Baedal Application
Out of Character Information
Name: Slarti
Username: slaarti
Are you over the age of eighteen? Very much so, yes.
Current characters in Baedal: None.
In Character Information
Basics
Character Name: Hellboy
Username: eatenthepancake
Fandom: Hellboy
Played By: N/A
Icon: Icon!
Canon Character Section
Physical Description: Hellboy is 65 years of age, and stands approximately seven feet tall. His build is big and beefy up top, with comparatively skinny legs below leading to cloven hooves for feet. He has a long tail and his forehead features the filed-down stumps of what would otherwise be a majestic pair of horns. His skin is bright red, his eyes a solid orange, and his black hair limited to sideburns, a fringe around the back that he keeps just long enough to tie into a tiny ponytail, and a little beard at the center of his lantern jaw. His right hand is oversized and appears to be made of stone, with three flat fingers and a thumb. He generally wears a tan canvas-and-leather duster, a pair of black shorts, customized boots that leave his hoof-toes exposed, and a belt festooned with pouches, an oversized gun holster, and a red buckle bearing the emblem of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
Sexuality: Hellboy has found love at least once in his life, and has gotten close to possibly having a relationship a couple times beyond that. What evidence exists suggests that he loves the ladies, and prefers women who are capable of handling the kind of rough-and-tumble life he lives. That said, he's a bit old-fashioned, being raised in the post-WWII era by a mix of scientists and military folks, so even if his inhuman appearance and dangerous life didn't limit his opportunities, he's unlikely to rush into any sort of relationships.
History:
Hellboy does have a Wikipedia entry, but I will also provide a summary:
Hellboy is a half-human, half-demon hybrid. He was summoned to Earth in 1944 by the efforts of the mad monk Rasputin and his team of Nazi occult scientists, but was found and taken in by the United States military and British paranormal expert Trevor Bruttenholm, who raised him like a father. He grew up quickly, reaching the equivalent of adulthood by the age of 8. By then, word of his existence had leaked, and he was granted "honorary human status" by the United Nations. He then became a field agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), which had been formed after WWII, partially to study him but also to investigate other supernatural phenomena. Seemingly unaging past the point of adulthood, Hellboy gradually built up a reputation as "The World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator," traveling the world, getting into all manners of weird adventures, and punching a lot of monsters in the face.
However much he wanted to, Hellboy couldn't entirely avoid the question of where he came from. In 1994, Trevor Bruttenholm was killed right in front of him by a frog monster, and his subsequent investigation brought him face to face with Rasputin. The mad monk explained that he summoned Hellboy all those years ago so that he could use his massive stone right hand to free the seven-headed dragon Ogdru Jahad and end the world. Hellboy himself didn't particularly like that plan, and with the aid of fellow BPRD agents Abe Sapien (an amphibious fish-man) and Liz Sherman (a pyrokinetic), they were able to thwart Rasputin's plans, killing him in the process.
It didn't stop there, though. Ever since then, Hellboy became increasingly fair game for one supernatural force or another to try to either kill him or force him to fulfill his destiny. Finally, in 2001, he quit the BPRD to travel the world on his own. Aimless wandering wasn't going to get him any further from his destiny, however, and he repeatedly found himself encountering the work of others preparing for the end times. He learned of the Secret History of the World and his intended part in it. He was offered kingship over the world's witches, as his father was lord over them in Britain long ago, but he turned them down. They then sought another option: Nimue, reborn as a Queen of Blood, gathering an army of witches and fae.
In the hopes of preventing the war that Nimue planned to start, Queen Mab and Morgan Le Fay told Hellboy that he must form an army of his own to oppose her. If he refused the crown offered by his father, then he would have to accept the one offered by his mother: Morgan revealed to Hellboy that his mother was the last in a long unbroken line of witches descended from her son Mordred, and he was therefore the last living heir of King Arthur, and the rightful King of England. He was skeptical at first, but when he then pulled Excalibur from the stone it had rested in since the fall of Camelot, he reluctantly accepted the truth of it. But before he (and his friend Alice, who had her own connections to the fae which had recently brought her into the matter) could start to do anything about it, he was pulled first into Bete Noire (where he was quickly recruited into the Hellsing Organization, whose charter was similar enough to the BPRD to be a comfort in a strange new world), and from there to Baedal.
There is also an even more detailed character history available, as optional reading.
Powers:
Hellboy is superhumanly strong (how much so is never specified, but it's enough to be able to jump up on very large monsters and beat them down) and a bit faster than one might expect for his size (though not super-speedy). He is extraordinarily tough, with an ability to heal from wounds that would fell lesser men many times over. Fire doesn't bother him (unsurprising, for a creature bred in the pits of Hell, although explosions can still knock him around) and he has survived for years on end with little to no food, (drinkable) water, or air. Indeed, Hellboy has been identified as deathless, unable to be killed unless he himself allows it (which, it has been suggested, he is fated to one day do, but that day hasn't arrived yet).
His right hand, an oversized artifact of stone as blood red as the rest of him and containing the right hand of an angelic spirit, is the Right Hand of Doom. Its primary ability, in the eyes of those who would see him use it, is to unleash and command the seven-headed dragon, Ogdru Jahad. He himself, however, has absolutely no intention of ever doing this, so as far as he's concerned, it's indestructible and otherwise generally unaffected by either physical or magical effects (which can make it useful as a shield, and also makes it capable of touching (punching) otherwise intangible things/people/ghosts/etc.), doesn't feel pain, and packs some extra oomph into his punch, at the expense of not being very good for doing sensitive things with.
As a paranormal investigator for over half a century, Hellboy has accumulated a great deal of knowledge about the occult and the supernatural. He isn't a witch and he's not going to just start throwing magic around, but the power from both sides of his family is in his blood and he can use it if he has to. He knows the occasional ritual (usually protective or banishing), can recognize plenty more, and could be taught if sufficiently motivated. The pockets of his duster and the pouches on his belt are filled with all sorts of charms, amulets, talismans, etc. from places and faiths from all over his world, usually useful for protection or putting some extra pain in beating down a supernatural baddie.
Hellboy's latest acquisition, and one which stands out from anything else he usually carries around with him, is Excalibur. Yes, the Excalibur. Not much has been explained about the sword so far, but it can be presumed that despite its color, it isn't made from actual gold (which wouldn't make for a very good sword), but rather an unnamed golden metal found in fae and Hyperborean weapons, which is unusually tough and (as in the legends of Excalibur) carries an unusually sharp edge capable of cutting through steel. Also, while some legends make them different swords, in the Hellboy universe, Excalibur is also the Sword in the Stone, and thus when driven into a rock, it cannot be drawn out again by anyone whose blood is not of the Pendragon royal line (such as Hellboy himself). (Drawing it out was also supposed to cause the noble dead of Britain to rise out of their crypts and flock to Hellboy as his army, but that was back home and not really relevant in other universes.)
Talents/Abilities::
In addition to his experience with the paranormal (see above in Powers), he has received combat training. His belt has a holster for a gun, and while he is aware of just how mediocre shot he is, he at least knows basic care and handling. In hand-to-hand, his style is generally fairly basic, but he has had experience with the arts of the luchador. Just how much formal training he has had with a sword is unknown, but he has used them to good effect many times over the years, and it has been asserted that he's much better with one than with a gun, possibly a birthright handed down with his Pendragon blood.
While not any sort of trained, professional cook, Hellboy's long, well-traveled life has given him time to learn how to do a good job with a few recipes of things he's come to really like. Examples include pancakes, crab rangoons, and a Romanian variation of paprika chicken.
Personality:
Hellboy has been described as, "Heaven, Hell, and Human come together as one." The Heaven part, as manifested in his Right Hand of Doom, is generally pretty quiet (as the divine usually is in his world), so mostly he just has to deal with the conflict between his human heart and his demon blood. He loves the world and is determined not to be pushed to be part of its destruction, but the continual attempts to make him do it piss him off, and when he lets his temper have free rein, it tends to get him in trouble and may eventually cause him to do something he'd regret later. Some of the forces he's faced have complained that he's made himself too human, but with recent events he's wondered if he's human enough: if he's managed to become as good a man as Prof. Bruttenholm told him he could be, or if everything that's been said about what he'll do is more than he can handle.
Put all questions of free will vs. prophesied destiny aside, however, and the person Hellboy wants to be -- the person he presents himself as, whenever possible -- is an average working-class stiff, who tries to be reasonable and just do his job. He likes cheesy monster movies, cigars and booze (probably a little too much of the latter, at least recently, but he's starting to realize it), and pulp/noir comics and novels, the latter of which probably shaped the style of pithy quips he occasionally uses when punching up a monster. He hates doing serious research (the Professor made sure he learned how, but it's never been an interest for him for its own sake) and isn't big on high-tech gadgets (they tend to fail on him, occasionally explosively, and often while he's high in the air). He probably learned the working-class stiff routine from the GIs on the military base he grew up on, and coupled with his generally outgoing friendliness, he largely manages to downplay and distract from his obvious other-than-humanity.
Of course, in his world it probably helped that as a public figure since childhood, people had had time to get used to knowing he existed. Still, he's aware of what he looks like, and in a new setting, he'll probably generally hope that as long as he doesn't make a big thing out of it, others won't much either. For all that he's got a lot (a lot) of monster, fae, demon, etc. blood on his hands, he's also compassionate towards non-humans who aren't trying to pick a fight. He's traveled the world several times over, and has seen enough weird stuff that he's generally pretty blasé about it, which should serve him well in multiversal meeting places.
Object:
Hellboy generally travels pretty light, with not much more than the clothes on his back. With the possible but unhelpful exception of a gun lost in the ocean, there's nothing in particular back in his world that he'd consider all that significant that he doesn't already have on hand. That said, it may instead be worth noting that what he has on him, as noted in the Powers and Talents sections, include Excalibur and an assortment of charms, amulets, talismans, etc. from places and faiths from all over his world, usually useful for protection or putting some extra pain in beating down a supernatural baddie. (As depicted in canon, the power of the charms and such seem to reside within themselves, rather than needing to channel power from whatever sources they came from, but with the presence of a distinct and active pantheon in Baedal, just how effective they would be at all is of course up to mod discretion.) He also has a M1911 .45 handgun, but given how bad a shot he is and how scarce ammunition is likely to be, that's probably not going to be used much.
Reason for playing:
Hellboy as a concept and a fictional universe hits many of my pulpy sci-horror monster-punching happy places, and I've been a fan for many years now. I've played another character from the universe (Lobster Johnson) before, but wanted a character I didn't have to push so much to be sociable. Hellboy's very sociable, and playing the main character from something is a relatively rare experience for me. He's been through a lot lately, and it'll be nice to get back to basics a little -- which is to say, investigating spooky stuff and probably punching it -- while he sorts out his personal stuff from back home in his head.
Gods: I know this was in the OC section, but I thought it interesting enough to consider anyway. The existence of a whole new (to him) pantheon will probably get Hellboy interested in all of them at least a little bit. (He's not the worshipping type, and he's not typically into research for its own sake, but it's a wise and prudent thing to know the field, given how often paranormal investigations at least brush up against matters of the divine.) As for gods who might in turn be interested in Hellboy... well, what he is may or may not interest all of them, depending on just how much that still applies in Baedal, but by dint of his personality and profession, I can see at least moderate affinities with Eliandre (investigator/hunter), Gediron (fighter/warrior), and possibly Shada (while not generally an active user of magic, he has a strong lineage of it on both sides of his family).
Writing Samples
For two of the four samples, applicants may substitute links to previously written roleplaying threads of no less than eight substantial replies. We reserve the right to ask for an additional sample if more information is required.
First-Person Network Post:
[video; Hellboy isn't much for gadgets, but comms with video have won him over because he likes people being able to see him when he talks]
Hey, uh, anyone know where I can get something decent in a file or grinder?
[He fingers the tips of one of his horn stumps, which aren't quite flat anymore.]
It's been a while since I last got to trim these things down. Thanks!
First-Person Journal Post:
Two new worlds in as many months. Still getting used to not living with ghosts and not having the Apocalypse crap hanging over my head. Still no idea if Alice really is still alive, back home, or what's going on there. So what now? At least the job situation's already handled, but do I just keep doing that for however long? I guess there's not much else, other than finding a bottle again.
Third-Person Arrival Post:
Le Gode Hostel, Bete Noire
10 April 2011
Slowly, Hellboy levered himself up out of bed. The room was not, strictly speaking, entirely large enough to be comfortable for someone of his size, so as usual, he had to be careful not to break anything in the course of his post-wakeup stretch. Last night had been an eventful one: while most of them had gone away, there were still occasional pockets of the creatures that had been popping up around the time of his arrival in the city, and he'd been sent to help wrangle a dragon that had suddenly turned cantankerous.
The injuries had all healed overnight, but as he'd expected when he went to bed, some of them were still a bit sore. A shower and breakfast, however, helped soothe most of the aches. He figured that the walk up to Hell House would work out the rest of them, and made sure he had all of his usual gear on hand, including Excalibur in its fetching makeshift bath towel/clothesline scabbard. Gotta do something about that, one of these days, he thought to himself on his way out of the building. Maybe figure out how to make a scabbard, if I can't find one somewhere.
Hellboy opened the front door of the hostel, and as he stepped through it, everything changed. The sunlight outside the hostel, which had been bright enough that his eyes hadn't adjusted to it yet, became instead a blinding whiteness. His sense of balance gave out entirely, leaving him unsure if he was falling or floating. The whiteness faded briefly, offering a vision of his last moment back in his own world -- Alice, sitting on the grassy Irish hill, a confused look on her face -- then flared into a final flash of light.
With a noisy thump, Hellboy landed unceremoniously in a room only barely large enough to contain him. "Ow! Jeez!" he exclaimed, as the awkward angle of his arrival had put his tail in a bad position beneath him to fall on. With a bit of effort and a lot of grumbling, he got himself into a seated position. In front of him was a little table, with a pamphlet and a device almost but not quite like the communicator he'd had in Bete Noire. (A quick pat-down of his duster's pockets confirmed that said communicator had vanished, as mysteriously as it had arrived.)
"Finding Baedal: A Settlers Guide to the Wondrous City," he said to himself, reading off the cover of the pamphlet. "Well, I'll give them this: They're more organized about it than the last kidnapper city was."
Third-Person Action Post:
Mandelot, France
December 1982
Darkness gave way to pure, brilliant white light. Hellboy groaned and tried to remember where he was, but his thoughts were fuzzy and wouldn't come together. He could tell that he was lying down, and when he opened his eyes, he could see through the blurriness that he was in a bedroom. It was all done in white, seemingly not just reflecting but even radiating the light. Sitting on the bed next to him was a figure, indistinct but certainly beautiful.
"Darling."
Suddenly he realized who the woman had to be. "Stasia," he groaned, still uncertain as to what was going on but disinclined to question it too much as long as she was here. Anastasia Bransfield was a fine woman, brains and beauty in one, and she and Hellboy were very much in love. He still couldn't remember just where they were or how they got there, but if Stasia was with him, everything had to be fine.
"Let me help you get this stuff off," the woman (Stasia, he reminded himself, though he wasn't sure why he had to) said as she reached for the buckle of his heavy, pouch-laden belt. "You just lay back and relax. Don't worry about a thing."
"Sssssure," he mumbled, already feeling pretty good from what she was doing so far. If she wanted to go straight to getting his shorts off, who was he to complain? Hellboy settled back, put his hands behind his head, and was surprised when his left hand felt something wet. With a muttered, "What the--" he brought his hand back around and looked at it.
The wetness on his hand was blood: his blood, in fact, dark red on the brighter shade of his own skin, untouched by the radiance of the room around him. The sight of it sent a shock through him that shattered the illusion of the white bedroom and brought back the memory of what had happened. The previous month, in Yorkshire, he had finally tracked down and disposed of Hungarian vampire Countess Ilona Kákosy. In the aftermath, the BPRD cleanup crew had found a few letters sent by Ilona's sister, Anikó.
Anikó was also a vampire, but as the younger sister, she tended to keep a lower profile and proved even more elusive. That is, until those letters turned up. They pointed to a place in a small town in eastern France, so that was where Hellboy went. He'd arrived at the house late at night, which maybe wasn't the best of time to be confronting a vampire, but he figured he had it covered. He hadn't considered just how decrepit the house looked -- even keeping a low profile, just how ratty a place could a vampire noblewoman really stand, anyway? -- or the further possibility that the floor might not be able to support his weight.
Naturally, it had then given way, causing him to tumble down into the basement and hit his head on the floor. Now, with the blood and the suddenly noticeable pain of the headache to focus him, he could see the truth of things: The comfortable bed in the blazing white bedroom was a stone floor in a dark chilly basement. Anastasia wasn't sitting next to him; they'd broken up last year, his reluctant decision to spare her reputation in the eyes of her peers. In fact, no one at all was sitting next to him, so where was the vampire who'd presumably caused the illusion?
As it happened, once he stopped mostly looking at his hand, he could see that she was standing over him, and the strength of a vampire was such that her thin frame had no problem getting a very large battle axe in position to take off his head.
"GEEZ!!" Hellboy exclaimed. He got his right hand back in front of him just in time to intercept the axe's blade, which shattered against the indestructible stone. That left her with just a broken wooden stick, which wasn't much of a weapon, but as he rolled back up onto his feet, she decided to go for it anyway, stabbing it into the meat of his left shoulder.
On the whole, that wasn't really the best of ideas: in addition to the pain, the memory of what had happened -- of what he had thought was happening -- was running through his mind, and it was making him angry. Hellboy was among the first to admit that his temper was something of a problem sometimes, but this time he decided to run with it. With a wordless shout of pain, he lashed out with his right hand, clamping his index finger and thumb around her neck and latching the other two fingers onto her left side.
"There. Now, you and me, we're going to take a little walk outside." He took a quick look at his wristwatch, then nodded to himself and started walking towards the stairs leading to the cellar door.
Anikó looked at the door, saw the faint light peeking through the cracks between the boards, and panicked, begging, "No! Mercy, please!"
Hellboy wasn't having any of it. "Nuh-uh. Your sister pulled that whammy shit too, but she at least tried intimidating me with some giant vampire god. You, though... You made it personal, reminded me of something I was trying to forget. You picked at the wrong scab." He busted through the plank keeping the cellar door shut and shouldered it open. He was still a bit uncertain as to the chronology of things after he had first entered the house, but if he had to guess, he figured that she had been out when he arrived, returning shortly before dawn to find him knocked out. Now, dawn was in full swing, and Anikó caught fire as he hauled her up into the sun.
He held on, barely even noticing the flames, his teeth gritted in pain and anger. Only when she had fully burned out, the slight winter breeze coolly swirling her ashes around him, did he finally open his hands and relax. As he did, it finally occurred to him to look down. His shorts were still on, obviously, since that was just an illusion, but apparently what the nonexistent Anastasia had been doing had felt real enough to some part of his mind. With a frustrated grumble, he sat himself down on the low, snow-covered stone wall bordering the house and lit up a cigarette.
"Better settle down. I'd rather not have to walk back to town with my coat closed."
Misc
Other: You already know this, and I've made references to it throughout the application, but just to have it on the record, this character includes history and CR from a brief stint playing in betenoire_rp.
Name: Slarti
Username: slaarti
Are you over the age of eighteen? Very much so, yes.
Current characters in Baedal: None.
In Character Information
Basics
Character Name: Hellboy
Username: eatenthepancake
Fandom: Hellboy
Played By: N/A
Icon: Icon!
Canon Character Section
Physical Description: Hellboy is 65 years of age, and stands approximately seven feet tall. His build is big and beefy up top, with comparatively skinny legs below leading to cloven hooves for feet. He has a long tail and his forehead features the filed-down stumps of what would otherwise be a majestic pair of horns. His skin is bright red, his eyes a solid orange, and his black hair limited to sideburns, a fringe around the back that he keeps just long enough to tie into a tiny ponytail, and a little beard at the center of his lantern jaw. His right hand is oversized and appears to be made of stone, with three flat fingers and a thumb. He generally wears a tan canvas-and-leather duster, a pair of black shorts, customized boots that leave his hoof-toes exposed, and a belt festooned with pouches, an oversized gun holster, and a red buckle bearing the emblem of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
Sexuality: Hellboy has found love at least once in his life, and has gotten close to possibly having a relationship a couple times beyond that. What evidence exists suggests that he loves the ladies, and prefers women who are capable of handling the kind of rough-and-tumble life he lives. That said, he's a bit old-fashioned, being raised in the post-WWII era by a mix of scientists and military folks, so even if his inhuman appearance and dangerous life didn't limit his opportunities, he's unlikely to rush into any sort of relationships.
History:
Hellboy does have a Wikipedia entry, but I will also provide a summary:
Hellboy is a half-human, half-demon hybrid. He was summoned to Earth in 1944 by the efforts of the mad monk Rasputin and his team of Nazi occult scientists, but was found and taken in by the United States military and British paranormal expert Trevor Bruttenholm, who raised him like a father. He grew up quickly, reaching the equivalent of adulthood by the age of 8. By then, word of his existence had leaked, and he was granted "honorary human status" by the United Nations. He then became a field agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), which had been formed after WWII, partially to study him but also to investigate other supernatural phenomena. Seemingly unaging past the point of adulthood, Hellboy gradually built up a reputation as "The World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator," traveling the world, getting into all manners of weird adventures, and punching a lot of monsters in the face.
However much he wanted to, Hellboy couldn't entirely avoid the question of where he came from. In 1994, Trevor Bruttenholm was killed right in front of him by a frog monster, and his subsequent investigation brought him face to face with Rasputin. The mad monk explained that he summoned Hellboy all those years ago so that he could use his massive stone right hand to free the seven-headed dragon Ogdru Jahad and end the world. Hellboy himself didn't particularly like that plan, and with the aid of fellow BPRD agents Abe Sapien (an amphibious fish-man) and Liz Sherman (a pyrokinetic), they were able to thwart Rasputin's plans, killing him in the process.
It didn't stop there, though. Ever since then, Hellboy became increasingly fair game for one supernatural force or another to try to either kill him or force him to fulfill his destiny. Finally, in 2001, he quit the BPRD to travel the world on his own. Aimless wandering wasn't going to get him any further from his destiny, however, and he repeatedly found himself encountering the work of others preparing for the end times. He learned of the Secret History of the World and his intended part in it. He was offered kingship over the world's witches, as his father was lord over them in Britain long ago, but he turned them down. They then sought another option: Nimue, reborn as a Queen of Blood, gathering an army of witches and fae.
In the hopes of preventing the war that Nimue planned to start, Queen Mab and Morgan Le Fay told Hellboy that he must form an army of his own to oppose her. If he refused the crown offered by his father, then he would have to accept the one offered by his mother: Morgan revealed to Hellboy that his mother was the last in a long unbroken line of witches descended from her son Mordred, and he was therefore the last living heir of King Arthur, and the rightful King of England. He was skeptical at first, but when he then pulled Excalibur from the stone it had rested in since the fall of Camelot, he reluctantly accepted the truth of it. But before he (and his friend Alice, who had her own connections to the fae which had recently brought her into the matter) could start to do anything about it, he was pulled first into Bete Noire (where he was quickly recruited into the Hellsing Organization, whose charter was similar enough to the BPRD to be a comfort in a strange new world), and from there to Baedal.
There is also an even more detailed character history available, as optional reading.
Powers:
Hellboy is superhumanly strong (how much so is never specified, but it's enough to be able to jump up on very large monsters and beat them down) and a bit faster than one might expect for his size (though not super-speedy). He is extraordinarily tough, with an ability to heal from wounds that would fell lesser men many times over. Fire doesn't bother him (unsurprising, for a creature bred in the pits of Hell, although explosions can still knock him around) and he has survived for years on end with little to no food, (drinkable) water, or air. Indeed, Hellboy has been identified as deathless, unable to be killed unless he himself allows it (which, it has been suggested, he is fated to one day do, but that day hasn't arrived yet).
His right hand, an oversized artifact of stone as blood red as the rest of him and containing the right hand of an angelic spirit, is the Right Hand of Doom. Its primary ability, in the eyes of those who would see him use it, is to unleash and command the seven-headed dragon, Ogdru Jahad. He himself, however, has absolutely no intention of ever doing this, so as far as he's concerned, it's indestructible and otherwise generally unaffected by either physical or magical effects (which can make it useful as a shield, and also makes it capable of touching (punching) otherwise intangible things/people/ghosts/etc.), doesn't feel pain, and packs some extra oomph into his punch, at the expense of not being very good for doing sensitive things with.
As a paranormal investigator for over half a century, Hellboy has accumulated a great deal of knowledge about the occult and the supernatural. He isn't a witch and he's not going to just start throwing magic around, but the power from both sides of his family is in his blood and he can use it if he has to. He knows the occasional ritual (usually protective or banishing), can recognize plenty more, and could be taught if sufficiently motivated. The pockets of his duster and the pouches on his belt are filled with all sorts of charms, amulets, talismans, etc. from places and faiths from all over his world, usually useful for protection or putting some extra pain in beating down a supernatural baddie.
Hellboy's latest acquisition, and one which stands out from anything else he usually carries around with him, is Excalibur. Yes, the Excalibur. Not much has been explained about the sword so far, but it can be presumed that despite its color, it isn't made from actual gold (which wouldn't make for a very good sword), but rather an unnamed golden metal found in fae and Hyperborean weapons, which is unusually tough and (as in the legends of Excalibur) carries an unusually sharp edge capable of cutting through steel. Also, while some legends make them different swords, in the Hellboy universe, Excalibur is also the Sword in the Stone, and thus when driven into a rock, it cannot be drawn out again by anyone whose blood is not of the Pendragon royal line (such as Hellboy himself). (Drawing it out was also supposed to cause the noble dead of Britain to rise out of their crypts and flock to Hellboy as his army, but that was back home and not really relevant in other universes.)
Talents/Abilities::
In addition to his experience with the paranormal (see above in Powers), he has received combat training. His belt has a holster for a gun, and while he is aware of just how mediocre shot he is, he at least knows basic care and handling. In hand-to-hand, his style is generally fairly basic, but he has had experience with the arts of the luchador. Just how much formal training he has had with a sword is unknown, but he has used them to good effect many times over the years, and it has been asserted that he's much better with one than with a gun, possibly a birthright handed down with his Pendragon blood.
While not any sort of trained, professional cook, Hellboy's long, well-traveled life has given him time to learn how to do a good job with a few recipes of things he's come to really like. Examples include pancakes, crab rangoons, and a Romanian variation of paprika chicken.
Personality:
Hellboy has been described as, "Heaven, Hell, and Human come together as one." The Heaven part, as manifested in his Right Hand of Doom, is generally pretty quiet (as the divine usually is in his world), so mostly he just has to deal with the conflict between his human heart and his demon blood. He loves the world and is determined not to be pushed to be part of its destruction, but the continual attempts to make him do it piss him off, and when he lets his temper have free rein, it tends to get him in trouble and may eventually cause him to do something he'd regret later. Some of the forces he's faced have complained that he's made himself too human, but with recent events he's wondered if he's human enough: if he's managed to become as good a man as Prof. Bruttenholm told him he could be, or if everything that's been said about what he'll do is more than he can handle.
Put all questions of free will vs. prophesied destiny aside, however, and the person Hellboy wants to be -- the person he presents himself as, whenever possible -- is an average working-class stiff, who tries to be reasonable and just do his job. He likes cheesy monster movies, cigars and booze (probably a little too much of the latter, at least recently, but he's starting to realize it), and pulp/noir comics and novels, the latter of which probably shaped the style of pithy quips he occasionally uses when punching up a monster. He hates doing serious research (the Professor made sure he learned how, but it's never been an interest for him for its own sake) and isn't big on high-tech gadgets (they tend to fail on him, occasionally explosively, and often while he's high in the air). He probably learned the working-class stiff routine from the GIs on the military base he grew up on, and coupled with his generally outgoing friendliness, he largely manages to downplay and distract from his obvious other-than-humanity.
Of course, in his world it probably helped that as a public figure since childhood, people had had time to get used to knowing he existed. Still, he's aware of what he looks like, and in a new setting, he'll probably generally hope that as long as he doesn't make a big thing out of it, others won't much either. For all that he's got a lot (a lot) of monster, fae, demon, etc. blood on his hands, he's also compassionate towards non-humans who aren't trying to pick a fight. He's traveled the world several times over, and has seen enough weird stuff that he's generally pretty blasé about it, which should serve him well in multiversal meeting places.
Object:
Hellboy generally travels pretty light, with not much more than the clothes on his back. With the possible but unhelpful exception of a gun lost in the ocean, there's nothing in particular back in his world that he'd consider all that significant that he doesn't already have on hand. That said, it may instead be worth noting that what he has on him, as noted in the Powers and Talents sections, include Excalibur and an assortment of charms, amulets, talismans, etc. from places and faiths from all over his world, usually useful for protection or putting some extra pain in beating down a supernatural baddie. (As depicted in canon, the power of the charms and such seem to reside within themselves, rather than needing to channel power from whatever sources they came from, but with the presence of a distinct and active pantheon in Baedal, just how effective they would be at all is of course up to mod discretion.) He also has a M1911 .45 handgun, but given how bad a shot he is and how scarce ammunition is likely to be, that's probably not going to be used much.
Reason for playing:
Hellboy as a concept and a fictional universe hits many of my pulpy sci-horror monster-punching happy places, and I've been a fan for many years now. I've played another character from the universe (Lobster Johnson) before, but wanted a character I didn't have to push so much to be sociable. Hellboy's very sociable, and playing the main character from something is a relatively rare experience for me. He's been through a lot lately, and it'll be nice to get back to basics a little -- which is to say, investigating spooky stuff and probably punching it -- while he sorts out his personal stuff from back home in his head.
Gods: I know this was in the OC section, but I thought it interesting enough to consider anyway. The existence of a whole new (to him) pantheon will probably get Hellboy interested in all of them at least a little bit. (He's not the worshipping type, and he's not typically into research for its own sake, but it's a wise and prudent thing to know the field, given how often paranormal investigations at least brush up against matters of the divine.) As for gods who might in turn be interested in Hellboy... well, what he is may or may not interest all of them, depending on just how much that still applies in Baedal, but by dint of his personality and profession, I can see at least moderate affinities with Eliandre (investigator/hunter), Gediron (fighter/warrior), and possibly Shada (while not generally an active user of magic, he has a strong lineage of it on both sides of his family).
Writing Samples
For two of the four samples, applicants may substitute links to previously written roleplaying threads of no less than eight substantial replies. We reserve the right to ask for an additional sample if more information is required.
First-Person Network Post:
[video; Hellboy isn't much for gadgets, but comms with video have won him over because he likes people being able to see him when he talks]
Hey, uh, anyone know where I can get something decent in a file or grinder?
[He fingers the tips of one of his horn stumps, which aren't quite flat anymore.]
It's been a while since I last got to trim these things down. Thanks!
First-Person Journal Post:
Two new worlds in as many months. Still getting used to not living with ghosts and not having the Apocalypse crap hanging over my head. Still no idea if Alice really is still alive, back home, or what's going on there. So what now? At least the job situation's already handled, but do I just keep doing that for however long? I guess there's not much else, other than finding a bottle again.
Third-Person Arrival Post:
Le Gode Hostel, Bete Noire
10 April 2011
Slowly, Hellboy levered himself up out of bed. The room was not, strictly speaking, entirely large enough to be comfortable for someone of his size, so as usual, he had to be careful not to break anything in the course of his post-wakeup stretch. Last night had been an eventful one: while most of them had gone away, there were still occasional pockets of the creatures that had been popping up around the time of his arrival in the city, and he'd been sent to help wrangle a dragon that had suddenly turned cantankerous.
The injuries had all healed overnight, but as he'd expected when he went to bed, some of them were still a bit sore. A shower and breakfast, however, helped soothe most of the aches. He figured that the walk up to Hell House would work out the rest of them, and made sure he had all of his usual gear on hand, including Excalibur in its fetching makeshift bath towel/clothesline scabbard. Gotta do something about that, one of these days, he thought to himself on his way out of the building. Maybe figure out how to make a scabbard, if I can't find one somewhere.
Hellboy opened the front door of the hostel, and as he stepped through it, everything changed. The sunlight outside the hostel, which had been bright enough that his eyes hadn't adjusted to it yet, became instead a blinding whiteness. His sense of balance gave out entirely, leaving him unsure if he was falling or floating. The whiteness faded briefly, offering a vision of his last moment back in his own world -- Alice, sitting on the grassy Irish hill, a confused look on her face -- then flared into a final flash of light.
With a noisy thump, Hellboy landed unceremoniously in a room only barely large enough to contain him. "Ow! Jeez!" he exclaimed, as the awkward angle of his arrival had put his tail in a bad position beneath him to fall on. With a bit of effort and a lot of grumbling, he got himself into a seated position. In front of him was a little table, with a pamphlet and a device almost but not quite like the communicator he'd had in Bete Noire. (A quick pat-down of his duster's pockets confirmed that said communicator had vanished, as mysteriously as it had arrived.)
"Finding Baedal: A Settlers Guide to the Wondrous City," he said to himself, reading off the cover of the pamphlet. "Well, I'll give them this: They're more organized about it than the last kidnapper city was."
Third-Person Action Post:
Mandelot, France
December 1982
Darkness gave way to pure, brilliant white light. Hellboy groaned and tried to remember where he was, but his thoughts were fuzzy and wouldn't come together. He could tell that he was lying down, and when he opened his eyes, he could see through the blurriness that he was in a bedroom. It was all done in white, seemingly not just reflecting but even radiating the light. Sitting on the bed next to him was a figure, indistinct but certainly beautiful.
"Darling."
Suddenly he realized who the woman had to be. "Stasia," he groaned, still uncertain as to what was going on but disinclined to question it too much as long as she was here. Anastasia Bransfield was a fine woman, brains and beauty in one, and she and Hellboy were very much in love. He still couldn't remember just where they were or how they got there, but if Stasia was with him, everything had to be fine.
"Let me help you get this stuff off," the woman (Stasia, he reminded himself, though he wasn't sure why he had to) said as she reached for the buckle of his heavy, pouch-laden belt. "You just lay back and relax. Don't worry about a thing."
"Sssssure," he mumbled, already feeling pretty good from what she was doing so far. If she wanted to go straight to getting his shorts off, who was he to complain? Hellboy settled back, put his hands behind his head, and was surprised when his left hand felt something wet. With a muttered, "What the--" he brought his hand back around and looked at it.
The wetness on his hand was blood: his blood, in fact, dark red on the brighter shade of his own skin, untouched by the radiance of the room around him. The sight of it sent a shock through him that shattered the illusion of the white bedroom and brought back the memory of what had happened. The previous month, in Yorkshire, he had finally tracked down and disposed of Hungarian vampire Countess Ilona Kákosy. In the aftermath, the BPRD cleanup crew had found a few letters sent by Ilona's sister, Anikó.
Anikó was also a vampire, but as the younger sister, she tended to keep a lower profile and proved even more elusive. That is, until those letters turned up. They pointed to a place in a small town in eastern France, so that was where Hellboy went. He'd arrived at the house late at night, which maybe wasn't the best of time to be confronting a vampire, but he figured he had it covered. He hadn't considered just how decrepit the house looked -- even keeping a low profile, just how ratty a place could a vampire noblewoman really stand, anyway? -- or the further possibility that the floor might not be able to support his weight.
Naturally, it had then given way, causing him to tumble down into the basement and hit his head on the floor. Now, with the blood and the suddenly noticeable pain of the headache to focus him, he could see the truth of things: The comfortable bed in the blazing white bedroom was a stone floor in a dark chilly basement. Anastasia wasn't sitting next to him; they'd broken up last year, his reluctant decision to spare her reputation in the eyes of her peers. In fact, no one at all was sitting next to him, so where was the vampire who'd presumably caused the illusion?
As it happened, once he stopped mostly looking at his hand, he could see that she was standing over him, and the strength of a vampire was such that her thin frame had no problem getting a very large battle axe in position to take off his head.
"GEEZ!!" Hellboy exclaimed. He got his right hand back in front of him just in time to intercept the axe's blade, which shattered against the indestructible stone. That left her with just a broken wooden stick, which wasn't much of a weapon, but as he rolled back up onto his feet, she decided to go for it anyway, stabbing it into the meat of his left shoulder.
On the whole, that wasn't really the best of ideas: in addition to the pain, the memory of what had happened -- of what he had thought was happening -- was running through his mind, and it was making him angry. Hellboy was among the first to admit that his temper was something of a problem sometimes, but this time he decided to run with it. With a wordless shout of pain, he lashed out with his right hand, clamping his index finger and thumb around her neck and latching the other two fingers onto her left side.
"There. Now, you and me, we're going to take a little walk outside." He took a quick look at his wristwatch, then nodded to himself and started walking towards the stairs leading to the cellar door.
Anikó looked at the door, saw the faint light peeking through the cracks between the boards, and panicked, begging, "No! Mercy, please!"
Hellboy wasn't having any of it. "Nuh-uh. Your sister pulled that whammy shit too, but she at least tried intimidating me with some giant vampire god. You, though... You made it personal, reminded me of something I was trying to forget. You picked at the wrong scab." He busted through the plank keeping the cellar door shut and shouldered it open. He was still a bit uncertain as to the chronology of things after he had first entered the house, but if he had to guess, he figured that she had been out when he arrived, returning shortly before dawn to find him knocked out. Now, dawn was in full swing, and Anikó caught fire as he hauled her up into the sun.
He held on, barely even noticing the flames, his teeth gritted in pain and anger. Only when she had fully burned out, the slight winter breeze coolly swirling her ashes around him, did he finally open his hands and relax. As he did, it finally occurred to him to look down. His shorts were still on, obviously, since that was just an illusion, but apparently what the nonexistent Anastasia had been doing had felt real enough to some part of his mind. With a frustrated grumble, he sat himself down on the low, snow-covered stone wall bordering the house and lit up a cigarette.
"Better settle down. I'd rather not have to walk back to town with my coat closed."
Misc
Other: You already know this, and I've made references to it throughout the application, but just to have it on the record, this character includes history and CR from a brief stint playing in betenoire_rp.