ooc; character profile
Series: Howl’s Moving Castle
Series' Medium: Book; animated film. This Howl is book version.
Character you're applying for: Howl Jenkins Pendragon
Character's role in their canon: Title character, major supporting character and love interest.
Character's age: 27
Character's gender: Male
Character’s “Real Name”: Howell Jenkins
Please give us a detailed personal history of your character: It's established that Howl was actually born in Wales, in a very mundane world equivalent to ours. Though there was a little bit of magic there, most of the population seemed totally oblivious to its existence. Based on the time the book was published, he was born in the late 50's to early 60's. He was named Howell Jenkins, and grew up alongside an older sister named Megan in a quiet neighborhood in Cardiff.
Howell's sister, and likely his parents as well, were of a very practical mind and an intense demeanor. If his interactions with Megan are any indication, Howell was frequently at odds with his family because of his flippant and noncommittal ways. These traits were only worsened by his desire to dodge familial pressure, of which there was more than enough. He was probably fascinated with magic and fantasy even as a child, and would have had to have been a very gifted student, years ahead of others his age. After attending university, Howell wrote his doctoral thesis on charms and spells, and would have had to have done so long before the age of twenty two.
Although he played on a rugby team during his time at the university, and grew close to his sister's children, Howell likely had a difficult time making friends. His sister was afraid that he'd become a bad influence on her children, since he appeared to be simply a layabout with no ambitions. They fought constantly over what he was doing with his life, and when he was going to become a worthwhile member of society. Because he wasn't accomplishing anything, Howell became a topic of frustration and even shame for his family. He didn't even live on his own, and yet it was obvious that he was intelligent. Huge amounts of money had been sunken into his education, but he had no job. Howl's lack of interest in pursuing a career left him as a burden on Megan and her husband, Gareth, whom he lived with. Howl's nephew, Neil, listened to his mother's descriptions of Howell, but her daughter, Mari, became close to Howell.
Since his continuous study of magic hadn't gotten him hired, and Howell certainly wasn't putting out much effort to fix this, his family was unsympathetic and even hateful towards his fanciful ambitions. Although it may have been for an experiment at first, knowing Howell he was secretly very eager to run away from his unhappy life in Wales. He managed to research and execute a powerful spell that pulled him into an alternate dimension containing a country called Ingary. Though Howell was certainly not the first wizard from his world to cross over into Ingary, he was able to figure out the spell on his own, and likely without having ever heard of someone else managing it first. As far as his family knew at the time, Howell disappeared and left all of his things behind at about the age of twenty or twenty one.
Somehow, perhaps because of the power of the spell's discharge, Howell was found by Mrs. Pentstemmon, a powerful witch who had just sent off her most recent student. She detected the raw potential in Howell, and took him under her wing as her final protege. He learned everything she knew, and she felt that Howell was the most talented student she had ever tutored. During the course of his study, Howell renamed himself Howl Jenkins Pendragon, because he felt as though it would command more respect and help him to better blend into Ingary.
Howl excelled at his new studies, but his life changed directions drastically after just a year or two. He witnessed falling stars dying as they hit the ground one evening, and decided to intervene and try to rescue them. Using a pair of Seven League boots (a magical item allowing one step to move you ten and a half miles), Howl was able to get there in time to catch one of the stars. The star he caught was as desperate to live as Howl was to save it. In order to do so, Howl and the star bonded themselves to one another when Howl extracted and literally gave his heart to the star. The star was Calcifer, a fire demon, and he and Howl now shared a life force. Howl was just twenty two years old.
Soon afterward, Howl left Mrs. Pentstemmon, possibly because he realized that his relationship with Calcifer was not looked kindly upon in the magical community. With the new power granted to him by Calcifer, Howl was easily able to make it on his own, and together they created his moving castle. The castle was a large, ugly black structure with a homey set of rooms on the inside, where Howl settled in by himself. He was able to magically connect several points in Ingary to the castle's door, including an option to travel back to Wales. While it's unclear when Howl began returning to his family, he visited them with some regularity. He left his modern possessions, such as his books, with his sister Megan and her family, much to her chagrin. All of his travel was done through a single door, but the location it opened up onto could be changed by twisting the special doorknob to land on a different colored tab. This allowed him to take on different aliases and run multiple businesses in entirely different cities.
However, Howl had begun to suffer the after-effects of losing his heart. He no longer felt the same about people, and had an even more difficult time than before relating to them. Every relationship he made since Calcifer's appearance in his life seemed doomed to be painfully shallow, with the possible exception of that with Calcifer himself. Regardless of his growing emotional dissonance, Howl picked up an orphan living on the streets named Michael Fisher. He eventually made the boy his apprentice after pretending not to notice him living in the castle for a month or so. This trick was partially because he didn't want to commit to the idea of having a dependent, but also because Howl just wasn't quite sure how to handle Michael.
Despite having Calcifer and Michael as company, whom he had grown deeply fond of, Howl began to feel increasingly lonely and sought the companionship of women. With each new girl, he would fall head over heels during the courting process. But the second they fell in love with him, he would bolt, realizing that he did not actually recriprocate. At first it seemed as though he simply had not met the right girl, and so he would try again. And again. And again. The pattern grew increasingly out of control, and each time Howl would end up leaving a young woman in tears. The responsibility of dealing with the fallout was dumped upon Michael and Calcifer. Howl was far too cowardly to face the victims of his wandering heart, and he grew colder about it with each new incident.
Regardless of his lack of luck in love (though Howl never really came out of any scrape worse for wear), he found great success in Ingary for the four years following Calcifer's arrival. He spent his money frivolously, and was always good for a few over the top mood swings, though managed to be a decent teacher to Michael anyway. Between the two young men, no housework was done, until the inside of the castle seemed to be covered in a blanket of dust and spiders. Howl also made sporadic trips to Wales to go be Uncle Howell to his neice and nephew, though suspected at times that his sister would have been happier if he just disappeared permanently.
One of the women Howl had a brief romance with was the infamous Witch of the Waste. His experience with her followed a slightly different structure, as she became infatuated with the handsome young Wizard very quickly. They were kindred spirits, as she too had made a deal with a fire demon with her heart as the price. Howell realized a little too late that she was evil to the core, and that the act of losing her heart had corrupted her beyond repair. Howl, afraid of what he had gotten himself into, ran away from her abruptly, but was not fast enough to avoid the curse that she put upon him for scorning her. Howl and Calcifer mutually agreed that neither of them wanted to become like the Witch, though it seemed to be their fate if they couldn't break their contract somehow. If he were to simply try and take his heart back at that point, Howl knew he could easily kill Calcifer and himself. Though Howl was unaware at this point, the Witch was not attracted to all of Howl, just parts. She was intending to construct the perfect man from Howl's head and a couple others' bodies, with whom she could rule Ingary alongside.
Either way, Howl was terrified of the Witch of the Waste and the curse she had sent after him. He reassured himself that he was simply planning on running from her, but he couldn't help but notice the drama playing out between the Witch and the royal family. She had threatened the infant princess, which had motivated the king to order the Royal Wizard Suliman to take care of the threat. Rather than undoing the Witch of the Waste, Suliman had simply disappeared. He departed to the Wastes and was never seen again. Howl promised himself that he wasn't going to do anything about the matter, but did begin to look into the other wizard's disappearance. He personally didn't believe that Suliman was dead, but all that his investigation led him to was a nice guitar and an odd skull. As part of the bargain with himself, Howl fled a little further from the curse, ending up outside of the town of Market Chipping. He mad sure to spread some especially terrible rumors about himself (seducing and murdering young women with the intent to steal or eat their hearts) to ensure his privacy.
Several months later, Prince Justin, who was a close friend of Suliman's, left to look for him despite protests from his brother, the king. As Howl feared, Prince Justin also went missing without a trace. Howl reluctantly began looking into his disappearance as well, which led him into Market Chipping itself. Prince Justin had passed through there as a result of a finding spell he had been following, and Howl convinced himself to go and ask after his whereabouts. In the back of Howl's mind, he knew that these events were building up to a conflict, and one that he couldn't ignore or hide from. Very, very reluctantly Howl began planning for the worst.
He kept his planning mostly to snooping and questioning. within Market Chipping, the Prince had purchased a second finding spell from Mrs. Fairfax, a local witch. It was Mayday (Michael's birthday) when Howl decided to venture down into the town, and while on his way through he crossed paths with a shy girl with strawberry blonde hair. Despite his charms, she refused his attentions and ran off, which only made Howl more curious about her. Little did Howl know that this was Sophie Hatter, and she would play a very important part in the events to come. Without another thought on the matter (except to possibly track her down later), Howl continued to Mrs. Fairfax's where he met her new assistant and asked a few questions about the Prince's brief appearance.
When Howl finally returned home the next morning, much to his discomfort he found that there was a new addition to the castle's residents. An old woman named Sophie, the same one Howl had bumped into before, but under a curse, had barged in. She had bullied Michael rather effectively into letting her stay. Calcifer seemed completely comfortable with her presence, and so Howl could hardly argue, though he didn't outright accept her either. She claimed to be his new cleaning lady, and set to doing just that. Sophie was in fact so diligent about cleaning, that Howl had to protect certain locations from the war she had declared on the clutter he had accumulated over the last four or so years. Despite Howl's reservations, Sophie was a good addition to the castle. No matter how much Howl bickered with her, or outright avoided her, Sophie's presence made the castle seem like a home. Howl felt somehow closer than ever to these people with whom he had once just coincidentally shared a living space. For her part, Sophie reacted to even his worst tantrums with a level head. The less he impressed her, the more desperately he wished he could.
Of course, Howl wouldn't have been a very good wizard if he hadn't been able to tell there was something magical about Sophie. Not only did Sophie perform magic unconsciously by speaking to objects and imprinting her emotions on them, but there was also something off about her. Curiously, he began to look into Sophie's origins, which led him back to Lettie Hatter in Market Chipping. She had an older sister named Sophie who had disappeared on the same day his Sophie had shown up. As soon as they both realized the other knew something about Sophie, they began to talk regularly in a mutual attempt to weasel out some information. As well as hearing Lettie's story about her missing sister, Calcifer and Michael both confirmed that Sophie was under a curse. Howl could feel it on her, and the mark of the Witch of the Waste as well. Calcifer confessed to Howl that he had made a deal with Sophie. If she managed to figure out how to break the contract between himself and Howl, he would undo her curse. Howl agreed that the contract needed to be undone, and that he'd work on Calcifer's part of the deal, since they were the same being for all intents and purposes.
Howl continued to speak with Lettie, and even grew moderately infatuated with her. However, the emotions were completely shallow, and mostly came as a result of Howl likely having no other ideas on how to interact with a pretty young woman. While Howl was courting Lettie (to no avail), he was also attempting to break the curse on Sophie with an equal lack of progress. He soon determined that the reason he could not lift the curse was not a failing on his part, but rather because of something within Sophie herself. For some reason, Sophie found safety in being someone other than herself, and because of her magical spark she was able to subconsciously prevent Howl from reversing it. Howl did the best he could by easing her aches and pains while she wasn't looking, though he became increasingly worried about the health problems that he couldn't fix, such as her weak heart. He decided that he would have to ask for aid from a more proficient mage: Mrs. Pentstemmon. Although he continued to court Lettie Hatter, it was becoming increasingly obvious that his attention was actually focused squarely on Sophie. Lettie never truly fell in love with Howl before he wandered off, and was in fact using him as much as he was her.
Eventually, the steady, comfortable pace of Howl's new lifestyle was interrupted by the King of Ingary calling upon him. There, he heard one of the last things he was hoping for: his royal majesty was officially tasking the Wizard Howl with finding his brother and Wizard Suliman. The king wouldn't hear any arguments, and Howl couldn't bring himself to outright refuse. Howl was desperate to find a way to slither out of the task, and before even arriving home he had decided that Sophie was to go and blacken his name to the king so that he would reconsider the order. He went out and bought nice new clothes for her and Michael especially for the occasion. While Howl was planning his grand escape from responsibility, Sophie and Michael were giving their all to what they thought was a spell Howl had assigned to his apprentice. Much to Howl's horror, it involved Michael nearly catching a falling star. Howl informed the two that the piece of paper was not a spell, but something that had slipped in earlier when Sophie had stuck her nose into the ominous Wales portal. Knowing that Sophie's curiosity would be monstrous to deal with, Howl took her and Michael with him to Wales in the 1980's.
He led the mismatched trio straight to his sister's house, expecting that the odd poem had gotten switched with something there. His sister Megan was there to greet him, though she was significantly less thrilled than her daughter, Mari, to see Howl. Or rather, Howell. Megan had begun to get rid of this things, such as his books, which triggered another argument between the two of them. Eventually she told him that the poem looked like some of her son Neil's homework, and that because it was missing he had been forced to turn in what was presumably Howl's spell. Howl scaled the stairs with a flabbergasted Sophie and Michael to see about Neil. Neil, in exchange for a home-made video game from Howl for his trouble, told him that he turned in the strange paper (the spell) to his teacher, Miss Angorian. After he got the location of the young teacher, they were off... but not until after a tongue lashing from Megan that was so severe, even Sophie felt bad enough about it that she stepped in to rescue him.
The trip to see Lily Angorian was not what Howl expected. The young and very pretty woman set off several red flags when she acknowledged that the piece of paper Neil had turned into her was, indeed, a spell. She also claimed that her fiance was Benjamin Sullivan, which was the real name of the Wizard Suliman, who had also slipped into Ingary from Wales. According to Miss Angorian, he had simply disappeared and she still considered herself engaged to him, thus rebuffing Howl's advances. However, Howl's offer to have dinner had been meant to serve another purpose. When Miss Angorian had read the other half of the strange poem, Howl and Calcifer simultaneously felt the noose of the Witch of the Waste's curse tightening around their necks. Howl was approaching 10,000 days old, which was the time limit on the curse. As long as the list of events in the poem did not come true before he was 10,000 days old, Howl would be safe. But he had still been caught, and several of the lines were already fact. Howl had asked Miss Angorian out in hopes of getting more information from her, but when that was shot down he quickly retreated with Sophie and Michael to the portal back to the castle. He had not yet found out that the reason Lily Angorian was giving him a bad feeling was because she was the Witch of the Waste's fire demon in disguise. However, upon stepping through the door home, Howl did not return to Ingary, but rather awoke in a strange bed.
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality: Howl is fabulous at first impressions. People who only know him in passing typically have nothing but kind things to say about Howl, and why shouldn't they? He's courteous, intelligent, well spoken and completely charming. But beauty is only skin deep, and so is this misleading image of Howl. If he has a choice, even his appearance is false. His first impression is not of the man he truly is, so much as a carefully constructed presentation of what he wants everyone to think he is. The big problems with Howl are that he's a liar and a coward.
Just beneath the surface, Howl proves himself to be shallow, vain and needy. The more time someone spends around him, the more obvious it becomes that Howl is mostly just nice because he likes people to think well of him. A great deal of the time, what seems like even the most selfless gesture was all done in the hopes of gaining praise and compliments. But there is a fine line that Howl never lets people cross, if he can help it. He wants to be looked upon with awe, but never admired or trusted. He works very hard at crafting an outward persona that allows him to dodge any responsibility, emotional or otherwise. Even his vanity, which is monstrous, can be overridden by his need to avoid responsibility. He would rather convince a king that he was a shameless coward, not to be trusted with anything of import, than feel as though someone was depending on him. What it results in is a young man who works very, very hard to keep everyone at arm's length by any means necessary. He's hyper-aware of how people perceive him, and wants to be in control of that image.
Perhaps this is because Howl is very aware of what he is, and how frustrating and overall dislikable he can be when he's simply being himself. It's a side to Howl that he only lets those in his innermost circle see, but that's easy to do when you're as antisocial as Howl is. The number of people exposed to him regularly is small. However, saying he willingly shows his true colors to these people isn't quite right. It's more that Howl just can't keep up his perfect persona for very long, and sooner or later he's going to do something dodgy, irresponsible, or simply throw a tantrum. People like Calcifer, Michael and Sophie were all subjected to a Howl that was often childish and immature in all areas of life. He's a hopeless spendthrift, obnoxiously vain, and can't keep his attentions on one girl long enough to let them get to know him. Hours are spent in the mornings preening and perfecting his look, but even if you didn't know that, just the way Howl dresses and holds himself spells out narcissism. He loves attention and constantly seeks to dominate the room with his flair for dramatics, even if it means he has to intentionally annoy the people around him. Whatever is happening to Howl, he makes it out to be extremely important and at least three times as bad as it really is. And this is on a good day. As Sophie observed, when Howl is upset about something serious, he has a tendency to tantrum about small things that mean nothing in the long run. That's likely to be the closest thing to a hint people will get if Howl is really upset over something.
It's very difficult to figure out what is ever actually going on with Howl. Besides his melodramatic exaggerations, he is infuriatingly indirect and noncommittal. Howl avoids anything he thinks is unpleasant without ever actually denying it. A "slitherer-outer" to the core, Howl would do just about anything to get out of a confrontation. But at the same time, Howl will not back down. Even if someone directly goes after him and tries to get a straight answer, he will resist in the most infuriatingly passive aggressive way manageable. Rather than actually being stubborn, Howl will ignore what he doesn't want to deal with and brush off the concerns and questions of other people. He's certainly not above completely ignoring a question either. Or, in fact, completely ignoring a person, all in the pursuit of not being pinned down. It took him weeks to acknowledge the existence of Michael, who was then living with him, and eventually became his apprentice.
While some of his slippery nature is simply done on principle, or as part of his secretiveness, Howl is also dominated by his fears. It's initially hard to tell, as his cowardice is easy to mistake for laziness and arrogance. But when Howl won't do something, typically it's because it scares him, and it actually has little to do with his ambition or ego. Physical threats are of course avoided, but Howl is shockingly practical about getting his hands dirty and risking some injuries if he absolutely must. Typically things like that come up by surprise where he has no choice, which makes it significantly easier to force himself to act. What really frightens him are people and consequences. The thought of facing someone he has hurt is harrowing, and his knee jerk reaction is to run away from responsibility. Howl comes up with elaborate plans to hide from his fears, but he is self-aware enough to try and undermine his own cowardice. The only way Howl is able to make himself do something he doesn't want to is to lie to himself and go about his business as if he were slithering away again. While he does this, he has to take baby steps to carefully, slowly move himself closer to what he knows he has to do. By doing this, he can make himself stop running for a second to face the problem, but it's almost like tricking himself into it.
This is a painful way of living for Howl, mostly because he really isn't as selfish and irresponsible as he acts. He genuinely does not want to run away from his problems, but that doesn't mean he won't try anyway. Howl is a good man, but he's afraid of people. He does like to help them, however. For instance, he routinely undercharges customers who need his help but cannot afford it. He is surprisingly upright and truly kind. His strong sense of morality usually forces him to overcome his cowardice, even if he turns doing so into a ridiculously difficult endeavor. He has a deep love for spiders as a symbol of perseverance, and perhaps also because of their bad reputation. Unfortunately, in personal relationships Howl's good heart is prone to wandering off... or not being there in the first place, as the case may be.
Howl is heartless, both figuratively and literally. He decided to give up his heart to Calcifer in order to save the fire demon's life, and the heart that was taken was both the actual organ as well as the metaphorical ability to love selflessly and unconditionally. Howl is still capable of caring about people and feeling guilt, and he does in fact care deeply about Michael, Calcifer and Sophie. However, his affection always falls just a little short of what a truly genuine relationship should be. He's still horribly inconsiderate, often plays their emotions to his own advantage and does nice things for them for the praise and emotional rewards. There is just something hollow about the love that Howl is capable of expressing.
Because he has no heart, Howl can't really fall in love. However, he can come very close and certainly becomes infatuated easily. Howl compulsively falls in love with young women, only to fall back out of love with them so fast it would make your head spin. As soon as the object of his affections has reciprocated, Howl quickly disappears. (And then leaves his friends to deal with the aftermath because he's too scared to face the girl.) Although he can't exactly help this behavior, he is very aware of it to the point where he readily acknowledges that after a while he's simply waiting for the girl to say she loves him so he can move on. While he is infatuated with his lady of the season, Howl pines, and to anyone who didn't know better (or to whom he didn't confess his bad habit to) he would truly appear to be lovestruck. Howl is lonely and honestly does want to love someone, but he can't. Instead, he seeks to fill the void with as many hopeless relationships as he can. Maybe at one point in time he was trying to find the right girl, but now he's just lonely and selfish. He knows he can't reciprocate or even really feel much guilt for breaking all of those hearts, but does it anyway.
Howl has a very hard time with other people. Despite how charming he's capable of being and how lonely he really is, Howl prefers to be alone. Largely because it's easier and (surprise) less frightening. Ever since he lost his heart, Howl has had an increasingly difficult time handling relationships and emotional intimacy of any sort. In order to be left alone, Howl was perfectly willing to spread awful rumors about himself. And not just mildly insulting rumors about his unreliability, but rather that he seduces and then kills young women to steal their hearts. Howl's opinion of himself is not as high as he pretends it is, and he feels guilty when people he holds in high regard think too well of him. A sliver of his slippery, responsibility-dodging behavior may be because he feels as though he doesn't deserve the trust people offer him. Either way, there is a quiet undercurrent of self-loathing and unhappiness in Howl.
Despite all of Howl's eccentricities and faults, he's a very, very intelligent man and a ridiculously skilled wizard for someone his age. While half of his accomplishments must be credited to Calcifer, Howl is still capable of going toe to toe with the Witch of the Waste, who has a century more experience than he does. He figured out how to execute a spell for interdimensional travel mostly on his own, and peers and former instructors are impressed by his sheer potential. However, comments about Howl's prowess as a wizard are usually followed up by a note on what a failure as human being he is.
Please give us a detailed physical description of your character: Howl is a very, very vain man, but not without some reason. He’s rather good looking with a thin, angular and slightly bony face that straddles the line between pretty and handsome (though probably favors pretty). Sophie calls him dashing and sophisticated when she first meets him, and thinks his hair is elaborate. He has highly expressive features and when sincerely excited (often about one of his own ideas or victories), his smile is quite beautiful. However, without his wide array of cosmetic spells, Howl isn’t nearly as stunning as he’s grown accustomed to being. In fact... he's a little plain. No one would be amazed to see a man like Howl sitting across from them on the subway. And since he doesn't have access to spells to permanently color his long hair the preferred shade of golden blond, at Landel’s it’ll appear as his natural shade: a dark muddy brown. Regardless, Howl will doubtlessly still do his best to preen as much as he can, and so normally appears neat and a little excessively put-together. Howl is tall and graceful looking at about 6’1”, and retains a vaguely athletic physique from rugby. His eyes are bottle green and have a dull, glassy appearance to them as a result of him losing his heart to a demon. He speaks with a light Welsh accent.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's?: After attempting to return from Wales. Howl will have blacked out as he stepped through the portal to return to Ingary and his castle, and will wake up in Landel's instead.
What kinds of magical/special/crazy powers does your character have, if any?: Howl is an extremely talented wizard, one of (if not the) most powerful magic users alive in his world. He is able to do everything from interdimensional travel to conjuring tissues out of mid-air. His abilities are quite vast, although it should be noted that Howl has never and would never cast any dark magic.
Magic in the world of Howl's Moving Castle is never really described in detail. It seems to periodically appear as a natural talent, such as in Sophie or perhaps Howl, but can also be learned solely through study like with Lettie and Michael. Some of it seems intuitive, and Howl is able to manipulate magical forces without even speaking. Other times he has to use magical words, magic circles, or objects as a focus. Howl is experienced enough with magic that throughout the course of the book he's never seen consulting texts for the spells he casts, presumably because they come to him intuitively or he has them memorized.
It seems as though a spell can be given to others for use in the form of a magical item that he creates through his workshop with any number of supplies. When activated (the method of which seems unique to each particular spell) the effects of the spell come to pass. Examples of this include a spell that when carried with the King's army, allows them easy travel. There are also spells for preventing storms, activated by sprinkling a powder across a ship's hull, or a spell for locating a person or object. These spells can all be used by a third party as long as they possess the item and know the method. The needed supplies for the creation of these can be mysterious liquids and powders as well as food stuffs, sheets of metal and wire. It is made clear, however, that although Howl is prodigiously gifted at magic, most of his sheer power comes from his link with the fire demon Calcifer. By giving Calcifer his heart, the two are permanently bonded and can feel what the other is currently experiencing. It's even implied that Calcifer intuitively knows everything Howl knows... though it doesn't seem to work in the other direction.
Because his magic is so hard to define, I'm just going to list everything Howl does or claims he can do:♦ Bursts of force. Howl used magic like this to shove back the turnip-headed scarecrow so far that it literally flew away into the sky until it was no longer visible.
♦ Creation of magical items and talismans. Howl is able to put together items that have powerful magical properties. These include seven league boots, in which each step is 10 and 1/2 miles. He also makes cosmetic spells, talismans to help with travel, keep storms at bay, locating people and things, cloaks that can disguise people as something different entirely, so on and so forth. These require supplies and time in a workshop. Though the book never really describes what they look like or what goes into them, they are actual physical objects that presumably need to be activated with a power word or specific action.
♦ Magic circles. Howl can draw out magical circles that can impact the nature of a location. He uses these when altering the moving castle, merging it with a preexisting house elsewhere. He also uses them to connect the castle to multiple locations simultaneously, which can be chosen by changing a colored dial on the doorknob to the exit. I'm guessing that the magic circles are slightly mathematical in nature, and was the method by which he created a doorway from Wales to Ingary.
♦ Protecting a location. Howl can somehow make a location impenetrable or otherwise unnoticeable. He uses this to hide the castle from the Witch of the Waste. I'd probably say that the magic circles listed above played a hand in this.
♦ Projecting his voice to another location. He is able to warn Calcifer and the others at home of his conflict with the Witch this way.
♦ Modifying the physical properties of items. Howl does this often and frequently throughout the book, mostly for the sake of vanity. He repairs clothes, recolors them, colors his hair, and shrinks clothing. He demonstrates in Wales that he can even turn clothes into something else entirely. He changes his, Michael's and Sophie's fantasy-style clothing into modern fashions.
♦ Conjuring small items out of nowhere, like tissues when he has a cold.
♦ Easing pain. Howl claims that when he couldn't break Sophie's self-imposed curse, he set to easing her aches and pains instead.
♦ On that note, Howl seemed convinced that he could remove the curse if Sophie's subconscious would allow him. So, removing curses.
♦ Summoning winds for assisted fast travel.
♦ Illusions, as large as highly convincing monsters, storms and ships.
♦ Shapeshifting into creatures such as mundane animals all the way up to fantastic creatures. Howl disguises himself as a cat as well as a red setter, and during a fight with the Witch of the Waste he changes into a sea monster.
♦ Flight, typically with lots of billowing magic that mostly obscures him.
♦ Teleportation. When Sophie is attempting to clean certain areas of the castle, Howl demonstrates this ability by following her around and magically appearing wherever she starts to snoop.
♦ Dripping huge quantities of mysterious foul-smelling green slime while summoning shadowy figures and creating unearthly wailing so loud that it can be heard from all locations he's connected to via the castle. All in the name of a tantrum over his hair being dyed the wrong color (even though he could presumably just snap his fingers and fix it).
♦ Removing body parts and keeping them in suspended animation. Howl acknowledges that he could do this with a limb or even a head. He likely managed this trick with his own heart when he gave it to Calcifer.
♦ Related to the above, Howl is able to exist without a heart, figuratively and literally. His heart, made to look like a Valentine's heart with the assistance of magic, is in the possession of the fire demon Calcifer. Although it's no longer inside of him beating away, it still represents his life and he would die if it were destroyed, along with Calcifer. It's presumably magic that keeps him alive and his system operating, despite lacking a heart to pump blood.
♦ Interdimensional travel from a "real world" modern Wales to the fantasy country of Ingary. Howl presumably figured this out mostly on his own since magic is much more scarce in his version of the modern world, and Ingary's universe isn't publicly known to exist.
♦ Time travel. When Sophie starts to ask Howl about the conditions of his curse, he admits that he knows "where the past years are," and implies that he could jump back in his own timeline as well as those of others
If present, how do you plan to tweak those powers to make him/her appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?: Howl is first and foremost limited by the fact that he is no longer near Calcifer, from whom he borrows a huge amount of power. But even without Calcifer or a proper workshop in which to make magical items, Howl would still be formidable and will thus receive even further limitations. Most of his spells, if he can still access them, will be very weak versions of their former selves. Others he will be unable to cast at all, particularly dimension travel (obviously), removing body parts, flight, dripping buckets of slime, time travel, teleporting and shape shifting.
Howl's only remaining means of offensive magic will be manipulating bursts of magical force. This allows him to shove back a target with an invisible, telekinetic-like strike. A person or monster, depending on the size, would feel as though they were punched moderately hard, and then thrown back about five feet. Howl could probably also use this to break down (orange labeled) doors.
Aside from this, Howl will retain most of his more unoffensive abilities, just in a less potent form. For instance, while he might be able to repair or even recolor items, he won't be able to change them in any more significant way. The item will return to its default state in the morning. Howl will be able to conjure small items like tissues or some equivalent (a sheet of paper, a handkerchief), but in the morning they will be gone without a trace. Howl will be unable to heal any wounds, though he could numb some pain which would last about fifteen minutes. Any attempt at creating an illusion would only create amorphous shapes and barely audible whispers for a few seconds.
Howl will be able to create some very small magical items. While he can certainly try to make bigger ones, only small, one-use non-offensive spells will work. And even then, probably not as well, since he'll have to raid the mundane supplies available at the institute. What actually goes into these spells is pure speculation since Howl always makes them "off screen," but each spell created will require at least two ingredients from two different locations within the institute. For instance, if he wanted to make a finding spell, maybe he'd need to raid the kitchen and the arts and crafts supplies in order to get what he needed. An example would be a finding spell. A finding spell leads the user to a person or object they picture in their head, but it's less of an exact location and more of an instinctual feeling of knowing where to go and what turns to take. The person person must have a clear image in their head, or the spell will just point them to the closest approximation. If the thing they're looking for is not in Landel's, the spell will simply fail.
He'll also be able to attempt to draw magic circles for magical effects on a location. Probably the best he can do at this point is draw out circles that would protect a room from detection. Meaning there would be a smaller chance of people outside noticing the door or hearing noises from within, and it could possibly dissuade some monsters from attacking anyone inside the circle.
When Howl uses his magic, he is attempting to call on a power source (Calcifer) which is no longer accessible. The more he uses his magic, the more he strains his complete lack of a heart, causing himself intense chest pain. Howl has approximately five counts of magic use available per night. A use of offensive magic, creation of an item or activation of a magic circle all are the equivalent of two counts. A use of any benign spell is one. Howl can use three counts before the pain starts to become a hindrance. After four uses, whatever magic it is that's in his system keeping him alive is being taxed dangerously. His breathing becomes labored, he feels dizzy and his extremities tingle. At this point, exerting himself, such as running or emotional stress, can be considered his fifth and final count. If Howl tries to do anything a sixth time, it will fail and he'll pass out, and may even stop breathing for a short while.
Because he has no heart, no heartbeat and maybe not even much of a pulse, Howl is kept alive by an undefined system of magic. It's the same magic he has to call upon to cast spells, hence the health issues when he casts too much. To the staff of Landel's, Howl just has persistent heart health issues and received a heart transplant some years back.
Does your character have any other non-magical skills or abilities that we should know about?: Despite what Howl would like people to think, he cannot play the guitar. He can, however, speak Welsh fluently. His practical skills are limited to rugby, basic cooking and posing prettily.
He also at one point in time presents a video game to his nephew, which he must have designed personally because it's based off his own castle. It's never made clear if he programmed it himself or did it with magic, but he must have some level of technical expertise to have created it. However, all of his tech knowledge would be very 80's.
How about improbable appendages?: Nope!
Please give us an idea of where you'd like to take your character within the scope of the Landel's Damned RP: At first, Howl is going to think that something went awry in his dimension hopping spell, possibly as a result of the Witch interfering. He'll be very anxious about where Sophie and Michael ended up, as well as his inability to feel and contact Calcifer. If the nurses are referring to him as Howell Jenkins, he'll have an easier time assuming, at least for a little while, that he's in his original world, and that his sister may have comitted him.
He's not going to be thrilled at the prospect of going out and fighting monsters, and so I think he'd be happier socializing (shallowly, for now) and acting as support for a club (while never readily admitting to official membership) or other individuals. It's shown towards the end of the book that even without a heart, Howl can come to geniunely love people, though it may always be a little off as long as he's without it.
Figuring out what is muffling his magic probably requires exploration, which he'll be willing to risk as long as it's moving him towards the goal of getting out ASAP. He'll tell himself it's all in the name of escaping, though deep down he'll really want to save everyone. It'll just be a ploy to reassure himself that he's not actually playing hero and risking life, limb and whatever else Landel's has to offer. Howl feels an obligation to help even when he's terrified, which he certainly will be. His ultimate goal will be to open a portal to anywhere else and get out of Landel's.
What kind of psychological effect do you see Landel's Institute having on your character?: At his core, Howl is a coward and will doubtlessly be very, very scared by what's happened to him. His first instinct will be to run as soon as possible, and he'll only be more anxious when he realizes that his spells for world-jumping don't work here. Not to mention that most of his magic, his primary means of defense, is gone. Outwardly, he'll probably express most of this fear and stress as shallow complaints, such as his vanity and how he's no longer allowed to spend hours upon hours preening. However, the idea of multiple universes (even ones that contain some familiar fictional characters) won't make him bat an eyelash, though he might be excessively curious about the concept. If there is one other world, why wouldn't there be hundreds more?
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?: First off, the setting of Ingary is very much like a historic version the real world and thus presumably features its share of wars and violence. Howl isn't a soldier by any means, and has not been exposed to a great deal of gore, but he's not naive to its existence. Howl personally is more acclimated towards magical violence, which is less bloody but in many ways just as disturbing with very serious consequences for the losing party. Despite being a cowardly man who avoids even the most minor conflict like the plague, Howl is a mature adult who is able to deal with loss, violence and the prospect of facing evil or cruelty with a pretty level head. It's only that he may just try to run away instead of face it down.
Third-Person Sample:Howl liked the dust. It made everything in his room feel quieter. Maybe it was the way that it muted all of the colors and washed them out until it was like he was looking through a soft sepia lens. The rest of the castle now shone brightly with harsh, demanding colors, which matched the sound of Sophie, Calcifer and Michael chattering below him. They were so demanding. They all looked to him for guidance, no matter how many times he had proven to them he was irresponsible, unreliable and ridiculous. Sometimes when he descended the stairs to join the conversation, his stomach would contract with anxiety. Even the smells of cleanliness, cooking and Michael's spellwork were overwhelming, and Howl would start to miss the musty comfort and isolation of his room. His admittedly quite filthy room. He nudged something on the floor with his foot despondently (the dust obscured its identity), and ran his hands back through his hair which was so perfect that no tangles were there to offer any resistence. It was the reward of two and a half hours tending to it that morning.
He also liked the way he clashed with his dull, muffled surroundings. The lush colors of his suit and the fair sheen of his hair stood out amongst the gray. Howl knew that he seemed the sort that would cringe at a spider rather than while away his time watching them spin their webs above his bed. Howl was not so naive that he didn't see the parallell between himself and the Witch, the self-proclaimed orchid of the Wastes. Howl had created his own little Waste in which he could feel like the most beautiful thing there... if only by default.
That thought left him feeling more than a bit disgusted with himself. He quickly sat up off his bed, kicking up a cloud of dust that magically failed to cling to his coat or sleeves. He took the few quick steps across his room to the window, looking down upon a plain, rather wet yard somewhere in Cardiff. He had hoped to see Mari outside playing, but doubtlessly Megan didn't want her coming back inside covered in mud. He could practically feel how vulnerable that house was, but knew that at this distance it was just in his imagination. Everything was going to be fine, he promised himself.
"Everything's fine," Howl repeated out loud, trying to convince himself it was not a lie. If he wanted to make it true, he needed to do a few things. Small things. Nothing particularly risky. And Lettie was doubtlessly out that day, standing in Mrs. Fairfax's garden with her long, dark hair tumbling over her shoulder. Howl idly wondered how much Sophie actually looked like her. With that thought, he put on his best smile and opened the door out into the hallway and the real world. Sophie must have heard his approach, because her voice had suddenly risen with a new and likely very valid complaint. Howl felt a familiar pinch of discomfort, but his smile came to him more easily.
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* Spoilers. Proceed with caution.
Series' Medium: Book; animated film. This Howl is book version.
Character you're applying for: Howl Jenkins Pendragon
Character's role in their canon: Title character, major supporting character and love interest.
Character's age: 27
Character's gender: Male
Character’s “Real Name”: Howell Jenkins
Please give us a detailed personal history of your character: It's established that Howl was actually born in Wales, in a very mundane world equivalent to ours. Though there was a little bit of magic there, most of the population seemed totally oblivious to its existence. Based on the time the book was published, he was born in the late 50's to early 60's. He was named Howell Jenkins, and grew up alongside an older sister named Megan in a quiet neighborhood in Cardiff.
Howell's sister, and likely his parents as well, were of a very practical mind and an intense demeanor. If his interactions with Megan are any indication, Howell was frequently at odds with his family because of his flippant and noncommittal ways. These traits were only worsened by his desire to dodge familial pressure, of which there was more than enough. He was probably fascinated with magic and fantasy even as a child, and would have had to have been a very gifted student, years ahead of others his age. After attending university, Howell wrote his doctoral thesis on charms and spells, and would have had to have done so long before the age of twenty two.
Although he played on a rugby team during his time at the university, and grew close to his sister's children, Howell likely had a difficult time making friends. His sister was afraid that he'd become a bad influence on her children, since he appeared to be simply a layabout with no ambitions. They fought constantly over what he was doing with his life, and when he was going to become a worthwhile member of society. Because he wasn't accomplishing anything, Howell became a topic of frustration and even shame for his family. He didn't even live on his own, and yet it was obvious that he was intelligent. Huge amounts of money had been sunken into his education, but he had no job. Howl's lack of interest in pursuing a career left him as a burden on Megan and her husband, Gareth, whom he lived with. Howl's nephew, Neil, listened to his mother's descriptions of Howell, but her daughter, Mari, became close to Howell.
Since his continuous study of magic hadn't gotten him hired, and Howell certainly wasn't putting out much effort to fix this, his family was unsympathetic and even hateful towards his fanciful ambitions. Although it may have been for an experiment at first, knowing Howell he was secretly very eager to run away from his unhappy life in Wales. He managed to research and execute a powerful spell that pulled him into an alternate dimension containing a country called Ingary. Though Howell was certainly not the first wizard from his world to cross over into Ingary, he was able to figure out the spell on his own, and likely without having ever heard of someone else managing it first. As far as his family knew at the time, Howell disappeared and left all of his things behind at about the age of twenty or twenty one.
Somehow, perhaps because of the power of the spell's discharge, Howell was found by Mrs. Pentstemmon, a powerful witch who had just sent off her most recent student. She detected the raw potential in Howell, and took him under her wing as her final protege. He learned everything she knew, and she felt that Howell was the most talented student she had ever tutored. During the course of his study, Howell renamed himself Howl Jenkins Pendragon, because he felt as though it would command more respect and help him to better blend into Ingary.
Howl excelled at his new studies, but his life changed directions drastically after just a year or two. He witnessed falling stars dying as they hit the ground one evening, and decided to intervene and try to rescue them. Using a pair of Seven League boots (a magical item allowing one step to move you ten and a half miles), Howl was able to get there in time to catch one of the stars. The star he caught was as desperate to live as Howl was to save it. In order to do so, Howl and the star bonded themselves to one another when Howl extracted and literally gave his heart to the star. The star was Calcifer, a fire demon, and he and Howl now shared a life force. Howl was just twenty two years old.
Soon afterward, Howl left Mrs. Pentstemmon, possibly because he realized that his relationship with Calcifer was not looked kindly upon in the magical community. With the new power granted to him by Calcifer, Howl was easily able to make it on his own, and together they created his moving castle. The castle was a large, ugly black structure with a homey set of rooms on the inside, where Howl settled in by himself. He was able to magically connect several points in Ingary to the castle's door, including an option to travel back to Wales. While it's unclear when Howl began returning to his family, he visited them with some regularity. He left his modern possessions, such as his books, with his sister Megan and her family, much to her chagrin. All of his travel was done through a single door, but the location it opened up onto could be changed by twisting the special doorknob to land on a different colored tab. This allowed him to take on different aliases and run multiple businesses in entirely different cities.
However, Howl had begun to suffer the after-effects of losing his heart. He no longer felt the same about people, and had an even more difficult time than before relating to them. Every relationship he made since Calcifer's appearance in his life seemed doomed to be painfully shallow, with the possible exception of that with Calcifer himself. Regardless of his growing emotional dissonance, Howl picked up an orphan living on the streets named Michael Fisher. He eventually made the boy his apprentice after pretending not to notice him living in the castle for a month or so. This trick was partially because he didn't want to commit to the idea of having a dependent, but also because Howl just wasn't quite sure how to handle Michael.
Despite having Calcifer and Michael as company, whom he had grown deeply fond of, Howl began to feel increasingly lonely and sought the companionship of women. With each new girl, he would fall head over heels during the courting process. But the second they fell in love with him, he would bolt, realizing that he did not actually recriprocate. At first it seemed as though he simply had not met the right girl, and so he would try again. And again. And again. The pattern grew increasingly out of control, and each time Howl would end up leaving a young woman in tears. The responsibility of dealing with the fallout was dumped upon Michael and Calcifer. Howl was far too cowardly to face the victims of his wandering heart, and he grew colder about it with each new incident.
Regardless of his lack of luck in love (though Howl never really came out of any scrape worse for wear), he found great success in Ingary for the four years following Calcifer's arrival. He spent his money frivolously, and was always good for a few over the top mood swings, though managed to be a decent teacher to Michael anyway. Between the two young men, no housework was done, until the inside of the castle seemed to be covered in a blanket of dust and spiders. Howl also made sporadic trips to Wales to go be Uncle Howell to his neice and nephew, though suspected at times that his sister would have been happier if he just disappeared permanently.
One of the women Howl had a brief romance with was the infamous Witch of the Waste. His experience with her followed a slightly different structure, as she became infatuated with the handsome young Wizard very quickly. They were kindred spirits, as she too had made a deal with a fire demon with her heart as the price. Howell realized a little too late that she was evil to the core, and that the act of losing her heart had corrupted her beyond repair. Howl, afraid of what he had gotten himself into, ran away from her abruptly, but was not fast enough to avoid the curse that she put upon him for scorning her. Howl and Calcifer mutually agreed that neither of them wanted to become like the Witch, though it seemed to be their fate if they couldn't break their contract somehow. If he were to simply try and take his heart back at that point, Howl knew he could easily kill Calcifer and himself. Though Howl was unaware at this point, the Witch was not attracted to all of Howl, just parts. She was intending to construct the perfect man from Howl's head and a couple others' bodies, with whom she could rule Ingary alongside.
Either way, Howl was terrified of the Witch of the Waste and the curse she had sent after him. He reassured himself that he was simply planning on running from her, but he couldn't help but notice the drama playing out between the Witch and the royal family. She had threatened the infant princess, which had motivated the king to order the Royal Wizard Suliman to take care of the threat. Rather than undoing the Witch of the Waste, Suliman had simply disappeared. He departed to the Wastes and was never seen again. Howl promised himself that he wasn't going to do anything about the matter, but did begin to look into the other wizard's disappearance. He personally didn't believe that Suliman was dead, but all that his investigation led him to was a nice guitar and an odd skull. As part of the bargain with himself, Howl fled a little further from the curse, ending up outside of the town of Market Chipping. He mad sure to spread some especially terrible rumors about himself (seducing and murdering young women with the intent to steal or eat their hearts) to ensure his privacy.
Several months later, Prince Justin, who was a close friend of Suliman's, left to look for him despite protests from his brother, the king. As Howl feared, Prince Justin also went missing without a trace. Howl reluctantly began looking into his disappearance as well, which led him into Market Chipping itself. Prince Justin had passed through there as a result of a finding spell he had been following, and Howl convinced himself to go and ask after his whereabouts. In the back of Howl's mind, he knew that these events were building up to a conflict, and one that he couldn't ignore or hide from. Very, very reluctantly Howl began planning for the worst.
He kept his planning mostly to snooping and questioning. within Market Chipping, the Prince had purchased a second finding spell from Mrs. Fairfax, a local witch. It was Mayday (Michael's birthday) when Howl decided to venture down into the town, and while on his way through he crossed paths with a shy girl with strawberry blonde hair. Despite his charms, she refused his attentions and ran off, which only made Howl more curious about her. Little did Howl know that this was Sophie Hatter, and she would play a very important part in the events to come. Without another thought on the matter (except to possibly track her down later), Howl continued to Mrs. Fairfax's where he met her new assistant and asked a few questions about the Prince's brief appearance.
When Howl finally returned home the next morning, much to his discomfort he found that there was a new addition to the castle's residents. An old woman named Sophie, the same one Howl had bumped into before, but under a curse, had barged in. She had bullied Michael rather effectively into letting her stay. Calcifer seemed completely comfortable with her presence, and so Howl could hardly argue, though he didn't outright accept her either. She claimed to be his new cleaning lady, and set to doing just that. Sophie was in fact so diligent about cleaning, that Howl had to protect certain locations from the war she had declared on the clutter he had accumulated over the last four or so years. Despite Howl's reservations, Sophie was a good addition to the castle. No matter how much Howl bickered with her, or outright avoided her, Sophie's presence made the castle seem like a home. Howl felt somehow closer than ever to these people with whom he had once just coincidentally shared a living space. For her part, Sophie reacted to even his worst tantrums with a level head. The less he impressed her, the more desperately he wished he could.
Of course, Howl wouldn't have been a very good wizard if he hadn't been able to tell there was something magical about Sophie. Not only did Sophie perform magic unconsciously by speaking to objects and imprinting her emotions on them, but there was also something off about her. Curiously, he began to look into Sophie's origins, which led him back to Lettie Hatter in Market Chipping. She had an older sister named Sophie who had disappeared on the same day his Sophie had shown up. As soon as they both realized the other knew something about Sophie, they began to talk regularly in a mutual attempt to weasel out some information. As well as hearing Lettie's story about her missing sister, Calcifer and Michael both confirmed that Sophie was under a curse. Howl could feel it on her, and the mark of the Witch of the Waste as well. Calcifer confessed to Howl that he had made a deal with Sophie. If she managed to figure out how to break the contract between himself and Howl, he would undo her curse. Howl agreed that the contract needed to be undone, and that he'd work on Calcifer's part of the deal, since they were the same being for all intents and purposes.
Howl continued to speak with Lettie, and even grew moderately infatuated with her. However, the emotions were completely shallow, and mostly came as a result of Howl likely having no other ideas on how to interact with a pretty young woman. While Howl was courting Lettie (to no avail), he was also attempting to break the curse on Sophie with an equal lack of progress. He soon determined that the reason he could not lift the curse was not a failing on his part, but rather because of something within Sophie herself. For some reason, Sophie found safety in being someone other than herself, and because of her magical spark she was able to subconsciously prevent Howl from reversing it. Howl did the best he could by easing her aches and pains while she wasn't looking, though he became increasingly worried about the health problems that he couldn't fix, such as her weak heart. He decided that he would have to ask for aid from a more proficient mage: Mrs. Pentstemmon. Although he continued to court Lettie Hatter, it was becoming increasingly obvious that his attention was actually focused squarely on Sophie. Lettie never truly fell in love with Howl before he wandered off, and was in fact using him as much as he was her.
Eventually, the steady, comfortable pace of Howl's new lifestyle was interrupted by the King of Ingary calling upon him. There, he heard one of the last things he was hoping for: his royal majesty was officially tasking the Wizard Howl with finding his brother and Wizard Suliman. The king wouldn't hear any arguments, and Howl couldn't bring himself to outright refuse. Howl was desperate to find a way to slither out of the task, and before even arriving home he had decided that Sophie was to go and blacken his name to the king so that he would reconsider the order. He went out and bought nice new clothes for her and Michael especially for the occasion. While Howl was planning his grand escape from responsibility, Sophie and Michael were giving their all to what they thought was a spell Howl had assigned to his apprentice. Much to Howl's horror, it involved Michael nearly catching a falling star. Howl informed the two that the piece of paper was not a spell, but something that had slipped in earlier when Sophie had stuck her nose into the ominous Wales portal. Knowing that Sophie's curiosity would be monstrous to deal with, Howl took her and Michael with him to Wales in the 1980's.
He led the mismatched trio straight to his sister's house, expecting that the odd poem had gotten switched with something there. His sister Megan was there to greet him, though she was significantly less thrilled than her daughter, Mari, to see Howl. Or rather, Howell. Megan had begun to get rid of this things, such as his books, which triggered another argument between the two of them. Eventually she told him that the poem looked like some of her son Neil's homework, and that because it was missing he had been forced to turn in what was presumably Howl's spell. Howl scaled the stairs with a flabbergasted Sophie and Michael to see about Neil. Neil, in exchange for a home-made video game from Howl for his trouble, told him that he turned in the strange paper (the spell) to his teacher, Miss Angorian. After he got the location of the young teacher, they were off... but not until after a tongue lashing from Megan that was so severe, even Sophie felt bad enough about it that she stepped in to rescue him.
The trip to see Lily Angorian was not what Howl expected. The young and very pretty woman set off several red flags when she acknowledged that the piece of paper Neil had turned into her was, indeed, a spell. She also claimed that her fiance was Benjamin Sullivan, which was the real name of the Wizard Suliman, who had also slipped into Ingary from Wales. According to Miss Angorian, he had simply disappeared and she still considered herself engaged to him, thus rebuffing Howl's advances. However, Howl's offer to have dinner had been meant to serve another purpose. When Miss Angorian had read the other half of the strange poem, Howl and Calcifer simultaneously felt the noose of the Witch of the Waste's curse tightening around their necks. Howl was approaching 10,000 days old, which was the time limit on the curse. As long as the list of events in the poem did not come true before he was 10,000 days old, Howl would be safe. But he had still been caught, and several of the lines were already fact. Howl had asked Miss Angorian out in hopes of getting more information from her, but when that was shot down he quickly retreated with Sophie and Michael to the portal back to the castle. He had not yet found out that the reason Lily Angorian was giving him a bad feeling was because she was the Witch of the Waste's fire demon in disguise. However, upon stepping through the door home, Howl did not return to Ingary, but rather awoke in a strange bed.
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality: Howl is fabulous at first impressions. People who only know him in passing typically have nothing but kind things to say about Howl, and why shouldn't they? He's courteous, intelligent, well spoken and completely charming. But beauty is only skin deep, and so is this misleading image of Howl. If he has a choice, even his appearance is false. His first impression is not of the man he truly is, so much as a carefully constructed presentation of what he wants everyone to think he is. The big problems with Howl are that he's a liar and a coward.
Just beneath the surface, Howl proves himself to be shallow, vain and needy. The more time someone spends around him, the more obvious it becomes that Howl is mostly just nice because he likes people to think well of him. A great deal of the time, what seems like even the most selfless gesture was all done in the hopes of gaining praise and compliments. But there is a fine line that Howl never lets people cross, if he can help it. He wants to be looked upon with awe, but never admired or trusted. He works very hard at crafting an outward persona that allows him to dodge any responsibility, emotional or otherwise. Even his vanity, which is monstrous, can be overridden by his need to avoid responsibility. He would rather convince a king that he was a shameless coward, not to be trusted with anything of import, than feel as though someone was depending on him. What it results in is a young man who works very, very hard to keep everyone at arm's length by any means necessary. He's hyper-aware of how people perceive him, and wants to be in control of that image.
Perhaps this is because Howl is very aware of what he is, and how frustrating and overall dislikable he can be when he's simply being himself. It's a side to Howl that he only lets those in his innermost circle see, but that's easy to do when you're as antisocial as Howl is. The number of people exposed to him regularly is small. However, saying he willingly shows his true colors to these people isn't quite right. It's more that Howl just can't keep up his perfect persona for very long, and sooner or later he's going to do something dodgy, irresponsible, or simply throw a tantrum. People like Calcifer, Michael and Sophie were all subjected to a Howl that was often childish and immature in all areas of life. He's a hopeless spendthrift, obnoxiously vain, and can't keep his attentions on one girl long enough to let them get to know him. Hours are spent in the mornings preening and perfecting his look, but even if you didn't know that, just the way Howl dresses and holds himself spells out narcissism. He loves attention and constantly seeks to dominate the room with his flair for dramatics, even if it means he has to intentionally annoy the people around him. Whatever is happening to Howl, he makes it out to be extremely important and at least three times as bad as it really is. And this is on a good day. As Sophie observed, when Howl is upset about something serious, he has a tendency to tantrum about small things that mean nothing in the long run. That's likely to be the closest thing to a hint people will get if Howl is really upset over something.
It's very difficult to figure out what is ever actually going on with Howl. Besides his melodramatic exaggerations, he is infuriatingly indirect and noncommittal. Howl avoids anything he thinks is unpleasant without ever actually denying it. A "slitherer-outer" to the core, Howl would do just about anything to get out of a confrontation. But at the same time, Howl will not back down. Even if someone directly goes after him and tries to get a straight answer, he will resist in the most infuriatingly passive aggressive way manageable. Rather than actually being stubborn, Howl will ignore what he doesn't want to deal with and brush off the concerns and questions of other people. He's certainly not above completely ignoring a question either. Or, in fact, completely ignoring a person, all in the pursuit of not being pinned down. It took him weeks to acknowledge the existence of Michael, who was then living with him, and eventually became his apprentice.
While some of his slippery nature is simply done on principle, or as part of his secretiveness, Howl is also dominated by his fears. It's initially hard to tell, as his cowardice is easy to mistake for laziness and arrogance. But when Howl won't do something, typically it's because it scares him, and it actually has little to do with his ambition or ego. Physical threats are of course avoided, but Howl is shockingly practical about getting his hands dirty and risking some injuries if he absolutely must. Typically things like that come up by surprise where he has no choice, which makes it significantly easier to force himself to act. What really frightens him are people and consequences. The thought of facing someone he has hurt is harrowing, and his knee jerk reaction is to run away from responsibility. Howl comes up with elaborate plans to hide from his fears, but he is self-aware enough to try and undermine his own cowardice. The only way Howl is able to make himself do something he doesn't want to is to lie to himself and go about his business as if he were slithering away again. While he does this, he has to take baby steps to carefully, slowly move himself closer to what he knows he has to do. By doing this, he can make himself stop running for a second to face the problem, but it's almost like tricking himself into it.
This is a painful way of living for Howl, mostly because he really isn't as selfish and irresponsible as he acts. He genuinely does not want to run away from his problems, but that doesn't mean he won't try anyway. Howl is a good man, but he's afraid of people. He does like to help them, however. For instance, he routinely undercharges customers who need his help but cannot afford it. He is surprisingly upright and truly kind. His strong sense of morality usually forces him to overcome his cowardice, even if he turns doing so into a ridiculously difficult endeavor. He has a deep love for spiders as a symbol of perseverance, and perhaps also because of their bad reputation. Unfortunately, in personal relationships Howl's good heart is prone to wandering off... or not being there in the first place, as the case may be.
Howl is heartless, both figuratively and literally. He decided to give up his heart to Calcifer in order to save the fire demon's life, and the heart that was taken was both the actual organ as well as the metaphorical ability to love selflessly and unconditionally. Howl is still capable of caring about people and feeling guilt, and he does in fact care deeply about Michael, Calcifer and Sophie. However, his affection always falls just a little short of what a truly genuine relationship should be. He's still horribly inconsiderate, often plays their emotions to his own advantage and does nice things for them for the praise and emotional rewards. There is just something hollow about the love that Howl is capable of expressing.
Because he has no heart, Howl can't really fall in love. However, he can come very close and certainly becomes infatuated easily. Howl compulsively falls in love with young women, only to fall back out of love with them so fast it would make your head spin. As soon as the object of his affections has reciprocated, Howl quickly disappears. (And then leaves his friends to deal with the aftermath because he's too scared to face the girl.) Although he can't exactly help this behavior, he is very aware of it to the point where he readily acknowledges that after a while he's simply waiting for the girl to say she loves him so he can move on. While he is infatuated with his lady of the season, Howl pines, and to anyone who didn't know better (or to whom he didn't confess his bad habit to) he would truly appear to be lovestruck. Howl is lonely and honestly does want to love someone, but he can't. Instead, he seeks to fill the void with as many hopeless relationships as he can. Maybe at one point in time he was trying to find the right girl, but now he's just lonely and selfish. He knows he can't reciprocate or even really feel much guilt for breaking all of those hearts, but does it anyway.
Howl has a very hard time with other people. Despite how charming he's capable of being and how lonely he really is, Howl prefers to be alone. Largely because it's easier and (surprise) less frightening. Ever since he lost his heart, Howl has had an increasingly difficult time handling relationships and emotional intimacy of any sort. In order to be left alone, Howl was perfectly willing to spread awful rumors about himself. And not just mildly insulting rumors about his unreliability, but rather that he seduces and then kills young women to steal their hearts. Howl's opinion of himself is not as high as he pretends it is, and he feels guilty when people he holds in high regard think too well of him. A sliver of his slippery, responsibility-dodging behavior may be because he feels as though he doesn't deserve the trust people offer him. Either way, there is a quiet undercurrent of self-loathing and unhappiness in Howl.
Despite all of Howl's eccentricities and faults, he's a very, very intelligent man and a ridiculously skilled wizard for someone his age. While half of his accomplishments must be credited to Calcifer, Howl is still capable of going toe to toe with the Witch of the Waste, who has a century more experience than he does. He figured out how to execute a spell for interdimensional travel mostly on his own, and peers and former instructors are impressed by his sheer potential. However, comments about Howl's prowess as a wizard are usually followed up by a note on what a failure as human being he is.
Please give us a detailed physical description of your character: Howl is a very, very vain man, but not without some reason. He’s rather good looking with a thin, angular and slightly bony face that straddles the line between pretty and handsome (though probably favors pretty). Sophie calls him dashing and sophisticated when she first meets him, and thinks his hair is elaborate. He has highly expressive features and when sincerely excited (often about one of his own ideas or victories), his smile is quite beautiful. However, without his wide array of cosmetic spells, Howl isn’t nearly as stunning as he’s grown accustomed to being. In fact... he's a little plain. No one would be amazed to see a man like Howl sitting across from them on the subway. And since he doesn't have access to spells to permanently color his long hair the preferred shade of golden blond, at Landel’s it’ll appear as his natural shade: a dark muddy brown. Regardless, Howl will doubtlessly still do his best to preen as much as he can, and so normally appears neat and a little excessively put-together. Howl is tall and graceful looking at about 6’1”, and retains a vaguely athletic physique from rugby. His eyes are bottle green and have a dull, glassy appearance to them as a result of him losing his heart to a demon. He speaks with a light Welsh accent.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's?: After attempting to return from Wales. Howl will have blacked out as he stepped through the portal to return to Ingary and his castle, and will wake up in Landel's instead.
What kinds of magical/special/crazy powers does your character have, if any?: Howl is an extremely talented wizard, one of (if not the) most powerful magic users alive in his world. He is able to do everything from interdimensional travel to conjuring tissues out of mid-air. His abilities are quite vast, although it should be noted that Howl has never and would never cast any dark magic.
Magic in the world of Howl's Moving Castle is never really described in detail. It seems to periodically appear as a natural talent, such as in Sophie or perhaps Howl, but can also be learned solely through study like with Lettie and Michael. Some of it seems intuitive, and Howl is able to manipulate magical forces without even speaking. Other times he has to use magical words, magic circles, or objects as a focus. Howl is experienced enough with magic that throughout the course of the book he's never seen consulting texts for the spells he casts, presumably because they come to him intuitively or he has them memorized.
It seems as though a spell can be given to others for use in the form of a magical item that he creates through his workshop with any number of supplies. When activated (the method of which seems unique to each particular spell) the effects of the spell come to pass. Examples of this include a spell that when carried with the King's army, allows them easy travel. There are also spells for preventing storms, activated by sprinkling a powder across a ship's hull, or a spell for locating a person or object. These spells can all be used by a third party as long as they possess the item and know the method. The needed supplies for the creation of these can be mysterious liquids and powders as well as food stuffs, sheets of metal and wire. It is made clear, however, that although Howl is prodigiously gifted at magic, most of his sheer power comes from his link with the fire demon Calcifer. By giving Calcifer his heart, the two are permanently bonded and can feel what the other is currently experiencing. It's even implied that Calcifer intuitively knows everything Howl knows... though it doesn't seem to work in the other direction.
Because his magic is so hard to define, I'm just going to list everything Howl does or claims he can do:♦ Bursts of force. Howl used magic like this to shove back the turnip-headed scarecrow so far that it literally flew away into the sky until it was no longer visible.
♦ Creation of magical items and talismans. Howl is able to put together items that have powerful magical properties. These include seven league boots, in which each step is 10 and 1/2 miles. He also makes cosmetic spells, talismans to help with travel, keep storms at bay, locating people and things, cloaks that can disguise people as something different entirely, so on and so forth. These require supplies and time in a workshop. Though the book never really describes what they look like or what goes into them, they are actual physical objects that presumably need to be activated with a power word or specific action.
♦ Magic circles. Howl can draw out magical circles that can impact the nature of a location. He uses these when altering the moving castle, merging it with a preexisting house elsewhere. He also uses them to connect the castle to multiple locations simultaneously, which can be chosen by changing a colored dial on the doorknob to the exit. I'm guessing that the magic circles are slightly mathematical in nature, and was the method by which he created a doorway from Wales to Ingary.
♦ Protecting a location. Howl can somehow make a location impenetrable or otherwise unnoticeable. He uses this to hide the castle from the Witch of the Waste. I'd probably say that the magic circles listed above played a hand in this.
♦ Projecting his voice to another location. He is able to warn Calcifer and the others at home of his conflict with the Witch this way.
♦ Modifying the physical properties of items. Howl does this often and frequently throughout the book, mostly for the sake of vanity. He repairs clothes, recolors them, colors his hair, and shrinks clothing. He demonstrates in Wales that he can even turn clothes into something else entirely. He changes his, Michael's and Sophie's fantasy-style clothing into modern fashions.
♦ Conjuring small items out of nowhere, like tissues when he has a cold.
♦ Easing pain. Howl claims that when he couldn't break Sophie's self-imposed curse, he set to easing her aches and pains instead.
♦ On that note, Howl seemed convinced that he could remove the curse if Sophie's subconscious would allow him. So, removing curses.
♦ Summoning winds for assisted fast travel.
♦ Illusions, as large as highly convincing monsters, storms and ships.
♦ Shapeshifting into creatures such as mundane animals all the way up to fantastic creatures. Howl disguises himself as a cat as well as a red setter, and during a fight with the Witch of the Waste he changes into a sea monster.
♦ Flight, typically with lots of billowing magic that mostly obscures him.
♦ Teleportation. When Sophie is attempting to clean certain areas of the castle, Howl demonstrates this ability by following her around and magically appearing wherever she starts to snoop.
♦ Dripping huge quantities of mysterious foul-smelling green slime while summoning shadowy figures and creating unearthly wailing so loud that it can be heard from all locations he's connected to via the castle. All in the name of a tantrum over his hair being dyed the wrong color (even though he could presumably just snap his fingers and fix it).
♦ Removing body parts and keeping them in suspended animation. Howl acknowledges that he could do this with a limb or even a head. He likely managed this trick with his own heart when he gave it to Calcifer.
♦ Related to the above, Howl is able to exist without a heart, figuratively and literally. His heart, made to look like a Valentine's heart with the assistance of magic, is in the possession of the fire demon Calcifer. Although it's no longer inside of him beating away, it still represents his life and he would die if it were destroyed, along with Calcifer. It's presumably magic that keeps him alive and his system operating, despite lacking a heart to pump blood.
♦ Interdimensional travel from a "real world" modern Wales to the fantasy country of Ingary. Howl presumably figured this out mostly on his own since magic is much more scarce in his version of the modern world, and Ingary's universe isn't publicly known to exist.
♦ Time travel. When Sophie starts to ask Howl about the conditions of his curse, he admits that he knows "where the past years are," and implies that he could jump back in his own timeline as well as those of others
If present, how do you plan to tweak those powers to make him/her appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?: Howl is first and foremost limited by the fact that he is no longer near Calcifer, from whom he borrows a huge amount of power. But even without Calcifer or a proper workshop in which to make magical items, Howl would still be formidable and will thus receive even further limitations. Most of his spells, if he can still access them, will be very weak versions of their former selves. Others he will be unable to cast at all, particularly dimension travel (obviously), removing body parts, flight, dripping buckets of slime, time travel, teleporting and shape shifting.
Howl's only remaining means of offensive magic will be manipulating bursts of magical force. This allows him to shove back a target with an invisible, telekinetic-like strike. A person or monster, depending on the size, would feel as though they were punched moderately hard, and then thrown back about five feet. Howl could probably also use this to break down (orange labeled) doors.
Aside from this, Howl will retain most of his more unoffensive abilities, just in a less potent form. For instance, while he might be able to repair or even recolor items, he won't be able to change them in any more significant way. The item will return to its default state in the morning. Howl will be able to conjure small items like tissues or some equivalent (a sheet of paper, a handkerchief), but in the morning they will be gone without a trace. Howl will be unable to heal any wounds, though he could numb some pain which would last about fifteen minutes. Any attempt at creating an illusion would only create amorphous shapes and barely audible whispers for a few seconds.
Howl will be able to create some very small magical items. While he can certainly try to make bigger ones, only small, one-use non-offensive spells will work. And even then, probably not as well, since he'll have to raid the mundane supplies available at the institute. What actually goes into these spells is pure speculation since Howl always makes them "off screen," but each spell created will require at least two ingredients from two different locations within the institute. For instance, if he wanted to make a finding spell, maybe he'd need to raid the kitchen and the arts and crafts supplies in order to get what he needed. An example would be a finding spell. A finding spell leads the user to a person or object they picture in their head, but it's less of an exact location and more of an instinctual feeling of knowing where to go and what turns to take. The person person must have a clear image in their head, or the spell will just point them to the closest approximation. If the thing they're looking for is not in Landel's, the spell will simply fail.
He'll also be able to attempt to draw magic circles for magical effects on a location. Probably the best he can do at this point is draw out circles that would protect a room from detection. Meaning there would be a smaller chance of people outside noticing the door or hearing noises from within, and it could possibly dissuade some monsters from attacking anyone inside the circle.
When Howl uses his magic, he is attempting to call on a power source (Calcifer) which is no longer accessible. The more he uses his magic, the more he strains his complete lack of a heart, causing himself intense chest pain. Howl has approximately five counts of magic use available per night. A use of offensive magic, creation of an item or activation of a magic circle all are the equivalent of two counts. A use of any benign spell is one. Howl can use three counts before the pain starts to become a hindrance. After four uses, whatever magic it is that's in his system keeping him alive is being taxed dangerously. His breathing becomes labored, he feels dizzy and his extremities tingle. At this point, exerting himself, such as running or emotional stress, can be considered his fifth and final count. If Howl tries to do anything a sixth time, it will fail and he'll pass out, and may even stop breathing for a short while.
Because he has no heart, no heartbeat and maybe not even much of a pulse, Howl is kept alive by an undefined system of magic. It's the same magic he has to call upon to cast spells, hence the health issues when he casts too much. To the staff of Landel's, Howl just has persistent heart health issues and received a heart transplant some years back.
Does your character have any other non-magical skills or abilities that we should know about?: Despite what Howl would like people to think, he cannot play the guitar. He can, however, speak Welsh fluently. His practical skills are limited to rugby, basic cooking and posing prettily.
He also at one point in time presents a video game to his nephew, which he must have designed personally because it's based off his own castle. It's never made clear if he programmed it himself or did it with magic, but he must have some level of technical expertise to have created it. However, all of his tech knowledge would be very 80's.
How about improbable appendages?: Nope!
Please give us an idea of where you'd like to take your character within the scope of the Landel's Damned RP: At first, Howl is going to think that something went awry in his dimension hopping spell, possibly as a result of the Witch interfering. He'll be very anxious about where Sophie and Michael ended up, as well as his inability to feel and contact Calcifer. If the nurses are referring to him as Howell Jenkins, he'll have an easier time assuming, at least for a little while, that he's in his original world, and that his sister may have comitted him.
He's not going to be thrilled at the prospect of going out and fighting monsters, and so I think he'd be happier socializing (shallowly, for now) and acting as support for a club (while never readily admitting to official membership) or other individuals. It's shown towards the end of the book that even without a heart, Howl can come to geniunely love people, though it may always be a little off as long as he's without it.
Figuring out what is muffling his magic probably requires exploration, which he'll be willing to risk as long as it's moving him towards the goal of getting out ASAP. He'll tell himself it's all in the name of escaping, though deep down he'll really want to save everyone. It'll just be a ploy to reassure himself that he's not actually playing hero and risking life, limb and whatever else Landel's has to offer. Howl feels an obligation to help even when he's terrified, which he certainly will be. His ultimate goal will be to open a portal to anywhere else and get out of Landel's.
What kind of psychological effect do you see Landel's Institute having on your character?: At his core, Howl is a coward and will doubtlessly be very, very scared by what's happened to him. His first instinct will be to run as soon as possible, and he'll only be more anxious when he realizes that his spells for world-jumping don't work here. Not to mention that most of his magic, his primary means of defense, is gone. Outwardly, he'll probably express most of this fear and stress as shallow complaints, such as his vanity and how he's no longer allowed to spend hours upon hours preening. However, the idea of multiple universes (even ones that contain some familiar fictional characters) won't make him bat an eyelash, though he might be excessively curious about the concept. If there is one other world, why wouldn't there be hundreds more?
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?: First off, the setting of Ingary is very much like a historic version the real world and thus presumably features its share of wars and violence. Howl isn't a soldier by any means, and has not been exposed to a great deal of gore, but he's not naive to its existence. Howl personally is more acclimated towards magical violence, which is less bloody but in many ways just as disturbing with very serious consequences for the losing party. Despite being a cowardly man who avoids even the most minor conflict like the plague, Howl is a mature adult who is able to deal with loss, violence and the prospect of facing evil or cruelty with a pretty level head. It's only that he may just try to run away instead of face it down.
Third-Person Sample:Howl liked the dust. It made everything in his room feel quieter. Maybe it was the way that it muted all of the colors and washed them out until it was like he was looking through a soft sepia lens. The rest of the castle now shone brightly with harsh, demanding colors, which matched the sound of Sophie, Calcifer and Michael chattering below him. They were so demanding. They all looked to him for guidance, no matter how many times he had proven to them he was irresponsible, unreliable and ridiculous. Sometimes when he descended the stairs to join the conversation, his stomach would contract with anxiety. Even the smells of cleanliness, cooking and Michael's spellwork were overwhelming, and Howl would start to miss the musty comfort and isolation of his room. His admittedly quite filthy room. He nudged something on the floor with his foot despondently (the dust obscured its identity), and ran his hands back through his hair which was so perfect that no tangles were there to offer any resistence. It was the reward of two and a half hours tending to it that morning.
He also liked the way he clashed with his dull, muffled surroundings. The lush colors of his suit and the fair sheen of his hair stood out amongst the gray. Howl knew that he seemed the sort that would cringe at a spider rather than while away his time watching them spin their webs above his bed. Howl was not so naive that he didn't see the parallell between himself and the Witch, the self-proclaimed orchid of the Wastes. Howl had created his own little Waste in which he could feel like the most beautiful thing there... if only by default.
That thought left him feeling more than a bit disgusted with himself. He quickly sat up off his bed, kicking up a cloud of dust that magically failed to cling to his coat or sleeves. He took the few quick steps across his room to the window, looking down upon a plain, rather wet yard somewhere in Cardiff. He had hoped to see Mari outside playing, but doubtlessly Megan didn't want her coming back inside covered in mud. He could practically feel how vulnerable that house was, but knew that at this distance it was just in his imagination. Everything was going to be fine, he promised himself.
"Everything's fine," Howl repeated out loud, trying to convince himself it was not a lie. If he wanted to make it true, he needed to do a few things. Small things. Nothing particularly risky. And Lettie was doubtlessly out that day, standing in Mrs. Fairfax's garden with her long, dark hair tumbling over her shoulder. Howl idly wondered how much Sophie actually looked like her. With that thought, he put on his best smile and opened the door out into the hallway and the real world. Sophie must have heard his approach, because her voice had suddenly risen with a new and likely very valid complaint. Howl felt a familiar pinch of discomfort, but his smile came to him more easily.
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* Spoilers. Proceed with caution.