John Matteson

Image by woodhouse-jay on tumblr

### Relatives

Viktor Wozniak (great-great-grandfather), Joanna Matteson (great-grandmother),Aaboukingon Matteson (great-grandfather), Jeremiah Matteson (grandfather), Henry Matteson (father)

## Story Details

### Enemies

Hecate

Jonathan Peter Matteson is an Anchor and the author of the blog Matteson, P.I.

## Biography

### Early Life

In March 2001, John was cursed after breaking a focusing crystal. This resulted in the Behemoth following him around, which John exorcised with a ritual he found in Henry's study.

### The Alethea Cycle

In October 2004, John traveled to Chicago to stay with his friend Jacob Tierney. There he met Jackie Veracruz, who was sharing an apartment with Jacob and a number of other people. Together, he and Jackie investigated the ghost of Alethea Bilson, who possessed Jackie and attempted to produce a child with John. John and Jackie worked together to stop Alethea and sever her tie to the apartment, but failed to properly exorcise her. The two of them made arrangements to finish the task once Alethea was found, and remained in contact as Jackie sought ways to track the ghost after John returned to Pennsylvania.

During a conversation about spiritual forces, John summarized the events of "Land of Goshen" and showed Jackie his necklace with the vial of sand labeled 'Abe.' He also confirmed that Joanna Wozniak and Aaboukingon Matteson were his great-grandparents.

John and Rick apparently tracked a vampire to its grave and spent some time in November 2004 staking it to the ground and placing garlic in its mouth.

During St. Patrick's Day in 2005, John met Lori Berman. While Kastor expressed distrust of Lori and tried to convince John that something was off with her, John dismissed his concerns and pursued a romantic relationship with her. This relationship grew serious quickly, and she was pregnant by the end of August, though John was not immediately made aware of this fact. At some point during this relationship, she began calling him Matteson, clarifying this was to differentiate him from the many other people around named John; this name stuck, and by the end of *Tall Tales: Volume One* nearly every character had shifted to calling John by his last name.

That September, John, Rick, Charles, and Jackie went searching for a lake in a former strip mine and instead stumbled upon a series of locations marked by a red spiral, including a strange ghost town patrolled by a black garbage truck bearing the same symbol. Through repeated investigation of the sites, John and his allies ultimately found a former mill where the Brood of Nachash, led by the Barzai, were conducting a ritual involving human sacrifice. The Barzai declared John to be an omen that their work would soon be completed. John, Jackie, and Rick attacked the cult, disrupting the ritual and sending the cultists running. Despite John's request to the contrary, Charles called the police on the site, though it is never stated whether any arrests were made as a result of this call.

On the night of Halloween, Lori attacked John and Jackie using intense magical power. During the encounter, it was revealed that Lori was being possessed by Alethea, that Matteson had gotten her pregnant, and that she suffered a miscarriage that threw Alethea into a rage-fueled madness. After driving her off, John and Jackie formulated a plan to trap Lori in Buhl Park and finally exorcise Alethea for good. Having broken into Lori's apartment and stolen elements from a shrine she'd made of him, John waited in the center of a summoning circle which Jackie used to bring Lori/Alethea to him. After a fight in which Lori/Alethea did extensive damage to the landscape around them, John managed to catch Lori and force Alethea out of her. Safely isolated, John helped purge the decades of decay from Alethea before helping her cross over to the Other Side. After this, Lori explained that she had been possessed and it was Alethea who had initiated a relationship with John, and she was not willing to continue dating him now that she had regained control of herself.

## Skills and Abilities

### Paranormal Abilities

As an Anchor, John has the following traits:

* Immunity to magic and inability to perform magic (except exorcisms)
* Ability to counter magic actively and passively
* Ability to see into the metaphysical realm
* Ability to change the rules of magic and the metaphysical realm in a given area (theorized)
* Ability to close and reopen nexus points.

## Trivia

* In "Born of Water," Jackie suggested that John was asexual. He neither confirmed nor denied the claim, and has not as yet revisited the idea in canon.
* In a worldbuilding blog post, Tim McLaughlin stated that John Matteson was the first character developed for Tall Tales and that the entire story grew from one scene featuring him, which has since been dropped from the story.
* Tim made a TikTok video introducing John in January, 2023.