Name: Tess Roth

Age: 26
Path: Moros

Quote:
“Twilight is not only a book about sparkly gay vampires; it is a
state of existence. I might show it to you sometime, if you are
ready to experience it.”

Virtue: Tess’s Virtue is Prudence. She regains all spent Willpower

whenever he refuses a tempting course of action by which she
could gain significantly.
Vice: Her Vice is Pride. She regains one Willpower point at the
end of any scene in which she exerts her own wants (not needs)
over others at some risk to herself.

Description:
Tess has long, black hair and a small scar over her right eye from play fighting with her brothers when
she was a kid. She wears all black clothes mostly covering up her whole body except her head.

Background:
Tess was born 26 years ago into a middleclass family where her father worked as a cop and her
mother as a secretary for some high end corporation. She was the youngest among the four siblings
and the only girl. Having a female role model did not seem to be something that Tess was lucky
enough to have as she grew up however. Her mother left when she was only two years old for
another man. Leaving her overworked dad heartbroken and with four kids to support. They did
manage however, somehow.

She left home when she was 18 years old, to go to university to become a criminologist. Her grades
had not been the best, and she only barely managed to get enough points to enter the study. It
turned out that the class was more then she could handle however, and after trying to keep her spot
at the college by sleeping with her professor she got kicked out.

Having to start all over again and trying to figure out what she wanted to do her father pulled some
strings and got her a spot in the local police academy. Tess had not really wanted to be a cop, having
seen how much the job pulled their father away from the family but she also realized it was probably
the closest thing to her dream as she could get at this point. She was far from the perfect student at
the academy, not that she was in any way a trouble maker but her instructors did notice how she
seemed to have trouble learning the simplest things. All in all she was just an average cadet, one of
the few who seemed to just do enough to pass.

She did manage to pass however, in the end, and got herself a job at her dad’s old precinct. Her old
man having retired a few years before after a stray bullet had pretty much shattered his leg. For
some reason, unknown to her, she got stuck with her dad’s old partner. Tess was in no way the cop
that her dad had been and Thomas Hardly learned that very quickly. What was supposed to be a
partnership turned into somewhat of a teacher and student relationship, were the older man worked
hard on teaching the young woman everything he knew.
It was clear to say Tess was not a quick learner.

She had only been in the force for a little over a year when it all went terribly bad. She and Thomas
had been called out for what seemed to be a gang related disturbance at a warehouse in a bad
neighborhood. The older man told her to stay in the car and call for backup when they realized that
this had to be solved with more than a warning. Tess was sick and tired of being left at the sideline
however, and disobeyed the man’s orders and went after Thomas as he entered the warehouse.

One of the gang members saw her however, and it was not long before Tess had to dodge bullet
after bullet trying to just stay alive. In her immature moment she had forgotten her own firearm in
the police car leaving her defenseless against the thugs that were trying to kill her. Suddenly Thomas
was there, first he yelled at her for her foolishness but then he started to guide her away from the
shooting. One of the gang members found them however and fired at them in a vain attempt to kill
them. The bullets had been aimed at her but Thomas leaped forward pushing her back and took the
bullets for her which cost him his own life.

Tess was knocked out and the next thing she remembered was waking up in an ambulance.

She took the death of her partner hard, not only because it was her fault the man had died in the first
place but because he had been one of her dad’s best friends. It was no surprise when she got
suspended from the police department. She went to Thomas’s funeral, standing in the background
trying not to be noticed as she watched her dead partner’s widow and children morn the man who
had saved her life.

Not being able to take the guilt of everything that had happened she became reckless. She started to
drink, go out and party and do drugs, everything to forget her screwed up life. As a result her own
family turned their backs to her, but she was not surprised by this at all. It was during one of these
nights when she was out partying that she saw Thomas again for the first time. It had only been in
the corner of her eyes, so she blamed it on the drugs in her system. It was not until a month later
when she started to hear the voice of her old partner that she thought she was going crazy.

She tried everything imaginable to tune the voice out, but nothing seemed to be working. Tess was
ready to sign herself into the loony bin when a man approached her telling her that she was a mage
and the incident in the warehouse had awoken her. She did not want to listen to the man at first,
who would really take anything like that seriously but the man proven to her that magic did exist by
showing her his powers. To say she was impressed was an understatement.

The man, Simon Sullivan, offered to be her mentor in her knew state of existence and as she saw no
choice in the matter she accepted. While she had pretty much been a bad student at school and the
police academy she seemed to shine when it came to the occult. Maybe it was the fact that she could
still hear Thomas every now and again, and she wanted to help him move on which was what drove
her.
Things finally seemed to look up for the young woman, but like everything in Tess’s life she would
soon find that things would never stay that way.

It was during one of the lessons that it happened.

Tess had finally managed to open up a gateway to the Twilight on her own and she was so proud of
her accomplishments. As she and Simon entered the gate there did not seem to be anything amiss.
The young student had great fun looking through the old books, while not being able to read them
they were still interesting to her, she did not notice when a shadowy figure suddenly stood behind
her.

Simon saw the figure before she did however, and managed to get the creatures attention before it
attacked Tess. Her mentor ordered her to run to the gate again and leave the Twilight. To scared and
remembering what had happened when she last had refused to follow an order Tess did as he said.
She had expected him to follow, to somehow find a way to subdue the monster come after her but
as she left the gate and came back to the material world the gate closed behind her.

She waited for hours, but there was no sign of a new gate and no sign of Simon. In the end another
mage in the sanctum came to pick her up and told her that it was unlikely that her mentor was still
alive.

Refusing to take another mentor she buried herself in the books at the Sanctum, hardly coming out
of the huge library as she tried to find a way to bring her mentor back again. Needing to eat and
money to live she does take small jobs from the Sanctum when they are offered to her, but most of
her free time goes to looking through the old musty books finding the answers to her questions.
Every week she opens up a Death Gate at the same location where the first one she opened was in
hopes to find Simon at the other end, so far she has had little luck.

Extra Notes:
Because of her mentor having disappeared because of her Death Gate spell she is reluctant to let
anybody pass through one she makes if she is not completely sure that they can handle what they
see on the other side. Tess would never let anybody else be hurt because of her own foolishness
again, and while she is far from a genius who knows everything she tries to be the voice of reason if
she sees a flaw in someone else’s plan.

Dedicated Magical Tool:

She has her old partner’s police badge as her dedicated magical tool. She stole it from the evidence
locker before being suspended from the police force.

Nimbus:
Blood wells up from the floor around her feet, forming symbols in a mixture of occult signs and gang
graffiti. The heavier the magic, the further the effects spread. Over walls, tables, doors, cars, traffic
lights. But never anything living... The sound of gunshots, people screaming and police sirens can be
heard in the background.