Sin (WoD)

Vital Stats

• Birth Name: Didi Hadley
  
• Craft Name/Alias: Cinamon Teleute
  
• Status: Master
  
• Essence: Primordial
  
• Paradigm: Creation is Innately Divine and Alive!
  
• Practice: Shamanism, Medicine Work, and Martial Arts
  
• Faction: The Nine Traditions
  
• Tradition/Convention/Craft: Euthanatos (Chakravanti)
  
• Sect: The Pomegranate Deme
  
• Place of Origin: London, England, United Kingdom
  
• Year of Birth: 1926
  
• Occupation: Chief Medical Examiner, Kern County Coroner
  
• Apparent Age: Early-20s
  
• Player/Type: NPC
  

Appearance

Cinamon "Sin" Teleute typically resembles an average-build, attractive, pale-skinned young goth girl dressed in casual clothes - usually a black top and stretch jeans/pants with black boots. On more formal occasions she favours a black mini-dress, often adorned with a black top hat or beret. During colder or rainy weather she wears a black leather jacket or trench coat. Sin is not actually adverse to wearing other colours on occasion (usually FOR occasions), and wouldn't even specifically identify herself as a goth if asked - it is simply that because of her affiliation to the Vidare Mortem she naturally gravitates towards this style (also, see Other: Legend). Although her style is quirky and may be considered sometimes inappropriate for the social situation, Sleepers never seem to notice. Some wonder if she deliberately does this as some form of test to quickly identified the Awakened and Night-Folk simply by seeing who comments on the appropriateness of her fashion sense.

Sin has grey eyes and her black hair is kept naturally long and often seems slightly unkempt but, on occasion, she styles it up to resemble classic 80s rock hairstyle or cuts it shorter. She has a tattoo marking around her right eye that slightly resembles and is commonly mistaken for (especially with the way she applies her make-up) the Eye of Horus, although she will correct those who point this out by saying it is "The Eye of the Lady of Fate". She always has dark make-up on - principally dark eye shadow/eye-liner and black lipstick, although she occasionally alternates with dark blue, purple or red lipstick.

When she speaks, she enunciates clearly as if each word is carefully thought out before being spoken (which, knowing her, they probably were) and has a notable classic British accent. Despite her goth-like appearance and in contrast to the typical reputation of Moros mages, Sin is often described as having a "comforting smile and warm voice" that sets people at ease.

No matter what she's wearing, Sin is always found wearing a silver ankh on a chain around her neck, The ankh is actually one of her magickal instruments an imbued item, and once belonged to her master - who gave his life to save her by giving her the Ankh. Therefore, it is her most valued possession.

Background

Didi Hadley was different from an early age - she never seemed to stop playing with "imaginary friends"and wanted to help them, as they were often so sad. As she got older she realised it was the dead she could perceive, and her desire to help others (living or dead) led to her coming across a Chakravanti of the Pomegranate Deme who recognised her as a child mage. Soon after, he performed the Disksha on her and took her as his apprentice, whereupon she took the craft name Cinamon Teleute, or "Sin" (a play on the shortened "Cin" meant as an insult by someone who disapproved of her goth-like appearance, which Cinamon found amusing and kept) . She learnt much from her master about Persephonism, the Old Gods, and became an Iatromantis and pankrationist. During her second year of nurse training, in the closing weeks of the Second World War, she undertook an Agama Sojourn with her master and they were caught in the Fifth Great Maelstrom (which mages know as the Avatar Storm). Although the storm should have killed her, her master gave her his Ankh Talisman, which absorbed the destructive effects of the Avatar Storm for long enough for Sin to get to shelter, at the cost of his own life. Whilst struggling to find a safe way to cross the Shroud with the deadly Avatar Storm blowing around her, she was offered both protection from the Maelstrom and her blessing by the Lady of Fate, in return for service helping the dead to Transcend as there would be a great need in the years to come, Lady of Fate's oracular sight foretelling an even greater calamity would befall the Underworld. This proved true in 1999 with the Sixth Great Maelstrom and Transcendence of Charon, Lord of Stygia, as well as the fall of Stygia and the Deathlords; flinging many Wraiths into the Skinlands or as Risen, and with the drive to Transcend greatly increased now that many Wraiths had seen Charon Transcend.

Since she made her agreement with the Lady of Fate, Cinamon has not perceptively aged - although typically only the Awakened (including Night Folk) seem to notice her lack of ageing. A few decades after her pact with the Lady of Fate, during a golden age of women more commonly entering the fields of medicine as doctors rather than nurses, she decided to enrol in the University College London School of Medicine and, eventually, got all the required training to become a Forensic Pathologist and medical examiner for the London Metropolitan Police Force (MET). Sin has survived plagues, injuries and outright fatal incidents, always seemingly coming back... eventually. It can take a while to return from death, depending on the amount of trauma to her body resulting in her death, which she heals at a normal rate for a mortal unless using magick to accelerate the healing. A particularly bad motorcycle accident right at the start of 2012, caused by partying too hard on New Year's Eve and the obviously monumentally-witless decision to drive inebriated, left her quite dead long enough that she eventually resurrected inside of a coffin, well after her own funeral. Having to break out of the coffin, crawl through six feet of earth to a world that had known her to be undeniably dead was not a good experience... Rather than try to somehow amend things to return to her life, and do a lot of explaining to her Chantry about how she came back - she instead saw it as a vagary of fate and a good impetus to start a new era of her life. Having loved movies and comics for a long time, she had always wanted to see California (but never actually getting around to it) and so Sin used much of her remaining connections to get a new legal identity (as Cinamon Teleute), then moved to America for a fresh start. Probably a good thing as she was 86 years old by this stage and, although the Lady of Fate's blessing meant that Sleepers did not notice her lack of aging (nor her "advanced age" as being an issue), the Awakened and Night-Folk (and, especially, agents of the Technocratic Union) did - so a fresh start (or "reboot" as she likes to think of it) was a positive thing overall. She had outlined most of her sleeper friends anyhow and, truthfully, her being more active in the Shadowlands than in the Chantry meant she hadn't really grown close to anyone that she wasn't just as happy to correspond with in the future over email and social media.

It took several years of examinations and further training to get the certification to practice in America - almost like having to go through medical school all over again... but she didn't mind as time had ceased to be a factor for her decades ago, and got there in the end, qualifying to practice Anatomic, Clinical and Forensic Pathology. As part of California's required Residency Match program for medical practitioners, she was assigned residency at and worked at the Medical Examiner's office for the Kern County Sheriff-Coroner in Ashford and found herself quite liking the growing city - especially as it had quite active ghostly activity and interesting (and often feuding) Night-Folk factions. On successfully completing her USMLE's, Sin decided to stay in Ashford and, coincidentally, her training finished just as an opening for a Deputy Medical Examiner for the Coroner's office opened up. She did well in her job and got along well with the Sheriff-Coroner and others in both the Coroner's office as well as the greater Kern County Sheriff's office as a whole. A few years later, Cinamon was also lucky to get appointed as the new Chief Medical Examiner when the present one retired. Although she was able and qualified for the post (especially as she had been a medical examiner for the MET for decades), there were various others competing for the position - either simply deputy medical examiners who had been in the department longer, or those being controlled by Night-Folk - the vampire clans known as the Ventrue and Giovanni were particularly aggressive in attempting to put a puppet in that position and/or exert their influence over the Sheriff-Coroner - but years of keeping the influence of the [generally much older and more powerful] vampires of London out of the MET's forensics department had made her quite capable at keeping these comparatively-younger and less-subtle vampires out of her playhouse, to their chagrin - but they're relentless in their attempts to exert their influence and she knows that, soon, they will attempt to influence or coerce her to do their bidding. She hasn't decided yet if she wants to fight them or try to cooperate with them, and guesses it'll probably be down to "how nicely they ask" - but she's ready for when they come knocking on the morgue's door.

Sleeper Society

Sin is a people person and is aware of the risks of letting sleepers know of the existence of mages (not the least of which is the risk of Paradox) and, as such, tends to act with prudence regarding anything she does or say around sleepers (at least, to a degree). She generally hides her magickal abilities, unless it would benefit the dead - such as helping a ghost or risen transcend by settling its affairs with a loved one or using vulgar magick to send an uncooperative Risen back to the Shadowlands. In these cases, she often pretends to be a psychic/medium or neopagan shaman/priestess (which, truthfully, she is) and carefully and empathically approach her targets. She downplays even this "ability" and asks those she helps not to tell others her "secret" so as to keep a low profile. She typically only uses vulgar magic if there is no other choice.