Kathryn Kitaen:

Full Name: Detective Lt. Kathryn Melissa Kitaen
Species: Uncursed Human

Allegiance: MCPD, Detective Bureau, Central Division, Precinct 9
Religion: Meraist
Social Status: 3 (salary M55,000/yr)

Age: 28 as of 5/19/1999
Eyes: Green
Hair: Shoulder-length, naturally mouse-brown (currently dyed auburn)
Height: 180 cm (5'11")

Physical Notes: Moderately fair, slightly gold complexion; fit and athletic; attractive features

Behavioral Notes: Energetic and adventurous; has a tendency to move fast and talk faster; generally speaks in a casual, informal manner, mixing in Street-slang and wizard jargon

Supernatural Abilities: Illusionist (Adeptus Exemptus); eidetic memory

Kathryn Kitaen is an Illusionist of considerable talent and moderate skill who uses her powers to assist in undercover work on the job. She is called "Kate" by her friends and coworkers. Though she doesn't yet know it, she is one the prime candidates to become the prophesied figure known as The Key. As such, Kate carries in her veins the blood of many of the great heroes and leaders who worked to defeat Nasoj, including Thomas V, Prince Phil, Charles Matthias, Murikeer, and Raven. Tying together all of these diverse strands of magical heritage is the blood of Merai hin'Dana, who had been created from the very beginning to channel and shape the mystical energies of the gods. In short, Kate is the heiress of everyone who brought about Nasoj's downfall, and it is her destiny to finish the job that her ancestors began.

Kate is an adventurous young woman with a zest for life that many find infectious. She takes her work seriously, but she never misses an opportunity to have some fun if it won't interfere with her duties. She is also a bit of a practical joker.

Kate is quite tall, about 180 centimeters (5'11"), and has green eyes and a moderately fair complexion that is closer to gold than pink. She has shoulder-length hair, which she keeps pulled back when she's on duty to keep it from getting in her eyes. Her hair is naturally a very ordinary, mousy brown, but she dyes it frequently -- at the moment it's more of an auburn color. A former college athlete, her body is trim and muscular, and she keeps it in shape with regular trips to the gym.

As noted above, Kate was an athlete back in her college days, a forward for her school's skyball team. Skyball is a fast-paced, physically demanding sport that makes use of a multi-tiered arena laden with enchanted jump platforms and gravity fields located in unusual places. Kate's team made it to the Imperial championship in her senior year but lost in the closing seconds of the game. Kate suffered a leg injury in that game that killed her chances in the professional draft, but she struggled through physical therapy and managed to regain most of her former ability -- by which time she was well on her way to becoming a cop. She retains her love of the game and the remarkable stamina it built in her, but that championship loss remains a sore point.

Kate has worked in a few different sections of the MCPD since joining them in the fall of 1994 CR. She started out in Narcotics, spent a few years in Homicide, and has been most recently assigned to the Magic Affairs section, which investigates magic-related crimes. David Silverleaf has been her partner since 1997 CR, when the two were put together in Homicide, and they were transferred to Magic Affairs as a unit. The prevailing opinion at the precinct house is that the two are joined at the hip, and that the only way to get them assigned to different sections now would be to fake one of their deaths.

Kate is considered a Senior Journeyman (also called an Adeptus Exemptus) as an Illusionist. She started taking magic classes as early as she was permitted to do so, around age 7, and soon discovered that her strongest talents lay in the area of Illusion. These days she is a member of one of the local Metamor City mages' guilds, the Rasmussen School of Illusion (RSI), where she is known by the given-name Stardust. She values her knowledge of the arcane arts and practices her spells often, both on and off the job, but she has managed to hold on to the whimsical, tongue-in-cheek attitude that characterizes illusionists in general and the RSI in particular. Her mentor, Danarr, is quite fond of her, though he's not afraid to dress her down if he thinks she's screwing up.

Kate has one especially remarkable talent that helps her both in her magic and on the job: She has an eidetic memory. She can take in information about her surroundings extremely quickly and remember it later with perfect clarity. This sort of talent is rare, but it is utterly essential to be a really good illusionist. There are lots of mediocre illusionists who can project an image of a dog, but not your pet dog; or an image of a famous actress, but not a woman they met the other day at the bar. Creating a believable image requires very extensive knowledge of what you're trying to simulate, and for most people that requires hours and hours of careful study. Kate's gift allows her to make up very detailed, accurate illusions on the fly, and that sets her apart from most other mages. Her current abilities are limited not so much in detail as in scale and duration; she can create a very accurate illusion of your pet dog, but recreating a huge dragon or an entire movie would be beyond her skills at this point.

Being an illusionist is an interesting paradox for Kate. She was raised in a stable home by parents who taught her the importance of honesty in her words and dealings, and she tries to follow this code in her own life. At the same time, though, her talent in magic has always run toward illusion, and illusion is nothing more or less than a falsehood brought to life. A good illusionist has to be creative, able to think on her feet -- and able to lie persuasively, convincingly and intelligently. Kate tries very hard to stick to her principles and tell (and show) the truth, even when a lie would be more convenient ... but the temptation is always there, enticing her to take the easy path and use illusions to "solve" life's little problems. Quite often she will distract an annoying co-worker by making their desk phone ring, only to feel guilty hours later and wonder if what she did was justified.

On the Street, however, Kate's attitude about her illusions is very different. The Street is her war zone, which she walks into every day knowing that she is going to face down thugs, swoopies, gang-bangers and other, less human adversaries, all of whom are out for blood. When she's on the beat, Kate uses illusions carefully but remorselessly to mess with her opponents' heads and manipulate them into making her job just a bit easier. Of course, every once in a while she runs up against a goon who (1) knows she's an illusionist or (2) can see through her illusions. When that happens she has to turn to her other skills to survive -- and to her partner, David.

It should also be noted that Kate doesn't have any qualms about using her illusions for practical jokes -- she's always careful to keep anyone from getting hurt, and she always lets her "mark" know what happened at the end of the gag. Sometimes the other cops grow weary of her pranks, but she generally keeps a good nature about the whole thing -- her jokes are hardly ever malicious -- and that tends to rub off on those around her. Especially when they manage to get back at her without spells of their own...

Kate is an adrenaline junkie. This is a large part of why she joined the force to begin with. Once, back in her mid-teens, she came to Metamor City with her parents to visit her aunt, uncle, and cousin, who lived on the first sky-level of the city. Kate and her cousin, both tomboys, sneaked down to the Street one night and ran afoul of a group of murderous swoopies. While her cousin ran back home to get help, Kate distracted the bad guys, stole one of their swoops and led them on a wild chase through the bowels of the city, using her modest illusions to throw them off track and keep them a few steps behind her. She had a few close calls -- well, actually, she was almost killed -- but she managed to trick two swoopies into wiping out and led the rest of them right into the waiting arms of the MCPD, who intercepted the gang-bangers on swoops of their own and proceeded to bring them down. The experience terrified Kate beyond belief, but it also gave her a sense of exhilaration she had never known before -- and a great sense of satisfaction in knowing that she had helped nab a group of bad guys. As she saw Metamor's finest cuff the punks and lead them away, she knew that she wanted to be a police officer someday.

Kate's taste for wild thrills shows up in more than her choice of profession. When she can afford it, she spends her time surfing, snowboarding, skydiving and, of course, swoop-racing. She owns a swoop instead of a skimmer, and has taught herself a good deal about swoop maintenance over the years -- she's not about to replace the engine, but she can handle most small repairs herself. (And that's a good thing, since swoops generally require lots of small repairs on a regular basis. Especially the kind of swoop that Kate can afford.) Kate will race for money on Street-level courses from time to time, but she tries to pick places that are far away from her precinct; swoopies are a tough crowd, and she could get in a lot of trouble if the other racers (or race-goers) were to discover that she's a cop. She generally alters her appearance with a glamour when she goes to race, just to add an extra margin of safety. A good swoop-jockey, Kate doesn't often win big, but she usually places high enough in the races to rank a payoff. On average, the money she gets from racing is just about enough to cover the endless repairs to her swoop, most of which wouldn't be necessary so often if she wasn't racing. In other words, she does a little better than breaking even -- and for someone who lives for the rush of flirting with death, that's good enough.