(no subject)

PLAYER
Name: Gnomeskillet
Age: 24
Personal Journal: gnomebody
E-mail: themechanagnome@yahoo.com
AIM/MSN/etc: mechanagnome

CHARACTER
Name: Artemis Lelune
Age: 16
Appearance: 5'9" with an athletic build and poofy, sandy brown, shoulder length hair. He's dark blue eyes and a cleft in his chin. Wears a lot of jeans and t-shirts, especially band shirts, tank tops, and occasionally sports jerseys. Things that show off his biceps. Tends to look like he's walked out of an 80s hair metal album cover. Wears a lot of jewelry, particularly a leather necklace with a crescent moon pendant, and a red dog collar. He's got a very relaxed stance, and is very expressive, using his whole body to communicate. Speaks with a southern drawl. Smiles a lot.
Chosen PB: 80s era Jon Bon Jovi

Personality:
In a word, Artemis is a puppy. He's energetic, excitable, and out going. He loves to run, to chase and play, and he likes to believe the best in people. He's extremely loyal to those he's close to, and will do just about anything for them. However, he's not trusting to a fault; burn him enough times, and he will stand up for himself. Growing up, his mother always taught him to use his strength for good. Because of this, he goes out of his way to help people, whether he knows them or not. He hates bullying with a passion, having grown up on the receiving end of it from his three older brothers, and will immediately step in if he sees it happening. Although he likes play-fighting, he doesn't like inflicting unnecessary pain, no matter how much he feels the other person deserves it, because he feels that makes him no better than a bully.

He considers his father to be a bully, and a lot of his compulsion to do good comes from a desire to not be like him. Still, there are a few lessons from his father he's taken to heart, even if he's reluctant to admit it. He's headstrong, and not afraid to question authority or stand his ground. His conservative upbringing means that he also has some fairly strict ideas about the way things ought to be. Things are either feminine or their masculine, and there isn't much that can cross between them. Being teased for being a Mamma's Boy means that he's very careful about being seen as weak or feminine, and he tends to revel in machismo. It clashes with his belief that women are to be respected, something instilled by his mother from an early age, and he knows it, but he can't help but feel defensive of his masculinity.

Thanks to fighting constantly with his brothers, he's got a strong competitive spirit. It's not so much a drive to be the best, however, so much as he feels he has a lot to prove, not only to his family, but to himself and everyone else. He likes to impress people, especially girls. This causes him to act before he thinks, and because of his father's beatings, and his accelerated healing abilities, he tends to think of himself as invincible. Having grown accustomed to the possibility that he'll never measure up to his father's expectations, he's crafted it into a sort of arrogance. Because he feels that he can never succeed, he can't exactly fail, either. If he can't change something, he ignores things he doesn't like. Get a failing grade on a test? Yeah, that never happened. It doesn't matter, it's fine. He likes the idea of being an Alpha. He likes to be in charge, and he likes being someone people look up to.

And beneath it all, the two of the driving aspects of his behavior are guilt and self-loathing. Sure, he buries them underneath a cherry, careless disposition, he feels terrible about all the things his family's done. He feels terrible about not living up to his father's expectations. He feels terrible for feeling terrible for not being a perfect alpha wolf. He feels terrible for being a werewolf. He feels terrible for just about everything, but he wants to be a better person.

He has a huge soft spot for passionate people. Even if it's not an interest he shares, he likes being around people with a lot of energy and drive, and sharing in their passion. He'd listen to someone talk for hours about a subject he can't understand, just to watch the look on their faces. He likes making people, not just for their positive energy, but also so then he can tell himself he's a good boy. He likes classic rock for a similar reason; he feels that it has more emotion, more energy than modern music.

World Information:
It's the year 2014. Living alongside the human world is one, not exceptionally different, yet still strange and full of wonder. Every supernatural creature that's ever been described, every cryptid, every legend exists, somewhere in the world. Most people think they're just fantasy, mistakes made by confused, primitive societies. But the fact is, they existed then, as they exist now, and mostly, they 're just like everyone else. They go to school, they have jobs, and raise their families. It's just that they do so in secret.

They hide in plain sight, walking among the humans as if they were one of them, especially in larger cities, but they also have places for themselves. Places like the Miskatonic Prepatory Academy, known to humans as a prestigious private school, but it runs more like a public school for supernatural teenagers. There are shops and cafes and residential areas dedicated completely to the paranormal, their locations passed along by word of mouth. Sometimes, they live in small country towns far out of the way, the entire population some creature or another.

And thankfully the world is so skeptical now. When word gets out, as it occasionally, inevitably does, most people disregard it. Werewolves, vampires, wizards? Real? Don't be silly, those things aren't real. Young creatures are warned not to rely too heavily on this skepticism, though. Hunters do exist, and it doesn't matter how well behaved you are, if you're caught out, you're dead. They don't trust creatures, so creatures don't trust them.

Either way, they're there. We just don't realize it.

History:
On July 22, in 1997, Artemis was born to Malevolence and Nymphadora Lelune, in the town of Wolfstown, Virginia. He was the youngest of four boys, and an attempt by his mother to have a girl to spoil and dote on. Of course, you can't control pregnancy, so she made do with what he had. He grew up close to her skirts, while his older brothers took after their father. He grew up in a plantation house on the edge of town, where the Lelunes had lived for generations. The farmland had long since been sold off in the years following the civil war, but they still had a barn where his mother bred and trained racing horses, an expansive garden and sprawling apple orchard. His family wasn't just one of wealth, but of power as well. In the 1400s, lead by Alphonse Lelune, the family waged war on the local barony and seized control of it. By the end of the 1600s, they'd fought and claimed enough land to earn themselves the title of Marquis, much to the displeasure of the monarchy. In the early 1700s, after several years of subterfuge and violence, they were finally ousted and fled to America, where they started Wolfstown. It's a town completely populated by werewolves, and Malevolence was the mayor.

As one can imagine, Malevolence believes heavily in image of the traditional Alpha Wolf. He groomed his sons to walk in his footsteps, as had his father before him, impressing upon them the importance of strength, determination, and ruthless cunning. He pushed them to be the best at whatever they did, and accepted nothing less than excellence. Werewolves, he taught them, are superior to humans in every way, and as predators, it's their right to seize what they desire and prey upon the weak.

Artemis was mostly spared this indoctrination. A non-shifter, Nymphadora traced her roots back to the muses of ancient Greece. She taught Artemis to be respectful, to be polite, and to use his strength for good. She taught him how true wolves live, as a family, taking only what they need to survive. She instilled the belief that a leader protects and guides his followers, not takes advantage of them.

Unfortunately, this meant that his older brothers found it easy to tease him. He was “Mamma's little lap dog,” and they pushed him around. He did his best to stand up to them, but being a full five years younger than the next youngest meant that he always lost. It was frustrating, but his father encouraged it in the name of toughening him up, and his mother never tried to stop it.

Just before his thirteenth birthday, he had his first transformation. After that, his father took more interest in raising him, trying to push him to become more aggressive, to make him stronger, more ruthless. He'd taken his mother's teachings to heart by this time, though, and so for every expectation his father had, he fell short. He refused to change his beliefs, and for his efforts, he got a beating. Beatings became a part of his life from then on, and once again, his mother failed to stop them. In fact, she encouraged Artemis to endure them but not fight back, that by refusing to yield, he was the better person. He wasn't sure if he believed that, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

He'd been homeschooled by his mother his entire life. Now that he was “of age,” when school started, he'd be sent to the Miskatonic Prepatory Academy, a private school several states north run by unicorns. It was a haven for teenagers of the strange and magical persuasion, and best of all, he'd be far away from his father and brothers. Due to his cheerful, friendly nature, he made a lot of friends quickly, and being away from his family gave him time to really consider their values, and form those of his own. The more he thought about it, the more he disagreed with his father's teachings, and the more he wanted to stay away. Luckily, he was never forced to return home for the holidays.

While at the school, he took part on the baseball, football, and wrestling teams. History, particularly the bits about war, was his favorite subject, and math was his least. He was okay with it, right up until they started throwing letters into the equations. He struggled with English as it was, although he enjoyed reading, but unfortunately words larger than three syllables tripped him up something awful, and he was never very eloquent.

Abilities:
*Lycanthropy: Artemis was born a werewolf, but it didn't really show it's effects until he was about 13. Shifting is compulsory on the full moon, and during this time, he loses all sense of self, becoming a dangerous, vicious beast. He's only infectious during this time, and it's transferred via saliva. Female werewolves of his world tend to have difficult pregnancies, due to the monthly shifting.

**Shapeshifting: The shapeshifting is compulsory during the full moon, but Arty can shift as he desires the rest of the time. It's a painful process, and it takes a lot of concentration and effort to stop part way through, but he manages. He also feels compelled to shift when he's really angry, but it's a slow shift, and he can stop it if he can calm down enough.

**Healing/Silver "allergy": Legend has it that only silver can kill a werewolf. This is only mostly true. Touching silver doesn't instantly kill him, but it does burn, and any wounds caused by a silver weapon won't heal. As this would cause him to die via blood loss, it's still fatal, just not instantly so. Minor wounds from non-silver weapons can scab over in a manner of minutes, and be healed in an hour. Larger wounds take longer in proportion to their severity. Bruises fade within a day. Broken bones take a week or two. Burns leave scars. He can't regrow missing limbs or organs.

**Animal Senses: Everyone knows dog's have the best sense of smell around, and Artemis retains this even when he's fully human. He can smell everything from how a person's feeling, to where they've been and what they had for lunch. He can also hear high frequencies the way a dog can, but he can only hear the same distance as the average person, so no listening through walls. And he's completely colorblind. Dressing himself can be an interesting ordeal if the tags of his shirts aren't labelled.

*Athleticism: If Arty is any stronger than the average teenaged boy, it's because he works hard to be. His strength and endurance comes from his enjoyment of running, weight lifting, and general physical activity. He can run a mile in seven minutes, and bench 180lbs, but he won't be lifting a car.

*Guitar: His brother Augustus got him a guitar as a bit of a joke for his sixteenth birthday. Not wanting the gift to go to waste, Arty learned how to play pieces of a couple classic rock songs, like "Smoke on the Water," "Stairway to Heaven," and "Wanted Dead or Alive." Basically, just enough to impress the girls.

First Person:
[Stumbling off the train, Arty yawned and rubbed his eyes, looking around blearily. Welp. So much for a cute girl with food. Maybe they had a McDonald's somewhere near by?]

[Too bad there didn't seem to be any people around, although he could smell the passage of people in the past]

[Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he shuffled towards the station, and he accidentally kicked something with his foot.] Hey, what's this? [Bending down, he picked up a watch, snorting as a grin flashed across his face] Aw man, this thing's older'n Da. I wonder if- [he sniffed it, seeing if he could pick out the scent of its owner, but he could only smell himself]

[He pulled it back, arching an eyebrow as he pursed his lips, head tilted to the side] Now that's just plain weird.

Third Person:
Arty yawned, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back against the seat. He must be dreaming, because he was sure he'd just been working on his homework, and he had no idea how he got on a train. It had been getting kind of late, though, so he could have fallen asleep at his desk, but didn't realizing you were in a dream usually wake you up? He was pretty sure that's how it went. Either that, or it gave you superpowers, like being able to stop time.

Hey, wouldn't that be neat? Sitting up a little straighter, he dropped his hands down to his side and furrowed his brow, concentrating as hard as he could. But it didn't make much of a difference, the vaguely brown and blurry scenery outside the window opposite him kept flying by.

"So much for stopping time," he mumbled, leaning back to relax. Maybe he ought to try waking up this time? Nah, it was pretty late, and anyway, his roommate, Yusef, would probably wake him up eventually. Might as well enjoy the dream. It was kind of relaxing, actually, the clack clacking of the wheels reminded him of a clock, and the rocking was nice. He could just kind of. Fall even more asleep, really. Maybe he'd dream-wake-up someplace more interesting. Maybe with a cute girl, or some food.
Or a cute girl WITH food. Yeah. He could totally go for a burger right now.

He smiled to himself, stretching out his legs and taking up as much space as he wanted. All the smells on the train were days old, faded memories, so he didn't have to worry about someone coming in an bothering him. Anyway, he'd make space for them if they did. But for now, he could totally relax.