The Open Door:Artemisia ~Dodger~ Boswell

"It isn't real happiness if someone can take it from you."

Name: Artemisia "Dodger" Boswell
Concept: Punk street-magician gypsy princess
Path: Acanthus
Order: Free Council
Legacy: (Reality Makers)

Description: A tiny, waifish girl who's usually swallowed up by the oversized leather motorcycle jacket she 'acquired' from an old boyfriend, Dodger makes up with vim for what she lacks in size. Vital and vivacious, she cuts an outlandish figure with her piercings, parti-coloured highlights, and her endless wardrobe of fishnets, tank tops, and ornate antique jewellery. Her signature apparel items consist of an ever-changing selection of colourful silk scarves, and an old, battered top hat.

Nimbus: A coin spinning on its edge; the actual nature of the coin seems to change from manifestation to manifestation. Usually it's a simple one pound coin embossed with the queen's head, but others have claimed to see stranger currency, or nonexistent denominations.

Virtue: Hopeful
Vice: Hasty

Attributes

Mental Intelligence: 1 Wits: 3 Resolve: 3

Physical Strength: 2 Dexterity: 3 Stamina: 3

Social Presence: 2 Manipulation: 2 Composure: 3*

Skills

Mental Craft: (+) Investigation: 1 Occult: 3 (folklore) Science: (+)

Physical Athletics: 3 (throwing) Larceny: 2 (sleight of hand) Weaponry: 2

Social Empathy: 2 Persuasion (+): 3 Streetwise: 3 Subterfuge: 3

Merits

High Speech (free) Unseen Senses (template) Ally (Father Jacob O'Malley) * (-1 XP) Hallow/Sanctum (shared) * Fighting Style: Improvised Weapons (Always Armed) * Striking Looks ** Quick Draw *

Arcana

Fate 2 Time 2 Prime 3 (-4 XP)

Rotes

Celestial Fire (Dexterity + Occult + Prime) Counterspell (Composure + Occult + Prime) Supernal Vision (Wits + Occult + Prime)

Derived

Health: 8 Willpower: 6 Gnosis: 3 (-5 Merit points) Wisdom: 7 Size: 5 Speed: 11 Defense: 3 (usually +2 from Mage Armour) Initiative: 6

Max Mana, max Mana/turn: 12/3 Paradox roll: 2d10 Extended casting: 1h/roll

Miscellaneous

Active Spells (max 3) Supernal Vision Fate Mage Armour Winds of Chance

Prepared Spells (max 3) Hung: Exceptional Luck (conditional trigger: cast if I draw a weapon) Hung: Celestial Fire (conditional trigger: cast if I cast Celestial Fire) Hung: Magic Shield (conditional trigger: cast if I am the target of a spell)

Equipment: Punk/goth garb (tool bonus? to people who like goth girls? ) Magic show paraphernalia (cards (playing and Tarot), coins, crystal ball, a wand of bottle-green glass etc) Throwing knives (1L; size 1; as part of her magic kit) Loose change

XP +5 (from character creation) -4 (Prime 3) -1 (Father Jacob)

Biographical Breaking Points What is the worst thing your character has ever done? Forsaken her family heritage to pursue her magical training What is the worst thing your character can imagine himself doing? Preventing another's enlightenment What is the worst thing your character can imagine someone else doing? Voluntarily surrendering the chance for a better future What is the most frightening thing about magic to your character? Her practice of Time magic has brought home the way actions have echoes that persist for far longer than intended; this makes her usual reckless approach to things seem more frightening in hindsight What is the limit of what your character would you do to achieve their goals? Knowingly injure or maim another

Aspirations Short-term: Make a friend in my cabal Short-term: Get a regular gig for my act Long-term: Find something lost by someone else

Obsessions Short-term: Read someone's future for them Short-term: Exchange magic tips with someone Long-term: (open)

Background Since her youth, Artemisia always knew what her fate would be: she would grow up wise in the ways of magic, taking after the ways of her people, learning to read the Tarot and palms and crystal balls from her grandmother. She would walk the world, powerful and respected, and those who came across her would cross her palm with silver. She would wield power and wealth effortlessly, and all things would come to her in time.

To her horror, her mother had a very different aspiration. Ashamed of her gypsy origins, tried to downplay that part of her heritage, she re-married an accountant, moved to Milton Keanes, and wouldn't be caught dead near a camper-van or a campsite. She and her bourgeois husband sent Artemisia to school in the hope that she would mend her wild ways and be upwardly mobile in the way of all obedient children.

Artemisia was determined to be anything but obedient. She had a map, some food, and some money she'd saved: she could hike cross-country, go find her grandmother. The Boswells were a well-known Traveler clan: people would help her find her way. Had her ancestor not been King of the Gypsies?

Of course, it didn't take long before she was hopelessly lost. Nobody had heard of Mistress Melisandre Boswell, the queen of the fortunetellers, or her grandfather, Howard Boswell, once King of the Gypsies. Nobody knew, or wanted to know, where the Travelers had gone. When night fell and a friendly man pulled over and offered to give her a lift, she was too grateful to be suspicious and hopped in.

When he dropped her off again, she was bruised, bleeding, and dazed, her clothes shredded and her scant and meagre funds gone. When a curious bystander approached to render help, she dashed off the highway into the hills.

It seemed like she walked forever through a fairy landscape, where everything seemed grander and deadlier. Strange flowers grew from the drops of her blood that fell to the ground. Hedges armed with fearful thorns, festooned with the babbling souls of those who had pushed through them, parted to grant her passage. A tall lord and his lady, mounted on grand steeds with gossamer barding and jeweled eyes, watched her from the tree-line, and returned her clumsy curtsy. It was a magical time, but she had been taught well by her grandmother, treating all respectfully, refusing to let food or drink pass her lips, and above all never divulging her true name. It was difficult, but she was determined, and the tower that brooded over the landscape, such an exact mirror of the emblem her grandmother had always worn, called her onwards.

She could not keep track of the passage of time. Did time pass at all, in its usual steady procession, or did it stagger, stumble, and take detours? She could not tell how long she wandered, only that at her wandering's end, she came at last to the tower.