OOC: It seems to be that time again.
Here goes. I get wordy, and I am not particularly sorry.
Magic Bites et al. The universe, storyline and lore!
There are currently four books in Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series: Magic Bites, Magic Burns, Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds. Magic Slays goes on sale end of May. They were not too adventurous with the naming, no.
The series in the words of Ilona, who is slightly less tl;dr than me:
“The world has suffered a magic apocalypse. We pushed the technological progress too far, and now magic returned with a vengeance. It comes in waves, without warning, and vanishes as suddenly as it appears. When magic is up, planes drop out of the sky, cars stall, electricity dies. When magic is down, guns work and spells fail.
It’s a volatile, screwed-up world. Magic feeds on technology, gnawing down on skyscrapers until most of them topple and fall, leaving only skeletal husks behind. Monsters prowl the ruined streets, werebears and werehyenas stalk their prey; and the Masters of the Dead, necromancers driven by their thirst for knowledge and wealth, pilot blood-crazed vampires with their minds.
In this world lives Kate Daniels. Kate likes her sword a little too much and has a hard time controlling her mouth. The magic in her blood makes her a target, and she spent most of her life hiding in plain sight. But sometimes even trained killers make friends and fall in love, and when the universe tries to kick them in the face, they kick back.”
Kate fits into this as a lowly, and very badly paid mercenary considering the shit she has to deal with. Early on in the first book, her guardian Greg gets himself murdered, and she takes on the hunt for his killer -- a task that throws her right in the middle of Post-apocalyptic Atlanta politics. A place not really suited to someone with as many authority issues at her.
She starts the series at about 25, so I'm taking her from nine years pre-canon. The year for her would be 2032.
Kate, the basics:
Name: Kate Daniels (techincally Ekaterina Voronovna Daniels, but... that's a mouthful, and she'd rather be plain Kate)
Age: 16 (born: 2015)
Year: Junior
Height: 5”7’ and lean but well muscled thanks to a lot of training.
Eyes: Dark brown, almond shaped and slightly elongated.
Hair: Brunette, very long and the one girly vanity she’s allowed herself to have.
Clothing: Mostly modern and casual, think jeans, t-shirts and sneakers -- but with the odd surprising throwback, like a piece of leather chest armor, a cloak, or the sheath for the sword she carries on her back wherever she can get away with it.
Accent: Generic American, since she's traveled a lot, but based in Georgia, so she's taken on a lot of Southern expressions.
Distinguishing features: Tattoo of a raven with a bloody sword on her shoulder and some Russian meaning ‘Raven’s gift’. Large scar across her back from a red hot poker.
Personality/Background: Kate is kind of a mouthy brat and a complete tomboy. She talks first, and thinks it through later, and usually gets herself into trouble because of it. It’s endearing. Honest.
Her mom died when she was a baby, and she was brought up by her adoptive father Voron. Pretty much her whole life has been a training exercize, so that one day she’ll get to kill the man who murdered her mother.
This “training” has been barbaric, to say the least, and started as soon as she was old enough to lift a sword. Then at fifteen Voron sent her out in the wilderness with just a knife to protect herself, and she came back three days later to find him disembowled with his own sword in an apparent suicide. Unsurprisingly, she has many angry, angry issues about this.
Thanks to this upbringing and Voron’s insistence that she not get attached, she hasn’t had all that much experience with ‘friends’, and it will take her some time to get over all the ‘trust no one’ and ‘don’t let anyone get close’ warnings she’s had drilled into her all her life.
Since Voron’s death last year she’s been looked after by her guardian Greg, an old friend of Voron’s. He enrolled her in The Order as a squire to keep up with her training and keep her safe. Trouble is, the Order really wasn’t Kate’s sort of place. Not much good at following orders, playing nice with authority and going along with the fanatical racism (where anyone who isn’t completely ‘human’ is considered a lesser being -- and Kate, while she can and does pass off as regular human... isn't). Not long there and she’s already decided she wants out, and was given Fandom as an alternative.
Powers:
Kate’s a necromancer (apparently not the only one this go 'round!) so obviously her strongest powers mostly relate to vampires and dead-thing-related magics. She hates it, and has tried most of her life to suppress that side of her. However, she can sense, create and control vamps like puppets and smush their minds like wee tiny bugs. BUT her canon’s vampires are not like the sort you get at FH. More like zombies with superspeed who crave blood instead of brainz. So she’s going to be a mite confused and kind of creeped out when she realizes half of her mojo on them wont work on the ones around here. I’m working under the assumption that she will probably recognize what they are, but her powers to control them will be pretty much nil.
Also vampires here are a lot prettier than the emaciated corpses that necromancers ride around at home.
Other non-vamp related powers:
* Wards -- she’s very good at magically keeping people in and out of places. Her wards are keyed to people or power levels, where appropriate. Sorry future roommate, there will be weird glowy symbols all over the room.
* Power words -- as of her arrival at FH, she owns two Hesaad (Mine) and Dair (Release). These are old, deep magic and extremely difficult to resist. The use of them is pretty open to interpretation. One word can do a lot of different things depending on the intention.
* So for example, she’s used ‘Hesaad’ and taken control of someone to force them to protect her, and then later used the same word to control fire so she can hurl it at someone.
* Spells -- she has a fair lick of natural power, so while she’s not a witch, she can work spells with varying degrees of success and knows a couple of healing chants (which appear to have limited effect). No real finesse when it comes to this stuff.
* Blood -- this one isn’t really applicable yet. At some point in the future, though, she learns how to use her own blood as some kind of creepy armor and use it to stab people. Yeah, ew? She’s not quite at that point yet.
She can also sense a certain amount when it comes to power:
* Vampires - make her feel nauseous, her sword smoke like a mofo, and there’s a general feeling of revulsion when they come anywhere near her. She probably won’t like hanging around them.
* Witches/wizards/Jedi/etc. - People with power, she does tend to notice. She has enough of her own that she can feel when people are toying with and altering the flow of magic, and has mentioned watching power flare around a person like a cloak.
* Shapeshifters/weres - Will generally fly under her radar unless they shift anywhere near her. In her world you mostly recognize them by the green sheen in their eyes.
* Telepaths - Are not something she recognizes until they tell her. She’s a complete telepathic dud, and people can poke around in her head and she has little to no ability to shield herself. However, she will be seriously cranky if she finds out.
As I mentioned earlier, Kate herself is not entirely human, and people who might pick up on that oddness about her and the magic that surrounds her are welcome to, but she probably won't be sharing her parentage openly with anyone just yet.
Other:
So she’s kind of badass. Due to her violent upbringing and the world she lives in she’s picked up a great instinct and the ability to kill many things. With much violence, bloodshed and waving of her sword.
This sword:
* Is called Slayer.
* Is a saber (more specifically, a Russian shashka)
* It has a tendency to shimmer, smolder and drip magic when she gets angry -- and does the same thing when it comes near vampires.
* It can liquify undead flesh and absorb it to feed itself. Om nom.
* Vampires? No touchy. Unless you want your skin melting off?
* Since it doesn’t get to eat vampire all that often, she has to feed it with a special mix all her own to keep it shiny and strong... That’s not weird or anything.
* She can also make it glow, not that the glowing actually *does* anything special. It just looks pretty neat, and sometimes she likes to show off.
Questions, Comments... Would Kate be able to sense your character radiating any freaky sort of power (or would you want her not to notice if they did for whatever reason)? Just tell me!
Magic Bites et al. The universe, storyline and lore!
There are currently four books in Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series: Magic Bites, Magic Burns, Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds. Magic Slays goes on sale end of May. They were not too adventurous with the naming, no.
The series in the words of Ilona, who is slightly less tl;dr than me:
“The world has suffered a magic apocalypse. We pushed the technological progress too far, and now magic returned with a vengeance. It comes in waves, without warning, and vanishes as suddenly as it appears. When magic is up, planes drop out of the sky, cars stall, electricity dies. When magic is down, guns work and spells fail.
It’s a volatile, screwed-up world. Magic feeds on technology, gnawing down on skyscrapers until most of them topple and fall, leaving only skeletal husks behind. Monsters prowl the ruined streets, werebears and werehyenas stalk their prey; and the Masters of the Dead, necromancers driven by their thirst for knowledge and wealth, pilot blood-crazed vampires with their minds.
In this world lives Kate Daniels. Kate likes her sword a little too much and has a hard time controlling her mouth. The magic in her blood makes her a target, and she spent most of her life hiding in plain sight. But sometimes even trained killers make friends and fall in love, and when the universe tries to kick them in the face, they kick back.”
Kate fits into this as a lowly, and very badly paid mercenary considering the shit she has to deal with. Early on in the first book, her guardian Greg gets himself murdered, and she takes on the hunt for his killer -- a task that throws her right in the middle of Post-apocalyptic Atlanta politics. A place not really suited to someone with as many authority issues at her.
She starts the series at about 25, so I'm taking her from nine years pre-canon. The year for her would be 2032.
Kate, the basics:
Name: Kate Daniels (techincally Ekaterina Voronovna Daniels, but... that's a mouthful, and she'd rather be plain Kate)
Age: 16 (born: 2015)
Year: Junior
Height: 5”7’ and lean but well muscled thanks to a lot of training.
Eyes: Dark brown, almond shaped and slightly elongated.
Hair: Brunette, very long and the one girly vanity she’s allowed herself to have.
Clothing: Mostly modern and casual, think jeans, t-shirts and sneakers -- but with the odd surprising throwback, like a piece of leather chest armor, a cloak, or the sheath for the sword she carries on her back wherever she can get away with it.
Accent: Generic American, since she's traveled a lot, but based in Georgia, so she's taken on a lot of Southern expressions.
Distinguishing features: Tattoo of a raven with a bloody sword on her shoulder and some Russian meaning ‘Raven’s gift’. Large scar across her back from a red hot poker.
Personality/Background: Kate is kind of a mouthy brat and a complete tomboy. She talks first, and thinks it through later, and usually gets herself into trouble because of it. It’s endearing. Honest.
Her mom died when she was a baby, and she was brought up by her adoptive father Voron. Pretty much her whole life has been a training exercize, so that one day she’ll get to kill the man who murdered her mother.
This “training” has been barbaric, to say the least, and started as soon as she was old enough to lift a sword. Then at fifteen Voron sent her out in the wilderness with just a knife to protect herself, and she came back three days later to find him disembowled with his own sword in an apparent suicide. Unsurprisingly, she has many angry, angry issues about this.
Thanks to this upbringing and Voron’s insistence that she not get attached, she hasn’t had all that much experience with ‘friends’, and it will take her some time to get over all the ‘trust no one’ and ‘don’t let anyone get close’ warnings she’s had drilled into her all her life.
Since Voron’s death last year she’s been looked after by her guardian Greg, an old friend of Voron’s. He enrolled her in The Order as a squire to keep up with her training and keep her safe. Trouble is, the Order really wasn’t Kate’s sort of place. Not much good at following orders, playing nice with authority and going along with the fanatical racism (where anyone who isn’t completely ‘human’ is considered a lesser being -- and Kate, while she can and does pass off as regular human... isn't). Not long there and she’s already decided she wants out, and was given Fandom as an alternative.
Powers:
Kate’s a necromancer (apparently not the only one this go 'round!) so obviously her strongest powers mostly relate to vampires and dead-thing-related magics. She hates it, and has tried most of her life to suppress that side of her. However, she can sense, create and control vamps like puppets and smush their minds like wee tiny bugs. BUT her canon’s vampires are not like the sort you get at FH. More like zombies with superspeed who crave blood instead of brainz. So she’s going to be a mite confused and kind of creeped out when she realizes half of her mojo on them wont work on the ones around here. I’m working under the assumption that she will probably recognize what they are, but her powers to control them will be pretty much nil.
Also vampires here are a lot prettier than the emaciated corpses that necromancers ride around at home.
Other non-vamp related powers:
* Wards -- she’s very good at magically keeping people in and out of places. Her wards are keyed to people or power levels, where appropriate. Sorry future roommate, there will be weird glowy symbols all over the room.
* Power words -- as of her arrival at FH, she owns two Hesaad (Mine) and Dair (Release). These are old, deep magic and extremely difficult to resist. The use of them is pretty open to interpretation. One word can do a lot of different things depending on the intention.
* So for example, she’s used ‘Hesaad’ and taken control of someone to force them to protect her, and then later used the same word to control fire so she can hurl it at someone.
* Spells -- she has a fair lick of natural power, so while she’s not a witch, she can work spells with varying degrees of success and knows a couple of healing chants (which appear to have limited effect). No real finesse when it comes to this stuff.
* Blood -- this one isn’t really applicable yet. At some point in the future, though, she learns how to use her own blood as some kind of creepy armor and use it to stab people. Yeah, ew? She’s not quite at that point yet.
She can also sense a certain amount when it comes to power:
* Vampires - make her feel nauseous, her sword smoke like a mofo, and there’s a general feeling of revulsion when they come anywhere near her. She probably won’t like hanging around them.
* Witches/wizards/Jedi/etc. - People with power, she does tend to notice. She has enough of her own that she can feel when people are toying with and altering the flow of magic, and has mentioned watching power flare around a person like a cloak.
* Shapeshifters/weres - Will generally fly under her radar unless they shift anywhere near her. In her world you mostly recognize them by the green sheen in their eyes.
* Telepaths - Are not something she recognizes until they tell her. She’s a complete telepathic dud, and people can poke around in her head and she has little to no ability to shield herself. However, she will be seriously cranky if she finds out.
As I mentioned earlier, Kate herself is not entirely human, and people who might pick up on that oddness about her and the magic that surrounds her are welcome to, but she probably won't be sharing her parentage openly with anyone just yet.
Other:
So she’s kind of badass. Due to her violent upbringing and the world she lives in she’s picked up a great instinct and the ability to kill many things. With much violence, bloodshed and waving of her sword.
This sword:
* Is called Slayer.
* Is a saber (more specifically, a Russian shashka)
* It has a tendency to shimmer, smolder and drip magic when she gets angry -- and does the same thing when it comes near vampires.
* It can liquify undead flesh and absorb it to feed itself. Om nom.
* Vampires? No touchy. Unless you want your skin melting off?
* Since it doesn’t get to eat vampire all that often, she has to feed it with a special mix all her own to keep it shiny and strong... That’s not weird or anything.
* She can also make it glow, not that the glowing actually *does* anything special. It just looks pretty neat, and sometimes she likes to show off.
Questions, Comments... Would Kate be able to sense your character radiating any freaky sort of power (or would you want her not to notice if they did for whatever reason)? Just tell me!