Name: Manus Flynn.
Age: 35.
Gender: Male.
Race: Human sorcerer, with diluted (1/16) fairy blood.
Affiliation: He is primarily concerned with looking out for number one, but he is highly protective of Cathleen. Secrecy doesn't matter to him because he can play the advantages on both sides; however, if he were forced to choose, he would pick against secrecy.
Appearance: Manus is of medium height at 5'8", and he has a lean, rangy frame. His hair is pale blond, and he always keeps it tidy. His face is angular, relatively handsome, and freckled with a close-cropped beard, and he sports a pair of chocolate-brown eyes that crinkle with deceptive warmth when he smiles. He typically dresses simply but elegantly for shop work, and dresses as practically as possible for field work. He has a gash scar on his right cheek.
Personality: Manus is not a particularly good person. While he is not overly cruel, greedy, or rude, he is quite manipulative and ruthless in the pursuit of his goals. He is very smart, and knows a lot about reading people - even without his mind-reading, he is excellent at picking up cues in peoples' expressions and body language. He is highly charismatic and subtle, and has a way of putting people at ease with displays of somewhat-feigned friendliness. In truth he is a rather outgoing person naturally, and enjoys making new acquaintances. He does have a healthy dose of paranoia, and always does his best to be prepared and on his guard. His temper is difficult to fully awaken, but heaven help you if you attract his hate - he has a sadistic streak that he freely displays to his enemies. However, while he will not hesitate to kill when it comes down to it, he has two rules that he will not break: number one, children are completely off limits to him and everyone else; number two, he will never turn his back on family.
History: Many years ago, a young woman from Dublin fell in love with a fair man who lived in the country. They shared their thoughts, their hearts, their arms, and at last their love, and from their union was born Manus's great-grandmother.
After a time, the young couple was forced to admit that they could not spend their lives together. The young woman carried her child away from the land where her heart had been broken and took her across the sea to a place called America, where they could find a new beginning. The Flynn family grew, but fate seemed bent on reducing its numbers through tragedy after tragedy. Manus grew up with few relatives save for his parents, his twin sister Keelin, and his great-grandmother Isolde. Both he and his sister were introduced to and encouraged to participate in the Seelie Court and its magic. Manus took keen interest and his natural fae skills were honed, while the magic made Keelin nervous. The two grew apart in opinions as they aged; however, they still maintained deep connection and love for each other.
Manus's parents passed not long after he entered adulthood, taken in a car wreck that sent him and Keelin into depression. Manus became sullen and reclusive, but Keelin was buoyed out of her sorrow by love. She found someone - a young man named Thomas Fletcher, with whom she quickly bonded. When Manus found out, he was furious - not only was Thomas a werecat, a group that Manus didn't trust; he was a gang member. While Thomas withdrew from his gang to be with Keelin, Manus never trusted him.
Not too long Keelin had a baby - a little girl named Cathleen - Thomas disappeared without a word. A decade later, Keelin's body was found in an alleyway on the edge of gang territory, with bullet holes in her chest and claw marks on her face. Manus, in a fit of sheer rage, killed the gang leader and then hunted down every werecat he could find. After covering his tracks with magic, he left the city. For the first time he turned his back on his family, walking away from his great-grandmother and young niece. He even left the Seelie Court, although that was mostly because one of Titania's - Titania being the Seelie queen - nobles had made a deal with one of the werecats, which the latter obviously could not deliver on because he was dead. The noble was furious, so Titania was forced to act. she chose to banish Manus from the Court, although she never forbade him the use of magic.
However, months later he received a message from his great-grandmother summoning him to her home. He went, and she announced that she was dying - and that she was leaving Cathleen in his care. Manus wanted nothing to do with the child, but he reluctantly took her under his wing. He now lives in an apartment above his ‘house of curiosities’ store, where he sells psychic readings and ‘magical’ items. He does keep true magical things, but these are quite expensive and exclusively for magical customers.
Weapons:
Wizard Staff: The staff is Manus's second constant companion. It is a long, straight pole carved from oak wood. A polished sphere of smoky quartz is set in the top of it.
Silver Blade: A silver knife that Manus keeps readily available in his pocket. It was given to him by Titania while he was under her service, and it has been enchanted to slip through most magical wards, from disguises to weak shields. Titania called it Solas, which means 'light' in Gaelic. Cathleen has taken to calling it Sting.
Abilities:
Eternal Youth: Manus will not physically age beyond his current state. Ever. However, he is not immortal and can be dispatched by mundane methods like bullets and falling off of a tall cliff.
Fae Magic: Thanks to the fae blood running in his veins, Manus is able to make good use of the magic of the Summer, or Seelie, Court. This magic has themes of giving, light, and summer. He primarily uses mind magic; however, he is currently training himself to better use fire and wind magic.
Mental Manipulation: And how. Manus is extremely good at cold reading, and is fully willing to use his magical prowess to break the sanctuary of someone's mind in order to gain information about them or bend them to his will.
Inhuman Grace: He doesn't show it much, but Manus is capable of moving with a lot more speed and agility than natural humans. He is also fairly strong and capable of healing more quickly than most - unless he is wounded by iron, of course.
Iron Aversion: Like most fairies, iron hurts him to touch (as in, he will break out into painful blisters on even the most fleeting contact), and he can sense its presence. He will actively avoid being near it when possible.
Other: While it doesn't hurt him to touch, rowan also acts as a fairy-deterrent and consuming the berries in any form would poison him. Also, he speaks with a faint but extant Irish accent.
Name: Cathleen Flynn.
Age: 16.
Gender: Female.
Race: Werecat - a mostly-human capable of transforming into a full-fledged feline. Cathleen in particular has the second form of a lioness, which she can turn into and change back from at will. She is able to transform into a semi-human 'half-stage' as well; however, this takes much more concentration than maintaining one form or the other. She also has extremely diluted (1/32) fairy blood, but because her fae powers were never honed, she only retains marginal benefits/weaknesses.
Affiliation: Her primary allegiance is to Manus, as he is her only family. She is anti-secrecy.
Appearance: Here's one picture, and here's another.
Cathleen's most striking feature is her rather large hair. It is shoulder-length, of a golden blond color, and it is exceedingly curly and puffy. Her face shape is generally round, and her eyes are blue. Her skin is naturally on the pale side thanks to her European lineage, although it has a slight caramel-type tint to it; however, her stocky build and 5'7" height seem to have come from her father. Her eyes are blue, and she has a habit of rubbing them, which means that the adjacent skin tends to be the color of whatever concoction she's mixing. As for clothes, she tends to wear T-shirts and shorts or jeans - anything goes for pants, provided there are lots of pockets. She wears a baggy black longcoat over her shirt most of the time, and is very rarely seen without her leather satchel, in which she stores herbs.
In lion form, Cathleen looks a bit more average - for a large feline, at any rate. She stands at lower-middle height for a young lion - about 3'3" at the shoulder - and has a sleek, tawny-gold pelt. Her eyes are brown, like those of any other lion, and she has a short ruff of darker fur on the back of her neck.
Personality: Cathleen is not particularly nice or outgoing. She is inclined toward introversion and usually will not speak unless spoken to, which is perfectly fine with her. In fact, most of the time she will avoid company altogether. She much prefers the company of her music, her thoughts, and her books to that of human beings. With friends, however, or when she is feeling energetic, Cathleen acts a good deal less prickly. She's quick with jokes and snappy comments, although her opinionated and sometimes vulgar remarks can be taken as insulting. Most of the time she tends not to care what others think of her, often unintentionally regarding others as unimportant. She gets huffy and impatient easily, but is slow to become actually angry. When she does, however, she can be quite rash and even violent. However, she has a deeper side that is caring and philosophical. Whenever she tries to cheer up a sad friend, she can be quite gentle and kind. She rarely ever shows this aspect of herself thanks to her lack of actual friends. She is not a particularly brave person and unless directly confronted, she avoids fights as well as she can. She has been known to go on long rants, mostly about her political opinions or how she hates to be called a lioness because she finds the term 'demeaning'.
History: Cathleen was born to a rather broken family. When she was born - way, way out of wedlock - her mother, an Irish-American part-fae, lived with her father, an African-American werecat and former gang member. However, she barely remembers her father, as he left without so much as a goodbye when she was still in diapers. Her mother was heartbroken, but she still did her best, raising Cathleen with a loving hand and teaching her not to trust magic because of the way she had seen it change her family.
When her mother was murdered by a gang, Cathleen was heartbroken. She went to live with her great-grandmother, until in turn the old woman passed on. She was then taken in by Manus, and currently resides with him and is enrolled in the eleventh grade at a nearby high school.
Weapons:
Pocket Knife: She keeps a small knife in her coat pocket. The blade is made of plain steel.
Potions: Your mileage may vary on how weaponly these are, but she does tend to have quite a few potions on her person at any given time. The more dangerous ones include varying poisons and mixtures that explode into fire or smoke when thrown on the ground.
Abilities:
Shapeshifting: Cathleen can, at any time, transform into a lion. She is still very bad at maintaining anything other than one full stage or the other; however, she is working on perfecting this skill.
Telepathy: At short distances (within 25 feet) Cathleen can send thought-messages to others. If someone concentrates on a particular thought, she can pick up on it as well.
Alchemy: Cathleen has a good deal of skill in the potion-making department of alchemy. She can make a broad range of brews, which have magic-like capabilities such as healing, causing sleep, and granting strength.
Animal Grace: Cathleen possesses more natural grace, speed, strength, and stamina than the average human, which is due more to her being a werecat than her fae ancestry.
Cold Reading: While she isn't as skilled as Manus, Cathleen is no slouch about discerning others' motives and emotions. She can generally tell what someone is feeling whether or not she knows them. Close friends are a lot easier for her to read.
Other: She is friends with a cat named Sable, a stray tuxedo tomcat with whom she sometimes talks. He has been known to follow her about.
Name: Heracles (goes by Thomas Archer).
Age: 28.
Gender: Male.
Race: Manticore. Manticores are creatures with lions' bodies, human faces, and trumpet-like voices through which they utilize magic. Depending on their ancestry, some manticores may have rams' horns, hooved hind-feet, bat-like wings, any combination thereof, or none at all. Manticores can use their magic to disguise themselves as human, but the strength of their disguise depends heavily on their magical competence.
Affiliation: Anti-secrecy, but not very actively. The people who hunt down non-humans without differentiating good and bad attract his special hatred.
Appearance:Spoiler:
Heracles is a big manticore, built broadly and standing at about 4'7" at the shoulder. He has a pair of batlike wings; he can use them to fly, but due to his heavy weight his flights tend to be short. His body is covered with light brown fur, while his mane and beard are much darker. His eyes are brown.
Thomas Archer, Heracles’s human persona, is a big man, standing at 6’3” with a broad build. His hair is short and dark brown, with the same little spike at the front. He still has the same facial features as he does in manticore form, retaining his bushy brows, brown eyes, pointed nose, and thick beard. He tends to dress in clothes that are warm and practical and picks things out in a subdued color palate.
Personality: By nature, Heracles tends to be introverted and prickly. While he's not deliberately rude, he doesn't have a particularly great sense of tact or diplomacy. He is generally patient, but his persistent problems tend to end in him getting violent, which usually happens whenever someone is bothering him and won't leave (Achilles). He has a fairly serious outlook on life, and tends not to joke except when around those closest to him. When he is in a comfortable environment, he's surprisingly calm and gentle, but can easily be switched back into grump mode again. He is stubborn and unshakably loyal to the few who he feels merit his friendship and trust, which is why he maintains a deep and abiding hate for the group that killed Helen. He won't hesitate to fight, but the only people he would kill are the aforementioned group.
History: Heracles was born in Blackpool, England to a family favorable in both in the eyes of mortals and of his fellow mythological beings. His parents were both manticores, and his father served in the Royal Air Force before being forced to retire thanks to a crippling leg injury that occurred while he was off-duty. For the most part, he had a good upbringing. While he had few friends due to his solitary nature, his school was fairly saturated with other closet magical creatures, who for the most part were fairly accepting of their own.
In his second year of primary school, he met a scrawny, wild-eyed manticore by the name of Achilles. Achilles proved to be the bane of Heracles's existence, pulling pointless pranks and pestering the bigger boy until Heracles finally snapped. The fistfight that followed lasted for only minutes; the bruises on Achilles lasted for a week and Heracles's guilt lasted for ages. Heracles apologized for the violence, and afterward the two became nigh-inseparable friends.
Once Heracles and Achilles were attending university, they became roommates. Achilles, ever the romantic, decided that Heracles needed a girlfriend. Heracles was less than enthusiastic, but before he knew what was going on he found himself on a date with a friend of Achilles and his family - a sphinx by the name of Helen. They bonded fast, stealing time together whenever possible. Heracles found his relationship with Achilles growing just a bit more distant, but he was busy with Helen and Achilles was busy with his magical studies. They talked less, but their friendship was still a good fallback for Heracles right up until the point where the fan was hit by the crap.
A group of monster hunters discovered Heracles's, Achilles's, and Helen's true identities and attacked them in the night. The battle left Achilles wounded, Heracles emotionally crushed, and Helen a corpse that was bloodied almost beyond recognition. Heracles became embittered, withdrawing from the world and despising nearly everyone in it. He shut out Achilles, who he blamed for Helen's death on the days that he didn't blame himself. Achilles never gave up, continuously trying to regain their lost friendship until finally Heracles lashed out in violence yet again, slashing Achilles across the face and scarring him permanently. This fight had the same effect as the one that began their friendship - it drove them closer together.
Currently, he resides in Blackpool, once more rooming with Achilles, making his living by playing guitar and setting up equipment at Achilles's gigs. However, the both of them are doing a good deal less of that now that these mutilations have begun. Heracles wants to find out if the people who killed Helen are behind these killings, as well, and if they are he wants to pay them a visit so as to rip out their organs with his teeth.
Weapons:
Pocket Knife: Heracles's only weapon, which he obtained at insistence from Achilles. It's made of iron and generally doesn't get used, since Heracles prefers to fight in his natural form.
Abilities:
Lion Skills: Like other lions, Heracles is a natural hunter and fighter. He's hardy and strong with sharp senses. However, also like other lions, he does require extra rest. Due to his broad, muscular build, he is stronger than many other manticores and can generally be relied upon to win physical fights.
Mace Tail: Manticores' tails are arguably their best natural weapon. They are not dextrous enough to grip things, but between their strength and the wicked spikes that tip them, they can be used to bludgeon people pretty effectively.
Song: All manticores possess some degree of musical talent; Heracles has a moderate voice. Through his magic, he can influence the world around him - creating barriers, blasts of force, reshaping the elements, or putting people to sleep with different tunes. The spell's effect depends on tempo and volume; something big like an explosion would have to be created by a very loud sound, for instance. If he is rendered incapable of making sounds, he cannot access his magic.
Applied Song: Long ago, manticores learned to use their song to shift into a human form. This form is created by a rather weak type of shapeshifting; if the human form is disturbed (either by magic or by the manticore taking some sort of damage) it will possibly fail, depending on the strength of the song that made it. If the manticore loses consciousness, he will definitely lose control and revert back.
Other: Has a British accent, for obvious reasons.
Name: Achilles (goes by Leonard Cole).
Age: 28.
Gender: Male.
Race: Manticore. Manticores are creatures with lions' bodies, human faces, and trumpet-like voices through which they utilize magic. Depending on their ancestry, some manticores may have rams' horns, hooved hind-feet, bat-like wings, any combination thereof, or none at all. Manticores can use their magic to disguise themselves as human, but the strength of their disguise depends heavily on their magical competence.
Affiliation: Decidedly against secrecy, although Heracles tends to temper his rasher impulses.
Appearance:Spoiler:
Achilles is a smallish manticore, standing at 4'2". His back legs resemble those of a draft horse. His body is covered with sandy-colored fur, while his mane is a rich gold color. His eyes are blue. He has four scars, like claw marks, on the bridge of his nose.
Leonard Cole, Achilles's human persona, is of average height and somewhat lean build, standing at 5'9". His hair is a rich blond color, cropped at shoulder length and kept in pristine condition – sometimes in a ponytail, sometimes left alone. His facial features are still pretty much the same, with the scars, blue eyes, large nose, and rosy cheeks carrying over to his human face, although in this form he has a line of stubble on his chin that isn’t normally there. He tends to dress in fashionable clothes, preferring to cap out whatever outfit he's wearing with a dark-gray fedora.
Personality: Achilles tends to be optimistic and extroverted. He is usually smiling, laughing, and telling jokes that are just toeing the line between what is and isn't appropriate. He's usually full of energy, which he likes to burn off through playful pranks or nights out on the town. He tends to be somewhat vain, and enjoys being the center of attention. It's very hard to get him angry, but when he's mad he will often lash out with words and claws. He's not much good with his fists or his claws, but he's very good with his song and therefore he's usually unafraid to fight. His confident, friendly nature makes him quite popular, and he is very charismatic and quick of with and tongue.
History: Achilles was born in Edinburgh, Scotland; his mother was a sphinx and his father was a manticore. When he was four years old, his mother died of a sudden illness, which prompted his father to move away from the painful memories. The two settled in the first place his father could find a good job in - Blackpool, England. There, Achilles attended a primary school where he met a fellow manticore who didn't talk much. When Achilles tried to draw him out of his shell, there was a brief fight. Afterwards, the manticore, whose name was Heracles, apologized and the two quickly became friends.
Achilles and Heracles attended the same university, where the hard-working Heracles and the party-loving Achilles both flourished. During their second year, Achilles noticed an acute lack of romance in Heracles’s direction and decided to help out his friend. He paired Heracles up with a family friend, a young sphinx named Helen. The two quickly fell for each other, which left Achilles plenty of time to study magic without feeling like a jerk for secluding himself during his magical studies.
It was these studies that enabled Achilles to survive and save Heracles's life when a group of monster hunters attacked their home. None of the hunters left alive; however, Helen was also killed in the fighting. Afterward, Achilles was guilt-ridden and struggled to make things right with Heracles. Heracles ended up resenting Achilles with his claws, slashing Achilles across the face, but afterward Heracles apologized and their shared bond recovered.
Achilles now resides in Blackpool, where he has built a name for himself locally as a talented singer. He opens for bigger bands or sings at bars for his living, while in his spare time he helps out with the anti-secrecy movement and joins Heracles in investigating the latent mutilations.
Weapons:
Enchanted Knife: Achilles keeps this on his person almost at all times. It's styled similarly to a Bowie knife, with a hilt wrapped in red leather. The blade itself is made of silver and enchanted with lots of ward-breaking magic that makes it useful for killing things like demons, monsters, and anything else that has soft, bleed-y bits.
Shotgun: A standard pump-action shotgun. It doesn't fire silver bullets, but it's very good at frightening away intruders with its recognizable noise and blowing away people who refuse to leave. Achilles keeps it near his bed for security.
Abilities:
Lion Skills: Like other lions, Achilles is a natural hunter and fighter. He's hardy and strong with sharp senses. However, also like other lions, he does require extra rest.
Mace Tail: Manticores' tails are arguably their best natural weapon. They are not dextrous enough to grip things, but between their strength and the wicked spikes that tip them, they can be used to bludgeon people pretty effectively.
Song: All manticores possess some degree of musical talent; however, Achilles's voice is among the strongest. Through his magic, he can influence the world around him - creating barriers, blasts of force, reshaping the elements, or putting people to sleep with different tunes. The spell's effect depends on tempo and volume; something big like an explosion would have to be created by a very loud sound, for instance. If he is rendered incapable of making sounds, he cannot access his magic.
Applied Song: Long ago, manticores learned to use their song to shift into a human form. This form is created by a rather weak type of shapeshifting; if the human form is disturbed (either by magic or by the manticore taking some sort of damage) it will possibly fail, depending on the strength of the song that made it. If the manticore loses consciousness, he will definitely lose control and revert back.
Other: Talks like a native Brit, but he can put on a convincing Scottish accent when he wants.
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