Oswald Tobias Rieper

## Description

Sleepy, quiet, and a little horrible at socializing with people, Oswald is a hybrid who firmly believes of the power of the mind over the body.

He's fairly tall, standing at just around 6'5" with a lean and athletic . His white hair is spikey and unkept with a small black tuft contrasting the otherwise expanse. His eyes are brown and have bags under them, but flash a deep crimson when his life is threatened.

Poking out of his back is a grotesque growth of fur, teeth, and sharpened bone that have amassed themselves into an underdeveloped wing. Although it lacks the ability to lift him off the ground, it is more than able to safely glide him down from perilous heights.

He wears little clothing, owing to the fact that his transformations rip through anything he puts on.

## Early Years, The Bestial Awakening.

Born from elven parents, Oswald never displayed any strange behavior or had anything out of the ordinary regarding his phyiscal body during his formative years. He showed above average athleticism, outclassing most of his peers in school in many of the more physically intensive activies but lagged just a little bit behind in his studies.

His father was a tempermental man with a horrible drinking addiction, often coming home from work as a guardsman disgruntled from his lowly position and lashing out at either himself or his mother.

He first learned of the gifts he was born with when at the age of 8 a snake had strayed to close to their home and bit the young boy's hand. Oswald could have sworn he saw the venomous fangs chomping down on his skin, but he was surprised to see that the viper's attack was harmlessly bounced off. It slithered away leaving him scared and confused, but curious as to what he had just discovered about his body.

He hid the incident from his parents, and spent much of his time thereafter testing the limits of his body's responses to danger. He started small, tossing small pebbles at his feet and watching as his skin hardened like the chitinous armor of an ant. His curiousity grew as the danger of his testing bloated. Silverware, boiling water, larger and larger rocks were all used as tests to see how far he could take it. He would even hold his hand over campfires just to watch how long it would take before it became too much for him.

A year passed, and he had a confident grasp on his abilities. He even discovered that he had a small amount of control over what he could manifest. Rending claws akin to daggers that could rend flesh, a barbed tail that could either pierce through extremely tough material or deliver a poisonous sting, boney armor that rivaled the protective properties of plate armor, and much much more.

Oswald's own hubris led to a tragedy that changed his life forever. The young 10 year old had assumed his father was still outside chopping firewood when he went into his room to play with his sword. It was his father's most prized possession. More than a weapon, it was a status symbol that he cherised more than the family he was raising. The boy had a fascination with the sharp edges, seeing how deeply it could cut into his natural boney armor, if it could even do that.

Before he had the chance to test anything, his father burst into the room more furious than he had ever seen him. His father was redfaced and spat with every word he bellowed at the frightened boy. He was still carrying his chopping axe when he barreled at him to take the sword away.

At that very moment, Oswald's instincts completely took over. There was a blur of motion, the sound of flesh tearing, and the gurgled pain of his father's dying breath.

When the boy came to, he realized that he had manifested a tail that moved on its own, piercing through his father's neck and almost instaneously ending his life right then and there. His mother came running from the kitchen when she heard the violent scuffle and screamed when she saw the scene. She rushed to his father's side, screaming obscenities and curses at the monster that took her husband.

Oswald could barely register what was happening when he saw that his mother was still gripping the kitchen knife she was using to prepare dinner. Not seeing another way out without harming his last remaining family, he jumped through the window and crashed into the dark woods outside.

He ran, and ran, and ran, until his two legs had given up entirely. He found himself overlooking a cliff, still covered in his father's blood and wheezing uncontrollably. He wept relentlessly after vomitting what little contents he had in his stomach, the overload of what just happened bombarding his mind with endless suffering.

He looked over the edge of the cliff, feeling the cold caress of the chilling wind beckoning him to end the wretched mistake that nature brought forth into the world. It was a call he answered readily, walking off and falling down the void below.

But this was not the end of his story, his body refused to allow him the death he so craved. A flash of pain erupted from his shoulders, his muscles tearing and his bones permanently reshaping and knitting themselves into a grotesque wing.

He glided all the way down to the ground, softly landing on the grass below. The horrible ordeal had completely drained what strength he had left, and he passed out on the spot.

Waking the next morning, at the earliest crack of dawn. Oswald felt the pain in his shoulders still burning. He sat upright, and terror filled his eyes when he saw the leathery wing that wouldn't go away. He heard a howl from somewhere within the brush of the forest. The boy forced himself on his feet and looked around frantically, not seeing where the noise had come from.

His body already started forming defenses for what was to happen, covering his skin in thick bone to defend from the maws of wolves, and his legs reshaping to better suit running in foilage.

It wasn't long before the threats showed themselves. An pack of wolves hunting for their next meal found what they assumed was an easy kill. The beasts snarled hungrily, snapping their jaws and preparing to lunge at Oswald as his body then started to form weapons to fight back.

His own mouth blossomed outwards, forming mandibles that were designed to intake as much flesh as they could from each bite, his hands turned into powerful pincers that could break bone, and he grew the very same tail that took his father's life.

It was a blur of violence, desperation, and hunger. Oswald bit, stabbed, and slashed his way through the pack of beasts. Their numbers dwindled, but the mounting wounds they inflicted on the boy were steadily slowing him down more and more. The hope he gained when he saw how much the wolves had grew more cautious and weary of their "prey" were briefly smashed away when he got blindsided by one of them.

He was clearly the Alpha of the pack. Bigger, stronger, and more viscious than the rest by a large margin. His matted fur was covered in years of scars that accrued over many battles, and its howl rang with a thirst for blood that unsettled the young boy. It was at that moment that he knew he needed to take the wolf down as quickly as he could if he wanted even a snowball's chance in hell to survive for another day.

They both rushed at each other, smashing their bodies in a mad dash to overpower the other. They snapped at each other with their powerful maws, attempting to push the other down to get the vital angle to end the other decisively. As a surprise to the both of them, Oswald had an ace up his sleeve even he was unaware of. Bursting from under both of his arms were a set of powerful limbs that ended in a pair crushingly strong pincers. They grabbed at the wolf's forelegs and disbalanced him just enough for the boy to lunge at his neck and rip his throat out with his own teeth.

It had only lasted for a few seconds, and the entire pack cowered away with their tails tucked between their legs as Oswald roared victoriously over the corpses he had just made.

He couldn't savor his win for very long, however, as his wounds took a heavy toll on his stamina, and the pang of hunger bit at him with more ferocity than any beast ever could. Oswald looked over at the dead wolves, and his hunger overtook any senses he had left in his system. Biting and chewing through even their bones, it didn't take long before he had his fill.

Much to his furthering mound of surprise, he discovered that eating the wolves had not only solved his hunger, his wounds were also steadily healing themselves after his meal. With this newly found ability, he had found a way to survive the following grueling years the only way he knew how.

The feeling he had when he stared down the cliff face had long since passed by that point. Death was not an exit he wanted for himself, not when he had too many questions about his origins to answer.

## A Myth Born, The Pallid Butcher

In the years that followed, the young adolescent hybrid found himself placed squarely within the throngs of nations spiralling into a full-blown war. He cared little of the politics that led to the conflict, only being vaguely aware that there was a failed attempt at the life of a royal in the middle of some peace negotiations he cared even less for. The only thing that mattered to Oswald was the opportunity this presented to him. Given his monsterous appearance, he couldn't really find himself finding purchase in any settlement as his very presence was seen as an omen by the radically superstitious elders.

With the rising conflicts came skirmishes between smaller factions looking to exploit the turmoil boiling up from the ever increasing tensions between each nation. Rather than choosing to join any of them, Oswald roamed the battlefields to just look for a hearty meal. Corpses were in steady supply, and if he was quiet enough in the dead of night, nobody would catch him in the act. He quickly learned of another ability, changing the tone of his skin to match his surroundings not unlike a chameleon. This only made sneaking about for meals all that easier. His exploits did not go unnoticed by the public for too long, however. Soon enough, the legend of "The Pallid Butcher" started to become the next terrorizing tale that parents used to scare their children into behaving.

*"In the endless fields of carnage, a tall and lanky figure works tirelessly day by day, dismembering, tearing, piling up the limbs and viscera of the fallen that the battlefield might be clear before the next clash of violence comes bursting forth. Flocked by ravens who need him to cut their meals into bite-sized chunks, the Pallid Butcher hones his skills with claws that grow sharper the longer he uses them. Swish, swish, thunk. Flesh falls from the bone, tendons and ligaments part like paper. And while he always had a taste for the butchery, over the ages, the Butcher has been known to savor in its byproduct as well. Starting with a giblet of muscle here, a sip of blood there...before long he was thrusting his jaws deep into the toughest of torsos, like a dog gnawing at rags. Even those who are beyond fearing the Reaper, fear the Pallid Butcher."*

*- An excerpt from a children's book filled with cautionary tales*

It was astonishing to Oswald how quickly such a thing could go from a harmless fairy tale to being taken seriously enough that entrepreneuring monster hunters started prowling battlefields looking for him with more vigilance than he did looking for a bite.

This did little to deter his efforts, however. Despite the obvious risk of flying in the face of dangerous and experienced hunters posed, he could do little else to curb his hunger.