HEALTH & LIFESTYLE

DIET: Even when he was living a normal life, he had a small appetite and preferred not to eat much. He ate healthy whenever his family could afford it.

EXERCISE: When he was still in school, he was too busy to exercise regularly. Between his graduate-level studies, his part-time job at a supermarket, and working as a math tutor, he had to sacrifice something.

SLEEP: He is determined to get his 7-8 hours every night and goes to bed at around 11-12.

HYGIENE: Showers regularly and brushes his teeth twice a day, so long as facilities are available. Uses magic on his clothes to skip laundry which produces...questionable results.

ADDICTION: After the spell suppressing memories of his family's death wore off, he joined Marcel on one of his drug trips with a little bit of persuasion from Lucas and became addicted to remin.

HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ILLNESS

Other than sometimes being a few pounds underweight while he was growing up, his patient records were unremarkable. That is, until the night he was taken hostage after Harvey went AWOL. Elmar injected parasites into Tyler's bloodstream genetically designed by the Verboten Lab to destroy human cells. Without treatment, he would experience internal hemorrhaging after the first two hours and total organ failure by the tenth hour. After arriving at the insurgent cell base, the doctor Tren crafted medication that would temporarily subdue the parasites, but more research needed to be done before he could find a way to kill them. The medicine must be taken once every 24 hours. Tren predicts that Tyler will die in five years if he cannot find a cure by then, or if they fail to retrieve the cure from the Verboten Lab.

He has become dependent on remin through his addiction to the drug. Fortunately, it has no additional effects when combined with his medication.

SCARS: He has a few minor scars on his limbs from combative magic class in high school. Although it's not a scar, it should also be noted that he lost the entirety of his left arm after teleporting two people with him during a retreat.

ALLERGY: Cat allergy inherited from his mom, hence why the family had a dog instead.

INTOLERANCE: No recorded intolerances to any food or drugs.

STRENGTHS

He has a strong moral compass that prioritizes saving lives and following rules that allow those who are less fortunate to improve their situations. He'll show enemies mercy even if they tried to kill him because he believes most people have the capacity to change for the better.

He chooses kindness partially because he believes it is the right way for everyone to be treated.

WEAKNESSES

Because he blames himself for the death of his entire family, his self-esteem is tied to how he preceives his usefulness. Any time something bad happens, he internalizes his feelings to maintain a happy aura or else he'll see himself as bothersome around others. And in an environment where he must hurt and kill others in order to be considered useful, completely going against his morals, his sanity begins to slip even when he refuses to partake in such actions.

His pacifism has become a weak point in a situation where he is forced to fight for his life. Bringing himself to hurt others in the name of self-defense was enough for the guilt to wound him emotionally.

FLAWS

His other incentive for helping other people is to receive validation that he is being useful. If he does not receive enough validation, or worse, he is told that he is being a nuisance, his already low self-esteem will fall even further.

As a result of his need for validation, he often comes off as clingy. Most people don't have the heart to tell him off for it, though.

HABITS

He'll fidget with the rim of his hat when he's stressed.

At night, he writes letters to his mom whenever he needs guidance and doesn't have anyone he wants to confide his insecurities to. He burns the letter after he's done writing it in hopes that it'll reach her in the afterlife.

Umbra often summons herself and curls up beside him whenever she senses his distress.

PET PEEVES

Passive aggressive behavior. He'd rather have people outright express their negativity toward him.

Having to inhale car exhaust.

WISHES

He wishes people would just treat each other with empathy. Then no one would ever have to suffer again, right?

Other than that, he wishes he could go back in time to save his family.

PREJUDICE

The rich don't have any problems. They buy away their struggles with money.

SECRETS

He discovered that the parasites infecting his system are stimulated whenever he channels mana. He counteracts this by performing restoration magic on himself every night and manages to heal himself faster than the parasites can destroy. Of course, this is a painful process.

PHILOSOPHY

Treat people the same way you'd like them to treat you. Do not cause pain, do not sow discord. All men are created equal.

ETHICS

He values moral integrity. If someone loses a possession and he happens to find it, he'd find a way to return it to its owner. He'd never take what doesn't belong to him even if having it would be useful. He goes out of his way to aid a strangers who look troubled even if they are not asking for help.

HISTORY OF MENTAL ILLNESS

Grief over his mother's death held him back one year in school. During this time, he became an agoraphobic recluse.

TRIGGERS: Describe your character's trigger here. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec sapien elit, ultrices ac risus sed, viverra volutpat velit.

PHOBIAS: Minor motorphobia, a more than healthy fear of cars.

DEFENSE MECHANISM: Represses feelings, bottles up emotions.

THREAT-BASED MINDSET: He will flee. The ability to teleport is handy in these situations...at least until it causes him to lose one.

BIRTHPLACE: Little suburban hamlet near Alkae. Family home is near a rural area.

ENVIRONMENT: A very close-knit immediate family that works together to survive.

OVERALL HISTORY

CHILDHOOD: His memories from that time are a mess. He went to elementary school, met other students, and scribbled in his notebook, but it's all a giant blur. He can't differentiate one memory from the other.

What he does remember, albeit vaguely, is a morning when he was seven years old. It was something about wanting a treat from a cookie jar on top of the fridge. Something about knocking the jar over and breaking it while he was trying to reach it. Something about his mom helping him clean up the mess before kissing him goodbye on the cheek, after which she left the house in her car, drove through an intersection, and got hit by a drunk driver because not even magic could save her from a threat she didn't know was coming. Something about Dad urgently asking his relatives for a ride to the hospital, but by the time they got there, she was already gone.

Maybe if he hadn't been so selfish and left the cookie jar alone, Mom wouldn't have been at that intersection the drunk driver ran through.

He didn't leave his room after that. He developed agoraphobia and wouldn't leave the house for a year. His Dad and siblings tried to help him, telling him it wasn't his fault that she died, but nothing they said could convince him otherwise.

Somehow, he found the courage to step outside on his own. He had to restart first grade by the time he was ready to live life normally again, but he adjusted quickly. He found an interest in math; the way how equations always led to the answer as long as he followed the rules comforted him. Math was predictable in the way that life was not. As for his peers, they loved him for the way he always shared snacks and told jokes that made the others laugh. They referred to him as dependable, helpful, and kind. But whenever they started talking about their families, or his teachers invited them to make crafts for their parents, his mind returned to the kitchen with the broken cookie jar on the floor. Someone would then ask him if he was okay, to which he would reply that he felt fine.

He was not fine.

He doesn't remember the financial struggle either. Mom used to be their breadwinner—her status as a mage meant she had access to high-paying jobs whereas Tyler's magicless dad stayed at home to watch the kids. But with her passing, Dad scrambled to find a job that could support him and his three children. They went nights without dinner and tried to survive winters without heating to save on energy. The only reason why they had a roof over their heads is because the house was a gift from Mom's family before they found out she married a magicless man, to which they then cut her out from their lives, hence why they never showed up to her funeral.

When he was in middle school, Tyler's older siblings entered their late teens and picked up part-time jobs to help pay the bills. Tyler determined that he would do the same once he was old enough to, but they told him to focus on school instead. If he did well enough, he could earn a scholarship that would allow him to attend college for free. They knew he was already learning math two years above his grade level and told him to focus on getting even better at it.


ADOLESCENCE: When Dad was reading out Mom's will, she passed on her witch hat to Tyler. He treasured it as her final gift to him and wore it wherever he went. When he received his acceptance letter into the nation's prestigious Amaranth High School, he realized he would have to adhere to a dress code. He took the hat with him anyway and kept it in his room.

His roommates were, well...Harvey was nice, at least. Tyler could hardly believe he was in the same suite as a straight-A student until he remembered he was attending the country's most renowned high school.

Will, on the other hand, was actually insane. He probably killed someone before, and that was an accusation him and Harvey were dead serious about. Not that they ever told anyone out of fear for what Will would do to them, but they maintained it as their own little secret that nobody else knew.

As the years went by, classes got harder. The only subject Tyler didn't struggle in was math; everything else he was barely keeping on top of. Harvey maintained high grades all throughout their time in high school, but at a cost. Tyler would often wake up in the morning to find him studying in the suite lounge, not because he woke up earlier but because he never went to bed. When they talked about colleges, Harvey wanted to attend Alkae University, often ranked as the top school in the nation.

They were in junior year. Tyler thought he didn't have a chance at getting into AlkU until he signed up for his school's mathematics competition on a whim. He won the competition, and he was invited to enter the city-wide competition. He won that too. He ascended to the provincial level, and once again, he won. Suddenly, Tyler found himself standing on the national stage, where news outlets were shoving cameras and microphones at his face and asking him what he thought his chances of winning were. Tyler said he was grateful for making it this far, but this was where his luck was going to run out. He was going to lose, but he wanted to enjoy the competition for what it was worth.

Except, well, that was a lie. He won the nationals.

Amaranth celebrated his accomplishment like he was a hero returning from war. Harvey, who had been watching him compete from start to finish, bragged to everyone about the free lessons he received from Tyler that were the source of his A's in math. Suddenly, dozens of rich students were flocking to him in the hallways pleading for tutoring sessions for the exam that was coming next week. At Tyler's request, Harvey organized a time table and the package plans. Tyler said the prices were too high. Harvey assured him the students would pay for them, and they did.

Tyler sent most of the money and his winnings back home. When summer came, he continued tutoring while also picking up a part-time job. He still needed to fill up his college resume, after all. When senior year started, he and the rest of his classmates anticipated the posting of the class rankings. Harvey was constantly muttering about how he needed to be in the top ten, but Tyler was pretty desensitized to his behavior at this point and didn't think much of it. They went to see the results together once they were posted on the school's public bulletin.

He was happy with his rank at 45 out of 200. His friends were either celebrating or crying over their own rankings, and he was either receiving gratitude for his math help or offering reassurance to others that they had done their best. Out of curiosity, and because he couldn't find him, Tyler searched for Harvey's name and found him placed at 14th. Not top ten, and he was nowhere to be found among the crowd.

His gut told him to return to the dorms. He ran back and found the door to their suite unlocked. It was never unlocked whenever all three of them were out. He burst into Harvey's room. Inside, his friend was standing on a chair, attaching a noose to a hook he had installed in the ceiling. They had a long, tearful talk about what had led up to this.

ADULTHOOD: Tyler received a full ride scholarship to Alkae University on the condition that he earned his degree in a math-related major. Harvey was also accepted into AlkU but decided to take a gap year. Meanwhile, Will disappeared from their lives right after high school graduation.

He continued tutoring and working a summer job. All of the college credits Tyler had accrued in high school allowed him to receive his Bachelor's in mathematics a year early. He planned on finding real work with a good, stable income once he finished his Master's.

Unfortunately, his dreams came crashing down when armed men stormed his home only one month into his Master's program and shot his family to death. The captain of the squadron told him to blame Harvey for this mess. He locked an anti-magic collar around his throat and held him at gunpoint until Harvey arrived, just as the captain said he would. Apparently, Harvey had been blackmailed into serving this captain named Elmar in covert military operations for the past three years. If he didn't, the captain would kill Tyler and his family. Tonight, Harvey had evidently fucked up, and with how severely outnumbered he was, he had no other choice than to beg for Tyler's life on his hands and knees.

Elmar took out a syringe and jabbed the needle into Tyler's shoulder. It injected him with a lethal parasite that would destroy his internal organs. The only cure was in some place called Verboten Lab, and Harvey was to follow Elmar back there or Tyler would die in approximately 24 hours. Things weren't going to end well for Harvey, both of them knew that, but it wasn't as though he had a choice.

Then Will, their former roommate, came bursting through the window. Suddenly, all three of them were on a high speed car chase. They had a key to the anti-magic collar, and Tyler casted a spell that made the car impossible to see or find.

None of this made any sense to Tyler, as you can see, and he was still reeling from the murder of his family. So when it seemed like no one was looking, he pointed a finger to his head and shot a spell at himself to forget that this night ever happened, or at least allow him to unpack these memories at a later date. Because things were only going to get worse from here.

BEST MEMORY: High school prom night was wild in a good way.

WORST MEMORY: Hearing the news that his mom died. Witnessing the murder of his family. Catching Harvey when he was about to hang himself in his room.

SHORT-TERM GOALS: Keep Harvey alive and aid in the search for Verboten Lab.

LONG-TERM GOALS: Finish his education and get a good job. Originally it was so he could support his family, but now that they're all dead, it's just to prove that he can despite his circumstances.

INTERNAL CONFLICT: Being helpful in this context means hurting, lying, and killing. He struggles to determine if forgoing his morals is worth it to achieve his goals under these circumstances. Ultimately, he decides that it is, and his new dilemna is whether or not he can forgive himself for doing so and redeem himself after this is all over.

EXTERNAL CONFLICT: Trying to avoid getting violently killed.

CURRENT CONCERN: At the very beginning of story, it was working on his Master's thesis. It's still on his mind even after all the bad stuff happens.

VERBAL

ACCENT: Normal Areliese, doesn't sound like an accent to other people on the continent.

VERBAL TIC:

CATCHPHRASE:

SPOKEN LANGUAGE: Areliese

ARTICULATION: Simple and easy to understand, not very diverse in vocabulary.

BREATHING PATTERN: Normally slow. Gets winded easily from physical activity.

NONVERBAL

BODY MOVEMENT: Gesticulates a lot as if to make his statements clearer.

EXPRESSION: Very expressive, which makes it easy to know how much energy he has.

EMOTIONAL STATE: He is patient and mildly tempered, the inverse of Will and Harvey respectively.

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ABILITIES

Even among practitioners of magic, nobody knows what the true nature of witchcraft is. As far as Tyler knows, it allows him to manipulate physics, gives him some degree of control over the concept of space through the ability to create pocket dimensions and teleport, and tweak the human body to give him or his allies a boost at the cost of becoming doubly tired after the spell wears off. He also has an affinity for shadows; he can manifest shadows in the third dimension under his control, giving them mass and volume and the ability to exist without a light source.

To summon a familiar, a witch has to have bonded with an animal, and said animal needs to have died of means outside of their control. Additionally, the witch needs to know what their magical affinity is. After discovering that his affinity was shadows, Tyler gained the ability to summmon the late family pet Umbra, who died of old age, as his familiar. Umbra is a hairy dog resembling a Newfoundland. Other than her glowing eyes sharing the same color as Tyler's (one's eye color is the same as one's mana color), she looks almost identical to when she was alive as a familiar made of black shadows. She is very friendly and loves cuddling.

TALENTS

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SKILLS

Algebra, geometry, statistics, all math is easy to him. He treats every equation like a fun puzzle.

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TRIVIA

He uses magic to repair his hat periodically, and a spell keeps it from flying off his head every time he walks.

HOBBIES

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TVTROPES

TROPE NAME: Break the Cutie

Like, he really gets put through the grinder. He's gotten over his mom's death because she died when he was four, even the aftermath of that resulted in life-long traumatic consequences, but then his entire family gets murdered in front of him, and it's only Chapter 5. It's so bad that he casts a spell to repress the memories of their deaths because he knows he's not in an environment where he can process that grief, only for that spell to become undone when he goes through ANOTHER traumatic event where he loses his entire left arm. And that's Book 1.

TROPE NAME: Beware the Nice Ones

• Man freaking snaps—

TROPE NAME: Violence Really is the Answer

• —someone's spine in half.

REFSHEET

DESIGN NOTES

Link to full image

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MOODBOARD

PLAYLIST

Nicode - The Way We Were

Unlike Pluto - Everything Black

Kajiura Yuki - Flame of despair

ATTITUDE

TOWARDS STRANGER: He has a very...optimistic attitude toward strangers. Since he wants to believe that all people are better than they seem, he'll give anyone a chance, even if their appearance makes it very obvious that they mean harm. If they do try to hurt him, that's the point where he either runs away, or someone such as Harvey comes in to beat them up for him.

TOWARDS ACQUAINTANCE: Similar to his attitude toward strangers, but with more trust in the equation.

TOWARDS FRIENDS: He thrives around friends; it's the only time when he can loosen his rigid values of politeness and respect to have some chaotic fun. Even then, he still comes off as incredibly kind.

TOWARDS FAMILY: He dedicated much of his time and effort to making sure that he and his family didn't end up on the streets, from getting accepted into the nation's top high school to receiving a full-ride scholarship and taking up two part-time jobs. His mom taught him to value family, and he continued to do so until the day they all perished.

TOWARDS LOVERS: Aromantic babyyyyyyyyyy—

TOWARDS RIVAL: Friendly rivalries only, probably the type that encourages each other to do better.

TOWARDS ENEMY: He'd try to settle things peacefully if possible.