SIGNATURE ABILITY
Face The Music
Sometimes, someone is holding back a truth so deeply it begins to warp their inner self. They may not say it aloud, may not even know it consciously, but somewhere inside, they want relief. They want to release their emotional turmoil and resolve it. If Chet is nearby, The Echo may respond.
Chet becomes a conduit, bringing in the Echo Mists. The space subtly phases, overlaying reality with a symbolic dreamscape tailored to the target's emotional truth. A bar booth may become a childhood bedroom. A dance floor may become a battlefield. The target begins to sing, fragmented, involuntary, raw with Chet compelled to play music to accompany the song. The lyrics reveal what they've buried.
This only happens if the target harbors a deep, secret desire to confront their truth, either to themselves or those they are with. Surface-level fear doesn't stop it. But if the desire isn't there, Chet can't act as conduit.
The phase lasts only as long as the emotional tension does, then the Mists of The Echo recede. If the truth is confronted, the Echo Bubble collapses gently, like a dream in the mists of memory. If the target fails, if they deny what they most need to face, they vanish when the Echo Bubble pops, The Echo vanishing quite abruptly. They become Lost In The Echo.
This is not a spell, not only a performance, and not a choice on Chet's part. It is a phenomenon, an eruption of emotional truth, baring one's heart through music and memory.
(While this cannot activate in The Echo, the nature of that realm itself can respond very similarly without need for Chet as a conduit. Lostville and The Bar Between are a special case within The Echo as it is sort of The Lost's and Chet's territory respectively and so they typically have an anchoring effect against The Echo's whims there, but The Echo may use Chet as a conduit in both places in the same manner as elsewhere in the Multiverse.)
SKILLS
Manipulation - Competent Level
Whether its intimidation, persuasion, seduction, or other means, Chet is fairly skilled at reading people and knows how to both detect manipulative intentions in others and how to manipulate them himself.
Marksman - Competent Level
As a denizen of the less savory areas of Gotham, Chet is familiar with the like of throwing knives, handguns, and shotguns. His time anong The Lost has not only expanded this skilset to include things like javelins and energy weapons, it also expanded his opponent roster from mostly street thugs to a wide array of alien, demonic, and just plain bizarre beasts.
Melee - Competent Level
Chet practically raised himself on the streets of Gotham. Chet often had to pit his body against another in street fights. He is not unfamiliar with fighting with fists, feet, knife, or anything that happens to be within grasping distance. His time anong The Lost has not only expanded this skilset to include things like spears and vibroweapons, it also expanded his opponent roster from mostly street thugs to a wide array of alien, demonic, and just plain bizarre beasts.
Mixology - Expert Level
Chet's innate Clurichaun attraction to booze and his lived experience mixing drinks leaves him very skilled at mixing drinks and knowing his alcohol.
Music - Expert Level
Chet's Clurichaun blood gives him a natural talent with song of all types. His utilizing this talent has given him extremely powerful skill in the sonic arts of music and song. He can sing with a wide range and he can master any instrument in moments by just picking it up and experimenting.
Sensuality - Competent Level
Chet has become quite used to using his body and charm to get what he wants, which has led to both knowing how to physically stimulate others but also how to suppress his own desires to focus on anothers' senses.
ABILITIES
Faerie Magic: Alter Self - Basic Level
Chet is able to make minor alterations to his body. Superficial traits, like change his hair color, resize his ears, change his height by a couple inches, alter his fingerprints, or change the pitch of his voice.
While within The Echo, Chet is able to call upon the memory of another creature to assume aspects of its shape. He can take on physical characteristics like a dragon's horns but not their abilities, so no fire-breathing. He can't alter his size too much, but he can shift his body to just take on selected traits, become an athropomorphic hybrid, or fully shift into the creature at roughly the same size as he is. If he leaves The Echo in such a state, he will lose any assumed aspects and revert to his normal form.
Faerie magic: Booze Manipulation - Enhanced Level
Chet is able to manipulate alcoholic beverages. He may shape the liquid, move the liquid, and alter the temperature of the liquid (but not the state, he can't heat it to evaporation or cool it to freeze, etc).
Furthermore he can turn water into any alcoholic drink at will. Drinks created in this way taste fine, except it lacks any real character and those familiar with the drink may find it to be inauthentic.
Object (Magic): Charm Immunity - Supreme Level
Whoever is wearing Chet's collar is protected from the charm abilities of creatures like the fae or from magical spells or effects. Even powerful beings like demon lords or the kings and queens of the fae would have difficulty charming the collar's wearer.
Under normal circumstances, Chet is the one wearing this collar, though he could lend it to another temporarily if he chose.
Faerie Magic: Clurichaun Luck - Supreme Level
Chet is a survivor, not through any real sense of skill, but through sheer chaotic happenstance. It's like the very fabric of probability warps around him, often granting him successes and his adversaries failures in strings of unfathomable luck that typically leave Chet none the worse for wear. A gamer might accuse Chet of using cheat codes or hacking if it wasn't the real world. Some might accuse him anyway. Unlike his cousins, Chet is unable to control luck directly, it's more something that happens to him, and others around him.
In practical terms, this power exists to keep him out of danger and to ensure his survival wherever possible. Attacks against him that would threaten his survival will tend to go awry, or things he must be able to do to survive will tend to succeed, all based on sheer, magical luck. He tends to be completely unaware of these effects.
Faerie Magic: Clurichaun Obscuration - Enhanced Level
Chet is able to render himself undetectable by normal senses. While obscured, mortal normies are unable to hear, see, smell, taste, or feel him. Any supernatural or superhuman being or those with mystical affinity may perceive him normally even while he is obscured.
Chet can also make himself intangible and get out of almost any nonmagical binding or enclosure as long as no one is looking at him. The instant no one is watching him, he can become intangible at will.
Faerie Magic: Dark Charm - Basic Level
Chet exudes dark charisma from every fiber of his being. He's the rebel bad boy (punk or inspiration?) and pulls at the hearts (and other parts) of the people around him. How this manifests in others depends, but generally speaking, he seems to manifest an aura of contained danger (a warning or an allure?) and raw sensuality (a rival or a stud?).
Echo Nature: Echo Build - Enhanced Level
Unlike the rest of The Echo, Chet has a special connection to Rory's Bar & Grill. He is able to pull memories of rooms out of The Echo and connect them to the bar, which reforms to make a seamless building as if the room had always been there. The exterior of the bar is unaffected, which may lead to some strong incongruencies between outside and inside.
Echo Nature: Echo Song - Enhanced Level
Heart's Call: Chet is able to pick up on the music in the hearts of those he uses his Heartsong ability on. He can send these echoes to Rory's jukebox no matter where in the Multiverse either of them are. These songs are treated like any other the jukebox picks up.
Artist's Memory: Chet can pull any musical instrument or device out of The Echo no matter where in the Multiverse he is. Other than instruments, this also includes microphones, mixers, speakers, and other such gear. This ability also lets him power technologically enhanced instruments and musical gear by his will alone. (Note that this doesn't actually create electricity or other compatible power, the stuff just works as if power was supplied.)
Playback's Memory: Chet can summon any style of music player from The Echo no matter where in the Multiverse he is. This player will be connected to the jukebox in Rory's Bar & Grill and can play any song that jukebox remembers. Just as with Artist's Memory, this playback unit can be activated by Chet's will alone without actually supplying compatible power.
Song's Perseverance: Chet can store a copy of any song the jukebox knows on any form of medium Chet is able to call from the Echo. Typically, any standard format from most worlds or times is available. Rarer formats are more iffy.
Echo Nature: Echo Travel - Enhanced Level
Echo Portal: Chet is able to bring a copy of a door from The Echo into another World, or push one into another World from The Echo. The echoed door can be copied from almost any sort of door, a house's front door, a barn's vehicle bay doors, a fridge's door. This door is linked to its copy for as long as it exists, usually a few minutes. After that the copy disipates like a dream.
The Choice: To anyone who has been Lost In The Echo, Chet offers The Choice, to remain with The Lost or to have Chet open an Echo Portal to their Home World. Chet can do this by instinct for anyone in The Echo whether they are Lost In The Echo or not.
Echo Slip: Chet is also able to slip into any unwarded location at will either from The Echo, to The Echo, or through The Echo. He is not capable of bringing any matter with him except his own body, anything he is wearing, carrying, or holding will be left behind. Anything he is carrying IN his body is excepted, such as piercings or food, as The Echo 'recognizes' these as being a part of him.
Innate Nature: Faerie Physiology - Enhanced Level
Chet is not affected by things like disease, toxins, or radiation. He does not suffer the ravages of time, either natural or magical. He does not need to breathe oxygen or sleep. He can exist in the deepest oceans or the vacuum of space with little to no ill effect. As one born of the fae, if Chet is killed, he reconstitutes in the faerie realms. In his case most likely in The Echo.
Innate Nature: Faerie Senses - Supreme Level
Chet's senses are far beyond those of mortals and even those of most supernaturals.
Acuity: He can hear and see much farther, detect a wider array of light wavelengths and sound frequencies, distinguish between smells like an animal, has a much more discerning tactile ability.
Veilsensor: Chet can pierce obscuring magicks, seeing suppressed sights, smelling obscured scents, hearing dampened sounds. He can sense a creature's true nature, though not necessarily able to pinpoint specifics, simply by interacting with them. For instance he might sense a primal wildness in a shifter or the aura of death from a banshee. A hellhound might evoke the heat of hellfire even when not aflame.
Auditory Synesthesia: Chet is also highly synesthetic between hearing and the other senses. He can see, smell, and taste sounds. Visually, he perceives sounds as existing on top of the normal visual spectrum as a sort of an overlay of sonic colors, more like a parallel rainbow than adding more colors to the existing rainbow. Since smell and taste are less developed than his sight, sounds are just perceived as scents and flavors.
Linguistics: Chet is able to understand and communicate in any language of the Multiverse he is physically able to perceive or articulate.
Faerie Magic: Faerie Song - Enhanced Level
Chet's Clurichaun nature gives him some preternatural insights into music, both listening and playing.
Heart Song: When listening to live musical performance, he can get a general sense of the performer's unfulfilled emotional needs or desires, and the intensity at which that hunger burns. This need not be a formal performance: karaoke, or singing in the shower, or just a random hum can all bare a person's heart to him.
Soul Song: Chet can infuse his music with a sort of calming effect. With this, he can dull someone's emotions, dimming them temporarily, like a drug. This will fade over time, possibly bringing any unresolved emotions back.
Drunken Song: Chet can infuse his music with a vibe that loosens inhibitions, encourages good times, and may even charm others into a light intoxicated-like state.
Dark Song: Chet can focus his music into a sonic attack, an outburst of sound that is physically destructive. It emanates in a cone, getting weaker the farther from him it reaches until the energy dissipates into harmless sound.
ADVANTAGES
Collar
Chet's old punk collar was ruined during an outing with The Lost when he was still learning the ropes of The Echo. When he arrived back in Lostville, he found someone had left him a replacement.
The collar is created from a strap of leather from the ruined castle's tack room remnants, a buckle from an old boot left in the remnants of the castle's barracks, and studs pulled from a wine cask in the castle's wine cellar, the heart of the ruins and The Echo itself. Rory used his runework, which is only visible to those with mystic senses, to enchant the newly crafted accessory for Chet's protection. Being of The Echo and crafted by the Echo Lord, the collar travels with Chet if he shifts through worlds.
Jukebox
This is an Ami Rowe R82 jukebox from some Earth variant that Rory "borrowed" when it was brand new. He used to keep in the old wine cellar he is bound to. As Rory evolved, the jukebox was claimed by The Echo and started producing new tracks from the hearts of the Multiverse, crying out to be heard. It now sits in Chet's personal space as he has has been able to make echoes of it now that he has added two more "main rooms" to the mix. Each of the echoes is browsable by any patron, working just like the original.
Each jukebox responds by echoing the patron's own heart and tries to match a selection, and keeps responding, shifting the tracks displayed as long as the patron is undecided, the more a track calls out the more it will stay on the plate, until the patron finally makes a selection or leaves. Once the patron walks away, the selection returns to a list of blank options until a new patron sidles up. Chet has linked each echo of the jukebox to a sound-system strewn throughout its respective room, modern speakers in the Bar & Grill, sound crystals in the Tavern, quantum-sonic emitters in the Cantina.
Other than The Echo itself adding songs, Chet is able to curate the jukebox database in his own right. Other than transcribing songs into the jukebox via his Echo Song ability, he can also remove songs from the the memory or queue, including any of the echoes' queue, or play or queue songs at will without having to physically interact with any of the machines.
https://i.ibb.co/LXPd46r4/IMG-JUKES.pngRuaraidh
The unique and powerful faerie who has come to be named Ruaraidh nan Tobhtaichean, aka Rory Tovatchen, aka The Echo Lord or simply The Echo, is Chet's father. Chet is, as far as anyone knows or is telling, the only "Echoborn" offspring of Rory. While it may not seem so to Chet or anyone else, Rory watches over Chet. Most of the time, Rory is hands off, even if Chet seems to be in serious physical danger. However, if he senses Chet is in real danger of being seriously damaged on a metaphysical or mental level, Rory may intervene.
The Bar Between
Woven from the memories of various bars, taverns, pubs, inns, and restaurants across the Worlds, the result is strangely a fairly generic bar and grill, connected to a rather generic fantasy tavern, and also connected to a futuristic but generic dive bar and cantina. Rory has pushed this corner of The Echo into various worlds and used his runework to anchor it like a mirage, perceptable only to Travelers and others who would be open to the experience.
The Bar Between serves drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, from across the Worlds, and can manage any snack or meal you can imagine. All of this at no monetary cost, though there is a sign that conspicuously warns that the establishment is not responsible for anything lost or taken, literally or figuratively.
The Bar Between is functionally Chet's. Rory rarely haunts the place anymore, so Chet is typically the one managing the place, often enough standing in as bartender in one of the rooms. The Bar Between is typically known by the names of its primary fronts: Rory's Bar & Grill (Superia, Sangria, Lostville), Rory's Tavern (Arcadia), or Rory's Cantina (Futura).
The Echo
While Chet was technically not born there, he has a strong tie to The Echo. Due to the blood tie to Rory, The Echo recognizes Chet as its kin. While he can't control The Echo or the Mists like Rory (yet?), the memories of The Echo will not harm him, even those of dangerous predatory creatures will not hunt him. He feels at home there, like he belongs on a fundamental level.
SEE: notes chet/the echo
The Lost
While The Lost are little more than curiosities or amusement for Rory, Chet came to them when he accidentally traveled as a young teen. They are more of a family to him than his mother, step-father, or father have ever even tried to be. No one knows Rory is his father, but they know Chet is different from The Lost if for no other reason than Rory never refers to him as one, always referring to Chet as The Boy. Rory has become a much rarer sight to The Lost ever since Chet has taken on the responsibility of The Choice.
SEE: notes chet/the lost
Translators
Chet has access to translation charms and universal translators and has made them available for use by anyone who wants to pick one up in the Bar Between. Unless Chet explicitly allows it, none of these may leave the Bar Between in any way. Any attempt will alert Chet and the charm or device will be transported back to its respective container.
WEAKNESSES
Auditory Synesthesia
Chet perceives sounds through visual, olfactory, and gustatory means. This means loud sounds or a multitude of sounds can not only overwhelm his hearing, but also his sight, smell, and taste, at the same time.
Emotivorous
Chet does not need to eat and drink like most mortal creatures. Instead, he must consume an unconventional meal every other day or so. This meal must be harvested by using Heart Song and feeding off the bared emotion. Missing too many of these meals will starve him just as much as not eating would any other creature. His physical form weakens and it may fall to death. Though like any other death, his faerie nature will likely reconstitute him.
Intoxication
Despite being to toxins generally, Chet is specifically not immune to alcohol. He can get drunk, which he sees as a positive, but all the negatives also apply.
Iron
Aside from magical means, the only way to keep Chet bound or captive is with iron. He can't slip out of shackles made of iron or weasel out of rooms or cages contructed with at least a frame of iron.
Mischievous
Chet has Clurichaun blood in his veins and sometimes that means he just can't resist a good prank. Or messing with people. Or getting up to all kinds of chaotic fun.
Punk
Chet didn't have even a vague semblance of an available father figure in his younger days. While The Lost have sort of provided him that masculine role in many forms, Chet still has heavily ingrained daddy issues. This is not really helped by the fact that Rory barely acknowledges his existence, at least externally. Chet doesn't even know for a fact that Rory is his father, only assuming as much by putting a handful of evidence together that points to that conclusion. Chet is basically a teenage street punk and rebel youth, grown up a little. That rebel streak is there still, even though his edges seem a little smoothed out. Survival still runs deep in his veins though, and he may still resort to street posturing and abrasive responses to perceived challenges to his pride.
The Choice
With Chet present in The Echo, in Lostville itself, Rory has moved away from his offering of The Choice. Chet has the ability to send people home if they desire, and Chet lives there in Lostville among The Lost, so Rory has effectively passed this responsibility on to Chet. While there is no formal declaration or anything, Chet's status among The Lost or relationship with his already practically estranged father might take a hit if he shirks this responsibility. It's something The Lost specifically take very seriously.
