Horo - Spice & Wolf
Player Name: Christy
Player LJ: tsunderes
Email and/or AIM: evybay@gmail.com/Chiisuchi
Timezone: EST
Other Characters: d1!Dietrich (Trinity Blood), Diva (Blood+), Shampoo (Ranma ½), Yuuko (xxxHOLiC), Balalaika (Black Lagoon)
Character: Horo, the Wise Wolf of Kenro
Series/Fandom: Spice and Wolf
Deviance: 1
Age: Never given a general idea, “several hundred years old”
Gender: Female
Species:Wolf Goddess
Canon Used: Okay! So Spice and Wolf started out as light novels, got an anime, then got a manga. They all follow each other pretty closely except for slight differences or different pacing, but I'll be using all three. All the anime, what of the manga has been translated, and what of the novels have been translated. SNIPPETS! However, I'm bringing Horo in from episode 4.
Appearance: Horo is, in reality, a large auburn and white wolf. And by large, I mean the size of a building. However, this is a little scary to humans, so Horo takes the form of a young woman instead. Horo in this form is a small and lithe young woman, but certainly very cute/pretty. She has waist length auburn hair (the same color as her fur), but she also has an interesting set of features that define her as not being human. In this form, Horo retains her ears and tail.
[wolf] [human]
Psychology: There are many myths surrounding wolves. Wolves are portrayed as “bad” creatures, and ones that harm people. They are powerful, intelligent, and clever creatures that hunt in groups. However, if you were to isolate a single, special wolf, how would that wolf be different? Horo has some definite canine traits, such as her intelligence and willingness to work with others as well as more animal-like traits like forgetting to chew before swallowing. Horo severely dislikes being alone, enough for it to be one of her greatest fears. She has a “pack” mentality where a group can work together towards a common goal. However, over several hundred years, a wolf's intelligence grew and grew until Horo became known as the Wise Wolf of Kenro.
This is obviously a title she quite likes, since she will often refer to herself this way. She's certainly arrogant, and with good reason! She is, in her own words, “not a god”, yet she has lived for several hundred years as an ethereal kind of wolf. Based on a contract she made, she protected the wheat fields of a pagan land, wisely governing and influencing the crops. She did not give the village a bountiful harvest every year, but rather, gave them a rich field by letting the fields “rest” with a bad crop when needed. She had done this for many hundreds of years, watching her village change and meld into the society popularized by the church. The people grew angry that she did not give them a bountiful harvest every year, so they came to resent her, which obviously troubled her.
Related to that, Horo is responsible and steadfastly loyal. Despite the fact that she could see her village claiming not to “need” Horo anymore, which in part, was true due to the new farming tools and methods, she stayed year after year until she was “released”. She was devoted to her contract of protecting the lands and giving good harvests, but as the generation gap between the one she had made the promise with increased, her promise was gradually forgotten as well. She is hurt by this, of course, taking the meaning of protecting the lands' wheat fields very personally. Horo takes grade pride in her position and status as the protector of those wheat fields, so being rejected was not only a blow to her pride but an introduction to her fear of being alone once again.
But Horo is not a sad girl by any means. In fact, Japan has created a term to describe her personality type. That's right, Horo is...quite tsundere! If you don't know, tsundere means a girl that appears brash on the outside, but is really emotionally vulnerable. Horo is confident and playful most of the time, even abrasive sometimes, but really, she's quite soft and caring. She cares deeply for those that she gives the privilege, though sometimes it may seem otherwise. She tends to say rude remarks to the side, but she never means anything of them. Horo makes the remarks playfully, more to see how the person will react in response, or because she thinks it's fun. She may be serious at times, but she's mostly a fun-loving girl. For example, her two favorite things are good alcohol and good food. Preferably combined into one meal! She has a tendency to get drunk because of this. Horo is not a malicious person by any means, but she can get quite jealous at times if Lawrence is paying more attention to another girl than her.
Other Skills/Abilities: Horo is a wolf. She is able to shift between her real form of a giant auburn and white wolf and that of a young girl under certain conditions. She's able to freely change from wolf to girl, but from girl to wolf, she must either eat the wheat she resides in, or drink human blood. The wolf form is just really big, but has no other special abilities.
Horo has excellent senses, as a wolf does, but one of particular note is her hearing. Her hearing is so good that she can sense lies. She can't do so all the time, such as with people who are able to conceal physical signs (aka professionals), but she is able to with most people. Another vague ability of Horo's are those that give her the Goddess status. It's never explained, but she is able to influence crops in some way. She is able to purposely give a good crop of wheat, for example.
Other Weaknesses: Horo's primary weakness comes from her origin. She is a wolf, but her spirit, you could say, resides in the biggest thatch of wheat cut during the harvest festivals. Lawrence happened to possess this wheat, hence their fated meeting. If someone were to eat or destroy the wheat, then Horo would disappear. She keeps the grains in a small leather patch around her neck at all times.
Horo is a wolf, but she has standard human weaknesses. If you shoot her, she will die. As an interesting, odd weakness, Horo also has some kind of vulnerability to shepherds.
History: Horo was not always the harvest goddess of Pasroe. In fact, Horo was born in the far north, in a place called Yoitsu. She lived their with her friends for many years, until they all decided to go on a trip. Somehow they got separated and Horo ended up in a rural village called Pasroe. She watched passively for some time, but met a boy who she obviously liked. They were friends for a while, but the boy finally asked Horo one day if she could watch over their wheat fields and give them good harvests. Horo became known as the harvest deity, and a pagan goddess, and all was well for several hundred years.
However, as time went on, and pagan traditions were replaced by those of the church, the villagers of Pasroe relied less and less on Horo for their good harvests. Their own tools were bringing good wheat, and they thought of Horo as spiteful since she would occasionally give a bad harvest so that the land could “rest” and give a better harvest the next year. One particular harvest, the largest bushel of wheat in the crop happened to belong to a merchant coming through town. Horo always resides in the biggest bushel of wheat gathered each harvest, and this time, being “freed” from her contract, she decided to appear to him. His name was Craft Lawrence, simply traveling to do his business. Horo enters a contract once again, this time asking Lawrence to take her to her homeland of Yoitsu.
At the current story point, the pair have arrived in a city called Patzuille, not far from Pasroe. They went there because of a rumor of a young man that the silver content of the local coins was going to increase, insert economics here, they would make a profit! So they went, and found that the silver content was actually lowered. They also found that the rumor of raised silver content was spread by the Medioh company, so they take the information to a rival company, and one that Lawrence is in good favor with, the Milone Company. So they're getting wrapped up in FEUDAL ECONOMIC GRUDGES! It's dramatic, okay?
Reality Description: Horo and Lawrence are merchants traveling through a world not unlike feudal Europe. There are lords, knights, and the Church is the most powerful institution there is. There are still pagans, but they are looked down on by members of the Church. The feudal society is even so spread-out that there are many different varieties of coins, with one for each lord and king.
This world is not truly Europe, since some names are not European at all, but the influences are certainly there. For example, a spice capitol has a very Indian sounding name. Yet, in this world there are definite anachronisms. For example, the ships that are used for trade are more like those of the 1700s rather than the 700s. The clothing of the people is also considerably ahead of its time. However, Lawrence and Horo travel between cities and town, merely seeking to trade the goods that they have and make a profit. At the moment, they are both in the town of Patzuille, which is not known for any one thing in particular. It's just your average feudal town.
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