pentiments | Jun. 20th, 2025

DANIEL OWENS
"BOOKS ARE THE MEMORY THAT DOES NOT DIE."

PERSONALITY

Perhaps unsurprising for someone of his background, Daniel is an intensely neurotic person. He has a deep-seated fear of mirrors and his reflection, and shuns intimacy with the opposite sex. Being raised in secrecy by a rigid occult order, he is a creature of routine, ritual, and rules, and has very little experience with the chaos of the mundane world. Thus, he generally gives off the impression of being a high-strung eccentric.

Beneath his neuroses, though, Daniel is a very kind and principled person. Influenced by the kindness of the Obliviates who took him in as an infant, he believes in using his position and capacities to help others who are in similar peril. He has a strong affinity for the vulnerable and the hunted, especially children and animals, and is a strict vegetarian. He has a tendency to end up with pets, since he doesn't have the heart to turn down strays.

Daniel also has a love for books and other repositories of knowledge, as it is these that allowed him some kind of access and understanding of the outside world even when cloistered with the Obliviates. Reading is one of the only times he feels truly at ease. Even reading the occult, sometimes-cursed tomes in Hush House gives him a feeling of reassurance and mastery he rarely feels at other times.

Finally, mortal life intrigues him as much as immortality depresses and frightens him. Growing up as the only mortal among an order of immortals, Daniel developed not an envy for the limitless lives of his caretakers, but a sense of sadness and fear for their unnaturally long and burdened lives. Instead, he is fascinated by the changeability and fleetingness of mortal life, and is always keen to learn more about others' lives and routines.

ABOUT

Daniel Owens is the recently-instated Librarian of Hush House, one of the nine great libraries of the Watchman's Tree. Here, he oversees the historical premises and its collection of books, films, and records—but Hush House is no ordinary library. Its storied halls have housed secret orders, cults, and inhuman entities, and its books and other publications brim with secret knowledge of the occult. As such, Daniel Owens is no ordinary librarian.

Indeed, despite his ordinary appearance, he is an exceptionally singular lifeform: the offspring of two Lantern-Long, ascended immortal servants of the Hour known as the Watchman, or the Door in the Eye. His birth is a double contradiction, for birth by Lantern-Long is thought impossible—and reproduction by immortals is, more importantly, forbidden. The penalty for this transgression is a manner of curse: upon bearing a child, both immortal parents will be immediately and irresistibly compelled to devour it. Yet, thanks to the intervention of a mysterious order of Immortals known as The Obliviates, Daniel survived to adulthood, where he now uses his position of Librarian to seek a way to save himself—and to end the suffering of his parents.

APPEARANCE

Daniel is a middle-aged white man with light brown hair and blue eyes. Because he avoids his reflection, he can look rather disheveled. His daily attire usually consists of a woolen suit jacket, button down shirt, and tie, and pleated trousers. When walking, he has a pronounced limp and often opts to use a cane for longer trips. Rolling up his pant leg will reveal a leg brace on his right leg. He fidgets constantly and usually seems ill-at-ease unless absorbed in a book. He speaks with an unplaceable, yet oddly archaic-sounding accent, a product of being raised by a bunch of multicultural immortals.

ABILITIES

Daniel's abilities are not unique to him, and may be replicated by any skilled student of The Invisible Arts. That said, his occupation and parentage make him an especially adept practitioner. Note that the “magic” of the Secret Histories universe, particularly for the Librarian, is based strongly on emotion and memory. The Librarian may acquire a memory through either conversation, reading, or experience and, if they hold this memory in their mind, may further refine its power through ritual activities. They can alchemize these refined memories into matter or strange powers, with the more powerful of these requiring greater amounts of time and effort to achieve. These are typically presented in a very abstract, otherworldly fashion and so are up to interpretation. The following are my own interpretations of the Librarian’s abilities.

1. Memory-magic: The Librarian may either consume a memory himself or else verbally share it with an assistant, temporarily boosting one of their aspects, such as constitution, insight, or inventiveness. With most memories, this is not a huge effect, perhaps a little more powerful than a particularly rousing or inspirational speech, but if a more potent memory is shared, then the effect may be significantly more powerful. In special cases, a memory may give the subject one-time access to a certain power. The following is a list of these more unusual abilities:

Secret Threshold: Allows subject to bypass a lock or door, whether spiritual or physical.
Winning Move: Gives the subject an important insight into how to affect a particular outcome
Wind-in-Waiting: Temporarily recall a song that, when performed, allows limited command over the wind
Earthquake Name: Allows the subject to temporarily command the earth to shift itself, creating passages and potentially destroying structures.

2. Alchemy: Through memories and ritual, the Librarian can create or alter physical substances to create a variety of objects and materials, such as potions, pigments, poisons, chemical reagents, and, most powerful of all, occult inks. In the game Book of Hours, these inks may be used to master occult texts, petition the Hours—or just to write very pretty letters. More broadly, they can be used to do things like bind or release entities in a book, break curses, or exert control over the servants of the Hours.

3. Polyglot: The Librarian can read English, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Aramaic and Phrygian.

BASICS

NAME: Daniel Owens
CANON: Book of Hours
CANON POINT: 2 years after becoming Librarian of Hush House

AGE: 40 years
STATUS: Single
OCCUPATION: Librarian of Hush House
RESIDENCE: Hush House, Brancrug, Cornwall

PERMISSIONS