Archer

From Changeling Venue

Seeming	Ogre Stonebones
Court	Summer Court ••••
Freehold	The Freehold of CT
Player	Nate Prusi

1 Overview
2 Character Information

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Overview

Alias(es): Alex Archer, Jon Archer

Real Name: Alex Archibald Kincade

Age: Early 40's

Concept: Gladiator

Physical description: Archer is quite. So quite you can almost forget he is there. When he does speak people listen whether it is out of respect or fear it is not known. Some feel his watching is creepy other feel like he is protecting them silently watching for danger. Both are right.

Mask: Archer appears to be a former pug in his early 40's. Still big and hard enough to be dangerous, but considered an old man by some, until they get a glimpse of his eyes. Scars and scar tissue line his face.

Mein:Archer looks like a gargoyle. His skin has the look and texture of stone complete with horns. The heat of Wrath is there under the surface. Some feel the heat as a source of comfort, ever present there to hold back the cold. Others feel threatened by it like a fire restrained but if unleashed deadly.

Character Livejournal: dark_myths

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Character Information

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Known History

Background: Into the Arena

People talk about losing everything. When they do it is usually after they have lost a job, maybe a career even. Sometimes it is a marriage, or gods forbid a child. Sometimes it is when they put their last dime in on a bet that falls through. Sometimes it is just a sense of self.

Try losing all of that and more.

It was late at night. My wife heard a noise so I went to go check on the kids. It was our new house and I figured it was settling. It was summer time and classes were still months away so I didn’t mind the late night trip. Figured I would tuck the kids in and raid the icebox. When I saw him, her, it I suppose is what it was gazing at the kids. There was a longing there, a desire to posses them like a child looks at a toy, or a dog a steak.

I grabbed a baseball bat from the pile of things yet to be moved in when it saw me. It drew a blade. Who carries a fucking sword I wondered. I tried to scream for my wife to call the cops, but it was like a nightmare and my voice caught in my throat. We fought I felt the blade cut and my bat bash, but it wasn’t much use the thing was so much faster and it seemed impervious to harm. Still as we clashed it smiled and ran. I followed it out the backdoor and into the woods behind the house.

Brambles tore at me. The sweats I was wearing provided little protection against the thorns or pickers in the wood. I tried to listen, to hear if I could hear where the attacker went. Then suddenly the world went black.

When I woke I was in a dungeon. No windows, stone walls and I heard whimpering around me. Chattering about the time coming and it was so good I was awake. I tried asking questions when a door banged open and plates were set inside. A huge being was there. I tried asking questions and was backhanded.

I learned early to keep quite, and listen. Talk too soon and you play your hand; let people know what is in your hand and you’re done. So I listened, at first I couldn’t believe it.

Are you not entertained?

Two days later when the wall moved I believed it. It opened up into an arena. There were weapons all around the grounds and I looked across and saw another group.

I don’t really remember what happened next, I just know that I reacted. I started shouting orders and grabbed for a weapon, somehow I knew to not react to wait was to die, to never see my kids again to never see my wife.

It was messy, without technique, bloody and they loved it. At the end I looked around at my living companions and felt sick. They looked at me like I was some war leader. I wanted to scream I was a fucking gym teacher that the closest I came to combat was as a running back for my high school football team. Instead I just waited to be led back to the cage.

There is something about taking life that changes you. Much more so when you have to do it time and time again even more so when it is with a blade, or a rock, or your bare hands. I took so many I forgot to be horrified when it happened. When I first started I needed to be attacked, or cut or afraid. In the end I was doing it because I knew there was no other option.

I had tried to fight, to rebel. I was put down hard time and again. I tried to show compassion for my foes, sometimes it made it worse for them. My only saving grace was somehow, some way the crowd loved me. I despised them, but I used them. Sometimes it worked more often it didn’t.

You Dance with the Devil, the Devil don't change, the Devil changes you

My heart grew hard as stone, matching my flesh. Years passed, my legend grew. I caught a glimpse of myself in a pond one day and realized I had changed. I was no longer human. I looked like a gargoyle. I was stone a rock and horns.

Fae watched me kill for entertainment. Fae women would request my presence in their bed. I was married I tried to resist, the punishment for that was worse then when I refused to kill. They attempted to break everything I was.

Still I tried to defend the weak. To get them assigned elsewhere out of the Arena. Sometimes it worked other times it was doomed to failure.

20 years passed. 20 years of fighting and killing. Sometimes I could manage to teach a few new gladiators some tricks and kept them alive other times I could not. As I said my legend grew.

You can never go home again

One day I overheard them talking in the crowd, My Keeper was boasting offering all sorts of contracts and rewards I would repay in blood. Never had I fallen. Good thing to as he would not waste the Glamour resurrecting his toys.

Someone made the challenge. I don’t recall the wording of it or the contract. All I recalled was the results. If I won, I won my release, my freedom. Except I would not fight a slave, I would fight a Fae.

The thing about killing is once you know you can do it you can do it again. When you are unsure if you can take life you hesitate. That brief second was all I would need. I stood, battered wounded bloody, it fell.

The crowd roared. Then came the worst part, the catch there is always a catch. My Keeper gave me freedom the freedom of a head start before he released his hounds to bring me back. The crowd roared with approval, I heard some weeping, I assume they were like me. Suddenly the Hedge was there in the Arena and the countdown began. Bloodied and weary I ran, and fought and finally I came out, in my back yard alone.

Tears streamed down my face as I walked slowly through my back yard. I saw my reflection and waited as a door opened, someone had a trash bag in their hand. I crept into the shadows unnoticed and saw who it was. It was me.

I waited for the imposter to enter. I heard my wife’s laughter inside. I looked through the garbage, what year was it what decade? It was the day after I had chased the intruder into the Hedge.

I watched from the dark. I saw through the windows as my family ate with this imposter, I smelled my wife’s cooking. I heard my children’s “I love you’s” as he tucked them in and the moans of my wife as they made love.

I wanted to kill it to take my life back then the cold horror of the situation hit me. If I killed it, they would know. If they knew they could come back. They could try and take the kids, or my wife. No I discovered you never can go home again. So I watch even now from afar as my children grow, I watch and protect them the true Gargoyle from the shadows.

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