fellden app

[evocation]

PLAYER

NAME: Jenny
AGE: 28
PREFERRED CONTACT:
OTHER CHARACTERS: n/a

CHARACTER

NAME: Kyna Medina
AGE: 25
CANON & CANON POINT: Original
RESERVATION LINK: HERE. (If applicable)
HISTORY:
- This is one of those fun urban fantasy universes where magic has always existed, but has been hidden. Magic and monsters also wax and wane. For the past couple of centuries, magical power has been in an extended ebb, but in the last few decades it’s gained strength again.

- Lots of mythical creatures exist, but they’re mostly folklore style creepy things. Elves, pretty faerie royalty, orcs, etc. don’t exist, but things like ghosts, malevolent spirits and other supernatural entities and cryptids do. Most myths have at least a kernel of truth to them. For example, werewolves and vampires aren’t actually humans that have transformed into monsters, but humans that were possessed/cursed to become ravenous and violent, that sort of thing.

- The way people view magic and monsters differs from culture to culture, obviously, just like in our world. There are certain magical bloodlines, but sometimes a person’s ability to use magic is just a random fluke. A lot of these magical bloodlines are very powerful and very old, and the families tend to use their abilities to amass power. This isn’t true across the board, though.

- About 30 years ago, magic came out in the open due partially to the fact that a lot of strange shit was happening, more and more creepy monsters were showing up, etc. and technology meant it was impossible to hide these things when you’ve got someone showing proof of Bloody Mary on Tiktok or whatever.

- Obviously people freaked out at this, but the reaction varied from place to place and culture to culture. Some deeply religious and traditional groups viewed mages as abominations, while some viewed them as blessings.

- In the US, there was a lot of back and forth about whether to make them register or not, but because so many magical families had deep political and financial connections, those attempts all failed. In the US specifically, magic users are generally fast tracked into the military or medical careers, depending on skillset. A lot of those families have also doubled down to amass more power and lobby the shit out of the government for their own gain.

- This causes a lot of tension, and magic users are either treated as pariahs or celebrities, depending on who you’re dealing with.

- To deal with these varied new threats and issues, a lot of official government groups have formed. Most big cities have a special police unit purely for dealing with magic, but because it’s such a relatively new thing, a lot of places don’t or are overwhelmed. Private groups, sort of like magical PIs or security firms, fill in the gaps. Some cities and regions are also more inherently magical or dangerous than others. A lot of con artists have also edged in here, selling people charms or wards that are super duper fake, claiming to be able to exorcise spirits, that sort of thing.

- Kyna was born in a fictional town on Lake Michigan called Ash Grove to a non-magical mother, and her father was the black sheep of the magical Belrose family. The Belroses have a long history of mages being born to them, and while they're well off, they don't have a ton of power or clout like some of the other magical families. They are very, very obsessed with magic, though, and so Andrew's decision to marry a woman with no magical ability whatsoever was a scandal.

- Kyna's older brother, Nico, was born without any magical abilities either, but Kyna was a different story. She has the ability to manipulate electricity and was a quick learner and voraciously curious. She lived to make the Belroses proud, but Andrew was in and out, not entirely interested in his mundane wife or son and mostly obsessed with himself. When Kyna was seven, Andrew left, apparently to play some sort of mystical Indiana Jones and search for magical artifacts and monsters. Kyna was, of course, shattered by this, and she and her brother took their mother's last name when their parents divorced and their father relinquished parental rights. They haven't seen him since.

- Kyna and Nico were trapped in a push and pull between their two families. They were largely raised by their mother, a nurse, and their mother's family, and so are more ingrained in their mother's Mexican culture. The Belroses largely viewed Kyna and Nico as embarrassments, though Andrew's sister took on Kyna's magic lessons for a bit. When Kyna reached high school, she pulled away completely, and was self-taught from then on.

- Her brother went on to become a police officer in the city's magic unit, but Kyna, who always hated traditional school and balked at rules, floundered. She only graduated high school because she knew how disappointed her brother would be if she dropped out, and worked crappy service industry jobs until she met a powerful young mage named Thea when she was 21.

- Thea ran an unofficial group that patrolled the city's "underground", which mostly consists of disused sewers, subway tunnels, and storage areas that are connected in a haphazard, mazelike way and are notorious for being a haven for crime and very nasty magic. Kyna also met and grew close with Alana and Sam, two other employees of Thea's.

PERSONALITY:
Kyna is a very emotional person. She feels things deeply and tends to act on those emotions without considering the consequences or giving herself time to step back and calm down. She’s high energy, far preferring action over planning, and is the type to blast a door down rather than bother looking for the key. She absolutely hates being bored, and goes a little crazy without constant background noise in her apartment. When she’s restless or nervous, she fidgets or paces, and she prefers the noise and excitement of busy spaces over a night in.

She also has a hell of a temper, and is absolutely terrible at hiding her emotions or reactions. When she’s angry, she’s usually just a touch irrational, and when someone screws her over, she holds a grudge and can be super vindictive about it. She wouldn’t bother to save the life of someone who’s betrayed her, for example. Despite this tendency to feel emotions deeply, Kyna has an incredibly hard time expressing or talking about them. She’s terrified of making herself vulnerable and being rejected or abandoned, so she often refuses to talk about it when she’s upset, and she’s terrible at resolving conflict easily. When people do ask her about sensitive issues, she often deflects by changing the subject or making a joke. When they push, she gets defensive, angry, or shuts down altogether. This is largely due to the fact that her father and his family essentially abandoned/dismissed her. Her normal way of dealing with problems is to just... not deal with them, so she'll run from interpersonal conflict unless she's trapped and absolutely has to deal, at which point she tends to freak out and get overemotional and illogical. She'll say things she doesn't mean or make decisions she almost immediately regrets.

Kyna has a pretty significant fear of failure, and more specifically of failing the people around her. She's afraid of making herself vulnerable in the "wrong" way, or, to put it another way, opening up and being rejected or freaking someone out. It leads to a self-perpetuating cycle in which Kyna is afraid to open up, suspects that people will get sick of her because of it, and then keeps them at arm’s length so that they eventually get fed up. For a long time, her only confidant was Nico, who is relatively good at sussing out her feelings without Kyna having to explain them, and who benefits from the natural trust and comfort that comes with having grown up with Kyna. The two are incredibly close, because Kyna’s mother often worked long shifts at a hospital and so Nico took it upon himself to watch out for her.

She has slowly begun to open up to Alana and Sam, partially because the two have the perfect personalities for it and partially because their jobs force them to rely heavily on one another. Alana is open, genuine and patient, and Sam has a similar difficult family situation going on and isn't afraid to push her, and over time they've become her best friends. However, Kyna has a tendency to overlook the flaws of people she deeply cares for, like Nico's inflexibility or Sam's self-destructive coping mechanisms.

Because Kyna and Nico grew up in an odd situation—both closely tied to a strong magical family and yet distanced from it—and because they grew up with pretty tight finances, Kyna has a bit of a chip on her shoulder. She constantly feels the need to prove herself, and will never back down from a challenge. She's determined to prove that she doesn't need or want the Belroses' acceptance, and tends to have a soft spot for other people from difficult or desperate situations. Much of the magic she knows now was self-taught or cobbled together, and she's fiercely proud of that fact.

Kyna simultaneously looks up to her brother and feels that she can’t match up. He knows exactly what he wants to do with his life and she tends to go where the wind takes her. Nico is also not at all a fan of her job, which often requires her to do things of dubious legality. Kyna was drawn to Thea's group largely because it gave her a purpose. She's not the leader type, and Thea very much is. It also allows her to help people who fall outside the system for whatever reason, such as victims who are overlooked due to strained resources or people who just fall through the cracks because the official avenues have been closed to them. Plus, it's a constant way to challenge herself and learn more about magic.

In most social situations, Kyna is sarcastic, teasing and very outgoing. Her default way of showing affection is through touch, and she tends to initiate casual physical contact constantly. It's an easy way for her to reach out to others and show her feelings or support them without relying on words, which she is very very bad at. She’s not great at lying or charming people, either, and generally when on jobs any situation that requires finesse or charm goes to Sam or Alana instead. She's also incredibly stubborn, more out of a fear of being proven wrong or shown up rather than out of a certainty she's right. This ties into her fear of being vulnerable in general, and it makes her incredibly easy to rile up or provoke. Her magic is really the only thing that makes her feel powerful and the only thing that she has full confidence in, so she can be outright cocky in that department. She's also obsessed with learning as much about magic as she can, much like her father was.

ABILITIES/SKILLS:

Magic - Kyna's magic allows her to manipulate electricity, and also allows her to "connect" to/communicate with and sense other magical monsters and spirits. She's reliant on the magic around her, which basically means that she can sort of store magical energy like a battery but has a limit to how much she can use. It also means that if the place she's in is tainted or has some particularly bad vibes (like some really nasty magical sacrifices happened there or something tragic like a military battle with a lot of casualties), her magic can become unpredictable or not work at all. If she maxes out her energy, her magic will stop working, and if she keeps pressing beyond that, bad things start to happen, like loss of consciousness or seizures.

Her electrical manipulation is somewhat limited—she can zap someone like she's a taser or even create a sustained electrical arc, but she can't create a lightning storm like Storm from the X-Men. She's generally good at using her magic in creative ways, though, such as essentially making herself into an arc welder to seal a metal door or for more mundane applications like charging her phone.

In Kyna's world, human magic is very limited. Humans are generally only good at one thing (such as healing or creating illusions) and cannot alter the natural state of things. Abilities like healing or changing temperature simply hasten along natural processes, and controlling electricity or light manipulate things in the environment, but anything more in-depth or permanent like creating wards, transforming things, casting curses, etc. requires a human to make a deal or a bond with some sort of spirit or other magical entity. People generally also do more mundane learning (like studying anatomy and various maladies for healers) to boost their ability to manipulate their magic more effectively.

Only humans who have a natural magical affinity can communicate with magical creatures in this way. This requires something like spells, although those rituals are more a way to communicate with something that doesn't communicate like a human does than a rigid list of steps. For example, two humans might make a deal with the same spirit to protect them from possession and both be successful, but the rituals might look completely different due to cultural differences or simply the person who taught them. Kyna knows some of these spells, but tends to avoid them because making deals with things can be very dangerous and she's paranoid about it.

Warding - Courtesy of Thea, this is a tattoo on Kyna's forearm that prevents her from being possessed, cursed, or otherwise magically manipulated. Considering there are a lot of different kinds of magic she'll be running into in this setting, I'm going to say its effectiveness will be hit or miss. Also, if something or someone like cuts it off or whatever, it's rendered ineffective. Yikes.

Electromagnetism - Kyna won't be earning her PhD anytime soon, but she has studied electricity and magnetism in order to boost her usage of her magic. A lot of this knowledge is sort of hodge-podge depending on what she considers most useful. For example, she knows how rechargeable batteries and voltages work, which comes in very handy for charging phones, laptops, rechargeable flashlights, etc. Similarly, she's studied tasers and electrical weapons to understand what voltages are safe to use to disable someone. She also has an inherent electrical sense, meaning she can sense currents, how strong they are, and so on. She won't be designing any electrical grids or computer processors any time soon, though.

First aid/survival skills - Sam is a former army medic and healer, so he's taught Kyna basics like how to check a pulse, how to give someone stitches, how to set simple fractures or bandage properly, etc. Nico, her overprotective cop brother, has taught her how to break free from zip ties, how to fire a gun, how to pick handcuffs or normal locks, that sort of thing, but she's not Jason Bourne, and can still be overpowered or overwhelmed.

INVENTORY/COMPANIONS:

FACTION CHOICE: Court of Stars

REASON: Kyna is emotional sometimes to a fault, and often trusts her gut instinct or snap judgment rather than a more distant, logical view. She's a problem solver in the sense that when a problem arises, she wants to solve it in the most direct and simple way possible. Her emotions also often tend to override her rationality.

TATTOO: Cassiopeia, with each star as a little starburst and the connected lines dotted, in vibrant purple on her right wrist.

SAMPLES

NETWORK:

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NOTES, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS: