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✦ ❝ [ Isabella's Characters ] ❞ ✦

Welcome to my characters! Hopefully it will be more organized soon. Feel free to comment <3

   
𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞

   
𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞

   
𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞

   
𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞

   
𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞

   
𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞

 
𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞

J     I     N     G     Y     I

voxthain councilor #1
(view spoiler)[
Jingyi Wei-Xsu, 55 years old, male, bisexual, strong transmutation magic


History
Many years before Jingyi's birth, prosthetics were fabricated with transmutation magic while more cosmetic enhancements were illusory in nature. The problem with magic was that it was fickle and often failed to meet the expectations and demands of the people. A band of innovative engineers tried making a prosthetic out of a combination of transmutation and metal and found great success–that is, until the copper parts of the arm began to rust. Nevertheless, the discovery caught the attention of the local tinkerers and the nobles, one group wishing to share this new knowledge with all of Voxthain and the other trying to covet it for themselves. Many of those pioneer inventors chose to go into the employ of the nobles in hopes of building a better life for their families while a smaller subset joined with the Tinkerers' Guild in lower Voxthain.

Life in the lower city was kind to Jingyi Wei-Xsu. His parents were part of a welcoming community of of transmutation magicians and mechanics known as the Tinkerers' Guild that were working to mend the gap between magic and machine. His father was a mechanic and his mother was a transmutation magician, and together they were unstoppable. Jingyi followed in his parents' footsteps, mastering transmutation magic during his time at Cogworks and joining the Tinkerers' Guild as a mechanic in adulthood.

Many people in need found their way to Jingyi's work station as the years passed. One such client was Mei Lui, an eye-catching young woman around Jingyi's age who had lost her leg in a carriage accident. For the first time, Jingyi struggled to complete his work. He couldn't steady his heartbeat in Mei's presence, concentration pulled away from the prosthetic and glued to the woman it would soon belong to. After he completed his work, he desperately searched for a reason to keep her in his life. He was quiet and lived a simple life, but he wanted her in it. Mei came from a long line of bakers, and Jingyi became a regular customer at their shop. Months of shy flirting passed until one of Mei's older brothers lost his patience with the two lovebirds and set up a date. The two had been happily together ever since.

Meticulous and kind, Jingyi earned himself a reputation as the man to go to for a quality prosthetic, especially for those who could not afford a prosthetic elsewhere. The more Jingyi spoke with his clients, the more he felt that he needed to give back to his community. There was so much suffering hidden beneath the shiny facade of Voxthain, and he felt deep in his heart that there was more he could do. Jingyi brought forth his concerns to the leaders of the Tinkerers' Guild, and with their blessing he started up a soup kitchen that he spent every weekend volunteering at. In his spare time, he offered up his services as a transmutation mechanic for anyone who needed small fixes around their homes.

Before long, Jingyi was known and loved throughout all of lower Voxthain, even if he didn't want the attention. People began entering his workshop not for prosthetics, but to beg him to run for Council. At first, Jingyi turned them away. He liked the simplicity of his life and he knew that he had no head for politics. Sure, he cared about his community and spent much of his time and energy working towards making their lives better, and yeah, holding the power of a Councilor would go a long way in making his programs a reality, but he didn't know how to be a leader. The state of politics beyond Voxthain was a foreign concept to him, and he didn't know the first thing about negotiating or the economy.

It was Mei that finally convinced him to run for office. The ability to do good for the overlooked population of Voxthain superseded any concerns he may have about being a politician. They were a Council for a reason. Someone else could take care of the issues Jingyi didn't understand. Despite his concerns about receiving enough votes, Jingyi was easily elected into office as a Councilor at the age of 30. He has remained a Councilor for the last 25 years.

Life became much busier for Jingyi once he had a title and constituents, as well as a Council of primarily nobility to contend with. He still fabricated prosthetics and worked at the soup kitchen when he could, but he had to give up the odd jobs he did around town for people. Instead, he spent his time in endless meetings that he mostly deemed pointless, building up programs for his people, and advancing technology throughout Voxthain. He set up after-school programs for Cogworks students that had nowhere to go when classes let out, fought for better building regulations in the overcrowded lower city, and brought equity to access to prosthetics.

At first, the other Councilors tried to make Jingyi the foreign ambassador, even as he warned them that he had no place in actual politics, and after many failed trade deals and a near-war, they relented and mostly let him do what he wanted in the lower city. For the most part, the Council does not view Jingyi as a major player in the politics scene or a threat to any of their agendas. In the modern day, Jingyi is so focused on the needs of the lower class that he doesn't notice any contention or fighting between the Councilors of either Council.

In his private life, things continued in peace. Mei and Jingyi decided that they were ready to bring another life into the world a few years after Jingyi joined the Council, and a year later they welcomed their daughter Chae into their lives. Chae was everything to them, the heart and soul of their love for each other and for Voxthain. Soon after Chae's birth, Mei and Jingyi playfully bet on which parent Chae would take after: her mother's long line of bakers, or her father's own line of fabricators. Only a few years into her life when Cae was an adventurous toddler, Jingyi won the bet. Chae was more drawn to the tools in his workshop than any of her toys back home. Jingyi was so proud of his baby girl, and retelling that story brought tears to his eyes for years to come. Over twenty years have passed since Chae's birth, and Jingyi couldn't be prouder of the woman she has grown into. Braver and bolder than either of her parents, Chae was strong-willed and intelligent, and Jingyi couldn't wait to see what she did with her life.


Personality
Jingyi is not a brave man by any means. He is quiet and reserved, wishing for a quiet life with his family and his workshop, but with a heart too big to keep him there. He loves his family and his people, and he would do anything to support them. Even with the prestige of 25 years of service on the Council, Jingyi never moved out of the neighborhood he grew up in. He tends to stay out of the interpersonal relationships of the other Councilors, especially now that he is decades older than many of his colleagues. The Tinkerers' Guild members are his friends and coworkers more than anyone else, even if he spends a majority of his time around the Council.


Magic
Complete mastery over transmutation magic but not much in the way of any other school of magic.

NOTE sister councilor with starla
(hide spoiler)]

───────────────────────────  FAE ELLINGTON-WYVER ∇ Voxthain Noble

ENCHANTMENTS AND CHARMS   ────────────────────────────────

The status of a noble is defined by power and possession of desirable goods, and the Ellingtons have controlled the city's water supply for generations. Throughout the known history of Voxthain, there has always been an Ellington on the Council, an Ellington heading the Tinkerer's Hall, and an Ellington controlling the flow of goods and services. That is, until now.

Galian Ellington was the black sheep of his family and the youngest of five kids. He paid no mind to politics or trade or the magic of engineering, having known since birth that he would never be important enough to hold any real position of power in the city. And then the accident happened, shadowfog overtaking the family's carriage on a trip out of the city. Galian was the sole survivor, the last remaining Ellington, only alive because he had not been asked to join on the trip. He was twenty and recently married with a child on the way, and he had to quickly figure out how to run the Ellington empire all by himself.

Naturally, things went poorly. By the time Fae was born, her mother was too embarrassed to show her face around town. Galain did not have the public support to get elected to the Council nor the magical know-how to run the Tinkerer's Hall, so all he had left was the water. Even as a very young child, Fae could see how much her father struggled to hold everything together. The other noble families snapped at his last shreds of power, foaming at the mouth for the chance to steal the Ellington empire. Her mother entirely absent, locked away in her rooms with her potions, and her father inept, Fae knew it would fall to her to uphold the Ellington legacy.

And so Fae did what she could to prepare for righting all of her father's wrongs and pulling back all that they had lost. She honed her natural inclination for enchantment and illusion magic, sure that those skills would aid her in her tasks and knowledgeable of the fact that the engineering side of the family was lost for good. She studied up on politics and trade, learned everything she could about the water rights of citizens and her family's history in controlling that access. It was hard work, but it was worth it in knowing what she was fighting to regain.

A sore spot in Fae’s life was her mother’s abuse of mind-altering potions. She often sent Fae down into Asterath to collect her potions, to blissed out to care about her young daughter’s safety. While on one of those trips, head veiled by a cloak and hands shaking with a fear that never subsided no matter how many trips she took down into her sister city, she saw another girl around her age in the apothecary. The two reached for the last potion on the shelf at the same time, two small, stubborn hands unwilling to loosen their grip on the bottle. Fae desperately needed the potion, scared of her mother’s reaction if she returned empty-handed. It seemed the girl was feeling a similar desperation, eyes wild and teeth clenched. Fae let her have it, trusting her safety even if she would have to weather her mother’s wrath.

A few days later, Fae spotted the girl at Cogworks and finally recognized her. She was Topaz Wyver, the child of a noble family in a similar position to hers. It seemed like the similarities between their households ran deeper than what was obvious at the surface. Feeling a deep sense of compassion and understanding for the girl, Fae chose to approach her during a break at school. The story wrote itself from there. Fae and Taz instantly clicked, two halves of one whole. They were inseparable, leaning on each other to get through the hard days, more sisters than friends.

While Fae was focused on her learning, life continued to move on around her, the Ellington name falling further into obscurity. When she was ten, her mother became pregnant with her second child. She was so out of it all of the time with her potions that the pregnancy came as a shock to all of them, including Fae's mother herself. The pregnancy was hard on her, even more so with her continued use of mind-altering potions. No matter how much Fae begged her to take care of herself and the doctors warned her to slow down the use of the potions, she would not listen. When Julien was born, her body was so weak that she just couldn't recover. When she died, she left even more on Fae's shoulders. Not only did she have the weight of her family's legacy, but she also had to raise her brother.

Without Taz there to support her, Fae probably wouldn't have been able to finish school. Raising her brother, who she loved with her whole heart, was so much work on top of everything else she was already holding herself accountable for. But somehow, she did it, and she graduated from Cogworks with her completed tracks in Enchantment and Illusions with perfect marks. The day that she graduated, Fae approached her father to discuss the way forward. She expected him to want some control over the Ellington name, but instead he took her interest as an excuse to dump everything onto her and leave Voxthain entirely. The last time Fae spoke to her father was in his office, diploma still in hand, dressed for the graduation party she was attending later that evening.

┏ ┓
26 years old aroace
illusions enchantments
poised steadfast
┗ ┛

The head of a dying noble family at eighteen, Fae had to be larger than life and more powerful than she felt. The finances were a mess, they no longer had any ties to the Council, and their only ally was the House Wyver, which was in just as bad of a position as the Ellingtons. It was all too much for Fae to handle alone, and Julien was still only eight years old—still far too young to help Fae with any of the tasks that were piling up before her. She was drowning. It was all so much and despite her years of preparation, she wasn't ready for the weight of the responsibility. Some days it was hard to stop herself from following in her father's footsteps and leaving or taking after her mother with self-medicating.

Six months after graduating, Fae reached her breaking point. She hadn't felt the warmth of Luminos on her skin or the rustle of a breeze in so long that she wasn't sure that she could even recall the sound of a bird chirping. Life was futile. The numbers would never add up and the only Councilor who had returned even a single one of her letters was Taz's older brother. How could pull the Ellington name out of the gutter when there were no Ellingtons left to care? The exact moment that Fae had given up on her family, Taz burst into her home office, grin shining on her face and concern hidden deep within her eyes. She had come up with a genius plan to save both of their families: marriage. While Fae loved Taz with her whole heart and soul, not a drop of that feeling was romantic. Fae wasn't sure that she could feel that kind of attraction to anyone, and she knew Taz felt the same way. There was nobody else she would ever want to marry, and there would never be a better reason or time to do so.

That winter, Fae and Taz married their noble families together into the Ellington-Wyver noble household with the blessing of their siblings. It was easier to run the day-to-day of the household with Taz there to carry some of the weight, and it was immensely useful to her standing to have a familial relationship with a member of the Council. Over the next several years, Fae slowly clawed back the shreds of acclaim her family once held. It has been a long road, but at 26, she feels like she’s finally regaining her footing.

Fae has shaped herself into the perfect picture of what she thinks a noble should be. She is poised and charming, back straight and face adorned with a pleasant smile. She is polite to strangers and welcoming to all that she meets. All of her kindness feels superficial and shallow, because in reality it is. It's all an act, a disguise of a noble woman. Deep down she is calculating and stubborn, playing 4D chess with every interaction, even when it isn't strictly necessary. She strongly believes that all nobles view the world the same way she does, and would be surprised if anyone expressed true emotion differently.

Fae's mother had Grimcroft blood through her maternal grandmother, making Fae eligible for the Coven. Before her death, her mother was the Flurry Seeker, and now Fae has taken up that mantle.

─────────────────────────────────────────    OF A TRUE NOBLE

MAGIC ∇  (view spoiler)[
Enchantment ; charms and manipulation
Mastery of the subtle pulls on the emotions of others, bending those around her to her will. At this point she practically has an aura of "you are calm and you like me."
Solid control over simple commands and can permanently charm if the subject of her magic spends enough time in her company.
When concentrating, she can put one or two people to sleep.

Illusion ; dreams and disguises
While she can make smaller illusions with visuals and sounds with ease, she does not flex this particular muscle often.
Adept at dream manipulation, pulling at the unconscious mind, shaping it to her will.
(hide spoiler)]  ───────────────────────────────────────

NIKOLAI fc daniel radcliffe IVANOVICH

(view spoiler)[
HISTORY
Nikolai had the same childhood as every street urchin: a dirty, hungry, theft and violence filled tragedy. His earliest memories were of an alley full of children, some begging for food and change from passersby while others wrestled on the damp, magic-stained stone. His only possession in the world was a torn slip of paper that said, "Please take care of this boy. His name is Nikolai Ivanovich," the rest of the message lost to time before Nikolai could ever read it. His name was odd, different from the other kids on the streets. They called him Outsider, Shadowboy from the shadowfog beyond the city limits. Very quickly Nikolai learned that it was a dog-eat-dog world, and while he considered those boys to be his family, the only person he could truly trust was himself.

In his early childhood, he was a thief more than anything, stealing apples and loaves of bread from street vendors, trinkets and toys from rich Cogworks students passing his little corner of the world. Once he reached his preteens, Nikolai discovered the draw of a fire. He started small, with little bursts of magic thrown in nearly empty trash bins, before slowly working bigger and bigger until he was caught by members of Club Serpentine staring entranced at a burning warehouse at the age of 16. The Snakes beat him within an inch of his life for the damage he did to their property, then offered him a place in the gang for his skill at wielding fire magic.

Growing up without a stable source of food or adult supervision certainly warped Nikolai's perception of the world. To him, the only real sense of order in the world came from chaos. While Club Serpentine was cold and methodical on the surface, there was an undercurrent of chaos to the actions of the gang members that satiated the beast dwelling within Nikolai. He followed maybe half of the orders given to him, torching the properties of rival gangs and beating up anyone who looked at him the wrong way.

Nikolai's role in Club Serpentine changed as he aged and his pyromania calmed. After a couple of escapades gone sideways, Nikolai learned he had a natural talent for healing. He began experimenting with salves for burns and fevers, and learned the best magic to stitch someone back together. As the years passed, he pulled further and further away from the action and found himself spending more time in Club Serpentine (the building) healing his fellow Snakes. Now, at 29, Nikolai is far from the limelight. He can still hold his own in a fight and his eye is constantly drawn to the light of a candle, but he spends more time in the infirmary than not.


PERSONALITY
To put it plainly, Nikolai is rough to be around. His childhood exactly didn't help him to be a kind, generous person. He was brought up on selfishness, violence, and cruelty, so he treats the people around him like they are a threat to him. The way Nikolai talks makes it seem like he's always looking for a fight, which, to be fair, sometimes he is, but oftentimes his brash sarcasm is more defensive than offensive. If Nikolai wasn't such a skilled medic (and arsonist), even the cruel savages of Club Serpentine would have dropped him years ago. Somehow, Nikolai is still able to make friends with the Snakes that frequent the infirmary as they are able to make it past his gruff exterior to the biting humor beneath.
(hide spoiler)]

29 YEARS OLD snake // medic BISEXUAL

(view spoiler)[

( strengths ) starting fires, first aid, sense of direction
( weaknesses ) remembering people, reading, cooking
(hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[

( position ) medic for club serpentine (in the claims/list as a snake)
( magic ) complete mastery over evocation magic when it comes to starting and managing fire. he never quite figured out extinguishing a flame, but he compares to no other when it comes to the strength and ferocity of a blaze. strong transmutation magic when it comes to healing and fabrication of prosthetics
(hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[

( likes ) arson, starting drama, fistfights
( dislikes ) authority, enclosed spaces, cherry flavored foods
(hide spoiler)]

──────────────────────────     KAELA BLAIRE ∇ Evocation & Math Teacher

LEARNING BRINGS LIGHT     ────────────────────────────────────

Asterath may be where Kaela Blaire was born, but Cogworks is her home. From the moment she entered the school at five years old and was wowed by the magical practice and size of the classrooms and breadth of subjects taught (although maybe that last one came later on), she knew that was where she wanted to spend the rest of her life. All kids start out wanting to be a teacher or a Council member or a gang leader, but Kaela's passion for teaching at Cogworks never faded even as she got older.

In school, Kaela noticed that she had a particular skill for evocation magic. The elements called to her, and she was able to bend them to her will with ease. Separately, she also found math to be the easiest of the non-magical subjects. Her teacher would give her bonus problems of a higher difficulty to hold her concentration when she finished assignments faster than the rest of her class, allowing her to progress in the subject at a rapid rate. The math and evocation teacher was an old woman, and she saw the potential that Kaela held in both subjects. Once Kaela was old enough to feel sure in her choice to be a teacher, the math and evocation teacher started to prime Kaela as her replacement once she graduated.

In the meantime, Kaela enjoyed her time as a student at Cogworks. She was a friend to the entire school, not caring in the slightest where someone was from or what their future would hold. She loved people and people loved her. Study sessions with friends, attending events in the cities, extracurriculars—she had it all. And then, she graduated and stepped into her true passion as a teacher.

Seventeen glorious years of teaching, and Kaela loves every single moment of it just as much as her first day on the job. Cogworks is where Kaela belongs, and she will continue teaching there until the day she dies... which might be coming sooner than she thinks. People have taken notice of her latent power, and they stare greedily at the magical essence she possesses. Maybe she shouldn't be as friendly as she is with the bartender at the Neon Cogs Saloon.

┏ ┓
35 years old lesbian
evocation teaching
cheerful naive
┗ ┛

A true child of Asterath, Kaela is all light and whimsy, wild magic through and through. She's no cyberpunk graffiti-ing criminal, but that makes her just the same as a vast majority of the populace of Asterath. Her magic is explosive and unruly, growing more powerful as she ages and masters her craft. She is bright and cheery, lighting up any room with the glow of Asterath itself. Kaela sees only the best in people, which makes her an excellent teacher, but it also blinds her to the cruelty of the world. Both naive and welcoming, Kaela would sit the Big Bad Wolf down at her dining room table and serve herself up as a meal if he asked politely.

The students of Cogworks universally love Kaela. Math is a notoriously hated subject, but because of the care that Kaela gives the subject and the respect that she shows her students, they enjoy attending her classes and put in the effort to understand the material. Her classes are fun and engaging, allowing for individuality and the freedom of expression in the art of evocation, focusing more on the intricacies of each element than the utility in combat.

People typically find Kaela to be easy to read, emotions plastered across her face and thoughts freely shared. The only thing they would not expect from her at a glance is who she has chosen as a partner. Jinni, the cold and heartless Abjuration and English teacher, and the love of Kaela's life. The two met while studying at Cogworks and became fast friends. Jinni was so different back then, Kaela would tell people. She had the brightest laugh of anyone I had ever met. She still does, though she wouldn't want me telling you that. The two fell out of contact after graduation when Kaela stayed at the school to fulfill her dreams of becoming a teacher while Jinni left to pursue her own goals. They were only able to reconnect in recent years when Jinni joined the staff of Cogworks as a teacher.

Never one to shy away from expressing her feelings, it had taken Kaela a long time to understand why she had never told Jinni that she was in love with her in high school. Expectations, knowing that their paths would diverge after graduation, fear of change. As she aged and matured, Kaela found herself regretting not saying anything more and more. Ten, fifteen years had passed since she had last seen Jinni, and her feelings for her friend had only grown. Jinni was the love of her life, the only person that she would ever be able to see that way it seemed, and she had lost her chance to share the depth of her emotion. And then there Jinni was, sitting in the Foggy Froggy Lounge as if she hadn't ever left. Despite how different Jinni was, the way Kaela felt hadn't changed. She would always love Jinni, no matter who she had become. It hadn't taken long for her to share her feelings, and the rest is history.

────────────────────────────────────    ACCEPTANCE BRINGS JOY

MAGIC ∇  (view spoiler)[
Evocation ; elemental mastery
It has been Kaela's life work to master the art of evocation magic, and she feels that it is a task that she will never feel like she has fully accomplished. For all intents and purposes, Kaela is a master in her field. She has solid control over all elements, from lighting a match to summoning a storm. The one thing she can't do is grant herself abilities or resistances to any elemental workings.
(hide spoiler)]  ───────────────────────────────────────

V     I     X     E     N

asterath infiltrator
(view spoiler)[
24 years young, female, panromantic demisexual, no magic


Lillianna March was a sweet girl from a little village in rural Faerûn. She loved to braid the hair of the other girls in her village and she would bake muffins with her mom to hand out at the weekly worship. She knew that one day she would follow in her mother's footsteps and become the village's schoolteacher, and there was a boy in her class that she was so sure she would marry one day. Nobody in Lillianna's life was destined for greatness, but they were all content with their quaint lives in their sleepy farming town.

And then the shadowfog rolled in from the mountains. It moved so slowly, and nobody had ever seen the shadowfog before, so they felt no sense of urgency or concern in fighting it off or evacuating. Day by day, week by week, the fog inched closer to the village. People went on with their lives, making passing comments on the dark cloud and the bad weather it would potentially bring. Lillianna was ten and entirely unconcerned with the shadowfog. Schoolyard gossip and completing her goal of petting every single cat and dog in the village were far more important to her, completely pushing any thought of the encroaching death out of her mind.

And then the shadowfog reached the village.

It happened at night, the shadowfog pouring into homes through gaps under doors and open windows, a thick inky darkness swirling in, blocking out the soft glow of Lantas. The people living at the edge of the village, closest to the mountains died before they even had a chance to scream, swallowed up so wholly by the shadowfog that they were gone in a heartbeat. As the fog reached it's tentacles further into the village, its approach was slowed by the magic it was ingesting, allowing the people in the next houses to scream out in agony before the fog consumed them entirely. In mere moments, the whole village was awake, sounding the alarm against whatever threat was making villagers scream in such torment. They still had no idea that the fog that was slowly starting to surround their village was the cause.

Lillianna's family lived on the far edge of the village away from the mountains. Her family had no idea what the cause of the screaming was, and chose to take shelter in their cellar. As the oldest of five, Lillianna was put in charge of corralling her younger siblings. Her baby sister would not stop screaming and struggling to leave the cellar, begging Lillianna to go back for her favorite stuffed animal she had dropped somewhere between the house and the cellar. Being the good sister that she was, Lillianna ventured back out into the quieting night to grab the stuffed animal. It was so dark, impossible to see even her hand in front of her face, making the search for the missing stuffed animal nearly impossible.

Behind her, the shadowfog crept ever closer, still staying out of her notice. It pushed over the cellar, squeezing down in the gaps of the door. Then, the screaming. Lillianna would never forget the symphony of her family's wails as the shadowfog ripped the magic from their bodies. All instincts in her screamed for her to run, to save her family from whatever was hurting them. The shadowfog touched her face first, scorching her nerve endings and lighting her skin aflame. It was the fog. It was poison, death in mist form. She knew then what the danger was, and ran into the night, not looking back for a single moment.

Vixen entered Runalithe when she was twenty, ten years after the incident in that rural nowhere village. She was nobody and nothing, just another passing face in the sea of refugees entering the country. Her cunning and brutality in the face of magic elevated her through the ranks of Runalithe, gaining her the title of spy. Due to her icy efficiency in espionage, she was voted to join the crew of heroes venturing into the unknown to gather the resources necessary to fight back the shadowfog as it threatened to swallow up the last remaining land in Runalithe.



Quiet and more calculating than she appears at the surface, Vixen doesn't say much. She never smiles, her face rarely reaction to any new stimulus, good or bad. People are often unnerved or impressed by her steely resolve, but nobody knows that she actually can't move many of the muscles in her face after her encounter with the shadowfog in her youth. When she does speak, Vixen has a slight accent that ousts her as foreign from Runalithe. Vixen keeps to herself as much as she can, but she does genuinely like the infiltration team. Each member has their quirks, and she enjoys their company, even as prickly as they are. The team sees her as timid but sweet, as she is when she's comfortable and around people she likes, but to the world she is cold and cruel. There is a deep, all-consuming hatred for all things magic in Vixen that pours into her every thought and decision. Even as she lies and puts up a front in her life as a bartender at the Neon Cogs, she has a seething rage towards Asterath's easy use of magic.

While she would not kill anyone herself (yet), she feels no guilt when poisoning the drinks of Neon Cogs regulars for Bohdi or another member of the team to drain of magic. Vixen is smart about who she drugs, choosing the drunks that nobody would ever miss and gang members with a target on their back. In her life as a bartender, Vixen has made contact with all of the gangs, using the information she trades with them to find the best targets. Many of the disappearances in Asterath have gone unnoticed because they have been pinned on the gangs, and Vixen plans to keep it that way.
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C     A     D     M     U     S

serpentine rattler
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Cadmus Vyperion    38 y.o.    Zyx-sexual (no attraction to anyone else ever)
          transman with three kids    illusion and transmutation magic

If anyone was brave enough to ask, Cadmus would tell them that his childhood was not even remotely relevant to his current life. Sure, he has a family and attended Cogworks like most other children of the sister cities, but that was all while he was in hibernation. School was boring, not even remotely a challenge for Cadmus. He spent more time psychologically torturing his classmates than he did studying, transfiguring their limbs for but a moment and making them see hallucinations of their deepest fears. Cadmus was never caught in the act—no, he was too smart for that. But it was boring, suffering on too small of a scale.

Teachers at Cogworks begged Cadmus to use his talent in transmutation for good, helping people in need and fabricating prosthetics, but where was the fun in that? Cadmus found joy in his cunning and his torture, and there hadn’t been much room for him to experiment at Cogworks. He certainly could have chosen a career in fabrication where he experimented on people in secret, but he wanted to live a life surrounded by like minded people. People like Club Serpentine, with all of their cruel brutality towards anyone who thought to cross them, and maybe some others too, just for fun. Club Serpentine gained a new grunt Snake the day Cadmus graduated from Cogworks, and he never looked back.

Life as a Snake was initially not as exciting as Cadmus had hoped. All he ever did was stand around, guarding rooms. Nobody trusted him to kidnap or kill or torture anyone, seeing him as a skinny little nobody instead of the viper he really was. At first he was frustrated, thinking of quitting and setting out on his own, but after hours of thinking while standing guard at some warehouse he wasn’t even allowed to know the contents of, he came up with a different plan. Club Serpentine had no reason to trust him or allow him any power, and why would they? He had done nothing to prove himself to them. It was up to him to discover who he truly was and what he could bring to the gang.

added later
Shortly into his time as a Snake, while he was still young, Cadmus had a fling with a nameless nobody. That night of meaningless fun turned into a pregnancy, which then made Cadmus a young single father. When his daughter, Europa was born, Cadmus felt an emotion he had never felt before—love. He loved his daughter, a being of his own flesh and blood, a tiny little creature he was woven to protect. Of course, that didn't mean he was a good father by any means, but he cared for her with a passion he didn't know he possessed.

Once he finally set his mind to it, it had been all too easy to kidnap some poor nobody off the street. It turned out that all of his time slithering into the minds of his classmates has strengthened those muscles, and he was easily able to convince the first man unlucky enough to cross his path that he was falling in endless darkness. Once the man was incapacitated, Cadmus transfigured himself to be strong enough to carry the man into the darkest pit he could find, and that was where he got to work.

The Rapture, he called it. He would bring a person to the moment of deepest agony, transfiguring them into a hideous creature that they couldn’t recognize, making them see and feel the most horrific things Cadmus could imagine. And then, he would give them a moment of hope. Illusions of chains snapping, a light at the end of the tunnel—true belief that they would escape and be free and have their old life back. And then, the moment the light entered their eyes, Cadmus would strike, emptying those eyes for the final time.

After he honed his skills, Cadmus set to work at making Club Serpentine his own. He slithered his way up the ranks, proving his worth and gaining promotions or killing the next in command when he didn’t. It took him years, but he finally claimed the title of Rattler at 26 years old. From there, it was difficult for Cadmus to see the path to Head. Despite how he felt about most people, Cadmus actually liked the Head. He was straightforward and efficient, cruel and cunning, a good leader. Being the Rattler was enough power for him, especially when he was able to work as a team with the Head.

And then there was Zyx. Zyx, Zyx, Zyx. Killing the Head, making changes to the structure of Club Serpentine, thinking he could come in out of nowhere and take everything Cadmus had worked toward for years. No. Cadmus wouldn’t have it. Zyx would die, and he would die horribly.

Except, once he got around to it, killing Zyx was immensely difficult. No matter how hard he tried, the man never faltered in the face of his illusions. He resisted the transmutation with a force that Cadmus had never encountered, and there was no chance that Cadmus could ever beat him in combat. It turned out that Zyx was attempting to kill him in turn, but Cadmus was too slippery to be caught, transmutating his body the moment that Zyx got close, leaving only an illusion of himself in his place. As they fought, Cadmus’ thoughts turned a… different direction. One he hadn’t ever traveled down before. Zyx was very physically imposing in a way that Cadmus found undeniably attractive, paired with his absolute control over his powers and cunning resolve. Well, let’s just say that their battle ended very, very differently from how either man anticipated.

Their relationship spiraled out of either of their control from there, passion blazing into companionship into something more and real. Cadmus had once believed that he would never feel that kind of attraction for anyone or anything but there Zyx was, setting him on fire with a single look. They were married by the time they were thirty, taking their partnership in running Club Serpentine to the next level. One thing led to another while experimenting with his transmutation and the two men decided that they were ready to start a family, bringing life into a world when they had only taken from it.

The kids are everything to Cadmus. He feels a love for them that he didn’t know was possible—a fierce need to see them safe and warm and happy. The kids are now seven and five, just entering into Cogworks, and they have no idea that their fathers are two of the most feared men in Asterath.



Cruel, cunning, and pure poison are the words most often used to describe Cadmus. He is pure evil and the beating heart of Club Serpentine, shaping it in his image over the twenty years he has spent as a member. Cadmus has a penchant for human suffering, leaning into the human trafficking and gang wars, torturing information out of spiders and scorpions instead of hiring informants. For the first 27 years of his life, he did not pay a single thought or care to the lives of those around him. Everyone was disposable until he met Zyx.

Rapture and rupture, twin souls guided by their own thirst for blood and domination, Cadmus and Zyx made quite the team. Apart, they were two very powerful and feared men but together they were unstoppable. There was something in the way that Zyx would end a life through sheer willpower that ran a pleasant shiver down Cadmus’ spine. They were meant for each other, one’s cruelty building on the other’s.

Zyx and the children saw a side of Cadmus that he wasn’t even aware existed. With them, he was kind and loving, everything a husband and father should be. Having never spent time around him at work, his kids would never even begin to imagine that their daddy was capable of murder, much less the more evil actions he found immense pleasure in.

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S     E     L     E     N     E

militia sergeant
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Selene Altan (formerly Ibn Hyldetan)
50 years old
weak magical potential, martial prowess

History

Born to a trash collector and a waitress, Selene had no status and very little magical potential to her name. She grew up playing in the streets of lower Voxthain, spending more time with the neighbors than her own parents due to their long hours at work. It was the only life Selene had known, so she had no reason to be bitter over her parents' absence or the days she went without a warm meal to fill her belly. All of the families in lower Voxthain looked and lived like hers, more a community working together to survive the harsh world than separate, distinct family lines.

Then she entered Cogworks and learned how the world truly worked.

The first few years of school were hard for Selene, forcing her to retreat into a hard shell to keep the harsh words of her classmates from slicing her heart to shreds. Girls giggled behind their hands at her worn and frayed clothes, hand-me-downs from a neighboring kid slightly larger than her. The boy who sat behind her would sniff her and announce to the class that someone smelled like trash and he wanted to move. They scrawled harsh words on her desk and threw away her homework when she tried to turn it in. In just a few short years, all of the warmth and kindness she had once possessed was beaten down to nothing, allowing cold hatred to take its place.

The rich and powerful are at fault for every wrong in the world. That became Selene's deeply held belief, pushing her forward when everyone tried to keep her down. She would excel even when they tried to keep her down. She would push through the pain and torment and become everything they told her she couldn't be. And then she would take away everything that was handed to them on a silver platter and give it to those who were truly worthy, even if their birth made them seem like nothing. The constant harassment and lack of educational support in her home life made school difficult, but Selene fought her way to the top of her class. It was lonely and tiring, but Selene was proud of herself and the progress she was making towards her goals. Selene felt nothing but contempt for her classmates, and the loneliness deep in her heart couldn't match the disgust she felt when watched them flaunt their wealth and status.

After years of torment, Selene stopped paying notice to any of the other students at Cogworks, bullies or otherwise. They had all become the enemy, voices in the background trying to keep her down in the dirt. Selene was twelve years old and she had already given up on ever making any real friends in her life. But then there was Katarina. Noble born, daughter of the militia commander, heir to one of the most powerful families in Voxthain, but also a kind and genuine girl who had helped Selene in a moment of need.

It had been a particularly rough day for Selene. Class rankings had been posted, and her classmates were outraged to see the ratty, malnourished trash girl at the top of the list. A group of them had cornered her outside of the bathroom during their lunch break, angrier than she had ever seen them. Even in the cruelty of their bullying, there were some lines they had refused to cross up to that point. The use of magic was one of them. In their rage, it seemed that they had stopped caring about the unspoken rules of their harassment. One of them rooted her in place while another threw sparks of fire in her face and made shadowy figures dance across her vision. Selene was strong of will but weak in magical potential and there was nothing she could do but stand there and keep her face devoid of the fear and pain she was feeling. She couldn't stop them, but she would never give them the satisfaction of knowing how much they hurt her.

Just when Selene thought that she would break down into tears or throw up from the effort of keeping everything contained, a younger girl with long black hair rounded the corner. She halted in her tracks when she noticed the scene before her, making shocked eye contact with Selene. She was never one to plead, but in that moment, her eyes were begging the girl to do something, to save her from the hell she was trapped in.

Somehow understanding Selene's wordless cry for help, the girl raced over, making herself and her fury known to the other students. Selene may not have recognized the girl, but her tormentors did, and they didn't seem to want to get on her bad side. Before the girl could utter a word, they released their hold on Selene and scattered, leaving her to drop to the ground. Selene curled around herself, letting out chest-rattling sobs. She didn't care that the girl was still standing there, didn't care that she was laying on the grimy floor of the bathroom. She didn't care about much of anything anymore. When Selene was finally able to pull herself back from the brink, the girl was still there, watching over her like a guardian angel.

Her name was Katarina Hayden, Selene later learned, and once she knew of her, Selene heard her name everywhere. She had two close friends, both nobles like herself, but she didn't look down on the lower class like her peers. Selene liked her instantly. It seemed that Kat had the same interest in Selene, and the two slowly became friends, eating lunches together whenever they could and sharing a smile and wave as they passed each other in the halls. As the years passed and their friendship developed, Selene's hatred of nobility cooled to a simmer. While Katarina had other friends, Selene had only Kat, and she felt a fierce protectiveness and sense of loyalty towards her.

By the time Selene was graduating from Cogworks, she knew that she would spend the rest of her life following Katarina wherever she led her. Following Katarina led her to join the Hayden family militia where she could make her dreams of protecting those who had grown up like her a reality. The militia was rife with prejudice and malice, but Selene was more than used to the hate and knew that Katarina would be there to help her form a new, better militia as soon as she was out of school. Devoting their entire attention to the restructuring of the militia, Katarina and Selene were an unstoppable duo. Both strong-willed and ready to get their hands dirty, the old guard didn't stand much of a chance against them. It was long, hard work, but over the years they were able to make the necessary changes to improve the militia for the good of all of Voxthain.

Near Selene's 24th birthday, she was promoted to investigator. While Katarina was the commander and had the final say on rank, Selene knew that more eyes were on her given her status, and she urged Kat to remain fair and only give her the promotion when she deserved it without a modicum of doubt. Even as an investigator, the whispers of the nobility and her fellow militia members followed her wherever she went. It was suffocating, feeling like she could never truly belong anywhere, never truly gain the power and status she had so desired when she was in school. She needed out, time away from Voxthain and its judgement and cruelty.

The perfect opportunity for escape fell into her lap as a drug smuggling case led her beyond Voxthain's walls. Mezd Kathir was a city about a day's journey from the sister cities of Voxthain and Asterath. Despite resembling Voxthain in many capacities, its citizens held a deep hatred for Voxthain and its progressive ideals relating to class and the use of magic. It was hard for Selene to believe that any city could have a more polarizing class divide than in Voxthain, but there she was in Mezd Kathir watching nobles dine on gold platters while the people struggled to feed their families.

Because the case was a joint operation between Voxthain and Mezd Kathir, she was assigned a member of the local constabulary to work alongside for her duration in the city. Her partner on the case was Alasdair ibn Hyldetan, a noble of even higher birth than Katarina, as unbelievable as that sounded to Selene. She didn't know what higher power she had wronged to always be paired with the wealthiest person in the room, but it had worked out for her the first time, so she went into the partnership with a wary yet open mind.

The investigation took the duo deep into the heart of Mezd Kathir. While she was an outsider and often not granted the freedom and information she needed to do her job, Selene found that Alasdair was a pivotal resource. He knew the streets of the city like the back of his hand and his birth granted him access to the highest echelons of society. The police force of Mezd Kathir had been convinced that the drugs were entering the city from the slums, and at first Selene had begrudgingly listened as they knew more about their home city, but after seeing the state of the poorest district in town, Selene remembered her old hatred for those in power. Seeing the slums reminded Selene of her childhood. The hunger and the love, the sense of community and the ever present fear that what little she had would be ripped from her. Selene stared into the eyes of a girl who could have been her twenty years prior, her gaze full of fear when she looked at the badge on Selene's chest, and she knew. These people were not responsible, and she could not trust the police force to assist her.

After that, Selene grew more cautious of what she shared with Alasdair. He seemed kind and willing to work with her to root out the evil in their cities, but at the end of the day he was still a noble. Even so, he took what little she would give him and pushed the investigation further towards the truth. After a year and a half of close calls and anonymous death threats, Selene felt that she could trust Alasdair with her life, and more importantly, with the name that she had uncovered. At the heart of the black market was a single man, one of the richest, most powerful men in the city–and they would have to risk everything to bring him down.

It took them another six months of planning to reach him. They were attending a masquerade hosted by the man's family, Selene as Alasdair's date only to grant her access to the nobility, but Selene felt a spark of desire, a wish that he was hers for more than just an investigation. The plan went off without a hitch, or at least with minimized hiccups. The drug trade was dismantled from top to bottom with zero casualties, but Alasdair had announced his desire to remain in Selene's life to the entire party, to the outrage of his family. There was something there between the two of them, something deeper and more real than status, but Selene still couldn't be sure that Alasdair would choose her over a life of luxury. She left for Voxthain the moment the investigation officially closed, leaving Alasdair with nothing but a note offering him a place by her side in the city if he ever wanted it. He arrived in Voxthain not even two weeks later.
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continuation of Selene's history, personality, and magic
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There had never been any room in Selene's life plan for love or family, but life with Alasdair brought her more joy and contentment than she thought was possible. Returning home after two years away gave Selene a newfound appreciation for Voxthain and the people keeping it running, and she was closer than ever with Katarina. The two women had spent a lifetime together, and they were more sisters than friends. Selene didn't know how she had managed to earn herself a husband and a sister, but she was thankful to the deity looking out for her.

When Selene was 28, about a year into her marriage, she started to feel... off. Her period was several weeks late, but that never concerned her after a childhood of erratic menstruation. Alarm bells started going off when she woke up to extreme nausea and fatigue for a week straight with no other symptoms of illness. She was pregnant. Selene had never planned on being a mother, and the thought of raising a child filled her with so much fear that she wanted to run to the edge of the world and hide away forever. She didn't feel like she was enough to be a mother. Not enough of an adult, not enough of a maternal instinct, not put together. After a conversation with Alasdair and long nights laying awake thinking, Selene started to see things in a new light. After everything she had accomplished, she was more than enough to be a mother. There was nothing she couldn't do with her support system surrounding her with love.

Nine months later, Ivorii entered the world and it was like Selene saw in color for the first time. It was hard to breathe when she looked at Ivorii sleeping, tiny hand wrapped around one of her fingers. There was a well of love overflowing from her chest. She would pull the stars down from the sky for Ivorii.

Life continued as it always did, work circling around family circling around Voxthain. Even as a mother, Selene was dedicated to her job as sergeant, promoted after her return from the drug bust. Voxthain continued to be Voxthain, and her job kept her as busy as she let it. Katarina followed in Selene's footsteps a few years later, bringing home a little girl and introducing her as her daughter. Caledonia was as much her niece as Ivorii was Katarina's, and Selene tried to spend as much time with the girl as she could. They had very similar early childhoods, and Selene needed Cal to know that she had someone in her corner who could truly understand her.

Around the start of Ivorii's teen years, she expressed interest in the militia. Selene was so proud of the person her daughter was growing into, and welcomed her interest with open arms. Alasdair, Katarina, and Selene all took an active interest in Ivorii's training, the two women focusing on magic and martial prowess respectively while Alasdair was more concerned with Ivorii's safety and well-being. Cal had an interest in combat as well, and Selene loved to train with her, giving her little tips on how to push her abilities to the next level with the introduction of magic. Throwing more weight behind a punch, narrowing the aim of a bullet. Before long, Ivorii and Cal were both forces to be reckoned with, the next generation of soldiers to take up the mantle after Katarina and Selene.

Three years ago, Selene and Alasdair divorced. It seemed that he just couldn't handle life in Voxthain and ran away back home to his wealth and power in Mezd Kathir.


Personality

There is a divide in Selene between the warrior and the woman she is deep inside. Most people only ever see her outer shell: cold and brash and strong-willed. She is a soldier, fighting every day for a better future for the common person. There is no room for light and laughter and fun, especially with those who are willing to see the broken systems in Voxthain continue as they are. Years of bullying and harassment built up thick walls around her heart that only four people have ever been able to break through. Katarina, Alasdair, Ivorii, Caledonia. Those are the only four who have seen beyond the steel resolve to the fierce kindness beneath. There is a warmth in the way she would defend those she loves with her dying breath, a kindness in the way she is their biggest supporter, cheering them on from the sidelines.


Magic

The one thing Selene never had much of a handle on in school was magic. Neither of her parents had passed down much of a magical potential, so she always had to be intentional with how she used what little she had. Instead of trying to weave wards or bewitch minds, she focused on how magic could be put to use more practically. And practical, for Selene, meant combat. She found that she could use her magic to put more force into her fighting. Additional weight into the one punch that mattered, a moment of speed where there would have been a strike, aiming true with a gun. It was hard for her to explain how she did any of it, but it worked.

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⠀⠀⠀⠀21⠀ ⠀female⠀⠀ lesbian ⠀⠀snake ⠀⠀enchantment
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⠀⠀daughter of the infamous club serpentine rattler cadmus
⠀ adoptive daughter of the savage club serpentine head zyx
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀known problem-starter in the city of asterath
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀setting her sights on the voxthain nobility
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀sister councilor to lorelei delacroix
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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀HISTORY ⠀⠀⠀⠀PERSONALITY ⠀⠀⠀⠀MAGIC
⠀⠀⠀⠀(view spoiler)[

Europa Vyperion was born to one of the most feared men in Club Serpentine just as his reign of terror was starting. As such, she didn't exactly have a normal or stable childhood. Europa's earliest memories are of the backrooms of Club Serpentine, watching her father work or listening to the screams of his victims from a distance. She was taught that pain was funny, something to laugh at, and that sowing discord was the best way to get what you want. When Europa was nine years old, Zyx entered Cadmus' life, which did nothing to slow her journey into psychopathy. Her two father figures were raw and brutal, not the type of people you'd want around a little kid. She learned all of the wrong lessons about life before she ever had a chance to learn the right ones.

As a result of her early childhood, Europa was a menace of a devil child by the time she was entering Cogworks. Her first year in school was rough to say the least. More for her teachers and classmates than Europa herself, biting anyone who crossed her, including teachers that had the audacity to assign her homework. After weeks of suspensions and one particularly embarrassing suspension, Europa started to pick up on the fact that her actions actually had consequences, unlike the wrongdoings of her dads that went wholly unchecked. And even more than that, she learned that some people would fight back when she scratched and bit them, and if there was anything that she liked less than being sent home, it was being hurt.

Violence had turned into something sour and bad, not the tool she had thought it was to get what she wanted. Even as her desire to fight waned, her need to brew chaos and be in absolute control grew stronger, pushing her to find new avenues of reaching her goals. Cogworks, with its emphasis on harnessing the magical strengths of every student, was the best place for her to find her true passion. Magic was in Europa's blood, power weaved into her very DNA. Cadmus, her father, was a very skilled illusion and transmutation magician, and the assumption had been that Europa would follow in his footsteps. While she held very little potential in either school, she found that she did have his level of power but in a class of her own.

Enchantment.

It had started small, a simple desire for the girl in front of her in line at lunch to give her her cookie. Europa hadn't meant to do anything with the desire, aside from maybe snatching it off of the girl's tray while she wasn't looking, but the next thing she knew, the girl was putting the cookie on her tray herself, eyes glazed over, absent from her current actions. The next time she wanted something from someone, the command had been more intentional. Give me an A, the thought shoved full force into the pliant mind of her teacher as she graded papers.

It was fun, like a game she was playing with every other person in the room except she was the only one who knew the rules. Laugh at my joke, think I'm funny, push that kid down the stairs. The commands flew freely from her, her talons digging into the mind of every person in Cogworks. By the time she was leaving school, she had mastered the art of manipulation, both with and without the use of enchantment. Sometimes it was fun to bend people to her will with just her willpower without the assistance of her magic. Life was a game, and she knew exactly how to bend the rules so that she always won.

As soon as Europa made a name for herself as a powerful enchantress and a force to be reckoned with as a mean girl, she caught the eye of the most popular, most intimidating girl in school (and her personal idol): Alianna Calico. Noble, beautiful, powerful Alianna saw her as a resource and invited her into her inner circle, a dream come true for Europa. Together, along with their band of vicious mean girls, they ruled the school. That is, until Alianna vanished off the face of the moon and Europa went back to being only Asterath-level popular.

After leaving Cogworks, Europa wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life, or what she even could do. It had been years since she had actually completed an assignment on her own, and she didn't really have any skills beyond her control over others. Being the daughter of the Head and Rattler of Club Serpentine, Europa knew she would always have a place with the Snakes. Gang life as a grunt wasn't anything like what she had experienced growing up, going from the princess of the land to a lowly grunt doing her dads' dirty work. It was either mind-numbingly boring or grossly violent, and Europa wasn't sure which part she hated more.

Running on her own schedule instead of the one set for her by her superiors, Europa filled her time causing problems for everyone around her. She whispered poison in the ears of the patrons of Club Serpentine, convincing people to cheat on their significant other right in front of them or outing deeply concealed secrets. She started fights in alleyways while wandering the streets of Asterath, bloody brawls that deepened the hatred between the rival gangs. She told people to give her any little shiny trinket she could possibly want, then tossing it the moment she set her eyes on the next sparkly thing.

Through it all, she was untouchable. She exuded charm, making it very difficult for anyone to hate her while she had her powers trained on them. Of course, she wasn't all-powerful. If she were ever in a crowd of people who disliked her or if someone hated her with every fiber of their being, even she would not be able to overpower them, but they still couldn't hurt her too badly without incurring the wrath of her very scary fathers.

Eventually, Zyx got sick of Europa's messes and worked up some manipulation of his own. He showed her all of the opportunity for new chaos on the Asterath Council, setting her ravenous jaws on the Voxthain nobility and their precious little mess of a Council. He pulled some strings and got her a seat on the Council in the most recent election, where she is now diving into the tangled web of drama that is the Voxthain nobility, eagerly waiting for the opportunity to stir up problems in the upper city.

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Depending on her proximity to who you ask, Europa is either the best, most fun person to be around or the devil incarnate. When she is around, people can't help but love her, but the moment she leaves and her powers fade, people tend to change their mind. She is conniving and cruel, selfish to the nth degree. She can be sweet if it will get her what she wants, but make no mistake that the kindness is superficial at best.

The only thing that Europa truly loves aside from her family is drama. She loves to stir up a mess and watch as the world burns to ash around her. She is quick to anger and full of snark, easily digging in at the biggest insecurities of anyone who dares to slight her. In a word, Europa is a mess.

While Europa is skilled at weaseling herself out of problems, she is not foolproof. As soon as the enchantment slips, Europa is is big trouble. Clumsy and physically very weak, Europa is not the girl you want on your side in a fight. Hit her a single time, and she's down for the count, unable to handle even the smallest discomfort without throwing in the towel. It's not often that Europa loses control of a situation enough for someone to hurt her, but when she does, it's always a doozy.

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Enchantment ; charms and manipulation
Mastery of the subtle pulls on the emotions of others, bending those around her to her will. At this point she practically has an aura of "you like me and hate everyone else."
Absolute mastery over simple commands and could permanently alter a person's perception if they spent enough time with her, which nobody willingly does.
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⠀⠀⠀13⠀ ⠀nonbinary⠀⠀ student ⠀⠀scorpion ⠀⠀abjuration
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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀child of an asterath woman and voxthain man
⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀sibling of the infamous martial fighter solaea
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀initiate in the night riders gang
⠀⠀⠀⠀chaotic troublemaker on the streets of asterath
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀truant from cogworks, nearing expulsion
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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀HISTORY ⠀⠀⠀⠀PERSONALITY ⠀⠀⠀⠀MAGIC
⠀⠀⠀⠀(view spoiler)[

Long before the birth of Blue Synth, their father was the youngest son of one of the most powerful nobles in Voxthain. He and his father had a very strained relationship, culminating in Emmett turning his back on his family to forge a life of his own with the love of his life, Juniper Synth, in Asterath. The two were happy in the home they built in Asterath, slowly expanding their family in warmth and comfort. Their first child was born a year into their life together—a perfect baby girl they named Solaea, the light of their lives. The couple only intended on having one child, both of them knowing the struggle of being one of many children, and they were the perfect trio together. Ten years later, one thing led to another and Blue was brought into the world. Their birth came as a surprise to the family, but it was a welcome one. The trio turned into a quad, Blue fitting snugly into the pieces that had been missing from their cozy little puzzle.

As a toddler, Blue was a bundle of joy and energy, the epitome of Asterath wild energy. They loved to run through the busy streets of the city, trailed by their grinning parents. Asterath was a neon haven for little Blue, the gangs and violence just beyond what they could see and understand. As an Asterath native, their mom would tell them wild tales of magic and freedom from the expansive history of the city and her own childhood. Their dad, on the other hand, didn't talk much about his family, stating only that his family was the beautiful trio with him in that moment.

Despite the decade between Blue and Solaea, the siblings had a very strong relationship early in Blue's life. Sol had followed in her mother's footsteps with her love of art, and anything Sol was interested in, Blue wanted part of. They would pull at her apron while she worked at her easel, begging to be picked up to stare in awe at Sol's newest masterpiece every five minutes. One very special day, Sol and Blue snuck out with a bucket of Sol's spray paint and Blue's crayons to make some art together. They chose the side of the house as their canvas, snickering behind closed fists as they doodled across the paint. Hours later, when Emmett had come home from work and saw them there, he nearly fainted from shock and rage. His face had turned as red as the apples on the tree Sol had painted, then as blue as Blue's name. Juniper ran from her art room, sure that someone had come for them, and instead nearly puked from laughing at her husband's outrage. Juniper turned Emmett around on their creation and the couple swore to keep the artwork there for as long as the caves of Asterath would let them. It was a hazy memory of Blue's, soft at the edges from their young age, but it was a memory they would treasure until the day they died.

When Blue was five, right as they were starting at Cogworks, their relationship with Solaea soured and crumbled to pieces. At first, Blue had been so excited to join their sister at Cogworks, but she had been far more interested in her friends than her baby sibling. Their sister was the coolest person Blue knew, and they often followed her around like an excitable puppy. Blue was always around, unavoidable, following her to school each morning and trying to find her during lunch. Just a few months later, they were left walking to school alone, Sol dropping out entirely. Blue couldn't help but blame themself for both their sister's distance and her leave of absence from school. How could it not have been their fault when their presence was the only change in Sol's life?

The two siblings grew apart after that. Blue focused on their life at Cogworks and Sol receded further into her own world at home. Blue was convinced that Sol hated them for ruining her chances of having a normal life at school, obsessing over how they could possibly make it right to their big sister, their hero. They found solace in Artemisia Calico, a quiet girl in their homeroom. She was only two years older than Blue, and they couldn't help but be drawn to her sweet charm. Blue was the loud to her quiet, the boisterous to her calm. If anyone tried to pick on her, Blue was there to get detention and a black eye in her honor.

While Blue liked the social aspects of Cogworks, they found it difficult to sit still and listen to stuffy teachers all day. They wanted to hang out with Artemisia or stay home to learn with their dad like Sol, but their dad told them that Sol's situation was unique and they needed to stay in school with their peers. If blue hadn't had Artie there to keep them sane, they probably would have ended up suspended for bad behavior within days. Instead, they contained all of the wild energy that bounced around inside their head and tried to be the best student they could. They still got into mischief and fights, but they were seen by the Cogworks staff as a problem child instead of a juvenile delinquent.

It happened when Blue was eight years old, shortly after Sol finished with her schooling. The siblings had been working to repair their broken relationship, spending time together graffiti-ing buildings and causing general Asterathean chaos, completely unaware that their lives were about to change for the worse. If Blue had known, they would have spent more time with their parents instead of running from them to explore the streets of Asterath with Sol. One day their mom was there, singing at her easel while their dad tended to the pants, and the next, they were both gone without a trace. No blood, no body, no note, just empty space that they had once occupied. Blue didn't know what to do or think, turning to Sol for guidance. They didn't know how to react, but surely she would have something for them. Were their parents dead? Had they abandoned them? What was going to happen to them and the house?

Sol brushed them off for days, ordering them to stay put at home while she figured out what had happened. Blue was beside themself with fear and worry, spending a majority of their time crying in their parents' bed. They were so lost and confused and more alone than they had ever been, and not even Sol was there to help them through it. When Sol returned, they sat Blue down and explained that their parents had died, doing her best to sooth what was breaking in Blue's heart. She was still just a teen herself, unequipped to deal with a grieving child as she grieved herself. Blue clung to her even harder than they had as a toddler, holding onto her with everything they had. She was their only family, the only person they had left. They couldn't lose her too.

For the first few months, the siblings were able to keep it together. Blue went back to school, more subdued than they were before their week-long absence, too scared of losing Sol too to act out. They still had so many questions swirling around in their head about their parents, and Sol wasn't offering any answers. Instead, they turned to Artemisia, hoping she would understand their desire for answers more than Sol had. For a year, Blue kept up with their attendance and schoolwork with little complaint. It was routine, and Sol was always there when they got home after a long day with food on the table. But then, sometimes Sol wasn't home. Other days she would be home, her knuckles red and raw, bruises blooming across her face. She didn't paint anymore, instead choosing to make her body her canvas, painting it with splatters of purple and green. Blue tried to talk to her, tried to figure out what was wrong and what had changed, but Sol didn't seem to have any interest in them anymore.

Desperate to not become a footnote in Sol’s life, Blue lashed out, searching for anything anything to keep Sol’s attention. They started fights at lunch, hoping bruises of their own would draw Sol's eye. Nothing. They stopped turning in homework, hoping that the mail piling up at the door from Cogworks would slip through her walls. Nada. Eventually, they stopped attending school entirely. It wasn't enough. Sol couldn't be the parents that they yearned for, couldn't even be the big sister they missed. And if Sol couldn't do it, they would have to find that love and attention somewhere else.

Shortly after they turned thirteen, Blue left the house in the morning, but instead of heading towards Cogworks, they made their way to the Scorpion Den. If Solaea wouldn't give them answers about their parents or the attention they craved, maybe the Scorpions would.

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Before the death of their parents, Blue was chaotic in a fun, creative way. They loved to draw on the sides of buildings with their sister and say hi to every person they passed on the street. All of the local businesses knew Blue from days spent exploring the streets of Asterath, taking the time to get to know every single employee with that childlike wonder and curiosity. They made friends in school with ease, known as the class clown for the way they couldn't stay still and blurted out answers, the smile spread across their face infectious.

The energy grew bitter and desperate after their parents vanished, grief and loss souring their once sweet smile. They acted out, desperate for any form of attention, even if it was negative. Their bad choices alienated them from most of their classmates, driving them further down a dark path. They started to drink and smoke, doing whatever they could to get an authority figure to look at them and care.

Deep inside, Blue is dying of curiosity to figure out what happened to their parents. As soon as they can move past their need for love, they will be the worst, most aimless and aggressive Nancy Drew in all of Asterath.

(hide spoiler)]⠀⠀⠀ (view spoiler)[

Abjuration ; defenses and wards
Novice at the summoning of hazy glowing shields
Has not paid enough attention in school to learn anything else, but the potential is there
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⠀

FILE OVERVIEW

Matthias Seavey: the second-born son of the newspaper mogul [name] Seavey. M. Seavey follows in the family line of investigative journalists and has been spotted trespassing on crime scenes on numerous occasions. Articles written by M. Seavey are less likely to hold the level of classism, bias, and outright lies of his father's work. For unclassified cases, it is deemed safe to respond to M. Seavey for interview questions, but follow your training. Like the rest of his family, M. Seavey will twist your words and actions to suit his own purposes.

[Note to foot soldiers: a photo of M. Seavey can be found tacked to the bulletin for reference. Remain vigilant for his presence while guarding active crime scenes.]

M. Seavey has a known addiction to potions. If spotted, remain vigilant of slurred speech, impaired coordination, and agitation. You are under orders to bring him to lockup if he appears to be a danger to himself or others. M. Seavey has a history of risk-taking behavior when under the influence of potions.

Do not, under any circumstances, treat M. Seavey as hostile. You are at no risk when dealing with him. The boy is pushy and unaware of his privilege, but he is respectful and polite if treated well. He is not a threat. If M. Seavey is found in need of medical care in lockup again, the arresting solder will be written up for disciplinary action.

INCIDENT REPORTS

Incident: B&E
Action: Responded to scene, no further Militia involvement necessary
Responded to call about a young boy breaking into the Calico Estate. M. Seavey, age 9, found in Eadric Calico's office attempting to open a filing cabinet. The boy claimed to be acting on a dare from a member of the household, stated he had permission to enter the estate. E. Calico wished to press charges, but due to the age of the child and lack of real crime, the Militia will not be pursuing further action.

Incident: Assault
Action: Responded to the scene, requested Medical. No further Militia involvement necessary
Responded to a report of screaming coming from the Seavey Newspaper Offices. Lord Seavey was found in a state of agitation with his son, M. Seavey (age 11), who was crying and had a bloodied nose. Medical was called (find the full medical report attached) and found no broken bones. Lord Seavey claimed that the boy tripped and fell and M. Seavey corroborated, but the responding officer (S. Altan) is not convinced this is the case. Put a note on the file that Lord Seavey may be using force to discipline his children.

Incident: Interfering with Militia Investigation
Action: Verbally reprimanded M. Seavey
M. Seavey (age 12) was found sneaking onto an active murder investigation site. He was promptly removed and sent home.

Incident: Interfering with Militia Investigation
Action: Verbally reprimanded M. Seavey, correspondence sent to Lady Seavey
M. Seavey (age 12) was found sneaking onto the same active murder investigation site a day later. He was promptly removed and sent home, this time with a note to Lady Seavey. Further action will be taken should this behavior continue.

Incident: Interfering with Militia Investigation
Action: Verbally reprimanded M. Seavey, confiscated notes, disciplinary action for leading Investigator
M. Seavey (age 14) approached Commander K. Hayden in her office with a notebook of notes, physical evidence, and photos from the ongoing string of burglaries. The notes were impressively thorough and accurate, more so than the notes from the lead investigator. M. Seavey commented on the negligence of the investigator and brought forward new clues. The notes were confiscated and M. Seavey was sent home with a stern warning to stop interfering with ongoing investigations. The leading investigator on the case has been suspended and their work will be reviewed.

[Note: M. Seavey has numerous more incidents involving Militia Interference. Notable incidents will be recounted below, but know that there are many, many others.]

Incident: B&E
Action: M. Seavey was brought to the Militia for further conversation and assigned 10 hours of community service
Responded to report of suspicious activity near Cogworks around 2200 hours. M. Seavey (age 15) was found jimmying open a window to the staff lounge and was apprehended. Claimed that he was writing an article about evidence of fraud in Cogworks staff. As punishment, M. Seavey was assigned 10 hours of community service cleaning the streets of lower Voxthain. Lord Seavey attempted to have the community service removed from the record, to which the Militia refused.

Incident: Public Intoxication
Action: M. Seavey was brought to holding to sober up, potions were confiscated
Responded to report of a teen boy wandering the streets of upper Voxthain yelling obscenities. M. Seavey (age 16) was detained, clearly under the influence of potions, and was sent to holding to sober up in peace. Lady Seavey was contacted to collect him and his potions and alcohol were confiscated (Item #F47WB7).

Incident: Potions Deal Bust
Action: Potions confiscated, dealer sent back to Asterath, buyer verbally reprimanded
Patrolling foot soldier stopped a potions deal in progress in the alleys near the Asterath stairs. The potions were confiscated and locked up in Evidence (Item #2D34LB). Asterath Council authorities were contacted to claim the Asterathean dealer, and the Voxthain buyer, M. Seavey (age 16), was sent to Militia holding. Lady Seavey was contacted to collect him and was given information on managing addiction.

Incident: Public Intoxication
Action: M. Seavey was brought to holding to sober up, requested Medical
Patrolling foot soldier brought a heavily intoxicated M. Seavey (age 16) to Militia holding to sober up. While in holding, his condition worsened to the point of needing Medical. Medical tests of what he consumed were inconclusive. Lady Seavey was contacted to collect him, Commander K. Hayden personally had a word with her about M. Seavey's concerning potions usage.

[Note: M. Seavey's potions use and public intoxication has increased in recent years, but not as much as his investigation interference. Neither will be mentioned unless the event is particularly notable.]

Incident: B&E
Action: M. Seavey brought to lockup, released on bail
Responded to report of clattering around home that experienced recent homicide, found M. Seavey (age 18) inside taking photos of the crime scene and the broken window he had used to force entry into the home. M. Seavey was willing detained and brought to holding, where he was released on bail paid by the Seavey Newspaper. The crime scene photos were published the next day in an article written by M. Seavey.

Incident: Assault
Action: Locked up assailant for this assault and numerous petty thefts, requested Medical for M. Seavey
Responded to reports of a fight in lower Voxthain, found the assailant kicking a nearly unconscious M. Seavey (age 18). The assailant was the suspect involved in the recent string of petty thefts, and was unharmed. M. Seavey was sent to Springhaven Hospital for medical attention. Suspect was apprehended and received three years in prison.

Incident: Assault
Action: Foot soldier suspended, requested Medical
Investigator I. Altan interceded in a fight between foot soldier J. Bowd and M. Seavey (age 20). J. Bowd claimed that M. Seavey provoked him into fighting, but M. Seavey has no history of violence and shows no evidence of fighting back. I. Altan suggested that M. Seavey was being "annoying and invasive, like he always is" and J. Bowd reacted with anger and violence. Medical was called and M. Seavey was sent home with a concussion but no major injuries. J. Bowd is suspended until further notice.

MAGICAL CLASSIFICATION

Class: Abjuration
Strength: Moderate
Threat: Low
Nondetection—the ability to move without noise or detection. Zero threat to life, zero reason to believe the skill is used for violent crime. More of an annoyance.

Class: Abjuration
Strength: Moderate
Threat: Low
Freedom of Movement—the ability to improve one's own agility and speed. Zero threat to life, zero reason to believe the skill is used for violent crime. Makes M. Seavey slippery and fast, annoying to catch when he breaks into crime scenes.

Class: Transmutation
Strength: Low
Threat: Low
Message—the ability to send and receive communications across the city via magic.

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    ⠀ CADMUS ⠀

𝙼𝚞𝚗-𝙷𝚎𝚎 𝙻𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚎
𝟹𝟿 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚘𝚕𝚍
𝚜𝚑𝚎/𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢
𝙻𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑
(view spoiler)[

𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢

Not exactly what one would call a people person, Mun-Hee would prefer to be at a dig site exploring ruins of an ancient civilization or combing through texts than chatting up donors at a museum event. She likes people fine, but she's not the best at interacting with them and has learned over time that it's for the best that she keeps some distance between herself and living beings. They loves their family and wouldn't give up game night for the world, but the rest of Voxthain is kept at an arm's length. Archeology and history are Mun-Hee's passion, falling in line with the family business. The buried past of Lux is so fascinating to Mun-Hee–a rich history of rising and falling civilizations and an ever-changing culture surrounding magic. Some cultures worshiped those who could practice magic while others condemned them. Some cultures seemed unaware of magic while others were built primarily around its use. And no matter how they felt about magic, at the end of the day, the civilization fell. They could talk about it for hours and hours on end.

As the resident explorer and archeologist of the Lucke family, Mun-Hee is very familiar with the greater world beyond Valoran. She has explored the seas and deserts of Lux, traversed thick jungles and icy mountains. She has tasted the food of many cultures, learned "hi" and "thank you" in so many languages. Her travels have made her hearty and strong, with thick, tanned skin and callouses that will never fade. They fear no insect or storm, and prefer a night under the stars to their plush bed in the Lucke manor. It takes a lot of work to gather artifacts and manuscripts for the museum, and she spends a majority of the year away from home.

Whip smart like their brother, Mun-Hee has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history and past cultures of Lux. Luckes were often born with all book smarts, no emotional intelligence, and Mun-Hee is no different from the rest of her line. She doesn't tend to like or talk to people outside of her family because she just can't understand them. All of their thoughts and feelings and fleeting allegiances all feel so nonsensical that it can be a little upsetting for her to try and sort though. Books and artifacts were much simpler. They didn't fluctuate over time, and their complete story could be discerned through careful observation.

𝙷𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢

The life of a Lucke has always been one of research and simplicity, at least by noble standards. Her first picture book as a baby showed the rise and fall of empires, and she learned the alphabet using ancient manuscripts her father was studying. Keeping history and preservation at the forefront of their mind was drilled into Mun-Hee at a very young age, and they took that message to heart. Cogworks was nothing more than a resource to further her understanding of science and history, the tools she would need for her life as an archivist and archeologist. She made no friends aside from her brother, who didn't really count in her mind, and paid no mind to the social hierarchy plaguing their society.

As a graduation present, Mun-Hee's father took them along with him on an expedition to the Barvolan Desert, far from the coastal city of Voxthain. The desert was home to a nomadic culture of people, the desert winds and shifting sands too unpredictable and fickle for any permanent structures. Deep within the desert, an earthquake had displaced the sand enough to reveal the remains of marble statues and columns, preserved under the layers of sand. Mun-Hee was in awe the moment she laid eyes on the peak of what was once a temple now buried so far beneath the sand that it had been lost to time. No manuscript or history book had made even a passing mention of a city that far out in the desert, but there they were, seeing evidence of a vast civilization firsthand. Mun-Hee knew without a flicker of doubt that she wanted to spend the rest of her life finding and documenting cities like that one that had been scrubbed from human record over the millennia.

It wasn't too long after that trip that her father died, succumbing to an illness from a far off land that his body had no defense against. The grief was overwhelming, threatening to overpower Mun-Hee completely. They had lost their mentor, their father, the man who was supposed to teach her everything he knew about being an explorer. The world was so vast and imposing without him there to show her what was hiding beneath the surface. They didn't want to have to do it all alone. But the museum and archive had been his legacy, and together with Kyo, they would make sure that he lived on through their work.

The next several years were spent reading through every single journal her father left behind, retracing his steps around the globe and seeing all that he had brought back to life in the museum. So many cultures that would have been lost forever lived on because of him. The more Mun-Hee saw, the more she was proud to be her father's daughter, and the more determined she was to live as he had.

The travel was long and hard, but Mun-Hee loved seeing the world she lived on and bringing back what she could for preservation. On occasion, they felt guilty that they were able to go out and curate the collection and see the world while their brother was stuck dusting and reading and hiding in the back rooms of the museum. When she was 24, she begged him to go out with her on a researchj trip, just a short one to Mezd Kathir, so that he could see more of the world than the walls of the museum. While on a tour at the museum, the duo ran into a young girl on a field trip with her orphanage and instantly fell in love. Mun-Hee had never thought that she could be the type of person who cared for children, but Mia-Aesira was so bright and full of life that she couldn't help but love her.

After adopting Mia-Aesira, Mun-Hee's life changed just slightly. Kyo was her primary caretaker because their job kept them away for so long, but they always tried to bring home gifts and games from their travels. They felt terrible about leaving Kyo alone with such a wild child, as sweet as she was, but they still had to leave for extended periods of time for the good of the museum and archives. There was always more knowledge to uncover and more civilizations to return to written memory. Even when Mun-Hee was home, she was often busy at work in her office, scribbling notes into her journals and writing out everything she could about her travels for Kyo to transcribe for the archives.

Years later, during a rare month when Mun-Hee was both home and had some time off to explore the Museum exhibits and not just her work station in the back, she and Kyo met a young girl who showed more interest in their work than any other child in the museum. Her name was Ranami, and like Mia-Aesira, she was in need of a loving home. Just as she had with Mia, Mun-Hee fell in love with the child. Mia had made it very clear that she had no interest in the Lucke family business, which was well within her rights and Mun-Hee did not fault her for her diverging interests for a single moment, and they needed an heir with a passion for history and preservation. That heir was Ranami. Now that Ranami has graduated from Cogworks, Mun-Hee wants to take her out on an expedition just as their father did with them.

𝙼𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚌

Evocation: the manipulation of water and earth, primarily used as methods of digging out artifacts and preserving them.

(hide spoiler)]

𝗛𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬

(view spoiler)[
Stormvales tend to live big, exciting lives and go out with a bang fairly young. Rafael Azul is one of the last remaining Stormvales of his generation, and the whole of his parents' generation went to their graves so long ago he can barely remember their faces. All his life, Rafael Azul never imagined he would have to lead his family. Born third out of four siblings with a whole host of cousins, he though he was safe to be as wild and free as he wanted. Of course, life never works out the way you want it to.

The Stormvales straddled the line between Voxthain and Asterath, keeping homes within both cities that they traveled back and forth between seemingly at random, but Rafael Azul knew that he was an Asterath boy through and through, not caring to take part in his Voxthain heritage for any longer than he had to. When his parents and siblings would pack up to spend time in Voxthain, he would beg to stay behind with some of his cousins that were moving down into the Asterath house. There was always a steady stream of Stormvales in both locations as they flitted around, so he knew he would be safe and cared for. Even as he made his choice on the city he wanted to be his home, Asterath never seemed to want to fully accept Rafael Azul. In Cogworks, the Asterath kids only saw him for his family's nobility and their home in Voxthain while the Voxthain kids saw him as a cave dweller, an outsider with two names. It was the Stormvale curse to never fit into either world no matter how hard he tried, and Rafael loved his family far too much to cut ties with them just to fit in.

The Stormvale family was massive, and they had each other even if they would never truly belong in one place. After leaving Cogworks, Rafael Azul chose to settle down in the Asterath home full-time, taking a step back from the family business of peace-keeping between the two cities to really learn about his home. His twenties were a time of heavy experimentation, exploring every last inch of the caverns of Asterath, and even stepping a toe into a world of the gangs. Gang life did not suit him by any means, and he very quickly learned that he would much rather be on an opposing team. Rafael Azul joined the Blacklights as a shield when he was 27, comfortable with keeping an eye on the gangs and protecting the citizens of Asterath. By that time, many of his aunts and uncles had passed, and his number of cousins had begun to dwindle, but the family that was around was proud to see him step more into a protector role. It was the Stormvale way, and Rafael Azul was just as much a Stormvale as any of his city-hopping brethren.

A few years later, when Rafael Azul was 32, his oldest brother came to the Asterath house, fear written across his face. This was his only living sibling, the other two falling in years passed. His sister had left the moral plane in a shadowfog incident only two years back, and his younger brother hadn't even made it out of his teens. Out of the four of them, Rafael Azul truly believed his older brother, patriarch of the family and a solid, compassionate man, would outlive them all. He had a lovely wife and three beautiful children that he was raising primarily in the Voxthain house, but Rafael Azul still saw the little rascals every few weeks when they came down to the sunken city. On that day, his brother looked like he had already died. And for all intents and purposes, he had.

While acting as an ambassador between the cities, his brother had managed to land himself in deep water with some of the less savory noble families, but he had been too scared for Rafael Azul's safety to give a name to the evil. He told Rafael Azul that the kids all thought he was leaving on a long business trip and to never tell them what really happened to their parents. He begged him to take his kids in and raise them the Stormvale way. Rafael Azul had never wanted children, but he knew in his heart that he would raise those kids to the best of his ability. He didn't know where his brother went or what that noble family did to him, but that was the last time he ever saw his brother. The very same day, Rafael Azul packed up his belongings and moved back into the Voxthain manor for the first time since he was a small boy, a false smile painted across his face for the kids as if he was there as a surprise for them while their parents were out of town.

For how much he thought he hated kids and would make a terrible father, Catalina Taupe, Xavier Amaranth, and little Camila Mauve wormed their way into his heart very quickly. He struggled with the level of emotional vulnerability and attention they required, but he loved them fiercely and wanted to raise them to live longer than their predecessors. It wasn't too long after that one of Rafael Azul's cousins caught wind of him raising three of his nieces and nephews and hoisted off her own three kids—toddling Antonio Grey and twin babies Azuela Coral and Alaia Jade—onto him. Rafael Azul was furious, storming after her into Asterath to demand that she love and cherish her children the way she should, but she claimed to be far too busy actually being a Stormvale for children, unlike him, and he should be happy to be the family babysitter if he refused to go into intercity politics. Rafael Azul had no experience with babies and had no idea how to care for two of them at once on top of the four other children under his care, but he knew better than to let slip how much he was flying by the seat of his pants to any of the kids.

It was hard, it was chaotic, and Rafael Azul felt like he'd aged 30 years in the last 16, but they all got through it in one piece. Rafael Azul is proud of his nieces and nephews, and he is so thankful to whatever higher power that looked out for his family that each one of them had made it to adulthood. The twins would be the last to reach their 18th birthday, and Rafael Azul could already feel the day coming.

(hide spoiler)]

𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬

(view spoiler)[

Kind, yet closed-off, bumbling yet straightforward, Rafael Azul is a mess of contradictions. He loves all of the kids with a fierceness, but it isn't often that his love is verbally expressed. Instead, it's shown through his attendance at every game, recital, and graduation, and all of the framed achievements scattered through the Voxthain manor. He's nonviolent and easygoing, but he would kill anyone who dared to touch a single hair on any of his kids' heads without question. There is an awkwardness to his love, almost like he doesn't know what to do with it, but in matters of life, he is to the point, not running in circles around it.

Over the course of his life, Rafael Azul has learned caution, and the safety of thinking twice before acting. In his youth, he had been reckless and stupid, and it was through sheer luck that he hadn't died tragically young. He had learned from that, and he hoped to teach the children in his care to not tempt fate the way he once had.

(hide spoiler)]

𝗠𝗔𝗚𝗜𝗖

(view spoiler)[

A jack of all trades and master of none, he has dipped his toe into each of the schools of magic with a rudimentary hold on each.

(hide spoiler)]

─────────────────────    MARIANNE DELACROIX ∇ Delacroix Distant Cousin

A QUIET FLOWER     ─────────────────────────────────────────

Anxious and shy, Mari isn't very good with people. She tends to hide behind her trusted people when out in public, letting them take the lead in any conversation. The thought of talking to strangers makes fear roil in Mari's stomach, and when she does have too make conversation, her voice is soft and mousey. When left alone around her twin, Tris and her close friend, Ranami, Mari blooms into an entirely different person. She speaks up, cracking jokes and showering her loved ones in compliments. Even with them, she isn't the biggest presence in the room, but she contributes all the same.

Too gentle for her own good, Mari can be a bit of a pushover. She doesn't speak up for herself, passively letting things happen even if it goes against her wishes. Mari is often cut in lines or left to do the brunt of group projects. She hates how much she lets things happen to her, but she doesn't know how to be loud and proud like Tris. Mari has endless love and respect for her twin and how much they are so unashamedly theirself, wishing she could just be a little more like them.

School comes easily to Mari. She knows the answer to every question posed in class but never has the guts to raise her hand and answer. She studies much more than she needs to, worried for the day when school won't be her one proud skill. She favors math over writing, but she isn't quite sure if she actually likes any one field of study over the other. All of her friends and classmates are starting to figure out who they are and who they want to be, but Mari is stuck, unsure of herself and her interests. Sure, she's studious, but is that because she likes to learn or simply because she's good at it?

Academics are the only thing Mari has going for her. She doesn't have a single athletic bone in her body and would melt into a puddle of sweat and tears before performing any music or acting on a stage. She is neat and organized, keeping her room and workspace tidy without a speck of dust to be seen. More than anything, Mari yearns to know who she is and where she fits into this world.

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15 y.o. sapphic ace
illusion noble
shy studious
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Even though she was born minutes before Tris, Marianne Delacroix has always felt like the younger twin, always lagging behind her braver and bolder sibling. She learned from a young age that she would never belong with the main Delacroix family, too gentle and kind for their politics and might. During one visit early in her childhood, her Aunt Esmeralda took her aside and told her that if she did not get herself together and make herself known, she would never be worthy of the Delacroix name. All of her cousins were so much older and more sure of themselves, scaring her even farther away. Ever since, Mari has dreaded visiting the main estate, avoiding it as much as possible.

The galas held for the nobility were even worse, forcing her into frilly dresses that made her feel ill at ease in her skin, parading her around to be gawked at by nobles she didn't feel like she belonged with. Tris hated the galas more vehemently than even Mari, the twins standing together against the unavoidable revelry. Even if Mari didn't feel comfortable enough to speak out against them, she could always stand behind Tris when they did.

Entering Cogworks was the start of a better time in Mari's life. She was introduced to Ranami and the Lucke family, people she fit in with better than her own extended family. In school, she was able to blossom in ways she never could with the nobility. She showed her worth through her test scores, even going so far as to demand to do Tris' incomplete homework. She didn't have the bravery to put herself out there socially, but she had her group of friends, and her name was always at the top of her class.

As she grew and aged, Mari found that she had a knack for illusion magic. Making herself unseen and unheard was the first thing she learned, more of a defensive measure triggered by her anxiety than anything intentional, but she has more recently been working with the illusion teacher on bigger spells. It's slow going, but she has started to have the strength to spread silence away from her body, filling a room with empty nothing. Her silence is magic in itself, sucking away not only sound but the ability for others to cast magic themselves.

Mari loves her teachers, and after years, she has been able to open up more to Mr. Westlake, the illusion teacher, and Ms. Blaine, the math teacher. They have both been kind and nurturing presences in her life, giving her the space to open up more, figure out who she is. Along with them, Mari would be lost without her twin and parents there to guide and support her. Mari has so much love for her immediate family, and she tried to tell them just how much she loves them.

──────────────────────────────────────────      YET TO BLOOM

MAGIC ∇  (view spoiler)[
Illusion ; hiding in plain sight
Mari can conceal herself, blending into her surroundings and silencing her movements. On top of that, she has been working on her ability to silence the world around her, removing both noise and magic. She's still young, so her magic is not fully developed, but it is looking like she will one day be a very strong illusion magician.
(hide spoiler)]  ───────────────────────────────────────

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C A S M I R   G U J I Ć

31 y.o gay
asterath scientist
overworked underpaid

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Born in the slums of Asterath, a crowded cave choked with smoke and fumes from the mines, Casmir was never given a fair chance in life. His parents were both miners, too busy and tired to take proper care of their unwanted son, leaving him malnourished and alone, breathing nothing but dirty air. Casmir spent much of his childhood sick, coughing fits doubling him over any time he felt well enough to try and play with the other kids. Negligence made his bones weak and brittle, degrading more as he grew until he could no longer walk without the assistance of a cane.

Cogworks was both a torturous punishment and a reprieve for Casmir. It freed him from the dirty air of his home and expanded his mind to new thoughts and ideas, but it also exposed him to the ridicule of his peers. He could not run and play like the other kids during recess, couldn't participate in sports or music, couldn't even keep up with his classmates as they walked the halls. He fell behind socially to be ignored and cast aside yet again, never present enough to be of note to his peers unless they were sneering at his cough.

The one kind presence in his life was his transmutation and science teacher. Casmir didn't have a lick of magical potential in his body, but he had a keen mind for science and engineering, taking what was known about the world through the use of magic and applying it to more ordinary things like potions and physics. He built himself a better cane that could support his weight better than the one that had been fabricated for him, mixed a potion that could temporarily improve his cough, and even devised a better use for the protective wards around the walls of Voxthain all before he graduated.

When he did leave school, Casmir was recruited to become a scientist working directly under the Council. There was no glory in it, no recognition for him and the improvements he was making for the city, but it was honest work that kept his hands and mind busy, and his degrading lungs away from the caves. He quickly rose through the ranks, moving from apprentice to assistant to proper scientist in just ten years. It wasn't long before he was the one being consulted by the Council instead of just being another unremarkable face in the back of the room. People looked to him for solutions to complex problems, trusted his judgement in matters of grave importance to the city. And yet, it seemed most people could barely remember his name. That was fine by Casmir, he was used to being overlooked. As long as he had his work, he was content.

Only, his body didn't seem to want that for him. Even with his time away from the mines, Casmir's condition worsened. The occasional coughing fits became heaving spasms ending in blood splattered across his hand. His bones deteriorated to the point where his spine was more metal than calcium. Life was endless pain and fatigue, a cycle of heaving lungs and shaking limbs, creating the one problem Casmir's genius mind couldn't solve.

In his desperation, Casmir has been taking a turn to the darker side of potions for a solution. Maybe the magical essence infused into potions could help him find a cure for his condition, and at this point, anything would be better than this suffering. And now, with the murders and shadowfog hanging over him, his pain may lead to very, very bad decisions.

As a lead scientist, Casmir has to work closely alongside his team. For the most part, he avoids this particular duty, but one of his fellow scientists, Fallon, grew on him like moss on a log. The two have worked together on several projects over the years and see each other as partners more than coworkers.

Casmir is brilliant, but with that comes obsession and a tinge of madness. When he sets his mind to a task, nothing can come between him and his goal, especially not silly things like sleep or food. His body is frail and weak, but his mind is a steel vice. Casmir is embarrassed by his physical state, obsessively searching for a cure or mechanical fix to the constant degradation of his bones. Potions are a start, but maybe the shadowfog holds the key to a life without pain. He isn't much of a people person, spending more time in his lab with his gadgets than around flesh and bone humans. Between the murders, shadowfog, and twin Councils, there is a lot on Casmir's plate, but he is up to the task, so long as his body doesn't give out.

FC: MATTHEW GRAY GUBLER

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P A L O M A   R E Y E S

34 y.o bi
fight ring announcer
blunt conjuration

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Valekros: the City of War and Death, a desolate place of never-ending conflict and despair. Corpses littered the streets, their flesh left as food for the rabid dogs that had once been the loyal servants of the city's Defense Force. Blood soaked through what was once pristine stone streets, gunpowder staining what was not red black. The ring of sword against sword could be heard in every corner of the city as the battle waged on, a fight for dominance that would never be won. And a young girl walked alone, a massive beast by her side, her feet bare and her hair in fallen braids.

The name Reyes was well known throughout Valekros. For generations, the family had led the city in the war against total destruction from the neighboring Kairne Empire. It had started with the Leroux name, but generations ago, the sole remaining Leroux had chosen to forsake Valekros and her birthright for life in some far off land. Fortunately for the city, Margot Leroux had a sister, Adeline, who had married Ramon Reyes, a powerful warrior in his own right. Together, they had a host of warrior children to continue their family claim to Valekros, and together they kept fueled the flames of war. Their many children all had children of their own, each choosing to hold onto the Reyes name and spread their might to each Division of warriors in the city. They were ferocious, powerful, ruthless, unstoppable.

Two of those powerful warriors, Arturo and Darlyne Reyes, Generals of the 43rd Division, had a child of their own–a baby girl they named Paloma. She was wild, dark hair tangled with sticks and mud the generals didn't know where she found. She rolled around with the dogs, wrestling and biting. The messenger hawks flew to her, rats brought her bits of bread they had stolen from the storehouses. The Division began whispering that she was a witch, a curse upon their force, sent to kill them from the enemy. Rumors spread, stoking the flames of fear until one came to Paloma's room in the dead of night with the intention of slicing her throat. He never made it past her doorway. Arturo and Darlyne entered their daughter's room the next morning to find her fast asleep, with a massive, shadowy wolf-like creature stretched across her legs.

Alarmed both by the threat against their daughter's life and the appearance of the creature, the Generals sent their daughter off to the Officer's Academy and forbade her from speaking or playing with any creatures, or she would never be allowed to return home. The Officer's Academy sounded cushy in theory–a private boarding school (and the only proper school remaining in the city), but in reality it was a brutal, cruel place that taught nothing but violence and the fastest way to slay their enemies. The beast, who Paloma had named Vuk, never strayed far from the grounds of the Academy. He did not enter the building, but he was always there, watching from a distance, waiting for any sign of danger.

The Academy changed Paloma, hardened her into a weapon for Valekros. In her 12 years at the Academy, she only left the grounds a single time, the memory nothing more than a haze and a dream. Over time, she forgot about her youthful energy and friendship with the creatures, lost whatever hold she had on that magic to the call of war. She was a Reyes, and it was her place to be a warrior. But there was always a feeling in her chest, a tug that kept her at the windows of her dorm each night, searching the darkness for a figure she couldn't remember but knew was there.

By the time she was 20, Paloma had made a name for herself in her Division as a fierce warrior, killing any and all Kairne soldiers unlucky enough to stand in her way. Even off the battlefield, she was cold and distant. It was like her heart had left her body, leaving only the soldier. It wasn't until she was 24 that she saw her parents again. From a single glance at her cold eyes and preternaturally still frame, they knew that they had failed her by sending her away. Desperate to fix what had been done, Arturo went to his mother for advice, who told him about her niece who had left the city before the Reyes family became what it was. Arturo returned to his daughter and begged her to leave in search for the clockwork city her aunt, Lenore, had left for. He begged her to remember the animals and her free spirit, the shadowy beast that had once laid at her bedside.

At the mention of the creature, it was like a fog was cleared from Paloma's mind. That wild magic she had once held was still hidden away somewhere where she couldn't reach it, but the tug on her heart returned, and with it some of her spunk. For years she had been living in a haze, and she knew she couldn't do it anymore. It was time to go.

Just beyond the gates of Valekros sat a massive wolf, with inky black fur that seemed to absorb all light and a sharp intelligence in its gaze. Paloma looked into his eyes, and she knew that he was hers and she was his and he had been waiting many years for her to return to him.

For two years, Paloma and Vuk traveled the lands of Lux in search of a clockwork city. The more time Paloma spent with Vuk, the more she could feel herself returning to the girl she once was, but that connection to animals never fully returned, still weighed down by the things she had done. That bloodlust and need to be surrounded by noise and violence and the protection of it kept her from truly finding her wild side. When she was 26, Paloma finally found the city of Voxthain. It was so foreign to her–the magic and peace and prosperity. She didn't recognize a world without violence, didn't understand the magic the people held so easily. Vuk hated it instantly, running off to hid in the nearby caverns of Asterath while she searched for her long lost aunt.

After a whirlwind of a week, Paloma found her. Lenore Leroux had somehow become a Councilor, one of the leaders of the vast city. Paloma was impressed and more than a little hesitant to approach her aunt, but she had traveled so far to find her, and there was no turning back now. Lenore had been understandably shocked by her presence, but she had taken her in and introduced her to her son, Luca. For a month, Paloma lived with Lenore and Luca, learning that her family could be more than just violence. She wandered the streets of Voxthain and Asterath, searching desperately for a place that felt like home just as Voxthain had been for Lenore. Nothing felt right until she found the Fighting Ring.

Noise but without the heartbreak, violence but without the loss. It was perfect. And even Vuk liked it, following her into the Fighting Ring with an ease that he hadn't had elsewhere in the cavernous city. Paloma was a warrior no more, and she knew that if she were to pick up a blade, she would fall into a frenzy and show her opponent no mercy. No part of her wanted to be that person anymore. Instead, she applied to be a fight announcer, her trained eye perfect for calling out shots, her blunt humor made for the crowds of the Fighting Ring. She moved into a too-small apartment near the Ring the next day.

Not long after starting her job, Paloma was finishing up her shift when she spotted a young scrap of a girl mopping up the blood from a particularly brutal fight. From a distance, she looked so much like Paloma in her youth that she thought she was seeing a vision of her past. Upon closer inspection, the girl was clearly not her, but Paloma was still drawn in by her and concerned by her presence in the Ring. She knew from experience how much damage being so surrounded by violence at such a young age could do to a person. They had a very long conversation about the girl, Fiehra, and the life she had lived to get to this moment over dinner and Paloma couldn't help but feel a kinship with the girl. Without thinking twice, she asked Fiehra to move in, feeling that same tug in her chest to the girl that she had felt towards Vuk all those years ago. She could offer the girl a better life than the one she had, even if it was still in a tiny apartment close to the Ring and its violence.

Fiehra accepted, and within the next week she had Fiehra enrolled in Cogworks, claiming herself as her guardian. As they got to know each other, Paloma learned that she and Fiehra were more similar than she ever could have guessed. They were both immigrants, too different from their families to remain home. They were both fighters, struggling against the fate they had been born into. They had a similar dry wit and got along as if they had known each other their whole lives.

Life in Asterath was even and calm, much more relaxed than what she had been used to in Valekros. Time passed with ease as Paloma became the Asterath native she must have always been somewhere deep down inside.


Paloma is calm and even-tempered, difficult to anger or delight. She is blunt in a very Valekros way, her harsh accented speech wasting no time with flowery words to get to what she means. She has a sharp wit and a biting sense of humor, easily going toe-to-toe with Fiehra. There is a dueling bloodlust and wild magic warring within her, still fighting for dominance, leaving her in a stasis while they figure out which will win. The Fighting Ring brings out her thirst for violence, a sharp glint of war in her eye with every fight she announces. At home, Vuk helps her to feel the Conjuration magic (she know knows, after Lenore explained her magic to her) she had once held as a child. There are very few animals deep within Asterath, but sometimes bats rest at her windowsill and lizards scale her walls. She is stubborn and strong-willed, fiercely protective of those she has claimed as her own. No part of her cares for the gangs or politics between Asterath and Voxthain, but she would do anything for Lenore if anyone were to make a threat against her.

FC: EIZA GONZALEZ

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⠀   ⠀ SELENE ⠀

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     ──────────────────      END OF ROLEPLAY      ──────────────────

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⠀   ⠀ EUROPA ⠀

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Roleplay here.

◄   𝓜𝓮𝓲 𝓦𝓮𝓲-𝓧𝓼𝓾   ►

The lower city has always been a kind and gentle home to Mei. As the daughter of a baker, she grew up surrounded by the smell of fresh baked bread and the ring of the shop door below her room. Her three older brothers kept her home lively, with their wrestling and grunting contests as they hefted bags of flour each morning. Mei loved the early mornings in the city when she and her siblings were up preparing the shop for another busy day. It was the only time Voxthain was ever truly still, a hush to the air that even the morning birds hesitated to interrupt. She had the honor of watching the city wake up with the rise of Luminos, a world coming alive with each break of day. She greeted the Seavey paperboy each day with a friendly wave and fed the alley cats behind the bakery, she prepared coffee for the first commuters that passed by the shop, often heading to the Tinkerer's Guild or a factory. After the morning rush died down to a trickle, her parents would bid her and her brothers farewell for school.

People around lower Voxthain knew the Lui family and their bakery, and they would greet the four Lui kids on their way to and from school. Mei was kind and friendly, but she always had an eye for one of the tinkerer boys. He was shy and reserved, keeping to himself more than most of the other lower city kids. Mei couldn't help but be charmed by him and his transmutation work. While in school, she was far too shy to ever approach him herself, instead choosing to keep her crush close to her chest to grow or die away at it's leisure. With time, it faded to the background, her busy life at the bakery taking precedence.

Mei was an average student—never making the top of her class, but also never in need of remedial studies. She had no dreams of becoming a scholar or a Councilor or anything that would require her to ace school. The bakery was her home, and she was content to continue to make cakes and pastries for the rest of her life. When she graduated, she joined her brothers at the family bakery full-time. Two of her brothers had moved from her family home to neighboring houses to start families of their own, but still they came by the house each and every day for work.

One day, when Mei was 19, she went out to deliver fresh rolls to an elderly woman in the community just like any other day. A rogue carriage crashed down the street, wild and untameable. The rider was screaming from their seat, shouting out warnings and cries for help. People dodged out of the way and ran after the carriage, shooting out any magic they could to get the carriage to halt, but there was nothing they could do. The street was so narrow and winding, the buildings built too close together to accommodate the sheer volume of people in the lower city. Mei only saw the carriage when it was too late, and she had nowhere to run and hide even if she had seen it coming.

After the accident, Mei couldn't recall the crash itself or the sickening crunch of the wheels on her leg. She remembered the fear, remembered the sound of the wheels against the uneven stones of the road. Then nothing, just waking up in a hospital bed with the feeling that something was missing.

It was hard adjusting to life on one leg. While what remained of her leg healed—the carriage had crushed her right at the knee—she was stuck hobbling around on crutches, doing what she could to keep up with the bakery she so loved and failing at every turn. The very day the healers okayed her for transmutation, her mother and oldest brother accompanied her to the Tinkerer's Guild to get her a prosthetic. The name Jingyi Wei-Xsu had been passed along to them time and again over the last few weeks—stories of what he had done to help a sister or a friend, praises of his gentle nature and the artistry of his creations. Walking into his work station, Mei was shocked to see that shy little boy she had crushed on all those years ago looking back at her.

Only a week after Jingyi had fitted her with her prosthetic, she saw him in the bakery for the first time. And then he came back a few days later, and again and again until he was buying coffee or a cake or sandwich from them every day. When he left, her brothers would hoot and holler about how cute they were together, already guessing the name of their first kid. Mei would just blush and hide behind her hands, not wanting her brothers to see the wide grin on her face. Months of shy flirting passed until one of Mei's older brothers lost his patience with the two lovebirds and set up a date. The two have been happily together ever since, easily joining their separate lives into one. Their wedding had been the talk of the town, the joining of the sweet baker everyone loved and the quiet tinkerer who had given so much to the city.

A few years later, Mei gave birth to Chae, her sweet girl and the light of her life. Chae was the perfect baby, giggly and calm, her sweet buddy in the bakery when she wasn't keeping Jingyi company at his work station at the Guild. When Chae was older, she was the first to taste all of Mae's creations, giving her honest opinion and suggestions for what could make her treats tastier. Oftentimes, Mae saw Chae as a little Jingyi, following in his footsteps as a mechanic, and she could not be prouder of her daughter and the woman she was growing into.

To this day, Mei is a baker, rising before dawn to watch the bread rise with the sun. She loves the quiet comfort of her life, and hopes that she and her family are able to stay peaceful and happy together forever.

Personality
Outgoing, polite, and kind, Mei is the perfect match for her Councilor husband. She knows everyone in the lower city, and they know and love her in return. She does not have a single angry bone in her body (she likes to joke that all of her anger was stored in her missing leg), and could never hurt a fly. Despite her husband's involvement in politics, she tries to stay away from all of that and the nobility of it all, choosing instead to focus on the day-to-day and the good she can do for the people around her right now.

Magic
Conjuration ; Mei always had an affinity for conjuration, but she never cared to cultivate that gift for anything more than telekinesis and conjuring bakery ingredients from the ether.

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⠀   ⠀ KAELA ⠀

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𝙽𝚎𝚛𝚘 𝙸𝚜𝚌𝚊
𝟸𝟾 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚘𝚕𝚍
𝚑𝚎/𝚑𝚒𝚖
𝙼𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚊 𝙵𝚒𝚎𝚕𝚍 𝚂𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚛
(view spoiler)[

𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢

Nero isn't exactly great with people. He wants to like people and have friends, but people aren't often drawn to him. He can be blunt and harsh, with a statue-still way of holding himself that often throws people off. None of this is to say that Nero is unkind. He does want the best for the citizens of Voxthain, and wishes to have positive relationships with his colleagues and the people of the city he serves, he just isn't the best at getting to that point.

The one thing Nero has going for him is his patience. He will never be the one to throw the first punch, and he will never be quick to anger. His composure makes him a very good field soldier, and can sometimes even diffuse tension in a dangerous situation. Nero could sit in one place and wait for orders for as long as his commanding officer needed him to, never fatiguing or losing focus of the mission at hand.

𝙷𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢

Originally born to a warlike people far north of Voxthain, Nero Isca was sculpted for a life in the Militia. Of course, he had know way of knowing that as a child and young man, growing up weeks of travel from the sister cities, but even so there was something in him fit for that life even before he knew he would lead it.

When Nero was 25, he left his home in search for something better, or at the very least more interesting. On the road, he heard tell of a city of magic and wonder along the southern coast of Valoran. Intrigued, he made his way down to Voxthain and fell in love the moment he stepped through the city gates. Flying dirigibles and carriages that required no horses, a flamboyant display of magic around every corner that he had not seen anywhere else on the continent. It was whimsy and wonder, and he knew it would be home.

Shortly after settling in to the city, Nero saw a job posting for the Militia. It was odd to him that the city had no true army, coming from a city where over half of the children were bound to enlist, and it seemed that Voxthain's Militia was the closest the city came to having a military. Life was so peaceful along the southern coast, and a true military was simply an unnecessary use of time and resources. Given his life and background, he figured he would be well suited as a member of the Militia, and applied for a position as a field soldier.

He got the job immediately, and now, three years later, Nero is finally starting to feel like a true citizen of Voxthain. Even if he had no magic of his own to command, the constant use of it around him no longer made him flinch or stare in surprise and wonder. His dedication to keeping the city safe and secure knows no bounds, and he is actively working on being promoted to Investigator to have more power to protect the city he has come to love.

(( i know this isn't much 😔 im struggling with writing and i think we needed a field soldier for the casino heist and im trying my best. don't roast me too hard ))

𝙼𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚌

none: nero comes from a society with little regard for magic, and instead has honed his body to its physical peak without the assistance of magic. he is strong, fast, and precise in his aim, but that is all work that he has put into himself

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𝗛𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬

(view spoiler)[
Devaki—please, call her Deva—has always had a fascination with the morbid. She had never been a victim of a violent crime, or any crime at all for that matter, having grown up in a loving family in one of the nicer neighborhoods of Voxthain, but that obsession had been there from the moment she became familiar with the concept of a serial killer. In her early years in Cogworks, she started a true crime fan club that the staff very swiftly shut down (You can't call it a fan club, Devaki. You are not a fan of crime.), and the next day she came back with a club on solving unsolved crimes. From the club and her general social attitude, Deva had many friends in school. She would gossip with her girls between classes and during lunch, and after school she would head down to her club to ooh and aww about serial killers and the juicy unsolved crimes around town. Together, they would discuss every little thing the victims did wrong to get to that end point in their lives and everything the killer must have been thinking and feeling through it all.

In her later years at Cogworks, one of the club members told Deva that she should turn their club discussions into a podcast. The school, horrified by the audio they submitted, did not allow the club to broadcast their podcast to the whole of the sister cities, but they did allow the girls to share their thoughts with the school, likely to placate them and keep them from making their podcast publicly available even without their permission. To the horror of the administration, the podcast was a hit with the students. Deva and her club skyrocketed in popularity, and some students even wanted to pay them for more episodes or merch. How their conversations about the hottest murderer and tier-ranking the most innocent victims caught the attention of the school at large Deva herself hadn't seen coming, but she glowed under the attention.

As Deva's army of fans grew, so did her haters. People came out of the woodwork to claim that Deva was being "disrespectful to the victims of horrific violence" and "romanticizing the most deplorable people in the city." Yeah, sure, whatever, say that to her hundreds of fans. They were just having a good time discussing their favorite hobby while doing good for the world by bringing attention to the injustice, but sure, they're being disrespectful. So sorry that she thinks some people got what was coming to them.

When Deva graduated, her teachers all breathed a sigh of relief. They were finally free of her and her outrageous obsession, but unfortunately for Voxthain, graduation meant that she was released to the world. The podcast was too successful for it to just die with the end of her academic career, so it became its own beast to be broadcast to the whole city. She renamed it
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𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬

(view spoiler)[

Kind, yet closed-off, bumbling yet straightforward, Rafael Azul is a mess of contradictions. He loves all of the kids with a fierceness, but it isn't often that his love is verbally expressed. Instead, it's shown through his attendance at every game, recital, and graduation, and all of the framed achievements scattered through the Voxthain manor. He's nonviolent and easygoing, but he would kill anyone who dared to touch a single hair on any of his kids' heads without question. There is an awkwardness to his love, almost like he doesn't know what to do with it, but in matters of life, he is to the point, not running in circles around it.

Over the course of his life, Rafael Azul has learned caution, and the safety of thinking twice before acting. In his youth, he had been reckless and stupid, and it was through sheer luck that he hadn't died tragically young. He had learned from that, and he hoped to teach the children in his care to not tempt fate the way he once had.

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𝗠𝗔𝗚𝗜𝗖

(view spoiler)[

A jack of all trades and master of none, he has dipped his toe into each of the schools of magic with a rudimentary hold on each.

(hide spoiler)]

────────────────────────────────   EMILINA BRIEM ∇ Hauste Refugee

THE ONE REBORN    ─────────────────────────────────────────

(I know her title says Hauste Refugee because that's the most important thing for her character but she is in the claims and list as a Voxthain Baker and Fighting Ring Martial Fighter)

Darkness. The thick smell of smoke, the stench of burning bodies. Her own heavy breathing, her hands sliding through the dirt as she crawled towards them, vision blurred by her own blood. The heavy thrum of her heartbeat pounded in her ears, almost drowning out the screams. Almost.

And then there was the blaze. A preternatural, evil fire, raised by the bandits or invaders or whoever they were. No wind or water would quench that flame while its master yet lived. The fields were alight, flames slithering through the dry wheat on a path of destruction towards the outpost. Heat blistered her skin, daring her to turn back and run like the coward she was. She crawled forward.

To her left, the battle raged on. One lone figure still standing against the wave of black and gold. So they were invaders. Filthy Kairnians. The warrior roared, more beast than man, his rusted hair flowing wild and free, the single white strand standing out amidst the blaze. His blade dripped with blood, glowing against the smolder as it struck flesh again and again and again. He was a whirlwind, the last protector of the outpost. Men fell at his feet, but for each dropped attacker, two took their place. One bandit slipped through his unprotected flank—ordinarily guarded by an eagle-eyed sharpshooter who now laid lifeless at his feet—and sliced into his side. He roared again, this time with pain more than rage and stumbled, but did not fall. He continued to swing out his blade in wide arcs, but there were too many of them. As he was swarmed, Emilina looked away.

The blaze was closer now. She could almost reach it, could almost reach her. Twin black braids and glassy eyes, mouth open in horror. Fire eating at her skin, dancing across her broken body. Emilina couldn’t let it take her. She crawled into the fire. The heat, the stench, the searing pain. She gritted her teeth, swallowing her screams. The bandits hadn’t noticed her, didn’t know she was still alive. The flames licked up her body, wrapping around her, drawing her closer. They were hungry, alive, ravenous. Emilina choked on it, smoke coating her lungs. The world grew hazy. She was right there. She was so close. Emilina reached out to grip her arm, to pull her from the fire, but it was too late. She was too late.

Em's life as she knew it began shrouded in flames. The flames that took the only family she had ever known too consumed the girl once known as Emilina.

The clearest memory of her death was the end. In her right hand was her sword, already slick with blood. In her left—she looked to the ground behind her where the still burning char of her left arm laid, removed before the everlasting flames could overtake the rest of her body. She didn't have time to feel the screaming pain of absence, to mourn the loss of limb. Danger still surrounded her. Breathing hard, inhaling more smoke than air, Em swung her sword, metal hitting flesh. One by one, the remaining Kairne soldiers around her dropped until she was the sole figure in the sea of flame, and then she too fell.

┏ ┓
27 years old gay
metal manipulation weary
pyrophobia stoic
┗ ┛

It had happened when she was only 23, barely more than a private in the Haustean army. The Kairne Empire legionnaires had swarmed her outpost and slaughtered every last person inside. Everyone except for her. How had she done it? The whispers swirled around her when she eventually awoke in the infirmary. How had she survived when they did not?

Sure, she had been at the top of her class in military training and knew her way around a sword like no other, but she had yet to develop any abilities beyond the slightest taste for fire. She was a fine soldier, but her platoon, her family, far surpassed her in skill and experience. But that night, through the haze of smoke, it was like the metal sang to her. She knew the location of every knife and belt buckle, could feel their presence better than she could see. And her own sword had come to life in her hands, a fluid object melding into whatever shape she needed.

Once the burns on what remained of her arm were healed, she was fitted with a metal replacement, one that was slightly different from a typical prosthetic. Because of her newfound metal manipulation abilities, she was given an arm made of solid iron. All joints and flexibility were through her own abilities, allowing for maximum manipulation of her new limb. It took time and effort to relearn how to use her arm through a new set of mental commands so foreign from the ones needed to move her right arm, and she would never stop feeling those last few moments of burning before she lost all sensation on that side for good.

By the time she had made her full recovery, Hauste had fallen to the Kairne Empire, the homeland she had once protected no more. Em had died that night just like her homeland, ashes scattered in the wind, a distant memory of what they once were. There was nobody left in her life to even notice the absence of who she once was, as if the sweet and gentle Emmy had also perished. This new Em was distant, scared of forming new attachments with the memory of those that had been ripped from her. She was a wandering ghost, searching Valoran for what she had lost, answers to why she had been the one left behind.

After four years of drifting in the wind, Em stumbled upon a city far from the violence waging across much of Valoran: Voxthain, a safe haven for displaced people like her. So safe and welcoming and devoid of the violence that ravaged her early life, maybe Voxthain could become her new home, where she could build up a new Emilina to replace the one that had been lost. She was so young, only 27 years old, and yet she felt as though she had lived a thousand lifetimes. Strife and the long days and nights of endless walking wore her down, smoothing out the once jagged edges of her anger. That rage is still there simmering beneath the surface, just waiting to be unleashed, but she has not had any real reason to erupt in too many years.

In spite of herself, in the short time she has spent in Voxthain, Em has formed attachments to some of the people around her, although they would never know it in the way she behaves. Em loves fiercely and quietly, like the warmth of a fire that has nearly extinguished through the night.

─────────────────────────────────────────────    LINGERS ON

EVOCATION ∇ (view spoiler)[

metal manipulation ; em is using this power nearly constantly, as it is how she has functionality in her left arm. she is constantly focusing on the metal that makes up her arm, allowing it to function the exact same as an arm made of flesh and bone. if she stops concentrating on her arm, she can also manipulate other metal objects with relative ease, with the caveat that she must be touching the metal

fire manipulation ; em has a slight affinity for fire manipulation. she has never taken the time to develop this ability because of her paralyzing fear of fire, and likely never will

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⠀   ⠀ CASMIR ⠀

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🔥   𝙽𝚒𝚔𝚘𝚕𝚊𝚒   🔥

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✧₊⁺ emilina ⁺₊✧
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“Strictly business,” she said, oblivious to her feelings.

bubbly girlie
23
voxthain
varada sethu

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⠀   ⠀ SELENE ⠀

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