SECTION I.
Operational Information.
| TAG # | 62611102042 | ||
| GROUP OF INTEREST | GOI | SECTION | Serpent's Hand |
| RANK | Cell Leader | SUB-SECTION | The Tutorage, Terry & Torrie's Machining |
| SPECIALIZATION | Sabotage, Equipment Manufacture, Thaumatological | ||
| ALIGNMENT | Unknown, Likely Hostile | IMMEDIATE ORDERS | Detain On Sight |
| PREVIOUS RANKS | SUPERVISORS | ||
| Assistant Professor (ICSUT) | The Serpent (Theoretical) | ||
OUTLOOK
Olivia is valiantly, essentially, old guard. For the Serpent's Hand, that means she is a staunchly anti-coalition, radically inclusionary no matter how disgusting or worrying you are, and actively aggressive towards normalcy organisations. She takes issue with those who stand on the side lines, debating politics without volunteering to help peacefully or in combat. Knowledge should be shared and your anomalies don't matter unless you're unfriendly or helping her out. Societal norms as well.
SECTION II.
Demographic & Physical Information.
| FULL NAME | Olivia Pratchett | DATE OF BIRTH | (04/02/45) |
| SEX | Female | ALIASES | "The Tutor", "O.P." |
| WEIGHT | 162lbs | HEIGHT | 5'5" |
| HAIR COLOR | Brown (Slight Greying) | EYE COLOR | Green |
| NATIONALITY | British | ||
Assistant Professor Olivia Pratchett c. 1965
Person Of Interest Olivia Pratchett c. 1999
DESCRIPTION
Aging, but taking precautions to prevent it. Long brown hair wraps down her back, carefully tied back and cared for to keep it out of danger, with only wisps of grey creeping in. Her face itself just begins to fade with wrinkles and the occasional dark spot.
Despite it all, her frame is muscular and athletic. Not enough to compete in any sports, but clear evidence of prolonged physical exercise from constant preparation and work with heavy machinery.
Her fashion is variable, switching between practical mechanics gear, aging academic wear, and whatever will fit her current mission. Usually she'll default to a grey jacket and trousers at her workshop, while using a brown dress or sweater around the Library.
SECTION III.
Psychological Information.
| VIRTUES | VICES |
| Intelligent | Direct |
| Accepting | Zealous |
| Adaptable | Violent |
| LIKES | DISLIKES |
| Physical Work | Complacency |
| Literature | Alcohol |
| Honesty | Sleazy Behaviour |
| New Technology | "Rustic" Practices |
PERSONALITY
Rough, perhaps not always actively rude but rarely actively cordial or polite. Nevertheless she offers a tough guiding hand to those who would accept it and firmly defensive of those she values. Getting to her goal is almost always her main priority behind that. Tough love and snappy retorts tend to come to anyone getting in her way of whatever machine or scheme is next. Sometimes, that includes violence when you commit yourself to something foolish.
In an odd way, Olivia is carefree. She doesn't care what you look like, she doesn't care what you do as long as it's safe, and generally her approach is acceptance as long as it isn't getting in the way.
PSYCHIATRIC CONDITIONS
High likelihood of Autism Spectrum Disorder, undiagnosed due to lack of resources and medical practices of the time refusing to prescribe it.
SECTION IV.
Medical & Security Information.
| PRESCRIPTIONS | Reading glasses |
| BLOOD TYPE | AB+ |
| CONDITIONS | Far-sighted |
| AUGMENTS | A series of occult tattoos with complex green diagrams and numbers, primarily used as a Shaper for certain spells. No innate anomalous traits, relevant spells listed in "Anomalies" and does not assist in any other spells not listed. Glows, but only when actively used as a shaper. |
| INJURIES DURING SERVICE | |
| N/A | |
FOUNDATION ENCOUNTERS
Minimal so far, or at least proven. Until the last few years The Tutorage has only targeted the Coalition, although those attacks have been particularly violent. In recent years they have taken more interest in The Foundation, but oddly this has come in a mix of deliberate leaks to the Bibliographers and attacks on convoys they suspect to contain humanoid anomalies.
Evidence shows attempts at dispatching enemies and consolidating power, but long-term goals are still unknown.1
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY ORDERS
Pursue at a distance, apply caution on approach. Ideally utilise a surprise attack, if not possible revert to standard tactics for the capture of Thaumaturges and do not allow access to a Way.
SECTION V.
Biographical Information.
| RELATIVES | Jackie Hermogenes Prattchet (Cousin) | ||
| CRIMINAL RECORD | Paraterrorism, Grand Larceny, Unlicensed Possesion of Paraweaponry, Unlicensed Manufacture of Paraweaponry, Assault, Murder | RELATIONS | N/A |
| EXPERIENCE | EDUCATION | ||
| 10 Years Practicing Occult Arts Under A Hermetic Order | Primary and Secondary School Training Under A Hermetic Order | ||
| 9 Years As An Assistant Professor At ICSUT | MEng, PhD in Thaumatological Engineering | ||
| Over Two Decades Organising For The Serpent's Hand | Over Two Decades Studying Within The Wanderer's Library | ||
| FORMER JOBS | Assistant Professor (ICSUT) | ||
BIOGRAPHY
Olivia Pratchett was born in England, to a rather affluent family in London. They were well-connected, rather large, and happened to be connected to a secret society that was itself part of the Council of 108. She spend time bouncing between lavish gardens in the south of England, fine dining that some even more wealthy relative had invited them to, a small home in the ever more expensive Three Portlands, and smoky basements full on men discussing how they would change the world.
The elders of the society would teach her themselves. Not just classic literature, or mathematics, or history, though she would learn them all, but occult arts. She learned theories of Alchemy, Theurgy, and most importantly a rigorous training of Thaumaturgy her entire upbringing. Olivia had Potential for Thaumaturgy at an incredibly young age, being exposed to the wonders of the anomalous, born of parents trained in the practice, and raised in a religion that moulded her into the required magical thinking, so she took to it. Even before she was 18 she has ascended well beyond the rank of Neophyte. Perhaps she was a natural talent, perhaps she was well-taught, but she absorbed knowledge like a sponge. She didn't need more time study the extra knowledge, she heard it once and somehow that's all that was needed.
Eventually however, she needed to learn things the Order could not provide. She was given money, time, and most importantly space to attend the International Centre for the Study of Unified Thaumatology. She studied engineering and thaumaturgy on one, diving into her coursework with vigour. She spent tireless nights to refine essay's she had already completed. Olivia studied and restudied every book to wring every detail she might have missed. But the end of her undergraduate degree she knew everything to perform her tests with ease.
That was also where the seeds were planted. She was exposed to so many more views on the world, how the Veil affected those without the money to hide or who couldn't hide at all. Some of them were discontent with this new world. Some of them knew people. Some of them knew the Serpent's Hand. Of course, this was the early Serpent's Hand. A band of misfit academics and a stuck-up order who still hadn't found the way back to the Library. But they were angry, and they taught her even more.
Her PhD was set in improving the early Everhart Resonators. Wielding engineering in one hand and magic in another, she refined circuits to matched them with occult symbols. Sometimes she would draw designs on her skin in the night to bring in the morning. In the end, her new design passed with perfect colours in an experimental apportation ritual and she gained her doctorate at the age of only 27.
But not soon after, there was a discovery. The Wanderer's Library was rediscovered by the Serpent's Hand. She was in attendance as some of the earliest members of it's resurgence explored and examined the magical place. She would find knowledge which made her thesis look like child's play, locked away from the Coalition for reason they didn't even yet understand. Her fellow students and friends would to a degree band around her, slowly she would gain some influence as a guiding hand in this new world.
But never-the-less, she stayed in ICSUT. She would become a researcher, and then Assistant Professor as time went on. It wasn't for intelligence, loyalty, or even love of discovery, her students were her goal. Every day she spoke with a few select student, slowly encouraging them to new ideas through kindness and subtle insinuation. By the time they approached the conclusion of their degrees, Olivia has a student society of a dozen individuals riled up against the Coalition.
On the day of their final thesis, Olivia would bring the group together to one of the ICSUT's Everhart Resonators. All the paperwork was filed, it was a real final project. It didn't change that they had no intent on casting the spell they had prepared. In a flash of light an uncontrolled backlash, the building was badly damages and two Everhart resonators had vanished. The study group was never seen again.
That was until a truck-mounted thaumaturgic explosive collided with the outside of a GOC Central Command Hub. Constructed out of the remains of one of the two machines, it was a pretty clear message.
Olivia would spends the next decades as a tutor to other's in the Library, spending the years she would have had as a professor instead guiding others through their research. Book after book, student after student, she would become a reputable figure. Olivia Pratchett was someone who could teach nearly anyone thaumaturgy, of any kind, at any level. If she didn't know it, she'd know someone who did. Even if Olivia Pratchett didn't have a university or a college or a centre backing her up, she was still the Tutor.
But that didn't mean the conflict stopped. Her and her students constantly harassed GOC supply chains, destroying their roads or on some occasions crippling PTOLEMY manufacturing facilities. They would camp in driving snow or roaring heat, workings or rifles prepared and waiting for a target to pass by them. More than one student has been lead to their death in her crusade, but many less than the lives they came to reap.
After many years, their pockets were drained and their wallets drying up. No amount of battering or begging would keep her Tutorage alive, but that just meant a new opportunity. They used one last favour to obtain a small building in the middle of nowhere, England. Conjuration magic was a wonder, especially to a world where it had been hidden so long, and it's not like she had forgotten how to make machines in a few short decades. Her greatest scheme: To own a machining business.
But that's not the whole story. I may have been persuaded by empathy and rhetoric, but do you believe that? A successful mage turning her life upside-down for the sake of a couple friends? Maybe if I was a better woman, but that wasn't why.
It was a cold night, chilling out with a crowd a didn't really mind, but didn't particularly care for either. Back then, it was just that they were comfortable. And they gave me drugs. That's how it started. They'd found some new fix, maybe something thaumaturgic or demonarcotic, I don't really know. I decided to try it out, because I was an impulsive college student.
What happened next wasn't a trip. I know what they feel like and I swear on everything I own this wasn't that. It was a vision. I was shown something, and I can't prove it was true or that it was by what it claimed to be but it was more than a hallucination.
I saw everything, laid out as diagrams and lights. I couldn't understand it all in one glance, but I knew it was the universe in all of it's constants. Physics formula and thaumaturgical diagrams I'd recognise in journals years later. It all spoke to me. With a voice that is, and a shape.
It was a serpent. I don't know if it was The Serpent, or what that ancient chinese dynasty called Mekhane, but if I were to take a guess it would be both. Something ancient and primeval, which was everything. It told me reality was a system, that everything had a piece and a place. Everything is bound by natural laws, and we just have to keep looking for them. There is nothing that acts without reason. It said it was unbroken because reality still had order, just one we do not yet know.
It felt like I was being taught for years. I was told how systems try to control people, how reality must be accepted, that you cannot change how things are simply by denying them. It was the teacher I wish I always had, and I hate the fact I barely remember any of it.
But when I came back to reality, I knew my entire thesis project back to front. A knew every step to a spell I'd only just started researching.
There wasn't much more to do, I thought. That's just the way of the universe.
The veracity of this experience is considered dubious. Multiple anomalous drugs confer both hallucinogenic and savant-like symptoms, which would be a much more likely explanation than accidental communion with a heretofore unknown, syncretic, pluripotent entity.
SECTION VI.
Extra Information.
| WEAPONRY | Owns multiple american-bought assault rifles.. Otherwise carries multiple covert knives and a a single non-anomalous stick wrapped in silver foil and leather. |
| GADGETS | A small machining shop in rural England. Only civilian-grade, non-anomalous equipment, so is mostly relegated to standard machining with very limited thaumaturgical production. Also owns a large cargo truck attached to the same business. Both are reliant on her maintaining access to the business. |
| PARATECH | Carries an instance of an Oak-carved Blade at all times, and possesses the means to obtain more. |
| One stolen and modified prototype 1970's Everhart Resonator. Can produce large enough amounts of EVE at any pitch to fuel workings like Apportation, however it weighs over 10 tons, requires a massive power output beyond most industrial machinery, and needs at least 1 additional thaumaturge to catalyse it's function. Currently relegated to The Library electrical network until an industrial power source in baseline reality can be obtained . At full power can produce 1 human sacrifice worth of EVE every 10 seconds, useful for large workings or mass-production of thaumaturgical relics. | |
ANOMALY
Olivia is a highly, highly, practiced Thaumaturge of the scholar variety. For every day since she was a child, she was raised and moulded to learn thaumaturgy. Between her hermetic order, ICSUT, and years studying the Library, she is one of the foremost mortal experts on the theory of Thaumatology in the anomalous world and a good chunk in it's practice. She can sense EVE and has performed practical magic for two decades. Most of her skill lies in spells designed to be taught to others like Prod or Grasp, even if at a higher level than usual, and melding magic with mundane technology.
Her primary passion is in Conjuration, the creation of something from nothing, or perhaps another place. Craftsmanship and companionship are heavy areas of study, but her passion is the mostly theoretical study of Kaijumancy. To create a creature of massive scale is her masterwork, but not something she has achieved.
The following are the spells she uses on a daily basis. She is aware of and can learn more, but these represent her primary areas of skill.
| SPELL | Prod |
| SOURCE | Natural - Minimal energy requirements beyond ambient EVE. Repeated use may need supplementation with at least unit of blood. |
| SHAPER | Stave - requires the user hold and point an undamaged wooden stick coated or cored with metal at target, Mudra - the clenching and subsequent release of a free fist, jaw, and/or arm. |
| TARGET | A single object or person within 10 metres that the caster can see. |
| BACKLASH | User is shoved back with half the amount of force by their own spell. |
| PURPOSE | Create an invisible kinetic force. Can range from a light push to a strong shove, and can be sustained over a period. |
| LIMITS | Force is determined by number of locations clenched at once, while duration is determined by speed of release up to 5 seconds. Requires a free hand alongside that which is wielding the implement to cast. |
| SPELL | Grasp |
| SOURCE | Natural - Minimal energy requirements beyond ambient EVE. Repeated use may need supplementation with at least unit of blood. |
| SHAPER | Stave - requires the user hold and point an undamaged wooden stick coated or cored with metal at target, Mudra - Movement of a free hand to mimic the action. |
| TARGET | A single object or person within 10 metres that the caster can see. |
| BACKLASH | Implement become uncomfortable warm, and bursts into flame if used for more than 5 consecutive minutes. |
| PURPOSE | Create an invisible kinetic force capable of basic manipulation. It can lift or move an object the user can lift as if holding it. |
| LIMITS | Cannot perform any actions requiring notable dexterity, like using individual "fingers" seperately. Requires a free hand alongside that which is wielding the implement to cast. |
| SPELL | Pierce |
| SOURCE | Flat - Fresh blood in her vicinity, around 20-30 millilitres used for each cast. |
| SHAPER | Stave - requires the user hold and point an undamaged wooden stick coated or cored with metal at target, Lietmotif - A quick sharp exhalation. |
| TARGET | A single object or person within 50 metres that the caster can see. |
| BACKLASH | Implement is "kicked back" as if firing a pistol shot from a weapon. Implement also becomes uncomfortably warm the more it's used. |
| PURPOSE | Create an invisible kinetic dart towards the target. Dart has similar size, speed, and force to the highest commercially available rifle bullet. |
| LIMITS | Backlash entails utilising it more than every second will quickly cause the implement to ignite. |
| SPELL | Sabotage Machine |
| SOURCE | Flat - At least one unit of spilled blood, or a corpse. |
| SHAPER | Runic - EVE is channeled through the tattoos if diagrams on Olivia's body. |
| TARGET | A machine within 10 metres which she has direct line of sight. |
| BACKLASH | A glow produced along the runic tattoos, momentary nausea, the sudden conjuration of small mechanical objects within range. |
| PURPOSE | Performs a combination of corrosion, short circuiting, and disassembly to prevent a machine functioning. With a normal-sized source, machines smaller than 3 metres on all sides all components are rendered inoperable. |
| LIMITS | Beyond this point only a similar area of the machine is damaged, which may or may not place it in critical condition, though the spell can be empowered with more EVE. Can be countered with thaumaturgic warding. Cannot be further empowered around Thaumic Dampeners. |
| SPELL | Knock Machine |
| SOURCE | Natural - Half a unit of fresh blood. |
| SHAPER | Runic - EVE is channeled through the tattoos if diagrams on Olivia's body, Wish - Effect of tattoos is altered by intent and avoidance of certain sections. |
| TARGET | A machine within 10 metres which she has direct line of sight. |
| BACKLASH | A glow produced along the runic tattoos and momentary nausea. |
| PURPOSE | Gives a machine no larger than 50cm a small pulse and alterations to it's programming, causing it to unlock if it has a password key or functions as a door lock. |
| LIMITS | Machine must contain computational components and physically be capable of the command. The spell can be empowered with more EVE but cannot be further empowered around Thaumic Dampeners. Can be countered with thaumaturgic warding. Cannot unlock computers that utilise two factor authentication or other advanced locking systems but may still function on devices purely existing to lock. |
| SPELL | Inanimate Conjuration |
| SOURCE | Sharp - Highly versatile, traditionally performed with a roaring bonfire but may use any significant source of Sharp Aspect Radiation. |
| SHAPER | Runic - EVE is channelled through salt, chalk, or silver ritual circles on the ground around the target area. |
| TARGET | A region of open space able to hold the item. |
| BACKLASH | Bright light and heat emanating from the ritual circle. |
| PURPOSE | Transmutes raw aspect radiation into a physical object than can sit within the circle. |
| LIMITS | Requires in-depth and slow preparation to create a ritual circle capable of managing the backlash without damaging the surroundings or the caster. Object must be something Olivia understands generally how to make, can be made with modern tools or materials, and does not include mechanical or electrical parts. |
| SPELL | Olivia's Animal Conjuration |
| SOURCE | Sharp - A unit of fresh blood or a large quantity of high-quality raw materials.. |
| SHAPER | Mudra - A complex dance with hand motions reflecting the animal summoned. |
| TARGET | Loose or raw materials near Olivia and either an individual or group for it to attack. |
| BACKLASH | Lacerations on her body, scaling in size to the animal created. |
| PURPOSE | Creates a single animal, formed of nearby materials like wood, dirt, or fire, to attack a nearby opponent. Animal will retain the traits of both it's form and the material it is made of, a hot substance may burn it's target but smoke will still be tangible enough to injure or be injured. |
| LIMITS | Cannot create an animal larger than a large snake or a wolf without wounds long and deep enough to require immediate medical attention. Animals do not last longer than a a few minutes (10 turns) before dissolving or being recreated by another working. Conjured creature has low intelligence, and will only ever pursue actions that lead to it attacking a target. Must take the form of a non-anomalous extant species of animal. |
ADDENDUM: The Tutorage
The Tutorage, and by association Terry & Torrie's Machining,2 are a Serpent's Hand cell led by Olivia Pratchett. They are both academically inclined and militant, taking others under their wing for the study of thaumaturgy but they have a reputation for "field testing" their studies against enemies of the Hand before publishing them to the greater community.
But still, in between acts of combat their primary goal is most of all the safety of those they can. In-between skirmishes, the sharing of knowledge and materials is their number one priority. If one wants to learn thaumaturgy with a more human touch, the Tutorage are there to help. Terry & Torrie's Machining is used as an extension of this, assisting Wanderers whenever they need technical products that they can't access for various reasons, or perhaps they simply need mundane cash in some form.
While originally established around her original pupils, membership has waxed and waned over the years with many members moving to other goals, groups, or fates. Since, the membership continues to mostly be those formerly or currently under the tutorage of other members, with a much heavier incline towards studying thaumaturges than polymorphs.