|
Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
|
|
— Jodi Picoult
Roberte, better known as "Sly," is a son of Jason Christopher Lupus, Lord of the Children of the Moon, an ancient breed of werewolves. A few in the supernatural community know this, though to the human world he does not exist beyond a collection of well-crafted fake IDs. He is also reputed to hold minor favor with Queen Mab, just enough that members of the Unseelie Court know not to harm or trouble him. This is believed to be due to a political boon granted to his father by Mab in exchange for some past debt. Despite having been alive for quite a long time, he still has the mind and emotions of a youth, thanks to the strange flow of time and living in Faërie.
Personality
According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® personality test, Sly would be an "ESFP": Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving. As is typical of this personality type, Sly lives in the moment and is stimulated and excited by new experiences. He is interested in people and, if you get past his brashness, warm. He loves having fun and knows how to make a good time, is both independent and resourceful, spontaneous, and good with people. While this archetype is usually practical and realistic, Sly does tend to diverge from that pattern at times and can be prone to wild flights of fancy.
Having lived a life that currently makes little sense to him, he can become frustrated when expected to adhere to the expectations of others or follow routines. He has strong instincts and relies upon them, often unable to explain why he perceives something in a particular way except that he simply DOES. Despite discomfort with opening up to others, he has an emotional and even potentially quite warm nature. Unfortunately, self-reliance and trusting his instincts make Sly rather stubborn at times.
Background
A Changeling Child
Born on a first of April, perhaps it was inevitable that Roberte Jason Lupus would lead an unusual and interesting life. It was 1919. The Great War, later remembered as World War I, had ended. Transylvania became part of Romania. The Grand Canyon National Park was established. Teddy Roosevelt and Emiliano Zapata died. The United States began Prohibition. Mussolini founded his fascist movement in Milan. Amanullah Khan became king of Afghanistan. The Great Molasses Flood struck Boston.
It was an interesting year.
And in a tiny village in Russia, a village that no longer exists and whose name is now remembered by few, a baby boy was born--Roberte Jason Lupus--on April first. He was a very healthy baby, and his parents, Jason and Illyana, doted on him. For a few months, life was very good. Then it all went wrong. Blame them or thank them, it was the fairies that started it. Little Roberte was doomed to die, a soothsayer of the Unseelie Court had said, and Lord Ilex of House Hollyfrost chose to steal the child, replacing it with a fairy-made changeling doppelgänger. When Illyana and her babe were killed, only the doppelgänger died with her.
Roberte was spirited away to Faërie.
In the Land of Faërie
In the demesne of Lord Ilex, little Roberte was raised by the pixies and other lesser fairies of the house. Time did not pass in quite the same way in that realm, but he still grew toward maturity, and as he did, his body was changed fundamentally by the environment around him. Over the course of nearly a century he was transformed from a human child into one of the fae, a changeling. He learned to serve, to perform, to be a page in Ilex's household. He was frequently changed into different shapes for the amusement of the court, until he learned to control his shape at will. He learned spells and magic, and perhaps most of all he learned the ways of Faërie and the Otherworld.
For all those years, though, he dreamt of the life he would have had. This is not to say that he longed for it or contemplated it. No, his dreams were literally filled with echoes of his mother and glimpses of his father. As he grew, he knew them as he would have. He made peace with his mother's death, but he could never resolve the loss of his father, for his father was still alive. Then, Queen Mab came to the court. Sly did not know what happened to Lord Ilex, but Mab called him before her.
The Favor of a Fairy Queen
Mab placed her blessing upon him, saying he had been wronged--for Lord Ilex had gone against Mab's will in keeping the child. She placed a geas upon Sly, making him forget his time in Faërie, and then she returned him to Earth. There he wandered for a time, and he met a few people who sought to help him, but mostly he was confused. In time, as events unfolded, it suited Mab's ends to return Sly to his father. And so, it came to pass that Roberte Christopher returned from the dead.
SKILLS
ATHLETICS: Expert - An active life has made Sly a very capable runner, tumbler, climber, jumper, swimmer, and so forth. When it comes to typical athletic actions, he's quite capable. When it comes to specific skills, such as throwing a football or swinging a baseball bat, he has no experience to speak of, only naturally good hand-eye coordination and reflexes.
FIGHTING: Competent - Sly has learned to protect himself, largely thanks to a rough-and-tumble life and having to watch his step all the time. As a result he's become quite scrappy. His skill level is typical of a competent street fighter, and he also has experience with various ancient weapons, such as swords and bows.
HANDCRAFT: Expert - Sly has an expert knowledge of various aspects of handcrafting, including repair work, cooking, and other such skills related to maintaining a household in a fairly old-fashioned or rustic setting that does not use electricity. His talents in this area are almost unrealistically developed for his age and station.
LORE: Competent - Sly knows a variety of supernatural lore, but it's largely specialized as relating to the fae. When dealing with the fae or the Otherworld, particularly when navigating the Ways, his skill level can be considered Expert. When dealing with beings highly disassociated from the Otherworld, such as angels and demons, his skill ranks only at Novice level.
PERFORMANCE: Expert - Trained in the courts of Faërie, Sly has a tremendously skilled singing voice and pitch, as well as knowing how to read and write music and play a variety of instruments. His voice has quite a range, allowing him to sing from high tenor to low baritone. He is also a highly skilled dancer, moving with fluid grace just as easily in a ballroom or at a rave.
SURVIVAL: Competent - Apparently a background in woodsy living has its benefits. Sly has strong wilderness survival skills, particularly those that relate to the forest biome. He is a fair tracker and hunter, but he is even better at identifying and utilizing useful plants, navigating the woods, and sneaking or hiding amongst the trees.
ABILITIES
SPELLABILITIES: Basic-level Magic - Trained in a variety of cantrips and simple spells, Sly is a capable magic-user at a low and mostly unsophisticated level. He can cast Basic-level spells across most "Effect" types, excluding Necromancy, which he has never learned much about. He is most comfortable with household spells, such as lighting fires, animating objects, etc. He tends to use charms, evocation, or enchantment over other forms of magic, and as foci he favors somatic spells with occasional incantations. One noteworthy talent he has, though, is entering and navigating the Ways, which draws upon his Lore skill.
AGILITY: Enhanced-level Power - Thanks to his magical nature, Sly is physically more deft and agile than ordinary humans, solidly at Enhanced level. This includes his ability to move over short distances, as well as his reflexes, dexterity, and other aspects of physical movement and agility.
IMMORTALITY: Supreme-level Power - Thanks to a variety of supremely potent mystic bindings and rituals, too deeply worked to be undone, Sly is truly immortal and cannot be killed. He is resistant to damage and regenerates from damage at the Supreme level. Even something powerful enough to cause him mortal damage will not kill him, only leave him incapacitated and dormant until his body can regenerate. Similarly, his soul cannot be destroyed. The down side to this is that he has absolutely zero special tolerance for pain, so no matter how indestructible he is, he can be incapacitated by pain almost as easily as a normal human. So, while he cannot be killed, he is not necessarily difficult to "defeat" or incapacitate.
SENSES: Enhanced-level Power - Sly has senses that go beyond those of ordinary people. For one, his senses are keener than normal, and they seem to have a longer range. For example, he can see farther and clearly even in near-darkness, and he has hearing like that of a dog or wolf. Similarly, he can track by scent. In fact, his senses are so keen that they react to various kinds of supernatural phenomena, allowing him to see, hear, smell, taste (etc.) when supernatural or mystic energies, creatures, and phenomena are near. One particular quirk of this power is that it also allows Sly to understand--read, write, and speak--any language he encounters as though he were a native speaker, though some mystic runes and the like may pose a much greater challenge.
SHAPESHIFTING: Enhanced-level Power - Sly can attain any shape, from an insect to that of a dragon or any in between. In those shapes, he gains any abilities that are naturally held by creatures in that form, up to Enhanced level. Notably, if these physical forms entail any special magic, such as a dragon breathing fire, then Sly can only accomplish those feats if he understands the magic well enough to perform them--so, while he can breathe fire as a dragon because he knows how to conjure flame, he cannot emulate a gorgon's ability to turn someone to stone, the raw magical power associated with a unicorn, etc.
VANISHING: Supreme-level Power - Sly is able to "vanish" from one place to another, fading first to invisibility, then to intangibility, as he actually dematerializes partly into the Ways. While in this state, he is completely undetectable to physical senses of any acuity. However, supernatural senses that can perceive the Otherworld at even Basic level have a chance, if a small one, to detect him. Enhanced senses of this type have a slightly better chance of detecting him, and Supernatural senses of this type would have a fairly even chance. When in this state, he either remain in the vicinity of where he was, effectively intangible and invisible, or skim along the edge of the Ways to reappear as far away as across the continent within a few seconds. The fading process takes around one second per mile he intends to travel, so that he can travel across a room in a blink, but traveling hundreds of miles may take him a few minutes to complete.
WARDED MIND: Enhanced-level Power - Sly's mind is warded against influence or control at the Supreme level, making it nearly impossible to steal his free will or force him to do or feel anything that he would not normally. However, direct mental attacks, including mentally inflicted pain, affect him much more strongly, and his wards only grant him Basic protection against them. Other mental effects are resisted at the Enhanced level.
ADVANTAGES
ATTRACTIVE - Sly is attractive enough in the conventional sense, but more than that he has a certain "something" about him that tends to invite a response from people. His presence makes it easy to draw and hold the attention of others. However, when he doesn't want to be noticed, it almost works the other way around, letting him blend into the crowd as far as normal senses are concerned.
FATHER - Jason Christopher Lupus is many things: wealthy, powerful, protective, loving, and all sorts of other things that everyone might like their father to be. Because of his father, Sly virtually never has to be concerned about having someone to watch out for him, he has all his material needs met, and he always has a place to call home, even something of a family to replace what he has lost. His father also provides him with fake IDs and protects his true identity from discovery.
UNSEELIE COURT - While Sly has his liberty, free and clear, thanks to Mab's agreement with his father, he still enjoys a token membership in the Unseelie Court, holding slight favor with Mab and what passes for her goodwill, since he has been useful to her. As such, he can call occasionally upon the Unseelie Court for minor favors, such as leading others through their territory without being troubled, though he has no grounds to request for much beyond that. In general, the Unseelie Court also knows that by Mab's decree, Sly is not to be troubled or harmed.
WEAKNESSES
CHANGELING - As a changeling, Sly is susceptible to lesser versions of all the weaknesses of the fae. While iron does not do him actual harm, it does cause a very painful burning sensation when he touches it, as though he had grasped a red hot coal. Binding him with iron also completely negates his ability to use magic, vanish, or change shapes. Steel causes him only minor discomfort. Similarly, he is able to lie, but when he is really pinned down on something--asked thrice--he must give a direct answer that adheres to at least the spirit of the truth. The power of Oaths binds him more powerfully: He is not capable of willingly breaking any Oath he makes, though if one is broken by circumstances beyond his control, he suffers no harm from it.
FATHER - Jason Christopher Lupus is many things, and one of those things is most certainly an overprotective father. Having spent a century believing that Sly was dead, Jason is now extremely protective of the son he has had returned to him. Even something as simple as having a normal romantic relationship might be difficult for Sly--or, for that matter, even going out to a party on his own--due to his father's hypervigilance.
PAST - Sly has had a hell of a life. When he was young, his mother was killed and he was taken to Faërie to serve in the retinue of a Sidhe lord of the Unseelie Court. He spent a century or so being a novelty and plaything for this lord, only to be thrust back into a world that he hardly recognized. He's adapted fairly well, all things considered, but he's also generally quite ignorant of many aspects of the modern world as a result of his long absence. One need hardly even mention all the emotional baggage he carries around.
