Name: Elizabeth Ashwood
Gender: Female
Profession: Private/Occult Detective, Occultist, Con Artist
Nationality: British (Welsh)
Age: 37
DoB: 10/31/1979
Skills and Abilities: Charismatic: Elizabeth is a very charismatic individual who is capable with communicating with anyone. Her Charisma makes it easy for her to understand people and for people to be drawn to her, making friends and allies easily. Elizabeth can use her charisma to make her attempts at seduction much more effective, to be a good negotiator and diplomat and to allow her to persuade people into following through her ideas; she can even reassure a person if they have doubts about her plans.
Subterfuge: Elizabeth is a very cunning woman who is skilled at deceiving people. Her skill in subterfuge can range from her telling a convincing lie to trick people, to skillfully concealing information and even confusing and/or beguiling people with information she purposefully exaggerated, downplayed or by making the information ambiguous. Her charisma often helps boost her skill in subterfuge. Elizabeth uses this skill along with those of her stage magician to perform confidence tricks to get money from unsuspecting people.
Streetwise: Elizabeth understand how to operate and survive within the seedier side of civilization. You have a talent for blending into the local environment
through your dress, attitude, and knowledge of street slang. You know how to make contact with the black market, gain information, identify bribable officials, recognize underworld gang leaders, or otherwise find out where the “action” is.
Her streetwise also has an occult side. She can use this skill to operate and survive in the Occult Underground. Elizabeth would know not only the attitude, culture and even slangs used in the occult underground but would know the names of independent members of the underground, the various occult secret societies, the names of prominent supernatural beings and how to contact them, gaining information and possible allies and know what is the latest rumor in the underground, as rumors and legends in the underground have the odd habit of likely contains aspects of truth to them.
Stage magician: Elizabeth was trained in the arts of being a staged magician; possessing skills like hypnosis, sleight of hand, pickpocketing, lockpicking, ventriloquism, and escapology. These skills are used whenever she needs to break and enter a location, for her confidence tricks or in the case of the latter skills when she needs to get out of a get out of a tight situation.
Manipulation: Elizabeth uses her cunning, charm and silver tongue to manipulate people around her, get them to do things for her or to fall align in how she wants them to. Whether it be simple civilians, allies and friends or even enemies and rivals. Elizabeth's can manipulate people even when they are not aware of it.
Infiltration: Elizabeth is good at getting into places she has no right being in. Whether it is picking locks, disabling or evading security systems, or knowing the right spots for breaking and entering. Not only can she enter a place without being noticed she can also move stealthy once she is inside her chosen location and hiding from guards inside the location. She can even use these skills to get out as stealthy as well. This skill requires timing and preparation to insure that things go well for her.
Skilled detective: Elizabeth possess has great deduction powers, often using her wits (and magic) to help solve mysteries. Her training and learning on being detective allowed her to notice things that most people would miss. Elizabeth takes everything she observes and forms possible theories to what happened in a crime scene. Elizabeth can also spot things that are easily overlooked or missed by most people.
Intuition: This ability can allow her to "read" other people's body language, choice of words and other subconscious signals. With this ability Elizabeth can try to understand the real purpose of a person's motives and actions without them telling her. She affectionately calls this ability her "Bullshit Detector" as it makes her a living lie detector. However people skilled in the art of deception or truly believe in their own lies can fool her.
Net of Contacts: Elizabeth knows the right peoples in the right places. Elizabeth has an extensive list of contacts from many walks of life. Elizabeth uses these contacts to gain information that she needs, gain items that she requires for a specific situation or even to get help with matter that she can't do alone or because she lacks the needed skills to perform it on her own. Some members in her contact lists however aren't always there for her and for some she would need to talk to plenty of middle men before she can meet them face to face.
Knife nut: Elizabeth knows how to fight well with a knife. However even though she knows how to use a knife well as a weapon doesn’t mean she is a good fighter, in fact she is a poor fighter. Elizabeth would rather use her speed and agility to dodge attacks and find the right moment to stab her opponent in an area that would force them to stop fighting her. She would also use her quick thinking during fights along with fighting dirty to win.
Small arms training: Elizabeth has no interest in guns but she knows that to survive she needs to know how to use a pistol or a revolver. Elizabeth knows how to aim, fire and take care of a small arm. She doesn’t use guns all that often and most of the times flashes her gun to would be attackers to get them to back off but she isn’t afraid on using her revolver if she has no choice.
Occult Studies Elizabeth has knowledge on various occult practices and teachings; kabbalah, alchemy, magic, spiritualism, astrology, demonology, extra-sensory perception, tantrism, satanism, hermeticism, gnosticism, theosophy, thelema, wicca, modern paganism, voodoo, divination, and chaos magic. Elizabeth can identify the cultural traditions informing a ritual by viewing the physical aftermath, supply facts concerning various occult societies, can guess the intent of an occult ritual, know the occult significance of an object and can identify the occult activities from a well informed practitioner, teenage posers, or out-and-out cultists and sorcerers.
Sixth Sense: Elizabeth often has feelings about things, often these feels turn out right. She has premonitions about both bad and good events. A cold shiver down her spine to can alert her to a possible axe killer behind a door or a strange sense can tell her to avoid a doomed air flight. This ability only affects her and not others around her. There are supernatural beings and methods that can either trick out her sixth sense or make a being or person invisible to her sixth sense.
Enhanced Awareness: A strange abilities that some mages possess, which usually manifests to those who had enough experience with the supernatural. This allows Elizabeth to see other dimensions, see fragments of both the past and future and to see and speak to invisible entities like ghosts. This ability, while usually random on when it actives, is always on when it comes to spotting otherworldly beings. Elizabeth can provoke these visions on happening but she would still have no control over them. This ability can make most believe that she is suffering from schizophrenia and indeed should she see something truly horrific and freak out many would see her as crazy.
Magical Intuition: This ability makes Elizabeth act a lot like a magical compass needle as she can sense the power of people, places and objects. This ability also allows Elizabeth to see kirlian auras and determine a person's physical, mental, emotional and spiritual state by the color of their aura, intense emotions can trigger a pseudo emphatic link in which Elizabeth can feel whatever emotion someone is feeling as long as she sees their aura. Elizabeth can also witness minor occult phenomenon that most minds either can't perceive or ignore and can use magic much more effectively than a normal occultist. Her magical sense also overlap with her normal senses causing a synesthesia effect to her, should she loss control she would act as though she is suffering from dementia-like hallucinations.
Magick:Elizabeth is armed with the knowledge of many spells, rituals and curses, such as evocation, divination, necromancy, black magic curses, illusions, occlumency, invisibility, exorcism, and can use magic to see into and travel into other realms. She also has a wide range of protection magic such as sigils, spirit wards and magic circles that can protect her from both physical and supernatural. Elizabeth most signature ability is synchronicity wave travelling, which is an instinctual supernatural ability for Ashwood to make her own luck. This has led Elizabeth to have uncanny luck at games of chance, the ability to avoid and escape harm, meet the right kind of ally to help prevent or stop an occult event that can kill hundreds, and reshape battles she's fighting to her own accord.
Elizabeth does not have full control over has it can perform feats without her knowing, even at times acting like it isn't working and allowing her to fail or even get harmed only for it to work in the last second. Her ability can only extend to her so often anyone close by her tend to suffer whatever harm, injuries and misfortune that was suppose to fall on her. Powerful beings can also take control over her ability and either shut it off or use it against her, though she still has the option to fight back for control, also if her connection to the freeway was suddenly cut of she would be stuck with sudden bad luck. Elizabeth has no way on turning the ability on or off.
Elizabeth's magical knowledge allows her to find ways to become highly resistant to many psychic attacks such as telepathy, possessions, and mind control and can even use it to evade both mundane and supernatural methods of tracking. Elizabeth can even use the art of counter magic, which either let's her take apart a spell before it can harm her or contain the spell for later usage. However she must first be aware of the spell being used against her and prepare the necessary rituals to either dismantle or contain the spell used against her. She uses divination and scrying spells to gain information to assist her on whatever case she is dealing with.
While Elizabeth's magic can allow her to distort and warp the very fabric of reality does not allow her to do everything. There are some magical feats she lacks the knowledge, items and aptitude to perform and because of the reality warping powers of magic she has to be cautious of doing something wrong with her spells and rituals, sometimes doing something right can result in unexpected effects. Overusing magic can warp her very psyche and it's energies can corrupt her body and soul; not only degrading her mind closer to the depths of insanity, but bring about terrible mutations that would turn her into an insane, inhuman creature. Overusing magic always brings about the attention of both creatures of unremitting horror and fellow practitioners of magic to her location. Magic is not free however as every spell she uses has their own price, though some spells the price comes in years after their use.
Because of the price and drawbacks to magic she often uses it when she needs to and instead relies on her normal abilities first before turning to supernatural methods
Physical description: A Welsh born, Caucasian, woman. Elizabeth height is 5’3 and weighs 130 lbs. Elizabeth as a slim and curvy built and her skin is pale, and possess jade green eyes. Her deep set eyes have dark circles under her eyes due to having trouble sleeping.
Elizabeth’s raven hair is medium-long/past the shoulders-length and it is a unkempt shaggy mess, her hair sticks out at her neck and falls over her shoulders. Elizabeth has an oval shaped face and thin, downward turning lips. Usually these lips are seen forming a grin or smirk.
Elizabeth main attire consists of an ankle length old and grungy black trench coat, black vest with a white dress shirt underneath, a long loose maroon tie, black pants with a maroon belt around the waist, maroon colored boots with black sides and laces, black fingerless gloves.
Elizabeth lacks the piercings that her son has but has many tattoos painted on her body, many depicting occult symbols. These tattoos can be found on her hands, arms, shoulders, legs, stomach, sides and hips. Despite being in her late thirties Elizabeth still appears to be in her early twenties due to good genes she inherited from her mother.
Psychological assessment: A foul-mouthed, disillusioned, sarcastic and cynical woman. Elizabeth is a stubborn, arrogant, reckless and strong-willed woman, sometimes letting her pettiness and vindictiveness get the better of her. She also somewhat selfish and self absorbed, generally doing things for her own self interest and for thrills than for any sort of philanthropy. She also distrust and is hostile towards most forms of authority and is willing to break rules she don't agree with. She can also be rather blunt and harsh, note caring what others think about her opinion and not caring who she is talking too. In moments of self loathing she shows to have both a fatalistic and even nihilistic attitude towards the world and her life, however most of the times she freely contradicts these beliefs.
Elizabeth is a mischievous scoundrel who likes messing with people just to get laughs. This attitude can even make as though she doesn't take most situations as seriously as she should. Elizabeth is also flirtatious as well and will flirt with anyone who catches her interest regardless of their gender or if they are friend or foe. Yet behind the flirts and laughter is a wounded soul, using sarcastic jokes and perverted comments to deflect her true emotions.
However deep inside she is a compassionate humanist, trying her best to make sure that mankind does not fall into the influences of both mortal and supernatural powers that would use humanity for their own ambitions. She also has a rather strange code of honor despite acting like a rogue most of the times. She is also unflinchingly loyal to those she cares and is surprisingly selflessness when she wants to be, even going as far as to help people if their suffering and grief is too much for her to see.
Elizabeth, while being cunning, ambitious and resourceful she also shows great reserves of bravery, dare and nerve even to the most dire and horrific situations, almost to the point that one would think that she either has a death wish or is truly insane. While liking to show herself lazy to most people in truth she understands the value of hard work and when motivated will become diligent in whatever project or job she is working on. A part that Elizabeth never shows is that while she never plays or fights fair she understands what ought to be fair, often being furious when people get puffed up with power and authority that they never earned and when people get punished simply for asking the wrong questions or for being in the way when someone else's enemies pays a visit.
Elizabeth has a love and hate relationship with magic and the occult but if given the choice to either live with them or not, she will always stay with magic due to the fact that she still carries the interest and like for it as she had when she was a child, albeit not in the same level as before. She is also pushed by her guilt and a desire to do some good in her life to not only repay for all of her past mistakes and wrongs but show the world that she can do good.
Elizabeth shrouds herself in a air of mystery, protecting both herself and keeping others away as a form of protection as she knows that most who get close to her have the unfortunate habit of dying. It's due to these death around her that makes Elizabeth work alone and when anyone does work with Elizabeth, she avoids attachment so she won't be as hurt if they get killed.
She is also paranoid of possible enemies from the secret world coming after both her and her son, leading to her on sheltering the boy for his protection and never telling him about who she really is. Elizabeth is an isonomic who also suffers from vivid nightmares whenever she sleeps. Elizabeth is addicted to cigarettes and adrenaline, has a short temper, feels haunted by her past and is actually haunted and hunted down by groups and creatures from the secret world. She is also fighting against depression which is a battle that is easy to manage due to Cade helping her.
Personal relationship:
Ashwood Family-Elizabeth interaction with the rest of her family ranges from barely meeting them, to a lukewarm reactions to a few outright hating her. So far her cousin from Alice is the one she has very good relationship with, seeing her more as a sister than a cousin and her half sister Katherine are also in good terms. Elizabeth never met her father due to him dying before she was born but she was very close to her mother.
Cade Ashwood-Elizabeth has a close bond with Cade and he is the apple of her eyes, privately she sees him as one of the few good things in her life and her shining light in a world of darkness. Around Cade she acts more like his sister than mother, but she does have her share of motherly moments with him. While she likes to tease and bother her son she only does it out of good fun. Whenever she is around Cade the better parts of her personality tends to come out. While Cade is willing to trust his mother she doesn’t feel that he should know about the Occult Underground. Not only does she fear that a vengeful party from her world can use Cade to get to her, she doesn’t want Cade to practice magic; wanting to keep it and the occult underground away from her son so neither can ruin him like they did to her.
Elizabeth does feel bad for always leaving Cade alone and suspects that he feels abandoned due to her spending so much time with her job. Whenever she isn’t out in the field dealing with the occult she would spend time with her son to make up for lost time. But Elizabeth will admit that her son’s rebellious streak does irche her since it manifests itself in him dating terrible men, of which she is not afraid of telling her son blunty how she disapproves of his choices of lovers.
Sexuality: Bisexual
Items and equipment: A pack of cigarettes, zippo lighter, a cursed knife, silver brass knuckles that is enchanted to hurt spectral beings as well as physical ones, lock-pick set, enchant card, skeleton key, a flask, wallet with money and ID, Nails from the coffin of St. Padua (magical tracking device) a spirit detecting bracelet, military flashlight, tape recorder, handcuffs, multi tool kit, an amulet to protect against any being wishing to harm her, a scrying medallion, an Beaumont–Adams revolver, an old pocket watch, and a Smartphone.
Dark Secrets: Curse, Forbidden Knowledge, Occult Experience, Pact with Dark Powers, Supernatural Experience, Family Secret, Guilty of a Crime,
Bio: Much of Elizabeth’s past is a secret. What is known currently is that she is an orphan with a family friend who raised her for most of her life. From an early age Elizabeth was involved with the occult due to her mother being a witch and possessing many grimoires and enchanted items that she owned that Elizabeth would use. At age nineteen she form a small group of friends and fellow occultists and it was at the time that she had a one night stand with a visiting man from South Africa, a meeting that would end with Cade Ashwood being born nine months later. During the time the group was active Elizabeth had them helping her on raising Cade along with her then girlfriend at the time, Lorraine Ross.
However with the death of Lorraine and the break up the group Elizabeth was forced to raise Cade alone. However there was a two year gape where Elizabeth let Cade by raised by the same man that took care of her until she felt that she was ready to take care of Cade again. It was after getting back her son that she opened her private detective agency, with only herself and her son sometimes helping her; acting as a pseudo secretary whenever she is in their flat and when Elizabeth is around to keep on eye on him to make sure he doesn’t read the wrong case file. Because Elizabeth developed plenty of enemies and rivals from the Underground she has become properly paranoid and fears for her son’s safety, leading her to giving him a sort of sheltered life. Elizabeth’s work and life style as both a detective for normal and supernatural crimes and as a mage and her not wanting her son anywhere near the Occult Underground means that she can be gone for days, leaving her son behind. Elizabeth tries her best to be there for her son and would willing drop cases if she finds them not too important to be there for her only family around.
In Occult Circles, particularly those in London, Elizabeth is a well known name, her rep even spreading to parts in West Europe, a few states in Central and East Europe and the US Occult Undergrounds. She is a walking legend to those who only heard rumors about her, with some thinking that she isn’t a real person but a myth.
Roleplay experience: OP Privilege
Theme song: Seeking the Truth (OpenTheDoor)Random facts: (optional)