![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
PLAYER PROFILE
Player name: Dog
Age: 30
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
dogfaced & Dog#3202 on Discord
Triggers/Fears/Squicks: Zero
RNG Housing Preference (Select One): Roommates
Character Motivation: Intergalactic tourism, alien arts & culture, saving the world/s, and disaster relief on a multiversal level. It's the mission of a lifetime.
VOLUNTEER PROFILE
Name: Cameron Waltz
Age: 43
Physical Appearance: Headshot.
Point in Timeline: While negotiating a delicate alliance between Gifted tribes, one of which is led by an old flame turned informant, Cam's adopted daughter is starting her first year of high-school! His life has never been so dramatic.
World Description: Gifted & Talented is a modern fantasy universe, set in the present day, where magic is:
For more information, the Gifted & Talented extended World Info post.
History/Background:
The son of two prominent Gifted rights activists, Cam grew up with a humble, middle class background in New York. He was an articulate, athletic, intelligent child who performed well in school and tested for his Gift earlier than most. It turned out that not only was he Gifted, but he had a rare affinity for shadow magic.
In high school, Cam was a high-achieving student, a member of the Model UN, the debate team, and the swim team, and voted Most Likely to Become President. Every summer, he went away with his parents to volunteer all over the world, learning several languages and developing a deep interest and love for other cultures. Cam attended university on full scholarship, starting off pre-med before switching to communications after his first disaster relief volunteer experience, where he saw the discrepancy between the support people needed and what they were given.
Cam turned down the Masters/Doctorate route in favour of entering the workforce directly. He took freelance humanitarian interpreter jobs for the UN, assisted with various disaster relief efforts across the world, and worked with organizations providing medical care or aiding refugees in third world countries. With experience and immersion, he became a skilled cultural mediator, specializing in humanitarian outreach to conflict stricken areas. It was after his work in Uganda, convincing local warlords to allow foreign aid after an earthquake and landslide, that he was approached by the MIA, a federal bureau dedicated to Gifted related intelligence and investigation, and offered a job.
Cam spent the better part of a decade expanding his network of contacts spanned the globe, and he was managing other MIA agents and assigning them himself. This is how Cam earned the nickname of 'The Spider' and became a world renowned shaper, both respected and feared by many. It was on a mission in Afghanistan to gain traction for the MIA to take down an extremist gifted group called the 'Divine' (who believed in Gifted supremacy, and worship of magic above all) that he met Mazin, a Gifted arcane warlord who had protected his people by staying completely closed off to the outside world.
Cam spent months with Mazin's clan, learning their dialect, their culture, traditions, and ways. In that time, he became acquainted with Mazin, clashing with him and his rigid point of view at first. And, after nearly six months, Cam was madly in love with Mazin-- and also his people-- and was accepted into their tribe. A year into his stay, Mazin asked Cam to become his third consort, and Cam swore himself to the warlord, compromising his mission and loyalty to the MIA.
Conflict arose between Mazin and a rival of his clan, who had lusted after their resources for some time and felt they weren't being given a fair shake. This rival wouldn't agree to anything without a sufficient promise of wealth and supplies from the MIA. The warlord attacked mazin, and Cam killed a man for the first time in his lover's defense. An action that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Cam became despondent, driven into depression by guilt and a loss of his sense of self. Mazin, in his love for Cam, and his love of what made him who he is, released him from his vows. Cam returned to the MIA with a singular warlord's loyalty in hand and his tail between his legs.
After a disciplinary period of being restricted to office duty and PR, Cam was sent to China in pursuit of an organization trafficking Gifted children to be exploited for their magic. While hunting down traffickers in a rural province, he came upon a small village with a secret. A little girl considered a demon of darkness inhabiting the body of a child, aka: another Gifted with an affinity for shadows. He took the little girl, and brought her back with him to America, completely illegally, and strong-armed the MIA into allowing her adoption.
He took the little girl, because if anyone understood the 'darkness' within her, it was himself. Unlike him, she would have a mentor, someone to show her that her abilities were nothing to be afraid of, and to love her for who she is. He brought her back with him to America, completely illegally, and strong-armed the MIA into allowing her adoption.
With his new daughter to think of, Cam bought himself a house close to MIA headquarters in Langley VA, and spent the next few years raising (and spoiling) his child, whom he loves more than anything. Now, Cam works predominantly from within North America, only taking the most critical of international missions.
Extended history Here.
Noteworthy Positive Characteristics:
Diplomatic: Cam has an extensive background as a humanitarian interpreter and cultural mediator, facilitating mutual understanding between peoples while respecting their cultures. Cam works under extreme circumstances to broker peace where those who lack the ability to see from both sides fail. He gains the respect of others through his willingness to get down and dirty, and his ability to listen. Cam understands people, and their core needs and desires, and his keen emotional intelligence can cut through a lot of bureaucratic or political bullshit to root issues.
Compassionate: Despite his composed exterior, Cam's a bleeding heart. He's a sensitive man, deeply affected by the suffering of others. He believes the biggest problem in the world is a lack of understanding and communication. There is no one too low for Cam, and it's his openness to others which gains him friends and allies worldwide. Cam will hold someone when they cry, make people laugh under terrible circumstances, and do what he needs to help those who need it. He has an honest love and interest in other people, and everything that makes humans what they are.
Altruistic: Above all, Cam believes in equality and justice for all. He will never turn his back on a person in need, and he's dedicated his life to trying to make the world a better place. He thinks and feels on an international level. A tragedy on the other side of the world affects him as if it were in his own backyard. He believes that doing nothing is the same as doing harm, and will get his hands dirty cleaning up corruption. Cam is a peacekeeper; he works in the interest of peoples, not governments. He will do what he believes is right, and doesn't blindly follow orders, even if it means taking a difficult stand.
Noteworthy Negative Characteristics:
Machiavellian: Shaper. Spymaster. Social strategist. A certain amount of arrogance is required to do Cam's job. For all his empathy, people are pawns on an international chessboard, and it's his job to move them. He can't turn off the part of him that is always thinking ahead, looking for an angle. He'll use every tool in his belt in pursuit of the greater good. Just as he inspires or connects with people, he also seduces, blackmails, bullies, or otherwise coerces those he can't convince through positive means.
Neurotic: Cam's ability to empathize comes at a cost. He's extremely sensitive, prone to bouts of anxiety and depression, and his mood swings and temper tantrums are legendary. In order to function at the level he does, he's had to turn important parts of himself off, lending a certain fragility to those aspects of him. He's also extremely defensive of what he does, and why he does it; he needs to believe he's doing the right thing, and that he knows best. Though he is understanding of those he considers victims, he can be overly critical and demanding of those close to him. After everything he's seen, there is no doubt Cam has complex PTSD.
Isolated: At his core, Cameron is a shy, introverted man; left to his own devices, he has difficulty forming and maintaining close relationships. Though he composes himself well and is generally well liked, he is lonely in a crowd. People tend to love his exterior, not him. He's afraid to be himself and face rejection for falling short of expectations. His romantic life is nonexistent, and potential partners find him either too intense and desperate for a serious relationship, or are only interested in the idea of Cameron Waltz. The prospect of dying alone is becoming all too real.
Powers/Abilities:
Cam is Gifted, and one of the 1% with an affinity, meaning he can cast in a rare subset of magic inaccessible to people without an affinity for it. For Cam, it's shadow magic, which could have made him one of the most powerful Gifted people in the world, if not for the fact that his ability to cast any spell outside of his wheelhouse is slim to none.
Cam's ritual for casting involves drawing on his own flesh, and it has to be skin-to-skin: finger to palm, tongue to cheek, toe to calf, carefully honed rituals for a variety of situations. To work his magic, shadows must exist to be manipulated. It doesn't work in total darkness. No shadow, no magic.
There are two ways his shadow magic manifests. First, there's 'Zil,' the manifestation of Cam's own shadow into tangible form. Think Peter Pan's shadow. It can act as a second pair of hands/feet/etc, and can be his shadow wingman/backup. Though it's normally commanded by thought, Zil can at times appear sentient, seemingly acting on its own, though in truth it's only acting out Cam's unconscious needs and desires, of which even he may not be entirely aware. As Cam's own shadow, Zil's abilities reflect his own; it matches him in strength, speed, and physical limits. Zil can't take physical damage, but can be disrupted or dissolved by direct magical attack (or by taking away Cam's access to shadows). Zil's tangibility directly correlates with Cam's own magical stamina, and as Cam's stamina fades, so does zil. As Cam's shadow, Zil is connected to his body; it cannot operate in rooms Cam isn't is, and if Cam is disabled, Zil is disabled in the same way. Cam's broken arm, for example, is Zil's broken arm.
Cam's control of shadows extends beyond his own, which brings us to the other manifestation of his affinity: shadow puppetry. While Cam can't control people, he can control their shadows; through a person's shadow, he can move their body. A person can then be moved like a puppet, except the shadows are their strings: rather than the shadow following the movement of the body, the body follows the movement of the shadow. So long as someone has a shadow (and they aren't controlling it themselves) Cam can steal it.
Manipulating the shadow of another person isn't the same as his own, and requires much more concentration/effort/energy. Cam can't effortlessly seize control of others' shadows, and it's possible to mentally fight against him when he tries. The stronger the will of his target, the harder it is to control them. Therefore, if a person is weak willed, he can control them with thought alone, and to a high degree of detail. If a person is stronger willed, he must physically mimic the movements with his own body (like a true puppeteer), and sometimes vocal command if it helps solidify his mental strength/force. In these cases, his commands must be simpler, and may be slow or jerky. Cam can control multiple targets at once, but it's a bigger drain on his energy, and the time he can maintain control is much shorter. His range is limited by how far he can pull the person's shadow to him. Stretched too thin, and the connection is weak. The closer he is to the target, the better.
Though Cam can sometimes trick people into thinking his target is acting of their own accord, there are two obvious tells: 1) their shadow is connected to him by the feet, as if their shadows are his own (and multiple targets result in multiple shadows), and 2) his eyes and subject's eyes are both dark with the shadow magic.
Like all Gifted, Cam has his limits. Pushing himself too far can fatigue him for days. It can cause loss of consciousness, swelling of the brain, stress hemorrhaging, etc. And like all Gifted there is the risk of flaming out, which is a loss of control, like a surge of power in an electrical conduit, that will fry the user and severely injure or kill them (and sometimes bystanders).
Character Fears: The dark is Cam's #1 fear, as he's powerless without light to cast shadow. He's also afraid of being alone, rejection, failure, helplessness, weakness, dementia and/or ageing, and dying without having made a real difference in the world. He's also a control freak who takes comfort in leadership, so loss of control, freedom and free will are big triggers. Losing people, or being unable to stop loss, or suffering, is another soft spot.
Personal Item: A tiny boxwood elephant trinket.
VOLUNTEER SAMPLES
Network Sample: Text
Action Log Sample: Action
Player name: Dog
Age: 30
Contact:
Triggers/Fears/Squicks: Zero
RNG Housing Preference (Select One): Roommates
Character Motivation: Intergalactic tourism, alien arts & culture, saving the world/s, and disaster relief on a multiversal level. It's the mission of a lifetime.
VOLUNTEER PROFILE
Name: Cameron Waltz
Age: 43
Physical Appearance: Headshot.
Point in Timeline: While negotiating a delicate alliance between Gifted tribes, one of which is led by an old flame turned informant, Cam's adopted daughter is starting her first year of high-school! His life has never been so dramatic.
World Description: Gifted & Talented is a modern fantasy universe, set in the present day, where magic is:
- Real. It exists, and it's been practiced by small communities of magic users (witches, wizards, sorcerers, mages...) throughout human history.
- Hereditary. It's in your genes, baby. Approximately 12% of the population is born with the ability to use magic at all.
- Out in the open. That's right: everybody knows about it. Magic, and the people who practice it, are a regular part of everyday life. But it wasn't always like this.
For more information, the Gifted & Talented extended World Info post.
History/Background:
The son of two prominent Gifted rights activists, Cam grew up with a humble, middle class background in New York. He was an articulate, athletic, intelligent child who performed well in school and tested for his Gift earlier than most. It turned out that not only was he Gifted, but he had a rare affinity for shadow magic.
In high school, Cam was a high-achieving student, a member of the Model UN, the debate team, and the swim team, and voted Most Likely to Become President. Every summer, he went away with his parents to volunteer all over the world, learning several languages and developing a deep interest and love for other cultures. Cam attended university on full scholarship, starting off pre-med before switching to communications after his first disaster relief volunteer experience, where he saw the discrepancy between the support people needed and what they were given.
Cam turned down the Masters/Doctorate route in favour of entering the workforce directly. He took freelance humanitarian interpreter jobs for the UN, assisted with various disaster relief efforts across the world, and worked with organizations providing medical care or aiding refugees in third world countries. With experience and immersion, he became a skilled cultural mediator, specializing in humanitarian outreach to conflict stricken areas. It was after his work in Uganda, convincing local warlords to allow foreign aid after an earthquake and landslide, that he was approached by the MIA, a federal bureau dedicated to Gifted related intelligence and investigation, and offered a job.
Cam spent the better part of a decade expanding his network of contacts spanned the globe, and he was managing other MIA agents and assigning them himself. This is how Cam earned the nickname of 'The Spider' and became a world renowned shaper, both respected and feared by many. It was on a mission in Afghanistan to gain traction for the MIA to take down an extremist gifted group called the 'Divine' (who believed in Gifted supremacy, and worship of magic above all) that he met Mazin, a Gifted arcane warlord who had protected his people by staying completely closed off to the outside world.
Cam spent months with Mazin's clan, learning their dialect, their culture, traditions, and ways. In that time, he became acquainted with Mazin, clashing with him and his rigid point of view at first. And, after nearly six months, Cam was madly in love with Mazin-- and also his people-- and was accepted into their tribe. A year into his stay, Mazin asked Cam to become his third consort, and Cam swore himself to the warlord, compromising his mission and loyalty to the MIA.
Conflict arose between Mazin and a rival of his clan, who had lusted after their resources for some time and felt they weren't being given a fair shake. This rival wouldn't agree to anything without a sufficient promise of wealth and supplies from the MIA. The warlord attacked mazin, and Cam killed a man for the first time in his lover's defense. An action that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Cam became despondent, driven into depression by guilt and a loss of his sense of self. Mazin, in his love for Cam, and his love of what made him who he is, released him from his vows. Cam returned to the MIA with a singular warlord's loyalty in hand and his tail between his legs.
After a disciplinary period of being restricted to office duty and PR, Cam was sent to China in pursuit of an organization trafficking Gifted children to be exploited for their magic. While hunting down traffickers in a rural province, he came upon a small village with a secret. A little girl considered a demon of darkness inhabiting the body of a child, aka: another Gifted with an affinity for shadows. He took the little girl, and brought her back with him to America, completely illegally, and strong-armed the MIA into allowing her adoption.
He took the little girl, because if anyone understood the 'darkness' within her, it was himself. Unlike him, she would have a mentor, someone to show her that her abilities were nothing to be afraid of, and to love her for who she is. He brought her back with him to America, completely illegally, and strong-armed the MIA into allowing her adoption.
With his new daughter to think of, Cam bought himself a house close to MIA headquarters in Langley VA, and spent the next few years raising (and spoiling) his child, whom he loves more than anything. Now, Cam works predominantly from within North America, only taking the most critical of international missions.
Extended history Here.
Noteworthy Positive Characteristics:
Diplomatic: Cam has an extensive background as a humanitarian interpreter and cultural mediator, facilitating mutual understanding between peoples while respecting their cultures. Cam works under extreme circumstances to broker peace where those who lack the ability to see from both sides fail. He gains the respect of others through his willingness to get down and dirty, and his ability to listen. Cam understands people, and their core needs and desires, and his keen emotional intelligence can cut through a lot of bureaucratic or political bullshit to root issues.
Compassionate: Despite his composed exterior, Cam's a bleeding heart. He's a sensitive man, deeply affected by the suffering of others. He believes the biggest problem in the world is a lack of understanding and communication. There is no one too low for Cam, and it's his openness to others which gains him friends and allies worldwide. Cam will hold someone when they cry, make people laugh under terrible circumstances, and do what he needs to help those who need it. He has an honest love and interest in other people, and everything that makes humans what they are.
Altruistic: Above all, Cam believes in equality and justice for all. He will never turn his back on a person in need, and he's dedicated his life to trying to make the world a better place. He thinks and feels on an international level. A tragedy on the other side of the world affects him as if it were in his own backyard. He believes that doing nothing is the same as doing harm, and will get his hands dirty cleaning up corruption. Cam is a peacekeeper; he works in the interest of peoples, not governments. He will do what he believes is right, and doesn't blindly follow orders, even if it means taking a difficult stand.
Noteworthy Negative Characteristics:
Machiavellian: Shaper. Spymaster. Social strategist. A certain amount of arrogance is required to do Cam's job. For all his empathy, people are pawns on an international chessboard, and it's his job to move them. He can't turn off the part of him that is always thinking ahead, looking for an angle. He'll use every tool in his belt in pursuit of the greater good. Just as he inspires or connects with people, he also seduces, blackmails, bullies, or otherwise coerces those he can't convince through positive means.
Neurotic: Cam's ability to empathize comes at a cost. He's extremely sensitive, prone to bouts of anxiety and depression, and his mood swings and temper tantrums are legendary. In order to function at the level he does, he's had to turn important parts of himself off, lending a certain fragility to those aspects of him. He's also extremely defensive of what he does, and why he does it; he needs to believe he's doing the right thing, and that he knows best. Though he is understanding of those he considers victims, he can be overly critical and demanding of those close to him. After everything he's seen, there is no doubt Cam has complex PTSD.
Isolated: At his core, Cameron is a shy, introverted man; left to his own devices, he has difficulty forming and maintaining close relationships. Though he composes himself well and is generally well liked, he is lonely in a crowd. People tend to love his exterior, not him. He's afraid to be himself and face rejection for falling short of expectations. His romantic life is nonexistent, and potential partners find him either too intense and desperate for a serious relationship, or are only interested in the idea of Cameron Waltz. The prospect of dying alone is becoming all too real.
Powers/Abilities:
Cam is Gifted, and one of the 1% with an affinity, meaning he can cast in a rare subset of magic inaccessible to people without an affinity for it. For Cam, it's shadow magic, which could have made him one of the most powerful Gifted people in the world, if not for the fact that his ability to cast any spell outside of his wheelhouse is slim to none.
Cam's ritual for casting involves drawing on his own flesh, and it has to be skin-to-skin: finger to palm, tongue to cheek, toe to calf, carefully honed rituals for a variety of situations. To work his magic, shadows must exist to be manipulated. It doesn't work in total darkness. No shadow, no magic.
There are two ways his shadow magic manifests. First, there's 'Zil,' the manifestation of Cam's own shadow into tangible form. Think Peter Pan's shadow. It can act as a second pair of hands/feet/etc, and can be his shadow wingman/backup. Though it's normally commanded by thought, Zil can at times appear sentient, seemingly acting on its own, though in truth it's only acting out Cam's unconscious needs and desires, of which even he may not be entirely aware. As Cam's own shadow, Zil's abilities reflect his own; it matches him in strength, speed, and physical limits. Zil can't take physical damage, but can be disrupted or dissolved by direct magical attack (or by taking away Cam's access to shadows). Zil's tangibility directly correlates with Cam's own magical stamina, and as Cam's stamina fades, so does zil. As Cam's shadow, Zil is connected to his body; it cannot operate in rooms Cam isn't is, and if Cam is disabled, Zil is disabled in the same way. Cam's broken arm, for example, is Zil's broken arm.
Cam's control of shadows extends beyond his own, which brings us to the other manifestation of his affinity: shadow puppetry. While Cam can't control people, he can control their shadows; through a person's shadow, he can move their body. A person can then be moved like a puppet, except the shadows are their strings: rather than the shadow following the movement of the body, the body follows the movement of the shadow. So long as someone has a shadow (and they aren't controlling it themselves) Cam can steal it.
Manipulating the shadow of another person isn't the same as his own, and requires much more concentration/effort/energy. Cam can't effortlessly seize control of others' shadows, and it's possible to mentally fight against him when he tries. The stronger the will of his target, the harder it is to control them. Therefore, if a person is weak willed, he can control them with thought alone, and to a high degree of detail. If a person is stronger willed, he must physically mimic the movements with his own body (like a true puppeteer), and sometimes vocal command if it helps solidify his mental strength/force. In these cases, his commands must be simpler, and may be slow or jerky. Cam can control multiple targets at once, but it's a bigger drain on his energy, and the time he can maintain control is much shorter. His range is limited by how far he can pull the person's shadow to him. Stretched too thin, and the connection is weak. The closer he is to the target, the better.
Though Cam can sometimes trick people into thinking his target is acting of their own accord, there are two obvious tells: 1) their shadow is connected to him by the feet, as if their shadows are his own (and multiple targets result in multiple shadows), and 2) his eyes and subject's eyes are both dark with the shadow magic.
Like all Gifted, Cam has his limits. Pushing himself too far can fatigue him for days. It can cause loss of consciousness, swelling of the brain, stress hemorrhaging, etc. And like all Gifted there is the risk of flaming out, which is a loss of control, like a surge of power in an electrical conduit, that will fry the user and severely injure or kill them (and sometimes bystanders).
Character Fears: The dark is Cam's #1 fear, as he's powerless without light to cast shadow. He's also afraid of being alone, rejection, failure, helplessness, weakness, dementia and/or ageing, and dying without having made a real difference in the world. He's also a control freak who takes comfort in leadership, so loss of control, freedom and free will are big triggers. Losing people, or being unable to stop loss, or suffering, is another soft spot.
Personal Item: A tiny boxwood elephant trinket.
VOLUNTEER SAMPLES
Network Sample: Text
Action Log Sample: Action
no subject
Player name: Dog
Age: 30
Contact:
Triggers/Fears/Squicks: Zero
RNG Housing Preference (Select One): Roommates
Character Motivation: Intergalactic tourism, alien arts & culture, saving the world/s, and disaster relief on a multiversal level. It's the mission of a lifetime.
VOLUNTEER PROFILE
Name: Cameron Waltz
Age: 43
Physical Appearance: Headshot.
Point in Timeline: While negotiating a delicate alliance between Gifted tribes, one of which is led by an old flame turned informant, Cam's adopted daughter is starting her first year of high-school! His life has never been so dramatic.
World Description: Gifted & Talented is a modern fantasy universe, set in the present day, where magic is:
For more information, the Gifted & Talented extended World Info post.
History/Background:
The son of two prominent Gifted rights activists, Cam grew up with a humble, middle class background in New York. He was an articulate, athletic, intelligent child who performed well in school and tested for his Gift earlier than most. It turned out that not only was he Gifted, but he had a rare affinity for shadow magic.
In high school, Cam was a high-achieving student, a member of the Model UN, the debate team, and the swim team, and voted Most Likely to Become President. Every summer, he went away with his parents to volunteer all over the world, learning several languages and developing a deep interest and love for other cultures. Cam attended university on full scholarship, starting off pre-med before switching to communications after his first disaster relief volunteer experience, where he saw the discrepancy between the support people needed and what they were given.
Cam turned down the Masters/Doctorate route in favour of entering the workforce directly. He took freelance humanitarian interpreter jobs for the UN, assisted with various disaster relief efforts across the world, and worked with organizations providing medical care or aiding refugees in third world countries. With experience and immersion, he became a skilled cultural mediator, specializing in humanitarian outreach to conflict stricken areas. It was after his work in Uganda, convincing local warlords to allow foreign aid after an earthquake and landslide, that he was approached by the MIA, a federal bureau dedicated to Gifted related intelligence and investigation, and offered a job.
Cam spent the better part of a decade expanding his network of contacts spanned the globe, and he was managing other MIA agents and assigning them himself. This is how Cam earned the nickname of 'The Spider' and became a world renowned shaper, both respected and feared by many. It was on a mission in Afghanistan to gain traction for the MIA to take down an extremist gifted group called the 'Divine' (who believed in Gifted supremacy, and worship of magic above all) that he met Mazin, a Gifted arcane warlord who had protected his people by staying completely closed off to the outside world.
Cam spent months with Mazin's clan, learning their dialect, their culture, traditions, and ways. In that time, he became acquainted with Mazin, clashing with him and his rigid point of view at first. And, after nearly six months, Cam was madly in love with Mazin-- and also his people-- and was accepted into their tribe. A year into his stay, Mazin asked Cam to become his third consort, and Cam swore himself to the warlord, compromising his mission and loyalty to the MIA.
Conflict arose between Mazin and a rival of his clan, who had lusted after their resources for some time and felt they weren't being given a fair shake. This rival wouldn't agree to anything without a sufficient promise of wealth and supplies from the MIA. The warlord attacked mazin, and Cam killed a man for the first time in his lover's defense. An action that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Cam became despondent, driven into depression by guilt and a loss of his sense of self. Mazin, in his love for Cam, and his love of what made him who he is, released him from his vows. Cam returned to the MIA with a singular warlord's loyalty in hand and his tail between his legs.
After a disciplinary period of being restricted to office duty and PR, Cam was sent to China in pursuit of an organization trafficking Gifted children to be exploited for their magic. While hunting down traffickers in a rural province, he came upon a small village with a secret. A little girl considered a demon of darkness inhabiting the body of a child, aka: another Gifted with an affinity for shadows. He took the little girl, and brought her back with him to America, completely illegally, and strong-armed the MIA into allowing her adoption.
He took the little girl, because if anyone understood the 'darkness' within her, it was himself. Unlike him, she would have a mentor, someone to show her that her abilities were nothing to be afraid of, and to love her for who she is. He brought her back with him to America, completely illegally, and strong-armed the MIA into allowing her adoption.
With his new daughter to think of, Cam bought himself a house close to MIA headquarters in Langley VA, and spent the next few years raising (and spoiling) his child, whom he loves more than anything. Now, Cam works predominantly from within North America, only taking the most critical of international missions.
Extended history Here.
Noteworthy Positive Characteristics:
Diplomatic: Cam has an extensive background as a humanitarian interpreter and cultural mediator, facilitating mutual understanding between peoples while respecting their cultures. Cam works under extreme circumstances to broker peace where those who lack the ability to see from both sides fail. He gains the respect of others through his willingness to get down and dirty, and his ability to listen. Cam understands people, and their core needs and desires, and his keen emotional intelligence can cut through a lot of bureaucratic or political bullshit to root issues.
Compassionate: Despite his composed exterior, Cam's a bleeding heart. He's a sensitive man, deeply affected by the suffering of others. He believes the biggest problem in the world is a lack of understanding and communication. There is no one too low for Cam, and it's his openness to others which gains him friends and allies worldwide. Cam will hold someone when they cry, make people laugh under terrible circumstances, and do what he needs to help those who need it. He has an honest love and interest in other people, and everything that makes humans what they are.
Altruistic: Above all, Cam believes in equality and justice for all. He will never turn his back on a person in need, and he's dedicated his life to trying to make the world a better place. He thinks and feels on an international level. A tragedy on the other side of the world affects him as if it were in his own backyard. He believes that doing nothing is the same as doing harm, and will get his hands dirty cleaning up corruption. Cam is a peacekeeper; he works in the interest of peoples, not governments. He will do what he believes is right, and doesn't blindly follow orders, even if it means taking a difficult stand.
Noteworthy Negative Characteristics:
Machiavellian: Shaper. Spymaster. Social strategist. A certain amount of arrogance is required to do Cam's job. For all his empathy, people are pawns on an international chessboard, and it's his job to move them. He can't turn off the part of him that is always thinking ahead, looking for an angle. He'll use every tool in his belt in pursuit of the greater good. Just as he inspires or connects with people, he also seduces, blackmails, bullies, or otherwise coerces those he can't convince through positive means.
Neurotic: Cam's ability to empathize comes at a cost. He's extremely sensitive, prone to bouts of anxiety and depression, and his mood swings and temper tantrums are legendary. In order to function at the level he does, he's had to turn important parts of himself off, lending a certain fragility to those aspects of him. He's also extremely defensive of what he does, and why he does it; he needs to believe he's doing the right thing, and that he knows best. Though he is understanding of those he considers victims, he can be overly critical and demanding of those close to him. After everything he's seen, there is no doubt Cam has complex PTSD.
Isolated: At his core, Cameron is a shy, introverted man; left to his own devices, he has difficulty forming and maintaining close relationships. Though he composes himself well and is generally well liked, he is lonely in a crowd. People tend to love his exterior, not him. He's afraid to be himself and face rejection for falling short of expectations. His romantic life is nonexistent, and potential partners find him either too intense and desperate for a serious relationship, or are only interested in the idea of Cameron Waltz. The prospect of dying alone is becoming all too real.
Powers/Abilities:
Cam is Gifted, and one of the 1% with an affinity, meaning he can cast in a rare subset of magic inaccessible to people without an affinity for it. For Cam, it's shadow magic, which could have made him one of the most powerful Gifted people in the world, if not for the fact that his ability to cast any spell outside of his wheelhouse is slim to none.
Cam's ritual for casting involves drawing on his own flesh, and it has to be skin-to-skin: finger to palm, tongue to cheek, toe to calf, carefully honed rituals for a variety of situations. To work his magic, shadows must exist to be manipulated. It doesn't work in total darkness. No shadow, no magic.
There are two ways his shadow magic manifests. First, there's 'Zil,' the manifestation of Cam's own shadow into tangible form. Think Peter Pan's shadow. It can act as a second pair of hands/feet/etc, and can be his shadow wingman/backup. Though it's normally commanded by thought, Zil can at times appear sentient, seemingly acting on its own, though in truth it's only acting out Cam's unconscious needs and desires, of which even he may not be entirely aware. As Cam's own shadow, Zil's abilities reflect his own; it matches him in strength, speed, and physical limits. Zil can't take physical damage, but can be disrupted or dissolved by direct magical attack (or by taking away Cam's access to shadows). Zil's tangibility directly correlates with Cam's own magical stamina, and as Cam's stamina fades, so does zil. As Cam's shadow, Zil is connected to his body; it cannot operate in rooms Cam isn't is, and if Cam is disabled, Zil is disabled in the same way. Cam's broken arm, for example, is Zil's broken arm.
Cam's control of shadows extends beyond his own, which brings us to the other manifestation of his affinity: shadow puppetry. While Cam can't control people, he can control their shadows; through a person's shadow, he can move their body. A person can then be moved like a puppet, except the shadows are their strings: rather than the shadow following the movement of the body, the body follows the movement of the shadow. So long as someone has a shadow (and they aren't controlling it themselves) Cam can steal it.
Manipulating the shadow of another person isn't the same as his own, and requires much more concentration/effort/energy. Cam can't effortlessly seize control of others' shadows, and it's possible to mentally fight against him when he tries. The stronger the will of his target, the harder it is to control them. Therefore, if a person is weak willed, he can control them with thought alone, and to a high degree of detail. If a person is stronger willed, he must physically mimic the movements with his own body (like a true puppeteer), and sometimes vocal command if it helps solidify his mental strength/force. In these cases, his commands must be simpler, and may be slow or jerky. Cam can control multiple targets at once, but it's a bigger drain on his energy, and the time he can maintain control is much shorter. His range is limited by how far he can pull the person's shadow to him. Stretched too thin, and the connection is weak. The closer he is to the target, the better.
Though Cam can sometimes trick people into thinking his target is acting of their own accord, there are two obvious tells: 1) their shadow is connected to him by the feet, as if their shadows are his own (and multiple targets result in multiple shadows), and 2) his eyes and subject's eyes are both dark with the shadow magic.
Like all Gifted, Cam has his limits. Pushing himself too far can fatigue him for days. It can cause loss of consciousness, swelling of the brain, stress hemorrhaging, etc. And like all Gifted there is the risk of flaming out, which is a loss of control, like a surge of power in an electrical conduit, that will fry the user and severely injure or kill them (and sometimes bystanders).
Character Fears: The dark is Cam's #1 fear, as he's powerless without light to cast shadow. He's also afraid of being alone, rejection, failure, helplessness, weakness, dementia and/or ageing, and dying without having made a real difference in the world. He's also a control freak who takes comfort in leadership, so loss of control, freedom and free will are big triggers. Losing people, or being unable to stop loss, or suffering, is another soft spot.
Personal Item: A tiny boxwood elephant trinket.
VOLUNTEER SAMPLES
Network Sample: Text
Action Log Sample: Action