to stimuli, and any force applied to her during this time has full effect. If she is pushed, restrained, injured, or killed while viewing possible futures, the vision does not end automatically to protect her. Foresight does not safeguard the present; it abandons it. The time distortion within The Garden creates mental strain. Evelynn can observe multiple futures in seconds, but her human mind still needs to process and remember them. Prolonged use leads to temporal dissonance: confusion about past events, what she just saw, and what is happening now. After heavy foresight use, she may hesitate, react prematurely, or behave as if events are already decided when they are not.
The Curse of Misfortune is not just random bad luck; it is a targeted collapse in probability. Events that would normally resolve safely instead turn out in the worst way possible for her. This doesn’t mean impossible things happen—just that chance consistently works against her. Safety margins fail, coincidences accumulate, and unlikely accidents happen often enough to maintain constant pressure. Planning does not avoid the curse; it only changes how it manifests. The more Evelynn uses foresight, the more likely misfortune is to strike in the present. Periods of intense Garden use are followed by clusters of accidents, close calls, or cascading failures. Avoiding foresight doesn’t remove the curse, but frequent use speeds it up—danger gets compressed into shorter intervals.
Importantly, foresight doesn’t reveal the Curse as a separate force. She can see outcomes where things go wrong, but not why, in a way that allows her to fully prevent them. Attempts to circumvent misfortune often just shift the trigger. Dodging one falling object puts her in the path of another. Avoiding one location puts her near a different failure point.
Because the Curse is bloodline-bound and all-encompassing, there’s no “safe future” to find—only futures where death comes sooner or later. The Garden can show her how to survive the next minute, hour, or day, but not a future free of misfortune. Long-term foresight inevitably leads to decay, exhaustion, or fatal convergence, making prolonged planning mentally damaging.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Camille’s magic is directly linked to his emotions. Anger and anxiety cause his shards to move faster and his portals to grow larger, but they also impair his control. The shards fly unpredictably, bounce off surfaces, and can hurt him as easily as enemies. He often bleeds from minor mistakes, and repeated use leaves his hands raw with small cuts. Glass pieces cannot be larger than roughly the size of his hand or 15 pounds without breaking apart or veering off course. Larger shards shatter unexpectedly, scattering fragments. Shards that leave his control retain momentum and may collide with him, embed in walls, or trap his feet. Portals have jagged edges and last for less than 2 minutes. Misaligned or unstable portals can injure anyone who passes through them. Creating portals requires physical strikes; missed or mistimed punches can bruise, strain, or cut his hands and arms. Portals vanish if he loses contact or focus, sometimes leaving him suspended mid-action. The Looking Glass relies on mirrors—moving, breaking, or obscuring one destroys the connection. Keeping more than three mirror pairs active strains his focus, leading to partial failures, lag, or misfires. Any disturbance in the anchor points can trap him or leave him vulnerable. All of Camille’s attacks are destructive, uncontrolled, and environment-dependent. Falling shards, collapsing glass, or misused portals often create hazards nearby. The more he fights, the more chaotic the battlefield becomes, increasing the risk of self-injury.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ The Shadow is semi-autonomous and unreliable in response to commands. Its protection is inconsistent, sometimes ignoring threats, delaying reactions, or acting against Tuyen’s wishes. When distracted or hostile, it can misinterpret reality, blocking her view or creating illusions that cause her to stumble, trip, or collide with obstacles.
Since it is connected to her body, Tuyen’s movements directly influence the Shadow. Any attack that immobilizes, restrains, or displaces her reduces its effectiveness. Prolonged restraint, pinning, or confinement limits its physical manifestations, leaving her vulnerable to harm it cannot prevent.
The Shadow relies on Tuyen’s negative emotions for sustenance, which also empower it. Efforts to suppress fear, anxiety, or self-doubt weaken her perception and awareness. In contrast, spikes of dread increase its influence and unpredictability. Emotional overload can cause erratic behavior, indiscriminate attacks, or hallucinations trapping her.
Its physical forms are formidable but bound to her imagination. Focus issues, exhaustion, or injuries diminish its size, strength, and versatility. If Tuyen is unconscious, incapacitated, or mentally compromised, the Shadow may stay dormant, leaving her unprotected, or act unpredictably, risking herself and others.
The tether makes it vulnerable—environmental factors like sunlight, reflective surfaces, walls, or anti-paranormal wards can limit its reach or disrupt its form. Its attacks depend on what can physically extend from Tuyen, making long-range combat difficult.
Additionally, relying on the Shadow reduces Tuyen’s independence. She hesitates to act decisively, considering its potential reactions. Overuse, pleading, or dependence can cause hesitation, paralysis, or misjudgment in combat, turning the Shadow from an ally into an unpredictable threat.
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Environmental factors that flood areas with light or break shadows diminish their form, reduce their reach, and hinder their full manifestation. Bright or reflective surfaces can cause it to withdraw, destabilize its attacks, or make it flicker unpredictably. The Nightmare reflects Saylor’s mental state. Anxiety, fear, or distraction increases its unpredictability: it may attack the wrong target, misjudge distance, or lash out uncontrollably. Strong emotional manipulation, illusions, or mind-affecting effects can make it hesitate, flail, or even harm Saylor herself. Its power depends on her focus, so stress or sensory overload reduces its accuracy.
Possession and incorporeal movement depend on darkness. Well-lit areas, open spaces, block its ability to phase through shadows, hide, or move unseen. Its attacks are less precise in these conditions, and it cannot safely engage remotely without Saylor’s guidance.
The Nightmare is physically strong, but blunt force, heavy impacts, or environmental hazards can force it back into Saylor. Outside, it can be manipulated or tricked by reflective or refractive surfaces, causing it to collapse, misdirect attacks, or push it into hazards. Any obstacle that disrupts shadow paths limits its reach and offensive power.
Finally, its loyalty is conditional. The Nightmare protects Saylor only as long as it feeds on her fear and negativity. If sufficiently provoked or manipulated, it may refuse to act, misinterpret commands, or turn against threats unpredictably, leaving her vulnerable
Her name gave me testicular cancer, but accepted.@Drag
WEAKNESSES ⫻ Valor functions as a blunt judgment tool, lacking subtlety or foresight. It responds to perceived injustice rather than strategic planning and can be baited or misled through manipulations of morality. Ambiguity and clever deceptions confuse it, creating vulnerabilities. Its connection to Daniel means any harm or restraint to Daniel affects Valor directly. Excessive damage causes a reversion, leaving Daniel exposed while it recovers, and environmental hazards or attacks on Daniel can interrupt it or cause it to lose control. Its power intensifies with anger and perceived wickedness, but extreme fury can cloud judgment, leading to overreach, miscalculation, or the ignoring of collateral hazards. Strong opponents can exploit its aggression to isolate or flank it. Weapons crafted by Valor are temporary, slow to appear, and disappear if misused or released, creating offensive gaps. Its focus on "evil" means it often doesn't recognize instinct-driven, chaotic, or morally ambiguous foes, allowing attacks that evade provoking its wrath while threatening Daniel. Finally, Valor’s inability to adapt or strategize makes it predictable.
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