Original Character Information

[daemoncradle]

Name: Louie Northwood
Age: 200, thereabouts

World:

Louie is from a version of a mostly traditional colonial America where the supernatural is heavily prevalent, though for the most part still secret from humanity's knowledge. Humanity outnumbers everything else by a great deal, and most supernatural beings would rather remain in the shadows, as humanity can't seem to manage to accept differences in themselves, let alone anything else.

Vampires and Werewolves must be sired, and ghosts of various sorts exists. The fae are bound to nature and make no sense to anyone, though they have the widest variety of races there of. To the point whether there's wonder if the fae may actually outnumber humanity, but no one can possibly know for sure.

Demons and Angels must take possession of a body to exist in the world, be it human or animal. There's a lot of debate on whether or not they're actually the same race. Most of the stereotypical depictions of demons and angels have actually been due to humans mistaking fae due to their different animalistic appearances and nature.

There are two main groups that handle problematic supernatural situations. The Holy Order of Exorcists, which is backed by the Vatican, and The Aether, whose methods are based more on science and alchemy over prayer.

The Exorcists are fanatically devout, and are described as being militant in their ways. Their methods are derived from years of hunting, trial and error. They are no-nonsense and brutal, and view the world in a very black and white sort of way. They abhor both science and magic. If it's not what they consider of God, then it's not natural and must be destroyed.

Louie is a member of the Aether, who were once part of the Exorcists but became disenchanted with how things were being done, and have since moved away from religion all together. Their focus is more on science, considering alchemy and certain magic practices as other schools of science. They have a much more open view, seeing the world in shades of gray and all the colors of the rainbow. So in a sense they're like steampunk Bohemians.

They've recently begun working with supernatural beings, tentatively accepting a few as members. They hunt evil, be it human or otherwise.

The only things both groups seem to view similarly are demons. There is nothing redeemable about demons, and need to be stopped as soon as their existence becomes known. They've shown only that they are interested in sewing chaos and destruction.

History:

David and Angelina were twins born in the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts, which was located on the edge of the frontier. They had lost their mother in childbirth, but were well loved by their father who did his very best to raise them alone.

When they were thirteen, their town was raided by French and Indian forces. They were among the few who managed to survive, though their father lost his life while trying to defend his children and the town.

They were taken to Boston to live with their mother's sister, whom they'd never met before. The woman was severely religious, and didn't understand these frontier children who had grown up running barefoot through the dirt with dogs and sheep. David struggled learning how to read, but she'd still make them to try and memorize the bible and would force them to kneel and pray for hours at a time.

They'd always been close, being twins that was no surprise, but being in a place they hated only drew them closer together. It was viewed as unhealthy, and their aunt was convinced there were 'sinful' things going on between the two even though she couldn't prove it.

Eventually it got to the point where they would sneak in to each other's beds, and if they spoke it was only to each other, refusing to even recite prayers when they were supposed to. This only enraged their aunt, and under the advice of her priest, she tried to force them apart. She locked them in separate rooms, which ended up causing more problems. Angelina did nothing but scream while David sat in a corner and refused to speak or eat.

After a few days of this, Angelina managed to get out of the room through the window, only to sneak back inside somewhere else. She overheard her aunt talking with the priest about sending her away to a convent, or perhaps an asylum, saying that she believed the girl to be too far gone to save.

So she immediately went to get her brother, and together they snuck around the house, stealing things to sell and what food they could get a hold of, then took off into the streets. Police were after them for months. Trying to survive was extremely hard, often painful, but they were both so much happier. With Angelina as the brains and David as the charm, they managed to make their way. Underhandedly more often then not, but they survived.

They were rarely far from each other, to the point where the people who knew them often wondered and joked that their relationship was more than that of siblings, and they did nothing to dissuade the idea. They loved each other, their worlds revolved around each other.

Then all at once David started to change. Angelina had always been the more aggressive one, but he started to get violent and have explosive bouts of anger. Because of how close they were Angelina could literally feel that it wasn't actually him. When he finally turned on her, and she saw his green eyes had turned dark, she swallowed her pride and tried to run to a church to find a priest that would help her brother.

She remembered her aunt's priest being a kind man, but the priest she found was far from it. He told her that he would be more than happy to perform an exorcism on her brother, to help ease her mind and save his soul, for a price. She had to pay him an inordinate amount of money because she'd never paid church tithes, though he alluded that he'd forego the payment if she'd sleep with him.

He left her in the church to think, but he was so arrogant that he was convinced that she'd sleep with him due to his highly negative opinion of the poor. Angelina on the other hand didn't even consider the idea, instead sat in the church trying to come up with a way to raise the money, thinking maybe she can borrow it and just steal it back later.

David seemed to just appear out of nowhere, sitting in the pew behind her, eyes completely black. He started trying to guilt her, saying horrible things and trying to get her to admit that she'd chosen to bend over and spread for a priest. He became very aggressive, and it scared her. So she tried to talk him down, eventually backing up towards the alter.

The raised voices called the priest back, and that was when all hell broke loose so to speak. The demon took great pleasure in ripping the priest apart, making it a show 'all for his favorite sister'. Windows shattered of their own accord and drapes caught fire from out of nowhere. Neither of them noticed the patchwork-looking cat that snuck in amidst all the chaos.

Hunters broke their way in, but were unsuccessful in saving either of them. The cat was created as a means to be able to draw demons out of their hosts, but it wasn't strong enough and exploded, killing David in the process. But before the demon escaped it set Angelina on fire.

They put the fire out, but a great deal of her body was burned too badly and she was still dying. They manage to keep her alive for a little while, but the pain was excruciating and death would be kinder. She begged for them to explain what happened to her brother, wanting to know before she died.

A young man, named Victor Northwood, explained that a demon had taken her brother. He was the one who had designed the can, and believed would have saved him, but an animal soul just wasn't strong enough to contain that kind of power. With her dying wish, she begged for him to use her instead of another cat. She was angry, wanted vengeance for her brother.

It caused a whole lot of moral arguing amongst the Aether. They'd never attempted anything using a human soul as a component, but they'd never had a willing offer, let alone one so adamant. They needed to move fast, believing they needed to create the demon cradle as she's dying. Unfortunately her body was too damaged by the fire to be of any use.

So with her permission, they rebuilt her brother's body with what they could of her. Victor headed the project, and with a combination of clockwork, alchemy, and magic, they created a body that was stitched up, patchwork mess, but a functioning one.

What he didn't take into account was the strength of the bond between the siblings. No one realized until their experiment was up and functioning that the newly created being actually had a mind of it's own. The animals never had the sort of awareness a living thing did and needed to be pushed into action by other means.

The crew called him Angelina, since it had been her they interacted with and knew, even if it was for such a short time. As time went on, they realized it wasn't just her in there, but David too. At first the personalities were noticeably separate, but eventually the edges started to blur. It took a long time of physical therapy and learning how to function as a person again.

The part of him that was Angelina seemed to be in the forefront more often, but since his body was male it quickly began to feel uncomfortable being called by that name. Both Angelina and David were dead, he was someone completely new now. So he chose the name Louie, which was their father's name.

All hunters begin in a master/apprentice sort of relationship, but Victor in a sense adopted the newly created Louie, and with his wife, Rachael, and young son, James nursed him to health and taught him about the Aether and everything he needed to know about becoming a hunter. It was James' idea that he start using the name Northwood, because he wanted Louie to be his big brother.

Eventually Louie was finally able to go out hunting, and all he wanted to do was find the demon that had escaped and destroyed David and Angelina's lives, but of course the missions he started with were small. At this point he was still electrically run, and they didn't know what would happen when he actually did try to contain a demon. Cats caused some nice damage when they exploded, so if Louie failed it could be catastrophic. So they kept word of any demons away from him, until there was tell of one taking out a native tribe deep in a forest.

Taking on that demon was a turning point for Louie. He'd spent so much time stewing in his own selfish rage that he hadn't even considered the lives of others. Seeing this settlement being torn apart by this thing opened his eyes. He was even able to set aside his prejudice of the native tribes to put his all into leading this demon out into the forest and putting an end to it's very existence. Not for him but for them.

Needless to say the battle was won, but the whole situation broke his heart. The dagger used to draw the demons out was supposed to be capable of releasing the human relatively unharmed if their soul is strong enough to break free in the process, but if the soul is too corrupted, the human will die too. He wasn't able to save the young woman trapped by the demon, but at least she was free.

That first time trapping the demon inside of him was extremely painful, and it was a fight to actually keep it contained. It took a lot of willpower to get the seal to close, but it got easier and easier after that.

Time went on and his life was nothing but hunting, and he'd been content with that. Others tried to get him to live a little, but for a long time he saw no point in it because he wasn't actually alive, not physically capable of getting anything out of drinking or sex. Still, as James grew up he'd drag Louie along for celebrations after a good hunt.

Unfortunately the passage of time caught up with him as Victor aged and eventually died. He's mourned as much as a father as he was a master. The same eventually happened to James, and so on. Louie remained, as though 'passed down' as a trusted companion to father and son.

Then it was the turn of James' grandson, whom was named Victor for the man who created Louie. This young Victor was nothing like his forefathers, more cold and calculating, of the sort that would manipulate events to suit his needs. As a young man he decided not to become a member of the Aether and went off to study medicine at the University of New York.

Around this time was when the Aether had accepted a high class, southern belle of a vampire named, Isabo Whittaker, and a Navajo werewolf named, Nakai, as tentative liaison members between the Aether and the groups they hail from. Isabo was fascinated by Louie, often trying to get into his pants, joking that she could make him 'work' again. She also had a tendency to whine and complain a lot, so used to being catered to that she hated the more rustic, frontier life.

Nakai, on the other hand, didn't trust him one bit. At least until Louie goes out of his way to save Nakai's life. The whole basis behind Louie being a man made 'life', not to mention the fact that he houses demons inside of him, just didn't sit well with Nakai. He didn't think Louie could be trusted, and was determined to prove it.

While spending a few days resting in a town, Nakai believed that Louie was beginning to act suspiciously, and began to think he was stalking an innocent child for some nefarious purpose. As it turns out, Nakai's distrust of Louie lead him to misread and ignore the signs.

Louie wasn't after the child, but the child's mother, who had recently been possessed and was for the most part unaware of it. Using the powers gained from the demon cradle, Louie was able to see the demon inside of her, and was trying to take care of the problem with the least amount of collateral damage as possible. He'd used the child as bait, luring her mother out to some nearby cliffs.

Of course Nakai tried to step in to 'save' the child, which alerted the hiding demon to the fact that something was wrong. A fight broke out, and eventually Louie was able to stab the woman and draw the demon out. Luckily she was able so survive relatively unscathed, but Nakai had been pushed over the edge of the cliff before Louie could do anything to save him.

Louie took the next two days trying to get to the bottom of that cliff to hunt around for Nakai's body, wanting to at least bring his body back home if he hadn't survived. When Louie finally found him, he nearly hadn't. Louie had to rebreak and help realign broken bones to force the werewolf's healing back into gear.

He build shelter and hunted for food for a few days before Nakai was up and about again. He was pissed that Louie didn't tell him what was going on, but Louie had wanted to leave Nakai out of it because he knew the wolf didn't trust him, and without trust their 'partnership' was never going to work. It took a bit of effort, but Nakai started warming up to him after that.
--
When Louie and the young Victor finally meet again, it was at his father's funeral. They had never connected in the way that he had with the rest of his family, and Louie was the one that always blamed himself for it. Like he'd somehow failed his master. Though after the funeral, Victor was the one to come to him this time, seeming to genuinely want to catch up, asking questions about the Aether and Louie himself under the guise of being interested in returning to the 'family business'.

Victor even offered Louie a pendant he recognized as having once belonged to his master, the first Victor. He didn't understand why Victor would want to part with it, but he assured Louie that it was what his father would have wanted since they were so close.

Putting the pendant on caused some major changes in Louie that he was, at first, unaware of. The pendant had been rigged to work in the same manner that the original Victor used it to control the mindless feline demon cradles he'd first experimented with. Only this caused a confusion and attempted to mess with his memories, making Louie believe that this Victor was actually his master.

While Louie could still for the most part think for himself, he was compelled to listen to what Victor commanded him to do. His emotions had shifted and he believed he loved this man as a father, wanting to please him. But there were things Victor did that had him questioning though, things that didn't add up to what he still felt in his heart to be true about the Victor that created him.

He went to New York with Victor when he returned, but as it turned out that while attending medical school he'd been converted by a church, who happened to also be home to a local group of Exorcists. Louie actually managed to refuse the first command to enter the church, his past and hatred too strong to ignore, not to mention the fact that Exorcists had come after him specifically on more than one occasion, as they considered him to be an affront to God.

Louie felt so betrayed, believing Victor had brought him there to be destroyed, and begged to know why. The Exorcists surprised them both by deciding to keep him alive for a little while, their leader suddenly acting like he was an honored guest. Victor had been told to bring him as part of his initiation to The Holy Order, that he would be the first he smote in the name of God.

Victor had no idea what they were up to, but played along like a good little acolyte, despite being confused and angry over the situation. Louie still knew nothing about the pendant, but as long as he wore it he was trapped by it, having no idea anything was even wrong outside of a clawing, almost panicky feeling that something was terribly wrong.

For the time being they were to work together, much to Victor's dismay.

Personality:

Louie is, above all things, an incredibly determined individual. He is physically made up of parts of both David and Angelina, not to mention housing both of their souls. Yet there is no split personality going on with him, as they exist almost as a mix of both, and don't have individual responses. It can be better described as occasional mood swings, Angelina being the more aggressive parts of him while the parts that are David are calmer and more charismatic.

Though the charisma only really comes out when he's trying to get something out of someone, otherwise he can come off as curt and stand offish, never really feeling like he belongs anywhere.

Initially he referred to himself as 'we', but eventually switched to the first person singular. Angelina and David are dead and gone, fuzed into something completely different. He now refers to them in the past tense, referring to them as lost siblings if he talks about them at all. The mentality is hard for him to explain. He had to train himself not to think of himself as Angelina or David, having to become someone else as a way to keep himself stable. Yet they are a part of him, he is them, but he is still Louie. He's someone developing into a distinct person all his own, but he does keep an ink drawing of the two of them so he never forgets.

In the beginning, Louie was a big ball of frustration and anger, at demons, at the church, at himself for taking so long to relearn how to function. He had to apprentice before they'd let him out to hunt, since he's a person and not one of the animal effigies that they had been trying to work with. All he wanted to do was find the demon that had ruined them, and destroy any other demon they found along the way.

It wasn't until he was out there and witnessed all the suffering of other people that he stopped being so selfish. The part of him that was David remembered being in that place, witnessing the carnage but not being able to do anything to stop it. The possessed souls were suffering just as much as those killed by the demon, if not more so. After that he started to view what he did less as vengeance, but as a mercy. His heart breaks whenever he sees someone suffering, and always has to try and help in some way, even if it ends up as a detriment to himself.

Louie has a tendency to be a bit sarcastic at times, and more than a little blunt when irritated. Very little keeps him from speaking his mind, especially when it's something he's passionate about. He has little patience for people with no common sense, and has a long lingering dislike for the wealthy and entitled, not to mention the church. What often amuses him is that they are often one in the same.

One would think that being a patchwork walking dead person that nothing would faze him, but to this day there are things about the supernatural world that can surprise him. Most of the time it has to do with the fae. There are so many different kinds and rules that he has trouble keeping it all straight, which frustrates him to no end. Especially when the more trickster natured of them try to mess with him.

As for vampires and werewolves, he's come to think of them no differently than humans. Whatever forces that create them doesn't change their nature so much as give them different urges and instincts. They've actually come to him the Aether from time to time to help out with problematic clan or pack members, usually new turns. He's more likely to try and help try and rehabilitate these ones if possible than kill them outright.

He doesn't keep many companions, especially after losing his Master. It hurts knowing he'll keep going long after they die. Those he does have are begrudgingly so, of the sort of people that made a valiant effort to get to know him. It wasn't until he joined up with a vampire and a werewolf on a mission that he started to open up a bit. They, especially the vampire, are also very long lived but have learned to view life differently because of it. Loss is painful but without that pain everything else seems to lose meaning. The way he'd been trying to exist was only going to drive him mad in the long run. Or worse, he could stop caring about everything all together.

When Louie does finally warm up to someone, he can be kind and playful, loyal to the point of ridiculousness at times. He, Nakai and Isabo tend to share barbs between the three of them and occasionally make playful bets. Isabo was the one who noticed that he occasionally sits and watches children play, or stops to appreciate a dress or a piece of jewelry. While he doesn't identify specifically as female, at times he still misses pretty things, and wonders what it would have been like to have a child. It prompts him to open up a bit more to them about who he used to be.

Appearance:

Being that he was born in the late 1600's, he'd be considered short by today's standards, only standing around 5'5. His hair is long and dark, but his eyes are a pale blue. His skin is pallid due to being dead, with stitches crisscrossing along his entire body. His right arm is the only part of him that doesn't have stitches anywhere save where it attaches to his body, but it's covered in rings of branding and symbols scarred into the skin. His body isn't deathly cold to touch, but is noticeably cooler than a human body should be.

He dresses mostly standard colonial era with a bit of a steampunk flair to it, though most know him by his long leather coat and hat, and the strap of daggers across his chest.

Abilities/Powers:

Demon container - He is able to use a specifically designed dagger in conjunction with the brands on his arm to catch and destroy demons. By stabbing the possessed he's able to draw the demon out. The dagger acts as a key to open the 'cradle' in his chest by inserting it into the keyhole where his heart used to be, allowing him to trap the demon inside. Depending on how long the demon has possessed a person, and the condition their soul is in, the dagger will either leave the human untouched or kill them along with the demon. Very rarely is there a middle ground, since the dagger will judge someone as either being a demon or not.

Demon Power - The cradle slowly erodes at the demon's life force until there's nothing left, similar to how they would devour a human soul. And unforeseen side effect is that he can access that energy as it's being broken down. It gives him the ability to sense demons, and understand them when they speak their own language.

He's been able to perform varying levels of pyrokenetics and telekenetics, anywhere between lighting candles to throwing fireballs, or using his will to flip a carriage. He's also able to use the demon energy to heal the flesh of his body, since he cannot heal himself naturally. The strength he has is directly related to how degraded the demon or demons have become in the cradle. It can take months for a demon to fully degrade, and the more he has inside him the longer it takes.

He doesn't like using these powers in any great amount. There's a worry that the transfer of energy will break the cradle if it's pushed too far, so outside of little tricks he tends to avoid powerful displays unless it's a last resort.

Other Skills: After nearly 200 years, he's learned how to use a variety of weapons(early 1900s era and older) and hand to hand fighting skills. He's also a skilled hunter and tracker.

Since he doesn't need to sleep, he tends to spend his evenings reading and learning. Over the years he's come to at least understand a number of languages if not speak them (including native american ones), and has a decent understanding of the science of the era. He can perform basic repairs on himself, but he has no clue how to actually create something like himself.

Body: Not really an ability but stuff to note. Louie is effectively something of a clockwork zombie, powered by alchemy. He's also been referred to as a 'flesh golem' which is not an incorrect way of looking at it. The majority of the body is David's, patched up with what was salvageable from Angelina, most noticeably her blue eyes and swatches of skin.

Internally he doesn't have many remaining organs, those he needs to be able to pass for human (like a stomach and lungs) are mechanical in some way. The demon cradle itself is a perfectly spherical cut crystal suspended where his heart should be in a series of rotating rings known as the Ophanim Configuration.

The twin souls don't directly power the body, instead they power the demon cradle which keeps the demon souls trapped. The excess energy given off in that process is what continues to power the body. In the event that he runs out of that energy, his spine also acts as an alchemical battery that can be recharged with lightning/electricity. Getting hit with lightning ala frankenstein works best, but with the advent of harnessed electricity, 'plugging in' works as a short term fix.