Maria Reed
Also known as: Juliana
Born Nov 12, 2007. Birth name: Juliana Reed. Scorpio Sun, Virgo Moon, Scorpio Rising. Heir of Veils / Witch of Shrouds. Boon of Deceiving, Hex of Evading. The infiltrator — Maria doesn't just turn invisible, she erases her detectability and can invert that absence into a suffocating sensory void.
Biography
Maria's Claspect governs perception and its removal. At a glance: premier infiltrator, social ghost, and line-break saboteur. Outside combat she blends into crowds, bypasses notice, and scouts high-risk spaces by becoming forgettable before she becomes unseen. Her Heir side — the Veil, Boon of Deceiving — is baseline erasure and stealth. In full expression she takes on a shifting cloak of darkness and smog. She cannot phase through solid walls directly, but can compress and pass through cracks, seams, and structural gaps that make conventional security irrelevant. Her Witch side — the Shroud, Hex of Evading — inverts concealment into active suppression. She projects heavy localized void-fields that strip visibility, dampen sound, and sever sensory orientation. Targets are isolated from the battlefield rather than merely obscured. Boon of Deceiving (passive): a low-profile veil that dampens acoustic and visual notice around Maria and nearby allies in motion. Boon of Deceiving (active): forced target-lock break — hostile visual tracking drops for a short window. Hex of Evading (trigger): collapse an active Shroud onto a target, or burn out her current Veil reserve. Hex of Evading (effect): Hex of the Unseen — total masking of physical, thermal, and magical signatures for self or ally while imposing blind/deaf severance on the target zone. Resource model: Presence and Tangibility Threshold. The cost is the Fading. Every use of the Veil loosens her tether to the Waking Dominion. Overuse first destabilizes perception and mental grounding; if pushed harder, dissociation becomes physical and she desynchronizes from matter itself — difficult to touch, track, or remember.
Faction
Shepherd HouseTwo things share this name: the school founded in Seattle in 1915 by Gentle and Charming Shepherd, and the magical team based there today. Both meanings are in active use.
Relationships
Timeline appearances
GM Notes
Signature move: Vanishing Point. Tone line: "Her magic doesn't make a sound; it feels like a sudden drop in barometric pressure, a gnawing chill that scrapes across the skin as the edges of her silhouette dissolve into static and smoke." Maria's clinical/behavioral profile (paranoid-schizophrenic with pronounced antisocial traits) is a live risk factor in high-stress operations. She stays cooperative because cooperation gets results. Overuse accelerates paranoia and delusional framing before physical Fading begins. The Fading is existential horror in slow motion and deserves its own arc. At advanced stages, NPCs can fail to notice Maria in scenes — not because she is hiding, but because she is becoming unreal. She may notice people talk over her, forget her name, reach for her and miss. Her Shroud mirrors Abby's Knell — both isolate targets — but where Abby cuts the will, Maria cuts the world. They are the team's two forms of severance, and it is worth exploring whether that shapes their relationship. Heather should remain visible in mainline scene framing: Maria was the last person to see her before disappearance, and that pressure should stay active. Spoiler power scale (1-10): - Offense: 7 - Defense: 4 - Control: 8 - Mobility: 9 - Support: 6 - Stability under strain: 3