Kale Daly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
engineermage) wrote2018-09-28 11:03 am
engineermage) wrote2018-09-28 11:03 am
World and History information
Kale's Magical Abilities Kale is a techomage and psychometric. He’s capable of magically talking to any bit of technology, the more advanced it is the easier it is for him to talk to it and get it to do what he wants. So, while he could get a tumbler lock to unlock itself it’d be more difficult than letting himself into a computer system. The psychometry allows him to touch things like clothing or a knife or a wall and see what happened in the past with it. He can get a sense of who last held it and who and what they were like. This is dangerous for him because if the personality who last used the object is stronger than him in someway it can overwhelm him. At best he just picks up a few character traits of the person for a while at worse it can completely overwhelm him sending him into a coma or the other person taking over. Even after they’ve faded Kale still retains a bit of what the person knew. It’s allowed him to pick up languages easier and use things he normally wouldn’t know how to do. However, because of how risky it is, he rarely does it unless absolutely necessary. And because of it he almost always wears gloves spelled to protect him.
Because he is and was raised a McCallum, Kale also has what could be known as Hero’s Luck. It’s that Thing that lets a hero get away with things by the skin of their teeth. Just making it out of the collapsing building. Just managing to complete the spell in time. Just managing to get to the location of Doom to stop the Evil Dude. However it only works when he’s doing something to protect people.
Kale's World
Kale comes from an earth where magic is everyday and known. Everyone has a tiny spark of magic. Gods walk the world and because of this and society has developed quite differently. Perhaps the biggest difference is the lack of Judaism and its descendents, Christianity and Islam. The religions never formed because why believe in a god that doesn’t physically exist when its obvious that there are gods that do. Something happened many years ago that caused a weakening of the gods power. Some say it was humanity’s realization that they didn’t need the gods for everything, like in the Industrial Revolution, or at least their priests. Others say that it’s part of the natural way of things. The gods are fading, its past their time.
The world has integrated magic into its everyday life. There is no difference between science and magic for them.Technology works because of magic. Doctors have the ability to help people through the study of medicine and in some cases the ability to heal people themselves. Ritual mages test the known bounds of magic while physicists test the known bounds of physics. Dragons write romance novels and gods run multinational businesses. There’s television, movies, computers and all the modern conveniences. There’s just little differences, things like necromancy being a course of study, Ireland - Eire - still being run by a king, the center of Germany being destroyed in a magical incident that destabilized ley lines and made it nearly impossible for magic to work properly there and Lord of the Rings is a historical fiction novel while Twilight is considered to be a very strange science fiction romance series.
Because of the physical nature of the gods, colonialism wasn’t as strong in this world as it is was in others. It’s hard for a person, several thousand miles away from their own homeland and gods, to confront people who have their gods standing right next to them and win.
Currently some of the gods protest this fading and are slowly trying to rebuild their base of power to return to the days of old when they were truly more like forces of nature.
Kale’s family and background is long and storied. One of myth and legends and secrets. It begins way back at the founding of Eire itself. He is, on his mother’s side, which is the most influential side of his raising, a descendant of the Morrigan herself. On his father’s side, on the other hand, he’s a descendant of Brigid. The Morrigan’s oldest child was a man named Caellum. Caellum ended up making a huge mistake.
A mistake that affects his descendants to this very day. He was tricked into helping someone (the actual person has been lost to time) murder the seven first born children of the first seven fey. The first fey to ever be murdered by iron. He led them into a grove of trees where they were hanged and stabbed with iron. The magic and agony that their deaths released cursed the grove. The seven fey’s spirits twisted it and haunted it. It became known as the Clutching Grove and it roams fairy searching for new victims to join in the first spirit’s misery and agony. Even the gods are wary of approaching it. In punishment Caellum was forced to become what became known as the King of the Clutching Grove, where he tried to keep it from wrecking complete havoc in both fairy and the mortal worlds. His descendants were cursed as follows: on the thirteenth child of the family turns thirteen the eldest child would be drawn into fairy and to the grove where they would become the new King/Queen of it.
The rest of the Caellum’s family, in a sort of penance, were made the guardians of the gateway into Fairy. Their home, what became known as Thorn Hall, is one of the places where the world is thin and if the barrier is ever broken, fairy would leak into the mortal realms eventually taking it over. They also became “heroes” in the Beowulf and Gilgamesh and Cul Cuhlen sense. They’d fight wars, hunt down monsters (human and nonhuman) and help people in need. The Morrigan gave them the gift of Hero’s Luck (see Trever’s powers for a definition of it) and cursed them with a particular shade of red hair and green eyes, as well as freckles. As long as they’re “raised” as a McCallum and follow their ideals they have what’s known as the McCallum red hair and green eyes. It completely defies genetics. Three of Trever’s cousins live in Dublin and whenever they come to the Hall to visit their hair turns noticeably brighter red and their eyes greener. Their non-McCallum parent could have black hair and brown eyes but if they’re raised at Thorn Hall or spend enough time there, their hair and eyes will change colors. They were given this curse so that the Monsters know who they are and have a chance to surrender or run away or at least know what they’re facing. It’s essentially a warning to all those that see them. People with magical senses can even sense the warning, even if they don’t know it’s connected to the hair and eyes. As some people put it, the McCallums are the monsters on top of the bed.
There always must be a McCallum living at Thorn Hall or else the barriers as mentioned, would break. Each generation has a McCallum and they know who they are. They are pretty much bound to the Hall not wanting to leave it. However, if the McCallum dies, the McCallum passes to the next available McCallum. Until it finds one, even if they’re distantly related.
Kale’s mother met his father when she was asked by Malcom Daly, the King of Eire (whose family was helped put on the throne by a McCallum) to rescue the crown prince, Calvin. It was your classic knight rescuing the prince and later falling in love story. This became a problem because Talia was a McCallum and they were famous for breaking and making kings. Also because the heir to the throne couldn’t be a McCallum and king at the same time. So, she did marry - despite the protests - and took on her husband’s name thus making her children Dalys and not McCallums and so the eldest child would be taken out of the McCallum line and the potential of becoming the McCallum tied to Thorn Hall. However the other children were still potentially capable of becoming the McCallum because they are only potential heirs. (The final protest about the two of them getting married was that the Morrigan and Brigid don’t particularly care for each other and didn’t like the idea of two of their lines merging).
Kale and his twin Trever got their strange names (Kale - cabbage [but don’t call him cabbage boy if you know what’s good for you and] and Trever instead of Trevor) because the Morrigan and Brigid made a bet. Whoever got Talia to take their suggested name would be allowed to influence them. Their older brother - Nat - was automatically given to Brigid as he was heir to the throne (even if he was raised at Thorn Hall). The Morrigan waited until Talia was dead exhausted and not thinking quite right after giving birth to suggest the names. She thought they were brilliant and so the Morrigan won.
So, they were brought and raised at Thorn Hall amongst all the other McCallums - that would be, in age order: Dara, Sean (however he soon left to live in Dublin), Bran, Aoife, Finn, Maeve, Aidan, Siobhan, Grady, Una, Rory and Grace. Grace and Rory were only five years older than the twins and a few months younger than their older brother, Nat, so they were treated practically as siblings.
They had a fairly eventful young childhood.
When they were about nine months old Nat, Rory and Grace decided that they were obviously some sort of dark creature because no human could be so loud and annoying and were left out in the woods for the wolves or fairies to take after having permanent marker scales drawn on them. They were rescued and Nat, Rory and Grace were severely punished for it. When they were four they were sold to the circus for a dollar each and some candy. (Getting sold to the circus was a bit of a McCallum family tradition. Every McCallum sibling sold their younger ones to the circus.And then had to buy them back). Kale, having gotten a bit bored, didn’t mind going back but Trever didn’t want to leave enjoying being with the circus dogs. This was the first obvious instance of personality differences between the twins. As they got older, more things became apparent. Kale was more interested in taking things apart to see how they worked and Trever enjoyed being with the animals more. This became useful because Kale could open locks and things when Trever came up with some sort of mischievous idea.
When they were eight, two things happened that seriously affected the twins and they generally consider it to be the worst year they’ve ever had. He and Trever were taken to the Stones in the deep woods to see them under supervision. The adults knew that if the children were forbidden to go and see the Stones, they would go and see them to see what all the fuss was about. So, they were brought to the Stones to see them. Curious, Kale touched one of them. This overwhelmed his nascent psychometric abilities because the Stones were ancient and a great deal of powerful individuals had passed through and touched them over the long years. He collapsed into a coma, unable to deal with the sudden influx of personalities crowding into his mind.
Being only eight years old there was no way that he could fight off even the remnants of arch fey personalities or even others less powerful that passed through the stones. It took all he had to keep a sense of self, even if he couldn’t be awake in the world, hiding away from everything.
After three months a family friend, who was skilled in ancient and long forgotten magics, was brought in. (It took them that long to find him.) He was able to bring Kale out of the coma, banishing the personalities. At least mostly. There are times when he can still feel them just lingering like echoes of echoes at the back of his mind, some of them just waiting for the chance to try and take over. As Kale is much older and trained now the likelihood of that happening is very slim. It also gave Kale the beginnings of a crush on Rhys.
Soon after that it was Grace and Rory’s thirteenth birthday. A birthday that opened in tragedy. Their oldest uncle, Dara, had been caught by the Clutching Grove’s curse and drawn into fairy at the stroke of midnight. What was planned to be a great and fun day became overshadowed by the vanishing of Dara - that absolutely cool uncle/brother. A vanishing that, despite their pestering, their grandparents and mother didn’t seem to be interesting in fixing. But they knew about the curse and knew there was nothing they could do about it.
The rest of his childhood past relatively uneventfully… for a McCallum. He got into the usual shenanigans of stealing livestock when he turned thirteen, monster hunting, and doing prince things like going to official functions, terrorizing people at official functions and learning the concept of diplomacy doesn’t always mean you shoot them in the leg instead of the head.
When he finished secondary school, Kale and Trever haid their first major split in their lives going off to do different things. Kale went into the army and Trever went off to university to learn how to become a vet. Unlike his uncle, mother and aunt, Kale became a non-commissioned officer and worked mostly in the engineering corps. He seriously enjoyed his time in the army helping design new kinds of computer systems, weapons and aircraft and generally being on the cutting edge of technology. His technomancy helped him immensely in this department, letting him find and fix things that other people couldn’t.
Just a short while after getting discharged from the army he and Trever were picked up by the family friend who pulled him out of his coma to help with an investigation. The Rus ambassador to Erie’s daughter had been killed and he wanted their help in the investigation. The other people in the group Rhys had brought together were a set of Triplets (Adrienne, Anna and Adrian Gunther) who were the children of a notorious god hating media mogul, Theodred Sammeth, the demi-god necromancer son of a god of the dead who the Gunther’s father absolutely despised and Lan Petrov, an empath and psychometric like Kale who was the cousin of the murder victim. They discovered that the murder was part of a series of ritual murders being done in the name of the latest heart throb Ashley Carrey - who turned out to be actually Ashkari, god of necromancy and the son of Theodred’s father long thought dead.
They realized that Something Else was definitely happening and since it was more interesting than their day jobs, and it fit into their Heroing Genes, Trever and Kale stayed on with Rhys and the others to figure out what that Something Else, jokingly giving themselves the name The Department of Magical Crimes or DMC. Which, somehow, Rhys managed to make an official troubleshooting team for around the world, complete with nifty badges.
Because he is and was raised a McCallum, Kale also has what could be known as Hero’s Luck. It’s that Thing that lets a hero get away with things by the skin of their teeth. Just making it out of the collapsing building. Just managing to complete the spell in time. Just managing to get to the location of Doom to stop the Evil Dude. However it only works when he’s doing something to protect people.
Kale's World
Kale comes from an earth where magic is everyday and known. Everyone has a tiny spark of magic. Gods walk the world and because of this and society has developed quite differently. Perhaps the biggest difference is the lack of Judaism and its descendents, Christianity and Islam. The religions never formed because why believe in a god that doesn’t physically exist when its obvious that there are gods that do. Something happened many years ago that caused a weakening of the gods power. Some say it was humanity’s realization that they didn’t need the gods for everything, like in the Industrial Revolution, or at least their priests. Others say that it’s part of the natural way of things. The gods are fading, its past their time.
The world has integrated magic into its everyday life. There is no difference between science and magic for them.Technology works because of magic. Doctors have the ability to help people through the study of medicine and in some cases the ability to heal people themselves. Ritual mages test the known bounds of magic while physicists test the known bounds of physics. Dragons write romance novels and gods run multinational businesses. There’s television, movies, computers and all the modern conveniences. There’s just little differences, things like necromancy being a course of study, Ireland - Eire - still being run by a king, the center of Germany being destroyed in a magical incident that destabilized ley lines and made it nearly impossible for magic to work properly there and Lord of the Rings is a historical fiction novel while Twilight is considered to be a very strange science fiction romance series.
Because of the physical nature of the gods, colonialism wasn’t as strong in this world as it is was in others. It’s hard for a person, several thousand miles away from their own homeland and gods, to confront people who have their gods standing right next to them and win.
Currently some of the gods protest this fading and are slowly trying to rebuild their base of power to return to the days of old when they were truly more like forces of nature.
Family History and Personal
Kale’s family and background is long and storied. One of myth and legends and secrets. It begins way back at the founding of Eire itself. He is, on his mother’s side, which is the most influential side of his raising, a descendant of the Morrigan herself. On his father’s side, on the other hand, he’s a descendant of Brigid. The Morrigan’s oldest child was a man named Caellum. Caellum ended up making a huge mistake.
A mistake that affects his descendants to this very day. He was tricked into helping someone (the actual person has been lost to time) murder the seven first born children of the first seven fey. The first fey to ever be murdered by iron. He led them into a grove of trees where they were hanged and stabbed with iron. The magic and agony that their deaths released cursed the grove. The seven fey’s spirits twisted it and haunted it. It became known as the Clutching Grove and it roams fairy searching for new victims to join in the first spirit’s misery and agony. Even the gods are wary of approaching it. In punishment Caellum was forced to become what became known as the King of the Clutching Grove, where he tried to keep it from wrecking complete havoc in both fairy and the mortal worlds. His descendants were cursed as follows: on the thirteenth child of the family turns thirteen the eldest child would be drawn into fairy and to the grove where they would become the new King/Queen of it.
The rest of the Caellum’s family, in a sort of penance, were made the guardians of the gateway into Fairy. Their home, what became known as Thorn Hall, is one of the places where the world is thin and if the barrier is ever broken, fairy would leak into the mortal realms eventually taking it over. They also became “heroes” in the Beowulf and Gilgamesh and Cul Cuhlen sense. They’d fight wars, hunt down monsters (human and nonhuman) and help people in need. The Morrigan gave them the gift of Hero’s Luck (see Trever’s powers for a definition of it) and cursed them with a particular shade of red hair and green eyes, as well as freckles. As long as they’re “raised” as a McCallum and follow their ideals they have what’s known as the McCallum red hair and green eyes. It completely defies genetics. Three of Trever’s cousins live in Dublin and whenever they come to the Hall to visit their hair turns noticeably brighter red and their eyes greener. Their non-McCallum parent could have black hair and brown eyes but if they’re raised at Thorn Hall or spend enough time there, their hair and eyes will change colors. They were given this curse so that the Monsters know who they are and have a chance to surrender or run away or at least know what they’re facing. It’s essentially a warning to all those that see them. People with magical senses can even sense the warning, even if they don’t know it’s connected to the hair and eyes. As some people put it, the McCallums are the monsters on top of the bed.
There always must be a McCallum living at Thorn Hall or else the barriers as mentioned, would break. Each generation has a McCallum and they know who they are. They are pretty much bound to the Hall not wanting to leave it. However, if the McCallum dies, the McCallum passes to the next available McCallum. Until it finds one, even if they’re distantly related.
Kale’s mother met his father when she was asked by Malcom Daly, the King of Eire (whose family was helped put on the throne by a McCallum) to rescue the crown prince, Calvin. It was your classic knight rescuing the prince and later falling in love story. This became a problem because Talia was a McCallum and they were famous for breaking and making kings. Also because the heir to the throne couldn’t be a McCallum and king at the same time. So, she did marry - despite the protests - and took on her husband’s name thus making her children Dalys and not McCallums and so the eldest child would be taken out of the McCallum line and the potential of becoming the McCallum tied to Thorn Hall. However the other children were still potentially capable of becoming the McCallum because they are only potential heirs. (The final protest about the two of them getting married was that the Morrigan and Brigid don’t particularly care for each other and didn’t like the idea of two of their lines merging).
Kale and his twin Trever got their strange names (Kale - cabbage [but don’t call him cabbage boy if you know what’s good for you and] and Trever instead of Trevor) because the Morrigan and Brigid made a bet. Whoever got Talia to take their suggested name would be allowed to influence them. Their older brother - Nat - was automatically given to Brigid as he was heir to the throne (even if he was raised at Thorn Hall). The Morrigan waited until Talia was dead exhausted and not thinking quite right after giving birth to suggest the names. She thought they were brilliant and so the Morrigan won.
So, they were brought and raised at Thorn Hall amongst all the other McCallums - that would be, in age order: Dara, Sean (however he soon left to live in Dublin), Bran, Aoife, Finn, Maeve, Aidan, Siobhan, Grady, Una, Rory and Grace. Grace and Rory were only five years older than the twins and a few months younger than their older brother, Nat, so they were treated practically as siblings.
They had a fairly eventful young childhood.
When they were about nine months old Nat, Rory and Grace decided that they were obviously some sort of dark creature because no human could be so loud and annoying and were left out in the woods for the wolves or fairies to take after having permanent marker scales drawn on them. They were rescued and Nat, Rory and Grace were severely punished for it. When they were four they were sold to the circus for a dollar each and some candy. (Getting sold to the circus was a bit of a McCallum family tradition. Every McCallum sibling sold their younger ones to the circus.And then had to buy them back). Kale, having gotten a bit bored, didn’t mind going back but Trever didn’t want to leave enjoying being with the circus dogs. This was the first obvious instance of personality differences between the twins. As they got older, more things became apparent. Kale was more interested in taking things apart to see how they worked and Trever enjoyed being with the animals more. This became useful because Kale could open locks and things when Trever came up with some sort of mischievous idea.
When they were eight, two things happened that seriously affected the twins and they generally consider it to be the worst year they’ve ever had. He and Trever were taken to the Stones in the deep woods to see them under supervision. The adults knew that if the children were forbidden to go and see the Stones, they would go and see them to see what all the fuss was about. So, they were brought to the Stones to see them. Curious, Kale touched one of them. This overwhelmed his nascent psychometric abilities because the Stones were ancient and a great deal of powerful individuals had passed through and touched them over the long years. He collapsed into a coma, unable to deal with the sudden influx of personalities crowding into his mind.
Being only eight years old there was no way that he could fight off even the remnants of arch fey personalities or even others less powerful that passed through the stones. It took all he had to keep a sense of self, even if he couldn’t be awake in the world, hiding away from everything.
After three months a family friend, who was skilled in ancient and long forgotten magics, was brought in. (It took them that long to find him.) He was able to bring Kale out of the coma, banishing the personalities. At least mostly. There are times when he can still feel them just lingering like echoes of echoes at the back of his mind, some of them just waiting for the chance to try and take over. As Kale is much older and trained now the likelihood of that happening is very slim. It also gave Kale the beginnings of a crush on Rhys.
Soon after that it was Grace and Rory’s thirteenth birthday. A birthday that opened in tragedy. Their oldest uncle, Dara, had been caught by the Clutching Grove’s curse and drawn into fairy at the stroke of midnight. What was planned to be a great and fun day became overshadowed by the vanishing of Dara - that absolutely cool uncle/brother. A vanishing that, despite their pestering, their grandparents and mother didn’t seem to be interesting in fixing. But they knew about the curse and knew there was nothing they could do about it.
The rest of his childhood past relatively uneventfully… for a McCallum. He got into the usual shenanigans of stealing livestock when he turned thirteen, monster hunting, and doing prince things like going to official functions, terrorizing people at official functions and learning the concept of diplomacy doesn’t always mean you shoot them in the leg instead of the head.
When he finished secondary school, Kale and Trever haid their first major split in their lives going off to do different things. Kale went into the army and Trever went off to university to learn how to become a vet. Unlike his uncle, mother and aunt, Kale became a non-commissioned officer and worked mostly in the engineering corps. He seriously enjoyed his time in the army helping design new kinds of computer systems, weapons and aircraft and generally being on the cutting edge of technology. His technomancy helped him immensely in this department, letting him find and fix things that other people couldn’t.
Just a short while after getting discharged from the army he and Trever were picked up by the family friend who pulled him out of his coma to help with an investigation. The Rus ambassador to Erie’s daughter had been killed and he wanted their help in the investigation. The other people in the group Rhys had brought together were a set of Triplets (Adrienne, Anna and Adrian Gunther) who were the children of a notorious god hating media mogul, Theodred Sammeth, the demi-god necromancer son of a god of the dead who the Gunther’s father absolutely despised and Lan Petrov, an empath and psychometric like Kale who was the cousin of the murder victim. They discovered that the murder was part of a series of ritual murders being done in the name of the latest heart throb Ashley Carrey - who turned out to be actually Ashkari, god of necromancy and the son of Theodred’s father long thought dead.
They realized that Something Else was definitely happening and since it was more interesting than their day jobs, and it fit into their Heroing Genes, Trever and Kale stayed on with Rhys and the others to figure out what that Something Else, jokingly giving themselves the name The Department of Magical Crimes or DMC. Which, somehow, Rhys managed to make an official troubleshooting team for around the world, complete with nifty badges.