Luminary - Deborah, The Virtuoso

Deborah/Virtuoso

Concept

Loud, brash and rebellious, Deborah is a black sheep amongst the Old Guard who commands riot and conjures chaos within the populace of The City - to equal parts respect and frustration amongst the Luminaries she fights alongside. A veteran of over a decade of facing the Dark, the good nature of her past has been replaced with a cynical, violent arrogance and a penchant for risky action and individualist empowerment.

A deep, if confused sisterly love for her fellow Luminaries and adoring fans is the barrier that separates her from the monsters she faces. Even with her hope and optimism replaced with a hatred for the machine, she fundamentally believes in the virtues of freedom, self-expression and uplifting those who have fallen down - where she differs from most servants of the Light is in her methods.

As the lead of the underground band Calamity, her time and energy is spent far less in facing nightmarish creatures with her own strength and far more on empowering the common people with her music. Black, brutal songs that explore topics considered taboo are her modus operandi - far from endorsing the dark, she drowns her audience in the terrifying and morbid with all the energy of a revolutionary, teaching listeners to never be afraid of the shadows and to trust in themselves.

She has become somewhat of an icon in both mundane and Luminary circles, gathering a great amount of fame and infamy for her surprise concerts and calls to riot. During these performances, she puts her wild, chaotic magic to bolstering the hearts and strengths of her audience and sapping her enemies of resolve, rather than hoarding power for herself - and goes through great lengths to protect those that follow her from consequence and harm, often to her own detriment.

Despite her best efforts, most Luminaries recognize that her reckless antics cause far more collateral harm than they could, and she is targeted by fair criticism for putting those that she empowers in danger.

Build

Name: Deborah
Alias: Virtuoso
Gender: Female

Outfit: Dark
Implement: Instrument

Light Magic:
Sonic (Specialty)
Physicality (Adept)

Dark Magic:
Curse (Specialty)
Shadow (Master)
Celerity (Adept)

Quirks
Large Reserves
Overcharged
Quickened Spells

Ultimate Art (Passive - Reverb):
Emotion is perhaps the most powerful catalyst for magic, and Virtuoso learned long ago that the audience is just as important as the players. The more others invest attention and emotion into her music, the more powerful and chaotic it becomes, as if every player listener becomes a part of a grand, improvised ritual.

At less than ten listeners, this effect is barely noticeable. Reaching the triple digits notably improves Virtuoso's magic in almost every regard as it flows through the world unimpeded. At the thousands, her magic becomes so absurdly powerful that it is virtually impossible to finely control, and its user can only hope to anchor and guide its direction.

Pacts & Patrons:
None

Powers/Style Explanation

Virtuoso's style of magic can be described as the epitome of strength over finesse, her spellcraft has always been immensely direct, brutal and swift, exaggerated further by over a decade of veterancy to hone her abilities. There are few Luminaries that can match her in matters of raw force and she uses this advantage extensively in her straightforward strategies of overwhelming power - hit hard, hit fast, keep hitting. This focus naturally comes with a lack of tactical precision or flexibility, leaving her with many weaknesses to exploit for those that try to outwit, rather than stand against the living hurricane. She also lacks any powers granted by Patrons, as she does not believe in her servitude to them on principle - while her own personal abilities are impressive, this is another weakness to exploit.

Her most common form of combat comes from her immense physique - she is far faster, tougher and stronger than most Luminaries, owing to both her highly athletic build and her adept capabilities in Celerity and Physicality. Her expertise is focused more on raw bodily power over esoteric martial arts and she practices very little complex spellcraft in such regards in favour of simply overloading her body with magical energy, a technique that is often enough to overpower mundane foes and lesser monsters. When forced into transformation, her body is clad in inky strands of Shadow that she can shape at will into shields, weapons, grasping tendrils and other forms of tangible darkness - typically used to bolster her own body with the threat of claws and black tentacles, to take flight on shadowed wing, or to absorb incoming attacks.

Her true expertise lies in a unique blend of Curse and Sonic arts, a potent form of magic that is reliant on her Instrument to achieve. The emotive power of her music - modulated by pitch, tone, volume and timing, in a similar fashion to more classical arcane spell components - becomes a reality in those that listen; with a furious barrage of notes she can fracture an opponent's psyche with a mix of manifest anxiety, confusion and terrible luck; or with a steady, brutal strum she can uplift and strengthen the spirits and fortune of her allies. This cursed music appears to propagate its way through listeners as carriers, spreading through them even as they empower and restore her magical reserves - a furious rioter endowed with good fortune might find his suppressors wracked with maladies, or his friends miraculously surviving wounds. The stronger the song becomes, the less control Virtuoso has over it, a critical factor that has lead her to rely on her less powerful magics until it is needed.

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Pub: 02 Aug 2025 11:42 UTC

Edit: 03 Aug 2025 00:54 UTC

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