APPROVED: BACKGROUND_1 Michael Garin, Disciple of Dormammu
Michael Garin hasn't led a particularly charmed life. When his father abandoned his mother and the infant Michael to seek his fortune in the bars and houses of ill repute shortly after their arrival from Russia, the boy was introduced to hardship. Milk was at a premium, especially when water from the faucet was free, and diapers came in the form of old rags that his mother managed to take from the diner she worked at. The poor living conditions led to the boy frequently being sick, leaving most of his formative years to be had in a cramped one-bedroom apartment.
His mother, in between working double shifts at the diner and doing whatever odd jobs she could for money, did make sure that Michael got to have the one bit of happiness in his childhood that he will never forget…the library. He spent hours at the library, lost in knowledge and stories, getting his first exposure to the supernatural through the books he so cherished. He dove into the study of it, ordering what books he could through the library system to learn about it, much to the teasing of his peers who teased for for believing in magic and such. It didn't much bother him, however, and he was content.
Unfortunately, as Michael was graduating high school, taking the honor of salutatorian, tragedy struck. Michael's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and only had a short time left to live. Michael, the budding occultist that he was, and completely bereft of other options and with no money, tried to invoke whatever patron he could to bargain to cure his mothers cancer…and someone heard him, through a crack in the judgment of the Spectre. A courier delivered a heavy leather tome to him one day in the hospital room, with a note taped to the front. "To Michael, from a concerned listener".
The day his mother was to die, was, in a small bit of cosmic serendipity, the day that the judgment of the Spectre was lowered and Michael, following the directions in the tome, was able invoke a ritual that drew upon the power of the one who listened to his begging for power in the first place…the rogue Faltine, the Dread Dormammu. The boys soul was strong and tied to an ancient bloodline of Russian sorcerers who had long since been lost to time. Dormammu saw opportunity and took it. The ritual was a success, and the invoked power of the cleansed his mother's cancer, though at a cost Michael failed to understand…Dormammu laid mystic claim to his soul, forever bonding the magus to the Faltine, payment for the miracle brought forth.
Death always gets her due, however, and after a week of leaving the hospital, miraculously cured, she was struck by a drunk driver who escaped conviction at trial due to his financial connections, some say buying the jury. The young magus, devastated, turned to the book again, hoping to find something within to avenge the death of his mother by the rich brat who took away his only remaining family. He found what he was looking for, but he lacked the skill to invoke the spell.
He gathered up what savings his mother left behind and he left to study under whomever he could in order to increase his skill. After five years, he has returned to New York City, having left his last master after a magical experiment gone wrong, destroying the arcane laboratory and leaving Michael with the last possession he treasures…the Embers of the Faltine. He seeks new arcane studies and more power, and, unknowingly, working the will of his benefactor, Dormammu.
APPROVED: PSY1 Obsession
Michael is obsessed with acquiring more power so that he can fulfill the bargain he made with Dormammu, and to avenge his mothers death.
APPROVED: PSY2 Survivor
What doesn't kill Michael makes him stronger. Despite the seemingly endless stream of setbacks the young man has suffered, he keeps going, possessing a unique force of will that is likely his strongest character trait.
APPROVED: PSY3 Motivation
Michael wants to become a stronger magus so that he won't have to suffer at the hands of others any longer, wanting to ensure that after all of the negative he has suffered, he won't suffer any longer.
APPROVED: PSY4 Goals
Michael's current goals are to hoard mystic treasures and knowledge in order study them and grow stronger as a magus. This will, he hopes, also carry with it the pleasant side effects of fulfilling his bargain with Dormammu as well as giving him enough strength to enact revenge on the wealthy businessman who killed his mother in the drunk driving accident. Currently, Dormammu has tasked the young man with acquiring an enchanted dagger that belonged to an ancient mage.
APPROVED: POW1 Sorcery
Michael practices what would be considered 'normal' sorcery in the order of most magicians. He studies spells and memorizes them in order to cast them, speaking verbal incantations in order to bring forth his desired effect along with an expenditure of will. The more spells he casts in a short amount of time, the weaker they get. He can also beseech various supernatural personages in order to invoke effects related to their sphere of power (invoking Agamotto's name in order to reveal the truth, etc).
Michael is able to invoke these spells due to his mystical bloodline. He is related to a long-line of Russians sorcerers that trace their origins to Baba Yaga's daughter, Jodamat. Although the mystical blood in his veins has been diluted by the centuries, his blood is unusually pure due to some unknown circumstances surrounding his birth. The prominent theory is that his conception was over a gathering of leylines, whose power blessed his birth and awakened the magic within him. Michael in unsure exactly as to what the truth is, and so it is a mystery.
This mystic heritage is also the primary reason that Dormammu is interested in the young man, for an impressionable and revenge-hungry man who can be moulded into a tool for eventually allowing Dormammu to conquer the Earth dimension is a rare thing indeed, especially as Michael possesses no allegiances to any one group. He also has the advantage of being relatively unknown in mystic circles, allowing him to 'fly under the radar' as it were.
APPROVED: POW2 Elemental Magic
Michael has some small experience invoking the various elements of the world, though his specialty lies in fire, as this is his primary form of attack. He is able to manipulate the size and intensity of flame, able to take a candle and conjure an inferno from it. He can also create flames from nothing, igniting the air itself to conjure flames. His skills with the other elements are much weaker, though he still maintains basic magics such as identifying the composition of a rock, tell if air is breatheable, etc.
APPROVED: POW3 Mental Magics
While not his area of expertise, Michael maintains a good working knowledge of basic mental magics, such as basic thought reading, mental shields against telepaths, and the art of mental invisibility, a focus of magic where the user erases his/her presence from the minds of others to become 'invisible'. High level telepaths are able to penetrate his mental defenses, though they frequently find a murky mess of scrambled thoughts due to his connection to the Dark Dimension through the Embers of the Faltine.
APPROVED: POW4 Transportation Magic
Michael's few arcane tomes contain what transportation magic he knows, and that is very little. Basic spells to speed one's travel from place to place, phasing through a door, or making a door open somewhere else nearby are the limits of his knowledge.
APPROVED: POW5 Magical Defenses
Most of Michael's defensive skills come from quick wit, but he does possess basic incantations of protection, notably reinforcement of materials and the creation of temporary magical shields to protect from damage. Effects include hardening a leather coat to be as strong as steel, creating a short-lived force field to redirect an attack, and other similar effects.
APPROVED: POW6 Thoughtcasting
Michael has a very limited suite of spells that he can cast without having to vocalize. These are: A mental invisibility spell, the ability to make a door open elsewhere a short distance away temporarily, and a personalized force field that lasts for a few seconds to deflect an attack.
APPROVED: ADV1 Employment
Michael has a job working at a librarian in one of the New York City Libraries, working as a paid intern there. He has the income associated with a position, as well as access to rarer books than the general public.
APPROVED: ADV2 Apartment
Michael has a mid-sized loft in a Manhattan, in a nice neighborhood to boot. It is spacious enough to contain the tools of his trade (mostly occult tomes), and still maintain enough square footage to be a decent livable space.
APPROVED: ADV3 Embers of the Faltine
An enchanted crystal phial filled with cast off embers from Dormammu's own Faltine flames, this artifact is a rare gift indeed. While Michael possesses the Embers, he has a mental link to Dormammu to whom he can, with expenditure of magical energy, attempt to contact his master. Secondarily, while Michael also possesses the Embers, his magical prowess is magnified, with most of his spells and incantations heightened, his pyromancy especially, the flames he controls shining with the superheated and otherworldly inferno of the Faltine. Finally, Michael can choose to activate the enchantments on the phial, surrendering himself to the corrupting influence within. While active, he gains a hellish corona of flaming protection and his magical powers are heightened even further, raised to the level of a much older magus. However, the flames that surround him also scorch his body and soul, burning him and pushing him closer and closer to total damnation at Dormammu's hands.
APPROVED: ADV4 Smart
Michael has higher than average intelligence for someone his age, scoring just below genius level on standardized IQ tests.
APPROVED: SKILL1 High School Education
In this day and age, having a high school education is a skill that is quickly falling out of favor as children are home schooled or don't go to school at all.
APPROVED: SKILL2 Occultism
Michael is well versed in the occult, having studied under several other magi and amassing quite an occult library of his own using books acquired from his work or adventures of his own. He wouldn't be considered one of the foremost experts, but he has significant working knowledge and a wealth of secret knowledge as well.
UNAPPROVED: SKILL3 Bilingual
Michael, as the son of a Russian immigrant, is perfectly fluent in both Russian and English.
APPROVED: FLAW1 Spoken Casting
For all of Michael's magic beyond telepathy, the magus is required to recite phrases to invoke the power within in order to give the mystic force of his will weight upon reality. If he were to be gagged, his spellcasting ability would be relatively nill beyond a few key spells that he has worked very hard to cast without vocalizing.
APPROVED: FLAW2 Faustian Bargain
Michael has what equates to a Faustian bargain with the extradimensional creature known as Dormammu. In exchange for power and knowledge, Michael has sworn fealty to the rogue Faltine and must perform services for his master, lest that power be taken away or he be punished.
APPROVED: FLAW3 Components
In order to work more powerful and permanent magical effects, Michael requires special components in order to work more difficult sorceries. Examples would include such sundry items such as demon blood, last breath of a man, tears from a man who has never cried, etc.
APPROVED: FLAW4 Concentration
In order to call upon his magic, in addition to needing to vocalize his will into changing reality, Michael must concentrate on what he is doing. Distractions of varying intensity cause his magic to take longer as well as be potentially weaker. There is also the chance for a miscasted spell to go dangerously awry, with a conjured fireball blowing up in Michael's face, or a mental invisibility spell instead making him /more/ noticeable for the duration.
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