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Individual
Character's full name: Helleber Kinlan
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: Helldeer, Hellion
Gender: Male
Age: 25 [updated Jan 20, 2013]
Date of Birth: January 19, 1988
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: New York, New York
Nationality: American (first generation, parents unknown)
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: It might not be easy to tell, looking him in the face, but Helleber is english, with touches of irish and welsh and a healthy helping of scottish.
Appearance
Hair color and style: Short, round, soft feathers in iridescent blue-black
Skin Tone: Light creamy brown pelt (short haired, with slight tufts on joints and angles), darker and more reddish on his head and neck, less feathered areas and his lower eyelids, which are ivory.
Eye Color: Copper dark enough to border on black; irises and pupils occupy most of the visible eye, and the whites are only distinct when his eyes widen.
Height: Without his antlers, Helleber reaches an easy six feet; his antlers at full growth add another eighteen inches. In full peryton form, he stands at about 4'6" at the shoulder and is just over seven feet from nose to rump - and closer to fourteen including his tail.
Build: Elongated, angular, and sleek - but with a distinctly powerful neck, chest, shoulders, and thighs. He may not look it, but he weights about 300 lb in his normal form and closer to 900 in his full form.
Visible mutation: Oooooh yeah. Helleber most closely resembles an anthropomorphic cervid in his normal form: a small male elk with a human-based torso, bipedal, and with furred hands with black hooflike nails. His feet are split hooves, with a total of four toes per foot. However, he is also birdlike, in that black feathers coat his scalp and down to his deerlike nose, then around the sides of his head and under his large, mobile ears, down the back of his neck, across his shoulders, down his back, and to his tailbone - which is extended in the style of birds, and decorated with black and white feathers long enough to brush the ground if he isn't careful. Overall, his avian colouring is similar to that of a magpie, with iridescent blue-black interrupted by clean white on the shoulders, primary and secondary flight feathers (but not coverts), sides, and tail coverts, as well as two of the longest tail feathers.
As wings go, Helleber's are pretty but largely useless, as they are severely undersized in his normal form; at full stretch, he has a wingspan of maybe four feet, and the limited musculature enforces the lack of flight insisted upon by their size. Of course, they are visually appealing, being glossy blue-black with black-edged white flight feathers and topped by white wrists.
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: His right ear is pierced three times along the lower edge; each is normally occupied by a heavy gold-plated ring.
Other features: Helleber bears antlers only part of the year; they follow the normal cervid cycle, dropping off during the winter and growing through the summer. In style they are most similar to those of an elk, though smaller in proportion; Helleber doesn't have the body mass to support such large antlers as a true elk can carry!
Everyday clothing style: Helleber is fond of jeans, well-worn with simple belts, though he does have to modify the backs a little in order to fit below his tail; sweats are his usual alternative. Shirts are highly variable, thanks to his wings, but he usually makes do with seamed slits that expose them. In the summer, being topless is quite preferable, and it's not as if he can really be accused of near nudity anyway - he's covered in hair and feathers!
Uniform: While on the job, Helleber sports a baseball cap bearing the logo of his convenience store, Deermart.
Sleepwear: Helleber prefers loose flannel bottoms and sleeps topless.
Miscellaneous clothing: When not antlered, he likes to wear a black leather stetson, fastidiously polished; it even replaces his company cap for work.
Character
Personality: Helleber doesn't take flack from anyone. He went through a lot of jobs working for other people before he realized that he just had to be in charge himself, and now he is quite content. He is stubborn, proud, and is always right, even when he totally messes up. Telling him he's wrong or giving him orders, whether or not the other person actually has the authority to do so, rarely goes well. He can be quite sarcastic, has a short temper, and is exceedingly impatient with people when he isn't playing some sort of trick on them. Tasks, though, he is very patient with. He is fastidious, neat, and clean, both in his personal appearance and surroundings.
While not educated or so-called experienced in business, Helleber's store is doing quite well; he is as particular with the books and records as he is in other areas of his life, and he spends quite a bit of time in the little office in his apartment above the store going through the day's receipts.
When people aren't being punkish idiots or attempting to tell him what to do, Helleber is quite friendly, if somewhat reserved rather than warm, and is both polite and attentive with customers. While he doesn't spend a great deal of time out and about, since he is fully aware of his appearance, he is always available. There's even a large button on the wall by the door to the stairs to his apartment that says 'SUMMON HELLDEER' in large letters. It does actually work; it sets off a buzzer in each room of his apartment.
A large part of Helleber's reservation stems from his mutation's tendency to break things when he is afraid. He certainly doesn't have his reactions entirely under control, but there has been a reduction in incidences over the past few years. He forces himself to meditate at least once a day, and tries to stay aware enough of his emotional state to at least have some warning if he is going to shift.
Every now and then, the side of Helleber that lead to him gaining the nickname 'Hellion' emerges. He has certainly matured since those days, but he is still occasionally capable of being a mischievous, sneaky guy with a penchant for being a complete and total menace to society.
Hobbies/ Interests: Helleber is largely vegetarian, but not through some lifestyle choice; he actually digests it better than meat. He is especially fond of berries. In his full form, he only eats grass, leaves, plants, and berries - deer food. He is quite fond of his cat, a chunky russian blue mix called Earl Grey, aka Early. Early is a former stray who is quite happy to show his amusement at all other living things, but is thoroughly addicted to Temptations and catnip. He is a frequent occupant of Deermart but never goes through the front door. He also chooses all the air fresheners Helleber keeps around; he is fond of peppermint and apple cinnamon. Helleber also likes tea, dislikes coffee and energy drinks, and collects interesting mugs. With regards to tea, he is currently fond of northern blends, particularly those of inuit origins and involving crowberry and ground juniper.
And it must be mentioned, though he is quite shy about it: Helleber is, after all, part magpie. Shiny things must be collected. It is a compulsion and he hoards them. Delightedly.
Job or part time job and description: Owns a small convenience store [Deermart] in a not-so-nice part of the city; works the night shift and security.
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Helleber works very hard to minimize fears and phobias, as both can force him to change, and that's really too much of a hassle to deal with on a regular basis. He is concerned, however, with the health and safety of his business (he really doesn't want to work for other people ever again). He is mildly concerned with his own safety, being a visible mutant, but does trust his ability to take care of himself. He doesn't travel at night, however.
Special talents: Helleber is surprisingly good at hacky-sack, considering the structure of his feet, and has successfully trained his cat to use the toilet (and flush it), help clean his feathers, and roll over on bribe.
Morality
Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: Helleber would be best described as chaotic good; he will do what is necessary to protect himself and his property, but doesn't go out of his way to harm others. He believes theft is wrong not because the law says so, but because he knows full well how hard it is on the victim to deal with the aftermath; if someone steals from him, he loses money. Lying to get rid of punks is also quite acceptable. So is pretending to be about to shoot their heads off with a loaded shotgun.
Mutations
Mutation description:
Normal form: Helleber, or Helldeer, is a partial-shifting peryton, a deer-bird hybrid. His normal form is anthropomorphic, fully bipedal, and fully furred or feathered, depending on the location. He's also described above!
His senses are not quite baseline human; while he is not colourblind in this form, he does see red the best, and motion is more likely to catch his attention than anything else. His sense of smell is more sensitive than that of a human, though smells rarely overwhelm him, thanks to extensive practice and desensitization. As for his hearing, well, his ears are just as mobile (if rather smaller) in his normal form than as a full peryton, so he can pinpoint noise just as well.
Shifting and full form: Helleber is capable of shifting to a quadrupedal peryton, but it is not under conscious control: when his flight reflex is engaged, he shifts automatically, much to the the detriment of his clothing and sometimes close quarters. In this full peryton form, he most closely resembles a Roosevelt elk, weighs roughly 900 lb, and is usually fully-antlered; when shifting, he always gains or retains his antlers (and they grow to their full size) but if they are close to dropping before he shifts, they retain that fragility and may break off after shifting. Now, a peryton is not entirely deerlike, and Helleber shows it with a heavy mane of feathers along the back of his neck and across his back in general. As a full peryton, his fur mirrors the colouring of a magpie in addition to his feathers, rather than that of an elk, being black with white on the insides of his legs and along his upper shoulders. He also bears full-sized (with a wingspan of about 20 feet) wings in this form, and is capable of flying with up to 450 lb additional weight. The feathering ends with a long black and white tail, which stretches nearly his body length. However, in full peryton form Helleber loses the ability to speak, and is usually consumed by fear, reacting only on instinct. Communication with a telepath is fully possible, however, and despite the reduced control, Helleber does remain fully aware while in this form.
Shifting is very rapid, considering its basis as a flight reflex; when triggered, it can only be cancelled by knocking him unconscious (or, technically, killing him; either will also return him to his anthropomorphic form, though most tranquillizers will not), but is so sudden that the vast majority of individuals will not be able to react so effectively. The full shift is completed in under one second from the point of triggering, and about half of that is delay and preparation with no outward sign; Helleber can feel it, to some extent, but it's still only half a second. Because the change takes place so suddenly, things next to him tend to become less near him, either from the quick displacement of air as his mass and volume change or from being pushed by that mass and volume itself. Clothing ends up in shreds, though hats are (usually) left unscathed. Reverse shifting is similarly quick, and his antlers return to their previous state unless they broke off, in which case they are gone for the season.
Full peryton senses are distinctly skewed from those of a human. He has elevated hearing, sight, and smell, almost but not quite par with that of a biological cervid. His sight is largely based on movement and has little ability to distinguish colour; he can see red, and shades thereof, but cannot perceive other colours. His hearing focusses on a slightly higher range than that of a human, but is most notable for his ability to pinpoint direction extremely accurately - his ears are very mobile.
Strengths:
Helleber is tough, stubborn, and physically resistant - it takes a lot to bring him down, even when he isn't in full peryton form. Weighing 300 lb but not looking like it also tends to help with being underestimated in physical combat or intimidation scenarios.
Helleber can run on pretty much any terrain without difficulty and without dependence on shoes - broken glass (in normal conditions), sand, rock, really hot pavement…. hooves aren't prone to injury or sensitivity. He is also almost as agile as a deer in his normal form (and equally so in his full form), so loose, unstable surfaces don't bother him; his tail and wings just add to his balance. Kicking is also generally pretty darn effective. As his fingernails also bear some resemblance to hooves, fingertip injuries are also reduced
Endurance. Helleber can run like a deer, though a different gait is required in his normal form, thanks to the number of legs. This extends to his full form and flight.
Speed. Helleber moves like a deer. In his full form, he has a top ground speed of about 72 km/h. His normal form has a top ground speed of about 35 km/h; normally he only achieves around 20 km/h, but he can maintain that speed for most of a day if necessary.
Strength. Being 300 lb and fit has its benefits: Helleber can move a lot of weight and apply a lot of force.
Stealth. Hooves don't leave significant heat signatures and have an unusual sound and print in urban environments, disrupting many forms of tracking. He also smells more like a deer than anything, with a touch of magpie odour, so while hunting dogs tend to go a little nuts near him, confusion runs rampant. Finally, if he knows he's going to be leaving footprints, all he has to do is crouch a little and angle his tail down to brush the ground after him; it might be hell on the feathers, but the footprints don't survive well either. Oh, and he can fly in his full form, making terrestrial tracking useless.
Weaknesses and Limitations:
Helleber + fear = giant winged deer. No ifs, ands, or buts, much less time to do anything about it. If he's lucky, he might be able to start moving towards a large enough space that he doesn't break anything. In addition to (ideally) needed space to shift, Helleber needs space to launch once shifted: he's no vtol, to just spring into the air and be away. He needs to build up considerable speed first, and that means running. Diving is also not very effective, and besides he's kind of terrified of falling off buildings and things, so deer-mind kind of takes over and keeps him away from them. Landing takes almost as much space as taking off does.
Have you ever seen an elk in a store or city, much less one with wings and a seven-foot tail? Yeah. It's essentially impossible for Helleber to go about unnoticed or perceived as human when in his normal form, and in his full form he might as well put a halter on himself and pretend to be some tame mythical creature from a circus - he'd probably draw less attention, at certainly be safer.
Trophy hunters. End of story.
He can't wear shoes. And shirts are touchy. And his tail messes with pants. And shifting messes up anything he's wearing big time. In short, clothing disagrees with him 24/7. Including protective gear; the only headwear he can manage, for example, are those hats that rest above his ears and don't obstruct them, and when he's in antler all hats are off limits.
Have you ever tried going through a doorway with antlers? Or cleaning feathers without a beak? x.x Much less a modified digestive system that means grazing throughout the day is required.
Helleber has reduced tactile sensitivity, especially in his fingertips. While it means he can punch things harder without quite noticing, it reduces his dexterity; sewing by hand, for example, is very difficult for him. Somehow this doesn't keep him from picking up shiny things much at all; upon seeing shiny things, no matter how unimportant (or really, how much Helleber wants to resist), his magpie side insists on having it. Potentially lethal in a fight or flight? Ooooooh yeeeeaaahhh. Laser pointers? Also excellent at distracting him. He can't play with them with his cat because it's too hard to resist leaping on it himself.
He only returns to his normal form once he feels completely safe and relaxed again - or falls asleep. However, he will normally begin to relax before this point, and gains normal control over his full form. Shifting in either direction is completely involuntary. Just how long he can remain in his full form depends on the situation; the more stressful the situation is, the longer he will remain in full form, but his exhaustion builds at a greater rate; in a minimally stressful (fear-causing/traumatic/physical exertion) situation, he can remain in his full form for up to 24 hours, but likely will only remain in it for five to ten minutes, or perhaps half an hour. In an constantly extremely stressful situation, he can remain in his full form for up to six hours, and if unable to find comfortable shelter will be weary by one hour, exhausted to the point of collapse by about four, and unconscious by six. If he has the opportunity to rest without fully relaxing, he can extend the time frame. Under normal conditions, he is rarely in his full form for more than about half an hour, by which point he has calmed from whatever fright set him off and returned to a place where he feels safe (and will not be observed as nude after shifting back).
Physical Abilities
General Physical Capabilities:
Fighting Style: Altercations rarely come to an actual fight with Helleber; since most of the ones he finds himself faced with involve idiots trying to rob his store, all he usually has to do is walk over with his shotgun on one shoulder. If it does come to anything physical, Helleber prefers to introduce himself to his opponents with a light punch. If things progress from there, well, he'll do what he has to to avoid shifting or to survive, depending on the severity. He fights dirty and he does usually carry a handgun. He has never actually shot anyone with either gun, but he has fired the shotgun twice and uses both at a shooting range occasionally.
Fighting Style Pros/Cons: It's very flexible, though he has never really applied it to mutant opponents, ranged opponents, or team fighting. Most of the time, it is so effective that he doesn't even have to fight.
History Of Your Character
Helleber was born only lightly furred and bearing minuscule wings, his feathers not yet developed. His feet were hooves and his ears weren't human, and his parents, whoever they were, thought that was enough to warrant dumping him. He grew up in a foster home for mutants, and that was probably really the best place for him; he was quite a nervous, easily startled child, and his caretakers were experienced enough with mutants to hardly even blink when a rush of wind heralded the appearance of a young deer; they also strongly enforced a no-powers-on-people rule.
Note: Helleber Kinlan is actually his birthname; his shredded birth certificate was sprinkled on top of the blanket he was wrapped in. His parents were contacted, but it quickly became clear that they wanted nothing to do with a mutant kid.
As Helleber grew up, the first change in his mutation was the development of feathers: he was as fully feathered by six years old as he is now. His wings stayed small, and it became quite the contest for his foster-siblings to guess just what he was and what he could do; he didn't start turning into a full peryton until he was twelve, by which point he was alternating between nervous paranoia and demonic energy, mostly depending on whether his mercurial oldest foster brother, Theodric, was picking on him or including him. The first time he shifted, it was because Theodric had hoisted him up onto a balcony railing and told him to stay.
Helleber fell off.
And glided to the ground.
The next spring, he sprouted antlers for the first time. Much like the growth of a buck fawn, the first year produced only single vertical tines; each successive year added a tine to each antler until he reached his current mature spread.
Initially, Helleber attended a small local school, but after he started shifting out of fear he was withdrawn and homeschooled. He was never fond of school, either at school or at home, and gave up on the whole thing as soon as he was old enough to get out of the system and start doing things on his own. He started working at a neighbourhood store when he was sixteen, and was working full time by seventeen. Of course, he held most of his jobs for about three months before getting sick of his bosses, but still.
Helleber moved out and found his own apartment at eighteen, a dingy little thing but still his own. Earl Grey happened to be the tea he was drinking when a cat ambled through his open window: a large, chunky grey cat who evidently wanted nothing more than to play with Helleber's antlers. The cat got a name when he rolled into Helleber's mug and doused himself with Earl Grey tea and looked pretty much the same as he had before.
Despite the costs of an apartment and a cat, Helleber eventually saved up enough money to get out from under the thumb of bosses in general; a small corner store in a nearby neighbourhood came up for sale when he was just shy of 23, and he nabbed it, moving into the little apartment above it and stocking the store with a mixture of junk food, groceries, cat treats, and candy, among other standard convenience store products. He ran the shop himself for close to a year, then hired a couple of people to work the day shifts and kept the store open at night, tired of break-ins while the store was closed.
First, though, he worked for and obtained a license to carry a concealed weapon. He never really concealed either the small handgun or the old shotgun he ended up with, using them entirely to intimidate would-be thieves. According to his meticulous records, robberies and associated police calls dropped from a minimum of one a week to essentially non-existent, and soon afterwards the attempts dropped off sharply as well.
Roleplay
Where did you learn about this site?: Gooooooogle
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Nopedy nope.
Sample RP:
Helleber Kinlan, owner of Deermart, was restocking the soda cooler. It was quiet, after all, perhaps one in the morning, and he was really only there after all to fend off would-be livelihood-wreckers. Early had grown bored perhaps half an hour before and was crashed out on top of his tower.
The door bell twinkled, and Helleber turned to see who had come in. It had been several weeks since the last attempt to rob his store, but a lack of vigilance was never a good thing. A teenager in a hoodie had stopped just inside and was looking around, his head tilted not towards the shelves of merchandise but near the ceiling. Helleber snorted - he had the cameras all placed at face-height anyways - and stepped around the aisle corner to the cashier desk.
Standing just behind it but not reaching for the shotgun yet, he leaned on one hand and let his thick black nails tap against the countertop. "Looking for anything in particular?" he asked peaceably.
The kid gave a twitch and looked away from the bare corners. He stopped short, staring at Helleber, and he gave the kid a long moment to get over his appearance.
"Deermart's open 24/7," he continued in much the same tone, "so don't worry about rushing. Take your time. Would you like me to help you find anything?"
The kid's shock morphed into a sneer and he twisted, clearly trying to look down his nose at Helleber - but a kid barely five and a half feet isn't really equipped to stare down a six-foot bare-heeded blatant mutant successful enough to own his own store in NYC. He scuffed his shoes, shoved his hands innocently into his pockets and gave his chin a jerk. "So, uh, you stuck working the night shift?" he smirked. "Wouldn't want you scaring away the real customers, would they?"
Helleber snorted and straightened. "Oh, I choose the night shift," he said calmly. "And you may not have seen the sign outside - this is the Deermart. You might take a hint from that. Or, you could take a glance at the sign." He angled his head towards the bold writing: "SUMMON HELLDEER." He gave the kid some time for it to sink in. "You might observe the ears," he added drily. "It's the wrong season for antlers, I'm afraid; they came off just a few weeks back."
"f***ing freak," the kid spat; much to Helleber's disgust, he spat on the floor as well. He took a half step back and pulled a small knife from his pocket. "I'm sure you know the drill, helldeer," he said viciously. "Pull out the dough or I get to fill my freezer with venison."
Helleber dipped his head, trying not to laugh. A knife. Really? A knife. "You would have done better to come in here with a gun," he said, still fighting his deep laugh, and swung the shotgun out from under the counter with one hand; he set it on the shoulder. "Seeing as how I'll be cleaning the floor of your saliva anyway, it won't be too much more trouble to mop up some blood and brains at the same time."
The kid paled and he slowly lowered the knife. He stammered something and slowly backed up. Helleber shrugged the gun slightly, gesturing towards the door. The kid nodded and bolted, and the ringing of the door bell as it let itself close behind the would-be burglar woke the cat sprawled nearby.
"Missed all the action, Early," Helleber said blandly to the cat as he tucked the shotgun back into place. He'd have to go over it later; he couldn't quite remember the last time he'd cleaned it! Heck, he wasn't even sure it was loaded at the moment. He pulled it back and checked. Good, it was. You never knew when you might have to fire off a warning shot to clear out an idiot. "Some guard cat you are," he said in mock derision as Earl Grey sprang onto the counter and rubbed against his shoulder. "You let him walk right past you!" Early simply meowed in agreement.
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looks like he's got a toe in the right direction already, eh?
