[u]Character sheet[/u]
[b]Name:[/b] Lacchi
[b]Age:[/b] 37
[b]Appearance:[/b] As a human, and it isn’t likely that anyone is going to see him like this often, Lacchi has the same, dark, flashingly curious eyes, but really, he doesn’t look much like a dog. He could, if one felt like being impolite, term him as being a mutt in that he doesn’t resemble any particular race and is just, well, human… He is lithe and lean, muscular but not well muscled or overly defined in that way and his body is geared more towards stealth and slinking quietly through shadows than it is towards making quick, frightening first impressions on folks. He is quite short, approximately 5’5”, 5’6” or thereabouts, but looks taller, so long as there’s no one around to compare, because of his lankiness. He has long limbs and, despite the years, hasn’t gained much in weight. With a golden tinge to his fairly pale skin, he doesn’t match up with the light skinned races or the dark skinned races. His hair, a light brown, is short and curly and he has the sort of confident grace of one who trusts his body’s abilities to take him away from trouble but uses his mind to direct it rather than instinct.
[url=http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a177/Trivia13/ARPG/Scotty-9.jpg]Head,[/url]
[url=http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a177/Trivia13/ARPG/Scotty-2.jpg]Left side,[/url]
[url=http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a177/Trivia13/ARPG/P5213522.jpg]Right side[/url]

[b]Background/history:[/b] Lacchi was born and raised a wild lad. His father leaving him to his own devices more often than not after his mother died. It wasn’t for the sake of not wanting to spend time with him; more simply it was that he had very little spare time already. Lacchi’s father was a locksmith, well known if not well paid. He was a good man, gentle, honorable, loving and a master of his trade. He taught his son all he knew of locks and took him as his apprentice. He was a busy man, however, and more often than not was away or unable to give his son the attention he required.

So Lacchi played in the streets, and he befriended a nice lady who just happened to be a pick pocket. She liked his attitude and, more to the point, his nimble fingers and quick mind. She taught him what she knew and so he learned both sides of life. The hardships and the love, both in the law and outside it. When his father died he was thirteen and not old enough to look after the business, it was sold to the highest bidder and he was forgotten about. The pick pocket took him in, gave him what shelter she could along with further teachings. Lacchi learned quickly and well, the lessons embedding themselves in his mind to remain forever remembered. By fourteen she had him breaking into houses and stealing objects of greater value than what was on the streets, he knew locks better than she did and he could slip through smaller places. He never felt guilty about the stealing and never will.

His father had taught him patience by example and Lacchi did not lack of it, he could wait for as long as he needed before starting something and he very rarely did anything rash. He was determined to be the best at what he did, and he liked doing it, the heists were exciting, dangerous and every bit his kind of adventure. Quick, clever and never one to give up a challenge, Lacchi did become known among the rather secretive thieves guild as good, and, a bit more dangerously, he was also known among the city guards. He eluded most of the traps they set for him, though they managed to catch him once and got him chained in a cell to await his punishment. Fortunately, the guards had not found his lock picks when they searched him, so he was free and vanished at the next change of guard. Later, he returned for the knives they had taken from him and slipped away again. It was this feat that had him hiding in a stable when a girl, around his age, began her chores.

She was not a great beauty, in fact, she was rather plain, but it was her spirit that he saw, and that was more beautiful than any mortal face. She was singing as she worked and he watched quietly, listening and admiring. Lacchi left gifts for her, nothing that he had stolen, for that would only get her in trouble, and soon he showed himself to her. She has since told him of that first sight she had of him, a brown-eyed youth with a confident smile and cat-like grace, rough voiced and wild, but a man purely himself and nothing else. She had seen a rogue, but not a scoundrel and she had loved him from the first, just as he had her. Within that year, his nineteenth, they were wed and living in the small house Lacchi had bought with the money he had saved up. Though she never could quite convince him to forget his thieving ways, she did extract the promise that he wouldn’t do anything more dangerous than picking pockets.

In their second year together, Sara gave birth to a daughter who became the light of their lives. She had Lacchi’s bright, brown eyes and her mother’s beautiful voice when she laughed, but all too soon that happy life came to an end. Kari caught pneumonia and the doctors they could afford could do nothing. In desperation, Lacchi found himself on the roof of a rich merchant, his gear in his hands and his patience for once abandoned. Slipping quietly over the side, he caught his foot on a window ledge and dropped lightly down to come face to face with the owner of the house. He ran, but the merchant was rich enough to have competent guards and they caught him easily enough.

He didn’t want to reveal his reason for being there as it could have gotten both Sara and Kari in trouble and the man, though he probably would have forgiven Lacchi had he known, felt that proper punishment was due. He turned Lacchi into a dog and took away his mind so that he was, in every way, nothing more than a dog that had strange dreams at night. On his seventh year as a dog, the man tried to restore Lacchi to his humanity, but couldn’t quite come up with the proper spell. He managed to give him back his memories and his own mind, but Lacchi remained a dog, albeit one who occasionally turned into a human. Still, with his memories restored, he hurried back to his house only to find his daughter dead and his wife remarried. It was a shock, but not an unexpected one. He still doesn't know what she thinks happened to him, he was too afraid to spend more than an afternoon watching her. He strayed about the city, living on scraps for a year before hunger, and curiousity brought him to investigate the Emperor's grounds. He slipped in among the other dogs there and, while the kennel masters knew he wasn't one of theirs, they let him stay when he proved well-mannered and without disease. Not to mention, he kept coming back when they tried kicking him out. Two years after he first snuck in, the young Queen of Alcea appeared.

[b]Skills:[/b] A good locksmith and pickpocket, is a little rusty at breaking and entering
Fast, with good endurance
Is better at fighting as a dog than a human, but pretty good at bluffing either way
Has learned how to act like a dog, and make use of his heightened senses

[b]Something else?:[/b] Lacchi will shift between dog to human once every second or third night, he has no control of it himself, and it happens between dusk and dawn. Unfortunately for him, he usually has no clothes.