Hanged Man

Common locations: The Hanged Men are native to Owel, rumored to originate from somewhere in Heaven's Keys. Their current homeland is the Beheaded City, but they can be found all over Owel, usually in large, well populated cities such as Althar, Auroria, Candy Rock, Prospector city, National Port of Owel, and Kadath.

Climate preference: When possessing a body, Hanged Men prefer arid, hot environments, such as Althar, as decomposition will take considerably longer in that climate when compared to a damp, temperate environment. When not possessing a body, they are highly adaptable and have no need for any specific climate. They usually choose to live near highly populated areas, however, as a higher population means more natural deaths, which means more opportunities for them to possess new bodies.

Level of intelligence: All Hanged Men are capable of higher-level thinking, such as the ability to plan ahead, to reason, rationalize, and to understand abstract concepts and principles.

Language: Most all Hanged Men speak Common. A very small handful of Hanged Men can also speak Archaic Common, but it is usually as a novelty, or for the purpose of keeping the language from falling out of existence.

Elements

Common: Most Hanged Men have either Air or Fire as an affinity, with Spirit being uncommon. Hanged Men have been reported to have other affinities, but the most rarest elements among them have been Water and any of its subtypes.

Hereditary magic: Hanged Men often have two sets of elements: their own set, which remains with them regardless of what form they're in or what body they possess, and a host set, which is entirely dependent on their current body. Hanged Men only pass down the former to their offspring. Regardless of what body they are currently possessing, they can only have Hanged Men as children with other Hanged Men. They can't actually use any of their host bodies to reproduce, and if both Hanged Men who wish to have children are possessing a body currently, they have to wait until one of the heads is free of a body.

Elemental weaknesses/resistances:

Poison: Hanged Men themselves are highly resistant to poison from outside sources when not possessing a body. However, they have very little ability to combat poisons and diseases that may be introduced to their bodies, and will often choose to simply abandon the body rather than attempt to treat it. If a body becomes diseased or poisoned and the Hanged Man does not release it, the affliction can spread to the Hanged Man themselves.

Fire/Ice: Bodies possessed by the Hanged Men take a considerably longer time to heal than normal bodies, and injuries inflicted by burns or frostbite usually become infected, causing the Hanged Men to abandon them.

Water: Excess moisture can accelerate a possessed body's rate of decomposition.

Trivia

• The Hanged Men are able to possess almost any dead body by removing its head and attaching themselves to its neck by means of an enchanted cloth, which all Hanged Men instinctively know how to create. These possessed bodies decompose far more slowly than normal, taking two to three years to become unusable. Hanged Men eat very little on their own, but when possessing a body they take on all its dietary requirements and restrictions. They cannot possess multi-headed bodies, such as Hydras.

• All Hanged Men possessed a small amount of ESP, which they can use to speak to but not understand any sentient race, and a small amount of telekinesis, which they use to carry their enchanted scarves.

• Hanged Men do not prefer to be involved in the creation of a dead body, stating that doing so makes possessing the body frustratingly difficult and prone to random, rapid decomposition.

• Hanged Men are affected by bodies they possess, and some examples are listed below:

  • Rock Candies: Hanged Men cannot control the growth of crystals on a possessed Rock Candies's tail, instead, crystals and gems will grow from random parts of the possessed body. This leads to many Hanged Men not bothering to attempt to grow what Candy Rock would consider a beautiful tail.

  • Cagroo: Hanged Men express a burning desire to constantly jump around and to carry things around on their backs, but are usually able to restrain themselves.

  • Flowercat: Hanged Men need to make sure they're not allergic to the flower that grew atop the Flowercat when it was alive before possessing it, otherwise, the Hanged Men will see no end of hayfever. Even if they are compatible with the flower, its presence will cause minor headaches in the Hanged Men from time to time, and pulling it off or killing the flower will result in the Hanged Men becoming depressed until it regrows.

  • Gorgon: Hanged Men are unable to control the passive effect that was once native to the Gorgon's main eye, which was to constantly scan for sources of Spirit, be they from an environmental occurrence or from an individual. Hanged Men will find themselves nigh-unable to break their gaze from something with any noticeable amount of Spirit element. As it is not too rare for Hanged Men themselves to possess this affinity, this is seen as a major inconvenience.

  • Beholder: Hanged Men cannot open their eyes, but their sense of smell, hearing, and touch greatly increases. Hanged Men express extreme distaste for a variety of different smells, sounds, and textures, often to the point of vomiting if forced to interact with or experience the undesired sensations.

  • Southern Gnoll: Hanged Men have their sense of smell heightened to the point of almost painful sensitivity, and constantly feel a desire to seek out the most disagreeable scents, claiming that terrible odors are quite pleasant to their nose. Because of this, the flower that grows upon the back of Perfumed Gnolls usually always smells like complete garbage when possessed by a Hanged Man, and is never desired by beauty merchants.

  • Rugaru, Dawn form: Hanged Men acquire a crippling phobia to technology in all its forms.

  • Rugaru, Dusk form: Hanged Men acquire a crippling phobia to both enclosed and open spaces.

  • Rugaru: If they choose to remain on the Rugaru despite the above consequences, Hanged Men will begin to exhibit symptoms of dissociative identity disorder, somatoparaphrenia, and reduplicative paramnesia. These symptoms increase in severity until the Hanged Man leaves the Rugaru's body.

  • Jackal: Hanged Men suffer from insomnia, and what sleep they are able to achieve is plagued by sleepwalking and sleep-talking. The Jackal's body loses its ability to detect sources of Spirit, and instead detects sources of whatever affinity the Hanged Man atop it may be. This results in the Hanged Men feeling extremely self-conscious when possessing a Jackal, as if they're more noticeable to the public than they actually are. Hanged Men express a moderate desire to speak in or solve riddles.

  • Cockatrice: Hanged Men obtain a hypnotic or charming gaze, however, they cannot activate it unless they were aware of the conditions originally required when the owner was still alive. Rather than causing headaches like in the original owner of the Cockatrice's body, the sound of a rooster's crow can be fatal to Hanged Men.

See Also

• Original Post by Glip.