Re: The Fearsome Encounter (GBS3G8) [Signups!]
08-07-2011, 04:53 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by ch00_bakka.
Username: Ch00_bakka
Name: Anders "Desert Lion" Loeb
Gender: Male
Race: Human (Werecougar)
Colour: ffcc77. His fur color, I guess. I dunno.
Biography: Anders was born to a middle-class family in California in the early 60s. He excelled in school, and was called "gifted" and even "a genius". He graduated from high school at the top of his class, and was accepted to Harvard, where he did just as well. He studied native American cultures, specifically how they survived (hunting, making fires, how they moved their camps), as well as genealogy, specifically of various royal families, and often went to the southwest to live in the desert for weeks on end in graduate school, supposedly on research trips.
This, however, was only the excuse he gave his colleagues and professors. In reality, he was hunting. He liked hunting the wild animals native to the area, mainly deer and coyotes, but he didn't want any of his colleagues to think he was going on vacation, so he used his area of expertise to justify these trips. He had built a cabin up in the hills of New Mexico on one of these trips, and he kept his trophies there. He never wasted any part of the animal, always using all of the organs and skin, often to make tools (he always used only what he had saved after the first few trips) or clothing (he only brought a single change of clothing - the rest had to be hand-made out of leather). When he had finished his PhD, he stayed there full-time, surviving on wild animals and what he could grow in the area around his cabin. He became known in the area as the harmless mountain man, and the people in the towns around would tell stories about his "legendary exploits". He was almost a folk hero after fifteen years or so, and people would sometimes leave little caches of cheese, bread, or other things he couldn't easily get in the wilderness around his cabin. People would tell tourists about him.
Then, after he had been living in the wilds for about 20 years, a young girl disappeared. She was Irene Angelita Velez, a sophomore in high school. Her parents were immigrants from Mexico, and most of her ancestors had been native Mexicans, who had lived in the area her parents emigrated from for hundred of years before the Spaniards arrived. She was a direct descendent of a noble Aztec line. The police tried to find her. They interrogated everyone who had been in contact with her recently. Her friends. Her boyfriend. Eventually, they went to Anders' cabin in the woods, and he allowed them to search it. They found nothing out of the ordinary (at least for Anders), and left. He moved his cougar-skin rug, opened the trapdoor, and went down to the caves below the house. Irene was in there, strapped to an altar, dead. Her heart had been torn out. The charred remains were in the pile of ashes in a nearby brazier. Anders cleaned up his mess, sewed her up, and dumped her body in a canyon fifty miles away.
This was not the first. He had killed two others, one in California and one at Harvard, both with their hearts ripped out and burned and their bodies sewn up afterwards. He had started to study Mesoamerican culture in high school, and had learned about the Cult of the Desert Lion. This cult had kidnapped young noblewomen, and torn their hearts out, exactly as Anders had to those three girls. This had supposedly given them the abilities of a great cat. Anders was intrigued. He learned more and more about this cult, and finally tried their methods for himself, on a girl in his school who was distantly related to a British lord. He felt a small jolt of power as he burned the heart, and when he completed the process, mixing the ashes with cat blood and drinking them, he felt an even larger jolt. He was much more agile after the first murder, and the second one gave him much better senses, of smell and hearing. The last one, Irene Velez, would be his key to great success. He had the cougar blood prepared, stored in a jar in the cave. The ashes had already been gathered. He mixed them, and drank. And collapsed to the ground. He writhed on the floor for a while, as changes wracked his body, and when he finally got up, he was no longer a human. His teeth had grown into fangs, his ears had moved back on his head and grown pointed, claws sprouted from his fingers, and fur grew all over his body. His ritual was complete. He shuddered, and the changes reversed themselves. Again, and he was the monster. Once more, in a slightly different way, and he collapsed onto all fours, becoming a full cat. Then back to human. He smiled. Things were looking up.
Description: Human form: Anders is a reasonably attractive man, behind the scruffy mountain man beard and caked-on grime. He's about six feet tall, blond, and has brown eyes with highly reflective pupils, which is quite unnerving in a human, and is the only obvious sign of his "condition" in human form. He is obviously very fit, and moves fluidly, with catlike grace. His beard is about half a foot long, and has a little bit of caked on blood (he was taken to the battle right after a hunt in monster-form, before he had a chance to clean up). He wears loose leather pants, held on by a belt made of a long hempen rope, and goes shirtless and shoeless, because those would just get in the way. His rather quiver and his bow are held on by a strap that goes across his chest, and will stay on in monster or cat form.
Monster form: In this form, Anders has elongated teeth, a more catlike face, and golden fur that covers his while body. His pants stay on in this form. He's about 5'10", but only because he's perpetually hunched over in this form, and if he stood all the way up he would be closer to 6'3". His hands and feet have retractable claws, and he's faster and more agile in this form.
Cat form: He's a cougar. Not much else to say. Yellow fur. Sharp claws. Big nasty pointy teeth. His front paws are a little more useful than a normal cat's, and he has a large straggly clump of fur on his chin, but apart from that he looks like a normal cougar.
Items/Abilities: Well, first he's a werecougar. He can change between the three forms at will, but it takes him about twenty seconds to complete the change and another ten to recover. He has a bow and a quiver full of arrows, which he can shoot extremely well, and a hatchet hidden in the quiver, which he can throw or use to attack at close range. He also has a hunting dagger in his belt, which is the knife he used to perform all of the rituals. It has no special powers. He can use his bow and trow his hatchet and knife well in human mode, and his bow and knife throwing skills decline in monster mode. He can still throw his hatchet and use both dagger and hatchet at close range well in monster mode. In monster and cougar mode, he has retractable claws and sharp teeth. If he manages to kill a young royal woman, burn her heart, etc, etc, he will get even more power. But that is unlikely to happen.
Username: Ch00_bakka
Name: Anders "Desert Lion" Loeb
Gender: Male
Race: Human (Werecougar)
Colour: ffcc77. His fur color, I guess. I dunno.
Biography: Anders was born to a middle-class family in California in the early 60s. He excelled in school, and was called "gifted" and even "a genius". He graduated from high school at the top of his class, and was accepted to Harvard, where he did just as well. He studied native American cultures, specifically how they survived (hunting, making fires, how they moved their camps), as well as genealogy, specifically of various royal families, and often went to the southwest to live in the desert for weeks on end in graduate school, supposedly on research trips.
This, however, was only the excuse he gave his colleagues and professors. In reality, he was hunting. He liked hunting the wild animals native to the area, mainly deer and coyotes, but he didn't want any of his colleagues to think he was going on vacation, so he used his area of expertise to justify these trips. He had built a cabin up in the hills of New Mexico on one of these trips, and he kept his trophies there. He never wasted any part of the animal, always using all of the organs and skin, often to make tools (he always used only what he had saved after the first few trips) or clothing (he only brought a single change of clothing - the rest had to be hand-made out of leather). When he had finished his PhD, he stayed there full-time, surviving on wild animals and what he could grow in the area around his cabin. He became known in the area as the harmless mountain man, and the people in the towns around would tell stories about his "legendary exploits". He was almost a folk hero after fifteen years or so, and people would sometimes leave little caches of cheese, bread, or other things he couldn't easily get in the wilderness around his cabin. People would tell tourists about him.
Then, after he had been living in the wilds for about 20 years, a young girl disappeared. She was Irene Angelita Velez, a sophomore in high school. Her parents were immigrants from Mexico, and most of her ancestors had been native Mexicans, who had lived in the area her parents emigrated from for hundred of years before the Spaniards arrived. She was a direct descendent of a noble Aztec line. The police tried to find her. They interrogated everyone who had been in contact with her recently. Her friends. Her boyfriend. Eventually, they went to Anders' cabin in the woods, and he allowed them to search it. They found nothing out of the ordinary (at least for Anders), and left. He moved his cougar-skin rug, opened the trapdoor, and went down to the caves below the house. Irene was in there, strapped to an altar, dead. Her heart had been torn out. The charred remains were in the pile of ashes in a nearby brazier. Anders cleaned up his mess, sewed her up, and dumped her body in a canyon fifty miles away.
This was not the first. He had killed two others, one in California and one at Harvard, both with their hearts ripped out and burned and their bodies sewn up afterwards. He had started to study Mesoamerican culture in high school, and had learned about the Cult of the Desert Lion. This cult had kidnapped young noblewomen, and torn their hearts out, exactly as Anders had to those three girls. This had supposedly given them the abilities of a great cat. Anders was intrigued. He learned more and more about this cult, and finally tried their methods for himself, on a girl in his school who was distantly related to a British lord. He felt a small jolt of power as he burned the heart, and when he completed the process, mixing the ashes with cat blood and drinking them, he felt an even larger jolt. He was much more agile after the first murder, and the second one gave him much better senses, of smell and hearing. The last one, Irene Velez, would be his key to great success. He had the cougar blood prepared, stored in a jar in the cave. The ashes had already been gathered. He mixed them, and drank. And collapsed to the ground. He writhed on the floor for a while, as changes wracked his body, and when he finally got up, he was no longer a human. His teeth had grown into fangs, his ears had moved back on his head and grown pointed, claws sprouted from his fingers, and fur grew all over his body. His ritual was complete. He shuddered, and the changes reversed themselves. Again, and he was the monster. Once more, in a slightly different way, and he collapsed onto all fours, becoming a full cat. Then back to human. He smiled. Things were looking up.
Description: Human form: Anders is a reasonably attractive man, behind the scruffy mountain man beard and caked-on grime. He's about six feet tall, blond, and has brown eyes with highly reflective pupils, which is quite unnerving in a human, and is the only obvious sign of his "condition" in human form. He is obviously very fit, and moves fluidly, with catlike grace. His beard is about half a foot long, and has a little bit of caked on blood (he was taken to the battle right after a hunt in monster-form, before he had a chance to clean up). He wears loose leather pants, held on by a belt made of a long hempen rope, and goes shirtless and shoeless, because those would just get in the way. His rather quiver and his bow are held on by a strap that goes across his chest, and will stay on in monster or cat form.
Monster form: In this form, Anders has elongated teeth, a more catlike face, and golden fur that covers his while body. His pants stay on in this form. He's about 5'10", but only because he's perpetually hunched over in this form, and if he stood all the way up he would be closer to 6'3". His hands and feet have retractable claws, and he's faster and more agile in this form.
Cat form: He's a cougar. Not much else to say. Yellow fur. Sharp claws. Big nasty pointy teeth. His front paws are a little more useful than a normal cat's, and he has a large straggly clump of fur on his chin, but apart from that he looks like a normal cougar.
Items/Abilities: Well, first he's a werecougar. He can change between the three forms at will, but it takes him about twenty seconds to complete the change and another ten to recover. He has a bow and a quiver full of arrows, which he can shoot extremely well, and a hatchet hidden in the quiver, which he can throw or use to attack at close range. He also has a hunting dagger in his belt, which is the knife he used to perform all of the rituals. It has no special powers. He can use his bow and trow his hatchet and knife well in human mode, and his bow and knife throwing skills decline in monster mode. He can still throw his hatchet and use both dagger and hatchet at close range well in monster mode. In monster and cougar mode, he has retractable claws and sharp teeth. If he manages to kill a young royal woman, burn her heart, etc, etc, he will get even more power. But that is unlikely to happen.
Spoiler