FACECLAIM: Woo Jiho (Zico), block b

APPEARANCE:

Jiho strongly resembles his faceclaim in appearance. The only big differences in his form are caused from his condition. He has difficulty maintaining a perfect human form; he has a bad habit of growing and shedding feathers when frightened or nervous. He gets particularly apprehensive when around strangers or in a strange place. For this reason, Jiho prefers to wear jackets that have an excess of feathers or dark fur attached to them, so if he does lose any of his own feathers when in public, he looks less suspicious. He feels “exposed” in certain situations if he doesn’t have a hood to throw on, and rarely goes out in public without one unless he’s feeling more confident that day. He is always comfortable when out on his boat, and is therefore in better control of his shapeshifting and free to wear less concealing clothing. Though his clothes serve a purpose, Jiho owns a lot of fancy clothes for a fisherman, and considers himself to be quite stylish. He has two types of outfits; dark and large clothing for public outings, and “work clothes” for more relaxed activities, like fishing.

Despite spending a lot of time out at sea and under the sun, Jiho’s skin is rather pale. He doesn’t get sunburned very often, though, and it’s really hard for him to get a tan. His hair is a very whitish pink. It’s somewhat on the short side, but appears quite fluffy. At a distance, you might even mistake his hair for feathers due to the way it clumps together. He appears to be a skinny, frail, goofy asian boy, but he is surprisingly strong and muscular for someone of his body shape. Jiho’s eyes can fluctuate between normal human eyes and vulture eyes; his eyes are one part of his shapeshifting that he can control more easily, but getting nervous will still prompt his eyes to change involuntarily. When his eyes shift, he also gains the vulture’s nictitating membrane. The membrane is a second eyelid that closes sideways, and makes Jiho’s eyes appear to be solid white when it is fully closed. Vultures usually pull this membrane back when digging into carcasses. When Jiho involuntarily closes his nictitating membrane, it usually is a predatory instinct. This indicates that he either wants to feed/hunt, or he is attempting to intimidate his prey.

During his time spent as a slave, Jiho was branded with a black tattoo that covers his chest. The brand served as an indicator to point out slaves, and also carries some magical properties that make the recipient more obedient. The brand itself looks similar to the symbol for infinity, with one arrow in each loop pointing inwards, two small swirls centered above and below the main symbol, and one dot to the left and right of the top swirl. The symbol represents suppression and weakness, and Jiho usually does his best to cover at least the majority of the mark when in public. Most people wouldn’t recognize this particular symbol as more than a fancy tattoo, but those experienced in the slave trade may recognize the symbol even if it is partially exposed.

Jiho’s full vulture forme puts normal White-Rumped vultures to shame. Normally 5’ 9”, Jiho grows to a 6’ 4” monstrous bird creature when fully transformed. His arms are replaced with wings that are proportionally larger than normal to support a bird of his size. I could describe what a White-Rumped vulture looks like, or I could just post a cool picture instead.

BIOGRAPHY:

He was a normal boy born into a wealthy family in South Korea. As a child, he was never too interested in the sophisticated lifestyle his parents pushed on to him. He would often opt to run away and hide when required to dress up and attend formal gatherings. In fact, he was never too keen social gatherings in any form, as most of the people he would be forced to interact with were dull and uptight. The middle son of three children, he was often overlooked, though whether he wanted to be acknowledged at all was a different story. His older brother was a proper son, and everything his parents wanted him to be. He spent little time with his brother; as most of their “bonding” experiences were underhanded attempts by his mother to make them the children she wanted them to be. He never got along with his brother too especially; he would always prefer to goof around when his brother was always reserved and polite to everyone, except him. His father genuinely loved him, but still desired him to act a certain way and have certain interests. The harder they pushed for him to act one way, the more he rebelled. He grew to hate others trying to control him, force him to have proper posture, or conform to their way of life. He would often run off and watch the clouds. As boring as it was for other children his age, watching the clouds drift through the sky was relaxing and detaching for him. He loved the way they slowly wafted by; it was on his worst days that he would go off to watch them and forget about his cumbersome family. More than anything in the world, he wanted to be free.

By the age of twelve, he was fed up with his life, and saw no pleasant future with his family. He spent a lot of his time away from home goofing around on the streets, often to his parents’ dismay. He mentally prepared himself for a life on his own, packed his essentials, and never looked back. He swiped a moderate chunk of his parents’ money, only an amount that he thought was enough for him to get started; he wasn’t greedy. The only thing in his mind was to get as far away from his family as possible, and with the entire world in front of him, he set left his high-end house one last time.

But he never could have prepared himself for what would happen next.

He hadn’t a clue where he was going; he was just a child. He continuously travelled for eight or nine days, ignored the numerous calls coming from the mobile phone that his parents bought for him, and depleted the majority of the snacks he packed for himself. He wandered into a shady part of an unfamiliar town with the hopes of purchasing some food. He was dumb enough to expose a large number of bills when he went inside a local foodstore. The clerk pay him no mind and sold him some snacks, but he caught the eye of a group of thugs sitting at a table outside. The look on the boy’s face was clearly worn with confidence, but he stood out like a sore thumb in this town. They watched him through the glass facade of the building, and followed him for a few blocks as he looked over a map he purchased a few days ago. They pulled him into an dark alley and quickly overpowered him. They knocked him unconscious and took all of his money. This was more than they had ever robbed from anyone, and they got the wicked idea to get more. They noticed his fancy phone and other expensive belongings upon raiding through his bag, and took him to their gang’s hideout; a run-down warehouse. They tied the boy to a chair and blindfolded him, and with the number they took from his phone, they called his parents. Their boss demanded a large amount of money for the boy’s safe return. The call was close enough to his chair that he could hear the boss’s half of the conversation, and his heart sank when he heard the man get upset. He couldn’t see a thing, but he could tell exactly what was going on. He heard loud noises that echoed throughout the warehouse, like someone throwing over a table. The boss hung up angrily, and the boy knew exactly what that meant; his parents turned down the ransom. It sounded like something his mother would’ve said; he was always more trouble than he was worth. Why would they spend an obscene amount of money to get their least obedient child back? They probably could adopt a better one for that price. But it didn’t even sound like they tried to negotiate for a lower price. Even though he was the one who walked on out them, he was heart-broken, and through his crying he could hear people walking over to him. Someone kicked his chair over and he fell to the concrete ground. The last thing he felt was something blunt striking him in the head. He blacked out.

He had no idea how many days he was tied to that chair. At first, he woke up every so often and would drift back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. Whenever he would wake up, his entire body felt like it was on fire. The pampered child had never experienced pain to this degree before, and he still couldn’t see. The pain would be too much to bear and he would black out on his own. Sometimes he would struggle to break free, and if he struggled for too long, someone would hit him again. He heard conversations about selling him to people in the far west, China maybe? He couldn’t hear them perfectly. They fed him sparsely, enough to keep him alive, and were actually polite enough to untie him when he had to use the bathroom, though the blindfold always stayed. He could barely stand at these times, let alone run away. After an amount of time that felt like months, they threw him into the back of a car, and drove off. From the conversations he heard, there were only two people in the car with him, and it did in fact sound like they were pawning him off to some slavers from another country. He struggled as much as he could, but was never able to break free. There was some irony in this situation, but he was too distracted to notice such things. In an attempt to free himself from his family’s strict lifestyle, he tasted freedom for only a few days, only to find himself in the worst position he had ever been in with regards to his freedom. He had been sold into slavery.

The car ride was shorter than he expected, then he was forcefully pulled out of the car and into something else. He could hear people talking in a language he couldn’t understand. Moments later, he hear a loud rumbling sound. He had been thrown onto a plane of some kind, from the sound of it. The plane flew him overseas, then he found himself back in a car. This drive was considerably longer, and lasted for quite a few days. About halfway through, his blindfold was finally removed. The sunlight was both a relief and unbearable, but he couldn’t understand anything that these people were saying. He had no idea where he was. The car that he was riding in was in really bad shape, and the people that were with him now appeared to be Chinese. At the end of the drive, he found himself at a shabby looking coal mining village in a dry area. There was a forest to the south and a vast expanse of sand to the north. There were a large number of people in tattered clothes quietly walking around that were likely slaves, and several other people that appeared to be guards. A large crater was next to the town, and he could see several entrances to tunnels at the bottom. He noticed that all the slaves had the same mark on their bodies, men had it on the chest, and women had it on the back. Within a day, he too was given the mark of a slave. They placed a searing brand to his chest that was lighted in a purple fire. The brand was forced upon his bare chest, and it hurt like hell. He screamed for about fifteen minutes straight, and his chest felt like it was being torn apart for about an hour after. He was given a healing potion of some kind and another day to recover, then he was immediately put to work in the mines.

He worked obediently among the other slaves, and it wasn’t long before he began to notice that the guards were very few and far between. He and the rest of the slaves were shackled at the ankles to prevent them from running, but in no other way were they restrained. Escape attempts were surprisingly infrequent considering these facts, and most escapees were caught and came back with little struggle. To his knowledge, no one ever succeeded in leaving during his time there. He wanted to leave. He desperately wished to be in the restrictive arms of his mother and father at this point. He would rather be anywhere else, and this time, his feelings were more than justified. The mines were dark, and sometimes he would spend weeks at a time without ever seeing the sun. He was in constant pain; working without rest would push him to his limits, and any time he would cease his labor, his break would quickly be interrupted with a swift and painful stimulant from one of the guards. His captors and fellow slaves taught him how to speak Chinese so he could understand and follow orders, but the consolation of learning a second language was negligible. It wasn’t long before he learned of his location; the mine was located on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northern China, over two thousand kilometers away from his old home. He grew stronger from constant manual labor, but it did him little good outside of work. Any attempts he made to escape were accompanied with pain from the guards and loud commands to return to work. As much as he wanted to leave, as much as he wanted to die, he would always do what they told him. He noticed that if a long amount of time passed without someone telling him to keep working, his actions became his own again. He was never this obedient with his parents, and though the torture was a decent incentive to work, he had always took pride in his ability to ignore being told what to do. He hated these people that forced him to mine coal; he hated them more than he ever thought he could hate anything. Why was he acting so passively? He suspected that it had to be that mark on his chest, and after asking the other slaves, he was able to confirm is suspicions. He was marked with a curse that made him follow orders without question. He spent his life as a slave secretly learning how to repress the spell. It took years of practice. He started by convincing himself that mining and working was his own choice, and though the voices in his head never went away, he became better at ignoring them. He waited a long time for his opportunity; he memorized the guards’ shifts and their routines. He noticed his best chance was to flee under the cover of night. Every escape attempt he had seen or tried previously was to run towards the forest, and no one ever succeeded. This time, he planned to flee to the desert. Freedom was all he ever wanted, and it would take more than a small curse and some shackles to hold him back.

He was 17 now; five years had passed since he ran away from home. This time, leaving would be significantly harder than just walking out the front door. There was a certain day of the weekend when the guards were spread unusually thin, and he was assigned to work one night at the bottom of the crater shoveling coal into mining carts. There was only one guard, and he appeared to be quite distracted. There were only two other slaves with him. This was his chance. When the guard was looking down, he threw a small stone up the edge of the cliff behind the man. The guard turned to look up at the noise, and all it took was a swift pickaxe to the back of the head. He had spent his whole life swinging at stones with all his might, so a human skull was no challenge for him. The other two slaves were scared, but before they could scream, all it took was for him to yell at them to get back to work. He donned the guard’s shirt to look less suspicious from a distance, and made his way up the quarry. It wasn’t long before the body was found, and guards were immediately sent to check the forest. Security was spread even more due to the search, but no one expected him to still be hiding in the village, much less the warden’s house. Fortunately for him, a new batch of slaves had been introduced earlier that day, so the curse brand was still warm. He snuck into the warden’s house; apparently none of the guards had bothered to wake him. He gagged the warden to muffle the bloodcurdling screams that would follow, and struck him with the brand. After about twenty minutes to let the pain subside, he demanded the warden unlock his shackles, and he predictably did as he was told. His plan was a success; the guards were frantically searching the perimeter of the village, but not a single one was watching the desert. It was still dark enough, and under the cover of a nearly full moon, the boy fled to the vast expanse of sand before him. He had escaped hell; he was free again.

As one might expect, the desert is a hell of its own. He wasn’t stupid, but he would have preferred to risk death than to live as a slave any longer. He made it respectably far, farther than most other people would have, but the distance mattered very little with the direction he was heading. Over time, he lost the strength to do more than limp. As he grew weaker, he began to attract an audience. Cinereous vultures began to stalk him; they would land several meters away and stare intently at the boy. He despised their quiet, judgemental faces. He scared them off multiple times, but they kept coming back, and their numbers grew each time they returned. After a few days, he collapsed under the heat of the sun. He was strong, but his strength was spent. He tried to get up, but his arms couldn’t lift him, and he could no longer feel his legs. He gazed up at the clouds like he did when he was a child. He could see them drifting by, carefree as always, though there were very few of them in the desert sky. The sun pushed him down; he felt as if he was melting away in the sand. The vultures began to silently land around him. He could see more circling above him in the sky. As they began to pick and pull at his limbs, he could do little to resist. They only managed to make a few tears here and there, but he felt little pain in his condition. The birds crowded around him, providing a small amount of shade, but before they could peck at him any further, a large shadow flew above them. The boy could hardly make it out as it flew over him, but it made a loud sound in the sand some distance to his right, and all the other vultures immediately looked up and stared off in that direction. He was dying, but still curious. He turned his head to his right to see another vulture. Yer this one looked very different from the others, and it was larger, much larger. Larger than a man, in fact. The giant bird stared at the boy with cold, white eyes, and after a moment, let out an ear-piercing scream that sent all the other vultures into a panic. They scattered away from the boy and the larger bird as quickly as they could, but sat some distance away and stared at the monster intently. The monster lumbered slowly to the boy, and paced around him only once. He didn’t have the strength to turn his head a second time, and shortly after the beast moved out of his line of sight, he felt a sharp pain above his left shoulder. This was the second worst thing he had ever felt, but considering the circumstances, it was more than enough to get him to pass out.

He woke up in a hole. He legs were cuffed together, and his arms were chained to a wall behind him. He was seated, and leaned back against the cold stone wall. He managed to find the strength to look up. There was a hole in the ceiling, lined with bars. It was the only light he had. The next thought that crossed his mind was pain. He was in so much pain. He managed to glance at his shoulder, and there was a considerable amount of blood involved. His body was covered in cuts and tears; everything hurt. At this point, he was used to being in excruciating pain; he didn’t care anymore. After about an hour, some water was lowered down to him, and some bread was thrown in front of his feet. He frantically swiped the bread and drank the water, then looked up at the source of the shadow that blocked out the sun. He recognized the uniform, and his heart sank. It was almost funny. His parents never even attempted to look for him, let alone pay off his ransom, but these slavers searched for him relentlessly. It made some sense; it was unlikely that they would let him off the hook after what he did to the warden and that other guard. He had no idea how they found him, or how he survived that long, but he really didn’t feel like asking. The sun was setting, and he was still weak. His spirit was broken. Despite his best efforts, he was stuck in a hole in the ground. He wanted to die, and from the way the guards above him were talking, that wish sounded like a real probability. Then the night came.

It was quiet. Everything was still. From his hole, he gazed to the sky with nearly lifeless eyes. Then his eyes lit up. His eyes were transfixed at the white ball amidst the stars; he couldn’t focus on anything else. It was calling out to him. He needed to be free. He HAD to get out. He was hungry, insatiably so. His stomach roared in desperation, and the roars soon rose from his mouth. He pulled at the chains on his arms, unable to break his gaze from the moon. It was full. He shrieked in desperation as he broke his restraints. Everything grew fuzzy as he broke the bars and rose from his pit, then into the sky. It felt like he was dreaming. He felt like a cloud.

He woke up in the morning. Everything was a blur. He slowly got to his feet, but his vision was still cloudy. He realized that he wasn’t in pain anymore, and he immediately reached for his shoulder. The wound was gone. In fact, all of his wounds were gone, but he was still covered in blood. As his vision returned, he came to the realization: that blood wasn’t his. There were black feathers littered all around him, and beyond those, bodies. He woke up in the middle of the mining village, and they were all dead. The guards, the slaves, everyone was gone. He wasn’t hungry anymore. He found his way to a mirror inside one of the houses. He looked at the sight before him. His hair was now white with a pink tint, but his body, his entire body was coated in blood. He fell to his knees and let out an appropriate scream. He lingered in this place for almost a week. He was free, but at what price? Nearly a hundred people were dead because of him, some deserved it, others didn’t. He managed to clean himself off and find some clean clothes. He took all of the slavers’ money that he could find, and he left.

With nothing better to do, the boy travelled throughout China for nearly a year, experiencing similar transformations during subsequent full moons. After another two lunar cycles, he went to great lengths to get as far away from people as possible and restrain himself during that dreaded night. He began to understand how to bring his form out on his own, as well as maintain control over it, with some margin for error. His behavior became increasingly bird-like, even when he was completely human. There were also uncontrollable urges to shift that existed outside of a full moon; he had a bad habit of shedding and growing feathers unwillingly, particularly when frightened or nervous. He learned how to transform at will, and one of his favorite things to do was fly. Nothing made him feel freer than flying among the clouds that he had envied for so long. He could fly anywhere in the world, and he felt more free than ever before. He had grown to detest people altogether, and preferred to avoid them whenever possible. The sky was a reliable escape from such a thing, and he liked to travel. After flying around Asia for another year, he settled down in Sunseong city. At the age of 19, he bought a small fishing boat and a cheap apartment with the money he took from the village. He always wanted to be a fisherman, and while Sunseong’s fishing industry wasn’t extremely profitable, he didn’t care. Jiho was free to make his own decisions, and he was perfectly content to settle here, at least for the time being.

Five years have passed, and Jiho has made a pleasant routine for himself. He lives alone in a small house by the sea in the Western district, and works on his boat catching fish to sell to the market. He knows all the good fishing spots around the area. Sometimes he’ll take tourists out on fishing trips for a reasonable price. He gets excited to have people on his boat, and will make his customers small bag lunches for free and give them out in the middle of longer trips. Jiho doesn’t make a lot of money, but he thoroughly enjoys fishing for a living. His current line of work also provides him with a steady source of food to satisfy his…cravings. He is almost exclusively carnivorous nowadays; fruits and vegetables taste like cardboard to him. Jiho has developed a taste for eating decayed meat, and will hang fish or steaks out on his seaside back porch to rot for a few days. He can eat meat raw or cooked, and he really likes beef jerky. Jiho really likes beef jerky. During the full moon, Jiho will take his boat far out to sea, and tie his legs to the boat very securely. He has not had any mishaps in a long time, and plans to keep it that way. Jiho has spent the majority of his free time alone, and he has been perfectly content in a solitary lifestyle. He will infrequently take vacations to fly away for some time; he can certainly afford to do so. He is doing very well. Jiho is happy.

CHARACTERIZATION:

Jiho is a sociable loner. His past experiences have left him biased against people in general, and even in spite of being a were, he prefers solitude over groups or packs. He is very slow to warm up to anybody, and has a bad habit of pushing people away who try to get closer to him. He is afraid people will take advantage of him. That all being said, Jiho has the potential to be really friendly at face value. Large groups of strangers and unknown places full of people tend to make him nervous, but in smaller groups, he isn’t afraid to speak up and have a good time. Just because he doesn’t care to make friends doesn’t mean he has to be rude all the time, right? Jiho is more comfortable in places that he is familiar with, like his home, the market, or his boat. Especially his boat. Jiho loves to talk about fishing, but he isn’t very knowledgeable on many other topics. Don’t expect any kind of pleasant answer if you try to ask him about his past. He is very touchy about it.

Jiho can speak Korean and Chinese fluently!

Jiho dresses in mostly dark clothes to deter people from approaching him. He doesn’t want to trust someone only for them to boss him around, and he is extremely paranoid about it. Though this fear is largely irrational, it’s quite difficult to convince him otherwise. In truth, Jiho just needs a hug, but he might be too jumpy for anyone to get that close.

Jiho hates to be restrained in any capacity. Whether it’s his childhood experiences that pushed him to seek freedom, his bird-like nature of refusing to be caged or tied down, or a combination of the two, Jiho won’t tolerate any sort of inhibition to his free will, with a particular distaste for chains, shackles, and cages. It is possible to trick Jiho with reverse psychology if one attempts to exploit this fear. He will do whatever it takes to keep his freedom; he has come too far to give it up now.

A vulture at heart, Jiho is really bird-like with his behavior. He is very alert and attentive, and therefore a great listener, when he wants to be. Jiho feels more comfortable in elevated locations; he has a habit of positioning himself on roofs or poles so he can see as much as possible, and this can usually calm him down. He can be distracted easily, but almost nothing catches him off guard. He can be a bit jumpy, and making him nervous will cause him to grow/shed feathers. Mostly the only things that make him nervous are large groups of people, being “caged,” or uncomfortable social situations. He wears fluffy or feathery coats to avoid suspicion. He isn’t really afraid of much else. Pain doesn’t really faze him anymore. He’s pretty edgy.

He’s a tough guy that is scared of making friends.

SPECIALTIES:

Enhanced Strength/Durability- RANK I (20 points)

Jiho has managed to tap into his inner giant buzzard, and is able to retain almost half of his Were’s strength at all times. He can put dents in stone walls with punches, and doesn’t receive any damage from doing so. He can easily lift up to 500 pounds, and struggles all the way up to roughly 800. When backed into a corner and appropriately frightened/angry, he can exert short bursts of greater strength. He has an iron grip that can exert up to 250 psi, which is almost enough to crush a watermelon, and twice as much force when in vulture form. Jiho’s skin can be pierced with only slightly greater effort than normal, but his bones are much stronger and less likely to break.

Shapeshifting- RANK I (20 Points)

Jiho has spent a respectable amount of time practicing his transformations. He can transform freely at will, though is unable to willingly transform with ease more than once or twice a day. Any subsequent transformations are possible, but each successive attempt becomes shakier and more difficult to maintain. He can call upon individual parts of his vulture form separately, particularly the eyes, talons, and wings. Jiho is capable of turning into a vulture form that is smaller than his 6’ 4” main form, though it is still almost twice as big as a normal vulture. Jiho can make vulture-like screams in his human form.

However, Jiho still does not have complete control over all of his transformations, and has a lot of trouble repressing a lot of his vulture-based instincts. He gets really nervous in large groups of people, and in an unconscious attempt to fly away, he will start to grow feathers like a normal person gets goosebumps. Any situation that makes him frightened or uncomfortable will instigate his “fight or flight” instincts, and he usually leans toward the latter. He also has a really bad habit of shifting his eyes without thinking about it, which includes the vulture’s nictitating membrane.

Enhanced condition (Agility)- RANK I (20 points)

Always alert, and hardly ever caught off guard, Jiho is fully aware of his immediate surroundings and able to dodge accordingly. He can easily get away from anything as long as he can see it coming. He can’t dodge bullets or anything crazy like that, but he can jump up to eight feet without help from his wings and he is really good at yoga! Jiho is, however, very jumpy. He is quite easily startled, much like a bird. His first instinct when sensing danger is to get out of harm’s way. The bulk of this ability is instinctive; he doesn’t normally move very fast on his own, though he is pretty good at parkour.

Healing factor- RANK II (40 Points)

Jiho is able to heal much faster than a normal human, or even a normal Were. Minor cuts and bruises will vanish within a day, and bleeding wounds close up much faster. Wounds that would take months to heal disappear in weeks. Healing speed increases when he is asleep, allowing him to cope more easily with greater wounds, though they don’t go away entirely. Jiho’s healing factor is accelerated considerably for a very short time whenever he undergoes a transformation in either direction; the drastic change of his form closes up more serious injuries, though the pain will still persist. He can use this to avoid further blood loss from larger wounds, but can’t regrow lost limbs or instantly heal broken bones. Other than accelerating during his transformations, Jiho’s healing speed is the same for any of his forms.

INNATE ABILITIES:

Flight (innate)

Jiho can turn his arms into wings and fly. He’s a bird sometimes. He can easily reach speeds of about 60 mph, but caps out at 80 mph with a lot of effort, and can’t maintain his top speeds for long distances.

Disease/Bacteria Resistance (innate)

As a part-time vulture, Jiho has developed a habit of consuming rotten meat. Vultures are capable of consuming decayed flesh with no negative repercussions, and Jiho is no different. Jiho’s stomach and intestines are lined with a toxic bacteria capable of breaking down rotten meat, even when he is in his human form. The inside of his mouth is also quite nasty; he’s never kissed anyone since he became a monster, and is understandably scared to try. He also never seems to get sick, though he isn’t entirely immune to everything.

Pain Tolerance (innate)

All of the injuries he suffered as a slave, including his branding, torture, and near death experience have given Jiho an above-average resistance to pain. It’s not like this makes him more durable; he’s just less likely to flinch when in pain, and won’t pass out from pain very easily anymore.

Enhanced senses (Sight and Smell)- RANK 0 (innate)

Being able to call upon the powers of a bird of prey, Jiho can see really far. His eyes can take a moment to adjust to see things from far away, but at his best, Jiho can see perfectly up to a mile away, and has diminishingly less accurate vision for almost another mile after. This works best when airborne. When focusing on long distances, Jiho’s close range vision is blurry and takes a short time to return to readjust. When using his vision abilities, his eyes are that of his vulture form. In normal circumstances, Jiho has perfect vision for about 200 yards, and has to activate his vulture eyes to see farther. His vision is in full force when fully transformed.

Jiho’s sense of smell is simultaneously more powerful and less impressive. He can always smell up to two miles away, but this only pertains to corpses. Jiho can smell death within this range if he’s looking for it, and will instinctively pick up on the stench of death within a mile of him. The older the corpse, the stronger the scent. Otherwise, Jiho’s sense of smell is only slightly more acute than a human’s. He can vaguely recognize individuals by their scent if he’s interacted with them before, and certain aromas are slightly stronger to him, though his range for anything other than corpses is no different than a normal person. Jiho’s sense of smell, unlike his enhanced vision, is always active.

Animal communication- RANK 0 (innate)

Bird boy can speak to birbs. Most birbs are afraid of him.

Minor Ward- Obedience (0 points)

Once he became a slave in China, Jiho was branded with a magic symbol that made him more submissive in certain situations. With this curse, he is more likely to follow orders when they are delivered from a domineering individual, and he is more susceptible to being manipulated. He’s become better at resisting it over the years, and obvious orders from people who are clearly trying to control him are easier to ignore for him now. However, socially manipulative and deceptive people will find that Jiho is easier to boss around if they aren’t obvious about it.

A better way to describe it, though not technically accurate, is that when given an order, or even a subtle suggestion, a thought is placed in Jiho’s head to carry out the task. He is more likely to perform the action if the order is delivered subtlely, though it needs to be obvious enough to be recognized as a command. People that are closer to Jiho, or people that he trusts, have an even easier time getting him to follow orders; he wouldn’t expect a friend to take advantage of him. He is fully aware of this weakness, though, and is therefore appropriately hesitant to trust anyone. For this reason, Jiho is excruciatingly slow to make friends with anyone, despite being an abnormally friendly person himself.

Most people wouldn’t recognize this curse at first glance, but to people who are familiar with human trafficking in Asia, the symbol is a dead giveaway. For this reason, Jiho will go to great lengths to make sure the mark on his chest in covered. People more familiar with wards, socially manipulative individuals, and other former slaves might be able to figure out his secret if they closely pay attention to his behavior.

The ward works primarily for physical actions; slaves weren’t really expected to talk much, so one can’t pull information from him this way or make him think differently. The ward, however, works just fine when sternly telling Jiho to shut up. He is less likely to perform tasks he wouldn’t of his own free will, but he is vulnerable to simple requests like opening a door if he isn’t paying attention. He starts to become suspicious if someone gives him too many orders in a short amount of time, and will watch out for that person in the future. It is VERY difficult to convince Jiho to transform, though not entirely impossible. This ward has less power when he is in his vulture form, and obviously has no power when he is under the effects of a full moon.