Orym Novikov

Name: Orym Novikov (pronounced Oar-Rihm)
Age: 26
Gender: Male (He/Him)
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Species: Human

Appearance:
Height: 6’2”
Hair color: Dark Brown
Eye color: Brown
Piercings/tattoos: Three gold cartilage piercings on his left ear
Body: Lean, tall, though his form is well-filled out from years of archery and athleticism.

Relationships:
Mother: Isabeau Novikov
Father: Alexei Novikov
Siblings: Artur (34), Valentin (23), Maxim (24), and Sofia Novikov (19)

Songs:
Would That I - Hozier
Left With a Gun - Skinshape

Bio:
As one of the Princes for the Kingdom of Gaesea, Orym grew up in a lavish home with a rather luxury lifestyle. He trained in the ways of the royalty around him, taking a special interest in archery and hunting, which he participated in at least several times a week — taking pride in the massive, beautiful pelts he would bring home. They were mostly of the regional bears, known to be so ferocious that many of the local townsfolk attributed them to powerful spirits in a mortal form.

However, Orym harbored the same resentments against witchcraft and sorcery as his family. In Gaesea, such magic was outlawed and punishable by public execution. His father, long ago, had defeated several mages, and one of them had permanently wounded the King, causing an incurable blindness in his right eye, which was now a milky white, glazed with magic.

When Orym was 19, during a weekly hunt, he strayed off the beaten path, encountering a small dwelling out in the woods on the Northernmost edge of town, tucked into the hillside as a comfortable little cottage. He visited the dwelling several times, not finding anyone there, until one night he visited the area during the night time, intending to hunt the great nocturnal bears he was so famed for. He spotted her gathering herbs beneath the light of the half-moon, beautiful and ethereal. Convinced she was entrancing him and enraged by his own faltering emotions for the woman who was clearly a witch, Orym drew his arrow. He managed to gravely wound her, and out of defense, the witch cursed him to take the form of a great bear every nightfall, beneath the light of the moon — no matter the phase.

That night, his own hunting dogs found him, and Orym was nearly killed by his hunting party. The witch showed enough mercy to transform him back into his human form before he was killed, but the curse remained. When he went back to find her, he only found an abandoned, broken-down old cottage in the woods, with no trace of the beautiful woman he had seen beneath that half-moon’s light only days ago. The only night he received reprieve from the curse was on the New Moon, when the moon’s light did not shine down upon the land.

From then on, his curse was a tightly-held family secret, though rumors circulated the kingdoms about the "Prince of Pelts"; the hunter who became what he had hunted, though this was seen as an old wives' tale. Now, despite his deep resentment towards witches, he desperately wants to break the curse that forces him to shift each nightfall into a huge, silver Grizzly.