The Hand

A stage magician who made a pact with something from Beyond

“For my next trick, I’ll saw a hero in half!”

The Hand is a member of The Seven Wonders.

The woman now calling herself the Hand (“…is quicker than the eye”) certainly seems like a stage magician. She dresses in a top hat and tux, with a cloak, wands, cards, and other appurtenances of the trade. Her tricks are all structured like stage magic - appearances and disappearances behind veils, for example.

At some point, she made a pact with some sort of enigmatic and eldritch entity. What did she want? Power - perhaps, in a sense. She could have asked for mystic might, or dominating strength. But what did she really care about? “I want it to be impossible for anyone to learn how I do my tricks,” she said.

The Hand can do many things - not anything, but enough. She can seemingly teleport herself or her team into or out of a situation. She can create illusions and distractions. Any attempt to discern the truth of her tricks will fail, due to her extradimensional patron’s influence. Because of this, it’s hard for heroes to really set a boundary on her true capabilities. Is it all mundane trickery behind a veil? Or is the entity sometimes lending her some of its supernatural power?

The Hand needs an audience. It’s not just a matter of activating her powers - for if there’s nobody to deceive, she can’t perform a trick. But beyond that, she adores the challenge of devising tricks to win the hearts of onlookers. She doesn’t care about “cheating” - all magic is cheating, that’s the point, she says. Seeing the expression of wonder on her audience’s face is what she lives for. This purity of purpose is probably what has kept her soul free of the entity’s influence, so far…

Playing the Hand

The Hand has real mystical power, but her motivation is to deceive the world with the perfect illusion. She is dedicated to the stage magician’s craft. Although it’s impossible to see through the illusions she creates, everything she does has some kind of practical aspect to it. She won’t summon demons, but she can make herself and her team seemingly disappear or teleport, for example.

Plots

Stop the Hand from putting on a stage show as the centerpiece of a crime
Save civilians from the consequence of one of the Hand’s tricks, such as out-of-control wild animals
Rescue someone from a magic-themed death trap the Hand has set up

Dialogue

“Pick a guard, any guard. I’ll let that one go.”
“Pull a rabbit out of my hat? I really prefer capybaras, they’re much cuter.”
“Looks like it’s time for me to disappear. Alas, there’ll be no encore.”

Comic Book Panels

The Hand stands at the center of her fellow villains. As the heroes approach, there’s a huge puff of smoke. When the smoke clears, there’s no sign of the bad guys. No amount of inspection, however skilled or thorough, can uncover where they went.

The Hand produces a variety of fireworks, setting them off one after another. The whole area is saturated by noise and flashing lights - but flammable things might go up!

The Hand uses a variety of magical quick-change tricks to change costumes, passing herself off as someone who belongs wherever she’s trying to get into (or out of).

Variations

Magical Power

The essence of the Hand is “stage magic that nobody can see through”. She’s not a conventional spellcaster or sorcerer. That said, she has some degree of support from the Dark Beyond.
The Hand doesn’t make for a good demonologist or warlock. That said, she might have a crew of goblin helpers or something like it, and her power could be more associated with the Fair Folk or other trickster entities.