Name: That which Takes on the Tines
Age [appearance]: N/A
Age [actual]: N/A
Gender: N/A
Species: True Fae Title.
Awareness of Supernaturals: As the needs of the story dictate.
Occupation/Job: That which Takes on the Tines, the very proposition on which the Title is based.
Domicile: Beyond the Hedge, Arcadia, The land of great beauty and suffering.
Interesting Facts / Quirks: That which Takes on the Tines is just one of the Titles held by a capricious member of the Gentry who desires to manifest it’s full power within the city and in so doing draw it’s population into Arcadia.
Hobby/Hobbies: Spiriting away mortals (especially children) to Arcadia to be devoured.
Likes: Conflict, emotions; particularly loss and triumph, hiding thimbles, tangling threads
Dislikes: roads, pavement, horticulture, isolation.
Actor:
In the mortal world;
Hair: dark, unkempt with spiny burrs caught in it
Eyes: dark, with almost no iris or whites
Frame: Mask: 6ft medium build. 175lb Mien: His true height is somewhat plastic, sometimes 7ft sometimes 8 and around 500lb.
Mask; Tom Dockin is a rough, scruffy man of Mediterranean completion. He is always wearing the same thing; a reddish-brown rollneck with jeans under a black peacoat. Often seen smoking a cigarette, maybe a black beanie in the cold.
Mien; He has pointed ears and short horns, with a mouthful of iron teeth and a golden coin on his tongue. Often seen with an old thatching rake in his hands.
Beyond the Hedge: An enormous, vaporous mass which roils and festers, parts of it coalescing to form long spindly, spine covered arms, legs and branching antlers. A golden crown burns, suspended above the cloud like a radiant halo.
Prop:
In the mortal world; Sleeping pills, a rune carved blackthorn spear, the old branch of a gopher tree.
Beyond the Hedge; The legendary Svefnthorn.
Realm:
In the mortal world; A field of nettles, a dense shrubland, an alleyway or bathroom filled with broken glass and used needles.
Beyond the Hedge; A labyrinth of briars and pointed metal sticks under a sky of broken glass.
Wisps (inhabitants of the realm):
In the mortal world; thieving bowerbirds or a crowd in civil protest, armed with torches and pitchforks, set against a force of riot police.
Beyond the Hedge; two armies of grotesque, trident wielding chimeras and fork tailed dragons, waging war.
Personality:
Like all True Fae, they are unpredictable beings of solipsism and hunger. They love humanity for its ability to provide entertainment and a challenge. That they are compelled to eat children is a sustaining source of conflict. Due to the terms of an Oath, the Title needs to form pledges with mortals, making them amicable and overeager to please.
History:
A Title is merely a seeming. It is a face and a mask at once. It is a “role” one of the True Fae has agreed to play. The Title is an idea, more so; an axiom, or “portrayal” of the Gentry. Think of a Title as the costume through which the impossibility of the Fae can manifest. While abstract (befitting their alien nature) a Title’s appearance is always shaped by its theme. This theme is known as a Tell. The title can appear as anything, but it can always be identified by its Tell.
The role of “That which Takes on the Tines” can be played in many different ways, depending on the story being told. It is the path of needles or pins, the forked road. The deviation of innocence that the wolf takes to grandmother’s house. It is the tale of broken promises, of sleeping beauty, of Sigurd and Brunhild. It is retribution at the end of a thorn, and redemption through the hero who overcomes it, as in Rapunzel. Other times it is tragic Oedipus, king of Thebes, and the consequence for trying to cheat fate. More accurately; it is taking fate into your own hands. That which Takes on the Tines is both the pitchforked devil tormenting the dammed and those who oppose it. It is a role which embodies the nature of the Hedge; to separate the mind, soul and body.
Mortals following, or being taken by Tom Dockin through an open portal find themselves in the True Fae’s realm. Those with occult knowledge may perform a ritual to open the way. Immoral and depraved activity such as overindulgence or excessive violence can open a gate to the Hedge. Once the gate is open; those with magical abilities, have lost friends or family to mysterious circumstance, or who are weak willed, find themselves hypnotically drawn through.
Strengths:
Even if killed, the oaths the Title has made will eventually cast a new piece of themself in the role of “That which Takes on the Tines”. Only by breaking these deals, which created it in the first place, can the Title become permanently unravelled. Even then it can be devoured and claimed for use by another member of the Fae.
Portaling; If bound or held in anyway, by a grapple, manacles or in a cell, a small amount of glamour immediately grants freedom. In the same way, the Title can create a doorway through to the Hedge so long as it is a closable portal it could fit through, such as a door or window. Magic, cold iron or an Oath are the only means to actually bind the Fae.
Arcadian Regalia; Powerful pledge magic. These oldest contracts hail from the dawn of Arcadia, when the True Fae bargained with the world to let them move beyond the laws constraining mere mortals. It is what allows the Title near-infinite power so long as it falls within the purview; Taking on the Tines.
Scour the Mask; Destabilises mortal reality. Pact magic can be empowered by tearing away the Mask, revealing the Fae’s true nature to even humans. This has the side effect of forcing open all nearby gateways into the hedge and acting as a beacon to other members of the Gentry.
Talecrafting; the ability to link common threads of the universal will and recognise its’ patterns; the outcomes of which are dictated by fate. It is simply “how the story goes”. Talecrafting is the ability to recognise or force these patterns into being. The cost for altering reality in this way is an ironic and cruel twist of fate, although loopholes do exist.
Weakness/Flaws:
Cold iron is their bane and causes harm. Those who know the Fae’s True Name, that is the Name to which a Title is bound, has power over it. Cold iron wielded by one with knowledge of their True Name is excitingly dangerous to the Fae.
The secret terms of the Arcadian Contracts which give a Title it’s form, impose limits upon them. In addition, breaking these agreements is similar to destroying a part of yourself. The consequences for a Title not upholding these ancient Oaths are dire.
That which Takes on the Tines plays an old game beyond mortal ken.
• They may not step onto a road uninvited,
• Are compelled to seal any promise they hear,
• Must attempt to solve a riddle asked of them,
• Is compelled to eat children
• And may only cut a blackthorn tree on May day (11th) or November day (11th).
All True Fae suffer from Glamour addiction outside Arcadia or the Hedge; they’re required to either subtly draw from the ambient emotion around them or else forcefully reap the emotions of a target, leaving them a deadened husk. Those who have been so ravened are lethargic and can no longer gain rest through sleep. Without intervention, these victims die. The only means of healing what was taken is through belonging; family, friendship, love. Although sometimes the path to recovery is long.
Deprived of their addiction, the Title is unable to focus or contain themselves. When it’s revivor of glamour empties the mortal world poisons the True Fae as their body consumes its own magical energy to satisfy its hunger.
