Nightshiver
TL;DR: A nephilim-infused human mercenary who rambles about the dangers of birds and comes off as 'pretty crazy'.
Also: This is all OOC stuff, guys. It's here for your benefit, not your characters.
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Contents
Who Is He?
Noah is a soft-spoken and sleepless man who lives below his means and often dresses to reflect this. With little to his name other than what he needs to stay alive and a mostly untouched bank account, he comes off as yet another awkward member of the unwashed masses (sometimes in the literal sense).
Beyond this, however, one may come to discover that he is in fact rather intelligent at times and is the reluctant owner of certain skills and abilities that have earned him a coveted place in the world of corporate and political assassination.
It wasn't always that way, of course. He'd started off as a poultry rancher in Australia with a pleasant wife and daughter. It had been a nice and simple life, one he could have lived forever if not for a sudden and violent attack on the countryside that shook him to his foundations and swept normalcy out from under him.
In a flurry of wings, more than 35 people dropped dead overnight, their bodies intact with no understandable sign of what had killed them. Old, young, healthy, ill; the deaths seemed random. The corpses shared only one commonality in the end: open eyes. Empty eyes.. soulless..
Noah knew better, of course.
Because he'd been unfortunate enough to be awake that night. To come home. To greet his wife and daughter. To see the horrible identities of the assailants. To be unable to stop them.
And then what happened?
Grief.
And if there's one thing universal about grief, it is that everyone handles it in their own fashion.
Noah is handling his by descending into serene madness - inventing truths about things in the world in order to avoid facing the realities of what has happened and honing himself in order to combat an enemy the rest of the world does not believe in. This fervor has driven him around the globe in search of answers and assistance, eventually bringing him to the shores of America and, later, to the lair of a powerful Nephilim.
A deal, half of his soul, and some years of training have left him distant but motivated. Now he is a gun for hire, proficient and cold on the field. Hell's Hooligans has recently contracted him as one of their specialists.
What Are We Dealing With Here?
In short, Noah is slowly turning into a crude Nephilim-infused human by way of soul devouring. His ability to coax souls from dead bodies comes from the Nephilim he owes a debt to, and the ability is supposed to be used to steal and deliver souls to that Nephilim in exchange for something Noah wants badly. The problem? Noah may have accidentally swallowed one or two of them. Being without the training or know-how to resist, he is forming an addiction, more so now that he has realized the energy of souls lends him even greater power..
Natural Strengths
- 20/20 vision
- Flexible
- Agile
- Experienced with a variety of long-range firearms, knives, and archery
Mystical Strengths
- Soul Sight: Capable of sensing the presence (or lack) of a soul in a given entity. Multiple or half souls are very difficult for him to pin down directly, but they do give him different vibes than the average person. Without formal training in this area, he can tell little about a person save for whether or not they have a soul.
- Gut Feeling/Intuition: In the fashion of a dog, Noah's first feelings about certain people often turn out to be quite accurate later.
ie: A person emitting a negative aura but acting in a cordial manner may raise the hairs on the back of his neck for reasons he will not understand until later.
- Healy Beams: As he absorbs more and more life energy from the people he has killed during work, Noah's ability to heal both himself and others has grown over time. However, despite this exponential increase in ability, the law of energy transfers still demands sacrifice from him adequate to the healing being performed.
ie: Healing a paper cut is nearly effortless. Healing a dying person will put him in a near to full coma.
- Soul Snatcher: One of Noah's darker abilities is the power to rip life force or even an entire soul out of a person. Typically he can only achieve this if the target is severely wounded, recently-deceased, or knocked unconscious. It's success depends entirely on the strength of his focus versus that of his victim. Typically, it is much harder for him to claim a soul than it is to simply tucker someone out by taking their more temporary physical energy (Non-lethal, makes the victim sleepy).
A flip side to this is that with two consenting partners, Noah is able to siphon life force from one person to another, using himself as a sturdy conduit to complete the 'transaction'. Because he absorbs none of this energy himself, he is often exhausted by the end of the process.
- Nephilim Infusion: Arguably bad as well as good, Noah is slowly developing physical signs that he is not normal anymore. He feels a growing hunger for the souls and life force he once only consumed out of curiosity and an innocent desire to use the power to heal others. Pale 'veins' are appearing across his torso and slowly creeping to his limbs, at times feeling as though they are under pressure.
This is a condition that will progress over time, eventually resulting in a bestial form resembling a Nephilim. Though taller and somewhat more muscular than he normally is, it's only real advantage is that its soul-devouring tactics are stronger than when Noah is wearing a human face. It puts Noah through an immense physical transformation and strips his mind to its most basic urges and priorities. If we're lucky, those will still be to protect and serve the people he cares about.
After his energy dwindles (and it will dwindle quickly in this form), he will revert to his human self and take quite a while to recover from the physical and mental stresses.
Weapons
- A collapsing bow and accompanying set of shoot-to-kill arrows.
- A motley assortment of knives strapped here, there, and everywhere.
- On some jobs, a precision sniper rifle.
Weaknesses
- Big muscles - Noah is a thin guy. If grabbed and smashed around, it won't come as a big surprise if he's knocked out
- Chemicals/Infection - He drinks his Ovaltine, but remains susceptible to colds, flus, sedatives, freaky science fiction darts, and other invasive chemicals and germs.
- Only human - Drowning, suffocation, electrocution, combustion, skewering, soul-removal, blood-loss, and other such ailments will kill him as quickly as anyone else.
