Post by Matthew Walker on Sept 21, 2010 4:56:40 GMT -5
Matthew Walker
"I won't let her down."
"I won't let her down."
NICKNAMES: //[/color] Matt
AGE: //[/color] 21
DATE OF BIRTH: // [/color] March 4
GENDER: //[/color] Male
ALIGNMENT: //[/color] Neutral Good
OCCUPATION: //[/color] Unlucky Everydude
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HEIGHT: //[/color] 6'
WEIGHT: //[/color] 167 lb
EYE COLOR: //[/color] Brown
HAIR COLOR: //[/color] Black
PIERCINGS: //[/color] None
TATTOOS: //[/color] Command spell on inner left forearm.
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: //[/color] None
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- Easy Going
- The last person you'd expect to get himself embroiled in the murderously cut throat competition that is the Grail War, Matt is laid back and easy going. His philosophy is to live and let live and won't condemn anyone unless they harm innocent bystanders. He's thick skinned, doesn't take himself too seriously, is impossible to offend, and is more than happy to stand on his own, allowing others to walk their own path. His lightheartedness is his way of coping with what amounts to a severely debilitating terminal illness.
- Dedicated
- Matts involvement with the Grail War can be chalked up to this. If Matt says he'll do something he'll do it. If he makes a promise he'll keep it. He doesn't give up easily, pursuing whatever course of action he perceives as right with out regard to opposition, danger, or previous failure.
- Friendly
- Matt is friendly and charming, genuinely concerned about others, a good listener and a good talker. He isn't afraid to put himself out there and make friends. He also doesn't view people he comes into conflict with with any animosity. He views the other Grail War combatants as rivals but without any hatred or desire to harm them.
- Principalled
- Perhaps his greatest weakness, Matt has a stringent moral code to with which he sticks with unflinching rigidity. Always keep your word, work hard at whatever you do, show respect to women and children, protect those weaker than yourself, do all the good that you can. These are a few of the very traditional tenants by which Matt is proud to bind himself.
LIKES: //[/color]
Music
Sports
Motorcycles
Boards (surf, skate, snow)
Girls
DISLIKES: //[/color]
Wasting time
Being helpless
People who break their promises
People who hurt the innocent
STRENGTHS: //[/color]
Matt is athletic and fit, good at sports, and good at martial arts. He makes friends easily and inspires courage in allies. He has very little fear and isn't intimidated by others.
WEAKNESSES: //[/color]
He's a human being, so all the athletics and martial arts in the world won't do him one lick of good against a Servant. Making friends easily also makes him a bit naive and he's far too trusting. Having no fear means that he also has no caution. He's also much weaker in magic than many of the Masters arrayed against him and much less knowledgeable about magic in general, his only experience being with his own home brand of thaumaturgy. In addition the overuse of his power takes a harsh physical toll on his body. Currently his symptoms are limited to light sensitivity and loss of motor control but are expected to develop into full blown brain damage, memory loss, and paralysis.
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MY FAMILY LINE: //[/color]
The Walker family line goes back 2 generations and 50 years, with Matt being the second magus in line after his father. Matts father, a scientist and spiritualist, had no knowledge of magic or the Mage's Association until he unwittingly discovered the activation of his magic circuits during a period of intense meditation. Through out his life he experimented on himself and his son to try and understand the phenomena that he had discovered. Because he was lacking basic information common to all Magus families his research was largely based on false assumptions and guesswork, leading to a wildly different style of magical manipulation than the rest of the Mage's Association.
Matts father had 5 magic circuits capable of generating 3 prana apiece. Matt himself has the same number, altho his circuits generate 5 prana apiece. This deficiency is largely offset by the family's dangerous and experimental sorcery trait.
The Walker family mages access magic in a way much different from traditional families. Normally magic circuts channel Mana and Od into Prana, allowing the mage to produce a variety of reality warping anomalies dubbed Spells. Walker mages, without knowledge of the "easy way" of working magic, discovered a secondary method of increasing prana output to offset their extremely low PrC ratings. First the magic circuits are opened like when a normal spell is cast. Then a small portion of that person's potential Od is pushed through, being held open on the other side by the flow of Prana. This causes a massive torrent of mana to be displaced through the circuit with the drawback of permanently destroying the catalyst Od in the process.
A good analogy is a glass of water in the rain. The glass fills as it rains and a normal magus inserts a straw (or two, or twenty, depending on how many magic circuits they possess) to drink as much as they want and then the glass fills again over time. A Walker mage cuts off the top inch of the rim of the cup. This allows a much higher of volume of water to be tapped much faster, but it also means that the cup will never again be able to hold as much water. In essence Walker mages spend their life force to cast spells at a much higher power level than they ought to be able to. This alone limits the number of spells a Walker mage can cast as well as eating into their lives as they use magic. Matts father died at 42, 8 years after he discovered magic. Matt probably can't hope to live past 30 even if he doesn't cast a spell for the rest of his life.
As a secondary side effect of this method of casting the Od pushed through the circuit acts as a focal point for all spells cast by the magus. In theory this would provide a lensing effect to further enhance the power of the spell. In practicality it means that spells cast by a Walker mage can only affect the mage himself. So Walker magic is powerful, dangerous, self destructive, and completely incapable of affecting anything outside of the caster.
With the inherently powerful nature of the magic and despite its drawbacks it doesn't serve as an unlimited power source. Since, almost by definition, using Walker Magic over taxes and strains magical circuits that lie along the body's internal nerve routs those routs are irrevocably damaged. Draw too much at one time and you run the risk of prematurely crippling or even killing yourself. His limit is imposed in addition to the limited number of years that a mage has to work with meaning that, while eventual death is a certainty, instant death is possible whenever large amounts of power are drawn.
MY HISTORY: //[/color]
Matt was born to a loving father and mother in an ordinary suburb in an ordinary town in the mid western United States. When he was a child Matts father, a tinkerer, spiritualist, and expert in holistic medicine, discovered how to activate his magic circuits and began experimenting with his new found powers. By the time Matt was 12 he had discovered in himself a similar aptitude and, at his own insistence, began to assist his father with his experiments. Ignorant to the harm their childlike blunders were causing to their bodies father and son learned to manipulate prana in their own unique way. Each put bodily fatigue and other side effects down to stress, largely ignoring the dangers of their exploration.
Things came to a head when Matts father drew too much mana at one time, forcing his circuits out of alignment and damaging his nervous system. He suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and was rushed to the hospital. His life was saved but he was permanently blinded and suffered serious neurological trauma. From that point on he forbade Matt to practice magic and instead experimented on himself in secret, hoping to discover how his research had damaged him and how he could prevent it from doing the same to his son. This is eventually what led to his death although he did discover most of the limitations and drawbacks of Walker casting. In his research he also learned of the Mage's Association and the Grail War, knowledge that he tried to keep from his son so that he could live a normal life.
Matt's mother was heartbroken and Matt, who's life up to this point had largely been that of an ordinary teenager apart from his magical research, left college in order to get a job. His single minded dedication and work ethic saw him successful but he still couldn't break out of the spiral of poverty or his mother out of her debilitating melancholy. When he accidentally stumbled across his father's notes concerning the Grail War he knew he had a way out. He saved up enough for the trip to Lucca and left, vowing to return with the grail at any cost.
MY GOALS: //[/color]
Matt is determined to obtain the holy grail and wish his father back to life.[/size][/blockquote]
Leather Jacket
White 2014 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14
RANK: //[/color] Unranked
ELEMENT: //[/color] N/A
EXPERTISE: //[/color]
Unconventional Mixed Martial Arts
Partially the result of jumping from dojo to dojo and style to style but mainly because of an obsession with MMA, comic books, and kung fu movies; Matts fighting style is unconventional and startling to watch. He focuses on speed and power over technique, his knowledge of martial arts is varied and he adheres to no particular style of fighting. The result is acrobatic, impromptu, and difficult to predict.
Soul Burn Magic
Matt is the last in a line of 2 mages known to have mastered Soul Burn style magic, admittedly a style that isn't very conducive to leaving offspring to teach your ways. This magic allows him to temporarily and massively boost his magic potential at the cost of burning away years of his life. In addition spells cast while so boosted cannot affect anything beyond himself.
MAGIC CIRCUITS: //[/color] Matt has 5 circuts and 5 PrC, putting his un boosted max prana at 25
SPELLS: //[/color]
Harden (earth)
Rank: Variable
Cost: Variable
Range: Personal
Effect: Hardens Matts body and skin, making him denser, heavier and more resistant to damage. Like all Soul Burn spells it can be cast at a variable rank but higher ranks take exponentially more weeks of life away when used continuously. Lower ranks serve to turn aside mundane weapons and higher ranks can stop even the blows of Servants. No rank of this spell is sufficient to protect against a Noble Phantasm, however.
Sharpen (air)
Rank: Variable
Cost: Variable
Range: Personal
Effect: All five of Matts senses become ultra acute, allowing him to see and hear farther and detect vibrations by touch. This is a relatively low cost spell, etching minutes and hours of of his life instead of days and weeks depending on the rank it is maintained at. With this spell Matt can zoom his vision like binoculars (up to x8) or focus his vision like a magnifying glass. His hearing increases as well, providing sonar like echolocation at max rank.
Quicken (air)
Rank: Variable
Cost: Variable
Range: Personal
Effect: Matts reflexes and speed increase, making him much faster than an average human. Low ranks affect only his perception of time and reflexes. Higher ranks allow him to actually speed up the rate at which his body moves. This is a relatively expensive spell that imposes a great deal of strain on his system. At lower ranks Matt can perceive things happening faster than the human eye can normally see. At higher ranks this extends to his physical person, allowing him to outrun cars.
Strengthen (earth)
Rank: Variable
Cost: Variable
Range: Personal
Effect: Matt becomes much, much stronger than average. Usually combed with Harden in order to stop super powered strikes or lifts from breaking his own bones. The dual use of these powers are extremely taxing and draining. At lower ranks Matt can easily lift heavy objects one handed. At max ranks he can toss cars around.
PLAYER'S NAME: //[/color] nails
FACE CLAIM: //[/color] Kyo Kusanagi, King of Fighters
OTHER CHARACTERS: //[/color] None
MISC. INFORMATION: //[/color]
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