Cassidy Cait Cavanaugh

**Cassidy Cait Cavanaugh** is a member of the Grand Order of Magi and a Peritum of the Covenant of Dagda. A friend of Tornbjorg Magnus, Cassidy is a scholar and expert practitioner of the Alteration magic. Despite being the black sheep of the Cavanaugh, she did not let it stop her from becoming a Peritum and teaching her arts to students.

## Background

Like many order mages, Cassidy was born into the life with both her parents being from magus lineages. Her birth did however come with some controversy. The Cavanaughs aren’t one of the founding families but they’re nearly as old and almost just as well respected while her mother is only a third-generation magus whose grandfather was an independent rather than an Order magus. The rest of the family of course greatly disapproved of this decision to mingle with a lower lineage and Cassidy’s family was pretty much excluded from her father’s side.

In her childhood, this did not get any better. She was often bullied by her cousins and their friends. Targeted for barely being better than a bastard in their eyes, a living blemish on the family as high-standing mages. Even the adults and teachers often turned a blind eye to this, sharing the same views on bloodlines and mages. This made her younger years rather difficult and she may have given up on the life of a mage. Fortunately, not all turned a blind eye and she was lucky enough to have some good professors. One would be kind, another strict, but these rare few all gave her a fair chance and did not tolerate bullying in their class.

Some of these teachers also taught her how to stand up for herself when no reliable authority figure is available and by her adolescence, she was rid of consistent bullying. Even if this didn’t necessarily change how people felt about her it still made studying magic a lot more enjoyable now that she wasn’t being insulted and harassed for it on a somewhat regular basis. This encouraged her to become a peritum, partially to spite her extended family on her father’s side by obtaining high rank despite her practical bastard status in their eyes and partly so that she could become a teacher herself and do for other young mages what her professors did for her.

In her teens, she ended up meeting a non-order magus by the name of Tornbjorg Magnüs. An unusual mage for order standards as she focused less on research and academics, and more on how to use her magic to most efficiently beat people up. When their relationship first started it was more of a trade deal or a partnership. Cassidy provided her with a contact in the Grand Order and used her expertise in magics that Tornbjorg didn’t know, Tornbjorg would act as a powerful ally and occasionally delve into the occasional ruin or border realm to get some research material or magical artifact for Cassidy. This started to change into a more personal relationship when Cassidy first decided to accompany Tornbjorg on one of her adventures. By spending more time with each other, they became and still are true friends. They also continued to help one another with Cassidy often making special items for Tornbjorg such as an airtight seal over her mouth and nose that would act as a rebreather for one time when she needed to infiltrate an underwater location.

With her unique experiences, drive to succeed, and a love for magic, she quickly rose through the ranks as she had desired and was able to become the Peritum of Alteration in the Covenant of Dagda. She has remained in this position since then and has been proud to educate many a mage. She has also married since then and has a few kids now, she kept the Cavanaugh name as a bit of a final ‘fuck you’ to her father’s side of the family. Her experiences with motherhood have made her one of the friends that Tornbjorg has confided in about Kal and she often tries to provide what advice she can when they meet.

## Personality

Cassidy is known sometimes to be a bit eccentric. For example, there is her choice to wear a stereotypical witch hat because “that is what female magic users wear”. She also has a tendency to name her familiars despite them not even being living beings. Aside from her hat, these traits aren't always obvious but those who've known her for a while will get to know at least a couple of them.

She was never much of an adventure for adventure’s sake type of person but was a great lover of challenge and excitement which is a big part of why she started following along on Tonrbjorg’s journeys from time to time. She also enjoyed that even when she didn’t come along she would often be presented with interesting situations she had to solve for her that would help her to think of creations that she wouldn’t otherwise. Cassidy believes that a moderate amount of challenge is vital to anyone who wants to be a mage.

This belief in excitement and fair challenge has extended to her teaching methods. They still involve a fair amount of lectures as is necessary for the theory and foundation of magic but she includes a lot more practical exercises. She likes to organize competitive activities that can test magical skills and one’s ability to think critically or tactically. Encouraging some (hopefully) friendly competition to help them grow and be more motivated, these activities are also always such that even those relatively new to the magical world have a fair chance of winning as long as they use their skills well so that all of her students can remain properly motivated.

Cassidy always does her best to retain a pleasant persona. Even keeping her patience when many others would have become frustrated and doing her best to look at disagreements from both sides instead of single-mindedly sticking to one. She is always willing to make time for her students should they need any help. She also doesn’t mind her students having fun with each other and such during class as long as they are still keeping up with the lesson and not stopping others from doing so as well. She can still be stern when it is needed however and does not tolerate any bullying or occasions where teasing may go too far.

This also applies to her family life where she is certainly much more gentle than her friend is. She is much more openly loving towards her family. While she can sometimes push her kids a bit it is only ever in an encouraging sense and if any of them ever decided that the mage life is not for them she would accept it without question. In contrast to the usual cold and logical mindset of a magus, she teaches them to be kind towards others as long as they don’t give a good reason not to be.

While she tries not to hold it against the more reasonable members, Cassidy still holds a grudge against the Cavanaugh family for her rough childhood and disowning her father. Many of them of course still don't particularly like her and this tends to taint any interactions between them, though she's usually willing to admit she judged too quickly with the rare few that don't treat her like some bastard child.

## Abilities

### Magic

Both Cassidy’s maternal and paternal lines studied alteration more than other schools of magic and she has followed in their footsteps. She is an expert in the field, able to alter the shape, size, material, etc. of an object as naturally as breathing. She can do things like make an object emit electricity or make the inside of a container larger than the outside. She mostly specializes in long-term spells, making a variety of mystic codes and familiars that only need to be activated but she is capable of casting spells on the fly as well, weakening barriers, turning her limbs to metal, etc.

### Equipment

#### Handbag

A simple but useful creation that has the appearance and weight of a normal bag that one could carry by hand but has a far greater inside than outside. Using this she can carry around anything that can fit inside the opening without issue. The bag has a false bottom and a collection of mundane items to fool any sleepers who want to inspect it.

#### Laochra

Usually taking the form of a blob of liquid metal, Laochra is often kept in her bag. As a blob, it cannot actually do very much other than move around. However upon her command, it can turn from a blob into several figures appearing like armored knights. They are named after warriors and knights from legend with no particular significance for each one, just stories she read and liked. Siegfried, Galahad, Hector, and Oliver. They all have slightly super-human “stats” and are armed with weapons that can shift between crossbow, sword, and spear. Additionally, each one’s weapon has a different effect. Siegfried’s will rot organic material that it strikes, Galahad’s is simply a very hard hitter with force amplification spells and such, Hector’s can maintain its fluidity to some extent which allows his weapons to bend and shift in illogical ways that can confuse other sword fighter types, and Oliver’s is capable of multiplying, this is most useful in the crossbow form where he can make a one-man one-shot volley but it can also be used to do things like turn his one blade into three while thrusting so that there are now three lines of attack to watch out for. The Laochra are pretty durable and even when damaged it is difficult to permanently put them down as there is no living being within the armor, they can however be so damaged that it will take them a while to recover and all of them have a magical core as well which constantly shifts its location in their body.