Bex Allan

Background and Trivia

 * Suffers from PTSD; seeing a therapist
 * Addicted to coffee
 * At 38, she is the oldest Mage in the group
 * Wears prescription Google Glass glasses
 * Knew Vivienne for at least five years
 * Married to Paisley for about 2 years, dating for 2-3 years before that

Character Biography
Bex ran with a group of Hollow Ones as early as 2001 until an encounter with a group of HIT Marks, Men in Black clones and Technocracy field agents. Somehow she survived, though she could never figure out how. At some point after that incident, she became a Virtual Adept.

In 2023, she was married to Paisley. They lived in a two-bedroom condo in San Francisco. Paisley had a green conure parrot familiar named Captain Larry Vesuvius Birb, the Last Word, Destroyer of Keyboards (Birb for short). Their relationship may have been slightly strained.

Bex worked as a full stack developer for an indie video game company (Rebel Interactive). She often received e-mails from Freeman and other senders affiliated with the New Ascension Warriors, though she usually dismissed them as spam.

She left work early to go out to a dinner with Paisley, Paisley's friend Vivienne and her girlfriend Holly. Unfortunately, Paisley was in the midst of a shower when she got home, rather than having it ready for her... which led to Bex catching Paisley looking into in vitro fertilization.

Bex was startled to recognize the dinner venue, now named Johnny Wu Family House, from her past as a Hollow One, though she did her best to push her memories aside. Greeting Vivienne and Holly, they started to have a pleasant dinner before being interrupted by Anthony 'Tony' Wu, a SFPD Bomb Squad officer and Council member Bex recognized from her past as a Hollower (a past colourful enough to get her banned from the establishment). After a short and increasingly awkward conversation, Tony said his goodbyes. As an apology, he offered to cover their drinks (a gesture that was subsequently expanded to their entire meal).

Unfortunately, their dinner was rudely interrupted by HIT Marks, one of whom fired on them. They would later learn the hostile HIT Mark was a prototype HIT Mark X, while the 'ally' was a comparatively outdated HIT Mark V. During the ensuing battle, Bex and Holly were injured while Paisley lobbed a Magickally-improvised Molotov cocktail. Given the various awkward conversations and encounters Bex had endured, she found the combat strangely comforting. The four escaped to the back alley as the restaurant burned down, only to be followed by the now-damaged HIT Mark V who asked for their help (episode 1). The group made it back to Paisley's and Bex's condo. By that point, Bex was suffering both from the injuries she had endured at the restaurant and PTSD flashbacks of her previous HIT Mark encounter. Vivienne was able to heal her physical wounds and bring her back to lucidity, though Bex was soon alarmed when she realized a HIT Mark was in her home. Meanwhile, Holly was able to detect a mind pattern within the HIT Mark, one containing numerous ways of killing people... all of which were suppressed by some form of termination override.

After the mages confirmed their identities, the HIT Mark V told them he was specifically reprogrammed in 2001 to seek them out by Dr. Evelyn Taylor, a mage of the Society of Ether who had since passed away. When asked, he told them that Dr. Taylor had given him the name Gunther, as he had a chain gun in his possession at the time. A block on his memory banks prevented further disclosure until he went to a physical location somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. After some investigation, Bex and Paisley determined that the location in question was the Cliff House.

At that point, Paisley received a call from her mentor, Rex. When he wasn't repeatedly assuring her that he was 'on her side', he mentioned that mages from the San Francisco Council (including Anthony Wu and Lisa Derosa, Holly's former mentor) were investigating the Family House fire and asked whether she knew anything about it. After receiving an unconvincing lie from Paisley, he also informed her that Derosa was on her way to the condo. Vivienne was able to heal the HIT Mark (while Holly cautiously watched) while Bex used her rotes to disguise Gunther's appearance and disable any tracking mechanisms that may have been active. However, they were unable to block Derosa from scrying on their location or establishing a connection between their condo and her shop.

The mages reluctantly accepted Derosa's invitation for a casual conversation in her shop, which was subsequently extended to Gunther. Mushrooms of tass were offered to break the ice, though they had the side-effect of getting Holly and Paisley high. Unfortunately, the conversation soon grew heated as Vivienne (mistakenly) believed Derosa had drawn premature conclusions (Paisley burned the Johnny Wu Family House down with Magick) while Derosa accused them of violating Council rules regarding secrecy (while revealing certain outmoded views regarding Mages, the Technocratic Union and the Ascension War). Vivienne was in the midst of pacifying the situation when an outraged and intoxicated Holly knocked Derosa out with a single punch, much to Bex's approval. The mages hurriedly ransacked the shop and used Bex's Magick to put Derosa in a form of mental stasis (where she thought she was high) before fleeing the scene, thanks to a Tesla that Gunther forcibly acquired (episode 2).

As Gunther drove, Bex used her laptop to hack into the traffic cameras, all while jammed next to Vivienne and Holly (who were making out to regenerate Willpower). Paisley reluctantly answered a call from her stepmother, Rita, and immediately regretted it, as Rita proceeded to ask whether she and Bex were available for a surprise vacation before mistakenly assuming they were trying to get pregnant. After Birb made the situation worse by repeating some ill-timed phrases, Paisley took another tass mushroom and promptly vomited in Gunther's face. Once Gunther pulled the vehicle over, Paisley stumbled out and collided with a traffic meter. A sympathetic Vivienne Magickally purged the toxins out of Paisley while Gunther cleaned himself off as best as he could. After assessing the state of the car, the group elected to have Gunther acquire another vehicle (a green Toyota 4Runner).

Bex also hacked into the Cliff House cameras at Holly's suggestion. Between those security feeds and the traffic camera footage she had already accessed, she determined that the site was being protected by Paragon Security, a company affiliated with the Technocracy whose employees were licensed to carry a wide variety of firearms.

Once the group arrived at the Cliff House, they made various Magickal preparations:


 * Vivienne increased her strength, dexterity and stamina. She also cast a spell to detect life patterns.
 * Paisley reinforced her clothes and enhanced her sight to see electrical signals (including those from cellular phones, cameras and satellite uplinks). She would later prepare a Magickal EMP in case of emergencies.
 * Holly reinforced her clothes and did the same for Vivienne. She also kept up her mind shield (from episode 2).
 * Bex set up a video loop in the security feed and raised a mind shield, all while maintaining her rote on Derosa (from episode 2).

Gunther was asked to accompany them as they did not know precisely where they needed to go to unlock his files. In doing so, they inadvertently updated his protocols, allowing him to harm organic beings so long as he did not kill them. Gunther seemed slightly pleased at that development.

After the group entered the Cliff House grounds, Gunther identified a small building marked 'Giant Camera' as their target destination, which they would later learn was the San Francisco Camera Obscura. The mages soon discovered that the security was somewhat lax: as one of the gates was 'protected' by a rusty open padlock, the bulk of the security staff were holed up in their office watching anime and the lone patrol officer was high on marijuana and in the process of reliving himself. Holly snuck up on the patrol officer, knocked him out and took his belongings (including a Desert Eagle, a set of keys and a walkie-talkie).

Seeing that Holly had cleared the way, the group snuck over to the Camera Obscura. Gunther dealt with a call over the walkie-talkie by feeling the patrol officer's vocal cords and successfully replicating his voice. With no further complications, the group entered the building. Gunther approached the viewing table in the centre of the room and automatically began to update his file protocols. He looked up moments later and, through an optical laser, used the camera obscura and table to project a series of files... along with a video file from Dr. Evelyn Taylor.

Dr. Taylor told them that they had successfully unlocked Gunther's files and could now copy, move or transfer them as they saw fit. Originally, she had chosen to keep the files hidden, but had recently come to the conclusion that it was not her choice to make, but that of the latest generation of Mages. She had chosen them as they were all members of the Nine Mystic Traditions and one of them, in particular, was related to a dear friend of hers'. Candidly, she confessed her greatest regret were the things she and her friends did in the name of what they believed was a brighter future. She wished them well before signing off.

Still processing Dr. Taylor's message, the mages were about to leave when a man outside called out to them. He identified himself as Senior Agent Locke of the Technocratic Union and ordered them to surrender. A panicked Paisley dropped the EMP she had prepared earlier, temporarily disabling all electronics in a thirty foot radius... including Bex's laptop and, by association, the stasis she had maintained on Derosa. As everything went dark, a gunshot rang out (episode 3).

While Bex was paralyzed with PTSD due to the loss of her spells, Holly hit the Technocrat with Mind Magick. Meanwhile, the mages heard a familiar voice cast Magick of his own. Paisley recognized it as her mentor Rex. As her spell wore off and the lights came back on, Paisley saw an older man (who she presumed was the Technocrat) and two security guards... both of whom had been shot by Rex, who was accompanied by two Hermetic apprentices. One of the guards was already dead, thanks to Rex, his gun, and the spell he had just cast. Frightened, she retreated and screamed at Gunther to engage the Technocrat. Gunther began to obey, bodily tossing the other guard over the stairwell. The shocked Technocrat (who identified himself as Agent Locke) recognized Gunther as 'H2609,' deployed two bots against the Hermetics, and ran. Hearing Paisley cry out, Bex snapped awake, chugged an energy drink and chased after Locke. Vivienne, wanting to protect the data stored within Gunther, ordered him to retreat, but not before he took a hit from a blasting sceptre Rex pulled out.

Holly successfully scrambled the minds of the Hermetic apprentices, but suffered injuries and an inverted sense of smell due to Paradox backlash. The Technocracy bots would subsequently knock one apprentice out before engaging the other. Locke appeared to split himself into three duplicates. Unable to distinguish the 'real' one, Bex, Vivienne and Holly would each attack one of the images. Rex ordered them to leave in the name of the Council. For her part, Vivienne objected to his authority and the right he had to attack and kill the guards, who for all intents and purposes, were merely Sleepers.

Before Locke passed out, he blurted out that he knew Bex. With a shock, she flashed back to her near-fatal encounter with a HIT Mark while running with the Hollow Ones and realized that Locke had somehow saved her life.

Paisley urged Gunther and her companions to run. Bex decided to take Locke, despite Rex's orders to kill him. Vivienne was confused, but helped her out. In response, Rex summoned a lightning bolt from the skies that almost destroyed Gunther and nearly killed Bex. Enraged, an injured Holly lashed out with her Mind Magick and imploded his head. The last Hermetic apprentice hastily retreated.

Vivienne used another Tass mushroom to heal Bex, though the effort caused a Paradox backlash that turned her pants to mushrooms and moss. Paisley employed her Matter Magick to enact a slapdash fix on Gunther. The bots administered nanotech first aid on Locke.

A scarred but awake Bex approached Locke, who repeated recognizing Bex from the Johnny Wu Family House, which the Technocracy monitored for insurance purposes. When asked about the attack, Locke was at a loss to explain, but ultimately guessed that the HIT Mark X, which Vivienne recalled seeing earlier, had actually been waiting for Gunther. While Vivienne still wanted to part ways with Locke, Bex insisted he might still be useful. Locke offered to help them escape if they healed him.

A reluctant Vivienne complied with his request. After the group decided to retreat to Holly's gym, Locke (with Bex's help) opened a Correspondence gate to Core Zen. Unfortunately, he opened it directly beneath their feet and they fell through, causing some additional injuries. Locke later explained that he was a successful field agent when he participated in the raid against the Hollower cell that Bex belonged to. Seeing one of the HIT Marks about to explode and kill Bex, he rewound time and got her out of harm's life, as she reminded him of his sister. His act of compassion cost him the success of the operation, his career and his marriage.

When the subject turned to Rex, a stunned Holly walked away. Bex followed, admitting (to Paisley's surprise) that she was the only other Mage who had taken a life. Locke would later confirm to Vivienne and Paisley that Bex used to be a criminal and a Hollow One.

Meanwhile, Holly had retreated to the gym showers. After some time, she opened up to Bex, saying she didn't intend to kill Rex, the rage she felt and the conflicting toilet of emotions within her. Bex advised against using her Mind Magick to dull or erase her memories and to seek comfort from Vivienne. She also admitted that a past attempt to 'tweak something' during a fight led to someone else's death, which she felt was partially her responsibility, and that she might have done something similar to Rex if she was conscious at the time. Before she left (and cried alone), Bex offered her number to Holly in case she needed to talk, nothing 'war makes fast friends.'

A half hour later, Gunther had hooked himself up to the gym's flat screens and began to display the recently unlocked data. The group began seeing dossiers on Tradition luminaries and leaders, connections between the Council and the Nephandi, plots to weaken and destabilize one Tradition or another, actions taken against minorities and marginalized groups... in effect, a century of Council plots to manipulate the Nine Mystic Traditions into staying united against the Technocracy. Bex whispered aloud that she should have stayed a Hollow One. As the ramifications sunk in, the Mages were left wondering what they were going to do (episode 4).

Nature/Demeanor
Nature: Hacker

Every system is a locked vault, and you’ve got the keys. If you don’t have ones that work, you’ll make new ones – that’s half the fun of life, after all! Puzzles excite you; limits just piss you off. Especially given the sheer amount of abuse that’s built into any system, the world needs folks like you to tear down impediments and set reality free. Imagination is your greatest strength. You see things not as they are, but as they could be once you get done with them! Driven to dismantle existing systems and then put them together in interesting new shapes, you tend to pepper your compulsions with sincerely-held philosophy. You’re not a vandal, for crying out loud – you’re a visionary who refuses to accept shit sandwiches handed out as lunch. Sometimes, though, you go too far. Perversity leads you to tear apart things that weren’t broken… things that may, in fact, have been better left alone. Although it might seem philosophically valid to tear down the wards on a wizard’s lab, those wards might have been laid that way for reasons you didn’t understand until it was a little too late.

Regain Willpower when you detect a flaw in some important structure, system, or device, or else when you puzzle out a way to improve something that was supposedly designed well to begin with.

Demeanor: Architect

Structure is essential. Without it, life is chaos. It’s up to you to provide stability and create things that endure. A builder, a craftsman, a designer for better tomorrows, you feel best when you’re constructing things of value and shaping the foundations of a better tomorrow. Dedicated Purpose guides your designs. You’ve got one eye on your tools and another on the legacy you’ll leave behind. While other people dream, you do. Contentment is not your style; there’s always room for improvement somewhere. Obsession, though, is your weakness. As far as you’re concerned, your way is the best way, and that fixation sometimes interferes with your ability to see the world in any way other than your own. To Ascend, you’ll have to learn to accept imperfections, diversity, and designs that differ from your own.

Backgrounds
Resources 2 (effectively 3 due to shared resources with Paisley)

Allies 1 (TBD)

Influence (Hackers) 2


 * Linked with her Alternate Identity

Wonder 3 - Modified Bafflejack USB


 * Provides online Arcane
 * Stolen from the Technocrats and modified by her old mentor

Alternate Identity 2


 * Online tag: HollowGl!tch
 * Strictly an online persona, but one with an impressive, decades-long digital trail and no link to her real world identity

Merits
Loyalty (Paisley)

You’re especially devoted to a certain cause, group, creed or person. When someone tries to turn you against the object of your loyalty, you receive a two-die bonus to your dice pool when resisting that attempt with your Willpower. If the assault uses your Willpower Trait as the difficulty for the attack, then your attacker adds +2 to her difficulty while striving to under-mine your loyalty. (See the feat Resisting on the Dramatic Feats chart in Mage 20, p. 403, and the Mind Sphere entry in the same book, p. 519.) Naturally, you must define the source and reasons for your devotion when you select this Merit. Such loyalty will influence many of your roleplaying choices too – your friends, enemies, priorities, magickal focus, and other things besides.

Computer Aptitude

A true child of the twenty-first century, you’re especially adept with computerized infotech. Reduce all difficulties involving computer-based rolls by -2, up to the usual modifier limit. This last caveat is especially important when dealing with computer-based magickal Effects, whose difficulties cannot be reduced by this Merit beyond the usual magick-roll modifier of -3, or below the minimum difficulty for magick-casting rolls. Even so, this Merit provides an edge for mages whose Arts include the guiding technology of our age.

Flaws
Blacklisted

Having crossed some Powers That Be, you’ve now been pariahfied among some segment of the Masses. The results impact your employment potential, social standing, legal status, credit rating, background checks, rental possibilities, and other significant elements of existing in the everyday world. Originally presented as an Adversarial Background for Certification, this Flaw affects your regional, national, and perhaps international official status. The degree to which you’ve been professionally shunned depends upon the value of this Flaw:

(2 points) Minor – misdemeanor criminal record, suspended license.

Sect Enmity (Hollow Ones)

Mage groups tend to have issues with each other by their very nature. You, however, have managed to piss off an entire sect of mages within your larger group. You could be a Verbena witch who hacked off the Hermetic House Flambeau (yipe), a Black Suit on the wrong side of the Friends of Courage, or a Red Spear who trash-talked the Ghost Wheel Society and lived to regret it. Although your enemies won’t try to kill you – you are theoretically on the same side, after all – they really don’t like your face, or much else about you. Generally, the members of the sect in question will have as little to do with you as they can, and won’t be terribly coop-erative if they must deal with you at all. Social dice rolls you make while dealing with members from this group add +2 to the difficulty. You cannot, obviously belong to this sect when you first take this Flaw, although you could conceivably smooth things over, buy off the Flaw, and join that group later. A player may buy this Flaw multiple times to reflect poor relationships with several different sects. Storytellers are advised to create several reoccurring characters from the rival sect, in order to give this Flaw some teeth. For a more severe version of this Flaw, see Hit List, below.

Old Flame

A former love of your life now works for the enemy. Worse, she knows your weak spots, and can still call on you “for old times’ sake.” Unless you manage to succeed in a resisted Ma-nipulation-based social roll contest (see Mage 20, pp. 390-391) when your old flame tries (again) to win you over (again), you’ll find yourself doing things (again) against your better judgment again… and again… and again…

PTSD

Awful experiences have given you a hair-trigger response to certain situations. Anxiety, aversions, phobias, sudden rage… whatever the symptoms might be, this post-traumatic stress disorder acts as a protective shield against further harm. Unlike a derangement, this Flaw doesn’t induce delusions – your character remains lucid enough. Still, her fears kick in at difficult, sometimes unpredictable, times, undermining every attempt at whatever passes for a normal life in the Awakened world. As usual, the different levels of this Flaw manifest in various levels of severity:

(2 points) Your PTSD conjures occasional nightmares and anxieties under certain rare circumstances (confronting ghosts, dealing with demons, entering the wilderness, and so forth).

Tradition
Virtual Adept

Paradigm
Everything is Source Code

It’s all code. That’s the theory, anyway. What we call reality is actually a simulation, a Matrix, a holographic projection that can be manipulated by anyone who knows the Reality Code. Variations on this idea include the concept of a God code that allows the Enlightened Elite to find cheats; a code interwoven into holy texts like the Bible, Qur’an, or Torah, or in divinatory systems like the I Ching or Tarot; a computerized take on the Mechanistic Cosmos paradigm; or the theory that everything is composed of waves and frequencies that can be adjusted with music or other methods. Regardless of the nature of that information, the paradigm remains the same: everything is data, and smart folks can work with that data. For those who embrace this paradigm, the Digital Web is the ultimate smoking gun. Composed of living (or at least adjustable) data, the Web embodies this belief. The material world, of course, is far more complex, with eons’ worth of bugs and twists of code. Even so, a reality hacker knows how to scan that code, rewrite it, and tweak physical, social, and mental realities through a sophisticated understanding of essential data and the methods that command it.

Practice(s)

 * Hacker Analysis
 * Hypertech
 * Reality Hacking

Instruments

 * Laptop (personalized instrument - Affinity Sphere (Data))
 * Google Glass
 * Cell phone
 * Code/algorithms/machine learning
 * Music
 * Energy Drinks
 * Advanced Math

Spheres
Data 1

Entropy 2

Forces 1

Mind 1

Prime 1

Time 1