The Catalog: St Patrick's Day Special

iamsass@gmail.com — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:22:58 GMT

Luck of the Irish green Felix Felicis

Celebrate St Patrick's Day with a little luck of the Irish. Green-tinted Felix Felicis in a dosage that will provide exactly five hours of good luck!

Ingredients: Aqua, honey, four-leaf clover, fairy wing, scarab beetle, FD&C Green No. 3.

Warnings: Side effects include giddiness, recklessness, and dangerous overconfidence. Toxic in large quantities. Use responsibly.

The Catalog

iamsass@gmail.com — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 23:41:36 GMT

Amortentia eau de parfum

Never smell bad again-- to anyone! Amortentia eau de parfum harnesses the properties of the Amortentia potion to ensure that you will always smell like your-- and anyone else's-- favourite things.

Ingredients: Alcohol (denatured), aqua, benzoate, citronellol, Amortentia potion (powdered moonstone, rose thorns, belladonna, silverweed, ashwinder eggs), methylpropional, limonene, dragon's blood.

Warnings: Keep away from naked flame. Toxic if ingested. Excess use may cause side effects similar to ingestion of Amortentia potion. Use responsibly.

Madam Minerva's Bad Hair Day Shampoo

Reversing follicular follies since 1703. Madam Minerva's Bad Hair Day Shampoo is a must for every household. Discerning individuals keep a bottle on hand to reverse ill-advised haircuts, neutralize sickly hair colours, and wash out artificial curls or straightening treatments. A personal grooming godsend.

Ingredients: Purified water, sodium laureth sulfate, sodium lauryl sulfate, flitterbloom, cocamidopropyl betaine, dimethicone, scarab beetle wing, cetyl alcohol, fragrance, citric acid, sodium hydroxide, extract of Everlasting Elixir (fairy wing, honeywater, wormwood essence, leech juice), methylparaben.

Warnings: Keep away from naked flame. Toxic if ingested. Avoid contact with eyes.

Fingernipping box

Keep your private belongings private! The Test Lab's patented fingernipping box is a handsome device designed to keep your items safe from harm. Those sharp teeth aren't just for show; when opened by an unauthorized person, the box will snap shut on their hand.

Available in three sizes for your convenience: pocket, personal, and trunk.

The Owner

iamsass@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:29:14 GMT

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Jacob De Vries
Residence/Hometown: Was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. Currently resides on the top floor of his shop (The Test Lab) in St George's Way, New York. The middle floor is a combination workshop, experimental test area and alchemy/potions laboratory. The ground floor is the shop area, open to the public. There are many strange and wonderful things on display; the more dangerous items are kept inside glass cabinets to discourage touching. Items for sale include Jacob's inventions, specimens and mounted animals, skulls and skeletons, and odd and hard to find books and potions. Any of the items in the shop could be creatively misused by someone with a mischievous bent.
Age/Birthday: December 25th, 1968
Gender/Sexuality: He doesn't have time for relationships
PB: Mark A. Sheppard
Any notable differences from the pb? Jacob is on the shorter side, about 5'6 tall and completely average in every way. It only bothers him when the things he's looking for are out of reach on the highest shelves. His left eye twitches when he's getting annoyed or anxious.

School/Magic Stuff
Wand: Jacob is on his 13th wand. This one is inflexible birch, 8 inches, with a dragon heartstring core.
House and Year: Graduate of The Academy for Magical Advancement in Cape Town, South Africa. He had been sorted into a Champlain-equivalent house.
Schedule: Took Magical Crafting every year.
Strongest subject in school: Potions and Charms
Weakest subject in school: Flying
Extracurricular activities: Played cricket with the school team, but was banned after devising a ball that would always defy the opposing team. The Curiosity Club, a 'study group' which was a front for students interested in the Dark Arts.
Boggart and Riddikulus: A cage closing in on him. His Riddikulus is the bars turning into spaghetti and falling into a heap on the ground.
Amortentia smells like: Spent matchsticks and malva pudding.
Patronus: Cheetah

Family/Relationships
Immediate Family: Mother (Lotte) and brother (Dominic) in South Africa
Familiar: A female capuchin monkey named Edison. Edison was acquired to keep him company and to remind him to take a break from working every now and then. Jacob actually doesn't realize that he's completely dependent on her.

Personality
Likes: Malva pudding, warm beer, when his experiments go right, things being exactly where he left them, new and better uses for existing items
Dislikes: Broken wands, explosions, being called crazy, being blamed when other people use his inventions wrongly, being cleaned up after
Quirks: - Believes in aliens
- Can solve a Rubik's Cube in under two minutes
Secrets: Was accused of the crime of Dark Wizardry in South Africa and fled to the US before his trial. He doesn't talk about home or why he left.
Strengths: Inventive, resourceful, secretive
Weaknesses: Extremely paranoid, often chooses complicated solutions to a problem when a simple one will do

Detailed personality: Jacob was always a shy, introverted person, right from earliest childhood. He never made many friends, and when anyone showed the slightest interest in him he did everything he could to please them. He is not at all difficult to manipulate once this weakness is discovered. He is not ignorant of the fact that he has been used and probably will continue to be used by less kind people even with this knowledge. His curiosity and creativity go hand in hand most of the time, and he often invents or improves existing items to perform new functions. He is very self-aware and since The Incident in Cape Town, very distrustful of others and their motives. His paranoia is far-reaching, and he likes to have escape routes and safe places. He values his privacy. When irritated (usually by stupid and endless questions) his eye twitches uncontrollably.

Personal History: Jacob grew up in an ordinary, average family. His father was a wizard with a taste for power, and his mother a muggle-born witch. Both he and his brother attended wizarding school, though his brother was popular and excelled without even trying whereas Jacob was introverted and struggled with his studies. Jacob both looked up to him and resented him. He was never 'Jacob', only 'Dominic's brother'. When the school's Curiosity Club (a front for the rising Dark Wizarding community) took an interest in him and his inventions he joined without hesitation, eager to please his new friends and to impress his father with the powerful connections he was making with the sons and daughters of influential wizarding families.

With the end of Apartheid in South Africa and the impending rise of Lord Voldemort in Europe, the Dark Wizarding community began a new civil war in the south, building on the racial tensions of the muggles to help fuel their own crusade. During one particular battle in Cape Town with the Ministry of Wizardry, many Dark Wizards (including Jacob's father) were killed. Jacob was the sole survivor of the attack, and he was promptly arrested and taken for questioning. Eager for information and a quick resolution to the conflict, his captors used any means necessary to extract a confession from him, and he was tortured with the Cruciatus curse to the brink of insanity. To this day, he still has a few screws loose. For his 'cooperation', he was released back to his family to await trial. Not willing to spend the rest of his life in prison, he fled to the United States and set up in St George's Way.

He constructed a triangular house and shop so that he would always have a corner for his back, paranoid that he will be hunted down by the South African Ministry of Wizardry to attend trial. He keeps mostly to himself, maintaining a low profile and not venturing far from the Way unless absolutely necessary.