Post by Puck on Mar 4, 2011 18:43:04 GMT -8
~~~Friends in High Places~~~
~~~The Basics~~~
Character Image
Character Name Puck, aka Robin Goodfellow, aka Owen Burnett
Character's Origin Gargoyles
Affiliation—Friends, High Council, Faerie Courts, Unaffiliated, or Untouched? Faerie Courts
What is your character's status? Are they a hero/heroine, sidekick (includes non-speaking animal sidekicks), guardian, princess, High Council Member, Faerie, Inner Circle, Client (villains in a formal deal with the Friends), Agent (villains allied with the Friends but not in their debt), or Villain (unaware/not working for the Friends directly)?
Your chosen status will become your Custom Title.
Trickster through and through.
~~~About My Character~~~
What is your character's history? Are they on the side of the Friends, the High Council, neutral, or are they unaware of the conflict? What has happened to them in their lives to make them the way they are today?
Puck is... well, the Puck, whose status tends to depend on who you ask. To some, Puck is a sidekick. To others, a villain. To still others, a guardian. To most, though, she's Oberon's jester and a mischievous pain in the neck.
The Puck is a Child of Oberon in more than the usual sense. The King of the Faeries found a young Greek child three thousand years previously and invited her to come with him to be his friend and play forever. He made her his changeling, a human-turned-faerie, and made her his close companion.
Unusually, Oberon made young Puck into a hobgoblin, a rather aggressive and territorial species of faerie more commonly known for its bloodlust rather than its social skills, rather than a more gentle species. He did this because as the King's changeling, Puck would need to be able to defend herself and sometimes him against faeries who disagreed with Oberon's politics. Puck's hobgoblin instincts are kept in check by her connection to her King, turning her nature from malicious predator to a more benign penchant for mischief.
As a changeling, Puck learned to utilize faerie magic, or Glamour, to various ends. These included shapeshifting, a favorite weapon in a trickster's arsenal. Her ability to change form let her pull tricks on anyone she liked, including other faeries and most especially humans. For interactions with humans, she often adopted a male guise, because for most of human history, if you wanted to get anything done among mortals you had to be male. This tendency later came back to bite her after a stint hanging around an English playwright named William Shakespeare. Puck was given a role in one of his plays, but he chose to portray her as a male. Annoyed by this, it became a common sight to see Puck lurking around the Globe Theatre when A Midsummer Night's Dream was being performed, causing mischief with the actors.
For a time, Puck was close friends with a powerful faerie within Oberon's court, a green-skinned fey named Elva. However, this friendship came to an end when it was discovered that Elva, now styling herself Maleficent the Mistress of All Evil, was discovered to be using dangerous dark magic. Puck and a trio of faeries by the names of Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather were charged with evicting Maleficent from Oberon's Court, much to the hobgoblin's unhappiness.
Puck became aware of the war between the Friends on the Other Side and the High Council very early on. As a member of Oberon's Court, however, she is not supposed to get involved in the conflict. She does anyway, on occasion, by putting one of her infamous tricks in place to ruin the plans of one side or the other. Sometimes she even does this on Oberon's orders, when the War gets too close to Faerie territory. Most often, however, she does it of her own accord when she gets bored.
Throughout the centuries the Puck has been interacting with faeries and humans alike, often crossing swords (and claws, and fangs) with members of the Nicnivin's faerie court, which was opposed to that of Oberon and his queen Titania. Puck's loyalty to her lord caused much tension between her and other hobgoblins, who exclusively sided with Nicnivin. The same fact of her hobgoblin nature tended to put her at odds with many faeries of Oberon's own court, who regarded her with the same amount of goodwill one might afford a ticking time bomb. Regarded as a traitor by the hobgoblins and a lurking threat by her king's subjects, Puck came to spend more and more time among mortals, entertaining herself by playing tricks on them when Oberon didn't have need of her services. Sorcerers and mages were her favorite targets, because the possession of magic tended to inspire a sense of invulnerability and superiority in humans that Puck found irresistible.
One such sorcerer was Maxim Horvath, a powerful Morganian. Puck and Horvath had several run-ins over the years. In the 1920s, Puck attended a party and flirted with the handsome sorcerer- faeries are, among other things, very amorous creatures, and Puck was no exception. When Horvath spurned her, Puck was quite exasperated and used her magic to lead him into a dalliance with a mortal woman. If the uptight, stiff-necked semi-immortal sorcerer wouldn't sleep with her, she reasoned, he might as well sleep with someone else. He needed it.
Naturally, Horvath was quite annoyed with this and tricked Puck into a contract that would force her to help him capture his rival, Balthazar Blake. Puck played along with it for a short time, but warned Balthazar that Horvath was coming for him, allowing the Merlinean sorcerer to capture Horvath within the Grimhold. Puck was disconcerted by this- to her, it was dishonorable just to capture an enemy. In her view, one should either kill an enemy outright or let him go to fight again.
Later that century, she discovered Titania dallying with a mortal named Renard. To keep an eye on the situation, Puck created a new role for herself based on Renard's assistant Preston Vogel, reasoning that, out of all the roles she had ever played, she'd never been 'the straight man'. Puck found that she greatly enjoyed her time as Owen Burnett, to the point that when David Xanatos, the boyfriend of the Renards' daughter Fox, asked that Owen stay on in his service, Puck agreed.
Owen served Xanatos faithfully, assisting him in his myriads of elaborate schemes. A more loyal assistant could not be asked for. She treated the mastermind much as she treated Oberon. Whatever Xanatos asked, Owen did for him, even if it meant sacrificing a hand to the Cauldron of Life in order to test its ability to grant immortality. Owen's hand was turned to stone by the cauldron, which caused Puck some trouble until she was able to remove the magic on it. She thereafter used her Glamour to maintain the illusion that Owen's hand was still stone.
Upon the birth of Xanatos's son by Fox, Oberon and Titania arrived to take the part-faerie child away to live amonngst the Court. Forced to choose between her master and Xanatos's family, Puck chose to stand with the mortals. Oberon was greatly angered, and bound her power so that she could neither return to the Court nor use her magic unless she was training or protecting young Alex, whom she was charged with guiding. Though pained by how her master treated her, Puck resigned herself to living a mortal life as Owen Burnett. Over time she came to realize that something was missing in her faerie life. Exactly what it was, she could not lay her finger on it.
Oberon, realizing that he missed his jester's presence at Court, relented on her punishment after a few years and freed her from the geas he'd laid upon the hobgoblin. Unfortunately, things were never entirely the same between master and servant after that.
Puck was rapidly becoming dissatisfied with merely being Oberon's changeling. More and more often her act as his jester was that- an act, and a mask. Though she enjoyed being a trickster, there was a certain emptiness about it now. She realized that she had quite liked being Owen, having a human life and work. More importantly, she had quite loved her time as Alexander Xanatos's guardian. Faeries love children, though only a few of the greatest Old Ones (like Titania) are able to produce them.
Though Puck has returned to her duties, splitting her time between Oberon and Xanatos's family, there's a new edge of rebellion in the ancient trickster. In defiance of her Lord's decrees, she is planning to start meddling in the War with more of a vengeance than usual. Her own nature makes her partial to the side of good, but she will never formally ally herself with the High Council. If she ever sees an opportunity to meddle in the plans of the Friends, however, she will take it gladly.
Woe betide anyone who gets in her way.
Describe your character's personality. What are their strengths and weaknesses? What are their passions? What qualities do they have that are good or bad?
Puck's primary motivation is mischief, a more socially-acceptable version of the mischief caused by most hobgoblins. Whereas her kin pull tricks in order to hurt things, she does it for fun. When bound against her will, she will go out of her way to be as literal as possible while at the same time causing her captor no end of grief out of sheer perversity. She also enjoys teasing people, even when said people are quite likely to then turn around and obliterate her (or try to, anyway). She's quick and clever, with a knack for figuring out just how to annoy someone or make them laugh. She's also impulsive, doing things with little regard for consequences. After all, she's a powerful faerie, and as far as she knows, the list of people who could actually call her to task for her actions is extremely short. When she is caught off-guard by someone who can reprimand her, the results tend to be very disastrous. She has a streak of arrogance and is cocky enough for an entire wing of fighter jocks, both due to her own power and talents and the fact that, when push comes to shove, few of the people strong enough to hurt her will do so for fear of angering Oberon and possibly drawing the Faerie Courts into the war against them. Her mischief often causes people to be upset, but most of the time, she simply doesn't care if she makes them angry. The one line she draws is that he won't hurt a child, or pull malicious tricks on them (unless they are a very naughty child, and even then her tricks are meant more to be a morality lesson than a punishment).
As Oberon's jester, she is used to speaking his mind when no one else will, and as a faerie, she is good at finding loopholes in nearly any instruction. Those who try to compel her against her will typically regret it, as she can be quite vindictive. When pushed into a physical confrontation, Puck can be caught up in hobgoblin bloodlust, though this is rare as Oberon will typically reel her in at this point. If Oberon does not, however, very little will remain of the being threatening Puck but bloody shreds.
Her lightheartedness is sometimes an act that covers a growing loneliness and dissatisfaction. Few people care to get to know the real Puck anymore, being too taken in by the Trickster to bother looking further. Her interactions with mortals are generally brief and superficial, particularly her (many) romantic ones. The alliance between Owen Burnett and David Xanatos is an unusual one in that regard- she genuinely respects the cunning entrepreneur and finds his escapades fascinating.
Like all faeries, she is vulnerable to Cold Iron, but her age and power grants her some resistance. A touch of Cold Iron will not burn her, but she can be bound with iron chains, a wound inflicted by an iron weapon will cause her much pain, and liquid forms of iron like ferric nitrate act like an acid. Both will heal slowly and may even require the aid of Oberon to eradicate entirely, especially if the iron enters her bloodstream. She is bound by his word when she gives it and can be forced to obey if she is made to agree to do something three times. When this happens, sheer perversity leads her to act in any way possible that allows her revenge on the person who binds her while still technically being within the bounds of the contract. One such instance of this was when the gargoyle Demona attempted to use Puck to kill all the humans in New York. Demona's orders were phrased in such a way that Puck managed to avoid doing so by 'getting rid of the humans'- by turning them into gargoyles. She later got some measure of revenge on the gargoyle female by cursing her to be human by day and gargoyle by night.
Puck is made distinctly uncomfortable by thanks, as she does not care to have others in her debt or be in anyone's debt, for faerie custom demands that debts be settled as soon as possible. Puck is generally generous when repaying her debts- if she is not angry.
Puck's abilities are centered around her Glamour. She uses this mainly for shapeshifting- her forms are all actually elaborate, full-sensory illusions over her true hobgoblin shape. Her bright green Glamour can be used to heal injuries (though her ability to heal others is very limited), conjure some items, cast elaborate illusions, along with some offensive magical attacks and defenses, though she rarely uses it for this purpose. Her ability to fly and 'teleport' (actually traveling through Shadow) are derived from her faerie nature. She is, at bottom, Oberon's creature. When he gives her an order, she absolutely must obey, and Oberon doesn't allow her to get away with twisting his words to suit herself. He maintains a mental connection to her, and when vexed he can cause her a great deal of pain. Puck only managed to defy Oberon in the case of the Xanatos family because Oberon was not expecting her to be involved, and Oberon was ill with iron poisoning at the time.
Puck's default shape varies widely and is entirely at the whim of her Lord Oberon. She takes whatever form that Oberon desires, and he has been known to be fickle, often having her change it several times in a decade. It doesn't really matter what form Puck appears as- at bottom, she's a hobgoblin. Not that anyone can tell that beneath the skin of the pretty man or woman is a sleek, vicious predatory creature covered in coarse brown fur. No one really wants to know that, because the only time Puck reveals the hobgoblin behind the Glamour is when she is about to tear something apart.
~~~Sample~~~
Give us a small sample of how you will play your character. Give us at least three paragraphs.
Oh, she loved being Owen. Few mortals were as crafty as her Lord Oberon, and Owen's employer David Xanatos was one of them.
Puck stood in Owen's rooms, inspecting her appearance in the mirror. Her normal default shape these days was that of a slender, rather androgynous woman with long white hair and ridiculously pointed ears, as Oberon wished. The shape was androgynous enough that she could pass for male in it, and often did because it was easier than explaining that whole mess with Billy back in the sixteenth century.
The ears, though... Puck tugged at the tip of one, which stood out almost a hand's length from the side of her head. Oberon had some odd tastes sometimes. Oh well. Who was she to argue with her Lord? She was female now at his command, and this was the fashion of the time. In a month or two he could direct her default appearance to become a big man with jet black hair and skin if he liked, and there wasn't much she could say against it.
The intercom in her room beeped once.
“Owen?” Xanatos's voice said. “I need you in the conference room. Our guests will be arriving shortly.”
Puck cleared her throat and pressed the intercom button. “Yes, Mr. Xanatos,” she said in Owen's voice. “I will be right up.”
Time to go. A flicker of green light- her Glamour- and the white-haired, pointy-eared girl was replaced by a tall, slender blond man with round spectacles, dressed in an impeccably neat suit. Puck- now Owen- glanced at his left hand and made a fist. A second green flicker, and the hand and most of the forearm changed, becoming hard and gray as stone. He couldn't forget that. If he forgot about his supposedly petrified hand, Xanatos would know something was up, and that would be a shame after all the work Puck had put into making the man forget he had a faerie in his employ.
A final glance in the mirror showed that the transformation was complete. Owen Burnett's impassive face looked back at him. That was the delight in this role, showing no signs that anything was funny, and yet being able to make the most delightful snarky comments at opportune times.
Oh, he loved being Owen.
~~~Bonding~~~
Why this character? What draws you to them? What makes you want to play them?
The Puck is the ultimate trickster, with a long history that makes him delightful to exploit. I do enjoy indulging my own mischievous streak, and what character is better to do that with than the Puck? Horvath provides an outlet for snark and an exercise in manipulating plots; Puck will allow me to relate with more characters in a wider array of fashions. Usually that will entail letting her poke monkey wrenches into plots, but she's not malicious. Maybe she'll get to make a friend who will settle her some...
A good friend of mine plays a different variation of Robin Goodfellow (a female one), and I wanted to try my hand at putting my own spin on the character. This version is based somewhat off of hers, altered to fit into the Gargoyles version, with a few dashes of other faerie lore tossed in for good measure.
Who else do you play here?
Maxim Horvath
~~~Newbies~~~
What is your name? (If you're not comfortable telling us your real name, that's fine. Just give us a pen name that we can use when addressing you.)
Call me Maxim, Puck, Gryphon, or Your Friendly Neighborhood Admin.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Writer, artist, Troper, spinner, knitter, general geek and animation student. I've been Rping now for about five years and a troper for almost two. This board came about because I saw a comment on the FOTOS page demanding an RP based on the idea of a mass war between the forces of good and evil in the Disney universe. The plot bunny bit, big time, and I corralled two of my favorite cohorts in crime to help me execute it.
How did you find us?
This site was my idea ^_^
