Adder

Individual

Character's full name: Andre Ilden
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: Adder [only recognized name]
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Date of Birth: November 8, 1997
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: New York City, NY, USA
Nationality: American
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: unclear

Appearance

Hair color and style: Shaggy and roughly cut dull medium brown, about the colour of dried mud. Yes, it is cut by him with a knife to keep it out of his eyes
Skin Tone: Faded grey-brown, dull like his hair but lighter in shade
Eye Color: Yellow, leaning towards gold rather than green, with slightly narrowed pupils
Height: 5’7”
Build: Would be sleek and angular if he weren’t hanging around the edge of starvation
Visible mutation: Pointed, mobile ears, eye colour, black lining his eyes and running along the sides of the bridge of his nose, canine teeth
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: Extensive scarring on all exposed skin from repeated minor injuries; old burn scars on his ankles and shoulders underneath all the other scars.
Other features: Adder does not stand still unless he is absolutely focused on something, and is always slightly tensed and ready to move

Everyday clothing style: Whatever he’s scrounged but not worn through yet, usually loose and ragged jeans with a couple of layered shirts; if he’s wearing footwear, it is critically cold. He hates having things on his feet.
Uniform: n/a
Sleepwear: n/a
Miscellaneous clothing: (if applicable)

Character

Personality: 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.

Hobbies/ Interests: …surviving
Job or part time job and description: he has acquired money from people in forms other than theft, but only ever in one-off no-strings-attached situations
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Adder has nightmares about being trapped in fire,
Special talents: Very light-fingered, agile, and dextrous; can pick things up with his feet very well; can and will eat things that would make a civilized stomach very unhappy.

Morality

Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: Neutral; is very focused on his own survival, and will do bad things in order to stay alive, but has no especial desire to cause harm and does have a very strong protective drive for those he is close to. He is exploitable by a range of motivations and moral drives.

Mutations

Mutation description:

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, and he can get a bit of a feel of their temperament through scent; souls tend to smell like associated things, at least to him, so a very steady, unyielding stubbornness may come across with the scent of stone or solid tree species. His nose is pretty good overall, 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.

Adder has increased sensitivity to strong scents and loud noises, and has strong senses of smell and sound but still within the biological range for humans - in his normal form. He also has the ability to collect his wolfness, so to speak, and wrap himself in it.

And transform, from nearly human to clearly not. His wolf form is proportionate to his human form, were limb lengths and such to be compared, and has paws nearly as large as the spread of each of his hands. His fur is white (when clean) with golden markings across his face, as well as on his lower back and upper tail. His eyes do not change colour. In this form, he gains considerable strength and agility, able to strike slightly faster than the average human eye can see, but thanks to the change in joints loses his ability to climb well and do such things as turn doorknobs. His senses also gain a significant boost, especially his nose and ears. Unfortunately, this boost can cross into “too much information” territory extremely easily, and that overload triggers severe, lingering headaches.

Strengths: Adder is very difficult to sneak up on, especially when paired with his instinctive suspicion and wariness, and has some ability to defend himself beyond the options available to humans. He can also identify individuals more accurately (usually), and can track people who have passed by. His wolflike eyes also have improved night vision, though it is not perfect.

Weaknesses and Limitations: Headaches. Lots of headaches. His identification skills are also not really that reliable, and his shifted form is not especially powerful.

Being in one form or another doesn’t have any inherent effects on Adder in terms of exhaustion, but the sensory overload in his wolf form severely limits its long-term viability. If in a quiet, uncrowded place, he can easily maintain the form, but crowds, strong smells, or loud noise will all stress him severely. Sudden, sharp noise loud enough to make a human’s ears rings will instantly give him sufficient pain to force him out of his wolf form on the spot, while other forms of overload take more time to build up.

Adder’s soul-scenting sub power is affected by all factors that affect physical scent, with the modification of traces being left by soul contact rather than physical contact; he will not smell a soulless individual, but a disembodied soul will leave traces.

Shifting between forms takes less than a second. Shifting to wolf can be triggered by will (mostly in theory) or by instinct, should he be feeling wolfish enough. Shifting to human can be triggered by sensory overload (as an escape mechanism), by will, or by feeling especially human. The shift can be cancelled by distracting him mid-shift, though it is quick, and with his usual level of suspicion and stress even touching him lightly while fur swirls across his body will negate the shift.

Physical Abilities

General Physical Capabilities: Decent strength limited by nutritional status; very quick, especially in wolf form; excellent physical reflexes; excellent potential stamina but limited by nutritional status; more dextrous than flexible (no yoga here)
Fighting Style: Vicious, unmerciful, and usually desperate. He’d rather not fight since fighting usually costs more resources than it gains.
Fighting Style Pros/Cons: Difficult to defend against completely, but disorganized and raw.

History Of Your Character
Adder's parents died when he was barely five. He hid in the closet 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 entirely unharmed. There were people waiting in the street. Waiting to be sure no one made it out alive? They recoiled at the sight of him, trailing smoke and streaked with soot like he was born from hellfire, and he saw their fear.

Adder's first real injuries and the foundation for his distrust of everyone came in the same night. He took the panicked words, the quick steps away, the heavy stench that clung even through the ash, and he took it close to heart. People were not to be trusted. People were a risk.


As a child, Adder had 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. Always escape, never stay with anyone else. Stay alone, stay safe, stay unbound. 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 always chose himself, when there was a conflict between his needs and someone else’s. He had to. It was the only choice that had kept him alive, and he desperately wanted to survive.

Besides, he didn’t really have anyone else to choose. There was just him. Him against a world that skirted around him and averted their eyes.


Roleplay
Where did you learn about this site?: previous player
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: long since inactive
Sample RP:
Cold streets, cold people, cold skies, cold limbs. Adder was used to it all, and he was familiar with it. It was what he expected, what he knew. He had found food once today, and though pizza crusts were a good find he was hardly going to stop looking now.

Adder took food as he found it, and fought for it when he couldn't find it. That was his habit and his tactic, and it had lasted for over a decade. The more he grew, though, the hungrier he became. The more food he needed to ease his stomach, the less easily he could swindle passersby for a meal.

That led to more wandering for Adder, more energy expended to find food, and often less food overall. He was quickly wearing through the reserves he'd built up during the past summer, and hunger lurked all around him again, eager with its sharp points and howling.

Well. He was still clean enough to walk a common street without feeling especially out of place; the scattered looks of discomfort and disgust he drew in his worn jacket and ragged jeans were things he was used to. Looks didn't bother him; it was words and actions that signalled true threat. Those were the things he watched for, eyeing the people around him. Most of them gave him lots of space, openly unwilling to risk brushing against a literally dirty visible mutant.

There were a few that didn’t, and Adder popped a wallet out of one such stranger’s pocket and into his own with only the slightest brush of pressure. Hopefully there’d be cash in it; plastic cards weren’t exactly easy for him to use.