Origins

The Recent History of the Morgan Clan:
One of the last remaining direct descendants of the long-established Morgan Clan of Wessex Witches, Maria Alanna Morgan, born in the late 19th century, was her generation's Moonstone Protectress, a powerful Witch charged to saveguard the lives of her Clan against those who would wish them harm. She had twin daughters, Hazel and Mabel, with a wealthy man called Arthur Hingston. Hazel, the oldest of the twins--by a mere 13 minutes--thought for sure she would give birth to her mother's successor; but her daughter Winnifred Mildred Morgan didn't show enough promise as a Witch, nor did she have any particularly strong connection to the Moonstone Ring, the enchanted amulet that summons the Moonstone Armor, which are--along with the Garments of Cunning--the key to the Protectress' power. It was Mabel, the younger twin, who gave birth to Miranda Martina Morgan, the next Moonstone Protectress, who would surpass in power and deed all of her predecessors.

Miranda would become involved in the Occult Wars that secretly continued the hidden agenda of the real powers behind World War II. For the first time a Morgan Clan Protectress would use the power of the Moonstone Ring and Armor to fight crime on a global scale alongside many superheroes of the Golden Age. During her heroic tenure, she met a Royal Navy officer, Captain Edmond Blake. The two would pursue a heated love affair that would result in a daughter, Lucinda Lousia Morgan. Lulu, as she got nicknamed, developped a rebellious streak in reaction to both her parents' stern demeanor. Seeking more freedom, she adopted a false identity--that of ordinary girl "Louise Garmon"--and she met a young man named Carl Daniel Casey while he was vacationing in Vibora Bay. The two fell in love and she ran away with him to his native Pennsylvania. She always shirked away from his many marriage proposals, but she nonetheless gave him a son, Charles Douglas Casey. The young family was happy, but Lucinda knew she had a responsibility to her ancestral clan--she figured that having given birth to a son instead of a daughter was a clear sign she wasn't fulfilling her destiny--and thus felt obliged to abandon her new family and come back home to Vibora Bay. There she met a different man, a Sorcerer called Thierry Lucas Richardson, a distant descendant of French Alchemist Alexandre de Korval. They had a daughter, Amanda Alicia Morgan, who would use her witchy wiles to become an international supermodel. Amanda developed a romantic interest in her favorite photographer, Roderick Bradley Hopkins, and they would produce a daughter together, one who would inherit her great-grandmother's affinity for the Moonstone Ring, Miranda Maria Morgan.

In Lucinda's absence--or, as far as he knew, Louise Garmon's absence--her son Charles Casey grew up, became a fine young productive member of society and got married to an equally fine young woman named Marlene Fuller. The couple had three children together, two boys and a girl. The girl was the middle child, called Charlene, who--though not strictly considered of the Morgan lineage because of the broken matrilineality--still inherited some of her grandmother's affinity for Sorcery. She would herself become a magical superheroine called Charlatan.

But on the other side of the family, Hazel's daughter Winnifred had felt robbed by her cousin's status and prowess, and had more or less cut ties with the Morgan Clan. Unlike most Morgan Witches, she got married, to a wealthy Wizard of Irish descent named Percy O'Shaughnessy. Equally unlike most Morgan Witches, she gave birth to a son, and the pregnancy was a difficult one, resulting almost in the death of the young mother, insuring she would never have any other children. Winnifred's son William would follow in his father's footsteps, dabbling in Wizardry for fun and profit. He married a docile young woman from a good family who didn't care much for magic, only for its profitability. The young couple had a daugther, named Scarlet, whom the bitter Winnifred took under her grandmotherly wing. She would grow up hating the Morgan name and married into a different magical lineage, that of the Lacroix Family of French Sorcerers. With Nicholas Lacroix she would produce a child ritually conceived whom they named Ruby on account of her supernaturally red irises. Nicholas Lacroix was infamous for his nefarious dealings, but he never fancied himself a proper supervillain. Enter young Ruby--who now dubs herself Star Ruby--and plans nothing short of world domination!

Miranda Morgan, the new Moonstone
The particular details of how Miranda Morgan becomes the magical superheroine publicly known simply as Moonstone is (or should be) the subject of an upcoming Origins Comic. (I can't say when it'll be completed, or if it ever will. Sadly these things always take longer than anticipated!)

Personality

Miranda Morgan is a beautiful, vivacious, young woman who is generally quite self-confident and self-reliant. She is smart as a whip and despite being normally good-natured, she can often be quite snarky and sarcastic, at times even a tad cynical. She can also be impatient, impulsive, self-centered and too assertive. Some would say she's been spoiled rotten coming from a wealthy family, but in conjunction with her very comfortable upbringing she was often ignored and neglected by her busy parents. She was well-cared-for by her maternal grandmother back in Vibora Bay, but that obviously stopped when Miranda and her mother relocated to Millennium City when she was 11. As a result she is very individualistic and can be standoffish, perhaps as a way to cope with her ensuing fear of abandonment. Her father was especially absent from most of her life, which has lead to her having what people commonly call "daddy issues".

Miranda has a smidgen of a dark side; she loves horror movies and things most people consider to be somewhat weird. Back in High School she could be a bit of a mean girl, though the objects of her contempt were not so much the outcasts as the ones she'd call the sheeple; with her family's wealth and her beauty she could easily have been one of the popular crowd, but she generally rejected them for being too conformist and boringly predictable.

More coming soon to a PDb page near you!

Powers

As a powerful Hereditary Witch well-versed in Arcane Sorcery, Moonstone can use a variety of spells, hexes and curses both offensively and defensively. She can cast rapid bolts or more powerful, focused blasts of Eldritch energies reshaped into runic incursions to devastating end, or use those very same energies to fashion a shield of revolving magic circles to further protect herself from harm. She can also open direct portals to Eldritch dimensions to let baneful magical energies bleed pure and unadulterated onto all of her foes, or even use healing spells to undo injuries and nurture herself or her allies back to full health.

But mostly she is a Summoner, which is to say a specific kind of Rifter who can not only open portals to other Realms, Worlds, Dimensions or Planes of Existence but also conjure forth beings from these otherworldly places and bind them to her will. As such she can also open portals to any other place on Earth--or anywhere else in the known Universe--in order to physically travel there, but only as long as she is either very familiar with the place in question or if she can somehow locate it magically with a clairvoyance spell.

Using her skills as a gymnast and as a space-warping Rifter (and aided by her enchanted boots--see Equipment section below), she can move through physical space horizontally and vertically at incommensurable speeds with grace and ease. She can also completely ignore gravity and fly, albeit without the ability to warp space around her as she does, since the mechanics of magical flight use spatial dimensions in a different way, thereby precluding the achievement of similar speeds.

Moonstone has also learned many non-combat spells, such as illusions and glamours, transmogrification spells, divination techniques, astral projection, etc., but her mastery of these other fields isn't quite up to par with her talents as a battle magician.

Equipment

Moonstone relies on a few pieces of magical equipment to enhance her own Hereditary Witch's powers:

• The Moonstone Ring of Summoning: A ring made out of platinum magicum and set with a large, shimmering moonstone (a gemstone, not to be confused with a lunar rock) of great beauty, which is believed to be born from solidified rays of the Moon. Platinum magicum--a mystical variant of the rare metal platinum--is generally created by Alchemists and thought to have many magical qualities. Combining this metal with the moonstone gem greatly amplifies the magical powers of the Witch who wears it, especially her summoning abilities, and most notably the Moonstone Ring summons the Moonstone Armor of Familial Protection to which it is mystically bound.
• The Moonstone Armor of Familial Protection: A magical breastplate, designed to be worn by a woman, covering the torso, breasts and shoulders. It magically adapts to the body type of the Sorceress who wears the Ring, much like the Ring adapts to her finger. It is made of the same platinum magicum as the Moonstone Ring to which it is connected, forged presumably by the same Alchemist who created the Ring. The Morgan family attributes the creation of both the Ring and Armor to fabled French Alchemist Alexandre de Korval, who allegedly played a part in the foundation of Vibora Bay and was one of its first residents, and who was a close family friend of the Morgan clan of Witches.

  The Armor prominently features nine moonstone gems, three of immense size and six much smaller ones, though still quite large in themselves. Two of the three much larger stones are set within the shoulder pieces of the Armor, fashioned to represent large demonic heads each holding a stone in its mouth while four of the six smaller stones form the demonic eyes of each shoulder piece. The third immense moonstone is placed atop the wearer's womb, with the remaining two smaller stones set on either side of it.

  As its name implies, the Moonstone Armor's mystical function is that of protection, for both its wearer and her allies, and ironically it affords an even greater level of magical protection to them. It creates a magical dampening field, distorting the ambient etheric atmosphere and thus slowing down bullets, blades, blows, etc., so they do considerably less damage to those under its protection. The wearer of the Armor being in the center of the field--much like being in the eye of the storm--is less affected by this dampening field, unless she focuses it on herself, a manoeuver that would leave her allies considerably less protected.

  The Moonstone Armor normally resides in its own pocket dimension, and using the Ring to summon it sends all clothing, accessories and jewelry worn (with the exception of the Moonstone Ring itself) to that dimension. Sending back the Armor of course brings everything else back from the pocket dimension in return.

• The Garments of Cunning: These enchanted articles of clothing were magically created by Morgan family Witches to help their clan protectress in her duties. When wearing the Garments of Cunning along with the Moonstone Armor, they will also all be sent to the Armor's pocket dimension when the protectress reverts the Moonstone Ring's spell to bring back the clothing worn prior to the Armor's summoning. Resummoning the Armor will equally bring back the Garments of Cunning. To keep them around one simply has to remove them all before reverting the spell.
  They are comprised of the following:
  • The Cloak of Concealing: This hooded cloak is enchanted to conceal its wearer's true identity. The spell is very powerful insofar as it was designed to fool even seasoned practitioners of Sorcery. When a Morgan Witch wears that cloak, she will be completely incognito, without having to cover up her facial features in any way. People will see her face, but won't be able to identify her, even if they know her well.

    Obviously, Morgan Witches are immune to this spell. It is also possible for Miranda to cast an immunity spell on someone that nullifies--temporarily--the effects of the cloak; but this spell usually doesn't last very long (its duration depends on the intensity of its casting and the amount of Eldritch energy employed).

  • The Gloves of Casting: These long gloves were the recipient of a pretty straightforward enchantment to boost the offensive and defensive spellcasting both in quality and quantity. They even boost the Ring's summoning enchantments. Each glove is decorated with two small moonstones, one on the forearm, the other on the upper arm.
  • The Boots of Traveling: These high boots received a similar enchantment, though one that enhances movement in physical space. They make its wearer able to run faster and jump higher, even defy gravity and fly! Each boot is decorated with three small moonstones on the lower leg and three larger cut ones at the top (mid-thigh) as well as five more on top of the toes, and each boot also features a pair of small, decorative--and mystically symbolic--wings attached at the ankle.

Note: It is to be understood that these items themselves are not the source of Miranda/Moonstone's powers, but that they only serve to greatly enhance her own magic. A normal person would not be able to access their magic nor would most practitioners of Sorcery, for that matter. The Ring and Armor must have a deeply personal resonance with their wearer and the Garments of Cunning are more generally specific to the Morgan family Witches. It is to be noted also that the Ring, Armor and Garments of Cunning are indestructible items of magic, though their wearer might not be so invincible, nor even invulnerable.

Moonstone can also make use of non-magical pieces of equipment, such as S.C.U.B.A. diving gear (she could cast underwater-breathing spells, but she'd rather not rely on those, given the dire consequences of finding yourself deep in the ocean with no air to breathe in case of spell failure--on the other hand such spells could come in quite handy in case of equipment failure). She can also send the underwater equipment to the same pocket universe where the Armor and Garments of Cunning usually reside when not worn.

She sometimes also uses a hoverbike built for her by her friend--and fellow Vibora Bay resident--Juryrig. Utilizing the conjuring power of the Moonstone Ring, she created a different small pocket universe just for the flying contraption, to and from which she can send and retrieve it for her occasional usage and storage. Of course, Moonstone can fly on her own quite proficiently, thanks to the Boots of Traveling, but this vehicle is useful for crossing greater distances at a faster rate than Moonstone's top flight speed. She does feel conspicuous about her carbon footprint when she uses it though, as it can leave a fair amount of polluting smoke trails in its wake!

Library

Some time after the Morgan Clan of Witches had relocated to--and prospered in--the city of Vibora Bay, Florida, the Matriarch of the family had a magnificently opulent mansion built, one which included an extensive library full of obscure tomes on everything Arcane and Occult.

Years later, a Morgan Clan Protectress used the power of the Moonstone Ring successfully to open a stable rift referred to as an Ennesios Trine, one of the most elaborate magical constructs yet based on the simplest of numerical harmonics. For most practioners of magic, opening an Ennesios Trine is a feat in itself, but stabilizing it to full permanence is quite another!

Opening this rift in the heart of the Arcane Library caused it to be removed from the normal space-time continuum of the Material/Physical Plane and relocated somewhat halfway between worlds. It can still be accessed from within the mansion--or by portaling right inside--but it no longer exists as part of the mansion itself.

Another peculiarity of the displaced Library is that time no longer works quite in the same way as it used to do. For this reason, it is most often referred to as being Timeless; an epithet that is more hyperbole than actual fact. The reality is that it now converts the time lapsed inside from that of a simple planetary rotation to that of a full orbital one. In other words, one day in normal space-time equals one year in the Timeless Arcane Library.

This means essentially that time is accelerated at a rate of 365:1, so that an hour of real time passed inside seems stretched to 365 hours, or 15 days and 5 hours. Likewise, a mere minute in the Library becomes 6 hours and 5 minutes. It is also to be noted that one doesn't age--or become hungry or tired--according to the time passed inside, but rather as if one was still operating in normal time. So if someone who just ate doesn't need to eat again for a good 5 hours, they can read and study in the Timeless Library for what would to them seem like 76 straight days without requiring as much as a little snack!

Bestiary

Although as Moonstone, Miranda can summon sundry different beings from a slew of other worlds, planes or realms, she tends to summon the very same ones--or at least the same types of being--over and over again. Perhaps simply because she is more comfortable with the familiarity of it all, and the midst of a battle is not the time to experiment with the unknown. She also summons otherworldly companions that have strong connections to the Four Magical Elements, as well as some from the Light and Dark aspects of the Fifth Element or Quintessence, also known as Spirit.

• Twinkly: An enchanted candle that has magically acquired some sort of semi-sentience through a mystical detection spell. It floats and hovers around Moonstone and will resonate with ambient magical energies--even very hard to detect ones--and express its findings through color changes of its flame. Usually, it's the same normal yellowy-orange color of any regular candle flame, but upon detection it will turn scarlet red for evil or Ebon magic; blue for good or neutral Arcane magic; a deep green for natural or Primal magic; a sickly green for toxic or Infernal magic; a bright golden yellow for Celestial or Radiant magic; purple for Chaotic or Dark magic; and it will also turn pink when psionic activity is detected. Since Twinkly's flame is a magical manifestation and not a product of any actual physical combustion, it doesn't burn away any of the candle's wax. And while it does generate light, it doesn't generate any perceivable heat. (Magical Element: Fire sub-element of Spirit)

• Bitey: A Qliphotic Imp. The first critter which Miranda managed to summon when she was learning her art. She was quite proud of herself for succeeding on her first try! The little guy is a handful and can be a bit troublesome--he does like to bite a lot, hence the name. Since he is rather tiny and has no means of visual or even olfactory perception, he's not very useful at all in battle situations but Miranda is quite fond of him and keeps him around sort of like as a pet, or as a Witch's Familiar, and because he keeps her on her toes, magically speaking. He's also a great conversation piece and a funny way to amaze her friends! (Magical Element: None/Chaos)

• Dusty: A walking--or lumbering to be more precise--lump of living clay. There is not much else to say about this strange creature which was Miranda's first true ally in her superheroic endeavors. It hails from a dusky and dusty world of perpetual twilight, where things that should not exist often tend to do so. He is strong, resistant and loyal to a fault, if not particularly smart. Like, at all! Miranda often wonders how something which is made out of dirt can actually be DUMBER than dirt! (Magical Element: Earth)

• Freezie: In the Great Beyond there ARE Hells that have literally frozen over! Freezie is a demonic Frost Hound from a very cold hell dimension. She is useful to Miranda in that she can chill her opponents with her frozen breath as well as bite them with sharp, ice-cold teeth and can even summon snowstorms to blind her foes as well as occasionally trap them in ice cages! She can also provide Miranda some relief from the heat and stagnant humidity when she spends time in Vibora Bay during the hot summer months! (Magical Element: Water)

• Breezy: An Elemental being from the etheric plane of the Air Element. A whirlwind coalesced in humanoid form, this being is closer to the Genies of Arabian Sorcery (Jinni) than to the Sylphs of Western Occultism, since Miranda used an old Arabic spell to summon and bind it to her will. Miranda also enjoys Breezy's talents when it gets too hot, or when she wants to feel the wind in her hair! (Magical Element: Air)

• Lava Boy (a.k.a. The Hotty!): A powerful Lava Demon from a more stereotypical fiery hell dimension. As a haughty High-Lord of Hell, he is Miranda's hardest creature to control; she cannot leave the summoning circle at all otherwise she'll lose her control of him, and he'll more likely just vanish back to whence he came to avoid the humiliation of being controlled again. He would instead try to kill his captor were it not for the binding oath she originally made him swear never to hurt her nor her allies. But from within her conjuring circle, Miranda loves to taunt and playfully torment her hot Lava Boy, even making him dance for her amusement! (Magical Element: Fire)

• The Walkers: Miranda's own small army of the Walking Dead. She can summon rotting, decomposing corpses reanimated with the Light of Spirit (the proverbial Breath of Life), not so much from the ground around her--although they do seem to rise from it when they appear near her--but from various cemeteries and battle fields located all over this (and other versions of) Earth. Her control of the Spirit element not being as strong, they never last long, she constantly has to summon more, and she can only summon a handful at a time. She can't communicate with them in any other way than simply unleashing them on her foes. For that reason she has never bothered with naming them individually like she does her other pets. (Magical Element: Spirit/Light)

• The Black Jackals: These are literally beings of pure darkness, shadows made substantial, denizens of the dark, deserted, spiritual wastes of the Egyptian psychopomp God Anubis and created in his image. They seem to have no real individuality, yet they whisper strange thoughts reeking of madness to Miranda, something she finds kind of freaky and usually manages to block out. But they are obedient enough when the task at hand is inflicting pain and misery upon her foes. As it is with the Walkers, her control of the Spirit element not being as strong, they vanish soon after being summoned, so she continuously has to bring more to the Physical Realm. Again she entertains no particular relation with these... things? and as such she doesn't give them individual names. (Magical Element: Spirit/Darkness)

Skills

Miranda has spent many days in the timeless Arcane Library of the Morgan Clan's Vibora Bay mansion, and one day in our world equals a year in there, since the temporal flow of the Library obeys different dimensional rules. As such, despite her relatively young physical age, she has mastered her art and acquired A LOT of knowledge about Magic, Mysticism, Sorcery, Demonology, Necromancy, and all manner of things Occult and Arcane.

She has deeply studied and eventually mastered the difficult language of Jid'oni Dibur, the Old Tongue of the Wizards on which much of her spells and rituals depend to succeed.

But Miranda's talents and skills are not just in the realm of the mystical, some are also quite physical. She trained as a gymnast from Elementary to High School. She didn't like to compete, but she nevertheless became a pretty deft acrobat. She is also quite adept at yoga, a really agile tennis player and a very decent swimmer.

Weaknesses

Notwithstanding her astonishing magical powers, Miranda Morgan is still just a young human girl. As such she is very vulnerable to just about anything that could harm or kill a normal person. When she summons the Moonstone Armor, she--and, to an even greater extent, her allies--get a significant amount of protection from harm, but that level of protection is finite and can still be overcome by massive attacks (massive in either quantity or quality, or both!).

Despite her natural talents and her many days--i.e. mystical years--of study, she is still rather inexperienced as a superheroine, which can in itself lead to mistakes and miscalculations that could have dire repercussions.

She can also be overconfident at times, perhaps even arrogant, which can make her susceptible to taking unnecessary risks. Her fear of abandonment can instinctively make her refrain from teamwork or at least from fully trusting teammates whom she doesn't control, which is to say whom she hasn't magically bound to her will.

Trivia

• She was named after her great-grandmother, Miranda Martina Morgan, the last clan protectress of the Morgan family Witches, who was secretly a superheroine involved in the Occult Wars that started in the years prior to World War II and lasted long after it.
• When questioned about Bitey, Miranda usually discloses quite matter-of-factly and nonchalantly that she is a Witch and that he just happens to be her familiar. Most people simply assume that she's either lying or joking and that Bitey's a mutated rat or ferret, a genetically-created flying monkey, or some such thing, perhaps even a convincingly realistic-looking animatronic doll! But when some befuddled people appear to believe her, she'll roll her eyes as if to imply that she was only joking and that she thinks they are being overly credulous, which only serves to make them feel even more confused.
• For some reason Miranda gets a kick out of fooling people with the Cloak of Concealing. She would change in front of people and be amazed at its magic in that people just wouldn't be able to put two and two together and realize that she and Moonstone are the same person. To her, that just never gets old!
• Spending many days studying in the Timeless Arcane Library has had a profound impact on Miranda's psyche. She is already technically older, mentally speaking, than most living people on Earth, and yet she is still physically only 19 years old.
• The time she spent in that Arcane Library as a child with her grandmother probably explains why she was always more mature for her age in her early teen years, even after the binding and forgetting spells clouded the memories of her experiences there.
• Her proficiency in opening portals has made it quite easy and very practical for Miranda/Moonstone to travel back and forth almost instantaneously between Millennium City and Vibora Bay.

More coming soon to a PDb page near you!

Allies

Coming soon to a PDb page near you!

Foes

Coming soon to a PDb page near you!

Associations

• Amanda Morgan: Miranda's mother. Not as gifted a Witch as her daughter, Amanda has nonetheless used her talents to make it big in the more mundane world of high fashion. Through the use of glamours to enhance her own considerable beauty and sundry prosperity spells to create profitable opportunities, she has become a famous international model, best-known as the face of Desire, the popular perfume. Her career has often taken her away from her family, to the great detriment of her daughter. Some might think this emotional distance was due to some resentment that her daughter was far more powerful a Witch who was prophesied to become the clan protectress, but really Amanda truly loves her daughter and she deeply fears losing her, which may be why she subconsciously tries to distance herself from her to lessen the pain of what she feels is an almost inevitable occupational hazard.
• Lucinda Morgan: Miranda's grandmother. An avid reader, Lucinda spent almost all of her evenings--sometimes late into the night--in the Timeless Arcane Library, acquiring more theoretical and practical knowledge than any Morgan Witch ever had before. Nana Lucinda, as she's always preferred to be called by her granddaughter, was Miranda's primary caregiver for as long as Miranda can remember. When Amanda decided to move from Vibora Bay to Millennium City permanently eight years ago, taking her young daughter with her, Miranda found herself deprived of her Nana's attentions for the first time, leading her to develop feelings of abandonment. When she returned to Vibora Bay at age 18, Miranda's powers and memories were finally restored. There Nana Lucinda was able to help develop her powers to their full capacity.
• Rod Hopkins: Miranda's father. He never married Amanda, as neither wanted to get tied up in wedlock, but he has tried to be there for his daughter, despite not being overly welcome in the Morgan family by Lucinda. He is a famous fashion photographer who also does some photojournalism and has pretensions of being an artistic photographer as well. Like Amanda, he often has to travel for work and isn't always there when his daughter needs him.
• Charlene Casey: The Sorceress publicly known as Charlatan who also happens to be the daughter of Lucinda's first-born son, and is thus Miranda's older cousin. She isn't technically a Morgan Witch (because of the broken matrilineage), even though she did in all likelihood inherit some modicum of magical talent from her grandmother. Charlene and Miranda weren't particularly close before they both became magical superheroines, and though they do see each other more now, they are still not all that close, but they will collaborate or help each other out when the need calls for it.
• Charles Casey: Miranda's Uncle Charlie, Cousin Charlene's father. He works at an insurance company. He is Lucinda's first-born child and is now aware of the magical world of the Morgan side of the family. He has asked his niece to keep an eye on his daughter, as he assumes--perhaps correctly--that Miranda is more at home in this strange world of magical dangers.

More coming soon to a PDb page near you!

Tropes

Coming soon to a PDb page near you!

RolePlay Hooks

Coming soon to a PDb page near you!

Theme Songs

Coming soon to a PDb page near you!

Webcomics

Here are a cover and random pages from potentially upcoming comic books:

More coming soon to a PDb page near you!