Bacon(Character Questionnaire)

The Basics

1. Describe your character’s physical appearance. 6' tall with a stocky and somewhat chubby build. Short, neat brown hair with a beard or goatee. Typically wearing a polo or button up shirt and pants or shorts depending on the time of year unless he's on duty, in which case he's wearing either his NYPD uniform or EOD suit. He generally wears his utility belt with his firearm wherever he goes, casual or no - unless he's doing an IT on-call job, in which case he leaves it off (no need to intimidate the customer). He always has his backpack with him and his hidden back-up gun in the hidden holster on his back.
2. Describe what it looks like when your character’s Nimbus manifests to those with Mage Sight. What does it look like when it bleeds over into mortal perceptions? (The Nimbus can be quite impressive to Mage Sight, but is always subtle to mortal perceptions.) Words
3. Describe your character’s preferred Magical Tool, either a Path Tool or an Order Tool. If your character uses any Arcana Tools, describe those as well. Is there a background or back story to this item? His path tool is a bone pendant with a pentacle carved into it that he wears about his neck. It had belonged to his sister from when she was going through a goth/witchcraft phase in college. He took a fancy to it and she gave it to him. He carries a variety of arcana tools; for matter he wears an Uncle Scrooge belt buckle he crafted himself from pure palladium, for forces he wears a bracelet made from kite string with a key attached to it, for death he was inspired by the game Grim Fandango and crafted a collapsible scythe with a folding handle and retractable blade (it unfolds and snaps out quite dramatically, a very rewarding feeling) and for prime he used the amethyst in his class ring that he wears
4. When your character’s Unseen Senses trigger, what kind of sensation does your character experience? (This tends to be individual from mage to mage; some examples include a slight headache, a raising of the hairs on the back of the neck, goosebumps, a sudden change in temperature sensation, etc.) Words
5. Describe how your character most often interacts with her Virtue. He has a temper, he calls it his voices, it can be pretty bad, what he'd like to do to people when they piss him off. But instead of setting off explosives on their car while they're in it, he usually scales it down and sends them a nasty computer virus instead or perhaps just makes their car never start again. When he manages to talk the voices into submission, he just grinds his teeth and leaves them be. On the other end of the spectrum, he must temper his desire to buy everything he wants; he must remind himself, nobody wants to sit on a pile of ammunition crates, they much prefer couches for a variety of stupid reasons.
6. Describe how your character most often interacts with his Vice. As noted above, he has a nasty temper. It doesn't manifest as fists raised or yelling. He will generally seem outwardly calm. But he is a master of explosives, a gun-nut, a car enthusiast and designs computer viruses as a hobby. If you have really made his shit list, he can employ a variety of means to make your day, week, month or year really, really crappy.
7. Describe your character’s Mentor, from her perspective. This is the person (not necessarily of the same Path) who brought you into the Order, and taught you the Order’s magical Praxis. Words
8. Choose the Mage Sight your character uses most often. Describe to me how your character interprets the occult information granted by that spell; for instance, some mages perceive various Mage Sights as strains of music, strange smells, memory flashbacks from their own lives relevant to the information gained, physical sensations or other similar sensory input. Each form of Mage Sight usually has its own set of sensory symbols, often in line with aspects of the character’s personality, occult praxis or background. Words
9. Choose a song that you think might serve as your character's "theme song."
10. Does your character have any family? Mom (Doris), Dad (Stewart), sister (Alicia), useless brother-in-law (Bobby) and his adorable niece (Felicia) and nephew (Felix). His family have always been very close. He visits them in West Virginia as frequently as he can manage and talks to his Mom and sister every week via phone.

Background

1. Where did your character grow up? Briefly describe his childhood and adolescence. He grew up in West Virginia. He was raised by his parents with his holder sister in the house they still live in. He had a pretty typical adolescence. Normal family affection and drama, childhood neighborhood and school friends. Got into a few fights and was appropriately punished. Nothing really out of the ordinary.
2. What part(s) of the character's childhood most influenced the person he/she is today? Describe an important lesson your character learned as a child. Don't get into fights, you'll get in trouble. Hide snakes in their desk instead; it's more difficult to pin it on you.
3. When the character was a child, what did he/she want to be when grown up? Darkwing Duck. Failing that, he wanted to be a professional wrestler.
4. What was your character's first, or most memorable, love affair? It can be anything from a pre-teen crush to a memorable love affair. Be sure to describe the object of your character's affection, along with the changes that your character went through in terms of feelings and thoughts about that person. Did it start out as maddening hatred? Instant love? Who fell for whom first? Was love a surprise? Assuming it has, how did it all end? How do all involved (your character, your lover, rivals, observers, etc.) feel about it now? Words
5. Assume your character is seeking companionship, and has the opportunity to write a detailed personal ad for an internet dating service (and was willing to do so, without fear of security risks or anything like that). Write the ad. Where would be the character's idea of a good place to take a date? "Words
6. What is your character’s most precious pre-Awakening memory? The last family vacation he took with his parents and sister before she married an idiot. They went to Florida. It rained the entire time. They were determined to enjoy the beach, so they went out and set up a canopy. It was a good day with no worries and only good loving times amongst them.
7. What is your character’s most traumatic or grief-inducing pre-Awakening memory? Words

Personality & Habits

1. Name five things your character likes to do that have absolutely nothing to do with being a mage. He loves to read and collect Disney comics, old and new. He is a classic car restoration enthusiast and has earned a good reputation for his work in that community. He enjoys modding computer cases and hosts a blog dedicated to that community. He is a gun-nut, enjoys spending time at the NYPD firing range, he especially loves handguns and writes reviews for a firearms website. He is a big fan of airsoft and pc-gaming. He collects unique rubber duckies and has several shelves full of them in his bathroom. He also loves Egyptian decor, resulting in his living room looking like someone set up a military arsenal inside an Egyptian tomb.
2. Is the character sentimental about anything? If so,what? If not, why not? He's sentimental about numerous things from his childhood, photos, odd little childhood artifacts as well as his NYPD issue firearm. And the EOD robot, who he named "Baby". But they wont let him take that home.
3. What's your idea of getting "dressed up?" Black suit, red tie.
4. Does the character have any catch phrases, nervous tics, or personal habits that would identify him/her? Words
5. Does your character believe in true love? Elaborate. He's seen it happen to others. He believes it can happen if the chemistry and timing is just right, though he thinks many mistake the early excitement mixed with lust for true love, which then fades and may leave something very different in its wake, but sometimes what remains is genuine love. He's never experienced anything like it; like, lust, mild but tolerable irritation but wants to see them naked anyway, but not true love.
6. Describe three public places that your character enjoys spending time at. Gun range, classic car shows, airsoft events.
7. Describe your personal bedroom space. What might someone poking about find, both in terms of actual things and in terms of what the space says about you? His actual bedroom is rather neat, unlike some of the other spaces in his home where stacks of weapons, comics, computers and parts or alchemical compounds may be scattered about. His room consists of his bed, a dresser filled with his neatly folded and arranged clothes and a night stand with an alarm clock on it. There is no art or other decoration in his room. Anyone could live there. Sometimes, on rare occasions, he may sleep in here, particularly if he has a guest. Otherwise he tends to fall asleep at his desk or on his couch where he was working on something, programming, gaming, reading or eating.
8. What moves your characters to anger or violence? Anger: not much. His anger is mostly invisible save to those who know him well, but he has a hair trigger temper. It takes him a great deal more to move to violence - he's more likely to resort to devious mischief than violence unless something really pushes him too far, in which case his brand of violence tends to have a blast radius involved.
9. What moves your character to tears? Anything bad happening to his family, sad movies, sad songs, sad commercials, happy movies, happy songs, happy commercials, really cute animals, really cute guns - he's a bit of a softy.
10. What makes your character very happy? Anything he likes or is passionate about; family, pets, his job, really awesome explosions, guns, Disney, pc gaming, new cars, old cars, working on cars, modding cases, admiring other people's cars or mods, airsoft, playing in his lab, etc.
11. What makes your character depressed or hopeless? Words
12. What sorts of situations make the character feel awkward or ill-at-ease? Words
13. What's the best way to persuade the character to do something? Bribery with things he likes works very well.
14. Choose five adjectives to describe the character. Words
15. Give me some reasons why someone might reasonably dislike your character on first impression. Why might someone come to hate them in the long term? Words
16. How would your character react if he or she was publicly humiliated by a total stranger? What if it was a private humiliation? What if it was a friend and not a stranger? Words
17. If your character could have one object for himself or herself (and not to turn around and sell), regardless of price, what would it be? His "Baby" (the NYPD bomb squad robot).
18. What kind of music does your character like? Does he or she like different kinds of music in different circumstances? Words
19. What is the character's favorite food? Burritos
20. What's your character's favorite color? Any particular reason? Blue. Because blue looks good on everything; people, cars, the sky, water, etc.
21. What is your character's routine when he or she is not tending to Awakened business/crises? Get up, shower, call his secretary, tend to IT consultant job needs, tend to NYPD IT needs, always ready to respond to EOD calls, play games and do internet/computer stuff, mod cases, clean weapons, hit the range, work on cars...it varies really as he doesn't have a set schedule for any of his jobs or activities.
22. Assuming they could speak, what would each of your character's parents (separately) say about him/her? Words
23. Who are you important to? Why? Words
24. Assume your character is plagued with a recurring nightmare that awakens him or her in a cold sweat every time. Describe the dream. (This will not necessarily be the case, though many people do have frightening, recurring dreams.) Words
25. What aspect of him/herself is the character most uncomfortable with? What aspect of him/herself is the character most satisfied with? Words
26. Is the character an introvert or an extrovert? How does the character behave in group settings? How does the character behave around someone in whom he/she is interested romantically? Words

Awakening & Beyond

1. Describe your character’s Awakening. Words
2. How has the Awakening changed your character, other than the obvious kewl powerz? Not too overtly. He knows reality is a much deeper and dangerous place than he once believed it to be. He has thus far had little to do with mage society, he was trained and is a member of the Free Council, but he remains detached and aloof from it. As a result very few people know he exists. He uses his powers to better perform his job and hobbies; he can mod computer cases and work on cars like no other, he can perform his IT job with literally just a thought at times and he can identify and diffuse dangerous explosives, protecting people and even contain or lessen explosions when they do occur. His awakening has given him the power to enjoy life to a much greater scale than he had before, and spread it to others around him. It's also made him a little paranoid. Other mages are often a little crazy, and the concept of sympathetic magic freaks him out. He didn't want to change his name, but knowing that some mage in China hates him for no other reason than him not buying into their bull order, can spy on him or mind control him...that's just fucked up wrong on so many levels. It's that very concept that keeps him away from mage society as well - if fewer know who he is, then that's fewer who are likely to complicate his life.
3. Why did your character choose the Shadow Name s/he did? Roger Bacon was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar, who was one of the first Europeans to study gun powder. That alone made it feel appropriate, not to mention that he's a police officer and hey, he loves bacon.
4. Name and describe three non-supernatural individuals that your character interacts with on a regular basis (such as a neighbor, best friend, co-worker, and the like). If you have any Contacts or Allies, these can be part of those Merits. Words