Name: Alice Corbie.
Age: 13.
Birthday: October 23, 2002
Gender: Female.
Category: Faculty.
Appearance Description: Alice is a small and slim girl even for her age, standing a little under five feet. Her skin is pale and her long hair is golden blond with bangs cut short. She has sharp and delicate features. She has eyes of a cool and bluish grey. Shiny black lines trail from her head down her spine and over her limbs, but these are usually covered for the most part. A few curls of black tracery can be seen at the edges of her face, but these barely peek out past her hair. She tends to wear simple red dresses and jackets in black, red, or pink, preferably of silk or velvet. Black suits with long skirts are also among her favorite outfits, again in silk or velvet.
Personality Description: Alice is quiet and curious. She doesn't say much mostly because her best friends, a plush tiger and the demon who shares he soul, do not need to talk. She is far from shy, and if she wants to know something she will just ask, or look, or take as she needs to find out. She doesn't really have most of the social barriers and expectations that the humans around her do. The result is that she seems either stiffly polite or casually unconcerned with conventional behavior and obsessed with trivialities that no one else cares about. This concerns her little because she usually cares much more about the opinions of her plush tiger and her demon than about how the mortals around her feel about their mortal lives and how she might be upsetting them. Though few find it easy to see past her unusual sense of social graces, Alice is also thoughtful, clever, and absurdly familiar with a wide variety of topics about which she is happy to pontificate at great length with the least excuse. She is even friendly to those she decides are worthy of her affection, but those people don’t always realize this because outward displays of affection feel strange to her.
Likes: Her plush tiger, Mr. Pudding. Tea and cakes. Secret knowledge and forbidden arts.
Dislikes:Dirt and filth. Mistreatment of books. Ignorant opinions and false wisdom.
Skills / Talents: Alice’s knowledge of magick and alchemy surpasses that of most occult scholars several times her age. She is quite good at sewing and embroidery in particular. Alice speaks English, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Elamite in that order of preference.
Powers:
Vessel of Voldegra:
Alice Corbie is the mortal vessel of the demon Voldegra, granting it a point of contact with mortal reality and her with the guidance and power of an eternal master.
Having the substance of Voldegra within them causes physical changes in its vessels. The needs of the flesh grow distant, and this makes its vessels strong. Their hearts beat slower, they breathe less often and they barely need to eat or drink. They don’t really become more physically capable, but their bodies have fewer limits and this allows them to push harder and endure longer without suffering lasting harm. The implantation of Voldegra's substance makes the weak strong and the strong nearly, but not quite, superhuman. It has its downsides, though. Pain is dulled, though at times this can be a blessing, and vessels are left forever sterile after their inscription. Voldegra can also deliberately warp the forms of its vessels. It can’t transform them into another being entirely, but is capable of briefly twisting aspects of their bodies to suit its needs. It can make them soft and malleable enough to squeeze through tight spaces or shape their limbs into bulging hulks with the strength to tear through walls and bodies effortlessly. This kind of alteration is painful and destructive to the vessel, and those who undergo it regularly tend not to live long. Spending a few minutes transformed by Voldegra is exhausting, and approaching an hour is likely to kill the vessel then and there as the body falls apart under the strain of incompatible realities. Because the process is so unnatural, Voldegra always takes direct control of vessels’ bodies when it changes them for some purpose, since the vessel could probably not control their new form even if they wanted to.
Voldegra can remove itself from a vessel, though it only does so if the vessel has failed it terribly in some way. It could perhaps be removed forcibly, but the vessel could easily die from the trauma of having Voldegra ripped out of their body and soul. When a vessel dies, their soul is taken into Voldegra and made a permanent part of its realm. This is considered a vessel’s final reward for their service, at last brought into the timeless world of their master and into perfect union with Voldegra itself.
Ritual Magick:
Alice is a practitioner of the sort of magic written down in books and studied in secret by gentleman scholars of the early modern age, most often called the occult. To occultists like Alice, "magick" is not something you are born with or grow into, it is simply a matter of study and will. Nor is this magick a force that can be called upon at whim. It must be invoked with ritual symbolism that calls down power from higher realms of existence into the mortal world.
Anyone has the potential for magick because it does not rely on personal power so much as the ability to direct the powers of the world itself, but not everyone can actually do so. The limiting factors are the strength of the practitioner's will and their knowledge of the forces they seek to command. Ritual magick relies upon the use of symbolism that the higher realms recognize and respond to. This includes everything from astrology to alchemy and the use of complex symbolic figures, the use of sympathetic connections between the target of the ritual and pieces or belongings of theirs, and many other elements that may be incorporated into the invocation of the desired forces in the desired way.
Properly performing ritual magick requires an immense body of knowledge as well as the will and wisdom to put that knowledge into practice. Alice is capable of this partly due to her personal aptitude, but mostly because her teacher is a demon with thousands of years of experience to call upon.
Alice’s ritual expertise is vast, and she is near certainly the most skilled magician of her generation so far. In practice, she can only apply a fraction of her skill to actual effect. In a few decades she might be terrifying, but at present she is merely capable. Alice has knowledge of a wide variety of ritual magick forms, but the principle disciplines in which she is practiced are divination, cursing, and summoning.
To perform a ritual Alice requires a piece of the subject or something strongly associated with them to establish a connection. For people the best focus is blood, flesh, bone, or hair from the subject’s own body. Functional but less effective are clothing and treasured possession they keep on their person, like a wedding ring or pocket watch. For locations or objects, the best focus is a part or piece of the subject. Soil from a place or a fragment of an object are ideal. For any subject, a photograph, painting, or other lifelike representation could be used but will have less reliable results if it works at all. If she is targeting herself or a close relative, Alice can serve as her own focus. Once the focus is chosen, Alice constructs a ritual diagram and sets up any other elements needed to invoke the proper forces, such as torches or incense. She then focuses all of her attention on the subject of the ritual as represented by the object of focus, and recites an incantation if required. Including all time required for preparation and performance of the ritual itself, most works of ritual magick take a few hours. Even the shortest take a few minutes at least. The longest step is usually preparation, so having ritual diagrams and symbolic elements set up prior to the ritual can help things move far more quickly.
A divination is a ritual intended to reveal information about the ritual’s subject. If the ritual works properly, the forces invoked may communicate this information in any way befitting of them. Alice usually faints at the culmination of the ritual and receives a vision, then wakes a few minutes later. A proper ritual focused on a suitable conduit can usually give a clear answer concerning the current location or circumstances of the subject, but the answer will be more vague and symbolic for questions about probable futures, events long past, or questions about metaphysical matters rather than simple facts.
A curse is a ritual intended to cause harm to the ritual’s subject. This may take the form of mysterious illness, an unfortunate injury, or just what seems like a few hours of bad luck. A magician of sufficient will and knowledge can kill with a curse, but Alice is not there yet. With a proper ritual focused on a suitable conduit she can usually cause serious bodily harm, such as a broken bone or constant aches that make it difficult to move for a day, but less powerful conduits or rushed rituals will diminish the effect. Alice can also deliberately lay a lighter curse than she is potentially capable of is she so desires.
Alice’s true specialty is summoning, the practice of calling up spiritual beings and binding them to service. The summoning is a ritual like any other, but typically uses the proper name or sigil of a spirit as the focus. The spirits of deead humans can be summoned using their bodies or bones. This is classical necromancy, and is not Alice's favored form of summoning. She is most experienced in the summoning of demons from realms beyond the mortal world. The summoning ritual includes bindings that protect the summoner from the demon once called, usually confining them to a summoning circle or a container inscribed with the summoning diagrams, but a strong enough demon can break free if the diagrams are not properly scribed or the magician's will weaker than the demon's. Proper bindings are necessary to give the summoner the best possible position to fight from, but ultimately the contest is against the summoner’s will more than the ritual. Alice is capable of summoning demons of more than trivial power, but mighty lords commanding legions of lesser demons are beyond her skill. She is well aware of this, and confines herself to summoning lone demons weak enough for her to command, or at least hold at bay long enough to ask questions of them.
Biography: Alice Corbie comes from an old and landed family of British occultists. They are the sort of occultists who know enough to go through the motions without actually accomplishing anything, and treat magic more as a philosophy than a path to power. Except social power, of course, which they maintain by inviting other members of old occultist families over for secret rituals and fancy dinner parties. When Alice was seven, her parents thought nothing of her imaginary friend "Voldergra" besides maybe that they should take more care not to leave their special books lying around. By the time she was eleven and black tattoos appeared all over her, her parents’ concern came too late to do anything. She is now thirteen and knows more serious magic than the entire rest of her family put together, not that this is saying much.
As soon as Voldegra became aware of the importance of Starlight Academy, it asked Alice if she wished to attend. They decided that her skills would be suitable for the school, and turned her family connections toward securing a position on the faculty. She teaches high school language classes in Latin, Arabic, and Sanskrit, is available for tutoring in English, Hebrew, and Elamite, and teaches a mixed high school and college course on introductory ritual magick. If she has enough capable students, she is willing to teach an advanced course in summoning on an invitation only basis.
Additional Information:
For a full description of the demon inhabiting Alice's body and soul, look here.
Age: 13.
Birthday: October 23, 2002
Gender: Female.
Category: Faculty.
Appearance Description: Alice is a small and slim girl even for her age, standing a little under five feet. Her skin is pale and her long hair is golden blond with bangs cut short. She has sharp and delicate features. She has eyes of a cool and bluish grey. Shiny black lines trail from her head down her spine and over her limbs, but these are usually covered for the most part. A few curls of black tracery can be seen at the edges of her face, but these barely peek out past her hair. She tends to wear simple red dresses and jackets in black, red, or pink, preferably of silk or velvet. Black suits with long skirts are also among her favorite outfits, again in silk or velvet.
Personality Description: Alice is quiet and curious. She doesn't say much mostly because her best friends, a plush tiger and the demon who shares he soul, do not need to talk. She is far from shy, and if she wants to know something she will just ask, or look, or take as she needs to find out. She doesn't really have most of the social barriers and expectations that the humans around her do. The result is that she seems either stiffly polite or casually unconcerned with conventional behavior and obsessed with trivialities that no one else cares about. This concerns her little because she usually cares much more about the opinions of her plush tiger and her demon than about how the mortals around her feel about their mortal lives and how she might be upsetting them. Though few find it easy to see past her unusual sense of social graces, Alice is also thoughtful, clever, and absurdly familiar with a wide variety of topics about which she is happy to pontificate at great length with the least excuse. She is even friendly to those she decides are worthy of her affection, but those people don’t always realize this because outward displays of affection feel strange to her.
Likes: Her plush tiger, Mr. Pudding. Tea and cakes. Secret knowledge and forbidden arts.
Dislikes:Dirt and filth. Mistreatment of books. Ignorant opinions and false wisdom.
Skills / Talents: Alice’s knowledge of magick and alchemy surpasses that of most occult scholars several times her age. She is quite good at sewing and embroidery in particular. Alice speaks English, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Elamite in that order of preference.
Powers:
Vessel of Voldegra:
Alice Corbie is the mortal vessel of the demon Voldegra, granting it a point of contact with mortal reality and her with the guidance and power of an eternal master.
Having the substance of Voldegra within them causes physical changes in its vessels. The needs of the flesh grow distant, and this makes its vessels strong. Their hearts beat slower, they breathe less often and they barely need to eat or drink. They don’t really become more physically capable, but their bodies have fewer limits and this allows them to push harder and endure longer without suffering lasting harm. The implantation of Voldegra's substance makes the weak strong and the strong nearly, but not quite, superhuman. It has its downsides, though. Pain is dulled, though at times this can be a blessing, and vessels are left forever sterile after their inscription. Voldegra can also deliberately warp the forms of its vessels. It can’t transform them into another being entirely, but is capable of briefly twisting aspects of their bodies to suit its needs. It can make them soft and malleable enough to squeeze through tight spaces or shape their limbs into bulging hulks with the strength to tear through walls and bodies effortlessly. This kind of alteration is painful and destructive to the vessel, and those who undergo it regularly tend not to live long. Spending a few minutes transformed by Voldegra is exhausting, and approaching an hour is likely to kill the vessel then and there as the body falls apart under the strain of incompatible realities. Because the process is so unnatural, Voldegra always takes direct control of vessels’ bodies when it changes them for some purpose, since the vessel could probably not control their new form even if they wanted to.
Voldegra can remove itself from a vessel, though it only does so if the vessel has failed it terribly in some way. It could perhaps be removed forcibly, but the vessel could easily die from the trauma of having Voldegra ripped out of their body and soul. When a vessel dies, their soul is taken into Voldegra and made a permanent part of its realm. This is considered a vessel’s final reward for their service, at last brought into the timeless world of their master and into perfect union with Voldegra itself.
Ritual Magick:
Alice is a practitioner of the sort of magic written down in books and studied in secret by gentleman scholars of the early modern age, most often called the occult. To occultists like Alice, "magick" is not something you are born with or grow into, it is simply a matter of study and will. Nor is this magick a force that can be called upon at whim. It must be invoked with ritual symbolism that calls down power from higher realms of existence into the mortal world.
Anyone has the potential for magick because it does not rely on personal power so much as the ability to direct the powers of the world itself, but not everyone can actually do so. The limiting factors are the strength of the practitioner's will and their knowledge of the forces they seek to command. Ritual magick relies upon the use of symbolism that the higher realms recognize and respond to. This includes everything from astrology to alchemy and the use of complex symbolic figures, the use of sympathetic connections between the target of the ritual and pieces or belongings of theirs, and many other elements that may be incorporated into the invocation of the desired forces in the desired way.
Properly performing ritual magick requires an immense body of knowledge as well as the will and wisdom to put that knowledge into practice. Alice is capable of this partly due to her personal aptitude, but mostly because her teacher is a demon with thousands of years of experience to call upon.
Alice’s ritual expertise is vast, and she is near certainly the most skilled magician of her generation so far. In practice, she can only apply a fraction of her skill to actual effect. In a few decades she might be terrifying, but at present she is merely capable. Alice has knowledge of a wide variety of ritual magick forms, but the principle disciplines in which she is practiced are divination, cursing, and summoning.
To perform a ritual Alice requires a piece of the subject or something strongly associated with them to establish a connection. For people the best focus is blood, flesh, bone, or hair from the subject’s own body. Functional but less effective are clothing and treasured possession they keep on their person, like a wedding ring or pocket watch. For locations or objects, the best focus is a part or piece of the subject. Soil from a place or a fragment of an object are ideal. For any subject, a photograph, painting, or other lifelike representation could be used but will have less reliable results if it works at all. If she is targeting herself or a close relative, Alice can serve as her own focus. Once the focus is chosen, Alice constructs a ritual diagram and sets up any other elements needed to invoke the proper forces, such as torches or incense. She then focuses all of her attention on the subject of the ritual as represented by the object of focus, and recites an incantation if required. Including all time required for preparation and performance of the ritual itself, most works of ritual magick take a few hours. Even the shortest take a few minutes at least. The longest step is usually preparation, so having ritual diagrams and symbolic elements set up prior to the ritual can help things move far more quickly.
A divination is a ritual intended to reveal information about the ritual’s subject. If the ritual works properly, the forces invoked may communicate this information in any way befitting of them. Alice usually faints at the culmination of the ritual and receives a vision, then wakes a few minutes later. A proper ritual focused on a suitable conduit can usually give a clear answer concerning the current location or circumstances of the subject, but the answer will be more vague and symbolic for questions about probable futures, events long past, or questions about metaphysical matters rather than simple facts.
A curse is a ritual intended to cause harm to the ritual’s subject. This may take the form of mysterious illness, an unfortunate injury, or just what seems like a few hours of bad luck. A magician of sufficient will and knowledge can kill with a curse, but Alice is not there yet. With a proper ritual focused on a suitable conduit she can usually cause serious bodily harm, such as a broken bone or constant aches that make it difficult to move for a day, but less powerful conduits or rushed rituals will diminish the effect. Alice can also deliberately lay a lighter curse than she is potentially capable of is she so desires.
Alice’s true specialty is summoning, the practice of calling up spiritual beings and binding them to service. The summoning is a ritual like any other, but typically uses the proper name or sigil of a spirit as the focus. The spirits of deead humans can be summoned using their bodies or bones. This is classical necromancy, and is not Alice's favored form of summoning. She is most experienced in the summoning of demons from realms beyond the mortal world. The summoning ritual includes bindings that protect the summoner from the demon once called, usually confining them to a summoning circle or a container inscribed with the summoning diagrams, but a strong enough demon can break free if the diagrams are not properly scribed or the magician's will weaker than the demon's. Proper bindings are necessary to give the summoner the best possible position to fight from, but ultimately the contest is against the summoner’s will more than the ritual. Alice is capable of summoning demons of more than trivial power, but mighty lords commanding legions of lesser demons are beyond her skill. She is well aware of this, and confines herself to summoning lone demons weak enough for her to command, or at least hold at bay long enough to ask questions of them.
Biography: Alice Corbie comes from an old and landed family of British occultists. They are the sort of occultists who know enough to go through the motions without actually accomplishing anything, and treat magic more as a philosophy than a path to power. Except social power, of course, which they maintain by inviting other members of old occultist families over for secret rituals and fancy dinner parties. When Alice was seven, her parents thought nothing of her imaginary friend "Voldergra" besides maybe that they should take more care not to leave their special books lying around. By the time she was eleven and black tattoos appeared all over her, her parents’ concern came too late to do anything. She is now thirteen and knows more serious magic than the entire rest of her family put together, not that this is saying much.
As soon as Voldegra became aware of the importance of Starlight Academy, it asked Alice if she wished to attend. They decided that her skills would be suitable for the school, and turned her family connections toward securing a position on the faculty. She teaches high school language classes in Latin, Arabic, and Sanskrit, is available for tutoring in English, Hebrew, and Elamite, and teaches a mixed high school and college course on introductory ritual magick. If she has enough capable students, she is willing to teach an advanced course in summoning on an invitation only basis.
Additional Information:
For a full description of the demon inhabiting Alice's body and soul, look here.
