Romana Brooks

Romana Brooks is part of the New Family Covenant and, as an employee of the Shaw Occult Museum, the live-in chef. She served initially as Jack Knight's mentor in the Euthanatos tradition.

Background
Romana Brooks was born in the means streets of Detroit, the only daughter to her father Philip, a mechanic, and her mother Sarah, an after hours office cleaner. Romana was trouble as soon as she could walk, displaying a fiery temper and a particularly tight self-centeredness that made her hard to like and impossible to control.

By age thirteen Romana had a long rap sheet, mostly of petty vandalism, shoplifting, and assault. She ran with a local street gang, which is where she met Gabriel Perron, whom she quickly fell in love with. Perron returned her love by getting her strung out on heroin and prescription opiates and taking her virginity at the tender age of 14.

When Romana got pregnant a year later, her parents had enough and threw her out on the streets. She quickly moved in with Perron, maintaining contact with her family only through her younger brother Dante. In her third trimester the doctors discovered that Romana's baby was twisted into a precarious position that, at best, would ensure Romana would never have children again. Romana didn't care and wanted the baby anyway, but Perron refused to have anything to do with the child and forced Romana to have an abortion.

The event devastated Romana. She spiraled downward into a dangerous vortex of pills, needles, and alcohol and began bemoaning her fate. It was about this time, just as she turned 18, that she began to experience vivid hallucinations which caused her to believe she could see through time and was being followed by the Grim Reaper. On one fateful night in October Romana, crushed to her soul and desperate for release, purposefully injected herself with a massive amount of heroine and overdosed.

Romana's Awakening
Romana recounted the event to her lover, Jack Knight, like this:

"At first, I didn't feel anything. It was as if I was floating in a black void. Yeah, I know how cliche that sounds. But that's what it was like. Then suddenly I was falling, and my eyes were open. The sky, if you could call it that, was a mass of swirling, furiously angry red and black clouds. It was hot. So hot, like everything was burning but nothing was on fire.

''I could see other people falling as well. Some of them were crying, others were laughing. I remember one guy went past me saluting. We were all falling toward--Christ, I don't even know how to describe it.''

''Below us was a colossal whirlwind or tornado of dark grey clouds. The clouds were swirling in a counter-clockwise position. The tornado was deafening, like a steady sound of thunder that never changed pitch and never stopped. People were getting caught in it and I could see their ghosts, souls, whatever you want to call them vaporizing as they were swept up. One lady reached her hand out to me and a took it. Her arm came off in my hand. I knew what I was looking at, then. No Heaven, no Hell. No glorious Messiah there to snatch me away to Paradise but also no Devil there to thrust a pitchfork into me.''

''This was Oblivion. It was the end. Like everyone else there, my soul would get caught in that whorl and I would be gone forever. This was my death.''

''And then Creep was there. That outrageously tall specter made of inky coiling blackness, with a skeletal face and streaming white hair. He told me I could keep falling or I could come back and be what I was meant to be. He offered his hand and I took it. When I woke up, Tanya was waiting in the hospital room for me.''

The Awakened Romana
Tanya Stephenson bani Euthanatos was there waiting when Romana woke up in the hospital room. She slipped the sixteen year old out of her room and brought her home, where Romana would spend the next decade learning everything she could about The Ascension War, her Tradition, and her place in both.

With her mentor's help she purified herself of her addiction to opiates and dug into her Tradition. She visited the Necropolis and Eternal Autumn, two Horizon realms controlled by the Euthanatos and spoke to older and more experienced Thanatoics. She poured through the libraries and record halls, and eventually was recognized as one of the most knowledgeable Euthanatos lore masters on the East Coast of the United States.

She trained herself physically, learning gymnastics and boxing, and put herself through culinary school with a strong leaning toward soul food, inspired by her brother Dante whom had, himself, broken free of the squalor of the neighborhood to become a doctor. On the night that her mentor turned her lose as her own Mage, Romana was named as part of the Chakravanti faction of the Euthanatos.

Appearance & Attitudes
Romana stands approximately five feet three inches tall and weighs 126 pounds. Of Nubian descent, she has more angular than round features, her eyes are light grey. She is fond of wearing men's slacks with bright and colorful strappy tops or blouses. She wears her hair in long cornrows usually tipped with white beads but during holiday seasons she will wear tiny jack-o-lantern beads, cornucopia beads, or Christmas ornaments.

Romana is more of a logical thinker than an emotional reactor. She takes her jobs and roles very seriously, and puts the welfare and well-being ahead of her own needs. She is deeply in love with Jack Knight, though she hasn't yet openly admitted it. Romana is honest, sociable, and generally fun to be with. She's odd in that she finds off-colored jokes and bodily functions funny.

Romana is absolutely in love with her Tradition, and will become irritable and snarky if she hears the Euthanatos spoken of in a negative light. So extreme is her passion that she can even get cranky if someone pronounces the Tradition name wrong ( You-the-NAY-TOZE, not you-THAN-a-toss); and her double-edged razor sharp tongue will be unleashed without editor on anyone that openly insults Euthanatos mages or customs.

Sheet
Name: Romana Brooks

Player: Essa/NPC

Chronicle: Raven's Grove by Night

Nature: Caregiver   Demeanor: Traditionalist    Essence: Pattern

Tradition: Euthanatos

Cabal: The New Family Covenant

Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2, Charisma 4 (Life of the party), Manipulation 3, Appearance 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3

Abilities: Alertness 2, athletics 2, boxing brawl 3, dodge 1, expression 4 (Culinary arts), instruction 3, etiquette 3, firearms 2, melee 3, stealth 2, cosmology 1, culture 4 (Euthanatos Tradition).

Spheres: Entropy 2, Life 2, Matter 3

Backgrounds: Allies 1 (Close friendship with Victoria Lawson), Dream 2, Influence 2

Arete: 3   Willpower 7

Rotes
Romana is skilled in a number of rotes; many were taught to her by her own mentor and some are invented. Her level of skill with Entropy and Life is such that she no longer requires foci for them. For Matter she will utilize her own personal chef's kit which includes knives, two spatulas, a wooden spoon, and a sharpening steel.


 * 1) Craft the Perfect Plate: Life 2 Matter 3: Using this rote which she invented herself, Romana crafts a dinner that is perfect in every way. The Life effect ensures that every single ingredient on the plate is at maximum for freshness, and any unwanted such as foul bacteria or spots of spoilage or dirt are entirely removed. The Matter effect brings out each ingredients' maximum flavor and texture. Because there is no visible change or difference to the meal, the effect is Coincidental (And has, in fact, made Chef Brook's name very well-known in the gourmet community.)
 * 2) Coin Toss, Entropy 2: This first Tradition rote Romana ever learned and still takes joy in. By peering at the threads of probability Romana can assess and react accordingly to minor events such as which horse will win a race, which lottery ticket will provide a win, and which fool playing Russian Roulette will take the bullet. She can control localized events to determine the outcome of any game of chance such as the shuffle of a deck, making the dice come up at 11, and make the roulette ball fall on the number she wants. There are no outward effects, so the rote is Coincidental.
 * 3) Little Good Death, Life 2: The second Tradition rote Romana ever learned. She is able to kill with a touch, causing Aggrivated Damage to a simple creature's pattern to shred the ebb and pulse of life in it. She doesn't like using this rote but understands its necessity. A severely injured animal on the side of the road, a rabid dog, and even swarms of vermin are situations where Ro will make use of the rote to end suffering, be it the animal or the people being stressed and harassed by the swarm. The vulgarity of the magick is dependent on the situation.