Samantha Craig

Samantha Craig is a character in The Daunting Affray.

Physical Description
Sam is a rather small high school sophomore, measuring in at just a few inches over five feet, with a slender build - belittle her at your own risk. Her hair comes down to her shoulders, and has for a few years, despite repeated efforts to convince her that long, black hair would make her look absolutely gorgeous. She rather likes the effect her that her eyes’ unusually prominent shade of blue has on others, and prefers contacts over glasses for correcting her vision problems. Her wardrobe consists almost entirely of T-shirts (with and without snarky captions) and several nearly-identical pairs of jeans. The shirt she’s currently wearing reads, “Never trust an atom, they make up everything,” in dark red text on an off-white background. When walking, Sam has a noticeable limp, caused by a deformity in her right knee joint that’s concealed by her jeans; the result of the one occasion she surpassed the preset limit while Channeling (see below).

Personality
Pragmatic, direct, terse, aggressive, driven

Equipment/Abilities
Sam is a Channeler, or, to use a more common term, a magical girl. Her Catalyst, a magical intelligence construct contained inside of a gem, is the same shade of purple as her text, and is set into the back of a right-handed fingerless glove. It allows her to transform (as per usual with magical girls, this is, visually, just a change of clothes), and regulates the amount of magic allowed into her system at any given time. In order to trigger the transformation, she must be wearing the glove, and she must give a vocal command to her Catalyst with the percentage value of magic she wishes to channel. This percentage value can be changed at any time while Channeling. Transformation is nigh-instantaneous, and replaces her current clothes with a set of leather armor, dyed a shade of purple so deep it’s almost indistinguishable from black. This armor is tougher than regular leather, though powerful piercing and slashing attacks (for instance, a bullet or chainsaw) may still penetrate.

Sam is little more than an average high school student until she begins Channeling. While Channeling, she becomes physically stronger, faster, and more resilient after transformation, as well as gaining a limited form of regeneration, at a level dependent on the amount of magic she instructs her Catalyst to allow into her system. The magic that Channelers use is mainly comprised of kinetic energy, but the active ingredient, so to speak, is the raw stuff of creation, χάος - or Chaos, as it is more commonly known. However, every Channeler has a limit on the safe use of their power, which is usually measured in percentage values. This percentage value is based on the amount of power a Catalyst can safely regulate, and goes from a low of 0% to a high of 200%. If a Channeler passes the 100% limit, the Catalyst can no longer protect them from the typical effects of Chaos: consciously- and subconsciously-controlled mutability of physical form&#42; and minor (but usually temporary) degradation of the sense of self.

Additionally, while Channeling, Sam can manifest a mutable, but solid, “barrier” of sorts. This barrier can take any shape she envisions after about one second of intense concentration, though if she tries to make it too large, it simply vanishes. Whichever shape this barrier takes, it always appears as an object composed of purple light. While its shape is always well-defined, it will be semi-transparent in any form it takes. If sufficient force is applied, the barrier will shatter. This has no negative effect, aside from requiring the normal amount of concentration to reform. In most situations, Sam will form her barrier into either a foot-long blade emanating from her Catalyst, or an armored bracer on her forearm.

Errata
Tentative theme song, because I like matching music to stories and characters, is Visions, by The Luna Sequence.

In her home world, Sam and other Channelers fight the Unchained, humans who have been irreversibly altered by exposure to unfiltered Chaos. They have incredibly variable appearances, body shapes, and personalities, often all within the same individual. Consuming the soul of a human stabilizes them temporarily, allowing them to coalesce into a sensible person, more or less, for a few hours.

&#42;Resulting transformations are, for all intents and purposes, permanent, unless reversed or revised by the Channeler while surpassing the Catalyst’s limit.