Character art by me...because im awesome
And Who are You?Unleash the HOUND!all things subject to change through roll play. Name: Jake
A.K.A: Peanut (Tulip calls him this, when he gets older it really annoys him)
Gender: Male
Stage Overview:-Wand: Black with some red highlights (two red stones near the top like eyes). A small, furry, tail-like thing hanging off the wand, like a rabit's foot. Black fur with what looks like dried blood on it. No powers to speak of... good for smacking people with.
- Whisp/Baby Ghost: Black/grey, not opaque, would seem more like smoke coming off of a bbq than a ghost. Still no real powers, mostly just freakign out Tulip.
- Baby: Very fuzzy, curly fluffy hair. Has patches of short Black hair over his body. A fluffy black tail, his emotions come through on his tail. Pale skin, not sickly just dosent look like he's out in the sun very often. Red shinig eyes. Full set of teeth, either his canines are very long or the rest of his teeth are short, look more like a dog's teeth than a child's. Primarily Nocturnal...much to Tulip's dismay. Quiet baby, very aware of the world around him. Really hates Tulip's cat... frightens it when it gets to close to him. His precognition has begun and he often cries when something bad is about to happen, Tulip dosent really notice whats going on at first because he cries for things that don't directly affect her, but after watching the News one night she realizes that his random crying fits arent random at all.
-Toddler: His head seems to have grown faster than the rest of his body. He looks awkward, his hair has grown long and unruly and Tulip can't seem to keep it brushed out. The hair on his body hasnt grown any longer but his nails and the hair on his tail certainly have. He becomes shy and reserved, often having terrible night mares. After getting a grip on language he tells Tulip everytime he has a premonition...which is frequently. They're all of death. And they all come true. He can't focus it and is constantly bombarded by horrible images. The nightmares about his past life dont help either. His ability to shimmer begins to present itself at this time. One night while curled up in a little ball in the living room he disappeares, slowly dissolving into what look like heat waves coming off of pavement. He then instantly reappears about two feet to the left. He realizes that if he wants to dissappear hard enough he will...and show up someplace else. During this stage he manages to get his shimmering skill under control enough to shimmer across the room... which he uses to make life harder on Tulip. This ability is the one thing that seems to make him smile so Tulip encourages it, he's a sullen, reserved toddler that seems to have already lived too long.
-Kid: At least his body caught up in size with his head. That seems to be about the only positive physical change that this stage brings to Jake. His teeth grow larger and his nose longer, almost muzzle-esque. He has trouble keeping his mouth closed because of the teeth. Now even more awkward than before he begins to refuse to go out in public. Which is just as well, hidden in his room he dosent have any premonitions. He learns to shimmer very well and can now shimmer from one spot to another as long as he can see where he's going. He thinks he could go to places he cant see, but dosent want to risk ending up in a wall. At one point during this stage Tulip's cat diappears. It's understood who saw to the Cat's demise but Tulip and Jake never speak of it. Now more sullen then before because of his self enforced isolation Jake finds solice in books, most notably comic books, he feels a special connection to "Spider Man" and begins to call his premonitions his "spidey sense". Shortly after naming them he begins to be able to turn them off and on. It's not 100% effective, but it makes it possible once again for him to be in public and he frequently asks Tulip to take him to the nearest comic book shop.
-Teen: After learning how to turn on and off his premonitions and focus them Jake begins to use his abilties. However, unlike his comic book heros he can not figure out how to use his knowledge of impending death as a way to help people and usually just comes off looking more than a little bit crazy, this is not helped by his physical appearence. His long shaggy hair has grown greasy with puberty, his skin more sallow and his eyes continue to be red, glowing voids in his face. He dosent look so much like he has a muzzle but has a serious overbite so that his longest teeth hang out over his bottom lip. His tail has grown considerably longer but has begun to loose clumps of hair as a result of his anxiety. He's managed to perfect his shimmering and can appear in areas that he cant immediatly see, but is familiar with (I.E. he's never been to Egypt so he couldnt shimmer to the pyramids, but he could shimmer home after school) He attempts to take up hobbies as a way of self expression but lacks any and all artistic talent, he can't draw, paint, writer, and has no ear for music. (although his hearing is quite good) During his teen stage Tulip finally decides to get him some professional help for his depression issues. The therapist helps him a great deal, he manages to let go of some of his guilt over not being able to help everyone and finds himself more capable of dealing with his powers and with the turmoil of being a teenager. Unfortunatly, even though he's better he's still not "normal" or even "healthy" and being a non-magical being Tulip can not understand this. She pressures him into taking antidepressants, which cause his powers to go haywire. Its during an especially rough night of premonitions, and random shimmering that his past comes to him and he learns a secret that will change him forever...
Powers and justification: with great power comes great responsability
Shimmer This power is esentially teleportation. He is able to more or less dissolve into what looks like heat waves coming off asphalt in the summer and reappear in much the same manner. I chose this ability because it is said that Barghest only appear breifly and then dissappear from sight, they're ghostly and not completly solid. This ability will rob him of his strength though, after shimmering, he will need to rest and will not be able to shimmer again for quite some time, or fight for that matter. The distance which he shimmers determines how tired he will be.
Precognition Jake will be able to see the future...sort of. The only thing that he is able to see/know is if some one is going to die in the near future. At first he can't control it and gets premonitions of various degrees of clarity at any time. Eventually he learns to control it and sometimes can tell exactly when and how some ones death will occur, but usually it's alittle foggier than that. This ability stems from the part of the Barghest legend that states that they are often seen as signs of impending death.
Hearing His hearing is extra sensative but not entirely supernatural. Loud noises hurt him and he can hear conversations taking place just outside normal hearing range, it's not an incredible power but usefull none the less. This comes from the fact that a Barghest is a dog-like ghost, and dog's have excellent hearing.
Night Vision Very simply, he can see well at night. Yet again this isn't something completly supernatural, his eyes do glow, so it seems sensical for him to be able to see well at night. Bright lights hurt him and he must wear sunglasses outside during the day time. Barghest are nocturnal beasts and therefore would have excellent night vision.
Past Life: Location: Rural Wales
Time: Late 1800's
Fear has always been a major motivation for violence. No one understood this better than Long Tooth. He had been second in command of his small troop of Barghest. It was little bigger than a family and so far as he knew they were the last living of their kind. They had been slowly dying off lately due to the encroachment of humans onto their lands. They knew that humans feared them and their knowledge of the future. They felt that as the more advanced creatures they owed it to the humans to warn them of their fate, to help them. The humans of course cooked up many silly superstitions about them, they were of the devil, they were ghosts, they were any number of ridiculous things. But the humans did have something right, anyone who saw one, would die shortly there after and should make his peace with the world as quickly as possible.
Long Tooth's troop had found themselves a nice patch of forest in what Humans referred to as Wales. Every few nights one of the band would be alerted to an approaching damned human and would wander out to alert him or her about their impending fate. Life continued this way for quite a few months. Long Tooth's Brother, Big Paws, had just gotten a litter of puppies on his wife Curly Tail and the future of the troop was looking bright.
That night Long Tooth had felt the pull of a premonition all night long, but had continued to ignore it, their troop was celebrating the news of Curly Tail's pregnancy and Long Tooth had no desire to leave. Because of Long Tooth's decision not to confront the humans, they had the element of surprise when the snuck up on the troop. It all happened so quickly, they tried to shimmer away but there was no where to go to, they were surrounded. There was fire, Curly Tail and the youngest pups were crying out, they were the first to be killed, viciously maimed with Pitch forks. Big Paws had tried to save his wife but was shot by the only man with a gun. Long Tooth fought valiantly, refusing to succumb to the many injuries inflicted upon him. Eventually he was it in the head with something hard and flat and fell unconscious. The men left him for dead.
It wasnt until the next night that Long Tooth managed to stir himself. He stood slowly, feeling his fur matted with blood, mostly not his own. He looked around, the bodies of his family were cold and lifeless, the forest that had been their sanctuary was burnt. The mud around his paws was red with their blood. It's not clear if a Barghest is capable of sanity or insanity, but if they are it was in that moment that Long Tooth embraced his insanity. He felt himself consumed with a sort of fire, a desire and a drive to do something to make up for this terrible injustice that had been done. He had to do something to get ...revenge. He threw back his head and he howled, he howled with every fiber of his being and every ounce of his soul. He howled until the trees shook and even the day birds awoke and flew into the night squawking for fear.
Revenge rose and consumed his mind completly. He thought hard about the night before and finally caught the image of the leader in his mind. The one with the pitch fork. The one that had killed his sister-in-law and the youngest of the pack. Soon he felt the man's presence. It was weak, he was far away. But he knew that he was around. He would follow this man around. Long Tooth would haunt him and torture him slowly until his last day on this earth.
Patrick McPhee didn't tell his wife about the ghost wolves. He didnt tell her that they were of the devil, that they used some sort of witchcraft to fortell a man's death. And he certainly didnt tell her that he wiped out an entire pack of them. His friends had assured him that there would be nothing to worry about, not one beast was left alive, but Patrick was still worried. His wife was pregnant and he couldn't risk something happening to the family now.
It was late one evening about a week later and Patrick was in the outhouse. He heard a snarling sound coming from outside and worried that maybe one of his dogs had gotten out. Slowly, so as not to alarm what he was hoping was a very scared dog, he opened the door and stepped out. He looked around and saw it. Two red glowing eyes. Long shining white fangs. The rest of Long Tooth blended into the shadows. Patrick knew that when a man saw a Barghest, or a Ghost Wolf as he called them, his death was sure to follow.
The next evening Patrick was still alive, but worried. When he went outside to pick up some fire wood, he saw Long Tooth behind the brush pile. For the next two weeks he saw Long Tooth everywhere he went, everytime he looked outside at night. Even places where Long Tooth was not Patrick saw him. He began to wonder what his death would be. If it was bad enough for one of these things to be there every night it must be terrible. Slowly the fear of his own death and the uncertainty of it all drove him insane.
He frightened his wife and one night she sent him outside, telling him that some fresh air would do him good. The insane man took his riffle with him and sat by the chicken coup. Sure enough, Long Tooth appeared, snarling at the man, threatening him with his eyes and smacking his lips. Tonight was going to be the night that he had his final revenge. He let out a growl so low that it was barely audible and slowly approached the man. Patrick cowered against the wooden chickn coup and began to cry with fear. Long Tooth leaned back and then sprang forward, leaping through the air with his teeth bared for the man's neck when
BANGPatrick had shot the revenge hungry Barghest. Then, fearing what this would mean for his own life he stuck the barrel of the gun into his mouth and killed himself.
photo from google
