Name: Nathaniel (Nate) Milo Atticus Hawthorne Door: Door pass. Canon: Original Canon Point: Shortly after he meets Xavier. Age: 18 Appearance: Average height and slender, fit without being athletic. He wants his body to look good, so keeps it well toned, but doesn't go to extremes. He has hazel eyes and longish brown hair that flops over his face. He has a purple aura and his magic has a purple signature; his eyes sometimes have a purple glow when he's using magic. His nails are often painted black. His sense of dress is casual and punky, with lots of dark and muted colours. He wears leather and beaded bracelets and necklaces, and wears studs in his ears. His pb is Thomas Dekker. History : Nathaniel Hawthorne is the third and youngest child of the Hawthorne family. He was born into distinct privilege, his family being one of the oldest and wealthiest in England. More important than that, the Hawthornes are the prominent witching family in the region, having achieved that prominence through a long and powerful lineage of strong, innately talented witches. It's a legacy that has shaped Nate's life and development, as he has grown to understand the heritage he's gained, and the responsibilities that are expected of him in return.
His life was governed by a myriad of rules. Nate's parents expected him to learn magic from his tutors, staying largely apart from the human world. He was taught that, like his elder brother and sister, he would one day have a marriage arranged to a woman from a respectably appropriate witching family, and would produce his own children to be raised in the exact same way. With witches being matriarchal, he would also one day follow the rule of his sister.
It was a life he found stifling. As he grew up, Nate increasingly found his large house a lonely place. His parents were distant and formal, with his mother, the head of the family, strictly enforcing what magic he could use, what people he could see, what he could do every day, and even what he would wear. His older brother Theodore was a picture of family obedience, always toeing the line, and his parents expected Nate to follow suit. Theo himself was as cool and distant with Nate as his parents, and only with his sister Gwendolyn did Nate experience a truly loving relationship. Both of them found their family's expectations difficult to meet, yet both of them handled it in different ways. Where Doe searched for secret outlets for her frustrations, Nate grew increasingly rebellious. As he got older, and had more ability to buy his own clothes, he replaced his expensive suits with vintage jackets and heavy boots. His hair grew long and unkempt, he pierced his ears and tattooed his body.
More than that, he began to spend time with humans. He met them first in secret, and then more openly, drawing criticism from his witching peers and attracting punishment from his family. He didn't care; he kept pushing at his boundaries, growing increasingly excited by his experiences outside the confines of his house. At the same time, his relationships with his parents and brother deteriorated, and he compensated by seeking out a different kind of affection. There were multiple girls, and some boys. Most of them were human. Others were hedge witches, people with some magical ability, but lacking the pedigree of a witching family. He grew further and further distanced from his family, remaining close only to his sister - in Nate's mind, the only person who'd ever really loved him without condition. The rest of his family saw him as a loose cannon, and his reputation as a black sheep slowly grew.
In secret, however, he was nurturing a building obsession with his magic. It began with a desire to discover to stray beyond the tight lines in which his parents had kept his education. There were forbidden magics into which he decided to dip his toes, and he started to study in secret. Into the darkest reaches of his family's oldest library he went, and when he could learn more from that, he sought stranger, more arcane sources. Over time, his interest developed from a simple desire to rebel, into a genuine and heartfelt interest in what he was learning. He loved the power of it coursing through his skin. He'd uncovered a hunger that he could never quite satisfy, and he always sought more. The obsession spread into his relationships, as he dealt with hedge witches and learned what they knew. He shared his own knowledge, too, something strictly forbidden by his family's magical laws. Eventually, Nate began to use his reputation to his advantage; the piercings in his ears were really charmed gemstones, and his tattoos were the symbols and runes he used in his most unusual rituals. His obsession was hidden in plain sight, concealed behind the trappings of what his parents called 'acting out'. He was happy to play the part.
Then, while working in the older, quiet, disused areas of his family's mansion, he came across something else; the whispers of ghosts, trying to reach out to them. Nate used magic to contact them, and eventually befriended some of them, even allowing them to possess his body so that they could experience life for short periods. It was a dangerous risk to take, and of course he told no one, but he found that he liked watching how someone else made his body behave. Despite resenting the control other people exerted on his life, he discovered a bizarre liking for being out of control. His experiments with it stretched further into danger, as he decided to try for an even more dangerous form of possession; he decided to contact a demon.
His first attempts were failures; he summoned hellfire, accidentally setting an entire curtain set ablaze. Then he got hold of a small plague demon, which he trapped, but it lacked the power to possess him. Finally, he succeeded in inviting full body possession, and experienced a night of sin unfettered, with the demon in control of his actions. It left Nate with a craving for the same darkness, the same hedonistic sense of pleasure. He wanted more, and though he knew it was dangerous, he had no regrets.
At the same time, he'd begun a relationship of his own; the first he'd ever been in, after years of little more than casual encounters. Nate's brother Theo had also gotten engaged, to a woman from another witching family. This, too, had been arranged, and it was through that arrangement that Nate met her brother, Xavier. He knew that Xavier was different from the start, and was attracted to him, despite ordinarily refusing to get involved with others from witching families. He discovered that Xavier was gay, but very much closeted, and after a couple of false starts, they began an illicit, secret relationship. Nate slowly grew in his feelings for Xavier, which should have been a healthy relationship - but the secretive nature of it left Nate certain there could be no true future for them.
Now eighteen, he knows that his own time will come soon; his parents will expect him to leave his rebellion behind, and once his siblings are married, they will undoubtedly expect the same of Nate. It's something that he dreads, and so he plans to escape before it can happen. Behind the scenes, he's making plans to escape his family and move to London, where he'll practice magic in public and make a living on his own merit. That's his dream - and yet, he can't quite leave his attachments behind. If they won't last forever, shouldn't he enjoy them for as long as he can? What could possibly be the danger in that? Personality: Positive Traits
- DETERMINED
Nate is stubborn. Once he decides that there’s something he wants to do, some goal that he wants to achieve, then he’ll work towards it until it’s done. It doesn’t matter if the task is difficult, or even seems impossible; he’ll not be moved from it, and he’ll be determined to find a way through. He sees challenges as a puzzle that he can solve with enough work and application. He’s not the kind of person who’ll take the easy way out of a problem, or who’ll sit back and let events overtake him. When he wants something, he works for it, and he’ll not be moved from that desire. The greatest example of this is his aspiration to be free of his family’s control and live a life of his own, indulging in all the magic he wants. This isn’t just an idle dream; Nate has made active plans to make it a reality. The money that should have sent him to an expensive, private university was used instead to pay for an apartment in London that he’s been preparing for himself. He’s learning how to teleport, so that he can quickly escape from any given location without being followed or tracked. He’s planning to earn money of his own, through performing magic in public before humans. Nate is someone who makes plans and sees them through, and he puts hard work and graft into them. This is a side of him to which his family are largely blind, imagining him to be acting out as a disaffected teenager who’ll eventually grow out of the impulse. While he is a disaffected teenager, he’s also determined to achieve what he wants out of life, and he has no intention of letting it go.
- STUDIOUS
Linked to his determination is Nate’s diligence and care in his studies. He doesn’t give the impression of being a serious person; he breaks rules like it’s his job, he drinks and smokes, he has sex with a different person every week yet never once has he had a serious relationship. That’s the public face that everyone sees. Beneath it, however, Nate has a true passion for the study of magic, and aspires to live a life where that passion won’t be constrained. He works constantly to improve his skills and understanding. He reads every spellbook he can get his hands on, he finds secluded parts of his house to practice rituals, he meticulously wards his bedroom so that the experimental magics he’s hiding inside can be worked on without interruption. He’s far more intelligent and diligent than the first impression of him would make anyone believe, and that is very much intentional on Nate’s part. He’s secretive by nature, and while he is both reckless and even anarchic in his approach to life, he’s not stupid. He’s someone who knows what he wants, and has the drive and diligence to achieve it.
- EMPATHETIC
Beyond his interest in his work and his future, Nate also very much cares about people. He has a very complicated relationship with his family, always resenting the control they have over him and seeking his freedom from them. In spite of that, he very much loves his older brother and sister. Nate is genuinely convinced that his sister is the only person who really loves him, and he responds to that with everything he has. He’s equally convinced that his brother despises him, and he so badly wishes that they had a better relationship. These strong emotions lead him to be quite empathetic when it comes to the feelings of others; when he sees other people upset, or lonely, or feeling down, he tends to empathise and want to help them. Nate is very used to feeling that other people don’t like him, and that greatly upsets him. He’s always trying to make new connections, and when he manages it, he’s as caring and comforting as he can be to that person. He finds it easy to identify with their sadness and does what he can to make them happy. Despite this, he remains a lonely person whose desire for companionship and friendship goes largely unfulfilled. At his current canon point, his closest and most trusted friends are Maggie, a household ghost he managed to befriend, and Vincent, a plague demon whom Nate summoned and agreed not to banish back to hell. His strong desire for affection is what has driven him to seek out so many casual sexual partners – yet they don’t fulfil his need for genuine, loving connection. This is the one side of himself that Nate has been unable to satisfy to date, in part due to his focus on his studies, and his eventual escape from his family’s control.
Negative Traits
- ANARCHIC
Nate has always strained against authority of any kind. He chafes under the strict control of his family and the enforcement of the witching society's rules about magic. He feels like he can't be himself because of these rules, feeling that they restrict the development of his magical learning, as well as the general way in which he lives his life. He reacts so much against authority that when he's told to do something he wants to do the opposite. He desperately wants the freedom to make his own choices, study magic as he pleases, have relationships with who he pleases, and get involved with what he pleases. His attitude is not as simple as not wanting to be controlled - he doesn't want there to be control. He craves the absence of it, and so seeks out places where the rules he knows have less power over him. He stays away from home when he can, hanging out in the bad parts of town, and with the kind of people who his family might think are bad influences on him. Anything that his family disapproves of appeals to him, and if there is an opportunity for him to rebel against their authority, he'll take it. He also takes drugs, created by his own magic, to give himself a sense of liberation. Most dangerously of all, he uses the expansion of his magical ability as a means of achieving freedom. He deliberately studies the spells that are forbidden by his society, and steeps himself in arcane forces that carry grave danger to both his body and soul. Indeed, being possessed by spirits or demons serves as another addiction for him; to Nate, being possessed feels like the ultimate high, the best way for him to truly free his mind from the confines of his physical world.
- RECKLESS
Nate also has a tendency towards recklessness. He exhibits multiple risk-taking behaviours, notably in his attitude towards alcohol and drugs, which he indulges in freely and augments with his magic. He wants to increase his knowledge of and skill in all areas of magic, but the areas which his family have forbidden him from exploring have the most appeal to him. It doesn’t matter to him that those areas carry certain dangers along with them. Summoning demons could lead to him, or to another person (or multiple people) getting hurt, but he does it anyway. Letting ghosts and demons possess him is even more dangerous; he could be forced to do terrible things for which he could later be blamed, or even find himself permanently excised from his own body. Nate is not unaware of these risks – he always does his homework – but he doesn’t let them stop him. If anything, the greater the risk is, the more it appeals to him. He’ll take the high he gets from it, even if there’s less welcome consequences to deal with, too. His sense of danger is necessarily skewed by that attitude; he shows little practical care for his own safety, seeing risk and danger as something fun and not anything to be avoided.
- EMOTIONAL
Nate finds it difficult to control his emotions, particularly when it comes to his more negative emotions. He has a tendency to brood, and exhibits mildly depressive behaviours. He also finds it hard to control his temper, and when something upsets him his mood will quickly escalate towards the dramatic. He’ll easily fly off the handle at someone who he thinks is being mean, condescending, cruel or judgemental towards him. Much of this comes from being sensitive to what he perceives as the near constant disapproval of his family (minus his sister) towards him, and he responds badly to it. He’s not very used to other people being on his side, and thus has a tendency to brood in silence and alone rather than share how he’s feeling with anyone else. That he reacts in this way is at least partly down to his youth; he’s still a teenager, and he hasn’t learned particularly healthy coping mechanisms to deal with negative emotions. Instead, he’ll vary between going into a dark and depressive mood alone, and acting out through drugs, alcohol and sex. In addition, the people he does see as allies – his ghost friend, his demon friend, his various casual sexual partners – tend to be like-minded, and thus enable his bad behaviours rather than challenging them. Nate feels like he always needs an ally that he’s lacking, and he doesn’t know how to find it.
- OBSESSIVE
In addition, Nate has something of a tendency to obsess over the things that matter to him in his life. While his interest in magic reflects a studious and determined nature, it also brings out his obsessive qualities. He is stubborn to a fault; he never lets anything go, and when he has an interest in anything, he’ll focus on it to excess. Magic is so important to him that it takes over the vast majority of what he does; he has few hobbies that aren’t related to magic in some way, and he’s willing to ignore dangers and take foolish risks in order to progress with his learning. He will tell everyone, including himself, that he drinks and smokes and falls into bed with people because he enjoys those things, but there’s an addictive element to all of it. Nate likes to seek out the ‘highs’ of life, whether they’re fuelled by adrenaline or by something less natural, and he doesn’t consider that the need for that high is something that has control over him. His own obsessions and addictions are clear vices, even when they’re also things that motivate him to drive his life forward in a positive way. Nate is not a person who ever has a vague interest in anything; he’s either into it to an extreme, or he doesn’t care about it at all. It’s also far to say that he doesn’t have a great level of self-knowledge about this side of his personality. As with his emotional instability, some of this is due to his age and lack of maturity. Whether he’s able to achieve a more balanced attitude towards his interests in the future is yet to be seen.
Powers and Abilities: Nate is a witch. In his world, magic is accessible in different ways; there is magic through herbalism, which anyone with enough knowledge and learning can access, and there is magic that comes from an innate connection to the natural energy of the world. Nate comes from a long generation of Hawthorne witches, whose innate connection to magic, and obsession with continuing that legacy through marriage, has made them an exceptionally powerful family. Because of this, Nate has a considerable amount of natural talent for magic, which he has furthered with his own obsessive study of his art.
The magic of his world is separated into seven different strands or schools, into which various spells are categorised. The table below sets out each school, along with the various spells that witches are able to learn:
Conjuration: "the performance of something supernatural by means of incantation or spell."
- Elemental Control: Ability to create and control: fire, water, earth, air and electricity.
- Teleportation: Instantaneous transport of a person or object over large distances.
- Creation: Manipulation of matter to create objects or organisms.
- Binding: Ability to trap a creature within a designated area.
- Telekinesis: Ability to move objects with one's mind.
- Chlorokinesis: Ability to influence and control plant systems.
- Atmokinesis: Ability to influence and control weather systems.
| Evocation: "the action of invoking a spirit or deity."
- Necromancy: Ability to summon and control spirits of the dead.
- Summoning: Ability to call forth extra-planar entities (e.g. spirits, demons, angels).
- Banishing: Ability to release summoned extra-planar entities.
- Exorcism: Ability to force an entity to relinquish control over a person or place.
- Astral Projection: Ability to call forth one's own spirit and wander free from a physical body.
- Mediumship: Ability to commune with spirits of the dead.
- Resurrection: Ability to restore a dead person to life.
|
Divination: "the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means"
- Augury: Method of predicting the future through examining the entrails of birds.
- Astrology: Method of predicting the future through study of astral bodies.
- Psychometry: Supernatural understanding of the history of a person or object through touch.
- Scrying: Method of predicting the future through reflective surfaces.
- Precognition: Method of experiencing possible futures through dreams or visions.
- Dowsing: Method of locating persons, objects or places through crystals or rods.
| Enchantment: "the enforcement of influence by supernatural means"
- Charms: A spell which produces a dedicated, positive effect.
- Curses:A spell which produces a dedicated, negative effect.
- Compulsion: Ability to force obedience from a person through strength of will.
- Memory Manipulation: Ability to alter or remove a person's memories.
- Dream Walking: Ability to enter a person's dreams, or invite a person to share one's dreams.
- Telepathy: Ability to read the thoughts of a person, or project one's thoughts into another mind.
|
Transmutation: "the action of changing or the state of being changed into another form"
- Shape-changing: Ability to change the shape of a person, object or animal.
- Alchemy: Ability to transform one material into another.
| Illusion: "an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience"
- Glamour: A spell which changes how an object or person is perceived through the senses.
- Phantasm: A mental image seen by a dedicated person or group.
- Shadow Magic: A projection of energy capable of producing effects in the physical world. Can take any shape.
- Figments: A spell which produces a false sensation.
|
Abjuration: "the act of protecting from evil"
- Warding: The creation of physical or magical barriers to protect a person, object or area.
- Cleansing: The removal of negative energy from a person, object or area.
- Healing: Curing of illness or regeneration of injury from a living creature.
- Cloaking: Concealing a person or object so that they cannot be perceived through the senses.
| |
Each of the schools has to be studied, and different witches will be more talented in certain areas than others. Nate has studied every school to a certain extent, but has a particular talent for the school of Enchantment, in particular with creating cursed objects. He's also good at creating charms, though his sister Doe is better at them. He has made particular effort to study the school of Evocation, much of which is forbidden by magical law. In spite of that, Nate has studied on his own to learn how to summon and trap demons, and how to contact and call forth spirits of the dead. Inventory: - His iphone.
- A cigarette case full of his magically flavoured roll-ups.
- His personal grimoire.
Samples: Thinking, Communication 1, Communication 2. |
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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« Gender: Male
« Designation: Dominant
« Orientation: Bisexual
« Contract Status: Contracted
« OOC: OTA! He's pretty social and not at all shy, so if you're his friend there will be many, many pictures. I have more than 6 so it's hidden beneath the cut!
Here!
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Character(s): Nathaniel Hawthorne (
Plot Type: Group
Dates: If possible I would like it to replace the next TDM, so it would be posted on 10 November.
Plot Description:
A group of characters have come together to attempt to break through the barrier between worlds, and open doorways between Duplicity and other places. They have various motivations for this: some of them want to open a door back to Duplicity for those who may have left against their will, others want to try and escape to a different world, and others just want to try and find a way home.
Nate wanted to use magic to do it, but the spells he knew from home are nerfed here. Since March 2021, he has been making links with others who wanted to do the same thing as him. Primarily he sought out magic users who were either sympathetic to what he wanted to do, or had expertise in creating portals or traveling through different dimensions. Over time, he met others with experience in traveling through both time and space, but used means other than magic. With everyone's knowledge and magical energy combined, they want to cast a new spell, combining all of their techniques. They'll aim to open a door to one world, first, to see if it works.
Our idea is for the spell to work, but instead of creating one stable portal, the spell's energy pulses outwards and creates hundreds of portals, speckling into existence all over Duplicity. The portals will pull in people from other worlds at random, creating an influx of newcomers who have not gone through Duplicity's normal 'Doors', and so have not been properly sorted into D and S designations. The authorities will need to round everyone up in order to sort them properly.
Meanwhile, more and more portals will keep appearing, until eventually the witches realise they can't take control of what's happening and break the spell. This will cause the portals to close, and ICly people who came through them will be drawn back to their home dimensions - though, of course, Duplicity's authorities may have been quick enough to keep some and force them through the real Doors to make them members of the LIEs programme.
OOCly, what we would like is for this plot to work somewhat like a fourth wall event. Given that Duplicity is a locked comm, we would want to host it on the Meme comm and have it take the place of the next TDM. Those whom the authorities manage to catch before the witches can send them home will essentially be the applicants for November.
The full list of characters taking action to make the spell happen (along with their roles in it) are:
Nathaniel Hawthorne (ringleader & witch)
Ragnor Fell (witch)
Magnus Bane (witch)
Annabelle Whitley (witch)
Caleb Danvers (witch)
Nick O'Broin (witch)
Stephen Strange (witch)
Essek Thelyss (witch)
Twelfth Doctor (Time Lord - crosses dimensions via science)
Felix Gaeta (scientific expert - travel through hyperspace)
Reggie Mantle (cheerleader - no active contribution to the spell, but invested in its success and helped with research)
Questions:
1. Is it okay for the plot to proceed? The other questions are assuming yes to this one, so if it's a no, the others don't need answered.
2. Is the timing we've described doable or would it need to be put back to a later point?
3. What consequences would the characters involved face for this?
4. Is there anything we would need to alter to make this more workable?
5. Is there any more info you need from us?
CANON UPDATE
New Canon Point: The year 2026, right after Nate's return to his own world, and before he encounters Anna again.
Personality Changes:
Events
Here is Nate's original app which details his history up to, and just past, the canon point he's been at since arriving in Duplicity. An updated history covering the events which will take place during this update is provided here.
Personality Changes
Nate was apped using a previous iteration of the application form, which did not specify only three negative traits and one positive. Since that's the requirement now, I'll stick to three negative and one positive for this section.
During his canon update, Nate goes through a long period of being trapped in a hell dimension, the ruler of which was a high demon who wanted to consume Nate and his magic. He learned how to navigate the demon's bubble dimensions and successfully freed many souls from imprisonment, while trying to avoid the demon himself. In total, Nate will have spent five Earth years in hell, but to him, it felt like far longer than that. Time didn't pass in the same way, and it was near impossible for him to track the passage of time at all. Nate also didn't physically age during this time, so he returns to Earth after five years away looking much the same as the day he left. This will cause him a lot of confusion on his return to Duplicity. He'll have to re-acclimate to living in a world where his body needs food, and sleep, and where time passes normally. He'll be forgetful of those things at first, and he'll have some initial uncertainty about what's real here.
The main physical change to him will be that he now has an extensive sleeve tattoo going down his left arm, with hundreds of interlocking circles. While in Ineroth's realm he put a spell on himself so that a new circle will appear every time he enters a different dimension, as a way of tracking how many he passed through. When he wakes up in Duplicity, a circle for this dimension will appear on his right arm, showing that Duplicity isn't connected to Ineroth and is its own thing.
His traits will be:
Positive Trait - Determined
As per his original app. Nate remains one of the most stubborn people you'll ever meet. His time in Ineroth's realm has reinforced this trait - in fact it has given him something beyond simply his own freedom to fight for. His time there helped to give direction and purpose to his stubbornness. His goals are no longer purely selfish. Where before he was focused on achieving freedom from his family and making his own way in the world, he now feels more responsibility to the world. He wants to protect it from Ineroth, particularly the people he loves. This positive trait essentially remains the same, but it presents itself differently. It should be noted however that he had made some moves in that direction during his years in Duplicity anyway, so this change in focus will be less apparent to his CR here than to people in his home world.
Top negative trait - Anarchic
As per his original app.
Negative trait - Reckless
As per his original app.
Negative trait - Emotional
Per his original app, Nate always strayed between extremes of emotion. His mental health issues worsened in Duplicity thanks to his response to trauma caused by his experiences there. His years in Ineroth's various hell dimensions caused him considerable confusion, and made it so that it was difficult for him to track where he was, how long he'd been there, what was real and what was an illusion of Ineroth's, and so on. It was as if the whole of reality was unstable, and not just Nate himself. He learned to survive in that uncertainty. He would get injured but not die, his life was constantly under threat and he always survived. He was always running and always hiding, but he gained regular victories when he set souls free and escaped from Ineroth's clutches. If anything, Nate's emotional instability was an asset to him in a constantly changing world. His mind is full of chaos, and so was Ineroth's dimension. In many ways, it suited him. This is why being back in something more like reality will be jarring for him, and he'll struggle with it. He has always been an emotional person - he struggles with anxiety and negativity, and he can get lost in them. However, during his update he will have gained both maturity and experience, making him better equipped to cope with the trauma Duplicity throws at him.
Power Changes
No changes in terms of Nate's magic, which is still governed by the schools of magic, as per his original app. He has however grown in the use of his magic - he's become a very effective and precise teleporter, and he's far better at combat magic than he was when he was first apped. These were skills that he developed during his time in Duplicity anyway, so there won't be many practical changes in terms of his magic after canon update than there was before. He will have a deeper understanding of how magic works in his world and the other worlds connecting to it.