Rook Collingwood

**Rook Collingwood** is a staff member at Beacon Academy, and a former student of Haven Academy.  He is well known amongst his peers and students for his surly attitude, and isn't particularly well-liked by anyone.

## Personality

Rook might look like a well-bred, elegant young man, but don’t let his appearance fool you; he’s a lazy, apathetic bastard with little to no regard for the formalities. He’s of the mindset that if it doesn’t affect him, it’s not his problem, which certainly isn’t the kind of mentality you want a Huntsman to have. That’s not to say he won’t deal with whatever the issue is–despite what he might have people believe, he’s only slightly heartless. His moral compass is still mostly intact, forcing him to act even when he’s not particularly invested in what’s going on. Of course, knowing that Beacon’s staff team would chew him out for not doing anything is pretty good motivation too.

Being the school’s most pessimistic teacher (or at least one of them), Rook has spent many an hour telling students that they’re basically going to die. Such a sweetheart. He’s extremely blunt and open about the nitty-gritty details of the life of a Huntsman/Huntress, though he may or may not play it up just a little to make everything sound even worse than it really is.  Many of his students have since caught onto this, and tend to look down on him because of it.  There are very few people at Beacon who actually take Rook seriously anymore; to most, he's just a grumpy old man who can't seem to find any sort of joy in life.

And, truth be told, they're not entirely wrong.  There isn't much under the surface--no secret heart of gold, no squishy insides.  Rook has seen and experienced far more than he cares to remember, and it's hardened his heart to the point of no return.

## History

Rook was born to an upper class family in the city of Vale. He was groomed to follow the family tradition of becoming a Huntsman, and didn’t protest this in the slightest. Being a hero sounded pretty cool to a child, after all, and by the time he was old enough to make an educated decision, Rook was already too steeped in the mindset that this was his destiny to actually consider any other options.

He attended Sanctum Academy, and later went on to Haven where he was put onto team CRLN (Cerulean). Between the extreme skills of the individual members and the fact that they got along really well, they were quick to climb to the top of their classes. Things were looking pretty great for Rook by that point, but of course, and they only continued to get better from there. After graduation, he and his teammates began to take missions individually, though they still worked together a fair bit.

It was during this time that Rook's optimistic views began to deteriorate.  His elevated skills had him taking on riskier missions near the kingdom outskirts, and what he saw there was more than enough to break him.  Over the years, after hundreds of gruelling missions and tough decisions--decisions in which there were no right or wrong answers--Rook found his former personality being stripped away from him.  It was replaced with one that was much more cynical, much more bitter--things that only promised to worsen with every mission... And with every friend's funeral.  The life of a Huntsman was far from easy, after all--by the time he was 30, Rook had lost count of how many of his friends had lost thier lives during missions.  Included among them were two of his own teammates.

It was a horrible life, but Rook didn't have any other options.  There was no way out of this hell, no going back to the civilian lifestyle and finding a cushy job in the city.  There *was*, however, a temporary reprieve of sorts--a coward's way out, Rook liked to call it, but it didn't keep him from applying.  Beacon Academy had posted a notice, requesting an experienced Huntsman/Huntress for a long-term teaching position at the school.

Long-term being, as of now, 8 years and counting.  After getting the position, Rook found himself teaching basic survival and tracking skills to all manner of students--something he continues to do to this day.

## Combat Information

### Weapons and Equipment

#### Wrath

Wrath takes the shape of an oversized, dual-headed sledgehammer. It doesn’t have any extra forms, but what it lacks in cool transformations, Wrath makes up for with pure destructive power… and versatility in the form of Dust. Small tubes of sorts run throughout the hammer heads, and by inserting a Dust crystal into the staff portion of the weapon–wherein lies a special compartment for processing and utilizing the crystal–Rook can add some elemental affinities to his weapon. His favourite one seems to be fire Dust, simply for how destructive and easy to use it is.

### Semblance

Aptly called "Envy", Rook’s semblance is only particularly useful when he’s fighting against people who possess something Rook wishes he had. It doesn’t have to be a material object; just envying what they stand for, their ideals and whatnot, is more than enough. Either way, when he’s envious, Rook’s natural attributes will increase to “match” the “level” of his envy. In other words, the more envious of someone he is, the stronger he’ll get. His physical strength receives the largest boost, though his defence and speed are upped slightly as well. This, of course, drains fairly large amounts of aura, making it more useful for quick fights or finishing moves. Rook also can’t try to “create” envy, for lack of a better term; he has to truly covet what his opponent(s) have in order to make use of his semblance.

## Trivia

* Rook's name follows the colour naming rule, as his firstname means "blackbird".  His surname also alludes to the colour black, as it means "coal forest".
* Rook is loosely based off of Caim, a President of Hell from the Lesser Key of Solomon. In some cases, Caim is portrayed as being an elegant young man with the head and wings of blackbird, though this doesn’t actually line up with his original depiction, where he was said to be a thrush.
	+ Rook shares his general source of inspiration with Forrest Perry, who was based off of a Marquis of Hell.  This is from an earlier story--one that focused around Rook and Forrest's team, which attended Beacon.  This idea was later scrapped.

* “Caim” is a Gaelic form of “Cain”. According to the bible, Cain was the first man born, and also the first to commit murder after he killed his own brother. The reasons for this attack were never explicitly stated, but it’s generally accepted that Cain was driven by anger and jealousy–the foundations for Rook’s weapon, and his semblance.