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#17: Black Alice (Lori Zechlin)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/5/8/AAOJ0pAADbTS.png
This troublemaker hails from Dayton, Ohio, and when the world fell apart, it was her magic that instilled life into one small neighborhood, and kept it thriving despite the enemies around her. But is she even a troublemaker? I'm not entirely sure. The thing about Alice is that nearly everything about her is fake. Her power is to copy the powers, and slightly appearance, of others. While she calls her dog Rover a dumbass, it is without the slightest bit of malice. Despite her strong front, she loves her father, who is currently Equated, so very much. Alice isn't even her real name, it's Lori.

Alice began in the campaign as a bit of a joke character, with her catchphrase of 'BRING ME MARIJUANA!', her pathetic dog Rover, and her tendency to turn into Etrigan and threaten whomever tried to force her hand on anything. It made it hard to get close to her about anything. Yet behind it all, if you pushed in the right way, you'd see that much of Alice's standoffish behavior was because she was so guarded.

She's so guarded that it's hard to tell what is real and what isn't when it comes to her. She follows the teachings of Nightshade, having been pushed in that direction by Roz'etta, because Alice is a screw-up, and Nightshade is more than willing to at least put up with screw-ups. Alice is the sort of girl to call upon the power of Etrigan in the middle of a chapel, or to seek revenge on a boy who she had a crush on but didn't like her back by trying to summon the power of God. Neither of these are particularly great ideas, but that's Alice in a nutshell. A force of humanity, going to do her own thing, often bad ideas, but that's why she's a student and not a master. All we can do is hopefully minimize the damage the next time she makes a poor decision. At the very least, Nightshade provides Alice someone to smooth out her rougher edges. They make an interesting duo, especially since Alice has grown protective of her spot as Nightshade's student, often to the dismay of anyone who seeks out Nightshade for help of their own.

It's those small holes in her defenses where Alice truly shines. She puts on an air of independence, but when Roz'etta opened the door for her to learn from Nightshade, she took it in an instant, even if her nature doesn't make her the greatest student. Her crush that led to her trying to call upon God, Brennus? They're still attached at the hip, with Alice turning into his partner in chief, getting into all sorts of magical mischief with him. And, of course, she's Pepper's best friend. She and Pepper make a fantastic pair. Both deeply miss their families, both have a bit of light and darkness about them, and at the end of the day, both really want someone they can tell their secrets to who will just listen, with no judgment on what they hear. And when both get high, judgment is the last thing on their mind. Plus each is there to take the other's side when they just need to rant about some jerk they've been dealing with, and know somebody has their back. It took a lot of work, but Alice has found a place in the world where she feels comfortable, despite all her troubles.

Of course, this isn't to say Alice has become purely drama and sorrow now. She has a tendency to get concussions in amusing ways, usually due to her actions or those of Brennus or Pepper, and her John Constantine act is hilarious (despite the sad overtones of Alice trying to put another layer between who she's being and who she is), especially given that we have the real deal and someone very familiar with John in our group. If people try to get too close nowadays, she's less likely to go Etrigan on them and more likely to make creative use of what she's learned from Nightshade to toss people into a heal with the power of shadows. She's just fun, inexperienced with the world, and does what anyone would do with her powers, experiment. And given the nature of her powers, each experiment leads to an experiment in showing off what she can do with the powers she copies.

In fact, her powers have grown now to the point where Johnbobb has been asked to make campaign art, for people whom she copies yet real art does not exist. Like copying Ragman below.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/6/AAQcMAAADhq6.jpg

I won't lie, part of the appeal of Alice is how every time she copies someone new, we get a new picture of her. A new face she puts on for the world. No matter how her character grows or changes, the next Alice picture is just around the corner, and in that way there is always something to look forward to from her.

Hint for #16: This character is small.