Silver and Bone: Michael Tonta (Updated: 2014)

My werewolf character for the group, . 

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Name: Michael Tonta

Silvers: 5

Bones per Scene: 5

Clan name: Versipellis

Status: Member

Clan Relationships: 
                 Versipellis: Allied
                 Ulfhednar: Neutral
                 Lycaon: Neutral
                 Cinocephali: Neutral

Order name: N/A

Pack name: N/A

Werespecies: Wolf (though easily mistaken as badger)

Forms: N/A

Rage Form: Were

Age or DOB: November 12th, 1979 (35 years old)

Complexion: Naturally tanned

Gender: Male

Eye color: Pale blue-grey
(Transformed) Eye color: Silver

Hair color/style: Medium brown
(Transformed)Fur/scale color/pattern: Medium brown and white

Build: Michael's a bit soft from a lack of proper physical labor since he lost his job in Marrows, but regardless, he's naturally strong and fairly well-built. Even when when he was in proper shape, he always had a belly he could never quite get rid of.

(Transformed) Build: Michael's wereform is the definition of sturdy. Building on the foundation of his mining physique, his wolf is all muscle and fur, thickened and toughened to withstand the Yukon wilderness.

Height: 6'3"
(Transformed) Height: 7'2"


Personality: Most people who first try to interact with Michael find him... difficult. Guarded and grumpy with a rather short tolerance for laziness, he's stern with strangers and tends to turn people away or remove himself from a situation as soon as he's uncomfortable.

In actuality, Michael is a rather shy person due to his experiences, and puts up walls around himself to guard a confused and cautious spirit. Michael's more tender side shows through generally in small ways, such as in his fondness for cats.  For people willing to put up with his initial bluntness and sarcasm, he'll eventually ease up, exposing his friendlier demeanor.  

Background: Michael spent a good deal of his childhood bouncing around small towns in the Yukon, following his father's work. Friendships he did manage to start were brief and fleeting, and his education suffered. His father attempted to fill in the gaps for his son as often as he was able, but unfortunately it wasn't nearly enough, especially as Michael entered into his young teens, battling with issues of abandonment and deep loneliness that his tiny social circle couldn't sate.

At the age of sixteen, he struck out on his own and ran away from home, sneaking aboard a local train and hitch-hiking his way to the southeast corner of the territory with nothing but a small backpack of food, a change of clothes, and his meager life savings.  After months of wandering the Yukon wilderness and highways, fate soon led him to the quiet town of Marrows, a place full of raw minerals and economic potential, which ultimately guided the young man towards the trade of mining. Hard work and the satisfaction of a job well done brought Michael stability and happiness he never had before in his life, and he clung to it desperately. His calling was in Marrows, and thus he built himself a small log cabin on the outskirts that he would call home for the next seventeen years

However, this happiness was disturbed by a ripple of rumours growing through the town, of a large animal living deep underground, killing game in the wilderness around the outskirts of the mine. Of course, undisturbed by such stories, Michael and his crew refused to let these tales slow their work, and they busied themselves with the excavation of a new mine shaft.  It wasn't until they broke through into a rank pocket of dark, bloodstained cavern that they discovered the unfortunate truth... and in the chaos of echoing snarls and gurgling screams, the lives of two miners fell apart in pink-stained jaws. The third, Michael, barely escaped with his own life, but for nights afterwards, his wound burned brightly in his side, and brought him vivid nightmares, forcing him to relive the murder of two of his closest friends every night. He would wake with the rising sun, shaking with sweat and rage.  His body and senses sharpened painfully every day and night afterwards as the moon filled, clawing him open from the inside out, until finally, a fortnight later, a climax of pain and dream-induced hysteria finally tore his human shell apart and birthed a werewolf.

Michael still can't recall that night completely, but he does distinctly recall the morning after. He discovered himself naked and singing with pain in absolute darkness sprawled on a cold stone floor, skin crackling with something dried.  Scrambling hands sought out a wall or light, only to instead fall on a sticky furred corpse, or what chunks were left of it. Hours of stumbling in darkness finally released him into the deep woods outside of Marrows, where he found a cold stream to clean his body and wash from his mouth the taste and smell of blood.

While he did everything he could to return to life as normal, desperately denying what now was a recurring dream of dark caverns, hot smells, and fear, funds and support for the mines were rapidly failing. Sightings of a new, larger creature, combined with reports of injuries and collapses on site, slowly drove workers away to larger, more stable towns. Eventually, the mine was closed permanently due to dangerous conditions, and without the mines to feed the town's already feeble economy, unemployment skyrocketed. Many families were given little other choice than to move to another town. After all the years that he had put into the mines, building his new life, Michael hardly knew where else to go.  And deep down in his gut, as much as he refused to believe it, he knew he was responsible.  

As the rest of the town withered away around him, an unexpected acquaintance of Tonta's from years past, an older man named Edmund, approached him one night with a wild suggestion. A place called Chambury in British Columbia.  Supposedly, the town was built close to land full of yet-untapped resources, which could be transformed into a new mine, if he truly wanted to stay within his profession.  When asked why he suggested someplace so out of the way, Edmund merely smiled, and suggested that Chambury may also be someplace with resources to solve another problem of his. A much larger one.

With that suggestion, and some financial aid from Edmund, Michael packed up what belongings he could carry, and immediately set to moving south. He became intent on finding his livelihood again in B.C., and eventually, perhaps, some way to live with what he had become.

Random Facts: 

* Both of the men in his close circle of mining friends were also named Michael, so most workers grew used to calling him by his last name to avoid confusion. Nowadays, he's grown used to the reference, and typically requests close friends to just call him by his last name, while he corrects everyone else to call him Michael. Currently, only Autumn has "permission" to call him Tonta.

No one is allowed to refer to him as Mr. Tonta though. He hates how it sounds.

* He absolutely ADORES cats. Upon moving to Chambury, he adopted a fluffy munchkin kitten he named Trippy, due to the kitten's various adorable, clumsy tendancies. The little guy basically looks and acts like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECa3b…

* He prefers bitter flavoured foods like black coffee and very dark chocolate, and is fond of heavy, hearty homemade soups and chowders. He also prefers the taste of game, having lived off of it for a good portion of his life.


Abilities:

   Human:
           Arms (Rank 1)
           First Aid (Rank 1) 

   Were:
           At-Will Shifting (Rank 1)
           Regeneration (Rank 1) 
           Call it Back (Rank 2)
           Awareness (Rank 1) 
           Survival Instincts (Rank 1) 
           Trade Off, Speed for Strength (Rank 1) 
           Tough Hide (Rank 1) 

   Clan:
            Lycanthrope's Call (Rank 1) 
            Inner Peace (Rank 1) 

PLEASE NOTE: While Tonta technically has ranks in At-Will Shifting and Lycanthrope's Call, these abilities are heavily hindered due to constant repression and denial of his wereform. 


Character Use: Tonta may be used for challenges and such so long as he is not permanently maimed, killed, or placed into any sort of sexual situation.