Player Name: Rowan

AIM Contact: Alderwitch

Yahoo! Contact: Kioreaeryn

Character Name: Persephone Putnam

Date & Place of Birth: 31 October 1985; Salem, Massachusetts

Character Type: Hereditary witch

Character Occupation & Skills: Persephone is the proud owner of Black Cat Books, of which she is both the sole proprieter and sole employee so if the store is open, Sef's there, and the bookstore is generally open. The store itself is half-eclectic bookstore, half-magical hodge-podge with a good dollop of tourist crap tossed in. Sef's reputation as a medium lends the store an air of credibility with the magical subculture and one is just as likely to find some genuine trinket mixed among the cheap silver pendants. Sef makes certain that those only fall into the hands of people actually able to deal with any ensuing repercussions. The majority of her clients are the punk-goth teenagers who Sef is happy to accept money from and gently nudge them in the 'Do no harm' direction.

Although Persephone has only a high-school education, she has more occult knowledge than any metaphysic PhD program would teach. As her family is one of the oldest black witch families in the nation, Persephone's had ample opportunity to learn at a master's knee. These days she lends her knowledge out to those that are looking to put an end to cult activity rather than starting one up. Her strongest area is blood magic and necromantic rituals as it's where her family has devoted the brunt of their work, but the other side of black magic of demon summoning and dealing is not something she is unfamiliar with. Persephone has never seen an actual demon summoning, as her her family treats those sorts of warlocks with the sort of sniffy attitude that the Hiltons treat the newly rich. Although she's done significant studies into white magic since leaving her family, her understanding of the concepts is nothing on par with her working knowledge of darker magics.

Abilities: As a witch, Sef has a lot of potential as a black witch. As the white to occasionally gray magic she works now, not so much. Her family's inborn gift is to communicate with the dead. Her mother likes to boast several generations back they had an honest-to-Hades necromancer in the family before the poor boy was killed by a vampire. Sef's been blessed since birth, as she can both see and speak with the restless dead.

Unfortunately for Sef, rather like a vegan in a family of hunters, she has only nausea when it comes to studying the black arts. Since leaving home, she's tried to learn the whiter arts but without spilling blood, she's limited to the most hedge-witch of tricks; calling a circle, levitating something no heavier than a book, witching out whether its going to rain or not. Her gifts require the mayhem and violence of a black witch for anything further.

Appearance: A sweet-faced Irish rose, Persephone is barely 5'4" and that includes the riot of red curls that tangle down to her shoulders. Sef smiles easily although she has trouble meeting anyone's gaze overlong as she's shy with strangers. A dimple appears in her left cheek when she laughs, which once she gets started laughing will likely end with the hiccups. Her hair is usually windblown as she is generally late to anything and everything. She mismatches peasant tops with wranglers and cowboy boots or painted leather jackets with light printed skirts. Sef does not wear jewelry or make up and despite the SPF 3-zillion which she coats herself with almost every day, she has a smattering of freckles on her nose and shoulders. She leans more to the curvy end of the spectrum than not but her love of the outdoors keeps her trim enough to pour herself into her beaten jeans. Despite an earthy sort of comfort with her body, Sef tries to keep the ritual scarring on her forearms covered as it leads to uncomfortable questions. The scar tissue is years old at this point as Sef hasn't opened a vein for her magic since leaving home.

Personality & History: Persephone was born to a family of black witches who have the charming habit of naming themselves after the gods of the dead. As they are not complete idiots, Persephone wasn't inducted into the magical workings until she was at least in kindergarden. She cried herself sick after they slaughtered the goat. Years later she can still remember its placid eyes as they slit its throat. From that point on it was a battle of wills that resulted in the uneasy truce that she would learn the family arts but only with spilling her own blood. While her parents feel that this is a ridiculous show of childish reluctance to pick up the family profession and despite being wholly evil witches, they do love their youngest and feel that she will settle down once she realizes that she's forsaken power. They are very delusional sociopaths but Sef does have a fondness for them as, despite the whole blood letting, they were surprisingly good at parenting. She still speaks to them on the phone regularly although thus far she's not returned home for a visit after moving away.

It isn't as if she moved away from home alone, after all. Her childhood imaginary friend -- who was, of course, a ghost -- still keeps her company as she goes about her life. They have an older-younger sibling relationship and Bones chases off the ghosts that will occasionally be less than friendly when they realize Sef can see them. Bones, who lost his real name to fading long before he became a young girl's companion, was just a thin shadow of ectoplasam when Sef started dragging him around like a ratty teddy bear. Years feeding off her belief and power has left him something more than he once was and something less. It is very likely he was born during the Wild West. It is not too likely that he was a Clint Eastwood-type cowboy but he was half built back up by her childish fantasies.

Now Bones can be blamed for her love of riding horses and country music. He is the occasional voice of reason in her altruism but more often nagging nursemaid. Persephone leaves the TV on for him at night and he keeps her apartment free of ghostly hanger-ons. Who could ask for more from a best friend?

Sef doesn't have a coven, per say, but she does attend a group that's like AA for black magic. It's a once a month appointment that she never fails to miss. She's a shy woman by nature and only her desire to karmically pay her debt forward draws her out of her shell easily. She forgives easily and while she'll display normal human pique, she's prone to repressing her anger. As Yoda says, anger and fear lead to the dark side. It would be difficult to say what would set her off enough to retaliate as she is very determined to keep her unpleasant emotions all in a little box but, witch aside, she is only human.