Akeha Moriyama

Useful Information

Concept Keywords

• Albino
• Psychic
• Part of a cult (not very eager)
• Currently semi-exiled
• Surprisingly good relationship with family
• Way too many indie horror game references for her own good in this one

Appearance

• Short albino girl with huge fluffy white hair and red eyes. (except when they're gold) Training to play golf since middle school has made her stronger than she seems. The usual SIBIL uniform she wears is white shirt - black skirt - white stockings - black shoes, but she'll wear Higashigawa uniform to school. Sometimes carries an umbrella. (because albino)
• Nobody really knows how she slid that hair past school authorities, some pretty hardcore blackmail or shady cult money are suspected. She's actually a member of the pet club, but it excites and terrifies the hairstyling club in equal amounts.
• When going to war, brings golf clubs.

Location

• Lives with her parents in SIBIL HQ, huge, well-illuminated and exceptionally sturdy building in more expensive parts of Tokyo
• Usually gets driven to school by car

Paradigm & Associates

• Psychic powers - or ESP - are based on forcing one's will upon reality. Sometimes also killing goats with mind bullets.
• SIBIL claims that achieving balance can help one expand the powers of their mind, and while Akeha is not much of a believer, she can't really escape the concept that also happens to flatter her.
• Akeha is personally aware that her powers might have been given a shove by less than wholesome outside means, with potential deeper implications, but her "mentor" is a huge pain to deal with. This is something she'll have to grapple with when seeking deeper enlightenment though.
• Has easiest time with applying direct force - telekinesis, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis etc, or reaching towards places she can see. Her ESP can also let her see emotions of others and shield her mind, but she has a lot tougher time wrapping her head around things like probability manipulation or healing magic for now.
• Technically can fly, she feels sick pretty fast when doing so though. (of paradox)
• To focus, she usually uses gestures and tools that she can pour her will into (like golf clubs)
• Since she needs to keep her internal energy up, she fills up on sweets. Her mom's pretty sure that's not how this is supposed to work, though.
• Like a super robot, willpower = power. Her ability to cast is directly tied to her morale and how fired up she is.

Backstory:

Technically a member of Scientific Institute for Balanced and Independent Living (or SIBIL, I’m not even going to pretend I can translate this into Japanese), one of the more successful members of the current crop of Japanese new religions, by the way of her parents. Not particularly pious, though, since her parents were runaways from a major yakuza group and took cover where they could, rather than any sort of genuine, sincere belief. (arguably however, that made them an excellent match for SIBIL’s very cynical leadership)

Akeha, named so after the particularly colourful autumn she was born in, is a short albino girl that’s usually thought to be at least one class younger than she actually is, to no shortage of her own annoyance – and, having awakened as a mage sometime back in middle school, technically the promised blessed child of SIBIL, whose particular blend of pseudo-scientific theology promises, among various other things, that those who truly find balance will unlock their inner potential and eventually develop psychic powers.

This is a serious problem for the cult’s leadership, as Akeha is not balanced in any sense of the word, and the child of a runaway yakuza princess and the mafia’s IT guy she eloped with being the first to actually realise that potential rather than any of the highly-respectable, highly-invested and particularly highly-moneyed donors poses all kinds of awkward questions with no easy answers.

As a result, she ended up sent to the most normal, most unexciting high school in Tokyo that the cult’s information network could find, officially to facilitate charitable works for the local homeless and to learn humility to achieve proper balance. (and, as such, technically cut off from the cult's significant resources for the time being) Nobody directly involved is actually buying it, but Akeha’s keenly aware that her parents (or more precisely, her dad) are mainly surviving by the grace of SIBIL’s leader, and while grumpy isn’t willing to actually rock the boat much as a result. Mostly known at school as “the cult girl” with comically bad temper after an incident involving trying to make her buy some melon bread, three stray cats and an actual melon.

She is also haunted by a dark spirit that’s really into golf. This is a problem.

Dream: Freedom.
Tether: Being stuck with SIBIL as very literal lifeline for her and her family.

Supplementary Material:

Going Clubbing - a story from Akeha's middle school days, and her first encounter with golf.

Supporting Cast:

The Parents:

• Yukari Moriyama – the mother. Runaway Yakuza princess, housewife and assistant gym trainer within SIBIL. Conceals her tattoos. Terrifying enough that she wears the dead anime mom hairstyle and survives anyways.

• Ken Moriyama – the father. Was one of the chief IT guys for the syndicate and helped handle its money; there’s technically enough information in his head to get a bunch of important people arrested. Now does more or less the same work with SIBIL. Mutually head over heels in love with Yukari. The two eloped using a golf cart during the syndicate’s business outing, infamously making Akeha’s grandfather on mother’s side so mad that he twisted his golf club into a pretzel on that day. Currently living in the fortress-like SIBIL main compound, though exactly why SIBIL’s willing to take care of such a radioactive pair is unclear.

The Cultists:

• SIBIL – like more than a few Japanese new religions, vaguely Western-inspired and existing on the boundary between a religion and philosophical group. Offers education courses and training to find “balance”, from teaching former JSDF members (whom it preferentially targets) floral arrangement and tea ceremony, to teaching concerned housewifes surprisingly practical CQC basics. Makes most of its actual money from computer business and “blessed”, “spiritually balanced” products of its gardens and orchards grown by its followers sold at absurd premiums rather than milking own members dry for donations. Has something of sterile and glowy-scientific aesthetic to its interiors and uniforms, but does not actually have any real connection to the Technocracy. (and probably annoys it in cargo-cult sort of way)

• Saint Mauve – or so her pseudonym goes. Giant of a woman wearing an equally huge hat and coat (Akeha refers to her as “Mrs. X” when she’s very sure she’s not around and it’s not much of an exaggeration) who used to be a mercenary before a particularly unfortunate encounter with a werewolf left her unit massacred and her desperately looking for early retirement. Set SIBIL up in hopes to peacefully live out her days with three yachts and a private island with a fancy beach rather than anything resembling sincere belief. Akeha’s clearly supernatural abilities brought back unwelcome memories, but everyone she knows on the secret side of the world is at least kind of evil, so she dumped her on some unsuspecting high school while she tries to figure out what to do.

• Hana Sakata – Mauve’s old comrade, currently in charge of the cult’s security force, uncharitably referred to as “vaporwave stormtroopers” by Akeha, and a lot more relaxed than one might think looking at her scars and muscles. Drives her to school in her Toyota Hilux. Appreciates the rides, since Akeha not being terribly faithful means she can stop pretending for a while as well.

The Esoteric:

• The Golfer – an ominous spirit from beyond that haunts Akeha, appearing in her dreams as a woman wearing a faceless mask, and might have connection to her awakening. Unlike most other outer horrors, seems genuinely uninterested in feeding on humans and their souls to remain in this world. Technically her spiritual mentor, but in practice won’t help with anything until Akeha plays a match of golf first, which isn’t terribly convenient when you’re a high schooler living inside Tokyo, and goodness knows what’d happen if any actual mage heard about this. Refuses to give its actual name.

Vital Statistics:

Name: Akeha Moriyama
Tradition: Orphan
Genre: Horrible Psychic Child/Golfer
Nature: Guardian
Demeanor: Rogue
Essence: Primordial
Arete: 4
Quint: 4
Tass: 0
Paradox: 1
Damage: [ ] -0 [ ] -1 [ ] -1 [ ] -2 [ ]-2 [ ] -4 [ ] Incap
Willpower: 8/8

Attributes:

Physical:

• Strength: 3
• Agility: 4 (Accurate)
• Stamina: 3

Mental

• Perception: 4 (Spatial Awareness)
• Intelligence: 5 (Bright)
• Wits: 3

Social

• Charisma: 2
• Manipulation: 2
• Appearance: 4 (Eerie)

Abilities:

Talents:

• Alertness: 3
• Athletics: 3
• Awareness: 4 (Auras)

Skills:

• Etiquette: 2
• Esoterica: 2
• Meditation: 2
• Melee: 2
• Research: 2
• Computer: 3
• Security: 2
• Technology: 2

Knowledges:

• Medicine: 3
• Occult: 2
• Science: 2

Magic:

Arete: 4

• Forces: 4
• Correspondence: 2
• Mind: 1
• Prime: 3

Traits

Backgrounds:

• Avatar: 5
• Allies: 2
• Dream: 1
• Resources: 3
• Mentor: 3

Merits:

• Prestige: 2
• Spirit Mentor: 3

Flaws:

• Highschooler: 1
• Echoes: 1
• Insane Mentor: 1 (technically worse than that, but "diabolical" feels not entirely accurate either)
• Short: 3

Session Records

• Session 1: Prologue (3 XP)

- Mr Sato: SIBIL's supplicant, received cat-enhanced soul rescue operation.
- SIBIL's meditation: designed to leverage all senses to let one achieve balance and inner peace. (cynical reading is that it's a grab-bag of elements that sounded cool or meaningful but not necessarily coherent)
- K-Technologies Group: up to AI-themed no good, has a HQ at the edge of Tokyo, surrounded by farmland
- KTech's general manager: shady literally and metaphorically, involved in draining souls of investors, maybe others as well. Had strong aura of prime + correspondence + something else.
- Operation Shitpost is Go!

• Session 2: K-Tech's HQ misadventures begin! (3 XP)

- Enchantments: 5 successes of mindshield that burns anything meddling with Prime/Forces, Mind/Prime/Forces/Corr 1 boosted perception (to-hit difficulty reducer)
- 1 quint used
- Rest TBD

• Session 3: Misadventures continue! (5 XP)

- events TBD in the morning
- 1 paradox gained
- boss fight looms!