VALERIA “VAL” ORTIZ | TWENTY-SEVEN | MEDIUM | “HUNTER”
DATE & PLACE OF BIRTH: June 26, 1989 / Tijuana, Mexico SEXUALITY: Bisexual OCCUPATION: Artifact, Relic Hunter and Collector FC: Daniella Pineda TAKEN
BACKGROUND
Valeria and her older sister, Selena, had always been close to their grandmother. The two sisters would sit on her lap or in front of her, listening to the stories she had to tell about the world so very similar to our own. Their grandmother told stories of souls traveling across the sky, lights touching the earth, and of a magic that connected them all. Their mother didn’t approve of her own mother telling her children such stories, but the young girls wanted to be just like their grandmother when they got older.
As the two girls grew up, their mother eventually forbid them from listening to their grandmother. Still, they would sneak out of their rooms in the middle of the night and learn from their grandmother. They took over the family business, running an antiques store. After school, they helped their grandmother at the store and started to practice magic and attempt to connect with spirits. When Valeria turned eighteen, her sister and grandmother along with several other employees were murdered during a robbery at their family shop. Valeria was severely injured from the shootout, but survived.
It was in that moment that Valeria understood her powers as a medium. Her connection to her sister and grandmother allowed her to stay in contact with them as well as her lost father. Her mother finally revealed the truth about their family. Their family business wasn’t just about collecting antiques, but about protecting and preserving artifacts, some dealing with the supernatural and occult. They stole from hunters and thieves and returned the artifacts to whomever they belonged to. Valeria’s father died during a job. The men who shot up their store were looking for artifacts that were stolen from them. Valeria’s mother tried to prevent her daughters from the same fate as their father and push them to live their own lives.
Her mother thought this would deter Val from following the same path as the rest of their family, but it only encouraged her. Val went to a college close to her home so she could still run their store. After she graduated, she started to take a more active role by tracking down artifacts and either buying or stealing them. She would take them back to her shop or return them to their rightful owners, just as her mother and father and grandmother did before her. After a few years, she was able to get their store back to its former glory and had several trustworthy employees take care of things. Valeria made the decision to move to the United States to open another branch of her family’s shop. The first place she thought of was Port Ashbourne after finding a old post card her father sent her and her sister while on a business trip.
She has a scar on the right side of her chest from the gunshot would she sustained. It’s been years, but it still gives her pain. She also suffers from depression and anxiety, which she takes medication for.
Valeria majored in Classics and Psychology at her university. She was going to only do a major and minor, but ended up loving psychology so much she decided to do a double major at the last minute and stayed in school an extra semester.
FAMILY: Mateo Suarez (grandfather/deceased) Constanza Suarez (grandmother/deceased) Nicolás Ortiz (father/deceased) Camila Ortiz (mother) Selena Ortiz (older sister/deceased)
CONNECTIONS:
Oliver Lowe (business associate): Both dealers of artifacts and relics, they crossed the path in the past. Her family stroke business deals with him few times. She didn’t necessarily like him back then, turning everything into a joke and taking nothing seriously. Now that she is setting up a new shop in the city he already has his, she has to see him whether she likes it or not.
PERSONALITY
Valeria is generally a quiet and introverted woman who always chooses her words carefully, especially around people she doesn’t know. She used to be boisterous and hyper all the time, but has mellowed out since all the deaths in her family. She’s somewhat pessimistic and morbid, having lost faith in most of humanity. However, she can still be just like her former self when she gets to know people and get closer to them. She despises how greedy people can be and dislikes people who are not loyal. Valeria believes in loyalty to a person more than she believes in loyalty to a cause. She continued the family business because of her love and devotion to her sister and grandmother. Valeria doesn’t always follow what is strictly right and wrong. She believes in the gray areas and usually follows her own standards to do what she thinks is right or what she thinks her grandmother would have wanted.
SKILLS:
Valeria is ambidextrous, but she prefers to write with her left hand. It helped her when she started practicing Krav Maga and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu so she could defend herself while on a job.
Valeria has trained herself in picking locks, picking pockets, and some hacking. She is not the best hacker, but has enough knowledge to get through basic firewalls. She has become a better liar over the years, which often times gets her out of trouble.
Valeria still practices magic to this day. She sometimes uses her mediumship to contact her sister and grandmother. She used to study strictly witchcraft and animism as she and her family focused on the school of elementalism. After the death of her sister and grandmother, however, she started to use magic as a more practical use for her job.
She is a skilled pianist thanks to lessons her parents made her go to everyday. When her father died, she wanted to quit, but her mother forced her to continue. Her mother wanted her to become a concert pianist. She hardly plays these days, but every now and then she’ll play a tune.