Burning Jack
Ethereal Spirit
Corporeal Forces: 1 Strength 2 Agility 2
Ethereal Forces: 3 Intelligence 5 Precision 7
Celestial Forces: 3 Will 7 Perception 5
Elements: Astronomical Concepts (The Moon), Classical Elements (Fire), Emotions (Fear)
Affinities: Fire (Primal), Fear (Strong), Deception (Moderate), Divination (Moderate), Glamour (Slight)
Skills: Area Knowledge/3 (Dreamlands), Dreaming/6, Emote/6, Fighting/6, Knowledge/6 (Human Psychology), Language/3 (English), Language/3 (Spanish), Move Silently/6, Survival/3 (The Marches)
Songs: Draining (Celestial/1)
Burning Jack started as a Straw Man. These ethereal spirits were typically short-lived avatars of humanity’s half-perceived contract with those half-understood forces that ultimately rule over the Earth’s bounty; Straw Men were born with the first stirrings of fall, grew to overwatch the harvest, and burned on the last day (along with their namesakes). Burning Jack was the first Straw Man – and so far, the only – who retains a memory of this cycle. It seems to give Jack something of a specialized immortality Burn him, shoot him, impale him on a Divine Sword: Jack will come back the next year, none the worse for wear. But he still only lives for about one month out of the year.
Jack’s current ‘purpose’ has drifted far afield of his original agricultural duties, and it is no coincidence that he identifies with Halloween now (not least because of a certain stop-action animated movie that effectively reworked Jack’s conception of himself). Burning Jack gathers Essence from scaring people in dreams; just… not too much. Scare them too much, and the dreamer goes right over to Beleth’s side of the Marches – and the Princess of Nightmare loathes any ethereal spirit of Fear who refuses to drive humans to destruction. Of course, Blandine’s angels serving Dreams are barely more tolerant towards any ethereal at all, but Mad Jack more or less accepts by now that he’s going to regularly die anyway. No sense not to have fun in the meantime.
Personally: Burning Jack is basically good, and he’s invariably polite, and in regular conversation he can readily be kind… but he’s not nice. Jack is there to use terror as a valuable tool for self-discovery and personal development, and if he thinks that you need a dose, he’ll give you one. And since he’s more or less unkillable, the ethereal shows no sign of changing his behavior any time soon. Even if he does, Jack knows that the odds that such a change will actually last until next Halloween are, well, slim to none…