Ryan is mostly a cheerful fellow that has been going through some surprising changes. He and his parents live in Beacon Hills, where he's currently attending university. He studies hard, he enjoys running, and lately he's been trying to unravel the mysteries of his heritage to figure out why he turns into a small puppy under the influence of the full moon. But, life is strange like that, right?
Personality
Ryan mostly tends to be a happy-go-lucky teen. He's generally well-liked, he's a nice guy, he's intelligent, athletic, and popular. If he isn't happy, he's calm, and while he can be often quiet, he isn't particularly shy. His mood tends to shift with the lunar cycle, leading to him being more serious and quiet around the new moon, and more playful and nervous around the full moon.
Background
Ryan Hayes was born in San Diego, where he lived with both his mother and father until his father disappeared suddenly one night when Ryan was about two or three years old. Ryan's mother is Jewish, and his biological father is the descendant of a group of Native American shamans with the that communed with the animal spirits and the moon. Some time after the disappearance of Ryan's father, his mother remarried and, just before starting high school, Ryan and his family moved from San Diego to Beacon Hills to accommodate his step-dad's job. His first year was just fine, but sometime into his sophomore year, Ryan began to experience changes to his mood, and his body would assume the form of a little corgi puppy during the full moon. What's worse, as the months pass, it seems that he's changing more frequently, even outside of the full moon. In addition to his studies, his athletics, and time spent with friends, Ryan often performs experiments on himself, trying to find a reason to explain his change through studying more about biology and examining his own chemical makeup as best as he can with his limited resources.
Through a glimpse into his own subconscious mind, with the help of Lance and a healthy dose of hallucinogens, Ryan has learned about parts of his past he had shut out. Ryan was a sick child, in and out of clinics and hospitals for the first few years of his life, and unable to have much contact with others or the world outside his room for long stretches of time. Before his father went missing, he showed him pictures of a forest in Montana, and promised they'd go together one day.
Though his father went missing when Ryan was nearly four, he continued to see him in his waking life after that. It even seemed that with the disappearance of his father, Ryan's body began to heal and his immune system was bolstered. Ryan had believed they lived in Montana for a time, but in truth, he and his mother had visited there for a short time to attend funeral services for his father a year after he went missing.
With his father presumed dead, Ryan retreated into his memories and disconnected from the world for several years. He lived in a special care facility in a house on the west coast where he would mostly stare at the ocean from his window and retreat to his memories. After a couple of years, Ryan awoke from his state and moved back in with his mother and stepfather. He poured all of his energy into running outside, soething he couldn't do as a child, and catching up on schoolwork, and after a while, his childhood had become muddled in his mind, cobbling bits and pieces of memories into a past that hid the pain and truth from Ryan's concious mind.
SKILLS
ACADEMICS: Competent - Ryan does fairly well in school, and excels in math and the sciences. His own condition has pushed him toward conducting his own research into finding out more about the changes he's been going through, and as such, he has been focusing most of his studies toward biology and chemistry.
ATHLETICS: Competent - Ryan is the kind of person that actually -enjoys- running, and he's been playing various sports since he was in 6th grade. He's active on several teams for school sports, including track, soccer, and cross country.
MARTIAL ARTS: Novice - Ryan has mostly had informal training in martial arts by his stepdad since he was a 6th grader getting bullied in school. He did attend a karate studio during his freshman year of high school, and while he isn't particularly strong, he is quite agile.
SHAMANISM: Competent - Ryan has been studying his family history and lore from his father's background ever since he learned of his own supernatural changes. Though his powers are still developing, his knowledge of the lore behind them has grown greatly over the past few years. He even knows a handful of rituals and how different talismans were crafted by his father's people.
ABILITIES
MENTALISM: Enhanced-level Magic - Ryan is most skilled in working magick associated with dreams and emotions, and can even use magick to 'encourage' someone into a peaceful slumber, though that particular sort of power is quite taxing on the fellow.
SPIRITUALISM: Basic-level Magic - Ryan has learned to make use of his shamanic roots to commune with all sorts of spirits.
ANIMAL EMPATHY: Basic-level Power - Ryan inherently connects well with most animals, and is able to get along with them, even depending on them for help at times.
ASTRAL FORM: Basic-level Power - Along with a healthy-dose of self-discovery, Ryan has unconvered the ability to slip in between consciousness and unconsciousness, letting his spirit slip free of his body for brief periods of time. He has few defenses in this form from magic or supernatural powers that can affect spirits, and his physical body is defenseless while he's in such a state. This is the first step for Ryan to take in learning how to commune with the spirits and harness the power of the moon as his ancestors once did.
DREAM CONTROL: Basic-level Power - Through working to the core of many of his issues with Lance's help, Ryan has shown a competency for lucid dreaming and controlling his own dreamscape. With more exploration, Ryan will find he is able to contact others though the dreamscape and affect changes in the dreams of others, but while it is a power born to him through his father's lineage, it is quite new to him and he has only a slight control with it as the moment.
FAST HEALING: Basic-level Power - Ryan heals unnaturally fast from most wounds, though any damage caused to him by silver, certain poisons or magics, or wounds brought onto himself by his healing power heal slightly slower that most normal humans would.
HEALING: Basic-level Power - Due to Ryan's lineage going back to elder native shamans, he has the inherent capability to heal others, though being young and never having received any training at it, it is a fickle thing that seem to work mostly when he is experiencing heightened emotions. He can ease pain in others with some effort, and by concentrating and laying on hands, he can slow bleeding, and he can heal minor cuts and bruises. However, most of the wounds he is able to heal tend to manifest on his body, whether physically, or perhaps only the pain and fatigue of it.
MOOD: Basic-level Power - Ryan can project an aura of calm or an aura of happiness when he chooses, but it has a relatively short range. This differens from projective empathy in that Ryan doesnt necessarily have to be happy or calm to project such a mood around him, he just seems to bring it out naturally.
SENSES: Enhanced-level Power - Even in human form, Ryan has enhanced hearing and a heightened sense of smell from his canine side, either of which seem to be strongest around the time of the full moon each month.
SHIFTING: Basic-level Power - Ryan is able to shift into the form of a corgi, and while he has been training to learn how to keep himself from shifting spontaneously when under great stress or affected by powerful emotions, he still changes under the full moon.
TELEPATHY: Basic-level Power - Ryan is able to communicate telepathically, though currently only while in his were-form. It is easiest for Ryan to communicate this way with animals or other weres, but it isn't impossible for him to communicate wih humans this way.
ADVANTAGES
LIKEABLE - Ryan is quite simply a likeable person. He's a nice guy, he's bright, and he's easy to get along with.
WEAKNESSES
CHANGES - Ryan, at times, spontaneously changes when he gets overemotional. He's learned what it feels like, and knows when it is going to happen well enough to get himself out of public view until the 'episode' is over. This sometimes takes a few minutes, or sometimes a few hours, but generally he tends to revert to his human form whenever he is able to maintain a calm.
LUNAR CYCLE - Ryan is a slave to the lunar cycle. His emotional state varies from a calm severity around the new moon, to an anxious, hyper sort of energy around the full moon. During the night of the full moon, and the nights surrounding it, Ryan transforms into a little corgi dog, and generally doesn't turn back into a human until daybreak. Ryan generally has a decent command of himself during the change, though the light of a full moon often draws out more ADHD-like behavior.
ROWAN - Being a 'magical creature' of sorts, Ryan is as susceptable to mountain ash as any other werewolf.
SECRET - Ryan's mother doesn't know about his father's true nature, and he doesn't intend on worrying his parents by letting them find out about the changes he's been going through. Ryan makes every effort to shield his secret from his family and "normal" friends for fear of geting experimented on by the government or just plain freaking them out an ending up an outcast.
SILVER - Ryan is allergic to silver. Contact with his skin will cause him to break out in an uncomfortable rash, and damage done to him with weapons made of silver heals at a much slower rate.
