Brer Spider, also known as Old Ti (and by many other names), is a mysterious changeling merchant of the Miami freehold.
Biography[]
| “ | No, I’m sure we’ve never met before. | ” |
To the Autumn Court, Johnny Shanks is a Leechfinger sleep researcher, studying the medical side effects of night terrors on mortals even as he harvests Glamour from his subjects’ fears. He’s eccentric, but harmless; if anyone asked, they’d quickly learn that no one seems to know when he joined the Leaden Mirror, but no one ever does. To the Winter Court, Black Jules is a shadowy Skitterskulk lurking in the abandoned tenements in the bad part of town. If you’re having troubles with an enemy, he can brew you up a poison that no magic can detect and even the heartiest constitution can’t resist. All he asks in payment is a stray cobweb from your dreams. To the mortal inhabitants of Little Haiti, Old Ti is an houngan of considerable power and wisdom. When you’re troubled by bad dreams, he can sell you a charm he learned from an Ojibwa medicine man that will give you the sweetest dreams you can imagine.
In truth, all three are the same man. The changeling who calls himself Brer Spider wears many faces, and it’s a rare individual who knows more than one of them. No one knows where Spider came from or how long he’s been here, but those few who even know he exists know him as the pre-eminent oneiromancer in Miami. He has studied dreams as few others before him, from the mystical aspects to the psychology and the physiological aspects. He wears so many faces it’s hard to even guess which one might be real. He has been tall and short, fat and whip-thin, white, black and everything in between. He’s been a Beast and an Elemental, a goblin soldier and a fair demon lover. He’s even been male and female.
The face he shows most often, at least to those who meet him in his identity as Brer Spider, is a middle-aged man of indeterminate Haitian or West African origin in an old-fashioned zoot suit and fedora. He smiles readily, but even when he’s smiling at you he seems to be enjoying a private prank at your expense. To those with eyes that truly see, his eyes are beady and black and sometimes seem to come in quantities greater than two. Sometimes, out of the corner of an observer’s eye, she’ll swear she saw a mandible briefly unfold from his cheek, but Spider never seems to notice or acknowledge it. On the rare occasions he stands in an area bright enough that he casts a shadow, he appears to have eight limbs.
Brer Spider is mostly interested in continuing his studies in peace, but if a fellow changeling offers Spider an interesting enough price, he can be persuaded to put his considerable skills in another’s employ. He uses his numerous identities to get whatever he needs from the Courts without the fuss and bother of actually joining one, and beyond that he leaves the politics to the politicians. Always interested in acquiring rare and exotic dream-relics from the Hedge or from the minds of dreamers, he can be a useful (if fickle) ally or mentor if placated with gifts.
Character Sheet[]
Brer Spider
Seeming: Wizened
Kith: Artist
Court: Courtless
Entitlements: None
Mental Attributes: Intelligence 3, Wits 5, Resolve 2
Physical Attributes: Strength 1, Dexterity 4, Stamina 1
Social Attributes: Presence 2, Manipulation 5, Composure 2
Mental Skills: Academics 3, Computer 1, Occult 5, Science (Dream Study) 3
Physical Skills: Larceny 2, Firearms 2, Stealth 3
Social Skills: Animal Ken (Spiders) 2, Empathy (Cold Reading) 4, Intimidation 4, Persuasion 2, Streetwise 2, Subterfuge 5
Merits: Meditative Mind 1, Harvest (Mortals Who Use His Dreamcatchers) 3, Court Goodwill (Autumn) 2, Court Goodwill (Winter) 2, Hollow 9 (Size 1, Amenities 1, Doors 5, Wards 2), New Identity (Johnny Shanks) 2, New Identity (Black Jules) 2, New Identity (Old Ti) 2
Willpower: 4
Clarity: 5
Virtue: Prudence
Vice: Envy
Initiative: 6
Defense: 4
Speed: 10
Health: 6
Wyrd: 2
Glamour/per Turn: 11/2
Contracts: Mirror 4; Smoke 2; Artifice 3; Fang and Talon 1 (Arachnids); Dream 4
Pledges: Pledge of Horn and Bone
References[]
- CTL: Changeling: The Lost Rulebook, p. 344-345
