Morrow Shen

Name: Morrow Shen
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Height: 5'7
Weight: 119 lbs

Power and Level: n/a level 0
Primary Study: Architecture
Homeworld: Yang Wenli's Totally Righteous Space Fleet

School: Augusta School for the Arts
District: 11, the commercial sector
History: Famous Alumni
Academics: Focus on the arts
Facilities: Beautiful Gardens
Student Body: 750-1000, has many level 0s
Distinctive Teacher: Eccentric Genius

Basic Stats:
Physical: 7 (10-3 cursed spell)
Coordination: 12
Mental: 14
Social: 9

HP: 35
Mental HP: 42

Level:
Bishop-class Mage (level 3, 25 points spent)

Physical Skills:
Sleep is for the Weak 3 (10) (3 points spent)

Coordination Skills:
Fancy Knife Work 1 (13) (1 point spent, weapon skill)

Mental Skills:
Fancy Pants Space Architecture Geek 2 (16) (5 points spent)
Computer Nerd RTS Master 1 (15) (2 points spent)
Totally Righteous Space Wars 1 (15) (2 points spent)

Social Skills:
I've Got a Hunch About You... 2 (11) (2 points spent)

Spells:
1. Death by a Thousand Cuts
An invisible force rips open deep wounds in the target. The cuts are clean, as if done with a blade worthy of surgical work.

Spell Difficulty Rank: 6
Total Arcane Knowledge Points: 30

Mechanics:
5d10 damage (25)
short range (2)
stuns (3)

Difficulty Accounting:
Casts from HP (1): -3 HP per casting
Casts from Mental HP (2): -6 mental HP per casting
Cursed Spell (1): -3 physical
Bishop (2): Two ranks automatically negated

2. I'm an Esper, I Swear...
This spell simulates the effects of an esper's AIM field, though it can be applied to manipulate AIM fields in general to a small degree.

Spell Difficulty Rank: 1
Total Arcane Knowledge Points: 5

Mechanics:
AIM Perception - large deviation effect (5)

Difficulty Accounting:
Bishop (1): Two ranks automatically negated.

3. ...And You're An Esper Too!
A simple proximity trigger informs the caster when an esper enters an area, as well as their level and power. Triggers once, then fades.

Spell Difficulty Rank 2:
Total Arcane Knowledge Points: 10

Mechanics:
AIM Perception - large mechanical effect, works on the first esper to walk in close proximity of where this spell was cast. Works on level 0s as well, so long as they have any potential at all. (5)
Simple Trigger - activates when someone walks in close proximity to the spot the spell is cast. Can be triggered once, then must be recast. (5)

Difficulty Accounting:
Bishop (2): Two ranks automatically negated.

4. Well, Aren't You a Klutz?
Luck seems against the target today, and they inexplicably trip and fall.

Spell Difficulty Ranking: 1
Total Arcane Knowledge Points: 5

Mechanics:
Tripping Effect (1)
Medium Range (4)

Difficulty Accounting:
Bishop (2): Two ranks automatically negated.

Backstory:
Morrow was born aboard the Hyperion, flagship of Yang Wenli's Totally Righteous Space Fleet, the pride and joy of Space China's military force. His parents were a rarity among the Chinese, both successes of China's Glorious People's Power Development Program and accomplished espers. As such, they and everyone else on the ship held high expectations for Morrow and were deeply disappointed with their failure to draw any sort of esper power from the kid.

Bored and frustrated with the constant testing, Morrow shut himself away to be a total geek playing Starcraft 10, the newest in Activision-Bio-Blizzard-Ubi-Ware's line of fully immersive 3D real time strategy games. However, his parents weren't terribly happy with this development in his life and sent him off to Neo-Hefei, a research space station orbiting an uninhabitable planet being studied. The space station is home to the newest node in Space China's network of Power Development Program facilities, and Morrow's parents hoped the place would help bring out Morrow's esper abilities. Of course, this also didn't help at all, and Morrow was sent to AA at the age of 11.

Once onboard AA, Morrow quickly got a transfer to Augusta, a school known for its large number of level 0s. His knack for architecture helped him fit into the arts-oriented school, and he showed great creativity in creating virtual landscapes for a variety of purposes, including assistance on creating a virtual-scape for a jazz concert some years back. Having absolutely no potential to develop esper abilities, Morrow worried a lot about the testing down, especially as relates to AIM fields. Augusta lies smack in the middle of AA's biggest commercial sector, filled with lots of fun things to do on his parents' bill, and Morrow had absolutely no desire to be expelled from school for his lack of esper potential.

Probably against better judgment, Morrow took up study of magic and the occult, originally to find a way to bullshit his way through esper testing, spending a lot of time in the religious sector of AA to find texts on mysticism and alchemy. Life in Yang Wenli's Totally Righteous Space Fleet didn't exactly provide a strong foundation of religious knowledge for Morrow, so his magic draws less on traditional religious influences and more on his study of architecture as applied to theories of geomancy and magical geometries. His magical focus item is a compass, the drawing kind, not the direction kind.

Morrow's curiosity grew, and he spend more and more time refining his magical skills, still relying on his first spell to evade detection as a no potential level 0. He dug a bit too deep one day when developing a spell that left him physically drained for weeks. He never fully recovered from the incident and is still a frail kid. However, you know what they say, when life gives you lemons, demand to talk to life's manager and burn their house down. The spell ended up being fairly potent, an experiment in geomantically bending space that ended up severely cutting whatever was unfortunate enough to be in the space the spell was applied to. By this point, Morrow found that he had attracted the suspicion of several fellow AA inhabitants who thought he might not be as he seemed. A few close calls convinced him to take up learning knife tricks and basic knife-fighting, so if he ever had to use this spell against someone who threatened his life, the end result could be passed off as mundane knife wounds.

Time passed, and Morrow developed two other spells, one that would subtly bend the contours of the city to cause someone to trip and fall, which proved invaluable in escaping his pursuers, and one that would twist the lines of power in the city, coalescing the power of the target's AIM field in one spot in a way that would reveal to him their power and level. It was this latter power that would get Morrow into a spot of trouble.

While on the run from a pursuer, Morrow ducked into the Theophilosophical library in the religious sector of town, having studied the floorplans and knowing there were plenty of good hiding spots there. Unfortunately for him, Exceliaire had recently started forming her gang, the Albatross, and was using the place as a gang hideout. As luck would have it, Excel stumbled upon Morrow just as he was setting his esper detection spell, and the two discovered each other's secrets simultaneously, with Morrow's spell revealing Excel's farce for what it was, and Excel viewing what was clearly a practice in occult magic. Fortunately, the pair recognized each other from the jazz concert years ago - where Morrow assisted in set design and Excel performed the sax, so the meeting and agreement to keep each other's secrets was somewhat less awkward than it could have been.

Today Morrow is still pursuing his studies in architecture as well as his forays into the occult. He doesn't really give a shit about the ranking system or esper levels, feeling content to do his thing and spend his free time wandering the commercial district. Being an architecture student has its perks, including access to floorplans of buildings all over AA, which he explores with an insatiable curiosity, hoping that he'll find secret spots he can imbue with mystical significance for his study of magic.

Friendly NPC: Cammie Corrigan. She's also studying architecture, but is apparently pretty terrible at it. She uses her rather weak photoreflexive memory to copy off other people, mainly you. It's apparent she feels guilty about cheating and has been nice enough in the past, if perhaps a little odd.

Antagonistic NPC: Alvar Laird, student of the fine arts school Augusta, is a bit of a joke among his fellow members of judgment. Notorious for his false leads, he has a hard time getting taken seriously, but having started stalking Morrow, could he be onto something, this time?