Yaaay copy pasta

[b]Name:[/b] Xerihan

[b]Species:[/b] Gryphon

[b]Gender:[/b] Male

[b]Appearance:[/b] A very lean, agile gryphon. Has white feathers, and black fur and hair that he typically combs back. Wears a simple brown vest, along with several pouches and a bag to carry his belongings. His face has been marred, a piece of a bronze jester mask melted to his face. It covers the upper left portion of his face, leaving his beak and right eye unscathed. He can still see out of the left eye, although his view is slightly obscured.

Further marring his body is the prosthetic claws he has attached to his front limbs. The original claws were severed years ago, which he replaced with metal talons made of various knives and daggers. He possesses gloves he likes to use to cover them up. Overall, his appearance his gaunt from his experiences and recent events.
Special Talent: An extremely charismatic individual. Xerihan received special tutoring as the child of a gryphon noble, and has been trained to both use his voice and behave with his best manners at hand. This training has proved useful to him, as the grind of several painful years have driven him insane - the only way he can maintain a conversation is if he forces himself to remember social niceties.

[b]Occupation:[/b] Xerihan is a former Jester of Baltimare, having worked for the Cult for seven years. Only recently has his job been called into question, with recent events throwing his life into chaos.

[b]Affiliation:[/b] Former Cult of Laughter disciple. With his status revoked, he is now a target for the Cult. Has several ties within the Gryphon military and nobility, both good and bad.

[b]Personality:[/b] Before he joined the Cult, Xerihan was capable of being suave and confident - his noble upbringing required him to undergo tutelage in many areas, including social niceties. However, this training hid a more manipulative personality, and by mixing the two Xerihan was capable of talking his way out of nearly any situation. Recent events have troubled him immensely, and he has become more withdrawn. Furthermore, a crippling addiction has rendered him partially insane, and his daily life is falling apart.

[b]Other:[/b] Formerly a gryphon noble, and then a Cult of Laughter Jester. He was banished from the Gryphon kingdoms for abusing drugs while enlisted, and used it to his advantage while working for the Cult. Specifically, the Cult provided him with a performance enhancing drug dubbed, "Pinkie Powder". He used this to great effect, spreading chaos among his enemies and boosting his allies' power with the drug. After several years of drug abuse, though, his body is falling apart. He refuses to take more, knowing it will only kill him. As a result, he fights severe drug withdrawal. The effect is only worsened as the powder enabled the Laughing Mare to directly contact and influence him with ease. Now on the run, he can never truly escape the influence of the Cult.

His gear is varied, and speaks of his previous occupation. He possesses the metal talons given to him years ago, a fearsome weapon that simultaneously causes him constant pain and discomfort. In his pouches, he carries two dozen throwing knives and six small bombs; three explosive, three smoke. Training as a Jester also allows him to use the environment around him as a weapon.

[b]Backstory:[/b] Xerihan was born into a large family of lesser nobles in the gryphon tribes. He was brought up to be both a diplomat and gentleman, and it shows through his manners and charisma. From a young age, he was drafted into the militia and trained to fight - typical for the sons of reputable houses. His skills in combat were honed, and he found it easy to fight and win with his claws. As a gift, his father bought him a fine pair of metal gauntlets that augmented the killing power of his claws with small metal blades.

Once Xerihan was of age, he enlisted into the army and served as a border guard, flying the boundaries of the gryphon tribes and Equestria. His introduction to 'Salt' - a type of addictive recreational drug - took place on a typical patrol day, where a sacked caravan had been found near the border. Searching the wreckage, he found a well hidden pouch of the substance and decided to keep it for himself. After only a few uses, he found himself spiraling into dependency.

Finding and using salt became his primary focus, and often interfered with his duties as a guard. His position as the son of a noble kept him safe, but frustration among his colleagues grew. They found an opportunity to be rid of him when a particularly nasty fight broke out with a pack of manticores. Xerihan was nowhere to be found, and was later found high and incapacitated in the company's barracks. Tried and convicted of cowardice, his claws were severed and he was banished from the gryphon tribes. Upon hearing the news, his family disowned him.

With nowhere to go and bleeding profusely, Xerihan headed for the first town he could think of: Trottingham. Once there he received medical attention, solving only the first of many problems. His claws were gone, and all he had left was the metal gauntlet. Now poor, in an unfamiliar city, disabled, and permanently addicted to an illegal substance, Xerihan found it too easy to fall into despair.

His salvation came from the Cult of Laughter. Upon hearing their cheerful cries and promises of a better future, Xerihan gladly embraced the Cult and became one of its most faithful adherents. Finding aid in the community, he began to work as a Jester and built himself up from there. The blades of the metal gauntlet were attached to what remained of his limb, using the necromatic magic of the Cult. Now with weaponry and working talons again, he found that his work came naturally easy.

The Cult immediately knew of his addiction; instead of fighting him over it, they used it. They supplied him with salt, which augmented his natural abilities significantly. Xerihan became resistant to its effects after only a short period of time, and proposed creating an augmented version to use in battle. With the blessing of the mages in the group, they created Pinkie Powder for his personal use.

That happened over seven years ago. With the war at its peak, the Cult was calling for more assassinations every day, gradually exposing its true motivations. Xerihan gladly replied, killing whenever needed. With the aid of a small band of Jesters under his command, as well as the aid of old friends from the gryphon military that wished to escape Stormwing servitude, Xerihan managed a powerful force. He was known as the Guidon of Joy.

Three months ago, with the return of the alicorns, the Cult became wary of the new powers, the Laughing Mare especially. Calling upon Xerihan, now one of the most respected assassins in the Cult, she asked him to orchestrate the assassination of one such being. He called upon his followers, and attempted the mission. It ended in failure, the first and only in his career. All of the Jesters and nearly every gryphon ally he had died in that raid, with the exception of one friend. Compounding the severity of his failure, an explosion had torn off half of his Jester mask and melted the rest of it onto his skin, permanently grafting it to his head.

His return to the Cult was inglorious, and he was immediately stripped of his title. Almost immediately after that, the Cult attempted to kill him - in their words, they were letting him join the Laughing Mare in the Astral Plane in order to have him move beyond his failure. Xerihan outright refused, and fought against his allies-turned-enemies.
He escaped the Cultists, his only friend helping with their escape. He is now on the run in Trottingham, without a home or a goal. The Cult desperately wants to kill him, foregoing subtlety in their zeal to kill him. The Stormwing garrison has caught wind of a riot, and now are added into the chase as well. Finally, the citizens of Trottingham have been terrorized by Xerihan for years now and can recognize the killer easily; once they see the disgraced gryphon on the run, they will do anything in their power to stop him.

Xerihan has only one objective in mind: escape.