• Name: Ilse

• Title: Cursed Child

• Age: By mortal standards, she appears to be in her early 20s.

• Species: The closest identification some demonologist have come to agree with; is the Cursed Child's similarities with other Cambions. Though without proof of lineage or other key markers, it is unknown how accurate this assessment is.

• Abilities: Ilse's powers transition beyond the elemental spectrum. Not one to directly control over the handles that govern flame or earth. Rather most be attributed to the realm of dark, spirit, and shadow. Her powers have no direct physical counterpart with few exceptions. Her shadow familiar, born from her soul. A raven of dark, cursed energy holding onto the malintent hidden in the hearts around her. Her familiar is part of her, but separate from her core existence. It can die and be reborn at Ilse's whims. As well as share its existence with its master as if it was she herself.

Ilse's main set of powers is less that which is seen, and more that which is felt. A paralyzing grasp around one's own tongue or throat; or a sudden weakness in knees. Contact with the witch herself is signing your own mortal soul away on the spot; her touch able to sour the steel of swords in battle. Ilse's power is more potent the more she is able to directly contribute to the application of the hex. Infusing cursed energy into her words, touch, and will to influence the world in her direction.

• Personality: Ilse finds that walking the solitary path is often easier for her than it is to work along side others. A situation that has left her burned and scarred more often than not, sometimes literally, before. She finds it hard to align herself with other's goals, but understands the value in compromise and alignment as a means to an end. Her power is great enough to where she has no fear of her actions. No deliberation between failure or the thoughts of consequences; success or not. Its only a matter of when before her goals are realized.

• Background: As with most paths through life, Ilse's road of solitude had a beginning that didn't take a turn until well into her life. Her tale is one that has been told before. Details twisted or forgotten. Characters, time, place; all variables that change with the season. The only constant being of the tragedy that befell a group of poor lost souls. A ghost story by today's standards; but a haunting memory to the one that remembers. About the one girl who wasn't there. About the field trip where every body was accounted for. About the ashes that remained; disintegrated without sign of struggle or disturbance, quietly in the night without a soul to pray.

Name: Hoshio Kikuchi

Title: /

Age: 28

Division: Japanese branch

Class/Species: Devil Bringer

Weaponry:

• Bow. Enchanted to shoot farther and more accurately. Blessed to repel devils, and can withstand a few hits from them, but isn’t built for defense.
• Arrows. They disintegrate devils, whether they’re corporeal or not. The larger/stronger the devil, the more arrows needed to kill them. However, each hit weakens them, so even non-lethal attacks are effective.
• Quiver. A tool which replenishes arrows when needed from a designated storage room.
• Switchblade. Corrosive to the touch for devils, it also functions as a mild ward, discouraging them from approaching.
• Tattoos. The enchanted ink inscribed into his skin promotes power, endurance, vitality, and regeneration. Does not at all compare to a Devil Feeder’s physicality, but it is better than nothing. It just helps him to shoot more for longer, and makes him a bit less vulnerable.

Personality:
Hoshio usually comes across as tired, exasperated, unenthusiastic, and just about done with life. Feels older than he is, and insists it’s not only the general ‘approaching 30s mentality’, though he’s objectively not drastically different from others in their late twenties. Passionate about very few things (and even that rarely), and killing devils sure isn’t one of them – though it’s the thing he’s best at (and as much as that is obvious, he sometimes finds it to be depressing). He does experience the so-called ‘thrill of the hunt’, but even that is already part of the routine. Hoshio’s purpose is to make things easier, the world a bit more pleasant one, and that so happens to involve hunting devils and making things better for the mundane – he claims his motives to be selfish, any altruistic consequences merely the natural byproduct of his actions.

That said, he loathes devils much more than he does his job, and he has no problem taking it out on them. He does occasionally gripe to his fellow hunters, but since he rarely meets anyone like-minded or sympathetic, he normally keeps it to himself. As for his attitude to his co-workers, he’s generally accepting of a variety of characters and eccentricities, though he doesn’t get along well with any preachy hard-asses who needlessly and constantly spew about duty or honor and the like (he’s had enough of that with his family). Hoshio spends his off-time doing mundane things, often with mundane folks, keeping as far away from anything hunter related as someone in his position can. He does train regularly, though usually by himself, and catches up with other hunters on a need-to basis.

Background:
Hoshio hails from a family of hunters. His father was a Japanese hunter, his mother an English hunter. On his father’s side, there was a long-spanning tradition of working for the DHA. Though his parents lived on their own and tried to raise him normally, it didn’t really work out that way. They were often busy with their jobs, and so Hoshio was delegated to his other relatives, often his grandfather, who felt much more strongly about their family’s traditions and historical knowledge. So, from a young age, it was learning this, practicing that, training this, proper hobbies that, et cetera. His mother resisted the most and for the longest time, but once his father succumbed to the Kikuchi’s head’s will, it was all over.

‘It’ being over referring to the marriage between his parents. As for the chance of a ‘normal’ life, well, that may have been decided before Hoshio’s birth. When his mother was finally fed up with the situation, she moved back to England, and so Hoshio was left with his father’s family…Not much of a change, really. He regretted at the time that he hadn’t been taken alongside his mother, since he’d also come to find the rest of his family stifling, but he eventually (years later, in fact) came to understand her decision. In the meanwhile, Hoshio grew up under the strict and exacting guidance of his grandfather (and some others). When he was 16, a harmless captured yokai was brought to him to slay – under his elders' supervision and with his previous training of martial arts, Hoshio succeeded. He was enlisted into the DHA, working alongside his father until he was of age.

Once Hoshio had the legal ability to become independent, he did so. He moved out with the money he'd saved, and while he continued to work as a hunter, he no longer associated with his father, grandfather, or any other damned Kikuchi maniacs. Soon after, he moved to England, with some vague ideas about finding and confronting his mother. Sadly, it turned out that she’d died a few years back. Nonetheless, Hoshio stayed in her homeland, working as a hunter while finding information about her. He discovered her remaining family, who was entirely mundane, and did not approve of whatever they thought she had been involved in. He caught up with some of her old acquaintances and co-workers, who revealed to him various tidbits about his mother. Even after his self-claimed mission to learn what he could about her, Hoshio stayed in England, mainly because the newly discovered freedom and lack of any undesirable associations was great. However, at 27, he was called back to Japan due to the emerging youkai situation, where he’s been ever since.

Inventory: His mother’s journal. Contains both professional and personal musings (about devils, her colleagues, acquaintances, family, and life).

• Appearance:

• Name: Limen, although he uses aliases liberally when among humans.

• Title: ‘Thought Experiment’, some call him; at times disparagingly.

• Age: 150 years or so, maybe a bit less.

• Species: Daemon, but a non-supernatural one, or so he insists. Prefers this antiquated spelling over the usual ‘demon’.

• Abilities: The creation of barriers of any shape which only allow particles fulfilling certain criteria — which Limen determines as he makes each barrier — to pass through. These criteria can differ depending on the direction of travel, so a particle may pass through one way and subsequently be unable to return to the other side. At his current power, he can only maintain around a hundred square metres of barriers at once.

• Personality: Limen’s purpose and overarching motivation is the decrease of entropy. Unlike a certain cat-like alien mascot, however, the heat death of the universe is of no consequence — he himself does not know why this cause compels him so. It is the way it is. His methods can be indirect, however — irrelevant-looking acts like ‘gaining knowledge’ and ‘encouraging the reproduction of living organisms’ also count as steps toward his goal.

He is aware of and understands human concepts of ethics and morality, at least intellectually, but does not see himself or his ‘research’ as bound to such principles. Eating humans unnecessarily isn’t his style, though cannibalising the occasional demon to strengthen himself is totally reasonable if he predicts that it would decrease entropy more than a potential alliance. Making swathes of land uninhabitable is fair game as well, and if something or someone happens to walk into the wrong barrier, the wrong way — well, they’re on their own. Humanity as a collective whole, however, fascinates him.

• Background: Born from the restless musings of learned men, what would one day become Limen was initially a formless being, more concept than entity. A hypothetical, a what-if that was never meant to be realised. As the wisest among the mortals continued to ponder and discuss his nature, the daemon became more and more concrete, a single distinct identity emerging from the philosophers’ jumbled theories and thoughts.

Over time, exposure to human society would eventually lead Limen to take on a physical body. In this fragile form he would traverse the globe, walking across oceans and continents when no better transportation could be found. When circumnavigating the Earth and spelunking in its nether regions no longer offered much to gain in information, he began experimentation of his own. The methods which had given birth to him were the organs and instruments through which he would learn. This research could grow destructive, and would every now and then draw the Devil Hunters’ attention. That was fine. Even they had difficulties pursuing him up past the ozone layer or down to the abyssal plains. And so the work continued for many decades.

Having recently returned from a sojourn on the Moon, curiosity led Limen to take a gander at the supposed boom in Japan’s devil population and catch up on the latest advancements in demonology first-hand.

• Other: Limen’s physical body is ultimately just a puppet, although he’s become rather fond of having one at all times, even if it’s often a handicap. This particular body is a fully organic imitation of a human being, painstakingly crafted by barrier over several years, so he is particularly attached to it. He is gradually getting used to the ubiquitous fruits of the digital revolution, which exploded in pace during his extraterrestrial sabbatical.

• Appearance:

• Name: Limen, although he uses aliases liberally when among humans.

• Title: ‘Thought Experiment’, some call him; at times disparagingly.

• Age: 150 years or so, maybe a bit less.

• Species: Daemon, but a non-supernatural one, or so he insists. Prefers this antiquated spelling over the usual ‘demon’.

• Abilities: The creation and manipulation of barriers. Any physical thing which Limen does not allow to pass through his barriers, be it a planet or a particle, will reflect off. Under their aegis, no conventional calamity or cataclysm could cause harm. But this absolute protection does not extend to the spiritual or the supernatural — the slightest touch from a blessed weapon will break any barrier, large or small, and many ghosts and devils will be able to bypass the barriers some way or another.

• Personality: Limen’s purpose and overarching motivation is the decrease of entropy. Unlike a certain cat-like alien mascot, however, the heat death of the universe is of no consequence — he himself does not know why this cause compels him so. It is the way it is. His methods can be indirect, however — irrelevant-looking acts like ‘gaining knowledge’ and ‘encouraging the reproduction of living organisms’ also count as steps toward his goal.

He is aware of and understands human concepts of ethics and morality, at least intellectually, but does not see himself or his ‘research’ as bound to such principles. Eating humans unnecessarily isn’t his style, though cannibalising the occasional demon to strengthen himself is totally reasonable if he predicts that it would decrease entropy more than a potential alliance. Making swathes of land uninhabitable is fair game as well, and if something or someone happens to walk into the wrong barrier, the wrong way — well, they’re on their own. Humanity as a collective whole, however, fascinates him.

• Background: Born from the restless musings of learned men, what would one day become Limen was initially a formless being, more concept than entity. A hypothetical, a what-if that was never meant to be realised. As the wisest among the mortals continued to ponder and discuss his nature, the being became more and more concrete, an individual emerging from the philosophers’ jumbled theories and thoughts. And so was born a daemon.

This daemon did not have a name at first. He meandered around man’s cities and towns, like a mere mindless spirit driven solely by his ultimate duty. Yet over time, exposure to human society would eventually lead Limen to take on some of the mannerisms and habits of humanity; feelings, reasoning, beliefs, identity, names. Desiring to grow more in the likeness of man, he sought a physical body. First, he was a crystal, a lattice of carbon in an endlessly repeating pattern. Then he was an ashen twig, a gravestone lichen, a timid mouse, a proud boar. As he grew closer in stature to the humans who he so wished to imitate, so too did his wisdom and power increase.

By the turn of the century, Limen was ready. From dust and air he began crafting a new body in the image of man. Soil and seawater were passed through innumerable and transient barriers, broken down and remade into human DNA, human proteins, cells, tissues, organs — until at last, after decades of uninterrupted labour, he could rest. When the work was complete, he entered the body, gave it life, and thus took on human flesh. With the blood coursing through his veins as testament, the daemon Limen had become a worldly, finite creature, inseparably bound to his human body.

In this fragile form he would traverse the globe, walking across oceans and continents when no better transportation could be found. When circumnavigating the Earth and spelunking in its nether regions no longer offered much to gain in information, he began experimentation of his own. The methods which had given birth to him were the organs and instruments through which he would learn. This research could grow destructive, and would every now and then draw the Devil Hunters’ attention. That was fine. Even they had difficulties pursuing him up past the ozone layer or down to the abyssal plains. And so the work continued for many decades.

Having recently returned from a sojourn on the Moon, curiosity led Limen to take a gander at the supposed boom in Japan’s devil population and catch up on the latest advancements in demonology first-hand.

• Other: Limen is gradually getting used to the ubiquitous fruits of the digital revolution, which exploded in pace during his extraterrestrial sabbatical. The ever-accelerating rate at which information is being produced pleases him.