Rayn Faustus

"'I'm not here to save you, but it might just happen anyway.' ~ Rayn Faustus"

• Biography •
Born normal and relatively unexceptional Rayn has become far more. Having discarded the life he knew the secret world has swallowed him whole, leaving very little of the person he once was.

• Early Life / Childhood •
Born on a cool foggy winter morning into the booming city of Toronto, Senzei Yunshan was the treasured first son of his parents. Quick and strangely curious he was an unusual child, if only for the eerie level of focus he devoted to anything that caught his attention. At the urging of his father he learnt to read at the early age of 4 and thus found his first, and most abiding addiction. At first pleased with their sons avid literacy the Yunshan's eventually began to worry that perhaps it wasn't normal for a seven year old to spend more time reading than out in the sun. In an attempt to remedy this they enrolled him in Tae Kwon Do classes at the local YMCA. Unlike most physical activities the child found something inspiring in the disciplined and powerful movements and willingly continued the lessons. His younger brother Reese was born shortly thereafter, and after some initial resentment the family eventually settled to a contented peace.

• Teenage Years •
 Apart from the untimely death of his uncle in a car accident Senzei's childhood ended without fuss. As he aged, Senzei began to focus his interests. Deeply fascinated by fantasy novels and the magical and esoteric secrets they hinted could be all about him, he began to study real-world occultism, religion, and mythology shortly after his fourteenth birthday. Bewildered and somewhat amused by their sons interests the Yunshans decided that as long as he kept his grades up they could ignore the increasingly unusual tomes their son brought home. Unbeknownst to his parents Senzei was beginning to dabble in arts long forgotten, trying his hand at achieving the powers described in his stories, however; he was continuously balked by gaps in his knowledge and faulty information. Frustrated he took to the internet in search of a teacher, someone who might reveal the missing components. Years passed as he continued to uncover false leads, and an ever growing list of charlatans. The first hint of success appeared two months after his sixteenth birthday when he first saw mention of an elusive group known as the Seers of Moneta. The search for this esoteric order took another month of devoted investigation, but in the end it paid off. He found contact information for a representative of the order who used the screen name Usmu, and began to learn exactly how far from the truth he was.

After a period of rapid email communication during which Senzei carefully avoided mention of his age, he was offered the chance to undergo a series of examinations to assess his suitability to undergo training as one of the Seers. Shortly after submitting his results Usmu extended an invitation for him to come to a secluded monastery in the Canadian Rockies. Having felt an increasing sense of estrangement as their son continued to devote himself to strange hobbies, the Yunshans were stunned and understandably outraged when he announced his intention to abandon his home and school to study with a bunch of spiritualist weirdoes. Perhaps hoping to quash any further hints of madness Senzei's parents forbade any further contact with Usmu and refused to speak of his delusional ideas. Caught up in his obsession, and feeling teenage rebellion gnawing at his restraints Senzei made a fatal decision. Over the course of three days he carefully prepared his belongings, remaining outwardly submissive as he collected his passport from his fathers desk, and withdrew the meagre amount of money bequeathed to him by his uncle. Leaving for school the next morning, with his backpack stuffed with clothing and necessities, he took the first flight out to BC.

• Late Teens, and the Monastic Life •
The next two years passed as something of a blur. The trip across the country, the miles long trek as he attempted to hitch-hike his way to the retreat, and the subsequent confusion when a minor showed up on the step all blended together into one long haze. Through the chaos that followed his arrival, Senzei found something of a mentor in the figure of Usmu, an older man who'd joined the Seers nearly a decade ago he argued to accept the young man despite his deceptions.

Surprisingly the other Seers went along with his plan, and perhaps astoundingly there never seemed to be any attempt to search for him by the police. So it was that Senzei Yunshan disappeared completely, and the young man who called himself Rayn came to join the Seers of Moneta. Life in the monastery was completely different from anything he had known. The other Seers were quiet, knowledgeable, and completely consumed by internal politics. Usmu was his mentor throughout those early months, helping him adjust to the new lifestyle, and eventually teaching him the first of the innumerable mnemonic techniques upon which the entirety of the Seers practice was based.

The Seers of Moneta practiced an unusual form of ritual magic that drew it's core concepts from Hermetic and Chaote traditions, but integrated both with powerful memorization techniques that allowed their user to maintain vast stores of information, and prepackaged visualizations which could be unlocked through simple somatic or verbal keys. The downside to their style lay in their dependance on external energy sources. The Seers required large amounts of time, and careful rituals to properly form and channel ambient anima into their visualized constructs. Unsurprisingly, Rayn took to the teachings with vigor. He had a knack for the mnemonic techniques that bordered on genius, enabling him to progress through the orders teachings with rapacious speed. Eventually though, he found himself stymied. The Seers believed (perhaps rightly) that the deepest mysteries should be preserved for those that had shown greater devotion to the order. They asked that he be patient, and promised that in time he would be given access to all they knew.

• Dissatisfaction & Blood •
For the first few months Rayn was able to accept their decrees with equanimity. But eventually the burning hunger for knowledge that had first driven him to seek out the Seers goaded him into motion. Rather than directly contradict his orders he began to wander the libraries of the monastery, seeking out new tomes and any secrets of the craft that he did not yet possess. For the most part it was an exercise in futility, a long dusty trek broken intermittently by pauses to flip through long discarded manuals. After weeks of searching he did eventually uncover one item of significance, one that changed everything that might have been.

In a disused storeroom, Rayn found a weathered hardwood chest. Simple in appearance, it had only a few simple carvings of vaguely Asian appearance. Within he found a trove of decaying scrolls, a trove of knowledge that had been the seed from which the entirety of the orders teachings had grown. Much to his disappointment, the scrolls contained nothing he did not already know, only a slightly more primitive version of the magic he'd been taught. The real treasure was a single slim book, covered in fine black leather and bound with a green ribbon it was far more modern looking than the rest, and lay near the bottom of the chest. In the Zǐluólán Shū Rayn found a simplistic outline of the steps by which a trained ritualist might enhance the efficacy of their spells. An entirely different style, that used blood sacrifice as a catalyst for power.

The concepts outlined in the Zǐluólán shū were alien to the young magus, and it was the labor of near a year to puzzle a workable method from the vague descriptions. It was almost another ear before he was able to reliably incorporate those techniques into his practice. The night after he successfully cast his first blood spell Rayn disappeared from the Monastery of the Seers of Moneta, and found himself in South Korea. The first harvest of a crop sown long ago.

• Physical Description •
Slim of build, Rayn carries himself with a certain grace. Others often remark on the way his eyes burn with a chill focus as he speaks to them, captivating even from behind the black semi-frameless glasses he wears. When he works those deep brown eyes are unerringly cold, calculating and intent, lending him a very serious mien. He is blessed with a perpetual light tan inherited from his father, that remains despite his bookish habits. He keeps his coffee brown hair at a medium length, styling it to keep his longish bangs out of his eyes. In part from vanity and otherwise from distaste he is always clean shaven. The scratchy feeling of stubble, and the uneven look of anything longer have kept him from even considering growing facial hair. Though not particularly strong Rayn is not unathletic, posessing a lean musculature that lends itself to flexibility rather than strength.

Rayn's hands are a marked with a scattering of scars, a twisted network of nicks and cuts that spiral from his palms to his elbow. They are a mix of faded pale marks and fresh pink wounds, constantly renewed as he works his magic. The largest scars stretch nearly the length of his forearm, sinuous lines that hint at great workings past. A set of three parallel claw scars mars the flesh of his left hip.

• Typical Clothing •
Rayn favors a sort of monochromatic appearance, with most of his wardrobe consisting of black, gray or red items, and the occasional scrap of green. On a typical day he wears a simple buttoned shirt made from natural fibres, dark jeans, and either black converse, or his hiking boots depending on the weather. If he's going out or just taking it easy, long sleeved shirts, or tees paired with well-worn jeans become the norm. In colder weather he favors a high collared black coat with double breasted fasteners, or a thick wool overcoat for winter.

• Jewellery & Accessories •
Rayn wears little in the way of adornments, keeping only a faceted quartz crystal on a cord as a necklace, and the steel and titanium finger claws he wears for bloodletting. To conceal his hands, Rayn usually carries a set of leather driving gloves.

• Weapons •
• A simple steel dagger, Rayn uses this blade for more precise spellcraft, and occasionally to threaten people. He keeps it in a concealed sheath in the back of his messenger bag.

• Technology •
• HTC Rezound, with earbuds • EEE Transformer Prime, loaded with a selection of occult texts

• Miscellaneous •
<p style="text-indent: 30px">• Leather messenger bag. <p style="text-indent: 30px">• A full array of ritual supplies, including small vials of paint, sticks of chalk, a bag of tea-lights, incense, a lighter, and a small selection of herbs.

• Powers, Skills and Abilities •
• Physical abilities: Tae Kwon Do (skilled for a civilian, little or no threat to a devoted martial artist. His light build and lack of physical strength cripple him in serious combat), very basic training in knife fighting. • Magical abilities: Blood magic with a heavy focus on ritualized spellcraft and ceremonial magic. Some combat spells, but they tend to require considerable personal sacrifice. Emergency healing magic. (see below for specifics) • Other abilities: Research, Mnemonic training

<p style="text-indent: 30px">A magus who influences the supernatural through a variety of spells and rituals. Most of Rayn's magic requires prolonged chanting or construction of a detailed Imago. To offset this Rayn uses a specialized form of blood magic. This allows him to utilize a drop of his own blood as a catalyst, greatly enhancing the speed of spellcasting. This application of blood is strongly aligned with its own sympathetic symbolism; which amplifies the power of spells that control the minds or humours of others. Additionally the spiritual nature of blood allows Rayn to use it as a focus for binding ghosts or other ephemeral entities; however, the more esoteric values of this practice weaken spells aligned with the mundane manipulations of matter and elementalism. As such he has become a specialist in curses, manipulating the subtle humours of his targets bodies, and their even more ethereal inner natures. Though not fully masterful in the magics of healing he has the ability to draw poisons from the blood of allies, and he can induce a period of rapid healing through a short ritual. Rayn both abhors and revels in his restorative abilities. For every wound he heals a price in sanity and fear must be paid to the entities that grant the reprieve; one that he or his patient must pay. The price is usually a night of terrible nightmares; so vivid that the victim cannot distinguish the reality from the dream.

• Credits, Links, OOC and Player Notes •
<p style="text-indent: 30px">• Theme Song: I Gave You All (WoTE Cover)