Kiara 'Benighted' Tzul

Full Name: Kiara Tzul
Nickname(s): Kia
Codename: Benighted One
Alias(es): Tzul the Ignorant
Age: 18
Classification: Magical Human
Affiliation: Chaotic Neutral




Hair Color: White
Eye Color: Green
Gender: Female
Height: 5'6”
Weight: 130lbs
Other Traits: Kiara is ethnically Mayan and has darkened skin owing to a Mesoamerican climate. She has a very long ponytail often beaded or in a hair clasp. She is fond of jewelry, particularly short neck rings, chokers, arm cuffs, ankle cuffs, and ear-rings. She has a web-like series of tattoos travelling from the back of her waist and down both legs. Often for her costume she will wear feathers taken from various birds, carry a staff, and don an elaborate mask.




Powers:
All of Kiara's powers are magic based and are linked to her tattoos.

Astral Assault – The ability to harness the body's inner astral energy and use it offensively. Kiara predominately uses this to strike at a person's own reserves of astral energy, or rather their aura. The attack will bypass physical toughness and sap an opponent of vitality, making them greatly fatigued over prolonged contact. Eventually an opponent will 'zonk out' and become unconscious until they can regain their energy through rest. In the meanwhile a person struck by this attack may be knocked down or otherwise shunted. This gives the leverage necessary to lift beings, especially herself. Kiara can thus levitate from the ground, and propel herself at speeds of 35mph.

Astral energy may also be used to strike at spirits and the intangible. In this instance Kiara is able to rip apart the incorporeal being, effectively killing it. A spirit's ability to resist destruction is directly proportional to its spiritual energy and a sufficiently powerful spirit would be able to stave off its demise.

Furthering its effects on the intangible, Kiara may use astral energy to intercept and block other types of energy. Wave-forms she would otherwise be unable to physically impede she could do so using this ability. Such as anything from the electromagnetic spectrum, electricity, and blasts of directional magic. Psionic energy can be weakened but not entirely blocked, only its power waned.

An astral assault cannot damage anything else on the mortal plane, which means objects of any kind.

Astral Infusion – This ability allows the user to make and break spiritual bonds between two or more items/beings. Kiara could choose to bond herself to an object; which would mean she would always know where that object was, nobody but her would be able to touch the object without a burning sensation, and the object would move towards her when willed. She is also able to channel her astral attacks through an object she has bonded with, but this amounts to little more than parlour trick and provides no additional advantage.

If Kiara chose to bond herself to a person; both she and that person would know where each other were and know when the other was under some form of physical or psychological turmoil, or even if they had died. In addition Kiara could channel her astral assault along the spiritual bond, thus attacking the connected person directly. More benevolently she can grant people short glimpses of her astral sight.

Finally she may break bonds created by means outside of her own. Though tampering with them would prove more difficult and may even be impossible for one of her capabilities.

Astral Sight – The ability to perceive the imperceptible including various forms of life energy or essence. Kiara could use this to analyse a person's aura or astral energy, which may give her a clue as to their magical capabilities. It would see through invisible veils and hidden places. Otherwise it would allow her to see through various illusions, especially those invoked by magic.

Skills:
- Possesses great intuitive insight when it comes to the incomprehensible and the mysterious unknown.
- Highly educated herbalist when it comes to plants of her native country of Belize.
- Knowledgeable of obeah lore, ritual, and fake spells.
- Good at sewing; makes her own clothes.
- Speaks English, a form of Mayan language, and some Spanish.

Weaknesses:
If Kiara's tattoos were ever removed, she would be unable to use her abilities and start to go insane.

Astral Assault – The beam of astral energy can be dodged since this attack is directional. Hiding behind a solid object is also sufficient to stop this attack and wearing a suit of armour would make the astral energy worthless. Virtual beings like robots and androids would also be immune to the effects of astral energy. People who have a lot of energy will take more hits before going unconscious but people with limitless energy would shrug off attacks. Beings of powerful spiritual energy, such as most cosmic beings and other astral users, would find the success of this attack negligible.

This ability's major weakness is its inability to damage or otherwise move objects, it is restricted to living creatures, spiritual beings (particularly the undead), and energy. As such, she is vulnerable to weapons, especially guns.

Astral Infusion – Kiara can only infuse her soul to a maximum of five things at a time. For objects she must make physical contact to establish a link. For people she must have their permission, although people can be tricked for consent in a similar way most demons operate.

Maintaining a constant link to things that are distant is inadvisable, as the astral connection may be intercepted by other astral manipulators and used to hurt Kiara. In the same way Kiara can launch her astral assault down a link, the person on the other end (or a third party in-between) can fire magic back at her.

Objects she has bonded with can be no bigger than a car and can only move towards her under willpower if they weigh less than she can lift. Killing a person or breaking an object will severe a link and prevent Kiara from possibly tracking it. Furthermore, it would cause a feedback loop that would agonise Kiara, and if more than one is done in rapid succession, might invoke a heart attack.

Astral Sight – Certain magic users might be able to hide their aura from her. She can not make use of her sight in darkness. This ability does not extend to scientific invisibility (e.g. bending light) or scientific illusions (e.g. holograms).

Other – Kiara was home schooled, and not very well, she is poorly educated. A lot of Kiara's theories on the supernatural often completely lack evidence and can sound far-fetched, which can be detrimental when she's right. She encourages ignorance and tries to stifle unnecessary exploration, which can be a difficult position to defend in an enlightened society. She's fairly forgetful.

Equipment:
Mask – Kiara has created a variety of wooden, feathered masks in the Tiki style. They hide her identity and are suppose to frighten spirits, though there isn't a lot of that these days.

Staff – A simple wooden staff that Kiara occasionally tops with an imitation skull. It has no practical function, but Kiara carries it around in hopes that it may fool people into thinking it is the source of her power.





Personality:
Kiara is a girl of strong beliefs which she doggishly pursues with equal parts wisdom and mania. While she is not well read, she is often able to emulate complex philosophies and apply them to everyday life. Philosophies she takes from include obeah doctrine, fallibilism, and “ignorance is bliss”. She sees the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself as not just pointless but damaging to the universe as a whole. There is a balance, she believes, between the known and the unknown that will exist regardless of how much is learned. All discovery can do is create new and possibly intractable problems in response as the scales even.

She approves of keeping secrets and is against the free dissemination of information to the masses. What little she has been taught was through word of mouth and not textbooks. That's not to say she wouldn't pursue new information were it of immediate benefit. Despite this she has a professional reputation for wisdom and good judgment.

Kiara feels a sense of unity with the unknown. She is given to moments of spontaneous creation where she will deduce something without herself knowing how. It is a moment of innate inspiration owing to the duende that has possessed her in youth. Usually accounts of duende possession would afford a person intuitive knowledge of instruments or dance, but for Kiara it manifests as sagacious conjecture over spiritual matters. It cannot be taught and Kiara often tries to rationise her own insight by making faulty deductions and noticing vague associations. As such, many people would view her process as illogical.

Due to her unique relationship with the incomprehensible, Kiara feels it is her duty to combat hostile manifestations of these forces. If it is dark, mysterious, and malicious she will stand in its way. She is incurious by nature and loves a cliffhanger, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still get frightened. Her fear is not quelled by knowledge but faith. Faith that she was meant to survive despite jumping into every situation blind. Yet deep down she knows a grizzly end inevitably awaits her, as does it await everyone in her line of work.

On matters known, Kiara comes across less a sage individual and more of a dunce. She tries to laugh off instances of idiocy but can be scatterbrained, slow on the uptake, or just plain ignorant. She treats people well, hospitality being important to her community, and has a calm demeanor.

Likes:
- Ignorance
- Obeah
- Pageantry and showmanship
- The Unknown
- Sweet things

Dislikes:
- Spoilers
- Men of science
- Schools
- Mass media
- Brushing teeth

Interests/Habits:
- Often designing new paraphernalia for her outfit due to wear and tear of the materials.
- Busks for money, with tribal dances and the promise of novelty spells.
- Collects and contains hazardous items, to protect mankind, and prevent their study.



Family Members:
- (1) father, obeah shaman
- (2) mothers?! one biological, one adopted
- (3) brothers

Place of Origin:
- Belize

History:
Kiara was born into a ramshackle town on the edges of the Belizean jungle. Her community was poor, mostly farmers and livestock owners. Not a lot of the national GDP was sent their way, which resulted in Kiara being home schooled instead of attending an actual educational establishment. Her father taught her letters and numbers but was pretty bad at other academics. To compensate he taught her his trade. Mr Tzul acted as a shaman in the community, since he was practicing obeah. People would come to him with requests for blessings or curses and her father would provide. He made no qualms about using his magic for good or evil.

The daughter learned all the showmanship and ceremony. She was taught how to wield plants in the forest and create dolls. Her education only really stalled because of her insistence that her dad stop ruining his magic act by revealing its secrets. She was far more happy to wallow in its mysticism. Explaining things would kill the joy. Her father feared she was not getting the point.

At the age of seven she was sent into the forest alone to gather some herbs. She strayed from a beaten path and got lost as darkness rolled in. In the scrub she found a small man about four feet in height. It was a dwarf-like creature called a duende. She did not know she was offending it when she offered her hand. Duende had four fingers, and to not hide your thumb was an insult to them. The creature attacked Kiara and possessed her. From the soles of her feet it moved upwards. Her father found her screaming and diagnosed the problem.

Try as he might he could not dislodge the entity from her. Duende possession often afforded a person great talent in music or dancing. However it could also drive a man insane, and Kiara was only a little girl. Over the growing months Kiara became more and more peculiar. She was going unhinged and could often be found dancing naked in the forest at night. Her father exhausted his knowledge of the supernatural and still could not cure her. It was Kiara herself who found a solution.

In a rare moment of lucidity she asked her father, “If it is now in me, is it not driving itself insane?” To which her father answered that it would leave her once it had reduced her. “Then trap it.” Knowing that the duende entered by the soles of her feet, her father applied sealing magic to her legs. They came in the form of tattoos. Before now they had been used to ward off possession, but they ended up working just as well in reverse. And like the little girl suspected – her dementia stopped. The dwarf did not want to become stuck in the body of a lunatic.

There were side effects. Kiara had adopted abnormal behaviour. She was given to daydreaming and not  good with her memory. Furthermore her unconventional ideas kept coming. Where spirits took to haunting she told occupants to mount their doors upside-down and place their welcome mats the wrong side of an entrance. Confused – the spirits left. When the evil eye of a sisimito promised to rob a man of his life, she theorised that it was possible to remove the curse by holding his funeral ahead of time and hiding him in a coffin until the death spirits that circled moved on.

Her reputation was made in youth. People from other villagers would ask to see the girl shaman. This displeased her father, for despite her successes, she still refused to be taught his tricks. She had no magic of her own. Kiara resolved this by inventing additions to her tattoos. They began to tap into the internal reservoir of the duende, drawing out its astral energy, which was merged with her own. From then on she took a more active role in combating the supernatural.

She began creating her own philosophy at the age of sixteen. It was shortly after The Vanishing and reports were still coming in to their remote settlement. Her father who usually knew everything could not explain this strange and powerful occurrence. Kiara decided for herself that it was a punishment. There had been too much enlightenment. The unknown was striking back. She became excited at the prospect of darker more mysterious challenges ahead. So much so that she began to seek out instances of terror outside the norm – even for the supernatural.

The journey took her far from her roots, further than she had ever travelled before. She wandered Central America and the Caribbean tackling problems no one else could fathom, until it was less of a distraction and more of a living. Now she heads into California, following grave whispers of darkness arising in the north.

Claimed