- Oct 20, 2018
- 56
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Posting Status
- Weekly
Name: Madison Mortiere
Age: 32
Birthday: August 1st, 1986
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Category: Citizen
Class: Bookseller
Appearance Description: Madison is what could be described as the perfect six-out-of-ten. She stands at 5'8", has a relatively slender build, and is quite unremarkable. Shoulder-length black hair, bright blue eyes, with thin and angular facial features rounding out her look. Maddy tends to compensate for this by dressing her best. Her favorite outfits are white long-sleeve button-up shirts with a black tie, vest, and slacks combo--like some sort of evil casino dealer.
Personality Description: "Trust everyone, but cut the cards." It's probably the quote that best applies to one's dealings with Madison. Sure, she may be a manipulative, conniving, blunt, angry, compulsive, greedy, obsessive mess of a woman--but a lot of that is balanced out (or exacerbated, in some cases) by her honesty, laziness, patience, and a sort of dark, rogue-ish charm. Madison’s well aware that her business lives and dies on the whispers of others, so she operates as truthfully and professionally as she can, but knows well that the devil’s in the details and isn’t afraid to capitalize on them. Years of working the market and her contacts to acquire goods to either move or stash away in her personal collection made Madison more persuasive than others, be it from honeyed words, balled-up fist, or the sudden disappearance of a valuable item thanks to her deft (and sticky) fingers. In general, she tries as hard as she can to keep most of her relationships at a business level, trying her hardest to keep people at arm's length--despite a deep-rooted desire to mean something to someone. She finds herself constantly afraid that, if she were to let her guard down, they'd turn away once they saw what a sad, lonely, self-conscious lump she actually was. It happened before, and the worst feeling in the world is the truth that it'll happen again and again.
Active Abilities:
Necromancy: Using a combination of alchemy and innate magic, Madison is able to reach through the void between worlds and pull a spirit back to the world of the living and stuff it into a corpse (more often than not, it’s the correct one, too! But that’s really up to her discretion). Due to the odd and self-taught way she honed her craft, in order for the ritual to permanently bind the soul to its mobile flesh cage, she requires at least a couple minutes undisturbed and access to her alchemical reagents. Without them, she can hastily get a body up and running for about ten or fifteen minutes with only a few seconds’ worth of work by relying solely on her magical abilities.
As for the things she can reanimate, Madison can raise just about any regular real-world beast and lower-tiered mythical creatures without an issue. This also works on humans and humanoid beings as well, but the more unfamiliar and exotic their biology the less likely she is to be successful. In order for a necromantic spell to take hold, the body must be relatively fresh (within two weeks of death) and at least 60% intact. Once animated, the person or beast can act as they normally would be able to, but with the caveat that any damage the body has sustained will hinder them in whatever natural way it would have in life (for example, the undead would not be able to walk on a broken leg, speak with a missing jaw, see with its eyeballs dangling down by its lips, and so on). Regular flesh wounds will torment them depending on their severity, but there's little risk of dying again from them. The risen will need to eat and sleep in order for its body to maintain proper working function. But at this point, her untrained hand hasn't given the undead the ability to heal its wounds and regenerate its body.
Soul Binding ha ha get it book humor: They say that every author leaves a little bit of themselves behind in their work. Madison knows this to be literally true. By focusing her mind and holding any book in hand, she is able to summon a special kind of ghost from the pages within. This spectre of the author can’t do anything but answer questions and clarify things regarding the information in the book. Due to the nature of the summons, the mental cost is pretty low, but wears her out the longer the author’s spirit remains.
Quick Hex: Sure, affecting the body when it’s dead is neat and all, but why wait? Madison developed the ability to essentially sling around status ailments with a whispered word and a flick of her wrist. Whenever she’s feeling threatened or betrayed (or bored), she can inflict a variety of injuries and impairments on others. Concussions, loss of focus, speech impairments, exhaustion, blurred vision, severe nausea, crippled limbs, and more--while she can’t outright kill someone (it’s bad for business), she can make their lives miserable for the next ten minutes or so. Depending on the severity of the spell, she can only put up to two hexes on any given target. Every time she casts a hex, the spell eats away at her own body and soul. If she casts it too many times in a given period, the damage could be irreparable. So, she’ll limit herself to ten hexes a day to be on the safe side.
Passive Abilities:
Broken Soul: For anyone that can sense these sort of things, Madison’s own soul has been permanently stained and tattered from decades of honing her craft. Those sensitive to the souls of others get a general feeling of unease when in the same room as Maddy.
Brute Force Translation: Exactly what it says on the tin. Madison’s read enough arcane texts and seen enough diagrams of runes and rituals to be able to translate just about anything tossed in front of her, based on knowledge of similar verbal and magical dialects. The more difficult and obscure the language is, the longer it takes for her to decipher it, obviously.
Mental Defenses: Thanks to some of the curses and spirits infesting certain books that have passed through her hands, Madison developed the ability to protect herself from attacks against her mind, including her memory and sanity. Spells and effects that go after her mind are half as effective.
Weaknesses:
Soul Magic: Any spell or ability that would affect Madison’s soul is 25% more effective, thanks to the years of wear and tear on it from practicing her arts.
Common Magical Items: None.
Biography:
Age 3: Accidentally killed her first pet--a hamster named Potato. In her grief, she tried to shake it, believing that it was only sleeping. She noticed that her fingers tingled for a moment before Potato’s eyes fluttered open. The hamster tried to draw one more breath, and then promptly died again because Madison was squeezing it too hard.
Age 5: Began to notice that whenever she killed a bug or spider in her home, they would sporadically twitch from within the tissue balled up in her hand, no matter how squished they were.
Age 8: The next pet fatality. This time, the family cat, Grumble. Remembering Potato, Madison again tried to wake the animal--this time more carefully. Much to her joy and then suddenly her horror, Grumble’s soul returned from kitty hell for a grand total of three minutes and twenty-six seconds before escaping once more.
Age 9: Navigated the tricky waters of school cliques, secretly looking for people who might have odd talents and experiences like her.
Age 14: Accidentally summoned her first book spirit; the editor of her dad’s high school yearbook. Caught up on juicy gossip that was decades out-of-date.
Age 18: On her birthday, performed her first successful permanent necromantic ritual. Probably shouldn’t have, since it was Beefcake, the family bulldog. Who got ran over by a car the night before. Managed to drag blood and entrails across the living room and kitchen floors before being let out the back door to disappear into the woods.
Age 20: Got super into the MCR album “The Black Parade”. Consequentially alienated most of her friends.
Age 24: Madison landed her first job at a used bookstore. Began learning the trade from her boss, who eventually revealed that he could see the fraying edges of her soul. This was her first experience with someone who was magick-touched like her.
Age 27: Secured her copy of Nevinyrral’s untitled grimoire, which infinitely expanded her knowledge on necromancy and soul-binding.
Age 32: Moved to the Mantas Carlos Islands to open up a bookstore as a front for her Black Library, where she continues to collect and trade volumes that are probably better off sealed away by wards and curses rather than read by the greedy and ambitious. But they pay well, so there you have it.
Resources:
Age: 32
Birthday: August 1st, 1986
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Category: Citizen
Class: Bookseller
Appearance Description: Madison is what could be described as the perfect six-out-of-ten. She stands at 5'8", has a relatively slender build, and is quite unremarkable. Shoulder-length black hair, bright blue eyes, with thin and angular facial features rounding out her look. Maddy tends to compensate for this by dressing her best. Her favorite outfits are white long-sleeve button-up shirts with a black tie, vest, and slacks combo--like some sort of evil casino dealer.
Personality Description: "Trust everyone, but cut the cards." It's probably the quote that best applies to one's dealings with Madison. Sure, she may be a manipulative, conniving, blunt, angry, compulsive, greedy, obsessive mess of a woman--but a lot of that is balanced out (or exacerbated, in some cases) by her honesty, laziness, patience, and a sort of dark, rogue-ish charm. Madison’s well aware that her business lives and dies on the whispers of others, so she operates as truthfully and professionally as she can, but knows well that the devil’s in the details and isn’t afraid to capitalize on them. Years of working the market and her contacts to acquire goods to either move or stash away in her personal collection made Madison more persuasive than others, be it from honeyed words, balled-up fist, or the sudden disappearance of a valuable item thanks to her deft (and sticky) fingers. In general, she tries as hard as she can to keep most of her relationships at a business level, trying her hardest to keep people at arm's length--despite a deep-rooted desire to mean something to someone. She finds herself constantly afraid that, if she were to let her guard down, they'd turn away once they saw what a sad, lonely, self-conscious lump she actually was. It happened before, and the worst feeling in the world is the truth that it'll happen again and again.
Active Abilities:
Necromancy: Using a combination of alchemy and innate magic, Madison is able to reach through the void between worlds and pull a spirit back to the world of the living and stuff it into a corpse (more often than not, it’s the correct one, too! But that’s really up to her discretion). Due to the odd and self-taught way she honed her craft, in order for the ritual to permanently bind the soul to its mobile flesh cage, she requires at least a couple minutes undisturbed and access to her alchemical reagents. Without them, she can hastily get a body up and running for about ten or fifteen minutes with only a few seconds’ worth of work by relying solely on her magical abilities.
As for the things she can reanimate, Madison can raise just about any regular real-world beast and lower-tiered mythical creatures without an issue. This also works on humans and humanoid beings as well, but the more unfamiliar and exotic their biology the less likely she is to be successful. In order for a necromantic spell to take hold, the body must be relatively fresh (within two weeks of death) and at least 60% intact. Once animated, the person or beast can act as they normally would be able to, but with the caveat that any damage the body has sustained will hinder them in whatever natural way it would have in life (for example, the undead would not be able to walk on a broken leg, speak with a missing jaw, see with its eyeballs dangling down by its lips, and so on). Regular flesh wounds will torment them depending on their severity, but there's little risk of dying again from them. The risen will need to eat and sleep in order for its body to maintain proper working function. But at this point, her untrained hand hasn't given the undead the ability to heal its wounds and regenerate its body.
Soul Binding ha ha get it book humor: They say that every author leaves a little bit of themselves behind in their work. Madison knows this to be literally true. By focusing her mind and holding any book in hand, she is able to summon a special kind of ghost from the pages within. This spectre of the author can’t do anything but answer questions and clarify things regarding the information in the book. Due to the nature of the summons, the mental cost is pretty low, but wears her out the longer the author’s spirit remains.
Quick Hex: Sure, affecting the body when it’s dead is neat and all, but why wait? Madison developed the ability to essentially sling around status ailments with a whispered word and a flick of her wrist. Whenever she’s feeling threatened or betrayed (or bored), she can inflict a variety of injuries and impairments on others. Concussions, loss of focus, speech impairments, exhaustion, blurred vision, severe nausea, crippled limbs, and more--while she can’t outright kill someone (it’s bad for business), she can make their lives miserable for the next ten minutes or so. Depending on the severity of the spell, she can only put up to two hexes on any given target. Every time she casts a hex, the spell eats away at her own body and soul. If she casts it too many times in a given period, the damage could be irreparable. So, she’ll limit herself to ten hexes a day to be on the safe side.
Passive Abilities:
Broken Soul: For anyone that can sense these sort of things, Madison’s own soul has been permanently stained and tattered from decades of honing her craft. Those sensitive to the souls of others get a general feeling of unease when in the same room as Maddy.
Brute Force Translation: Exactly what it says on the tin. Madison’s read enough arcane texts and seen enough diagrams of runes and rituals to be able to translate just about anything tossed in front of her, based on knowledge of similar verbal and magical dialects. The more difficult and obscure the language is, the longer it takes for her to decipher it, obviously.
Mental Defenses: Thanks to some of the curses and spirits infesting certain books that have passed through her hands, Madison developed the ability to protect herself from attacks against her mind, including her memory and sanity. Spells and effects that go after her mind are half as effective.
Weaknesses:
Soul Magic: Any spell or ability that would affect Madison’s soul is 25% more effective, thanks to the years of wear and tear on it from practicing her arts.
Common Magical Items: None.
Biography:
Age 3: Accidentally killed her first pet--a hamster named Potato. In her grief, she tried to shake it, believing that it was only sleeping. She noticed that her fingers tingled for a moment before Potato’s eyes fluttered open. The hamster tried to draw one more breath, and then promptly died again because Madison was squeezing it too hard.
Age 5: Began to notice that whenever she killed a bug or spider in her home, they would sporadically twitch from within the tissue balled up in her hand, no matter how squished they were.
Age 8: The next pet fatality. This time, the family cat, Grumble. Remembering Potato, Madison again tried to wake the animal--this time more carefully. Much to her joy and then suddenly her horror, Grumble’s soul returned from kitty hell for a grand total of three minutes and twenty-six seconds before escaping once more.
Age 9: Navigated the tricky waters of school cliques, secretly looking for people who might have odd talents and experiences like her.
Age 14: Accidentally summoned her first book spirit; the editor of her dad’s high school yearbook. Caught up on juicy gossip that was decades out-of-date.
Age 18: On her birthday, performed her first successful permanent necromantic ritual. Probably shouldn’t have, since it was Beefcake, the family bulldog. Who got ran over by a car the night before. Managed to drag blood and entrails across the living room and kitchen floors before being let out the back door to disappear into the woods.
Age 20: Got super into the MCR album “The Black Parade”. Consequentially alienated most of her friends.
Age 24: Madison landed her first job at a used bookstore. Began learning the trade from her boss, who eventually revealed that he could see the fraying edges of her soul. This was her first experience with someone who was magick-touched like her.
Age 27: Secured her copy of Nevinyrral’s untitled grimoire, which infinitely expanded her knowledge on necromancy and soul-binding.
Age 32: Moved to the Mantas Carlos Islands to open up a bookstore as a front for her Black Library, where she continues to collect and trade volumes that are probably better off sealed away by wards and curses rather than read by the greedy and ambitious. But they pay well, so there you have it.
Resources:
- A quantity of money that could be best described as “enough”
- A decent car
- A storefront with an upstairs apartment and a hidden basement sealed by a ward that contains all of her extremely rare and illicit merchandise
- A wide variety of books that range from beginner’s tomes to the ravings of master wizards pushed to insanity by their dangerous research, from enchanted cookbooks to trashy pulp romance novellas, from atlases of the space between worlds to scrolls that could blank the mind of those reading them. If it’s been written down and put into print, she might have a copy of it (even if she really shouldn’t)
- A pair of glass vials containing the reagents she needs to perform necromancy. Without them, her ability to raise the dead isn’t as effective
- A deck of Bicycle Guardians playing cards
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