Aem's Smear

Aem comes from a modern-day England with magic hidden deep beneath the surface. Power comes at the cost of a contract, and dealing with supernatural beings is rarely safe or comprehensible. This lack of understanding has bred myths and omens over the years, many of them built upon a grain of truth. Ghosts, demons, fairies, monsters - they’re all human misinterpretations of magical encounters.

In the Smear, fragments of Aem’s long life in this world have shattered into haunted castles, twisted crime scenes, abandoned rituals, witch’s pyres, and the like. Echoes of the people who once lived or died there appear like shadow puppets against the walls, unable to speak or appear in darkness. They can only interact with other shadows, and whether or not they’re the helpful or the harmful sort isn’t always clear…

Within the Smear, time and space have smashed echoes of Aem’s world against Yukira’s. Within the future ruins of Yukira’s fantasy-world castle is the present-day version of Aem’s graveyard, a humble village field overgrown with wildflowers. Surrounding her castle ruins is a lush English countryside filled with numerous small castles and campsites from Aem’s past, each one frozen in time as if she just left. Though she was merely squatting in some areas, a few of the castles have remnants of ghost hunting equipment from the 1970s - bulky radio, microphone, camera, and cassette equipment. (Whether it works on actually contacting/recording ghosts is up to you!)

The people of Aem’s world are only shadows in the Smear. Each one is a person she knew in some way - meaning it’s likely that many of the shadows are her victims. It’s hard to tell which shadow is distinctly which, but sometimes you can recognize them by a hairstyle or body shape (so they can be recurring characters if you want!).

Shadows can only interact with other shadow, and cannot make sounds or effect physical objects. This doesn’t mean they can’t be interacted with, though! They can still hear and react to real people, and might be able to interact with ghosts (up to you). Shadows could be helpful, pointing the way or explaining themselves by charades, or they could be antagonistic and try to scare you or lead you astray.

Optionally, these areas within the Smear might well be affected by the many victims of Aem’s crimes. There could be partial crime scenes smeared by forgotten memories into strange symbolic hauntings, like swords with old blood hanging from a tree, historical guns sprouting from the castle parapets like flowers, cult-like ritual circles drawn in chalk and blood, the pyre where she was to be burned at the stake, etc.

There IS magic in Aem’s world, though it is deeply hidden and often ignored or misunderstood by mortals. Most sources of magic are from beings so powerful that mortal minds don’t truly perceive them. A few magicians have been successful at reaching out to these forces, often leaving behind legacies that spawn rumors or even cults of worship eager for a chance at such magic themselves. Aem was born to one such cult under an omen that foretold she would someday serve a magical purpose for one such being.

Mortals can command magic only by “contract” with a supernatural force. Though Aem has met other magicians, summoners, and supernatural beings on rare occasion, all have been tight-lipped and even the friendliest of them haven’t been able to explain their sources in depth. Many myths and legends are based upon a confused mortal’s interaction with magical creatures, but Aem hasn’t had much luck parsing the truth from fiction.

The force which Aem is contracted to is known to her only as “chaos,” since that is what her mentor called it. After centuries of research, Aem believes it is the source of the universe, the energy from which everything was made and will one day return. If this power has any sentience or sympathy, it is not a kind that Aem understands. Speculation based on her findings has led her to think of it as a creator who made a contract to live within a mortal in order to see its creation firsthand before it is destroyed. Her connection to chaos lets her use its power, but as she has never had a real teacher or found any comprehensible source of information about it, she struggles to use it in any sensible way.

For as long as she is under contract, Aem is immortal. She can use the chaotic energy that builds up inside her to heal injuries, though since the magic is not meant for this purpose, it is more like a “workaround” that’s painful to bear. However, if she does not use up the building energy within her, its nature cycles from creation to destruction, and rapidly disintegrates her body from the inside out. After she’s completely destroyed, the cycle turns again, and she is recreated painfully and chaotically. This agonizing process is what has driven Aem to become a serial killer over the centuries, inflicting torture upon others so she can repeatedly heal them until her power is under control, then killing them to avoid any witnesses.