Carter 'The Hound' St. John

Portrayed By	Karl Urban
Gender	Male
Date of Birth	November 1st
Age	33
Zodiac Sign	Scorpio
Aliases	Managarm, The Hound
Place of Birth	Las Vegas, Nevada
Current Location	New York City
Occupation	Professional Supernatural Hunter & Mercenary
Known Relatives	All Deceased
Significant Other	None
Identity	Several False Identifications
Known Abilities	Combat Training
First Appearance	Here

"I'm not someone famous, or someone who the word gets out there for the general public, but I am someone who's in the phone books for some pretty big names…"

The Myth

The following is an interview recording by Ben Ulrich done in 2011 for The Daily Planet, but was never published. All of Mr. Ulrich's questions and comments were edited out by him after the fact.

That thing's running, right? Okay…

Who am I?

That's a pretty damn good question.

First off… no names. No real ones anyways. Names are a powerful thing. My advice to you is never sign your real name on anything, never say your whole name any place… and if you HAVE to? Never say it the same way twice. It messes with them.

Oh yeah, getting off track. You asked a question.

There's two ways to describe yourself. The name's an obvious thing, see, the name defines your existence. It makes you a part of who you are. The other way's the mileage you've got. So here's the deal… you buy the waffles, I'll tell you a tale.

If you run in the circles I'm in, you can call me The Hound.

I've been around the supernatural my whole life. That isn't to say I've got my mojo on… matter of fact, maybe only one person in a hundred thousand has the gift in them. But that doesn't mean by any stretch that just because you don't got it means you're useless for the long haul. Some of the most effective people dealing with the demons, devils, and monsters who squat our turf like a… a racially insensitive remark… never had a lick of the talent to their name.

Ever hear of Wong? No… 'cause everyone's heard of Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme. No one you know's heard of Wong. Wong is certifiably badass, can hold his own with an array of nasties that would make you shit your pants, but he's so under the radar you'd mistake him for a dozen other oriental guys working for a master sorcerer.

Allright, allright… yeah I'm getting on a tear, but seriously… it's a big burr in my saddle. We can get to that later.

So take three on this… like I said, I've grown up around this stuff all my life. My mom was a professional psychic. Now when I tell you she was a pro, it wasn't that she was a decent hustler. Hell, she taught me more about running a good con than you could get from a circus. No, she had the gift… and could talk to demons, ghosts, angels and whatever have you. Not the most recommended kind of occupation, but she made a decent living sussing out bad guys, criminals, and the whole host of actual supernatural trouble that crops up place to place. Dad backed her up as the muscle.

Going back to things you ain't ever heard of… what about K'un Lun? Nope? Good reason for that. Forget I ever said anything about it. Dad picked up a few skills there after being a professional mercenary and general asskicker. He wasn't the most cordial of people, and was the first to admit he was doing all this to make up for a mile wide road of bad juju he'd managed to build up. Mom would never talk about that, or how they met… but they loved each other enough to have little old damaged me.

Okay, so here I am as a kid… I'm the only kid I know who'd had a succubus for a babysitter because my parents have to kill a doppleganger trying to become the CEO of a major corporation. Or, the time I ended up playing with a hellhound puppy because my dad just whacked his momma. I was kinda sad that we had to lose the puppy, but Mom put her foot down after he flambe'd some poor old lady's poodle, and letting him do his business wilted a landscaping patch, before setting it on fire.

For the record, I named him Wiley.

So this was my life growing up. Cheap hotels, school to school, and occasionally on the phone with mom or dad trolling their portable library or the local one for information on something nasty that needed to die.

Now, I'm sure you're questioning why they'd do this stuff. Why not leave it for the famous guys like Ghost Rider, or Doc Strange, or even the B-listers? Because those guys deal with the bigger stuff. Dimensional incursion from the whacked out realm of the purple four eyed people eaters? Strange'll show. Zombie invasion of Chicago? You'd find the Spirit of Veangance. But the nickle and dime, daily crap kinda falls under their radar. That's where people like my parents come onto the scene. People who've seen too much to walk away, but aren't tough enough to get on the boat for the apocalypse.

When I was twelve was when I lost my parents. At the time, Atlantis rose up to attack the surface world. Wish I was joking, but apparently someone dumped one too many oil tankers in Prince Namor's pool, and he decided to go all Imperius Rex on everyone with two legs and no gills. Except Sue Storm… heard he's got a serious bit of dolphin wood for her.

Who wouldn't… I mean DAMN… Johnny's easy on the eyes t-… Wait, you never heard me say that.

Needless to say, it's not something my parents were really into, but they still wanted to do their part. Something they were pretty clear about when dad armed up and mom pulled out some of her baddest mojo, was that it doesn't matter who does bad stuff. Someone's gotta stand the line.

I didn't see them die.

It happened while I was hotwiring a van to get a bunch of people out of the way. One moment they were there… next they were gone. Still drove those people to safety… I did my part. And then I tried to move on. Went back afterwards about a year later to try and see if I could find out what happened… and Mom appeared to me. Problem was, she'd spent too long as a ghost to be able to give me the full skinny. We had to fight, and I had to contain her… until I found the last part of her I had with me, and I burned it. I think that was the first time I ever cried.

Social services caught up with me when I was fourteen and in San Francisco. Too many times busted by the police running cons and trying to stay one step ahead of a black magic user who wanted to use me to open up a channel to one of the big ones on the other side. Just because I don't have the talent doesn't mean my blood isn't useful. Blood can do a lot. There's a spot on your forms when you're at the hospital that you can check to have them destroy any of your body fluids they have to use. No joke.

So there I am… a socially mal-adjusted kid with no real education in the eyes of the law, but could take down a guy twice my age, a crack shot with firearms, and knew more about supernatural creatures than your average mystic, or TV show producer for that matter.

If you can imagine, Junior High was not my forte. I quickly got lumped as the Goth Kid, and couldn't help but laugh my ass off at the half-baked crap these guys called satanic. The real juju takes the kind of stuff most of these Morrisey-chomping brats couldn't handle.

Does that sound bitter? It was the 90s. That was about as bitter a time as you could get. Seriously. Marilyn Mansion. Nine Inch Nails. Being in tune with death was supposed to be a thing back then, but really it was just a bunch of dudes in makeup whining about how much life sucks.

I was sixteen and just moving into high school when some guys claiming to be my dad's old friends finally caught up with me. A monk, an honest to fuck Asgardian, and a half-angel. Yeah, you heard that right… half-angel. Don't ask me about the mechanics… because she was pretty foul-mouthed, and kinda pretty. I think we woulda hooked up, except that Hogun was kind of insistent that she and I never get involved. And when Hogun tells you not to do something… you damn well don't do it.

So for about three months, I lived with a monk who never spoke a damn word, Hogun, and Jessie. Not kidding… he never spoke once. But somehow we all knew what he was saying or what he meant. I learned a trick from him about lying from my eyes that's saved my life more than once. You wouldn't believe how much your eyes can tell if you're not careful. Like your's right now… they're telling me you're amused, but you still don't believe what I'm saying. But you're willing to pay out a couple more drinks on your tab for that nugget of truth you're looking for.

Now, for the record… this wasn't the best time of my life. In fact, the three months I lived there sucked. The monk trained both myself in Jessie in some weird-ass martial stuff that looked kinda like what Dad used to use, while Hogun taught us both how to swing a weapon. I ended up picking up the sword, while Jessie tended to like things like hammers. Violent girl, I shit you not… but I wasn't any better. Beatings were a daily part of life, but it wasn't because they were being mean… they were toughing us up. We didn't know why until afterwards.

There was this thing that happened… it took away most of the good guys on the planet. Like literally just sucked them up and off to the stars to fight some A-lister badass by the name of Thanos. Yeah, Thanos… as in Death-guy, so I was told over drinks with Wyatt Wingfoot about six years ago. Without the big guns around, it was all hands on deck to keep the rest of them at bay. Sixteen isn't the kind of age you want to be bringing the pain on demons with an Asgardian sword, but that's what I had to do. I understood the game from growing up, that sometimes you gotta slice a bitch. We won, but it cost us Jessie when she went down to keep some thing with one huge eye and a lot of tentacles from getting in the door. Never got it's name, not sure I wanted to. But it took two magazines from an assault rifle and didn't even flinch.

After that whole thing, I went back to high school under the silent monk's adoptive parentage, and he continued to give me daily beat-downs and kept up my sword work. He added a couple other things to the repetoire, like how to properly shoot a bow. Not like shooting like Hawkeye good, but good enough to pass muster when it counts. I think I annoyed him a little when I was seventeen and started using a fireaxe instead of Hodoltonn, but at the time there was something a lot more satisfying in chopping stuff to death using it. Besides, by then I'd gotten a few tricks under my belt and had carved a couple sigils into it that made it particularly nasty for what I was fighting… of course the silver plating along the edge also helped.

Made me laugh later on when I saw the movie Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and he did the same thing.

The day I turned eighteen was about a week after I graduated high school… and it was the day I decided to leave both the civilized world, and the silent monk behind. He never even said goodbye. That's cause he never said anything… but he gave me this look that said he knew he couldn't tell me what to do. Maybe because I was a hard-headed sunovabitch, or it could be because he felt I was ready. He'd had three years to train me and refine my talents. Even brought in a couple people to help out in the training. My favorite was two weeks taking lumps with a bokken by Colleen Wing.

Seriously, one of these days someone will explain to me why so many of the people who get into this gig are just plain HOT. And it's not even a girl thing either… trust me.

At first, I had to trade on my parent's name to get into any sort of work. I'd hunt independantly, hustle and commit fraud for seed money, rob the guys I was taking down when times got lean. I'll be the first to admit that it sucked balls… but this was the life I knew, and the life I kinda fell in love with. I'm not one for the constraints modern society has with it. You can still live in this country on cash and going place to place. There's still diners, and there's still bars who go on a cash tab… still plenty of places where they don't ask and you don't tell. It took me almost five years from then to really establish my name with the crowd, but once I was there, things started picking up.

Most of my work I took in trade for the guys who needed muscle to deal with the baddies they were handling, and there were days when I would question if I was going crazy or not with the people I was hanging out with. I mean… I did some dirty work for the Host, specifically for Gabriel… and in return he gave me a couple of holy handguns and a stern warning about my poor choice in bedpartners. There was the coven of witches who made me a pretty cool shotgun, and let me uhhh… take part in a solstice ceremony.

What? Don't give me that look. You take it where you can get it, and besides… naked wiccans and a full moon… it's a thing.

Now… The name.

Didn't earn until I was caught up in a conflict between two different pantheons. See… the one thing they don't do is mix beliefs. It's not really a spoken rule, but more of a guideline that none of them want to break, but sometimes do… for various reasons. Imagine my surprise when I was called by Balder AND Venus to protect their daughter. From what, you ask? Wellllll… since she wasn't supposed to exist, the Fates were trying to find her and wipe her from the skein, while on the flip side of the coin, Odin was making nasty eyes at Baldur the brave for dipping his spear in that married Grecian well.

How do you stop the Norse and the Greek Gods from getting what they want? You find yourself a new god.

Smuggling her out of the US was no easy feat, lemme tell you, but I got her to Japan, and following some of the old legends, I found the place where Kagu-Tsuchi was born to Izanagi and Izanami… and I convinced the old bastard Izanagi himself to adopt her into the clan. From Greek Viking to Japanese about as fast as you can say Romanji… the problem was solved and no one had to get hurt.

No, I am not telling you how to convince a God to do something. You don't. It's as simple as that.

Telling guys like you how guys like me do stuff means we don't get paid the big bucks to handle shit like this in the first place!

But anyways, after that, because I took to the job and didn't give up for anyone, Balder declared I was like the son of Hati, brother of Skoll, and chaser of the moon. And he went on like that for TEN MINUTES. TEN. MINUTES. I finally had to interrupt, and had to ask what that meant, to which I was told it was kind of like being a dog with a bone. Moon-Hound was too damn wordy and cheesy for me to cotton to, so I ended up just sticking with Hound, or The Hound, or even Managarm when I end up at a God-level drinking party.

Hey, when a Norse demigod, godling, or whatever invites you out for brews, you don't turn them down… seriously, it's an epic party I recommend anyone does at least once before they die.

This sort of brings me back around to the rant at the beginning. Wong. Wong's the one guy I'll take the call for no matter what. He words for the big man, the Sorcerer Supreme. And Strange needs bush-league work done because he's always dealing with something bigger. Like head on fire damning the planet kind of bad. So that's where I come in. Wong calls, I come. I get the gig, I get paid, and I move on. Driving's easiest because flying usually means checked baggage, and I really can't explain to the TSA my bag of tricks. Wong's always cool to me. He has tea… is a decent conversation, and lets me talk shop when I need it. Wouldn't call him a friend… but I would at least say we're cordial.

And yes… I met Strange once. Once. He looked at me. We had a moment, and it was over.

So… this is who I am. I got a collection of know-how, training, equipment, and a bitch-load of scars. Every so often I get a boost from a friendly… refresh the body, but I know that I'll be burning the candle at both ends doing it. I'm gonna die, just like my parents did.

I just hope I go like they did… for the right reasons.

The Man

Carter St. John is the son of Damian St. John and Claire Johanssen. His father was a former SAS Team member, who shortly after became a contract killer and mercenary for hire. At some undisclosed point, he took a contract that ended up taking him to the steps of K'un Lun and squared him off in a fight with the Thunderer, Lei-Kung. That particular hand to hand fight lasted exactly five seconds, and Damian landed one blow. In honor of that blow connecting from an outsider, Lei-Kung took in Damian for a period of ten years… and he left a changed man. His mother Claire has the bloodline of Salem witches in her, and was a demonologist, medium, and clairvoyant. Carter is not aware of why the two met, but he was raised as best the pair could on the road.

His name of Managarm, or Moon-Hound, is the alternate name of Hati, the Norse wolf brother of Skoll who chased to moon to swallow it during Ragnarok. The name was given due to his training in Asgardian swordsmanship coupled with his generally unshakable tenacity in completing his contracts. Carter prefers to be called either of those to his true name, because of the nature of true names.

The Hound's reputation within supernatural circles is one of integrity. Once you hire him for something, he stays bought, but the moment he's done… if that contract was not dealt in good faith, he'll return it in kind. He's considered in good standing with most of the good-sided supernatural beings, including both sets of known deities, the Church, and even with a couple superhero groups. Due to the nature of his work, he has several outstanding criminal warrants for murder, assault, destruction of property, and defacing public property.

The Legend

Outwardly, Carter is gruff, seeming not to care about anyone or anything in particular other than money and a good time. He's a shameless flirt when he can get away with it, enjoying a little witty banter while working, but tends to use that as an emotional barrier from others. Underneath that, he is the end product of a life on the road and never having anything stable to call his own. It has left him as someone who finds it hard to connect to people, and as such doesn't know how to treat close relations well.

He is an intelligent and fairly cunning man, but plays up the tough guy image to keep his enemies off-guard, and employs his reputation as much as his skill to keep some vendettas from coming after him.

The Skills That Pay The Bills

Abilities

The Hound does not possess any Supernatural abilities of any sort that are not provided by some outside source.

He is considered at the peak of natural human strength, agility, and endurance from a life of fighting.

Due to his time being trained by the Silent Monk in K'un Lun arts, Carter has gained a basic level of biofeedback training, in the form of minor chi manipulation. He can use this to help manage pain, to give himself an adrenaline or endorphin boost in combat, and to be able to put himself into a trance that can help along the healing process at the cost of leaving himself completely vulnerable.

This same training has afforded him some decent defenses against telepathic intrusion, possession, and mind control. A skilled telepath, powerful magic user, or powerful enough demon can overwhelm these defenses, but not without a few seconds of hard work.

Combat Training

His knowledge of combat is very comprehensive. He has been trained by both Asgardian and K'un Lun warriors for years in hand to hand, swordsmanship, bowcraft, and axe-fighting, but can also handle just about any kind of melee weapon. From his father, he learned how to fire most conventional firearms, and has kept that proficiency throughout his life. He is a moderately good sniper when long-range is required, but he does not have any sort of skill with heavier military weapons outside of an assault rifle or grenade launcher.

While is would not be ranked in the top 10 close combat experts in the capes community, he would be considered within the top 10 percent.

Supernatural Lore

Carter has almost thirty years of knowledge of dealing with demons, angels, ghosts, monsters, and anything else having to do with the supernatural. This includes not only a wealth of knowledge on how to kill or contain these beings, but also the knowledge of where to get the information when he doesn't have it.

Arcane Lore

While the Hound has no native magical talent, he has a breadth of knowledge of different kinds of magic, able to identify and decipher most common forms of magic in use in the Marvel Universe. This skill level also applies to knowing Heavenly and Infernal runic symbology and it's usages for containment or summoning and banishment. Basic Alchemy is something else in this bag of tricks, being able to produce basic materials for when some kind of special material or supply is needed to vanquish the dark forces.

Criminal & Detective Skills

Due to the semi-illegal nature of the work hunting the creatures of the dark, and the humans who work with them at times… it requires you to know your way around the seedier side of things. Carter has become rather adept at confidence games, breaking and entering, and is a capable enough actor to pass for a federal agent or city employee.

A 'happy' side effect of the business is this less than legal background has also given him a good working knowledge of the techniques for private investigation, including tailing, photography work, deductive reasoning, evidence gathering, and research.

Jack of All Trades

Being on the road and alone most of the time, or working with a small group requires a huge degree of self-sufficiency on Carter's part. He knows how to repair and maintain most firearms, as well as working with melee weapons. Even though a good part of his arsenal is magical in nature, it still requires some degree of skill in upkeep. He is a decent mechanic and electrician, and a budding locksmith… for obvious reasons. At his best, he has repaired a mechanical watch that was broken to re-sell.

Languages

Carter is able to passably speak Russian, Greek, German, Latin, and Japanese with enough fluency to do the rituals in those languages properly, and hold conversations.

The Gear For The Road, and The Homes Away From Home.

Information, Please

Kept in a storage locker in Brooklyn under a series of heavy magical protections, all of Carter's family's books are kept, with a direct scanned copy of the Library on the west coast in Seattle stored in both microfiche and CD-ROM format. There are almost four hundred books from various cultures, with information on almost any supernatural creature that has ever walked the earth.

For information gathering purposes, Carter keeps a few smartphones for various IDs, and a laptop for collating data and contact information from those smartphones. This is primarily for research, and not for any kind of serious hacking or information theft.

Working Funds

Carter has, by nature of his contracts and illegal dealings, amassed several stashes of hard cash, preloaded debit cards, and credit cards under aliases. It is enough to keep him well-stocked and armed for a year's worth of hunting if needed. This includes money spent obtaining rare or obscure reagents or items for specific hunts.

The Sweet Rides

For most of his travelling around means, Carter keeps a Hunter Green 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle SS with the spare tire removed and the back modified to be able to hide weaponry, with a secondary armory under the back bench.

As an alternative means of transportation, he owns a 1978 Harley Davidson Low Rider that he most often stores in his Library's storage locker with other long term items.

Junk in The Trunk

(Or under the back seat)

Hidden inside the car's Armory stash, outside of his stash of magical gear, is the following:

• A 1964 Heckler & Koch G3 Battle Rifle with Scope and Bipod
• A pair of MAC-10 SMGs
• A Modified Draco Pistol (Has an AKMS Folding Stock, so it looks like a baby AK, but it shoots like Daddy!)
• A pair of Colt M1911A1 Pistols
• A pair of Beretta PX4 Storm .45 ACP Pistols
• A Kimber Solo 9mm Subcompact Pistol
• A Ruger GP100 .357 Magnum Revolver
• A Colt SAA Artillery Revolver
• A Desert Eagle Mark with a .357 Magnum (standard), .44 Magnum, and .50AE Barrels. Two-Tone, Wood Grips.
• A pair of Sawed-Off Over/Under Shotguns
• An Izhmash Saiga 12k Fully Automatic Shotgun (He calls her Roxanne. Because she 'Rox')
• Three Heavy Carbon Steel Machetes
• A Pair of Busse Tactical Gladius (Tungsten Steel)
• Nine Fighting Knives (2 Steel, 2 Bronze, 2 Bone, 3 Silver)
• A Silver-bonded Kokatana
• Several White Phosphorous Grenades
• A Folding Compound Hunting Crossbow and a dozen arrows with a pump-action recocker
• A Silver-Bladed Fireman's Axe with runic inscriptions to banish otherworld creatures.

With all the guns, he also has reloads of standard, cold iron, and silver-plated ammunition. For the shotguns specifically, he has bronze buckshot, dragon's breath rounds, and explosive slugs. Included in the bargain is gun cleaning kits, holsters, and the rest of the needed supplies.

The trunk itself contains a plethora of items necessary to deal with several forms of supernaturals, stored in bottles, tupperware containers, lead boxes, and other specialty items to protect and preserve those items for use.

Besides some changes of clothes, Carter has a suit of Norse leather and chain armor, a set of Grecian Armor, and three Kevlar vests with trauma plates for undercover work.

Where to Lay Low

Carter has Three safehouses in the continental United States.

A cabin in Portland, Oregon just abutting a national park. This was an inheritance from his parents, and has many magical defenses to avoid detection but not interfere with nature. A dug-out basement of the cabin has a summoning laboratory.

A one bedroom condo in Bellows Falls, Vermont that has had the lease paid off and an account to cover the property taxes for at least 3 years. Stored here are a lot of equipment for creating aliases, counterfeiting identifications, and computers that can be used

A garage and loft in Bozeman, Montana that has a lot of spare equipment for hunting and has tools to work on the car or bike. This is Carter's preferred hideout when recovering from a hunt.

Hiding Out in Plain Sight

The Hound has several working Fake IDs for interstate agencies to be able to pass as either a US Marshal, an FBI Agent, an ATF Agent, and an FAA Employee.

He also has things like concealed weapons permits and other things to assist with working inside the law when caught.

The Good Stuff

Hodoltonn

Hodoltonn, or 'Sun's Fang' is an Asgardian weapon forged by the Dwarves of Nidavellir as one of the many weapons for use by the Aesir on the day Ragnarok came, it was one of many that was also lost to Midgard because of the machinations of Loki. It was placed in the armory when it was made clear that Hogun favored blunt and bludgeoning weapons instead, and once in the hands of the God of Mischief, it was disguised as a rusted antique in Ho Chang's Trash & Treasures in Hoboken, New Jersey until it was recovered by Hogun of the Warriors Three. This sword is nearly indestructible and with the unique ability to 'slice' magic. This sword can cut through magic barriers, illusions, and even dispel magical attacks by 'cutting' them. It is similiar to a longsword in design, but on command it can morph into a short fighting spear.

For reasons unknown, this weapon that is permanently bonded to it's wielder, and like any magically empowered and Dwarven-forged weapon it will return to it's wielder when called.

Because of Hodoltonn's inherent nature and power, it is like carrying around a giant beacon to the supernatural. To help hide it's presence, it is stored inside a runed case to prevent both scrying and detection, however, it will snap open if Hodoltonn is summoned by it's wielder.

Fidelas & Veritas

Originally part of Heaven's Armory brought close to the Mortal Plane by Gabriel for the use of Frank Castle during his tenure as an Agent of Heaven. These two heavenly handguns appear as a pair of World War 2 era Colt M1911A1 pistols made from a silvery-blue metal of unknown origin, and with ivory grips that each have angel's wings and their name inscribed on them. The magazines cannot be ejected. They hold unlimited blessed silver rounds, or if the hammer is manually cocked before firing, each weapon will fire a single flaming lance that can kill or dispel any creature of an evil nature. Firing the lances requires the weapons to be blessed in prayer, or to be dipped in holy water to reload.

These heavenly weapons cannot be used to harm any truly good person, and pulling the trigger with the deliberate intent to kill a good person will caught the weapons to destroy their wielder. Because they are made from Heaven's Arsenal, and not forged on the mortal plane, they do not easily detect as magic, and can be carried without setting off magical alarms.

Magus Shotgun

Created for the use of demon hunters, and modelled after the concepts of Johnny Blaze's Hellfire Shotgun, this weapon is a chopped down Winchester 1887 Lever Action Shotgun. It is a dual-purpose weapon that when not loaded with any shells will fire bolts of Eldritch power which can hit with the equivalent power of a 12-gauge solid slug. The secondary function it for it to be loaded with slugs that have had arcane symbols inscribed around the outside, and contain spell components on the inside. These are functionally spells of their own right, however, each one fired requires a temporary use of the wielder's lifeforce, which means that it can exhaust or even kill the user if done too often.

So far, the only working and replicatable shell is one specifically for the capture & containment of demons.

The weapon can fire regular shotgun shells, which means that it can be easily hidden as just your regular old very illegal chopped down shotgun.

Kakete

This sword is a Chisa Katana made from a mysterious metal that has monochromatic shifts along the entire blade that takes it between starry black and silver, with the edge of silver-gold. It was a normal sword until a ronin's daughter wielded it to save a kitsune's hoshi no tama, or spirit ball, from a Yokai wizard. Returning it to it's seven tailed owner instead of keeping it for herself, she asked for nothing in return. To thank her and protect her from retribution, the kitsune became a blacksmith and reforged the sword so that now it is extremely resilient and anything struck by the edge of blade is burnt with the light of the sun, making it a potent weapon against things like Yokai, Vampires, and the undead.

The properties of the blade are maintained so long as the blade never touches fox blood. Should this happen, it must be burned with fire from sacred wood in the light of a solar eclipse to restore the abilities, or another kitsune can fix it, so long as it has the same tails as the original. Like Hodoltonn, this weapon is a powerful and easily detectible item, and is often times stored in the same magical container as the other sword so as to avoid it drawing attention.

Achilles

A leather bracer that can be worn on either forearm, this device has on it a bronze metal backing with the inscription of the spell incanted by Tethis to render her son Achilles invulnerable when he was dipped into the Styx, with a diagram of Achilles' shield in the center. Touching the shield creates a mystical shield fueled by the user's will, either in an invisible field around them that can stop anything up to a high-powered sniper rifle from hurting the user, or an indestructible mystical construct floating over the bracer that looks like the shield of it's namesake. While the invisible barrier is active, the user is still vulnerable in the heel, just as Achilles was.

It's All About Who You Know

The Hogun The Grim

The taciturn and mace-wielding member of the Warriors Three, Hogun was a friend of Carter's father and the two had fought together on the mortal plane a handful of times doing the work of Odin. Hodoltonn was actually one of the tasks the two of them did together, recollecting several weapons that had been 'misplaced' by Loki. As a gift, each was allowed to choose one weapon from the batch. Damian chose the sword, and kept it in trust for his son, While Hogun chose a knife he kept hidden in his boot. Hogun's time in Carter's company was brief, but after the events where he was put against both the Aesir and Grecian gods, and still won out, even the eternal pessimist was impressed. He will fight by the side of the young hunter if called, and can serve as both a mentor and a healer for Carter when the road catches up with him.

The Silent Monk

Sworn to a Vow of Silence from the day he left K'un Lun, the monk Zhang Li Rong forsook his name to honor a debt to Carter's father. He has been a guardian and overseer of The Hound in his teenage years, and off and on into his early adulthood. If contacted, he is willing to help the young man, but he will not directly interfere in any duty that he feels that his charge can handle on his own.

The Angel Jessica

When Jessie Harcourt passed away, only her soul was sent onwards, but the splinter of her that was angel ascended to Heaven and became an Angel of Powers, which were God's appointed soldiers and the bearer's of conscience for Heaven. It was her word that lead to Gabriel hiring Carter, and she occasionally checks up on him.

The Succubus Calliope

When on the mortal plane, she prefers to just go by Callie. The working name of a 'friendly' succubus who had a long-standing relationship with Carter's mother, and cared for the young man on more than one occasion while a young boy. Whatever knowledge she has of Carter she keeps to herself, and often times trades information for nights out in the mortal world, with promises of 'mostly' good behavior. She may be a demon, but she is also a capable fighter, and can occasionally be called to assist… but always for a price.

Oddly, she has never once attempted to seduce Carter or abuse the relationship they have developed.

And You Didn't Hear This From Me, But…

• Carter is a trained Amibextrous, but is left-hand dominant.
• His favorite activities when not on the job are beer, bad action movies, and occasionally sneaking into parties he was never invited to.
• His aliases tend to be names picked out of comic books, mixing names so that it's not too obvious!
• Midnight showings for new movies, or cheap late-night matinees are a favorite hangout when he needs to think or get a break.
• Beer of Choice: Guiness
• Takeout Food of Choice: Breakfast. Waffles in particular.

Caught On Film