Eteshi

**Eteshi**, alias **Lee James**, is a magical adept and suspected Rosicrucian Secret Master currently residing in Auckland, New Zealand. Along with Matteo, he narrates the Midnight Blues stories. He is a Magister-in-Association with South Wind, and is often called the best magician in New Zealand. He is represented by Card 309 in the Observatory.

## History

### Early Life and Training

Eteshi was born in 1995 in Queensland, Australia. The exact place of his birth is unknown, as are as birth name and the identities of his parents - he has a birthdate on his driver's licence, but its accuracy is uncertain. As far as anyone is aware, Eteshi simply appeared on the magical scene at the age of 15 as a full-fledged magical adept. He makes conflicting claims about his training, usually in jest: in some accounts he contacted the Rosicrucian Secret Masters, in others he learned off an AMORC monograph he found in a garage sale, and in yet others he met and trained with a high-level Rosicrucian initiate. Eteshi does seems to lean toward Rosicrucian imagery in his magic, and he does exhibit powers of a sort beyond most modern magicians - whether this indicates membership in an ancient Rosicrucian order or simply a penchant for drama is uncertain.

### Simon Verso

Eteshi encountered Simon Verso in 2012 after his expulsion from England. Simon fled to Australia and attempted to rebuild his First Order in Sydney, but was discovered and chased out by Marcus White. Simon then fled to Brisbane and began again, attempting to recruit the local magical community. He initially approached Eteshi to join him, but didn't count on his awareness of the Order's goals and practices, and was told in no uncertain terms to leave. Simon refused, and organised some of his initiates in an attack on Eteshi, who defeated them and then hunted down Simon himself. The fight was in private, but Simon fled the city within the hour, reportedly badly injured. Hearing the story, Marcus got into contact with Eteshi, and the two of them forced Simon out of Australia permanently.

### White River Coterie

From late 2015 to mid 2016, Eteshi formed the White River Coterie together with Marsha West, Jessie L Perra, and Louisa Kennis for the purpose of dealing with the Book of the White River. The Coterie initially traced the book to a small denomination called the Church of the Holy Child in the southern United States, where they found multiple congregations infected by it - they managed to deal with most of the members and kill the Church's priesthood, but found the Book gone, taken away by a fleeing clergyman headed to Central America. The Coterie then fought an almost three-month-long campaign through the jungles of Colombia and Panama, where they hunted down and eventually defeated the living host of the Child on the Stone, the being that acted through the Book. Eteshi's involvement largely ended here, although Perra and West continued hunting down the last of the infected through the Americas and into Europe until the Book's influence was finally removed from the world.

## Appearance and Personality

Eteshi is a young man in his mid-twenties, with olive skin, hazel eyes, and black hair. He is slim but not skeletal, and dresses in loose clothing and jackets throughout most of the year. He is fairly good-looking, although his face is unusually lined for a man of his age, and his eyes are strange, seeming occasionally to flash red in the direct sunlight. His ethnicity is uncertain - while he looks mostly Caucasian, it is often remarked that he seems to have a "bit of something else in there", though what that "something else" might be is never really clear.

Eteshi laughs often and smiles more, and generally comes across as open and kind. He is also, however, a very good liar, and there are at least a dozen different versions of his story that he regularly tells. He keeps secrets well, and is extremely perceptive about people's thoughts and designs, to the point that it is often wondered whether he can read minds. He has few enemies, but those he does have tend to fear him, and he is brutal and deadly where he needs to be.

## Magic

Eteshi's exact skills are rather poorly understood, and he takes pains to keep it that way. He is a skilled ritual magician, and is known to regularly practice ritual magic, but he is not primarily a ceremonial magician; he does not make use of charms or talismans, and does not often cast and store spells for later use. Instead, his powers seem to revolve mostly around a connection with the minds of others - not precisely telepathy, but an ability to craft "messages" from magical energy and place them into the thoughts of others. While his arts include creating or reducing pain, introducing emotions, desires or sensations, prevent others noticing him, or creating telepathic messages or illusory images, he cannot directly control others in real time - while he could plant a desire or thought in the mind, he cannot maintain the sort of connection required to control fine movements, not directly touch the nerves in the body.