Ulysses

Ulysses is a lion. He has golden eyes and a thick white fluffy mane. His hair is medium in length and is styled in a loose curled ponytail over the right side of his face. He has grey fur with a light grey underbelly, toes, chin, and tail. Under his eyes are pale green marks with light grey stripes by his muzzle. He has no other significant natural markings and is rather plain. His front left leg and and muzzle are marked with intricate pale brown tattoos, with a large eye marking on the top of his paw.

Ulysses has a scar on his right knee. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a very cool story behind it: he slid on the ice, tripped, and fell in the ruins.

Ulysses always wears his pale green cloak. The cloak itself is slightly tattered at the ends and is held together by golden thread at the neck. The hook has a dark green striped pattern over the neck area and small dark green stitches across the edges.

Each of his ears has two golden ring earrings and a single stud earring. He wears small gold and teal beads on his loose ponytail.

Ulysses does not have any magic powers, but, due to his bloodline, he still inherited a little bit of magical abilities. He can still interact with magic sources but cannot do anything beyond making things glow upon contact. He can also faintly feel auras and seals, but he cannot see them by himself.

These abilities are mostly useless as they are, but they still help Ulysses guess the locations of artifacts and seals. That's all he really needs.

With his faded, tattered cloak and magic journal always in hand, Ulysses is often mistaken for a mage. He knows just about everything there is to the basic elements, plenty about the world's history, and even speaks and writes a few foreign languages. It doesn't take much for him to convince others, and he can make quite a convincing "mysterious and scary" act to play along. The town's children love the act.

In reality, Ulysses is simply a magic researcher with a love for learning and always seeking answers. He is educated in magic, but, in exchange for the wealth of information, he never learned how to perform it. Despite this, he is content with his job and does not regret his choices. He dedicates himself fully to his work.
Studying magic, even the forbidden elements, is his passion.

He's a light-hearted guy and fun to be around. He loves sharing stories and telling horrible jokes and puns. Sometimes, he'll even say small things to mess around and get a reaction, especially when he knows that the other person stopped paying attention. Those words are always in jest and never meant to frighten or harm.

Ulysses likes to keep an open mind and tries to be civil at all times. Instead of countering, he'll often ask a person "why" they feel a certain way, so that he can better understand from their point of view. He welcomes other opinions and likes to get input on his theories and research. Even if it's a ridiculous opinion, he won't turn it down. Every bit of info helps further his work. He's also a good listener and is willing to sit down for hours on end to hear someone's stories and ramblings. However, one thing to note is that Ulysses is not very good at emotionally comforting people. He's still trying to learn.

As a researcher, it is his job to document everything that is of interest. He is extremely intelligent, thoughful, and observant; he picks up on many things that his friends would not. He'll take notes of every detail, even if it seems small and pointless at the time. He will ask people of interest for interviews as well.
When he travels outside of town, Ulysses relies on other people for protection; he can't fight on his own.

The townsfolk know Ulysses as the "walking dictionary", and many of them will refer to him for information. He writes and self-publishes a majority of his finished books and journals for their small library, with illustrations drawn by Zeru. Working at the library seems to be the only other thing he does all day if he's not busy in the field. He often forgets to take breaks, so a friend or Lumi has to remind him.

Ulysses is multi-lingual and literate, but he is much better at writing than he is speaking. He'll decode almost any runes and identify the elements with ease, but his spoken enochian (angelic) and draconic leaves much to be desired...
(He doesn't know any Earth languages besides "common", though.)

When people ask for his services, he'll ask for a bit of coin in return - not all his info is free. If he did that, he'd be broke in minutes! He needs to afford his morning coffees somehow, and he doesn't make money off of his library books.

Ulysses cares a lot about keeping his books in good condition, since they are vital records of his research. If any pages were to be damaged or become unreadable, he would lose literal days of his work. He likes to educate people on how to properly treat books, like how to keep a book's spine and pages in shape. His greatest peeve is seeing people mishandle books, and it's the quickest way to get on his bad side. At home, he keeps a set of monster pelt-bound journals that are locked away from prying eyes. Nobody knows what's inside of them, and handling his personal journals without permission may instantly make you his enemy.

In his spare time, he loves reading mystery novels and has a love for puzzles and riddles. He collects the Blackbridge newspaper from the weekly caravan just to solve the word puzzles.

Overtime, he has somehow built up a nice collection of magical artifacts and relics. It is now a hobby of his to find and buy magical oddities off of merchants.

Ulysses lives in the snowy northern town of Crystalwake, located in the scenic mountain range of Lusus Naturae. His small cottage is down the road, closer to the patrol training grounds and beside the library.

Lumi lives there, too.

- Ulysses grew up in a clan of white lions
- His father was an outsider; possibly a mage
- When he was old enough, he got tattoos and piercings the old fashioned way (as per clan tradition)
- His tribe’s culture has always been centered around magic but light/dark were forbidden
- While a horrible magic disease was killing off several inhabitants on his clan’s lands, Ulysses saw a being of light cure a member of the clan
- though that "miracle healer" was soon caught and executed for it
- after that, Ulysses took an interest in the forbidden and unknown

- He left the clan before he was even officially an adult in order to pursue knowledge
- He sailed all the way to Blackbridge on a one-way voyage and never looked back
- He studied in Blackbridge and a few other towns, before moving back to Blackbridge again
- Most of his research goes towards finding a cure for magic-inflicted illnesses and curses; things that physical medicine could not touch
- Something, something, he eventually met Jeremiah Malva, the Doctor
- He teamed up with the Doctor
- They both were interested in traveling up to Lusus Naturae (which was p much wild untamed land by this point)
- Ulysses believed that there was valuable research to be done

- They hired Silas, a mercenary, for protection
- The three of them gathered supplies and headed up the mountainside
- They stumbled across ruins hidden deep in the ice caves while seeking shelter from the harsh blizzards
- They met Brooke, living all alone in the ruins
- Blah blah blah...
- oh yeah and Ulysses tripped and got his awesome knee scar

- the snowy town of Crystalwake is soon founded (they credit the Doc for this)
- a lot of things happen and i'm too lazy to continue this list sorry lol