Zveris

Important Info for Commissions

HEIGHT: 6'3"
BUILD: Muscular
ETHNICITY: Lithuanian
APPARENT AGE: Early 30s
HAIR: Fiery Red, very short
EYES: Light Blue left eye. Missing right eye
SCARS: Small diagonal cut on lower left of face. Two small scars, one on upper lip, one on lower lip. Prominent scar over missing right eye, hidden by eyepatch
OTHER IMPORTANT TRAITS: Missing right eye hidden by plain black eyepatch. Scruffy facial hair along jawline. Wears dogtags
PERSONALITY: Extremely grumpy. Dislikes people who are friendly, let alone overly friendly. Despite being grumpy, is very even tempered and focused on his job. Impossible to bribe, good boundaries

Appearance

Zveris appears human enough at first glance. Nothing about him really screams werewolf in his human form. There's no tail, no wolf ears, and even his teeth are perfectly human. His hair is a dark red, kept short with minimal effort put into it. His right eye is missing, but the missing eye and the scar where it should be are hidden under a simple black eye patch. His remaining eye is a very light blue.

Zveris is 6'3" and muscular. There's nothing lean or slim about him--he's pretty much all muscle. He has broad shoulders and plenty of small scars, the most noticeable being a thin scar under his left ear crossing his cheek, and two smaller scars that mar his upper and lower lips.

While Zveris's outfit varies, he's never seen without his combat boots and some kind of gloves. Normally, they're fingerless--his preferred type--and often come with some kind of reinforcement to back up his punches. All signs indicate that Zveris literally sleeps in his combat boots, which can't be very good for his feet.

Depending on if he's on duty or off, his attire changes significantly, but he tends to look like he was shopping out of a military surplus store at the best of times.

Personality

There's no easy way to say it: Zveris is not a nice guy. He's the sort of person who was born on the wrong side of the bed and never bothered trying to fix it. His face is a perpetual scowl, his demeanor is off putting, and he really doesn't see it as an issue.

Zveris is simply an asshole, and most noticeably, he only likes other assholes. He's intensely suspicious of people who he feels are 'overly nice' - it makes him feel like they want something. He strongly dislikes the idea of someone wanting things from him, and is even more annoyed at the idea of him owing anyone else.

He's a very grumpy guy, to say the least.

Of particular annoyance to him is his name. Already butchered from his native Lithuanian into something that the average English speaker can pronounce, Zveris gets extremely frustrated if someone manages to get that wrong. It's pretty much the hands down easiest way to piss him off, and to him, indicates major disrespect.

That isn't to say that Zveris is hot tempered. Despite being a grumpy asshole, he's pretty much always the last person to go to blows. He'll get angry, but he won't actually swing unless someone else swings first... or if it's related to his job. Zveris is very focused on his job, and as far as most things go he's pretty much the ideal candidate. Between his powers making him fantastic at physical combat, to his ability to keep his hands to himself until needed, Zveris is just good at providing security. He's a very serious person when on the job, perpetually scowling at everyone, and his physical size means he's intimidating to most.

He has a good sense of how far is too far, and when he can let something pass as kids being kids, and when he needs to make an issue of things. He's effectively impossible to bribe--he considers his professional conduct a point of pride--and has a good memory that helps with keeping track of the rules.

Of particular interest is Zveris's dislike of Germans. It's not quite at the point of full on hatred--he could be friends with one, if he was given time to warm up--but he's certainly prejudiced against them, and his first reaction is almost universally bad.

Powers

Zveris has only a single power, although it plays nice with his abilities as a werewolf. Simply put, Zveris will always physically match his opponents in combat, if not exceeding them. If he's facing someone who is unnaturally strong, then he is unnaturally strong--just as strong as they are, to be specific. Similarly, if he's facing someone who is supernaturally agile, he'll also be supernaturally agile. This will scale up his attributes, but it won't scale them down. If Zveris is naturally stronger and more durable than an opponent, but they're faster than him, he'll end up just as strong and durable as he was before, but also match their speed. Physical regeneration is something he can copy, although it won't work retroactively on his past injuries. It means that more often than not, he comes out ahead of them, simply because his physical attributes are already good.

Zveris's capabilities only match a person's physical attributes. Someone who regenerates extremely quickly--regardless of the reason--would be matched. However, someone who has magic and has to cast a spell to heal would be beyond his capabilities. This means he's excellent against those who could be considered physical fighters (and to some extent those with guns and ranged weaponry), but largely useless against mages and those who rely entirely on their powers. This will not allow him to gain any new powers, but will in some cases allow him to gain the effects of new powers (for example, if he matched someone who activated a super speed enchantment, he would also gain the effect of that enchantment).

His ability struggles when it comes to long range combat. Realistically speaking, he needs to be able to see them and identify them (at least reasonably well) in order to match them. Someone hidden behind a mask could be easily matched, while a shadowy figure that he can't even tell the general form of jumping away in the distance isn't going to give him anything to work off of.

While Zveris can match someones senses, he cannot gain new ones. If he matched someone with extremely good eyesight and infrared vision, he would gain their extremely good eyesight, but wouldn't gain infrared vision.

Zveris matches a person as long as he could reasonably be considered to be in a fight with them. If he's staring them down, ready to attack it'll be active, and if he's exchanging blows, it'll be active as well. If someone managed to surprise attack him, it likely wouldn't be active for the first blow, but would kick in the moment he realized what was happening. The effect ends once the battle is over--Zveris does not keep any of his new capabilities.

Species Abilities

Zveris is a cursed werewolf, changed as an adult. His lineage can supposedly be traced back to the forest guards of the Goddess Medeinė in pagan Lithuania, although Zveris has no idea how true the claims of the older wolves were. The bite brought several large changes to Zveris's biology, both good and bad.

Physically, Zveris is above what any human should be capable of. He's strong, capable of lifting a small car with effort, and as fast as a wolf even in human form. Similarly, he's both agile and durable in equal amounts, although he's far from immune. A bullet will hurt him just as it would a human, although a punch would hurt him less so. Similarly, he can regenerate, although it's not instant. If he were to lose an arm, it would never fully recover, although if he broke it, it would heal twice as fast as a human's would.

Similar to his physical attributes, Zveris's senses are that of a wolf. However, when in his human form it takes concentration for Zveris to push his senses beyond the human norm. On one hand, this means that he doesn't run the risk of getting overwhelmed when confronted with things that would bother his enhanced senses. On the other, it means he doesn't get any of the passive benefits from his senses helping him avoid surprise attacks.

Zveris is capable of shifting into a single alternate form, that of a large (around the size of a large horse) wolf. His strength and speed do not significantly improve over his usual human limits, although they do become easier to maintain. In wolf form, he can run for longer than his human form simply because his wolf form is made for it. Similarly, in wolf form he has access to his full senses all the time, with all the benefits and drawbacks you'd expect.

Zveris stopped aging when he was cursed, and his life span is theoretically infinite. He is not an immortal, and can absolutely be killed, but he'll never die of old age.

Zveris is extremely weak to silver. Silver burns at the touch, and any damage he sustains from silver will not heal properly, leaving lasting damage. A proper dose of specific herbs applied directly to the wound will undo some of the damage, but Zveris has never actually learned what herbs he needs, and has no intention of trying unless he really needs to.

Since Zveris was a cursed wolf, not a born one, his curse could only be passed to one other person. Since he's already passed it, nothing he does will spread it to another human. Even if he bites them, they'll remain as they were.

Biography

Zveris's exact date and location of birth are lost to time, although he ballparks that he was born sometime in the late 19th century. He was born in Lithuania, in what was then Russia, and remembers the German invasion during World War One. He doesn't remember fighting, but he's unclear if it was simply a matter of age, or if something else prevented him from joining the war.

He remembers independence being declared, and remembers celebrating it, but inevitably it was overshadowed by his own personal life.

Zveris was cursed.

To this day he remains unclear as to who or why he was, but even as someone fully human and largely unaware of the supernatural, he recognized what had happened to him. He'd been cursed--by a witch or someone else--and each full moon he became a rampaging beast, a danger to those around him. The first time he turned, he remembered next to nothing of what he did, and when he woke he found himself in a strange village.

He had been found by the wolves of Lithuania. Unlike so many other breeds of werewolf, the werewolves of Lithuania were often considered a positive or at least ambivalent natural force, rather than an actively malicious one. They were often associated strongly with the forest Goddess Medeina, the protector of the woods and all the creatures within. It was said that humans had nothing to fear from the werewolves, save from those who chose to became wolves of their own free will.

The town Zveris found himself in was far from idyllic, but it was at least accepting. He was not judged for his inability to control his shifts each full moon, and he found himself in the company of other half-wolves. While born werewolves were not restrained by the full moon and could change as they pleased, both Zveris and the other half-wolves had been cursed and could do no such thing. They were doomed to violent and painful transformations each full moon, losing themselves and having to be kept in place by the natural werewolves.

Even so, they all agreed it was better than remaining at home, biting and cursing those they cared for. The greatest sin a half-wolf could commit was to pass their curse to another, freeing themselves at the expense of an innocent life. The only half-wolves who had ever become true werewolves were those that had bitten someone else on their first change, before they'd been found by the village proper.

It was with that knowledge that Zveris chose to bite someone himself.

It was not a mistake or an accident, although he would later claim it was. It was a conscious choice, a decision made while he was still conscious and sentient to put himself in a position where he would be free to run. He was tired of the half-life he was living, forever bound to the village, a lesser being who would never truly be accepted. As a half-wolf, he was doomed to an eternity in the village, never aging or changing, and he was sick of it.

He bit a child.

That was the part that Zveris feels was his mistake--not taking more precautions. Not being more careful. He never learned the child's name, or learned anything about him. When he was found the following morning, he wasn't even taken back to the village. Instead he was banished where he stood, what little he owned dumped in his lap in a cloth bag and told never to return.

He'd broken their greatest law, and he was left with nothing and no one.

Zveris did what few jobs he could, freed from his curse by his selfish act. He could take a wolfs form at will, and he was stronger and faster than a normal human could ever be. Lithuania was jerked back and forth, claimed by one country and the next, and Zveris saw little of it. He went from town to town, taking jobs where he could.

It wasn't until Germany officially took Lithuania that Zveris felt any sort of calling. As the German army advanced, it pushed back the Soviets with only a minimum of effort, and many Lithuanians hailed them as saviors, hoping for independence from Soviet control. For the first few weeks, Lithuania was allowed to govern itself, and then Germany took direct control. Resistance was spotty at the best of times, and abuses by the Germans were rife.

Barely able to eek out an existence in peacetime, Zveris took to the woods as a wolf. He hunted animals, and more than that, he hunted people. He didn't care if the people he were hunting were soviets, Germans, or even Lithuanians, but he took his position seriously. If he found someone doing evil, he would end them, and reports of a giant, vicious wolf abounded. While not physically capable of engaging in direct, large scale battles, it was all too easy to bound from the woods at night, slaughtering the men gathered outside a burning synagogue before vanishing back into the woods.

He had minimal human contact during that period, only briefly encountering other resistance movements hiding in the woods. Few recognized him as anything more than an animal, although a few assumed he was some sort of angry god, sent by the woods themselves to take revenge. Zveris made no attempt to dissuade them of these notions, and it was at this point that he was given the name he still uses--Žvėris, or beast.

He remained in the woods even as the Soviets pushed the Germans out, and the change of regime made little difference to him. He hunted animals and lived as a wolf, and it was only once the rest of the resistance had died off that Zveris made an attempt to return to his old life, lonely and frustrated.

Even though he'd been exiled, Zveris returned to the village anyway, hoping that his long years of service in protecting innocents would be enough to spare him. It was not to be--the village was abandoned, burnt to the ground years ago, and there was no sign of any of the wolves.

He was alone.

Zveris left Lithuania, travelling through the Baltics before heading towards central Europe. It was in Poland that he found his first signs of other werewolves, seeking them out for companionship he'd long been denied. The werewolves of Poland were different though, strangers to him in many ways. Once again Zveris withdrew, and it was then that he began to pass as a human.

It was easy enough to find work as a mercenary, taking security jobs where he could. He was good at his job, even if his manners were lacking, and the effects of the war had left able bodied men in short supply. There were plenty of people without real identities, and it was easy for Zveris to fit in, picking up jobs as he traveled.

Over the years he picked up bits and pieces, learning that werewolves were hardly the only non-humans running around. It was through other supernaturals that he learned of Manta Carlos, but it was years until he felt the need to travel there. He was pushed farther and farther east in search of work, and it was only once he slid out of Europe at all that Zveris decided to set his sights on Manta Carlos.

It was easy enough to gain entrance to the small island, and when he'd proven his credentials, even easier to get an interview for a security position at the school. Few questions were asked, and he was free to fill out the forms as he liked. He invented a date of birth, formalized the name he'd used for several decades, and officially became a citizen of Manta Carlos.

Extra Info

Zveris eats a lot of meat (especially red meat) and prefers to avoid vegetables, which he refers to as rabbit food. He certainly can eat vegetables, he just doesn't like them. He doesn't like sweets at all, though. As stereotypical as it is, all he wants is a nice big steak.

Zveris's name is not quite pronounced the way it should. His name should be pronounced the proper Lithuanian way, as Žvėris, but after years of hearing it butchered, he's simply given up. So it's Zveris and nothing else, a twisted version of the name he chose that many Lithuanians might not even recognize as the same word.

Lithuanian werewolf lore is mostly accurate--except the stuff about half-wolves and the werewolf village, which is original.