@Device(PostScript)
@Make(Report)
@Style(Spacing 1.5, Leftmargin 0.75 inch, Rightmargin 0.75 inch,
       SingleSided, Font = TimesRoman, Size 10)

@comment(Set these values appropriately for each character profile)

@string(name="Clerrik lle-Milcah Jani")
@string(realname="Clerrik lle-Milcah Jani")
@string(playername="Player Name")
@string(id="978281")

@include (/mit/abstract/Characters/Sheets/cover.mss)



@MajorHeading(@value(realname))

You know one thing for certain: Dad would not approve.  You sit in
your room, staring at the bent pieces of metal in front of you and the
bracer lined up next to them; the former is a key to your future, the
latter a possible key to your past.

The bent pieces of metal are lockpicks.  Holly Bluemist, a sorta
fellow apprentice and good friend, has been teaching you how to use
them for the past month or so, and you've learned to your surprise
(and Holly's, as well) that you are good at it.  You have a natural
knack for getting through locks, and you've discovered recently that
if you work at it hard enough, you can even undo magical locks and
alarms sometimes.  You can't wait 'till you master it, won't Holly be
surprised!  She says you have the makings of an ace thief, and the
more you think about it, the more attractive the possibility seems.

Except, of course, that Dad wants you to become a mage, like him in
the Order of the Spear.  You know he wouldn't go along with what you
want to do, particularly seeing how it's illegal and all, and you can
never change Dad's mind about anything -- it's like he's immune to
argument.  Once his mind's set, no one and nothing can change it.
It's frustrating, to say the least.

It was just like him, for example, to decide that the truce declared
with the East was just a hoax.  Even when Segwina, the highest-ranking
mage of the Order of the Spear, agreed that the Wizard's Conclave
would accept a cease-fire order until the end of the peace summit, Dad
decided he was going to have none of that.  A week ago, Dad set out
with several loyal mages for some "maneuvers" on the border to the
Clans.  Of course he brought you along, as you were his apprentice.
And of @i(course) he didn't listen to you when you told him you didn't
want to go.

After he explained things, though, it made a little more sense at the
time.  You had known that Dad was working on a strange magical device
to enhance the flow of magic, and he explained that he was staging the
maneuvers to see whether his device would be enough to nullify the
strange defenses the Clan had against all Realm magic.  It did make
sense to test it before the peace summit happened; after all, if it
worked, the Realm would be in a much better position to negotiate.

When you got there, things didn't go nearly the way Dad expected,
though.  A battalion of Clan warriors had organized along that border
and were well-prepared for battle, and when they saw you, they charged
to the attack.  Of @i(course) Dad concluded they were dealing in bad
faith and couldn't be trusted, completely ignoring the fact that
@i(he) had been sneaking out to the border and that he @i(was) acting
rather suspiciously -- typical.

Dad didn't even take the time to explain (of course, the explanation
probably wouldn't have helped any...), and the spells started flying.
To no great effect; the Clans routed you in that battle.  Even though
you were well within the boundary where magic ought to work perfectly,
the spells you threw against that battalion seemed completely
ineffectual.  On the other hand, their weapons were working perfectly
well.  Things were looking pretty grim, and Dad signalled you to set
off his device while he helped defend it...

@b(That) was a mistake.  You remember tracing the last of the runes on
it and speaking the activating incantation.  You remember a sense of
power pouring out of it, through you, through the ground, through
everything around you.  You vaguely remember, through a pinkish haze,
@i(sensing) that energy permeate the area, activating all kinds of
spell deva long since dormant ... feeding them.  You remember lots of
screams ... seeing those deva strengthen and wreaking havoc throughout
the area ... and you remember one man, a Clan warrior, standing uncowed
throughout the storm of magic ... deva striking him and withering,
shrivelling, wasting back to dormancy ...

You lost track of things after that.  Somewhere along the line Dad
must have grabbed you and teleported away.  As far as you know, the
other mages are dead and Dad's "secret weapon" is a bust ... but Dad
hasn't spoken about that night ever since, and you haven't pushed it.
You've had enough trouble getting yourself together for the Time of
Trials.  

Ever since you were little, Dad has wanted you to be a mage, and the
truth is you @i(did) have a knack for it.  You've always been good at
analyzing magical and enchanted items, and you breezed through your
preliminary exercises, not that you ever understood the need for them.
But magic just isn't the sort of thing you can see yourself making a
career out of.  You're pretty good at spellcasting and stuff, but
spells never quite worked the way Dad seemed to expect it to.  You
cast the spells all right, and do everything the way you were taught,
but the spells don't come out quite the same way they do when Dad
casts them.  This always infuriated him to no end ... personally, you
think he's jealous.  They always do come out better when you cast
them...

Well, anyway, if you can just get through the Time of Trials, you
won't need to rely on Dad for magical energy anymore -- you'll be a
mage in your own right.  After that, you'll be able to do whatever you
want.  Even become a thief, if you want to, and Dad won't be able to
do anything about it.  Of course, he doesn't see it that way.  Lately,
he's been dropping hints that he's got all the rest of your life
planned out for you, too.  Besides his wanting you to become a mage,
he is preparing you to enter this special group he's been working
with, 'The Holy Order of Whitefire'.  What a freaky name!  He keeps
talking about uncovering and defeating evildoers, and traitors to the
Realm, and witches, and whatnot.  It's not a bad idea, but you aren't
completely certain certain what he means by "evildoers."  By his
standards, your friend Holly probably qualifies -- not only is she a
thief (well, at least you think so, though she's never said so in as
many words), she's also a Clanswoman.  But she's also one of the
nicest women you've ever met, and you really like her!  

Holly keeps joking about you and your Dad being about as similar as a
harpsichord and an elephant, but she doesn't understand.  It's true,
he's not your real father, but on the other hand, your real father
abandoned you when you were just a small child; that's why you were
given both of Clerrik Milcah's names.  Dad probably doesn't know you
remember that far back; you've never mentioned it to him ... just as
well.  He's your @i(real) father, as far as he's concerned.  Still,
though, you've always wondered who your biological parents were and
what they were like.  Knowing you, they were probably scoundrels of
the worst sort.  After all, you have to have picked up your habits
@i(somewhere)!

There sure are a lot of them Dad wouldn't approve of.  Besides the
lock-picking, there's the gambling -- it's starting to become a
problem.  You frequent the underground casinos, since the legal
ones are Guild run and Dad would probably find out about it.  The
problem is, you lose.  All the time.  Well, a lot of the time, anyway.
But you are getting better!

Dad would probably throw a fit if he knew you had lost that grimoire
as a stake.  You wouldn't have taken it ordinarily, but you @i(knew)
he had no use for it -- he couldn't even open the thing!  You're still
not sure why, since you had no problems opening it; you were even
going to show him when it occured to you he might figure out about the
lockpicking if you did.  Not that you did anything, the book just
opened normally, but try convincing @i(him) of that!  

Besides, there was something about that book, something very strange.
The more you looked at it, the more you felt like there was something
right at the tip of your mind that you couldn't quite remember.  You
tried reading through it, but most of it didn't make sense to you --
too technical.  It seemed to mostly have to do with something called a
Creation Gate -- the rituals and equations in the grimoires seemed to
be some kind of portal, which made sense, but there were easily a
half-dozen pages of scribblings that you couldn't make heads or tails
out of.  Obviously, it wasn't just any portal.  And whoever wrote that
book (you aren't sure who, since it wasn't signed, but it had the
emblem @g(D E T) on the cover) had obviously studied it in great
depth, more depth than you were even mildly interested in.  There was
more, something about activating it, but your head was starting to
hurt.  And there was still that strange feeling of @i(deja vu)
whenever you looked at it!

You took the book with you, hoping to get it appraised, when you took
off for the casino that night.  You got in way over your head at a
poker game, though, and ran out of money.  Well, a little worse than
running out of money -- you ran into debt.  Before you knew what was
happening, a couple of musclemen took you in to talk to their boss,
and you knew you were in trouble.

Thank the Goddess for @i(deja vu), though.  The manager was willing to
take the grimoire in exchange for cancelling your debt, that one time,
and he kicked you out of his casino.  Now all you have to do is keep
Dad from thinking about it, and you'll be fine.

Maybe you can get him interested in the paintings that were stolen
from the Capitol City Art Museum a few days ago.  After all, one of
them seemed to be right up his alley, a beautiful painting of a wizard
in mid-conjuration: "The Sigil," by Hazarnaveth Gomer.  You remember
running into it while wandering around the Museum, and the face looked
familiar -- you remembered having seen it in a portrait your Dad had
in his study, a portrait of the two of them and another man you didn't
recognize.  Unfortunately, you couldn't really ask Dad about it, since
you weren't allowed in his study, but you were still curious.  There
was a sigil in the background of the stolen painting, with some
incredible colors.  And on the wizard's wrists, there were bracers.
Expensive bracers.  In fact, worth several gold Stars.

You know that, because they look just like the bracer you've had in
your treasure chest since you were a little girl, and you had that
appraised years ago (just in case you needed to sell it to pay off
gambling debts).  You were going to come back the next day to examine
the painting again, but it and another, far more valuable, painting
("The Wizard," you forget the artist, but it's a @i(creepy) piece of
work!) were stolen that night.  Why?  By whom?  And what does it have
to do with you, and the portrait in your Dad's study?  You aren't
sure.

Somehow, though, you have the suspicion you're going to find out...


@newpage

@Heading(Items and Abilities)

You start the game with the following items:

 A silver bracer with ornate markings

 Several pairs of dice

 Lockpicks

You have these abilities:

 Intuitive mage I

 Lockpick

 Artistic ability

 Compulsive gambler

 Magic 1

@newpage

@Heading(Spells)

You know the following spells:

(Note, contact a GM before using)

@include(/mit/abstract/Lore/Magic/Spells/stunning.minor.mss)
@include(/mit/abstract/Lore/Magic/Spells/truth_read.minor.mss)

@include(/mit/abstract/Guides/guide.realm.mss)
@include(/mit/abstract/Guides/lore.creation.mss)
@include(/mit/abstract/Guides/lore.magic.mss)