Nathaniel Hawley

General Information:

Name: Nathaniel Hawley
Nickname: None that he appreciates and he’ll correct you if you call him Nate (then again, he might promptly shrug it off and not care)
What are you: Immortal (Witch)

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Physical information:

Gender: Male
Apparent Age: 26
Actual Age: 125
Hair Color: Light Brown
Eye Color: Blue
Distinguishing Marks: He has the shape of a maple seed burned into his sternum.

Description of General Appearance: An inch or so shy of six feet and a pebble over twelve stone, Nathaniel is fit though a little lean. Though relatively young by immortal standards, he has a certain world-weariness to him, as though he’s seen a little too much in his brief life in The True (or sees a little too much in The Winde).

Having come with nothing (almost literally), Nathaniel hasn’t put much effort into reviving his wardrobe. In The True, he tended toward tailored suits. In The Winde, he’s so far been leaning toward sweaters and cloaks, as though he’s perpetually cold (which he usually is).  Why is it always so damned cold?

On a similar note, while in The True he tended toward regular personal care (and had a favorite place he went for shaves and haircuts), he's had to resort to his own hand in The Winde (he doesn't trust Dale with anything sharp), so is as likely to sport a spot of stubble as come out clean shaven (and in fact, is usually stubbled when he comes out since coming out means he's going stir crazy within and crazy usually has a beard or at least an attempt at one).

He also seems to hate socks.

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Society Information:

Previous Occupation in The True: Witch and Guardian of the Eastern Groves

Love History: Does it matter now? He doesn’t expect any of his prior infatuations to find their way to The Winde, at least, he hopes they don’t, especially not Em, that one did not end well for anyone.

What did you do to get sent to the Winde? What he did is open for speculation, alternatively nothing (everyone is innocent in The Winde) or everything (if anyone was connected enough in to hear the rumors of such things). Anyone who knows the Hawley family by name or reputation may well of heard of his father's murder and put at least that first part together.

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

It’s unclear ‘why’ Nathaniel did what he did as he never made a case for his actions and outright confessed to the murder of his father. Though that alone was enough to garner his sentence, his full litany of crimes was greater.

In order, he broke the Fifth Law first, then the Third, the Second and then the First. The Third followed again, along with the Fourth, leading to the First again. He broke the Seventh which led to the Eighth and the Ninth.

Such flagrant crimes by their very commission break the Tenth though he did more than that in his final act, the violation of one of the family’s groves. If he broke the Eleventh and Twelfth it was only for a time, evading retribution for as long as he did to commit the rest. In the end, he broke the Sixth (which was not an easy thing to do) and along with it, the First, which was what got him convicted (and what he confessed to), at which point the Will of the Council caught up to him (or he let himself be caught).

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How did your trial go down? Were you involved or was this a surprise banishment?  Technically he was accused of breaking the First Law, accused and confessed. The rest happened before (or after, depending). Why he wasn’t immediately sent to The Winde is up for debate, much like the debate on how the Council knows when someone does something wrong in the first place. It’s speculated that coming from a prominent and powerful family, he had access to spells and resources which allowed him to hide from the magical web though even he couldn’t hide forever, or so the story would go, though as most stories go, it would grow in the telling, such as he had help from within the Council itself, magic itself, friends who have yet to be caught and convicted themselves. Then again, maybe it had something to do with the tricky Sixth. In either case, it was quite a while before his crimes caught up to him and he was he was "Put Away".

Any other background information you'd like considered for your character: Nathaniel brought with him a seed from one of the World Trees (what, you didn’t know there was more than one?). The Trees, which his family was tasked to protect, serve to anchor magic to the world.  Together, in their 36 facets and multitude of roots and branches, they form the web by which magic moves. By destroying one of the Groves and stealing the seed he’s weakened magic in The True. Why he did this is unknown but now it will seep and bleed like sap or blood from a wound. It will spill out over the millennia, though whether it will spread (into the mortal world) or fade (from the entire world) remains to be seen. In either case, few will live long enough to see the end result.

He's planted the seed in The Winde and a Warden Tree has begun to grow, feeding on the magic of The True whenever the lid cracks open to let someone new in.

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Personality Details:

Description of Personality: Before coming to The Winde, Nathaniel was a serious person, respectable, reliable. He was notoriously reliable, almost boringly so. He can still be boring, but not so reliably.

He was also far more restrained before coming to The Winde. He's still restrained now, though it might not seem that way on the outside. In fact, he might seem a little too experimental now, as though he's forgotten it hurts when you touch a hot stove. Or maybe it turns out, he likes to touch hot things (especially since he's always so damn cold), which raises the question, does he like the pain or has he just lost all sense?

The answer to that is complicated but a lot of things in his life are, have been or have become complicated, it's a recurring theme.

Whether he's lost ALL sense or not, it could be argued he's lost at least some sense. He tends to talk to things that aren't there (or at least aren't visible) and to things that can't answer back (or at least aren't heard by anyone else) and he's also completely careless with money, so much so he can be seen feeding gems to Blue Gil Gil like they were pidgeons in the park (much to the chagrin of the Neighborhood Association).

Did you know that studies show prisoners in isolation were seven times more likely to harm themselves? Seven or three point two, science was far less certain than magic, magic said, isolation was good, opened windows and doors in the mind, that's why the greatest wizards and witches live alone in the woods or on mountains or in caves or somewhere other than with everyone else. That didn't explain covens though, so his theory might have holes.

There's a point there somewhere, or maybe an excuse, since he's been more and more drawn to town the more and more there's an actual town to be drawn to.

That said, he tends to find the streets of Spectre more confining than the walls of Hawley Hall and is as likely to wander the outskirts as head downtown.

Do you know how to make a witch itch? Take away the W, of course.

Though he's been drawn outside more, he gets a little itchy when he's away from Hawley Hall for too long. There's a paticular place the itch is the worst, so he knows why he gets the itch (and if you know how Magic Works it really is related to the W). He knows what to do about the itch when it comes, but if anyone knows a good cream he'll try that too.

The other side of the problem is, that away from Spectre, he gets a little moody. And so, like most complicated things, it's all about finding the right balance and he's starting to get pretty good at balancing things.

Strengths: Nathaniel has an unbreakable will when he sets his mind to something, a fact proven out by how he got to The Winde. He also has an unmistakably sincere curiosity that is ever present and easily felt (though how it feels depends on his mood). He has a keen ability to listen to problems and though he’s not quick to try and solve them (after all, self-reliance is a hallmark of any witch worth their salt), he is quick to lend a bit of advice, but the value of that advice is up for debate.

Weaknesses: Nathaniel is working on his balance by doing his best to unbalance himself.  That might seem counter-intuitive but it really isn't. It's just the psychological equivilant of working out on a balance board. Admittedly, sometimes he falls.

He’s quick to deflect attention from himself, sometimes to the point of annoyance. Though he tries to be helpful, he can be hard to trust since he so clearly has secrets he’s unwilling to share. While he’s good at listening to problems, he’s bad at taking advice.

His mood swings can be sudden and unpredictable and sometimes so violent as to make it seem he's two entirely different people (he isn't but it can seem that way).

Fears: He doesn’t fear imprisonment but he fears he’s made a terrible mistake (and has no way of knowing if he did). He fears sleeping due to recurring nightmares which exacerbates his instability though a lack of sleep generally makes him better company. He worries he'll swing into a mood and not get out. He's also worried he'll get stuck in the middle.  He's not sure which fear is worse.

Background/History:  Family was complicated. The Hawley were an old magical family and could trace their lineage back to England (Yorkshire to be specific) where over time the line grew muddied with Norman, Nordic, Roman and Brigantes blood.

As a child, he’d been curious as to why York had seen such turmoil. It was, of course, because of the sacred grove, for which the family took its name, though the mortal powers that vied for control of the place were unaware of the true reason why they fought. They found other reasons, it’s strategic position, it’s good land but the truth was, it was a glittering jewel, the sort so precious you would draw it from a chest of gold with shaking hands, unsure what to do with it beyond covet and put under lock and key and guard.

The Hawleys were guardians, he was told as a child, guardians, not guards. There was a distinction, it was a fine point but he was taught to distinguish the fine points of things, the fine points were where you separated craftsman from artist and the Hawley were artists.

They were also a big family, three brothers, three sisters, too many cousins to count (in the neighborhood of three thousand that he knew of though only a fraction of those were magically inclined).

They also had Halls and Hollows though not too many to count (there were 36, to be precise), and they were like the Tzadikim Nistarim or Lamed Vav Tzadikim in Hebrew, The Hidden Righteous Ones. The Talmud said that at all times there were 36 special people in the world and if not for them, all of them if even one of them was missing, the world would come to an end. That might well have been true, though the Hawley’s didn’t count themselves among those 36 people. They did, however, count their 36 places and hold them sacred and crucial to the web which held the jewel that was magic; 36 Trees in 36 groves. It was known as an Aphex cut, a hexagon gem with 36 facets and it made the world shine.

None of that explained how Nathaniel had wound up in The Winde, except perhaps the notion that family was complicated.

So, what did he do to get locked away? Well, don’t you know? Everyone is innocent in The Winde.

Of course, people might speculate, it was a favorite local pastime, but a better question was, what has he done since he arrived?

The name Hawley was more than just a half dozen letters on a birth certificate or a family tree, it was in their DNA, in their blood. The Hawley were nothing without their groves (though the exact nature of those groves varied over time and place). In The Winde, Hawley Hall was on the edge of town. It was unclear how it was built (magic obviously) and even less clear where he’d gotten the ‘money’ for it. It was built in one night (or so the story goes) and even once Spectre grew around it, it was a mystery as nobody ever went in and nobody ever came out, a single light in a window and the occasional strand of music coming from within the only indication anyone was even there.

In time (as well as it could be tracked in The Winde), more lights appeared until one day, the gates opened and he emerged.

Are you a good "Witch" or a bad "Witch"? Good and bad are such arbitrary concepts, different sides of the same coin. The Laws of Magic (as opposed to The Twelve Laws) practically prove that point as they work the same whether black or white, good or bad. With that in mind, if The Law of Balance is true, wouldn’t being a Bad Witch give rise to someone else being a Good Witch? And being a Good Witch create the need for a Bad One?

But to answer the question, Nathaniel was a Good Witch who did Bad Things and is now a Bad Witch who does Good Things. Balance.

What was your main goal in the True World? Nathaniel was first and foremost, faithful.  He believed in the Laws of Magic and in The Twelve Laws. He took his job as a Vörðr or warden of the Groves seriously. Beyond that, he was born with boundless curiosity and wanted to learn everything there was to know about magic, which was why he studied many esoteric and regional varieties, searching out the common roots in a search for the ultimate meaning.

What do you think will be your main goal while in The Winde? First and foremost, to protect The Winde Tree but he knows full well he can’t do that alone so he needs allies.  Unfortunately, he’s not sure who he can trust so it will be a bit of a game, recruiting friends without letting them get too close at first. He also needs to maintain his balance as a Bad Witch who does Good Things so plans to set out to help those new to The Winde (or otherwise having trouble adapting). The fact that he’s new himself hasn’t seemed to have struck him as a problem in this regard.

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Skills and Abilities:

Were you mentored or trained in your abilities?  If so, by whom?  The Hawleys were trained by the best and even after he was given his responsibilities he sought out mentors and those brighter than himself from which he could learn.

What School of Magic did you learn if you are an Immortal?  Though born of traditional pagan practices (what would eventually be adapted into modern Wicca), the Hawley studied a diverse array of magical traditions and Nathaniel held them all in equal measure. As the Guardian of the Eastern Groves, he took an interest in the local traditions, most notably Onmyōdō and Shinto from Japan, Wuism and Qigong from China, Koldovstvo from Russia, etc. By no means a master of any of those traditions (he’d only had a few decades or so of study), he carried his interest in them with him to The Winde, as well as his broad curiosity in general.

Description of your abilities/powers:  Nathaniel is a well-rounded witch with a broad knowledge of ritual magic. Once a firm believer in the Laws of Magic as a whole though that belief holds true for some laws more than others since some are more guidelines than rules while others are just rules that aren’t easy to break or haven’t been broken yet. He ‘practices’ regularly, a believer that magic is less like riding a bike and more like painting a picture, you might never forget how (like riding a bike) but to be great requires dedication and near slavery to the form (like painting), most of what you do may be mundane, pedestrian, destined for the fire, but on occasion, you might just create a masterpiece. As someone who 'practices' regularly and also squanders his money (feeding Blue Gil Gil and the like), he tends to be broke most of the time.

Special Spells or Powers you'd like considered:  Nathaniel knows a Blue Gil Gil killing spell. It isn't a pleasant spell and is rather dark magic but it is effective. He's debating opening an exterminator business in town, which might explain why he's been feeding them, to create an infestation that he can then turn around and solve.

Mortal Education:  Before his initiation into the magical world, Nathaniel attended one of the best prep schools in Massachusetts with a well-rounded education in history (mortal), philosophy (again mortal), arts and sciences. All of the above are at a college prep level and not advanced.

Special Non-Magical Learning Prior to your banishment here:  Nathaniel is a skilled pianist (though a poor composer) and poor painter (though an avid one). He’s also picked up a decent list of conversational language skills, most notable Russian, Mandarin and Japanese (with a little Latin and Greek from his prep school years).

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The Winde Specifics:

What color is your gemstone? Smokey Quartz
What cut is your gemstone? Aphex (36 facets)
When you are transported into The Winde- what do you propose you had with you?  Nathaniel came to The Winde sitting naked and cross-legged, with nothing but a single silver maple seed pendant around his neck and a cat in his lap.

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Possible Connections (pm/rm to discuss)

• Related: Nathaniel has 3 sisters and 1 brother who may wind up in The Winde (he has one brother who most certainly will not).  Anyone interested in playing his brother or one of his sisters are welcome to rm/pm for details.  Cousins as well (there are thousands of them).
  
• Curious: Hawley Hall is a mystery and some people like mysteries.  If you’re curious about it, feel free to poke around and maybe, you’ll be invited in.
  
• Antagonist: Nathaniel has enemies in The True who may try to send enemies to The Winde.  Of course, once in The Winde, who knows how things might change.