Taboo
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Arch Mage of Paragon City | |
| Taboo | |
| Player: @Velvet Phantom | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Controller |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Courtney Williams |
| Known Aliases: | Tabs, Boo, The White Witch |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 33 |
| Height: | 5'8" |
| Weight: | 125 lbs |
| Eye Color: | Blue |
| Hair Color: | Red |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Witch, Consultant at M.A.G.I. |
| Place of Birth: | Bangor, MA |
| Base of Operations: | Salamanca, Paragon City, RI |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Arthur Williams-Father (deceased), Gwendolyn Williams-Mother, Seymour Williams-Brother |
| Known Powers | |
| Spirit Realm, Illusionary and Healing Magical Abilities | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Budding Psychic powers, increases in offensive and defensive magics. | |
| Equipment | |
| Crey Experimental Freeze Pistol, The Black Staff | |
| Recently purchased the Estate in Salamanca, 1313 Moonlight Way. | |
Contents |
Affiliations
Taboo associated with M.A.G.I. as a consultant and frequently helps Azuria track down and retrieve magical artifacts for the vaults in Atlas Park. She is personal friends with some of Paragon City’s most powerful mystical heroes, such as Granthis, Eldria, Dr. Helstrom, and Wild Thyme just to name a few. Recently Taboo has taken on an apprentice named Gailwind. She hopes to guide the young woman along the path of magic. With the purchase of an Estate in Salamanca, Taboo has founded the magical orginzation Moonlight Way, named after the street address. She has taken in some other magical based heroes, some in an effort to teach them as well.
Personality
Taboo is very much the opposite of the traditional brooding mage that many have come to associate with the mystical arts. She is outgoing and friendly, and tries her best to be approachable by anyone. However, she does have a very sarcastic sense of humor which has gotten her into trouble on more then one occasion. To this end her costume choices now tend towards white and gold and are more or less traditional. She can have darker, brooding moments, chasing whatever demons her encounter with the Circle of Thorns left within her, but these moments are fleeting and never last very long.
Powers
Taboo is known as an Arch Mage and therefore commands several powerful magical abilities.
Illusionary Magics
Taboo has control over some powerful illusionary magical forces. She can cause someone to believe they are wounded, sometimes to the point that the loose consciousness, also she can block the brains ability to interpret the optical senses rendering the subject effetely blind for a brief period of time. She can also draw forth people’s deepest fears, sometimes paralyzing them in the middle of a fight. She can even turn herself invisible and almost completely undetectable by her foes.
Healing Magics
Taboo maintains a strong connection to the Spirit Realm, which allows her to heal the wounds of others. She can spread this magical energy around herself in a aura, which not only heals her wounds, but those of others as well. She can also direct this healing on one person, which has a more profound effect. She has been known to bring a spirit back to its body that lies on the brink of death. She can also imbue her magical healing energies on others allowing them to heal at an increadiable rate, and even staves off exhaustion. Taboo can also calm another’s mind, allowing them to resist and break free of many villainous mind attacks.
Spirit Realm Powers
Taboo’s main field of study is the Spirit Realm, a mytcial realm that borders our own dimension. Taboo has learned that she can open a mystical gateway which allows her to move from one place to another without crossing the space in between, at least within this world. She can also use the “teleportaion” ability to bring others to her, allowing friendly spirits that she has contacted to protest the person during their brief stay within the Realm. She can also call forth powerful fallen heroes of a bygone age to fight on her behalf. These mighty warriors are impervious to almost all forms of attacks against them. Taboo has one Spirit that she can summon, while not as powerful, stays with her far longer. Taboo has treated this particular spirit more as a friend then a servant or pet.
Psychic Powers
Taboo has only begun to unlock her own Psychic Magics, at the moment she is working more on preventing others from taking control of her, or using similar Illusionary magics such as she herself employs, against her. However, as her experience with the Magical Arts continues to grow, so too does her own powers, and it only a matter of time before she uncaps her potential with her Psychic powers. She has recently discovered that she can detect the aura of different people, demons, undead, etc.
Other abilities
Taboo has gained considerable power fighting against some of the most powerful threats that have threatened Paragon City. She has fought against the magical threats in Croatoa and been granted a boon to her powers from that, as well as achieving the title of Arch Mage from the office of M.A.G.I. This by defeating many of the City’s premiere sorceress threats such as the Circle of Thorns Mages, the Tsoo Sorcerers, the Spirit Masks of the Banished Pantheon and even the summoned against of the dreaded Master Illusionists of the Carnival Shadows. She has a powerful Black Staff she captured from the vile wizards of the Circle of Thorns and has even managed to capture an experimental Freeze Pistol created by Crey Technologies.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Despite the incredible magical power that Taboo has at her disposal, she is still only human. She is not super strong or tough and relies mostly on her own ability to remain hidden behind her Illusionary Invisibility, while using her Spirits to fight on her behalf. And even though she can heal, many of the City’s various Villain threats can overwhelm the ability.
Character History
The young red head held up the delicate glass beaker and gently poured the blue liquid from the other smaller glass bottle into the contents of the beaker, watching the reaction carefully. She smiled to herself as the colorless liquid in the beaker took on a glowing greenish quality. Her sapphire eyes glanced to the large mystical tome open next to her once again scanning the ancient text to make sure her calculations were correct. The laptop she had used to do the calculations was next to the tome, a strange paradox if anyone besides her were there to see it. Much of her workshop, as she called it, was the same, a mixture of what many would consider typical trappings of a mystical sanctum, and others, her laptop, the ipod, and her CD player I the corner, were out of place, technological anachronisms in her magical workshop. Even the young woman herself, in her Paragon City University T-shirt and shorts seemed out of place.
“Hmmmm…..” she said to herself. “Looks like the Circle had one right for a change.”
“Merrrooww..?” came the reply from the room’s only other inhabitant.
“Yes Gypsy, it seems that Taboo’s latest foray into Orenbega paid off,” she answered her feline companion, to which the small black cat only rolled over on her side and licked a paw.
The young woman shook her head slightly with a smile and went back to the words in the tome once again. Her mind however, drifted back in time, to that fateful day when her interest in the occult took a very drastic turn.
Courtney Williams was a undergraduate student at Paragon University, studying both :Languages and Archaeology. She however, harbored a fascination in the occult, which in Paragon City could be a bad thing with the different types of occult villains that inhabit the city and its surrounding areas. Courtney had joined a club at college, an occult book club that was meeting that night. She was hurrying across the street in King’s Row towards the tram which would take her back to the campus. She was not paying as much attention to her surroundings as she was supposed to. And man in a black robe with a long pointed sword came up behind her and grabbed her around the waist and pulling her into the alleyway. She was too scared to even scream as she looked at the men surrounding her. A man in a green robe with a bald head appeared to be in charge, he was directing the others in the black robes with the strange glowing eyes. Courtney had never been so scared her life. “You are very fortunate young woman,” said the bald man, his breath smelled of rotting vegetables, and his eyes held no pity, “you have been selected to have your life forever changed and assist us in gaining more power.” Courtney felt anything but fortunate. The men around her began to chant and as she was released by the one all she wanted to do was run, flee into the darkness as fast as she could. But, some force held her in place and as she looked about her a greenish glow enveloped her and she rose off the ground several feet. She could feel the energy around her gathering, and something more…..something sinister was touching her mind. Something that was letting her know how small and insignificant she was. Something that she knew in her heart was preparing to take her place within her own body. Courtney didn’t know what would become of her, all she could see was a swirling darkness before her, a never ending abyss that she was soon to become lost within. Then, suddenly she was falling to the hard concrete, her knee scraped the ground and began to bleed, as did the palm of her left hand. She looked around and, impossibly the men were fighting someone, a costumed adventurer who had come upon them in their vile ritual. Courtney’s mind could not wrap itself around what was happening, all she knew was that she had been pulled back from near death by someone. She remembered thanking the hero, almost as an afterthought and then, as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone. Courtney made her way to the tram slowly, as if in a daze, passing people who resembled nothing so much as shadows, just reflections of what they are instead of flesh and blood. Courtney sat within the terminal for what seemed like hours, days, she lost track of time all together.
“Miss…?” A hand settled on her shoulder, it was attached to a man, looking down at her with concern plainly written on his face. “Are you okay?”
It was then that Courtney finally found her voice and screamed.
It was a warm spring day in Atlas Park when Azuria came out of City Hall. She had been called away to see someone in the local asylum that was exhibiting, “unusual talents” was what the paper said. She looked again at the address and made her way to her car, parked just outside. Her work at M.A.G.I. was important, not only to her, but to the fledgling heroes coming into Paragon City who had a magical bent to their powers. Azuria knew quite well how misuse and little understanding could be disastrous for the city, and indeed the world beyond as well. She was newly appointed, and these little side trips were part of her duties. She sighed to herself and looked forward to the day when she might have a larger staff to help her. But, for now that day seemed far off. Azuria took the highway that led outside of Paragon City proper and headed for her destination, her mind already working on what “unusual” could mean exactly.
Dr. Malcolm McIntyre walked along the sterile white halls of the wing in which his patient resided and again took a quick look at her chart. A normal college student, only 19 years old, a freshman, residing in Paragon City, attacked by some costumed lunatics and apparently saved by one of the numerous costumed adventurers that had taken up residence there. That much had been provided a little by the patient herself, but mostly by eyewitnesses from the scene. It had been two weeks since the incident and still, Miss Williams was still in a very agitated state. And what was worse, her room and surroundings had started to become, well a little strange. Many of the staff had started to refuse to go into her room, claiming that she scared them. Others would say she had somehow escaped her room, only to found inside a few moments later. But, some of the other patience’s were being drawn to her, some exhibiting a clarity of mind that they had not demonstrated in years. Finally the administrator had contacted Paragon City Hall, and they said that they were sending an “expert” on what was going on. The thirty three-year-old doctor certainly hoped so, he was running out of options and treatments.
Azuria looked at the young woman, although not just with normal eyes. Her vision included a look at the young woman’s aura, and that was more telling then any instruments that the asylum had on hand. The dark hared mystic had seen victims of the Circle of Thorns before, she had even spent some time battling the vicious mages and demons herself. She recognized their signature on this poor unfortunate, but the young woman had talent of her own, and that is what warred within her now. There was nothing that this place could do for her, Azuria was already on the phone while the Doctor stood next to her attempting to explain what he thought might be going on. There was a group in Tibet, they were the only ones who could help the young woman now.
It had been over three years since Azuria had seen the young woman standing before her inside City Hall’s M.A.G.I. section for the newer heroes. Despite the time that had elapsed Azura remembered the young woman very well.
“Well, well it is good to see you again Courtney.” Azuria said to the young costumed woman, she smiled at the red head and received an answering smile in return..
“It’s Taboo now Azuria,” she stepped forward and embraced the M.A.G.I. representative warmly, “and it very good to see you again as well.”
“So, you decided to come back here where it all began.” Azuria said as she steeped back and looked again at the red head, trying to gage her with her own “Sight”/ “And I sense that you are ready to continue your journey within the veil.”
“It is only right, as it began here” she answered simply.
“You know that you have a difficult path before you?” Azuria asked the young woman.
“Yes” she said quietly.
“Taboo huh?” She changed the subject quickly, “an interesting choice for a cape name.”
“Appropriate don’t you think?” she retorted with a smile.
Azuria just smiled and nodded at her friend. She then looked her over one final time, as if deciding on something, then she took on her more solemn tone and told Taboo of her first task for the M.A.G.I. office.
Courtney’s thoughts were brought back to the present by the feeling of Gypsy rubbing against her left leg. She smiled down at her black feline friend and picked her up as she wondered over to her table, the tome on the far table all but forgotten, as she absently stroked the cat’s head as she purred at her owner. The young woman would look quite ordinary to anyone looking at her at that very moment, just petting her cat and staring off into the distance. However, a quick look at her eyes would stop anyone cold in their tracks, as her irises had went all black, except at the very center, where a tiny pinprick of light could be seen fighting off the darkness.
Trivia
Taboo is my very first character, created back in the open beta. She was then recreated during the great Name grab that CoH had shortly thereafter. She was not my first 50, but she has reached that level at last.
I played another Taboo in a pen and paper RPG called Champions, but this Taboo is far different from that one.
Taboo has a mirror self villian named Forbidden Rapture, and her Preatorian Counter part is Seer Taboo.
