Lance Stone

Name: Lance Stone
Nickname: Stone, Lancer, Wild Card
Age: 98, but appears 25 due to slow aging.
Weight: 175 pounds
Height: Six feet, one inch

Eye color: Brown, but sometimes appears different shades depending on the light
Hair color: Light brown with sun bleached tips
Race: Addonexus (imbued human)
Residence: Wanders
Nationality: American
Affiliation: None currently
Occupation:Freelance bodyguard and assassin, Tarot readings on the side.



Play By: Luke Guldan




Appearance:
Lance stands tall and straight from years of building his body. He is a little vain about it and will wear tight or fitted clothing to show it off. Despite doing a lot of his work at night, Lance has a healthy complexion.

Personality:
To say Lance is conflicted is a huge understatement. His skills as a healer and as a killer leave him seriously confused. Whenever offered any kind of contract (protection or hit), Lance weighs the pros and cons of the job. His mind will justify either course of action and that scares him. Society dictates that taking a life shouldn’t be an easy task. One should do everything in one’s power to protect life. Lance can do both as though nothing matters. Something tells him it should matter, and so he looks to outside sources for input. He will do a Tarot reading on himself to help analyze the situation. He will more than likely just flip a coin and let ‘Fate’ decide.

It is ok if Lance drops the coin after he flips it so long as the coin’s fall is not obstructed. He will mulligan if it bounces off his leg or shoe since Fate was cheated. If someone else were to catch the coin or swat it from the air, there is a good chance that Lance will become hostile to that person. He is almost completely dependent on chance guiding his actions that he could go into a frenzy, a fact that his supervisors will tell his partners so that their desired outcome occurs. Once he commits to a flip, Lance will carry out that choice as best he can.

Lance earned the name Wild Card because he has to flip for anyone not included in the original briefing. For example, Lance is assigned to take out a crime boss and the wife comes in. He has to flip to determine if he kills the wife too, and the coin lands in her favor. The wife then calls her bodyguards and the police (who instantly appear for this example). Lance can try to escape or take out the people trying to get him. A flip will decide that for him along with which individuals to incapacitate. It is possible for Lance to ‘decide’ to take out one cop but not his partner, take out all the cops but leave the mafia alone (or vice versa), take out all of the mafia/cops, or leave everyone alone.

Aside from his disillusionment with society (see the history section below), Lance is actually a very pleasant guy to be around. He laughs and jokes and does normal human things. He doesn’t consider many people to be friends. They’re just going to die soon anyway; whereas, Lance hasn’t aged a day in the last seventy or eighty years.

Abilities:
Addonexus physiology: Lance stopped aging in his early twenties. It is unknown how long this effect will last. The constant turnover of cells to maintain this stage in his life does increase Lance’s natural healing. Bumps, bruises, and minor cuts are gone by the end of the day. More serious injuries don’t require as much time to heal. Lance is by no means immortal or impervious to injury, but the fact he has an Other's lifespan despite being human tends to infect how he interacts with everyone.

Orbing: A form of teleportation, Lance’s body dissolves into an energy cloud and zooms off to his desired location. The energy packets will be light or dark depending on if he is out to protect or kill someone respectively. It is not an instantaneous method of travel and so does not tire him out as much as teleportation would. However, Lance comes out of an Orb temporally disoriented. He carries anything on him and up to two other willing people currently in contact with him.

To orb successfully, Lance must be able to see the location she is moving to, or picture it clearly in his mind. Frequently visited areas are easy to travel to. Unlike a teleporter, an orber has a general sense of position in a location. He can freely shift his essence to an unoccupied space, but the strain on his energy reserves is greater. The danger lies in a panic orb. Lance reflexively orbs to a nearby location within sight. In a panicked state, he is more likely to miss hazards like furniture. He cannot reform where a solid object is and is shunted aside painfully which cause injuries. Trying to orb where a metal table is might give him a deep gash as if the metal slashed him. Orbing where a solid wall is might break his bones as if the wall had collapsed atop him.

Remote Orbing: Lance can redirect his ability to Orb onto another willing person or object. The target goes into a panic orb since it isn’t directed. He tends to use this on nearby items to turn them into improvised weapons or to disarm an opponent. If he is trying to orb a person, Lance just calls out the destination and concentrates. In terms of an object, he calls out the type of item as if saying a name. He can end the orb so that the object smashes into something or someone. There is also a wave gesture needed for this to work. Note – Using this ability on a player or that player’s NPC will only be done with the player’s permission.

Hover: A rarely used spell, Lance will hover over pressure plates and laser wires when setting up his surveillance equipment. It is too noticeable to be used regularly.

Sensing: This is like psychic scrying mixed with telepathy. Lance can attempt to locate a person with just his mind. The amount of time and energy required to find someone is directly proportional to the geographical distance separating them. Familiarity with the target reduces the necessary effort. Even though he has been Sensing for years, Lance is constantly aware of those around him and is always bombarded by the surface thoughts and emotions around him. A target of a sense can attempt to hide by either putting distance between them or by running into a crowd. The sheer number of other minds helps to mask the target since Lance can’t filter out the voices. Focusing too hard on a target can cause a nosebleed and/or a migraine. Sensing is not an exact art and is subject to fail without the target having to shake him. A person Lance has taken on as a ward can shout his name aloud. The more panicked the shout, the more likely Lance will be able to lock in on the ward's location. Note – It is up to a player if a Sense on them succeeds.

Healing: Lance can transfer the restorative properties of his Addonexus physiology to a target. The longer he maintains the transfer, the greater the benefit but the greater the drain on Lance. This is no substitute to expert medical care, but Lance could stabilize a patient for transport. He can’t regrow body parts or cure diseases but may be able to mend bones if set properly.

Deathtouch: Being an Addonexus grants Lance an innate ability to know how healing energies flow throughout the body. Not only can he transfer his own energy to heal someone, but he can use his own energy to block those pathways. Cells will start to starve and lyse if he maintains contact. Lance can cause more serious damage if he is able to hang on for a while at a cost of his will power. There are more efficient ways to kill someone though.

Apportation: This is like Remote Orbing but for Lance’s personal effects. Lance could step through a security checkpoint with nothing on him and then summon one of his weapons on the other side. A black fog manifests in his hand and draws the item there. The fog then dissipates.

Disguise: Lance can temporarily adjust his physical appearance. This helps him sneak past security guards when Orbing would be too noticeable or the target has found a way to block teleportation. He pictures the look he wants to have and passes his hand over the region of his body he wishes to change. It lasts for an hour unless he cancels it. There is a half hour cooldown.

Skills:
Assassin: Lance was trained by Umbra in the arts of ending lives mano y mano. He prefers up close and personal techniques over long range or car bombs. When he does need distance, Lance uses a crossbow because of how silent (if not fairly obvious) it is. He can also remote orb a bolt out easier than a bullet.

Poisonmaster: Lance is well versed in the use of poisons for his hits. He will often employ KGB like tactics to orb in, poison a target, and then orb out before anyone can react.

Lock picking: Normally, Lance could get anywhere just orbing. There have been a few times when he couldn’t, namely because orbing produces an extremely noticeable amount of light. A few targets even managed to find ways to negate that power temporally. In those instances, Lance had to learn to pick a few locks. He’s not the most adept at it but can pick a lock if his life depended on it.

Surveillance: Lance still follows his target for a few days so that he knows what he’ll be getting into. When he’s certain there are no magical alarms, Lance will orb in some spy cameras and audio recorders.

Character acting: Lance has lived long to observe all the little nuances of sapient movement. He can imitate body language, different gaits, and tells to make his Disguises more believable. Lance couldn’t hold a conversation in Elven, or Russian for that matter, but he could blend in to any crowd long enough to get rid of a tail.

Tarot card reading: Lance believes there is some sort of truth to the practice of Tarot. Since he is so slow to decide upon a course of action some times, Lance will consult the cards. He learned how to do his own readings instead of paying psychics. He will do readings for other people as a quick source of income.



History:
Born during the second half of the Conflagration, Lance Stone is what you’d call an astronomical triad. He was born during a solar eclipse on a magical leyline while a comet zoomed by overhead. At least that’s the story he tells. The leyline and solar eclipse are definitely true though. He just doesn’t know which leyline it was. In fact, Lance doesn’t know who his parents are. Umbra keeps that information from him.

Despite not knowing his progenitors, Lance considers Umbra to be his family. They took care of all his needs growing up. They saw to his education and must have known what powers he’d develop. Lance was an average human growing up. It wasn’t until his teenage years when his abilities started to manifest. Lance discovered he could move himself, others, and other things just by thinking about a destination. He called it Orbing because his body broke up into spheres whenever he did it. He also noticed that the color of the spheres changed depending on his mood. If he was going to assist someone, his orbing brightly lit up the room. If he was going to assault someone, the spheres were dark. This brought about a strange sort of awakening in Lance.

Lance learned the difference between good and evil as a kid. However, Umbra trained him to think the Others were evil, and to reserve his light powers for humans and his dark ones for the Others. So it made sense that providing assistance to a human would result in a bright orb. One day, Lance was assigned to protect an Other spy because the elf was being given false information. He glamoured himself to look like an elf and sensed out the Other spy’s location. Carrying out this mission meant Lance had to switch the categories for his light and dark powers. It was then that Lance realized good and evil were only points of view.

If that didn’t screw him up, the fact that Lance had seemed to stop aging somewhere in his twenties did even more to mess with his psyche. He was no longer a victim to Time (in his mind) but there was no reason to suspect Fate was out of the picture. Seeking answers, Lance eventually came to learn that he was an Addonexus. That’s really just a fancy word for someone born on a leyline with other astrological phenomena going on. The research seemed like someone made it up but yet somehow made perfect sense. Lance was some sort of balance in the world. That was how he could have Light and Shadow powers. The irony of the names of the two Courts didn’t escape him either. Lance had no delusions of grandeur that he could be as influential as the Courts of Light and Shadow, but there was enough damage done to his mental conditioning to make him wonder if it all was for nothing.

Lance orbed out of the safe house and went to random locations. It didn’t matter where he went. In fact, nothing mattered. He’d just orb out again if he landed in Other territory. If he came to in a human land, he might stay for a little while. Staying or going literally came down to a flip of a coin some times. Lance could justify either action and it wasn’t like Time was an enemy anymore. Not that Time was an ally either. If he really wanted to, Lance could just orb to an untouched island and live off the land until both armies just died out. There was no knowing if he’d stay this young forever. The leyline infusion didn't immediately affect Lance and the upper echelons believed it would eventually wear off. But did it matter?

Just because he didn’t age didn’t mean Lance was immune to the effects of hunger, thirst, or the elements. He couldn’t desert to the Children of Terra. His training was too ingrained to allow that. So, Lance returned to Umbra seeking out new contracts. Given his new outlook on life, he continued to flip a coin to see if he should accept the contract or wait for the next one. He would go into town from time to time to consult with psychic mediums regarding his future. He visited one fair where the medium taught him how to spread and interpret Tarot cards. Lance bought a deck from her and still has it to this day, although it is now several decades old.

Lance asked the deck one day if he should stay with his current life? Unfortunately, the final card only reinforced his current doubts. Little did he know at the time that the Ten of Swords, which represents unchecked conflict, included the entire planet in this reading. The Enlightened followed shortly after as depicted by the sunrise in the card. Lance contacted his handlers once the calamity had died down. He would no longer be affiliated with Umbra in an official sense but would still entertain the occasional assignment. Umbra hated to see an asset of ninety years take its leave, but his Wheel of Fortune attitude could come back to bite them anyway. The masters took Lance at his word, which he would never break, and watched him orb away.

If only for a brief period of time.

Notes:
Personal Possessions:
Great Conflagration Commemorative Coin: This is how Lance makes his important decisions. The heads side depicts the atomic mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, while the tails side has the emblems of the United Nations and the Courts of Light and Shadow depicting the unity of every race.

Tarot deck: When not on an assignment, Lance carries an extremely old deck of Tarot cards. He moonlights as a reader for a civilian cover.

Is this your second character, and if so, who is your first?:This is my third, following Jack Masters and Seinshun Stormcaller.