A weird concept that just won't leave me...

[IamLEAM1983]

Ever since playing Year Walk and noticing how dichotomous the Brook Horse is, I figured there'd be two entities associated with that loose moniker. Both are Fae and they're technically brothers à la Wilbur Whateley-and-his-invisible-brother, perhaps indicating some fuckery courtesy of the Others. I dunno.

One of 'em more or less looks like a standard horse anthro. He's got the palest skin imaginable for a horse, and a mane that's actually cut in a sort of prim-and-proper blond haircut. In lieu and place of eyes, he's got two glowing pits of light he tends to keep closed during the day and that he opens during the night, as these things are headlights-on-the-highway-at-2-in-the-morning bright. So, during the day, he sort of moves around like Jughead Jones; with his eyes closed and somehow able to do just fine. In keeping with my decidedly untraceable Victorian fetish, he's a true sir and wouldn't harm a fly. On paper, he maybe is some kind of Rare Books salesman, but he spends half his time out of his store... Now, why is that?

The other brother got hit pretty hard by the Eldritch Abomination ray, and exists as a kind of monstrous cross between a white horse, a bull's muscle structure, a snake in place of a tail and human hands instead of hooves. Horse Jughead is trying to do right by his brother while keeping him from drowning people or trampling them to death with his hand-hooves, so he frequently takes off whenever Eldritch Brother leaves his secret corral in the basement and uses his attunement with water to escape through the city's water supply. Insofar, Horse Jughead's spent centuries learning to predict his brother's patterns and knows fairly well how and when he goes looking for a new victim. Using his eye-lights in the cover of darkness, he tries to lead most, if not all of his brother's kidnapped people to their homes.

Eventually, Shield would confront him. Why didn't you call the cops, yadda yadda - but they'd receive a frustrating and yet understandable response: would you really want to betray your brother's trust if you were the only person who ever cared for him and treated him as a potentially decent person? Horse Guy would admit to having waited for someone like Shield to come along and to be grateful for them, as he just can't do anything about Horse-Hands Brother on his own. It's just too damn hard, even though he's bought a gun and a couple rounds way back when, but keeps chickening out of pulling a bullet in his brother's head.

How's that sound?

[Karl the Mad]

I dunno, bro. Seems a little too macabre, even for us. I say leave it in the bin.

[TennyoCeres84]

I don't see how it's more macabre than the stuff we roleplay, but the characters seem very similar in theme to Gammell. How would they otherwise differ?

[IamLEAM1983]

Aside from having to care for and rein in his monstrous brother, Horse Jughead Guy would be perfectly well-adjusted to society, mainly. No biological need to kill innocents, no repressed urges - nothing. Apart from the fact that he can't open his eyes in front of everyone unless they don't mind feeling like someone's flashing big, white surgical-table lightbulbs in their faces all damn day, the anthro brother's pretty fine. All he wants is to enjoy life for what he finds in it and maybe for his brother to some day get off his insistent hate of the outside world.

So the horse anthro brother has enough Fae blood to maybe pass his strangeness as your typical Winter oddity, which allows him to lead a fairly normal life and to usually be pretty content. He's not consciously creepy, maybe on the soft-spoken side of things and with a bit of that "lifelong bookworm" eccentricity that comes with never having watched TV or looked at a computer screen. He's happy and harmless on most days, feeling a bit like if you told True Blood's Eric Northman to play it Scrawny and Happily Nerdy, instead of brooding. Human-Hands-Horse brother has none of that, and doesn't get to experience everyday life. Even though he doesn't want to abuse his brother, Horse Anthro guy has to treat him like a potentially dangerous beast. Said beast resents him for that.

So, the Mutated Horse is basically saying "Let me be! Let me do my shit! I'm so peeved at not having the chances you have that I'm willing to endanger innocents and kill them to show just how desperate for a conflict resolution I happen to be!" whereas the anthro can't let him proceed in good conscience. He hears his brother's desperation and wishes he could act on it, but it's too hard for him to consider landing a mercy kill.