Cedric

Introduction[ edit ]

Cedric Washington returned to Houston after a decade abroad, and the city he remembers is gone. So is the life he was supposed to have. TSU law student, aspiring scholar, musician and gearhead - all of it buried under years he can't get back, the ghost of someone who was once going to live up to that aspirational name of his.

Whatever he's experienced he won't name, but the cost shows itself in how acts, anyway. He watches doorways, he navigates authority with anxious care, and he often seeks permission to think. He coils until he breaks, usually over principle, usually at the worst possible time, and his exasperation either leaks out sideways or explodes from an overdosing on restraint.

Among his peers, he's friendly, warm, curious, genuinely interested in people and their lives, but he still is marked by a certain hypervigilance and this persistent sense that he's trying to prove something. He's competent, talented, brilliant, but he's brittle, too - flinching at the wrong tone of voice or tying himself in knots trying to do the "right" thing in a world that doesn't reward it.

RP Hooks[ edit ]

The Kabbalistic Scholar

Cedric's mystical practice is rooted in Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, though his path there was unconventional - through the Black Israelite community he joined as a teenager. That's a community with some passionate views, some of it polarizing and controversial to say the least - but according to him, college and the academic study he matured into as an adult made him question the extremes of his old beliefs.

His approach remains syncretic. He works extensively with the Sefer Yetzirah's letters of creation, draws on merkavah mysticism, turns to Talmudic omenology to interpret signs. To traditional practitioners, his methods can seem sideways - and they are. He's built his own coherent framework somewhere between the Tree of Life and its shadow, between what he was taught and what he's learned since.

Maybe if he can understand the structures of creation, maybe if he can map the emanations of the divine, then maybe he can figure out where he fits in a world that took his choices and told him to be grateful.

Occult Services: Cedric is a mystic. He can read omens about upcoming events or warn about spiritual dangers, help designing or performing rituals, interpret dreams, and give spiritual diagnoses and research assistance and teaching.

The Catch: Cedric's loyalties are complicated! He has obligations he won't discuss and sometimes asks for unconventional favors in exchange for help. His methods can be unorthodox, and there's always the risk of strings somewhere in the weave, even if he didn't tie them himself.

The Guy From Third Ward

Before his career took a turn, Cedric was a student at Texas Southern University: pre-law and religious studies. That future died with him in 1985.

He came back to Houston a decade later. His family thinks he died in a car accident. His friends moved on. The city kept going without him. But he's still determined to exhume what's left of the life he did have. When he can sneak away from his obligations he's hunting down pop-up shows and house parties, looking for the Houston he remembers.

Music: Cedric is into rap, classical, jazz, soul, trip-hop just to name a few. He plays trumpet and bass, though these days it's mostly bass out of mercy for those that he more or less has no choice but to live with! You might find him busking.

MOT: Means Of Transportation, My Only Treasure - M.O.T his '85 Coupe De Ville, named after the Canaanite god of death and the Underworld who doubles as the Great Devourer. A god with a monstrous mouth and unspeakable hunger - a car that is the death of his wallet and eats all his fucking money. It's a personal project, as beloved as it is deeply impractical, and it makes him happy. If you don't notice Cedric, you'll notice the car. You'd have to be blind because it's atomic fucking orange. And deaf - when he drives it, he drives it slow, and he pours out grey tapes at full blast.

The Tremere

Cedric's Sire thought he was cultivating a mystic and a scholar. And he was! He groomed Cedric carefully, selectively, and at a distance, but that distance made assumptions of his obvious aptitude and curiosity and meant he never actually got to know him until after it was too late to divest. Cedric was persistent, opinionated, and unhelpfully helpful! An upstart with ideas and zero instinct for silence. He still is. So his Sire did the sensible thing. He removed the problem from view.

A Total Sucker For Excitement: After nearly a decade forced to do stultifyingly boring shitwork on the praxis fringes, drowning in grimoires, theory, and controlled spaces, he has a visibly hard time staying on the sidelines when something is actually happening. He doesn't chase danger for the thrill of it, and he isn't trying to prove how brave he is. He's just fundamentally bad at watching from a safe distance thanks to youthful recklessness suppressed and emotionally arrested for almost a decade.

A Conjurer: Cedric can make things appear from thin air! Temporary solutions for immediate problems! Where did those things come from and how long are they meant to exist? Don't think about it too hard!

Contacts[ edit ]

• Abraham - Karmacoma. I can't resolve that into something simple. But Abe's like a, a mentor to me, and he doesn't mince how fucked up everything is, he doesn't pretend anything is safe. He's the first guy here who actually asked me to do something.
• Constance - When she flexes on people it's like Slob On My Knob. "Like corn on the cob! Check in with me! And do your job!" Don't think too hard about the rest of the lyrics, the point is the audacity and the fact that she getting what she wants. Don't have to ask, don't have to beg.
• David - I think a man like Frost'd like Massive Attack. A nice, drifting, song like Dissolved Girl. Maybe Inertia Creeps. Love that song. Gives a real sense of slow decay, of things falling apart while someone watches.
• Ri - She and I do similar work. We aren't on the same wavelength but it's close enough. She's seen too much... I think Wandering Star speaks for itself.
• Sonja - Hard to pick a song for this lady. Uh - wanna pick a song I think she wouldn't hate. La Mer. She's classy and she loves her ocean. Which, like that ocean, she's ... Probably completely unbothered whether or not anybody survives her, except insofar as people learn to navigate her.
• Soren - Murder by UGK. Not that deep.
• Wassily - I want to pick a Strauss waltz. I know he loves 'em. But it's a cop-out. Something more stark. Chopin's Prelude in E Minor. It sounds like disappointment, which it looks like he carries a lot of.

Theme:Vintage[ edit ]

Overview[ edit ]

Name: Cedric Lamont Washington

Occupation: Freelance editor

Apparent Age: Early 20s

Statistics[ edit ]

• Oracular Ability

• Wits & Intelligence 4

Soundtrack[ edit ]

DJ Screw - No Way Out

Tricky - Hell Is 'Round The Corner

UGK - Living This Life

Wu Tang Clan - Can It Be All So Simple

Portishead - Roads

Chopin - Etude Op. 10 No 4

Geto Boys - My Mind Playin' Tricks On Me

John Coltrane - Psalm

8 Ball & MJG - Armed Robbery

Meshell Ndegeocello - Soul On Ice

Autechre - Bike

DJ Screw - Why You Hatin' Me

Gallery[ edit ]