### Mordecai Kane
**Operational Code name**: Fenrir
**Virtue**: Justice
**Vice**: Revenge
**Seeming**: The Beast
**Kith**: Hunterheart
**The Mask (Mundane Appearance)**: Eternally pale, Mordecai's skin is mottled with small splotches, freckles given to him by his mother. The red in his hair also comes from he, though it has become darker over the years. It is short, cut near to his scalp, exposing the clarity of his water dyed eyes.
His bones are sharp, his cheeks high, casting shadows against the valleys of flesh lain over them. Mordecai is tall and built well, bred from good stock.
When he is not being secretive, the brightly hued rain coat lays over top whatever else he is wearing; its irony makes the man laugh uncontrollably sometimes. Whatever clothing he wears otherwise changes on a daily basis except for shoes. He doesn't wear anything on his feet.
**Changling Mien**: This is an altogether different representation of Mordecai's appearance, the true form, as created by his Keeper, Balbain.
The thicket of hair is immense, rolling off of his head and down his shoulders, forming a thick mane so dark light is lost in its midst. A maw filled with sharp teeth protrudes from beneath the matted fur, a twitching nose sniffing the air, taking in the smell of the world.
His arms, nearly bare of fur, extend into elongated digits whose tips are donned with claws. Muscles ripple beneath the flesh, hidden at his core by the continuation of fur. His waist gives way to powerful legs, bent in a way that is meant to lend to the assumed visage of a wolf. His feet, though it may be more reasonable to call them paws, end with formidible talons that clutch and rip apart the earth with each step.
**Age**: 29
**Biography**:
So many years. I can still feel him. Every night when I return to my Hollow, I can feel Balbain. He exists beyond the thorns and Goblin Fruit trees. And, one day, I will find him.
This, I suppose, is not the place to start. Then again, it has been so long that I don't know if I remember when the beginning was. I was a child; this I know to be the truth.
I believe I was happy before I was stolen from my mother; I do not remember a father; Balbain became my father and mother. I could guess at what I did as a child: I ran with the other children; I hid when mother called us in for dinner, wanting to survive the nagging call so I might feel the briskness of evening touch my youthful skin and watch the first stars fill my sight. I recall the heat of the summer breathing against the nape of my neck as sweat pooled at my brow, droplets raining down, salty against my tongue as I licked them from my lips. Tears. I remember those from scraping my knee, the searing burn cutting through my brain when I fell against the sidewalk from my bicycle.
This is all I remember of my childhood. I do not know what age I was when I was taken by Balbain. I do not know how old I am today. If I am forced to guess, I would compare myself to a human in his late twenties or early thirties. Faint lines of stress stretch across my skin, daring to show themselves if I smile or squint. Crows' feet are starting to show at the edges of my eyes. These are the things that lead me to guess how old I am, though it does not bother me most days.
I awoke as Balbain drug me through the Hedge, talking to himself and muttering about his 'catch'. I was the catch, as I learned later. It was days or weeks or months before he even acknowledged me other than to feed me. His previous catch was still alive at this time, a toy as the Faerie called it. Kept in isolation, I fell to the Madness and was no longer a mere child by time his last plaything expired. And then it was my turn to entertain the bastard demon. I refuse to speak of those things, except to say that he made me into this: a beast. The worst torture that any man undertakes in the mortal world does not compare to the foul acts Balbain forced upon me.
Lost in the Madness, I survived only to exist, not to live. Trapped in a vast sea of mental despair, I never believed I would be able to swim back to the surface and regain what was left of my sanity, pieces I instinctively stowed away in the deepest regress of my mind. When the spark of life was leaving me, the pathway to salvation opened its eyes and spoke to me. It beckoned me forth from the Faerie's hovel and into the wilderness. I ran, condemned to all fours, as fast I could. I did not look back, I did not fear. Fear left me years ago, replaced by emptiness.
When Balbain imbued my body, the fragments of my rotting soul, with Glamour, he breathed life into my lungs. He gave me the ability to exist through the torment and harvest strength enough to find my way back to the Hedge. I tore through it, the thorns ripping the fur and flesh free from my body. I bled into the earth, but did not stop. Without knowing, my body took me to a gateway to the world. It knew I needed out, that I must escape, and opened. It was a spectacle that I have since grown accustomed to. I plunged through, landing on my hands and knees, my face restored, hidden behind the mask.
This was no longer the face of a child with eyes that looked to the sky with hope of seeing the first star twinkle into existence. These eyes were dead, pale and only looking to see what was before them. They did not weave fantasies from the mundane reality that approached from every direction. Instantly, they longed for The Hedge and its biting comfort.
I did not return for quite some time. I tried to assimilate into the life that was taken from me; but, I was too young when Balbain came that night. This world was not something I had experienced long enough to grow exceedingly fond of. The life I knew and clung to was back through the Gate. I stepped paw into The Hedge in search of a home of my own this time. And I found it, miles from any Trod, in a particularly comfortable overgrowth of thorns. There, I dug a hole in the ground -- I know of other Changelings who have built homes from sticks and stone, betraying what they truly are in order to cling to the feeble warmth of humanity. Now, I spend night after night in The Hedge, deep in the cavern of my Hollow. I return to the world every morning, though I do not know why. Perhaps it is the dreams. Between nightmares, I dream of my childhood, of laughter and tears of joy. I dream of hatred and death, of destroying Balbain. Those are the images that keep me from wandering deep into The Hedge, away from the others and from my humanity.
I am growing stronger and the image of the Faerie still burns behind my eyes. Balbain must die a true death. Will I die then? I have never heard of a slave killing its master. Will the Glamour that binds my soul to the Faerie's turn to dust and dance into the sky on a gust of wind? These are the questions that I do concern myself with.
I have adopted a wolf. I was wandering in Central Park, of all places, when he approached. From where, I do not know. Before that encounter, I had only seen deer and vermin littering the lawns of the park, a refuge from the lights that I often found myself aimlessly traversing. Was I always looking for him? I do not know. But on that night, I found him, golden eyes staring at me curiously as if he already knew the truth to my lie. He is the only one that listens when I speak. He asked me for a name to be called by and I thought for days before approaching him with one. I think he likes it. Faust.
Night after night he follows me into The Hedge, aware of the dangers that lurk in the undergrowth. He sleeps beside me in our den and pads along side me, unafraid as we move through the thorns. We hunt together: he sees me as I truly am, not as the humans see me. I value him greatly for that. If I should die in the Hedge with Faust beside me, I fear he may be trapped there to be preyed upon by the Goblins and True Fae. That cannot happen; I will not let that happen to my only friend, my only family.
I have seen my human family. After my abduction, my mother and sister moved from our old apartment into a new one. I was somewhere in the downtown area when my shoulder brushed against a woman walking the opposite direction. As if I was stung by a thousand bees, the pain of recognition flowed through me like a current of electricity. I stopped and turned, staring from beneath the hood of my rain jacket, slack jawed. It was my mother. She aged terribly after my loss. I later found that she had turned to drugs and alcohol after I was taken, indulging herself until she would pass out in the street or on the stoop of her building. There are times, on the especially cold nights, that I go searching for her with a blanket in hand. I found my sister through my mother.
They were arguing viciously about her drug use. My sister blurted curses from between her lips, curses she laid at my mother's feet in hopes of cutting verbal wounds into her sagging soul. My sister blamed my mother for my absence, though no blame could be had. They have both me, though neither knows it.
My sister was at work the night she met me, in the back alley of the restaurant she waitresses at. She took out the garbage to throw it in the dumpster but never made it that far. Men came for her, to rape her. Because I spend every night in the darkness of my den, the shadows favor me. I moved, obfuscating each step, in for the kill. Their throats slashed by an attacker my sister never saw, the men fell dead at her feet. There are nights that I dream of their blood and how it clung to my hands, how their skin hung from my claws (through my eyes there is no Mask: I always see myself for the animal I am).
I have never gone in search of my father. I wouldn't know where to look even if I wanted to.
**Skills**: Keeping calm. Stealth. Losing control.
**Equipment and Resources**: Mordecai returns to The Hedge nightly and has explored deeper than many other Changelings. He does not have the innate knowledge of the terrain like the Fae do, but he has found his way to places that have not seen footsteps in many, many centuries.
He owns one weapon, a 1911 Colt .45 handgun.
He keeps a piece of mirror on his person at all times.
Tokens are lasting items while Trifles are removed from play once they are used.
- _Hoarfrost Spine_: **A token.** Broken off from a frozen thorn in The Hedge, once activated, Mordecai becomes very hard to get ones hands on, as if his skin was encased in ice. Appears as a dry, cracked piece of thorn about the size of a small knife.
- _Biting Grotesquerie_: **A token.** Mordecai stumbled across this one, quite literally. It is the decayed corpse of a three eyed salamander. Once activated, the token forces a Hobgoblin from The Hedge, sicking it on a foe. Stricken by a bite, the target begins to hallucinate uncontrollably. Appears as a dried carcass of a three eyed salamander hanging around his neck.
- _Red Ribbon of the Lost Girl_: **A token.** Taken from the corpse of a girl found in The Hedge, the token increases accuracy when attached to a firearm.
- _Goblin Fruit_: These are various fruits, not all beneficial. He does carry a supply for treating wounds as well as others for inflicting sickness upon others, if they are so stupid as to eat it.
- _Bile Fruit_: **Trifle.** Once eaten, it completely conceals Mordecai's mien, including his shadow.
- _Tumbleglass_: **Trifle.** Kept as trinkets by the Fae, Tumbleglasses are incredibly useful to thieves pinned between a ledge and a long way down. Once broken beneath the foot of the Changeling, any fall of up to 100 yards is survivable with little to no injury.
- _Sting Seed_: **Trifle.** Seeds taken from The Hedge. Once loaded into the hollow of a bullet, the seeds can be fired at a target. If they inflict damage, the seeds sprout plantlife from the wound.
Edges: Every power has a catch that allows the power to be used without expending Glamour. There are exceptions, though, that require the use of Glamour to make the contract. Since I am getting seriously tired, I'm taking the powers from the White Wolf unofficial Wikia. They are posted below in simplified nature.
**Seeming Contract -- Fang and Talon**
- _Tongues of Birds and Words of Wolves (Wolf)_: A changeling gives an animal a new name, allowing them to communicate with it and other animals in their contract-type.
- _Beast's Keen Senses (Wolf)_: the changeling touches an animal-type of their contract, they acquire the senses of that animal.
- _Pipes of the Beastcaller (Wolf)_: If the changeling has asked an animal to guard their dwelling, they may call on that animal at any time or place.
- _Tread of the Swift Hooves (Wolf)_: After touching an animal of the right kind, they may emulate that animals form of movement.
- _Cloak of the Bear's Massive Form (Wolf)_: If they are in the correct habitat and touching an animal, they may take that animal's form; otherwise, Glamour must be paid in order to take the form.
**Universal Contract -- Smoke**
- _The Wrong Foot_: After licking their thumb and rubbing it on a mirror, a changeling can alter traces of its passage.
- _Nevertread_: After spending an hour or more barefoot, a changeling can erase all traces of their passage.
- _Shadowpatch_: If the changeling has spent enough time away from the light, they may obscure themselves in shadows.
- _Murkblur_: After swallowing the eye of an animal or insect, the changeling causes an obscuring fog to form over a target's eyes.
- _Light-Shy_: If the Changeling has told a lie with significance, they can turn themselves completely invisible.
**Universal Contract -- Thorns and Brambles**
- _Bite of the Wooden Fang_: If the changeling uses a whip made of plant materials, the wood gains several sharp thorns when it touches an enemy.
- _Leechwood_: When the changeling confronts his keep or a minion of him, he can accelerate the growth of nearby hedge and other plants to attack him. Damage done by the thorns drains Glamour from the target.
- _Briarpath_: When the changeling litters a handful of Hedge thorns behind him, he can force enchanted brambles to block the way after him.
- _Shield of Thorns_: By shedding his own blood on an area, the changeling can summon forth a Hedge, creating an almost impenetrable defensive barrier that lashes back at enemies that come near.
- _Hed_: The changeling can call forth a series of massive fortifications or hedges and brambles if he transplants a small hedge bush from a rural locale to the location where the Contract is to be used immediately prior to using the Contract.
**Arts of the Hedge -- Goblin Contract**
- _Shooter's Bargain_: Two of the next three shots fired from a weapon will be incredibly accurate, though the third will probably miss horribly.
- _Fair Entrance_: A changeling can open any locked door. However, in the future, at a most untimely moment, a foe can easily enter into the changeling's home.
- _Burden of Life_: A changeling can heal another but any subsequent attacks on the being are inflicted upon the changeling.
**Mortal tie**: Mordecai is slipping deeper into his passion for revenge against his Keeper. The only mortal creature he calls friend is Faust, the wolf he has named.