My current nifty character concept for the RPG builds on the story of the Black University. I think it's in the Blue Fairy Book.
Anyway the story is as follows: Somewhre there is a school that teaches every art, science, and science that has ever been learned by man. This school is underground and has no light. Books line all the walls and the way the students is able to read is whenever they open the books the letters on the page themselves glow with a flickering hellish light. Each student is admitted entry into the school on the condition that he understands the last person to complete their studies and leave the school each year will belong to the master of the school (usually understood to be Satan) and be used in whatever way he see.
One year the student to finish last ran with the others up the tunnel leading out into the sun and when the master of the school grabbed his ankle he kicked at the hand freeing himself he just managed to escape shouting back "There is one other who left after me!" refering to his shadow. And so he was able to escape but no longer had a shadow.
Anyway, the way that translates into the character I want to play is: A runaway probably from somewhere in the 1920s ends up attending the University. The University itself is in the never-never. He studies and learns, arrogant as he is he waits to go last having planned for this. And he escapes using the shadow trick. What he discovers though is a lot of time has passed while he was studying and the world has changed.
To complicate matters he'ld have been tainted by black magic, probably a decently strong wizard whose specialty is evocation. He'ld also know of the white council and as a result he'ld keep his head low and go out of his way to avoid using magic whenever possiable so as not to draw attention to himself.
aka The Scholomance. A variation on that theme would be that the Tenth Person has to stay and train the next class. The post is then passed on and on. He would be hunted because he upset the rule. (Just a thought.)
I would be a person who falls between the cracks. He comes from a long line of wizards, but he isn't a wizard himself. His family have been in the magic game for many generations, but occasionally, one is born without the means to do magic. He was this generations, but to make up for it, he is a weirdness magnet. In his travels, he's picked up a few things, like one of the Cait Shee, think Mouse, but only feline. Some powerful members of both Fairy Courts owe him some big favors, think something along the lines of the Unraveling. The best way to think about him is to combine the character of Hurley from
Lost with the main character from the canceled FOX series,
Strange Luck, with a bit of that character from the Donald Duck comics who is extremely lucky; he won the Lottery, and is pretty much set for life. He thinks that he might be a living embodiment of "What goes around comes around". Fate sends him out on missions from time to time, and he might set off a series of events that would take down a group of Red Court Vampires, or cause a dragon to be slain.