Vivian Van Helsing

Name: Vivian Van Helsing

Nickname: V (pronounced Vee)

Real Name: Faith Clemente

Screen Name: XxDemonxQueenxX

Race: Human with Tiefling (or Demon) Ancestry

Bloodline: Levistus 

Class: Shadow Sorcerer

Age: 19

Birthday: April 15th

Alignment: Neutral Good

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Vivian was born as Faith Clemente, the oldest daughter of Matt and Jessica Clemente. She has two younger siblings, Mark and Elizabeth. She had a completely normal upbringing, attending public schools and hanging out with friends. Her relationship with her parents was relatively normal. They fought on occasion, but Vivian always felt loved and respected. At most, she would be grounded for occasional shoplifting or staying out late with her friends. Her parents didn’t love Vivian’s goth fashion or her music, but they were always active in listening to why she liked it. They also were not happy when their daughter decided to go around calling herself Vivian, but they only complained about it in private to Vivian, trying to convince her to choose a more appropriate name.
Vivian had a typical group of friends, the typical high school drama, and was a pretty good student. Yes, her friends were also extremely goth, all dressed in varying depths of black, but they were an exciting group to spend time with. Both Vivian and her friends were all motivated to attend good colleges. Vivian was actually accepted to most of the schools she applied to. She excitedly chatted with family and friends about her dreams of becoming a journalist or maybe writing her own novel.
Then, a month before graduation, Vivian celebrated her 18th birthday. Her parents paid for her and her friends to take a weekend trip to a lake house. When Vivian returned home, she found her parents smiling, waiting for her at the front door. Her father said, “We have a surprise for you,” and led Vivian back to the car.
As they drove, Vivian asked what was going on, trying to get information out of her parents. Her father only responded with a gruff, “It’s a surprise,” while her mother stayed silent. The three of them drove into the city of Chicago, until they reached a relatively nice apartment building. Vivian’s father turned and handed her a key, “Apartment 1061, it’s all yours. We’ll be up in a second.” Vivian squealed, snatched the key, and hugged her parents from behind, whispering “I love you!” She ran up to her new apartment and discovered her parents had already moved all her stuff in.
At first, she was overwhelmed and overjoyed. But slowly, she realized her parents were kicking her out. And then, the minutes ticked by, and Vivian realized her parents hadn’t followed her up. She returned to the lobby, and found her parents and her car car gone. The man at the front desk said the car that dropped her off had already left. Her parents had left her and taken her car. Vivian frantically called her parents, only to discover that their numbers couldn’t be reached. She called her siblings, who also couldn’t be reached. She ran back upstairs to see if she could contact anyone in her family, only to discover that she couldn’t reach anyone, not even her extended family. In a panic she called her friends, who she had been laughing with that same morning, but her friend shouted at her over the phone, calling her every name under the sun and then blocking her.  Her other friends had done the same.
After breaking down, Vivian discovered a letter on her bed, addressed to her from her parents. Simply, it stated that they had only tolerated her until now but they would no longer allow her in their lives. The letter said that they had already paid for her apartment and utilities for the next ten years, but she was now on her own for everything else.
Vivian panicked, like anyone would. She had a decent amount of money saved from part time jobs and gifts, but her entire life was uprooted in a single day for no reason. Vivian tried to return home, but found the house was vacant, recently sold. She went to see her friends, only to be screamed at and have the cops called for her trespassing. Eventually, she returned to her apartment, defeated. She realized she had to give up on her old life, even if she didn’t know why. For the next two weeks, she developed horrible migraines and struggled to get out of bed. She barely surVivianed, her apartment still not unpacked.
And then, one morning, the pain in her head stopped, and Vivian finally had the strength to start moving on. She got a job at the DMV nearby, registered for classes with a local community college that offered online courses, and started figuring out how to live her life. While it hurt to lose everything (a pain she can never truly recover from), Vivian had freedom. Occasionally, Vivian would still have terrible headaches, but nothing like those first two weeks.
She began attending late night goth raves and goth clubs to take her mind off of everything, running schemes at work to get fake IDs. Even though she was underage, her dramatic makeup and bubbly personality made it so no one suspected her. She was desperate for some level of connection, to feel like there was somewhere she belonged. But despite how genuinely friendly or helpful someone was, Vivian could never consider them as anything more than an acquaintance. She could never get close to anyone again, terrified that they would one day uproot her life and betray her.
Then, six months later, Vivian woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and discovered that she had two small bumps growing along her hairline. Over the next week, they grew, each with a solid mass underneath the skin. And then, the masses broke through her skin, each growing gradually into horns, about one inch long. Without a way to pay for a doctor, Vivian tried to avoid worrying about the horns but they weighed on her mind more each day.
One night, Vivian decided to put on a face mask, light some candles, and take a bath. Maybe the eucalyptus face mask would clear up her new skin condition. But as she went to light the candles, her lighter stopped working. She sighed, tossed the lighter to the side, then jokingly snapped her fingers and whispered, “can’t one thing go right? Just light already.”
A small ember jumped from her finger to the candle, lighting it.
Vivian yelped and jumped back, rationalizing this as the candle wick just now catching. She laughed at her overreaction, turned to another candle, and snapped her fingers at it, saying, “It’s not like this will really work.”
The candle lit up across the room.
After freaking out for over an hour, long enough to make her bath unappealing, Vivian began practicing. She wanted to see if she could do this regularly. She taught herself new ways of crafting magic, learning what new spells she could perform. Then, she started researching internet forums for anyone with a similar experience or any insights into the world she found herself in. She found some advice, practiced new spells, and then eventually stumbled on some other forum posts from people in Chicago.
For the next six months, Vivian began to practice her magic rigorously, learning what she could use her powers for. She experimented with what spells she could perform, how strong she could make her spells, what she had to do to cast them, and what effect they had on her body. She made a few online friends, both in the city of Chicago and around the world, who would give advice on how to improve her spellcasting ability and where the best places to practice would be. She wrote down everything in a small journal, keeping track of her discoveries through detailed note taking.
Vivian felt like she was growing exponentially with the help of her new friends. But, as she approached the one year anniversary of her new life, she started to notice that she had stagnated. She struggled to teach herself new spells and was not seeing any improvement in the spells she did know. This was the only thing she had in her life, the coping mechanism she used to bottle up her grief, so she desperately began working on ways to get more experience.
First, she met up with another forum user who went by the username MissBlackCat. V’s first meeting with MissBlackCat was at a coffee house, where she met her new companion. The girl's real name is Rowan Carson, age 17. Rowan herself did not know much magic. She could perform some basic prestidigitation, conjuring small magic tricks like reheating her coffee or instantly removing a stain, which already impressed V. But, Rowan swore her grandfather was a real wizard, who could perform amazing feats of magic and Rowan proudly proclaimed that she was his apprentice.
Over the next few months, V would meet with both Rowan and her grandfather a number of times. She and Rowan grew close, though they saw each other only sparingly due to Rowan’s school schedule. V spent a lot of time with Rowan’s grandfather, Marcel Carson, who was a real wizard. He taught V a few tricks he knew, and helped her figure out how to focus her magic. He even gifted her a wand and a magical hat as Christmas gifts.
While Rowan and Marcel were the two people V was closest to, she realized that they didn’t have the answers for what was happening to her. Vivian realized  that she needed real world experience. She needed to see more of the underworld and learn more about the magic power she wielded. And, she needed answers about the horns that sprouted from her forehead, slowly but steadily growing longer.

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Fun Facts
V paints her horns red using horse hoof polish (because it comes in bigger containers with a larger brush) and does touch ups with red nail polish. The horns are naturally a blue-black, with the tips lightening to a deep blue.