Clifford

Clifford is the result of a series of bad decisions.

The first was made in a youth spent pickpocketing, filching, and scrounging for a living in the cracks of Chicago. Magic was around every corner, and Clifford knew where to look. He slept in a bar that wizards got drunk in, heard inuit demons growl threats into fey ears. A skinny, tiny youth that wanted a taste of the magic in the air.

So he sold his soul not once, but three times, in the vain hopes that not one of them could claim it. He thought of his soul as an indivisible, invulnerable thing. So when the demon, the spirit, and the fey got together and talked with each other, he was left with the faintest scrap of a soul broken into four pieces. He kept the gifts they gave in return, but they were paid for with work to make up for the three fourths each one lacked.

Over time, the demon proved too distasteful for the others. Its broken glass gaping grin and carrion stench was in his thoughts, his fears. It poured more and more of itself into Clifford, hollowing out the meatsack that remained soulless. It warped his bones and tore his flesh, rebuilding him for its purposes. And as it was almost done, rendered tiny and nothing by itself divided between new body and old bones, the spirit and the fey relinquished their shards. Two bits of his soul, joined together to be larger than anything that had remained flew back in.

His body his again, after long years of mindlessness, Clifford awoke behind his eyes with his jaws buried in the demons broken chest, its chewed heart dribbling from his lips. This was his body, but not anything like he left it. Thick, brutal fingers, tendon like steel cable. He'd gone from a scared, prideful child to a battered hulk, shoulders cracking the doorframe as he ran from what he'd come back to.

It's been more years since then, and he's struggling to piece together a new life, making the best of what he's been left to.



Clifford has been rendered stronger, if only physically, by the rebuilding of his body. Adjusting has been a clumsy affair, and he's the definition of "doesn't know his own strength." His skin is tough, his senses rendered bestially acute. However, metaphysical abuse has only rendered his psyche more fragile than ever before. He's paranoid, slow to make friends, and quick to push away. He doesn't even know the various buttons to push his temper yet, and still struggles to push down the unnatural violent urges his body has been left with.