(no subject)

[morganknight]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Player Name: Dragon
Player Journal: dragonoflife
Age: 32 damn it.
Contact: dragonoflife
Characters Played: AU Rainbow Dash, Zecora, Zetta

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Morgan Knight
Canon: Mage: the Ascension
OU/AU/OC: OC
Canon Point: N/A
History: Morgan and his twin sister Andrea were born in 2004 to Maureen and Andrew "Insane Rampaging Bulletstorm" Knight; the former a Euthanatos mage, the latter a medium ranking werewolf (Adren Glass Walker Ahroun). Despite being parents, both Knights still had duties and no desire to shirk them; consequently, a few years later, a massive ambush by the local fomori population lead to their unheralded deaths.

Disposition of the children fell to one Siryn Valkonan, longtime family friend and mother of Stephen Valkonan. Her first and foremost concern was to get the children out of danger; the Knight name was well-known to many of the Garou's supernatural opposition, who would have gone to great lengths to seize and destroy or corrupt a werewolf cub. Andrea was that cub; Siryn sent her to be raised amongst the Garou where she would be safe. And to ensure Morgan could not be captured and used against her, or his Kinfolk blood exploited, she pulled a few strings with her martial arts mentor and had the baby sent to what amounted to a boarding school in the mountains of Colorado. To all outward appearances, it was sort of a 'theme' school, for troubled children or those kids whose parents wanted them to grow up in that particularly structured environment. It emphasized discipline, strength of body and mind, and martial arts. Beneath its surface, of course, it was run by the Mage Tradition called the Akashic Brotherhood.

Morgan grew up healthy, strong, a decent student, and a very competent martial artist. The teachers at the school made no pretense of being parents, and offered no filial love, but Morgan worked hard for their praise and respect as a substitute. After the first few years, the wishy-washy or those who simply didn't fit had washed out, and the remaining children of his level solidified into a fairly tight-knit group. One unintended side-effect of this was that dating opportunities were thin on the ground, when one looked at the girls one knew as closer to siblings than anything.

During one spring break shortly before graduation, the school came under brief attack by a scouting party of evil mages known as Nephandi (or rather, it hadn't been intended as an attack, but it turned into one as soon as the Akashics put together just who had attempted to blithely enter their temple and investigate under innocuous disguises). In the middle of the fray, Morgan was ushered into the basement -- where the hidden vaults had been left open after one of the senior monks had taken something from them. Eager to help with the fighting, Morgan picked up a rather fancy-looking weapon -- and abruptly found himself bound to it, body and soul. The traumatic binding experience shattered the already somewhat-fragile barriers that protect the human mind from understanding the true nature of reality, and he Awakened as a mage.

Worse off, the weapon in question was the Tradition Blade of another Tradition entirely, the Celestial Chorus. They immediately demanded the weapon back, but the Akashic Brotherhood, after inducting Morgan into its ranks, elected to take the long view and indicated that it not only had no way to forcibly separate Morgan and the sword, but would not do so even if it could.

Morgan graduated at 17, and at that time was finally told about the inheritance and legacy of his family waiting for him back in Pittsburgh. He returned there to claim it, and abruptly found out that, like his father before him... he was now a multibillionaire. The Knight holdings stretched across a vast swatch of American business, and his personal fortune had him set for life. More intimidated by this turn of events than anything - he had lived quite frugally, and quite happily, for years at the school, after all -- Morgan did not go on the spending spree and debauchery one might expect from a suddenly-wealthy teenager, except in one respect. He commissioned the world's most awesome car.

As a consequence, Morgan met Stephen Valkonan. Much drag-racing ensued between his Ferrari Infinity and Stephen's car, Black Sunshine.

And yet Earth, as a whole, intimidated him. The world outside of the school was massive, and he had become an instant celebrity in it, as the handsome rich with a dramatic past are wont to do. It was then that he and Stephen had the idea to follow up a legacy of the Valkonan family, and chased down what they understood to be a portal to a High Umbral Realm.

It turned out to be another world, a cosmic nexus where people and creatures of all kinds clashed. Intrigued, they kept coming back; Morgan was particularly fascinated by a world where he could introduce himself as just another guy, not rich or special or hunted by the Celestial Chorus.

...He failed spectacularly in so many respects. He was out of his element and unfamiliar with the whole process of meeting new people and making friends. He alienated Stephen on more than one occasion, botched interactions with peers and elders alike, ruined dates and chances at dates, damaged his relationship with his sister almost irreparably, was selfish and stupid and whiny...

And yet somehow he made friends, found some people who would forgive his flaws, and met one of most influential people in his life: one of the most skilled Akashics and martial artists on the planet, Nhairis by name, agreed to be his mentor... and in time, his adoptive mother. From her and the other people in his life, he reforged himself into a better person, a stronger man. He found the strength to have dates, to adopt others as his family selflessly, to at last separate himself from the sword that gripped his soul... and ultimately, to find happiness with a girl; one Diast Malorna. (She also happened to be a Jedi Knight, but that was just icing on the cake.)

They were married for a year or so. Six months into it, she was sentenced to death for crimes she allegedly committed as a sleeper agent. (Morgan never was clear on the details.) Six months later, the sentence was finally carried out. Those intervening months finally made Morgan grow up all the way.

Personality: Morgan is friendly, outgoing, personable, and an absolutely shameless flirt. Energetic and intensely active, he keeps a very full schedule as a rule, and throws himself wholeheartedly into even leisure activities like video games. He's always eager and willing to learn something new or develop a new skill, even though he knows he lacks the technical-analytic mind necessary to really succeed in scientific fields.

In some respects he might be TOO friendly, personable, and helpful. Though he's inherently like that in general, he also pushes himself to be those things to reinforce them in himself. He very much failed to live up to his own ideals for long enough to embarrass and grieve him; he never again wants to feel that he hasn't tried his best, hasn't done enough, or has been selfish and self-centered to the detriment of someone he cares about.

The events of his life have pushed him down a path of patience, acceptance, and wisdom. Morgan is as good at accepting what comes as anyone really can be; he can cherish precious memories of his lost loved ones, for example, without ever having them spoiled by sadness at the loss. Despite having lost his wife fairly recently, he has gotten past this with the help of his friends. He may not be quite ready to love again, but he's certainly up for some fun and enjoyment, both flirtatious and non.

Martial arts are his life, but he takes a very broad view of the study. To Morgan, martial arts is more than just the ability to fight or even move; he embraces the idea that one can find the essence of martial arts in any activity. It's all a matter of finding harmony and fusion between mind, soul, and body.

He enjoys fighting a little more than he knows he should, but he's very much the technical pacifist; he will not take a life unless there is absolutely no other choice. He's also a bit too eager to have a student of his own; he's technically qualified and knows that he needs to teach as well as study himself to advance. He also knows this flaw of his own, but can't quite seem to work through it.

Strengths: Morgan is a Mage of the Akashic Brother Tradition. This means he can perform 'magick', although this isn't like unicorn-style spells; Magick-with-a-capital-and-a-k is actually replacing reality with a version more to his liking. To put it another way, Morgan believes so fundamentally that he can, for example, heal someone with acupuncture, that his belief is actually capable of making it happen. Another way to think of Morgan's specific style of Magick is to compare it to anime-style ninjutsu or wuxia martial arts.

Awakened Magick, as this is called, is not a list of powers, but a list of possibilities. Based on his knowledges of Spheres (areas of influence), Morgan can perform any effect he can think of within the range of these Spheres.

Spheres and what they cover are at this link. Each level of knowledge includes the ones below it, of course.

Morgan's Spheres are:

Correspondence 2: Sense Space, Touch Space

Forces 3: Transmute Minor Forces

Life 4: Alter Complex Patterns

Mind 2: Read Surface Thoughts, Mental Impulse

Prime 2: Weave Odyllic Force, Fuel Pattern, Enchant Patterns, Summon Prime Weapon, Activate Quintessential Matter & Forces

Time 3: Time Manipulation

Morgan is also an exceptional martial artist, and practices a style called simply "Do" -- the Way -- which is an ancient Akashic martial art of unsurpassed skill and elegance.

Weaknesses: Morgan will not have access to certain abilities he ought to be able to have based on his Sphere knowledge. Chief among these is the ability to transform his own shape to another creature.

Personality-wise, Morgan still has one major flaw -- he keeps his problems entirely too much to himself, to the point that if friends push him to talk about them, he ends up feeling self-conscious about complaining about what he considers trivial and unimportant matters. Having taken for so long, Morgan feels terrible about doing it now; his life is about giving back, where he can, in his mind now.

Morgan is also vain. Having worked hard to build himself up to fine physical shape, he takes pride in his appearance. It isn't something he works himself up too much over, but it's there.

Morgan's dump stat is Perception. He can completely fail to notice the obvious. He has literally had oranges thrown at him, caught them out of midair on intuitive reflex, and carried them around for several minutes till someone pointed out he had them. Luckily, his intuition often makes up for this lack of observation...

Possessions: 1: Morgan's sword is a hand-and-a-half sword made of the incredibly rare material Primium, which is unique in its ability to cut through magical spells and effects. It's essentially a walking block of antimagic in sword form.

2: Morgan has a coat made of a special metal alloy that flows like cloth and protects like armor. It normally has a pocket space inside it for storage, but won't in Equestria.

3. A set of acupuncture needles.

Pony/Animal Type: Earth pony.
Cutie Mark: A sword over a mountain.
Pony Picture:

Not quite accurate... because frankly Morgan has insanely nice and long hair, and thus a ludicrously gorgeous mane and tail...

SAMPLES
First Person:

[The visual begins with the earth pony brushing an obscenely nice mane out of his eyes. It just doesn't fall quite the same as it used to when it was hair.]

So I woke up sick today, because clearly I'm a little horse.

I have no doubt that that one's been done to death by now, but still, I had to get my chance. So, hello; my name is Morgan, and I hear my situation is not uncommon here. Innocent human going about innocent human business, when suddenly I'm snatched from nowhere, turned into an equine, and dropped onto a strange world...

Actually, this sort of thing is really common where I'm from. But what's less common is not having a way back. I guess I've got to get accustomed to this world at least for a little while... so how do I start? What's the best way for me to integrate in here? Also, I think I may need to get my hair -- uh, mane and tail? trimmed? Because I keep tripping over it. So if there are any prospective barbers out there... groomers? I'm not even sure...

[He quickly rubs a hoof down his face to get his train of thought back.]

Anyway, it's nice to meet you and and please tell me if I start screwing up the magic scroll somehow. I'm used to cell phones.

Third Person: A very long prose log.