Male | “The Hound” | 21
Heterosexual
Smell
Appearance: A scar runs through Ferris’ left eye, which is a pale white that contrasts with his brown right eye.
Background: Born in the once-stringent Nation of Smell, Ferris showed signs of being a regulated magic user from a young age, but under his father’s encouragement Ferris avoided magic use for much of his childhood. His father, Hagan Talese, was an unregulated magic user himself, and her served as a trusted advisor to one of the nation’s new Mistress of Merchants. When the secret of Ferris’ magic first came out, the Mistress did not sentence Ferris to exile for fear that his father would follow. Instead, by suggestion of her other advisors, she sent assassins after them in order to silence the man who at this point had become more of a liability than a friend. Though Ferris’ father died, having placed too much trust into his friendship with the Mistress, he died defending his son, buying Ferris the time he needed to escape.
After his flight from The Nation of Smell, Ferris found himself a wanderer, and he was eventually adopted by a group of bounty hunters who found his abilities lucrative. As individuals willing to sacrifice their lives for a pretty penny, the hunters had no such reservations about regulated magic users, some of them even wielding it themselves. With them, Ferris learned to wield his magic and control the progression of his mental decay, fine-tuning his skill set for hunting down other magic users. Coming to The Nation of Sight was just another stepping stone since any nation, weakened or not, would make for good support when he plans to overthrow the Mistress of Merchants that ordered his father’s death.
Personality: Ferris is out for himself and himself alone, at this point. He has little care or loyalty to anything not deemed useful to his future goals, an attitude mainly facilitated by his impending mortality. That said, he does his best to uphold promises and do what is ‘right,’ and though he is not above breaking the rules, Ferris does try to follow a loose moral code. As such, he’s slow to open and trust, intrinsically wary of others, believing people to be selfish on principle and therefore unreliable.
The effects of Ferris’ magic usage, though relatively minor at this stage, are visible most when he is stressed. Under duress, Ferris has a tendency to be unreasonably stubborn and wary, sometimes convincing himself of things without much evidence to back it. When he calms down, he is generally able to sort these thoughts out, but he sees it as a necessary sacrifice given his circumstances.
Quirks: Despite being an adept of smell, Ferris’ sense of taste is virtually nonexistent. Other than being able to tell spoiled food apart, Ferris is relatively uninterested by food in general, seeing it as a means to survive only. On the other hand, while he is perceptive of scents, he lacks general appreciation for them, perhaps as a result of working with so many so often. He generally keeps his nose covered as a means to keep his nose fresh for when he needs to tap into his talents, seeing scent as a way to keep track of people and thus disliking perfumes and similarly ‘false’ scents. Atop Ferris’ head is a hat, frayed at the edges after so much wear and tear. This is mostly a stylistic choice, though he’d be hard-pressed to admit that.
Skills: - Broad Weaponsmaster || As a bounty hunter, anything could be a weapon as long as it fell in open hands, so Ferris is broadly versed in wielding blades, bows, and anything else he’s been able to scavenge or loot. It should be noted, though, that this does not mean he is proficient in all weapons, just that he’s likely had experience using them.
- Bladesmaster || Of the weapons Ferris has used, he largely prefers bladed ones, large and small, because they’re easy to replace and work best when combined with his magical enhancements. Broadswords and daggers alike can often be found on his person, provided they don’t break or dull.
- Hand-to-hand Combatant || Given Ferris’ magic arsenal, his natural, most basic talent is hand-to-hand combat, enhancing himself as he fights. Many a scuffle end with Ferris’ hand or foot instead of blade, and Ferris isn’t above utilizing dirty tactics when the need arises.
- Tracker || As a bounty hunter, Ferris has honed his ability to find and follow trails. Perceptive of details may offer a clue as to where his target went, Ferris’ list of completed bounties is testament to his ability.
- Adept of Smell || Ferris’ adept skill manifests as the ability to detect scent from lingering magic. Each type of magic has a different smell:
- Touch: musky, almost pine-like
- Taste: floral
- Hearing: minty
- Sight: pungent, sour, like vinegar
- Smell: acrid, burnt, smokey
The strength of the magic used and time since used affects the scent’s strength, which can range from muted to sharp, then to putrid or unbearable as the strength increases and time since decreases. This ability is also what earned Ferris his nickname since he quite literally sniffs out his bounties, thus making him a hunter specialized for magic-wielders—a dogged “Hound” able to sniff out invisible trails.
Magic — Odos Augaision: Ferris wields the regulated magic of Odos Augaision, which uses scents to activate different enhancements to a target of Ferris’ choosing, if not himself. These activators are kept on his belt under his cloak, bottled in metal flasks. Before a battle, Ferris dabs a bit of each scent onto the inside of his mask, ensuring that he has enough scent to carry him through the conflict. By focusing on specific scents, he is able to tap into the aspects of his power without having to rely on his vials in the midst of the fight. Generally speaking, though, Ferris prefers to do this with a maximum of three scents at a time since any more makes picking out specific scents take more time. The scents and their corresponding enhancements are as follows:
- Earthy || (smokey, grassy, woody) enhance speed
- Floral || (fragrant, spicey) enhance mental processing
- Fruity || (sweet) enhance physical strength
- Chemical || (vinegar, alcohol, rubber) enhance automatic reflexes
- Doesn’t activate with skunk spray
- Offensive || (sickening, putrid): enhance healing
By combining different scents, Ferris is able to achieve better results. For example, enhancing both speed and mental processing can lead to enhanced agility, and enhancing both physical strength and healing can lead to better recovery rate around muscle tissue.
As someone who largely specializes in close-combat, Ferris’ only counter to ranged attacks until he is able to close the distance is to dodge, meaning that if he is unable to or unaware of such a threat he would be an open target. As for countering his magic, though his fuel source is, in a way, “unlimited,” Ferris’ abilities themselves are limited. His abilities offer a burst, almost instantaneous advantage, but when fighting other magic-users Ferris is generally left to rush his opponents down or be regulated to a supportive role. Thus, Ferris relies on surprising and overwhelming his opponents since he is unwilling to—and in a way unable to—play the long game.
Equipment: A multitude of metal flasks line Ferris’ belt, many repeat scents to ensure that he won’t run out before he is able to restock. He also carries one or two blades depending on how well-equipped he is at the moment as well as multiple daggers scattered on various edges of his garb as to always have a blade to fall back on. Wrapped around the lower half of his face is a dense, lightweight cambric scarf that Ferris uses both to keep out and keep in odors depending on the occasion. It serves as mediocre protection against common scents and is fairly permeable to allow for decent breathing. He also carries some pieces of magical deterrents, including skunk spray as a last resort against a like-skilled enemy. However, because of the expensive or rare nature of some of the deterrents, Ferris only purchases them when he intends on using them, leaving him only reliably equipped with an untuning fork, numbing ivy oil, and skunk spray.
Remram
Achronum
