Terry
Name: Terrance 'Terry' HobsonGender: Male
Age: 30
Lineage: Yokai Human
Height & Weight: Five foot, Seven Inches (5'7")
Hair & Eye Color: Shaggy Black hair and Iridescent Eyes
Physical Description:
Terry isn't exactly imposing by any stretch of the imagination. He's lanky, appears malnourished and carries himself as if dread itself looms just over his shoulder. To the unaware, he's simply brooding and miserable. Those who do get to know him better will discover that he just has PUF (Perpetually Unimpressed Face).
That aside, Terry isn't exactly the type to stand out. His clothing consists, traditionally, of anything that's easy to slip into. Long sleeve, office-work styled shirts with the nice and crisp folds to compliment his typical black slacks. Every so often he'll mix things up with a different color shirt or pants, but the basics are there and as he prefers the simplicity, it isn't tough to guess what his daily attire will consist of. Plus, it's usually frowned upon when he goes out with no clothes on at all, so that's an issue as well.
The only staple of his wardrobe, something that is unchanging and ever-present is that Gods-Forsaken yellow tie of his. Mythological being of power, Demigod, God-Themselves or whomsoever else might be brave enough to insult the tie will, in all likelihood, have a slightly crazed demi-human attempting to strangle them with said tie. He has no reservations about removing it to help deliver some well-deserved beatings.
What makes him stand out, much to his disdain, are his unnatural eyes. At any point one can consider, he has no solid eye color, instead having a spectrum of colors that dance in varying forms. While there's no fancy designs or symbols that form, the colors tend to fade in and out from one color to another without end.
Likewise, Terry also only has three fingers on his left hand; His index, middle and thumb. Magic is unforgiving and he lost the fingers during a curious attempt at using magic to shift his hand and arm into a tentacle-like appendage. It worked, but the reversion didn't turn out so well. Currently, he believes the lost fingers are somewhere near his elbow, but he wouldn't admit that out loud.
His torso is also heavily scarred. Punctures, gouges, cuts and the like mar his body from the various incidents that happen from his use of magic.
https://imgur.com/nxgPzws - Rough idea
Alternate Form:
... Naked and confused...
Especially after drinking...
... That counts, right?
Skills: Terry is, surprisingly, capable of fighting. Maybe not with gods and other supernatural beings and definitely not toe-to-toe, but he can fight. Having dabbled in a few different martial arts, Terry has a horrific self-taught style that doesn't so much highlight the best points, but moreover, displays the absolute incongruity of his ability to combine things cohesively.
One would think, by watching him, that he didn't gently adopt different styles. Instead, watching him fight would make one believe he waited in a dark alley with a club, beat the poor, formal combat style over the head and rifled through their pockets for spare techniques and forms to put together. What's worse is that it seems to work surprisingly well.
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Another of Terry's skills is an adaptive ability that borders on supernatural, but isn't. Terry's head is screwed on, right or wrong is debatable, but he seems capable of reviewing things and making sense of it in his own way. Often times, this either ends very well or very poorly, the latter involving an explosion or some kind of mess. Often times, this is used in conjunction with magic... Or the loose definition of it. Seeing something happen is amazing, though describing it can be an issue. Recreating the event can be equally entertaining as well, if only for the modicum of happiness it brings Terry when he can stick-it to evolution and creation-tactics.
For this, Terry just needs to over-analyze something and figure out a spell method to recreate elements of an event. Maybe it's a flower blooming, or creating some sort of pocket dimension to store water...
Who knows, who cares. Terry can basically analyze something and bastardize a way to make a spell out of it.
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Crafting, but not your typical stuff. While he's learned to sew and isn't precisely horrible with a whittling knife, Terry's crafting ability relates to something a little less obvious; Magic crafting. While the premise of a magical item varies, Terry's strength is in gathering magical energies and imbuing said energy into items, allowing those items to either grant powers or abilities to those who carry them.
Now, as might be obvious, Terry's not a professional nor does he have much in the way of massive reserves of power from which he can draw upon. That said, Terry does have patience and a steady hand for his art, allowing him to create some surprising masterpieces. Some temporary and crumbling after use, some lasting much longer than expected.
Terry doesn't precisely know what to do with most of the things he creates, however. One beautiful, if sad example, is his *Ring of Chair Manifesting*. He's lazy, so being able to more or less manifest a chair underneath him is always a bonus. Another unusual creation was his *Amulet of Ignorance*, which grants him selective hearing... Literally, the amulet can hold up to five words and can be changed with a ten minute procedure and, the result? It literally blocks out the given words, allowing him to easily feign ignorance since he didn't actually hear the word.
Another fun little creation of his happens to be the *Timeless Light*, which happens to be a surprising source of light he keeps at his bedside. The little lamp is enshrouded in a gray field, the time around it stopped indefinitely. How he managed it is a very good question and how it functions is also a great question, but his lips are sealed on this. All it does, however, is ensure the light source is always potent and never ends... It might even survive in the depths of Hell itself.
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Powers: Magic?
Sure, we could call it that. The subtle art of weaving the essence of reality and causality to alter the current aspect and/or fixed elements of the world around us to create a more suitable and preferable outcome.
Terry can cast magic. He's been trained since he was young and didn't get much rest until he was older and wiser and much, much more pessimistic. The body can only do so much, while theoretically, the mind is infinite. He has no interest in pursuing immortality through magic because, in his eyes, that leads to Necromancy and that's typically frowned upon. He won't shy away from understanding it, but casting that stuff is bad juju.
He can gather a ball of gas, spark it and launch it at an enemy. He can gather moisture, freeze and sharpen it, then hurl it at someone. He can try to cause a bolt of lightning to strike someone, but that one's actually kind of tough since clear skies make that substantially harder and electromagnetic manipulation isn't precisely artistic... Magic doesn't help him there.
Terry's worth as a magician lies in his crafting of artifacts. They aren't immensely powerful by godly standards, but he's skilled and knows how to make them work for him. As it goes, his skill with magic impacts his crafting talents, so he's constantly keeping his magic sharp and ready for use.
Given time, Terry could, theoretically, create magical items that can wound or kill gods and be considered immensely powerful. The drawbacks are numerous, amongst them being that such powerful items could take eons to make, the likes of which his lifespan might not allow for.
Vulnerabilities: Naturally, as a demi-human, Terry is squishy and often seen as a tastier snack, compared to average humans. Not even magic can help in this regard. Where his more supernatural counterparts can actually survive the end of the world (maybe), he's definitely not. In all honesty, he doesn't really want to, but that's a whole different can of worms to deal with.
Likewise, Terry's often a little rough on the approach. Having spent most of his life with his head in the books and very little in the way of interactions, Terry tends to be rather blunt. Subtlety isn't a strength and reading the room tends to be a hit-and-miss scenario... Funerals are not a good place for him unless it's his own.
His fears are a hard one to specifically place. One can definitely sense an appreciation for life and those who've seen it happen still have a hard time believing that Terry could be as reckless as he has been. Terry has almost completely thrown away his will to live when it comes to seeing someone die and just setting foot in a hospital or such as caused him to completely seize up, overwhelmed by the notion of the countless people who've died, are dying or are yet to die. There might be some sort of mental strain or such that his Yokai half resonates with, but that's likely more a side-effect of his powers than an actual ability itself.
He also has Nyctophobia, a fear of the dark. To this end, he sleeps with lights on and has even gone so far as to ensure he has a small lighter on hand, along with a flashlight and other means with which to create a source of light. However, if he can't create or find a light source, he tends to become irrational, jumping at shadows and often becoming much more hostile. Some would surmise it's a side-effect of magic in his body, others might suggest it's a developed fear from so much isolation.
Backstory:
For the most part, the easiest way of explaining the shit-show that is Terry is that his parentage is half-Youkai.
Youkai take their existence from Japanese Yokai, who encompass a broad spectrum of ghosts, demons and spiritual beings.
They didn't lead an extravagant, exorbitant life, however. Terry was raised in the backwoods and while his heritage isn't exactly being hidden, they do what's needed to hide their obviously non-human sides from anything or anyone that isn't, themselves, unnatural.
Most of Terry's contacts are beings from the Winter Court as well as the odd set of Oni and other Yokai that his parents introduced him to.