Lazarus

Background

Keith ‘Lazarus’ Bryson was born in Astoria, New York to an ordinary, mundane upper middle class family. His father was a successful architect, and his mother was a collector of antiquities running a small antiques shop, something his parents would devote more time to in their retirement years.

His life growing up was unremarkable in most aspects. There were friends and foes alike like most kids. His tastes in reading were a bit more diverse and eclectic than most of his peers, choosing such authors as Edgar Allen Poe, H.P Lovecraft, and Voltaire, to topics such as telepathy, ESP, occult, astrology, and ancient history.

His life took a different turn around the age of 9 when his grandfather took him to see the stage magician The Great Carzini. The following day, he went down to the local library and found himself a book on sleight of hand. After seeing the looks on people’s faces from a simple coin vanish, he wanted to learn all he could about magic.

As he grew into his early teens, his preferred style of dress was predominantly black, a look he thought fitting and mysterious for a sleight of hand street magician. He refined his look over time, leaning towards a more ‘urban goth’ look as he coined it, still choosing black as his color of preference.

At age 16, while performing some impromptu sleight of hand outside one of Manhattan’s many different museums, he by chance met a black haired, pale skinned Dark Victorian beauty of a woman, a Hollow One Mage by the name of Raven Wysteria. He was already used to what he called his ‘strange luck’ or ‘weirdness magnet’, finding Fate drawing him into chance encounters and strange events, and always seemingly finding himself in the right place at the right time. However, it would be under Raven’s tutoring eye that he would begin to truly Awaken to his full magickal potential, and join the ranks of the Hollow Ones.

Lazarus first arrived at the teaching chantry Phoenix Rising at Raven Wysteria’s behest asking him to investigate some rumors for her regarding the disappearance of a number of teachers from the school. After helping solve that particular mystery, he accepted an invitation to stay on at Phoenix Rising as one of their students. Since then, he has made Phoenix his home.

Years later, and several adventures following, Lazarus is now part owner (Holly Snow of Serenity Valley is the primary owner), creative director, and defacto manager for the Magic Castle in Phoenix. (Basically take the Magic Castle located in Hollywood, California and place it in the middle of Phoenix, AZ). In game, the Magic Castle was officially opened for business on December 20, 2014.