Straenge
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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The Professor has piercing eyes and an aquiline face with long greying hair, a uniquely shaped beard and is often seen wearing tinted glasses.
Upper body and arms are covered in various esoteric tattoos, a mixture of defensive and offensive sigils, spells and arcane geometry.
Though residing in the 21st century, the Professor continues to wear 19th century clothing regularly and is often holding a brass handled cane
and a small black cigar.
Professor Straenge is only half-human and his other half is almost inconceivable to most including himself. Those of Higher Celestial, Infernal or Supernatural aspects may sense there is something quite strange, even for their kind and yet almost worrisome about him just due to his nature. Others may be able to perceive a small part of where his obscure nature comes from.
Professor Straenge is an Elder Archmagus and one of the most powerful magic users on the planet. Besides his control of various elements and his specialty with Fire and Shadow, The Professor has several other abilities and still discovering his talents.
The Professors true talent lies within his mental abilities and being able to perceive what others cannot or will not through his obscure nature, his pure will and an acute Eidetic memory as well as teaching others to expand both their mental and physical powers. While partially Psychic due to his nature, he never relies on it.
While rarely relying on physical confrontations, the Professor has a little above average strength and constitution. If needed, he does possess fluent knowledge of Malasian and Indian martial arts, but more often will use Bataireacht, an Irish stick-fighting style using his cane.
Through the years, I have spoken often with the Professor and little by little, though he is loathe to speak openly about it, I learned much about him. Whether he would approve of my setting this down or not hadn't occurred to me but with little as I do know, I doubt he would mind much.
Professor Alexander Straenge, even his name is contrary. If you were to ask, he would explain how his name was not a curious misspelling but a word from a long forgotten language. "It's a curious thing with names," he would say. "How much we rely on them and how little the universe actually cares." When I asked of his earlier years, many times he would simply say it was not worth speaking of but I was able to gain some knowledge of it.
The Professor was born during the Winter Solstice in 1638 near the puritan village of Halifax. Apparently, he was the product of a priest and a woman whose very name was struck from history. She had slowly corrupted the town into a semblance of otherworldly wrongness, gathering the village people to her. On the night of his birth during a ritual whose purpose was never quite known, the village was attacked by a band of masked men, killing and burning every living thing through the night. "I was rescued," the Professor told me, "..by the unlikely kindness of a man named Syrus Dorne who, against the judgement of his brethren, decided not to destroy me."
The masked riders were apparently some type of religious order, though what religion, I never learned. Syrus took the child with them back to their sanctuary for a short time before, with the recommendations of the elders to keep the baby, Alexander, as Syrus had named him, for a short time as to ascertain whether he would be a danger or not.
The Professor spoke little of his childhood but mentioned of traveling to the upper reaches of a far off land, possibly in Europe where he, a child little more then 4 years old, met with a group of men and women who seemed at the time to be almost frightened of him but eventually decided on a course for him. What exactly he meant by this or who these individuals are, he would not say. Only this, "When we speak of magic and the various names of groups of its users, from Wizards to Magicians, Witchs to Conjurers or Magi to Sorcerers, we are referring to a perception of something far more complex yet oddly simple. These people were true representatives of that, and what I eventually became as well."
to be continued...
<Still Work in Progress>
- Work In Progress*
