Thirteen

• Councilor of the Acanthus

Appearance

Standing 5'6" and in good shape, Thirteen's most notable physical asset is her hair. A fiery red explosion of a glorious afro. Coupled with her lovely but heavily-freckled face, she catches everyone's eye when she enters a room. Her own sharp eyes are a rich brown. Notably, she is not a ginger, as she lacks the pale skin due to her mixed-race ancestry.

The Acanthus regularly dresses like a biker chick, complete with rock band t-shirts and her signature leather jacket, but she just as often wears cute bib overalls or even more stylish ensembles. Scarves are a common addition to her outfits, and she has quite a collection of them.

Nimbus

Shards of a broken mirror slowly orbit around Thirteen, both large and small. Each shard reflects the image of a different symbol of bad luck. Black cats, crows, upside down horseshoes, cracked tea cups, spilled salt, broken clocks and more. Most notable are multiple iterations of the number 13, in different colors and fonts. When she uses Vulgar magic, the shards orbit much faster.

Influenced by her Vice, the shards flash dangerously, like angry knives.

With Thirteen's Virtue, the shards stay upright and rotate like a wall of enduring shields.

History

Thirteen arrived in Sacramento in late January of 2025, staying in a small apartment and introducing herself to the local Consilium.

On a warm spring day in April 2025, Thirteen and Eidolon investigated a suspicious web video of a flying turtle which died. Suspecting a veil breach, they went to a local park where the video was filmed. Thirteen recovered the turtle's remains from the park groundskeeper. They returned that night so Thirteen could perform a Postcognition on the site, and that led them to contact a cryptid enthusiast who filmed the incident. The meeting with south when the Sleepers (who turned out to be Hunters), became offended by Eidolon's actions. A last minute Synchronicity spell led them to the Flower Farm Inn, a hotel just outside the city, and there they located a rogue Mage responsible for the mutant turtle. While Thirteen convinced the unidentified Awakened to leave town, Eidolon caused a serious veil breach when he used vulgar magic in front of Sleeper witnesses, and both were forced to flee the site.

At the Consilium meeting in 0ctober of 2025, the young Libertine was named the new Acanthus Councilor, as Cavendish had departed the city earlier in the year. She was shocked, but begrudgingly accepted.

December 2025, Thirteen and Asclepius entered the hospital to retrieve the belongings of Corn and Philip Crosen to dead members of the Consilium, to ensure no secrecy breaches were left for Sleepers to discover. They were successful, but during the course of their mission, encountered a Seer of the Throne named Jaculus. He made a strange offer on behalf of the Iron Pyramid, to renew some sort of "cease fire" with the River City Consilium. Given the semi-public location, they only agreed to bring the matter to their Hierarch, and departed without a fight, with no intention of ever agreeing to such an offer.

In January of 2026, the Acanthus began experiencing strange occurrences in her home, which she believed to be a haunting, though probably not to be ghosts. The events played out more like childish pranks. With the aide of Aurora, she discovered the culprit was a crow-spirit that had taken a liking to Thirteen. After some translated communications through the Thyrsus, the two came to an agreement and the spirit was bonded to Thirteen as an embodied Familiar named Jinx.

In late February of 2026, Thirteen purchased an old, abandoned radio station in Del Paso Heights, and began cleaning and refurbishing the facility. By the following April, she had finished and declared it her official Sanctum. It was dubbed with the radio call sign "KROW" as a joke.

Sanctum

Thirteen's Sanctum is an old, abandoned radio station that she purchased and refurbished. It consists of a squat cement building and a red-and-white radio tower, in a dirt lot surrounded by chain link fencing. The front wall of the building is decorated with large graffiti, proclaiming the faux call sign "KROW" in green and purple spray paint.

The interior is clean and comfortable. The lobby/reception area (with public washrooms and vending machines) is kept largely as-is. The beverage vending machine is stocked with water, beer and soft drinks, while the snacks machine has bags of chips and nuts. She has established a living area in the back, with a private bathroom. The staff break room is repurposed as a full kitchen and dining room.

The Libertine has plans for the future of her Sanctum, intending to construct an electronics workshop, a magical lore library, and an automotive garage. This will all come in time.

The station came with a large stock of music. CDs, vinyl records and cassette tapes, featuring music from the 70s through the 90s. The genres cover rock, rap, pop, and R&B.

The radio tower is silent, as Thirteen does not use it to broadcast. She had no license to do so, anyway.

Tropes

13 Is Unlucky: The whole point of her Shadow Name.

Bad Luck Mitigation Mechanic: Basically what the Quantum Flux spell does, when she casts it.

Born Unlucky: Thirteen was apparently born with tremendous bad luck. The universe itself seemed to be out to make her life suck as much as possible.

Brave Scot: She's got guts, and she is Scottish.

Bullet Time: Can happen if she's using a Time Arcanum armor spell.

Clever Crows: Jinx is definitely one of those, of the "plucky comic relief" sort.

Cool Bike: Thirteen's 1966 Triumph Bonneville Scrambler! The bike is her baby!

Cosmic Plaything: How Thirteen has felt about her life before Awakening.

Creepy Crows: Jinx isn't generally creepy, but he does feed on carrion sometimes.

Doom Magnet: Her bad luck didn't only affect herself. Friends and family seemed to suffer as well. Her parents died in two separate freak accidents!

Familiar: Thirteen has one, a crow named Jinx!

Fiery Redhead: And how!

Fixing the Game: How Acanthus generally operate through life with the Fate Arcanum.

Improbable Aiming Skills: What happens with the Sharpshooter's Eye spell.

The Jinx: How the people of Inverness felt about a young Thirteen.

Violent Glaswegian: She's from Inverness, not Glasgow, but she's got a temper and is perfectly willing to throw punches.