The Curse of Knowing, and The Odyssey · 5:40am Dec 28th, 2021
When I created Arcanum Folklore I always wanted to point to the fact that his initial work as a detective is but a mask forced upon him.
He became a private investigator and consulting wizard because it was the only thing he could do at the time to make the best use of his intellect and if maneuvered correctly earn him the money needed to finish his studies. The Galic Foreign Legion paid him, but it also took from him his sanity for a time. He lived like a bum in the subway tunnels of Manehattan for a few months because of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, his other less understood condition, and the alcoholism that resulted from that made him unemployable and he hardly had the will or the heart to be a thief for a living. He hardly had the will to live at all.
Eventually, after going on small monster hunts and solving cases here and there for a while he ran into a case of cruelty by equine hooves that drove home that he had to let go of the bottle and that he could do a lot more.
From there he took his development of more uniform methods of Forensic Investigation, and so he eventually came to be sought by the Manehattan Metropolitan Police Department, more specifically for Forensic Science, and crimes involving Magick. He never got any credit, but he did get City Hall money, not enough to make him rich, but enough for him to be able to at least eat well and have a radio considering he used most of that money to finish his two doctorates.
Eventually, as equine trafficking and more things like ghouls, ghosts, warlocks, witches, and serial killers become more of a problem he started to investigate and deal with these things off the books, often killing the worst of the worst, and exterminating entire criminal organizations without a hint of mercy. Sure the Magick Cases and Monster Hunting he went out of his way to always receive pay for that due to bounties, compensations by City Hall. And the fact that he became an expert at dissecting monstrosities, and making money off of the parts that had medicinal, magickal, or just physically advantageous properties.
He experimented with the rest, and secretly killed many hidden Changelings, and used their body parts for his own private research and experimentation. Changelings and Erenn Unicorns have been enemies for over two thousand years and at the time he considered the Changelings to function as a Hive Mind so he did not view or even register a single Changeling as having their own individual mind and soul, and that was true up until a year before Chrysalis came to control the Equestrian Changeling Hive and her attempted Invasion of Canterlot.
Thinking on all of this Folklore is the Dragon Slayer, The Staker of Strigoi, and the Slayer of Evil. But underneath that he also has a desire to genuinely allow Equine civilization to not only survive but flourish. He fights both the literal and figurative monsters because he is tired of seeing innocent sapients, and sapients with potential for great good die and suffer. He is tired of being aware because of his "Talents" of the degree of evil that can truly manifest in the world.
He is tormented by his sight.
Folklore's entire life is meant to be an odyssey.
When one thinks f the word odyssey they think about something akin to an Epic Journey.
But hardly anyone knows what that word means in ancient greek. The name Odysseus means according to Homer, "Son of Pain". To be in an odyssey is to suffer and face the unimaginable.
Folklore's personality can best be described as "The Stallion that tells himself that he is perfectly sane and acts outwardly in discipline and focus. But in truth, he is the one most consumed by madness."
As shown by this entire short episode of Red vs. Blue before Rooster Teeth became another asshole corporation that is a shadow of its former self and drowning in the money of their past achievements.
He is shown from time to time to act on massively represed rage, and shows no remorse or hesitation on using the body parts of dead enemies for spellcasting materials or even whole reanimated corpses as suicide bombers.
Folklore has made friends over the years, but most of them are of similar questionable sanity, but functional intelligence.
I did things that I thought where different with OC's. I introduced him in his mid thirties with an 19 to 20 years of worth of war, crime, and monsters already in his life there to further torture his psyche that is held together by staples, bubblegum, and the will of the gods.
And I made him not part of the Royal Guard, but a former member of a Foreign Legion that unlike the Royal Guard fights actual wars.
He is like a knight that has just slayed a dragon, but because he is still covered in it's blood he is shuned by the very people he fought so hard and nearly died to save.
I as a joke made him the object of desire of some young maids, but nothing is really meant to come out of it. And as for Bloody Merry and Luna? They fall into the same category as the rest of his allies, and his friends. They are madmares.
Anyway. I rambled.
But in any case, it should be noted that he is a living relic, a stallion born in the wrong century. He is a leftover from a time when harmony was just a dream.
Eventually, he is meant to go off to a war effort against Fascists, and use the organization that he proposed and helped build to start creating means to kill Lovecraftian Aliens.
In the end, he is meant to die as an old stallion alone in the Antarctic Circle, as just a scientist, his war and adventuring days behind him by the very dark forces he spent the latter half of his life arming the world against.
Quite an intricate bit of lore you've built up!
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Thanks. Though I was wondering if my writing of his insanity, guilt, and his contradictory capacity for violence yet seemingly casual but professional exterior is apparent.
And that he has a intimidating presence when he doesn't bother to mask his magick and is wearing his usual outfit.