Player's Name: Liz/EC

Characters Played Here: Charles Xavier (X MEN MOVIES)

Character: The Shade {born Josiah Cole}

Series/Canon: Original Character

From When? His previous stint in Boomtown

Previous Game(s): Previous stint in Boomtown

World Description: The world of the Shade is not all that different from the world that we know now, save for the secret existence of the supernatural...and a very small cult of worship that tends to be shuffled off into the corners of neopaganism. The cult worships a death god known as the Shade, and depictions of him carry a very heavy American West or frontier theme. There is some evidence of his existence among religious scholars and students of alternative science as well, as research has uncovered that some individuals have been visited by a man matching the Shade's description prior to their demise. Nearly all of these individuals died within a week of the sighting, but a rare few can say they have spoken to this specter of death and lived to tell the tale.

Those in the supernatural community, however, do not speculate: they know the Shade is real, and they fear him greatly. The main source of fear is ignorance, for unlike many gods, precious little is truly known about him. A long and grisly history exists of those who have tried to uncover his origins, and a means of channeling his power or currying his favor. For this reason, few speak of him, and those that do whisper his name for fear of drawing his attention.

For those who know of the Shade know that to catch his eye is a certain path to a sudden and very painful death.


History: In nearly every mythology, he is there: the Grim Reaper, the ferryman Charon, or has a woman's face and goes by the name valkyrie or banshee. In some circles and lesser known cultures, however, he is a myth unto himself, and among his many names, the one he answers to most readily is that simply of The Shade. A minor death god, he collects his own souls and is known best for comforting the ones he claims. His appearance is a sign of impending death, unstoppable and unavoidable: he is seen, he speaks, and one week later those to whom he has spoken will die.

Those who call him Lord of the Vale and Reaper of the Wayward say he glories in the destruction of his calling, others who know him best as Gentle Death or the Angel of the Grave say he is just that: a fallen angel that has never shaken his benevolent nature. Real accounts exist from those left behind, and those before their end of the steadfast ally with sad eyes and a deep voice that brings not just warning, but solace in their final days. To the lonely, he is a friend. To the frightened and confused, he is a guide, leading the condemned through the terrible task of settling their affairs, and to those who question what comes next, he speaks of a place where life continues with simple tranquility in a world of eternal twilight.

This world, whose name is never spoken, is a source of wild speculation for those who study the mythology of the Shade, and for the supernaturally gifted with an affinity for death...for while he lays visible claim on those about to die, it has been said that no soul he collects ever reaches the Other Side.

This is the myth of the Shade, the one he prefers to share...but the truth is far stranger than fiction.

Though he has been connected to various existing myths associated with death deities and harbingers of death, the origins of The Shade can be traced back as recently as 137 years ago to the birth of a human named Josiah Cole in Silverstone, a small town just outside of Santa Fe in 1880. The son of Elton and Katherine Cole, Josiah's upbringing was an unconventional one. Katherine, a woman of impossible beauty and pure heart, was from a well to do family that didn't look kindly on a marriage below her station to Elton, the town undertaker. Still, it was a happy one that gave her two beautiful children, both sons. Ezekiel Cole was slim and fair haired like his father while Josiah, a brawny youth, took after his mother with his cold grey eyes and blood red hair that didn't quite match his mother's ginger coloring.

There was little question about Josiah's origins at first: the Coles were a happy family and the brothers were close as brothers ought to be. There was still no question when Josiah was orphaned at the age of seven, a sweeping fire destroying the Cole mortuary and leaving only the eldest boy alive. No, the questions came later when Josiah was grown and quietly took up the family profession. The questions came when he would be heard by his assistant speaking quietly to the corpses he managed, or calling on people he rarely spoke to shortly before they passed away. The questions turned to suspicion when a red-haired stranger as big as Josiah and just as strange entered town to spend several weeks as the undertaker's guest...and then several years as Josiah's mentor, rarely ever leaving his side.

Believing there was witchery or demons about, the townsfolk ran Josiah out of town along with his strange friend, never knowing that Josiah's visitor was Death itself...or that Josiah was a wild death mage, the first in an entirely human bloodline born with a spark of magic, one so powerful it could destroy him without proper instruction...or, with improper instruction, change his family's fate.

Josiah did just that with Death's instruction, attempting to raise his parents and his brother from the dead. He didn't realize, however, that he'd been set up: his brother had not been destined to die, but his parents had. His brother returned, but his parents were forever lost, torn from Paradise and forced to wander the earth aimlessly until the end of time. Enraged, Ezekiel Cole, now a grown man's soul trapped in a boy's body, and a fire mage in his own right, turned on his brother and killed him. Josiah's actions damned his soul to Hell, where Death claimed him as his own. Rather than serve Death as his Grim Reaper, Josiah found power enough to break Death's hold upon him and claimed an uncharted part of the Underworld as his own.

Scarred by his actions, spurred by blind grief, Josiah gave up his quest for power. Meanwhile, rage festered in his brother as he grew to physical manhood, discovering his own mystical gifts in time. Over the years, their power and their reach has grown, their story infecting mythologies that never knew them. Josiah as The Shade still wanders, as his parents do, comforting the lost and lonely dead in their final days, then giving their souls solace in a world of his own creation, all while his brother, known only as the Scourge, hunts every soul his brother seeks to claim and forces him to relive that night all over again: driving innocent souls mad, the Scourge claims each one and sends them to kill his brother, all while searching for an object known only as the Vessel of the Shade, the one mystical tool that has the power to enslave the Shade.

So the battle rages on: the Shade, struggling to put his past behind him and lay claim to the Vessel to ensure his freedom, and the Scourge, hellbent on destroying all his brother loves and hoping to lay claim to the Vessel in order to ensure the eternal suffering and enslavement of his last living relation.

Does your character have any close ties to existing canon characters? N/A

Why do you think your character would work in this setting?  The Shade is a former resident of New Dodge, and flourished in this setting. In the game, he began to reconnect with his humanity, enjoying fatherhood and even the love of a woman, things no dead man should be capable of in his world. Upon his return, he will reclaim his former life as best he can, and mourn his losses in the years since his departure.

How do you plan to expand their CR? The Shade will seek out his previous friends and family as he finds them, but to go beyond that, it will be much the same as when he first applied: the Shade will have to expand his CR to gain any real power in New Dodge. His primary source of power is the souls he's claimed and the realm he's created in Limbo, but being here he won't have that. He'll have a limited source of power, a single lifeline that transcends dimensions which will serve to one, keep him alive and two, give him access to his power as a death mage and minimal access to his powers as a god. To gain greater access, he needs to claim souls—a harmless process that gives him power and them his protection, but this is basically how he makes friends. He's very selective about the souls he claims, and develops a relationship with them because it's a voluntary thing: he doesn't steal souls, they come to him of their own accord. One of the advantages, though it's not one he advertises, is that should a soul in his care die, he TECHNICALLY can bring them back to life, at great cost to himself.

What will your character do for work? He's an undertaker by trade, but if he can't do that, he'll use his assorted journeyman skills to find work. In addition to the art of embalming, he also works well with wood, has some minor skill as a tailor (he took great pride in dressing his corpses in full rather than taking shortcuts), and he's an immense physical specimen. Be it building structures on new tracts of settlers' land, or just using his brute strength, he'll find a means to make his way. As he was previously the stablemaster when he was in game, he will also try to reclaim that job if possible.

Inventory: He will flux in wearing his divine face, with only a wooden chest containing a simple brass funeral urn.

Samples:

Third-Person Sample: http://boomtownmeme.dreamwidth.org/55283.html?thread=10829299#cmt10829299 (First Thread)

First-Person Sample: The Shade prepares a soul for burial--is is prepared by a soul for the same: https://deaths-head.dreamwidth.org/1395.html

As soon as he found her, he wanted her. She was a dazzling soul, pure and bright and she burned hot. The goodness in her wasn't angelic, it was ferocious--living fire, and he wanted it. The Lord, the Devil, they could both go rot because this woman was going to be his.

The first he ever laid eyes on her was the day he came for her.

She was with the blind lawyer, walking through the police station to meet a client. The lawyer was another one he wanted, but to the Shade's amusement he was clean. In his scarred and sightless eyes, there was no trace of the mark of death. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen, the Man Without Fear, and he was as untouched as the driven snow.

The Shade sat at a detective's desk, just another perp, albeit a big one. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, tattooed arms bare, and a black bandanna knotted around his head to keep his wild red hair at bay.

He waited until Karen Page set eyes on him. An officer walked between them, breaking her line of vision...

When the officer passed, he was standing--and while the big biker was still present to everyone in the room who might be looking, the condemned soul he set his steady gaze on saw something entirely different.

Blood red hair spilled across his shoulders, eyes shielded by the wide brimmed black hat he wore, matching the long black coat that swept the floor. Though those eyes were in shadow, they were still eerily visible, flashing intermittently with sparks of light, glimmering as something in their depths moved and shifted.

And as she watched, the Shade raised one gloved hand, and very deliberately beckoned her forward with a crooked finger.

OOC PREFERENCES:
•CONTACT METHOD: madwomanwithabox on Plurk, madwomanwithabox#1521 on Discord
•THREAD-JACKING: In a timely fashion, it makes me SO happy. XD Late to the party, ask first? Just so I don't accidentally hurt feelings if I miss something. <3
•FOURTH WALLING / CANON PUNCTURE: He's an OC, so that would be impossible? But his existence has bled into numerous mythologies--he's often mistaken for the Devil, for Death itself, for various other death gods. Feel free to make that same mistake with the death myths of your own pups!
•BACKTAGGING: Check with me if it's more than a week out? Blanket answer is 'come at me, bros,' but RL can get in the way and I don't want you to feel neglected if I don't tag back because something got in the way.
•AVOIDED TOPICS: Nothing terribly, as I do want to delve into some rough things with this muse, but I will absolutely reach out if something is triggery for me, and we can work with it. I'm a firm believer in communication.
•PREFERRED GENDER PRONOUN: her/she, and I am not offended by the gender neutral use of 'dude'

IC CHARACTERISTICS:
•CURRENT CANON POINT: He's an OC, so it doesn't really apply.
•PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: The Shade is a death god, but was born human. He wears his human face most of the time, but there are some differences between that and his true divine form. In his world, he has the power to shift between the two, so he can walk among the living without drawing as much attention.

In game, however, while he is a living man once again, he's stuck in his divine form. This puts him around seven feet tall, with deep red hair worn long (about midway down his back). He's a big man, and while muscular, he's trim: his physique is not that of a bodybuilder, but a solid working man. His eyes are a living storm, grey with storm clouds and constantly sparkling with the lightning that flashes within them. Both arms are heavily tattooed, most noticeably there is a single tattoo on his left arm that glows with a pale grey light just tinted purple. He also has a runic tattoo on his abdomen (which also glows), and assorted arcane symbols at the base of his throat. There is also a tattoo on the nape of his neck of a skeleton in a fighting pose which also glows, and usually hides beneath his hair. He rarely, if ever, shows it to anyone.

•DEMEANOR: Best summarized as 'eternal grouch.' Natural expression is surly, he glares at nearly everyone, and always seems about ready to throw a punch. This softens a touch around women, merely to the point of respect--for the meek and tender hearted, however, he's an extreme soft touch.

While the dead cannot feel as humans do, the Shade is no longer dead, and as such he will be struggling to deal with emotions he has forgotten, and the personality he had when he was alive. This personality will creep through very frequently: somber but friendly, shy and soft spoken, a gentle big man who is, at his core, painfully lonely.
•ABILITIES: The Shade is a death god, but in game he is also a living man. This has nerfed most of his powers. The following is a complete list of his abilities that will be updated as they are restored to him.

ACTIVE

MARK OF DEATH: the Shade can see a soul marked for death, and feel the pull of the same. The mark is transitory in nature (example: a man with cancer is marked for death, if he is not fated to die the mark will fade when he seeks treatment), and will not draw him to a soul unless their death is fated. Currently, as he is a living man and stripped of his godhood, he has only the gift he possessed when he was a death mage in life. this means that he can sense impending death, often in the form of clairvoyance: he will see specters of death like grim reapers, and hear auditory hallucinations speaking the name of the condemned.

SPELLCASTING: the Shade can cast spells, often heavily aided by the power of death. This means he can craft healing tonics from poisons, protective talismans with bones, grave dirt, or blood, and performs his most powerful magic at sunset--the death of a day. At present, his power has been dampened: while he can cast small spells and enchantments (think small lights in the dark, start campfires, even modest glamours), he will be easily exhausted if the spells grow too large.

INACTIVE

DIVINE SIGHT/AURA READING: the Shade can see into a soul, discerning the true nature of a being: good or evil, dark or light. This is the power that allows him to judge a person, and assess their worthiness to join his flock on the Other Side.

IMMORTALITY

INVULNERABILITY

MINOR SHAPESHIFTING: the Shade has a human guise, one that lets him blend in with the world of the living (essentially, the face and body he wore when he was still Josiah Cole), and his form as a god. He can shift between the two at will, and outside the game, has greater power in his true divine form.

TRANSLOCATION: the Shade can transport himself between realms and locations through the use of magic, often appearing as a cloud of inky fog.

LIFE FORCE: the Shade is capable of manipulating life force, primarily to take life, but also in small measures to restore it (example: he can restore a small plant to life or heal minor injuries in others)

SPIRIT MEDIUM: he can see and communicate with the souls of the dead.

SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, SPEED, REFLEXES

STORM LORD: the Shade can manipulate the weather, specifically for the creation of lightning storms and summoning of fog.

CLAIMING SOULS: the Shade can claim souls by branding a creature, living or dead, with a mystically imbued tattoo. This lets him draw power from the soul to make his magic stronger, sense the welfare of that soul, and allows his souls to summon him at will.

MYSTICAL TATTOOING: the Shade is capable of creating tattoos out of pure magic, imbuing them with spells, and branding them on skin with bare hands and no ink. Every tattoo he wears is one he laid upon his own flesh, save for the skeleton on the nape of his neck, posed for combat.

•OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS: The Shade is extremely touchy about his former profession, and in life was looked down on for his familiarity and ease with the dead. He's also cagey about his past, as things like his true name can be used against him. He's also not fond of fire, a little uncomfortable around fire (as fire was responsible for his death) and despite his calling, has no tolerance for those without respect for life.

IC PERMISSIONS:
•MENTAL: Check in with me first and yes.
•MIMICRY: Sure!
•VIOLENCE: Yes, but he's a big boy with a violent streak. He WILL hit back if attacked, and hard.
•MAGIC: Yep! Just let me know what you're planning.
•DEBATE: Of course!

Hugging this character: ...just don't expect him to hug back.
Kissing this character: Yes, but brace for initial perplexed confusion before a response.
Flirting with this character: Yes, but be heavy handed. He can be a little dense about this stuff.
Fighting with this character: PLEASE. He's a big fella, though, so let's talk it out. He's hard to take down, but we will work out how your muse will kick the shit out of him! :P
Injuring this character: Minor, yes. Moderate, use common sense. Major, ask first.
Killing this character: Ask me first, but oh I am SO open to it. He's used to being dead anyway.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Ask first.

Warnings: The Shade is, to a degree, a sexual sadist. He enjoys a great deal of power play, dominating his partners, and is VERY aggressive sexually, physically and in terms of personality. If this is triggery for you in any way, please let me know in advance. I can, and will, modify the way I play him to accommodate you!

Anything else: The Shade has a lot of abilities that are on the omnipotent/omniscient side. Please review his list of active and inactive abilities, and if any of them are things your muse will somehow be immune to/exempt from? Please let me know! I don't want to accidentally god mod. In addition, situational abilities, such as his power to foresee death, are good plotty things. If you'd like the Shade to know that your character is going to die, drop me a line and I can help with your deathly funtimes!

PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Liz/EC
AGE: 35 years young
CONTACT: Plurk: madwomanwithabox, Discord: madwomanwithabox#1521
CHARACTERS PLAYED: Allison Argent (TEEN WOLF CRAU)
RESERVED? Nope!

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: The Shade {born Josiah Cole}
CANON: Original Character
CANON POINT: N/A
AGE: N/A {Josiah Cole was born in 1880, and died in 1911 at the age of thirty one. He's been a death god for approximately a century or so.}

HISTORY: In nearly every mythology, he is there: the Grim Reaper, the ferryman Charon, or has a woman's face and goes by the name valkyrie or banshee. In some circles and lesser known cultures, however, he is a myth unto himself, and among his many names, the one he answers to most readily is that simply of The Shade. A minor death god, he collects his own souls and is known best for comforting the ones he claims. His appearance is a sign of impending death, unstoppable and unavoidable: he is seen, he speaks, and seven days later those to whom he has spoken will die.

Those who call him Lord of the Vale and Reaper of the Wayward say he glories in the destruction of his calling, others who know him best as Gentle Death or the Angel of the Grave say he is just that: a fallen angel that has never shaken his benevolent nature. Real accounts exist from those left behind, and those before their end of the steadfast ally with sad eyes and a deep voice that brings not just warning, but solace in their final days. To the lonely, he is a friend. To the frightened and confused, he is a guide, leading the condemned through the terrible task of settling their affairs, and to those who question what comes next, he speaks of a place where life continues with simple tranquility in a world of eternal twilight.

This world, whose name is never spoken, is a source of wild speculation for those who study the mythology of the Shade, and for the supernaturally gifted with an affinity for death...for while he lays visible claim on those about to die, it has been said that no soul he collects ever reaches the Other Side.

This is the myth of the Shade, the one he prefers to share...but the truth is far stranger than fiction.

Though he has been connected to various existing myths associated with death deities and harbingers of death, the origins of The Shade can be traced back as recently as 137 years ago to the birth of a human named Josiah Cole in Silverstone, a small town just outside of Santa Fe in 1880. The son of Elton and Katherine Cole, Josiah's upbringing was an unconventional one. Katherine, a woman of impossible beauty and pure heart, was from a well to do family that didn't look kindly on a marriage below her station to Elton, the town undertaker. Still, it was a happy one that gave her two beautiful children, both sons. Ezekiel Cole was slim and fair haired like his father while Josiah, a branwy youth, took after his mother with his cold grey eyes and blood red hair that didn't quite match his mother's ginger coloring.

There was little question about Josiah's origins at first: the Coles were a happy family and the brothers were close as brothers ought to be. There was still no question when Josiah was orphaned at the age of seven, a sweeping fire destroying the Cole mortuary and leaving only the eldest boy alive. No, the questions came later when Josiah was grown and quietly took up the family profession. The questions came when he would be heard by his assistant speaking quietly to the corpses he managed, or calling on people he rarely spoke to shortly before they passed away. The questions turned to suspicion when a red-haired stranger as big as Josiah and just as strange entered town to spend several weeks as the undertaker's guest...and then several years as Josiah's mentor, rarely ever leaving his side.

Believing there was witchery or demons about, the townsfolk ran Josiah out of town along with his strange friend, never knowing that Josiah's visitor was Death itself...or that Josiah was a wild death mage, the first in an entirely human bloodline born with a spark of magic, one so powerful it could destroy him without proper instruction...or, with improper instruction, change his family's fate.

Josiah did just that with Death's guidance, attempting to raise his parents and his brother from the dead. He didn't realize, however, that he'd been set up: his brother had not been destined to die, but his parents had. His brother returned, but his parents were forever lost, torn from Paradise and forced to wander the earth aimlessly until the end of time. Enraged, Ezekiel Cole, now a grown man's soul trapped in a boy's body, and a fire mage in his own right, turned on his brother and killed him. Josiah's actions damned his soul to Hell, where he languished for over a decade before Death claimed him as his own, marking him with the brand of the Grim Reaper. The mark, designed to hollow all the power out of a soul and turn them into a mindless slave, ravaged Josiah as he escaped into Limbo, fighting oblivion and madness with all his strength.

It was his unchecked power that saved him: with magic Death had taught him, Josiah learned to harness the power of the mark through mystical tattooing, claiming its magic rather than letting its magic claim him. Emboldened, but still lost, Josiah made his home in Limbo. Other lost souls and creatures of the Other Side began to gravitate towards him, pledging their loyalty in exchange for safe harbor. When angels and demons from the ranks of Heaven and Hell, however, war broke out. The battle was brief, but bloody and merciless...but in the end, a peace was forged. In that peace, the Devil swore revenge, and the Lord recognized him as a god by name: Sorrow's Shade.

So it was that Josiah Cole died, and in his place, the Shade found power enough to break free of Death and claim the Vale, the valley at the heart of Limbo, for his own.

Scarred by his ordeal, spurred by blind grief when he looked over the trials that shaped his path to the Divine, Josiah gave up his quest for power for good.

Meanwhile, rage festered in his brother as he grew to physical manhood, discovering his own mystical gifts in time. Over the years, their power and their reach has grown, their story infecting mythologies that never knew them. Josiah as The Shade still wanders, like his parents do, comforting the lost and lonely dead in their final days, then giving their souls solace in a world of his own creation, all while his brother, known only as the Scourge, hunts every soul his brother seeks to bring peace and forces him to relive that night all over again: driving innocent souls mad, the Scourge claims each one and sends them to kill his brother, all while searching for an object known only as the Vessel of the Shade, the one mystical tool that has the power to enslave the brother that tore him from his eternal rest.

So the battle rages on: the Shade, struggling to put his past behind him and lay claim to the Vessel to ensure his freedom, and the Scourge, hellbent on destroying all his brother loves and hoping to lay claim to the Vessel in order to ensure the eternal suffering and enslavement of his last living relation.

PAST GAME MEMORIES: N/A

PERSONALITY: To understand the Shade means understanding two men: the god, and the man. There are common traits both share, but there are also major differences that affect the entity he has become in very different ways.

As a living man, Josiah Cole was a simple soul: kind, God-fearing, and deeply compassionate. Though raised by a local widow, Josiah was very much shaped by those early years of simple contentment in the bosom of his family as he learned to embrace the joy of living from his vivacious mother, to respect and honor the dead as he watched his father work, and the love and loyalty of family in the few short years he got to be a big brother. Losing them all devastated little Josiah, but having been raised with death he learned to accept the loss, though he never truly healed from it.

In adulthood, Josiah carried that sorrow with him, believing he had no right to the normal life his father tried to carve out. Though he loved in his time, he never courted or sought to take a wife. Rather, he found an almost religious calling in his work with the dead, and found satisfaction in losing himself in the day to day. Always, he was conflicted by the strange things he could do, and turned to faith to try and save his soul.

In death, however, the soul forgets much of the passion of life. Fear, rage, and bliss—the tranquility of the grave—are all the dead can truly feel, sparing them the pain of separation from the life and people they cared for. This stripped away much of the sensitivity and sweetness of the man he once was after he died, and his rise to power only heightened the darker aspects of his personality and warped his virtue. Personal strength grew until he cared for naught but that which belonged to him. Affection became jealous obsession, while his affinity for death became a thirst for blood and an Irish temper became black, calculating rage that earned the fear of the Devil himself.

However, once he'd thrown off the shackles of Death and earned his place on the Other Side as a minor god with a realm of his own, the Shade began to remember pieces of himself. Where he initially claimed souls for greater power, he soon became selective, choosing those who would better fit the community he'd started to build. Where once he gloried in the fear he inspired and the blood he shed, he soon used intimidation only as a tool to protect the world he'd built, and when soldiers from Heaven and Hell came to his realm to pledge their allegiance, he accepted them so long as they had something to offer.

With power, he feels a little more than some, but at the end of the day he is still very much a man who lost his life...and while he's found ways to fill the hole left behind, and has remembered at least a small part of what he used to be in life, he knows that he is forever changed by the battles he fought and the trials he's endured, and has made peace with the fate he saw for himself as a living man.

Sorrow is his bride, solitude is his calling, and death is a beloved friend that will never betray him.

POWERS/ABILITIES: The Shade was a death mage in life, and is a death god now. His powers are as follows, but most will be nerfed in very simple fashion: he will be alive when he arrives in Ainmhian, with a beating heart in his chest. This will strip his powers brought by godhood, leaving him the simple gifts of a death mage.

MARK OF DEATH: the Shade can see a soul marked for death, and feel the pull of the same. The mark is transitory in nature (example: a man with cancer is marked for death, if he is not fated to die the mark will fade when he seeks treatment), and will not draw him to a soul unless their death is fated. (NERFED: his primary gift as a death mage is the ability to sense impending death, often in the form of clairvoyance: he will see specters of death like grim reapers, and hear auditory hallucinations speaking the name of the condemned.)

DIVINE SIGHT/AURA READING: the Shade can see into a soul, discerning the true nature of a being: good or evil, dark or light. This is the power that allows him to judge a person, and assess their worthiness to join his flock on the Other Side. (NERFED: this power is associated with godhood, and will be stripped.)

SPELLCASTING (NERFED: while he can cast small spells and enchantments (think small lights in the dark, start campfires, even modest glamours), he will be easily exhausted if the spells grow too large.)

IMMORTALITY (NERFED: he will be a living man, with all the vulnerabilities that entails.)

INVULNERABILITY: being that he's the walking dead, the Shade cannot be killed by conventional means, nor wounded. He can, however, be harmed through the use of powerful magic of any sort. (NERFED: see above.)

MINOR SHAPESHIFTING: the Shade has a human guise, one that lets him blend in with the world of the living (essentially, the face and body he wore when he was still Josiah Cole), and his form as a god. He can shift between the two at will, and has greater power in his true divine form. (NERFED: though alive, he will be stuck in his divine form: approximately seven feet tall, a living storm in his irises--storm clouds render them deep grey, with visible flashes of lightning if seen in close proximity.)

TRANSLOCATION: the Shade can transport himself between realms and locations through the use of magic, often appearing as a cloud of inky fog. (NERFED: this power is associated with godhood and will be stripped.)

LIFE FORCE: the Shade is capable of manipulating life force, primarily to take life, but also in small measures to restore it (example: he can restore a small plant to life or heal minor injuries in others) (NERFED: this power will be stripped.)

SPIRIT MEDIUM: he can see and communicate with the souls of the dead. (NERFED: This power will be stripped.)

SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, SPEED, REFLEXES (NERFED: this power is associated with godhood and will be stripped.)

STORM LORD: the Shade can manipulate the weather, specifically for the creation of lightning storms and summoning of fog. (NERFED: this power will be stripped.)

CLAIMING SOULS: the Shade can claim souls by branding a creature, living or dead, with a mystically imbued tattoo. This lets him draw power from the soul to make his magic stronger, sense the welfare of that soul, and allows his souls to summon him at will. (NERFED: this power will be stripped.

MYSTICAL TATTOOING: the Shade is capable of creating tattoos out of pure magic, imbuing them with spells, and branding them on skin with bare hands and no ink. Every tattoo he wears is one he laid upon his own flesh, save for the skeleton on the nape of his neck, posed for combat. (NERFED: the Shade will have no access to this ability. The magic and spells of the tattoos he wears will be completely dormant, save for three: the skeleton on his nape, a small coffin on his left arm, and a runic sigil on his abdomen. These tattoos are responsible for his existence, allowing him to draw the strength he needs to stay alive from any plane, as well as preserving his realm on the Other Side. They serve no other function, but they will glow with a pale grey light, merely signifying that they are active.)

NOTE: if the nerfing outlined does not suit the mods, feel free to impose your own restrictions!

SAMPLES: The story of how the Shade died.

The Shade claims a soul in a frontier town on the edges of space.

ANYTHING ELSE? Nothing I can think of! His permissions will include options for players to give permission for those of the Shade's godlike or omniscient powers, should they be restored to him, that bears mentioning, I think.

"You're staring, boy."

"Don't mean nothin' by it, sir."

The man sitting at his kitchen table just smiled, despite lookin g as uncomfortable as Josiah felt most of the time. He made good money, but the world simply wasn't made for men their size, and the furniture in his home left something to be d esired. He'd made time for his bed, and only his bed, crafting that particular piece of furniture himself to fit his frame so he had at least one refuge from the smaller shaped world around him.

The stranger just smiled, sipping his coffee. "I don't fault you, son. Don't surprise me none that you ain't seen a man like you before. We're few and far between."

Having poured his own cup of coffee from the pot on the stove, Josiah crossed the room of his small apartment and folded himself to sit in the chair across from his strange new friend: broad and tall as Josiah was, with hair that same hellish shade of dark red. He wore it cut down short, where Josiah let his grow out a mite, and had eyes of charcoal where Josiah's were a clear grey, slate when he was angry or impassioned.

"Momma, God rest her soul, was a real Irish spitfire." he explained after a long, scaling pull of the bitter brew he favored. "Got that from her, right down to the carrot top."

The stranger laughed, a dark sound that chilled Josiah to his marrow. "I ain't talkin' of the Irish, boy. I mean us...them the dead speak to."

"I wouldn't know 'bout that." Even he, however, knew the words came too quickly, too automatic. It was a rehearsed response, one he needed in order to be able to cover up the Devil's power made manifest within him.

The stranger folded his arms along the edge of the table and leaned forward, with a smile that took blandly handsome features and pulled them tight against his skull...it was the smile of a corpse, long dead.

"I heard tell of you, Mr. Cole. The undertaker who soothes his corpses while embalming, who comes to call just before the Reaper does...that's power, Jo, power few possess. That's the kind of power a wise man will use to his benefit, to right the wrongs that Fate's done him."

Josiah was chilled by the look of the man he'd invited in from the rain, speaking freely of the witchery he fought so hard to hide, to turn away from...but the mention of righting wrongs, of Fate's fickle touch...

"What wrongs you think can be righted?" the question left him before he realized he was speaking.

"The wrongs, Josiah Cole, of life stolen in its prime. This son, is the domain of the death mage...and if you'll merely give me the pleasure of your company, along with a little room & board, I'll teach you all you need to know."

* * * * *

"I can't make it work!"

The stranger, who Josiah now knew by his true name of Death, narrowed his eyes at the young man folded into his seat at the table, tossing the dead branch halfway across the room in frustration.

"If you're going to raise three souls, Josiah, you must learn." Death reminded him calmly, crossing the small room to pick up the branch. "You know the feel of the power."

Josiah sighed, raking his fingers back through his hair as he rested his elbows on the table. Dimly, he was aware of the branch being placed before him again, empty and hollow...and after several weeks of practice, singing a song only Josiah could hear. A simple dead tree branch, and it called to him with a haunting melody of pure longing that made his heart clutch in his chest.

"I do." he admitted gruffly, lifting his head to look back up at Death. "But using it like this instead of just soothin' the souls in my parlor? It feels...it's a thousand souls rioting in my head. Chaos, sir."

"Then think of the waterfall."

Josiah blinked, confused. "Sir?..."

"Think of the waterfall." Death echoed, laying a hand on Josiah's shoulder. "Shut your eyes and think of it."

With a dubious look at his teacher, Josiah focused on the tree branch for a moment, then shut his eyes with a weary sigh. As he did, he pictured a waterfall, etchings he'd seen of the mighty Niagra Falls. As he focused on the details, the low, soothing voice of Death sounded in his ear.

"Think of the waterfall. Sound, fury, riptides...chaos. Still, it travels a single path, pours endlessly downward, begins as a trickle and becomes a tide in time...consistent, unchanging. Chaos can be channeled...you simply need to give it a direction in which to flow."

Josiah let himself hear the roar of the water, focused on the tempest as it surged forward, ever forward...heard the whisper of the spirits, and when they threatened to drown out the roar of the water, he sketched out stones in his mind's eye and sat them on either side of the flow of sound. One by one, he laid them at the edges to channel the sound forward, ever forward...

The cool wind that touched him before the visit of a ghost slipped under his skin as he reached out and touched the branch. It was cold water, dipping his fingertips into it and pulling it away. Heat flooded in its wake, sweeping away the cold and filling his lungs with something deeper, brighter, hotter than just breath.

Josiah opened his eyes, and gaped as he stared at the apple blossoms that now sprouted from the once dead limb.

"Very good, Josiah." Death praised softly, his hands heavy on Josiah's broad shoulders. "You learn quickly. Now it's time to move on to animals..."

* * * * *

"I didn't know...oh, God, Zeke, I didn't know..."

Everything with the ritual had gone the way it was supposed to. Death stood at his back the whole time, gently offering instruction when his will wavered. The power that had moved through him had been something touched by the divine--bliss like he'd never known, strength he had never dreamed.

Resurrecting the dead, in its own strange way, felt like home...until it all went wrong.

He would never forget the screams that pierced the air as the graves of Elton and Katherine Cole caught fire and burned before his eyes. Even now, they lay smoking, charred memorials to the bodies that once lay sleeping beneath the earth.

Still kneeling before Ezekiel's tiny grave, standing open wide...and gazed into the eyes of the child that stood in front of it.

The toddler was caked with earth, grimy and smeared with a mixture of dirt, decay, and unspeakable things left behind by the scavengers in the soil. The child under the filth was perfectly restored, a four year old boy flush with life...except for his eyes. His eyes were those of a man, ancient compared to the chubby cheeks and angelic curls that lay against his forehead.

Those eyes were ancient, and they leapt with pure hellfire.

"I didn't know." Josiah breathed, shaking his head as his stomach threatened to rebel. "Oh, God, Zeke, I didn't know..."

He turned his head, violent words on his tongue to demand answers from Death--to know what had gone wrong when everything was so perfect. This was supposed to be perfect.

Death was gone. Josiah was alone.

"I can hear them screaming, Josie."

Josiah turned back to Ezekiel, his tiny child's voice speaking a man's words, threaded through with a thin note of hysteria. The cold night air was warm on his face and bare arms, but the heat wasn't natural. It radiated from the tiny form in front of him, the brother Josiah ached to hold.

"Can't you hear them screaming?" Ezekiel repeated, clutching the sides of his head. "Mamma, Pappa--they weren't meant to leave! And me--why would you put me back?! Why would you put me here!?!"

"Zeke," Josiah tried, raising a hand to offer his little brother, "take a breath--listen to me, please. He told me I could make it right--that we could be together. Death...he didn't tell me this would happen! I didn't know!"

"You didn't care!"

Josiah flinched, physically pained at the shriek of rage that burned like coals. On top of that, to Josiah's horror, as his hands dropped from the sides of his head, pure flame leaped from his pudgy little fingertips.

It was him. he realized, angry and grief stricken at the same time.

"Twenty four years you took from me--and now I can't go back!" Ezekiel spat. "What did you turn me into?!"

The helpless baby with flames licking up his arms, lapping at him without wounding him...those flames had to have rolled off his little body and across the floors of their home, burning his parents, the beams that broke his fragile little body...

Flames that had spared Josiah, the child born not to fire, but to death.

Josiah shut his eyes, covering his face with his hands. "I just wanted you back...I didn't know it was you..."

"WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME?!?!"

Josiah's head lifted, even as he winced--right as the child raised his hand and conjured a ball of pure flame, one he threw at Josiah's knees.

It caught his trousers, and with a hoarse cry as he began to burn, Josiah tried to slap it out.

Little Zeke, a grown man in a four year old's body, threw another fireball.

And another.

And another.

And as the child grinned and laughed, Josiah Cole, weakened by spending all his power, screamed as he slowly burnt to death at his little brother's feet.

She had two days left--he, however, had none.

The pull he'd felt was fleeting, but the only confirmation he needed to realize his time was up. The little she-devil that had trussed up his nephew had the Vessel, and had it contained to deliver to her master. He'd underestimated the goblin halfbreed, and now he was out of time.

There was ever chance the Scourge could find him, and make him use that Vessel for more than just personal gain.

He didn't go to Dawn: she was protected. The King of Iron would have made sure of that, made sure even he couldn't hurt his own beloved.

No, when a thick cloud of heavy, impenetrable black mist appeared, then vanished to reveal the Shade in his divine form, it was on the street in broad daylight, in front of a small cluster of dance students...with Courtney at its center.

With a black scowl, the Shade stepped forward, caught her arm, and in another cloud of black mist they were gone.

When they reappeared, it was within her sanctuary. Symbols on its walls were smoldering, little more than streaks of ash and burned out after being brutalized by his entry.

Releasing Courtney, he turned away from her and raised a hand. The distant sound of thunder rolled, and another inky cloud appeared, then vanished. In its place there stood a stand bearing a casket made in pure ebony wood. It was done in an older style, tapered at the feet with a flat lid. Bright silver hinges and lock gleamed against the jet black wood, and in the lid deeply carved symbols could only just be made out, runic figures in an unfamiliar mystical alphabet.

The Shade finally turned back to her, his eyes glowing, white orbs in his head. He caught her hand this time, gentle but unyielding, and pushed up her sleeve. Fingers spread, he hovered his hand over her wrist and began a quiet chant in a strange tongue, each word blending into the other like water flowing, but harsh and rough at the same time. As his hand slowly began to move up her arm, tendrils of that black mist began to seep from beneath the sleeve of his long black coat and swirl up over her skin--then beneath it, hot but not painful as power seeped into her flesh. Under her skin, the black tendrils continued to move and swirl until the were forming images...

Images of skulls and demons, ones she would recognize, but far more delicate, interspersed with images of vines and flowers, lines more slender and colors brighter as the bloomed on her flesh.

The confirmation came when he finally let her go, the chant stopping and the light in his eyes dying. Reaching up, he tugged back his sleeve.

The tattoos on his arm stopped at his elbow, his forearm now completely naked--while the tattoos that had been there before were now on Courtney's skin, from wrist to mid bicep and glowing gently with a pale golden light for a few moments before they went dark, but remained no less beautiful.

"In a very short time," he began, finally speaking for the first time since he'd plucked her off the street, "your former lover will have a mystical talisman of incredible power, one that can unleash a weapon more terrible than any darkness the world has ever known. When that weapon is loosed, you will lock yourself within this casket and channel your personal power into it. You must remain there for two days you have left to live--the casket is enchanted, it will use your personal power to give life to a forest glen around it, but it will also hide you from any force that would try to seek you out. Then you need only invoke the power of shadow and twilight--the marks I've transferred to you will not only sustain the needs of your living body, they will banish the mark on your soul...and protect you from it from this day forward. You will be incapable of being killed by anyone."

His gloved hands protected him from her power. His heart did not beat, his soul was silent. Feeling was a memory...but so recent still, so strong, that still his gloved fingers found their way to her cheek, cradling her face as he looked into her eyes, pain lurking in steel grey depths.

"Even me...and make no mistake, I will likely come to kill you, little mage--because that weapon about to be loosed is me."

After his meeting with the trapped soul and her Stone Speaker, the Shade returned to the Vale to renew himself. Two days of rejuvenating sleep, drawing power from his souls and his world, and he had the strength he needed to walk into Hell and fight, if necessary, for the answers he was looking for.

Fulfilling his promise to the couple was going to take time--he had to start by naming the demon that made the bargain, and if he was fortunate, locating the sister that condemned her kin to darkness.

He was fine as he crossed the border, swam easily through the lakes of fire, and as a show of courtesy didn't take any of the shortcuts through Tartarus or Purgatory. He just mended his coat with a little power when the lakes burned holes in it, dusted the soot off his hat and boots, and made his way to the main city at its heart. If he'd pulled a few strings, he could have spoken with Satan himself--it was his right, as a lord of the dead. It was a right he'd shed blood and destroyed souls for, a right that brought demons and angels alike to his doorstep, turning their back on God and Satan to serve him instead.

No, it was in Hell's darker corners where the Shade made his inquiries. He didn't hide his presence, but it was on side roads and in the badlands where he spoke to disenfranchised souls and rogue demons, where he sought names and even faces to put to his hunt. His only mistake was to look into the armies of Hell...not when he'd decimated so many of their rank during the war.

Not when he'd stolen one of their own--and as luck would have it, he happened to find himself up against the regiment of the flesh starved monster that now called himself Rick Grant and fed his hunger with Limbo's scavengers on the fringes of the Vale.

Rick, the man that followed him out of a sense of concern and no small amount of annoyance--not when he was having a perfectly good day in the Vale, drinking beer and watching Furies fly in the wind currents around his home...

After Rick saved him from that particular fight, he insisted on accompanying the Shade back to the realm of the living when his master refused to return to the Vale for healing. It was stiff muscles and a black eye, but wounds on a dead man were a big deal, seeing as how the dead couldn't be harmed.

"I tell you what, Boss," Rick rasped in the bold, bass tones he'd made of his voice, and in a heavy Texas drawl he'd chosen in an unconscious effort to model himself after the godling that he'd sworn his service to, "you're a damn fool for comin' to see a succubus when you damn well need to go the hell home and sack out."

The Shade glowered at Rick as they walked side by side, heading for Sparrow's front door. "It's a black eye, Rick. I'm fine."

"You're fulla shit's what you are, f' ya don't mind me sayin' so."

"I do mind."

"Tough shit." Rick replied, but with a sly enough smile to show the Shade that he was just giving the younger man a hard time. Rick had thousands of years on the Shade, having been borne long before the dawn of man, but the Shade had wisdom beyond Rick in a thousand ways. The absence of judgment in the Vale, the comfort the Shade brought the souls he claimed, the equal footing given to all who dwelt under his protection...it all poked at buttons in Rick that had been niggling at him for hundreds of years, buttons the Shade pushed just by showing up. The boy made him do more than just rattle his scales and swallow his souls with malcontent in his black heart, he made him question his very nature.

Now he had a human face, a home, a taste for good beer--hell, he even had friends. And the Shade was one of them.

"What's so important you gotta swing topside before headin' home to patch up, anyway?" Rick asked as they reached the door, the Shade reaching out to knock lightly.

"The succubus is the one I'm grantin' a favor Hellside, that's what." the Shade rumbled, folding his arms as he waited to see if she answered the door. "Got her master's name, and there's not much said 'bout him in the back alleys. Means he has his fun in the human world--and that means if she can get us an introduction, he might share a few names 'n numbers with us."

Rick sighed, head sinking to his chest for a moment as he planted his hands on his hips. "So there's a demon needs killin'?"

"Couple, if she gives her blessing."

"Pureblood?"

"Another succubus. Her twin sister."

Rick lifted his head, and when he smiled, for an instant his mouth was all fangs, bright blue eyes now empty black pits.

"Can I have her?"

"With Sparrow's blessing, you can feed at will."

Rick grinned, and in a blink he was purely human again, head shaved bald and blonde goatee betraying no trace of the high demon beneath the carefully crafted facade.

"Cool."

She had five days left, and one of those two lost evenings, she'd spent...sexting him.

The Shade wasn't sure if she was drunk or somehow looking to sweeten his disposition in a bid for more time. Greater beauties had tried and failed, and more powerful mages had reached for his power and suffered his wrath. She was resigned to her fate, content with his claim...and she was cute as all hell, if he was being honest, but he couldn't see it from more than an aesthetic sense.

Unless she was around. Had to be her power, but she reminded him far too much of his days as a living man...too much for comfort.

Which was why he pulled up to her dance studio on his bike, a convenience he kept for his longer stays in the land of the living. Killing the engine, he dismounted and ambled inside, where heavy music was pounding through a sound system and a trio of women in the middle of the floor were jerking and swaying with the beat...one of them being Courtney.

And, in spite of himself, the Shade would have lost his breath had he any to give up.

Watching her as the rhythm pulsed through her limbs and seemed to push and pull her across the floor, he was reminded of his fight with Heaven and Hell, and the archangels he saw in combat. Of God's legion, they were the most terrible of creatures: vengeful, dazzling, and perfect in their beauty. The divine rage of God's own army made them move much the same, wings spreading and sweeping as they cut through the air, sword arms thrusting and cleaving through his souls...power and poetry in motion, demanding attention even as they tried to decimate his ranks.

Courtney...she moved in the dance like an archangel in combat, and she did it with the purity and impish glee of an imp straight out of the badlands of Limbo.

And, until the music died, she had him completely transfixed as he watched her work.

When he was four years old, Cole Marteniz developed a strange habit neither of his parents thought much about: when he would play quietly on the floor of the parlor with his father, he always draped Raggie, his little security blanket, over The Shade's shoulders. Unabashedly, The Shade always wore it with pride, his massive body lounging on the floor as the two built with Cole's beloved wooden blocks, that bright blue square of satin-trimmed fabric only just covering his broad shoulders.

The Shade thought nothing of it: Cole was a budding life mage, a nurturer by design. He would glower up at Courtney every time she giggled at the ridiculous sight of the mighty Lord of the Vale wearing Raggie, sprawled on the ground and building castles with his bright, talkative, and intense little boy.

It was idle curiosity one night, while he lay on his stomach to help Cole build a sprawling block city, that The Shade fingered the silken edge of the blanket on his back and thought to ask about it.

"Hey, partner?"

"Yessir, Daddy?"

"How come you don't give Momma your Raggie? Maybe she's cold."

"I'm not." Courtney replied from the sofa with a smile, making a show of tugging her own thick throw more securely around her shoulders.

Cole shook his head in agreement, gaze never lifting from the tower he was building intently. "Momma not cold, Daddy. You cold."

"I promise you, I ain't." he replied, watching Cole intently as he leaned forward on both his elbows.

Soberly, Cole stacked his last block and pulled himself to his feet, moving over to put his little arms around The Shade's neck. The gesture surprised him, but he returned the hug until Cole drew back to look down at him.

"You gives cold hugs. Momma's hugs is warm."

The Shade sobered a little as Cole plunked himself down right beside his father, glancing up at Courtney to see her own features stricken as she met his gaze. They both knew the question would come one day, but The Shade knew neither of them expected to have to face it so soon. He was still a baby...

"It ain't something a blanket can fix, partner." The Shade replied gently.

"Not blanket. Raggie! Raggie's magic."

The Shade sighed, nodding. "Yeah, that it is...it's magic and it protects you, but that ain't it, Cole. My hugs are cold 'cause I'm dead, you 'n me both are. Momma's not, she's alive."

He caught Courtney's unhappy look, but he held her gaze and shook his head just a little. It was better not to avoid it, to just say it and answer his questions as they came. At least then they could control what he knew, help him understand the things that confused him.

Cole frowned, visibly distraught. "But...but we gots bodies. Dead peoples don't move."

"Yes, that's true, but Mrs. Potter at the flower shop an' Miss Justine, your teacher? They're dead." The Shade pointed out gently. "But just 'cause someone's dead don't mean their life's over. They just give cold hugs like Daddy, that's all."

"Did I die?"

The Shade shook his head, shifting to swing his legs around so he could sit up straight. Reaching for Cole, he pulled him into his lap, then very pointedly took the blanket from around his shoulders and bundled Cole up in it, making him giggle once he was done pouting up at his father the same way Courtney often did.

"You, partner, are a very special little cowboy." The Shade drawled. "See, I died a very long time ago, so I made the Vale and we all live here, but you? You was born this way. You ain't no soul, you're a real little boy." He poked Cole's chest gently with one long finger, smiling down at him. "You're magic, the same way Raggie's magic...heck, the same way Momma's magic. You know when you have bad dreams and get in bed with us? Do I give cold hugs then?"

Cole scowled thoughtfully, then shook his head, scooting closer to press his ear to The Shade's broad chest.

"You make thumpy sounds in dere." he agreed, patting The Shade's chest. "Like Momma."

"That's my heartbeat. Momma has one 'cause she's alive."

"Where they go, Daddy?"

"I need magic to put 'em there. Here, watch this." The Shade glanced up at Courtney, who was regarding him curiously as he drew back just enough to skin off the black wifebeater he wore. Picking up Cole, he wrapped him up in a big hug, growling playfully to make his son giggle. Cole's cheek rested against his bare shoulder as he hugged his father back, his little hands against bare skin, and The Shade slid a hand under the back of Cole's t-shirt to rub his back as they sat there for a few minutes.

There was a long silence, and The Shade thought Cole might have fallen asleep when the little boy suddenly lifted his head, drawing back with a gasp and wide eyes.

"Daddy! Your hug is warm!" Cole breathed.

The Shade nodded with a grin. "Yup. That's magic hugs from my little cowboy right there, I tell you what."

Cole beamed, flinging himself at The Shade again. Laughing, he held Cole a little tighter, and over Cole's shoulder he saw Courtney watching them, grinning though her luminous eyes were overbright with tears. He frowned at her questioningly, and in return she simply shook her head and kissed her fingers, blowing a kiss in his direction.

Instead of catching it, The Shade just shut his eyes and pressed his face against Cole's little neck, grateful for that rush of living power that leeched from Cole's body into his.

And, from that night on, instead of giving Raggie to his father, Cole used his own little body to give his father life instead, flinging himself into The Shade's arms until he felt heat in his skin and a heartbeat in his chest again.