Omen

Official image of Omen, drawn by @grace.pptx on Instagram

Omen Haxolpenny is a Player Character from Arc 5 and played by Chris.

## Description

Omen is a Kalashtar Archfey Warlock and has the Pact of the Chain Master. His patron is his own adoptive mother Elisabeth, a witch that raised him and his eight younger siblings in the Whispering Woodlands.

He has shaggy bright pink hair that he likes to change often, and usually wears comfortable robes that have one sleeve cut off at the shoulder, exposing an arm covered in various kanji and drawings that he uses to cast spells. When he does so, he wipes away one of the drawings, and holds out the hand with the ink on it.

Omen has a familiar named Edward, who is a Karakasa, a type of Yokai in the shape of an umbrella with an eye, a mouth, and a leg. Edward has been Omen's best friend since he has been very young, and hops around following him. He likes to cause chaos, and has the ability to shapeshift into different kinds of umbrellas, as well as talk, swim, and fly (Omen can use him to glide down from somewhere, but not to actually fly himself). Edward is an anarchist, and can get jealous when Omen expresses his love for other accessories. Sometimes, Edward looks over Omen, if necessary.

His charlatan background gives Omen a fake identity, which is the identity of Owen Haxolpenny, who is a pseudo celebrity in the town of Dryad's Crossing. There, he sometimes goes up and down in front of the clocktower and posts to a board called the Tick Tock. Occasionally, people walk by and give it a thumbs by, but sometimes, the owner of the clocktower just comes and rips down his post.

The fact that Omen lives in a forest and has very little contact to the outside world leads to him not knowing things others would consider basic knowledge: he has no idea what kind of government rules the country he lives in, or where the capital is, and little social skills with strangers.

Omen has come to Solaris and the Festival of the Dawnfather's Rest for the first time in Arc 5, and hopes to find a girlfriend or even wife for his adoptive mother there. For that purpose, he carries around a few playing cards, on the back of which he has written "Are you open to the idea of love? Yes or Very Much Yes", which he can hand out like business cards.

## Backstory

His biological parents traded Omen to a witch in exchange for ultimate power, and this witch, Elisabeth Haxolpenny, deciding that people who would trade off their children shouldn't be allowed to have them in the first place, raised him as her own together with eight younger siblings in the forest. They did not have a very big house, and so, growing up, privacy was not a thing Omen really had.

It is unknown how old Omen was when his biological parents tried to trade him off, but he does remember them, and he was old enough to have noticed that they did not love him, which he could not understand.

From a very young age, Omen's mother taught him magic, and they just made a little pact to make it official.

Before Omen had younger siblings, he had Edward, an umbrella who just gained sentience one day.

Having grown up in the Whispering Woodlands, Owen knows Wren, the protector of the forest. Sometimes, the siblings used to scare wanderers by whispering things and using their Kalashtar powers on them, and when they gained anything from that, they would split their profits with Wren. Wren also occasionally comes over for dinner.

His mum raised all nine children by herself with relatively little money, which has run her a bit ragged. Some time ago, when Omen was about four or five years old, she had something with a Barbarian woman from farther away, but is still single. He does not remember a lot about this woman, because it was so long ago, but he does remember that she had short, buzzed hair, a bunch of tattoos, and kind, gentle eyes. She was very muscular and lived in the middle of the mountains. Omen decided to leave his home to find his mum a girlfriend, partially because he feels guilty for scaring all the people out of the Whisperwoods and thus making it harder for her to meet someone, and has come to the Festival of the Dawnfather's Rest for that reason. His mother does not know about it, and he left without telling her, so he might be in a bit of trouble when he comes back.

## Character Arc

During Arc 5, most of the party, including Omen, decide to get deeper into the mirror maze to find answers. For that, they have to face the (from their perspective) worst version of themselves. The version Omen sees of himself is slouched and pale, looking deeply unhappy and so desperately alone that there aren't even as many mirror versions as there should be of him. As he tries to create a mind link to this mirror image, the only thing Omen hears is his own internal monologue telling him the kind of terrible little thoughts that will ruin you if you don't send them away, and takes psychic damage from it.

While at first, Omen is the main chaos factor of the party, this changes as his and Sougle's shenanigans actually lead to Sougle dying (for one loop). In front of Wren, he lets his facade drop for a bit, and asks her if he's a bad person. Her answer is that he is not a bad person, he simply grew up secluded from society, with very little rules and very little consequences, and needs to learn to adapt to the outside world, and develop a sense of self preservation. While Omen puts the facade up again rather quickly, he actually does try to listen to this advice and be a bit more careful.

Additionally, when Sougle comes back, Omen looks out for him a lot. Over the course of the first half of the arc they had already developed a kind of friendship, and it only grows deeper with Omen trying his best to make sure that Sougle can process what happened, and does not have to be alone with it. A very important symbol in their friendship is a vial of green dye that Omen gives Sougle at the beginning of each loop, instead of simply waiting for them to escape the loops. For Omen, Sougle is one of the few people who don't seem to think that there is no hope for him. Both of them thank the other for their friendship and kindness later, and Omen is not used to receiving genuine thanks.

In the finale of the arc, Omen tries to comfort Shi'elle, and reveals his true appearance to her and the party, making himself vulnerable in a way he normally is not, not even with his mother. He drops the Disguise Self spell that he usually has up at all times. His true appearance looks very close to the version he saw in the mirror maze, paler and less vibrant, and he admits that this real self scares him quite a bit. Over the course of the arc, he learned to reflect more on his own vulnerability and self-consciousness, and his fear of being left alone. When his mother and siblings come to the festival, though, he puts the spell up again, but it is something he will talk about with his mother later. Generally, across the whole arc, Omen had to face his personal fears and anxieties, and while he has not finished the process of working on them, he has made progress on his journey to being comfortable with himself.

## Trivia

* Chris claimed that he did not make the character to be useful, but to be fun to himself.
* Omen's free expertise is in Deception.
* It was not planned that Omen would have a German accent, but it just happened and Chris decided to stick with it.
* Edward does not remember the time loops.
* Omen can fall asleep nearly everywhere, and very fast, including a tree or the middle of the street.
* He is not good at receiving gratitude and not used to it, since usually he is too chaotic to receive actual gratitude from anyone.
* He is a fan of the musician Matrix Angelblood, since his mother has always been a fan of them. Their music is one of the few things that get to them in the forest.