Full Name: Samman „Sam“ Chouraqi
(Name note: Samman’s family was originally from Egypt with more traditional arabic naming scheme’s, but when they were expulsed from Egypt in the fifties, they switched to a given name and family name scheme to assimilate better.)
Ethnicity: Mizrahi Jewish
Nationality: Israeli
Age: 28 (as of EM Sequel)
Magic Status: Upper Level Focused Practitioner (in DFRP terms: Channeling + Thaumaturgy)
Sexuality: Kinsey 3

Background:
Sam is the only son of a couple of arabic-descended jews from Haifa. His mother is a low level ectomancer who runs a fitness gym together with his father. Growing up both helping in their parents business as well as his mothers taking care of wayward shades, Sam was essentially with one leg in both the mundane world and the magic world from young age, which set him apart from his age mates sometimes. You can’t exactly tell them you can’t go to the beach with then because you must help your mother taking care of a restless shade refusing to leave his old home.
This detachment was only exaberated as his own magic talent grew and technology started to disagree with him more.

Note: He was exempted from the draft due to both „low motivation to serve“ and his urin test coming back for weed. Oops?

Eventually, a adolescent Samman decided that if the modern world was not interested in him, maybe the magic world was. Beginning to rifle through the sparse scholarly texts he could find on magic craft without access to one of the proper organizations, he eventually found some likeminded minds in a association of young magic talents from all over the southern end of the Mediterranean. In there, he found the education, support and community of people he could fully relate to.

Note: The so called Association of Magi was basically a Poor Man’s White Council with delusions of Grandeur. A following of focused practitioners, minor talents and their Sorcerer leader, the Grand Magus, who did his best to downplay the fact that the White Council was the spellcrafting Superpower of the Magic world and upplay his own group. Its was essentially a very well obscured cult.
(The terms and titles are actually in babylonian because they were using that language like the Council uses Latin)

Styling himself as a young modern Magus, Sam started even doing some jobs the association hired him out for, taking care of curses, warding up places it or banishing some magic beasties running around. Provided the associations leader was paid for. Finally, he was tasked with picking up a spellbook for their Grand Magus, a mission of utmost secrecy he was told. And so he did meet the contact and retrieved the tome when suddenly he was met by something he wasn’t even fully aware existed.

A Wizard by the name of Rashid.

Any other Wizard might have been condescending or arrogant when faced with a lower practitioner aspiring to grandness as Sam did at the time. Especially once said ‚Magus‘ tried to scare him off with cast Illusions and a summoned beast.

Rashid was very polite as he smacked Sam’s ass all over the back alley.

And then, as Sam lay in the dirt, faced with the might of a one of the seven most powerful spellcasters alive, Rashid knelt beside him and simply *asked* for the tome. As he explained, in kind words, the book contained forbidden summoning spells, spells that could bring something evil into this world if used. Evil that could end cities and more if unleashed. Rashids mission was to stop these kinds of things from happening and he would. But he’d rather have Sam agree to help him with this than force it.

Moved by his kind words, Sam considered and finally handed him the book. Rashid thanked him and then he was gone.

The Grand Magus….was *less* than amused, of course.
(Hey the guy wanted a bootleg of the Necronomicons Director’s Cut, what do you expect?)
Thus Sam suddenly found himself being on the wrong side of the people he had counted as friends. Friends who believed their leaders words of betrayal and stealing of secrets. Who decided that to protect their mysteries, Sam had to be either imprisoned or killed.

Sam obviously decided to get the fuck away. So the next few months he spent on the run, taking jobs as needed for the cash for the next train ticket. Since entering the Nevernever had not been on the Grand Magus curriculum, he was constrained by his methods of transportation, cars breaking down eventually and planes being…unwise if you screw up tech and look arabic these days.
Eventually (which is a story for another day) he came to the attention of Layla Vallon, a White Court Vampire who had just been told by her family that she was needed to mind their interests in New Orleans. Deciding that having her own pet sorcerer would be useful, she offered him a way over to the US, in the hops of finally getting some distance between him and the Association.

And thus it begins!


Magic Talents: Sam is what the Council calls a ‚sensitive‘ type. He is good at feeling, at gathering impressions and generally. On the flip side he sucks at brute force applications. He has *some* minor telekinetic abilities, but he succeeds more at the indirect uses. In short terms, he’s heavy in Spirit and light on Force.
He’s not in Molly’s class in terms of large scale illusions, but has a gift for the details as part of his natural sensitivity. He basically has a instinctual gift for picking what the target finds believable, allowing him to do small but effective illusions and veils. His second major gift lies in thaumaturgy, or more specifically conjuration. In short, Sam is a natural summoner, giving his capability to attune to other spirits, he has great skill in convincing them to help him. Since the idea of a greater Nevernever (as opposed to the Grand Magus very simplified ‚inaccesible Spirit World‘) is still new to him, he’s still inexperienced with this talent and growing into it.
He has the capacity to open his Sight, but wasn't informed it was a thing at all, so not much experience at all
Layla got him some real Magic For Dummies books, so he's working to fix the holes in his education, but its a project in progress.

Quick and dirty DFRP: He has +5 Rapport and Presence and no magic stat over +3. Lore at +2 (for now)
Channeling (Spirit)
Thaumaturgy with a Summoning and Illusion speciality.

Magic Stunts:
* May use Rapport instead of Discipline to power Thaumaturgic Summoning and Illusions
* May add Half of rapport (rounded up) to any Channeled Illusions shifts.

Physically he has +4 Athletics, but since he does that because he simply likes fitness he has only a +2 to Fists and no weapons or guns. :P