for inthenightmods.

application.

PLAYER INFO

Player Name: kaye
Player Contact: pm, or virginiawoolf
Character(s) In-Game: n/a; new player!

CHARACTER INFO

Character Name: Daniel Riordan, otherwise known as "Fréamh" to other magic users.
Age: 36-ish, give or take a year. (He stopped counting a while ago.)
Canon: Original Character

World Description:

Tl;dr: Magical realism. an informal write-up is also located here for your overviewing leisure.

Daniel comes from a world similar to our one, fueled by the innate and natural existence of raw, magical forces that have and continue to be kept secret. Magic, like gravity or time, is just one of the given pillars of living, shaped like a neural network of mystical energies running all over globe. It's another given in his world setting that everyone can use magic, but as not everyone knows (or believes) that magic exists, the ratio of practitioners to non-practitioners is pretty skewed. His world, much like ours, spins ever on. Modern technologies and scientific advancements continue to exist with most none the wiser. It helps that magic comes with a lot of rules and caveats, one of them being that many features of modern living (pollution, non-existent greenery, the general bustle and rhythm of any city at large) interrupts the flow of and access to magic, which is a natural force. Consequently, many practitioners/witches live either isolated lives, or live out in small communities/covens away from major metropolitan areas. The head coven of all witches (aka the Council, who essentially act as magical Interpol) resides somewhere in England, and gather together to make final decisions about punishments. Agents of this coven are colloquially known as Hounds.

Daniel belongs to a coven named Amyranth. Amyranth are, additionally, the villains of the verse (the hero of this verse is a witch by the name of Lucy Calhoun), and they're trying pretty hard to destroy the world.

History:

Daniel Riordan was born in a small town in Ireland, and more or less had a normal childhood in the Irish countryside. His family were farmers, and he had two sisters. His mother, Moira, was a gardener as well as a witch, and acted as the leader of a small coven of hedge witches named Suaimhneas. When Daniel was nine, both the house and 3/4ths of the Riordan Farm property were set alight in the middle of the night, and his entire family died in the fire. He was the sole survivor. Unbeknownst to him, the fire was set by a fledgling group of witches who called themselves Amyranth. He went on to be raised by his maternal aunt and uncle, who lived in Youghal. Magic had left him after the accident involving his family, but magic found him again, over time. Daniel would go on to find a magical mentor in a man named Ioan Byrne -- a grumpy, prickly man who was, at the time, a retired Hound for the Council -- and he eventually left Ireland to go find answers about his family in England.

Some indeterminate time later -- involving meeting the Council and being firmly denied the truth behind the murder of his family -- Daniel fell in with Amyranth. They told him the truth. Yes, they were the ones behind the arson; yes, their target had been his mother and Suaimhneas. Yes, they had done this for wholly selfish reasons; yes, they had intentionally made sure Daniel would live. But they were here, offering him the truth of it all now, and wasn't that more than anyone had ever offered him? The Council had so many rules, always adhered to the principles of magic, but they never shared what they knew. Daniel's temperament was as far from power-hungry as you could get, but he joined them anyway on a naive and hopeful stand. He was inducted into the coven, made to serve, and the longer he was part of Amyranth, the more they grew to control him because of it. Daniel was sure to hide the well of his power from the group, settling into a role of part time healer and full time gardener. He was able, over time, to encourage the coven to spare children or avoid leeching entire towns, but he also never left their ranks.

Inevitably, it all caught up with him. Unlike traditional covens, Amyranth never intended for all their members to live in the same physical location, so he lived a mostly normal life. He worked at a florist's. He fell in love. He changed. He met and began to work with a Hound named Lucy Calhoun, teaching and guiding her on her own quest for answers, and eventually risked leaving Amyranth. And that's where he comes into the game: hot on the heels of trouble, on the turn of the tide of his life.

Death: Daniel dies at the hands of the leader of Amyranth, a woman named Siobhan. She snaps his neck with her telekinesis, upon finding him attempting to make off with the coven's Book of Shadows, a part-tome part-journal part-encyclopedia of all their known knowledge. (He's also been helping what is essentially magic interpol find and destroy them, but she was substantially less mad about that.) His death is simple, quick, and pretty much a genre-standard death given to the mentor of a main character in a young adult fantasy series. Which he basically is, trope-wise.

What are your plans for this character in-game? The short answer: I'm not sure! The long answer: community! Basically, Daniel's long been part of a community of piranhas, when he's, say, sort of a harmless duck. In his story, he's just been adjusting to a life where he's a mentor and advocate, shedding his tree-like patience for a much more human quality of caring and giving and being invested in things outside of, uh, plants. My plans for this character definitely involve some light development as he digs further into this role and humanity at large, but my plans also include for him to get involved with community projects (a garden!), and inevitably tapping into/establishing a connection with whatever flora exists in Beacon, just for fun and plot progression.

What aspects of this game and/or its setting are you most interested in having this character engage with? Plot! Environmental plot, definitely, for sure. Daniel's realm of magical expertise is heavily anchored in nature/plantlife, and is animal adjacent, so the existence of darkness (No sun! Photosynthesis who?) and deerlike characters and the vibe of 'life after death' is a pretty cool mix for him to delve into. He might not be very motivated to do so at the start, being as he's such a relaxed and undemanding guy, but there's room to work up to that, and both he and I are just as invested in the communal aspect. Also, did I mention plants? So excited for him to attempt to communicate with in-game plants.

How does your character generally get along with other people? Daniel is a genial, affable, calm kind of guy. Years and years of living with magical extremists has given him the skill of great listening and mild-mannered approaches-- which he already innately possessed, to some degree. He radiates a very patient, relaxed energy, and is not an argumentative or combative person, so I'd say he gets along really well with others. He knows how to fit into a community well.

What is your character's mental state upon entering the game? Puzzled, but accepting. It takes a lot to rile Daniel, and it helps that his death was something he knew was an option for him. Cutting off his connection to the greenery around him is startling (see: below), but he's also someone who's highly adaptable and makes do. He's pretty surprised at being in Beacon -- he did die, y'know -- but, ultimately, he's as hard to rile in death as he was in life. He's chill, yo.

Skills/Abilities:

In Daniel's world, one in four people have the ability to create magic, not just use it. Daniel is, surprise surprise, one of these people. He has a well of power inside him that is separate from the world at large, which is what enables him to perform such feats of chlorokinesis, not just use magic. This natural connection manifests in a laundry list of abilities, such as: botanical intuition, an ability to both empathize and 'read' the floral terrain around him, and botanical telepathy with different kinds of plant life, either encouraging rapid growth/decline, or just to make conversation (which is often). Think of it like a specialty, a specific 'branch' of magic that Daniel intuitively took to with the most ease.

As Daniel also has his own well of magical power, he can also lend some of this innate magical energy to other plants. Often, this manifests as 'feeding' an emotion, memory, or thought of intent into a plant. Plants don't really understand anger, and Daniel would rather his tomato plant grow taller than spend time with pesky human feelings. Thanks to his time with Amyranth, Daniel can also shapeshift into a barn owl at will. Honestly, the magic system is so higgledy-piggledy that there's not a lot he can't do with sufficient time, energy, and resources. Additionally, Daniel is a capable healer, an experienced botanist, a tremendous gardener, and knows basic hedge witch type animal care.

I'm happy to nerf him in the following ways:

i) He can't summon fire, light, or teleport anywhere, no matter how many people/magic users he teams up with.

ii) The predominant bulk of his chlorokinesis won't manifest; trying to "talk" or "read" any of the local flora will be akin to trying to talk to someone in another language. He might get glimpses of things that don't make sense, or an incomprehensible answer, but he won't be able to control them or ask them to do something for him, save for the one plant he is bringing with him from home (based on the logic that it 'speaks' a language he knows).

iii) Because an owl's vision is pretty great in the dark, I'm also happy to say that Daniel is only able to stay in his owl's form an hour at a time, and he still needs light to see.

That's all I can think of at the moment, but I'm happy to place further restrictions if you guys think it's necessary, and I'm happy to run things by you guys on the magic-front if Daniel ever gets up to trying something!

Flaws/Weaknesses: Daniel's predominant weakness has a lot to do with his connection to the green. He thrives in much the same way a plant thrives, and the lack of a sun in Beacon is going to discomfort him as time goes on. It's not exactly something he needs to live, since he doesn't actually photosynthesize, but it's not great.

Daniel also has something called a blood anchor, given to him by Amyranth's own leader, Siobhan. He has a long, jagged scar down one arm, where they essentially planted a magical GPS/shocking collar by using his blood, and it let him teleport instantly to another member's location. This, obviously by game mechanic standards and him dying standards, is null and void, and is representative of more symbolic traumatic weaknesses. He also has the odd nightmare of Amyranth leeching an entire continent of life, children dying in fires, and is uncomfortable in heavy cities. Internally, his predominant flaw is his ability to remain unaffected by nearly everything. Plant man sometimes spends so much time around plants that he has to remember to be in touch with his humanity and, you know, occasionally get invested.

Personality: In the broad strokes, Daniel's a cool, calm, genial guy. Having such a strong connection to plant life and trees have made him a patient and relaxed person despite his Traumatic Origin Story. He was, at some stage, a pretty angry and scared individual, but the more he dived into his magic, the less in tune he became with very human, very strong emotions. He's not cold, just distant. It's part and parcel of why he radiates such an amiable temperament. Trees can wait forever -- through the passing of time, weathering of wood, birth of storms, disease, seasons -- and so can he. It's lent him a certain wisdom and helped process old wounds. He's also an innate pacifist; he's not a violent person by nature, and as he's not very good at talking things through (being a relatively introverted and quiet guy), he's much more likely to just exit complicated situations. Daniel is the tin man meets the cowardly lion: he doesn't get invested in a lot of things, he ignores or simply weathers poor conditions, and is hard to rile, so much so to the point where he'll happily concede to others, even if he disagrees. One way of interpreting these traits would be to claim that he's a strong individual who is hard to knock down, or has endless patience for those around him. And he does. But it also affects him in negative ways: he doesn't make snap decisions, mostly ignores the feeling of urgency, and expresses the way he cares to others in small, tending ways. Daniel does things on his own, relaxed time, in his own, measured way.

Items: Clothes on his back (brown oxfords, grey henley, slightly muddy blue jeans, dark blue peacoat), a small athame in its sheath, and a single spearmint (Mentha spicata) plant in a small pot, like so. (It's basically his plant-child. He takes it everywhere.)

SAMPLES

Log Sample: A top level on the TDM
Network Sample: The beginning of one here, and one here.