James Howard

Physical Attributes:

Strength: * *

Dexterity: * *

Stamina: * *

Social Attributes:

Charisma: * * *

Manipulation: * * *

Appearance: * * * *

Mental Attributes:

Perception: * * *

Intelligence: * * *

Wits: * * *

Talents:

Alertness: * *

Athletics: * *

Awareness: * *

Brawl: * *

Dodge: * * *

Intuition: * *

Stealth: * *

Streetwise: * *

Subterfuge: * *

Survival (Street) * *

Skills:

Hypnotism: * *

Fortune Telling: * * * *

Medicine: * *

Knowledge:

Cosmology: *

Herbalism: * *

Occult: * *

Poisons: * *

Science: *

Spheres:

Correspondence: * * (focus: crystals)

Entropy: * (focus: tattoo)

Forces: * (focus: steel)

Life: * * * (focus: blood/herbs)

Mind: * * * (focus: crystal)

Matter: * * (focus: legerdemain)

Prime: * (focus: blood)

Spirit: * * (cigarette smoke)

Time:

Backgrounds: Avatar * * * (Magpie)

Dream * * *

Resources *

Resonance: Whispers

Merits:

Flaws:

Nightmares 1pt

Strangeness 1pt

Bards Tongue 1pt

Diabolical Mentor 2 pt

Twisted Apprenticeship 1pt

Addiction 1pt (nicotine)

Ward 3 pt: James’ goddaughter, Lily McAbee, sworn to his Goddess to protect.

Haunted 1pt: James is haunted by a mischievous old lady, Marie-Louise Bonnot.

Arete: * * * *

Fate:

Willpower: * * * * *

XP: 0 (last updated 31/7/13)

DESCRIPTION: Medium height, slim build, long dark hair, grey/blue eyes, charming smile and lurking twinkle. A bit *too* pretty. The kind of looks that men are inclined to be slightly suspicious of although James' demeanor is disarming, bit of a clown, never entirely serious. Despite goofy sense of humor, there is something a little off kilter and not entirely trustworthy about the guy (Strangeness/Echoes flaws) and although he's fun to have around socially, people don't really seem to get to know him all that well. Plus, he never sticks around long in any one place.

BACKGROUND: Born in Brighton, Sussex, England, on October 31st 1977, James Howard was the product of a disastrous one-night stand/teenage pregnancy. His reluctant mother left him to be raised by his strictly Catholic grandmother who suffered a serious stroke when James was 17. Just before this, James met Miriam Stark, artist and founder of the Vipers Kiss Gallery in Brighton and became her dazzled acolyte. She was a Verbena Mage operating a mostly Sleeper Pagan/Witchcraft Coven with very dark overtones, using her vulnerable and deluded Cultists as pawns and sacrifices for her own highly nefarious ends. Miriam, both far older and a good deal less sane even than was apparent, seduced the teenaged James into her orbit because of his potential to Awaken. His rather sheltered upbringing assisted Miriam to draw him close, exploit him, twist his understanding of what being a Mage was all about. He learnt about power and fear, dark destinies, poisons, vengeful strikes and curses. Nothing about Ascension, nothing about other Traditions and indeed, very little about other Mages. When James was 18, he met another Mage outside of Miriam's coven, Steve White of the Platform X & St Eosta's cabals. Through Steve, James realised that Miriam was actively evil and insane and with his help, escaped from her influence and control. In the process he betrayed coven secrets to Steve, a Verbena heavyweight 'policing' Miriam's activities for barrabi taint. James didn't take Steve's offer of help through the Platform X chantry or his advice about seeking out allies among their shared Tradition. In fact after Miriam's exploitation and the perversion of Life magick through the Vipers Kiss years, James was not keen to get involved with the Verbena or indeed any Tradition. Instead, he left England. He's been drifting ever since.

Knowing Miriam as well as he did, James preferred to keep on the move. Maybe the Atlantic Ocean was wide enough to lose his scent. Maybe not. Best to keep moving, just in case.

He used to make a reasonable but by no means ostentatious living from fortune telling - astrology, palmistry, I-Ching, tea leaves, anything really. Tarot is his specialism - he knows more than enough to impress and convince . . . not that it matters a damn. James has no ability to see the future at all - apart from an inconvenient and usually accidental accuracy from time to time. But he knows what people want to hear. And tells them that :-)

New York Years

James has been resident in Manhattan for 4 years now. He originally came to look for a LeMarchand puzzle box called The Faithless, blackmailed into it by an unscrupulous old lady, something of a hedge magicks dabbler and a descendant of LeMarchand’s apprentice, Bonnot. Bonnot Family Lore had it that the original Bonnot was promised the puzzle box by his master in recognition for his work as apprentice artificer and henchman. Typically, the LeMarchand murdered his apprentice rather than part with the box. Marie-Louise Bonnot was determined to have what was promised to her great great great grandfather. James never recovered the box - too dangerous a toy for an old lady, no matter how deserving of a dark fate she might be. Additionally, as the mainspring of the blackmail – disclosure of his whereabouts to his former mentor, the nephandus Miriam Stark – became redundant while James was in New York, James was able to renege on his deal with Marie-Louise without qualm or regret.

Or so he thought. Turns out that old lady Bonnot is a tenacious sort, even after her death a couple of years ago. She decided to haunt James, partly from revenge but mostly from a suspicion that life beyond the veil would be a little on the tedious side. Fettering her wraith to the fate of a handsome ne’er do well Mage seemed a much more appealing prospect for her afterlife.

While in New York, James became acquainted with Nicholas Fraser, a Nephandus on the slippery, tortured path of redemption and Ellie Rowan, a free lance Mage and private investigator. He also met and worked with Alex Whatley and Samantha Johanson of the New World Order and he met Christine McAbee, latest incarnation of the Cumaean Sybil, now also resident in New York. In conjunction with these allies, and many more acquaintances and contacts in New York city, James has survived a breathtaking slew of perilous adventures, encounters with shockingly wicked types with hideously evil plans for both small scale and mass destruction. He has been present at and even helped avert cataclysmic happenings in the Big Old Apple. While never cut out to be any kind of hero, James is given next to no choice but to be the champion of his Lady, the Earth Goddess, revered by the Verbena (among others), who has James’ soul wrapped around her finger. And, as James likes to point out, Herself does like to poke Her finger into an awful lot of hellishly dangerous pies. Blessed be . . .

James has worked for Rowan & Associates Private Investigators for 3 years. He and Nick Fraser accepted an offer from Ellie Rowan to join forces in the hunt for Nephandi (and lost pets, cheating spouses and frauds . . . which is just nuts to James, himself an accomplished conman.) In the past three years Rowan & Associates have located and dealt with a respectable quota of very bad guys including some quite high profile ‘serial killer’ cases, which has earned them the grudging respect of the NYPD. New York’s Finest are now more inclined to call in Rowan & Associates to ‘assist with enquiries’ when it comes to certain puzzling or ‘occult’ style homicides in their Fair City.

James still lives at the Washington Square Hotel where he has a small suite. James has spent too much of adult life on the run to want to get into ‘apartment’ life. He still prefers to feel able to shed all and liabilities at the drop of a hat and hotel life suits him just fine from that point of view. Of course, he doesn’t actually pay to live there. His arrangement with the management of the Washington Square Hotel is somewhat . . . unconventional. A quid pro quo. The hotel has always had an uneasy reputation. People who have worked there for any length of time – and some guests – will swear that the place is haunted. Legends of unpleasant and disturbing occurrences at the hotel date way back. Now, a certain amount of ghost story about an old hotel is not necessarily a bad thing; a certain kind of clientele is drawn to it. However, full-scale quasi-demonic disturbances have proved to be emphatically bad for business as are law suits when parts of the hotel accommodation collapse or malfunction in harmful ways. James, happy to take up office as the hotel’s unacknowledged resident psychic has been able to contain the worst of the ghostly excesses at the Washington Square Hotel while still providing some ‘tame’ hauntings for connoisseur patrons. As the last law suit against the hotel, Stanton, Boyes and Phillips vs. The Park Hotel Group, cost the hotel conglomerate half a million dollars in damages plus legal fees, housing one James Francis Howard free of charge in return for services rendered, seems a reasonable price to pay.

James is currently in Phoenix investigating the possible source of some apocalyptic visions that his friend and colleague Christine McAbee has been having. Christine in the latest incarnation of the Seer of Cumae and is also the mother to James’ goddaughter Lily. James and Christine have just moved into the Downtown Phoenix Area, posing as a married couple, Mr and Mrs Morgan, with their 4-year old daughter.

James has enrolled at ASU as a Nursing student.

Personal Effects:

Fortune telling props i.e. Tarot Cards, Astrology/Palmistry texts, Crystal Ball

steel Zippo lighter engraved with a magpie motif

pack of camels

steel penknife

herb kit

smoky quartz crystal pendant on a silver chain

tattoo of a magpie over heart

cell phone

pack of M&M's.