ambitionist | world + history (for riverview)

WORLD HISTORY:
[ taken from the

knightsoflegend info page (yes, it's a dw game, but it functions much more like a d&d campaign and i'm taking him from his starting point so there's no crau with canon characters.) ]

"There are many dimensions: some parallel versions of similar worlds, others remarkably different realms of magic, dragons, and wizards. Your character's world is one of these, separated from the others by an enigmatic cosmic mystery called the Veil.

At most times, these worlds function without any knowledge of or interference from the others. But it is not always so. The walls between these dimensions and one particular plane, the world where

knightsoflegend takes place, are especially weak. As such, the Veil often leads to a mysterious convergence where beings, creatures, items, or even entire locations are transplanted from one of these other worlds - the Shadow worlds, as the natives of this plane call it - and into the "mundane" world, a modern dimension much like the one we live in.

This phenomena has occurred for millennium, in tides of magic that rise and fall, and no one can quite explain why. When the tides are high, large numbers of convergences occur, and magic awakens and functions in the world. When the tide ebbs, the Veil seals itself over, and 'magic' creatures and abilities fall dormant for years until the tides shift again. These dormant periods are often long enough for magic to turn from reality into the stuff of myth or legend again, and for centuries, the tides protected the world from the knowledge that these things were a reality.

The world, having hidden her secrets for so very long, could no longer do this when technology had begun its unstoppable sprawl across the globe. As communication expanded, the manner in which the fantastical and inexplicable had turned into legend, myth, religion, or dark sketches on cave walls had come together as overlapping first hand accounts. The pieces had fallen together, and man, around the turn of the 20th century, had realized the one thing that could no longer be denied - that he was not alone in this world.

There were interlopers, which had crept their way into his cities, streets, dreams and nightmares. From whence they came had begun as a mystery, but the undeniable truth was they were here, those both dark and dangerous alongside those merely confused and displaced. Other races, perhaps, would be the only way to put it, other beings entirely - those who had operated behind the scenes for thousands of years, ebbing and flowing in their powers as the eldritch tides that gave them their strength waxed and waned, now suddenly exposed for what they were.

Elves, dragons, fairies, other benevolent powers, great and powerful, but with them came the darker side of this incursion - manipulative dark elves, monstrous giants, ferocious creatures with minds bent only upon evisceration, domination, or perhaps even darker goals. It had been a horrible shock at first, and took time for the world to wrap its collective head around.

Even before the knowledge of these cosmic Others became a part of common culture, forces arose to protect the inhabitants of this world from dangers from beyond - and to shelter those unfortunate souls who had become trapped here from the harsh realities of their dimensional prison.

For the Veil only opens one way."

CHARACTER HISTORY:

Alex was born and raised in Brooklyn, just outside of Brighton Beach/Little Odessa. In some ways his childhood was super normal — three sisters, one older, two younger, who are still the #1 hella most important thing in his life; he was obsessed with being an astronaut; he played ice hockey. In other ways … it was less super normal.

Around the time he was eight, he started manifesting psionic abilities. It runs in the family — his father and oldest sister are also psions. Unlike most psions, however, whenever Alex uses his ability — which is to heal or injure people via touch, physical manipulation basically — he experiences some form of blowback, usually in the form of debilitating migraines with occasional seizures.

His dad has similar abilities and issues, which is why when he died, everyone sort of jumped to the conclusion that although on paper it was an aneurysm, it was actually because of that. Especially since he died in his 30s, while Alex was still a teenager. His mom had a mental breakdown and never really recovered, leaving Alex and his oldest sister Tori to take care of household things and finish raising their two sisters, Natalia and Sonja.

They were left some money, but burned through it quickly, and instead of doing something normal like picking up a part-time job at Blockbuster (IT WAS STILL A THING, OKAY), Alex decided to throw his lot in with a psionic Russian mob who recruited him for his special skills. It turns out he was super creative when it came to torturing people — but it took a sharp toll on his health so he was like maybe I won't stay in this particular line of work. Luckily he was good at some other things too, and made it as far as middle management — namely, a fixer. If someone higher up wanted something, Alex would know exactly who to call and what to do to make it happen. Sure, his sister was really mad that he chose this over Blockbuster (not literally, metaphorically) and gave him an ultimatium: his family or his job. With so much of his identity pinned to his job, guess what he chose. Yeah. He thought she'd relent, but four years into the bitter dispute she has not. Because they're both stubborn goats.

Family life was awful, but at least he still had so many fun yet meaningless flings (his mom's mental breakdown sort of soured him to the whole idea of commitment in general. It's a thing.) and his job that he was oh-so amazing at. Amazing until he got wind that he was next in line for a promotion and got a little over-eager to get it, flipping the wrong person. The boss was pissed and put a hit on him, and his solution to stay alive was to flee the country via going to Japan. (Fun note: he knows Japanese, he learned it because he thought thinking in Japanese would minimize the amount of telepaths poking around his head. Good times.) Annnnd that's the last thing he would remember.