Shannon Travers

This page is for the IxMage version of Shannon. For the PeelMaid version, see Shannon_Travers_(Prototype).

Overview

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The machines of the present have their own spirits that can be reached. By showing them love and respect, we can do anything.

Appearance

Shannon is a young mid-twentysomething woman of mixed British, French-Canadian and Mohawk descent, with very light ruddy-brown skin and a slim but developed figure. Her hair and eyes are a chestnut or dark adobe brown, although she occasionally dyes her hair other colors. She's not particularly physically active or imposing, standing at just around 5'7".

Her sense of style could be described as eye-catching and eclectic, with an abundance of recycled thrift, obscure internet-only brands and handmade items giving her a wide array of styles.

Background

From the very beginning of her life, Shannon was an intermediary, with a foot each in the worlds of her two very different parents. Born in a reservation a few hours north of Montreal, her parents met under adversarial circumstances: with her father a foreign mining engineer and mother a student, environmental activist and member of the local Mohawk tribe. Shannon was the product of their short but intense relationship.

Growing up between households and cultures, she spent most of her early life with her expat father while her mother finished schooling, her way paid into expensive daycare services and private schools. When his contract ended and he was to return to England, she resolved to stay in Canada with her mother, who had just finished her degree and was going to begin teaching in one the newly reformed all-native schools being opened around the province. Inevitably this meant moving away from her old life and taking a crash course in the culture of her mother's family. Relatives were kind and welcoming, but distant, because she would ultimately not be able to live on the reservation and participate in their culture fully as someone who didn't fulfill the blood quotas.

Despite the stresses and the stigma of not being fully native, she was embraced by her maternal grandparents. Her grandmother taught her the history and traditions of her family, and a doting grandfather allowed an at-times tomboyish Shannon to stay around the garage where he worked to keep old cars running, helping out and learning the basics from him. Her summers were full of trips overseas to see her father, traveling around Europe with him (as his new executive position afforded him the time and money to do so) and picking up a deep love of travel, culture, architecture and food (particularly the former as a young teenager).

Once out of her teens, she considered her options: her father would pay for her to study in England and get a degree, while her mother would probably be able to cover the costs of a local college. She considered becoming a student of engineering, history or theology, but inevitably found herself too restless to spend another year in a classroom. Purposeless, she settled on biding her time at the garage.

One summer night she found herself cleaning up alone after hours, when she noticed a strangely pleasing smell coming from underneath an scrapped car. Investigating, she heard the mewling of a stray cat, although she couldn't actually see it when she checked. Assuming it was hiding, she tried to free it by lifting the car on a jack, but it seemed to just cower and cling. No amount of hissing, shooing or pressurized air could scare her out from underneath. Resigning herself, she tried to be nicer tried to lure it out by placing a bowl of milk by the exit, waiting for it to leave the hiding spot from a bench just out of view. The ploy worked, but the odd-looking cat looked up at her as it prepared to depart and expressed a strange, toothy grin before saying "thanks".

It was enough of a shock for the girl to back away, tripping on a discarded hubcap and falling hard enough to give herself a concussion. In the strange and feverish dreams that followed the cat introduced herself as Queen Molly, not merely a cat but royalty among all cat kind. She had become lost and frightened, and it was only Shannon's timely and (eventually) compassionate attitude that allowed her to regain her composure and escape. Shannon, she reasoned, had the talents to become a potent shaman and protector of civilization (with many allusions to the roles of ancient cats) but some might guide her to suit their own ambitions instead of allowing her to grow into her own.

Knowing little or nothing of the world of magic, the offer didn't just sound good to Shannon but incredible, and she accepted without a second thought if it meant life with a higher purpose, traveling wherever she wanted. She emptied her accounts, burned up her savings and bought a refurbished cutaway RV, setting out onto the road with her totem and no idea what the future held for her.

Vital Statistics

Name// Shannon Travers

Concept// Urban Shaman Questing for a Soulful Modernity

Image Song// Yonderboi - Fairy of the Lake

Nature// Architect (Purpose/Obsession) "I will help the modern era find its soul again."

Demeanor// Bon Vivant (Joie de Vivre/Hedonism) "And it'll be so much fun!"

Affiliation// Council Mage Vagabond Shaman (Dreamspeaker)

Faction// Spirit Smith (Unaffiliated)

Avatar// Questing; The Autodidactic Savant(s)

Chantry// None (Currently)

Things to Track

Willpower// 5

Temporary Willpower// 5

Health Levels// -0 x 1, -1 x 2, -2 x 2, -5 x 1, Incapacitated

Current Damage// 0

Arete// 3

Quintessence// 5/5

Paradox// 0

Attributes

Strength 2//

Dexterity 2//

Stamina 2//

Perception 2//

Intelligence 4// Erudite

Wits 2//

Charisma 4// Friendly

Manipulation 2//

Appearance 4// Dazzling

Abilities

TALENTS/

Alertness 3//

Awareness 3//

Expression 3//

SKILLS/

Craft 3//

Drive 3//

Etiquette 3//

Meditation 1//

Technology 3//

KNOWLEDGES/

Cosmology 2//

Linguistics 1// English, French

Occult 3//

Paradigm

From the tiniest grain of sand to the greatest skyscrapers, everything has the soul, even the world itself. These spirits are ephemeral, unconscious and in flux- merging and individuating as their physical forms are united and disassembled. These are reflected in the Umbra as the vast spirit world we are familiar with, perhaps because Creation is dreaming of itself or because the Umbra is dreaming of Creation. The reasons are unimportant. What matters is that the effects can be seen in the way that acts of creation and destruction resonate across the two worlds.

Magic is reaching out to the spirits of the world, guiding them through ritual and communion, touching the soul of a thing and placating it so that it might help the shaman. The means do not matter so long as they are matched to the nature of the spirit and the intentions of the shaman are pure.

Chanting is placation, offerings are placation, ablution is placation, maintaining religious grounds is placation.

To an old car from the Roaring Twenties, a jazz tune from the time when it was most alive is chanting, clean, high-temperature organic lubricant is an offering and fresh glossy paint is ablution. Extended maintenance on its engine block is the same as restoring a shrine to the spirit that lives within it. Life in the world of the Technocracy is too fast, too complex and sophisticated to take an all-encompassing approach. To be a shaman of technology is to dabble, improvise and learn while respecting the old traditions.

Shannon's preferred foci are well-worn mechanical tools and generally of a physical and somewhat personal nature, including things such as paint, custom mechanical or electronic parts and decorative pieces to personalize the machines she tends to work with. Sometimes she even sings, knowing music to be the sole language to be carried on throughout the aeons, changing with people. The spirits of things remember music too, especially the songs of its makers and those who have held them throughout existence.

Foci and Spheres

Matter 3// Tools and maintenance, painting and engraving, custom parts (especially for technology).

Spirit 3// Painting and engraving, decorative trinkets (as offerings), singing.

Backgrounds

Avatar 5// A figure in a messy workshop, sometimes an old man, a young woman or rarely the two as a pair; always toiling but never completing projects. The two never speak to her directly, but their conversations (or individual rambling) provide valuable insights.

Resources 1// Being a vagrant seller of oddities living out of a truck isn't the best or easiest living.

Sanctum 2// A cutaway truck that Shannon has spent the past few years living out of while she travels around North America. The interior is adorned with a great mess of oddities and knick-nacks.

• Provides decent stock of materials, coincidental -1 casting dif, 2 points of Arcane.
• The worktable is inhabited by a semi-sapient spirit of knowledge. It is possibly to learn the history of any object examined on it as a Time 2 postcognition effect, by rolling Intelligence + the relevant ability (Craft or Technology for most items).

Totem 4// Queen Molly (Willpower 7, Gnosis 9, Rage 6; Power 20/20)

Queen Molly is a powerful vagrant totem spirit that embodies the concept of the cat as a dweller of cities and neighbor (but not necessarily companion) of humans. In ages past she was a powerful being that protected humans from disease and parasites and gave them good fortune in exchange for being fed. Pogroms in the Dark Ages against cats led first to the outbreak of the Black Death. With the creation of FIV (blame could easily be laid on the Technocracy, Nephandi or perhaps the Wyrm) and vast programs to 'curb' the cat population by sterilization and euthnasia, her power has waned substantially. Molly most recently had a place of power on the island of Tashirojima, although she is currently homeless.

• Charms/ Airt Sense, Materialize, Healing, Reform
• Innate Abilities/ Always knows how to find Shannon, respected by other Umbrood.
• Ban/ Must set out food in places where stray cats live.

Equipment

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Home, seen at its very cleanest and most bereft of cats.

Merits and Flaws

Merits

Lucky// Even before her awakening, Shannon led a charmed and interesting life. With the added influence of her spirit mentor, she seemingly lives with nine lives- constantly pulling near-misses and snatching narrow victories from the jaws of defeat. Gives 3 rerolls on failed dice per story.

Medium// Shannon inherited the ability to perceive spirits that runs through much of the native side of her family tree, although her perception is less visual than it is aural and olfactory. Particular spirits have their own smells, among them her mentor- to whom Shannon was drawn by a particularly sweet and pleasant scent.

Flaws

Echoes 2// Prone to being affectionately swarmed by cats of all kinds, but especially feral and stray cats. Other animals seem to view her as a very large cat rather than a person, and react appropriately.

Primal Marks// Has a number of cat-like mannerisms like brushing her face with the back of her hand and ironically saying "mew". At times her clothes and hair will often superficially resemble cat features, with belts draping and swishing like tails and hair standing up to resemble ears.

Spirit Trained 1// Being trained by a pattern spirit has given Shannon a slightly distorted sense of her own magic and an unorthodox approach to animist willworking.

Spiritual Duty 1// Queen Molly occasionally sends her out on (relatively safe) fetch quests.

The Bard's Tongue// The influence of a famously glib and chatty mentor spirit has given Shannon oracular potential and a serial inability to filter these insights out of her regular conversations.

FP

Freebie Total/Flaws/Original (22/7/15)

• Primal Marks (-2)
• Echoes (-2)
• Spirit Trained (-1)
• Spiritual Duty(-1)
• The Bard's Tongue (-1)
• Arete 3 (8)
• Totem 4 (5)
• Avatar 5 (2)
• Sanctum 2 (2)
• Lucky (3)
• Medium (2)

XP

Experience Gains

Experience Total/Spent/Unspent (0/0/0)

Experience Spending

Experience Total/Spent/Unspent (0/0/0)