Solium Speculorum Starting Obsessions

The Throne of Mirrors

Requirements: Any
You viewed it but once. Taken by your mentor to be introduced to the grand Hierarch of London himself, the Draco Cruentis XIV himself, seated upon his throne of red leather and carved teak with gold inlay. But it was not the powerful magus who rules London's Awakened - a monarch as surely as any in Buckingham Palace - that drew and held your attention.

No, it was the chair.

The Solium Draconis, the Dragon Throne of London. You scarce heard even a single word that they spoke, when your mentor and the elders of the Consilium exchanged introductions and pleasantries. You'd done something worthy of their attention, to be sure, but you recall none of it. You spent the whole of your time looking to the chair itself.

It engraved itself in your mind, so that even when you looked away, you saw it still, in all the colors of light, a kaleidoscope of thrones boring into your very psyche. You don't remember leaving, or being returned to your residence afterwards. For three days after, you were feverish, in and out of terrible dreams, of all kinds of horrors. When the fever finally broke, it did so with one thought in your mind:

You must have the chance to examine the Dragon Throne once more.

For You To Do:

• Decide what it is that merited a young mage such as yourself being welcomed and acknowledged by such an esteemed audience as that you got.
• It should be something relatively important or difficult for you, and something tied into your character's strengths or theme.

Traits:

• Take one dot in Consilium Draco Cruentis Status. This reflects not membership in the consilium, but an acknowledgement of their debt to you.
• Additionally, take the Nightmares Persistent Condition. When you sleep, you sometimes dream of it all over again, and wake sweating through your bedclothes, and unable to return to your rest.

Walking the Thames

Requirements: Any
It's not something you plan. It's not something you intend. Hells, it's even something you tell yourself, over and over, that you're going to never do again.

And yet, on some night, there you find yourself, walking the shores of the Thames, squelching through the mud and stepping over the gin-soaked, passed out poor (at least, you hope they're only passed out).

There is something uncanny and strange that calls to you. It doesn't always do this, mind - in fact, most of the time when you find yourself out on its shores, you're not following that call. You're looking for it. Because when you do hear it, that call overwhelms you with its beauty and power. You begin to understand a little about it already; you're sure it has something to do with why, since before Romans landed in Britain, folk have founded settlement after settlement along its shores.

History aside, you long to hear that call again.

For You To Do:

• Decide what state of mind or other situation leads you to being out walking the lengths of the Thames at night.

Traits:

• Take one dot in Contacts (River Folk). These are the people you've come to know, here and there, as you walk up and down the shore night after night. They call to you now when they see you, offer to share a sip of their rotgut and the warmth of their fires. From the way they talk, you think perhaps they hear the call sometimes too.
• Take the Fixated Condition. Its effects are not constant, however - it only comes into play when whatever it is that triggers your desire to hear the call again occurs. On nights when you do hear it, however, take the Inspired Condition.

Of Fogs and Miasmas

Requirements: Any
No one knows fogs quite like Londoners do. There are entire days where the city all but shuts down because of days worth of thick, roiling, yellowish-brownish fogs that roll in off the Thames, making it impossible to see anything outside of an arm's reach in front of one. It's not just a horror show for the eyes, either (though everyone ends up with red, itchy eyes for days after). It bounces and muffles sounds, leaves a grit on the skin, stinks of old smoke and gasses, and even leaves an acrid, hideous taste in the mouth.

But the fogs do more than that to you.

For whatever reason, your Mage Sight is terribly sensitive to the fogs. Your Peripheral Mage Sight is triggered perhaps an hour before they roll in off the river, and once they are there, it's awful. You can see nameless horrors stalking the deeps of the fogs, swimming silently past in blasphemous shapes like terrible sea creatures through dark waters. The fogs ripple with their movement to your Mage Sight. You know that you need to investigate them, but when you're the only one who can see them…

For You To Do:

• Decide how you react when the fogs roll in - what precautions do you take? How does your life change during the fog days?

Traits:

• Take one dot in the Trained Observer Merit. Your paranoia and fear of the mists has made you exceedingly wary and alert in general.
• When you are subject to thick fogs and mists, you immediately take the Shaken Condition.

The Bells of St. Giles

Requirements: Matter •
You've heard them toll, toll, tolling many times before.

Certainly not all the time. The church of St. Giles-without-Cripplegate is smack in the center of the Square Mile, the very center of London. And even if you do have cause to be out there all the time, the church is a small one, its bells modest, and they don't ring very often.

Oh, but when they do. It does something to the very air. Their leaden clanging isn't simply sound - it is presence. Something about them excite your peripheral Mage Sight, sending your Supernal senses all abuzzing. It's sickening, actually - as in, literally nauseating, as though someone were scratching fingernails down the chalk slate box that served as your coffin.

There is more to it. You know there is. But first, you have to study it. It's not every ringing that causes that reaction, and you've gotten the impression that not every mage senses it. But you must know, lest the bells haunt your dreams with their eternal toll, toll, tolling. For You To Do:

• Who was it who had died the first time you heard the tolling of bells of St. Giles in this way? You were at the funeral, and the tolling nearly killed you, though the others at the funeral chalked it up to terrible grief.

Traits:

• Take the London Churches specialty under History, and the Interdisciplinary Specialty Merit for that Specialty.
• Take the Chronic Sickness Condition, only the trigger for it is the tolling of the bells of St. Giles. Even when they don't trigger the strange sensory overload, you have come to become ill anytime you hear them.

The Sword of St. George

Requirements: Prime •
In truth, you do not remember finding the sword. You merely remember having it.

You woke, in your own bedclothes, but in the early morning mists of a summer day. It took you a little wandering, but you identified the park where you came to your senses at as being one near your home. But you were halfway home, drawing very concerned stares from early morning passersby, before you realized that you carried with you a medieval style broadsword, still dripping with fresh blood.

The sword itself is finely made, with a very keen edge. It depicts on one side what you assume to be an image of St. George, a knight slaying a dragon that is half-wrapped around him, flames all around them. On the other side of the blade is writing of some kind, but it's not in any alphabet you recognize.

Worse still is that sometimes you lapse into these losses of memory. When you awaken from them, you always bear the sword in hand once more - even if you've gotten rid of it or put it elsewhere for safe keeping. And most disturbing still, it is always covered in blood when you return to your senses.

For You To Do:

• Choose someone in your character's normal life that has seen them with the bloodied sword In hand. What happened as a result of that?
• Additionally, name someone who the news has said was found dead of wounds from some large bladed object. What is notable about them? What makes you think that perhaps you are responsible for their death?

Traits:

• Take the Mana Sensitivity Merit and the Enhanced Item Mert (a broadsword, with a +1 damage).
• Additionally, take the Fugue Persistent Condition.