Name: Shadowbourne
True Name: Anton Jakova
Occupation: Courier/Smuggler, Part-Time Demon Hunter
Alignment: Unprincipled (previously Anarchist)
Age: 27  Identifies: Male
Height: Six foot, two inches. Weight: 169 lbs.
Description: It is easy to miss Anton. Nothing about him sticks out, other than thin and tall. His face, while neither ugly nor handsome, easily blends into the background. Upon a closer look, one will see there are some things that out slightly more than ordinary. His wide eyes, a deep emerald, are just slightly larger than normal. His limbs seem just a little too long, with long fingers and slim feet. His hair is an odd smoky color that looks gray, then steel, then black, and yet, all three at once. His left arm displays an inked sleeve that is exotic and eccentric, a swirling mass of talons, runes and shards.

When he unleashes the Deevil within, an infernal edge becomes more evident. His whole form lengthens, sleekens. His eyes darken as they fill with swirling shadows while in the light, yet glow with an inner light while in shadows. A pair of thin, elegant horns sweep back along his head, sharpened spiral edges black as midnight. His ears taper back to points, paralleling the horns. His hair is now a wispy mass of smoky shadows that swirl with the slightest movement. Flowing behind him is a long, barbed devils-tail, twitching like a cats. His feet now terminate into a pair of razor sharp cloven hooves. Finally, his inked sleeve is now an amalgamation of tattoo and scarification, with actual talons and shards embedded in his skin, all of it with glowing, pulsing runes. This is now the Hex/Scar, a reminder of what sacrifices he has made and of what he will make.

As Shadowbourne, he is encased in a devilish battle robe with the left pectoral bare as well as no sleeve on the left side. The right side and the rest of the torso is an asymmetrical series of ribbing and skeletal bracework and leather in black and burgundy. Layered all along is a series of sheathes with varying knives, everything from Kunai to Karambits, with a larger pair of Karambits cross in the small of his back. The twin tattered tails of the battle robe allow his tail to move freely between them, while his legs are encase in Gothic-Style armoring up to his mid thighs, yet still leaving his hooves free. The armoring is engraved with the same runic symbols as the Hex/Scar, continuing the binding. These symbols are even larger on his back, creating a larger rune with their arrangement.

Courier, Runner, Smuggler...all of the above. Anton Jakova's life was one of always moving from one place to another. And for his Bratva brotherhood, it was his sworn duty. Anton remembers very little of his childhood, not his Mother, not his Father and nothing of family. Only coldness and hunger...Anton only remembers the streets, and running and hiding, two things he was very good at. Had not one of the Khailo Bratva noticed his particular gift in these areas, who knows what his life would have been like.

Adopted by the Khailo, they put Anton's skills to use immediately. They brought him, made him family...and in return, he would do what he did best for his new brothers. He would run, he would hide, all while making sure that what he was carrying got to where it needed to be.

It was during The Event that everything changed. Like always, Anton was on a run, delivering a package to a new, different drop off. Right before he was drop off the package and return home, Magic erupted, the Old Ways burst back into the World. As it did, the package broke apart, shattering outward and enveloping him is a misty darkness. The sudden expansion threw Anton off balance and he slipped off a high roof he was traversing, plunging him into a deadly fall.

Time slowed for Anton as the darkness swirled around him, beginning to take shape. Up and around, over and under, it solidified into something sinister and deadly...something angry...something hungry. Tearing into him, Anton fought back. Anton has always been a fighter...a survivor, and falling to his death would not change that fact. It was not in his nature. It would never be in his nature to give up. As the falling courier and the hungry shadow, the shattered parts of the once vessel fell with them, orbiting them with a purpose...waiting for a moment. The exact moment.

Even as they tore into each other a mental exchange, a dialogue, ensued...an engagement that was neither friendly nor civil...

DIE, DIE, DIE...
NO, Not Today, Not By You!...
I will not be Shackled!...
I will NOT BEND, I WILL NOT DIE!...
You WILL BE MINE!!!!...
I am NO ONE'S...
You  will be the PRISONER!...
I will be The WARDEN!!!!...

In that moment, time stopped...everything stopped. Except for the Vessel Shards. They sped up, glowing with Arcane Energy. As they swirled, they swept up the living shadow, shredding it back into wisps. When the last traces of the Shadowbeast were dispersed, the shards slammed into Anton's falling form, impacting...embedding into his flesh.

Time regained providence. And what had felt like an eternal battle was less than a heartbeat. Eyes dilating, something triggered in Anton. In the next heartbeat, Anton was no longer falling. He was sliding down the building and then across the pavement. Which in turn became sliding up and out, as if emerging from a body of water. Staggering for a few steps, he turns and look back...and up. He had been on top of a twelve story building. He should be dead...he should be...

Looking at himself, what he could, he saw strange shards of something lodged in skin...no fused. Shards with glowing runes on them. Interlaced between the shards are a webbing of scars from something with talons or claws?!?!? Confused, dazed, he shakes his head again. This time he looks over at the side of another building, into the reflective windows. The reflection that stared back was a figure of hellish origins with horns, tails and hooves.

At first, there was shock. Then anger. And finally resolve. Whatever he had been carrying, IT had contained something that shouldn't be free. Something that was not contained within him. No...not contained, Imprisoned. And he? He was not it's jailer, it's Warden. Deep within him was a Devil. An evil that was even now screaming for release. A Beast kept at bay by forces Anton did not understand. Forces that Anton did not understand, but ones that he would soon learn to master. Looking back towards building once more, Anton's body shivered as it returned to it human form. With, at first timid steps, and then determined strides, he headed home. This time seeking answers, seeking knowledge. For the first time, he would seek answers instead of approval. This time there would be a reckoning.

The discovery that Magic had returned revealed that his former brothers had been dealing in illegal artifacts. Artifacts that should not have been in hands that didn't understand them. What he discovered when he returned home was a decimated charnnel house. Something, someone had been here first. Most likely something like what was residing in him. Something that had not been fettered. Something that was now free in the World. If he was to seek answers. If he was to seek reasons, he would have to hunt afar to find them. He would have to hunt down those like his brothers,  things like the one inside of him.

Over the next few years, stories, urban legends of demon of shadows would begin to crop up. They would tell of a horrific beast that like smoke in the wind, a shadows that you could never find. A thing that would arrive where great evil was, only for that evil to disappear and the demon of shadow with it. On the streets, they would utter its name as a warding against atrocities...Beware The Shadowbourne, for it will carry away the Evil you are...