JASMINE SAID (Stacy Stroud)

Second oldest of the Kids of Darkness, Jasmine is a nine-year-old mathematical prodigy and Virtual Adept. Her mysterious mother, a world-hopping mage called Scheherazade, dropped her off at the home of Neal Carmody, one of the Rabbi's associates, when Jasmine was a toddler. (It is believed Jasmine was actually born in the Umbra, probably in the Digital Web of the Virtuals. It has also been speculated that Jasmine was brought from the future, and that Neal may actually be her natural father as well as her guardian.)

Though only nine, Jasmine has the mind of a genius (at least in the fields of math and computer science) and the attitude of a teenager. She's also been the inseparable companion of Tyler Elliot (see below) for practically all her life. So when Tyler's mom arranged for him to start 7th grade at Huntington, Jasmine bugged her daddy until she was allowed to apply as well. She easily passed the entrance exams, but is beginning to learn the downside of being a nine-year-old in junior high.

As played by me (she hadn't appeared often enough before to be well characterized), Jasmine takes a view of the world that is very in keeping with her natural gifts. Everything can be reduced to a math or logic problem, and any problem can be solved by gathering enough data and running the proper analysis. Needless to say, that idealized view of reality is unlikely to remain unchallenged for long.

IVAN NEVILLE (Pete's)

Ivan is not one of the pre-existing Kids of Darkness, but a new character of Pete's based on a recurring NPC in the Werewolf game. (Jenna had already claimed Tyler and given me Jasmine, and the next three Kids of Darkness are around six, so Pete had to find someone new. However, his initial doubts about playing in this particular game evaporated after he came up with Ivan, so everything worked out well.)

Anyway . . . in the Werewolf game, we learned that Aleister Crowley was alive and well and living in New York City. Having grown conservative in his old age, he'd started an occult finishing school for proper young ladies under the alias "Master Therion." Ivan is Crowley's 13-year-old son, quite possibly the teenager with the most unenviable job on the planet. What possible rebellion can he perpetrate to shock and dismay *his* dad? Nevertheless, he has thrown himself into his father's iconoclast role with gusto. The number of schools he's been asked to leave is legion, and his accumulated disciplinary record truly amazing. Most recently, in sixth grade, he seduced his teacher. Oddly, that resulted only in good for the others involved, as the elder Crowley bought the school a new library and gave the young teacher a lucrative new job as a governess in one of his English properties . . . and *still* he failed to be shocked at his son's audacity. In fact, the closest Ivan has come to arousing his father's ire was when he announced his plans to become an actor.

Ivan has described his personal path in life as "learning to beat the devil at his own game" -- plumbing the depths of perversity not for its own sake, but so that when confronted by true evil, he will understand it intimately and know its weaknesses. (Didn't Luke Skywalker try something like this in the unspeakable _Dark Empire_ comic?) He is the consummate bullshit artist and manipulator, but does value loyalty and honor, and returns them when they are shown him. (Of course, he also returns the reverse, in spades.) So far, making friends at Huntington has taught Ivan -- much to his own chagrin -- that he is in fact one of the good guys.

PROMINENT NPCs (Played By our resident GM Jenna Mcguire)

TYLER ELLIOT

Oldest of the Kids of Darkness at 13, Tyler is the son of two of the old Mage characters (Ryan McCabe Elliot and Luther Cabrell), each of whom ultimately married a different character. (The literal cross-pollination between the members of that group, and the resulting complexity of the various kids' parentage, was one of the things that kept me from understanding anything about that group for the longest time.) Tyler's maternal grandfather, also named Ryan, is an evil, evil man who a couple years back tried to bring about the biblical End Times with himself in the Antichrist role, only to be defeated by the combined efforts of just about every supernatural being in New York City. Jenna hints that a final showdown between Ryan Elliot (pere) and Ryan Elliot (fille), which will likely affect Tyler, is due at some point during this campaign.

The most significant event in Tyler's own life so far was undoubtedly his death, which happened a few years back. He perished in a car accident, having thrown himself in front of his younger sisters to protect them. His mother, a Euthanatos, went into the Shadowlands and *brought him back*, a feat akin to Wally West's return from the Speed Force. So Tyler is alive again, but remembers being dead, something which causes him recurring nightmares. While dead, Tyler met the ghost of his mother's elder sister, who protected him until Ryan could find him and who now watches over him in secret. He also got a glimpse of his own future, something which he finds occasionally constraining to his present choices. Perhaps inevitably, given his death experience, Tyler was recently initiated as a Euthanatos himself.

In personality, Tyler is perhaps a bit serious for his age, but still quite capable of enjoying himself. He excels at activities from soccer to fencing to chess, and is particularly knowledgeable in the business arena (a given, considering that he stands to inherit his mom's corporate empire some day). Ivan considers him a bit of a boy scout, but has come to respect him as he does few others. Jasmine adores him, but is also a friend of sufficiently long standing that she can take him to task when necessary.

MELANIE SAFFORD

Jasmine's roommate, Mel is a scholarship student, which already puts her a step down the social ladder as far as the Academy's rich kids are concerned. She's also of mixed race, which pretty much completes her status as an outcast. (Depending on who they want to insult this week, the other girls refer to Mel and Jasmine's room as either "The Nursery" or "The Trash Heap.") She quickly joined the PCs' little lunch-table group, where Ivan almost instantly took a liking to her. Ivan's "beat the devil" philosophy was a stumbling block at first (Mel is from a devout, if not fanatical, Christian background), but they are growing closer, and each seems to be teaching the other something about life. Melanie does not, as yet, know that she's fallen in with a group of young mages, or (presumably) even that there are such things.

BRANDON SHORE

Tyler's longtime best (male) friend and roommate at Huntington. Brandon is very much a typical boy his age. He's into soccer, girls, and trying to sound "black." Tyler actually does like him, but Jasmine never has, and Ivan finds him irritating. He also is ignorant of the whole mage thing.

SIMON PRICE

Ivan's roommate, a geeky and eccentric boy who (we learned early on) can see the dead, and fears them. (This explains his extensive and eclectic collection of protective symbols, both religious and secular.) Ivan has worked a protective ward on his and Simon's room so that ghosts cannot enter it, winning Simon's eternal gratitude. Simon still keeps mostly to himself, sitting and reading inside a tent he's made of his bed, but occasionally eats lunch with the others. (Simon obviously owes a debt to the movie The Sixth Sense which inspired him.)

KELLI

Kelli has no last name, because she's only the first in a string of interchangeable bimbos. She is Tyler's recently-acquired first girlfriend. She has the typical giggling airhead future-cheerleader personality, but she looks damn good, which is apparently all Tyler cares about at this stage in his life. When asked (by Jasmine, who is intensely jealous of the attention Tyler shows Kelli) why he would choose the companionship of someone with the comparative intellect of a garden vegetable, he replied that, knowing that any relationships he forms at 13 are going to be short-lived, he'd rather exercise a purely physical attraction to an interchangeable bimbo than go through a painful breakup with someone he actually likes. (That actually disturbed Ivan, which fact disturbed Ivan further because it suggested that he might actually be of stronger moral fiber than his boy scout friend.)

COURTNEY JACOBS

Snooty rich bitch who leads the crowd most interested in harassing Jasmine and Melanie.

CHADWICK BRYCE

An academically brilliant, perfectly gentlemanly, straight-arrow student -- whom the PC group suspects of being a dangerous sociopath. (Andy: This would be the villain I suggested to Jenna, based on Alexander Sparks from _The List of 7_, so if you find some info below familiar, that's why.)

DAMIEN MEFFORD

Bryce's roommate and henchman, a hyperactive youngster who also attended Chadwick's previous school.

* Everyone arrived at Huntington for the new school year, and those who had not previously met, met. Tyler and Ivan figured out each other's magely nature pretty quickly, and Tyler introduced Ivan to Jasmine and vice versa.

* Melanie joined the PCs' social group pretty quickly, and Ivan took a liking to her. Jasmine left a printout of Ivan's disciplinary record on Mel's bed as a warning. In the end, that led Mel and Ivan to get to know each other better.

* Tyler acquired Kelli and introduced her to the group. Jasmine immediately became jealous, a fact noted by Mel and Ivan but apparently not by Tyler. Ivan got back at Jasmine for telling Mel about his past by encouraging Tyler to spend more time with Kelli.

* The group attended an orientation icebreaker/dance for new 7th graders. Ivan spiked the punch with Ecstasy, warning Tyler, Jasmine, and Melanie not to drink it. In the course of the event, Simon Price began reacting oddly, and the PCs quickly discovered his ghost-sight. Meanwhile, in a first-day prank, *someone* hung an apparent dead body from the rafters. Though the body was soon discovered to be a dummy, the administration was not amused, and began looking for those responsible. Always intrigued by mystery, the PCs also investigated (magickally) and were led to the room shared by Chadwick Bryce and Damien Mefford. A bit of B&E allowed them to locate a pair of jeans -- Mefford's -- that matched a scrap of cloth found in the rafters. Naturally, they saw no reason to get other kids in trouble with the authorities for a mere (if morbid) prank, but Ivan did leave a "You're busted" note in the room, just for fun.

* Things turned nasty the next day, when *someone* slipped photos under Ivan's and Tyler's doors. Ivan's photo was of Mel, napping, with the angle of the shot calculated to be just slightly erotic; the caption read "Nice piece." Tyler got a similar picture of Kelli, and another (non-lustful) one of Jasmine working on her laptop under a tree, with the caption "What a cute little girl." The boys immediately realized that they were being put on notice by someone they'd managed to piss off: mess with me again, and I'll do more than take pictures. After some discussion, the boys brought Jasmine into the loop, but left the other two ignorant so as not to panic them. Investigation revealed that the photographer had taken a small souvenir from each girl, and further that he had rearranged the stuff on top of Melanie's dresser with almost compulsive neatness. Ivan remembered that Chadwick Bryce's half of his and Damien Mefford's room had been similarly neat. New theory: Bryce is a dangerous nutcase, and Mefford is his pawn.

* Investigation of Chadwick Bryce turned up no damning evidence: his perfect record extended back all the way through school. He did have an infant sister die of SIDS and a fellow student perish in an equestrian accident at a previous school, but neither incident was ever connected to him. He had, however, been attending boarding schools away from home for as long as he'd been attending school at all. The same was not true of his surviving sibling, a younger brother who lived at home. If the guy was a nut, he was a nut who knew how to play the authorities perfectly.

* The boys set about protecting their lady friends through a program of spending lots of time with them, something that neither particularly minded. Ivan also worked a ritual on his picture of Melanie that would bring terrible fortune upon anyone who harmed her. They had Jasmine tag both of the other girls with tracking devices that would continuously report their locations to Jasmine's computer. (Actually, Jasmine had already done that to Kelli, a revelation which did not amuse Tyler.) Later, in a James Bond-style encounter, Tyler managed to involve Bryce in a series of chess games, gaining further evidence of the other boy's orderly and calculating nature, at the price of giving Bryce some insight into him. (At the conclusion of the game, Bryce remarked that in Tyler, he'd found "a worthy opponent at last.")

* Meanwhile, through a combination of coordinate transformation and supernaturally creative use of mapping software, Jasmine teleported herself to Bryce's hometown and struck up a conversation with his little brother Jimmy on his way home from school. Once she got him talking about his family, Jimmy showered his rarely-seen older brother with praise, though he admitted that their parents didn't seem to like Chadwick. Apparently Jimmy and Chadwick had been engaging in a correspondence unknown to their parents, in which Chadwick urged Jimmy to improve his mind and shared with him "adult" secrets, including tales and pictures (!) of Chadwick's many girlfriends. (That seemed odd, as Chadwick had previously attended an all-boys school and was not known for his romantic prowess at Huntington. Did any of these girls actually *know* they were Bryce's "girlfriends"?) Subsequent library research turned up no new leads on the sister's death, but did reveal that both Bryce boys had a history of checking out material far advanced for their age. The young librarian knew Jimmy well, but hadn't been around long enough to know his brother -- in fact, she'd thought Jimmy was an only child.

* Meeting up again, the group next planned to investigate Bryce's previous schools. But a new mystery reared its head the next morning. A student, Kim Morgan, had abruptly left school that morning in the company of her parents, and rumors were flying as to why. Fearing that Bryce might have acquired another "girlfriend," the group sent Kelli to learn more from Kim's friends, but she had little luck. Magickal investigation revealed only that Kim had called the resident advisor at 2am, crying and begging to talk to her. Required meetings in both boys' and girls' dorms that evening told the rest of the story: Kim had sneaked out late at night to meet a male acquaintance, and had noticed someone following them. Her companion had seen nothing, and had eventually left her in disgust for being such a fraidy-cat. On the way back, something so terrible had happened to Kim that she had immediately arranged to leave school. Everyone was put on notice not to go wandering about after hours. Ivan noticed one particular boy looking especially guilty, realized that he was probably the jackass who had abandoned Kim to her fate, and resolved to interrogate him later.

* However, the next day at lunch, everyone was subjected to a most curious experience that distracted them from other concerns for the rest of the day. Somehow, an as-yet-unknown party managed to incite a powerful lust in every member of Huntington's population, both student and teacher. After looking in vain for Melanie, Ivan grabbed the nearest willing young lady (and they were all willing) and scratched his itch with emotionless efficiency. Jasmine retreated to her room and spent several hours rocking back and forth, overwhelmed by new sensations and fantasies about Tyler that went far beyond her usual Disney-movie daydreams of their future. Mel and Tyler, without entirely meaning to, found relief in each other's arms.

* The next day, classes were cancelled due to a large number of teachers having called in "sick." Breakfast at the PCs' table was a subdued affair, with most everyone looking guilty about something or another. Tyler took Kelli aside for a short discussion that resulted in their breaking up and him getting a glass of water poured on his head. Later, during a fencing match, Ivan got Tyler to confess to his indiscretion with Mel. Tyler even admitted that he *would* compete with Ivan for Melanie's affections, except that he already knows (via his future glimpse while dead) that he's going to marry *Jasmine* someday -- the real reason why he only dates girls who have no chance of becoming long-term prospects. Ivan was relieved, since honor would have required him to give Melanie up to the guy who was better for her in the long term, and -- surprising himself again -- he's realized he doesn't *want* to give her up. After lunch, Tyler provisionally made up with Kelli, and Ivan and Melanie took a long walk during which they discussed love and sex and the differences between them, both from a Christian perspective and in Ivan's unique philosophy; the walk ended with the two of them officially a couple. Tyler tried to talk to Jasmine about the previous day's events, but despite repeated invocations of the principle that the two of them could talk to each other about anything, the only thing they concluded was that in fact it was no longer true that they could share anything. After Tyler left, angry and sad at the prospect of losing her best friend to the irresistible forces of Growing Up, Jasmine trashed her half of her dorm room and cried herself to sleep.

Such is the story so far. Next week, back on track with the various investigations, and also Parents' Weekend!