Ogre

A Tale of Brutality

Once upon a time, a warrior set out to rid his land of monsters. He carried a weighty hammer, with which he crushed skulls and pounded bones to dust. Up and down the countryside he roamed, leaving behind him an evergrowing pile of hideous, broken creatures. When his task was finished, he turned to discover the dead were not monsters after all but ordinary folk, and he was the brute they had feared. His heart was black. Despairing, he sought a Faerie’s counsel, but she laughed at his anguish and told him she had drawn the lie over his eyes, seeking to spare him the disgrace of being a terrible ugly thing. He knew then the world held no solace for him, so he tore the Faerie’s head from her body and cleansed his heart with her blood. With that, he vowed never again to let pretty words cloud his mind, and lent his strength to the courts of the Lost.

The Ogre knows what a fine line separates a hero from a bully, and how hard it is to walk it. But walk it he does, with the resolve to overcome any temptation. Fancy lies and careful words seem a waste, and he gives no quarter to such weak tactics. Ugly and imposing even behind the Mask, he walks among mortals like a grizzly in human clothes and refuses to acknowledge the stares. In his sturdy arms and fearsome glare he possesses the might to crush or cow the fiercest foes. If he speaks too bluntly, it’s only because he has no patience for tiptoeing around the truth. And if he shuts people out, it’s only because he doesn’t want to be hurt again.

Other changelings agree that when shit hits the fan, behind an Ogre is the best place to stand. They’re the freehold’s stalwart defenders and the motley’s loyal muscle. Sick of having to say they’re sorry, they’re careful not to do anything they’ll feel obliged to apologize for. No more regrets, no more compromise. When they smash and maim, it’s because someone deserved it. They protect their companions from themselves, too — if someone has to bloody his hands, the Bruiser always volunteers first, figuring his are already stained so he might as well do some good with them. Why doom someone else to become a monster when it’s already his job to be one? Others may dismiss them as brutish and slow, but the Ogres keep it simple because to do otherwise is to drown in remorse.

The Gargoyles’ greatest shame is that they weren’t strong enough to fight back when the Gentry took them and forced them to commit atrocities. Now that they are strong, they refuse to allow anyone to best them again. Living this way is lonely, though, and letting others get close is hard. Their figurative — or literal — hammers are so big and easy to swing that all problems look like nails. With so much overwhelming force, it seems ludicrous to hold back in the face of ills that need obliterating. But that slope is slick with the blood of the Ogre’s many unfortunate victims, and he must fight to keep from tumbling back down there, even when the excuse to revel in mindless intimidation and violence is tempting.

Once

You were no knight in shining armor, no dutiful soldier marching under a banner. No, you were a brutal destroyer — a thug without mercy. You endured by dishing out more pain than you received, and you fed on the terror you inspired. You were your Keeper’s prized torturer, teaching her enemies cruel lessons in obedience and keeping other changelings in line when they rebelled. You were a gladiator slave, whipped if you didn’t defeat the other slaves in an arena filled with jeering Fae. Even when you killed the others to free them from this hell, or let them do the same to you, you all returned to life the next day to start again. The Gentry transformed you into a hideous, deformed creature with a taste for flesh and took the gift of speech from you, leaving you hungry and unable to communicate out in the wilderness. Huge and menacing, without words to civilize your desperate cravings, you had no choice but to terrorize and prey upon the land’s people.

One day, you took a long, hard look at yourself and couldn’t go on like that. Maybe it was that last scream that did it, reminding you of someone you lost in another life. Maybe it was the empty look in the eyes of the last man you tormented, or the way the last youth you devoured tasted salty like tears. You turned your unholy strength to breaking your chains and bringing your Keeper’s home crumbling down around her ears. You made a run for it, pulping the flesh of any hobgoblin lackey that got in your way. You didn’t bother with playing by the Hedge’s rules, tearing brambles apart with your bare hands until you stood once more in the world you called home.

Now

You can’t erase what you did in Arcadia, but you can make up for it. You look out for your fellow Lost and butcher anything that comes for them, whether it’s hounds and Huntsmen or confusion and temptation. What beauty you saw in Faerie was tainted by a blood-red haze, so you try to preserve the simple pleasures you find here before they suffer the same fate. When Gordian knots set the courts to squabbling, you’re the one willing to slice the whole thing in half and call it done. You erect walls around your heart, but the precious few who get to know the real you never regret it. Your friends know that you’re more than a scarred face and a heart of gold: You’re also the one they can count on to do the right thing, even when it happens to be the hardest thing.

Tales

He drinks too much, bathes too little, and his landlady has his late rent excuses memorized by now. Can he help it if orphans, runaways, and Arcadia survivors aren’t exactly rolling in cash? They end up in better places than where they started, though, and that’s what matters. One of these days, he’ll tip off the wrong hobgoblin, with all his stomping around the Hedge looking for desperate changelings or faetouched trying to escape. His Keeper will come for him, and then things will get really ugly. Until then, he’ll keep at it. Deep down he suspects all the people he’s helped will stand by him when his own trouble comes around. The thought keeps him from feeling too alone.

She never tells anyone what she likes best about her job — never admits that being allowed to break down doors and storm drug dens on the clock is why she joined the FBI, and it has nothing to do with highminded ideals like justice or public service. She likes shouting in crooks’ faces and watching them flinch. She likes it when they run, because she enjoys tackling them to the ground and beating them into submission. Her motley says it’s a good thing she’s found an outlet, but to be careful before someone starts to wonder why she’s so good at profiling serial killers and terrorists.

He wonders how different his life now is from before. At least now he’s salaried, that’s something. The Spring Queen insists she’s doing what she must for the greater good, but as far as he can see she’s no different from any crime lord. The people he intimidates into paying her tithes and fealty probably believe he’d really eat them if they didn’t comply. Who knows? If she ordered it, maybe he would. He’s supposed to indulge, after all. He’s not paid to think, he’s paid to break bones and make examples. Still, shaking down unsuspecting humans because they didn’t realize their urban development project encroached on a Hedge gateway seems a bit much. Maybe he should say something.

His breath stinks like stale tobacco and his chainsaw voice spews obscenities about your mother. The tough guy thing wasn’t an act after all, so you lost that bet. And a tooth besides. The question now is, what could you possibly have that he’d want in exchange for leaving the rest of them where they are?

Nicknames: Bruisers, Gargoyles, the Terrible

Blessing: Gain an additional dot of one Power Attribute at character creation. Whenever your character deals any damage to another, you may impose the Beaten Down Tilt, which lasts for three turns. This ability costs a point of Glamour if the Ogre makes the attack on his own behalf and not someone else’s.

Curse: In addition to your character’s other breaking points, he risks Clarity damage with a dice pool equal to half his Wyrd (rounded up) whenever someone he doesn’t consider an enemy flees or cowers from him.

Regalia: Shield

Get out of my face while you still can. I don’t do that anymore. Not for the likes of you.