Name: Max Edward Woodville Gender: Male Age: 28 Wing Color: Dark purple-blue Physical Appearance: Max is of average height, 5' 9" or so and medium to slim build. He's not overly muscled although he is relatively strong. He has fairly pale skin (he burns horribly in the summer if he isn't careful) and black hair which he wears short and is often fairly scruffy. His eyes are blue and people with the right training might see something a little wrong there, something that isn't quite human. He normally has a small amount of stubble, the beginnings of a moustache even, although never more than a couple of days old. He doesn't have any tattoos but he does have a few scars. Most of them are faded nearly invisible, but there's a jagged one running down his right arm from where the creature that possessed his friend touched him. He's usually found wearing casual clothes; jeans and t-shirts, and avoids formal wear as much as he possibly can.
History: A little background on the world first; During World War Two, the United States only joined the Pacific front, forcing Britain to make an alliance with the Sidhe faeries in order to win. The alliance persists to this day. The win was decisive, Germany and Austria were divided and the world entered a new age. The British Empire was dissolved and replaced with the Commonwealth, a superstate made up of former colonial possessions, and is still a major world power in the present day. The USSR is still in existence and has a (mostly) friendly relationship with the Commonwealth. Magic is relatively commonplace and accepted by most people; you can purchase spells from shops. Sidhe culture is very popular, almost revered in some cases, for it's elegance and beauty.
Max was born in northern rural England to a very old magical family, able to trace their roots back to ancient royalty. His family was large and varied, and through the centuries, had intermixed with magical creatures, such as faeries, nature spirits and selkies. Max's own grandmother for example, was a selkie seal woman who married a human. He grew up with his parents and two older brothers, as well as a near constant parade of various relatives, both human and non human. This certainly made for a unique upbringing. He was brought up in an environment where magic was completely normal and accepted, and he was given a thorough grounding in it's history and workings, encouraged to develop his own skills and talents in it. This lead to him being completely comfortable with anything magical, to the point where he sometimes finds it a little strange when people don't know something or aren't as comfortable with it as he is.
He attended a local primary school, making friends despite his somewhat precocious nature. Alongside his normal lessons, his family tutored him in magic, developing his natural talents as they began to take shape. It became clear when he reached his teens, that he excelled at creating wards, barriers for protection and restraint, for hiding things, concealing secrets, and revealing hidden things. He focused his attentions in this direction, learning to use thread and weaving as a focus for his powers, despite the occasional jibes from relatives and other sorcerers who claimed he was nothing more than a hedgewitch, an insulting term for someone with little magical power or skill.
He had a fairly normal school career, doing well academically and having a small but close group of friends. The first big blow came when he was seventeen with his first serious girlfriend. They'd been going out for a few months when he invited her home to meet his family. She was disturbed and terrified by the casual use of magic that he displayed (especially while showing off) and the unusual nature of his family. She broke up with him the next day, saying that he was a monster and evil and she couldn't be around him anymore.
Max was, to put it bluntly, heartbroken, not to mention deeply cut by her words; they proved a heavy blow to his confidence and he became rather more withdrawn, not helped by the success of his older brothers entering the diplomatic service and graduating from Oxford respectively, putting more pressure on him to succeed. He threw himself into his studies and it paid off, gaining him several A-levels and an offer to study history at Oxford University which he accepted.
Of course, first came the traditional gap year. He began in Japan, attending the wedding of his eldest brother to a Japanese lady, a Kitsune fox spirit, in Sendai. Following that, he was able to get a visa to spend a month in Moscow in the USSR, which left him stranded when the Berlin Incident occurred; supposedly a new weapon was tested in East Germany, leaving the eastern side of the Berlin Wall fused into glass. It understandably caused an international incident during which Max's family pulled some strings to get him a place to stay at the Commonwealth embassy until he could return home. He kind of resented this a little, feeling as though he was still being viewed as a child unable to take care of himself, despite the situation.
He was eventually allowed to leave and spent the rest of his gap year travelling around Europe, seeing sights, picking up bits of local magic from the places he visited, flirting with attractive people including a brief fling with a mermaid while he was spending a few weeks in Copenhagen.
Eventually of course, he had to return home to attend university. His first year there was pretty normal; attend lectures, attempt to find a manageable work/life balance, spend more time than is probably healthy drunk. The problems of his high school years seemed kind of petty and small. He made some new friends, joined a couple of societies, became a well known reference for anything magical, and made a little money on the side selling low-level charms and spells, reinforcing rooms locks, keeping secrets, nothing dangerous.
It was during his second year when things started to get a little... weird, even for him. Max began to see things, specifically, dead things. Lingering spirits, ghosts, twisted embodiments of old grudges or promises broken. It was particularly unpleasant, especially since the spirits could see him too, and were drawn to him, able to touch and seep into his consciousness when he was unguarded. Understandably, his classwork suffered, with Max starting to shut himself away in his room where he was better able to protect himself from them. Even his family were at a loss since no-one within the family had ever had such a power to such a strong degree.
Without Max's knowledge, one of his close friends, Chris, began to search for a way to help him, dabbling in magic that he had little knowledge of and no hope of controlling. This dabbling lead, at the start of his third year, to Chris accidentally summoning a particularly dangerous spirit, dark and violent, which possessed him, slowly eroding his will and taking control of him.
When Max found out, he tried to banish the spirit, but lacked the training or knowledge to do so. At this darkest moment, faced with the fact of his own death and the death of his friends, as well as the release of something terrible into the world, a dormant part of Max's powers awoke and he was able to destroy the spirit utterly.
The energy drain left him in a coma for three months, and when he woke, he found that while the spirit had been destroyed, the magic had had another, terrifying effect; he'd wiped his friend Chris from existence. Every trace of him was gone, even his parents didn't remember him, claiming to never have had a child. He was utterly erased form existence. Along with this, Max's uncontrolled magic had left his mind somewhat ragged, a mental wound that would not heal, making him a draw for spirits and magical creatures unless he protected himself thoroughly.
His recovery was slow and painful and he became very withdrawn once more. He had to retake his last year at university, throwing himself into his studies and avoiding the social activities that he'd once loved. Once he graduated, instead of following his brothers into the Civil Service or Diplomatic service, he vanished for a a couple of years, barely contacting his family. During this time, he traveled around the Commonwealth and Europe, working on his ability to channel spirits and training as an exorcist because he never wanted to be that helpless again should the situation arise. He also made contacts around the world, some of a less than legitimate variety.
He returned home, much to his family's relief, and set up a small business selling wards and shields, simple charms to people, as well as performing exorcisms. He quickly built up a certain reputation, and saved up some money, enough that he was able to put a deposit down on a building in the city of York. He opened a shop there, partly catering to the New Age and popular interest in magic, crystals, incense, simple charms and spells, partly catering to more specialist tastes; acquiring magical artifacts, books and tools of varying legality, things for specialists.
His business became moderately successful, supplemented by an income for performing exorcisms.
It was a few years later, when Max was twenty-eight, that he met Brendan when the young man collapsed in the backyard of the shop, setting off every ward and protection that Max had. Max sheltered the obviously scared and exhausted young man, eventually coaxing out the reason for his condition. Brendan had been taken by the Sidhe several years before, being kept as a pet and curiosity in one of the courts, while his place in the human world was taken by a Changeling. Over that time, he'd had many glamours cast upon him that his true appearance was lost, even Brendan unable to remember. This of course, made it impossible for him to legally get help. No-one would believe him, and the Sidhe had connections with the highest powers. He was also marked with a powerful tracking spell which Max was unable to remove entirely, but was able to block the effects of, hiding Brendan from the Sidhe.
Brendan stayed with him, working in the shop and living with Max. While Max encouraged him to create a new life however, Brendan was unwilling, too focused on the hate that he felt for a Sidhe and what they had done to him. Although things seemed to be improving for a while, with Brendan becoming more willing to talk about what had happened to him and making a few friends, things fell apart when he was invited to spend Christmas with Max's family.
Max's family, full of magical creatures and mages and with Max's grandfather one of the people responsible for forming an alliance with the Sidhe and making Brendan's desire to regain his normal life impossible.
Things grew a little strained between them after that, with Brendan withdrawing from him, becoming silent and reclusive and so angry at him, culminating in a fight where Brendan accused him of being complicit with what had happened to him. That did no go down well, leaving them both feeling betrayed and hurt. They didn't get chance to reconcile before Brendan accidentally broke the wards that max had put around him, allowing the Sidhe to track him. The shop was attacked by a powerful Sidhe prince, the one who had owned Brendan. Max told Brendan to run, giving him a blade enchanted to be effective against Sidhe to protect himself. While Brendan ran, Max engaged in a battle of names with the Sidhe, who's personalities and actions are shaped by what people believe about them. It was a hard battle, with Max left exhausted, but victorious, and the Sidhe defeated and weakened enough that Max was able to demand that he remove the tracking from Brendan.
With that done, he chased after Brendan, arriving at his location just in time to see him murder the Changeling that had taken his place.
Despite his misgivings, and a little scared at the look in Brendan's eyes, like his thirst for revenge had only been fueled not quenched, Max pulled some strings to cover up what had happened, drawing a little on that terrible power to change reality to make sure that Brendan would not be implicated. The power took it's toll however, leaving Max unconscious while Brendan desperately called Max's brother to help them.
His brother came, giving Brendan a bit of a tongue lashing in the process, angry at him for what he had done and for dragging Max into danger, but helping anyway. They got Max to the hospital and after finding out that he would be alright, Brendan left.
Part 1
Name: Max Edward Woodville
Gender: Male
Age: 28
Wing Color: Dark purple-blue
Physical Appearance: Max is of average height, 5' 9" or so and medium to slim build. He's not overly muscled although he is relatively strong. He has fairly pale skin (he burns horribly in the summer if he isn't careful) and black hair which he wears short and is often fairly scruffy. His eyes are blue and people with the right training might see something a little wrong there, something that isn't quite human. He normally has a small amount of stubble, the beginnings of a moustache even, although never more than a couple of days old. He doesn't have any tattoos but he does have a few scars. Most of them are faded nearly invisible, but there's a jagged one running down his right arm from where the creature that possessed his friend touched him. He's usually found wearing casual clothes; jeans and t-shirts, and avoids formal wear as much as he possibly can.
History:
A little background on the world first;
During World War Two, the United States only joined the Pacific front, forcing Britain to make an alliance with the Sidhe faeries in order to win. The alliance persists to this day. The win was decisive, Germany and Austria were divided and the world entered a new age. The British Empire was dissolved and replaced with the Commonwealth, a superstate made up of former colonial possessions, and is still a major world power in the present day. The USSR is still in existence and has a (mostly) friendly relationship with the Commonwealth. Magic is relatively commonplace and accepted by most people; you can purchase spells from shops. Sidhe culture is very popular, almost revered in some cases, for it's elegance and beauty.
Max was born in northern rural England to a very old magical family, able to trace their roots back to ancient royalty. His family was large and varied, and through the centuries, had intermixed with magical creatures, such as faeries, nature spirits and selkies. Max's own grandmother for example, was a selkie seal woman who married a human. He grew up with his parents and two older brothers, as well as a near constant parade of various relatives, both human and non human. This certainly made for a unique upbringing. He was brought up in an environment where magic was completely normal and accepted, and he was given a thorough grounding in it's history and workings, encouraged to develop his own skills and talents in it. This lead to him being completely comfortable with anything magical, to the point where he sometimes finds it a little strange when people don't know something or aren't as comfortable with it as he is.
He attended a local primary school, making friends despite his somewhat precocious nature. Alongside his normal lessons, his family tutored him in magic, developing his natural talents as they began to take shape. It became clear when he reached his teens, that he excelled at creating wards, barriers for protection and restraint, for hiding things, concealing secrets, and revealing hidden things. He focused his attentions in this direction, learning to use thread and weaving as a focus for his powers, despite the occasional jibes from relatives and other sorcerers who claimed he was nothing more than a hedgewitch, an insulting term for someone with little magical power or skill.
He had a fairly normal school career, doing well academically and having a small but close group of friends. The first big blow came when he was seventeen with his first serious girlfriend. They'd been going out for a few months when he invited her home to meet his family. She was disturbed and terrified by the casual use of magic that he displayed (especially while showing off) and the unusual nature of his family. She broke up with him the next day, saying that he was a monster and evil and she couldn't be around him anymore.
Max was, to put it bluntly, heartbroken, not to mention deeply cut by her words; they proved a heavy blow to his confidence and he became rather more withdrawn, not helped by the success of his older brothers entering the diplomatic service and graduating from Oxford respectively, putting more pressure on him to succeed. He threw himself into his studies and it paid off, gaining him several A-levels and an offer to study history at Oxford University which he accepted.
Of course, first came the traditional gap year. He began in Japan, attending the wedding of his eldest brother to a Japanese lady, a Kitsune fox spirit, in Sendai. Following that, he was able to get a visa to spend a month in Moscow in the USSR, which left him stranded when the Berlin Incident occurred; supposedly a new weapon was tested in East Germany, leaving the eastern side of the Berlin Wall fused into glass. It understandably caused an international incident during which Max's family pulled some strings to get him a place to stay at the Commonwealth embassy until he could return home. He kind of resented this a little, feeling as though he was still being viewed as a child unable to take care of himself, despite the situation.
He was eventually allowed to leave and spent the rest of his gap year travelling around Europe, seeing sights, picking up bits of local magic from the places he visited, flirting with attractive people including a brief fling with a mermaid while he was spending a few weeks in Copenhagen.
Eventually of course, he had to return home to attend university. His first year there was pretty normal; attend lectures, attempt to find a manageable work/life balance, spend more time than is probably healthy drunk. The problems of his high school years seemed kind of petty and small. He made some new friends, joined a couple of societies, became a well known reference for anything magical, and made a little money on the side selling low-level charms and spells, reinforcing rooms locks, keeping secrets, nothing dangerous.
It was during his second year when things started to get a little... weird, even for him. Max began to see things, specifically, dead things. Lingering spirits, ghosts, twisted embodiments of old grudges or promises broken. It was particularly unpleasant, especially since the spirits could see him too, and were drawn to him, able to touch and seep into his consciousness when he was unguarded. Understandably, his classwork suffered, with Max starting to shut himself away in his room where he was better able to protect himself from them. Even his family were at a loss since no-one within the family had ever had such a power to such a strong degree.
Without Max's knowledge, one of his close friends, Chris, began to search for a way to help him, dabbling in magic that he had little knowledge of and no hope of controlling. This dabbling lead, at the start of his third year, to Chris accidentally summoning a particularly dangerous spirit, dark and violent, which possessed him, slowly eroding his will and taking control of him.
When Max found out, he tried to banish the spirit, but lacked the training or knowledge to do so. At this darkest moment, faced with the fact of his own death and the death of his friends, as well as the release of something terrible into the world, a dormant part of Max's powers awoke and he was able to destroy the spirit utterly.
The energy drain left him in a coma for three months, and when he woke, he found that while the spirit had been destroyed, the magic had had another, terrifying effect; he'd wiped his friend Chris from existence. Every trace of him was gone, even his parents didn't remember him, claiming to never have had a child. He was utterly erased form existence. Along with this, Max's uncontrolled magic had left his mind somewhat ragged, a mental wound that would not heal, making him a draw for spirits and magical creatures unless he protected himself thoroughly.
His recovery was slow and painful and he became very withdrawn once more. He had to retake his last year at university, throwing himself into his studies and avoiding the social activities that he'd once loved. Once he graduated, instead of following his brothers into the Civil Service or Diplomatic service, he vanished for a a couple of years, barely contacting his family. During this time, he traveled around the Commonwealth and Europe, working on his ability to channel spirits and training as an exorcist because he never wanted to be that helpless again should the situation arise. He also made contacts around the world, some of a less than legitimate variety.
He returned home, much to his family's relief, and set up a small business selling wards and shields, simple charms to people, as well as performing exorcisms. He quickly built up a certain reputation, and saved up some money, enough that he was able to put a deposit down on a building in the city of York. He opened a shop there, partly catering to the New Age and popular interest in magic, crystals, incense, simple charms and spells, partly catering to more specialist tastes; acquiring magical artifacts, books and tools of varying legality, things for specialists.
His business became moderately successful, supplemented by an income for performing exorcisms.
It was a few years later, when Max was twenty-eight, that he met Brendan when the young man collapsed in the backyard of the shop, setting off every ward and protection that Max had. Max sheltered the obviously scared and exhausted young man, eventually coaxing out the reason for his condition. Brendan had been taken by the Sidhe several years before, being kept as a pet and curiosity in one of the courts, while his place in the human world was taken by a Changeling. Over that time, he'd had many glamours cast upon him that his true appearance was lost, even Brendan unable to remember. This of course, made it impossible for him to legally get help. No-one would believe him, and the Sidhe had connections with the highest powers. He was also marked with a powerful tracking spell which Max was unable to remove entirely, but was able to block the effects of, hiding Brendan from the Sidhe.
Brendan stayed with him, working in the shop and living with Max. While Max encouraged him to create a new life however, Brendan was unwilling, too focused on the hate that he felt for a Sidhe and what they had done to him. Although things seemed to be improving for a while, with Brendan becoming more willing to talk about what had happened to him and making a few friends, things fell apart when he was invited to spend Christmas with Max's family.
Max's family, full of magical creatures and mages and with Max's grandfather one of the people responsible for forming an alliance with the Sidhe and making Brendan's desire to regain his normal life impossible.
Things grew a little strained between them after that, with Brendan withdrawing from him, becoming silent and reclusive and so angry at him, culminating in a fight where Brendan accused him of being complicit with what had happened to him. That did no go down well, leaving them both feeling betrayed and hurt. They didn't get chance to reconcile before Brendan accidentally broke the wards that max had put around him, allowing the Sidhe to track him. The shop was attacked by a powerful Sidhe prince, the one who had owned Brendan. Max told Brendan to run, giving him a blade enchanted to be effective against Sidhe to protect himself. While Brendan ran, Max engaged in a battle of names with the Sidhe, who's personalities and actions are shaped by what people believe about them. It was a hard battle, with Max left exhausted, but victorious, and the Sidhe defeated and weakened enough that Max was able to demand that he remove the tracking from Brendan.
With that done, he chased after Brendan, arriving at his location just in time to see him murder the Changeling that had taken his place.
Despite his misgivings, and a little scared at the look in Brendan's eyes, like his thirst for revenge had only been fueled not quenched, Max pulled some strings to cover up what had happened, drawing a little on that terrible power to change reality to make sure that Brendan would not be implicated. The power took it's toll however, leaving Max unconscious while Brendan desperately called Max's brother to help them.
His brother came, giving Brendan a bit of a tongue lashing in the process, angry at him for what he had done and for dragging Max into danger, but helping anyway. They got Max to the hospital and after finding out that he would be alright, Brendan left.