Introduction
Willard Storen
An Human [
"Because I've seen the underside of power. It's a game that can't go on. It could break down any hour. I've seen their faces and I've known them all!" -Algiers, Underside of Power
Appearance
Notable Features
A fading scar, like a branding. He won't explain it's origin, and will only discuss it with his sister.Personal Style
Typical ranch-hand attire. Inexpensive and durable clothing, heavy boots, large brim hats to keep the shade from his eyes. At times, when he comes into town, he will dress-up some with nicer shoes or even an overcoat and new bolo tie.Circumstances
Currently
Willard has been trying to go rather under the radar in regards to the notable events of town. Now, however, he is suddenly more active. Although the majority of his time still consists of caring for the quality of his and his sister's ranch, he has been making more consistent visits into the more developed parts of Never. He has been researching the occult, in secret, and is hoping to keep it that way. Without a clear goal in mind, it seems even Willard himself can't explain his sudden and inexplicable fascination with the very mysticism that he has spent his entire life avoiding. To the best of his ability, he will remain separate from the dark arts and achieve what occult knowledge he is hunting without self-detriment. To the best of his ability.Health & Capabilities
He is fit and mobile for a man with visible years under his belt. Mentally, Willard appears as stern and capable as he is physically; he is patient, thoughtful and wise. But these truths that he presents as the whole truth hide the fact that Willard is a deeply disturbed man with a troubled and unresolved past.Socioeconomics
Willard is well enough off in regards to his time. He is, with the co-ownership and sharing of jobs with his sister, able to own his own sizeable chunk of fertile land. After some hard-work and elbow grease... and possibly a few generations, the Storen Ranch will sometin' worth chukin'.Skills & Talents
Willard is a very capable man, being a notable rancher and his own ranch-hand has given him plenty of handy trade skills. He can break a horse, replace a wagon wheel, milk a cow, win a bar fight, sew a tear, and then some. With all of this in mind, Willard's most useful skill that he employs at nearly all times is his capability to remain relatively unnoticed and certainly unimportant to the more unpredictable townsfolk he comes into contact with. Despite his daunting size, he can blend into a crowd within mere moments.Identity
Hobbies
-Willard finds comfort in hard work-Willard befriends the animals of his ranch and cares for each one, some more than others
-Willard loves riding his horse,
-Willard likes to play cards, especially with his sister
-Willard takes the free time he has to practice boxing on hay bales
Habits & Routines
Willard wakes before the sun, every single morning. He drinks his coffee alone on the porch, it's bitter taste contrasts the sweet aroma of morning dew. Mornings are for chores. He feeds the livestock, mends fences, checks for signs of coyotes, or something worse. Sometimes he finds strange tracks in the dirt or a dead bird with no clear cause.Midday brings a small break. Alice usually makes lunch, though neither of them makes much of a fuss about it. He eats quick, quiet, sometimes thumbing through old clippings or rereading the same dog-eared boxing articles he’s had since he was a boy. Occasionally he stares too long at nothing, the food half-finished in his hand.
In the afternoon, he returns to the fields or takes the wagon into town. These town trips used to be rare, but he’s started finding excuses—broken tools, dry goods, odd requests from Alice. He lingers in places others don’t: the library, the graveyard, the second-hand bookstore with all the strange tomes in the back room. Folks have started noticing, but no one says much—Willard always looks like a man who’d rather be left alone.
Dinner is shared, simple, and mostly silent. If something is wrong, they don’t speak it. The weight of their past lives between them like another guest at the table.
At night, Willard writes. Not always words—sometimes it’s sketches, sometimes half-remembered symbols from dreams. The brand on his shoulder aches more lately, especially under moonlight. Sleep doesn’t come easy, and when it does, it’s full of fists, fire, and the sound of something calling his name in a voice he once knew.
On Sundays, he visits the grave markers at the edge of the property. He doesn’t pray, just tends the earth, leaves offerings, and stands there with his hat in hand. He avoids the church in town like it’s cursed, though some say he’s been seen watching it from across the street now and then.
Mondays are for trading. Willard brings goods into town, picks up feed and supplies, and drops by the apothecary or the undertaker’s for things he pretends are for Alice. The librarian saves him books now—dusty, obscure volumes full of lore no one else checks out. He reads them late into the night with a candle burning and a rifle resting nearby.
Wednesdays are quieter. He trains in the barn with a tight tied hay bales he hung from the rafters, an old habit he’s kept alive, even when the rest of that life is long dead. He moves like a man still waiting for a fight he’s never quite had.
Every now and then, he saddles up and rides out without a word. He tells Alice he’s checking fence lines, but she knows better. Out in the desert, there’s a place only he remembers from the night everything went wrong. He goes there to listen; not for answers, but for proof that he’s not losing his mind. Proof he's right.
Personality
Willard Storen is a quiet, stubborn man shaped by hardship and haunted by the past. He’s grounded, practical, and prefers the company of animals and silence to people and noise. Though he carries a gruff, guarded exterior, those who earn his trust find a fiercely loyal and deeply empathetic soul underneath. He’s slow to anger, slower to forgive, and often keeps his emotions buried under layers of dry sarcasm and long pauses. Willard is skeptical of most things, especially magic, though curiosity is beginning to loosen that skepticism, much to his discomfort.He doesn’t see himself as a hero or a victim, but the trauma he hides, the brand on his back, and his growing obsession with the occult hint at a man standing on the edge of something far bigger than he’s ready for. Willard’s a survivor, but deep down, he’s starting to wonder if he will survive whatever is coming or if he is meant to be a sacrifice of sorts.
Background
History
Willard was born under an indifferent sky in the outskirts of Never, New Mexico, to parents who had already lost much by the time he took his first breath. The Storen family were descendants of a mixed bloodline (Creole, Irish, and Black) and had come west after fleeing a series of racial lynchings and social purges in the old South. Never offered a brutal land, but not an unwelcoming one—not at first.The family carved out a modest life on the edge of the barren flats, building their ranch up by hand and grit. Willard was the firstborn of five, older by eight years than his youngest sibling and only sister, Alice. He was a stern and demanding leader amongst his siblings, known for his fast fists and sharp tongue. The local kids respected him, and by the age of twelve, he was already a crowd favorite in the back-alley boxing rings that peppered the shadowy underbelly of Never.
He had a dream: one that burned brighter than the sun-baked earth of New Mexico. He wanted out. Not because he hated the ranch or his family, but because something in him demanded a stage, an audience, and a roar. His fists, he believed, would be his ticket.
That dream died the night the shadows came.
No one knows exactly what happened, not even Willard. One night, in the middle of a dry season storm, something broke through. Lights in the sky, unnatural cold, whispers that made the walls bleed. The family’s horses broke free, screaming. His father, brothers, and sister went missing that night. His mother was found the next morning, alive but blind, mumbling prayers to saints no one had ever heard of.
Willard awoke with his shoulder seared by a branded half-circle, some kind of sigil etched into his flesh like living fire. His sister, Alice, was found outside the house in the dust, her eyes glowing faintly and the family bible levitating beside her, its pages ripped and rewritten with words that shouldn’t exist.
Their mother didn’t last long. She wandered off into the desert one night and never returned. Willard and Alice were left alone. Willard barely seventeen, Alice no older than nine.
Willard buried his boxing dreams with his father. The ranch became his world, his burden, and his sanctuary. He refused to speak about the night of the attack. He wouldn't let Alice talk about her magic either, not really. He loved her too much to cast her out, but too much fear and hatred boiled in his gut to fully embrace what she’d become. The brand on his back faded with time, but never fully disappeared. Some nights it burned when the wind came from the east, or when the stars didn’t align right.
Years passed. Willard worked the land. Alice grew into her magic, careful and quiet. The townsfolk called her a hedge witch. They whispered behind Willard’s back, but never to his face.
He never married. Never boxed again. Never left. Never.
That is, until a month ago, when Willard began making trips into town again. Late night visits to the library. Quiet conversations with the gravekeeper. Purchases of salt in quantities no rancher should need. Rumors of him loitering around the edge of the old cemetery with a notebook in hand.
What changed?
He hasn’t told Alice, but he’s started having dreams again. Of his father’s voice calling out from a place deep beneath the ground. Of the brand burning, reshaping. Of words he shouldn’t understand, but now does.
Willard Storen spent his life trying to forget what happened. But something’s telling him: he’s going to have to remember everything if he wants to survive what’s coming next.
