Tierra Mackenzie Taylor

"Tia" is her nickname.

32

She/Her

Tia's dream was to become a professional dancer and choreographer, but that dream couldn't raise her nephew Waylon and provide for herself and her sister. Instead, Tia put Serena through school working numerous jobs (sometimes with her Uncle Oliver) and then went part time to watch Waylon while Serena worked.

She currently works part time in a consignment shop during the day while Waylon is in school, and then works odd nights as both a paranormal researcher and exorcist when folks find themselves in desperate need.

They aren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but Serena has managed to work her way into a middle management position in a marketing firm. Between her salary, Tia's jobs and amazing budgeting skills, they're able to comfortably rent a duplex and give Waylon a good life.

Necromancer (Mage)

October 19th

Jessica Brown Findlay

5 FT 5 IN

Slender & Soft. Tierra has a dancer's figure; she began taking dance classes at 9 years old and her growth into a woman was influenced by the dancing. Though she isn't active in the space anymore, she still has a slender body of all lean muscles and soft curves.

Blue

Dark Brown

Loose curls, about down to her shoulders

Single piercing in both ears

Her clothing style is eccentric. She does a majority of her shopping at thrift stores and charity shops, so while she's got plenty of modern styles and fashions her closet is also half-full of vintage clothes she's purchased and re-purposed into new outfits. She's got some skills with a sewing machine and coming up with new outfits out of old clothes is a favorite hobby of hers.

ATHLETIC | INQUISITIVE | HARD-WORKING

The first thing others tend to notice about Tierra is her easy smile. She is friendly, able to strike up conversations with ease, great at small talk, comfortable with being the dominant voice in the crowd. Great at subtly guiding conversations - asks a lot of questions, makes the person she's talking with feel like she's personally invested in what they have to say.

Tierra is the type of person to live by an incredibly structured routine. Her planner is her life. She prefers a physical planner and bullet journal rather than keeping anything digitally, though she does have a super basic version on her phone for emergency situations where she might not have her physical copy.

She is a natural leader, able to step up when a situation demands it and organize and direct as needed. She is more action-oriented than thoughtful, prone to doing and asking for forgiveness later.

That being said, Tia is so used to being the one put together and in charge that she can be domineering at times, and has to be conscious about steamrolling over other people and their feelings. Her intense friendly attitude is a veneer to keep others from probing too deep and getting to know her, because it's easier to be a friendly presence but not be a friend. She is terrified of loss, or of someone else getting hurt because she wasn't good enough, and that terror colors everything.

That being said, break through that wall of friendly distance and Tia is a lifelong, steadfast friend who won't ever leave her friends or family behind.

She is ferociously protective over her little sister and her nephew, especially her nephew; Tierra is desperate to give him the childhood she and his mother never got and she never wants him to live in the same terror they did growing up.

• Yoga


• Warm Sweaters


• Hot Chocolate


• Fall weather


• Cute shoes


• Cats


• Holistic Medicine

• Sticky heat


• Feeling sore/achy


• The smell of wet dirt


• Large, slobbering dogs


• Mental hospitals


• Hospitals in general


• Funeral homes and graveyards

In Control - Tierra worked hard from her teenage years up to have a full grasp and understanding of the scope and power of her magic. She has made peace with the innate powers of necromancy she was born with, and she is a powerful Necromancer from a powerful bloodline intent to not repeat the mistakes of the past with her nephew.

Social Butterfly - Tierra is a total social butterfly. She is an extrovert, loves to talk with everyone and help people out. She will almost always say 'yes' to every party and social engagement she's invited to, provided she can get it all to fit in her schedule. You can count on Tierra to show up just about anywhere she's invited.

Distant - Tierra is one of those social butterflies who knows everyone, but when it comes down to it, no one knows anything about her. She is an incredibly private extrovert who knows how to reflect attention away from herself. This often leaves her with a lot of acquaintances and very few close friends.

Hardcore Multitasker - Tierra has a bad habit of trying to be superwoman. Her life is a constant whirlwind of activity. She's doesn't do downtime unless it's productive downtime, and she often multitasks to the point where she exhausts herself. But she has to be pushed to the absolute breaking point until she can admit that she needs to slow down and take a break.

Tierra has been a dancer since she was a child. Her mother put her in lessons as a way to be out of the house and away from her father, and after her mother's death and her subsequent estrangement from her sisters, Tia threw herself into dance with full fervor. She worked part time at a dance studio near her uncle's home, worked her way into being a choreographer for their programs, and then was set to move to LA when her little sister Serena reached out about her pregnancy.

Tia isn't actively a dancer any longer, but she still volunteers at the local theater and community center to teach and help out with the children's shows and performances.

Father: Brian Taylor
Mother: Joan Taylor (née Fox)

Maternal Uncle: Oliver Fox

Joan Taylor died during institutionalization when Tierra was 15. That same year, after a two-year long custody battle, her uncle Oliver became her legal guardian while her father Brian kept Amelia and Serena with him. She has not seen her father since.

Older Sister: Amelia Hampton (née Taylor)
Brother-In-Law: Henry Hampton

Tierra is estranged from Amelia, though not by choice. The no-contact is all on Amelia's end. She has never met her husband, nor their children. Serena may still be in contact with her, but it's not a topic the two of them discuss.

Younger Sister: Serena Taylor
Nephew: Waylon Taylor, age 8

Tierra and Serena have been raising Waylon together since Serena found out she was pregnant.

Tierra's Uncle Oliver is an armchair genealogist and has been fascinated with their family's history since his youth, believing it to be the source behind their family's magic and the secret to its control, and so is the official family historian.

As far as his research shows, necromancy - death magic - has been the prominent trait of the Foxes since they arrived in America in the 17th century. He has found direct evidence that the family labelled themselves as occultists, spiritualists and necromancers (where it was safe to do so) as far back as Tierra's great-great grandparents.

Oliver has been in Europe for 5 years attempting to trace the Foxes family origins prior to their arrival in America to seek closer to the source of their powers.

Despite the prolific and extended genealogy Oliver has acquired, the family is dying out. Besides Tia, her uncle, her sisters, and their children, there are no other living relatives on Tia's maternal side. Most have met early or tragic ends like Joan Fox. Oliver has never said so out loud, but Tia knows her uncle believes bad luck associated with their magic is to blame.

October 19th

Tia lives in a duplex with her sister and her nephew. One side of the duplex for her sister and her nephew, and the other side of the duplex for her, with a shared basement and utility/laundry room. They all use both sides of the duplex freely and Waylon comes and goes between his mother and his aunt as it pleases him.

Tierra only has a high school diploma - she put Serena through college for marketing rather than continuing her own education. She has a rabid interest in learning when the field is of interest to her, but otherwise there simply isn't time to go back to school even if she wanted to.

Tierra is in a weird spot with languages - she can really only speak English fluently, and is at a conversational level in French, but she has an in depth and intense knowledge of archaic written languages: old English, Latin, ancient Cyrillic, Celtic, Nordic, you name it. She couldn't hold a conversation in any of them to save her life, but all of them are components in runes and spells for magic rituals to both power her necromancy and ward off evil spirits. She can read them (for the most part), write a good deal of them, and translate them into English when required.

Her current pet projects are translations from Eastern European languages sent to her by her uncle.

CW: vague mentions of child abuse, domestic violence, parental death

Tierra's parents were a match that never should have been. That picture of the idyllic family life hiding the horror underneath. Joan was a Necromancer, like her brother and her parents, but unlike Oliver - who embraced his nature wholeheartedly - Joan yearned for an ordinary life. Free of spirits and death and the responsibilities of their powers.

So she met Brian. A blue collar, working class man. Mining and factory work. He was fun, and alive, and they were both young. Too young. Joan married him against her parents' wishes before she could even drink. But he promised her the ordinary life she always wanted, and Joan was obsessed with leaving the past in the past and the dead buried.

She did not tell him what she was. What she could do. Of the powerful blood that ran through her family, and most certainly would run through the children they would have. Maybe she thought she could escape it. Maybe she didn't think at all.

Oliver, for his part, took an instant dislike to Brian. He didn't like the man's attitude or his anger problems behind those good looks and smile, and Joan's relationship with him drove a wedge through her relationship with her brother. It only got worse when Brian proposed and Joan refused to tell him she was a Necromancer, instead locking away that part of her life and locking out Oliver, as well. Partly due to their constant arguing and partly under Brian's influence, a year after the wedding Joan cut Oliver out of her life.

Then along came the three daughters - Amelia, Tierra, Serena, each only varying between 18 months and two years apart in age - and it became apparent to Joan that all three daughters inherited their mother's magic. Joan struggled. The girls were somehow even stronger than Joan was, and four Necromancers under the same roof drew both spirits and dark energies to them all like moths to a flame. She knew she needed to teach them, but she was terrified of Brian finding out, and of losing that normal life she so badly craved.

Their marriage was far from smooth sailing; Brian had anger issues. He drank too much. He suspected that there was something 'wrong' with Joan, though he didn't know what. He disliked the fact that he had three daughters and no son. He was affected by the spiritual activity and the dark energies that swirled over their lives without knowing or understanding why. The fighting began shortly after Tierra's fourth birthday and never stopped.

For as long as she could remember Tierra saw the spirits - stalking outside the house, bombarding her and her sisters every time they went outside. Whenever Brian was at work, Joan could deal with them freely, teach the girls how to handle them and what to do if they were approached. But whenever Brian was home Joan was forced to pretend there was nothing wrong, even with three frightened little girls claiming to see dead people, and worse.

The secrets further fractured the family. Night after night there were arguments. After Tierra got sent home from first grade one day for insisting that her teacher's deceased father had something to say to her, the marriage fell into shambles. Brian accused Joan of poisoning their daughters, of passing some sort of disease onto them. Even after she finally broke and told him about her magic, the Necromancy, Brian only thought her insane. The fighting became violent. First to their surroundings, then to Joan.

It was only because they didn't have much money that the two of them stayed together. The teachings stopped. Brian threatened to have Joan committed if she so much as breathed a word about her insane ramblings to their children.

Wisely, Amelia refused to acknowledge her magic, ignored the spirits, and even learned at a young age to Dissipate them. And Serena, frightened of their father and adoring of her oldest sister, eventually followed suit.

Tierra was the only one of the three who insisted the spirits were real. She had seen too many of them as suffering souls who just needed help. She was frightened of her father, too, but her desire to get help for these wayward souls, to help her family and her sisters not be harassed and frightened, to maybe make her father love her mother again, outweighed the fear. She stood up for herself.

And so Brian came to hate her, too. And his fists turned on her as well. He might not have been able to stop her mother's 'infection' from reaching her, but he thought he could beat it out of her, force the insanity away. It seemed a small price to pay. He never touched her sisters while Tierra was in the house.

Joan, with her hands tied, could do nothing to help her; so she called Oliver. Tierra met her uncle for the first time when she was 12 years old. In the years since his sister cut him out of her life, Oliver had become a historian, archaeologist, and writer, if only to try and gather as much knowledge on necromancy that he could find. Tierra found an escape at her Uncle's house. She spent more and more time with him as she got older, learning how to control her magic, and trying everything she could think of to get her mother and sisters away from her father.

Tierra still can't recall the day everything ended without having a panic attack. The family were out one day, a rare event with the five of them together. They were attacked by a Shade. Or possibly a Demon. Tierra isn't sure. The details are fuzzy to this day. Despite Tierra and Serena both there to bear witness, neither of them have ever discussed it with each other.

It ended with Brian dragging a shrieking and sobbing Joan to the car and having her committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Tierra called her uncle, and Oliver arrived back at the house at the same time as Brian. Arguing turned to shouts turned to fighting turned to a brawl. Oliver swore he would get the girls from him and get his sister from the hospital. But despite a two-year long custody battle, and even using some contacts he had built in the supernatural world, the Foxes were not well liked in town and Oliver even less so. Brian, on the other hand, was well known, well liked, and no one outside of the family knew about his temper. Oliver was only able to get custody of Tierra, when Brian was more than willing to sign away legal guardianship. Tierra left her sisters and her family home behind and moved in with her uncle.

Shortly after she turned 15, her mother passed away without ever being released. Tierra had been taking dance lessons since she was 9 years old, something her mother got her into so they could spend time together away from her father, and with her mother's death Tierra threw herself into her dance classes with renewed vigor. She decided she wanted to become a choreographer, and began working herself towards that goal.

She graduated from high school, moved out, and began working part time at a dance studio near her uncle's house, eventually working up to teaching classes herself and doing choreography for contests. She had been saving up for years to move out to Los Angeles to get a job as a real choreographer, and at 24 was very close to her goal, when she got a call.

Tierra hadn't been close to her sisters in years. Amelia had entirely cut contact, blaming her for the escalation that led to their broken family and their mother's death; the last she heard, she got married to her long-time boyfriend at 19 just to get out of the house. Tierra wasn't invited to the wedding.

The phone call was from a tearful Serena. She had moved out of their father's house and in with a boyfriend when she was 17, and had bounced from place to place with each new boyfriend ever since. Now, she was pregnant at 22, and she and the baby's father made the foolish mistake of going to Brian for help.

She said he was a drunk now, had called her all sorts of names, and said she would pass on the 'disease' their mother had given them to the baby. She should never have kids, and it would be better if she 'got rid of it' or Brian would do it for her. He put her boyfriend in the hospital and threw Serena out of the house.

Her boyfriend dumped her after the incident and kicked her out of their apartment. She couldn't get a hold of Amelia. And what's worse, ever since the pregnancy began, her magic had gone haywire. The spirits were so much more active, her magic more powerful, than it had been in years. Serena was genuinely frightened of the necromancy she'd never been allowed to learn.

Horrified, Tierra swore that she would help her, to stay put, and she was on her way. She drove to Serena's apartment and picked up her sister and all of her stuff they could fit in her rundown car. Tierra promised her she would be there to help her, with the baby and with the necromancy.

But they couldn't stay in the same city anymore. Their Uncle Oliver could hardly support himself on his sporadic wages and frequent international trips, let alone the two-soon-to-be-three of them. Tierra was already set to move. They needed to find some place to settle, somewhere far from the events of their past.

Tierra put her life on hold to build her sister's, and when baby Waylon was born, she fell so in love with her nephew she vowed he would never experience the life the two of them had lived. They moved around a lot in the early years, as Tierra put Serena through school and they both worked (occasionally following along with their Uncle wherever he wandered) until Waylon hit kindergarten age, at which point they picked their favorite place to settle down so he could have a consistent school life.

Tierra is, technically, a Witch or a Mage - however, her magic is and always has been centered entirely around death magic and the art of necromancy, so Tierra is more commonly referred to as a Necromancer.

Tierra calls every part of her magic as a whole 'necromancy', just to be simple. This is how it is defined in their family:

A Necromancer is a magic user living on two different planes of existence simultaneously. They have one foot on the earth and one foot in the grave, so to speak. While this gives them nothing more special than their magic, there is quite a heavy stigma against them for being meddlers in the art of death.

A Necromancer recognizes multiple planes of existence. The Mortal World, the world in which they reside and the world of the living, and the Spirit World, the space beyond life from which their magic draws and which contains varying planes of its own, such as Limbo (a concept Tierra terms as a place where spiritual energy can't reach the mortal world).

Necromancy is defined as access to and control of the Spirit World. A Necromancer pulls both their magic and their strength from the Spirit World much like the spirits do. In order to perform a spell or ritual, a Necromancer must tap into and pull energy from the Spirit World. Everything a Necromancer can do relates back to this spiritual connection in some way.

Tierra's family are a unique branch of necromancers who can trace their power and their magic back generations. Her Uncle Oliver is a historian and archeologist who has spent most of his life collecting and gathering information on their magic, and ever since Tia became his ward at 15, she has studied and gathered alongside him.

Tierra's bloodline is considered especially strong in necromancy, connected to the spirit world more intensely than others in their craft, and they are often treated like lighthouses on a dark sea for ALL manners of spirits. Bad luck and disaster seems to befall any member who doesn't embrace this power and learn how to wield it to keep the spirits at bay.

Ghosts, Shades, & Demons

As far as her family has classified things, spirits of the Spirit World are split into three types:

• Ghosts are your average humanoid spirits that were once the souls of the deceased. They often have 'Unfinished Business' that keeps them tied to the mortal plane. There are different kinds of ghosts, who range from those who are aware they're dead, to spirits who are stuck and reliving the same events over and over, to poltergeists. They often have Attachments on the mortal plane, like people, places, or things. These spirits can be helped to cross over.


• Shades are malevolent spirits who may or may not be humanoid in origin. They have lost their minds and become dark, twisted creatures who transform into hulking black masses of energy. Shades tend to attach themselves to a place and attack living beings to collect more energy to feed on. A powerful Necromancer can dissipate them, but the only true way to get rid of a Shade is banishment to Limbo.


• Demons are spirits who are decidedly not humanoid in origin. They may or may not be actual demonic entities - it's hard to say when such creatures span ideologies under different names - but they are tricksters, destroyers, masquerading as spirits with the intention of stealing new vessels for themselves by replacing the living spirit within a living body with their own. They can't be dissipated. The only true way to get rid of a Demon is banishment to Limbo, but unlike Shades, Demons have a habit of finding their way back out again.

Spiritual Communication

The default magic of Necromancy is Spiritual Communication. This is a passive ability that allows Tierra to see and communicate with spirits in the Spirit World directly. Because it's passive, this is a power that is turned 'on' all of the time. She's gotten good at the ability to filter out those who are dead versus those who are living, when the spirits manifest in a way she can see, and now most of the time she only notices spirits when she wants to, unless they're directly trying to get her attention. And even then she can usually ignore them.

She tends to see spirits as they were in the moment before their death. The biggest identifier to a spirit is their aura around them, and their transparency to the living world. Some spirits can manifest so strongly that Tia only realizes they're a spirit when she sees the light shimmering aura that surrounds them.

(She compares this aura to a milder version of the 'ghosts' in the Sims 4, and yes she's annoyed at how accurately the game got it right.)

Spirit Summoning

Tierra can summon spirits to her via a calling spelling or a ritual. The spirit is forced to obey and appear before her.

Dissipation

Dissipation is the act of a Necromancer severing a spirit's connection to the mortal plane and trapping them in a space of the Spirit World Tierra calls 'Limbo'. Neither the spirit nor its energy can reach from the Spirit World to the mortal world while it's trapped there. Sometimes, if the spirit's Attachment isn't particularly strong, their Attachment can be removed from a person, place, or thing by Dissipation.

The spirit has to slowly regain the energy to leave Limbo and reconnect to the mortal plane, so a Dissipation can last for hours or days at a time. However, it's not a permanent solution to get rid of a spirit.

Banishment

Banishment, performed by doing Banishing Rituals, is the power a Necromancer can use to trap a wayward spirit permanently in Limbo and remove their access to the mortal world forever. Banishment is difficult to perform by yourself but Tierra is able to do so, if necessary. The success of the ritual depends on the Necromancer and the strength of the spirit.

Banishment can be used on all spirits and is the only way to get rid of a Shade forever.

Spirit Wards

Tierra has an ability to create what she calls 'spirit wards' - a spell or runes applied to an item that keeps the user from being harassed, possessed, or attacked by spirits. Items are usually wearable like accessories. Small locations can also be spelled via runes and other ritual items to build a warded space, to keep people safe inside.

This ability doesn't work on the Necromancer themselves, or so Tia has found for their family - the combined spiritual energy of three Necromancers within the space overpowers any spirit wards or protection runes. Tierra and Serena have still done their best to combine their powers together to keep their homes protected from the darker or evil spirits that may want to get to them.

Divination

Tierra can perform a sort of 'Divination' using spiritual energy by reaching into a thing or a person from the Spirit World, as the Spirit World exists in a plane outside time of the mortal world. This ability is powerful when connected to a spirit, but it can be done with non-hauntings also.

She can pick up an object and see the object's history in flashes of memory. If the object happens to be a spirit's Attachment, she can also see flashes of the spirit's memory, as well.

She can also, with some difficulty, expand this field of vision to encompass a small area, such as a whole room, instead of just the object. Particularly if the spiritual energy is strong in that place.

She can also use spirits and spiritual energy to divine a living person's location in a method similar to scrying. Depending on her strength, the spirits, and the energy available, this can range from a vague area of the world to search all the way to an exact image of where the person is and what they're doing. This can also be done on items or objects, too.

Astral Projection

Tierra, her sister, and her nephew all have the ability of Astral Projection - the ability to detach their soul from their living bodies to travel through space in the Spirit World. They can't travel far from their Attachments (in this case, their body is their anchor and whatever other things or places hold great important to them), and their spirits can't be seen except by other spirits or Necromancers. However, they can go anywhere they like within range and can even slip into dreams or other people (see below in Forms).

This ability is extremely dangerous to use, for a number of reasons. One, it's possible to become so detached from the body that the body dies and the Necromancer is trapped as a Ghost. They can also be attacked or injured by spirits while projecting, especially Shades who are intensely drawn to them. Their bodies are also more susceptible to magic while their soul is outside it and they can easily be hurt, killed, or even possessed by someone or something else.

Tierra's nephew Waylon is strong enough in this ability that he can accidentally astral project while sleeping, particularly if the day was super stressful or upsetting. Tia and her sister have to be vigilant to get his soul back to his body and wake him up. He has little control over it, since he's so young.

Aura Reading

Tia also has the ability to see and interpret, or 'read', auras, a thin outline of colored energies that surrounds most living things. With spirits, these auras are constantly present and can be used to read their emotional state both in the present moment and at the time of their deaths, depending on the spirit.

She can read the auras of living things, too, although that requires both concentration and focus to switch 'on' and see. Though sometimes strong emotions in others come out in flashes of colors that she doesn't have to concentrate to see.

Ghostly Possession

Spirits have the ability to possess living things. The spirit 'blacks out' the host's soul and take full control of the brain and body for a set amount of time. The more often a host is possessed, the easier it becomes to possess them, until the spirit is able to replace the host's soul with their own and drive the person's soul out. Demons tend to be the only spirits with enough energy to be that persistent and eventually take control.

However, Necromancers like Tierra also have the ability of Possession. Tia can Astral Project into another living being's body and take control. She is only able to do this for a very short period of time, a maximum of a few hours at full strength, and she risks a spirit trying to possess her body in turn while she's untethered from her own.

Under the right circumstances, Tia can 'possess' spirits and force them to her bidding, too. She can direct the spirit as she likes.

She can go as far as to have the spirit possess someone, and can then control the spirit and the host at once, providing the spirit's possession is successful. Double possession is incredibly dangerous, more so than any other ability, and she has never actually tried to do so.

Reanimation

The darkest aspect of Necromancy is a Necromancer's ability to raise the dead through reanimation. Usually this takes an intense ritual and a considerable amount of magic, but when a Necromancer is extremely upset or otherwise not in control of themselves, they are capable of reanimation on accident.

Reanimation works by a necromancer summoning a spirit back to their body and forcing the spirit back inside. The spirit does not have to still be in the Spirit World, but it's much easier to reanimate someone if they are. This creates what is essentially a zombie powered by a spirit, a corpse who can see and speak and move but remains dead and will continue to deteriorate until the body disintegrates.

While trapped as a zombie, the Necromancer has mild control over the spirit and the corpse, though the level of control depends. This is as close to living torture as a spirit can get; it is not natural to return to the body once a spirit has left it.

The spirit will remain trapped in the body as a zombie until the Necromancer either removes them again or the body rots away and releases the spirit trapped inside.