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I'm a Hellhound. I have the word 'Hell' in my name. Hell. |
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— Himself |
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Former vessel of the Hellhound calling itself Cerberus, the Sheriff's deputy had to step down to keep his role as Guardian of the Supernatural from interfering too much in mundane affairs. Without Cerberus inhabiting his body, Parrish still pursues threats to expose the supernatural world, though now with a more human view of things.
Personality
Guardian: His whole life, Parrish has had a deep-seated need to protect others. And as he matured, he was completely willing to sacrifice himself to do so. He became an Explosive Ordinance Technician in the Army, became a Sheriff's Deputy after being discharged, and when he was exposed to the Supernatural and discovered his role as vessel for a Hellhound, he gave up his personal life in the normal realm to protect the Mundane and Supernatural worlds from each other.
Open-Minded and Patient: Parrish doesnt tend to dismiss things easily. He was quick to accept the Supernatural and quick to acclimate to the knowledge he is a Supernatural creature. He's not quick to judge others, often accepting people for who they are and attempting to convert others to the side of good rather than dismissing them as irredeemable. He's not blind in this area though, especially when people are put in danger, and will use full Hellhound fire and force if necessary.
Charming: Parrish is genuinely kind and caring and quick to smile and laugh. He might be a bit of a goody-two-shoes, but he's not stuck up or frigid about it. He's taken on more of a loveable roguish charm lately after letting his mundane life behind.
Control: While he's not one to be controlling of others, Parrish prefers to have a plan and hates feeling helpless. He doesn't like feeling in the dark, and has a bad habit of obsessing over details to the point he overwhelms himself. He can become anxious and frightened when he doesn't know what's going on, especially with himself. He's far more confident when he feels he's in the know and has a handle on things.
Background
Born in an all-American town in some out of the way place in the space between the coasts, Jordan Parrish lived as an all-American boy and an all-American teen, who joined the Army as an explosive ordinance disposal technician. He was saved from death by and possessed by a Hellhound spirit, and left the Army, joined a Sheriff's department in California, where he was supernaturally drawn to. He got into some supernatural hijinks, comerged with the Hellhound calling itself Cerberus that was using him to do its duty to protect the Supernatural, took down a group of rogue Ghost Riders, left his job as a Sheriff's deputy, and holed up in a portion of an extradimensional space Cerberus ripped away from the Ghost Riders' realm. All that was subjected to a curse that whittled down his life to a very simplistic and inoculous background. A simple boy, a wandering man, with little in the way of personal history. Family barely knows him, his life as a military technician and Sheriff's deputy erased. Soon after, Cerberus admitted that it had been afflicted with a malady it couldn't deal with while possessing Parrish and acting in the mortal realm. Cerberus and Parrish parted ways when Cerberus sacrificed its place in the mundane realm so it could recover and so Parrish could live and take up the mantles of Harbinger of Death and Guardian of the Supernatural in its stead. No longer with Cerberus's guidance (nor with its influences of inhuman callousness) and from his new 'lair,' Parrish now covers up cases of overt supernatural nature, or finds supernaturals who are new to the game to lead them to someone who can take care of them, and tries to prevent the deaths his premonitions show him.
SIGNATURE ABILITY
In The Arms of the Hellhound
Sometimes a supernatural creature or someone with access to supernatural abilities loses control. There are many paths to this end, but if one is about to unleash uncontrolled power that will likely hurt themself and others, Parrish can activate his hellfire aura and shroud himself and the victim to absorb the brunt of the unleashed power, though the nature of said power may cause damage at and sometimes near ground zero. The victim and Parrish will survive, though the victim may need further help afterward to regain control and is often quite drained from the expulsion of power. This ability requires the victim to actually be a victim, he can't use this ability to suppress the power of someone actively and willfully unleashing self-destructive power no matter how destructive it is to others.
SKILLS
Athletics - Competent Level
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Parrish was an all-American boy in an all-American town and played sports as a kid. He kept fit in the Army and as a Sheriff's deputy and that fitness is still kept up even though he's now a supernatural beast.
Parrish has an easy charm to him, especially since he's genuinely kind and caring, open-minded, and nonjudgmental. He's been known to use these characteristics in the course of his missions to turn things his way.
Firearms - Competent Level
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As a former soldier and Sheriff's Deputy, Parrish is skilled in the use and maintenance of firearms and knowledgeable enough to identify them.
Machinery & Technology - Expert Level
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As a former Explosive Ordinance Disposal technician, Parrish is intimately familiar with machines and other modern technology, as his life and the lives of others often depended on it. He can build, repair, and modify machines and devices with deft skill.
As a former soldier and Sheriff's Deputy, Parrish is skilled in armed and unarmed melee combat, utilizing various martial arts traditions. He's also skilled in training others, especially in self-defense techniques.
Police & Military - Competent Level
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As a former EOD Technician in the Army and a former Sheriff's Deputy, Parrish is familiar with protocols, operations, and other details of the US Military and Law Enforcement.
Supernatural - Expert Level
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From his short time spent melded with Cerberus and his personal experience after their separation, Parrish has become quite intimately familiar with the world of supernatural, especially with creatures and phenomena related to death. As a Harbinger of Death and Guardian of the Supernatural, he has gone out of his way to know what's up.
When Parrish has set his mind to something, he's determined to get it done. Stubborn and persistent, it's rather hard to keep Parrish away from his goal. Likewise, it's difficult to get him to give up information that will lead to the harm of others.
Wound Treatment - Novice Level
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Parrish is familiar with triage assessment and how to treat minor wounds from a first aid kit. He is capable of treating greater wounds with better medical equipment, but he's no nurse or EMT. His medical knowledge is almost entirely focused around emergency treatment of wounds and preparing them for healing with almost no knowledge of drugs beyond what one might expect a cop to know.
ABILITIES
Power: Dominance - Enhanced Level
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Parrish can intimidate those without exceptional willpower, especially normal humans and most animals, simply by making his eyes glow with Hellfire and growling or snarling towards them. He naturally give off a predatory aura, though this is enhanced and punctuated by any show of dominance. This predatory aura is often accompanied by a shroud of flame to enhance the perception of a threat.
Artifact: Ghostfire Restraints - Enhanced Level
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The Ghostfire Restraints are an ancient minor magical artifact from another dimension. Their mystical properties require them to be used by Parrish (or maybe others of similar status).
Supernatural Restraint: The restraints can be used to simply restrain a creature, either by wrists, ankles, or possibly some other technique. The restraints suppress a creature's supernatural abilities, including strength. The restraints themselves are very strong and can keep most supernatural creatures restrained.
Ghostfire Incarceration: If a creature is restrained, Parrish can (at will) send the creature to the jail in the Hellhound Lair.
Summon Captive: Also at will, Parrish is able to summon a creature held in the Hellhound Lair's jail to the (unoccupied) restraints.
Artifact: Ghostfire Revolver - Enhanced Level
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The Ghostfire Revolver is an ancient minor magical artifact from another dimension. Its mystical properties require it to be used by Parrish (or maybe others of similar status).
Hellfire Round: Parrish can fire a 'bullet' of condensed heat and flame that he forms from his own ability as a Hellhound. This small bit of flame and heat has the properties one might expect of such a manifestation, though as Hellfire it's able to burn many things usually immune to fire or heat.
Nullfire Round: Parrish can summon a 'bullet' of Hellfire so hot it burns itself out and end ends up firing as a glob of force that has a similar effect as a rubber bullet.
Ghostfire Round: Parrish can also mix his own power with the inherant power of the gun to form a sickly bluish greenish flame 'bullet' that does not burn, but can transport a living (or unliving) creatire shot by the bullet into the Hellhound Lair's jail, using up that bullet's energy in the process.
Summon Revolver: The revolver is able to teleport itself to Parrish's hand, traveling through the Hellhound Lair to do so.
As a Harbinger of Death, Parrish receives precognitive dreams that revolve around the death of supernatural creatures. Closer to the time of death he can receive premonitions even while awake. The closer to the time of death, the more detailed these dreams and visions become, eventually calling him to the dead body if necessary. As the future is not yet written, however, these deaths can be prevented. Harbingers of Death are usually capable of tapping into this ability to project images of themselves or their own premonitions to each other, especially if they are emotionally close, and sometimes without meaning to. As a Harbinger of Death, Parrish can perceive the spirits of the dead, the true nature of the corporeal undead, and other creatures associated with Death.
Power: Healing - Enhanced Level
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Though reduced significantly without Cerberus possessing him, the Hellhound resiliency is still strong enough to let Parrish endure non-lethal wounds from personal weaponry such as swords, shotguns, or even rifles without significant loss of ability. Minor wounds literally burn away instantly, leaving behind smoke and a scent of sulfur. Even more severe wounds will smolder away within a few days at most.
Power: Hellfire Aura - Enhanced Level
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This power manifests most often as an aura of flame that tends to spring up when he shifts into his Hellhound form. He can, however, suppress it or call it forth at any time, and can call upon it to manifest with melee attacks. He is also capable of raising the temperature around him to high degrees without calling the flame, high enough to cause easily combustable material to catch flame, light the fumes of gasoline on fire, or cause metals to glow with heat. As this fire is associated with the Hellhound, it is more potent than natural fire and can burn things that are immune to natural fire. Without the spirit of Cerberus possessing him, he is unable to direct either the heat or the flame into blasts or rays.
Power: Hellfire Immunity - Supreme Level
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The Hellhound is completely immune to all detrimental effects of mundane forms of heat and fire, and all but the absolutely most powerful mystical forms of the same.
Power: Natural Weapons - Enhanced Level
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When in Hellhound form, Parrish has sharp fangs and claws. These are able to carve through stone and steel, and his bite's pressure is able to shatter bone and tear flesh easily.
Power: Paralysis Immunity - Enhanced Level
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Parrish is immune to paralytic abilities such as a Kitsune's electrokinesis or a Kanima's venom. Without Cerberus, other effects from such powers, like electrical burns, affect him normally, though may be shrugged off with his regeneration if applicable.
Power: Physique - Enhanced Level
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Without Cerberus, Parrish is still much tougher, stronger, and more agile than an average human, able even to twist and bend solid metal, smash through most structures short of armored or strongly-reinforced materials, and break through solid walls of cement or brick with moderate effort. He can resist substantial amounts of damage, especially blunt force trauma, and emerge either unscathed or with only minor injuries. Especially when in Hellhound form and specifically when running on all fours, he can easily outrun most mundane opponents. He also possesses superior agility, able to catch arrows in midair with moderate effort and, with a little luck, even dodge projectiles like bullets. This enables him to leap much higher and farther than an average human, as well as giving him the ability to bounce off walls and tumble like a skilled gymnast.
Power: Rift Manipulation - Enhanced Level
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Parrish is able traverse rifts in reality without harm. He is also able to physically rend these rifts to either close them or stabilize them so others can pass through unharmed. He can also rend open his own rifts, though without the power of Cerberus, they decay after a few moments. While one end of the rift must be at his location, the other end either has to be somewhere he's familiar with or near someone he knows. A rift that he has stabilized or opened usually appears to be a flaming free-floating portal roughly a yard in diameter and about a foot and a half above the ground, though Parrish can open a wider rift if he takes the time to do so and he can place it higher or lower or at angles to the ground if he finds it more useful.
Power: Senses - Supreme Level
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The senses of the Hellhound are enhanced far beyond the ability of any average human. Parrish can hear things like a person's heartbeat, able to identify individuals by heartbeat pattern alone, and tell if they are nervous and possibly lying, and clearly hear the murmur of a quiet conversation several rooms away. He can see over long distances and possesses excellent night vision. Through scent, he can track a person, even if the trail is days old; he can also isolate specific individual scents in a larger group.
When he focuses his hellhound senses, which at the very least cause his eyes to glow with hellfire if he doesn't shift form entirely, Parrish can pierce through supernatural concealments and perceive what would otherwise be hidden to the mortal realm. This includes piercing complete darkness and the supernatural camouflage of powerful objects and sites like the Nemeton.
Power: Ward Burning - Enhanced Level
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Parrish's hellfire can burn through most minor wards, such as those created by Mountain Ash and basic magicks.
ADVANTAGES
Parrish has a small arsenal of weaponry, some mundane but most specialized for certain species of supernatural. Rock salt shotguns, wooden bolts and arrows of various wood types along with the crossbows and compound bows to fire them, silver and gold bullets, among other metals, and guns specialized to fire soft ammunition, flasks of holy water, garlic infusion, and other liquids knows to cause problems with certain creatures, are some of what he's collected. Some weapons and accessories are staples while others tend to rotate in and out when needed.
Parrish has only a bare minimum of a life on record. His childhood was nondescript, his military record vanished, his life as a law enforcement officer erased. Anyone investigating his past will find that once he graduated high school, he went off the grid. Memories have been altered where necessary and possible. This lets him perform his duties without much of a past to get in his way.
Extradimensional Artifacts
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Two objects with a supernatural tie to the Hellhound Lair. In the possession of their previous owner, they took the form of an old revolver and a whip. In Parrish's possession the revolver originally took the form of a generic modern revolver, but it has refined itself several times and currently takes on the appearance of a 2020 4.25" Colt Python. It can be loaded with, and fire, .357 Magnum rounds, though in Parrish's hands it's capable of more. The whip originally took the form of generic police handcuffs in Parrish's possession but has refined itself to a more modern variation.
As a Guardian of the Supernatural, Parrish sometimes enjoys the aid of powerful movers and shakers, as well as lesser organizations and individuals of the supernatural world, in exchange for dealing with issues that Parrish would likely want to deal with anyways. Other times he can be counted on to give aid in certain, often iffy, situations to keep the supernatural world hidden from mundane eyes in exchange for a future favor. At any given time, he can usually pull favors to acquire something he needs or resources and personnel that can get him out of awkward or unsavory situations so long as he's in pursuit of his supernatural-protecting duties.
The Hellhound Lair is a small pocket dimension with a motif of a generic County Sheriff's Station. The jail has been converted into a supernatural holding facility and includes a handful of specialized cells and containment units for more common traits found among the supernatural. The infirmary also functions with first aid supplies and a few more advanced equipment and other supplies that Parrish brought in. One room has been converted into a small garage for Parrish's motor pool, including tools to upkeep the vehicles. Most of the rooms don't actually exist, just the lobby, the jail, the infirmary, the sheriff's office, the motor pool, and a single hallway connecting them. The doors that would lead to nonexistent rooms actually twist around and lead one back through to a another 'fake' door in the station. As a construct most of the station that does exist lacks actual function, outside of what Parrish himself has brought in. There is no phone service or internet in the pocket dimension, or even electricity beyond what the generators produce. Strangely, the station lights work despite no actual power for them and the station radios are able to tune into similar devices in the mundane plane, such as other radios, cell phones, or anything else with two-way audio capability. Each end of the hall bears double doors, each set of which leads to a vast blue-green ghostly void fatally hostile to most life, scars left from being torn from another construct.
Parrish has a very strong sense of loyalty toward those who've come into his bubble. The stronger the bond, the stronger the loyalty. He can pretty much be counted on to help those who've earned his loyalty, and there's little he wouldn't do for a friend.
Parrish typically has a few vehicles at his disposal, depending on what he perceives to be his current needs. He usually has a motorcyle to use as a small solo vehicle and a van to use as a mobile base of operations, and probably has a truck or jeep for off-road purposes at any given moment. Other times he may have more specialized vehicles or something generic to remain inconspicuous.
WEAKNESSES
Parrish is a vessel created for inhabitation by the Hellhound spirit calling itself Cerberus. If Cerberus ever decided to repossess him, Parrish would have no inherent ability to prevent it.
Parrish submitted himself to a curse that started to erase him from history, but stopped before it completed, leaving him with a nondescript life. His personal accomplishments are gone, relationships reduced to aquaintances at best, military and law enforcement service erased, and his family barely knows him. Sacrificing his past is still a decision he questions, leaving him with something of an identity conundrum as he remembers both his lived life and the reduced life he's been left with. The latter, though, he remembers as though through an ethereal fog, like a dream that's not quite yet faded. It's possible for those he's previously forged strong bonds with to fight through the false history and restore their knowledge of Parrish, either stumbling across something that triggers forgotten memories and focusing on unraveling the veil, or by someone else prodding them to dig into forgotten memories.
Parrish's Hellhound side can be suppressed with extreme cold. A spray of liquid nitrogen can distract him and cause him to revert momentarily to human form, but a room or chamber or other such long-term cold is necessary to keep him subdued for any length of time.
As a Guardian of the supernatural and a creature half a step above the common beast, Parrish is often a pawn of higher powers in the supernatural world. His idealism and adherence to a code often leaves him open to manipulation and sometimes outright betrayal in his dealings. Not every supernatural creature respects Parrish's role in the order of things, and not every supernatural creature in the higher hierarchies thinks it's necessary for him to know every detail of their machinations.
Parrish can be perceived as a Harbinger of Death by the spirits of the dead, the corporeal undead, and other creatures associated with death. Some may know what he is, others may be drawn to him whether they know what he is or not, and some may be driven away by his presence. Different creatures and individuals will react differently.
While Parrish will get violent when he has to, he lacks Cerberus's callous brutality when it comes to it. He doesn't want to fight, he just understands that sometimes he must. He'd rather capture an adversary than kill, and rather talk things through rather than stoop to violence, which may leave him vulnerable to manipulation or exploitation until he steels himself for a baser confrontation.
Mountain ash, when activated, creates a barrier against most supernatural creatures. Parrish must use his hellfire to burn such a barrier if he wishes to get through it, otherwise it blocks him like any other supernatural creature. Also like many other supernatural creatures, he's unable to create barriers himself.
Parrish takes his word very seriously. He stepped down as a sheriff's deputy because he could no longer guarantee he could keep that oath while keeping his new oaths to the supernatural world. It would take some serious rationalizing to get him to break his word.
Even as a mortal human, Parrish was prone to putting himself between harm and others. Even though he now has a greater role as Guardian of the Supernatural, he still has a tendency to put himself between threats and others and willing to sacrifice of himself to save others.
The Hellhound is vulnerable to silver, unable to burn off the damage caused by silver and having severe (possibly fatal) allergic reactions if silver gets into his blood stream.
