Profile
Overview
Caught practicing magic in a fairytale logic village that didn't much like risks to the leader's uncontested standing or women having power through their own means, Hazel was tried before the council and punished by having her true name taken from her through stolen fae artifacts the otherwise non-magical council members wielded without truly understanding. When she was still able to perform magic—her name had nothing to do with all her study and knowledge—she was decried as a witch and chased out of the town.
When a knight came for the Witch where she'd taken up refuge in the woods, she fought back, losing her eye in the scuffle and killing him in a desperate bid to keep her life. Shaken, she sought distance and the safety that came with it. Through a series of magical mishaps, she found her way to the Universeity.
Immortal deities had set up the Universeity and reluctantly allowed mortals to stay when they began worming their way from all sorts of dimensions into their academy built in the wall of space-time. To keep the peace without becoming overly involved themselves, the extraplanar beings granted a student council fragments of their power with which to enforce the school's primary rule for mortals: no studying outside your world's capabilities. Those from futuristic space stations could not take magic classes, and sorcerers weren't allowed to study robotics. Defiant as ever, Witch found her way into the Black Catalog, an underground coalition of students which secretly stood against the student council under the noses of the planes' rulers to share knowledge amongst each other. Here, Witch learned to combine her magical abilities with other worlds' technology, and crafted herself a robotic Crow to serve vs her familiar, and a replacement eye.
Now, the student council and the Black Catalog approach an all-out war despite their usual attempts to keep things under wraps to keep the deities in charge from kicking them all out. Witch, as she's left to go by, quickly ends up in the middle of it all when her disagreements with the Catalog's methods reach a boiling point and her friend becomes everyone's target after a sentient book containing a spell to kill gods attaches itself to him. Looming over her the whole time is the desperate fear that she has no home to go back to—as long as she means to stay alive, at least.
The world Witch hails from is a fantastical late-medieval Europe-ish analogue that runs on classic fairytale logic. Her village in particular is a mix of vaguely Scandanavian and vaguely Gaelic but not really. Magic is real and common enough that everyone is aware of it and its different forms, but in her hometown in particular, it is completely disallowed. Magic is thought to be borne of pacts with demons or fae, while really, anyone can learn it with the same discipline one might learn to create art with. Her home is wildly patriarchal; women are forbidden their own status and power, though with more subtle machinations. In general, the Council overseeing her village reigns supreme, and does so through use of stolen fae artifacts, deeming themselves the only ones able to control the externally sourced power.
Fae are understood as typical otherworldly trickster figures as is true in most real-world mythologies, especially old Irish stories. Many problem children's behaviors result in whispers of changelings, which are real, though few have ever known they've met one. True names are kept guarded around any outsiders, as a fae can wield great power over you with it.
The Universeity is the world she's ended up in. It exists in a gap in the multiverse run and ruled by immortals gods. Mortals, being the way they are, have ended up there from a variety of different worlds by all sorts of means, through Witch's mostly-accidental tearing through the fabric of spacetime to cyborgs from distant futures going through a more formal application process. The leaders of the Universeity have reluctantly accepted an inability to keep mortals out, like ants in an old apartment, but with one condition: students may not study anything impossible in their own world. Someone like Witch can trade spellcasting tips with other mages but would be forbidden to learn robotics, and worlds without magic may not try to practice it themselves. Not wanting to deal with the mortal presence, the gods granted some students smidgens of their power to let them keep the others in line, dubbing them the Student Council. In defiance of these rules, a second group sprung up: the Black Catalog, named for the compendium of knowledge they keep and share between each other against school code. Here's how you get cyborg wizards or witches with robotic prostheses. The Student Council and Black Catalog are constantly battling each other in a deadlock, but with the mutual understanding that overdoing it and getting noticed by the deities in charge would just get everyone involved kicked out of the Universeity.
please use this image as the main reference!
- hair is longer in the front than in the back, bangs are swooped and messy over the left, patch-covered eye
- thick eyebrows, big triangular nose, round babyface covered in freckles, incurable resting bitchface
- atrociously high femme goth fashion style: all black everything with red or purple accessories, heavy makeup including black or red or purple lipstick and flawless eyeliner game, lots of jewelry, lots of ear piercings
- liberties with her jewelry and makeup are permitted and encouraged, so long as they stick to her gothic/witchy style!
- pointed witch hat is a must. usually there's a cape too
- she has multiple eye patches that are worn interchangably
wip!!!
If Hazel Lockwood had been named anything else, she might not have gotten into so much trouble. Alas, a name sounding like that begets some mischief.
- Witch's original world is a podunk little village in a Vaguely Medieval European (kind of Scandinavian/Irish) Fantasy sort of setting running on fairytale logic and also fully entrenched in patriarchal structures. Magic exists, but is strictly condemned, especially by the Council ruling her village. She grows up here as Hazel Lockwood, who is quiet and quirky, raised by parents who are not neglectful but are distant.
- When they're both 14 or so, Witch moves in with her best friend Nessa following the death of the latter's parents. They keep a small few livestock and sell eggs and wool and milk; Hazel is good at building and has optimized her spinning wheel so she can spin thread out of sheep and goat shearings faster than anyone else, she builds the chicken coop and fixes their gates and likes to use her hands. Nessa takes care of the animals and tends the garden and does most of the dealing with people.
- Hazel learns to do magic after ending up deep in the woods chasing a chicken and acquiring a fae artifact. Always one with a mind for mechanics, she takes it apart and learns how it ticks in secret and discovers that magic is a learned thing, instead of being borne of either contracts with fae or devils, or a natural skill, like the world assumes.
- After a while of performing her studies in secret, she is caught and turned into the Council by Nessa. The Council uses their own fae artifact (a stolen item they keep under the pretense that only they can be trusted with the evils of magic) to steal Hazel's true name, assuming she is under a magic contract and this will break it, and sends her on her way.
- The now nameless girl, having learned precisely nothing apparently, continues her studies in further secrecy. She slips up and is caught again, but flees into the woods before she can be taken for trial and presumably condemned as a witch and killed. She spends a couple of weeks basically just camping out while trying to figure out what the fuck to do next.
- Before she gets that chance, a knight from the main kingdom arrives with the intention of killing her per the village's plea. A fight ensues; the nameless girl has no experience in battle but has the home field advantage, as it were, being deeply familiar with these woods and their magic. The knight manages to slash her face, ruining her eye, but she manages to kill him.
- Injured and desperate, knowing she will never be safe here, the girl who will be Witch concocts a teleportation spell with no real destination in mind. She overshoots dramatically and ends up tearing a hole in space-time, entering the Universeity.
- The Universeity is a demiplane created by a loose coalition of immortal beings—gods, demons, etc. It was intended to be a neutral ground dedicated to research, study, and the cataloguing of knowledge, but mortals kept worming their way in there whether they liked it or not. Accepting that mortals just kind of be like that, the immortals just kind of went "ugh, fine," but set some limitations: mortals were only permitted to study things already in existence in their home worlds. No sci-fi folks learning magic, no mages learning about spaceships. To enforce these rules, the immortals offered a select few mortals slivers of their power, creating the Student Council. In the sub-sub-sub basements of the Universeity, a loose coalition of anarchic students teaching classes about forbidden subjects and sharing knowledge amongst themselves rose in opposition to the Student Council, calling themselves the Black Catalog. The two groups get into regular fights, where the Black Catalog cannot possibly match the Student Council's raw power and keeps up with tactics made from combining skills that were never meant to have anything to do with each other. Still, they try to keep the fights relatively on the down-low, because if they make too much of a mess the immortals will kick everyone out.
- So the girl who will choose the alias Witch arrives at the Universeity. Her injury is healed and she's enrolled in classes. She befriends an alien gunsmith who eventually introduces her to the Black Catalog; Witch, who has never been partial to restrictions on studies, is incredibly eager to join. Eventually she learns mechanics and robotics well enough to craft herself a bionic eye and a robotic familiar. Her eye is kept covered and her Crow's robotic nature is kept secret.
- Along the way, she finds herself increasingly disapproving of the Black Catalog's methods, which include a lot of studying for its sake and not paying any mind to the ethics of what they're doing. This culminates when a student named Eveline creates a Homunculus, just a whole-ass person who is meant to be nothing more than a database and information repository and is never actually treated like a person. Witch is Big Mad about this, but doesn't have any standing to do anything about it except slowly befriend the Homunculus.
- Witch also befriends a fellow mage named Sebastian, who is a scrawny nerd who's just here to study and oblivious to all of the Black Catalog's shenanigans. Witch doesn't tell him. They bond over both being nerds.
- Eventually, through shenanigans, a sentient book binds itself to Sebastian. The book contains a spell that can kill immortals—and once people find out about that, chaos ensues. The Black Catalog wants to study it, the Student Council wants to destroy it, and none of them are especially concerned about what happens to Sebastian, whom they have to go through to get it because the two are bound. Witch immediately betrays the Black Catalog to protect him.
- Along the way in this adventure, team Sebastian Defense Squad grows and they meet Nemo, a girl with crippling social anxiety and stunning ninja skills; Tangram, an extradimensional alien being who eats magic items and is mostly here because all of Sebastian's opponents come with snacks for them; Saros, a former member of the Student Council who switches sides after falling in love with Nemo; and eventually the Homunculus, who Witch steals from the Black Catalog basement so that they can, you know, be a person.
- inflicted with incurable resting bitchface; between this and a general lack of desire for companionship, she tends to come across as cool and distant
- a nerd; she gets incredibly passionate about her studies and learning in general, and takes immense interests in other people's passions, even if they aren't her thing, because nothing's better than something someone cares a lot about
- blunt; she speaks plainly, often to the point of being kind of a smartass. ultimately, Witch doesn't really value other people's opinions of her, so she doesn't see any reason not to say just what she's thinking
- concerned for your safety; she's used to being the single reasonable competent person in her friends group and has been slotted into the role of making sure the local demon doesn't consume anything that could trigger their moonlight allergy and that their agoraphobe eats at all and that nobody gets killed. she does so very casually, without making it a thing, but she's got that hyper vigilance shit going on and as such is the best-equipped to help everyone manage the minutia
- a scholar; her greatest passion is learning, and she's willing to give up a lot for it. Witch loves to learn, loves to teach, and loves—more than anything—to find ways to apply her research. learning for its sake is a joy in and of itself, but nothing makes her happier than using that knowledge in ways that make things better for people
- righteously furious about Ethics In Academics; she's a strong believer in progress and open sharing of knowledge, but also that if you don't sit down and make sure your creations and studies aren't going to hurt anyone, then your studies are less than worthless. living the double major science/humanities life
- terrified of returning home; banishing her to the woods obviously wasn't a good enough end to her, and even if she wanted to keep fighting the forces her hometown will send to kill her (she doesn't), she's not good enough to keep fighting them back
- learning magic for the sake of it; she loves learning and doing but firmly believes that you have to reflect on anything you mean to create to make sure you aren't causing harm for it
- violent; she has a non-insignificant amount of baggage from the death of the knight who tried to kill her left unaddressed
- the mom friend; she looks out for the people she cares about, but won't fuss or hen or overly involve herself in their emotional affairs
- going to try to fix anyone; she brings her agoraphobic friend lunch to make sure avoiding a cafeteria full of people means she doesn't eat, asks the homunculus someone built in the basement and then ignored for her opinions and treats her with kind dignity, and stays out of the way of the mad science supervillain when she defects to Witch's friends' side despite a host of moral disagreements, but doesn't go out of her way to teach them how to interact with people, how to accept your own personhood, or how not to be a rat bastard
- lonely; she's fairly aloof, and largely content with doing her own thing. she feels no strong need to seek out company
- self-conscious; she carries herself with confidence, and while she doesn't necessarily think she's a good person, she doesn't fret about the way she presents herself to the world
- Magic
- Enchantments
- Witch's prosthetic eye is a blend of all her best magical and technological prowess. Besides functioning as a regular eye capable of simple vision, its features include:
- Taking and providing exact measurements of size or distance (in part to compensate for issues with depth perception)
- Analyzation: Witch's eye is able to instantaneously provide a litany of information about things in line of sight she chooses to scan. While the database of information the eye pulls from is vast due to the breadth of her research and that of those who've aided in it, it's still manually curated, so the eye is limited by her own knowledge. Attempts to scan completely unfamiliar objects or phenomena will not return any useful data beyond the unknown status of it.
- Magical analyzation: By scanning magical items or phenomena with her eye, Witch can retrieve information about its ingredients, components, function, and source.
- Technological analyzation: While Witch cannot use her eye to break into a piece of high-level technological equipment's programming, she can break down its basic components and function based on her previous experiences.
- Mundane analyzation: Scanning more regular items will inform Witch that they are not, in fact, magical in nature, and still break them down to more basic components. This allows her to, at a glance, determine the edibility or toxicity of foodstuffs or fauna, figure out what material a structure is made of, and other such uses.
- People: Witch doesn't have much need to break anyone down to basic biological functions, but can, at least, scan a person in order to confirm that they're human or not. This is rarely necessary and she doesn't care to snoop, so she doesn't usually scan people.
- Other: While the eye may not be able to provide much useful information on things yet unfamiliar to Witch, it will at least be able to confirm the lack of presence of things or phenomena that she would recognize.
- Infrared and night vision.
- "Witch" is an alias used in lieu of her stolen true name. Lacking it hinders some of her magical abilities, and the only way to regain it is if someone calls her by her true name intentionally and purposefully. That isn't easy to do, though, as magic within her physically blocks her from speaking her own name, or even discussing the situation; as is true of any dealings with fae, she has to resort to wordplay and talking around the situation if it comes up. Because she lacks access to her true name, Witch is prohibited from most types of magical pacts or offering things like her hair or blood as components, as, for example, that blood doesn't belong to her, it belongs to Hazel, and she can't lay claim to being Hazel, as that name is in someone else's possession.
- Technological skills
wip!!!
Nessa
Hazel's oldest friend. Witch has never truly recovered from her betrayal.
Xeni
An alien gunsmith, fellow member of the Black Catalog, and one of Witch's first friends at the Universeity. After spending some time as classmates, Xeni invited Witch to join the Black Catalog. While Witch carried misgivings for some time, it was the creation of the Homunculus that made Witch realize their differences were irreconciliable. Though Xeni is nothing like Nessa, Witch cannot help but compare them since their split.
Sebastian
A Universeity classmate with whom Witch first bonded with over a mutual nerdy passion for magic. When the Black Catalog targeted him over the Book, which he brought to her first, she betrayed them immediately to protect him. She can be a little smothering, but wants to see him well. Unfortunately, due to his current circumstances of possessing a sentient book containing a god-killing spell that everyone wants their hands on, such isn't especially possible without Witch's defense.
Nemo
tba
Homunculus
Witch is not the mom friend, but she's basically Homunclus's mom friend.
Tangram
An extradimensional alien being attending the Universeity who just sort of rolled up and invited themselves into the group upon discovering that where fighting happened, there were magical items to eat. That the magic items affect them in various ways but aren't generally harmful makes them an excellent test subject; they'll let her take notes in exchange for food. She scans items to check for moonlight so as not to trigger Tangram's allergy.
Saros
A fellow classmate at the Universeity, and a member of the Student Council. Abruptly allied herself with Witch's friends when Nemo did, more out of a crush than any particular moral alignment. This displeased Witch, who had fought with Saros more than once. While Saros is far from Witch's favorite person and one would struggle to really call them friends, Witch has warmed up to her considerably as Saros has chosen for herself to support their cause.
Enchant
A fellow classmate at the Universeity and member of the Black Catalog whose primary passion is pushing the limits of her scientific capabilities for funsies. The absolute antithesis of everything Witch stands for. A series of compromises has left Witch tolerant of Enchant's presence among her group of friends, since she does come around after an antagonistic beginning, but she would prefer to have as little to do with her as possible, despite Enchant's many attempts to win over her affection.
Eveline
A fellow student of the Universeity and member of the Black Catalog, and the only person who has ever provoked Witch to violence.
- Her voice is Laura Bailey as Kainé in Nier, but with the cadence of Melanie Lynskey as Beatrice in Over the Garden Wall.
- Despite having a massive digital database of information right in her eye socket, Witch enjoys the process of writing things down, and keeps massive amounts of handwritten notes. She's one of those people who owns too many notebooks, but they do all eventually get used.
- Witch is a vegetarian. She generally opts not to make a whole thing about it, but she doesn't like the idea of anything dying to be on her plate. That, and raising and getting attached to livestock herself made her soft.
- Her western zodiac sign is Aquarius.
- She's one of those people who drinks too much coffee/tea and then leaves like a bazillion mugs up and down her living space, and then eventually remembers to clean them all in one go and does not tell herself the truth when she goes "okay well we can't let that happen again."
- Her usual breakfast is just a coffee. She prefers an iced coffee with a little bit of milk.
- She subscribes to the witchy aesthetic of having a million little jars full of things: screws, herbs, rocks, wires...
- She keeps a garden at the Universeity which she claims is just for her own witchy herb needs, but grows plenty of vegetables as well that she allows others to take. She also keeps window boxes of herbs and flowers for spellcasting.
Likes
Anything handmadeBlack
Sparkly things
Birds
Dogs
Dislikes
Bright colorsCats (they make a mess of her things)
Men in power
Fae
Poor handwriting
Impulsive people
- Wand: Wooden and as long as her forearm. Minor technological upgrades, including a battery-powered flashlight and literally just a taser.
- Crow: A robotic crow that acts as her familiar. He looks and functions like a regular crow, and is only identifiable as biological upon very close inspection, or with powers that would let someone discern such a thing. Those with the ability to talk to animals may or may not actually be able to speak to him, but he is sapient. Witch calls him Crow, to match her, and treats him as any good witch would treat their familiar.
- Broomstick: Like, you know, to fly on. This has been given minor technological upgrades for ease of balance, improved autopilot capabilities, steadier flight, and heavier carrying capacities. It's still mostly just your expected witch's flying broomstick, though. You could sweep with it if you wanted.
- Toolbox: Witch's toolbox consists of the expected fare, such as her screwdriver collection and a hammer, as well as basic spellcasting and potion-brewing components (pressed plants, river water, crystals).
