Michael Black

Name: Michael Black, Doc, Knower-of-some-things

Race: Witch

Age: 32

Occupation: Merchant, information broker

Appearance:

Background/Personality:

Born in Syvaris, Michael was raised by “reformed” witches, those who turned their backs on magic, and never taught their son the true power, lurking with in his blood. For they had been criminals, lurking in the underbelly of Human society, and, with a price on their heads, they turned away from their magic to keep themselves safe. Or so they hoped. Thus, he was raised in a normal family, in a normal house, and attending a normal school. By age 10, he was a very happy young man, with a small problem. Michael was very good at being not normal. When he accidentally turned himself invisible before a big test, the young boy used his newfound powers to his great advantage, stealing answers and peeking into the girl’s changing room. Of course, his parents could not deal with this, their own child finding the horrible hidden secret they had tried so hard to suppress. They broke their own vows, casting protective hexes on him blocking his access to magic, and stopping him from recalling that special place inside himself where his latent power slept. For a decade, it worked. But the magic of a restrained witch is a dangerous thing. It wants to be free, to be acknowledged as it was once, that one day. He found luck turning against him, his own magic subtly influencing the world, contriving a circumstance that would release the hex on him, and free his powers. That bad luck, that hex-breaking magical desire, ate away at his home’s wards, the ones that hid his parent’s magical signature from the Hunters, and, when he was away, finding his way in the adult world, his childhood home was destroyed, his parents killed, and the hexes placed on him released.

Those hexes had influenced young Michael. Instead of a massive explosion of magic that one might expect from a slumbering beast suddenly freed, instead, it whispered to him, again turning the wheels of fate to help him escape from the city before the Hunters could find the spawn of criminal witches, and destroy him as well. Michael found himself absconded by a changeling who knew his parents. He escaped the Hell Day, busy traveling with the Nomads, learning their ways, and finding his own magical path, the path of shadows and deception, hiding, just as his own magic had done to keep him safe for all those years. Now a grown man, he works as an information broker, using his skills and experiences to learn things, and sell that knowledge to the highest bidder.

Michael is clever, quick witted, and sometimes paranoid. He has built up a web of half truths and lies about his past in order to feel safe around others. After all, who trusts anyone from Syvaris, and raised as a pure human, no less. So, he keeps the same face on for most people he meets. He’s charming and accommodating, and quite a bit more observant than most people. He doesn’t mind personal questions, and loves telling white lies about himself. But he has a near compulsive need to know things, and know all the latest news. His best friends are those who tell him stories and rumors, and his greatest irritants are people who keep secrets, or get mad when he asks questions. Michael is, in the end, still a child at heart, lost in the wonders of the magical world, he longs to see and understand everything, or, at least, as much as he can. After all, knowledge is power.