Name: Adder (Adoreniel Iledien)
Age: 18 [updated November 2015]
Birthday: November 8
Gender: Male
Race: Wolf Spirit, probably cross
Category: Student
Class: High School
Grade: Twelve*
Appearance Description:
Adder is not the sort of person that can easily be described in detail, or photographed. He rarely stays still, especially when he feels closed in or contained. Something might catch his attention for a few moments, but it only takes the implication of something for him to shift.
Adder radiates his ferality as much as he smells of wolf and smoke and stone. It's all the little things, like the perfect balance of his weight, forward on his feet with his toes spread for grip. The tiny quick flicks of his harshly yellow eyes, his pupils narrowed but not quite slitted. How every joint is held at an easy angle, even at apparent rest, so that he can spring into movement in any direction necessary.
He isn't particularly large, honestly closer to five and a half feet than six, and is edge-of-starvation lean between his muscles. Fat is foreign, even on the rare occasions he's been able to nick something that has any fat in it. His limbs are relatively long, and well-textured between his uninsulated muscles and the uncountable scars leaving whitish flecks in his pale sandy skin. Honestly, his skin looks like there is dirt permanently ground into it, and there probably is. Go a decade without bathing and that'll happen. His hair is a few shades darker, just a ragged, dull light brown that is almost sarcastically suited to its usual knife-hacked style.
Adder's hands and feet are equally calloused, tough and muscled; he refuses outright to wear shoes at this point unless his feet get cold. His hand strength is more impressive than his lifting ability, to be completely honest, and he can hang by one hand in open space for close to an hour if he needs to.
He's needed to.
He can also pick up things with his toes nearly as well as with his hands, and toss them up with excellent accuracy. He can't quite throw a knife at someone and kill them using only his feet, but he did once use his feet to break out of a pair of handcuffs.
Adder has slightly pointed, narrow ears that don't look like they should be able to move much but do, sharply angled eyes lined in black like makeup - ask if it is and he'll get pretty irritated - that trails down the sides of his nose. If it seems animalistic, that's because it is, just like his eyes are very much those of a wild animal. And his teeth; those follow the pattern of a canine, with carnassials rather than molars and round, powerful eyeteeth. His nose has been broken but set very well, all things considered, and the bump is only apparent up close.
Faint burn scars, shiny-smooth, brush his ankles and shoulders. There are many other scars over them now, but they were his first injuries worse than scraped knees and elbows. They were the first injuries he had to deal with entirely on his own.
Personality Description: Adder doesn't show much of himself to strangers. He is suspicious of everyone, but rarely perceives them as real threats - and even more rarely expresses that he does. He bluffs and pretends to shrug things off like they don't affect him. Like he can just slip out of something's grasp regardless of what it is or whether or not he deserves it. In the past, he has been able to.
For someone who seems to think he's invincible, though, Adder sleeps a lot. When he's asleep, things are different. His skin might still be tensed against attack or intrusion, prepared for opportunity, but he dreams. He dreams of things he's never seen, like open fields and dark forests. He can smell things he's only scented from people, never from their source. Pine needles, crisp and green and caked with just-melting ice. Sandy soil streaked with clay beneath the surface, torn free from a net of grass roots and the tangy sweetness of the torn plants.
Adder isn't looking to be tamed, but he is lonely. It isn't something he can admit, or even recognize - he has always been alone, and lonely, and has a history of running into trouble when he made the mistake of trying to get closer to people. It doesn't help that he doesn't know how to interact with people beyond assessing them for immediate threat and opportunity. Adder is a thief and has lived on city streets for his entire life. He will take things that support his own survival. He will not apologize for it, or for hurting people in order to survive himself.
When he isn't actively hungry or injured or exhausted or anything else directly tied to survival, Adder is curious and likes sticking his nose into places it doesn't seem to belong. He wants to know how things work, what things do, what things are. He wants to be clean and sleep in the sun on something soft. He wants to sit on a rooftop and watch the stars set and not worry about being yelled at. He wants to be able to touch people without trying to hurt them.
He doesn't want to huddle through nightmares in the dark. He doesn't want to wonder if he's going to die of starvation or murder first, or if some injury is going to get infected and slowly rot him from the inside out. He doesn't like domestic dogs, and they rarely like him. Horses are worse; they can smell the wolf in him. He's actually been on pretty good terms with some cats, mostly street cats who know their territory. He understands territories and resources and shelter. He understands living on the streets, living in someone else's world and just trying to get by without being noticed too much.
Powers: City Wolf
How do you know a wolf is a wolf when it doesn't wear a pelt? For Adder, that's harder to define than the differences between his body and someone else's. Those differences are primarily passive in nature, and very much in line with an instinctive perspective. Furthermore, the abilities and talents that are most obvious to Adder are not those that are most obvious to others.
Adder is most aware of his ability to identify individuals well beyond say, the shape of their face and the sound of their voice. His nose is sensitive to people's souls, rather than simply their flesh. Being able to smell someone's flesh doesn't make much sense among spirits, after all, and Adder is descended from a spirit. His nose is pretty good, all in all, though there are definitely people with more sensitive sniffers out there and much of his mundane-scent-detection ability is simply a matter of practice and inclination. His ability to scent people's souls depends on: the air currents in the area, much like regular scenting; contact between the soul and solid objects; and the vibrancy and size of the soul. It is entirely possible to hide a soul from him - even a drastic change in mood is enough to make his identification uncertain, and experienced individuals with excellent self-control can often shield themselves from him as well.
More material than his nose, his ears are quite acute. Partially boosted by their mobility, partially boosted by the canine influence inside, his hearing is not as sharp as a good-eared dog but he can definitely pick up on small sounds: more mouse in the next room than mouse across the house, but if he knew the difference between a mouse and a vole he could probably pick up on it. He is more susceptible to painfully loud noises than a human with common hearing.
Other than sensory abilities, wolves are widely known for one thing in particular: they can run nigh on forever. Adder's stamina is, like his nose, a combination of practice and power. He is very much naturally inclined for marathons, or even extended sprints, and he doesn't tire quickly even if he ever manages to get out of shape. He is also, of course, in good physical shape considering that food has long been in short supply.
The last of Adder's passive boosts is a reinforced immune system. He can eat things that are a bit more rotten than would be safe for a human, although much rot will still mess with his guts and the smell alone is plenty capable of turning his stomach. This also extends to wounds, and an open gash is unlikely to fester unless intentionally smeared with particularly nasty bacteria. He can get sick, but tends to recover quickly from most minor diseases.
Wolf Inside
Adder's final ability is sort of what shows him off as wolf the most. When he can slip into the right frame of mind - when he is truly thinking like a social predator, whether he intends it or not - his spirit actually shifts into a two-tailed wolf. His physical body doesn't change, but those who can see beyond the physical will see him surrounded by white fur banded with muddy brown markings. This form can only be maintained as long as he is absolutely alert, focused, and every bone and muscle and nerve in his body is in agreement. It is a matter of will, but he can't simply decide to do it any more than he can simply decide to be calm - or any less.
This wolf form does more than look pretty (ish) to anyone with the right senses, which is good because Adder isn't particularly aware of his own appearance at the best of times. There are simply more important things to pay attention to than such pointless things as his eye colour. Most significant to Adder is the physical boosts: his flesh might remain more or less human, but his speed and agility are boosted such that he can move like a wolf. He won't be jumping over any buildings but going from lying on the floor to tearing your arm open? That's more his style anyway.
Adder's native immunity boost gets kick-started into a true healing factor for as long as he can maintain his spirit mode. Broken bones? Just give him a minute and he'll be fine. Blood loss is a little rougher, and he can't quite keep up with true arterial spurting but he's not too far off. It definitely buys him time to help it clot, at least, and from there he's fine.
What is easily the most overwhelming, though, is how his nose and ears work together to just soak his brain in information. Pheromones. The slightest waver in a heartbeat. The number of heartbeats, their relative distances and sizes and strengths. Creaking joints. That first prick of cold sweat. That can of tuna someone just opened down the hall, and both the species and the type of canning process. Basically, if it sends a particle or a vibration into the air (and it isn't a spectacularly low or high wavelength; he can't hear radio waves or anything, and dog whistles are the top of his range) he will notice it.
And yes, he does tend to develop a very nasty headache the longer he sticks in spirit mode and the less comfortable he is with the level of stimulation.
Biography: Adder's parents died when he was barely five. He hid in the cellar while strangers forced their way into the apartment. He hid while they screamed, and while they burned.
He ran out through the flames, fast enough to keep his flesh from melting in the heat but not fast enough to get out unharmed. There were people waiting in the street. Waiting to be sure no one made it out alive.
Adder's first real injuries and the foundation for his distrust of everyone came in the same night.. He took the hands reaching for him, the leering eyes and jeering smiles and raised swords, and he took it close to heart. People were not to be trusted. People were dangerous.
As a child, Adder had difficulty pronouncing his given name. His parents called him 'Addy.' That quickly morphed to 'Adder' as he grew, surviving on the streets with a feral viciousness, an absolute need that rivalled the worst of the dogs that roamed the alleys. He competed with the dogs even more than the people on the streets, and nearly had his throat ripped out by a massive shepherd at ten.
He ate dog for the next two days. It was the first time he'd had leftovers since his parents had been killed.
His next seven long years continued in much the same haze, really. Kill or be killed. Steal or starve. Survive in a world that didn't want him to exist. Move from one neighbourhood to another, know the law enforcement and how to handle each when they were alone or in a group. Know how different groups of individuals reacted with different individuals present, with different situations, with different moods. Adder was smart. That was how he survived.
He couldn't get by alone forever, though. He'd had to destroy a couple of bottom feeder gangs when he drifted too close, only to be betrayed. Him or them. He always chose himself.
And then he got caught, and that choice dangled out of reach. It wasn't a gang that had caught him finally, nor police. It was some rich guy. Some rich guy who suspected he had known Adder's parents, and was taking some heat for not being philanthropic enough. So he set a literal trap, and threw a bag over Adder while he was literally hanging by an ankle.
Adder was not pleased about this, and to be honest his captors probably weren't too thrilled with him either. It took a month to get Adder calm enough to actually send him onwards without having a hundred percent chance that he'd just rip someone's face off trying to escape.
Going to school and living in a consistent place are going to be quite the adjustment. At least he can say he can read; he had the basics from his parents, and with the basics he could keep learning on the streets. There was a lot of information to be gleaned from written words.
Additional Information:
Age: 18 [updated November 2015]
Birthday: November 8
Gender: Male
Race: Wolf Spirit, probably cross
Category: Student
Class: High School
Grade: Twelve*
Appearance Description:
Adder is not the sort of person that can easily be described in detail, or photographed. He rarely stays still, especially when he feels closed in or contained. Something might catch his attention for a few moments, but it only takes the implication of something for him to shift.
Adder radiates his ferality as much as he smells of wolf and smoke and stone. It's all the little things, like the perfect balance of his weight, forward on his feet with his toes spread for grip. The tiny quick flicks of his harshly yellow eyes, his pupils narrowed but not quite slitted. How every joint is held at an easy angle, even at apparent rest, so that he can spring into movement in any direction necessary.
He isn't particularly large, honestly closer to five and a half feet than six, and is edge-of-starvation lean between his muscles. Fat is foreign, even on the rare occasions he's been able to nick something that has any fat in it. His limbs are relatively long, and well-textured between his uninsulated muscles and the uncountable scars leaving whitish flecks in his pale sandy skin. Honestly, his skin looks like there is dirt permanently ground into it, and there probably is. Go a decade without bathing and that'll happen. His hair is a few shades darker, just a ragged, dull light brown that is almost sarcastically suited to its usual knife-hacked style.
Adder's hands and feet are equally calloused, tough and muscled; he refuses outright to wear shoes at this point unless his feet get cold. His hand strength is more impressive than his lifting ability, to be completely honest, and he can hang by one hand in open space for close to an hour if he needs to.
He's needed to.
He can also pick up things with his toes nearly as well as with his hands, and toss them up with excellent accuracy. He can't quite throw a knife at someone and kill them using only his feet, but he did once use his feet to break out of a pair of handcuffs.
Adder has slightly pointed, narrow ears that don't look like they should be able to move much but do, sharply angled eyes lined in black like makeup - ask if it is and he'll get pretty irritated - that trails down the sides of his nose. If it seems animalistic, that's because it is, just like his eyes are very much those of a wild animal. And his teeth; those follow the pattern of a canine, with carnassials rather than molars and round, powerful eyeteeth. His nose has been broken but set very well, all things considered, and the bump is only apparent up close.
Faint burn scars, shiny-smooth, brush his ankles and shoulders. There are many other scars over them now, but they were his first injuries worse than scraped knees and elbows. They were the first injuries he had to deal with entirely on his own.
Personality Description: Adder doesn't show much of himself to strangers. He is suspicious of everyone, but rarely perceives them as real threats - and even more rarely expresses that he does. He bluffs and pretends to shrug things off like they don't affect him. Like he can just slip out of something's grasp regardless of what it is or whether or not he deserves it. In the past, he has been able to.
For someone who seems to think he's invincible, though, Adder sleeps a lot. When he's asleep, things are different. His skin might still be tensed against attack or intrusion, prepared for opportunity, but he dreams. He dreams of things he's never seen, like open fields and dark forests. He can smell things he's only scented from people, never from their source. Pine needles, crisp and green and caked with just-melting ice. Sandy soil streaked with clay beneath the surface, torn free from a net of grass roots and the tangy sweetness of the torn plants.
Adder isn't looking to be tamed, but he is lonely. It isn't something he can admit, or even recognize - he has always been alone, and lonely, and has a history of running into trouble when he made the mistake of trying to get closer to people. It doesn't help that he doesn't know how to interact with people beyond assessing them for immediate threat and opportunity. Adder is a thief and has lived on city streets for his entire life. He will take things that support his own survival. He will not apologize for it, or for hurting people in order to survive himself.
When he isn't actively hungry or injured or exhausted or anything else directly tied to survival, Adder is curious and likes sticking his nose into places it doesn't seem to belong. He wants to know how things work, what things do, what things are. He wants to be clean and sleep in the sun on something soft. He wants to sit on a rooftop and watch the stars set and not worry about being yelled at. He wants to be able to touch people without trying to hurt them.
He doesn't want to huddle through nightmares in the dark. He doesn't want to wonder if he's going to die of starvation or murder first, or if some injury is going to get infected and slowly rot him from the inside out. He doesn't like domestic dogs, and they rarely like him. Horses are worse; they can smell the wolf in him. He's actually been on pretty good terms with some cats, mostly street cats who know their territory. He understands territories and resources and shelter. He understands living on the streets, living in someone else's world and just trying to get by without being noticed too much.
Powers: City Wolf
How do you know a wolf is a wolf when it doesn't wear a pelt? For Adder, that's harder to define than the differences between his body and someone else's. Those differences are primarily passive in nature, and very much in line with an instinctive perspective. Furthermore, the abilities and talents that are most obvious to Adder are not those that are most obvious to others.
Adder is most aware of his ability to identify individuals well beyond say, the shape of their face and the sound of their voice. His nose is sensitive to people's souls, rather than simply their flesh. Being able to smell someone's flesh doesn't make much sense among spirits, after all, and Adder is descended from a spirit. His nose is pretty good, all in all, though there are definitely people with more sensitive sniffers out there and much of his mundane-scent-detection ability is simply a matter of practice and inclination. His ability to scent people's souls depends on: the air currents in the area, much like regular scenting; contact between the soul and solid objects; and the vibrancy and size of the soul. It is entirely possible to hide a soul from him - even a drastic change in mood is enough to make his identification uncertain, and experienced individuals with excellent self-control can often shield themselves from him as well.
More material than his nose, his ears are quite acute. Partially boosted by their mobility, partially boosted by the canine influence inside, his hearing is not as sharp as a good-eared dog but he can definitely pick up on small sounds: more mouse in the next room than mouse across the house, but if he knew the difference between a mouse and a vole he could probably pick up on it. He is more susceptible to painfully loud noises than a human with common hearing.
Other than sensory abilities, wolves are widely known for one thing in particular: they can run nigh on forever. Adder's stamina is, like his nose, a combination of practice and power. He is very much naturally inclined for marathons, or even extended sprints, and he doesn't tire quickly even if he ever manages to get out of shape. He is also, of course, in good physical shape considering that food has long been in short supply.
The last of Adder's passive boosts is a reinforced immune system. He can eat things that are a bit more rotten than would be safe for a human, although much rot will still mess with his guts and the smell alone is plenty capable of turning his stomach. This also extends to wounds, and an open gash is unlikely to fester unless intentionally smeared with particularly nasty bacteria. He can get sick, but tends to recover quickly from most minor diseases.
Wolf Inside
Adder's final ability is sort of what shows him off as wolf the most. When he can slip into the right frame of mind - when he is truly thinking like a social predator, whether he intends it or not - his spirit actually shifts into a two-tailed wolf. His physical body doesn't change, but those who can see beyond the physical will see him surrounded by white fur banded with muddy brown markings. This form can only be maintained as long as he is absolutely alert, focused, and every bone and muscle and nerve in his body is in agreement. It is a matter of will, but he can't simply decide to do it any more than he can simply decide to be calm - or any less.
This wolf form does more than look pretty (ish) to anyone with the right senses, which is good because Adder isn't particularly aware of his own appearance at the best of times. There are simply more important things to pay attention to than such pointless things as his eye colour. Most significant to Adder is the physical boosts: his flesh might remain more or less human, but his speed and agility are boosted such that he can move like a wolf. He won't be jumping over any buildings but going from lying on the floor to tearing your arm open? That's more his style anyway.
Adder's native immunity boost gets kick-started into a true healing factor for as long as he can maintain his spirit mode. Broken bones? Just give him a minute and he'll be fine. Blood loss is a little rougher, and he can't quite keep up with true arterial spurting but he's not too far off. It definitely buys him time to help it clot, at least, and from there he's fine.
What is easily the most overwhelming, though, is how his nose and ears work together to just soak his brain in information. Pheromones. The slightest waver in a heartbeat. The number of heartbeats, their relative distances and sizes and strengths. Creaking joints. That first prick of cold sweat. That can of tuna someone just opened down the hall, and both the species and the type of canning process. Basically, if it sends a particle or a vibration into the air (and it isn't a spectacularly low or high wavelength; he can't hear radio waves or anything, and dog whistles are the top of his range) he will notice it.
And yes, he does tend to develop a very nasty headache the longer he sticks in spirit mode and the less comfortable he is with the level of stimulation.
Biography: Adder's parents died when he was barely five. He hid in the cellar while strangers forced their way into the apartment. He hid while they screamed, and while they burned.
He ran out through the flames, fast enough to keep his flesh from melting in the heat but not fast enough to get out unharmed. There were people waiting in the street. Waiting to be sure no one made it out alive.
Adder's first real injuries and the foundation for his distrust of everyone came in the same night.. He took the hands reaching for him, the leering eyes and jeering smiles and raised swords, and he took it close to heart. People were not to be trusted. People were dangerous.
As a child, Adder had difficulty pronouncing his given name. His parents called him 'Addy.' That quickly morphed to 'Adder' as he grew, surviving on the streets with a feral viciousness, an absolute need that rivalled the worst of the dogs that roamed the alleys. He competed with the dogs even more than the people on the streets, and nearly had his throat ripped out by a massive shepherd at ten.
He ate dog for the next two days. It was the first time he'd had leftovers since his parents had been killed.
His next seven long years continued in much the same haze, really. Kill or be killed. Steal or starve. Survive in a world that didn't want him to exist. Move from one neighbourhood to another, know the law enforcement and how to handle each when they were alone or in a group. Know how different groups of individuals reacted with different individuals present, with different situations, with different moods. Adder was smart. That was how he survived.
He couldn't get by alone forever, though. He'd had to destroy a couple of bottom feeder gangs when he drifted too close, only to be betrayed. Him or them. He always chose himself.
And then he got caught, and that choice dangled out of reach. It wasn't a gang that had caught him finally, nor police. It was some rich guy. Some rich guy who suspected he had known Adder's parents, and was taking some heat for not being philanthropic enough. So he set a literal trap, and threw a bag over Adder while he was literally hanging by an ankle.
Adder was not pleased about this, and to be honest his captors probably weren't too thrilled with him either. It took a month to get Adder calm enough to actually send him onwards without having a hundred percent chance that he'd just rip someone's face off trying to escape.
Going to school and living in a consistent place are going to be quite the adjustment. At least he can say he can read; he had the basics from his parents, and with the basics he could keep learning on the streets. There was a lot of information to be gleaned from written words.
Additional Information:
