Character Sheet
Name: Miriam Green
Shadow Name: Morata
Age: Sixteen.
Gender: Female

Path: Mastigos.
Gnosis: 3
Mana: 4/12
Wisdom: 7

Arcana: Mind 3, Space 2, Fate 1, (In Progress) Spirit 1

Aspirations: Unlock the Secrets of the Fire.

Obsessions:

Virtue: Faith
Vice: Curiosity

Health: 8/8
Willpower: 7/7
Defense: 2
Destiny (Merit): 4/4

XP: 0
Arcane XP: 1

Attributes:

Strength 3, Dexterity 2*, Stamina 3
Presence 2*, Manipulation 2*, Composure 3*
Intelligence 4, Wits 3, Resolve 4

Aspects:

Promising High School Student (4): She's smart and well liked around school. In fact, she has a pretty good grasp of not merely the basics of high-school learning, but even the things that are up to the senior year. Beyond what a person might learn in a she's a little lost, and so there are limits as to the kinds of things she'd know about, but if it can be found in a textbook she might have read, she's probably read it. As well, she knows how to plan her time, to get along with other people at school and not get into fights, and otherwise do well in this respect. She's best at history.

Preacher's Daughter (3): Growing up with a father who tells the gospel word, you learn how to mimic the way he gives sermons, quote the bible chapter and verse, and know more than a little about how to interact with people and their religions, faiths, and how churches function. Whether it is mingling after church, being a sounding board for her father's sermons, or playing games that involve reciting long passages of the bible from memory, she is good at it.

*A Bit of a Tomboy (2): She's really at the age where you're supposed to outgrow this sort of thing, really. But she still likes climbing things, she still likes running around the school, she still knows a little about getting into a scrap, even if she hasn't actually gotten into a fight since...well, a few years. She's keen, athletic, and very, very interested in baseball (boo, Kansas City Monarchs, boo!) which she read about, not having a radio, and that being fledgling besides. In any wise, it certainly isn't fading with time, and it's given her a set of interests and hobbies that meshes quite interestingly with her obvious piety and (reasonably, mostly) obedient nature.

Breaker of Chains (2): Abraham Lincoln was a swell guy, in her opinion. Her own father's involvement in the NAACP and her engagement in High School history has made it so that she's actually surprisingly knowledgeable on race issues, and quite talkative about them in the right circumstances. She knows how to keep her mouth shut, of course, around older white men or the like, but she has her opinions and she wears them on her sleeve, and that includes knowing a lot of things most girls her age wouldn't know about, academically and otherwise.

A Practicing Mage (2): While Morata has a lot to learn, and has only been practicing magic for a short time, she is now fully settling into magical society. She knows the Orders, and more than that she is starting to understand both the personalities and how magic truly works. It is a long journey, but she has taken another step forward.

Can We Keep Him? (1): She has had dogs and cats before, and currently has one of each, which she of course does all of the work taking care of, because her mom said that if she had to deal with that, she'd throw them out. She has a bit of a way with animals, and after the third or fourth stray, also with people and convincing them to go along with her quite innocent and well-meaning requests.

Problem Solver (1): Kids in her neighborhood and at school tend to trust and like her, or at least she's tried to be liked, and even go to her for help sometimes, whether of an academic nature or just to see what she has to say. She's not exactly a local guru or anything, but she's clever and tends to be able to help people with minor problems, or dispense advice, even if that advice is often enough 'Really, you should tell your parents, they're gonna find out, you know, and if they find out and you didn't tell them, they'll cane your hide raw.'

Sneaking The Cookie Jar (1): She's not a dishonest person, but being someone with a lot of friends means that you sometimes know how to lie for them, and more than that, that you know a little about sneaking an extra quarter here and there. Whenever caught she's full of contrition, and more than that she's not a fundamentally dishonest person, but...well, she knows plenty of people who deserve an extra cookie every now and then.

Mother's Teachings (1): Her mother has tried to at least teach her the basics of cooking, cleaning, and keeping house. The logic that she'll probably need it if she goes to college has been pretty persuasive, and while there are gaps, she's quite self-sufficient when it comes to balancing a budget or all of the other things a modern woman is expected to do, as far as it goes. She's best at cooking meat, and her recipes are all pretty simple, but it's food that'll fill a belly, and that's the most important thing.

To Dream A Dream (1): Morata has become a truly expert in the magic of dreams, and indeed has begun to truly explore what Demons and other denizens of the Astral can and will do. This is merely an extrapolation of what she can already do, hence the discount. Special: Can use Arcane XP for this.

Powers--

Mage Sight (Peripheral, Active, and Focused): She seems to be able to see something that others cannot. Magic itself, and her eyes seem especially attuned to distances and the spaces between things, as well as the minds of other people.

Mage Armor: Mind, Space

Mind 3, Space 2, Fate 2 (In Progress up from 1)

Spirit 1 (Will complete in two weeks)

Rotes--

Dividing the Mind (Mind 1): A rote to divide the mind in two, this means that it has extra reach to add to duration and so on, and that there is a two-dice Yantra that can be done to add to the power of the spell. Involves imagining the split in her mind to enact it.

Scholar's Little Helper (Mind 1): Scholarship is hard work, and it's often difficult to sift through a five-hundred page book on Astral adventures for the single passage on a threatening Goetic demon that's currently ripping the rest of the Cabal apart. Plus, cross-referencing other works can be difficult. Through this tiny little rote, the caster can input a word, phrase, or topic, mentally, and essentially search the book just by holding it up to the light, copying knowledge of what was said in those passages and the passage surround it into their brain without having to search. It does not grant perfect understanding, and sometimes the section requires context to make any sense, but it can save weeks on a big scholarship project. (Rote Mudra, Promising Student, +4) Reach: With each additional Reach, you can search an additional book in the same spell; You can absorb the entirety of the contents of the book, if not always parse its meaning, as if you read the entire book in the instants it took to cast the spell, cover to cover. It may take some hours of thinking and consideration to fully parse the contents, and of course at times understanding and applying it can be more difficult: but an entire book read in less than a second is still something.

Strengthen Mind (Mind 3): It does not, obviously, only effect the intellect, but any aspect of one's mind can be made sharper, as can one's social abilities. The key to doing this, or rather the Mystagogue form of it, involves closing one's eyes and pressing one's fingers against your forehead, as if trying to stimulate thought by motion. When you open your eyes, the spell should be cast. You cannot improve your mind or social abilities to superhuman levels (Rote Mudra: Promising Student, +4), Reach: You may divide the 'Potency' of the spell, eg: Potency 4, enhance Intelligence by 1, Wits by 2, and Resolve by 1; spend a point of Mana: temporarily, for as long as the spell lasts, Attributes can reach supernatural levels.

Scholar's Protection (Mind 3): Adapted from a famous Silver Ladder rote, this grants protection ot the humble scholar. They make a sign with their hands as if their hands are books, their palms pages, and then so long as they neither attack or order an attack, others struggle to gather up the will to attack them. If they do order an attack, or attack themselves, the spell automatically fails… but only for the target, and not any others. Automatons, or beings without thought are immune, but this potent spell makes it so that anyone with a Resolve less than their Mind +1 cannot bring themselves to attack. Those that can still feel hesitation, and it is as if the Mage has two points of Armor. Supernatural beings have an advantage: if they have a supernatural trait, they get +1 to the comparison of Resolve versus Mind, if it is equal to the Mage's, they get +2, and if it is greater, they get +3… even then, a weak-willed but powerful supernatural being might find themselves frozen in fear and doubt. (Rote Mudra: Promising Student, +4) Reach: Spend 1 Mana, the spell may now last for an entire day; You may spend Reach to increase the difficulty of overcoming the Protection, once; Attackers lose 10-again on rolls to attack someone, if that person has willpowered through the magic.

The Dedicated Will of the Just (Mind 3): A spell taught to her by her Uncle, it is in some ways an extension of previous spells. By touching the forehead and spreading one's fingers across it, yours or others, when someone grits their teeth and uses their will, they find it stretching out, like hitting a high note and holding it for longer than a single action, based on the power of the spell. (Rote Mudra, Preacher's Daughter +3) Reach: Willpower when spent can add +2 to all resistance traits; Willpower spent both increases one's ability to endure, and one's ability to 'act'; By spending a Mana, the caster can imagine the benediction and thus enact it in a single breath on themselves or any target, as fast as the speed of thought.

Determined Will (Mind 2): The Mystagogue must go through many hardships for knowledge. Whatever a materialist thinks, anyone experienced in Mind magic knows that willpower exists, and so by a series of invisible taps against either their own or--imagined--someone else's skull. By doing so the Mage can make sure that when they, or others, gather their will for a great task, as long as it isn't magic they will get a bonus to the will-enhanced roll (9-again.) (Rote Mudra: Preacher's Daughter, +3: Inspire others and inspire yourself), Reach: The bonus can be increased; the bonus might be able to be used even to enhance magic, strengthening the will that brings itself to bear in casting a spell.



The Bonds of Fate (Fate 1): It is one thing to look at someone and see them, it is another to be able to look at them and see the destinities, the curses, the broken oaths and more that mark their soul and their persons. Mystagogues imagine a cobweb of connections and strands of fate itself, and carefully reach out a finger to tap at the edges of the cobweb without breaking it, to see what creeps up. (Mudra: Can We Keep Him? (+1), the spider spins its web.) Reach: The Mage can know when someone is possessed, mind controlled, or otherwise has their destiny majorly influenced; the Mage can tell someone's Destiny and Doom, can know when the curse they're affected by will be lifted, or so on.

The Unusual Path (Fate 1) : Fate itself can sometimes intervene in small ways. Through this spell, a Mystagogue can state a goal and then receive omens, sometimes faint and contradictory, on how to begin working towards it… and can even allow them to match strength with strength: subtly twisting fate so that their talents are just the right ones needed to advance upon the goal. Miriam uses it to occasionally leverage her way through a tricky social situation. The Mudra involves tugging on strands and pulling them in with a flip of a hand, as if examining something. (Rote Mudra: Problem Solver, +1) Reach: Can substitute any skill needed while under the spell for another within the same category, e.g. the character's religious passion turns out to be just what it might take to convince the homeless person to tell you where the body is hid, instead of a skill involving the streets or crime; Can, if taken further, substitute any skill for any other skill: your athletic prowess intimidates the homeless man, your knowledge of petty trivia charms the high society lady you need to steal from.



] No Shackles For The Scholar (Space 2): A Mystagogue cannot be stopped merely by a locked door, or being chained up above a pit of sharks while a villain monologues about how the Secret of the Amazon will die with them. So by imagining their own escape, and circling around that thought a few times as fast as possible, they can affect it. Any one barrier: locked door, handcuffs, barred window, or so on is fine… though it cannot get one through a bouncer or through fire. It can also be cast on an object, such as if you want to push a macguffin through a locked door and then face the enemy yourself. (Rote Mudra: Breaker of Chains, +2), Reach: Can pass through even shackles or objects they could not move through, such as being chained up, or trapped in a coffin, or anything else; subject can squeeze through narrow gaps that they should not physically be able to make it through: you can in fact drive a car through an open front door half its width if you cast this spell on it.
Merits--

(**) 'Profession'--Student
1--Gain 9-again on any roll that can be justified as having to do with one's profession.
2--Gain two dots of Contacts related to one's 'profession.'
3--+1 to rolls against any mental, physical or social stress that might get in the way of performing one's profession.[1] This cannot create a positive bonus.

4--8-again on rolls.
5--One special bonus based on the nature of the 'profession.

[1] Okay, in this case, imagine the college student who is good enough at class that he can show up hungover and still get something out of class, or the athlete who can go out not feeling 100% and still actually manage not to fuck everything up forever, even if he's not putting in his best performance.

(***) Parents: It may seem absurd to say it, but having parents in the picture who can help solve moderate problems is a boon. Obviously the drawback is that if they get involved and it's over her head, it could end badly, and that more than that, they obviously are sure they know best, but asking Mom or Dad is totally an option available to her, and one that can enlist their aid and ask their advice.

(***) Contacts:

She has contacts with both People She Knows At Church, a broad group but in some ways self-selecting, and among those kids she knows around the neighborhood, as well as People At School. People are willing to talk to her, ask her advice, and that goes both ways, doesn't it? If she wants to ask around, she could certainly do worse than asking when she's at church, with someone inclined to see her well already.

Egregore--Mysteriorum Arche (•): In a teamwork spellcasting roll in which the character is participating, she does not suffer the –3 penalty to contribute without the necessary Arcanum rating, and adds an automatic success if a full participant. All members of the ritual team must possess this Merit.

(*)Language: Latin

She knows Latin, read and spoken.

(*) Order Status (Mysterium)

She has been initiated in the first mystery of the Mystagogues.

(*) High Speech

She can use High Speech as a Yantra in spellcasting, and knows enough to be (roughly) conversational outside of the very formal language of Spellcasting.

(*) Egregore

1) In a teamwork spell in which she participates, she doesn't take -3 to the roll if she couldn't cast the spell on her own, and if she can she adds an automatic success to her dice roll for the purpose of granting the ritual leader the bonus dice. However, everyone involved in the ritual must have this level of Egregore. This represents her connection to magic, and through it, others of the Order.

(*) Resources:

She has a little bit of spending money saved up. Not much at all, but it's something. And it's more than a lot of people have, and so she knows to be grateful for it.

(****) Destiny

Effect: Miriam does not yet know the specifics, but she is destined for greatness and yet also doomed in some way.

Currently at 4/4.

(***) Astral Adept: Can enter the Astral far easier, by paying just a WP and meditating.

(***) True Friend (Virginia)

Effect: Miriam has a true friend. True Friend represents a trusting relationship that cannot be easily breached. Unless Miriam really does something to deserve it (really, really) Virginia will not betray her, and I, the QM, has to go easy on her in terms of throwing her into danger. Slightly kid gloves with her, as part of an implicit contract, though that does not mean that Miriam's mistakes or actions might not involve her in deeper problems than she should be facing. And any roll, natural or supernatural, that has the purpose of influencing Virginia against Miriam takes a 5-dice penalty. Additionally, once per...let's say week, Miriam can regain a point of Willpower by having a meaningful/heartfelt/important interaction with Virginia.

Consilium Status (*): Consilium--Increasingly she is a known entity, someone whose existence is no secret at all and whose fame is even harder to deny.

Contacts: Vampires (1)--Her work with vampires means she has a greater awareness of where she can go to talk to them, especially once she thinks through what she saw.

Allies (1): Guardians of the Veil--In the aftermath of yet another Interview with a Vampire, she has been contacted by the Guardians of the Veil, who are curious and who are willing to trade curiosity for curiosity.

Trained Memory (1): She has trained her mind to be something like a steel trap, though perhaps rather more effective than that, all things considered: steel traps can rust, because outside of stressful moments she never needs to roll to remember anything… she just remembers, and without Magic at all.

Minor Elements:

--Having studied a Spirit Bestiary, Miriam is now more able to tell some common spirits apart, even without using magic, and can call up basic facts about said common spirits.
--Has the Memories of a vampire in her head, which can be examined/considered later.
 
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Page 126: Throw The Bums Out? New
Page 126: Throw The Bums Out?

The Adamantine Arrow was perhaps the Order she knew the least about. Morata had never been one inclined for violence, for all that what she'd heard of challenging and bettering oneself had seemed to resonate with who she was on a deeper level. But… there were other things that also resonated, and it was not as if the Mysterium wanted people to never learn and grow. Indeed, if one didn't improve as a scholar how would you get anywhere?

Morata could keep physical activity and so on entirely separate from her magical identity, or at least entirely secondary.

All the same, she knew that this was a right that she had at least in part because the Arrows were acting as they were. It had been only a few years since the Seers had slaughtered countless Mages in the aftermath of the Great War. It was an event that left scars on plenty. She was sure any Arrows who were around back then had plenty of stories to tell.

So she ignored the looks people gave her as she got off the tram on a busy, crowded downtown street. Now she was just a little way off the Loop. It was not a Negro neighborhood at all, though it was not one of the shaded places where the well to do retreated, either, and there were people bustling this way and that, the scent of humanity and for that matter nearby restaurants filling the air. She considered it. Right now her disguise was that of a modestly dressed young Negro woman, her actual clothing hidden by a spell. In theory an enemy could dispel it to cause problems, but she could pull it back together easily enough, and she didn't fear much from that. Instead, she kept an eye out, trying to recall one of the meeting places. Oh, it was a diner, wasn't it?

She looked around, trying to find it. She knew that the Sherman House was another major place where there were meetings all the time. She didn't know the actual locations of the bases, those were not simply handed out, but there were certain places, often restaurants, where ordering the right thing off the menu would get you taken to the right places. What the item was, and where it was, changed often enough. This sort of secrecy might seem Guardian-like, but it was also just good sense in a war. That, at least, was what Morata had been told. She did not think she could question this, not really, not when she was so new to things. So she headed into one of the diners. It was not technically segregated. Technicalities mattered, but she did get a few funny looks as she stepped in and headed to a booth to wait to be served. The inside of the restaurant was white and red, with people eating here and there.

It was no fancy place where you could get the finest steak, but steak was on the menu, and so was a pork roast, potatoes, all sorts of things. Reluctantly, a woman stepped up. She had on a uniform of sorts, by which one meant a blouse and skirt in white and black, and she asked, "What can I get for you?" There was skepticism in her voice, as if she was going to hear a plea that she didn't have a nickel to spare and just wanted some water.

"I'd like the pancakes with strawberries on them, blueberries on the side, and extra cottage cheese," Morata said smoothly.

She was a Mastigos, so she saw the moment. She saw, almost as a physical thing, the moment where a brain went from on to off. In her Mage Sight the emotions and feelings went suddenly glassy, as if she was staring into nothing more interesting than a mirror. And Morata was not the vain sort to pose in mirrors endlessly celebrating her appearance. She wanted to look smart and neat, but anything beyond that was not of her concern. (She was lying to herself, or at least exaggerating, because of course there were other things she wanted to be seen as.)

So she saw it. The mind of this woman had been turned off, temporarily. "I see, of course we shall talk to the chef to see if you will be able to be accommodated." Chef was the key phrase. Any other word would indicate that either she'd been… affected by someone else, or that there was a problem and she had to leave, such as an infiltration or an attack. Morata nodded and said, "Thank you," uneasily. She had never used her powers to do anything like that. It made her feel just a little bit queasy. But she settled down.

"I'll get you a water, to start," the woman said, which was another code phrase, a double-check.

"Double lemon and half ice," Morata said, a little dully. She knew that some of this was necessary, and that the woman was at least not having this done to her without some guidance, if only because that'd mean that the moment anything broke she'd be disloyal. But what did this even mean? Was she being paid for some service she did not understand and did not fully grasp? Or was she loyal but she'd forgotten that fact or…

Morata spent enough time turning over the moral implications of this that she almost missed that someone was approaching. And she knew who it was. It was one of the Sleepwalkers who worked with, or rather for, the Adamantine Arrows. He was a tall, pale right man with angular features and dark-brown hair. He was dressed in long trousers, and a button-down shirt, and he took out a lighter and lit a cigarette carefully, the smoke wafting strangely before settling down across from her and snuffing the cigarette in the ash-tray, his green eyes boring into hers.

"Well, well… do not worry, nobody will pay us any mind," he said. "You can call me Nicolos, by the way, but I have a little something that draws on me to work, and it's a trick we've learned from the subtler sorts." He was speaking quietly enough, combined with nobody being in the booth ahead and behind, that probably nobody would hear in the first place. "You see, this conversation is boring. It doesn't even register in the mind."

"Oh. I see," Morata said, and it clearly became obvious as she considered just what the Mind Arcana could do. If you made someone forget something, to go into their memory and make sure they didn't remember it, then there were likely traces of it still in their head. It was impossible to scrub someone so well that nothing could be found by someone invasive enough, and random bystanders couldn't be held or stopped. Relying on random people in an area frequented by Mages would not provide much information, but they might be able to note who was meeting who. But if it never went into their memory in the first place because it was dull and uninteresting, even magically so, then the most you'd be able to figure out is… perhaps even nothing, especially if the sight isn't particularly interesting in the first place.

If they were shouting and yelling, then the very fact that this was boring and uninteresting would lodge in their minds, even if the actual memory of what was being said wasn't. But other than that it was between a Negro girl and a white man, what was there to note? The girl was listening, the man was talking, later on she might talk and he might listen.

"You probably would, yes. So, if Morata came here, then it is because she wants to help with the bum problem. I was going to have to deal with it this afternoon with whoever I could rustle up, but having a Wisegal in the mix would certainly help." Even when he spoke of magic, he did it with at least a thin veneer. Obviously anyone listening in magically who was not seen off by any wards or protections on the building would know what this was about, but it added to the mundanity of it.

"I am willing to help. At the moment we're scouting out information and seeing what the problem is, is that correct?" Morata clarified.

"Exactly! Because you see, something isn't normal." Even his exclamation was quiet, more an emphasis of his tone than anything else.

"It is not? What is not normal about this?"

"Normally, the police officers are good enough to deal with the problem… in their own brutish fashion," Nicolos said. "There's no challenge, no struggle in them, though… they don't take on challenges when they are difficult ones." Nicolos shook his head, his sharp smile growing so sharp as to seem a blade in his hand. "So if they are not dealing with the bums, it's because they're afraid. And such men are not afraid of a few homeless men and women. So, are they thralls to a vampire? Subjects to some horror? Tricksters with the ability to summon ghosts or do stranger things? Or perhaps they are connected to the Changelings, or to another Mage that
does not work in the world we are used to. What matters, then, is that we figure out what's going on. Right?"

"Right," Morata said, but that was easier said than done. She'd have to figure out just what she was doing?

What to talk about with Nicolos while they're there?

[] [Nicolos] Pry for personal details of a minor sort, talk about sports, and other topics, and see what he says.
[] [Nicolos] Ask about the waitress, and what was done to her?
[] [Nicolos] Talk about food, or some other hopefully non-threatening topic.

What's the plan?

[] [Plan] Morata should use her magic to be unseen, and watch the confrontation, serving as a back up.
[] [Plan] Morata should go alone, using her magic to ensure if it comes to violence she will be fine, with the others watching from afar to see if they notice something.
[] [Plan] Morata should try to observe the bums in secret.

A/N: Had a small crisis of confidence in the nature of diners/restaurants in the 1920s, among other things, but think it turned out alright.
 
[X] [Plan] Morata should go alone, using her magic to ensure if it comes to violence she will be fine, with the others watching from afar to see if they notice something.

We have magic that protects us if do not do violence. We can use it to investigate the bums. If they can get through it, that is a serious problem and we have the backup to deal with it.
 
[X] [Plan] Morata should go alone, using her magic to ensure if it comes to violence she will be fine, with the others watching from afar to see if they notice something.
[X] [Nicolos] Ask about the waitress, and what was done to her?
 
[X] [Plan] Morata should go alone, using her magic to ensure if it comes to violence she will be fine, with the others watching from afar to see if they notice something.
 
[X] [Plan] Morata should go alone, using her magic to ensure if it comes to violence she will be fine, with the others watching from afar to see if they notice something.
[X] [Nicolos] Ask about the waitress, and what was done to her?
 
[X] [Plan] Morata should go alone, using her magic to ensure if it comes to violence she will be fine, with the others watching from afar to see if they notice something.
[X] [Nicolos] Ask about the waitress, and what was done to her?
 
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