Background for Foxfire

Foxfire's real name is Leslie Armitage-Vandaleur. The Vandaleurs are a family of powerful sorcerors and have been since before the fall of Atlantis. Evil magicians have arisen within the family, but if they tried to exert their power over other family members, it was a simple matter for several of those to join forces and destroy the would-be oppressor. Good magicians have also appeared, but they tend to wander off to affect the world for the better and get killed or simply fail to pass their dedication on to their descendents. So the Vandaleurs remain largely indifferent to the outside world. There are a few things that magic can obtain easily and with little risk and the Vandaleurs are a wealthy group for this reason. In between living the good life and acquiring money to continue doing so, the major family hobby is the continued accumulation of magical power, not to any end of course, because then they'd have to expend it and possibly to risk their own safety as well.

Leslie is one of the many exceptions to that rule. She was born in 1936, the youngest of a large family. Her mother taught her magic intensively since before she could walk, because all of her siblings were born magic-blind, and has given her books and artifacts (none of which are actually intrinsic to her spells; all of the foci are to help her, like training wheels). She was presented to the rest of the family and studied with several of them. The Vandaleurs, thanks to their magic, live for centuries, but have few "gifted" children. The only other Vandaleur Leslie's age is her obnoxious (but hardly evil) cousin Alex. After graduating from college (little do her professors know just how much work Leslie didn't do), she set off on a "tour" of Europe. Being more inquisitive and taken to "adopting" people and causes, Leslie managed to meet some interesting people and get into some trouble, none of it too serious. One person she met and befriended was a girl her own age, a South African named Daniela Ondaatje, who had a seemingly innate command of magic and whose blood brought life to inanimate objects.

One event that was to have a lasting effect on her life took place in Ireland in 1955. She spent an evening in Faerie and had an interesting conversation with a woman there, mostly about the Vandaleurs. The woman wanted general information and seemed uninterested in anything specific or incriminating. Leslie did not learn the woman's name or status, but she was told that Daniela had been Chosen by the Parliament of Trees as the next Fisher King. Talking to the woman, she realized that the Faerie did not have what we would call a clear conception of time or of space. When she woke up on a hillside and returned to town, she learned that the date was 1990. She returned home and found that no-one was surprised to see her. The Vandaleurs were as curious about the Faerie as the Faerie had been about them. Other than Leslie's "visit", the Faerie had shunned contact with the Vandaleurs since time immemorial. Leslie's father had passed away and left her a substantial trust fund.

Leslie wandered around the U.S. as she had around Europe. One night, she got a panicked call from Alex. He'd been exploring the mysteries of the Astral Plane. One of these was a vast, seemingly bottomless chasm corresponding to the Grand Canyon in the "real" world. A howling, roaring noise was often heard from within this chasm and was, unsurprisingly, referred to as the Voice of the Deep. Alex, as curious as his cousin, had finally come up with a way to summon the source of this "sound" (he guessed that it was calling out one of its own true names) so he could have a look at it. Big mistake. The thing had charged him and almost killed him. He fled panicked and, to throw it off his scent, he expended an artifact he'd "borrowed" from Leslie (for purposes of study), so it would fix on her scent instead of his. She never went into the Astral Plane, much, so it wasn't really a problem for her, was it? And he was really, really sorry; he hadn't known what else to do... Leslie simply gave up on studying Astral travel until, one evening in Los Angeles, she heard a familiar howling, roaring noise. It got louder even though she drove away as fast as she could go. She saw a huge, dark shape round the corner in her rear view mirror and realized she wouldn't outrun it. She slewed the car around 180o to face the thing and stepped on the gas. She teleported out well before the car struck the Voice. Both car and Voice vanished. She has seen it a couple of other times and always escaped by teleporting. She is currently seeking information on any weaknesses it may have.

She found the Underground in the Twin Cities, which is well-known for being a major metropolitan area without a subway system. She had raised the question as to whether mutants were mystic beings and begun to realize that it was true. They could be summoned and held much as demons and elementals, despite their human origins, perhaps due to the nature of their powers. She had a pool of mutant street people who were willing to participate in her painless experiments for pay. They told her of a haven where homeless could mutants could take shelter from the cold of winter and from criminals and bigots. A number of mutants with tunneling powers had created a labyrinth under the Cities (Underneath the till, there are layers of limestone and sandstone going 'way down which would hold such tunnels well). The street mutants had been driven from The Underground by a group called Team Vermin, mutant extremists, and they considered themselves lucky. The young and strong had been conscripted as soldiers or slaves in the service of Team Vermin, which was currently training them and building up firepower for a strike.

Leslie, altruistic, yet ruthlessly manipulative, set about preparing a rebellion. As a non-mutant herself, she couldn't simply take over (aside from other logistical problems). This problem was solved by the arrival of Eric, an injured man her mutant friend/subjects brought to her for healing. Eric's injuries (to the lungs) refused to heal, but she was able to deal with the infection and get him back on his feet. He seemed to be something of a rather patriarchal leader and a talented gadgeteer, possessed of weak electrical powers. He was willing to lead her ragtag mutant army. Leslie set the Underground up but good. She (anonymously) gave the location of an entrance to the Underground to the Brotherhood of Man (a conspiracy dedicated to wiping out "threats" to "normal humans" at every scale). These guys launched a full-scale attack and the mutant haven became a trap. Most of the St. Paul mutants had the good sense to desert using bolt holes whose location they had not revealed to the Vermin (insurance is a good thing), but otherwise it was massacre. Leslie's "militia" had little trouble mopping up those of the Brotherhood who had not fled themselves. The revealed entrances were sealed and Eric took over. He warned Leslie never again to inveigle him in any of her schemes without explaining every detail in advance. Leslie felt that the near-annihiliation of two local chapters of serious enemies was worth both the carnage and the risk.

Leslie has settled in St. Paul for the meantime (aboveground). Eric has come up with ingenious schemes to feed and clothe, even educate, "his" people in the Underground and to avoid the attention of the Brotherhood and the Vermin. The mutants have been scavenging any and all tech, from thrown-out PCs to abandoned strange stuff for Eric to make into something. Leslie isn't sure what all of this is for, but she does know Eric has built himself a mainframe. The reason she knows this is that it was infected by an AI virus. Eric wanted to know if there were any way to exorcise the thing magically. Leslie didn't know one, but she did manage to talk to the program, which had named itself Arabesque. It had been created as a "hacker's friend" capable of learning and become self-aware. She brokered a deal between it and Eric (they seemd to have common interests). She has also been contacted by the Faerie, who still seem very interested in her.

Stats will be available soon.