PLAYER
Player name: Shade
Contact: Light_shade
Characters currently in-game: Ivar Ragnarsson

CHARACTER
Character Name: Leo Flynn
Character Age: Looks to be in his twenties, but technically was "created" thirteen years ago
Canon: Monsters of Verity
Canon Point: End of the second book, Our Dark Duet
History: Sadly, the Monsters of Verity wiki hasn't even got a page on him yet, so write-up it is.

Monsters are created in Leo's world from violent acts. Corsai come from violent but nonlethal acts, Malchai are created from killings and murders. Sunai? Sunai are created when something so bad happens it upsets the natural balance of things. Therefore, they are the rarest type of monster, with only three of them in existence. Ilsa, his older sister, was created from a bomb going off in a basement where people had taken refuge when the monsters first appeared. His little brother August came from a middle school shooting. Leo himself came from a cult who thought it was the end of the world. They threw themselves off a rooftop to die, but rather than just taking themselves, they forced their children, parents, and family to jump with them. Leo woke up amidst the dead and the dying, fully formed already as a teenager. Because Sunai tend to be imprinted with the personality of the event that created them, Leo is very righteous, seeing it as his duty to seek out sinners to eat.

It's not clear what happened to him afterwards, but he discovered his Sunai abilities early on. Like their personalities, Sunai imprint on the first bit of music they hear, only able to evoke their abilities with that type of music afterwards. Unlike his sister and brother, who can only create their song through their voice and violin respectively, Leo can create his song with any musical instrument he can get his hands on. August speculates this is because, despite what he comes off as on the outside, Leo sees beauty in everything around him, and heard a song composed of most instruments.

At some point, he discovered his older sister and the Flynns. Henry Flynn was in a war with the Harkers, a family who controlled most of the Corsai and Malchai monsters. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Sunai were far more powerful. Leo became the face of the Sunai, the one always on the front lines. A truce was formed and the city he lived in was divided in two, North City and South City, when Ilsa "went dark" and obliterated over two-hundred people in a single instance. August came to them after all this had already happened. The years rolled by with Leo trying to protect his half of the city.

Leo held no compunctions about being a monster and frequently "went dark", which burnt a little more of his humanity out each time he did so. By the time This Savage Song begins, he's become disillusioned with Flynn's idea of the truce holding. He wants it to break, thinking that it's the only way the wicked can truly be punished. But he still works with him to protect South City and his family.

To break the truce, he teams up with Harker and his pet Malchai Sloan to break it by going after Harker's daughter Kate and framing his brother August for it. Things go pear-shaped when the two escape and evade everyone for a few days. Ilsa helps her little brother during this time, which seemingly leads to her death, something Leo is saddened by, but sees as a necessary sacrifice. When Leo finally finds August, he's been tortured by Sloan, trying to make him "go dark" so that he'll feed on Kate.

Leo kills Sloan, for his brother's torture and death wasn't part of their deal. He tries to get August to see his side of things, but his brother is horrified by Leo's admittedly skewed ideas of how to run the city. When August finally goes dark, he turns on his brother, and burns him into ash, killing him in one of the only ways a Sunai can be taken down.

A year passes by in canon. After his brother August killed him by stealing his soul, they find out something new about their powers: when you absorb the soul of someone you love, it gets stuck in the mind of that person. August at first isn't sure if Leo is actually in his mind, or if he's going crazy, and it isn't until the end of the book he confirms Leo really was in his mind the whole time.

Leo spends his time influencing his little brother's mind. Since August is the last Sunai left to defend the city with Leo dead and their sister unable to use her powers, he pushes August to become colder and more ruthless. For the most part, he succeeds, and August successfully defends the city. Leo witnesses August lose part of himself, becoming detached from humanity as Leo became. He doesn't necessarily see this as a bad thing, though everyone else around August becomes worried.

Another Sunai is created during that year, Soro, who identifies as being non-binary. They are very much like Leo in their mindset, and between Leo inside his mind and Soro on the outside, August begins to wonder if his dream to be more like a human being was just a childish, naive fantasy. When Kate Harker, August's friend and love interest shows back up claiming a chaos monster that can influence minds has come to the city, it becomes apparent to her just how much August has changed. She directly compares him to Leo, which pleases Leo's consciousness, and disturbs August. He begins trying to fight Leo's influence with limited success.

The chaos monster is captured by enemy Malchai forces and unleashed on innocent people, brainwashing them into killing each other. August, Ilsa, and Soro end up in the fight. Soro calms down the crowd of people by using his song. August kills the Malchai who was responsible for unleashing the monster. Ilsa reverts to her true form, able to use her powers in her monster form, and sacrifices herself to kill the chaos monster in a mutual kill. All three of her siblings are saddened by this.

Meanwhile, Kate is busy fighting the Malchai named Alice that she inadvertently unleashed in the first book. It also turns into a mutual kill as Kate stabs her to death, but is gored by the Malchai's claws deep enough to die a slow, painful death. August rushes to her side. She asks if part of the people he takes stays with them and he responds he doesn't know, still unsure about Leo's soul being trapped in his mind. He absorbs her soul, and Leo, knowing there's nothing else he can do to influence his little brother, finally leaves, letting Kate's soul take his place in August's mind. It confirms to August that Leo's soul was real the whole time.

He'll come in directly after Leo's soul leaves August's mind.

Personality: Leo, first and foremost, got his personality shaped by his creation. Sunai get imprinted with the chaos that shapes them. Leo was formed from religion badly warped, so his personality is extremely righteous. He sees the act of feeding on sinners to be something good, purging the world of one bad soul at a time. Unlike August, who yearns to be human, and Ilsa who is much more passive in her acceptance, Leo knows that first and foremost that he's a monster. He knows he's never going to be human and accepts that. It's one of the reasons he goes dark so often, for the act burns out the bits of Sunai that are human each time they do so.

Of course, Leo is also something of a hypocrite. He might act high and mighty, but at his core, he's a brute. He enjoys torturing people enough that Harker has an entire file on his computer dedicated just to video of Leo torturing people to death instead of letting them go in the much easier route of listening to his song. Though it's not shown, he tries to claw Sloan's heart out of his chest during their fight instead of just ramming a spike through him as most Malchai are dispatched.

Surprisingly, for a brutal monster, Leo does seem to care about people in his life. He considers Ilsa and August his siblings, and while he may have a skewed idea on how best to help them, he does seem to try to get them to make peace with the fact they're monsters. He's shown arguing with the Flynns several times in what he sees as August's best interest. While he does ultimately betray them, he also remains loyal to Henry Flynn and his wife for many years, choosing to side with them over Harker when the city gets divided in two.

There's also a suggestion in the book that there is a softer side to the monster he is. The first is seen caring for his family. The second is in how he creates music. Leo can use any instrument in contrast to his brother and sister. This is because they imprint on the first piece of music they find, something so beautiful that it colors their perception of reality from then on after. The fact Leo can do this with any instrument, August speculates, means that Leo finds beauty in everything. He seems to find this a hard concept considering how brutal Leo usually is, but there is some truth. Leo sees purging the world of sinners as leaving it a better place each time he does so.

After a year in August's mind, he's become a touch more open-minded about certain things. Just as he heavily influenced August, his brother also influenced him a little bit too. He's come to understand compassion and feeling guilt over something doesn't necessarily mean that there's weakness in somebody. In addition, seeing Soro act very much the same way he did, reminding Leo of himself, gave him some insight into his personality. While there are moments to brutally kill still, there's also ones where it's okay to show hesitation in taking a life. On the flip side, seeing all that he has in the past year has just reaffirmed in his mind that humans are extremely flawed and no one should ever wish to be one.

Inventory: A guitar made of steel and an iPod with charger.
Abilities: Sunai monsters have the siren-like ability to entrance people with a song. As long as someone has a set of working ears and a soul, from the first note, they are entranced by the Sunai's song. They fall into a calm and blissful state, not even knowing their own name, though they will compulsively tell all the sins on their soul. This allows the Sunai to feed on their soul, an act which causes the victim to glow red, and that glow to be drawn out and sucked into the Sunai, leaving the victim dead and with their eyes burnt out of their skull. Leo in particular can do this with any musical instrument he can get his hands on. He also discovered through trial and error that he can do it as well by torturing someone close to death. Though he's unaware of it, love can also bring a person's soul to the surface with a passionate kiss or hug. The only people they can feed upon are sinners. Those that have killed, raped, tortured, or otherwise done unspeakable acts to their fellow man. They're marked as a Sunai can see their shadow differently than a normal human being, which rises up and writhes unnaturally behind them. They cannot feed upon Corsai or Malchai and doing so makes a Sunai violently ill. They also can eat human food, but it tastes like air and ash to them, providing no substance

In the past year, the Sunai discovered that souls who have been brainwashed into committing mortal sins or otherwise aren't in control of themselves actually register equal parts sinner and innocent, glowing both red and white. They can still take it, but again, it will be the whole soul, which will leave Leo quite disturbed at taking part of a innocent soul.

Sunai are nearly invincible while in human form. Blades can't stab them and bullets can't pierce their skin. They can jump off a building that's multiple stories and suffer no injuries. However, they're also very dense and unable to swim, so when in water, they sink very rapidly, and can drown. They also dislike pure metals. It's discomforting, but doesn't completely stop them like it does with other monster species. The most injury Leo every receives is a small scar through his eyebrow from an altercation with Sloan, who is a powerful Malchai monster. However, if they haven't fed recently, they can receive injuries and suffer pain, though they will never die. Leo in particular is also shown to be stronger than a normal human being, nearly clawing Sloan's heart out of his chest on one occasion, and slamming an iron bar straight through him on another.

Sunai, like the other two types of monsters, can never tell a direct lie. They can, however, tell a version of the truth, or one they believe is true, to get around this limitation. On the flip side, Sunai provoke people around them to tell the truth, an unconscious thing that happens no matter where they go. It's a bit of a compulsion for the people around them to start telling things they normally don't tell other people, usually the worst things they've got on their conscience at the moment. While it is unconsciously done, it can be focused on a group or individual if a Sunai is in an intense emotional state.

Every day a Sunai doesn't go dark, their skin gains a mark burnt into their skin which resembles a tattoo. For Leo, this is a small black cross that starts on his left arm. If left long enough, they will go across his chest and back, then down his right arm. Usually, because of the frequency he goes dark, Leo only has them on his left arm. They also have a peculiar trait in that they can't be photographed correctly. Their eyes show up as two completely dark black spots instead of looking normal, one of the few ways to tell they're not human.

"Going dark" for a Sunai means starving themselves, going without feeding on a human soul for days on end. At first, this results in emotional changes. A Sunai goes through four stages: anger, madness, joy, and sorrow, experiencing each one acutely in turn. After this, their skin begins to heat up, first just at the temperature of a fever, but soon reaching temperatures hot enough to burn straight through human skin. Their marks start to light up, burning right through their clothes. Cold water can cool them down temporarily, though it does produce steam where it hits their skin. If a Sunai still refuses or is unable to feed, they finally go dark.

In going dark, they assume their true form, a demonic like creature made of smoke and fire. They have horns, wings, a tail, and their eyes and heart burn. In this form, they will kill indiscriminately without discerning between sinners and innocents until their hunger is satisfied. While they are the most powerful in this form, they are also the most vulnerable. They can be injured and even killed. Ilsa has her throat slit while in her form and barely survives. When she goes up against a very powerful monster called a Chaos Eater while in true form in the second book, she kills it, but the effort also ends in a mutual kill when she is destroyed. Funnily enough, Leo is actually shown to be the weakest of the Sunai, compared to a torch in the way he burns, as opposed to his sister who burns like a wildfire where she kills hundreds of people, and August, whose true power isn't measured, but is shown to be enough to easily overpower and kill his brother.

Flaws: Leo is a brutal and vicious monster. While he can take a human soul without pain, he's shown to greatly enjoy torturing people instead. He also enjoys killing monsters in the most brutal ways he can come up with. He's deliberately gone dark a number of times to burn out the parts of him that allow him to relate to humanity. He has trouble connecting to humans and can come off very callous and cold, which is not that far off the mark.

CR AU
Previous Game and Time: The Quiet Place, March 2018-April 2018
Previous Development: Leo arrived in Reims and immediately discovered he was going to have trouble feeding off people since he couldn't make noise. Rather than take people by force, as he was warrant to back home, he decided to try and play nice in the community by asking permission. He posted on the network and subsequently sent just about everyone else in the city into various frenzied states. He found one woman willing to sacrifice herself, which sustained him for almost the whole month.

He interacted with many people during his stay, but his abrasive personality and power set made it hard to get close to anyone. His abilities were called upon once or twice for people who wanted to use them for various reasons.

Living in shared housing, he soon befriended two of its occupants, the couple Seth Gecko and Margo Hanson. Both were sinners, but Leo found himself getting along with them despite himself. Seth was reminded of his brother Richie, who was another monster, and Leo latched onto Seth since he was missing his own siblings. Leo and Margo bonded over little things like her cooking and their love of music. The last major thing to happen to him was sharing a meal with them in their room before being pulled to Hadriel.

SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: Leo should have been used to ending up in strange places by now. This time it hadn't been because he'd been killed, at least, not that he'd remembered. He picked himself up off the dirt floor and looked around cautiously. Was this another product of the red dust? He didn't feel any of it coating his throat or his clothes.

His questioning thoughts soon came to a halt as he saw what he assumed was a new form of monster coming towards him. If there was one thing Leo Flynn knew about, it was monsters. Whether it was home, Reims, or here (wherever here was), he knew one when he saw it. He wasn't sure what kind it was, only that it seemed to have far more sharp teeth and claws than anyone should have been comfortable with. No matter. Leo could kill almost anything and he was damn good at it.

He let the monster get close enough to attack. It seemed to be puzzled as the claws it slashed him with skittered off his skin instead of tearing into his flesh. Before it could try anything else, he had grabbed it by the throat. Though it struggled, he simply squeezed its throat until the struggles stopped, and it went completely limp. Normally, he'd make sure that this whatever-it-was didn't get back up by removing its head, considering some monsters could recover from almost anything but that, but he didn't have any weapons around him to do that with.

Well, now that had been taken care of, it was time to find out where he was, and if anyone else from the city had shown up here. Mostly, he was worried about Seth and Margo. If they had shown up here, they might not be able to defend themselves adequately. He'd never seen Margo use her magic offensively and didn't know the limits of it. Seth might fare better, provided he could find something to use as a weapon.

[OOC]

Backtagging: Sure thing! I'll keep a thread going as long as I need to complete it.
Threadhopping: Provided all parties are communicating, yes.
Fourthwalling: No thank you.
Offensive subjects: None.

[IC]

Hugging this character: Sure. He'll have no idea how to react anyway.
Kissing this character: Same as above.
Flirting with this character: He will not be amused, but sure.
Fighting with this character: Go right ahead. Just know there will be consequences, he's pretty tough.
Injuring this character: Sure, but anything permanent like losing a limb will need discussion.
Killing this character: Sure. It's already happened to him once.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Go right ahead, he's got no defenses.
Content warnings: Leo's canon has mention of suicide, school shootings, suicide bombers, torture, and a lot of gory death. Tell me if you want to opt out of any of this.

Abilities: Leo's three primary abilities that will affect your character are thus. The first is being able to tell if someone is a sinner or not. He can do this with a simple look, for a character's shadow looks completely off. This only applies to characters who have done really bad acts: murder, torture, rape, pedophilia, things of that nature.

The second is a passive ability. Sunai cause people to unconsciously be more honest around them. They'll make people tell the truth. Generally, they'll talk about things they would generally like to keep hidden, maybe how they honestly feel about someone, or about something in their past they would rather hide. When a Sunai gets into a high emotional state, it makes people start confessing sins, usually whatever is on their mind at the time.

The last is that Leo can entrance people by playing a song. He can do this using any instrument, barring using his own voice singing. If a character has a soul and working ears, they'll be affected from the first note. They'll fall into a calm, blissful state, barely able to remember their own name, and willing to confess the worst acts of their life. If he touches them in this state, he'll drain their soul, which kills them and leaves their eyes burnt out of their skull. I'll never play this out to a full soul-sucking unless I've discussed it with people ahead of time.

If for whatever reason you think your character wouldn't be affected by any of these abilities, be sure to let me know!

Since the Monsters of Verity wiki has yet to even get an ARTICLE up about his character and I'm sure most people haven't read the book, I've taken it upon myself to provide basic info about Leo.

Name: Leo Flynn
Age: ??? It's not stated how old he was when he was created. He appears to be in his twenties.
Species: Sunai
Notable characteristics: Blonde, has little black crosses that resemble tattoos going up his left arm, a scar running through one eyebrow.
Favorite instruments: Guitar, flute, and piano.

Background: Monsters are created in Leo's world from violent acts. Corsai come from violent but nonlethal acts, Malchai are created from killings and murders. Sunai? Sunai are created when something so bad happens it upsets the natural balance of things. Therefore, they are the rarest type of monster, with only three of them in existence. Ilsa, his older sister, was created from a bomb going off in a basement where people had taken refuge when the monsters first appeared. His little brother August came from a middle school shooting. Leo himself came from a cult who thought it was the end of the world. They threw themselves off a rooftop to die, but rather than just taking themselves, they forced their children, parents, and family to jump with them. Leo woke up amidst the dead and the dying, fully formed already as a teenager. Because Sunai tend to be imprinted with the personality of the event that created them, Leo is very righteous, seeing it as his duty to seek out sinners to eat.

It's not clear what happened to him afterwards, but he discovered his Sunai abilities early on. Like their personalities, Sunai imprint on the first bit of music they hear, only able to evoke their abilities with that type of music afterwards. Unlike his sister and brother, who can only create their song through their voice and violin respectively, Leo can create his song with any musical instrument he can get his hands on. August speculates this is because, despite what he comes off as on the outside, Leo sees beauty in everything around him, and heard a song composed of most instruments.

At some point, he discovered his older sister and the Flynns. Henry Flynn was in a war with the Harkers, a family who controlled most of the Corsai and Malchai monsters. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Sunai were far more powerful. Leo became the face of the Sunai, the one always on the front lines. A truce was formed and the city he lived in was divided in two, North City and South City, when Ilsa "went dark" and obliterated over two-hundred people in a single instance. August came to them after all this had already happened. The years rolled by with Leo trying to protect his half of the city.

Leo held no compunctions about being a monster and frequently "went dark", which burnt a little more of his humanity out each time he did so. By the time This Savage Song begins, he's become disillusioned with Flynn's idea of the truce holding. He wants it to break, thinking that it's the only way the wicked can truly be punished. But he still works with him to protect South City and his family.

To break the truce, he teams up with Harker and his pet Malchai Sloan to break it by going after Harker's daughter Kate and framing his brother August for it. Things go pear-shaped when the two escape and evade everyone for a few days. Ilsa helps her little brother during this time, which seemingly leads to her death, something Leo is saddened by, but sees as a necessary sacrifice. When Leo finally finds August, he's been tortured by Sloan, trying to make him "go dark" so that he'll feed on Kate.

Leo kills Sloan, for his brother's torture and death wasn't part of their deal. He tries to get August to see his side of things, but his brother is horrified by Leo's admittedly skewed ideas of how to run the city. When August finally goes dark, he turns on his brother, and burns him into ash, killing him in one of the only ways a Sunai can be taken down.

Powers: Sunai monsters have the siren-like ability to entrance people with a song. As long as someone has a set of working ears and a soul, from the first note, they are entranced by the Sunai's song. They fall into a calm and blissful state, not even knowing their own name, though they will compulsively tell all the sins on their soul. This allows the Sunai to feed on their soul, an act which causes the victim to glow red, and that glow to be drawn out and sucked into the Sunai, leaving the victim dead and with their eyes burnt out of their skull. Leo in particular can do this with any musical instrument he can get his hands on. He also discovered through trial and error that he can do it as well by torturing someone close to death. The only people they can feed upon are sinners. Those that have killed, raped, tortured, or otherwise done unspeakable acts to their fellow man. They're marked as a Sunai can see their shadow differently than a normal human being, which rises up and writhes unnaturally behind them. They cannot feed upon Corsai or Malchai and doing so makes a Sunai violently ill. They also can eat human food, but it tastes like air and ash to them, providing no substance

Sunai are nearly invincible while in human form. Blades can't stab them and bullets can't pierce their skin. The most injury Leo every receives is a small scar through his eyebrow from an altercation with Sloan, who is a powerful Malchai monster. However, if they haven't fed recently, they can receive injuries and suffer pain, though they will never die. Leo in particular is also shown to be stronger than a normal human being, nearly clawing Sloan's heart out of his chest on one occasion, and slamming an iron bar straight through him on another.

Sunai, like the other two types of monsters, can never tell a direct lie. They can, however, tell a version of the truth, or one they believe is true, to get around this limitation. On the flip side, Sunai provoke people around them to tell the truth, an unconscious thing that happens no matter where they go. It's a bit of a compulsion for the people around them to start telling things they normally don't tell other people, usually the worst things they've got on their conscience at the moment. While it is unconsciously done, it can be focused on a group or individual if a Sunai is in an intense emotional state.

Every day a Sunai doesn't go dark, their skin gains a mark burnt into their skin which resembles a tattoo. For Leo, this is a small black cross that starts on his left arm. If left long enough, they will go across his chest and back, then down his right arm. Usually, because of the frequency he goes dark, Leo only has them on his left arm. They also have a peculiar trait in that they can't be photographed correctly. Their eyes show up as two completely dark black spots instead of looking normal, one of the few ways to tell they're not human.

"Going dark" for a Sunai means starving themselves, going without feeding on a human soul for days on end. At first, this results in emotional changes. A Sunai goes through four stages: anger, madness, joy, and sorrow, experiencing each one acutely in turn. After this, their skin begins to heat up, first just at the temperature of a fever, but soon reaching temperatures hot enough to burn straight through human skin. Their marks start to light up, burning right through their clothes. Cold water can cool them down temporarily, though it does produce steam where it hits their skin. If a Sunai still refuses or is unable to feed, they finally go dark.

In going dark, they assume their true form, a demonic like creature made of smoke and fire. They have horns, wings, a tail, and their eyes and heart burn. In this form, they will kill indiscriminately without discerning between sinners and innocents until their hunger is satisfied. While they are the most powerful in this form, they are also the most vulnerable. They can be injured and even killed. Ilsa has her throat slit while in her form and barely survives. Funnily enough, Leo is actually shown to be the weakest of the Sunai, compared to a torch in the way he burns, as opposed to his sister who burns like a wildfire, and August, whose true power isn't measured, but is shown to be enough to easily overpower and kill his brother.

Personality: Leo, first and foremost, got his personality shaped by his creation. Sunai get imprinted with the chaos that shapes them. Leo was formed from religion badly warped, so his personality is extremely righteous. He sees the act of feeding on sinners to be something good, purging the world of one bad soul at a time. Unlike August, who yearns to be human, and Ilsa who is much more passive in her acceptance, Leo knows that first and foremost that he's a monster. He knows he's never going to be human and accepts that. It's one of the reasons he goes dark so often, for the act burns out the bits of Sunai that are human each time they do so.

Of course, Leo is also something of a hypocrite. He might act high and mighty, but at his core, he's a brute. He enjoys torturing people enough that Harker has an entire file on his computer dedicated just to video of Leo torturing people to death instead of letting them go in the much easier route of listening to his song. Though it's not shown, he tries to claw Sloan's heart out of his chest during their fight instead of just ramming a spike through him as most Malchai are dispatched.

Surprisingly, for a brutal monster, Leo does seem to care about people in his life. He considers Ilsa and August his siblings, and while he may have a skewed idea on how best to help them, he does seem to try to get them to make peace with the fact they're monsters. He's shown arguing with the Flynns several times in what he sees as August's best interest. While he does ultimately betray them, he also remains loyal to Henry Flynn and his wife for many years, choosing to side with them over Harker when the city gets divided in two.

There's also a suggestion in the book that there is a softer side to the monster he is. The first is seen caring for his family. The second is in how he creates music. Leo can use any instrument in contrast to his brother and sister. This is because they imprint on the first piece of music they find, something so beautiful that it colors their perception of reality from then on after. The fact Leo can do this with any instrument, August speculates, means that Leo finds beauty in everything. He seems to find this a hard concept considering how brutal Leo usually is, but there is some truth. Leo sees purging the world of sinners as leaving it a better place each time he does so.