6 replies to this topic

[Wandering Rogue]

The Invisible World

[Unbelievably Majestic]

Felix Holloway
 

Spoiler

"Who would want a normal life when the world can be so fantastically abnormal? Go and chase your curiosity. It's more fun than being a banker."

Name: Felix Holloway
Theme: Real World ~ Blue Oyster Cult
Age: Thirty-one
Sex: Male

Biography: I grew up with a rather... overbearing, family. The biggest problem was that we were rich. Rich and a part of minor nobility. I realize that to complain about such a thing is an act that everyone less fortunate despises, but I fear it may simply be coming across wrong. It wasn't a problem. Not really. Not in general. But for me, it was. This was because you were expected to act a certain way in polite society, even behind closed doors. You see, nobility and wealth used to mean a great deal more than it does nowadays. And I hated being told what to do and when to do it day in and day out with a passion, still do. Anyway, let me tell you about the family.

Firstly I should mention that we were wealthy, very much so. Mother was a doctor of some renown, standing out all the more for the fact she was a woman in a profession dominated by people with a tendency not to have breasts. Father was a well regarded political figure in the community, if you ask me it certainly didn't have much to do with his politics and was primarily due to his family's long standing wealth. Not that I'd ever mention that to him, he'd have the cane out faster than a bolt of lightning. I'm certain you can imagine how he strutted around the place, his self-centered feeling of superiority clinging around him like some sort of miasma. My elder siblings, as you are already imagining I'm sure, went on to have similarly suitable and respectable jobs in society at the insistence of our parents.

And then there was me.

I was the dreadful young lad who just wouldn't do as was expected of a member of such a respectable family. I never wanted to be a doctor or a banker, I didn't want to be a politician or a well regarded gentleman. What I actually did want I wasn't sure, but I knew it wasn't anything a conventional life could get me, not even with all the wealth at my family's disposal. I come to realize now that what I sought wasn't something specific, it was just something... different. I didn't want to have the same life as fifty other people, and those just being the ones in my city alone. I wanted a life on my terms, in my own way, and in whatever spectacularly abnormal fashion was possible. Essentially, I was selfish. I wanted to be unique. Regardless of what damage that did to the lives and reputations of those around me. Really it was rather childish in mentality. I'm unashamed to admit I haven't changed in this, even after everything.

Family: The Holloway Family - My family from the past have sadly passed away at this point, all but my younger brother have left this world to seek out the mysteries of the afterlife. My younger brother Daniel, incredibly, has in fact lived to the age of eighty-seven. He's still going. I considered paying him a visit but decided against it. Chances are he wouldn't recognize me after so long, and if he did I might quite literally scare him to death. It wouldn't be a lovely family reunion in either instance.

 
Flaws: Flaws? Where to start. First and foremost I am selfish, I will be doing what I want regardless of what others think and regardless of how it makes others look. Then there's the fact that I have no real practice with actually doing everyday things. Growing up in a well off household meant that the butler would clean the clothes, the cook would make the food, the maid would prepare a bath. Not that that even matters anymore, things have moved on so much I'd have to re-learn that all anyway. And I'm very much out of my depth with all this modern technology, but I'd prefer to call myself an enthusiastic amateur. It all excites me greatly.
Strengths: I'd say one of my greatest strengths is the same as one of my greatest flaws. I am very independent. While this can be bothersome to some people around me, it also allows me to actually do things while others might be sat around deliberating with each other. I tend to know my own mind and, while I'm not unable to be  convinced otherwise, I do tend to be quite set in my view of things, which means I can generally make decisions about things pretty quickly. Also, not that it comes to much good nowadays but, if I choose to do so, I can employ a fairly good imitation at being a polite and dignified member of the gentry. I say it's an imitation because it always is. It's a show put on behind closed doors and around fancy dining halls.

Goals: In my life I have always had one goal. It still hasn't changed. That goal is to experience the most abnormal and fantastical things the world has to offer. Then one day I expect I shall write a book of my life that nobody will believe. I'm not content to live a normal life, I want excitement, I want to do things nobody has ever done before and live entirely differently to the mainstream. Because in this entire world there is nothing that scares me more than being bored of my life.
Regrets: I'm not certain I would actually take back anything I have done in my life, as it all led up to this wonderful time I would never have known, but I do wish I'd been nicer to my family. Deep down, despite the fact they were trying to make me be something I wasn't, I knew they loved me. I was much too careless with my words on many occasions.

Abnormal Quality: I used to try and make fairly regular trips out into the strange or uncharted parts of the map. In one of my many excursions out into the world, funded primarily on borrowed money and fraying familial ties, I chartered a boat over to the South America. From there I acquired a small flying craft of my own, nowadays it would be considered an old and outdated biplane but in it's day it was rather an exciting purchase and still a relatively new venture altogether. Needless to say I was delighted. I used this nippy little biplane to fly all over the continent, my course looking rather like that of a drunken fly when plotted on a map. I visited jungles in Brazil, presumably looking for dangerous temples for brave little me to explore or something of the sort, basically I was just looking for something interesting, something to break the mould. Some way to be a special little snowflake in a society of neatly pampered gentlemen who's goal in life was to become as perfect a reflection of their father as possible.

I found nothing but trees and terrible ways to land a plane. I was rather upset at this. Not that I didn't enjoy the excursions themselves, they were tremendous fun, but to leave empty handed was disheartening. It was when I finally decided to return home that something truly interesting happened. Something unnatural. I flew back by way of the Bahamas, heading north through an area I later found out was known as the Bermuda Triangle.
 
When I landed on the south side of America I found to my surprise, and immense wonder, that I was in a different time. No longer was I in the early 1900's, somehow I had come to the future, at least from my perspective. People nowadays still tend to call it the present like I had in the past. It's all very strange. But finally, I had witnessed something that defied explanation. Finally I had proof that fantastic and magical things could happen. Obviously nobody believed my claims, I mean who would? So I quieted down about my story quite quickly so as not to have the men in white come and take me away for some electro-shock therapy to cure my mad beliefs. 
 
I slowly did my best to integrate myself into a new society, I tried learn how things worked now and so on and so forth. I met a man by the name of Mick who let's me live in his spare room. Of course I had to get some sort of income, having been cut off by time from my families wealth. I couldn't very well turn up on the doorstep of my siblings descendants claiming to be their great uncle and asking for money. I did get a decent amount of  money for my old/brand-new, depending on how you look at it, bi-plane. I sold it to a collector who was extremely pleased with what he got. It wouldn't last forever, but my living costs were slim to none. And so I continued doing what I do best. Looking for incredible things. I tell you, it was much easier to do so in a world where everything is practically magic.

Edited by Unbelievably Majestic, 07 April 2015 - 01:40 PM.

[Diabolical Rhapsody]

Spoiler

[Appearance]

Name:  Annabelle Di Santi

Theme:  Uno

Age:  29

Sex:  Female

 

Biography:  From a young age Anna was a different kid, whether her curious nature could be linked to having been a child without a balanced family or just an unhealthy interest in the supernatural is something that needs to be ascertained. But, while her cousins would usually ask Nonna for a light-hearted stories or stories of knights and princesses.

 

She would always listen on misty-eyed whenever she told a ghost story. Childhood passed on with regular visits to aunts and uncles or following her mother's edicts. She grew up to be a rather hard working and bright lass. Sterling throughout the school and into grad school on scholarship, life was good for Anna as she started pursuing her choice to know more about the mind.

 

All the while, reading up on a lot of urban legends and tales from Europe and Asia. Myths and fables, filled her pastime as her studies progressed. Aiming to major in Forensic Psychology and maybe land a job in CIA. 

 

But even the best laid plans can get fucked by the hand of god. It was in her final year winter break that her favorite cousin, Giuseppe came to meet his aunt and Anna to celebrate his graduation and his job with a top Boston consulting firm. They had always been close, sharing a rather healthy brother sister bond. He was like her real elder brother.

 

The party started and booze flowed, they got smashed and that's when things took turn for the worse. They decided to ride back to Annapolis from Baltimore with none in the condition to do so and as fate would have it, there was a nasty crash. While Anna escaped unscathed like a miracle, Giuseppe wasn't that lucky. Despite letting money flow like river, even the best surgeons couldn't save him and that broke her. She felt powerless and because by some miracle she had escaped unscathed, her torment was even greater. She lost her will to complete her education.

 

She slipped into depression and barely finished her degree. If not for the help of her friend Martha, she couldn't say what she might have done. Martha was a rock she could lean and with their shared education and deep friendship, she also turned her psychologist. They had been buddies since pre-school and were literally like sisters, they did everything together and it was no surprise that they were pursuing psychology together as well.

 

Slowly as the wounds of the psyche healed, she got her will back and though her graduation was delayed, she did manage to finish it with honors. Slowly, her belief in myths and fables grew, whatever she had read over her lifetime weren't just fictions of creative minds, there have to be a grain of truth in them to be constructed. So, if she could try an understand how mind was affected by stimuli, she may get a hint closer to uncovering what truths those fables held. For what she felt on that fateful night was nothing short of a fable.

 

She enrolled into Majors in Forensic Psychology and that's where she had the chance to meet another myth. The 'Slayer of San Diego', Viktor Gruhl also called the 'Real life Hannibal'.

 

Family/Friends:  Olympia Di Santi, mother. Like all Italian mothers, she is fire and Ice rolled in one. But she is also a hard drill captain. She allows Anna to be herself only if all her conditions are met. Currently, wants Anna to find a nice young boy to settle down with. Their relation is a bit weird, they are more like sisters with their occasional hotheaded quarrels than a mother daughter duo.

 

Martha Gonzalez, best friend and savior. She saved her from depression after her cousin's death and also the one who encouraged to pick up psychiatry. They are on good terms but Martha isn't happy that Anna went to meet Viktor alone.

 

Sophia Soprano, aunt. Her mum's elder sister and the one who likes to spoil Anna rotten. Ever since she was a child she remembers the Sundays they spent at her aunt's house with all the family. She is a master planner and great cook. It's a running joke in the family that her elder aunt got her grandma's cooking, her younger aunt her looks and her mother got her temper. 

 

Vincente Soprano, uncle. Doesn't like to talk much but is a gentle hearted man and Sophia and him make an ideal couple. He is restrained in his expression and doesn't like to drink much unlike most Italians. He is also a voracious reader and is always a good conversationalist if you can get him interested. Serves as a guest lecturer in various correctional facilities in Maryland. Primarily works out of Baltimore.

 

Melita Soprano, younger cousin. In final year of law school in Baltimore. Is a shy and good natured kid. Has become sort of a recluse after her brother's death.

 

Giuseppe Soprano, elder cousin. (Deceased) was a fun loving, eccentric guy, who was the life of the party and could get anyone to loosen up. Always the joker, not many expected him to be rather sharp and intelligent. After graduating from Yale, he was employed with a top consulting firm before the accident cut his life short.

 

Raphael Di Marco, uncle. Her younger aunt's husband and a tough Italian businessman. Owns a restaurant in downtown New York. Apart from a few interactions when she was small, Anna hardly recalls any decent conversation she may have had with him. But every Christmas, he makes sure to send a good wine packet. So all is fine, she supposes.

 

Rosa-Maria Di Marco, younger aunt. Of all the Di Santi sisters, she is perhaps the most gorgeous, she started modelling, breaking away from the traditional restrictions of  the family ans is quiet feisty that way. But she has a golden heart and loves her sisters a lot. She always plans to spend atleast a month with each of them when Anna was young, now she usually visits over in holidays.

 

Gabriella Di Marco, younger cousin. A bright kid with a very outgoing personality, has currently about finish MBA from Wharton and plans to help her father in expanding his business. They don't usually meet up that much but whenever they do, the night involves a lot of booze and music. She likes to party.

 

Madonna Di Santi, grandmother. They share a loving relationship with her Nonna being her cooking as well as grooming guide. She also takes after her for being a good reader. They live together in Nonna's house ever since her mother left her father. Madonna is also great at sewing and knitting. Plus, her advice has yet to fail Anna.

 

 

Flaws:  Irritable, Prescription Drugs and Smoking

Strengths:  Perseverance, Intelligence and Cooking

 

Goals:  To get to know the truths behind all the various fables and myths that are prevalent.

Regrets:  Not driving the car herself instead of Giuseppe.

 

Abnormal Quality:  Anna has felt a guardian angel of some sort watching over her. This was further strengthened when she survived the car crash unscathed that claimed her cousin. As she has delved deeper into reading about the mind and its response to situation, she has found that she can sense a weird miasma like smoke from some people. 

 

The first one she could remember is Dr. Viktor Gruhl, the man nicknamed the 'Real Hannibal Lecter'. It was when she had visited him in the asylum in Baltimore had she felt another human like appearance inside his cell. She can still recall the horrid and gut clenching visage of the demon that stood beside the Doctor but she felt as if it was sucking her brain dry. It was also the instant that she felt a warm kind of presence beside her which had seem to protect her. All the while, she remembers the cold, calm glare of the Doctor as he indulged in a conversation about the supernatural before asking her to leave and prepare herself. 

 

She still feels a cold chill whenever she remembers that instant. It's been five months but she can't still shake that terror off.

[Seikah]

Kaila Maria Canton

Spoiler

Slender physique, blue eyes, short brown hair. Not ugly, not beautiful. Would not stand out in a crowd.

Name: Kaila Maria Canton
Theme: Bleeding
Age: 22
Sex: Female

Biography:

Science has progressed. At a conservative estimate, two in three people carry a camera virtually every moment of their lives. Some believe this has disproved the supernatural, invalidated mysterious sightings worldwide. Others can’t afford to mistake invisibility for nonexistence.

Kaila belongs to those others.

She grew up with her parents and little sister, in a small town briefly famous for a creature sighting in the nearby woods, now more than six decades ago. Life was not perfect, but it was happy. She was an intelligent, sociable child, with bright future prospects, looking forward to a life of academics at university. In her seventeenth summer, she and her friends decided on a campout in the woods, part dare, part fun, all youthful folly. She does not remember much of the night, except the thing she met after losing track of her friends.

Taller than any human could be, looking down on her with hollow eyes gushing blood. In a pure reflex, Kaila raised the camera phone she used for illumination. The apparition instantly disappeared.

Her friends soon found her, screaming, clasping her phone to her chest and crying hysterically. Just an owl, her friends assured her. The red eyes – an airplane, or maybe a shooting star. Kaila was taken to the hospital. Later that night, when the last visitor had just left, she heard a distant scream, a constant wailing, endless, breathless, growing louder. The creature. Kaila could see it, slithering down the hospital corridor. She screamed. Red-eyed death approached with murderous intent. Then the nightshift nurse entered her room. Once again, the creature disappeared.

Kaila’s issues were beyond science. The doctors could not explain why the wailing only she could hear woke her from every sedative they tried. In the end, Kaila was admitted to a psychiatric institution, and spent the greater part of three years under constant surveillance, thinking, evaluating, learning the one rule.

If she is not observed, it comes.

Humans can get used to extreme conditions, and Kaila slowly relearned how to appear sane. She learned to carry three different camera phones on her at all times, wearing the chargers as a necklace, using duct-tape to record herself while asleep. She could never return to the life she had, but she functioned, because she had to.

Her ordeal and its financial drain left her family broken – her mother left for another man, her father ruined his health with alcohol, and savings could no longer pay for her little sister’s education. Kaila was left with no marketable skills, no completed education, an extensive psychiatric history, and a desperate need for money.

Cursed with the ability to hear when no one is looking, Kaila turned to crime.


Family/Friends:

• Lina Louise Canton: Kaila’s sister, trying her hardest to finish university early. Works part-time when she can, but is still financially dependent on her sister’s shady income.
• Samantha Everett: Current roommate and childhood friend, one of those who attended the fateful camping trip. Enrolled in the same university as Kaila’s sister. Strangely accustomed to being asked to occasionally peek in on Kaila while she showers. Open-minded about the supernatural, but privately convinced her roommate's issues are psychological.
• James Canton: Kaila’s father. Lost a daughter to insanity, then a wife to infidelity. His drinking escalated and finally cost him his job. He is not a violent drunk, and Kaila still loves him, but she cannot live with him anymore. She sometimes visits, but her father will ask for money to buy alcohol, a request she usually grants. She knows it’s wrong, but it alleviates some of her guilt.
• Alana Lehman (formerly Canton): her mother, never a very responsible woman, left her family to start another in a city far away.

Flaws: Kaila is paranoid, nervous, not shy but introverted, and terrified of being completely alone. Years of introspection, struggles with the system, and a troubled point of view, have left her with little respect for traditional values, including the law.

Strengths: Adaptable. Inventive. Protective. Responsible. She does not take pride in any of these things.

Goals: Kaila cannot imagine a future for herself. She has privately resolved to commit suicide once her little sister is no longer financially dependent on her. Sometimes, on sunny days, she feels she could continue her education, but then decides those are just remnant dreams from before the incident. She has long given up hope for rescue. What could possibly be done against a horror that phases out of existence the moment it might be proven real? And just as frightening, what if it truly is all inside her head?

Regrets: Ever having set foot in those cursed woods. She also feels responsible for her family falling apart.

Abnormal Quality: In a youthful adventure, she and her friends ventured into a forest known to be haunted, and now the thing that haunted the woods haunts her. As soon as Kaila is unobserved by human or electronic eyes, no matter where, no matter when, she hears a distant, high-pitched shriek, slowly approaching. She never lets it get too close. With every mishap, every close call she survives, the creature grows faster.

[Inumori]

Christopher Alan Lloyd Jr.

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Full Name: Christopher Alan Lloyd Jr.

Common Names: Chris, Cal, Junior.

Aliases: None.

Theme:

Age: 27

Sex: Male

 

Bio:

 

The Lloyd family was a relatively normal upper-middle class household from upstate New York. Chris had a rather uneventful childhood, but a good one at least. Nothing really hit the family until Chris was sixteen, at which point his mother Vera began to suffer from hallucinations and night terrors. Doctors and psychiatrists couldn't find anything wrong, and after two years of trying to figure out some way to deal with it and medication after medication, Vera cracked. She killed herself with a power drill to the temple.

 

Now, the two years leading up to this had put a rather severe emotional strain on the family as it were, but this topped it off quite horribly. Cal senior turned to drinking heavily, and both father and son became emotionally detached from each other and the people around them. The days they did speak, it was abusive and pointless. They were lucky then to have had family left who could tolerate them. Cal senior's older brother Francis and his wife Delia had always lived nearby, and their daughter Claire had always been like a big sister to Chris. The family decided to intervene before things got any worse. Chris needed to get away, so Claire told him to move in with her over in Stamford, CT while her parents looked after his father.

 

Things actually got better from there for a while. Claire pressured Chris into going to therapy and getting himself set right. He went to college locally, made friends, had a few flings even, and finally graduated with a bachelor's of science degree. Good grades too. Claire got herself a serious girlfriend when Chris was in his second year and she had moved in with them, so he got himself into an apartment of his own as soon as he could. Jill Carradine was a blessing in this endeavor really. She was more than just his cousin's girlfriend, she was a manager at an office that compiles data and organizes reports from affiliated research groups. It was a simple desk job on paper, but you needed a degree just to read half the things that got sent in to the office. A degree Chris had. It may have been against the rules in some way, but Jill got Chris an assistant's job there until he graduated, and then a proper job afterwards. And so Jill became his boss.

 

Things have been going rather well since then actually, at least until recently. A few months back Chris saw something that couldn't have been there, some kind of shadowy creature literally dancing around in the middle of the sidewalk. Nobody looked at it, nobody mentioned it, and not a single person touched it. The crowd simply parted around it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Moments later it leapt into the intersection and caused a massive accident before vanishing. While other people went about calling the cops and ambulances, Chris stood in shock. Suddenly everything that went wrong with his mother rushed back into his mind. Chris was seeing things, certainly. Had he started going mad as well? He couldn't be sure, but this most certainly couldn't be real. He got in touch with his old therapist to talk about the event and expressed his concerns to Claire and Jill. Claire did her best to reassure him that everything would be okay and Jill gave him some time off to get himself right again. There hasn't been anything anomalous since then, but his mind keeps wandering back to that creature.

 

Relationships:

 

Christopher Alan Lloyd Senior: Chris' father and namesake. They look very much alike. Before his wife's problems surfaced, he was a happy and simple accountant, a good husband and father. Vera's ailment took a serious toll on him emotionally and her suicide essentially broke the man. After his brother intervened, Cal senior got help and became a kind and caring person again, but he's not the same as he was. Senior and junior are on good terms again after all these years, but they still see each other only rarely.

 

Vera Khordova-Lloyd: Chris' mother. He has her eyes. She was always something of a cynic and tried teaching her son to be wary of people. Still, she was a loving wife and mother and by all accounts actually pretty normal. Until she wasn't. There were minor signs, in hindsight, that something was off before she had her mental breakdown. It didn't make it any less surprising to her friends and loved ones when she did, or any easier when she took her own life over it.

 

Francis Tyler Lloyd: Chris' uncle and his father's elder brother by six years. Uncle Frank is retired now, but he used to be a cop back in his day. A tough and forceful man with a will of iron, he passed these traits on to his daughter. Francis bought a house near the family home when he set out on his own where he still lives today. He's always looked out for his little brother and later his nephew, and that continues to this day.

 

Delia Ritter-Lloyd: Chris' aunt and Uncle Frank's wife. She's the very soul of a classical housewife, which is apparently odd if you knew her before she had Claire. Secretly Aunt Delia is absolutely brilliant and was both qualified for and dead-set on becoming a high-powered businesswoman. She invested money Uncle Frank earns and multiplied it on the regular whilst cooking, cleaning, and raising a daughter. She still works the markets even now. For whatever reason, she never mentions it. Chris only knows because he once tastelessly asked how the hell they could afford all they do on a cop's salary.

 

Claire Rebecca Lloyd: Chris' cousin and self-appointed guardian angel. She's almost exactly six years older than Chris, as the two share a birthday. Living so close, the two spent a lot of time together when they were young and so she became more of an older sister to him than a cousin. Always her father's daughter, Claire has been the perpetual tough-girl tomboy and seems to have inherited her father's protective nature as well. She is very much to Cal Junior what her father is to Cal Senior, and probably the reason Chris isn't in jail or dead somewhere. She is extremely level-headed.

 

Jill Carradine: Chris' boss and... there's not really a word for it. She's essentially family. Jill was (and still is) Claire's girlfriend from back when Chris was in college, and went about helping him get a job. She's actually got a lot in common with Chris as far as likes, dislikes, and taste are concerned and the two are quite close these days. This is despite not getting along at all at first.

 

Wesley Touvier: Chris' best friend and, now that he thinks about it, like the only male friend he still has. Well, that's even remotely nearby anyway. Most of his college friends didn't have the luck he did at getting a job locally so they went all over. Wesley, however, is still around and is Chris' drinking buddy , wing-man, and confidant all in one and vice versa.

 

Dr. Malcolm Reginald Stein: Chris' therapist of now several years. A wise old fellow who's less rooted in archaic theories and more about looking for the right solution for each case. He's also one of the few Psychiatrists out there who still provide therapy sessions.

 

Flaws: Self-deprecating, reserved, defaults to a facade.

 

Strengths: Intelligent, caring, perceptive, skillful.

Goals: Chris needs to understand what he saw that day, he tells himself, so that he can finally get over it and move on. He just can't get it out of his head, and whether it was a moment of crazy or something more, he just wants to know the truth.

 

Regrets: Alienating his father and old friends, depending on Claire and his aunt and uncle so much, being emotionally unavailable to his exes, not keeping in touch with people.

 

Abnormal Quality: Chris isn't losing it. He might be afraid he's crazy and have every reason to believe he's crazy, but no. He saw that damned shade. He watched it dance, he watched it weave through the urban populace, and he watched as cars slammed right into each other avoiding it. That thing was real.

 

Edited by Inumori, 05 April 2015 - 12:01 AM.

[Jod]

Spoiler

 

Name:  Anton Kasparov

Theme:  ??

Age:  20

Sex:  Male.

 

Biography:

 

Magic. It's in my blood. It's in my air. It's in my soul. I've been doing it since I was five, and have loved it from the moment I was born. It's not a simple infatuation , it's an obsession. I love the tricks. The  genius it takes to devise them, and the inhuman skill it takes to pull them off. I love the show, The Act and the flourish. The pindrop silence when swords are pushed into a box. The gasps when you disappear, and the appear. 

 

I love the applause, I love the awe. Of being the only one in the room that knows what is going on. The feeling of control. The thrum of adrenaline as I perform. It is all fantastic. I used to think that this was all there was to magic, yet I was content.

 

That is until that fateful day in Omsk.  We had just finished my fathers' magic show, and the entire troupe and I was enjoying the after party. The mood in the party was jovial, after all we had the accomplished the second week of full seatings in the old opera house. When my sister asked me to head out and get some more juice. I refused at first, I wanted to stay and have fun with the troupe. However like most arguments with my sister, I lost as is usual.

 

Soon enough I was trudging over asphalt with the moon to accompany me. I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine, and a tingling in my fingers. Jerking to a stop, a little startled by the strange sensations. I scanned my surroundings and then I saw him. I don't know his real name. He was a tall figure, and rather large at that. A figurative giant. He wore a black hooded robe, which was rather strange attire for this day and age. He had an enigmatic air around him, a mesmerizing quality.

 

It was almost as if I had no choice but to follow him, and follow him I did. I followed him into an alleyway.  It was then that he arrived at a dead end. At this point I was trully puzzled by what was going on in this strange situation.  But my thoughts were silenced as I heard a certain buzzing. It was the buzzing of live wires, it seemed to come from no place at all. Lines of fire burst around the brick wall that made up the dead end. 

 

Soon the the bricks began to move, akin to a game of tetris. Changing th shape of the wall. Soon in front of us stood a majestic arch. The red  brick had somehow in the process turned into marble. Through the arc, there was a set of stairs that went down. To where they went I know not. For the man then stepped into the arch, and the wall began to close in, reverting back to its original form as he stepped into the depths of that tunnel.

 

It was that day that I trully learned that, there was such a thing as Magic. Not the kind that you and I might enjoy, something far more bewildering and powerful. Something that is absolutely impossible through mundane methods.

 

It took me several days for me to digest the facts of what I saw that night. Days I spent rationalizing, convincing myself of delusion and hallucination. Eventually I had to accept, and with that acceptance rose curiosity. I had to know about this. The magic I did felt dry, a pale mirage of the real thing. I thirsted for the knowledge.

 

As to why I desired magic in the first place, the reasons are simple, they usually always are. There wasn't just one. It opened up realm of possibilities. The show business of magic was a competitive place, where all laid their pride on the line. I was no different, I wanted and still do want to be the best in business. I wanted acknowledgment from my father, I wanted to inherit his cloak.

 

Second the though of magics existence, brought out deeper wishes. Ones that I had though I had long dealt with or forgotten. Was it possible to meet my mother, to spend even a day once more with her, for all I have are the stories from my sister.

 

Finally, within me formed a new desire, slightly darker in color than the others. With this power in my hand, was it enough to be a stage magician. It seemed to be waste of potential...

 

This thirst would drive me away from my fathers troupe, and into several places. I searched for true magic high and low. In forgotten corners of Rossiya, for hints towards Rasputin's secret library.

 

I ventured through the siberian desert to meet the Tengri shamen of Mongolia. Yet they remembered little and had lost much through the ages. I continued my journey south into China, here I found conmen instead of wise occultists. I would venture further south, Into the forests of Vietnam, the temples of India and so on, showever I still failed to find a trace of that true magic.

 

By then I decided that my search was going no where perhaps it was time to go back to the troupe  and decide on a new approach on the search for magic. I also had put some water on the growing pressure from father to help out with the business...

 

Family/Friends:  

Zakary Kasparov[Father]: Zakary Kasparov is possibly the greatest  living magician in russia and possibly the world. Anton and Zakary share a kinship drawn from their passion towards magic. Anton ofcourse still holds on to a bit of childish naivete , and believes him to be the greatest thing this side of the planet. However his recent abandonment of his post for "harebrained" search for "true" magic has put a little bit of distance between the two.

 

Vera Kasparov[Sister]: Vera Kasparov is Anton's older sister. She also shares the passion similar to her father and brother. However she prefers street magic to the more staple stage magic.  She has also inherited the keen understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the business aspect of the occupation. She and Anton are rather close, having spent most of their lives together. Usually having only each other to entertain since the family moved around often.

 

Sarah Kasparov[Mother | Deceased]: Sarah was the ice to Antons father's fire. She managed most of the administrative affairs of the troupe. Anton ofcourse does not rember her to well as she died early on in his childhood. 

 

The Troupe: The people of the troupe can be considered to be Anton's extended family, they are the people he has grown up with most of his life. They are the people who schooled him and played with him when he was born.  

 

Flaws:  Lust for power, lack of formal education, need for control, obsessive hunger for knowledge

Strengths: Very Driven, Stage Magician, Charismatic, Passionate

 

Goals:  He wants to learn true Magic, become the greatest magician in all senses of the world

Regrets:  Some times he wonders what it would be if he had a normal childhood, a chance for friends his age, to go to school. To enjoy all those little things that are part of it.

 

Abnormal Quality:  

One night he saw something impossible, something truly magical, which shattered his perception of the world. 

[Johnny Paradise]

Spoiler

 

Name:  Oscar Graham

Theme:  Mushaboom, Mushaboom

Age:  22

Sex:  Male

 

Biography:  Oscar is the son of a museum curator and a surgeon. Though they didn't pressure their children into anything specific, they expected them to pursue some lofty academic goal of some sort, as they were lifelong academics and tried to instill such values in their children. Oscar has an associates degree and works the night shift at Denny's. 

 

Academia just wasn't for him. Not only did he find it tiresome and uninteresting, but he also found it ridiculously difficult. A semester into a biology degree, he dropped out of school. His parents' first response was concern, but after seeing him so nonchalant about the whole affair, it quickly turned into thinly veiled disappointment.

 

Oscar stayed with his family after leaving school for only two weeks. They said they'd let him live there for free, but he seemed to think he needed to be alone to do some soul searching. This wasn't totally untrue, but his real reason for leaving was motivated by something else. Ever since he was a kid, he had spent a lot of time in his father's museum, and he went back there after returning from university. There was a new exhibit of various relics from across the world, and he felt a particular affinity for one of them: an urn sealed shut with frayed ropes.

 

It called out to him--quite literally. a voice resounded in his head, calling him closer. It told him to untie the rope, and in return he would receive a great reward. Oscar found these claims dubious, but he was also overwhelmingly curious about the whole situation; he untied the ropes. The lid burst forth from the urn and a chill fell over the room. A ghostly man emerged from the urn and flew about the museum as if stretching after a long sleep.

 

"Foolish boy," he whispered into Oscar's ears. "Your reward is your life--I won't be taking it, as thanks for letting me go." He smiled and Oscar did the opposite, overall very confused with the situation.

 

Taking the urn into the air with some power, the spirit flew off with his erstwhile prison. When Oscar asked his dad about the urn later, his father had no idea what he was talking about. He said his new exhibit didn't have any urns.

 

Oscar left after this event, questioning his own sanity a little bit. He quickly found a job and a shitty apartment and only thinks of the museum once in a while--it doesn't really bother him that much at this point.

 

Family/Friends:  Gerald and Sarah Graham -- Oscar's parents. They're always pushing him to return to school. He doesn't ask them for any financial help and they don't offer, but it's likely they'd help out if he really needed it.

 

Jane Graham -- Oscar's eldest sister, who is currently finishing her residency at a hospital in the city. Affectionate and open minded.

 

Tristan Graham -- Oscar's older brother, who is studying genetics in a masters program at a top university. Nice enough guy, but reclusive and quiet.

 

Laura Graham -- Oscar's little sister, who like Oscar has little interest in academics. She's attending a beautician's school, hoping to get licensed and open up her own salon. Way too chatty and a little bratty, but she has a certain magnetism about her.

 

Chuck Vargas -- Line cook at Denny's, and Oscar's main confidant.

 

Annie Nichols -- Oscar's landlord. The elder sister of one of his high school friends, she gives him probably too much leeway on his rent when it's late.

 

Flaws:  Frivolous, lacking direction, lacking forethought, lazy, flippant

Strengths:  Confident, decisive, friendly, positive

 

Goals:  Oscar has no specific goals when it comes to career or to who he wants to be in the future. What he wants is very simple: to be happy. What that entails for him is to have enough money to live easily, and to meet a pretty lady that only needs just as much as he does.

Regrets:  Unleashing evil into the world, disappointing his parents

 

Abnormal Quality: Oscar unleashed a malevolent spirit, locked up for thousands of years, unto the world. It's pretty lame.