Valery Owl

Emperor's Shadow Valery Owl (a.k.a. Red Owl)

Physical Description

Body Features

Average height for his region, but much naturally stockier. Because of this, he trains regularly to keep his agility at an acceptable level. Coarse body hair covers his pale skin, and while it provides the barest of protection in the niche situations where he is in a naked fistfight, for the most part it does nothing but overheat him in the already hot climate of his home nation.

Facial Features

Owl's most distinct features are his deepset eyes and their daunting stare. His hair is slicked back to keep it out of his eyes and his short beard covers a thick jaw. His eyebrows rest in a furrow, which doesn't help his naturally withering expression.

Identifying Characteristics

Aside from his near hypnotic eyes, Owl has the symbol of his Astral Form marked on his back. Like all Astral symbols, if another Astral Form user touches it they will learn of the mechanics of his abilities.

Special abilities

Owl has an Astral Form by the name of North: Winter Father, the physical manifestation of his paternal feelings and thus can only be brought out when he focuses on said feelings. This form allows him to slip through tight spaces at incredible speed: the narrower the space, the faster he travels. Owl is also a master of many Wild Art techniques, specialising in intimidation and threat assessment. Like other Emperor's Shadows, he has the ability to blend into the background of the perception of others and sense the Presence of others, but his area of expertise is in a particular technique where, in low visibility situations, he can appear to take on the form of a terrifying monster. By hiding in smoke or dust and cycling his arms rapidly through three positions (guarding the head, close to the body, and stretched outwards), he can appear as a horned beast with four arms. By implementing the fear factor of this technique, Owl is brutally effective in quickly dealing with large groups of opponents with the element of surprise on his side.

Apparel & Accessories

No preference for any clothing. Owl wears what he has at hand, but given the choice he prefers looser fitted clothes for mobility and to stay cool, but tucked in to avoid giving opponents anything to grapple onto.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Owl was taken at a young age and raised in a stressful and dangerous environment alongside 99 other babies in order to raise a group of elite soldiers to serve directly under the Emperor; the Emperor's Shadows. Of the initial 100 infants, 25 of them reached the age of 10 stable enough and showing enough promise to actually proceed with the actual training. Those that reached this point were named after a bird they were most similar to. Owl formed a strong friendship with another candidate, named Dove, and acted as a protective big brother for her. By the time he was 22, only 4 Emperor's Shadows (including Owl and Dove) were alive. Their sole teacher fled the empire, likely due to years of guilt building up. Dove too deserted, but though she tried to convince Owl to come with her, he stayed behind and became the Emperor's Shadow tasked with dealing with illegal groups and criminal enterprises. Years later, Owl was tasked with capturing and imprisoning Dove, now dubbed Red Dove the traitor by the empire. While investigating the town she was last seen in, he came across an underground black market selling children. Owl tore through the enterprise and broke all of the children free, however he noticed one of the children, a boy by the name of Pepper, glowing. As it turned out, the boy was born with an Astral Form, which had made him a target and caused his home village to be raided. He had managed to get away, but was captured in a separate occasion by the traffickers Owl had just freed him from. The Emperor's Shadow kept Pepper nearby as he continued his search for Red Dove, and when he found her, he discovered the real reason why she had left: the Emperor also had an Astral Form and had been training the Emperor's Shadows in order to have them eliminate all other Astral Form users, something Owl had never learnt about due to his expertise being in countering criminal endeavours. A key trait of Astral Forms is that those who witness the light of one have a chance of gaining an Astral Form of their own, essentially making them infectious, and thus making the eradication of entire communities the only way of removing the threat of a single Astral Form's existence completely. The Emperor himself arrived upon hearing Red Dove had been captured and Owl confronted him about the murder of innocents in order to eliminate all threats to his rule. Figuring out that Pepper had an Astral Form, the Emperor attempted to kill him and level the town to remove all potential witnesses, but Owl and Red Dove, now both with Astral Forms of their own, worked together to put the Emperor's rule to an end. Pepper and many innocent bystanders were killed in the fray, but eventually the Shadows managed to finish off their former ruler. Red Owl and Red Dove left the town long before the Emperor's heir was coronated, and they acted as protectors for youths born with Astral Forms from thereon.

Education

Owl was trained in stealth and subterfuge in order to infiltrate criminal organisations. His academic education doesn't go much past reading and basic maths, but it has never caused as issue for his job.

Personality Characteristics

Likes & Dislikes

Likes:

Cold weather
Children
Eerie silence
Spicy clementines
Milk

Dislikes:

Unnecessarily hot days
The sun
Arrogance
Self-pity

Virtues & Personality perks

Selflessness. While it is rooted in a lack of value on his own happiness and short-term wellbeing, it is not self-destructive in nature. This kindness is often only shown to children however, as he views them as those who are not deserving of misfortune and should be protected until they are able to survive and thrive on their own. He can be brusque to those who are in sticky circumstances due to their own decisions, but he will extend his kindness to those who have just been plain unlucky from time to time.

Vices & Personality flaws

Owl's brutal fighting style and training from youth creates a distance between him and others. While he has formed personal connections with people, they have always involved him being in a position of power, be it physically or in status, looking after them, and those failures to do so have weighed down on him to where he doesn't like to get close to people. As a result, he often feels isolated and doesn't take allies into consideration when making plans.

Personality Quirks

Chewing. Owl prefers to eat harder foods when he's stressed or tired as a way of keeping focus, though his favourite thing to chew on is ice, which is rare in his home country, and also technically not food.

Age

Children

Gender

Male

Eyes

Murky brown, mottled with specks of blue

Hair

A deep black with hints of blue

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Pale like salt and snow

Height

5'8"

Character Prototype

His design is based off of an old drawing of a younger, more brash character I did a while ago. (Now I just say it's how Valery looked when he was younger)