Magistrix

Magistrix
A costume for a modern hero.
Author	/u/Dapper_D20
Civilian name	Rosina Gregorievna
Alignment	Hero
Affiliation	Independent (Devilfish)
PRT Classification	Mover, Blaster (Shaker),
Born	(1999-04-21) April 21, 1999 Detroit, Michigan
Status	Active

"Magistrix? Yeah, she's new in town as far as I know. Not the friendliest sort, but not really in the mean way you expect from some indies and vigilantes. Nah she just kind of prefers to be alone as far as I can tell. Doesn't like the spotlight. Kind of weird considering most capes, and kind of ironic considering her powers, but who am I to judge. Honestly there's just not much to say about her. She's kind of average beyond those few oddities... Oh great you got me talkin. You gonna buy somethin or what?" - Eddie Malone, Owner of Capes A Plenty

Public Information

Rosina Grigorievna is a known ghostwriter and has advertisements online for people who seek to hire her. As well as having at least one published novel in her actual name, Damnation Denied.

Magistrix is a known independent hero that has been operating for the last five years off and on. Her power set, due to its flashy nature, is well documented. The only exception is that it is believed she requires her broom to actually fly.

Magistrix has been recorded on both PHO and in-person stating she “Doesn’t like cameras or the media..”, not offering further explanation beyond that.

Character Sheet

Appearance

Standing at 6’1”, Rosina is a rather tall and lanky figure. Long black hair usually tied into a messy bun helps frame her angular features and hazel eyes. Pale skin shows a lack of time outside, accentuated by her fashion choices. To put it bluntly, she doesn’t really dress well. Usually visible in sweat pants and some kind of band shirt, it’s a rare occasion when she dresses up.

Magistrix on the other hand loves to dress up. Her costume is what can be described as a ‘Modern Witch’. A long black dress with silver filigree, paired with a silver chain belt around the waist. A small black witch’s hat sits on her head, paired with a white wig, round black sunglasses, and make-up applied to hide her appearance. Black leather boots and a long black trench coat complete the look, as well as the custom-made broom she ‘uses’.

Equipment and Resources

- A small apartment in Midtown. - A black 2010 BMW she’s had for four years. - A Chromebook she uses as her work laptop. - Her pet guinea pigs, Edward and Jacob - Her costume and its accompanying custom-made black metal broom. - Pepper spray and zip-ties to use as hand-cuffs.

Skills and Specializations

- A literature degree and fairly good skills in writing. - A large amount of experience flying with her power. - Knows how to play the keyboard.

Mentality

Rosina Grigorievna is not by any stretch of the imagination an extrovert. She’s not as bad as she was when she was younger, but she still finds social situations tiring and uncomfortable. As an avid reader and author, she’d much rather be reading or writing rather than partying. Even with her friends, she isn’t particularly loud or talkative.

When she was younger she was worried about her civilian identity getting connected with her cape identity. Now that she’s older, moved away from home, and taken extra steps to hide her identity, she’s not worried about it. The damage caused by her trigger has stuck however and is part of the reason why she’s so uncomfortable in crowds. It comes full force if anyone points a camera in her direction, and she will usually do everything in her ability to get away from it. This has resulted in her having a reputation for being skittish as a cape.

Power

Magistrix can at will shoot blasts from her hands that are visually identical to fireworks. These blasts have some variance to them, depending on what Magistrix wants. She can weaken them to about the power of a firecracker, in exchange for a drastic increase of accuracy and fire rate with a reduction in range. The upper limit of raw power is something that wouldn’t be out of place in a Fourth of July celebration, with a much larger range, but a much slower rate of fire and greatly reduced accuracy. These blasts resemble fireworks in almost every way, streaking from her hands to explode upon reaching their maximum distance or striking something. The damage potential of these blasts is not particularly high, as with regular fireworks, they’re mostly light, noise, and heat spread across an area with only some force. The results of said light and noise resemble a flash-bang in a lot of ways, capable of causing disorientation and stunning the targets.

She also gained flight through personal telekinesis. She can achieve speeds of around one hundred miles per hour max but steadily loses control as she speeds up. As such tends to go around half her max speed at any given time. As she flies with her power, she leaves a trail of multi-colored sparks behind her. These sparks are fairly small and difficult to notice if she’s hovering or going slow, but grow larger until she appears similar to one of her rockets as she approaches max speed. She likes to pretend to ride a broom for the sake of appearances and to confuse other capes.

Backstory

Rosina, or “Rose as she preferred to be called back then, is someone who didn’t fit in cleanly to home city of Detroit. Ever since the first days of elementary school, when rollcall happens, the teacher couldn’t pronounce her last name properly. She knew it when she told the other students she liked magic more than capes. She knew it when she wound up being grouped up with the ‘nerds’. Her father consoled her about it, telling her that everyone was unique, and it was alright for it to be a little more obvious in her case. Of course, her father and mother reading her the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings as bedtime stories probably had something to do with this.

As such, she grew up as a shy but massive nerd. Most of her elementary school and middle school days were spent reading fantasy, playing RPGs, and occasionally playing TTRPGs with a small group of friends. It wasn’t until high school that things started to change. Rose entered into her “rebellious teenage phase”. She went goth, listening to black metal and screamo, dressing entirely in black, let her grades drop, started playing Vampire: The Masquerade, the whole nine yards. She even joined a punk rock band as a drummer, despite the fact that she hated it when the attention was focused on her.

Six Steps Outta Hell started off playing in a garage and started actually gaining some traction fairly quickly. After about a couple of month’s worth of time, they played their first gig, with Rose tucked away in the back behind everyone else providing the beat. It went extremely well, and more offers came in for the young band to go and play. It was a dream come true to a lot of them, and they gladly went, even if Rose never really got over her stage fright. Almost a year passed, and they managed to gather a decent following. Arguably the best thing to come out of Detroit in a long time!

They were offered a gig outside of Detroit, a music festival in Chicago. They of course took their shot at the big times and headed out to the event. This was the biggest event they had ever played at, and it made Rose more than a little nervous performing there. She figured it’d be the same as every other gig, that she’d be in the back and not the focus. Her band-mates were good at taking the focus for themselves.

They got there a couple of days early, checked out everything being set up for the festival, and just generally hung about. The lead singer snuck off on occasion, but the rest of them just acted like tourists and wandered about. Eventually, however, the day of the festival came. Rose’s anxiety was through the roof, and only the knowledge that she wasn’t going to be the main focus kept her from not performing. It didn’t help that the lead singer had vanished until just about five minutes before they were set to play.

When he did show up, they were obviously under the influence of something. This led to one hell of an argument between the band members, with Rosina and the bassist saying they couldn’t play, the guitarist insisting that they could push through and do it, and the singer insisting that they were perfectly able to sing. The decision was made for them when they were told it was time to perform, and they just had to wing it.

It didn’t go well. The singer started off alright, but as the performance went on they got more and more unsteady and their language slurred more and more until he eventually just collapsed on stage. All the fans who had come to see them, a group largely comprised of teenagers who were for the most part either drunk or high, were understandably pissed at this development. They were shouting, a couple of them were throwing things, it was a mess. While the guitarist and bassist were trying to get the singer up and out of there, she bolted in fear. Ducked out the back of the stage and tried to run back to their van.

This was the worst thing to do, as it meant she was alone with no one to take the attention off of her. Fans along the way back to the van shouted at her, at least one bottle was hurled at her. This frightened her immensely, but it wasn’t what made her trigger. No, what made her trigger was the line of reporters that she ran into waiting near their van. A literal wall of light and sound greeted her, driving her back against the wall as questions rained down upon her. The realization hit her, this was going to be on the news. This was going to be talked about. Six Steps Outta Hell were finished and done with, and despite it being the singer who had screwed them all over, she was going to be the face of that failure. She triggered there, under the glare of the camera flashes.

She doesn’t exactly remember what happened after her trigger very well, just a lot of sound, light, and then finally the wind rushing past her as she fled into the night. The next thing she really remembers is sitting on top of one of Chicago’s skyscrapers, staring down at the lights of the city. Eventually, a PRT trooper made their way up to talk to her and convince her to come down. It was an absolute mess of legal procedures and NDA’s, especially since she wasn’t a native to the city, but eventually, everything was settled and she returned home with her parents to Detroit with an offer to join the Wards.

It took about a month of practicing with her powers for Rose to decide to finally try and be an independent hero, not wanting the publicity that came from being a Ward but still wanting to help the city. A little over a week later, she had gotten a costume together, and went out on her first night as the hero “Magistrix”. There were some minor successes for about a week, bringing in some random thugs. It wasn’t until she came across a large fight between the local Protectorate and a villain group known as 9 Circles that she managed to make a name for herself. It turns out, launching giant fireworks rockets into a crowd tends to cut a fight short.

After that, she has been on and off with her indie hero career. She focused back on her education, avoiding contact with most of her former band-mates in favor of the much less social issue. Taking her natural talents in writing, she went for a literature degree at Wayne State University. She sought work as a ghostwriter and even decided to publish her own novel, “Damnation Denied”. A fantasy story featuring a sinful soul who winds up in Hell and fights their way to redemption. Eventually, she decided to move away home, to Devilfish. She wanted to write a parahuman novel, and well, no better place in terms of parahumans numbers! That was also affordable.