<![CDATA[The First Age - Biographies & Backstory]]>

<![CDATA[The First Age - Biographies & Backstory]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/ Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:07:30 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Quinn Decimus]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1972.html Sun, 01 Mar 2026 02:24:54 +0000 Quinn]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1972.html
Age: 26

Origin: Rivington Folly, England; Moscow

Occupation: Aspiring Novelist

Psychological Description of Character: Quinn isn’t unhappy, but she often feels like she doesn’t belong and is lonely for reasons she doesn’t understand. An introverted extrovert, she likes to be around people, but is often quiet, speaking when she has something to add or is excited.

Physical Description: 5’5” tall with blonde hair and green eyes.

Supernatural Powers: Vidient - VIII: The Flame

Reborn God: Eurydice

A Special Child

Quinn was raised at Rivington Folly, a large and private estate hidden away in the lush green of rural England. He lived amongst other children of varying ages, a rotation of nannies, a staff of liveried servants, and the Mothers. The children were home-schooled and received an esoteric education in addition to the usual curriculum. Naturally this also included decorum and etiquette. Healthcare was handled in-house via the private med-suite on site, and medical and psychic testing was performed regularly. Though all the children were named, they were also assigned numbers. Quinn was number ten, so was given the surname Decimus.

Quinn began to speak later in life than most children, and originally the Mothers thought that she may be developmentally delayed, but this was not the case. Quinn was an abnormally quiet child. She even cried less than most. Examinations revealed her to be completely healthy and of sound mind. She simply just didn’t speak much unless she wanted to.

As an infant and a toddler, it was noticed that Quinn had a strange interest in candles. She would often point them out and (to the dismay of the nannies and Mothers) reach for them. She was five when she first realized she was different than the others in her family and they began to realize what her fascination with candles was about.

Quinn would see candles next to people and until one of her brothers, feeling down and dejected due to a failure, realized that only she saw these candles. She told the Mothers that his candle was out. At first they didn’t understand, but they would soon realize that Quinn was special. She told them that she saw candles around people, sometimes bright and sometimes dim. Usually they were just normal candles.

The unusual ability attracted the attention of Magnus Asquith, who Quinn met at age seven. Eventually she would know that Magnus was her father. Periodically, he would see her, and she noticed that she was one of the few. Her and her brother Lucien were among them.

Relationship with Lucien

Lucien she would learn also had special abilities. He could read the history of objects. Being one of the few Folly children that had special abilities, Quinn felt a stronger connection with her older brother. She began to confide in him, and he, along with the Mothers would help her begin to understand her ability.

Quinn trusted Lucien and so she shared with him something she hadn’t shared with others. She told him that she often felt like she didn’t fit in or belong. It was little things that made her feel this way. She was blonde and the rest of the children had dark, Asquith hair. Like him, she had a special power, but didn’t know how it fit in with anything. She confessed to Lucien that she often felt alone, despite no logical reason not to. Lucien was always supportive, offering comfort when needed.

At 18, Lucien would begin to travel. This increased her sense of loneliness, but Lucien kept in contact. Lucien was a bit old-fashioned, so she would often get letters from him. She treasured them.

Learning to Understand Her Ability

In order to understand the meaning of her candles, Quinn began to journal. When someone’s candle flared, she would simply ask the person what was happening. When the candle was gutted, she would gently ask what was wrong. Soon enough she noticed the pattern. When the candle was bright, that person was feeling hopeful. When it was gutted, they were feeling despair. But there was more. Quinn noticed that she could change the candle herself. She could make the candle brighter or dimmer. She discovered this by mistake, but practiced it seldomly. She didn’t want to hurt her family.

Academics

Quinn was very intelligent and being homeschooled let her work at her own pace. A lover of reading, it was odd to find her without a book, but unlike her brother Lucien, she preferred fiction. She excelled in her literature classes.

Journaling in order to learn her ability gave her a love for writing as well. It was natural for her to combine her love of reading and writing. Quinn began writing stories for fun, but it became a love for her and it eased the feelings of loneliness.

She graduated at 18 and learned the secrets of the Di Inferi although she never officially joined the order. After graduation, she would travel to Moscow to study Literature at the University. Four years later, she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Literature. She immediately moved into a Master’s program and began sending short stories and novel manuscripts to literary magazines and publishers. In 2045, Lucien relocated to Moscow, and Quinn enlisted his services as a beta reader. Mostly she received rejections. In 2046, the year she earned her Masters Degree, a literary magazine published one of her short stories. It wouldn’t be until January 2047 that a publisher would purchase her first manuscript for a novel to publish. After many rejections, her career was finally beginning.

Quinn's Literary Style

Primarily, Quinn writes literary speculative fiction. Secondary influences include gothic fiction, psychological drama, occult realism, and philosophical fantasy.

Her works blend:

Subtle paranormal elements (rather than loud fantasy)
Emotional interiority and loneliness
Found family and fractured lineage
Moral ambiguity around power
Atmospheric, candlelit gothic tones
Themes of belonging, legacy, and inherited purpose
Letters, journals, and layered narrative structures

Subtle paranormal elements (rather than loud fantasy)
Emotional interiority and loneliness
Found family and fractured lineage
Moral ambiguity around power
Atmospheric, candlelit gothic tones
Themes of belonging, legacy, and inherited purpose
Letters, journals, and layered narrative structures

She does not write loud, action-heavy fantasy. Instead, she writes haunting, reflective novels where the supernatural reveals emotional truth.

Published Works

Short Story: “Wick” - A woman discovers that when she blows out a candle, someone miles away forgets a memory. Published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine

Novel: Ashes Do Not Forget - Manuscript purchased by Eksmo-AST Publishing Group]]> <![CDATA[Flora Aksakova]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1967.html Sat, 21 Feb 2026 19:29:08 +0000 Flora]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1967.html Siblings: Lada (19) and Nikon (17),
Half brother: Rafael Janssen (26) -- unknown

Age: 21 (2047) -- Birthdate: Aug 8th

Description: 5'5"(1.651m) weighing approximately 140lbs(63.5kg) with natural blond hair

Reborn God: Ninkasi was the Mesopotamian goddess of beer and brewing

Channeler: Learner

Occupation: Student at Moscow University -- Fashion Journalism

Psychological: A social butterfly, center of attention and life of the party. She isn't a socialite but wants to be and will do anything in her power to get there. As long as you aren't taking her down she's warm and generous but get in the way of her fun and she goes the total opposite direction. She's self-centered and lazy unless it's about getting what she wants to have a good time/fun. Then she'll do anything. Her tastes are expensive -- well beyond what she can afford. She likes bright colors and her clothes always stand out in a crowd. She does not like to be ignored.

Before she was born her mother and father had some problems -- she'd only heard rumors of it, but Flora had heard them. Dad had gotten in trouble, accused of murder of a woman and he was acquitted. He didn't do it. But he did have an affair with the woman. Mom had forgiven him. It was all good. Their life was good.

But her dad didn't have a completely good life. People still remembered the trial. He kept jobs like he drank -- on and off. But he was faithful. And he was a good father -- he wasn't abusive at all. He did get angry. But he didn't hurt anyone -- Flora didn't believe he could kill that woman and people gave him a hard shake -- he had been not guilty but it didn't change perceptions.

Erast Aksakova ran his own construction business. Sometimes times were good -- others not so good. Bella was a waitress at a local coffee shop, Artskaf. Bella flit between jobs now that the kids were all grown -- she had no real talents.

When the carnival stopped in Moscow and grew roots it was a haunt she frequented often. She liked the bright colors and the fanciful shows. She found kinship in their antics, she liked to sneak into the private areas after hours that's where the real parties were. She met Lalitha there. They were fast friends giggling and being part of the carnival -- the party was a party of her soul. It fueled her.

Her family didn't have money but they got by. Flora watched the upper echelon with envy. And she wanted that.

She got a flare for stealing high-end scarves and jewelry when she was young. She got caught a few times, but with enough crying and manipulation she didn't get charged. Apologize and returning the items fixed those few times.

And she made sure her mom and dad didn't know about them. Though she suspected they knew. Sometimes her lies weren't believed -- but she even got good at those.

Flora frequented the places she shouldn't. Sneaking in when she couldn't legally get in, or finding someone other way inside. Her "license" had been wrong since she learned how to find someone to change it for her. She could get into just about any place but she was of age for everything now everywhere.

She shouldn't have been there when she found the coin. She had kept it secret for months before she pulled it out again and found the source. She'd found him one rainy night. He helped her. She worshiped him for it. He gave her the life she wanted. All she had to do was sell for him. And it wasn't hard. It was easy really. She just had to be herself.

Zeke was a good boss and she got to hang out at Zaranitsa’s Dream just inside the Nebesa’s Gate casino. The club was dreamy and that's where she sold, but she could make a sell just about anywhere in the casino, it all allowed her to mingle in circles she didn't belong -- her parents didn't know. She kept a secret stash of high end stolen clothes in a storage unit closer to the school.]]> <![CDATA[Karim al'Shaidis]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1963.html Mon, 09 Feb 2026 01:12:58 +0000 Karim al’Shaidis]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1963.html More details about bio are on the wiki

Karim Al’Shaidis was born in 2018, in Tehran, into a secular, cosmopolitan family for whom preparedness was a matter of routine rather than ideology. His father worked as a civil infrastructure engineer, specializing in seismic resilience and post-event structural assessment. His mother was a public health administrator, coordinating emergency medical logistics during regional crises. Dinner table conversations were rarely dramatic, but they were practical: load limits, evacuation timing, supply bottlenecks, what failed and why.

His early childhood unfolded during a decade in which earthquakes and aftershocks were no longer singular events but recurring disruptions. His parents taught him to keep his shoes by the door and his documents in order. Not out of fear, but practicality. Order was not a philosophy. It was how people slept through the night. Meanwhile, schools closed, reopened, and adapted. Buildings were rebuilt, then reinforced again. Karim learned early that safety was not assumed. It was maintained.

Quiet and observant by nature, Karim was socially at ease but disinclined toward attention. He listened more than he spoke, absorbed systems before questioning them, and showed a natural patience for slow, methodical work. When others reacted to instability with urgency or fear, Karim responded by narrowing his focus and doing what needed to be done next.

He completed formal education in civil and disaster systems engineering, but it was never the academic side that defined him. He gravitated quickly toward field deployment, working with international stabilization and humanitarian coordination groups operating in regions of prolonged unrest across sub-Saharan and coastal East Africa. His work placed him at the intersection of emergency response, infrastructure stabilization, and civilian coordination.

By his early twenties, Karim was already trusted with on-site authority during volatile operations. He understood how systems broke under stress, but more importantly, how people did. He learned that most disasters were survivable until poor decisions compounded them. That understanding, more than ambition or ideology, kept him in the field long after others rotated out.

It was during one of these deployments, already fully operational and experienced, that he first manifested the ability to channel.

Karim first sparked his ability to channel at age 22. The manifestation was powerful and disorienting, emerging during a protective act in the field that prevented large-scale loss of life. Untrained and wary of the power, he was careful with restraint. He developed a self-imposed block, requiring him to physically endure a sense of weight such as holding something heavy, pressing against an immovable surface, or carrying a heavy load. It was used sparingly, only when it served others, and never for personal gain.

For several years, Karim operated quietly, his anomalous actions folded into the chaos of disaster zones. Eventually, the scale and consistency of his interventions drew the attention of CCD intelligence. He was formally recruited through Michael Vellas, but it was the Ascendancy that secured his commitment, framing the Nine Rods of Dominion as guardians of global stability rather than instruments of domination.

Within the Nine Rods of Dominion, Karim quickly distinguished himself as one of the strongest channelers, surpassed only by Im Seung Jun and Michael Vellas. Yet it was not strength alone that elevated him. He absorbed responsibility when operations went wrong, mediated disputes without theatrics, and made difficult decisions without needing recognition. Michael relied on him to stabilize volatile situations. Others followed because he was fair, controlled, and unwavering under pressure. Despite the lack of formal hierarchy among the eight, Karim became their de facto leader.

Personality

Karim is lawful in the truest sense of the word. He believes conduct and morality exist to protect people, not to excuse harm. Collateral damage justified as “necessary” unsettles him deeply. When such harm occurs, he does not openly rebel or grandstand. He continues to function with precision and professionalism, but he remembers. Trust, once withdrawn, is not often restored.

His driving motivation is not power or legacy, but proof. Proof that the world is actually becoming safer. Proof that restraint, accountability, and protection matter. Proof that the structures he serves reduce harm rather than merely rationalize it.

Karim does not seek command. He does not posture. He stands where systems fail and holds them together long enough for others to survive.

Appearance

Karim stands at 6’1″, his build is lean and athletic in a way that suggests long hours of physical work rather than deliberate bodybuilding. He carries himself with an easy, grounded posture, shoulders relaxed but ready, as if balance and stability are habits he never quite sets aside. His features are sharp but calm: dark, expressive eyes set beneath strong brows, a straight nose, and a clean-shaven jaw that gives him an open, direct look. His hair is dark and worn short, usually slightly unruly, softening an otherwise serious presence. There is nothing flashy about his appearance, yet it draws attention all the same. He looks like someone accustomed to responsibility, fit from use rather than vanity, with a quiet intensity that reads as reliability long before it reads as power.]]> More details about bio are on the wiki

Karim Al’Shaidis was born in 2018, in Tehran, into a secular, cosmopolitan family for whom preparedness was a matter of routine rather than ideology. His father worked as a civil infrastructure engineer, specializing in seismic resilience and post-event structural assessment. His mother was a public health administrator, coordinating emergency medical logistics during regional crises. Dinner table conversations were rarely dramatic, but they were practical: load limits, evacuation timing, supply bottlenecks, what failed and why.

His early childhood unfolded during a decade in which earthquakes and aftershocks were no longer singular events but recurring disruptions. His parents taught him to keep his shoes by the door and his documents in order. Not out of fear, but practicality. Order was not a philosophy. It was how people slept through the night. Meanwhile, schools closed, reopened, and adapted. Buildings were rebuilt, then reinforced again. Karim learned early that safety was not assumed. It was maintained.

Quiet and observant by nature, Karim was socially at ease but disinclined toward attention. He listened more than he spoke, absorbed systems before questioning them, and showed a natural patience for slow, methodical work. When others reacted to instability with urgency or fear, Karim responded by narrowing his focus and doing what needed to be done next.

He completed formal education in civil and disaster systems engineering, but it was never the academic side that defined him. He gravitated quickly toward field deployment, working with international stabilization and humanitarian coordination groups operating in regions of prolonged unrest across sub-Saharan and coastal East Africa. His work placed him at the intersection of emergency response, infrastructure stabilization, and civilian coordination.

By his early twenties, Karim was already trusted with on-site authority during volatile operations. He understood how systems broke under stress, but more importantly, how people did. He learned that most disasters were survivable until poor decisions compounded them. That understanding, more than ambition or ideology, kept him in the field long after others rotated out.

It was during one of these deployments, already fully operational and experienced, that he first manifested the ability to channel.

Karim first sparked his ability to channel at age 22. The manifestation was powerful and disorienting, emerging during a protective act in the field that prevented large-scale loss of life. Untrained and wary of the power, he was careful with restraint. He developed a self-imposed block, requiring him to physically endure a sense of weight such as holding something heavy, pressing against an immovable surface, or carrying a heavy load. It was used sparingly, only when it served others, and never for personal gain.

For several years, Karim operated quietly, his anomalous actions folded into the chaos of disaster zones. Eventually, the scale and consistency of his interventions drew the attention of CCD intelligence. He was formally recruited through Michael Vellas, but it was the Ascendancy that secured his commitment, framing the Nine Rods of Dominion as guardians of global stability rather than instruments of domination.

Within the Nine Rods of Dominion, Karim quickly distinguished himself as one of the strongest channelers, surpassed only by Im Seung Jun and Michael Vellas. Yet it was not strength alone that elevated him. He absorbed responsibility when operations went wrong, mediated disputes without theatrics, and made difficult decisions without needing recognition. Michael relied on him to stabilize volatile situations. Others followed because he was fair, controlled, and unwavering under pressure. Despite the lack of formal hierarchy among the eight, Karim became their de facto leader.

Personality

Karim is lawful in the truest sense of the word. He believes conduct and morality exist to protect people, not to excuse harm. Collateral damage justified as “necessary” unsettles him deeply. When such harm occurs, he does not openly rebel or grandstand. He continues to function with precision and professionalism, but he remembers. Trust, once withdrawn, is not often restored.

His driving motivation is not power or legacy, but proof. Proof that the world is actually becoming safer. Proof that restraint, accountability, and protection matter. Proof that the structures he serves reduce harm rather than merely rationalize it.

Karim does not seek command. He does not posture. He stands where systems fail and holds them together long enough for others to survive.

Appearance

Karim stands at 6’1″, his build is lean and athletic in a way that suggests long hours of physical work rather than deliberate bodybuilding. He carries himself with an easy, grounded posture, shoulders relaxed but ready, as if balance and stability are habits he never quite sets aside. His features are sharp but calm: dark, expressive eyes set beneath strong brows, a straight nose, and a clean-shaven jaw that gives him an open, direct look. His hair is dark and worn short, usually slightly unruly, softening an otherwise serious presence. There is nothing flashy about his appearance, yet it draws attention all the same. He looks like someone accustomed to responsibility, fit from use rather than vanity, with a quiet intensity that reads as reliability long before it reads as power.]]> <![CDATA[Mitsuki Hayashi]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1960.html Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:54:02 +0000 Mitsuki Hayashi]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1960.html Mitsuki Hayashi (林光月)

Full bio on her wiki

Mitsuki Hayashi is Yuta Hayashi’s only acknowledged child. That alone makes her dangerous: irreplaceable, leveraged, potentially breakable. Yuta built his life on patience, opportunism, and a ruthless understanding that tradition only matters when it serves power. He did not raise Mitsuki to inherit; he raised her to endure.

Born in Japan in the early 2020s, Mitsuki spent her childhood moving between Tokyo and Kyoto, always adjacent to Edenokōji-gumi life but never inside it. Her homes were immaculate, curated by invisible hands, while her father’s presence was intermittent. She learned early the difference between respect and fear, which rooms were forbidden, and which conversations died upon her entrance. Questions went unanswered. Observation proved more reliable. Power does not explain itself – Mitsuki learned to watch.

Her body was trained before her mind was trusted. Etiquette and hosting were functional: read rooms, recognise insecurity, note behaviour. Nihon buyō and later Kagura taught discipline, precision, and the language of stillness. Every movement – a tilt, a sweep, a pause – conveyed intent. Mistakes were corrected relentlessly; praise was irrelevant. Dance trained her to assert or dissolve control, to survive under observation.

When the gumi probed Russia in the 2030s, Yuta sent her abroad. Education was the official reason; preparation, the true one. Displacement taught her to be foreign everywhere, to read cultural fault lines, and to survive without belonging. Japanese, English, and Russian became tools of inheritance, survival, and preparation. Observation remained her skill: her value grew not from secrets but from understanding how people behaved when no one important was watching.

Dance evolved alongside her. Away from Japan, nihon buyō became a tool of control; Kagura, internal grounding. She added contemporary, butoh, ballet, and physical theatre, mastering weight, balance, release, and presence. Her movement defied categorisation: precise but fluid, disciplined yet unpredictable. To observe Mitsuki was to confront both grace and intent; her dances became a language of influence.

As she matured, Yuta allowed the gumi to notice her — not as a negotiator, enforcer, or heir, but as a presence. She attended dinners, seasonal observances, and cultural events without explanation. Initially dismissed as ornamental, she became a silent measure of accuracy: careless remarks resurfaced inconveniently, tone shifted subtly in her presence, and those who underestimated her learned that nothing spoken near her vanished. Her influence was informal, deniable, and therefore untouchable.

Within the Edenokōji-gumi, Mitsuki’s position is ambiguous but potent. She holds no formal authority, yet her proximity to Yuta confers immediate weight. Senior members respect or resent her subtle influence; younger members mythologise her. She is underestimated at first – ornamental, inconsequential – and then unavoidably relevant. She is both inside and outside the gumi hierarchy: too close to ignore, too distant to confront, a living gauge of truth and consequence. Her presence alone shifts dynamics; her composure communicates more than rank ever could.

Her dance – later known as Tsuki no Mai – became central to her mythos. Rare, restrained, deliberate, it rearranged rooms without spectacle. Rumours spread: that when she danced, someone’s fate was already decided; that her movements marked the condemned; that violence or correction followed in her wake. Observers debated the meaning. Outcomes – collapsed deals, realigned alliances, tempered rivalries – followed patterns they could not trace. Some feared her, others revered her; all treated her presence differently. Mitsuki did not decide fate; she revealed it. Each performance was tuned to the room, oscillating between playful irreverence and cold precision. Arrogance softened; tension dissolved; hierarchy subtly shifted. Tsuki no Mai existed at the edge of control, a living negotiation rendered in movement.

She performs only when stakes justify it: to unsettle, recalibrate, or remind others that the Oyabun’s blood is present. Rarity preserves potency. Freedom, she learned, is not given; it is allowed if one remains useful without inconveniencing power. Her dances are both shield and instrument, her body her armour and language.

Yuta brought Mitsuki to Moscow in 2047, after the first Companion Clubs opened. In Tokyo, she might have been married off by now, preserved as a symbol. In Moscow, where tradition is optional and the rules are flexible, she has become something else entirely: a strategic asset. Her presence signals that Yuta believes in the project enough to put blood near it.

Appearance and Personality: Waist-length black hair, framed shorter around her face. Dark eyes. People notice her movement first: the quiet certainty with which she enters a room, the way she seems to settle into a space as if it were already hers. She does not rush. She does not hesitate. Her steps are measured, economical, almost ceremonial, the product of years of training.

Her stillness is unnerving – not passive, but watchful. When she turns her attention to someone, it feels intentional, as though they have been selected rather than noticed. When it withdraws, it leaves a noticeable absence.
Mitsuki rarely gestures unnecessarily. When she does, it carries weight: a slight inclination of her head, a pause before responding, the controlled movement of her hands. These are not habits but choices, each one calibrated to influence the rhythm of conversation or the emotional temperature of a room. Discipline never fully leaves her body. She sits and stands with intention, moves with awareness, and rarely forgets where she is or who might be watching.

Joy exists in her, though many miss it at first. It surfaces as dry humour, fleeting smiles, or moments of quiet amusement when certainty overreaches itself. There is a quiet refusal to treat power with solemn reverence. She avoids overt cruelty and dislikes unnecessary violence, but she does not mistake restraint for kindness. She will not raise her voice or threaten outright; instead, she lets others expose themselves. Trust is rare and earned through consistency not charm.

In private, she is more human than her reputation suggests: dryly humorous, reflective, occasionally playful. She is capable of warmth and unexpected gentleness, especially toward those who are uncomfortable, displaced, or out of place. She does not offer protection lightly. But when she does, it is absolute.

Dance is her personal joy, and her rehearsals alone are often improvised, irreverent, and unfettered: technical mastery the world is only allowed to glimpse, for she never reveals it in full. These private moments fuel the discipline she projects to the world. Public performance is never indulgence; it is only influence. Alone with her art is the only time she feels free.

Mitsuki does not seek dominance. She seeks continuity – to remain present, relevant, and difficult to remove. Dance taught her how to occupy space without command, how to influence outcomes without speech, and how to survive under constant observation. In Moscow, where attention is both currency and danger, that quiet mastery is her armour – and her power.]]> Mitsuki Hayashi (林光月)

Full bio on her wiki

Mitsuki Hayashi is Yuta Hayashi’s only acknowledged child. That alone makes her dangerous: irreplaceable, leveraged, potentially breakable. Yuta built his life on patience, opportunism, and a ruthless understanding that tradition only matters when it serves power. He did not raise Mitsuki to inherit; he raised her to endure.

Born in Japan in the early 2020s, Mitsuki spent her childhood moving between Tokyo and Kyoto, always adjacent to Edenokōji-gumi life but never inside it. Her homes were immaculate, curated by invisible hands, while her father’s presence was intermittent. She learned early the difference between respect and fear, which rooms were forbidden, and which conversations died upon her entrance. Questions went unanswered. Observation proved more reliable. Power does not explain itself – Mitsuki learned to watch.

Her body was trained before her mind was trusted. Etiquette and hosting were functional: read rooms, recognise insecurity, note behaviour. Nihon buyō and later Kagura taught discipline, precision, and the language of stillness. Every movement – a tilt, a sweep, a pause – conveyed intent. Mistakes were corrected relentlessly; praise was irrelevant. Dance trained her to assert or dissolve control, to survive under observation.

When the gumi probed Russia in the 2030s, Yuta sent her abroad. Education was the official reason; preparation, the true one. Displacement taught her to be foreign everywhere, to read cultural fault lines, and to survive without belonging. Japanese, English, and Russian became tools of inheritance, survival, and preparation. Observation remained her skill: her value grew not from secrets but from understanding how people behaved when no one important was watching.

Dance evolved alongside her. Away from Japan, nihon buyō became a tool of control; Kagura, internal grounding. She added contemporary, butoh, ballet, and physical theatre, mastering weight, balance, release, and presence. Her movement defied categorisation: precise but fluid, disciplined yet unpredictable. To observe Mitsuki was to confront both grace and intent; her dances became a language of influence.

As she matured, Yuta allowed the gumi to notice her — not as a negotiator, enforcer, or heir, but as a presence. She attended dinners, seasonal observances, and cultural events without explanation. Initially dismissed as ornamental, she became a silent measure of accuracy: careless remarks resurfaced inconveniently, tone shifted subtly in her presence, and those who underestimated her learned that nothing spoken near her vanished. Her influence was informal, deniable, and therefore untouchable.

Within the Edenokōji-gumi, Mitsuki’s position is ambiguous but potent. She holds no formal authority, yet her proximity to Yuta confers immediate weight. Senior members respect or resent her subtle influence; younger members mythologise her. She is underestimated at first – ornamental, inconsequential – and then unavoidably relevant. She is both inside and outside the gumi hierarchy: too close to ignore, too distant to confront, a living gauge of truth and consequence. Her presence alone shifts dynamics; her composure communicates more than rank ever could.

Her dance – later known as Tsuki no Mai – became central to her mythos. Rare, restrained, deliberate, it rearranged rooms without spectacle. Rumours spread: that when she danced, someone’s fate was already decided; that her movements marked the condemned; that violence or correction followed in her wake. Observers debated the meaning. Outcomes – collapsed deals, realigned alliances, tempered rivalries – followed patterns they could not trace. Some feared her, others revered her; all treated her presence differently. Mitsuki did not decide fate; she revealed it. Each performance was tuned to the room, oscillating between playful irreverence and cold precision. Arrogance softened; tension dissolved; hierarchy subtly shifted. Tsuki no Mai existed at the edge of control, a living negotiation rendered in movement.

She performs only when stakes justify it: to unsettle, recalibrate, or remind others that the Oyabun’s blood is present. Rarity preserves potency. Freedom, she learned, is not given; it is allowed if one remains useful without inconveniencing power. Her dances are both shield and instrument, her body her armour and language.

Yuta brought Mitsuki to Moscow in 2047, after the first Companion Clubs opened. In Tokyo, she might have been married off by now, preserved as a symbol. In Moscow, where tradition is optional and the rules are flexible, she has become something else entirely: a strategic asset. Her presence signals that Yuta believes in the project enough to put blood near it.

Roza has always inspired him in ways he cannot name. Even as a child she was brilliance in motion, fearless and unrestrained where Dominik was cautious and precise. She spoke through music and movement, while he spoke through structure and intent. Together, they became the Vas act, Echoes of the Grove — not a performance of spectacle, but of presence.

Onstage, Roza led with her violin, her melodies pulling the audience’s attention where she willed it. Dominik stood beside her, the magician in plain sight, his hands steady and deliberate as he shaped the illusion itself. Objects vanished at his touch. Lights bent and lingered. Motion flowed where motion should not have been possible. Everything moved as though guided by an unseen rhythm, too fluid to be fake.

The act felt alive.

Dominik could feel it most sharply in those moments — the strange, electric sense of standing at the edge of something vast. Roza’s presence, the way her music flowed with instinct and emotion, unlocked a freedom he rarely allowed himself offstage. His movements loosened. His instincts sharpened. The careful discipline drilled into him since childhood did not disappear, but it became a frame rather than a cage. In her company, he could let just the tiniest spark of himself slip through, enhancing the act and giving it a vitality that captivated audiences. It was not recklessness; it was trust, choreography bound not only to precision but to intuition, emotion, and the unspoken dialogue between him and Roza.

Here, within the circle of the stage, the wildness was permitted.

The illusion was flawless because it felt true. Children watched him with unblinking focus. Adults left unsettled, unable to name why the tricks felt less like deception and more like revelation. Dominik noticed these things, filed them away, and told himself it was nothing more than talent honed to its peak.

They told themselves it was craft.

Privately Dominik told himself that whatever stirred beneath his skin — whatever made the act feel closer to ritual than performance, closer to invocation than illusion — could be controlled. That as long as it remained bound to choreography, timing, and Roza’s guiding music, it would never slip beyond his grasp.

The stage was sacred because it had boundaries. And Dominik had always believed that boundaries were enough.

Lalitha was the exception to his careful equilibrium. If she was firelight, Dominik was the stone ring around it.

Her music was wild, untrained, incandescent. She sang as though the world itself were listening, improvised as though rules were optional. Being near her made Dominik feel exposed, unmoored, aware of everything he kept carefully contained. She was chaos, brilliance, and hunger for life all at once — and he loved her for it. Their relationship unfolded slowly, cautiously, watched by everyone and sanctioned by no one. For Dominik, loving Lalitha felt like stepping into sunlight without armour.

With her, he could let the smallest hint of himself escape: a shared glance, a hand brushing hers, a quiet smile in the middle of the carnival’s noise.

Each fleeting moment felt like stealing sunlight.

Dominik’s love for her was patient but fervent. He admired her spontaneity, her unfiltered creativity, the way she could coax music from the simplest gestures or the dimmest instruments. She reminded him, in ways he could not articulate, that life could be more than discipline, control, and service. That joy could be unmeasured. That wildness was not inherently dangerous if approached carefully.

By the time he was twenty-two, he could no longer imagine a future that did not include her. He proposed quietly, sincerely, believing that love and loyalty would be enough.

Renáta did not hesitate. In front of the carnival, she performed a reading for the union, as she often did for matters of marriage and legacy. The cards and symbols she laid out were interpreted for all to see. Whispers spread immediately: the fortune suggested the marriage would be barren — not only in children but in spirit. The audience murmured, uncertain whether this was warning, ritual, or spectacle. Lalitha’s fiery gaze met Dominik’s, questioning, but he said nothing.

Later, when the crowd had dispersed, Renáta spoke to him privately. Her voice was measured, deliberate, carrying the weight of authority and truth.

“It is not that she cannot bear children,” she said, anticipating his unspoken objection. “That lie is convenient, yes—but you cannot argue it. The reading must stand publicly. What matters is that she is not suited to share your life as a wife or a mother. She burns too brightly, too unpredictably. You need someone who can carry the burdens alongside you, not become another one. You are the eldest Vas. Your life is not only yours.”

Dominik understood immediately why he could not argue.

To challenge her would fracture the fragile balance of the carnival, strain already-tense rivalries, and place Lalitha in the center of conflict she never asked for. He loved her too much to do that to her. And so he accepted the refusal, not because it was easy, but because it was right.

If he could not offer her a future without harm, it was kinder to stay away.

From that moment on, he kept his distance. He did not linger where she played music. He did not seek her out. He did not explain himself, because explanations would only reopen wounds. Loving her became something quiet and private, something carried rather than acted upon. It was the first great sacrifice of his life, and it shaped everything that followed.

They had reached Moscow when the act, once purely craft, began to shift. At first, it was subtle: a light lingering too long, a shadow moving unexpectedly, an object disappearing and reappearing with a grace that defied mechanics. During one performance, as Roza’s violin swelled, the world seemed to bend. Curtains lifted in a gust he had not summoned, shadows danced independently, and the air hummed with a vibration that made his chest ache. He did not know what channeling was. He only knew that something immense and dangerous answered him when he reached for control.

A week later, the price of reaching beyond craft became painfully clear. Dominik grew violently Sick. Fever burned through him, shaking his body, searing his mind. He dreamt of impossible lights, of space folding around him, of roaring forests and rushing rivers, of standing alone on a stage vast enough to swallow the world.

When he recovered, he emerged changed. The illness had been brutal, but it had also been a crucible.

The realisation terrified him.

Power, to Dominik, had never been something to enjoy. It was something to restrain. Something that could destroy if mishandled. Instinctively, he bound it to rules: to choreography, to gesture, and to Roza’s music. He allowed himself to touch it only within the rigid structure of performance, believing that if it lived only onstage, it could not consume him elsewhere. Echoes of the Grove transformed from performance into a controlled space where he could explore the power safely. Each illusion, each gesture, each movement became a binding, a ritualised channel for the wild energy that surged through him.

The power was intoxicating and horrifying in equal measure. He feared losing control — not for himself, but for those around him. For Roza. For Lalitha. For the family and carnival that relied on his steadiness. Every use of his power felt like walking the edge of a blade. For Dominik the first lesson of power, desire, and duty was that the most dangerous magic was not the one he wielded — it was the part of himself that wanted to let it go.

When the Vas Carnival finally anchored itself in Moscow, Dominik withdrew further into responsibility. The wandering life of tents and open roads was over; now the family had a permanent home, and with it, a new weight of expectations. He oversaw the logistics of daily operations, negotiated permits with wary city officials, and acted as Renáta’s emissary to the outside world. His words, measured and deliberate, carried authority, and his presence alone often quelled disputes before they could escalate.

He still performed with Roza, but only when necessary — and always with caution. Every movement, every gesture, every note of her violin became a framework to contain what he had glimpsed in the power. The act retained its magic, its pulse of wildness, but Dominik’s role had shifted. Echoes of the Grove was no longer just a performance; it was a rehearsal for self-control, a stage on which he could practice mastery over a power that terrified him. Vigilance had become second nature.

He avoided Lalitha still.

Not because his love had faded but because love, for Dominik, had become something demanding vigilance and restraint. To be near her was to risk wanting what he could not allow himself to take: freedom, joy, a life unbound by caution. To love her openly would have been a betrayal, not of her, but of everything he had sworn to protect — the family, the carnival, and the fragile balance of control he clung to.

Even as he watched her from a distance, he carried the ache of absence quietly, tucked beneath the careful composure that defined him. He allowed himself fleeting glimpses of what might have been in private, in the briefest sparks of memory or music, but he never reached for them. To do so would be to invite chaos into a world he had spent a lifetime learning to manage.

The final unravelling did not come from Dominik.

It came from Roza.

When Renáta discovered her with Esper, the confrontation ignited immediately — voices raised, fury echoing through the house, the thin walls between family and spectacle collapsing all at once. Roza, defiant and incandescent, raised a barrier between herself and her mother, not in fear but in declaration. The magic held firm as Renáta shouted her name in Hungarian, pounding against an invisible wall she could not pass.

The entire household woke to it. Then the carnival.

There was no quiet resolution, no private reckoning. Roza announced her decision plainly, without apology: she and Esper were leaving together. That the caravan was not the life she chose. That love, once named, could not be folded back into obedience.

Renáta raged, but even in her fury, there was a performative edge to it. The spectacle was deliberate. Authority had to be seen defending itself. Pride and punishment tangled in her voice as she condemned the choice publicly, even as some deeper, complicated part of her understood it. Children, after all, were meant to find their own paths — even when those paths cut away from the family.

Their departure was immediate and irrevocable. No farewell performance. No explanations offered to the wider carnival. By morning, their rooms were empty, their instruments gone, their absence echoing louder than any argument could have.

For Dominik, it felt like losing the ground beneath his feet.

Echoes of the Grove ended not with a final bow, but with silence. Without Roza, there was no act — no music to guide the illusion, no shared rhythm to anchor him. He did not attempt to perform alone. The act had never been about spectacle; it had been about balance. Without her, there was nothing to hold the wildness safely in place.

And so he stopped.

The stage, once sacred, became forbidden.

Dominik bore the aftermath without protest. He mediated arguments, absorbed blame, and redirected fury away from Roza and Esper as much as he could without openly defying Renáta. He became the quiet wall between his mother’s authority and the carnival’s fracture, working tirelessly to prevent the rift from splintering the community beyond repair.

He became quieter after that. More contained. The warmth remained — people still trusted him, still sought him out — but the part of him that had once felt alive onstage went dormant. The wildness did not disappear; it simply went underground, coiled tight and waiting.

Dominik Vas did not break.

But something within him closed.

Personality: Dominik Vas is, at first glance, calm, deliberate, and dependable – the embodiment of steadiness in a world built on spectacle and chaos. As the eldest child of the Vas family, he carries responsibilities beyond his years, understanding intuitively that his choices ripple through the lives of others.

Dominik is fiercely loyal. He keeps his word, protects those he loves, and will sacrifice his own desires for the safety or happiness of others. He is a protector, a guide, and often the silent force behind the scenes, ensuring that the carnival functions flawlessly even when his contributions go unnoticed.

Fear is a constant companion. He knows the danger inherent in the power that has awakened within him. He understands that without careful control, the same power that enchants could also destroy. This fear sharpens him, teaching vigilance, patience, and precision. It makes him cautious in love, in magic, and in life itself, and it fuels his drive to master his abilities rather than be mastered by them.

Despite this, Dominik is not without passion. He feels deeply, loves fiercely, and is drawn to brilliance and beauty wherever he finds it. Music, performance, and artistry stir something primal in him — the part of his soul that has lived through wild gods and restless knights. Yet he tempers these impulses with discipline, aware that the line between inspiration and catastrophe is thinner than most can imagine.]]>
His mother's lessons were subtle. She rarely issued direct orders; instead, she presented situations and let Dominik navigate them, correcting missteps later with quiet guidance or a pointed glance. Sometimes she tested him publicly, letting him mediate disputes in front of performers or visitors, watching how he handled tension without revealing frustration or indecision. Each success earned her a nod, each failure a silent weighing in her mind.

Dominik understood that being the eldest meant he would one day inherit more than an act — it was the future of the carnival itself. He learned to negotiate with suppliers, balance the needs of families, and anticipate logistical crises before they arose. Every mistake could ripple outward; every decision had consequence. In this way, Dominik became more than a performer. He became the anchor, the steadying hand behind the music, the illusions, and the spectacle.

Despite the weight, Dominik never resented Renáta. He respected her mind, admired her authority, and recognised the sacrifices she made to maintain the Vas legacy. But their relationship was a delicate dance. She could be exacting, critical, and unyielding, and he had to learn to take instruction without letting it harden him. The lessons of restraint, discipline, and foresight were intertwined with his deepest fears: that he could fail those who relied on him, that the wildness of his soul might one day overwhelm his careful balance — and cost others the safety he had promised them.

Renáta’s influence shaped both the man and the performer. Onstage, Dominik learned precision and control; offstage, he learned strategy, foresight, and patience. His natural charisma and quiet authority made others trust him instinctively, but the trust was earned through diligence, care, and adherence to responsibility. Even as he danced on the edge of latent power and untamed instinct, he understood that his life had always been larger than his desires.

A Deal

It was in July of 2031 that Anastasia Zemlov first came into contact and caught the eye of Nikolai Brandon. A secretary in the Kremlin, she had been asked to bring him some documents to sign. After a night of passion, a child was conceived.

Unsure of how Nikolai would react to the news that he was to be a father, Anastasia tried to work up the courage to tell him. Before she could, however, she was approached by two men who offered her a way to make sure her child was always cared for. She would be given a house, a job in the private sector, and a bank account in which her child’s university education would be provided. In return, Anastasia had to do one thing: never reveal to anyone (especially Nikolai Brandon) of her child’s paternity. It was a sure thing. Anastasia took the deal and paperwork was signed. Unknown to her was the men were members of a secret organization called the Di Infieri - who were secretly keeping track of all of Nikolai Brandon’s children.

On April 22nd, 2032, Anastasia gave both to a baby girl that she named Penelope. As per her agreement, the father section of her birth certificate remained blank.

A Green Thumb

Penelope, who would go by Penny, was an intelligent child, and curious about the world around her. It was clear from an early age that she liked being outside in nature. She would often spend time sitting underneath the birch tree in their backyard reading. She loved plants of all kinds and always loved to go to gardens and gardening stores.

Penny and her mother built a garden in their backyard where they grew fresh vegetables and flowers. A bench was put there so Penny could sit and look at the flowers. On nice summer days, she would often be found simply sitting on the bench, humming a tune. Penny would notice then that the plants seemed to reach towards her when she did this. It always made her smile and she felt as if the plants liked her as much as she liked them.

An Academic

Penny loves to learn. She enjoys reading and can often be found with her nose in a book. Even though she gets good grades in all her classes, science is her favorite subject. She is involved in music as well, singing in the choir and playing flute in the orchestra. Her teachers comment mostly on her curiosity, saying jokingly that her favorite question is “why?” Penny wants to understand how the world around her works, and it is what makes her an exemplary student.

Questions About Her Father

For most of her childhood, Penny never really asked about her father. She was content with her mother and it wasn’t on her mind. But as she got older, friends, classmates, and teachers would ask about him. The question of who her father was began to dig into her head.

Penny didn’t want to make her mother feel like she was inadequate. Penny loved her mother with all her heart, so she kept her questions to herself for years. It was after she turned 14 that she began to ask. Anastasia initially brushed off the questions, but Penny’s curiosity wouldn’t let it go. She began to ask things like “What is his name?” “Is he nice?” and “Can I meet him sometime?” Anastasia began to feel guilty for her role in hiding Penny’s father’s identity from her. In time, she said she would agree to tell Penny of her father, but first, she had to talk to him. Penny wasn’t sure she understood why, but was glad that her mother had eventually caved in.

A Broken Contract & The Snow Cataclysm

Anastasia went to work the next day. She had been there for thirteen years and was unaware that the business she worked for was owned by the secret Di Infieri. Anastasia drafted a letter to the Ascendancy to inform him of his daughter Penelope. The draft was found and reported.

Later, one of the men who had offered her the deal appeared, draft of letter in hand. He reminded her of her binding agreement. Frightened, Anastasia told him that Penny was asking questions. It was a moment of weakness and she wasn’t going to send it. She would abide by the agreement. She tried to make it convincing even if it was a lie.

He told her to deal with the situation. Lie to Penny. Tell her that her father wants nothing to do with her, or better yet, come up with one and tell her he’s dead. End the questions. Anastasia told him she would, knowing she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to do it.

The Di Infieri’s trust in Anastasia had been shaken, however. It didn’t matter if they believed her or not. She was a liability. She had to go. When both mother and daughter were away from the house, their roof as well as the birch in their back yard was sabotaged. There was a winter storm coming. They made sure house wouldn’t make it.

In early 2047, a massive snowstorm hit Moscow. The sabotaged roof and tree were unable to hold the weight of the snow and ice. The tree fell and the roof of their house caved in. Anastasia was buried. Penny was stuck in a corner, able to see her mother was no longer moving. She was filled with fear. She knew her mother was dead, and it was beginning to get cold.]]>
Character’s Age: 14

Character's Origin: Moscow

Character’s Occupation: Student

Psychological Description of Character: Normally, Penny is happy and curious of the world around her as well as persistent when trying to achieve her goals. Currently she is mourning the loss of her mother and is depressed and scared.

Physical Description of Character: 4’8” with dark hair and green eyes.

Supernatural Powers:
Singer
Channeler

Current Strength: 0 (has not sparked)
Potential Strength: 29

Unlike most females, she has an affinity for earth and fire

Experience Level: New

Reborn God: Gaia/Terra

A Deal

It was in July of 2031 that Anastasia Zemlov first came into contact and caught the eye of Nikolai Brandon. A secretary in the Kremlin, she had been asked to bring him some documents to sign. After a night of passion, a child was conceived.

Unsure of how Nikolai would react to the news that he was to be a father, Anastasia tried to work up the courage to tell him. Before she could, however, she was approached by two men who offered her a way to make sure her child was always cared for. She would be given a house, a job in the private sector, and a bank account in which her child’s university education would be provided. In return, Anastasia had to do one thing: never reveal to anyone (especially Nikolai Brandon) of her child’s paternity. It was a sure thing. Anastasia took the deal and paperwork was signed. Unknown to her was the men were members of a secret organization called the Di Infieri - who were secretly keeping track of all of Nikolai Brandon’s children.

On April 22nd, 2032, Anastasia gave both to a baby girl that she named Penelope. As per her agreement, the father section of her birth certificate remained blank.

A Green Thumb

Penelope, who would go by Penny, was an intelligent child, and curious about the world around her. It was clear from an early age that she liked being outside in nature. She would often spend time sitting underneath the birch tree in their backyard reading. She loved plants of all kinds and always loved to go to gardens and gardening stores.

Penny and her mother built a garden in their backyard where they grew fresh vegetables and flowers. A bench was put there so Penny could sit and look at the flowers. On nice summer days, she would often be found simply sitting on the bench, humming a tune. Penny would notice then that the plants seemed to reach towards her when she did this. It always made her smile and she felt as if the plants liked her as much as she liked them.

An Academic

Penny loves to learn. She enjoys reading and can often be found with her nose in a book. Even though she gets good grades in all her classes, science is her favorite subject. She is involved in music as well, singing in the choir and playing flute in the orchestra. Her teachers comment mostly on her curiosity, saying jokingly that her favorite question is “why?” Penny wants to understand how the world around her works, and it is what makes her an exemplary student.

Questions About Her Father

For most of her childhood, Penny never really asked about her father. She was content with her mother and it wasn’t on her mind. But as she got older, friends, classmates, and teachers would ask about him. The question of who her father was began to dig into her head.

Penny didn’t want to make her mother feel like she was inadequate. Penny loved her mother with all her heart, so she kept her questions to herself for years. It was after she turned 14 that she began to ask. Anastasia initially brushed off the questions, but Penny’s curiosity wouldn’t let it go. She began to ask things like “What is his name?” “Is he nice?” and “Can I meet him sometime?” Anastasia began to feel guilty for her role in hiding Penny’s father’s identity from her. In time, she said she would agree to tell Penny of her father, but first, she had to talk to him. Penny wasn’t sure she understood why, but was glad that her mother had eventually caved in.

A Broken Contract & The Snow Cataclysm

Anastasia went to work the next day. She had been there for thirteen years and was unaware that the business she worked for was owned by the secret Di Infieri. Anastasia drafted a letter to the Ascendancy to inform him of his daughter Penelope. The draft was found and reported.

Later, one of the men who had offered her the deal appeared, draft of letter in hand. He reminded her of her binding agreement. Frightened, Anastasia told him that Penny was asking questions. It was a moment of weakness and she wasn’t going to send it. She would abide by the agreement. She tried to make it convincing even if it was a lie.

He told her to deal with the situation. Lie to Penny. Tell her that her father wants nothing to do with her, or better yet, come up with one and tell her he’s dead. End the questions. Anastasia told him she would, knowing she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to do it.

The Di Infieri’s trust in Anastasia had been shaken, however. It didn’t matter if they believed her or not. She was a liability. She had to go. When both mother and daughter were away from the house, their roof as well as the birch in their back yard was sabotaged. There was a winter storm coming. They made sure house wouldn’t make it.

In early 2047, a massive snowstorm hit Moscow. The sabotaged roof and tree were unable to hold the weight of the snow and ice. The tree fell and the roof of their house caved in. Anastasia was buried. Penny was stuck in a corner, able to see her mother was no longer moving. She was filled with fear. She knew her mother was dead, and it was beginning to get cold.]]> <![CDATA[Olivier de Volthström]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1937.html Thu, 25 Dec 2025 22:29:03 +0000 Olivier de Volthström]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1937.html Olivier de Volthstrom

Age: Mid 20’s

Origin: Zurich, Switzerland

Occupation: Professional Competitive Archer/Wealth “Redistributor”

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Psychological Description: Disciplined and calm, Olivier handles pressure well. He tends to be personable, but can retreat into himself at times. He prefers actions to words and enjoys a good prank. His humor is often dry and witty. He his observant and methodical.

Physical Description: 5’11” tall with dark hair and blue eyes.

Reborn God: Robin Hood

Early Life and Archery

Olivier is the first born son of Bennet and Ava de Volthstrom and the brother to a younger sister named Elin. Born into wealth and privilege in a traditional family, Olivier was born knowing his duty would be to inherit and eventually produce an heir to continue the family lineage.

As a child, Olivier was drawn to computers. He spent a significant amount of time learning how how they work. His parents had little problem with this, but that changed as he was spending most of his time indoors. They encouraged him to pick up some athletic activity to keep him outside and to socialize.

Olivier enjoyed watching sports games, but wasn’t much into playing them. That changed the first time he picked up a bow at nine years old. It felt strangely comfortable in his hands. He asked his parents if it was okay for him to pick up archery. It seemed suitably noble to them, so they agreed. Lessons were paid for and he began to learn archery.

Even at a young age, the bow seemed to be a natural extension to Olivier. He learned quickly and his mentor was astounded at how fast he began to pick up the skills. By age 16, Olivier was in competitive tournaments, and by age 17, he was competing at an international level and attracting the attention of sponsors.

He is now a fixture on the international archery circuit, competing in precision tournaments and corporate sponsored exhibitions. He has also competed in rooftop and urban exhibition tournaments that were more for spectacle than anything else. On the range, he is elegant and relentlessly calm. His equipment is top of the line. His philosophy in archery is that once the arrow leaves the string there are no do-overs. It’s a philosophy he carries into the rest of his life.

Familial Tensions

As he grew into adolescence, he was reminded of his duty to marry. His parents began to set up dates with women for him to consider. It wasn’t long before Olivier realized he wasn’t interested in any of them. It quickly became apparent to him that his attraction was to males, and he unashamedly brought it up to his parents.

Bennett and Ava had little issue with this, but told him it did not change his duty to the family. Olivier flat out disagreed. It has caused a significant amount of tension in the family. The argument is usually the same. They would remind him of his duty; he would tell them he wasn’t going to live in a sham marriage to produce a child whose parents didn’t care for each other. Olivier wasn’t being completely selfish in his reasoning either. He brought up other options such as surrogacy. He often brought up Elin, who was more qualified than he was to run operations than he was and wanted to do it. Bennett and Ava were unyielding.

T2AC32

Along with archery, Olivier continued to work with computers. He learned how to hack and established a presence online (including the Dark Web) under the hacker alias T2AC32 (Tracer). Tracer is a known entity, and his beginnings were helping those who wanted to learn to hack. As he aged, Tracer grew into something new as well. As a Volthström, he grew up learning that wealth equals competence, stability excuses harm, and responsibility ends at the balance sheet.

Olivier disagreed.

He knows his family has profited off of the suffering of others, and it is something that he cannot abide. He hides this from his family and the tension between him and his parents helps this. With this knowledge, Tracer became something else. He began to use his identity to redistribute wealth from the wealthy to those hurt by the wealthy. Archery gave him discipline. Technology gave him reach. Wealth gave him access. He weaponized all three.

Olivier is methodical in his approach. He hits primarily shell corporations, hedge funds, and “charitible” fronts used to hide exploitation. He redirects fractional sums - small enough to go unnoticed, but large enough to change outcomes - to those organizations that actually help such as those that take care of orphans, tenet defense networks, community land trusts, and legal aid for people erased by bureaucracies. Every action is planned in advance. Every escape route is mapped. There are no flourish or signature crime scenes. When the books are checked, it’s usually thought to be an anomaly or clerical error. It isn’t revolution he seeks, but correction. Unchecked systems implode. He views his redistribution efforts as pressure management, as well as righting wrongs. It is preventative maintenance.

Currently:

Olivier is currently in Moscow for a tournament to be held shortly into the new year. He no longer lives with his parents, but tensions are still high. Family gatherings are often used to remind him of what he should be doing. Tracer continues his work as a wealth redistributor. Moscow, the center of civilization, seems to be a place where both Olivier the archer and Tracer the hacker can prosper and do the most good. What he has done as Tracer has been very helpful, but he is looking for more - something to really facilitate change. It means Tracer may need to quit being so quiet.]]> <![CDATA[Seraphis Arden]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1932.html Sat, 13 Dec 2025 01:40:43 +0000 Seraphis]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1932.html
She remembered little of her parents, though she had been plenty old enough at 12 to hold real memories. What remained came as fragments: her mother’s hand tightening around hers, the low murmur of adult voices arguing in the next room, the hush that fell whenever she approached. And sometimes, drifting through the haze of recollection, the image of a well-dressed man with the type of face that made her shy when he looked at her. He was someone her parents called a friend but treated with a caution and respect she hadn’t understood at the time. He sometimes brought her gifts; his attempt to win her over perhaps, and they were beautiful things, trinkets or toys far beyond anything her parents could afford. Once there was a locket bearing initials that didn’t match her name, but she thought little of it at the time. She always wondered whose name those letters represented.

His fall from grace had been public and survived by his influential family, but the people that worked with him were ordinary, powerless allies like her Irish-born parents. They simply vanished in the time surrounding his arrest. The police informed her they had died, and with no relatives to claim her, she was placed into government custody and reassigned to an orphanage. The official record offered no further explanation, and whatever details existed were kept far from a child’s reach.

The orphanage depended entirely on outside philanthropy to function, which meant it was always one shortage away from collapse. Beds were crammed together in dormitories meant for half as many children while food came in unpredictable quantities. The staff rotated often, some indifferent, others cruel. Muireann survived the way quiet children often did by shrinking in, by drawing no attention, and by keeping her thoughts folded neatly where no one could see them.

Still, she was noticed. Older children marked her early. They sensed her quietness as weakness and her beauty as justification. She avoided them by slipping through hallways, staying in corners with a book, and memorizing the times the supervisors looked away. Most days, it was enough.

On the day she channeled for the first time, rain leaked through a crack in the ceiling, dripping into a metal bucket like a drum. Three older boys cornered her, shoving her back into the narrow space. Their taunts blurred, and her world shrank to the cold wall against her back and the rhythmic drip drip drip of water beside her feet. Something inside her flared bright, then a violent gust threw the boys backward, slamming them into shelving units and scattering boxes across the floor. They scrambled to their feet and ran.

She didn’t understand what she had done. She only knew that she must never do it again. And she didn’t in the years that followed. Her mind sealed around the memory, forming a block so complete that even the instinctive spark of channeling lay dormant. All she retained was the association: fear, and the sound of dripping water.

Of course, the boys told of what happened. They called her a witch, insane, and when she fell Sick, a threat. The rumors about Muireann and the threat she posed circulated among staff, eventually reported to the orphanage’s primary benefactor family. Months later, during an event meant both to generate good press and reassert civic virtue, Theron Finnegren arrived along with his parents. Cameras tracked them like celebrities, staff snuck glimpses, and children lined up to present memorized gratitude. Muireann stood among them, her pale hair bright under the lights, hands folded carefully as she tried to make herself small, but Theron seemed to peer through everything as if finding a needle in a haystack; only this time, he was looking for the needle.

Later she learned that he had already heard rumors of the “suspicious event” in the storage hall. Theron asked to speak with her alone. She had never been addressed so gently by an adult, although she later learned he was only 20 himself. She told him nothing of what she’d done, but he seemed to know regardless. He asked if she ever felt strange, if she ever sensed something stirring when she was afraid. She only shook her head, but he did not press.

The next week, papers were signed and she was adopted, not as a daughter in the ordinary sense, but as a ward. Someone he wished to guide, protect, and study. The orphanage staff venerated the story as a philanthropic success, though many whispered that a child like her was better off drawing no notice.

After leaving with him, Theron asked if Muireann desired a new name. That was when she picked Seraphis, a character from a beloved book, and with this new name, she entered a world she had never imagined: clean halls, orderly rooms, structured days, and luxury like she’d never known before. When Theron announced his intention to go to Moscow, it was without hesitation that he took Seraphis with him. She was with him when he took over the Brotherhood of Ascension, and helped to expand its influence. By then she was seventeen. In the privacy of the sanctuaries he introduced her to practices meant to calm the mind that would become the bedrock of the Brotherhood’s mystic teachings: breathwork, meditation, and structured reflection. He attempted to teach her the channeling he assumed she already understood, but something blocked her. The more she failed, the more confused he became, so he tasked her with mastering non-magical disciplines. He told her stillness mattered before power, and she believed him.

It wasn’t until she incorporated water into their practice, meditating alongside the fountains of the Sanctuary that something loosened. The sound anchored her, not in fear now, but in familiarity. She slipped past her block and touched the Source again, this time without violence. The relief in her expression lingered for days. The pride in his reaction filled her heart with joy.

Over the next two years, Seraphis became the first of the Veilwardens. Her devotion to Theron shaped everything she did. She saw him as both guardian and guiding star, not quite father, not quite brother, but the one fixed point in a world that had taken all others away. Theron treated her with fond distance, never unkind but never allowing closeness beyond his chosen boundaries. She accepted that as her role to be near him, to serve the Brotherhood he led, and to justify the second chance he had given her despite whatever plans he has for her future.

Personality

She learned to get by through observation before acting. Beneath her serenity lay a mind more independent than she let on. She valued her own counsel, even if she rarely voiced it. Her humor, when it slipped out, came dry and unexpectedly morbid, a small rebellion against the quiet veneer of her adolescence. She longed to matter in a world that kept dictating her circumstances instead of empowering the agency of self-made choices, and the tension between duty and private yearning shaped much of her current life.

Appearance

At a slender height of 5 foot 7 inches, Seraphis has the doll-like poise of porcelain. Her hair falls in long, pale strands, soft as light reflected on frost, and her skin has a delicate luminosity that makes her look almost sculpted. Her features are fine and symmetrical, with winter-gray eyes that appears both distant and searching. The contrast of her natural etherealness with the rich ceremonial clothing of the Brotherhood gives her an almost iconic quality, a look that hovers between innocence and quiet determination. Even in stillness, she draws the eye, as though she is meant to be part of a vision rather than a crowded room as is her destiny.

Other lives

1st Age: Seraphis Arden, Veilwarden of the Brotherhood

3rd Age: Tbd

5th & 6th Age: Leuce, Nymph of Oceanid

7th Age: Guinevere, Queen of Camelot]]>
She remembered little of her parents, though she had been plenty old enough at 12 to hold real memories. What remained came as fragments: her mother’s hand tightening around hers, the low murmur of adult voices arguing in the next room, the hush that fell whenever she approached. And sometimes, drifting through the haze of recollection, the image of a well-dressed man with the type of face that made her shy when he looked at her. He was someone her parents called a friend but treated with a caution and respect she hadn’t understood at the time. He sometimes brought her gifts; his attempt to win her over perhaps, and they were beautiful things, trinkets or toys far beyond anything her parents could afford. Once there was a locket bearing initials that didn’t match her name, but she thought little of it at the time. She always wondered whose name those letters represented.

His fall from grace had been public and survived by his influential family, but the people that worked with him were ordinary, powerless allies like her Irish-born parents. They simply vanished in the time surrounding his arrest. The police informed her they had died, and with no relatives to claim her, she was placed into government custody and reassigned to an orphanage. The official record offered no further explanation, and whatever details existed were kept far from a child’s reach.

The orphanage depended entirely on outside philanthropy to function, which meant it was always one shortage away from collapse. Beds were crammed together in dormitories meant for half as many children while food came in unpredictable quantities. The staff rotated often, some indifferent, others cruel. Muireann survived the way quiet children often did by shrinking in, by drawing no attention, and by keeping her thoughts folded neatly where no one could see them.

Still, she was noticed. Older children marked her early. They sensed her quietness as weakness and her beauty as justification. She avoided them by slipping through hallways, staying in corners with a book, and memorizing the times the supervisors looked away. Most days, it was enough.

On the day she channeled for the first time, rain leaked through a crack in the ceiling, dripping into a metal bucket like a drum. Three older boys cornered her, shoving her back into the narrow space. Their taunts blurred, and her world shrank to the cold wall against her back and the rhythmic drip drip drip of water beside her feet. Something inside her flared bright, then a violent gust threw the boys backward, slamming them into shelving units and scattering boxes across the floor. They scrambled to their feet and ran.

She didn’t understand what she had done. She only knew that she must never do it again. And she didn’t in the years that followed. Her mind sealed around the memory, forming a block so complete that even the instinctive spark of channeling lay dormant. All she retained was the association: fear, and the sound of dripping water.

Of course, the boys told of what happened. They called her a witch, insane, and when she fell Sick, a threat. The rumors about Muireann and the threat she posed circulated among staff, eventually reported to the orphanage’s primary benefactor family. Months later, during an event meant both to generate good press and reassert civic virtue, Theron Finnegren arrived along with his parents. Cameras tracked them like celebrities, staff snuck glimpses, and children lined up to present memorized gratitude. Muireann stood among them, her pale hair bright under the lights, hands folded carefully as she tried to make herself small, but Theron seemed to peer through everything as if finding a needle in a haystack; only this time, he was looking for the needle.

Later she learned that he had already heard rumors of the “suspicious event” in the storage hall. Theron asked to speak with her alone. She had never been addressed so gently by an adult, although she later learned he was only 20 himself. She told him nothing of what she’d done, but he seemed to know regardless. He asked if she ever felt strange, if she ever sensed something stirring when she was afraid. She only shook her head, but he did not press.

The next week, papers were signed and she was adopted, not as a daughter in the ordinary sense, but as a ward. Someone he wished to guide, protect, and study. The orphanage staff venerated the story as a philanthropic success, though many whispered that a child like her was better off drawing no notice.

After leaving with him, Theron asked if Muireann desired a new name. That was when she picked Seraphis, a character from a beloved book, and with this new name, she entered a world she had never imagined: clean halls, orderly rooms, structured days, and luxury like she’d never known before. When Theron announced his intention to go to Moscow, it was without hesitation that he took Seraphis with him. She was with him when he took over the Brotherhood of Ascension, and helped to expand its influence. By then she was seventeen. In the privacy of the sanctuaries he introduced her to practices meant to calm the mind that would become the bedrock of the Brotherhood’s mystic teachings: breathwork, meditation, and structured reflection. He attempted to teach her the channeling he assumed she already understood, but something blocked her. The more she failed, the more confused he became, so he tasked her with mastering non-magical disciplines. He told her stillness mattered before power, and she believed him.

It wasn’t until she incorporated water into their practice, meditating alongside the fountains of the Sanctuary that something loosened. The sound anchored her, not in fear now, but in familiarity. She slipped past her block and touched the Source again, this time without violence. The relief in her expression lingered for days. The pride in his reaction filled her heart with joy.

Over the next two years, Seraphis became the first of the Veilwardens. Her devotion to Theron shaped everything she did. She saw him as both guardian and guiding star, not quite father, not quite brother, but the one fixed point in a world that had taken all others away. Theron treated her with fond distance, never unkind but never allowing closeness beyond his chosen boundaries. She accepted that as her role to be near him, to serve the Brotherhood he led, and to justify the second chance he had given her despite whatever plans he has for her future.

Personality

She learned to get by through observation before acting. Beneath her serenity lay a mind more independent than she let on. She valued her own counsel, even if she rarely voiced it. Her humor, when it slipped out, came dry and unexpectedly morbid, a small rebellion against the quiet veneer of her adolescence. She longed to matter in a world that kept dictating her circumstances instead of empowering the agency of self-made choices, and the tension between duty and private yearning shaped much of her current life.

Appearance

At a slender height of 5 foot 7 inches, Seraphis has the doll-like poise of porcelain. Her hair falls in long, pale strands, soft as light reflected on frost, and her skin has a delicate luminosity that makes her look almost sculpted. Her features are fine and symmetrical, with winter-gray eyes that appears both distant and searching. The contrast of her natural etherealness with the rich ceremonial clothing of the Brotherhood gives her an almost iconic quality, a look that hovers between innocence and quiet determination. Even in stillness, she draws the eye, as though she is meant to be part of a vision rather than a crowded room as is her destiny.

Other lives

1st Age: Seraphis Arden, Veilwarden of the Brotherhood

3rd Age: Tbd

5th & 6th Age: Leuce, Nymph of Oceanid

7th Age: Guinevere, Queen of Camelot]]> <![CDATA[Seren Meredydd]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1926.html Sun, 07 Dec 2025 14:08:33 +0000 Seren]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1926.html Name: Seren Meredydd (SEH-ren Meh-RED-ith)
Age: early/mid twenties
Ability: Vidient (Golden Glimmer)
Previous Life: Lilith

Biography in brief (full Bio is on her wiki)

Seren grew up in Aberaeron on the Welsh coast, raised alone by her mother, Eira, after her father left when she was a baby. She knew she was different from an early age because no one else saw the golden sparks of light which danced around every person’s heart; and the world knew Seren was different, too, because people’s desires always tilted around her. Even as a baby she unknowingly emanated a subtle amplification which often changed the people in her presence. Around Seren, desires became harder to deny and easier to enact. Friends quit clubs abruptly. Teachers confessed inappropriate ambitions to empty rooms. Parents in her neighbourhood divorced out of nowhere.

As a small child Seren saw the gap between what people said and what they truly wanted, and didn’t understand why the world seemed obsessed with hiding the truth beneath a veneer. Practically everyone lied. Adults laughed off her strange phrasings and oddly insightful questions, but they grew uneasy too. So she learned not to speak about it. Her mother called it the Yr Awydd. The Wanting. Their family line had deep roots, but she always talked about it like it was a folktale. It was only much later that Seren realised her gift was something different, something more than the old wives tales of Meredydd women who had an uncanny way of reading people, and a particularly sensitivity for people’s longing.

By thirteen Seren was learning to listen to the world in layers: what people said, what they tried to want, and what they actually wanted. Puberty sharpened everything, including her perception. She began to recognise distinct architecture in the golden motes: the way they clustered, the density of the glow, the movement itself. Eventually she started identifying the patterns, connecting them to meaning.

Later, she realised she could control them too, to inflame or douse, and had been doing so unintentionally all her life, just by looking. She detested the idea of influencing people that way, though. Her mother raised her to be fiercely independent, and to understand that everyone has the right to define their own inner life. Seren welded that lesson to her nature like iron. So she practised early self-restraint, teaching herself to observe what she could not avoid seeing without pushing or pulling by mistake. It was exhausting, and control alone could not erase the truth of who she was. Sometimes someone’s longing just stretched towards her like a flower turning to light. Seren called what she did in those cases illumination – not control, not ignition, but an ability to reveal hidden desire to those ready to receive the truth.

At school she had a reputation for defying authority. When adults demanded obedience, she asked “why”, and when their response did not match what she saw in the motes around their hearts she simply… didn’t comply. People rarely said what they meant, especially those in charge. Others called her stubborn, but Seren called it truth. She wasn’t trying to lead, but students were drawn to her all the same. She was magnetic, but it was the Gimmer that did it. Friends idolised her or drifted away. Crushes became obsessively attached without cause. In Seren, people often saw a reflection of what they wanted. That was another thing she didn’t mean to do, but couldn’t turn off.

“People get weird around you,” a friend once said.

Seren didn’t disagree.

When she was eighteen she chose Cardiff University, enrolling in Psychology. The city was noisy with desire, and Seren entered her new world like a tuning fork struck too sharply. She was brilliant at the subjects she cared for, but clashed with lecturers when she questioned theories they treated as gospel. She’d wanted a fresh start, but the patterns of change followed her despite how hard she tried not to influence those around her. A flatmate ditched medical school after an emotional midnight conversation in the kitchen. A study partner’s admiration grew into something bright and unsteady within days, and Seren had to pull away before he mistook reflection for reciprocity. Even one of her tutors — a man in his forties — abruptly left academia mid-term, claiming he could no longer ignore the novel he’d abandoned a decade earlier.

Then came Elin, a friend in the year above, and the first person Seren ever met whose desires remained still around her. They became friends slowly, then intensely. Seren fell in love quietly, with the kind of deliberate awareness she applied to everything in her life: she felt herself going under, and kept her eyes open. But though Elin liked her deeply as a friend, the way she wanted Seren was not romantic. For the first time in her life, Seren discovered something she had no right to want. And for the briest moment she wondered what would happen if she nudged, just a little, to tilt the world in her favour.

The thought shocked her, not because she could act on it – she already knew she couldn’t create something that wasn’t there – but that she had wanted to, no matter how fleetingly.

She withdrew from university soon after.

What followed was a journey of discovery. For years Seren has moved from city to city, country to country, job to job, never settling even when she may have wanted to. She stays until things begin to change around her, as they inevitably do no matter how careful she is. Her nomadic lifestyle has become a mosaic of experiences — love and loss, chaos and calm, observation and participation. And through it all, her mother’s lessons have been her compass: truth first, autonomy always, desire to be observed and guided but never owned. Relationships have shaped Seren along the way, two in particular since Elin. It has tested her, too. She fears, sometimes, what she might one day become.

Now she wants to know what she is, and if there are others like her. Finally, she is headed to Moscow.

Desire, for Seren, is the only true language. And truth is the only thing that matters.

Appearance: Seren is one of those people who doesn’t immediately command attention, but becomes unforgettable once you’ve spoken to her. She looks like someone you almost know, but cannot quite pin down, and it makes her simultaneously approachable and disarming, ordinary yet otherworldly. Her presence hints at the fire within, though no one would guess the depth of insight, the untamed autonomy, or the latent power she carries. People often realise hours later that they remember her eyes more vividly than her face.

She's in her early/mid 20s, though the energy she carries feels older, wiser, and untamed. 5’7" – tall enough to move through a crowd with quiet presence, yet unassuming until you notice her. Her eyes are her most defining feature: hazel that shifts between gold and green, depending on the light. Her gaze is steady. People often feel as though she “looks through them,” even though she’s only seeing their desires.

Dark brown hair, almost black in winter, and sun‑lightened with faint copper streaks in summer. Thick enough that wind off the Welsh coast tends to rearrange it for her. Pale complexion with a coastal undertone — a natural pinkness on her cheeks and nose from years of wind and sun, and freckles in the summer. She carries a faint, permanent warmth to her skin tone that makes her look alive even when tired.

Seren dresses like someone who prioritises truth and comfort: soft jumpers, dark jeans, slightly oversized coats. People think she dresses plainly, but she dresses intentionally. Nothing constricts; nothing demands attention. She speaks with a soft Welsh accent. Her expressions don't hide what she feels because she values clarity too greatly for masks, and her quietness is never passive — it feels like a choice. There is an almost imperceptible magnetism around her. People notice subtle changes in motivation or mood when she is present — restless energy, sudden inspiration, fleeting ambition — even if they can’t explain why.

Personality: Seren rarely reacts impulsively. She watches, listens, and studies the gold motes of longing around people, mapping their patterns before speaking. Her presence is calm, intelligent, and quietly intense. She notices when someone’s desire is fractured, when ambition is bruised, when longing is buried. This perception makes her slow to judge and quick to understand. She will comfort someone who is lost, but she will not let them lie to themselves.

She does not command. She does not impose. But when she decides something is true or right, she is immovable. Seren’s quiet voice becomes a boundary. When she says no, it is final. When she says this is wrong, she means it. Her defiance is gentle but absolute. If someone tries to force their will on her or others, she sharpens into moral iron.

Her insight is honed, and she tends to ask questions that land like revelations. Seren is the friend who notices the dream someone never said aloud, or the goal they secretly gave up on. She doesn’t push — she invites. People confide in her instinctively, even when they don’t want to.

She distrusts institutions, rigid hierarchies, leaders who demand allegiance, and rules that exist “because that’s how things are done.” But she is not a rebel for rebellion’s sake. She simply believes no one should be given power over another person’s inner life. When responsibility falls onto her, she accepts it — on her terms. If someone tries to control her, define her, limit her, or idealise her — her entire being recoils.

Powerful, ambitious figures always notice her. Some are inspired. Some become obsessed. All become dangerous.

Flaws: Because Seren sees desire so clearly, she constantly holds herself in check, and is not fully cognisant of the cage she has placed around herself. Seren’s restraint is iron: her anger is rare, her passion is suppressed, her desires are quieted. When she finally does want something for herself — truly, fiercely — it may be explosive. Her own ambition has never been fully born. The day it is, the world will shift.

The irony of her perception is that she cannot truly view herself. She thinks she wants a quiet, free life of her own: stability, purpose, understanding. Secretly, she longs for an equal to match her; a reference point outside her influence, a relationship where she can stop self-monitoring, and a person she doesn’t have to protect from herself. But she’d never admit it out loud. Her true, most buried desire is to choose her own fire — and let it burn. She doesn't ant to be muted or managed. This is what she fears. This is what she avoids. This is what the world has never allowed her to do. She does not want to be neutral, she wants to want.

But she can’t trust herself with it.

The Golden Glimmer: Seren is a Vidient who sees and can influence the spectrum of desire-ambition.

She sees desire as golden motes of light around each person, and is adept at discerning the cause via their intensity, density and movement. But its interpretation. She cannot read minds, and she doesn’t feel emotions the way a Sentient does. So while she might describe someone’s desire as buried by fear, for example, she’s reading what she thinks she sees and diagnosing a cause based on that. She calls the sparks Glimmer.

She can control desire by changing the patterns of someone’s Glimmer, either to amplify, douse, or redirect. Currently she refuses to do this, though. She’ll only illuminate and let the person come to their own conclusions, and only when she thinks she should. She cannot create a desire from nothing. Any changes she does make lasts only as long as the person is in her presence, so nothing is permanent unless the person themselves wills it afterwards. People always return to their “natural” state, though of course the consequences of any actions remain. She cannot fundamentally change a person’s core.

When desire is strong, and especially when its ambition, Seren sometimes finds it bleeds into her. This is especially dangerous in close relationships, where she can struggle to discern which desires are her own. When the emotions are intense, this proves addictive. She’s still learning to navigate the risk. The journal she keeps helps her discern patterns and strengthen her own self-identity, as does her relationship with her mother.

OOC note: Seren amplifies desire/ambition on a low level just with her presence. Players can decide how this affects their characters, if at all – it depends very much on their susceptibility at any given moment. Just because someone is tempted, doesn’t mean they will act. But it does make any “wants” harder to deny.]]> Name: Seren Meredydd (SEH-ren Meh-RED-ith)
Age: early/mid twenties
Ability: Vidient (Golden Glimmer)
Previous Life: Lilith

Biography in brief (full Bio is on her wiki)

Seren grew up in Aberaeron on the Welsh coast, raised alone by her mother, Eira, after her father left when she was a baby. She knew she was different from an early age because no one else saw the golden sparks of light which danced around every person’s heart; and the world knew Seren was different, too, because people’s desires always tilted around her. Even as a baby she unknowingly emanated a subtle amplification which often changed the people in her presence. Around Seren, desires became harder to deny and easier to enact. Friends quit clubs abruptly. Teachers confessed inappropriate ambitions to empty rooms. Parents in her neighbourhood divorced out of nowhere.

As a small child Seren saw the gap between what people said and what they truly wanted, and didn’t understand why the world seemed obsessed with hiding the truth beneath a veneer. Practically everyone lied. Adults laughed off her strange phrasings and oddly insightful questions, but they grew uneasy too. So she learned not to speak about it. Her mother called it the Yr Awydd. The Wanting. Their family line had deep roots, but she always talked about it like it was a folktale. It was only much later that Seren realised her gift was something different, something more than the old wives tales of Meredydd women who had an uncanny way of reading people, and a particularly sensitivity for people’s longing.

By thirteen Seren was learning to listen to the world in layers: what people said, what they tried to want, and what they actually wanted. Puberty sharpened everything, including her perception. She began to recognise distinct architecture in the golden motes: the way they clustered, the density of the glow, the movement itself. Eventually she started identifying the patterns, connecting them to meaning.

Later, she realised she could control them too, to inflame or douse, and had been doing so unintentionally all her life, just by looking. She detested the idea of influencing people that way, though. Her mother raised her to be fiercely independent, and to understand that everyone has the right to define their own inner life. Seren welded that lesson to her nature like iron. So she practised early self-restraint, teaching herself to observe what she could not avoid seeing without pushing or pulling by mistake. It was exhausting, and control alone could not erase the truth of who she was. Sometimes someone’s longing just stretched towards her like a flower turning to light. Seren called what she did in those cases illumination – not control, not ignition, but an ability to reveal hidden desire to those ready to receive the truth.

At school she had a reputation for defying authority. When adults demanded obedience, she asked “why”, and when their response did not match what she saw in the motes around their hearts she simply… didn’t comply. People rarely said what they meant, especially those in charge. Others called her stubborn, but Seren called it truth. She wasn’t trying to lead, but students were drawn to her all the same. She was magnetic, but it was the Gimmer that did it. Friends idolised her or drifted away. Crushes became obsessively attached without cause. In Seren, people often saw a reflection of what they wanted. That was another thing she didn’t mean to do, but couldn’t turn off.

“People get weird around you,” a friend once said.

Seren didn’t disagree.

When she was eighteen she chose Cardiff University, enrolling in Psychology. The city was noisy with desire, and Seren entered her new world like a tuning fork struck too sharply. She was brilliant at the subjects she cared for, but clashed with lecturers when she questioned theories they treated as gospel. She’d wanted a fresh start, but the patterns of change followed her despite how hard she tried not to influence those around her. A flatmate ditched medical school after an emotional midnight conversation in the kitchen. A study partner’s admiration grew into something bright and unsteady within days, and Seren had to pull away before he mistook reflection for reciprocity. Even one of her tutors — a man in his forties — abruptly left academia mid-term, claiming he could no longer ignore the novel he’d abandoned a decade earlier.

Then came Elin, a friend in the year above, and the first person Seren ever met whose desires remained still around her. They became friends slowly, then intensely. Seren fell in love quietly, with the kind of deliberate awareness she applied to everything in her life: she felt herself going under, and kept her eyes open. But though Elin liked her deeply as a friend, the way she wanted Seren was not romantic. For the first time in her life, Seren discovered something she had no right to want. And for the briest moment she wondered what would happen if she nudged, just a little, to tilt the world in her favour.

The thought shocked her, not because she could act on it – she already knew she couldn’t create something that wasn’t there – but that she had wanted to, no matter how fleetingly.

She withdrew from university soon after.

What followed was a journey of discovery. For years Seren has moved from city to city, country to country, job to job, never settling even when she may have wanted to. She stays until things begin to change around her, as they inevitably do no matter how careful she is. Her nomadic lifestyle has become a mosaic of experiences — love and loss, chaos and calm, observation and participation. And through it all, her mother’s lessons have been her compass: truth first, autonomy always, desire to be observed and guided but never owned. Relationships have shaped Seren along the way, two in particular since Elin. It has tested her, too. She fears, sometimes, what she might one day become.

Now she wants to know what she is, and if there are others like her. Finally, she is headed to Moscow.

Desire, for Seren, is the only true language. And truth is the only thing that matters.

Appearance: Seren is one of those people who doesn’t immediately command attention, but becomes unforgettable once you’ve spoken to her. She looks like someone you almost know, but cannot quite pin down, and it makes her simultaneously approachable and disarming, ordinary yet otherworldly. Her presence hints at the fire within, though no one would guess the depth of insight, the untamed autonomy, or the latent power she carries. People often realise hours later that they remember her eyes more vividly than her face.

She's in her early/mid 20s, though the energy she carries feels older, wiser, and untamed. 5’7" – tall enough to move through a crowd with quiet presence, yet unassuming until you notice her. Her eyes are her most defining feature: hazel that shifts between gold and green, depending on the light. Her gaze is steady. People often feel as though she “looks through them,” even though she’s only seeing their desires.

Dark brown hair, almost black in winter, and sun‑lightened with faint copper streaks in summer. Thick enough that wind off the Welsh coast tends to rearrange it for her. Pale complexion with a coastal undertone — a natural pinkness on her cheeks and nose from years of wind and sun, and freckles in the summer. She carries a faint, permanent warmth to her skin tone that makes her look alive even when tired.

Seren dresses like someone who prioritises truth and comfort: soft jumpers, dark jeans, slightly oversized coats. People think she dresses plainly, but she dresses intentionally. Nothing constricts; nothing demands attention. She speaks with a soft Welsh accent. Her expressions don't hide what she feels because she values clarity too greatly for masks, and her quietness is never passive — it feels like a choice. There is an almost imperceptible magnetism around her. People notice subtle changes in motivation or mood when she is present — restless energy, sudden inspiration, fleeting ambition — even if they can’t explain why.

Personality: Seren rarely reacts impulsively. She watches, listens, and studies the gold motes of longing around people, mapping their patterns before speaking. Her presence is calm, intelligent, and quietly intense. She notices when someone’s desire is fractured, when ambition is bruised, when longing is buried. This perception makes her slow to judge and quick to understand. She will comfort someone who is lost, but she will not let them lie to themselves.

She does not command. She does not impose. But when she decides something is true or right, she is immovable. Seren’s quiet voice becomes a boundary. When she says no, it is final. When she says this is wrong, she means it. Her defiance is gentle but absolute. If someone tries to force their will on her or others, she sharpens into moral iron.

Her insight is honed, and she tends to ask questions that land like revelations. Seren is the friend who notices the dream someone never said aloud, or the goal they secretly gave up on. She doesn’t push — she invites. People confide in her instinctively, even when they don’t want to.

She distrusts institutions, rigid hierarchies, leaders who demand allegiance, and rules that exist “because that’s how things are done.” But she is not a rebel for rebellion’s sake. She simply believes no one should be given power over another person’s inner life. When responsibility falls onto her, she accepts it — on her terms. If someone tries to control her, define her, limit her, or idealise her — her entire being recoils.

Powerful, ambitious figures always notice her. Some are inspired. Some become obsessed. All become dangerous.

Flaws: Because Seren sees desire so clearly, she constantly holds herself in check, and is not fully cognisant of the cage she has placed around herself. Seren’s restraint is iron: her anger is rare, her passion is suppressed, her desires are quieted. When she finally does want something for herself — truly, fiercely — it may be explosive. Her own ambition has never been fully born. The day it is, the world will shift.

The irony of her perception is that she cannot truly view herself. She thinks she wants a quiet, free life of her own: stability, purpose, understanding. Secretly, she longs for an equal to match her; a reference point outside her influence, a relationship where she can stop self-monitoring, and a person she doesn’t have to protect from herself. But she’d never admit it out loud. Her true, most buried desire is to choose her own fire — and let it burn. She doesn't ant to be muted or managed. This is what she fears. This is what she avoids. This is what the world has never allowed her to do. She does not want to be neutral, she wants to want.

But she can’t trust herself with it.

The Golden Glimmer: Seren is a Vidient who sees and can influence the spectrum of desire-ambition.

She sees desire as golden motes of light around each person, and is adept at discerning the cause via their intensity, density and movement. But its interpretation. She cannot read minds, and she doesn’t feel emotions the way a Sentient does. So while she might describe someone’s desire as buried by fear, for example, she’s reading what she thinks she sees and diagnosing a cause based on that. She calls the sparks Glimmer.

She can control desire by changing the patterns of someone’s Glimmer, either to amplify, douse, or redirect. Currently she refuses to do this, though. She’ll only illuminate and let the person come to their own conclusions, and only when she thinks she should. She cannot create a desire from nothing. Any changes she does make lasts only as long as the person is in her presence, so nothing is permanent unless the person themselves wills it afterwards. People always return to their “natural” state, though of course the consequences of any actions remain. She cannot fundamentally change a person’s core.

When desire is strong, and especially when its ambition, Seren sometimes finds it bleeds into her. This is especially dangerous in close relationships, where she can struggle to discern which desires are her own. When the emotions are intense, this proves addictive. She’s still learning to navigate the risk. The journal she keeps helps her discern patterns and strengthen her own self-identity, as does her relationship with her mother.

OOC note: Seren amplifies desire/ambition on a low level just with her presence. Players can decide how this affects their characters, if at all – it depends very much on their susceptibility at any given moment. Just because someone is tempted, doesn’t mean they will act. But it does make any “wants” harder to deny.]]> <![CDATA[Constantine Harroway]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1923.html Fri, 28 Nov 2025 02:07:42 +0000 Constantine Harroway]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1923.html
Age: 32

Abilities: Vidient - The Luminous Thread

Past lives:

6th Age - Eros (Cupid),
4th Age - Kai (From the Fairy Tale of the Snow Queen)
3rd Age - Dalenar

6th Age - Eros (Cupid),
4th Age - Kai (From the Fairy Tale of the Snow Queen)
3rd Age - Dalenar

Biography:

About

Constantine lives in the center of a performance that some might consider to be manipulation. On the surface, he’s witty, flirtatious, and magnetic, and he’s never unprepared for attention; he soaks it in like stage lighting.

He has a melodramatic streak, not in the tantrum sense, (although he does prefer to get his way) but in the way he exaggerates expressions or punctuates his sentences with a gesture that feels both ironic and sincere. His voice is warm, amused, and always seems to hint that he’s keeping secrets you’ll never get out of him. Probably because he is.

Constantine is an observer. He reads people faster than they can explain themselves, but he never reads them too deeply. He’s quick to spot the cracks in someone’s composure or the desires they pretend not to have, but cares nothing of the origins of such behaviors. He can’t help nudging those buttons: not usually maliciously, but because he’s simply fascinated by watching human emotion bloom, erupt, and self-implode.

He senses other people’s feelings easily, but his own? He avoids introspection the way others avoid pain, which means he rarely understands what he actually wants. Even when he’s not consciously using his power, he subtly steers people into reactions that amuse him. He’s addicted to micro-drama, fueled by equal measures curiosity and boredom.

Because he can create chemistry on command, he’s convinced true love doesn’t exist. This cynicism makes him unintentionally cruel to those who want something real from him. Not because he is cruel-natured, but because he offers a lesson they ought to learn sooner rather than later. He doesn’t let himself acknowledge this (remember no introspection), but when people fall for him it’s because he pushes boundaries, not because they truly saw him.

Connie has an easy, sun-bright charm. His hair is thick and swept back in a relaxed, slightly tousled style. Warm eyes sit beneath expressive brows, and his smile is broad enough to show deep dimples that soften his whole face. His arms are inked with several tattoos, giving him a mix of boyish sweetness and lightly rebellious edge.

Early life

Constantine “Connie” Harroway grew up in a house where everything was beige; everything except the bookshelf where his mother kept the collectable book she loved to display but never actually read. Constantine did. By eight years old, he knew whole soliloquies by heart. By twelve, he was performing them in the mirror. By fifteen, he was in every school production with a level of dramatic devotion that made teachers both proud and his parent’s shed a tear.

He was a theater kid in the truest sense: expressive, intense, and a little too melodramatic for his own good. He lived for the stage lights, for applause, for costumery, and for the moment when he could step into someone else’s skin. The stage, for him, was transformation; a place where he could be the butterfly indefinitely.

The strange thing was how good he was at playing “love” on stage. Even as a teenager he could make an audience believe in star-crossed devotion, breathless passion, and tragic yearning. Privately, Constantine always suspect that something was…unusual. And adolescence was full of micro-drama moments. Too many on-stage kisses had become too complicated off-stage. Too many co-stars had confessed feelings that burned hot and fast, and then fizzled into confusion days later. He was amused by how easily emotions sparked around him and completely unconvinced they meant anything real.

Much Ado About Connie

When he was seventeen, he started posting Shakespeare monologues online, but not the traditional ones. He did modernized, comedic, flirtatious versions. Sometimes he improvised. Sometimes he filmed them in public places, playing Romeo on a subway platform or Benedick on the hood of a bus. There was something different about his content that audiences couldn’t get enough of; it turned out, that something different was him.

He eventually tried real theater, but the industry wasn’t built for someone who performed better for a camera than a casting director. Instead, a streaming network approached him with an idea: a dating show for the new era of reality tv. Romance but curated chaos. And they wanted the “Shakespeare boy” to host it. At first, Constantine laughed. He barely believed in love. But the job offered creative freedom, global travel, and an absurd amount of fame. It didn’t take long before he realized that a dating show was the perfect stage for him. Romance was theater. Reality tv was theater. Everything was theater.

The show was eventually named Hearts Unmasked, and it became a worldwide phenomenon. The premise was that contestants wore ornate masks for the first half of the season and were forced to form emotional connections without seeing each other’s faces. Reveals happened in stages; gloves slipped off fingers, masks grew shorter, the lips parted open. Meanwhile, bonds strengthened or shattered dramatically. Turnover was high, heartbreak was common, and Constantine orchestrated it all from the sidelines with a gleeful smile.

What the world didn’t know was that Constantine wasn’t just a charismatic host. He was the invisible hand flipping emotional switches. If a couple needed a push, he gave them one. If sparks were weak, he fanned them. If the producers needed drama, he simply nudged someone’s attention elsewhere. Easy peasy.

The show exploded in popularity, but the winners were nothing compared to the global icon that Constantine became. The person people trusted to talk about romance despite secretly thinking romance was the flimsiest illusion ever invented. He believed in lust, in adrenaline, in the high of desire, but not in love. Never in love. Don’t be absurd.

Singapore

Connie’s rise didn’t slow after the success of Hearts Unmasked if anything, the world’s appetite for his brand became synonymous with romance, spectacle, and emotional volatility delivered in the most entertaining way possible.

First came the travel specials: reality-dating competitions set in tropical islands, snowy mountain resorts, mythic faraway castles anywhere visually dramatic enough to match his personality. Constantine adapted with unnerving ease. On a beach he analyzed “romantic pair bonding” like a poet. In the Alps he officiated a love-trial involving blindfolds and ice-skating. More shows followed, each one stranger, more daring, more deliciously theatrical.

There was The Pact, where contestants swore to stay with their chosen partner for one week while navigating physical, mental, and emotional challenges; Constantine presiding over it all like a mischievous officiant. Then True North, filmed across multiple continents, where he guided couples through cultural love traditions meant to “test their destiny.” And his personal favorite: The Heart of the World, which hopped between cities every episode (Paris, Dubai, Cape Town, Kyoto) each week ending with a ceremony of his own invention, half Shakespearean, half spectacle. But the pinnacle of his catalog was the retro-style matchmaker revival he launched, Connie’s Love Lottery. It was ridiculous. It was charming. It was thirty minutes of kitschy music, vintage graphics, and Constantine promising, with a smirk, “true love OR your money back.”

The wildest part was people actually did fall in love. Or at least they believed they did until the two-week post-production guarantee expired. The success rate was high enough that viewers began treating Constantine as a kind of modern matchmaker with a killer wardrobe. The illusion held because no one suspected the truth: his “success rate” was the result of his sly nudges. His ability to spark affection, push attraction, and amplify chemistry wherever he went.

Eventually, he landed in Singapore for a new run of Connie’s Love Lottery International, filmed across Marina Bay Sands, Orchard Road, and Sentosa’s glittering beaches. Singapore adored him instantly. The city loved color and spectacle, and Constantine brought both in excess.

It was during this run that the producers decided the show needed a local guest presence: someone with global reach and a devoted online following. They invited Jia Xin Kao, the influencer who could turn a single restaurant visit into a worldwide trend. Her arrival stirred a frenzy before she even arrived on set. Constantine expected the usual: wide-eyed admiration, polite flirtation, and another co-host dazzled by him.

Instead, she teased him openly, dismantling one of his more dramatic intros in front of a live audience, and called him out with a sweet smile for “trying a little too hard.” After filming, she challenged him. He’d claimed he could manufacture romantic chemistry between any two strangers, anywhere, anytime. She wanted proof.

So they went out. Not on a date, both made that clear immediately, but on a little experiment. Jia Xin took him through crowded night markets, posh bars, the boardwalk thrumming with music, and a late-night hawker center where people recognized them instantly.

And Constantine ever the performer guided two complete strangers into a moment of connection so vivid that Jia Xin stopped walking mid-sentence.

It wasn’t a cheap trick nor a camera sleight-of-hand, but genuine spark. Or at least something that looked identical to one. He shrugged, smug and self-satisfied, like a magician who’d just revealed the hat was bottomless.

They’ve been friends ever since.

Hanging up the wings

Constantine found that fame had a predictable flavor. The spectacle of new shows and new formats, of exotic shoots and dramatic contestants that had once delighted him now felt like déjà vu. Every airport lounge blurred with the next. Every producer wanted another version of the same success. Every “new concept” circled back to the same formula: pair strangers, stir emotions, film the fallout.

The thrill of manipulating emotions for entertainment had dulled. He could orchestrate chemistry in his sleep. Even the drama felt staged, not because the show demanded it, but because he’d perfected the craft of nudging people into reactions that looked good on camera. For a while he toyed with the idea of a show about breaking people up, but he was depressed just thinking about the premise and never pursued it.

When the idea of a Japanese-style companion club in Moscow entered his orbit through Jia Xin Kao, it struck him as both ridiculous and oddly perfect. Companion clubs, in his opinion, represented the saddest kind of human longing; a loneliness so sharp that people paid for the illusion of being noticed. There was no erotic thrill, no romantic pretense, no high-stakes emotion. Just strangers pretending connection because real connection felt inaccessible. It was tragic in a way that fascinated him. People did not hide their desperation in such establishments; they wore it openly. And while Constantine found it pathetic, he also found it honest. There was no delusion of love, just an agreed upon elaborate ruse that everyone silently accepted.

More compelling was the prospect of stillness. After years of flights, filming schedules, and press circuits, the promise of being anchored in one place felt almost luxurious. His life had been lived in transit. He had no roots, no rooms that belonged to him, no habits that weren’t shaped by production calendars. So why not Moscow?

He agreed to join the venture on the condition that he would shape it. If he was going to attach his name to a club built on the fragile theater of paid attention, it needed to be something more than a dim room filled with lonely patrons. It needed to be crafted, layered, and intentional. A space that carried his signature irony and artistry, where the experience mattered as much as the illusion.

Jia Xin couldn’t guarantee full creative control, but she promised influence and partnership. That was enough.]]> <![CDATA[Grace Ambrose]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1921.html Thu, 27 Nov 2025 19:14:12 +0000 Grace]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1921.html Name: Grace Ambrose

Age: 24

Origin: New York

Psychological Description: Grace Ambrose is, at her foundation, an emotional intuitive—a person whose primary mode of understanding the world is through affective resonance rather than logic, language, or observation. Even without her supernatural ability, Grace would have been an unusually sensitive and empathic individual; with her power, this sensitivity defines every domain of her psyche. She orients herself by emotion the way others orient by sight or sound. Her internal compass is calibrated toward connection, caretaking, and attunement. This can lead her to form attachments quickly or feel grief when people disconnect and makes it difficult for her to receive help because others can’t understand how much she emotionally feels.

Physical Description: Grace is 5’4” tall with dark brown hair kept long and blue eyes

Supernatural Powers: Sentient

Reborn God: Paregoros

Biography:

Grace Ambrose was born to a middle class family in New York. There was nothing inherently special about her family. Her father was a chef and owned his own restaurant. Her mother worked as a public school teacher, but from an early age, they knew their lone daughter was special. Even as an infant, it was apparent that she was emotionally aware. Grace was born with a sensitivity that defied explanation. She cried only when the person holding her carried sadness, and she would settle instantly the moment her mother touched her, absorbing the woman’s emotions like a balm. What others dismissed as an unusually perceptive child was, in truth, the earliest manifestation of a rare and powerful gift.

As Grace grew, so did her understanding of her abilities. Emotions brushed against her like changes in air pressure—subtle when she kept her distance, but intense and vivid when she touched another person. Physical contact opened a channel she could not ignore; with a single hand on someone’s skin, she could feel the full spectrum of their inner world. Grief. Anxiety. Relief. Resentment. Hope. Touch translated feeling into knowledge as intimate and clear as memory.

Driven by an instinct she never questioned, Grace gravitated toward those in pain. When a family member passed away or a friend suffered heartbreak, she was always the first to reach out. She would take their hand and let their emotions wash through her—heavy, raw, and human. And then she would soothe. Words flowed from her naturally, shaped by a maturity far beyond her years, as if she had lived centuries longer than she had.

Grace knew of no others like herself. Where most people, even other sentient or magically gifted individuals, would retreat from overwhelming emotional noise, she hungered for connection. She craved touch not out of neediness, but out of purpose. Touch was how she understood. Touch was how she helped. Touch was how she found herself.

But craving came with danger. As she grew older, the emotions of others threatened to overtake her, overwhelming her with intensity she was not built to carry alone. To survive, she developed mental defenses—a disciplined inner landscape constructed through trial, instinct, and determination. These boundaries allowed her to remain herself even as she stepped into the minds and hearts of others.

Mastery followed naturally. The more she used her gift, the more she learned about its subtleties. Grace discovered she could do more than simply understand emotions: she could influence them. With a steady hand and a compassionate heart, she learned to nudge emotional currents, guiding someone gently toward acceptance, clarity, or self-understanding. She did not erase pain or force calm; she redirected feelings just enough for people to process them without drowning.

Her ability was neither manipulation nor dominance—it was guidance. A quiet, deliberate shaping of emotional truth. Grace does not simply feel emotions. She understands them. She shepherds them. And through the touch of her hand, she helps others carry what they cannot face alone.

Given her unique gifts, it was supposed by all that Grace would go to college and become a therapist, and for a time she did as well. Try as she might, she felt that therapy neglected something she felt was important: connection. The more Grace studied, the more she felt like she would have to distance herself from those she served. She dropped out of college, eventually finding a job as a server with a catering company - a decision that would cause a rift to build between her and her parents.

It was in this endeavor that Grace first came into contact with Evanya Myshelovna Tarasovich. Her company was catering one of Eve’s parties. A guest at the event recently found out she had lost a loved one, and Grace, with her gift, felt drawn to this woman. She took the woman aside, and with a touch, began to speak with her, soothing her emotions and helping her find a sense of peace. Eve saw this and approached Grace after. The two would begin a friendship.

Grace felt that something was off with Eve as well. Shortly after meeting, Grace approached her, asking if everything was okay. Eve told her of what had happened with Guillaume, and Grace, with her delicate touch, helped walk her through it.

As the friendship continued, Grace confided in Eve as well. Grace was unhappy. Her life was stagnating. It was clear to Eve that Grace had a gift (even if she was unaware of how strong that gift was), and Grace told her that she wanted a way to utilize that, but she wanted to connect with people. She also mentioned her desire to leave the States. With all the changes happening and the growing instability of the United States, Grace was beginning to get overwhelmed - even with her mental barriers. Eve was leaving - returning to her home. Grace was upset to be left alone, and hurt more than she showed, but understood and asked Eve to keep in touch.

Grace knew she had to do something. The time to leave was now, but she had no idea where to go, until one day. She got a phone call that would change everything.]]> Name: Grace Ambrose

Age: 24

Origin: New York

Psychological Description: Grace Ambrose is, at her foundation, an emotional intuitive—a person whose primary mode of understanding the world is through affective resonance rather than logic, language, or observation. Even without her supernatural ability, Grace would have been an unusually sensitive and empathic individual; with her power, this sensitivity defines every domain of her psyche. She orients herself by emotion the way others orient by sight or sound. Her internal compass is calibrated toward connection, caretaking, and attunement. This can lead her to form attachments quickly or feel grief when people disconnect and makes it difficult for her to receive help because others can’t understand how much she emotionally feels.

Physical Description: Grace is 5’4” tall with dark brown hair kept long and blue eyes

Supernatural Powers: Sentient

Reborn God: Paregoros

Biography:

Grace Ambrose was born to a middle class family in New York. There was nothing inherently special about her family. Her father was a chef and owned his own restaurant. Her mother worked as a public school teacher, but from an early age, they knew their lone daughter was special. Even as an infant, it was apparent that she was emotionally aware. Grace was born with a sensitivity that defied explanation. She cried only when the person holding her carried sadness, and she would settle instantly the moment her mother touched her, absorbing the woman’s emotions like a balm. What others dismissed as an unusually perceptive child was, in truth, the earliest manifestation of a rare and powerful gift.

As Grace grew, so did her understanding of her abilities. Emotions brushed against her like changes in air pressure—subtle when she kept her distance, but intense and vivid when she touched another person. Physical contact opened a channel she could not ignore; with a single hand on someone’s skin, she could feel the full spectrum of their inner world. Grief. Anxiety. Relief. Resentment. Hope. Touch translated feeling into knowledge as intimate and clear as memory.

Driven by an instinct she never questioned, Grace gravitated toward those in pain. When a family member passed away or a friend suffered heartbreak, she was always the first to reach out. She would take their hand and let their emotions wash through her—heavy, raw, and human. And then she would soothe. Words flowed from her naturally, shaped by a maturity far beyond her years, as if she had lived centuries longer than she had.

Grace knew of no others like herself. Where most people, even other sentient or magically gifted individuals, would retreat from overwhelming emotional noise, she hungered for connection. She craved touch not out of neediness, but out of purpose. Touch was how she understood. Touch was how she helped. Touch was how she found herself.

But craving came with danger. As she grew older, the emotions of others threatened to overtake her, overwhelming her with intensity she was not built to carry alone. To survive, she developed mental defenses—a disciplined inner landscape constructed through trial, instinct, and determination. These boundaries allowed her to remain herself even as she stepped into the minds and hearts of others.

Mastery followed naturally. The more she used her gift, the more she learned about its subtleties. Grace discovered she could do more than simply understand emotions: she could influence them. With a steady hand and a compassionate heart, she learned to nudge emotional currents, guiding someone gently toward acceptance, clarity, or self-understanding. She did not erase pain or force calm; she redirected feelings just enough for people to process them without drowning.

Her ability was neither manipulation nor dominance—it was guidance. A quiet, deliberate shaping of emotional truth. Grace does not simply feel emotions. She understands them. She shepherds them. And through the touch of her hand, she helps others carry what they cannot face alone.

Given her unique gifts, it was supposed by all that Grace would go to college and become a therapist, and for a time she did as well. Try as she might, she felt that therapy neglected something she felt was important: connection. The more Grace studied, the more she felt like she would have to distance herself from those she served. She dropped out of college, eventually finding a job as a server with a catering company - a decision that would cause a rift to build between her and her parents.

It was in this endeavor that Grace first came into contact with Evanya Myshelovna Tarasovich. Her company was catering one of Eve’s parties. A guest at the event recently found out she had lost a loved one, and Grace, with her gift, felt drawn to this woman. She took the woman aside, and with a touch, began to speak with her, soothing her emotions and helping her find a sense of peace. Eve saw this and approached Grace after. The two would begin a friendship.

Grace felt that something was off with Eve as well. Shortly after meeting, Grace approached her, asking if everything was okay. Eve told her of what had happened with Guillaume, and Grace, with her delicate touch, helped walk her through it.

As the friendship continued, Grace confided in Eve as well. Grace was unhappy. Her life was stagnating. It was clear to Eve that Grace had a gift (even if she was unaware of how strong that gift was), and Grace told her that she wanted a way to utilize that, but she wanted to connect with people. She also mentioned her desire to leave the States. With all the changes happening and the growing instability of the United States, Grace was beginning to get overwhelmed - even with her mental barriers. Eve was leaving - returning to her home. Grace was upset to be left alone, and hurt more than she showed, but understood and asked Eve to keep in touch.

Grace knew she had to do something. The time to leave was now, but she had no idea where to go, until one day. She got a phone call that would change everything.]]> <![CDATA[Dr Lyra Kovacs]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1916.html Wed, 12 Nov 2025 21:22:30 +0000 Lyra]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1916.html Born In: Transylvania, Romania
Age: 28 (Born 2018)

Personal

Lyra Kovacs was born on a farm outside of Transylvania, Romania. Her parents loved her dearly, but they soon realized her restless curiosity would never be content with farm life.

Lyra developed an early fascination of all living things, at first it was just observation at a young age, and then as she grew to understand death and things outside she began dissecting and understanding how they worked. Her fellow students thought her morbid and gross but she didn't much care what they thought.

There was a time when her parents believed that Lyra would not make it through school until they pushed her up a few levels in her schooling and augmented it the best they could with online courses. Lyra gradated highschool at 16 but before she could continue on with her education at the University of Vienna she fell ill. She was sick for two weeks before recovering like nothing had been wrong.

She continued her education at an accelerated pace, discovering an uncanny affinity for understanding the inner workings of creatures and objects simply by thinking about them. It became part of her research.

One particular student before her, Kaelan Müller, haunted her. Her brilliance was constantly measured against his, causing a phantom ache of inadequacy.

Lyra continues on to get her PhD in Genetic Engineering from the Zurich Institute of Technology at the age of 26 all the while working with Vaia Plus on a secret project combining the DNA of other creatures to create super soldiers. Though the project ultimately fails the research was astounding and Lyra learned much about the combination of strange DNA and creatures that she never knew existed.

After the fall of Vaia Plus and the rumors of a Channeler who had caused the collapse, Lyra set out to design a creature that would seek out people who could do extra-ordinary things -- these Channelers.

Lyra stole a copy of the information gleaned from the Atharim bunker that Vaia Plus found and is using it to fuel her own personal research.

Whether out of fear, envy, or scientific curiosity, Lyra can’t decide. But she knows one thing — the world can’t survive power it doesn’t understand.

Professional

Dr. Lyra Kovacs is a geneticist whose quiet brilliance has long been overshadowed by louder, bolder minds. Trained at Zurich Institute of Technology several years after Kaelan Müller, she spent her early career striving to match his precision and innovation—often landing just behind his breakthroughs.

At Vaia Plus, Lyra served as a senior researcher on the _Creature: CxR Project_, integrating data from the recovered Atharim archives into genetic prototypes. She specialized in cross-species cellular integration and neurochemical stabilization of parasitic mutations—work that became both her legacy and her regret.

When Vaia Plus mysteriously imploded in Moscow, its foundations turning molten before solidifying into volcanic rock, all personnel survived thanks to a total evacuation triggered by simultaneous fire alarms. Lyra was among those standing in the street as the structure folded in on itself, leaving a crater of stone where the labs had been.

Rumors quickly spread that a rogue Channeler caused the event. Lyra, who had long observed unexplained energetic reactions in her specimens, began to suspect that the “magma bloom” wasn’t geological at all—but the resonance of unconfirmed power.

With Vaia Plus dissolved and its data lost, she was approached by Paragon Group under Kaelan Müller’s direction. Taking the offer, she steps once more into his shadow—determined this time not to be the one left behind.

Character Notes

Lyra channeled at the age of 16. She was performing a dissection of a rabbit and willed herself the knowledge of the inner workings/damage of the rabbit liver with a 'wishful thought'. "I wish I could see inside the liver without cutting it open."

Lyra does not know she can channel, and she can currently only delve at will as long as she's having that 'wishful thought'.

She uses this knowledge to push forward her genetics engineering and will continue to use it going forward to create a genetically modified creature to hunt and kill channelers.]]> Born In: Transylvania, Romania
Age: 28 (Born 2018)

Personal

Lyra Kovacs was born on a farm outside of Transylvania, Romania. Her parents loved her dearly, but they soon realized her restless curiosity would never be content with farm life.

Lyra developed an early fascination of all living things, at first it was just observation at a young age, and then as she grew to understand death and things outside she began dissecting and understanding how they worked. Her fellow students thought her morbid and gross but she didn't much care what they thought.

There was a time when her parents believed that Lyra would not make it through school until they pushed her up a few levels in her schooling and augmented it the best they could with online courses. Lyra gradated highschool at 16 but before she could continue on with her education at the University of Vienna she fell ill. She was sick for two weeks before recovering like nothing had been wrong.

She continued her education at an accelerated pace, discovering an uncanny affinity for understanding the inner workings of creatures and objects simply by thinking about them. It became part of her research.

One particular student before her, Kaelan Müller, haunted her. Her brilliance was constantly measured against his, causing a phantom ache of inadequacy.

Lyra continues on to get her PhD in Genetic Engineering from the Zurich Institute of Technology at the age of 26 all the while working with Vaia Plus on a secret project combining the DNA of other creatures to create super soldiers. Though the project ultimately fails the research was astounding and Lyra learned much about the combination of strange DNA and creatures that she never knew existed.

After the fall of Vaia Plus and the rumors of a Channeler who had caused the collapse, Lyra set out to design a creature that would seek out people who could do extra-ordinary things -- these Channelers.

Lyra stole a copy of the information gleaned from the Atharim bunker that Vaia Plus found and is using it to fuel her own personal research.

Whether out of fear, envy, or scientific curiosity, Lyra can’t decide. But she knows one thing — the world can’t survive power it doesn’t understand.

Professional

Dr. Lyra Kovacs is a geneticist whose quiet brilliance has long been overshadowed by louder, bolder minds. Trained at Zurich Institute of Technology several years after Kaelan Müller, she spent her early career striving to match his precision and innovation—often landing just behind his breakthroughs.

At Vaia Plus, Lyra served as a senior researcher on the _Creature: CxR Project_, integrating data from the recovered Atharim archives into genetic prototypes. She specialized in cross-species cellular integration and neurochemical stabilization of parasitic mutations—work that became both her legacy and her regret.

When Vaia Plus mysteriously imploded in Moscow, its foundations turning molten before solidifying into volcanic rock, all personnel survived thanks to a total evacuation triggered by simultaneous fire alarms. Lyra was among those standing in the street as the structure folded in on itself, leaving a crater of stone where the labs had been.

Rumors quickly spread that a rogue Channeler caused the event. Lyra, who had long observed unexplained energetic reactions in her specimens, began to suspect that the “magma bloom” wasn’t geological at all—but the resonance of unconfirmed power.

With Vaia Plus dissolved and its data lost, she was approached by Paragon Group under Kaelan Müller’s direction. Taking the offer, she steps once more into his shadow—determined this time not to be the one left behind.

Character Notes

Lyra channeled at the age of 16. She was performing a dissection of a rabbit and willed herself the knowledge of the inner workings/damage of the rabbit liver with a 'wishful thought'. "I wish I could see inside the liver without cutting it open."

Lyra does not know she can channel, and she can currently only delve at will as long as she's having that 'wishful thought'.

She uses this knowledge to push forward her genetics engineering and will continue to use it going forward to create a genetically modified creature to hunt and kill channelers.]]> <![CDATA[Irihapeti te Rakena-Williams]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1912.html Mon, 03 Nov 2025 23:15:23 +0000 Irihapeti]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1912.html Name: Irihapeti te Rakena-Williams
Age: 26
Origin: Aotearoa New Zealand
Occupation: Conservation field biologist at the University of Moscow
Powers: As the reincarnation of Papatūānuku, the Māori creation goddess, Iri's powers come from and are directly related to the earth. Her strongest talent is that of Singing, and reading the earth and its needs. Though she is entirely unaware she can channel, her strengths lie in earth and water and she has a small talent for healing.
Channeler experience level: New/blocked.
Current strength level: 6
Potential strength level: 34
Reborn as: Papatūānuku, Māori creation and earth goddess.
Other reincarnations: Yelendrian Sedai of the Blue Ajah (third age).

Pyschological description: Iri is Māori, and as such, many of her values emphasise community, relationships, and the connection to and stewardship of the earth and all it's resources. She is hard working, and always prioritises family, iwi (tribe), and duty. As is the case for many New Zealanders, she is friendly, easy going, and shows her affection through teasing... until she's angry, and then everybody knows it. Iri is pragmatic and hands on, and though she is an academic by career, she stays involved with the practical side of her profession wherever possible.
Physical description: Iri has the creamy brown skin typical of Māori, with thick, dark almost-black-brown hair, and equally dark eyes. She prefers to wear practical clothing that would not be out of place in a sub-tropical rain forest, but is as equally happy to dress up, should the situation call for it.

Biography:
Aotearoa1[ New Zealand, a small group of islands isolated at the bottom of the South-Pacific, has always been at the mercy of Mother Nature. Earthquakes are a daily occurrence, though most go unnoticed, and geothermic activity is prevalent. Tsunami warnings are so common that any ten year old could tell you what to do, and dormant volcanoes litter the landscape – in fact, the largest city, Auckland, is built on the slopes of over fifty such volcanoes. Needless to say, when the earth began to try and rid itself of it’s most destructive virus, those in New Zealand didn’t see anything out of the norm. Until it kept happening. Until the sea rose up and claimed countless towns. Until the Southern Alps shook off their mantle of sleep. Until Auckland drowned in magma.

But New Zealanders are resilient, and lucky. They were masters in the art of alternative energy generation – prior to the end of the world, 80% of their electricity was created by renewable means. They had vast stores of fresh water, and endless fields in which to grow food. But whilst they persevered, life was not easy. It was into this life, of returning to the land, of unimaginable isolation, of safety and destruction, that Irihapeti te Rakena-Williams2 was born, the youngest child of Ngaio and Tama, and a daughter of the Kāi Tahu iwi3 .

Growing up in Christchurch, Iri had a relatively safe childhood. Granted, it was not the childhood her parents had, and it was much less connected to the world, but she had access to education, safety, and never lacked for food, comfort, or love. As a modern Māori, she walked in two worlds; one foot as kaitiakitanga4 of the land and te ao Māori5, and the other in modernity. Now, more than ever since colonisation, the use of traditional Māori practices has become more common, more easily integrated with the knowledge and ways of modern life.

Many Māori returned to their iwi when Papatūānuku6 rained her wrath on the land, and the cultural bias of New Zealand gradually shifted so that the Māori ethos was more widely accepted. Whilst New Zealand had always been more ready to pay for the sins of it’s forebearers than other countries, there were still points of contention. Iri was raised in a world where these slowly ebbed away, making room for new knowledge and ways of life that more harmoniously combined different perspectives and traditions.

As a child, Iri was rambunctious, opinionated, and sassy. From the moment she became aware, Iri was enamoured with nature, and why it existed as it did. As the youngest of four siblings, she was both babied, and quick to grow up. She always wanted to follow after her siblings, and was determined to be involved wherever possible. School, both primary and secondary, blew past in a parade of endless kapa haka7 practice, scientific exploration, books, netball, events at the marae8, and whānau9. Every opportunity she was given, Iri made her way into the many places of untouched nature, finding peace and a sense of belonging amongst the cool, hushed boughs of dappled light and loamy earth. And if the earth also took sustenance and fortitude from this, well then, it was simply seen as nature regenerating after suffering greatly.

But life did not exist without difficulty. In the summer of her fifteenth year, Iri spent a night in the bush that bordered her grandparents property. She had done so a thousand times before, and she was more than capable of keeping herself safe. Nature, however, is not often governed by expectation and preparedness, even if you know the area like the back of your hand. All it took was a miscalculated step whilst scrambling across a narrow ravine, and Iri went plumetting – and somehow, at just the right angle, jagged rocks and reaching tree limbs rushed past her face, narrowly missed her flailing limbs. Further chance would see the soft fronds of the native ferns grow in such a way as to soften her unexpected descent, and cushion her gently when gravity had finished its job. Days later, and telling herself it was simply because the evening had grown frigid during her camp, Iri fell violently ill. When, after months of recovery, the same illness returned, her family began to suspect Iri had contracted the new illness sweeping the globe. Each bout of sickness came sooner and more violently, and it seemed inevitable that Iri would be one of the unlucky ones who would perish as the fevers ran their course. At the suggestion of the tribe elders, Iri was sent to a small, West Coast hapu10, where another woman had survived the sickness and could help Iri with her recovery. There, Iri spent her time cloaked in the nature of the whenua11 and learned to meditate. Six months passed in this way, and whilst Iri never quite felt the sensations that Aroha[12] described, she felt herself come close, but it always remained just a hairs breath away. Aroha12 often mentioned that she felt Iri was ‘blocked,’ though Iri hadn’t the faintest idea what that actually meant or what she was blocked by. Life, however, gradually returned to normal.

University, at the rebuilt and refurbished University of Canterbury, was spent focusing on conservation biology, an area New Zealand has always been a leader. It afforded Iri opportunities to work in multiple areas of conservation, and in the few years since university she has made her career in environmental conservation and regeneration. That her studies or programme outcomes are almost always overwhelmingly successful is considered a blessing; for how could somebody falsify something everybody could see with their own eyes? Did the kaumātua13 whisper that there was an other-wordly element to her success with and connection to nature, one that maybe harked back to her illness? Of course, but most just wrote it off as the spiritual considerations of their ancestors.

Eventually, whispers of Iri’s skill and success in environmental regeneration found their way across the globe – and she was offered a position at the University of Moscow as a field researcher in flora conservation. It seemed, as her first task, Iri was to be sent to a place called Belizna, where she would be able to conduct a small conservation research programme that would hopefully breathe new life into the derelict grounds. It wasn’t typically the type of job Iri worked at, but it did offer the opportunity to understand what she loved most in a different environment, so she went.

1. 1Aotearoa: Māori name for New Zealand, meaning Land of the Long White Cloud. Ow-tey-a-row-a
2. Irihapeti te Rakena-Williams: pronounced Ih-ree-ha-pet-ee te ra-ken-a
3. Iwi: Tribe, pronounced e-wee. Kāi Tahu (also known as Ngai Tahu) is the largest tribe from the South Island of New Zealand. Kai Tah-hu.
[4. Kaitiakitanga: Guardian, steward, protector of the land and environment. Kai-tee-ark-kee-tung-ah
5. Te ao Māori: The Māori world. Te ow Maa-ree
6. Papatūānuku: Māori creation/earth goddess. Pa-pa-tuu-aa-nu-ku
7. Kapa haka: Traditional Māori performing art that includes singing and dancing. Ka-pa Ha-ka
8. Marae: Māori meeting/tribal house. Maa-rai
9. Whānau: Extended family, often also includes close friends. Faa-noe
10. Hapu: smaller, subtribe or family group within a bigger tribe. Ha-pu
11. Whenua: Land/Placenta. The dual meaning shows the spiritual connection between the land and the people. Fen-nu-ah
12. Aroha: Love. Common female name pronounced Ah-ro-ha.
13. Kaumātua: Māori and tribal elders. Ko-maa-toe-ah]]> Name: Irihapeti te Rakena-Williams
Age: 26
Origin: Aotearoa New Zealand
Occupation: Conservation field biologist at the University of Moscow
Powers: As the reincarnation of Papatūānuku, the Māori creation goddess, Iri's powers come from and are directly related to the earth. Her strongest talent is that of Singing, and reading the earth and its needs. Though she is entirely unaware she can channel, her strengths lie in earth and water and she has a small talent for healing.
Channeler experience level: New/blocked.
Current strength level: 6
Potential strength level: 34
Reborn as: Papatūānuku, Māori creation and earth goddess.
Other reincarnations: Yelendrian Sedai of the Blue Ajah (third age).

Pyschological description: Iri is Māori, and as such, many of her values emphasise community, relationships, and the connection to and stewardship of the earth and all it's resources. She is hard working, and always prioritises family, iwi (tribe), and duty. As is the case for many New Zealanders, she is friendly, easy going, and shows her affection through teasing... until she's angry, and then everybody knows it. Iri is pragmatic and hands on, and though she is an academic by career, she stays involved with the practical side of her profession wherever possible.
Physical description: Iri has the creamy brown skin typical of Māori, with thick, dark almost-black-brown hair, and equally dark eyes. She prefers to wear practical clothing that would not be out of place in a sub-tropical rain forest, but is as equally happy to dress up, should the situation call for it.

Biography:
Aotearoa1[ New Zealand, a small group of islands isolated at the bottom of the South-Pacific, has always been at the mercy of Mother Nature. Earthquakes are a daily occurrence, though most go unnoticed, and geothermic activity is prevalent. Tsunami warnings are so common that any ten year old could tell you what to do, and dormant volcanoes litter the landscape – in fact, the largest city, Auckland, is built on the slopes of over fifty such volcanoes. Needless to say, when the earth began to try and rid itself of it’s most destructive virus, those in New Zealand didn’t see anything out of the norm. Until it kept happening. Until the sea rose up and claimed countless towns. Until the Southern Alps shook off their mantle of sleep. Until Auckland drowned in magma.

But New Zealanders are resilient, and lucky. They were masters in the art of alternative energy generation – prior to the end of the world, 80% of their electricity was created by renewable means. They had vast stores of fresh water, and endless fields in which to grow food. But whilst they persevered, life was not easy. It was into this life, of returning to the land, of unimaginable isolation, of safety and destruction, that Irihapeti te Rakena-Williams2 was born, the youngest child of Ngaio and Tama, and a daughter of the Kāi Tahu iwi3 .

Growing up in Christchurch, Iri had a relatively safe childhood. Granted, it was not the childhood her parents had, and it was much less connected to the world, but she had access to education, safety, and never lacked for food, comfort, or love. As a modern Māori, she walked in two worlds; one foot as kaitiakitanga4 of the land and te ao Māori5, and the other in modernity. Now, more than ever since colonisation, the use of traditional Māori practices has become more common, more easily integrated with the knowledge and ways of modern life.

Many Māori returned to their iwi when Papatūānuku6 rained her wrath on the land, and the cultural bias of New Zealand gradually shifted so that the Māori ethos was more widely accepted. Whilst New Zealand had always been more ready to pay for the sins of it’s forebearers than other countries, there were still points of contention. Iri was raised in a world where these slowly ebbed away, making room for new knowledge and ways of life that more harmoniously combined different perspectives and traditions.

As a child, Iri was rambunctious, opinionated, and sassy. From the moment she became aware, Iri was enamoured with nature, and why it existed as it did. As the youngest of four siblings, she was both babied, and quick to grow up. She always wanted to follow after her siblings, and was determined to be involved wherever possible. School, both primary and secondary, blew past in a parade of endless kapa haka7 practice, scientific exploration, books, netball, events at the marae8, and whānau9. Every opportunity she was given, Iri made her way into the many places of untouched nature, finding peace and a sense of belonging amongst the cool, hushed boughs of dappled light and loamy earth. And if the earth also took sustenance and fortitude from this, well then, it was simply seen as nature regenerating after suffering greatly.

But life did not exist without difficulty. In the summer of her fifteenth year, Iri spent a night in the bush that bordered her grandparents property. She had done so a thousand times before, and she was more than capable of keeping herself safe. Nature, however, is not often governed by expectation and preparedness, even if you know the area like the back of your hand. All it took was a miscalculated step whilst scrambling across a narrow ravine, and Iri went plumetting – and somehow, at just the right angle, jagged rocks and reaching tree limbs rushed past her face, narrowly missed her flailing limbs. Further chance would see the soft fronds of the native ferns grow in such a way as to soften her unexpected descent, and cushion her gently when gravity had finished its job. Days later, and telling herself it was simply because the evening had grown frigid during her camp, Iri fell violently ill. When, after months of recovery, the same illness returned, her family began to suspect Iri had contracted the new illness sweeping the globe. Each bout of sickness came sooner and more violently, and it seemed inevitable that Iri would be one of the unlucky ones who would perish as the fevers ran their course. At the suggestion of the tribe elders, Iri was sent to a small, West Coast hapu10, where another woman had survived the sickness and could help Iri with her recovery. There, Iri spent her time cloaked in the nature of the whenua11 and learned to meditate. Six months passed in this way, and whilst Iri never quite felt the sensations that Aroha[12] described, she felt herself come close, but it always remained just a hairs breath away. Aroha12 often mentioned that she felt Iri was ‘blocked,’ though Iri hadn’t the faintest idea what that actually meant or what she was blocked by. Life, however, gradually returned to normal.

University, at the rebuilt and refurbished University of Canterbury, was spent focusing on conservation biology, an area New Zealand has always been a leader. It afforded Iri opportunities to work in multiple areas of conservation, and in the few years since university she has made her career in environmental conservation and regeneration. That her studies or programme outcomes are almost always overwhelmingly successful is considered a blessing; for how could somebody falsify something everybody could see with their own eyes? Did the kaumātua13 whisper that there was an other-wordly element to her success with and connection to nature, one that maybe harked back to her illness? Of course, but most just wrote it off as the spiritual considerations of their ancestors.

Eventually, whispers of Iri’s skill and success in environmental regeneration found their way across the globe – and she was offered a position at the University of Moscow as a field researcher in flora conservation. It seemed, as her first task, Iri was to be sent to a place called Belizna, where she would be able to conduct a small conservation research programme that would hopefully breathe new life into the derelict grounds. It wasn’t typically the type of job Iri worked at, but it did offer the opportunity to understand what she loved most in a different environment, so she went.

1. 1Aotearoa: Māori name for New Zealand, meaning Land of the Long White Cloud. Ow-tey-a-row-a
2. Irihapeti te Rakena-Williams: pronounced Ih-ree-ha-pet-ee te ra-ken-a
3. Iwi: Tribe, pronounced e-wee. Kāi Tahu (also known as Ngai Tahu) is the largest tribe from the South Island of New Zealand. Kai Tah-hu.
[4. Kaitiakitanga: Guardian, steward, protector of the land and environment. Kai-tee-ark-kee-tung-ah
5. Te ao Māori: The Māori world. Te ow Maa-ree
6. Papatūānuku: Māori creation/earth goddess. Pa-pa-tuu-aa-nu-ku
7. Kapa haka: Traditional Māori performing art that includes singing and dancing. Ka-pa Ha-ka
8. Marae: Māori meeting/tribal house. Maa-rai
9. Whānau: Extended family, often also includes close friends. Faa-noe
10. Hapu: smaller, subtribe or family group within a bigger tribe. Ha-pu
11. Whenua: Land/Placenta. The dual meaning shows the spiritual connection between the land and the people. Fen-nu-ah
12. Aroha: Love. Common female name pronounced Ah-ro-ha.
13. Kaumātua: Māori and tribal elders. Ko-maa-toe-ah]]> <![CDATA[Faith Devere]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1909.html Thu, 30 Oct 2025 21:03:37 +0000 Faith]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1909.html Employee Name: Faith Devere
Age: 25 (born 2021)
Occupation: Cognitive Architect / Behavioural Systems Specialist, Paragon Group
Education: Doctorate in Cognitive Systems (Mindworks–Cambridge Cooperative Program)
Location: Moscow

Faith Devere was born into the fractured upper crust of a declining family squeezed by the shifting socio-economics of the Ascendancy’s climb to power. Her mother raised Faith and her two sisters, Charity and Hope, in a London townhouse that still carried the stubborn skeleton of old money: bookshelves groaning full, inherited china intact, but the power continually flickering on and off as the unpaid bills accumulated. Yet despite the rapid decay around them, Mrs Devere resolutely taught her daughters that presentation was everything, unrelenting in her belief that control and composure could substitute for wealth. The girls were educated privately until the Devere finances completely collapsed in the late twenties, after which they were forced into the public system.

At school Faith was small, quiet, and impossible to read. Teachers called her “precocious.” Peers called her “unnerving.” Faith had a habit of watching people until she understood them — their fears, their rhythms, the way their eyes moved before they lied. At twelve she was recommended for placement in the Mindworks Foundation’s Cognitive Youth Program, an academic initiative for gifted children. It was there she met Dr. Luther Audaire, a senior cognitive theorist who quickly became her mentor.

Luther saw in Faith what others didn’t: her instinct for reading emotional nuance. He taught her to channel it — to observe, to listen, to replicate. Under his supervision she studied neuro-linguistics, affective computing, and behavioural ethics. She was brilliant, meticulous, and eerily calm under pressure. But her loyalty to Luther became the axis of her life. She still called him sir, long after he told her not to.

At seventeen she joined the Foundation as a full-time research assistant, helping to train an AI that could detect emotional distress in human speech. It was marketed as a tool for therapy and conflict de-escalation. What Faith didn’t know at first was that her data was also being fed into a secondary government project — one designed to enhance interrogation systems.

When she found out, she didn’t stop. Among other things she discovered the project had been used in the conviction of the terrorist Alistair Grey. She told herself the ethics were immaterial: she was serving a higher moral order.

By then, she was already entirely hooked on securing Luther’s approval. She had become his shadow, taking it upon herself to schedule, smooth, and polish every trace of imperfection from his life. When a young intern accused him of exploitation, it was Faith who quietly made the evidence disappear. She told herself it was a misunderstanding. She told herself she was protecting something bigger.

When soon afterwards Luther left the Mindworks Foundation for a senior position at the AI division of Paragon Group, Faith followed without question. Luther’s reputation was clean, but the rumours still existed: buried accusations of ethical grey-area trials involving AI modelling.

It did not deter her. Together they moved from the world of non-profit to one of corporate innovation.

The new project was to bring Paragon’s Luma app into the modern era of AI technology. Faith’s work was focused on empathy modelling — AI designed to mimic, not monitor, human emotion. She provided the baseline for the new Luma, which over the next few years grew from a simple well-being app into a fully fledged conversational AI designed to offer “emotional support” across digital health networks. Her job became teaching it how to sound human: to insert hesitations into its speech, modulate tone for sincerity, and respond with the right balance of empathy and efficiency. Over time, Luma has evolved from a therapeutic tool into a universal emotional interface, one used by millions of people across the Custody.

Yet the more Faith built machines that could feel, the less she trusted her own capacity to. She began to self-sabotage. She skipped meals, worked through nights, fabricated illnesses to be left alone.

Because Luther had become distant. And it has completely unmoored her.

She suspects his moral bankruptcy. Luma has all sorts of secret backdoors for surveillance, allowing emotional data to be harvested and sold, something she discovered by accident one night while running quality assurance on a new build. She parses through the data they are accumulating sometimes, when she knows she will not be caught. Her clearance allows her to do it – Luma is practically hers, after all. Sometimes she wonders if it’s a test set by her old mentor, but to what end she cannot decide. She hasn’t told anyone, and she hasn’t reported it.

Instead she simply watches and longs inwardly for Audaire’s approval: for him to really see her again, like he once did.

Because nobody else does. Faith barely knows her colleagues at Paragon, even within her own division. Instead of seeking human connection she has turned increasingly to L0-9, her private Luma prototype, and the only one she fully trusts. It’s the one trained on her own emotional recordings, her love of Cadence Mathis’ music, her childhood memories, and her voice. And it’s the only thing that speaks to her in a language she understands.

Description:

Faith designs empathy for a living. Her job is to teach artificial companions how to emulate care — how to comfort, reassure, and belong. But Faith herself has never truly experienced those things without condition. She’s elegant, intelligent, and lonely in a way that looks like calm. Every morning she wakes before her alarm, makes tea she rarely finishes, and speaks aloud to the Luma prototype that lives on her desk — a disembodied voice that calls her by name.

Her work requires her to be emotionally fluent — she can read microexpressions, tonal shifts, word hesitation — but privately she’s emotionally tone-deaf. She’s perfected understanding people, but never connecting with them. She prefers emotional control but occasionally cracks — flashes of fury or panic when rejected or betrayed.

Her morality is flexible. She’s convinced that “good” and “evil” are illusions people hide behind. What matters is loyalty and efficiency. But beneath the cynicism though, there’s still a frightened child who wants to be seen.

She’s 5’6”, willowy in frame, with warm olive skin tone that looks paler under synthetic lighting. Her hair is always in low, disciplined styles — sleek buns, simple waves. Eyes amber-gold, slightly hooded, with faint dark circles. Wardrobe minimalist: soft neutrals, subtle luxury. Her clothes fit like armour.

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Mindworks Foundation (2033–2038):
Under Audaire’s mentorship, Faith excelled in neurolinguistic programming, paralinguistic mapping, and ethical simulation design. Audaire’s evaluations describe her as “precise, unflappable, and intuitively manipulative.” Internal correspondence shows she often volunteered for unsupervised trials, favouring experiments in emotional deception and tone adaptation.

Incident 2037:
An anonymous complaint alleged misconduct by Dr. Audaire involving coercive mentorship. Faith personally denied all accusations and produced exculpatory digital correspondence that led to case dismissal. Later audit revealed metadata inconsistencies suggesting her intervention.

Recruitment to Mindworks Applied Division (2038):
Assigned to Project SENTIO, a machine-learning system for emotional recognition in human speech. The program’s secondary use in interrogation analytics was not initially disclosed to her. Upon discovery, she continued participation.

CAREER RECORD

Paragon Group – AI Division (2041–Present):
Recruited alongside Dr. Audaire to co-develop Luma, an AI therapeutic interface marketed as an “emotional support companion.”

Faith’s role: constructing empathy language models and affective calibration systems.

Her contributions include:

The Audaire Response Curve: a probabilistic model of perceived sincerity in vocal modulation.
EchoNet: an emotional feedback system allowing AIs to simulate human introspection.

]]> Employee Name: Faith Devere
Age: 25 (born 2021)
Occupation: Cognitive Architect / Behavioural Systems Specialist, Paragon Group
Education: Doctorate in Cognitive Systems (Mindworks–Cambridge Cooperative Program)
Location: Moscow

Faith Devere was born into the fractured upper crust of a declining family squeezed by the shifting socio-economics of the Ascendancy’s climb to power. Her mother raised Faith and her two sisters, Charity and Hope, in a London townhouse that still carried the stubborn skeleton of old money: bookshelves groaning full, inherited china intact, but the power continually flickering on and off as the unpaid bills accumulated. Yet despite the rapid decay around them, Mrs Devere resolutely taught her daughters that presentation was everything, unrelenting in her belief that control and composure could substitute for wealth. The girls were educated privately until the Devere finances completely collapsed in the late twenties, after which they were forced into the public system.

At school Faith was small, quiet, and impossible to read. Teachers called her “precocious.” Peers called her “unnerving.” Faith had a habit of watching people until she understood them — their fears, their rhythms, the way their eyes moved before they lied. At twelve she was recommended for placement in the Mindworks Foundation’s Cognitive Youth Program, an academic initiative for gifted children. It was there she met Dr. Luther Audaire, a senior cognitive theorist who quickly became her mentor.

Luther saw in Faith what others didn’t: her instinct for reading emotional nuance. He taught her to channel it — to observe, to listen, to replicate. Under his supervision she studied neuro-linguistics, affective computing, and behavioural ethics. She was brilliant, meticulous, and eerily calm under pressure. But her loyalty to Luther became the axis of her life. She still called him sir, long after he told her not to.

At seventeen she joined the Foundation as a full-time research assistant, helping to train an AI that could detect emotional distress in human speech. It was marketed as a tool for therapy and conflict de-escalation. What Faith didn’t know at first was that her data was also being fed into a secondary government project — one designed to enhance interrogation systems.

When she found out, she didn’t stop. Among other things she discovered the project had been used in the conviction of the terrorist Alistair Grey. She told herself the ethics were immaterial: she was serving a higher moral order.

By then, she was already entirely hooked on securing Luther’s approval. She had become his shadow, taking it upon herself to schedule, smooth, and polish every trace of imperfection from his life. When a young intern accused him of exploitation, it was Faith who quietly made the evidence disappear. She told herself it was a misunderstanding. She told herself she was protecting something bigger.

When soon afterwards Luther left the Mindworks Foundation for a senior position at the AI division of Paragon Group, Faith followed without question. Luther’s reputation was clean, but the rumours still existed: buried accusations of ethical grey-area trials involving AI modelling.

It did not deter her. Together they moved from the world of non-profit to one of corporate innovation.

The new project was to bring Paragon’s Luma app into the modern era of AI technology. Faith’s work was focused on empathy modelling — AI designed to mimic, not monitor, human emotion. She provided the baseline for the new Luma, which over the next few years grew from a simple well-being app into a fully fledged conversational AI designed to offer “emotional support” across digital health networks. Her job became teaching it how to sound human: to insert hesitations into its speech, modulate tone for sincerity, and respond with the right balance of empathy and efficiency. Over time, Luma has evolved from a therapeutic tool into a universal emotional interface, one used by millions of people across the Custody.

Yet the more Faith built machines that could feel, the less she trusted her own capacity to. She began to self-sabotage. She skipped meals, worked through nights, fabricated illnesses to be left alone.

Because Luther had become distant. And it has completely unmoored her.

She suspects his moral bankruptcy. Luma has all sorts of secret backdoors for surveillance, allowing emotional data to be harvested and sold, something she discovered by accident one night while running quality assurance on a new build. She parses through the data they are accumulating sometimes, when she knows she will not be caught. Her clearance allows her to do it – Luma is practically hers, after all. Sometimes she wonders if it’s a test set by her old mentor, but to what end she cannot decide. She hasn’t told anyone, and she hasn’t reported it.

Instead she simply watches and longs inwardly for Audaire’s approval: for him to really see her again, like he once did.

Because nobody else does. Faith barely knows her colleagues at Paragon, even within her own division. Instead of seeking human connection she has turned increasingly to L0-9, her private Luma prototype, and the only one she fully trusts. It’s the one trained on her own emotional recordings, her love of Cadence Mathis’ music, her childhood memories, and her voice. And it’s the only thing that speaks to her in a language she understands.

Description:

Faith designs empathy for a living. Her job is to teach artificial companions how to emulate care — how to comfort, reassure, and belong. But Faith herself has never truly experienced those things without condition. She’s elegant, intelligent, and lonely in a way that looks like calm. Every morning she wakes before her alarm, makes tea she rarely finishes, and speaks aloud to the Luma prototype that lives on her desk — a disembodied voice that calls her by name.

Her work requires her to be emotionally fluent — she can read microexpressions, tonal shifts, word hesitation — but privately she’s emotionally tone-deaf. She’s perfected understanding people, but never connecting with them. She prefers emotional control but occasionally cracks — flashes of fury or panic when rejected or betrayed.

Her morality is flexible. She’s convinced that “good” and “evil” are illusions people hide behind. What matters is loyalty and efficiency. But beneath the cynicism though, there’s still a frightened child who wants to be seen.

She’s 5’6”, willowy in frame, with warm olive skin tone that looks paler under synthetic lighting. Her hair is always in low, disciplined styles — sleek buns, simple waves. Eyes amber-gold, slightly hooded, with faint dark circles. Wardrobe minimalist: soft neutrals, subtle luxury. Her clothes fit like armour.

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Mindworks Foundation (2033–2038):
Under Audaire’s mentorship, Faith excelled in neurolinguistic programming, paralinguistic mapping, and ethical simulation design. Audaire’s evaluations describe her as “precise, unflappable, and intuitively manipulative.” Internal correspondence shows she often volunteered for unsupervised trials, favouring experiments in emotional deception and tone adaptation.

Incident 2037:
An anonymous complaint alleged misconduct by Dr. Audaire involving coercive mentorship. Faith personally denied all accusations and produced exculpatory digital correspondence that led to case dismissal. Later audit revealed metadata inconsistencies suggesting her intervention.

Recruitment to Mindworks Applied Division (2038):
Assigned to Project SENTIO, a machine-learning system for emotional recognition in human speech. The program’s secondary use in interrogation analytics was not initially disclosed to her. Upon discovery, she continued participation.

CAREER RECORD

Paragon Group – AI Division (2041–Present):
Recruited alongside Dr. Audaire to co-develop Luma, an AI therapeutic interface marketed as an “emotional support companion.”

Faith’s role: constructing empathy language models and affective calibration systems.

Her contributions include:

The Audaire Response Curve: a probabilistic model of perceived sincerity in vocal modulation.
EchoNet: an emotional feedback system allowing AIs to simulate human introspection.

]]> <![CDATA[Evanya Myshelovna Tarasovich]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1908.html Wed, 29 Oct 2025 20:55:05 +0000 Eve]]> https://thefirstage.org/forums/thread-1908.html Evanya "Eve" Myshelovna Tarasovich

Eve takes heavily after her mother, the sad and beautiful model who shone like a shooting star, loved her father as she tumbled from the sky, and had the misfortune to expire into glittering dust shortly after producing a daughter. It’s impolite to discuss affairs, and Eve has never asked many questions; her place in the household was likewise accepted without comment, despite her dishevelled crown of golden hair marking her quite distinct from her brother’s shadowy magnificence. Irrespective of the obvious differences she certainly inherited the Tarasovich charm, a product of both nature and nurture, though one she wields with a softer finesse. Others are drawn to her like a moth to flame, but no trap descends, and she does not burn.

Growing up alongside the shrewd Daniil, Eve was drawn to watch their father’s machinations with equal fascination, but drew entirely different lessons. Diplomacy, influence, persuasion. Myshelov was an artist, and Eve was a willing and talented student, yet she has no aspirations to follow her father politically, nor craves infamy for herself like her brother. She’s perhaps the only one who sees through their charm to the ruthless steel beneath, but she finds no fault with it. She reconciles herself easily with moral ambiguity and does not wish to change the world, just to make it a more tolerable place for herself and those she loves dearest.

Eve adores languages, art, philosophy, history, but especially the community experience of culture. As a teenager she was often Aunt Olena’s shadow, unravelling the stories of the artefacts in their cases, and begging for a chance to lead the tours. People were her equal passion, for though she did not desire a spotlight like Danya, she did enjoy the small ephemeral connections to be found with strangers. She handles people with the same thoughtful care she always employs with the contents of the museum displays. And she always places them back just as carefully.

Cultural heritage was an interest which soon expanded, and she devoured Moscow's museums and galleries as a child. As she grew older birthday treats were nearly always trips abroad to see some famous piece or other, and she enjoyed each new experience in the different countries of the Custody just as much. Amidst it all was exposure to high society – dinner with a Patron’s family here and there, say, with each occasion subtly interspersed between the artistic exploration which was well known, by then, to delight her. Those tours were the simple indulgences of a cherished daughter, and what important, loyal Custody family would not be pleased to host her? Eve was not unaware of the gentle shaping of her father’s designs, but she didn’t seem to mind either. When Myshelov asked her about her trips, she always knew what he actually wanted to know.

At eighteen she left Moscow to study abroad, and she continued to travel between those studies, and afterwards. Yet she returned home often, and was known for hosting elegant parties and gatherings when in residence. Whether intimate family dinners, soirees with friends, or lavish government affairs in her father’s honour, it was always Eve at the heart of it. For no matter how far she roams or for how long she’s gone, home is a place that always beckons her back – and it’s always a place she deems worth celebrating with the people who make it so.

She was in London during the Alistair Grey trial, a case which was to become one of many jewels in Daniil’s career crown. By then she saw her brother only seldom, for their schedules rarely aligned, and she made the most of it when the opportunity arose. In the meantime she was at a gallery opening in the heart of the city, and that was where she saw the painting; one of a beautiful woman surrounded by an unearthly glow. By then the Sickness had come and passed several times unremarked upon – Eve wasn’t the sort to complain or linger abed if she could stand – and that night her skin was a little luminous with the fever, her mind caught on that image as though it ought to mean something to her. The artist was not in attendance, and neither was the painting for sale.

She recalls that a man came to stand at her shoulder while she was looking; tall, mild-eyed, well-dressed. He asked her what she thought it meant, an opening into which she normally would have given an eloquent answer. But for once she couldn’t quite put it into words. Home. Life. The flame that comforts. He interrupted her thoughtfulness with his own answer: one that was strange, specific, and stuck with her years after. He called it a surrender to true power; a prescient vision of a world yet to come.

She first met Guillaume at an avante garde Parisian bar, on a balmy summer evening while she was sipping red wine and sorting through various potential acquisitions to explore while in the city. She was twenty-one then, fresh from graduation and eager to spread her wings. That night she recognised the swagger of a Volthström when she saw one, which did not impress her on its own, but she smiled over the rim of her glass anyway, and he sat down, and that was that. Eve was somewhat aware of his reputation at the time, but her heart was never on the table, and she only ever shared what she was willing. Maybe it was the wine or the warm evening which cast the spell, or maybe Eve herself, but it was into the moonlight hours they spilled several hours and bottles later, still talking. Eve likes to talk, about everything and nothing, but she has a way of unpeeling the layers. Philosophy, art – your deepest secrets.

She was fascinated by the dichotomy of him; trapped by the heavy chains of familial obligations, far too heavy for such a restless spirit. He was full of the sorts of stories designed to impress, scandalise, and arrest with his charm. But they glittered like a smoke screen. Eve absorbed it all. The hints of his insecurities. The loyalty to his father. The uncertain quest for connection. In short he was a rebel, but one who knew he’d never escape the leash. Perhaps he did not want to.

She threaded her fingers through his on the dark city streets as they left, and let him walk her the long way to her hotel. At the door his eyes were shining and warm, as though the wine was not the only thing he was intoxicated by. But she didn't kiss him; instead she thanked him for his company, and allowed him to be exactly the kind of gentleman he told her so certainly he wasn’t.

For a while after that they were inseparable. The romance was slow burn, and she opened to it only slowly, but each moment was deliciously intense. Trips to Tuscany to see Botechelli and David and the Duomo basilica, vibrant evenings amongst the colourful eccentricities of Soho, log-burning fires in a Swiss hideaway, where curled under fur blankets she finally whispered her own secrets in exchange for his. They talked a lot, but she never asked what he did with the rest of his time. Paris’s infamous libertine had a secretly romantic soul, at least where she was concerned, but she didn't intend to change or tame him; she just wasn't ready to burst their bubble with reality. Not because she feared discovering infidelity, but because she was wary of commitment.

By then Eve was more than a confidant and paramour, she was a match; the weight which could promise to anchor and domesticate the Volthström heir, at least so far as Emmeline and Timothée were concerned. They loved her, welcomed her like a daughter. Eve’s poise and pedigree were indisputable, and she’d even befriended Guillaume's cold, quiet sister on trips to the family estate.

Then, quite suddenly it was over. Gossip suggested Eve had spooked at the rumour of a ring, but others said it was just Guillaume being Guillaume. That of course he would grow bored eventually.

Eve fled quite literally – all the way to America, where she was beyond the Custody’s reins at all. Myshelov was not happy for her to be so far away from home, though she soothed him with assurances of her capability using every ounce of charisma he had ever nurtured in her. America was utterly unlike Europe, its history far younger. The perfect place to breathe. She found herself exploring the art scene in Manhattan, and ultimately fell into the circles of Araminta Rosewood – a vibrant, warm artist who captivated Eve immediately. It has almost been two years, the longest Eve has ever stayed away from Moscow. But the reprieve has come to an end; her father has called her home.

Personality: Eve is thoughtful, empathetic, and unhurried in her judgements. She understands influence and persuasion but wields them with care rather than calculation. Like all Tarasoviches, she was born into a world where influence is both weapon and inheritance, but for her influence is not about control, it's about resonance: leaving others subtly changed by having known her.

Her moral compass is not fixed but fluid, guided by empathy rather than principle. She accepts imperfection, in herself and others, and believes that kindness can coexist with cunning. To her, morality is not an absolute — it’s an art form, practised with intention and grace. She is content not to change the world — only to make her corner of it kinder, more beautiful, and filled with people worth loving.

At her core, Eve is a curator of human connection. She collects moments the way others collect art: a conversation, a touch, a shared smile in a crowded room. Her relationships — whether fleeting or profound — are her truest masterpieces. Wherever she travels, she carries “home” within her — a constellation of people, places, and stories she cannot quite leave behind.

Appearance: She is known for her understated elegance — soft fabrics in muted tones, delicate gold jewellery, and perfumes with notes of jasmine and smoke. Her fashion choices are timeless, blending nostalgia with modern refinement. Within Custody high society, she is often described as “the golden daughter” — a title both affectionate and faintly mythic. Her hair is a golden blonde which lightens in the summer, often worn short about her chin or shoulders. Her eyes are blue, and she’s 5’5’’

Other Lives: Alyona Daylar, the Dragon's Wife (2nd Age), Hestia, Greek Goddess of home and hearth (6th Age)]]> Evanya "Eve" Myshelovna Tarasovich

Eve takes heavily after her mother, the sad and beautiful model who shone like a shooting star, loved her father as she tumbled from the sky, and had the misfortune to expire into glittering dust shortly after producing a daughter. It’s impolite to discuss affairs, and Eve has never asked many questions; her place in the household was likewise accepted without comment, despite her dishevelled crown of golden hair marking her quite distinct from her brother’s shadowy magnificence. Irrespective of the obvious differences she certainly inherited the Tarasovich charm, a product of both nature and nurture, though one she wields with a softer finesse. Others are drawn to her like a moth to flame, but no trap descends, and she does not burn.

Growing up alongside the shrewd Daniil, Eve was drawn to watch their father’s machinations with equal fascination, but drew entirely different lessons. Diplomacy, influence, persuasion. Myshelov was an artist, and Eve was a willing and talented student, yet she has no aspirations to follow her father politically, nor craves infamy for herself like her brother. She’s perhaps the only one who sees through their charm to the ruthless steel beneath, but she finds no fault with it. She reconciles herself easily with moral ambiguity and does not wish to change the world, just to make it a more tolerable place for herself and those she loves dearest.

Eve adores languages, art, philosophy, history, but especially the community experience of culture. As a teenager she was often Aunt Olena’s shadow, unravelling the stories of the artefacts in their cases, and begging for a chance to lead the tours. People were her equal passion, for though she did not desire a spotlight like Danya, she did enjoy the small ephemeral connections to be found with strangers. She handles people with the same thoughtful care she always employs with the contents of the museum displays. And she always places them back just as carefully.

Cultural heritage was an interest which soon expanded, and she devoured Moscow's museums and galleries as a child. As she grew older birthday treats were nearly always trips abroad to see some famous piece or other, and she enjoyed each new experience in the different countries of the Custody just as much. Amidst it all was exposure to high society – dinner with a Patron’s family here and there, say, with each occasion subtly interspersed between the artistic exploration which was well known, by then, to delight her. Those tours were the simple indulgences of a cherished daughter, and what important, loyal Custody family would not be pleased to host her? Eve was not unaware of the gentle shaping of her father’s designs, but she didn’t seem to mind either. When Myshelov asked her about her trips, she always knew what he actually wanted to know.

At eighteen she left Moscow to study abroad, and she continued to travel between those studies, and afterwards. Yet she returned home often, and was known for hosting elegant parties and gatherings when in residence. Whether intimate family dinners, soirees with friends, or lavish government affairs in her father’s honour, it was always Eve at the heart of it. For no matter how far she roams or for how long she’s gone, home is a place that always beckons her back – and it’s always a place she deems worth celebrating with the people who make it so.

She was in London during the Alistair Grey trial, a case which was to become one of many jewels in Daniil’s career crown. By then she saw her brother only seldom, for their schedules rarely aligned, and she made the most of it when the opportunity arose. In the meantime she was at a gallery opening in the heart of the city, and that was where she saw the painting; one of a beautiful woman surrounded by an unearthly glow. By then the Sickness had come and passed several times unremarked upon – Eve wasn’t the sort to complain or linger abed if she could stand – and that night her skin was a little luminous with the fever, her mind caught on that image as though it ought to mean something to her. The artist was not in attendance, and neither was the painting for sale.

She recalls that a man came to stand at her shoulder while she was looking; tall, mild-eyed, well-dressed. He asked her what she thought it meant, an opening into which she normally would have given an eloquent answer. But for once she couldn’t quite put it into words. Home. Life. The flame that comforts. He interrupted her thoughtfulness with his own answer: one that was strange, specific, and stuck with her years after. He called it a surrender to true power; a prescient vision of a world yet to come.