Stefan O'Halloran

From 910 Arena Wiki

Contents 1 Spells 2 The Harp 3 The Concertina 4 The Missiles

• Name: Stefan Weber O'Halloran
• Physical Details: Stefan is of average height with blue eyes and golden-red shoulder-length hair. He usually wears pants and a shirt in earthy tones, with a green cloak. He also wears leather sandals and belt and a brown hat.
• Instruments: Stefan possesses several musical instruments, the main ones being a harp, a concertina, a pennywhistle (which I will usually refer to as a pipe for brevity), and a harmonica. Of these, only the harp and concertina are inherently magical. Other instruments he owns include a guitar, a clarinet, a banjo, a cello, and a violin, though he doesn't usually use these for his spells. His vocal range is very wide, and he is capable of singing almost any song from the classical repertoire.
• Other Equipment:He also possesses a pair of glasses which hold a mild enchantment allowing them to absorb musical spells; a small magical cloth cube; a holder for his harmonica which goes around his neck and allows him to play it with no hands; two daggers; and a six-shot pistol.
• Powers: He is a bard (or music mage), which means he casts spells through music. Theoretically, he could cast any kind of spell he wanted to; however, there are a few spells that he is more familiar with. Improvising a new spell in the midst of a battle is generally not worth the time it takes to make it work, so he tends to use the spells that he is more familiar with.
• Family: Stefan has a red-haired sister named Aoife who is four years younger than him and has similar powers to him, though she uses different instruments. His mother (Pearl Weber, brown hair) is a mage specializing in the healing arts, and his father (Patrick, red hair) is a computer programmer with a moderately successful company of his own. It may be worth mentioning that Patrick is the only family member whose hair doesn't fall to at least the shoulders.

Spells

• Hailstorm: Usually done to an arrangement of Erlkönig; the skies cloud over and billiard-ball-sized hailstones fall for the duration of the song, after which the skies clear again. Sometimes a bolt or two of lightning will strike, but like any other normal lightning it will seek the tallest thing around, so usually you won't have to worry about it.
• Telekinesis: He can do this with any of his instruments, but most commonly it is done with his harmonica. This power includes lifting anything that is not "tied down", although heavier objects are of course harder to move. It also includes levitation. When using his harp, a diminished seventh chord acts like a summon, bringing a distant object speeding towards him, and a French augmented sixth may be used to cause an object to spin. Another example of telekinesis without the harmonica is Dance, further down.
• Swarm: (I'm not sure whether this should be included as a familiar spell or not) Playing a hornpipe (a type of dance, if you don't know) on his pipe causes a swarm of hornets to come out the end.
• Dance: Playing the theme of the William Tell Overture may be used to levitate several things at once, such as chunks of rubble, all to a single purpose.
• Energy Blast: A rhythmic "dum da-da dum da-da" on the Middle C string and the G below it causes blasts of energy to go out in all directions. These blasts may be weak or powerful, depending on what he intends. They are not hard to dodge, however.
• Fire: This is usually created with a flurry of fast notes on the harmonica, and there is no real formula for what the fire does once conjured. It depends on Stefan's intent.
• Tear: A rapid ascending sequence of perfect fifths followed by a descending sequence of perfect fourths allows him to tear through cloth, nets, rope, and other similar materials.
• Beacon Teleport: He prepares the teleportation cube with a complex yet fairly short melody, throws it towards his destination (and sometimes helps it along with his harmonica), then activates the teleportation by plucking the bass string of his harp. He usually only has one cube at a time.
• Phase Flicker: Striking the strings with the palm of his hand can cause him to flicker between in-phase and out-of-phase (which means invisible and intangible).
• Summon Missiles: By drumming on the back of his harp, and plucking a string every so often, Stefan can summon any number of missiles composed of material drawn from the surrounding area. This is such a complex spell that it merits its own section, below. Typically he gets about three missiles per thump.
• Shatter: A spell used on a missile which causes it to shatter into small, sharp, fast, metal fragments.
• Lightning: (fairly self-explanatory...) He can create either lightning balls or lightning bolts. This lightning differs from the storm lightning of the Hailstorm spell in that it always hits the target (unless the target dodges by teleportation) rather than seeking the easiest path to the ground/sky.
• Long-range Teleport: Not practical for use in a battle, as it requires him to play quite a lengthy piece of music. He will slowly fade out of his starting location and into his destination over the course of the piece. The music will be heard only at the starting location.
• Unlock: He is able to open locks by experimentation on his harp, forming his music into a key-like shape which can actually bypass the spells on most magic locks since it is fooling the spell into believing it is a key.

The Harp

The harp is magical in itself, beyond Stefan's own powers. It has five main powers of its own. It was built and enchanted by Stefan himself, so it also serves as an example of what he can do given a great deal of time.

• Harpshield: As long as the harp is producing any sound, it generates a spherical shield of perhaps a six or seven foot diameter, centred on the harp. It is big enough to encompass about five people comfortably. The strength of the shield depends on the number of strings vibrating and the volume (amplitude) of the sound. For this reason, he usually strums all the strings when he wants a shield. When all the strings are vibrating, the shield is practically impenetrable. It will completely block out anything that is physical and either solid or liquid. Gaseous substances are only partially blocked, but not completely since the shield needs to allow air in for him to breathe. Magical objects can penetrate the shield, but they will meet with an amazing resistance, almost like cutting through solid rock.
• Hovering: As long as it is producing sound, it will hover about two feet off the ground. This is useful if he needs to drop it for some reason.
• Invulnerability: As long as the harp produces sound, it is totally invulnerable. This applies only to the harp itself and not to Stefan.
• String Recoil: If something strikes a vibrating string, it will be flung off in a random direction (always away from the bearer, though).
• Harp Repair: A tremolo on any unbroken string allows him to repair any strings that are broken. Usually he uses the bass string for this. A more complicated tune allows him to repair the body of the harp.

The Concertina

(to be filled in)

• Invulnerability: The concertina's invulnerability is an improved version of the harp's enchantment; it depends on the production of sound, but to make up for the fact that the concertina has no sustain when actively being played, invulnerability lasts for approximately two minutes after sound has ceased.

The Missiles

• Appearance: The missiles are about 60cm (two feet) long, and 15cm (half a foot) thick in the middle, but they taper to a very sharp point, and they usually travel at almost the speed of sound. This appearance is in fact an illusion.
• True Form: Those who can see through illusions will see their true form – metal skewers which are also about 60cm (two feet) long and taper to a point, except the maximum thickness is radically less – more like 4cm (an inch or two). It should be noted that their true form is actually more deceptive than their illusory form.
• General Abilities: The missiles generally circle above Stefan until he directs them somewhere else with his harmonica. Stefan uses them as foci to target spells, so it is difficult to predict what will actually happen when they hit. Once they have been used as a focus for a spell, they disintegrate into metal dust which blends back into the ground, meaning it won't be seen in most circumstances.
• Hovering Phase: In this phase, they are passive, and do not attack anything. Stefan can use his harmonica to switch them between this phase and the Active phase. While hovering, they automatically avoid anyone and anything. If damaged, their last act is to throw themselves at the attacker's eyes. When this happens, the other missiles will mark the attacker as dangerous and avoid him or her even more than normal. A damaged missile can still be used as a spell focus up to the moment when it hits the ground, at which point it turns to dust just like when it is used as a focus.
• Active Phase: Not much to this phase. They travel forward only, and Stefan alters their course with his harmonica. If they strike a forceshield, they shift to the Burrowing phase.
• Burrowing Phase: At this stage they shed their illusion and reveal their true form. They burrow into the shield, attempting to get at whatever is within. No force short of physical can affect them in this stage – they are even beyond the control of Stefan's harmonica.

Stefan is a member of the Board, and as such is hooked up to their RESPAWN system. This has no practical effect on anything he does on the Wotch forums, except that if he were to be killed he will eventually be fully resurrected (a week or two later).