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Bran / Robin Goodfellow / Puck ([personal profile] faeconman) wrote2012-03-21 02:24 am

Beyond the wardrobe version

I play Robin in Beyond the Wardrobe and he's a bit tweaked for that setting. Here is my app so you can see the differences.
 

Mun Information

Player name: Hanna or Panda, take your pick.
Contact: hlm.ryden@gmail.com
Timezone: GMT
Characters in the Wardrobe Already: Newp

Character Information
Character Name: Robin Goodfellow / Puck (Bran)
Species: Half-fairy

History:

Once upon a time in Wales, ca 2000 BC or so...

 

What it was about the young daughter of Eve Enid that made her catch the eye of a lord of the fae is hard to say. She was beautiful to look at by the standards of her own people, but looked a plain little thing in comparison to the ladies of his Court.

And yet, there was something about her that compelled him to take her with them to Narnia. In the faery realm there she forgot about everything. Where she came from, who she'd been before, her family and her betrothed. All she knew was the Raven Court of Lord Dai.

 

They were the soothsayers of the fae, the battleprophets who went to war knowing if they were to come out of it alive or not. They would barter for their services, always hungry for treasure, material or in the form of knowledge.

After a while the lord grew tired of Enid, and she was sent back to her people. There was, however, someone that was not sent back, and that was the son she bore the fae lord. A little boy that she had given the name Bran.

 

He grew up among the fairies, never allowed to forget that he wasn't entirely one of them. That he was a bastard and a halfling.

 

He took to scampering around on his own, became a loner, a wanderer and an eplorer. His travels took him further and further from the Court the older he got, and nobody bothered to check him, nobody even quite knew why the lord had decided to keep him.

 

It was on one of these wanderings that he met Reynard, and from that moment on his heart belonged to the fox.

 

It was still a hopeful young man that the trickster seduced, not yet hardened by bitterness and rejection. Someone who still believed in happiness.

But it is hard, loving a trickster who comes and goes as he pleases, especially when he has shown you how life can be, only it never is when he isn't around.

The more heat, elation, passion and love there was when Reynard was with him, the more stark became the contrast when he went away and Bran was once more alone in a world that did not want him.

He tried to seek glory, win approval, perhaps even love, all the while resenting his sire for what he'd done to his mother. Resenting him for being part of the reason he existed at all.

It was not to last, and during yet another of the petty faery squabbles that led to riding into battle, Bran fell, badly wounded. Nobody cared to help him, and he was left for dead, and that's what he would have been if Reynard had not come looking for him.

That's when he made the final decision to change what he was, and turn himself into a whole other kind of faery.

A Puck. A trickster spirit.

It changed him somewhat, gave him new powers for one. And it gave him a mask to wear.

So he set out on a new path. One of stealing children from their cradles to bring them back to the Courts to be raised as changelings. Causing mischief in the night, kissing maidens in the dark and always leaving people with his laughter ringing in their ears.

Puck knows no pain. He knows no remorse, and he doesn't care if nobody loves him. And what does it matter if that silly Bran boy does regret and grieve? He might as well have died on that battlefield. No, he did die.

There is still one, of course, who will not let him forget who he was. Who he is. The fox always comes back. Always.

It didn't feel right to call himself Bran anymore, so when the mortals took to referring to him as Robin Goodfellow when they wished to speak of him and his kind without having one of them appear, he took it on to use as his.

Robin doesn't know who or what he is anymore, and he so wishes that he didn't care. Still, he remains a not so merry Merry Wanderer who performs well enough in his service as trickster, and hates himself for it when the mask falls. Just not enough to stop.


Why this character: I think Robin would be really great in this setting. Just like most of the other narnian creatures he is at least loosely based on old foltales and myths about fairies, and the spirit puck in particular. There is also the fact that in his canonical version he has a lot of backstory with Reynard (as my history section indicates I intend to keep that after a fashion), and this game gives an opportunity to give that story a new spin and look at it from a new angle, something I can't seem to get sick of doing.
Canon Point: N/A?
Personality:

I've found that it's easiest to divide his personality into three sections like this.
 Bran

Bran is, in a word, passionate. Laughter comes easily, but so does anger. Everything is strong and immediate and perhaps not entirely thought through. He thinks with his heart (and a certain other part of his anatomy) rather a lot more than with his brain.

He is jealous, always afraid of losing what little he has and therefore hurts himself by wanting to hold it too tight, even if he never actually does.

He is angry at the world because he cannot understand why it doesn't want him.

Still, he loves words, loves talking and singing. Loves making poetry and sharing it with whoever wants to listen, even if that only happens to be a slug crawling across the stone he's currently sitting on.

Lust is never far off, and almost any emotion can be turned into it if you know how.

Proud, stubborn and wild, mischievous and impossible, and he wants so much for you to love him.

Puck

Knavish sprite, trickster, asshole. He tries to get into everyone's pants but doesn't really mean anything by it. He pokes and prods to find your sore spot, and when he's found it he pokes some more.

Everything slides off Puck, so no insult really sticks. He has no pride to speak of and shrugs everything off. It's all a game anyway. And sometimes, the game is rather cruel.

Puck is a mask and an act, but one he's been doing for so long that it is part of who he is these days.

Robin

Robin is the middle ground. Not quite Puck, but not quite Bran either. Robin is more depressed than angry, hating himself for all that he has done, all that he continues to do.

He is snarky and oftentimes a bit bitter, but there is still that fierce heart underneath it even if it doesn't burn quite as bright as it once did.

Robin will make deals out of kindness that a proper Puck should probably not make. He will seek the company of good people without having the intention of corrupting them.

Robin can still love. Can still care. He has an odd noble streak that will show itself every once in a while, completely at odds with his trickster persona.

All this up to a point.

He stops himself, Robin does. Keeps it in check. Because if he does care about you, he doesn't want to hurt you. And if you get too close, you will probably end up hurt.

He can come off as self-pitying and melodramatic. He thinks he's allowed.


Abilities/Strengths and Weaknesses:

 Robin can sort of teleport, entering the realm of faery and exiting somewhere else.

 He can put people to sleep.

 He can change something into something else, but it isn't likely to stay that way for too long unless he puts some real effort into it.

 He can mess with time a little, nothing much when he's outside the faery realm. Make it go slower, mostly. Or even ”stop” it temporarily. It takes great effort, however, and he hardly ever does it.

 He's a skilled fighter, preferring to use his twin swords if he has to fight but he's damn good with a bow as well. Elfshot and all that.

 Cold iron and other things generally said to stop fae make him uncomfortable but they don't actually keep him away. They mess with his magical abilities so if you've put up fairy wards he won't just pop inside them and say hello.

 Mild prophetic ability that rarely manifests, but it is a mark of the specific Court of fairies he is descendant of. He has no control of this at all.

He has a basic ability to use magic, and he can in at least some cases sense if there is something supernatural going on with someone. He will definitely always recognize another fae creature.

 Drugs and poisons affect him very strangely, and he isn't entirely sure why thought it might have something to do with being half fae. The effects can be very random, so you'll have to experience for yourself what happens if he gets something in him that'll mess with his system. (As in, I make shit up on the fly.)

 

Samples:
First Person Sample:

 

http://sixwordstories.livejournal.com/68807178.html?thread=2039320330&#t2039320330

Third Person Sample:

A young thing he was, first time he came upon Reynard the fox. Not yet quite so burdened with his own existence, certainly not as uncaring and cold as he would later (with mixed success) pass himself off as. He did have something of the trickster about him already, a mischievous glint in his eyes, a cocky spring to his steps.

He was just about at the point where he could be called a man rather than a boy, not entirely fully grown into his long legs, arms a bit too skinny for the broad shoulders and

while me moved with grace – how could he not, with what he was? - it wasn't the self-assured one he would later acquire.


He'd been out hunting, more for sport than need, and a couple of rabbits were slung over his shoulder, and he was singing. Always singing in his bright, golden voice, smooth and sweet like honey.

Just a simple song made up on the spot about winning the hearts of fair maidens, something he had never even come close to doing.

He didn't know yet, about the curse that would blight his life. Nobody had told him. So he had not a care in the world where he walked, sun gleaming in his raven-black hair that framed his face with disorderly curls.

It was a good day.

 


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