[hider= Shadow Patron]
[center][h2][b]Xan Yale[/b][/h2]
[img]http://pm1.narvii.com/8239/541cd8f9b3203480256cbf8ab854c1a9ef98eb7ar1-736-1071v2_00.jpg[/img]

[h3]"Sorry about the noise, it’s become a habit to be quirky"[/h3][/center]

[b]Name:[/b] Xan Yale

[b]Gender:[/b] Male

[b]Age:[/b] 24

[b]Appearance: [/b]
	A tall man standing at a height of 6’3”. He has an athletic physique. He has pale skin color despite being out doors often. He has long black hair with bangs that often covers his eyes. His eyes are brown. He does not have any tattoos or piercings. His manner of dress is usually monochromatic colors such as black, white, and various shades of gray. He wears long sleeve shirts, and pants regardless of the weather and doesn’t seemed bothered by hot sunny temperatures. However, if he is doing an outdoor activity, he will dress appropriately. Until he approaches and interacts with someone (which is usually how it goes), he may come across as scary looking.

[b]Personality:  [/b]  
[center]Friendly ~ excluded ~ eager [/center]
	Xan is confident in his skills and puts in the effort when it comes to work and education. He is a quick study and picks up the nuances of whatever skill he is training quite easily. He is friendly most of the time, and likes working with people. Unfortunately, he has a hard time maintaining friendships and acquaintanceship because of his odd quirks and dark sense of humor. He will often say something or do something spontaneously for the fun of it. He doesn’t expect a response, it’s just something he had grown accustomed to doing. He also is not one to shy away from the grotesque, disturbing, and horror. He would look at something tragic and ponder on how it occurred as opposed to why. He’d still feel sympathy for the victims, but his interest would lie in the offender’s thought process and strategy. A lot of times, he will combine these two traits of his and say something mildly concerning. Despite being spoken to by concerned authority, he was found harmless if just a little off putting. He is aware of this habit, and will attempt to suppress it to be cordial, but he enjoys the small bits of fun he gets from doing it. He is of the mindset that he doesn’t need to change, he just needs to find company who would enjoy his peculiar quirks.

[b]History: [/b]    
	Xan grew up in a wealthy household in the state of California. His father was an investment broker, and had earned a lot of money though stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. His step mother worked as a software developer. His birth mother worked as a lead medical professor at a university out of state. As a result from his family’s success, Xan always found himself taken care of. Anything he needed was provided, and if his parents were never around, Xan could talk with the servant that his parents had hired. He grew up attending private schools, participating in several after school activities, and was able learn skills such as horse riding and various sports. He didn’t think himself better for his parents’ success, but he held a certain pride about it. He was not one to hide away his advantages from it.

	Xan’s parents divorced when he was thirteen. Even though they claimed they had fallen out of love, he knew that it wasn’t amicable. He heard the fighting when they thought he could on the other side of their fairly large house. This left Xan feeling alone. It didn’t that his father remarried a year later, and his mother moved out of state. In order to cope, he found himself wanting to spend more time in the after school activities, playing sports, or even trying to help engineer a robot that could put a ring on a hook six feet off the ground. He wasn’t oblivious to that either. He could see that outside of mandatory interactions that people were keeping away from him. He always found himself in the corner of the room, or the end of the bench, obscured by shadows of the near wall, where light took the longest to reach.

	Having enough of being excluded, Xan started to be more assertive. He discovered that some odd behavior quirks would get a response and so he started with it. He was more open about his interests. He was still aware that people were not really friends, but as acquaintances, he was not as much of an outcast. He was known as the weird kid in the shadows. At the same time, he was known to be friendly, and easy to talk to when you get over how distant he appears initially. He had to be the one to initiate conversations most of the time, but it was enough to make more of a connection with people.

	After he graduated, Xan stayed home rather than attend university. Despite having a taste for a variety of activities, and even keeping up with a few, he didn’t have an urge one way or another towards any of them. He thought about it, about what he’d like to do. Of course his father suggested a career like a doctor or lawyer. His step mother offered a position at her tech firm. Xan turned it down. Instead, for the next few years he spent his time at home, going on road trips, or even going out of the country for a few months. He’d still apply to university to make his parents happy, but never had a motivation to go. It wasn’t until one day where things started to click and Xan was more invested in his future. 

	After a game of tennis with some of the people he managed to maintain a friendship, he said something that Xan never pondered until now. The first was about how hot it was, and the second was about how it always seemed the shade followed Xan. In an effort to prove his friend wrong, more out of playfulness, he pointed to the shade they were standing in and then followed it up to the tree it was coming from. At a glance, it looked like any normal shadow, but Xan could see how much the shade went out of the way to block the sun for him. He could see the glare of the sun while still in the cooler shade of the tree. Normally, the sun would be positioned behind the tree, so this alone was odd. But then he questioned the first comment. Xan couldn’t remember the last time he felt hot. He was always at a comfortable temperature. Playing aside, Xan tested this by stepping out of the shadow into the sun. He could feel the sun’s heat, but he didn’t feel hot. At the same time, the shade he was just sitting in slowly traveled across the ground to be more appropriate. His friend never noticed this change, but Xan was confident of what he saw. He ended the game early and went home.

	Xan stood in his backyard courtyard. He walked across the yard, trying to pay attention if any of the shadows would follow him. None of them did. He attempted a couple more times and again, none of them did. Thinking that perhaps he got some kind of heat stroke, maybe a version that tricks the brain into thinking it’s not hot, he sat on a bench in the shade and started scrolling his phone. An hour later, he gave up. He sat back in the breeze. After standing to go back inside, he noticed it. The shadows of the other trees shifted with the sun. At the angle they were, his bench should have been in the sun as well. He found the shade he was sitting in was the only shadow that did not shift with the sun’s position. Having become aware of it, the shadow began to slowly move to its correct position. Something other worldly was definitely happening.  He just needed to figure out a way on how to control it, if he could.

	Xan started to work with at his step mother’s tech firm. He took some classes at the local college to get the education to at least start some basic work within the company. He did it mainly to appease his parents, but his interest was more towards developing what power he had. He’d practice at the firm whenever no one was looking. It was there he learned that he could also make things colder. Some coworkers complained of a chill when they walked by Xan, complaining the climate control was unbalanced. Not knowing the extent of his ability, he thought he got pretty good at controlling it. However, something nagged at him. He felt like he could do better.

	Xan checked his mail and found an odd note. He’d put it off as a joke except he knew of the magic he’d been playing with for less than half a year. How someone else found out was beyond him. He wasn’t being as careful as he could be, but whenever it practiced, he was alone. And whenever he tried to mess with the shadows of another, he at least tried to make sure no one else was around. He picked up the letter again, and then the bank card. Xan wasn’t one to skip out on an activity he thought would be fun. If anything the least he’d get out of it was another road trip. Leaving the firm one day, Xan packed his bags and decided that another cross country road trip was over due.


[b]Equipment:[/b] 

- Smartphone
- Laptop
- Smartwatch
- Carbon competitive crossbow and accompanying bolts
- Clothes
- Charging cables
- Back up battery pack
- headphones
- wallet with bank cards
- Tennis racket
- Hummer H2
- Spare five gallon gas canister

[b]Magic:[/b]

Shadow Ice
	Xan has the power to control shadows and build upon absence of light.  He can also drastically reduce the temperature of areas he is affecting.

Currently, Xan can maintain a cool body temperature within hot environments. He can bend existing shadows to any new position he wants. Generally, the shadow cannot stretch much father than what was originally projected by the light source casting it. He also cannot change its shape too much. He can alter the shape of his own shadow into vaguely different shapes, and hide himself nigh invisible in a well shaded area. He can also chill an area with a shadow, but cannot really freeze anything, yet.

Using his power is a battle of concentration and aptitude. Shadows bend to his will but will revert if his thoughts wander. If he is engulfing himself or others within a shadow, he can lose his eye sight, ability to move, and become absorbed physically in shadow, lost in a void of concealed light. Also while he can cool himself, he cannot warm himself, so if temperatures remain cold for too long, he risks hypothermia.

Ideally with enough training and practice, he would be able to build a domain of frozen darkness. He would be able to shadow step, standing in one shadow and appearing in another. Lastly, he would be able to interact with the physical world using only its or another’s shadows.

[/hider]