Character Sheet for Hearth Taxel
Character Description
With a wolf's head and arms, a deer's body and legs and a dragon's tail, Hearth Taxel is a chimera dullahan hardly as scary as the classical narrative would have it. Besides living with his head detached, he can also detach and reattach other body parts of both himself and those creatures he meets and levitate his own body parts.
Hearth's neck stump glows with a blue flame, warm to the touch but not burning; his chest is featureless save for a slightly darker patch around his ribs. The rest of his body is purple with grey countershading, blue paw pads and a featureless yellow interior flesh that appears wherever he is separated. Despite coming from distinct animals, his cloven hooves, claws and tail spines are made of the same material.
Personality
There is a slightly uncomfortable tingle Hearth senses from the neck flame whenever he puts on his head, so he prefers keeping his head detached, sometimes letting his headless body cuddle it while asleep. He is also fond of using his modularity powers on those he meets, usually with the intent of helping them relax by literally dissociating themselves from their troubles.
If Hearth needs to do several tasks he prefers splitting himself into different "workers" for each task if possible – the legs can carry dishes around, the arms prepare the dishes, his back provides the table and his head eats merrily, for example. This can lead to disorientation and a long time spent piecing himself back, but he takes this and other risks more often than not.
Likes/Dislikes
As part of a deal with Tori Taxel, Hearth goes out most nights with his head to roam the forest he came from, talking with members of the three species that made him. When not outside at night he likes writing modular computer programs as a hobby, inspired by Tori and her own hobbies.
Background/History
Hearth came from a forest inhabited by three competing species: wolves, deer and dragons constantly battling for the others' territory. One of those battles devolved into a bloody tearing-out of limbs, leaving behind body parts that could not be matched together and were hence heaped together in a small forest clearing as a marker, covered by a thin layer of fallen leaves. Some months later a bolt of mystical lightning struck the heap, reviving the by-then-decomposing parts into one conscious being – he found his whole body quite loose, to the point where they could fall off and be reattached without harm, and his ribcage exposed.
With his burning neck stump and the memories in his inherited brain – the wolf it once belonged to called himself Linlithgow – he sustained (and taught) himself from the gifts of travellers he guided through the surrounding forest, strengthening his modular magic in the process. Then one Halloween, Tori Taxel summoned him as a partner, expecting a headless creature more polished than he turned out to be but accepting the result. It was the tiger genie who patched up the dullahan's chest hole and named him Hearth for his neck flame.
