Voidtrecker App

Player Information

Name: Lel
Age: 39
Contact details: leloipa on plurk, Lel#8770 on discord
Other characters: Danny Fenton

Character Information

Name: Will Stanton
Canon: The Dark is Rising Sequence (Book)
Canon Point: Immediately Post Series
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: OU
Age: 13, Mostly.  Calculating age can get a bit complicated with all the time travel.

World Information:
At first glance the world of The Dark is Rising Sequence appears very like the real world of the 1970s. Will resides with his family in a small village in Buckinghamshire near the Thames river.

Later on it is revealed that there is a long history of magic in his world which has been forgotten by humans. The last remnants of this history are now known only in half forgotten legend and myths.

Although human's understanding of the world is based on science, in reality much of the working of Will's universe is controlled by an intricate hierarchy of magical forces. There is the High Magic, which binds the universe together and keeps the planets on their courses. There is the Wild Magic of living things and the Old Magic of the Earth. And just beneath the High Magic in the hierarchy there are the two balancing forces of Light and Dark.

The Light and the Dark have been fighting over the fate of humankind throughout human history, and specific historic events are identified as being the result of the influence of one side or the other. Wars and invasions are often caused by the Dark while times of peace and great works of learning are often the result of the Light gaining an advantage for a time. But not always. The point is made that while the Light is a force for good, its main concern is always with the big picture, with the fight against the Dark. The Light is a sword that cuts both ways, and sometimes the ones who are hurt the most are the ones on its own side.

Personal History:

Will grew up in a small English country village in the 1970s. Most of his childhood was unremarkable, apart from being the youngest of nine children. Perhaps he was a little quieter and more thoughtful than other children his age, but even that was not entirely unusual.

That all changed on his eleventh birthday, when he awoke to his true heritage. Walking out of his house, Will stepped into a time five centuries before his own birth. There, he first encountered the Black Rider, as well as a man named Merriman and an old woman known only as the Lady. From Merriman, Will began to learn of his true his heritage. He was told that he was not properly human, as he had always believed himself to be, but that instead he was the last born of the Old Ones of the LIght. And he learned that because of that he had a gift, and he had a duty that could not be refused. He was bound by his very nature to fight against the Dark. They told Will that with his awakening they knew that the time of the last great battle against the Dark was drawing near.

Will returned to his own time, knowing that his first quest would be to reunite six signs of power that had been created for the Light over the ages. Over the week of Christmas Will sought out the six signs and reunited them while fighting against the obstacles created by the Black Rider and the Dark. He completed the learning of his powers and began to come into an understanding of what he was. With the signs reunited, Will called forth Herne the Hunter and the Wild Hunt to chase the Dark to the edges of the Earth.

The next summer Will traveled to Cornwall. There he assisted Merriman and three human children in the recovery of a stolen Grail and a lost manuscript. Will and Merriman used the artifacts to decipher a coded prophecy in Ogam on the side of the Grail.

Only a few months later Will became desperately ill with hepatitis. He lived, but in his fever he lost all memory of ever being anything more than human. He forgot his magic and his duties. Will was left with only the certainty that he had forgotten something that was terribly important and a single phrase. "On the day of the dead, when the year too dies." 

On the advice of his doctor, Will's family send him to Wales to stay with an old friend of his mother's as he recuperates. There Will met Bran Davies, who quickly became his best friend. They embarked on a quest together to find the crystal sword of the light. During the quest it is revealed that Bran is actually the son of Arthur and Guinevere, brought forward to grow up safely in modern Wales by Merriman, who was once called Merlin. And that just as Merlin had once been guide and advisor and wizard to Arthur, Will is meant to serve Bran in those roles.

A year later Will returns to Wales, where he meets up with Bran and three children from the Cornwall quest again. It is time for the last battle against the Dark. Together, they reunite all the magic items Will has collected through his quests, win the battle and cast the Dark out beyond time. But the victory comes with a great cost. The great work of the Old Ones is complete, and all of them leave the world. Bran chooses to forget everything he knows of magic and live a mortal life. All the other humans who were involved in the battle also forget about magic and the war against the Dark.

And Will is left behind in the mortal world to serve as the Watchman for the Light, the only Old One left in the world and the only one who remembers everything.


Personality:
On the surface Will is quiet, polite and cheerful, with a wry sense of humor. He can be distant and vague around people he does not know well, but Will often teases his family and friends with mock pompousness and a straight face. Will truly loves his human life as the youngest child in a very. very large family. 

He is inclined to scholarly pursuits, particularly history and languages. Will has a keen interest in folklore, particularly old stories and ceremonies. He reads Medieval herbal treatises for fun, and enjoys traveling around visiting historic sites. And he rather enjoys singing, which he is quite good at. He is still rather embarrassed at having won several choral competitions in London.

But there are times when Will shows that he is something more than this. He often acts more like an adult than a child. For example, he has a way of avoiding fights with other boys his age by removing himself from the argument and being annoyingly reasonable. He has a way, also, of sliding into an argument and fixing a problem diplomatically without ever bringing attention to himself. Other characters often remark there is something subtly reassuring and practical about Will. He hardly ever gets upset about anything. And he can be rather cryptic and philosophical at times. After some comments about religion, a local priest once remarked that he wasn't sure whether Will should be ordained or exorcised.

Will is often conflicted between the cold and pragmatic nature of the part of himself that is an Old One of the Light and the emotional side of himself that is still a human child.. As the last of the Old Ones to be born , Will is by far the one with the closest ties to humanity still. And while the Light is good and noble, it is not particularly nice. Not even to its own side. Old Ones are concerned with the big picture of the great battle against the Dark. And Will knows that at any time he may be required to make hard choices that could result in his human family and friends being hurt.  He doesn't like it, but he understands why.


Key themes:
1. Will's primary theme is the story of a very human child discovering that he was never very human to begin with. He is caught in the conflict between the self that still thinks about the world as a human child and the self that understands the world in a very alien and pragmatic way. And as time goes by Will reacts to situations less and less as a human child and more and more like Merriman and the other Old Ones do. Will tells Merriman at one point that he doesn't regret what he is now.... but he does sometimes think that it would be easier if he was truly as human as he always thought.

2. Loss is another theme that appears again and again throughout Will's story. Will's first loss is his childhood, which comes to an end on his eleventh birthday. And again and again the theme appears through the people he meets. A choice must be made, and often the best choice is the one that hurts the most. 

Main Motivation:
Any great gift or power is a burden and this more than any and you will often long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law.
Will's main motivation is duty. From the very beginning of his canon, Will becomes aware that what he is comes with important responsibilities and duties. And even when he discovers that what is asked of him can be very difficult sometimes, or that the cause he is sworn to is willing to put him in danger, he never wavers in his commitment to his duty to the Light.

Skills:
Old Ones claim to be very much like humans. They are born into human families, and live as humans do. In appearance there is no obvious difference. But in mind and soul and purpose, they are something very different.

As an Old One, Will has access to a wide variety of powers. However, he is limited in the actions he is allowed to take. A point is made that humans must be able to make their own choices, and that is something he is not permitted to interfere with. At his canonpoint his role in the world is to Watch against the return of the Dark.

Time 
Old Ones are variously described as existing outside of time or being only very loosely connected to the flow of time. For them all time is the present, and things that happen in the distant future can change events that happened in the past. Because of this, Will can walk in and out of different times as he wills, and if he walks into a new time everyone there will remember him as always having been there. He is also unaffected by time paradoxes. I assume that this ability will be limited in Voidtreckers.

Visions
Will sometimes has visions of other times. This happens either by walking into a space where time is overlapping or by touching an object and willing himself to see its history.

Control of Time
Will can stop time for the people around him or put a single person outside of time for a moment.

Mind
Mindspeaking
Will can speak into other's minds, although he would be reluctant to do this with human minds. He can also share mental images in this way.

Memory
Will has an excellent memory. It is mentioned that the mind of an Old One is the safest place to leave important information, for it can never be truly forgotten.

Sensing
Will can sense the presence of other agents of the Light and Dark. He feels the Light as music and the Dark as a whirling disorienting feeling.

Magic
The Old Speech
All Old Ones instinctively know how to speak this language. In Will's world, all creatures of magic can speak and understand it as well.

Will speaks and understands all the languages of men.

Will uses the Old Speech to cast spells. Some spells can be cast with only a single word and gesture, while others are more complicated.
Spells to control fire and water, sea and sky.
Spells to use the abilities of different animals. To ride the wind like an eagle, to run like a deer and to swim like a fish.
Spells using the folklore of different plants and animals. 
Spells to identify and destroy the magic of the Dark
Spells of protection and destruction 
Spells to temporarily acquire skills like horse riding and music
Will cannot cast spells over running water or heal using magic. It is also mentioned that there are certain things like instant transportation or seeing visions of the future that he is not capable of yet.

Immortality
Will cannot die. Even if he becomes badly injured, he would be unable to die. However he is not invulnerable. He is as easy to injure as any human and has no healing ability.

Human Abilities
Singing
Basic Metal Engraving

Item:
His coat

Sample:
Test Drive

Notes:
For RP I assume that Will is locked down to moving through time in only one direction and that his language ability is limited to living and dead human languages from his world.

Will was briefly in game once before, but it was such a short time and so long ago that I intend to restart him with no memories of the time before,