Post by Ada Turing on Jun 16, 2010 22:23:41 GMT -5
Professor Michael Atticus Freeman
Age: He appears to be a still-fit 70ish. In fact, he dates back to the early Nubian empire, some 4,600 years ago.
Hair color: Short, white, and frizzy
Eye color: Brown
Height: 5'10"
Appearance: An old-looking African man, Michael is almost always seen in a gray suit, complete with vest and pocket-watch. His shirt and tie are dove and charcoal instead of the usual white and black, and his glasses (absolutely necessary for anything beyond basic getting around) are steel-framed and thin. He usually carries a pair of dice in a pocket. He has at least a passing similarity to Morgan Freeman.
Biography: Michael looks old because he is old. Really, really old. He was a magician who broke the system back in the Nubian empire (which would be an epic story if any records had survived the revisionist purge three generations later), and managed to end up immortal in the deal. He's ping-ponged his way through civilization ever since. Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, India, and so on. He's studied many forms of magic under many teachers along the way. More recently, he's run afoul of the slavery system a couple of times, the end of the last of which (in the American south) was when he adopted his current name.
Personality: Michael's personality has been shaped strongly by his immortality. He is patient and expects patience of everyone around him - while he appreciates that most people are hasty creatures, he has seen, over and over, that hastily dashing around and trying to do what seems like a good idea at any given moment tends to lead to unforseen complications. Michael prefers to consider and think carefully, until the right solution appears. More than a few people have been surprised by the speed and focus with which he acts once he sees a solution.
Classes taught (at least for his first semester):
Magic for non-mages: An overview of the various types of magic, what is and isn't reasonable for mages, and how to tell if the guy over there in creepy robes is actually dangerous.
Magical theory and practice: A grounded introduction to the practice of magic.
Skills: Oh boy, lots and lots of magic. He doesn't have much experience with the more obscure forms of shamanistic practice, but anything that appeared in ancient, near-east, or european history is fair game, including the more unusual practices of viking skalds, demonology of four mythic systems (Egyptian, Babylonian, Christian, and Moslem), and most forms of divination. Certain very modern technocentric magics are also (currently) beyond his understanding.
Traits:
Immortal (+20): He's lived a very, very long time.
Brilliant at magic (+6): It's what he does, and what he's done for a very, very long time.
Owns a bookshelf of holding (+6): When moving a massive book collection around, a bookshelf that can conveniently shrink down to the size and weight of a suitcase is all kinds of handy. When fully unfolded, it has enough shelf space to turn a small-ish room into a slightly overstuffed library. When it isn't, the book you're looking for (or a book that you're likely to find interesting, or remember contains something important) is conveniently right there. Currently, it's mostly full.
Owns a spellbook (+6): Included in his personal library are several tomes of spells, some of which he compiled himself. All the spellbooks are carefully spell-sealed to be incomprehensible, and many are written in ancient dialects of foreign languages. He mostly casts from memory, but the spellbooks make for a good reference.
Compiled, his collection of divination spells is impressive. Using just what he carries on himself or he can find, he can quickly get vague answers to simple questions about the present - "which way should I go", "Where is X", and so on. More complicated divinations require more equipment and time, but given that, he can detect secrets (Although that will often end in a contest of wills with the secret-holder), peer into the past, or predict the outcomes of courses of action.
Illusions are yet another field Michael has spent serious time working on. Contained in his spellbooks are everything from constructs that can act and even think like people to massive spells that will let him fake sunrises or other similarly impressive effects. He's a bit rusty on illusions, as there's not as much call for them, but he's still got all his notes.
Raw firepower is yet another thing that he doesn't use much, but he's still good. His high-firepower spellbooks are very, very carefully secured, encrypted, and the one exception to the bookshelf's convenience. That said, his spellbooks contain some heavy-duty firepower - after some reading, he can reduce good-sized buildings to rubble, light a crowd on fire, shrug off a hundred-pound bomb, and so on.
Above and beyond that, if he has time to prepare and enchant, his firepower increases dramatically. Given a week or so, he can blow up stadiums, light entire armies on fire (without hurting said army - a very useful trick), and so on. It all comes down to research, and he's done enough of it (and written down the results) that his library (if you know how to talk to it) is a weapons cache of significant size.
Beyond just firepower, he's a very good enchanter. Durable buildings, lucky aircraft, libraries that just straight-up won't burn, and so on. Those tend to take more time, especially if one wants the spell to last a reasonable time. He's got about a bookshelf full of reference materials to help with the research.
Multilingual (+6): Speaks old Egyptian, Akkadian, Coptic, Hindi, Arabic, French, German, Russian, English, Greek, and Latin fluently. He can also get by in Farsi, Urdu, Romani, Italian, and Spanish.
Magical (+10): Does this really need more explaination? His spellbooks are very useful references, but his magic comes from him, and not a book, wand, staff, or otherwise.
Fantastic healing (+10): While not quite as durable as Rasputin (who cheated), Michael is really hard to kill, mostly because he can bounce back from just about any injury. Some of this comes from his immortality, some from spells he's cast or charms he's made. Even without magic, he's able to survive what would be fatal injuries to a normal person.
(+64)
Detractors:
needs glasses (-2)
Vegetarian (health reasons) (-6): One of the conditions on his immortality. "Waste life not, that thine may not be wasted." Conveniently for Michael, there are good reasons for killing people, but killing an animal for a burger = not cool. He's gone without meat for long enough that it really messes with his system, too.
Minority (African) (-8)
Middle-Class (-8): Keeping an identity up and running keeps getting tougher, and showering mages with gold and jewels for magically solving their problems fell out of fashion with the ruling class during the Renniasance. Combine that with the whole slavery thing, and the reserves of money that Michael had squirreled away have long since evaporated. Though he lacks the abilities at predicting chaotic systems that some mages do, he manages to scrape a liveable income out of the stock market.
(-24)
Total: 40 pts.
Age: He appears to be a still-fit 70ish. In fact, he dates back to the early Nubian empire, some 4,600 years ago.
Hair color: Short, white, and frizzy
Eye color: Brown
Height: 5'10"
Appearance: An old-looking African man, Michael is almost always seen in a gray suit, complete with vest and pocket-watch. His shirt and tie are dove and charcoal instead of the usual white and black, and his glasses (absolutely necessary for anything beyond basic getting around) are steel-framed and thin. He usually carries a pair of dice in a pocket. He has at least a passing similarity to Morgan Freeman.
Biography: Michael looks old because he is old. Really, really old. He was a magician who broke the system back in the Nubian empire (which would be an epic story if any records had survived the revisionist purge three generations later), and managed to end up immortal in the deal. He's ping-ponged his way through civilization ever since. Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, India, and so on. He's studied many forms of magic under many teachers along the way. More recently, he's run afoul of the slavery system a couple of times, the end of the last of which (in the American south) was when he adopted his current name.
Personality: Michael's personality has been shaped strongly by his immortality. He is patient and expects patience of everyone around him - while he appreciates that most people are hasty creatures, he has seen, over and over, that hastily dashing around and trying to do what seems like a good idea at any given moment tends to lead to unforseen complications. Michael prefers to consider and think carefully, until the right solution appears. More than a few people have been surprised by the speed and focus with which he acts once he sees a solution.
Classes taught (at least for his first semester):
Magic for non-mages: An overview of the various types of magic, what is and isn't reasonable for mages, and how to tell if the guy over there in creepy robes is actually dangerous.
Magical theory and practice: A grounded introduction to the practice of magic.
Skills: Oh boy, lots and lots of magic. He doesn't have much experience with the more obscure forms of shamanistic practice, but anything that appeared in ancient, near-east, or european history is fair game, including the more unusual practices of viking skalds, demonology of four mythic systems (Egyptian, Babylonian, Christian, and Moslem), and most forms of divination. Certain very modern technocentric magics are also (currently) beyond his understanding.
Traits:
Immortal (+20): He's lived a very, very long time.
Brilliant at magic (+6): It's what he does, and what he's done for a very, very long time.
Owns a bookshelf of holding (+6): When moving a massive book collection around, a bookshelf that can conveniently shrink down to the size and weight of a suitcase is all kinds of handy. When fully unfolded, it has enough shelf space to turn a small-ish room into a slightly overstuffed library. When it isn't, the book you're looking for (or a book that you're likely to find interesting, or remember contains something important) is conveniently right there. Currently, it's mostly full.
Owns a spellbook (+6): Included in his personal library are several tomes of spells, some of which he compiled himself. All the spellbooks are carefully spell-sealed to be incomprehensible, and many are written in ancient dialects of foreign languages. He mostly casts from memory, but the spellbooks make for a good reference.
Compiled, his collection of divination spells is impressive. Using just what he carries on himself or he can find, he can quickly get vague answers to simple questions about the present - "which way should I go", "Where is X", and so on. More complicated divinations require more equipment and time, but given that, he can detect secrets (Although that will often end in a contest of wills with the secret-holder), peer into the past, or predict the outcomes of courses of action.
Illusions are yet another field Michael has spent serious time working on. Contained in his spellbooks are everything from constructs that can act and even think like people to massive spells that will let him fake sunrises or other similarly impressive effects. He's a bit rusty on illusions, as there's not as much call for them, but he's still got all his notes.
Raw firepower is yet another thing that he doesn't use much, but he's still good. His high-firepower spellbooks are very, very carefully secured, encrypted, and the one exception to the bookshelf's convenience. That said, his spellbooks contain some heavy-duty firepower - after some reading, he can reduce good-sized buildings to rubble, light a crowd on fire, shrug off a hundred-pound bomb, and so on.
Above and beyond that, if he has time to prepare and enchant, his firepower increases dramatically. Given a week or so, he can blow up stadiums, light entire armies on fire (without hurting said army - a very useful trick), and so on. It all comes down to research, and he's done enough of it (and written down the results) that his library (if you know how to talk to it) is a weapons cache of significant size.
Beyond just firepower, he's a very good enchanter. Durable buildings, lucky aircraft, libraries that just straight-up won't burn, and so on. Those tend to take more time, especially if one wants the spell to last a reasonable time. He's got about a bookshelf full of reference materials to help with the research.
Multilingual (+6): Speaks old Egyptian, Akkadian, Coptic, Hindi, Arabic, French, German, Russian, English, Greek, and Latin fluently. He can also get by in Farsi, Urdu, Romani, Italian, and Spanish.
Magical (+10): Does this really need more explaination? His spellbooks are very useful references, but his magic comes from him, and not a book, wand, staff, or otherwise.
Fantastic healing (+10): While not quite as durable as Rasputin (who cheated), Michael is really hard to kill, mostly because he can bounce back from just about any injury. Some of this comes from his immortality, some from spells he's cast or charms he's made. Even without magic, he's able to survive what would be fatal injuries to a normal person.
(+64)
Detractors:
needs glasses (-2)
Vegetarian (health reasons) (-6): One of the conditions on his immortality. "Waste life not, that thine may not be wasted." Conveniently for Michael, there are good reasons for killing people, but killing an animal for a burger = not cool. He's gone without meat for long enough that it really messes with his system, too.
Minority (African) (-8)
Middle-Class (-8): Keeping an identity up and running keeps getting tougher, and showering mages with gold and jewels for magically solving their problems fell out of fashion with the ruling class during the Renniasance. Combine that with the whole slavery thing, and the reserves of money that Michael had squirreled away have long since evaporated. Though he lacks the abilities at predicting chaotic systems that some mages do, he manages to scrape a liveable income out of the stock market.
(-24)
Total: 40 pts.
