Jack Scrat

Jack Scrat is an Eiren of the Hermetic Order.

## Biography

Jack Scrat was born in a fairly unobtrusive household somewhere in the USA. On the night of his birth, there was a partial solar eclipse, unseen below due to a violent thunderstorm. That becomes important later - it’s sort of why he’s here in the first place.

Jack’s childhood was more or less normal. At least until weird stuff started happening in his general vicinity - a number of dangerous falls did no real harm, lightning strikes became ridiculously common - but it was mostly passed off as luck. At least until Jack went with his family on holiday up north to Canada when he was about 15. Their hotel was attacked by a wendigo. Jack and his uncle were snatched off as food for later, and brought to the wendigo’s lair. Unfortunately for the wendigo, Jack just so happened to be a latent mage of considerable power, and seeing the wendigo eat his uncle’s leg triggered his Innate Awakening, creating a shockwave of enough power to blast the wendigo with a massive fireball, sending it flying away from his uncle and turning it into a pile of ash. Not long afterwards, fully trained mages of the Hermetic Order arrived - they’d been hunting this thing for a while, apparently - and rescued Jack and his uncle, who at this point were suffering mild hypothermia. And that was the end of that - but not quite. When Jack and his family got back home, some weeks later when the commotion had died down, Jack got offered an apprenticeship with the Hermetic Order - since they’d felt his awakening and noted his magic power. Thus began his (hopefully long) career as a mage.

Usually a mage’s day job would be ‘mage’. Jack, however, needed to divert the attention of his family away from his organization - people aren’t supposed to know they exist, after all. So, during his apprenticeship, he inquired as to a cover story, and got an internship (now job) at one of their front companies as an accountant. (Jack also got himself an actual accounting degree while doing so. Not strictly necessary, given he’s a mage working for mages, but in case anyone tries to look into his qualifications, their espionage efforts will be ground to a halt.)

As for Jack’s career as a mage, while he’s barely out of his apprenticeship, he’s still had some serious practical training.

One particular incident occurred when Jack was taken along to deal with a minor cult that had popped up in the countryside. Jack, along with his superiors, got sent in to deal with a minor cult. They delved deep into the tunnels of an old mine, arresting cultists left and right, when a cave-in occurred. Jack and his superiors split up - Jack goes deeper in while the higher-ups clear the cave-in (slowly, to prevent further damage) - them each giving Jack reassurance that he’d trained enough to take on some lowly cultists on his own (and just to shoot them if worst comes to worst). Going very far down, Jack stumbled across some dark ritual at its completion - opening a portal to hell. Oh dear. As it turns out, though, throwing together as many wards as you can assemble in the space of about two seconds, activating all the runes on your equipment, and blasting everything else works on pretty much everything. Jack threw everything he had at the portal while activating his emergency flares (magic, of course). And he'd thought that he might have had the situation under control... until THEY arrived. Several demons - including one major demon - managed to get through the portal before Jack sealed the thing, and as soon as that happened, the biggest one immediately realized that Jack, preoccupied with the sealing spell, was a potent mage without any nearby backup. And promptly decided that he’d make for an excellent corpse-puppet.

Possessing a mage is a risky endeavor at the best of times. Most mages have enough power in them to expel lesser demons, and enough spellcraft to banish them back. This one, however, was pretty major - and had enough power of its own. But Jack was on guard, powerful, covered head to toe in wards, and had even brought along some anti-possession trinkets his superiors had decided against packing, and when the demon attempted to steal his body he struck back with every tool he had at his disposal, locking it in place. And the portal was shut, so Jack knew no demons were getting through - even if there were already a lot of them here seizing the opportunity to possess some cultists. But the emergency flares had done the trick - backup was arriving, and those demons were exorcised and banished post-haste. Okay, so a few demons probably escaped, but they’ll deal with it eventually.

Jack earned himself some great renown for that incident. It’s not everyday an apprentice proves so instrumental in holding back a major demon and sealing a hellgate.

## Powers

Specialises in the manipulation of physical forces - like fire, electricity, and telekinesis - but also has some proficiency in manipulating raw ethereal essence, and has dabbled in space-warping, mind magic, non-living matter manipulation, and time magic. (Note: To be revised.)

## Skills

Proficient in the use of slashing weapons, bludgeoning weapons, and firearms. Excellent aim with projectiles. Strong attunement to the ether and substantial knowledge of magical components, incantations, rituals, and other spell stuff. Knows how to use force magic in creative ways.

His Hermetic training gives him knowledge of exorcisms and several types of wards against a multitude of ethereals. He also knows how to enchant stuff. As the Order uses a number of spells requiring incantations in Ancient Greek and Latin, Jack is also fluent in both those languages.