Origin
Born and raised in Los Angles California, Loren Talbane, was doted on from the start. Being the youngest heir to the Talbane fortune everyone was crazy about the Talbane baby girl. Her older brother Landon and sister Lana, were both grown and living on their own, leaving all the attention for her. Growing up a Talbane meant never having to worry about money, in fact money came to her without even seeking it out as people paid for her to promote their products via her 3 million follower Twitter and Instagram accounts. Loren decided to forego college and go to school for modeling and acting instead. She participated in a few fashion shows and got a few parts in B movies, but that was about it. Loren wasn’t college educated, but she was her father’s child and like him she was smart about business. Images of her hard partying, use of recreational drugs and overt sexuality hit tabloids and the net and her fame only grew, making her social media accounts explode. While these SNAFUs seemed like accidents, privacy invasions and a paparazzi run amok, it was all part of a carefully crafted PR and marketing campaign. While Loren did do all those things, the videos, photos and even leak images, were all crafted by her and the marketing firm.
Loren moved to Chicago Illinois with her family because operations cost were cheaper as her dad, Natas, was moving away from real-estate and into more tech ventures. At first she hated the Windy City, especially the crazy weather and cold winters, but she began to love it once she discovered its party scene. Also, while Chicago has a large arts and entertainment community, it’s nowhere near LA’s, making her somewhat of a big fish in a small pond. Also, she had tighter control of the paparazzi. They would mostly show up when she wanted them to, meaning when her friend, writer, model and fashion vlogger Michelle Nelson, would call them from her burner phone. Michelle, who also did her own PR and marketing, would leak photos and info to the press. In return she would collect any finders fees that came from selling the information and also the fame of being Loren’s “best friend” as far as the media were concerned. This was a fun and profitable relationship.
Major Story Arcs
Problems started when Loren was stopped for DUI. While not in the comic, this was alluded to in the original Epitaph Bread and Salt movie. While people loved her or loved to hate her, she was universally chided for putting people at risk, especially considering she didn’t have to do so as she could afford transportation there and back.
Epitaph: Beginning of the End
While that all blew over her biggest ordeal came from meeting a guy at local night club named Gary, and almost immediately leaving the club with him. Seeking an FWB relationship she invited him over to her condo after a night passionate sex. Seeking to be odd and quirky she attempted to do a sex meditation with him, before the actual deed, but ended up in another dimension. She was confronted by a demon named Anth’all who told her she needed to prepare for an upcoming battle and gave her a knife. Seeing demonic figures attack out of nowhere, she moved to defend herself with the knife. Upon killing all the demons, she awoke from her trance. Gary had been stabbed repeatedly and she held the bloody. This was treated as a sacrifice and gave Anthr’all the power to enter our world via a jump code given to her by Trig. This all happened because Loren is a magic adept and is unaware of her power.
While she usually worked with a fixer, that went by the apt name Fixmaster, she instead called Owl Weiss, needing this to “go away”. Weiss has done a lot of work for the family and was familiar with Loren. She did indeed do an intensive clean up and would have to figure out how to make it seem like Gary either left the building or never came back with her, which would be a considerable amount of trouble. In the mean time, Loren would have to go back to one of her parent’s many homes and stay out of the city and out of the spotlight. Taking her to a waiting limo, alone, they drove off. Loren however escaped at a stop light, booked a private jet last minute and tried to fly to an unknown destination. The jet exploded on take off.
In future revisions it is revealed Fixmaster arranged the jet for her, but unbeknown to them Owl figured out what Loren was going to do and had the explosives planted.
Epitaph/Hexcraft Mechanics
In the second series, it is revealed Loren was indeed alive, protected by her powers. Ashen Yu and Fyre both suspect that she is alive.
Powers
Loren has the ability to astral travel and if she chose to do so she could tap into her raw power of invocation. She would also easily be able to manipulate most forms of magic just by dabbling in it. Loren also has the ability to manipulate probability, which is how she was saved during her jet’s explosion.