Malachite

Mal wrapping up a relaxing evening with a new friend. [Source]

Malachite's dedicated focus tool. [Source]

Path: Obrimos; Order: Apostate; Legacy: none; Cabal: Fivefold Vigil; Farseeker
Disciple 1º
Real Name: Lucas Winters; Current Alias: Malcolm Rain; Virtue: Hope; Vice: Wrath; Concept: Reformed Assassin

Background: At the age of seventeen, Malachite was spotted by a Seer of the Throne who saw in him the potential to Awaken. She moved to corrupt that potential by recruiting him into one of the Seers' Sleeper organizations—a guild of assassins called the Brotherhood of Scorpius. She used Malachite's pain and loneliness and anger to indoctrinate him with the Brotherhood's philosophy, which came down to two ideas: “We do what we do because we can.” and “Everybody deserves it.”

Malachite initially embraced the Brotherhood's ideology, but as he grew older and his adolescent rage abated, he began to question the role he'd been taught to play. He started to take real notice of the people he was assigned to kill, to wonder why they had been targeted. Too many of them, he could find no fault with, couldn't see why they might deserve to die. Uncertainty and confusion crept in, but he kept fulfilling contracts, because he didn't know how to change, or even if he could.

Malachite's last assignment for the Brotherhood was the catalyst that finally turned his life around. His target had heard about the contract on his life and hired a renowned bodyguard named Samantha Albrecht. When Malachite made his move on the target, Albrecht stopped him cold. She had him at her mercy, and in a moment of angry self-loathing, he goaded her to kill him: “Go ahead. I deserve it.” Albrecht looked at him and said with simple conviction, “No one deserves to die.”

It was like a light going off inside his head. The words circled around him, humming and vibrating, buzzing with hope and possibility. Malachite spent that night in the secure wing of a local hospital, apparently comatose, caught in the midst of his Awakening. He escaped from police custody soon after and set out to make the most of the second chance the universe had granted him.

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• Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 3; Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3; Presence 1, Manipulation 2, Composure 3
• Abilities: Computer 2, Investigation 1, Medicine 1; Athletics 1, Brawl 2 (Specialty Kung Fu), Drive 1, Firearms 2 (Specialty Pistols), Larceny 1, Stealth 2, Weaponry 2 (Specialty Blades); Empathy 1, Intimidation 1, Persuasion 2, Streetwise 1, Subterfuge 2
• Merits: Fighting Style:Kung Fu 1, High Speech 1, Quick Draw 1, Fighting Style:Combat Marksmanship 1, Artifact 3, Resources 4, Contacts 1
• Advantages: Health 8, Willpower 5, Wisdom 5, Size 5, Speed 10, Defense 3, Initiative 5

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• Magic: Gnosis 1; Forces 3, Matter 2, Prime 2
  • Knife Fist: "Kinetic Blow", Forces ••, Strength + Brawl + Forces; Cast on fists or feet +1, perform kata for one turn before +1 or for one minute before +2
  • Iron Skin: "Unseen Shield", Forces ••, Stamina + Brawl + Forces; Wielder possesses the Kung-Fu Merit +1, perform kata for one turn before +1 or for one minute before +2
  • Controlled Surge: "Influence Electricity", Forces ••, Wits + Computer + Forces; Computerized device hooked up to flow of electricity to be controlled +2, using electricity to fry electronics +1
• Legacy: Name; 1st — X, 2nd — X, 3rd — X
• Nimbus: World becomes realer than real (full description below).

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• Possessions: Smartphone, bleeding edge laptop, high-end motorcycle, armored luxury SUV
  • Magical Items: The Halifax Torc (Persistent Transform Aura effect, Potency 10, hides both emotions and nature in aura; Mana Pool: 11)
  • Magical Tools: Iron pentacle (Path); hematite magnets (Forces); copper ring (Matter); pure crystal rod (Prime)
  • Weapons: FN Five-seveN, one combat knife in a wrist sheath and another in an ankle sheath
• Other Notes:
  • Flaws: Notoriety, No Fingerprints
• Favored Combat Spells: Cutting Scream, Telekinetic Strike, Turn Projectile

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• Experience Points

Earned: 27+7a Session 1 (6.11.10): 3 Brownies: 1 Session 2 (6.18.10): 3 Questionnaire: 1 Chronicle: 1 Cookies: 1 Mage School (Factors): 1a Encounter (Profane Urim): 1a Session 3 (6.25.10): 2 Questionnaire: 1 Chronicle: 1 Bulldog Brittle: 1 Session 4 (7.3.10): 4 Questionnaire: 1 Chronicle: 1 Combat Spell List: 1 Encounter (Ley Line): 1a Encounter (Forest's Body): 1a Session 5 (7.16.10): 3 Questionnaire: 1 Chronicle: 1 Mage School (Nimbus): 1a Spell-slinging Combat: 2a

Spent: 23+7a; Unspent: 4+0a Purchased Contacts 1 (2) Prime 2 (12) Gnosis 2 (9+7a)

Mandatory Questions

These questions must be answered as part of character creation.

1. Describe your character’s physical appearance.
   Malachite tops six feet and is built like Captain America. His looks are deceptively wholesome: late thirties, chestnut hair, gray eyes, and a nearly permanent smirk. He sports a number of arcane tattoos across his shoulders and down one arm, and he is always wearing a simple torc of some silvery-gold metal.
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.)
   Malachite's Nimbus causes everything around him to seem realer than real. Lines and contours become more defined; corners and angles become sharper. Light and sound seem like solid things, and the very air takes on weight and substance. The world evinces new depths, secrets and hidden truths that can be glimpsed, almost touched. To mortals, his Nimbus manifests as a heaviness, an expectant weight, like the air before a hard rain. Or a lightning strike.
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?
   As Malachite began to learn the ways of magic, he found that he had a particular affinity for metals and stones. His Path Tool is an iron disk stamped with a pentacle. He wears it on a leather strap around his wrist. For his Arcana tools, he uses hematite magnets (Forces), a copper puzzle ring (Matter), and pure crystal rod (Prime).
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.)
   Malachite's back teeth start to ache anytime his Unseen Senses are triggered.
5. Describe how your character most often interacts with her Virtue.
   Malachite now works as a bodyguard and "troubleshooter," taking on the most desperate and hopeless of clients, people who normally wouldn't have the resources to hire someone like him. He uses the skills that the Brotherhood taught him to rescue the innocent and give the less-than-innocent a second chance.
6. Describe how your character most often interacts with his Vice.
   Malachite tries to focus on the present and his own second chance, but when he meets someone whose anger, fear, or pain are being used to control or manipulate them, he can't help but identify. He tends to get very angry on their behalf, and it sometimes clouds his judgement.
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.
   All the mages of the Magnum Opus cabal taught Malachite at one time or another. As an Apostate and former Seer pawn, he simply wasn't trustworthy enough to be apprenticed to just one of them. They all wanted their opportunity to evaluate him, judge him, keep an eye on him. He was okay with that. He considered it more than fair and was simply grateful that they were willing to take him on at all.
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.
   Malachite's preferred Mage Sight is Supernal Vision. He perceives resonances both visually and tangibly, with various magics "feeling" hot, cold, wet, dry, oily, smooth, sharp, soft, etc.
9. Choose a song that you think might serve as your character's "theme song."
   "It's Probably Me" by Sting and Eric Clapton
10. Does your character have any family?
    Malachite's mother, father, and brother are all still living, as far as he knows. He hasn't seen or heard from any of them since he was twelve years old.
11. Your character has, at some point in his life, had something to do with the Hotel Regina. It has been out of business since the 1940s, so you won’t have visited it while it was in business. Your character doesn’t even have to had any kind of major interaction at the location — you simply have to have a moment in your character’s history where the Hotel Regina played some role, even if it was just as a backdrop. Perhaps an uncle was a photographer that loved buildings from the Thirties, or your mother had a framed print of the building in the living room over the hearth. Tell me what the Hotel means to your character.
    The first time Malachite felt doubt about one of his assignments, he was in Astoria. The target—a man named Franklin Dent—had fled there, leaving a blatant trail for Malachite to follow in order to lead the assassin away from his family. Malachite realized what Dent was doing, and it surprised him. Dent could have disappeared, could have put his own safety first, but he didn't. Malachite eventually caught up to Dent and killed him, but afterward, he couldn't stop thinking about the man. Dent's selflessness nagged at him. He roamed the streets of Astoria brooding over it, and only vaguely noticed that during his wanderings he kept coming back to the same street and the same grand, old hotel.

Other Questions

The following questions can be answered as part of further development for the character once play begins. No more than two questions may be answered in between game sessions, and for every two questions answered the PC gains +1 point of Development Experience.

Background

1. Where did your character grow up? Briefly describe his childhood and adolescence.
   Malachite was born to Bobby and Janie Winters, a pair of drug-addicted failed musicians. He grew up on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and his childhood was one of poverty and neglect. His parents could rarely see past their next high, so he and his brother Daniel spent a good deal of time in the custody of Child Protective Services. But Bobby and Janie were always able to regain custody of their sons, at least until Malachite was eleven years old.
   That year, dead broke and desperate to score, Malachite's parents made a deal with a local drug dealer and known pedophile calling himself Tigger. While they shot up in the next room, they allowed Tigger to creep into eight-year-old Daniel's bedroom. Malachite put an end to the deal—and to Tigger—when he cracked open the pedophile's skull with a tire iron. It was his first kill.
   Bobby and Janie went to jail, and Malachite and Daniel were placed into foster care. Child Services tried to keep the siblings together, but they were soon separated, and Malachite lost track of his brother entirely by the time he was twelve. Malachite was shunted from foster home to foster home, all the while racking up an impressive list of juvenile charges. When he was fifteen, he finally gave up on the foster care system and ran away. He spent the next two years on the streets, his criminal record growing ever more extensive and violent.
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.
   Malachite was left to fend for himself during much of his childhood, whether he was in his parents' custody or in foster care. That neglect taught him that people only look out for themselves, and that he should do the same if he wanted to survive.
3. When the character was a child, what did he/she want to be when grown up?
   Malachite had little time to daydream about the future, but when he did, he always imagined himself in a position of wealth and power—renowned cat burglar, international super spy, gangland boss.
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?
   When Malachite met Keeper, he fell instantly in lust with her, which is almost the same as love to a 17-year-old boy. She seemed worldly and mysterious, an older woman with dark hair and exotic eyes. Keeper knew the effect she had on Malachite and used it to further entangle him. She flirted and teased, enticing him with the hope that he might one day be good enough for her, but careful never to make good on any of her implied promises.
   Malachite's puppy love for Keeper waned as he became more focused on his training and his place in the Brotherhood. Keeper encouraged this, too, once she knew she had him. Over time, Malachite's feelings for her grew into respect and a deep affection. He was grateful to her. He thought she had saved him.
   Malachite knows now that his relationship with Keeper was a lie. It's like acid in his gut every time he thinks of how she used and manipulated him, and how thoroughly he fell for it. And to make things worse, he also suspects that the woman he knew as Keeper wasn't actually Keeper, but an innocent victim under the influence of a Profane Urim.
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?
6. What is your character’s most precious pre-Awakening memory?
   Malachite has a clear memory of the day his parents brought Daniel home from the hospital. Bobby sat him on the couch, and Janie put Daniel in his arms, showing him how to support his newborn brother's head. It's the only time Malachite can remember feeling like they were a real family.
7. What is your character’s most traumatic or grief-inducing pre-Awakening memory?
   

Personality & Habits

1. Name five things your character likes to do that have absolutely nothing to do with being a mage.
2. Is the character sentimental about anything? If so, what? If not, why not?
3. What's your idea of getting "dressed up?"
   Malachite prefers casual wear, but when he does dress up, he goes full-on James Bond—expensive tailored tuxedo, diamond cufflinks, Italian leather shoes.
4. Does the character have any catch phrases, nervous tics, or personal habits that would identify him/her?
5. Does your character believe in true love? Elaborate.
6. Describe three public places that your character enjoys spending time at.
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?
8. What moves your characters to anger or violence?
9. What moves your character to tears?
   The movie Regarding Henry, though he would never, ever admit it. No matter how many times he sees it, it makes him cry every time.
10. What makes your character very happy?
11. What makes your character depressed or hopeless?
12. What sorts of situations make the character feel awkward or ill-at-ease?
13. What's the best way to persuade the character to do something?
14. Choose five adjectives to describe the character.
    Laid-back, amicable, confident, tough, penitent.
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?
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?
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?
18. What kind of music does your character like? Does he or she like different kinds of music in different circumstances?
19. What is the character's favorite food?
    Rare steak with all the fixings.
20. What's your character's favorite color? Any particular reason?
21. What is your character's routine when he or she is not tending to Awakened business/crises?
22. Assuming they could speak, what would each of your character's parents (separately) say about him/her?
23. Who are you important to? Why?
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.)
25. What aspect of him/herself is the character most uncomfortable with? What aspect of him/herself is the character most satisfied with?
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?

Awakening & Beyond

1. Describe your character’s Awakening.
2. How has the Awakening changed your character, other than the obvious kewl powerz?
3. Why did your character choose the Shadow Name he did?
   Malachite was drawn to metals and gemstones as magical tools, so he decided to use a gemstone as his Shadow Name, too. He chose malachite because it's associated with emotional and psychological healing.
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.

• Samantha Albrecht: After his life-altering encounter with her, Malachite looked her up on the Internet. He joined several online forums that she frequented and started up a friendship with her under the screen name Amethyst (the gemstone associated with forgiveness). He sometimes wonders if she's figured out who he is, but he's unwilling to risk their friendship by asking.
• Bruno Marks: Bruno runs a high-profile personal security firm called Orion Security. His clients are all famous and wealthy people who treat their their bodyguards like fashion accessories as much as employees. Bruno tried to hire Malachite, since Malachite has the kind of looks many of his clients go for. Malachite turned him down, but Bruno doesn't give up so easily. He's still trying to lure Malachite away from freelance work, but in the meantime, he sends a lot of business his way, people who aren't rich or famous enough for Orion Security.
• Jarod Charles: Jarod is the director of Absent Angels, a charity that specializes in reuniting people with their lost relatives. Malachite does volunteer work for them, mostly following paper trails or doing Internet searches. But Jarod is aware of Malachite's other skills, so sometimes he will casually mention how he needs certain sealed court records to resolve a case or how a kidnapped child has been transported across international borders and there's no legal way to get them back. And if those court records should mysteriously appear on Jarod's desk or that missing child should be dropped off at police station by an unidentified stranger, who is Jarod to question such good fortune? Jarod is also in the process of tracking down Malachite's brother Daniel. Malachite felt oddly hesitant about doing it himself, so when Jarod offered, Malachite jumped at the chance.

The Cell

The organization that Lucas used to work for was organized into a proper cell structure. That is, none of the members of the cell had any idea who else worked in the organization outside of their own three-man cell. They answered to a single authority, who was simply called Keeper (as in, "my brother's keeper"). You were all referred to as "Brothers" and then given a codename. Yours was "Brother Rain." The other two members of your cell were:

• Brother Thunder: A thickly built Caucasian man, Brother Thunder looked like a linebacker. An expert boxer and sniper, Brother Thunder took a great deal of pride in his work.
• Brother Wind: A sleekly muscled Asian man, Brother Wind was both a knife fighter of tremendous skill and a trained smuggler, with plenty of contacts in the smuggler's underworld. He was a master at getting people in and out of places unseen.