Janus

[Comma Llama]

(I'd like to apologize in advance for the length of this profile I get a bit carried away with character profiles...I guess I like people to know exactly what they're getting into before they RP with my characters, so...yeah. Sorry! If any changes at all need to be made, I will be more than happy to oblige.)

Name: Janus Caspan
Aliases: N/A
Age: 452
Gender: Male
Species: Faun/Satyr; main species is faun, though he appears human most of the time (Satyr is a mutation of faun in his world; how he came to have a touch of both will be explained in his history and special abilities. It will also be explained in his special abilities and history how and why he more often than not appears human.)
Alignment: Chaotic Good (will generally do what he feels morally right, though isn't against breaking a few laws or causing a little havoc along the way.)
Canon or Original: Original (Homeworld is an original world called Euridia)
Date of Birth: Specifics unknown/undocumented; projected around the year 996.
Place of Birth: Village of Corinus among the towns of the Satirin tribe, the territory Wynyddmir, the continent Eiria.

Physical Appearance:

As a faun, Janus is a fairly adept shapeshifter, so his appearance is often subject to change. He tends to don a human appearance in most situations that is similar to his appearance as a faun (minus the horns, the goatish ears, and the goatish legs and hooves, of course; and he also tends to forgo his goatee in human form). I'll cover each of his usual three forms one at a time.

In his most common form (that is, shifted into a human), his hair tends to be anywhere from dark blonde to golden blonde, and is wavy and around shoulder-length. He may occasionally wear it a bit longer and tied back in a loose ponytail. His eyes are pale blue and his face is clean shaven, his skin tone a bit on the pale side. He's tall, but not exceptionally tall, standing at around 6'0" in height; and he tends toward a lean muscular build. Clothes tend to be thinner cloth-like materials (though his clothes in this form, like the rest of his appearance, are merely illusion). In this form (which is subject to minor changes day to day), I'd place him anywhere between Casey Skinner and this anime guy in appearance; it just depends on what mood he's in who he resembles more, I guess.

In his natural form as a faun, his hair is light brown, around shoulder length and very wavy, and he has a goatee (or stubble, at the very least) of the same color. Eyes are green with undertones of brown. Ears are goatish (they protrude outward like a goat's and are of the same shape, in other words) and around the same color as his hair, with off-white horns extending up from around his temples and curving back slightly, above his ears; the best example I could think of would be mountain goat horns, only his lay back a bit flatter against his head, as well as curve out to the sides a little more. His skintone in this form is a little tanner than his skintone as a human, and his facial features a bit softer and less masculine. The upper half of his faun form is slightly smaller in overall build than his human form. The fur on his lower half, while generally covered to the knee in hide or leather clothing with the exception of a small goatlike tail, is around the same shade of brown as the hair on his head; his knees are inverted like that of most four-legged mammals, ending in off-white color hooves. He is just shy of six feet tall in this form (probably roughly 5'10"), around average height for a faun. Clothes in this form tend to consist of hide and leather armors, with cloth or other light material clothing underneath. In facial features (and probably in build from torso up), the best match I could find was a younger-ish, rather long-haired, rather stubbly Ewan McGregor.

He changes drastically as a satyr, as the appearance of satyrs tend to differ quite drastically from fauns in most cases. His horns are around the same shape, but are much larger and are black in color. Facial features protrude outward slightly from between eyebrows down to nose, causing a slight snout effect with few prominent signs of a nose, making features more goatlike. Eyes are slightly smaller in proportion to the rest of the face, and irises are black in color. Hair and goatee remain the same color as in his faun state, but skintone becomes dark gray. Hair is slightly longer, to around mid-back rather than shoulder-length. Hands are slightly larger, and backs of hands and forearms are mostly covered in fur; fingernails are black and resemble claws more than nails. Lower half of body, the fur is a bit longer than it is in his faun form, and the hooves are black like his claws and horns. His build is much larger and more muscular in this state, and he stands around average height for a male satyr at 6'5". He also tends to prefer hide and leather armors in this form to anything heavy. I unfortunately don't have any kind of a picture for him at all in this state, but I'll be on the lookout...or provided I ever get back to drawing and get any good at it again, maybe I'll draw him.

In all forms, he tends to carry the same weapons, listed in the weapons section below; as well as an old but well kept mandore (this is a stringed instrument of the lute class and predecessor to the mandolin) that apparently was owned by his father; and a set of pipeflutes (known commonly as a panflute, but as I'm not sure whether Pan or any variation exists in the lore of Janus' world, he'll be calling them pipeflutes) he occasionally wears on a leather cord around his neck, which was crafted by and at one time belonged to an uncle of his.

Personality:

At the best (and likely worst) of times, Janus is funloving and carefree. He's a tremendous flirt like many of his kind, but is perfectly fine keeping this to himself when the situation doesn't call for it (and he will flirt with anyone; species and gender aren't any trouble to him). In addition to this, he's also quite charismatic, so sweet talking, negotiation and lying are generally easy enough for him. He is a wall of patience, sometimes irritatingly so, as it's nearly impossible to start an argument or a fight with him or break his calm; he intensely dislikes confrontation and will at most times avoid it. The only exception is if the confrontation deals with a very close friend or loved one or something otherwise morally important to him. He has a larger capacity for anger and serious situations than his brethren mostly due to his mutation and his history; but he has also trained himself over his exceptionally long life not to get angry without good reason, and thus rarely slips into his satyr form unintentionally.

Special Abilities:

• Shapeshifting;Illusionary: Fauns' shapeshifting is a very adept act of illusion that they train in nearly from infancy; in literally the blink of an eye, they can appear to become another being entirely. It takes even greater skill in illusion to transform into something much smaller or much larger than oneself, but it is possible. It could still be considered a sort of magic, as it involves the bending of light and space around themselves. This type of shapeshifting cannot be held if the faun grows angry or confrontational. Small flickers will be noticed before the illusion is fully lost, usually the general "Wait, why do you have horns all of a sudden?" or "What in the name of--are those hooves?" or "Did your hair just flash a different color...?" or "Wait just a moment, I thought you were a horse!" or...well, I'm sure you get the gist. Shapeshifting often isn't used seriously due to the tendency of most fauns to avoid any and all serious situations; but in Janus' case, an exposure to the prejudice of the humans in his world from a young age led him to prefer staying shifted into a human form at nearly all times for comfort's sake; unless among a vast majority of his own kind, he prefers remaining human in appearance.
  
  
• Shapeshifting;Satyr: This ability requires a bit of background information in addition to regular description, so prepare thyself.
  
  Satyrs, despite the belief of a few races in their world, are by no means "demons;" they are physical beings as much as humans or goblins or gnomes or wood elves. Like humans, goblins, orcs, and trolls, they came to be through an unfortunate series of events involving a brand of magic that is outlawed in most of their world. In a war that occurred around the first millennium, which Janus' father and uncles found themselves strongly involved in due mostly to ties of friendship with the wood elves, the fauns were talked into using this magic by a human sorcerer who offered to help them against what he claimed was his own kingdom, which he was turning against; were told that it was their only chance of defeating the army pursuing them. This was the truth, but it was a truth none wanted to face. This magic had the capability to corupt anything it touched. If it touched plains or forest, the land would become barren desert (as had already happened in the vast deserts to the south). It had the potential to mutate any being it touched into something else, as had already happened before to many races. It had turned peaceable gnomes into cruel, raiding goblins; hardworking dwarves into mindless trolls; honorable dragonian into arrogant and headstrong orcs; wise elves into selfish humans.
  
  The dwarves and elves the fauns had allied with already knew the fate of their kind, were they to take up this magic, and were adverse to the idea at all. One of the fauns, however, volunteered, and convinced his brethren, dooming any of their race within a wide radius to this sudden change. They learned the magic from the orcs in the southern deserts (with whom the human sorcerer leading them had an alliance), and were told that they would change over a period of a few months. It was discovered when the small band who had traveled south came north again into the fauns' territories that many with no intent to fight hadn't heeded the warning before their leave and had stayed behind, among these women and children. Most were talked into heading as far west as they could, and in a blessedly short period of time, but it was enough to at least somewhat corrupt nearly all the small children that had stayed behind with their mothers; among these was three-year-old Janus.
  
  This shifting is actually a physical process that can occur when Janus is put into a frustrating situation. His genetic material alters him into a satyr in most such situations. As a child, this was uncontrollable, and he would be subject to change any time his mood went sour. He learned to gradually control it as an adult and use it to his advantage when needed, though this shift is excruciatingly painful and he still tends to avoid it whenever possible.
  
  
• Nature affinity: This ability is present only when he is a faun; he can communicate with most things in nature, including plant life and animal life (provided the other party is actually in a talkative mood); and can control them to some extent; usually it's just requesting something and the plant or animal he requested it of agreeing to do whatever he requested. In addition, his affinity with nature takes away from his ability to withstand extended periods of time in large city settings, in large deserts, and to some extent in barren rocky regions; an extended stay in these areas can cause him to grow agitated and jumpy, though generally not enough to shift him into satyr form unless something particularly stressful happens.
  
  
• Immortal: Janus has ingested a strong elixir of immortality from his time as an assistant (and, more often than not, as a guinea pig) to an adept alchemist. This does have its limiting factors. He is not so immortal that being mortally wounded would not kill him, and many poisons will still affect him. However, provided no outside injury comes to him, he cannot die of sickness or old age, nor does he age physically past the age of thirty-seven in faun years (or mid- to late-twenties in human years).
  
  
• Fire magic: Only in satyr form, Janus is capable of using fire magic. This capability does not exist in his faun form, or in any illusionary form.
  
  
• Charisma & Stealth: These are mundane enough, but I suppose I should list them, as they are advantageous to him in combat situations. In short, if he had a fighting class, it would be rogue, because any fighting he does is strongly dependent on stealth and charisma. His fighting as a satyr would be more dependent on physical strength as well, but he even gravitates more towards ranged attacks in this form, depending more upon magic and crossbow than face-to-face fighting.

[/size]
Weapons:

Janus tends to prefer weapons with the advantage of range and/or the element of surprise. He'll have a few daggers and a small hand-crossbow hidden on him at most times, occasionally in addition to a larger crossbow on his back. Janus holds no attachment to any weapons he carries, and thus they are easily enough replaceable for him.

History:

Born to parents Melia Sarin and Ornos Caspan in the a small tribe of fauns called Satirin, in the mostly elven and faun territory of Wynydmir at the time bordering the large human kingdom Agoria. Janus never knew his father beyond the age of three, having lost him to war with Agoria in the first millennium. The fauns fighting in this war made use, under the advise of a human sorcerer, of an ancient branch of necromantic magic that drained from them their natural essence, mutating them into a race that became known as satyrs; those that survived fled the faun territories of Thenerus for the deserts to the south, as did many dwarves fighting alongside them. Janus' father wasn't among the survivors.

Janus and many other young fauns were touched by this magic before they had the chance to flee the war zone, and as a result became partially mutated themselves (detailed in the Special Abilities section under the heading Shapeshifting;Satyr). Rumors spread of the mutation and, as rumors have a habit of doing, gradually expanded out of proportion. By the time the rumors reached Tetra, one of the capital cities of the now walled human settlement of Agoria, the rumors stated that the fauns' ability to shapeshift was mutating into a physical ability rather than one of illusion in the Theneren province of Kreios. Tetra, a city that much of the world depended on for scientific breakthroughs, dispatched researchers into the forests of Kreios to find at least one of these fauns. Fauns are elusive with outsiders (though they do enjoy playing tricks on them), and the forests of Kreios volatile to most races other than fauns, so it took some time. Janus was perhaps five at the time the rumors reached Tetra and the researchers were set out, and eight at the time he was captured.

He was taken to a government lab in Tetra and was subject to various experiments into his late teens. The ethics department of the Agorian government in the eastern capital city didn't tend to consider fauns as an intelligent humanoid race (mostly due to preexisting prejudices that caused many Agorians to view fauns as demonic and/or mindless troublemakers), and thus experimentation on them was perfectly legal at this time.

Unbeknownst to Janus, one of the head scientists behind this experimentation was in fact the sorcerer responsible for his father's death, posing under a different identity. It was this scientist, at the time calling himself Doctor Judas Miriam, and his apprentice, Cornelius (who, as was stated in the laws of the magic guild he had been a part of since early childhood, couldn't take a surname), who took Janus away from this experimentation. Janus was seventeen at this time and, due mostly to trauma, he remembers very little currently of his life before being taken away from the lab in Tetra. He remembers basic things tied to his race, such as history and language, but nothing specific to his own past among the fauns; and he knows that he spent time as a guinea pig in a large government lab in Tetra, but he remembers few specific details. Etched into his mind from those nearly ten years is the prejudice of the majority of humankind against fauns, however; this today is why he tends to be more comfortable shifted into a human form.

Judas was, in secret, an alchemist, and had already begun to take his apprentice under his wing on this subject while they were still working in the eye of the law. Alchemy in Agoria was outlawed due to the dangers presented by it (alchemy here, by definition, constitutes the application of magic to the sciences or vice versa) unless government consent was given to an individual or a lab to work in the field, and there were always strict guidelines. Judas, however, was interested in immortality, a subject which the Agorian government did not take lightly. Cornelius eventually discovered that his teacher was an adept necromancer who had already been around for a few hundred years at this time, who was working towards the eventual destruction of most of the human race except for a select few guilds of magic users. Cornelius anonymously turned Judas in to officials in Agoria, but the man fled the country before he could be caught, not for the first time in his rather long life. Cornelius continued his study of immortality through alchemy in secret, still intensely interested in the subject himself, with Janus as his own apprentice and occasional guinea pig.

The two were eventually caught and banished, though not before Janus had already been the test subject for a successful elixir. The elixir was, at least, successful for the faun. His elixir was ingested at the age of 37 in faun years (which, in human years, would be around mid- to late- twenties). Cornelius spent years working to perfect the elixir for human consumption and finally tried it himself before he was banished; as he had grown quite old by this time and was nearing his expiration already, he figured it would either kill him the slightest bit earlier than expected or it would keep him alive for a while longer.

As it turned out, the elixir poisoned the old man, but it also had the capability to counteract its own poison if taken on a regular basis and keep him at the same age he was already at. The ingredients were readily available in the forests of Kreios to which they were banished; Janus and Cornelius were taken in by a peaceable tribe of fauns at the southern border of the forests of Kreios just north of the River Maia, with the materials to make the elixir here, were both able to live out many years among this tribe.

Cornelius kept an ear out for news of Judas, quite sure that the man was still alive, and news eventually did reach his ears; though he at first didn't realize that the new emperor of the Ingraha Deserts south of the River Maia, otherwise called the Scarred Man, was one in the same as his old mentor. By the time he did, the Scarred Man already had allies in many major powers around the world. The few undead slaves that escaped his grasp (collectively known as ghouls) headed by forever-elderly Cornelius, became the only resistance against the Scarred Man. When Cornelius was found outside the forests of Kreios and taken on grounds of conspiracy by mercenaries hired by Agoria, he left Janus at the head of this flimsy resistance.

More out of anger at the loss of his friend than anything else, Janus went on what would have been a suicide mission in going immediately after the powerful Scarred Man. It was at precisely around this time that a large tower appeared in the Ingraha Desert. Janus remembers little except mistaking this tower for Rhamgast, the keep of the Scarred Man and his army of orcs and ghouls. He would later learn in the world of Genesis, having been transported there with no memory except waking up at an inn somewhere in Moon Valley, that this tower is known as the Downward Spiral. He now seeks a way back to his home world of Euridia, provided it even still exists; and can only hope that the Scarred Man won't find some means to manipulate the Downward Spiral as it appears in his homeworld to use in his own scheme.

[Silver Eyes]

Accepted! Welcome to the si--wait a minute, weren't you a horse a moment ago?