![[jakeyhorse awake a.png]] played by [shai](http://toyhou.se/shai) 🎠 [Toyhouse Profile](https://toyhou.se/2470498.jakey-goldstrom/34796815.-) [[Visual App]] ## ✦ overview *i thought the world would revolve* *without us, without us, without us* *but nothing i know could slow us down, could slow us down* *… and i thought i could live without you.* | Gender | Pronouns | Age | Species | Size | | :----: | :------: | :--------------: | :-------------------: | :----------: | | nb | he/him | 14yr 3mo (elder) | horse (*Equus ferus*) | large (+str) | | Soul Class | Level | Shade | Partner | | :--------: | :---: | :---: | :-----: | | black | 3 | ??? | ??? | | HP | CON | STR | DEX | INT | WIS | CHA | | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | | 60 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | ## ✦ quirk - **Looming Gloom** - Jakey is big as hell. Attempts to INTIMIDATE enemies are rolled with lower difficulty. - **Requiem** - Through prayer, Jakey can divine a dead or Afflicted character’s last conscious words. Takes up an action. - **Shadow Theater** - Jakey can physically play back his memories from shadows, transmitting past sights, emotions, and thoughts to others. The sepia shadows are silent, yet solid. Takes up an action. - An unwilling target of memories must beat a WIS saving throw of 10 to shut out transmitted emotions and thoughts. Sight cannot be blocked. ## ✦ personality > I suppose you can call me a follower. | **+** | **=** | **-** | | :---------: | :--------: | :--------: | | sympathetic | sincere | possessive | | dedicated | emotional | stubborn | | loyal | protective | naive Jakey has always been a follower, doing whatever was asked of him. He liked how being loyal to someone always came with a set of rules to follow, a routine to expect. But now that so much has changed and now that there’s no one to follow anymore, he’s not sure how to proceed with his life. With all of his loved ones dead or gone, he has become depressed and nihilistic, especially since he knows he’s already near the end of his natural life. Nevertheless, he continues to wear his heart on his sleeve and *tries* to be nice, but his stubbornness and tendency to feel his emotions very strongly causes him to be quite rude at times. **Prologue**: With putting Pontia to rest and his awakening, his attitude has shifted. Outwardly, he might seem rather content, but there is still a deep sadness lingering in his soul. His quick acceptance to loss and death read might read as carelessness, but he is holding his memories closely and fondly. It’s all he has left, after all. Jakey is driven by the fact that his loved ones would want to see him happy. ## ✦ history > You died and the world ended. I don’t know what else to really say. I remember when we’d first met, eleven winters ago. I had just left home and came across your group, who travelled constantly to research a cure for the Afflicted. I admired you so much, even though we never ended up finding a cure. We learned what we could and we helped wherever we were needed, even if that help was just palliative care. And we lost so many along the way, but we tried. Goddammit, we tried. You got sick soon after I joined. It was my fault. I wasn’t being careful with the water. They exiled me from the group for it while you were still feverish. I tried to continue the mission without you, the search for a cure. But people just… they kept getting hurt. Sheppy was killed trying to save me. Her son was hurt, even though I was meant to protect him. I was bad luck. But you found me again and you *apologized* to me, even though you were the one that nearly died. You always found some way to make me feel at home again, even though we never stayed in one place for too long. We had a daughter, and you named her Akari. She looked just like you. We kept travelling, we kept researching, but we couldn’t make any meaningful progress. There weren’t many others left to even help. We had become knowledgeable enough to avoid contracting or spreading the sickness, but there has never been a solution to old age. *It’s okay, Jake. I’m fine.* Those were your last words, your voice soft as your breathing became shallower. Even in your final moments, you tried your hardest to comfort me. I didn’t deserve you. Everything ended right after you died—a star fell, the moon reversed, and everything became still. I guess the world can’t turn without you. Everyone else disappeared, too. At first, I thought they were just giving me space to mourn you, but when I went back to our campsite upstream, they were all gone. No blood, no ooze, no sickness. The campfire’s ashes were still warm, so I thought they couldn’t have gone too far. But there weren’t even any tracks to follow. They were just… gone. I briefly considered that maybe I caught the rage sickness and was simply delusional. It didn’t matter either way, though. Nothing could change the fact I was now utterly alone. I didn’t know what to do. I had no one to follow for the first time in my life. So I just… guarded your grave. I would tidy up the grass around the mound of stones and bring you sunflower heads. It was the best I could do, nothing was blooming anymore. (There weren’t even any seeds left for a snack, since the birds picked them all clean. Sorry.) A strange young mare approached me one day. It’d been about a month since everyone disappeared… but I’m actually not sure how long it has been, now that I think about it. Eternal night and all that. I was happy just to see someone else who was actually alive, so I let her stay with me as I tended your grave. She promised to help fix the world. And since I had nothing else to believe in, I decided to believe her. When I asked her for her name, she said she didn’t have one. I offered “Kari” to her, since her voice sounded like Akari’s—youthful and hopeful. She seemed to like the sound of it, repeating it many times in different tones. She left before I settled down to sleep next to you. I kept up the routine for a while after that, fetching sunflowers and pulling up unruly plants around your grave. The Afflicted didn’t bother me since they’re mostly smaller animals around here. Rabbits, rodents, cats... Sometimes deer, but they’re still small compared to me. They all keep their distance. For once, my unwieldy size is an advantage. After maybe a week, Kari came back with a “fallen star” and told me to eat it. Said it’ll grant me the power to build paradise, so that we can see each other again. I’m not too sure if I *actually* believe her or if i just *want* to, but I’ll take anything at this point. Anyways. Did you know a fallen star tastes like loneliness? ## ✦ timeline > I’ve lived a full life. - Cycle 6: Jakob Goldstrom is born. His mother teaches him everything she knows. - Cycle 9: Jakey leaves his family herd. He joins Hans and Dougie, who travel between cities in search for a cure. - Cycle 12: Hans becomes infected and sick due to contaminated water. Jakey self-exiles while they are still feverish, feeling guilty. He believes they are dead. - Cycle 13: Jakey joins the Wanderers, another group searching for a cure. They are in occasional contact with other research groups, exchanging information every few moons. Jakey doesn’t go to the meetings, afraid to see his former herd. - Cycle 14: Akari is born. Jakey becomes close with Sheppy and her son, Angel. He also becomes good friends with Zhenya. He finds out that Hans had survived the affliction, through rumors of a horse experimenting on themself because they had recovered from the rage sickness. - [[Cycle 15]]: Sheppy is killed while fending off a horde of afflicted. Jakey and Zhenya flee down the river, rejoining Hans. Jakey discovers that Akari is his daughter. Angel struggles to take Sheppy’s place. - Cycle 16: Between the Wanderers’ knowledge and Hans’s experiments, a cure seems on the horizon, but nothing comes to fruition. Hans and Dougie fully pivot to creating anesthetics that can calm the symptoms of an afflicted animal, reducing the chance of an attack. - [[Cycle 17]]: All they provide now is palliative care. All hope is lost for a cure, but their work is still important. - Cycle 20: Hans dies of old age. The world ends. ## ✦ inventory **Swallowed Star** - Obtained via prologue. She said it would give me the power to fix the world. > It sits like **loneliness** in my chest. **Leading Edge** (Ceremonial stone) - It used to belong to Hans. I’m not sure where they got it from. > A **dark garnet** carved into a rough blade shape, with an etched ring on its underside. It’s strung on a braided silk thread that I keep tied to my reins. **Saddle bag** - I found it at an old farm. It used to carry some of our friends, too. > Right now, it holds wild legumes and other tasty things. There’s also some salt rocks in there. And a bunch of other junk in there. I tried to clean it out. **Crow** - A yet-to-be-named companion bird that Pam summoned. > It sort of bothers me how willy-nilly Pam just created new life for the purposes of being a cool companion, but I didn’t want to be a killjoy. Anyways, she’s made a nest in my saddle bag and seems to be content there. ~~I feel like I don’t deserve to name her.~~ ### meta items **Rigged Die** - Replaces one roll result with a natural 20. **4x Spark of Inspiration** - Allows the user to roll twice and keep the higher roll. ## ✦ notable relationships - I suppose ~~Kari,~~ the *little god*, the gray filly with the halos, is my acquaintance. That’s about it. - [[Everyone else is gone]]. - [There are only a few of us left.](RELATIONS.md) ___ ## ✦ soul expressions ![[jakeyhorse awake.png]] Cosmetic - There’s more white in his mane now. Oldass. - Wispy shadows trail off of his hooves. Summon - ??? Surge - When inflicted by a status effect, shadows form blinders on his face to hone his focus, granting +4 DEX on his next action. %% ### ideas - fossils - umbrella - dappled light markings/more white streaks - horse blinders/blinker hood - fungi - invisibility - hourglass, clock, time - black dog, crow - burnt candles %% ## ✦ miscellaneous - Jakey is red-green colorblind (protanopia), meaning red looks about the same hue as green to him. He also has trouble differentiating purples and blues. - He is so big because he is large (5’6” or 16.2hh at the shoulder, top of head about 7ft tall) - He is built like a draft horse, but isn’t meant to be any particular breed. Most similar to the Clydesdale and Irish Draught. - Prefers colder and dry weather. He sweats like crazy otherwise, but thankfully he doesn’t smell *that* bad… - In human age, he would be in his mid-50s, early 60s. He’s starting to *feel* old, but he’s still quite strong. - Chronic pottymouth. If there’s an opportunity to say fuck, shit, damn, etc., he will try to squeeze it into his sentence. Likes to use the old gods’ names in vain, especially Gaius. He doesn’t curse Ilya because Sheppy was fond of her. - He wasn’t raised religious, but his dam’s family practiced a light form of ancestral worship. ## ✦ OOC notes - I’m open to friendships, flirting, touch, comfort, and whatever else for Jakey, but in-character I expect him to be resistant to new relationships–nothing personal! It’s just how I imagine he would react. If you want to plan some kind of relation arc with him let me know!!! - I wrote his bio in first person because I wanted to convey that he gets lost in his own thoughts while being blunt with his actual words. Hope it makes sense to read! - This version of Jakey has no idea what hockey is. Most sporting and games are speed or endurance racing among all the groups he interacts with. I’m not totally sure how to interpret his [[Jakey Goldstrom|early history]] into the world of MP, so I’m kinda just handwaving it as “he was sent off as a young colt to make the world better” - This version of Jakey is definitely more comfortable with being gender non-conforming (as I imagine the groups he associated/associates with do not have rigid gender roles or presentations). As gender non-conforming as a horse could be, anyways - Human Jakey at this age would still be working as an analyst and color commentator for the Blades :) ## ✦ Changelog - 31 JAN 2026: Added timeline section, relations, second quirk. +1 DEX for finishing Prologue. +4 DEX, +1 INT, +1 CHA for shopping spree. Purchased soul gem upgrade (+1 to level) - 19 MAR 2026: Updated visual appearance.