Tarot

Context

This character is an original creation. We often call these “homemades” or “homebrewed” – think home cooking or craft beer.

Many of these characters were created to take part in tabletop role-playing game sessions. Others were invented as a creative writing exercise, often as part of a community event.

This specific character was part of the Wild Hunt, a community-created super-team circa the year 2000.

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Powers and Abilities

Daniel Kilborn is a trained police officer, experienced in finding and analyzing clues, and combat.

He is also a good enough thief to get past most average security systems without tripping them, and a magician.

His knowledge of the occult, demonology and mythology in specific, is highly developed.

He has access to rituals of teleportation, exorcism, invisibility and dimensional travel as well as his practiced animate images ritual. He is so adept at this that he can call upon it almost instantaneously, without need for components.

History

Daniel Kilborn lived an ordinary life up until the day he turned 15. That day in June he was taken to be offered up as a blood offering by cultists in his home town.

He was bled, and when the floor opened up he saw everything. The sight of a demon lord clawing forth from the abyss unhinged him, and caused him to pass out. Only the timely intervention of a benevolent magician allowed him to live.

For the next four years, he was treated in a mental institution, until he was deemed stable enough to be released into society. Still fascinated by demonology and magic, since proof that it does indeed exist had been forced on him, he took to studying stale tomes and works of classic mythology. He found himself in college in New York.

Soon, he had read myths from every culture on Earth that has been studied by modern society. Working at a feverish pace, he uncovered more obscure myths and read select tomes on demonology, picking up real spells here and there.

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The exorcist

In 1993, he had his second encounter with the raw supernatural, as he tracked down a cult group attempting to release an old evil. Not only did he figure out what was going on, but in the end he banished the evil himself. This event bolstered his confidence even though he almost died that day.

He delved deeper into esoteric spell books and other records of the supernatural looking for a magic bullet to aid his new quest. What he discovered was a ritual to cause images to come to life.

At the same time he began improving his knowledge, he studied combat techniques as a police cadet.

He practiced this until he became very proficient at it, almost to the point that he has memorized very few other rituals. Armed with a signature spell, which he has even modified, and an uncanny sense for discerning the unknown he began his life as Tarot a year ago.

By this time, he had become very proficient at dealing with physical menaces of a low threat level, as well as mid to high level supernatural monsters. He quit his job as a police officer, and became attached only as a special detective.

Recently, he was contacted to join the Wild Hunt because of his expertise in demonology.

Personality

Tarot is intense in most situations, while remaining caustically sarcastic to the point where his comments sound flippant to some ears. When wearing the mask, he is calm about nearly everything, sometimes too calm.

Normally, Daniel Kilborn is simply a driven man. He seems to be a potential sleuth or investigator to most, but he hides his desires well.

The most important thing in his life is his quest, the banishment or eradication of all demons on the face of the Earth. He is young enough that he can afford to wait, while he grows in skill and power, and is content to cover only a portion of New England for now.

Vigilante

As Tarot, he has run into normal criminals more often than supernatural menaces, and as such he is not at all averse to stopping criminals. He attempts to scare them into giving up crime, and if they persist, he will trail them like a ghost and stop them, by whatever means necessary. He has been responsible for the deaths of others before, mostly by accident or by not stopping the deaths of those people.

His main concern is that Tarot operate mostly from the shadows. He was a cop, and knows that they do not like vigilantes, and dislike the mysterious ones especially.

Daniel has his downside however. He has never fully recovered from his initial brush with evil. In some situations he will react to things that others do not see or assault evils that do not exist. Whenever he goes over the edge again, his mania manifests itself. He will always experience delusions that meld into reality slowly enough such that he will only gradually sound paranoid or crazy.

He often recovers from this state quickly, as he was purposefully holding back in the institution all those years ago.

He prefers to deal with his personal demons and if told he is acting crazy, will try to distance himself from innocents or his friends until he is sure he is in control again.

Quotes

“Fate always deals from the bottom of the deck. I at least give you an even chance. Ah, the Executioner … too bad.”

Description

Daniel Kilborn is an average looking Caucasian male with black hair and brown eyes. He tends to dress in subdued colors, and in sweaters, cardigans, or pullovers. Never in anything but slacks or jeans, he tries to remain inconspicuous.

When operating as Tarot, he wears a white jacket or trenchcoat, a white fedora and mask which covers his upper face, and a gray suit. He always carries a deck of pictoral cards and sometimes an automatic pistol or knife depending on the trouble he is expecting.

By Byron Molix for the Wild Hunt project.

Source of Character: Homemade.