Name Gwendolyn Étaín MacTiernan Nature Explorer Essence Primordial
Player Kes Demeanor Judge Concept Druid of Ordú Croí de Ndúl
Chronicle Anywhere Café
 Age/Birthday October 8, 1998 (25) Appearance Approximation
 Aja Warren

Attributes
Physical Social Mental
Strength Two Charisma Three Perception Three
Dexterity Two Manipulation Two Intelligence Four
Stamina Two Appearance Three Wits Three

Abilities
Talents Skills Knowledges
Alertness Two Crafts Zero Academics Zero
Art Zero Drive Zero Computer Zero
Athletics Zero Etiquette Two Cosmology Two
Awareness Two Firearms Zero Enigmas Two
Brawl Zero Martial Arts Zero Esoterica Three
Dodge Zero Meditation Zero Investigation Zero
Expression Zero Melee Three Law Zero
Intimidation Zero Research Zero Medicine Zero
Leadership Zero Stealth Zero Occult Zero
Streetwise Zero Survival Two Politics Zero
Subterfuge Zero Technology Zero Science Two

Additional Abilities / Specialties
Physical/Hobby Talents Social/Professional Skills Mental/Expert Knowledges


Melee Staves Intelligence Trained Memory (near-eidetic)




Herbalism (Medicinal) Four




Lore (Free) (Verbena) Zero


Spheres
Correspondence (Lammas) Zero Life (Vernal Equinox) Three Prime (Hub of the Wheel) Two
Entropy (Autumnal Equinox) Zero Matter (Winter Solstice) Zero Spirit (Samhain) Two
Forces (Midsummer) Zero Mind (Imbolc) Zero Time (Beltane) Zero

Advantages
Backgrounds
 Resonance
Avatar Five Sanctum
 Two Dynamic (Warm) Two
Resources Three

Entropic (Dissolving) Two
Wonder Four

Static (Firm) Zero

Arete Willpower

Three
Seven

Seven

Merits and Flaws
Merit Type Cost Flaw Type Bonus
Natural Shapeshifter Supernatural 3 Limited Forms Supernatural 3
Honored Lineage  Social/Supernatural 2 Geas Supernatural 4
Language Mental 1


Language Mental 1


Language Mental 1


Language Mental 1


Quintessence
●Five
  Four
Paradox
Freebies
Trait Dots Points
Matter first 7
Herbalism fourth 1
Arete second/third 8
Avatar second - fifth
 4
Resources third 1
Willpower sixth/seventh
 2
Merits n/a 9
Flaws n/a -7
  Total 25

Experience
Approved December 2, 2024
Earned
Date Earned Points Earned
December 17, 2024¹
 2
December 23, 2024
 3
December 26, 2024¹
 5
January 20, 2025¹
 10
January 27, 2025²
 .5
January 27, 2025³
 9
February 3, 2025²
 .5
February 3, 2025³
 9.25
February 10, 2025²
 1.25
February 10, 2025³
 9
February 24, 2025²
 1.25
March 3, 2025²
 2

Total

 52.75
Spent
Date Bought Trait Bought Dot Bought Points Spent
1/20/25 Sanctum First 5
1/27/25
 Sanctum
 Second
 5
2/02/25
 Spirit
 Second
 7
35.75 ◄ Remaining            Totals               Spent ► 17
  ¹ Storyteller, Birthday, or other Special XP
  ² Popcorn/Vote XP
  ³ Allocated from Player XP
Special Experience Notes
12/17/24 XP awarded for Location Design Idea MacTiernan-Hale Compound
12/26/24 Holiday XP
1/20/25 Birthday XP

Experience is also tracked here

Notes
Merits and Flaws

Natural Shapeshifter: Wendy is a natural and talented shapeshifter when using Life magic. She is never in danger of losing herself to the identity of her beast-forms, and the shapes she assumes are as natural to her as the one she was born in. Moreover, the difficulty of Arete rolls to change her own shape is two less than normal.

Limited Forms: All Druids have a limited set of animals they can turn into once they're Adept in forming Life-based bindings: A hoofed animal for speed, a clawed predator for fighting, a bird to fly around as and an aquatic animal for swimming. These are represented by the zoomorphic bands circling the right bicep. The human form is the topmost of these zoomorphic bands.
The forms Wendy can assume are: Hart, black bear, goshawk, and otter.

Honored Lineage: Descended from the Mac Tighearnán line of druids that goes back to the Tuatha Dé Danann/Wyck

Geas: Druid magic cannot be used to kill or cause lethal harm directly, or the druid's own magic will kill her on the spot. Imposed by the Earth. (Linked to Avatar BG)

Languages: Irish Gaelic, Old Norse, Aramaic, Louisiana French

Wonder

Scáthmhaide or Shadow Staff
Beautifully carved 6-foot oak staff with Celtic bindings for strength and speed on both ends, inlaid with cold iron on one end and silver on the other, flush to the wood. When activated, will produce a similar effect to Strength of Earth.

Equipment

Necklace made of strung-together 1" square iron charms, stamped with various sigils and symbols, around a 2" round center pendant with Celtic knotwork pattern. Frequently used to store Tass.
Paradigm
Avatar Flidais (Celtic Huntress Goddess)
Essence Primordial
Depth Strong
Style Closed
Spheres Life & Spirit
Hooks As taught to Wendy:

All life, all of everything, is bindings. From the binding of atoms together to the bindings of the stars to the very fabric of the universe, everything is part of a greater weave. What is bound can be unbound, what is unbound can be bound.

Druids are those the Earth Herself called to be Her particular champions. The ancient Celtic Gods, aka the Tuatha Dé Danann, were actually merely the first and most powerful of these. Druids are bound to the earth after an apprenticeship of 12 years, through a series of rituals including the application of tattoos made from natural inks with a thorn.

Once bound to the earth, the druid can draw through her tattoos the strength for many things, from the ability to contact the various elementals of the earth to sustaining her own stamina for far longer than normal to shifting to the varied Umbral planes. She can also heal even near-mortal wounds, but must be in contact with the earth through her tattoos to do so.

Accordingly, the druid has the responsibility to guard and preserve the earth's magic through whatever means practical and necessary; with the understanding that sentient beings, including spirits, can be affected if necessary, but there’s a price to pay for the violation of free will. This doesn't mean that it's the druid's responsibility to go around preventing all ecological disasters (though heading off the more dangerous ones is just practical), it means that

Everything will eventually fall apart. Bonds will come undone, life will cease.  It is not the druid's place to prevent this, only to make certain it happens in its own time.

A druid is forbidden to directly harm any living thing with her magic. If she does, her own magic will kill her on the spot. This doesn't mean that it can't be used indirectly, by doing something like catching them in a trap (vine wrapped around ankle, rift in ground opened then closed around them) then knocking them out or lopping off their head with a sword.
Foci General Foci: Tattoos running from a triskele on the bottom of her right foot, up her right side, circling around her bicep four times, then down to another triskele on the back of her right hand. Made from natural inks and applied with a special thorn over the course of at least two months.

To cast different types of magic, the different frames of mind (headspaces) are achieved by thinking in different languages, so as Wendy learns new spheres, she also must learn new languages.  These are used as mental commands to activate specific portions of the tattoos.

•  Life: Irish Gaelic
•  Matter: Old Norse
•  Prime: Aramaic
•  Spirit: Louisiana French


Rotes
Self Sacrifice
TB:V 67		 Prime ●
The druid sacrifices pain to fuel her magic. The most obvious example of this is in the tattoos applied during the ritual bonding her to the Earth. Other sacrifices can include anything from a pinch hard enough to raise a bruise clear up to hanging in imitation of Odin's sacrifice.
• System: For each level of bashing damagethat she suffers, the druid gains a point of Quintessence she can use for a particular spell. For each level of lethal damage, the druid gains an additional point of Quintessence. This damage is done directly to the druid's Pattern, so it cannot be healed using magic, only time and rest. In essence, the druid is drawing upon her own life force, breaking down the Quntessence of her own being to fuel her magic.
Sacred Circle
TB:V 67 (modified)
 Prime ●● Spirit ●
Druids, like many other Verbena, often perform their rites within the bounds of a circle that it warded to protect them against unwanted influences and spirits. Traditionally, the circle is created by walking the bounds thrice with a wand, staff, or blade. The spirits of the four elements are then called upon to consecrate and enforce the circle's boundaries until the druid releases them.
• System: A Sacred Circle can have a radius up to the caster's Arete in yards; each success allocated to the radius increases it by a yard. A circle cast for general purposes must have successes allocated to its duration. The remaining successes from the casting provide dice for countermagic. These dice are rolled automatically against any spell cast on a subject within the bounds of the circle. Any spirits entering the circle or attempting to affect those inside the boundary trip an alarm.
Strength of Earth
TB:V 68
 Life ●●●
For the druid, the living Earth is the source of strength, spiritually and magically. Using this spell, it's also a great source of physical strength or stamina. To cast the spell, the druid must have her tattoos in contact with bare rock, sand, soil, or dirt. Pavement, worked stone, or wooden floors won't do. The spell ends if the caster's tattoo loses touch with the earth for any reason.
• System: Each success on the spells casting adds a dot to the mage's Strength or Stamina (though not both unless a higher level of Life is used). The caster must also assign successes to duration for the spell to last more than a moment. The spell is coincidental as long as the druid's Strength or Stamina remains within human bounds (five or fewer dots). Greater levels of strength or stamina require vulgar magic to achieve.
Life Scan
MR 170
 Life ●
By binding her sight to the correct spectrum, the druid can find the bio-magnetic bonds of nearby living creatures. This can be helpful in targeting friends or enemies, since a druid easily remembers individual patterns that she's seen before. Most druids set their sight to filter out undesired life forms like microscopic organisms or simple vermin. She can also, with a Perception roll, see flaws that indicate various diseases, injuries, toxins, and parasitic infestations in a life form's Pattern. The more successes scored, the better the information. If enough successes are scored, the druid can even map and analyze the DNA of the life form.
Better Body
MR 171		 Life ●●●
Druids use this one more for alterations like gills, tougher skin, better appearance, etc. Successes determine extent of changes and duration.
Atomic Sight
Kes
Basically Analyze Substance MR 173		 Matter ●
By binding her sight to the correct spectrum, the mage can see the molecular bonds of matter and use them to tell gold from pyrite or exactly what a chair is made of and how much weight it can hold.
Detect Lycanthrope
RDO		 Life ●● Spirit ●
This rote allows a mage to tell if there are any were-creatures in the area.
This rote does not specify which type of were-creature.
Longevi-Tea
Kes
Elixir of Longevity from RDO		 Life ●●●
The druid distils some of her blood, adds it to a specialized tea blend, and drinks the final product. This elixir will halt the ageing of the mage for a time, but not rejuvenate her.
Body of Light
MR 183		 Prime ●●
Creates an etheric construct
Enchant Weapon
MR 183		 Prime ●●
The druid can bind Quintessence into a weapon to make it cause aggravated damage.
Spirit Sight
MR 187		 Spirit ●
By binding her sight to the correct spectrum, the druid can see into the spirit world/across the Gauntlet. With additional successes, she can bind other senses.
TB:V - Tradition Book: Verbena
MR - Mage Revised
RDO - Rote Database Online
Kes - Made up by me, usually different names for rotes found elsewhere
History
The Mac Tighearnán line is a widely varied one with several branches, but that at least claims to trace back to the Tuatha Dé Danann. This particular outlying branch of that line is often thought of as one of the nut-bearing ones by the closer-lying branches in the Gardeners of the Tree. They call themselves Ordú Croí de Ndúl, or The Order of the Heart of the Elements. Hippy-dippy neo-druids long before there even was such a thing, this particular slender line is one of those rather grudgingly acknowledged, even though they’ve produced some fairly powerful practitioners.

The most recent of which is the daughter of Grania MacTiernan and Pat Samuels. Neither had chosen to be mages, but the potential was especially strong in Wendy, so she was apprenticed to a cousin of her mother's at age 10 and awakened by introduction to the mountain elemental Santa Ana. Sithneach Mac Tighearnán was not only a mentor in magics, he was a teacher in all things. Wendy was homeschooled in all the usual subjects as well as her magical studies, and got a high-school diploma. Most of her apprenticeship, however, was memorizing theory. Learning the knotwork and the meanings behind it that would go into her tattoos, learning the bindings of everything from the atomic bonds of matter to the complex bonds between people to the bonds of the planets with the fabric of space.

Wendy passed most of her tests with relative ease, academic, physical, and magical. One major test turned out to be crucial: the Baolach Cruatan or Dangerous Trial. Wendy found herself in a glade with three exits guarded by wild pigs (peccaries), a bobcat, and a bear. After finally reluctantly killing one of the pigs with a stout branch to make the rest scatter, she stepped through that exit to be confronted by two of the Tuatha Dé Danann – Brighid and Flidais. Brighid seemed to be there mainly to bear witness, but both goddesses questioned her understanding of the test and her actions. A test of courage and resourcefulness in a situation where magic and weapons are unavailable, the test is that of character in a crisis. Neither the cowardly nor the bloodthirsty are wanted to bond with the earth. After Wendy answered the questions, she awoke with a plain staff and added training in fighting with it to her studies.

Eventually, Sithneach took Wendy to a small cave, cast a sacred circle, took out specially made inks and a hardened sharpened thorn that was still attached to a living thornbush, and stabbed her foot with it. Wendy passed out, flooded with the presence of the Earth. For the time it took her mentor to finish the first loop of her tattoos, an inhibitor loop that would allow Wendy to feel Gaia's presence without being overwhelmed, she slept.  When her still raw and bloody foot was pressed to the floor of the cave, Wendy woke and was told that was her last get-out-of-pain-free card for the duration.  The process took from the Vernal Equinox to Beltane. Once finished, Wendy had a line of knotwork from the loop on the bottom of her right foot up her right side past the curve of her breast, over her right shoulder, and down her right arm. Four loops circled her bicep, each holding a representation of one of the forms she could assume once she reached sufficient skill with Life magic to achieve shapeshifting. The process and the intense communion with the Earth forged her soul further.

After the tattoos healed, Sithneach took her to meet the elders of the family. They gifted her and feasted, reminiscing about their own experiences. One gift was a special staff, introduced to her as Scáthmhaide, or Shadow Staff. A beautiful staff of oak, carved with knotwork similar to, but miles beyond, that in her tattoos. At the end of the party, Sithneach told her that she needed to expand her horizons, to learn how others did things and to integrate her magic with theirs.

In New Orleans, she began this process by binding in love and magic with a consor, a sorcerer of the Brotherhood of the Oak, Ashely Hale. Bowing to pressure from his family, they've recently made the move to be closer to the Brotherhood's base in Boston. Wanting to go their own way, they compromised and went a bit further, to Maine. Wendy's family was enthusiastic about having a satellite to their Arizona compound, so they added in a bit to the financial pool to allow the pair to buy a fairly significant parcel of land with a decent house.