BOYS & MONSTERS + DUP, history.
WORLD HISTORY
Somewhere up north, somewhere cold, is a school for boys possessed of a certain kind of magic. This school doesn't teach how to read the future, or how to walk through walls. This school teaches math, and languages, and how to bring monsters to heel.
Welcome to the Barrett-Crowley Reformatory, and mind the claws. ( a verse bymanual )
Whatever road you choose to go down with this magic is of your own choosing, however, the way in which you use it may dictate whether it raises you up or destroys you to your core. There are monsters that lurk between the spaces of overgrown magical energies as well, ones with teeth and claws and mutilated bodies. Some of them are of typical ghoulish fare: weres, vampires, sirens, ghosts, and others are of a much more abstract nature, some of them taking on a more human shape and trying to walk among us.
Because this world is so deeply entrenched in magic, where it wraps so tightly around the mundane it becomes just that: mundane. Typical. The every day. There are conflicts based around the usage of magic, for good, for evil, for the self, for others. There are rules that must be followed, of course, things the can and cannot be done within the "laws" of magic that those who do not use it won't understand, but those who study it know of it well. Needless to say, the world that Tristan lives in is full of impossibilities that a normal-flavored Earth only knows of in fiction and fairy tales.
There are a number of varying magical types in this world, some which affect the physical world ("present" magic, highlighted in blue) and those which affect the non-physical world ("other" magic, highlighted in purple). Below is a quick chart that explains their relations to one another.The main "big bad" of sorts is a creeping phenomenon of magic bleed from the outer ring ("other") of the known world into the inner ring ("present") known as The Crawl. Now the problem at hand? The Crawl has been eroding the line that separates the outer ring from the inner ring for hundreds of years now, ever since humans discovered magic. Due to centuries of irresponsible magic use, the line has been thinning. It's gotten so dangerously thin in the recent years, that those beyond them can now reach in and pull users out. Magic users throughout the years have formed councils and groups to help slow the progress of The Crawl ever since it was discovered.
The many magic communities have been looking for users who have the capacity to affect time/space in order to create and strengthen Anchors. Anchors are there to weight down The Crawl to keep it from spreading. There are a plethora of Anchors spread throughout the globe: 4 in North America alone (the East and West Coasts, Alaska, and Canada), 10 in South America, one anchor in each country in East Asia except China, which has an unknown amount of Anchors on its own (because China's on top of it's shit), and 3 in Russia. However, because Anchors cannot completely stop The Crawl, communities with existing education systems set up were urged/mobilized to train as many possible magic users for the inevitability of The Crawl's arrival.
There are three primary groups that are all vying for the power of The Crawl and they can be broken down rather simply, High Angels, Cursers (magic users and non-magic users who hate witches), and Demons. Each of these groups have their own subsets who want various things out of The Crawl, be that control of the physical Earth, control over humans, or just complete eradication of any living being that isn't their own kind. Basically, no es bueno.
At the end of the day, one thing is certain: offense is not a possibility due to the set-up; defense is their only means of surviving The Crawl.
CHARACTER HISTORY
Tristan Clark was born in Little Town, Alaska to a young spectral witch by the name of Gwynn Clark. Taking after his absent father by manifesting with heavenly magic at the age of 12. His mother supplanted his early education with a rigorous magical repertoire before sending him to the equivalent of magical high school in order to harness his powers to the best of his ability. A 13, Tris became one of a number of young boys to attend the Barrett-Crowley Reformatory, a school specifically tailored to those gifted with magic.
At BCR, Tris not only excelled in his studies, but he made a number of friends of varying shades of magical study. Marco, Max, and August were demonic witches with varying shades of power over souls that hailed from the underworld, Dani was a heavenly witch with the ability to speak to and don the armor of Angels themselves, and Nicola was a natural witch who, although she didn’t attend BCR, made it a point to get very close to the boys and show them a good time. The six years spent at the Barrett-Crowley Reformatory were some of the most influential on Tristan, allowing him to grow as both a witch and a young man.
Graduating with honors from BCR, Tris left with a powerful grasp of his heavenly powers, which primarily involved becoming possessed by saints and benevolent spirits in order to aid earthbound souls in their journey from limbo to Heaven. Ultimately, Tris chose a path that most given this particular magical gift would and joined an exorcist program at El Colegio de Santo Tomás de Aquino located in Madrid, Spain where promising witches went through rigorous training to become top-notch exorcists and where a great deal of magical research was done.
Between the program (liken it to Undergrad for exorcists) and his final year research on painless exorcismus, Tristan became a font of knowledge and power in the field. His main goal was to perfect the process of exorcism, creating a painless and non traumatic experience for the possessed, the idea of which was based around having witnessed a number of excruciatingly painful extractions done on his demonically-inclined friends. This research was heavily watched over by professors and exorcists alike, providing mentorship and guidance and Tristan was not a fully-fledged exorcist and therefore was unable to act magically without a legalized exorcismus on hand.
However, when he came on the verge of a breakthrough in his studies and research in his final year, Tristan went through with a risky move that involved unauthorized use of university property and magic that ended in his expulsion from the program completely. The volunteer vessel (a friendly demonic student who had a similar problem with constant, undesired possession) he'd been working with was struck by an incredibly powerful demonic entity who rent straight through Tristan’s magic and severed him from his heavenly connection during their final bout to keep Tristan from parting it from its host.
Expelled, disgraced, and powerless, Tristan retreated back to the safehaven of Little Town to regroup his… everything. He did not, however, give up despite the massive blow delivered to him from his loss of magic and loss of placement at the university. He spent a year back in Alaska and split his time between helping his mother with her work selling various magical supplies and acting as a teaching aid for a few of his old teachers back at the Reformatory. During his time here, Tristan found that with some patience (very difficult!) and therapeutic methods with his mother, that he was able to bring to surface a line of magic drowned out by his father's strong heavenly leanings: spectral magic, inherited from his mother. He developed this magic gradually upon its discovery, learning that he could perform psychometry on various objects and hear the voices of the earth-bound dead once more.
After a year and a half of work from the Reformatory, he broke away from Little Town and and went to settle in Los Angeles, California. There, he began to make use of what was left of his talents: powers in divination and scrying, fully formed into a reliable and powerful skill during his sabbatical (of sorts) in Alaska under the tutelage of his mother. He opened up a hole in the wall under the guise of a psychic, making do, hawking his "psychic" powers as two-bit wares.But at least he didn't become some kook tele-Evangelist. Of course, as with most things, money becomes a problem when you're self-employed.
Enter the LAPD's paranormal division, who found themselves in sore need of someone with spectral leanings who might be able to help them in a variety of cases. Hesitant at first, what with being immediately repulsed by working for "The Man", Tristan eventually signed on because the bills don't pay themselves and his coworkers? Well, when your coworkers are just as magical as you are, things aren't so bad after all.
Tristan ultimately makes a home for himself working as an on-call medium for the LAPD's paranormal division and as a fortune teller on the side (because he can't give it up.) As he continues to run his shop, he also continues to learn the ins and outs of this new magic.
DUPLICITY HISTORY.