The obvious choice here would be to make Julien a werebeast pigeon. Let's not be obvious! Let's make him an angel, with nice half-and-half memories.
And I mean like a horrifying angel, a Fear Not angel, all wings and eyes and features changing like a flame. He can take a human form and it's mostly all right, but there's a sense that if you look away and look back his hair and clothing will be subtly different.
My idea is that he was attached to some really high up, powerful angel, the Voice and Eye and Hand of the Dove of God, one of the seraphim. This extension was powerful but without free will. So the Severing was very hard. It lost the majority of its power and its certainty and because it probably flopped and flailed around like an abomination fish in the desert when freshly severed it's clearly without any authority too.
Unwilling to attach itself to anyone but the seraphim, it's spent the last quarter century figuring stuff out for itself. Like pronouns! Maybe it's not an it. Maybe Iuliaenel has preferences, and maybe that's actually... good? Song is definitely good. Seraphs are made to sing and radiate righteous passion. When they join a choir or a group to sing every member feels a bit of that and gives it their all, and for the length of a song all is well and the world is full of wonder.
They sing almost constantly. In choirs or groups as said before, but also alone, even if it's just under their breath. Songs that have to do with religion are the standard, even if they're not actually very religious. Somehow Iuliaenel has an incredible joie de vivre; even when they're singing something sad you can pick up on a kind of delight if you listen. That's the primary remaining power they have, actually: inspiring and influencing emotion. They can fly and shapeshift and are basically a Bard, buffing and debuffing and having some ability to heal or soothe.
They haven't finished figuring out pronouns for themself yet but they really like the concept, so they temporarily take on the pronouns of people they're addressing; while she's talking to Scout Iuliaenel would be 'she', etc. This angel doesn't seem to be able to plan well or dwell much in the past or the future. Living in the moment instead they might be the happiest angel on the planet, could any of that be an act???
Contacts: Other angels! Iuliaenel was the haughty beautiful avatar of the Dove of God pre-Severing and the biggest wreck post-severing. They still don't have it all together but they're happy now, they seem delighted by all kinds of Earth things and by learning.
Demons! How the mighty have fallen. Pre-Severing Iuliaenel was here to judge and hunt and smite and incidentally raise a few mortals up. Now they'll basically only run into demons by accident or because someone the angel sings with was involved; they'll rush to protect but are not remotely proactive.
Others! Yeah Iuliaenel regularly transmutes into a flock of street pigeons and doesn't live at any set address, they are kinda a homeless wanderer who drifts and travels a lot and joins singers. They've been known to sing on the street for money that they then give to people who are begging. If you can sense someone's an angel, their guises have that kind of glow about them, but they're a very aimless person at this juncture.
Getting a bunch of memories of Julien will help provoke them to take more action, but in the backstory it's going to be decades more before this angel has their shit together.
Julien
And I mean like a horrifying angel, a Fear Not angel, all wings and eyes and features changing like a flame. He can take a human form and it's mostly all right, but there's a sense that if you look away and look back his hair and clothing will be subtly different.
My idea is that he was attached to some really high up, powerful angel, the Voice and Eye and Hand of the Dove of God, one of the seraphim. This extension was powerful but without free will. So the Severing was very hard. It lost the majority of its power and its certainty and because it probably flopped and flailed around like an abomination fish in the desert when freshly severed it's clearly without any authority too.
Unwilling to attach itself to anyone but the seraphim, it's spent the last quarter century figuring stuff out for itself. Like pronouns! Maybe it's not an it. Maybe Iuliaenel has preferences, and maybe that's actually... good? Song is definitely good. Seraphs are made to sing and radiate righteous passion. When they join a choir or a group to sing every member feels a bit of that and gives it their all, and for the length of a song all is well and the world is full of wonder.
They sing almost constantly. In choirs or groups as said before, but also alone, even if it's just under their breath. Songs that have to do with religion are the standard, even if they're not actually very religious. Somehow Iuliaenel has an incredible joie de vivre; even when they're singing something sad you can pick up on a kind of delight if you listen. That's the primary remaining power they have, actually: inspiring and influencing emotion. They can fly and shapeshift and are basically a Bard, buffing and debuffing and having some ability to heal or soothe.
They haven't finished figuring out pronouns for themself yet but they really like the concept, so they temporarily take on the pronouns of people they're addressing; while she's talking to Scout Iuliaenel would be 'she', etc. This angel doesn't seem to be able to plan well or dwell much in the past or the future. Living in the moment instead they might be the happiest angel on the planet, could any of that be an act???
Contacts: Other angels! Iuliaenel was the haughty beautiful avatar of the Dove of God pre-Severing and the biggest wreck post-severing. They still don't have it all together but they're happy now, they seem delighted by all kinds of Earth things and by learning.
Demons! How the mighty have fallen. Pre-Severing Iuliaenel was here to judge and hunt and smite and incidentally raise a few mortals up. Now they'll basically only run into demons by accident or because someone the angel sings with was involved; they'll rush to protect but are not remotely proactive.
Others! Yeah Iuliaenel regularly transmutes into a flock of street pigeons and doesn't live at any set address, they are kinda a homeless wanderer who drifts and travels a lot and joins singers. They've been known to sing on the street for money that they then give to people who are begging. If you can sense someone's an angel, their guises have that kind of glow about them, but they're a very aimless person at this juncture.
Getting a bunch of memories of Julien will help provoke them to take more action, but in the backstory it's going to be decades more before this angel has their shit together.