Altan Hawthorne

Appearance

Altan is mesomorphic & toned by exercise from the time she was eight, with a heart-shaped face and eyes that are only slightly larger than they should be. Her jet black hair, one of her greatest prides that she's taken great care of from her youth, reaches down to her waist— It's so dark that it often looks like a hole in the world. Her eyes are the same way: It can actually be hard to see where her pupil starts unless you're really close.
She is also extremely pale, almost disturbingly so, in direct contrast to her extremely dark hair.

Info

Personality: To put it as simply as possible, Altan is strange. "Alien" might be a better word; She almost always wears a mask of however she's "supposed" to feel at any given moment, but just how "effective" that mask is, is up for debate. She can seem obtuse, distant, and cold because of this, even when she's trying to be genuine.

Likes/Dislikes: Likes anything nature or plant related, especially flowers; Likes fighting, to a fairly concerning degree; Anything related to ninja or shinobi of the past is her jam; Absolutely hates plastic, loathes it and refuses to touch it under any circumstance (this applies to polyester clothing;) Anyone heard insulting or "slandering" the ninja of old will get a prompt knife to the hand or foot, whichever is easier.

Backstory

Altans mother, Cyrun Janus Hawthorne, had always been "odd." A proper diagnosis had never been reached, but for the longest time, the family at large had considered her to be mentally ill. Bad enough to be incapable of holding a real job, but well enough to live on her own.
Cyrun could spend months at a time with nary a word, holed up in her study which only she herself was allowed in, or holed up on her roof examining the stars; Or on the rare occasion wandering the countryside, speaking barely a word to the person accompanying her (she was not allowed outside of the compound without supervision after an incident) aside from asking them to accompany her.
Then, out of nowhere, Cyrun would become talkative as can be; Talking to whoever would listen of an endless myriad of seemingly random topics for a few months. Then, she would be silent again, and the cycle would repeat itself.
Besides her odd behavior and her inability to follow a true job, she was still capable of helping people within the compound. She was still kin. The family continued to support her.

Things worsened about four years before Altan was born. To put it simply, Cyrun became incredibly anxious and paranoid. She also began to have periods of inexplicable violent urges, almost always focused on herself, just before she began to have infrequent, minor seizures. Three years before Altan was born, all of these issues had reached their peak and Cyrun was under almost constant surveillance.

Then, inexplicably, Cyrun disappeared. This was about two years before Altan was born.

Despite the vigorous search that ensued, she was never found. Somehow, she had managed to leave the compound alone without anyone noticing her, either directly or via the wards that engulf the entire estate.
The search never turned up any concrete details.
It was like she simply vanished.

She wouldn't be found for over a year until she miraculously reappeared within the Hawthorne compound, entirely unharmed. Where one would have expected Cyrun to be in awful condition, she was fine. If anything, she was the healthiest she had ever been: Her worsening condition, prior to her disappearance, had reversed course.
The strangest thing though, which she refused to explain or elaborate on, was the fact she was four months pregnant. Despite the pressure and the endless stream of questions, Cyrun would never explain what happened. Not where she went, not how she disappeared, not who the father was.
She answered one question. When asked by Thanasia, the head of the Hawthorne family at the time, "What have you done?" she answered,
"I did what I had to do."

Altan was born completely healthy. Her mother, however, died in her sleep the following day.

Despite her own oddities, Altan appears to be a normal human girl.

Magic Name: Solar Arsenal

Overall place in type triad: Offensive
Elemental Properties: Fire, Light
OC Using this magic: Altan Janus

Description

The most distinguishing factor of Altans abilities is the somatic casting system she uses: Hand signs, or seals. She learned about them in an old, almost-but-not-quite forgotten book within the Hawthorne library when she was 11. She was obsessed with them from then on.
The hand seal system she's learned since then consists of 12 two-handed seals and 8 one-handed seals, and she uses some sequence of either type to cast the majority of her spells. These sequences can be interrupted, in which case the spell being cast will fail without special effect, and Altan will lose a small, but not insignificant, portion of the mana she was focusing into said spell.
She can form up to 4 seals per turn.

The second most distinguishing factor of her abilities would be Zen, which she also first learned about within the Hawthorne library. Her development in the field of Zen techniques is slow, and only just beginning; The "aspect" she has chosen to identify with being the sun.

Techniques

-Sun Dragon's Domain- (Support/Illusion; Fire&Light)
This technique is actuated by 3 one-handed seals, often too fast to interrupt, within one turn; The effect activates the turn after.
Altan spreads her magic through the air of an area (up to a 3.5 m² area), raising the temperature of the air and artificially creating heat mirages. The light magic woven into the mirages makes it appear as if a thick fog blankets the area, hiding Altan within it. This will last until it is forcefully dispelled (like through enemy wind magic,) Altan dispells it herself, or twenty minutes have passed.

-Kiai- (Offense ; Elementless)
This technique is actuated without hand seals.
Altan concentrates non-elemental mana in her fist until it's under near-painful pressure. With a shout, she punches the air, creating a blast of kinetic force with nothing but mana and sheer force of will. This blast will fly forward at very high speed for up to twenty-four feet, after which it'll unravel.
Being hit with this attack is extremely disorienting, fulfilling the role Altan had in mind: An anti-air attack. A flying opponent hit by this will, in the majority of cases, fall out of the air.
Kiai has a very hefty mana cost, and Altan is only able to use it five times before it exhausts her stamina. In addition to this, it has a 3-turn cooldown period, as condensing mana to this degree is straining on the body.

-Flame Proficiency- (Offense ; Fire)
Altan's primary offensive element is fire, and while skilled she's far from being an expert. Her control over fire, while more adept than some, needs work as her flames will harm her allies as well as her enemies if she's not careful with its usage. She's able to create and manipulate it freely outside of proper techniques, but for several reasons (focus and control, to name two,) properly practiced techniques remain preferred.

• -Phoenix Song- (Offense ; Fire)
  This technique can be actuated by 4 two-handed seals or 9 one-handed seals.
  Altan focuses fire magic within her gut, concentrating and pressurizing it before she releases it up through her throat in the form of a fire breath attack. The pressurized breath attack flies forward, blanketing a conical area up to twenty feet long, six feet wide. Altan can sustain this attack for several seconds.
• -Phoenix Bullet Dance- (Offense ; Fire)
  This technique can be actuated by 6 two-handed seals.
  Bullet Dance operates the same way as Phoenix song, with fire magic condensed in and then released from the gut. Only this time, Altan will 'set' the target in her mind, and then release five fireballs from her mouth. While obviously not perfect, since they have weight and momentum, these fireballs will follow and track their set target. They will release small, fiery explosions when they hit something, be it their target, themselves, or anything else.
  It should be noted, Altan can perform a 'lesser variation' of Bullet Dance without seals. This lesser variation involves only a single fireball, is less efficient, and has a brief cooldown period.

-Spear of the Sun- (Offense ; Fire&Light ; Zen)
This is often the bread and butter of Altans fighting style. It is actuated without seals.
Within herself, Altan fixes her understanding of the sun, and actuates this understanding upon her magic. She infuses her spear with that magic, turning the spearhead incorporeal. In this state, the spearhead will not deal wounds of the flesh, but wounds of magic.
Being struck will destabilize the magic, worsening an opponents control as their system must 'fight off' Altans magic like a disease. This effect takes six turns to wear off fully, but is renewed with every hit stacking the effect cumulatively;
Depending on how Altans magic control stacks up against her opponents, it will take 6-8 hits before an opponents magic is beyond their control.
The spell, if maintained for 12 turns, will consume half her mana capacity; And because she must maintain it continuously, if her spear moves farther than 3 feet away from her, the spell will immediately end and a not-insignificant amount of her mana will be wasted.

Against those who have extraplanar magic within them, this effect is amplified; However, if they possess elements with an advantage over either Fire or Light, the effect will only take 2-3 turns to be dispelled.

Gear

Altan's Spear

Owner: Altan
Catalyst: Y
Elemental Properties: Fire & Light

Description

Altan's spear is 6' long in totality. The shaft is made of red oak, with leather wrappings for grip; The spear blade, forged out of a basic steel-catalyst alloy, is designed for slashing as well as thrusting and fitted with a small crossguard; The butt end, or shoe, of the spear is fitted with a round counter-weight that she can also use as a blunt instrument.
The spear is nothing remarkable in the world of magi.

Altan's Shield

Owner: Altan
Catalyst: Y
Elemental Properties: Light

Description

Altan's buckler shield has a diameter of 2', fitted to her left forearm by leather straps. It's made entirely of the same steel-catalyst alloy as her spear. It's designed to give her full hand control, and is technically a lantern shield (minus many of the shields iconic features.) It's worn with a leather gauntlet which has a steel-catalyst plate on the back of the hand.

Mundane tools

Owner: Altan
Catalyst: N
Elemental Properties: N/A
The following is a collection of tools that Altan has on her at almost all times, for some reason, all being non-magical items. While she is able to strengthen them to some degree by infusing them with magic, to better withstand the forces sometimes put upon them, they are all ordinary objects and this effect could be achieved by most who tried. The tools themselves have no special properties to enable this.
All of this is, usually, stached somewhere on her body in specially made pouches.

• Twelve kunai-style knives. These are her goto multi-purpose knife, as a weapon or as a tool. They're all saw-toothed, to better allow her to stab them into something, attach a rope, and be sure it won't go anywhere.
• 50 feet of 1/2" diameter nylon rope.
• Bo-shuriken and hira-shuriken. For those who aren't as ninja-obsessed, throwing knives and throwing stars. She usually uses them to distract or misdirect. At the same time, despite their exceedingly simple craftmanship, they cost money, and thus she does not have an infinite number of them.
• Impact smoke bombs. These are Altans own homemade concoction involving gunpowder, Armstrong's mixture, sugar, other chemicals and things that Altan refuses to elaborate on ("it's a ninja secret :3") encased in a gossamer-thin shell of resin. The result is an impact smoke bomb that can be actually effective when used correctly. Note: Do not throw directly at people. Do not put beneath someone when they're about to sit down. It's not a funny prank, it's a trip to the medical ward.