Jessie Anderson

*Artistic Child of the Moon*

* Overview
* Background
* 'Ships
* Logs

A young man who loves Art, Jessie's life was turned upside down one day in early May of 2020, and he was bitten, and turned into a werewolf. After that, his family and friends started to outcast him due to his, in their mind, halucinations and freakish behavior, culminating in him being left homeless after he was seen transforming on the full moon. Labeled as a monster, everyone who once knew him was left in shock and fear, and now won't offer any aid, leaving him homeless, completely on his own.

## Personality

Jessie is normally kind, a bit quiet and reserved. When talking about his interests, especially art, nature, and even technology, to an extent, he can become very animated and engaged. Around strangers he is normally very shy, though the more he gets to know them, usually, the less shy and more open he'll be. He wasn't like this in the past, but after being bitten he now has a bit of a sharp edge, he is a bit more quick-tempered than in the past, and, although he has ways to keep the anger down, the edge is still there, still noticeable, and a bit sharper close to the full moon. He would never intentionally harm his friends or family, of course, and almost always regrets and feels guilty about his outbursts, even though they're usually small. When he's put into stressful situations that increase his anxiety, especially social situations, he can begin to mentally shut down, and if the techniques for coping with his anxiety don't work, and he becomes to stressed, he can become very prone to full on meltdowns. Fortunately this is usually pretty rare, as he has minor coping mechanisms, usually internally, that help him to handle his stress and keep him in check, and some of this has worked to dull the edge and quick temper that have come with becoming a werewolf.

## SKILLS

Jessie isn't a huge bookworm, and as a student goes, he can be lazy at times, but he does have some book smarts. Especially in certain fields he's interested in, like certain sciences, life sciences, biology, etc, and some lower level maths, which he put some extra effort into. He certainly was smart enough to graduate high school with honors and get through a full year of college with a 4.0 GPA.

One of the skills Jessie learned and trained in for years was archery. During his time out in the woods he learned how to shoot a bow and arrow, and also a crossbow, compound bows, etc. He's a decent shot, able to hit a moving target from a reasonable distance, though he's no expert. He can hit a stationary target from a much further distance, of course, but the further away he is, the harder it will be for him to hit a moving target, and the less chance of making the shot. At close ranges the shot is almost guaranteed, depending on speed.

This is Jessie's one true calling in life, the thing he is the most passionate about. He asked for a drawing set for Christmas when he was 3. At first it was just drawing, then, as he got older, painting. Because of this being the thing he has put the most time into, combined with him simply being a prodigy when it comes to this, he makes absolutely beautiful works, mainly when it comes to drawing and painting, though with less effort put into pottery and sculpting.

As someone who enjoys nature and peace for more than just its artistic value, he picked up meditation not long after entering high school. He's not very good at it, but he can, and has, used it to help him get through stressful situations and rough patches in his life.

Having taken multiple hiking trips to study, document, and paint various forms of nature, in various places, Jessie has also learned to how to survive on his own in the woods. He's only taken a few trips in specific areas in Washington State, so his skills are fairly limited, and only apply if he has some supplies, but given some smart thinking he could probably make do with less than he ever had to before in a pinch.

Jessie is from the generation immediately following the Millennials. As such, he is no stranger to technology, and has had it around his whole life. However, he started taking an interest in how things worked in middle school. It's not what he ultimately wants to do as a career, but he has the knowledge and experience to at least rival a level 1, possibly even a level 2 tech support IT person, and ultimately it was what he was going to college for before being turned, at the very strong encouragement of his parents.

## ABILITIES

Children of the Moon are famously able to transform into more bestial shapes, gaining various special traits and abilities based on their current form. With training, they learn to perform partial-shifts, such as manifesting claws or fangs while otherwise remaining in human form. By default, Children of the Moon of this type are able to manifest a variety of forms, ranging from the "Wolfman" form, essentially human but with fangs and claws; the "Man-Wolf" form, or war form, which resembles a massive, bipedal wolf; the "Direwolf" or enormous, primeval wolf form; and the ordinary "Wolf" form. The special traits that their various forms provide are detailed in other power entries.

Children of the Moon can easily intimidate weaker-willed beings simply by making their eyes glow and growling or snarling towards them. The Children naturally give off a predatory aura, which is especially effective against mundane animals, who tend to recognize a Child of the Moon as dangerous, thus leaving them alone rather than troubling them.

The resiliency of this type of Child of the Moon allows them to endure non-lethal wounds from personal weaponry such as swords, shotguns, or even rifles without significant loss of ability. Minor wounds heal almost instantly, and even more severe wounds will heal within a few days at most.

In their "wolfed out" forms, Children of the Moon of this type have sharp fangs and claws. These are able to carve through stone and steel, and their bite's pressure is able to shatter bone and tear flesh easily.

Children of the Moon of this variety are much tougher, stronger, and more agile than an average human, able even to twist and bend solid metal, smash through most structures short of armored or strongly-reinforced materials, and break through solid walls of cement or brick with moderate effort. They can resist substantial amounts of damage, especially blunt force trauma, and emerge either unscathed or with only minor injuries. Especially when "wolfed out," and specifically when running on all fours, they can easily outrun most mundane opponents. They also possesses superior agility, able to catch arrows in midair with moderate effort and, with a little luck, even dodge projectiles like bullets. This enables them to leap much higher and farther than an average human, as well as giving them the ability to bounce off walls and tumble like a skilled gymnast.

The senses of this type of Child of the Moon are enhanced far beyond the ability of any average human. They can hear things like a person's heartbeat and tell if they are nervous and possibly lying and clearly hear the murmur of a quiet conversation several rooms away. They can see over long distances and also possesses excellent night vision. Through scent, they can track a person, even if the trail is days old; they can also isolate specific individual scents in a larger group.

## ADVANTAGES

Jessie is an artist. This means that he tends to be focused on things he can paint, and can usually spot details most would miss. Even before his transformation he could do this, and the enhanced vision that being a werewolf provides only makes it easier to do so. He can also do this in other instances, spotting where someone moved a little bit of dirt on a rock which may indicate something is hidden, spotting small cracks in a stone wall that reveal an otherwise perfectly hidden door, etc. He can't necessarily always make the connections, and these are things any normal person could see if they looked, but he has just gotten very good at spotting them in an effort to make his art as detailed as possible.

Jessie had a minor curiosity in occultism during high school. He never truly knew if it was actually real or not before he was bitten, but he met a nice woman who ran a shop, a real witch, as it turns out. She was happy to share some of her knowledge and ofer help or advice if he needed it, which means he has some knowledge of occultism and some minor forms of magic, though no knowledge of how to actually use them, or experience using them. He also has a contact in the case he needs any help regarding occultism, though she won't prove too useful in cases outside of her field of expertise and regarding any other forms of supernaturals, vampires, werewolves, demons, etc, not apart from base knowledge, anyway.

## WEAKNESSES

Because of Jessie being turned into a werewolf, he started having weird things happen, ultimately leading to him transforming on the full moon. He was fortunate enough not to have hurt anyone, but the experience left his family in shock and fearful. As a result, they asked him to leave until he could control it, and temporarily cut all ties with him, leaving him homeless, with little more than the clothes on his back and what he could fit into a backpack. Now, they keep him at arms length, for their own safety, and will not help him in any way, shape, or form. The message has also spread to extended family, not just those at home, and as a result, absolutely no one from his family will aid him in any way.

Mountain ash, when activated, creates a barrier against most supernatural creatures. Children of the Moon cannot generally penetrate such a barrier, nor can they create one.

Jessie is a little shy around strangers, and even more so when put into situations with a lot of people, or when he thinks a lot of people are watching him. He can be very self-conscious, and ultimately make more mistakes because of this than he would otherwise. On the other end of the spectrum, he can be very enthusiastic and excited, as well as more relaxed with people he knows and is comfortable with, though he may still refrain from doing or saying certain things, or completely expressing his opinion, out of fear of judgement.

Wolfsbane is a poisonous plant that is especially dangerous to Children of the Moon. When introduced into a Child of the Moon's system in relatively low doses, such as would harm another form of werewolf, it will act like a potent psychotropic drug or narcotic. This tends to render them fairly harmless due to being too debilitated to act. However, in larger doses, it may become highly toxic and deadly, in the manner that one could overdose on any other form of drug.

Jessie Anderson was born to two very loving parents in June of 2001. He grew up...mostly a normal kid, and, at a very young age, developed a love for drawing. This wasn't just normal kid drawing and having fun, though, he did it, and he was good at it, and enjoyed it. He asked for a basic art set, mainly just more tools to draw with, no paints yet, for his 4th Christmas, and got it.

From then on he continued to draw, and always, always loved to be outside, either playing, or, a lot of times, just relaxing, and drawing. He developed a love of drawing pictures of things in nature, trees, grass, he drew landscapes, and his work was, even at that time, fairly detailed.

Although he did enjoy playing with toys like other kids, art was the thing he loved the absolute most, and he'd asked for a paint kit for his 10th birthday, and got it. From then on, he started painting, and his work only improved. All through elementary and middle school, his art continued to improve, and he also started reading a lot. He lost interest in playing with toys eventually, and was either reading, painting, spending time outside, or playing video games, which were somewhat rare for him.

He'd started to develop an interest in technology toward the end of middle school, when he was 12 and 13. It couldn't rival the passion he had for his artwork, but it did make his parents happy, because it presented a possible viable career, at least, in their eyes, they didn't believe he would be able to make it just selling art, which is what he wanted to do.

When he entered high school, he also decided to start investing more time in nature. He learned to camp, learned archery for hunting, learned how to survive in the woods, basic survival, anyway, and started taking hiking trips. At first his father would accompany him, but he didn't enjoy it very much. So, he eventually, once satisfied, allowed Jessie to go on his own. Jessie would first start spending weekends away, in the woods, documenting and painting nature in its truest forms, but for spring break of his Freshman year of high school, he took a week long hiking and camping trip all on his own. Over the summer he took multiple 2 week trips by himself.

These trips continued all throughout high school, and each time, he would come back with a sketchbook loaded with new drawings, the best of which he would then paint. Unfortunately, hiking trips weren't the only thing that started happening. He had always been a bit less social, introverted, even as a child, but the older he got, the more it became apparent he had some social anxiety problems. Meeting too many strangers at once, especially if he was on his own, or in a situation where he was unsure of what to do, could potentially make him panic, or even completely melt down in the absolute worst cases. Unfortunately there was not much the doctors could do about it apart from proscribe medications, which his parents were adamantly against. So, he learned to manage, and got better at managing it over time. It never went away, but he got a grip on it, and learned ways to help keep it in check.

He maintained good grades all throughout high school, and ended up graduating with honors at the end of it. He wanted to immediately start looking for ways to sell his art and get his name out there to do commissioned work, but his parents would not allow him to do this. Instead, they more or less forced him to go to college in IT, which was the only field he had skills in that his parents believed would actually allow him to make money and be able to support himself. They told him that he had to have a "real job" in order to be successful, and claimed that art did not fit that category. This started causing tension between him and his parents, as, although they never directly criticized his art, he knew they didn't approve as much as he'd thought they did when he was younger.

He did his best to push forward with college, somehow maintaining a 4.0 GPA through his first year, even though it was mostly Gen Ed classes, not ones that would apply to his skills. He didn't want to go back the next year, but his parents were extremely unwilling to budge regarding that, he would go back, he would continue his degree, and then he could either decide to attempt to get a job with what qualifications he had or choose to continue on for another two years, but he was going into a career in IT as long as he lived there at their house. Unfortunately, he had nowhere else to go. They would fund his college, but wouldn't fund for him to live in student housing, and he wasn't able to make any money to fund it himself, since his parents wouldn't let him sell his art, and he had no other qualifications to speak of, nor the desire to get a job.

Then, disaster struck. He completed his first year of college in early May of 2020. He decided to celebrate by going on a simple camping trip, he would only be gone a few days. Leave Tuesday the 5th, return Friday the 8th, possibly Saturday or Sunday, depending on what he found. He took his sketchbook with him, as always, but wasn't sure if he would end up drawing anything to paint, he was taking this trip to relax. What he didn't know was the significance of the full moon that fell on that Thursday, or the dangers it posed. Sure, he'd met a friendly witch, who he didn't know was a real witch, at an occultism shop, sure, he thought the occult was kinda cool, but he didn't think it was actually real. He was proven very, very wrong.

That Thursday night, he was up late, past midnight, the fire was dull, almost out, but he knew he was going to bed soon, no need to restock it, when the terrifying howling began. It wasn't that far away, he'd heard wolves howl, but something felt different about this. It sent chills down his spine, but he was alone. No way to call for help, no one anywhere nearby who would be able to even if he could, no way he could outrun a wolf if it came for him. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. The attack was...pretty brutal, the wolf was bigger than a normal wolf, and it didn't seem quite...right, though he couldn't think about that too much. He was being clawed, bitten, everything, though the wolf didn't actually kill him. His clothes were torn to shreds, and he was left unconscious.

When he awoke, something wasn't right. There were absolutely no marks on his body, anywhere. If it hadn't been for the torn clothes and the vivid memories, he'd think it was all a dream. He was too shocked to notice all the other things that weren't right at that moment, but he decided to pack up and go home early, after using the remains of his clothes to start a new fire to make his breakfast, don't let anything go to waste, little did he know those could be very valuable evidence later.

He returned home later that evening and tried to explain what had happened to him in the woods. But his parents didn't believe him, there were no bite marks, and he'd gotten rid of the shredded clothes that morning, they'd made starting that fire considerably easier than having to gather kindling. No one else would believe him either, and over the next month, he became an outcast, a freak, people claiming he was hallucinating, etc.

But that wasn't the only thing that was going on over that month. He began to notice strange things. The first thing he noticed was that he suddenly had muscles. Before, he was very skinny, not underfed, just a fast metabolism, though he never had much muscle to speak of, since he didn't exercise too much. Sure, he was a hiker, so he had some upper and lower body strength, but it was nothing to write home about. But suddenly, he had abs, he had muscles in his arms, and especially legs. he was built like a runner who did some weight lifting on the side, and he couldn't figure out why.

Next was his senses. He found he could hear things out of the normal human range of hearing, he could hear things much further away, and also things that were normally too quiet to be heard by human ears. What was going on?

Then, the sense of smell. He could smell things about humans that he never could before, and toward the end of the month, was starting to learn that he could identify every human by their unique scent, though he wasn't trained enough to pick out scents in a large crowd.

And finally, the eyesight. His vision became even clearer than it already was, and combined with his knack for being able to spot details that most humans would gloss over, it didn't take long for him to figure out he could use this to make his art even better. Not only that, but he could see at night, without a light source, perfect night vision. What on Earth was happening?

Finally, the full moon of June came. He had felt unexplainable anger leading up to it, and that day, all of his repressed emotions, his newfound anger, among other things, finally exploded in a violent argument with his parents about them not liking his art, him not wanting to continue down his career path, among other things. There was no physical fighting, thankfully, but the argument was rather, well, heated would be an understatement. It resulted in his parents kicking him out and deciding not to fund his college anymore, telling him, if he thought he could make it, then they'd let him, on his own.

He didn't know what had gone wrong following the argument, but that night was his first transformation. He was fortunate enough to be away from his parents, and really any other people at the time, and when he woke up the next morning, not knowing what had happened, but realizing he had turned into the same monster that had made him what he was, he was thankful his parents had kicked him out and weren't hurt or worse by him. He didn't have any blood on him, so he had assumed he'd killed no one. From then on he decided he would distance himself from not only his parents, but his other friends, who had already cast him out for being a freak, given the things he was telling them leading up to this event, and also any other family he had, for their own safety. That left him on his own, no money, no job, just whatever he could fit into a backpack and the clothes he was wearing, homeless, no family, and no friends, a monster.

Logs featuring Jessie Anderson:

* 2020.08.03 - Cutscene: No Pain, No Gain