Luke

Luke is a human and the protagonist of Shelter.

## Background

A few years ago, while Luke was travelling for unclear reasons, he was saved by Burry, and the two of them found the place that later came to be known as Shelter. He can be considered a part of the personnel in charge of the place, with Burry (and sometimes him) in charge of anything food-related, Rune in charge of security and training, Max in charge of the more social aspect, and him in charge of analysing the relics the dogs find during their explorations.

## Personality

Luke is a rather friendly person that gets along well with his friends and doesn't mind their quirkiness too much; however, because of how different humans and canines are, he is, both body- and social-wise, insecure about being a human. He wishes he wasn't a human because it would make being understood less complicated. After years of being silently ostracized, he apparently feels like rotting within and considers his hope of making other friends to be a delusion; however, he doesn't want to be seen as a victim, so he chooses his role in Shelter out of his own volition. He envies his canine friends for their Empathy magic. He has a great fascination for magic, and can be considered a rather talented magic-user in comparison to the majority of Shelter inhabitants. He is fascinated especially by old technology.

Luke shares traits with his 3 friends: Burry's wisdom to some extent, Max's own general behavior, and Rune's playfulness and, more rarely, his horniness.

## Magical abilities

**Magical prowess:** Luke is one of the best magic-user of Shelter alongside Rune, Burry, Alon and probably Max. He was trained mainly trained by Burry and although his theorical knowledge is lacking in comparison to the saint-Bernard, his application of said knowledge is top-notch.

* **Mana vision:** Luke, as a human, has the racial gift of mana vision, which allow him once activated to perceive visually mana as colorful light, each type of mana having a different color. This racial gift seem to be peculiarly straining for him however.
* **Mana flow control:** Luke has a good control of the flow of mana on his body. While it failed given the tremendous discharge, he attempted to avoid his heart when he channeled the turret mana in order to avoid damage.
* **Foreign mana usage:** Luke display great skill at using foreign mana, not only because of training but the innate flexibility that human have when it comes to using foreign mana. In Shelter, he is one that displayed the greatest versatility when it comes to using racial gifts. He also gain the sensorial abilities of the species he absorbed mana of, something far more noticeable for him given humanity rather weak sensorial abilities compared to other race.
	+ **Empathy:** Using canine mana, Luke can sense presences around him and people’s emotions.
		- **Pack mentality:** Luke can perform pack mentality those he is comfortable enough. In the various route, he displayed pack mentality with Rune(although the latter gave him free reign in reality), Max and Burry in his route. He can also perform a sort of “mind link” with those he is less familiar with such as Diesel, allowing thoughts to pass but without coordination.
	+ **The seal**: Luke has apparently the greatest affinity with rodent mana, allowing him to access the seal, a pocket dimension where he can store objects.
	+ **Gravity nullification:** Luke can use avian mana to escape gravity, something he does in every route at some point.
	+ **Strength enhancement**: Luke used at some point ungulate mana to enhance his strength, and use it to fight on equal ground with monsters.
	+ **Structural weakening:** Using Feline mana, Luke can weaken the structure of object, making them brittle. He use it against a monster to bash its head in.
	+ **Healing**: Luke used saurian mana to heal, and does so to heal some minor injuries over the various route.

·       **Spellcasting:** Luke is a very descent spellcaster because of his innate fexibility and displayed various ember.

* **The unbreakable echelon:** an avian-canine ember that can teleport people near their allies. Luke use it to warp the knife holding avian mana into Burry paw.

* **Garden of the gods**: a complex ember supposed to create a large illusions based on someone psyche, used for “epiphany and stuff” according to him.

* **Chainbreaker:** a spell using feline and rodent mana to free himself from a monster grasp.

* **Howling echoes(through Rune):** Luke doesn’t use this ember by himself but when Rune use it he can be possessed by the spirit of Moon, a reincarnating warrior that has vast skills in magic and has two spectral yet tangible gears, a shield and a sword. It manifest as red canine-shaped aura around him.

## Trivia

* Not much is known about his past, but he had a father he hope to meet once more through the fame gathered by Shelter, wanting to make him proud. Its appear to be him that pushed Luke toward north, while somewhere else it indicated that it is vague hunches that led him toward Shelter. Aslo, Thistle apparently has around the same age.

* When Max shouted at Teak, he says that there is no other human, altough he later come back on his word quickly saying they might be others. How human died out is unclear, and why Luke is indeed here if they are supposedly extinct is unknown.

* He and Burry have a friend-with-benefit relationship. During his game night at the bath, he says he and Burry shared a bed naked before even exchanging words.

* He apparently saw all of his friends naked once, and has kissed them all at one occasion each at least.

* He is a rather bad cook, as he apparently(to his own words) suceeded at burning things he thought was impossible to burn. However, Burry attempts to teach him and he suceeded once in making foods, and he does so in Burry route, preparing meat sauce.

* He doesn't have any problem with fighting monsters, but cutting the Shelter-produced meat make him squeamish, something he end up leaving for Burry to do during the latter's route.

* He is the only one that has acess to Shelter turret, and is the one in charge of appraising artifact. Because he needs to stay in the control room during the entire events, he cannot participate in Sky ablaze in normal circunstances.

* Despite the low view he has of himself, he is the one that reached out to all of the other dateable characters and made them change in one way or another, altough in each route he seem to have forgotten exactly how. While he may think he has trouble connecting with the other dogs, he is the one that made his friends change the most, when you compare their former mindset to their current one, as Max became very social, Rune left his post for Shelter and Burry apathy receeded. On record, the first of his friends he ever "saved" (acording to their words) is Burry.

* He always dreamt of opening a tavern, something he got to do as he founded Shelter.

* In terms of magical skills, he probably can be considered the second best magic user in all Shelter after Burry, as while Canines are more gifted than him at empathy, he has experience in using ambers and using other racial abilities, as well as a good amount of theorical knowledge, enough to give a lecture to Rune's sword class. As a human ,he has a natural fexibility when it comes to interracial magic.

* The first kiss he received from someone from another species was a lion.
* Luke apparently has a distinctive smell, described as very manly by Rune and when he and Luke were fooling around, Rune says that the dogs will definitively be able to smell him before seeing him. That fact seems to annoy him more than anything.
* Luke is used as the vessel of Noon Moon twice during Rune's route, the first during Luke combat against monsters on the roof and the second time if Luke top Rune at the end.