Jack -Tick- Waters

“Not hungry. Just waiting.”

Description

Mask

Tick looks like the kind of man people cross the street to avoid, but glance back at. Towering and broad-shouldered, his long black hair always seems a little damp, like the rain never quite leaves him. His expression is unreadable—watchful, brooding, and still. Dressed in weathered black leather and dark clothes, his presence carries a quiet pressure, like the moment before a storm. He doesn't mean to intimidate. He just is.

Mien

Scales creep across his body like slick stone, darkening to green-black along his shoulders and spine. His mouth is wide—too wide—and full of sharp, white teeth that glisten like riverbone. Slitted gold eyes track movement with a reptilian patience. His hair hangs long and wet, clinging to him like shadowed kelp, and his leather jacket drips despite no rain. When he moves, it’s silent, deliberate, and too smooth to be comforting.

Personality

Tick doesn’t talk much. He doesn’t need to. There’s a heaviness to him—a silence that fills space like water seeps into stone. People tend to give him room, even when he isn’t asking for it. It’s not fear, exactly. Just instinct. As if something in them remembers the dark, and recognizes what he became in it. He moves carefully, not out of shyness, but restraint. He knows what he looks like. What people expect. And he remembers being small once—unseen, unwanted—before he was turned into something meant to terrify. He doesn’t want to be that. Not really. But sometimes, it’s easier to let people flinch than explain the ache that never left.

Mantle

A damp, bone-deep chill clings to Tick, as if he’s just stepped from a grave filled with water. The air around him smells faintly of wet leaves, old stone, and something quietly rotting. Shadows stretch unnaturally long in his presence, and flickers of pale, candle-like light sometimes shimmer near his shoulders before vanishing. When he’s agitated, dark glyphs ripple across his skin like ink blooming underwater—there, then gone, leaving only unease in their wake.

“Fear’s just hunger with sharper teeth.”

Public Effects

Mantle: Autumn 3
Court Goodwill: Summer 2
Giant
Lethal Mien
Iron Skin

Role-Playing Hooks

Tick, Tick, Boom (Anyone)

People say they feel it when Tick enters a room. A pressure. A silence. A ticking. He doesn’t threaten people. He doesn’t need to. Those who break promises or flirt with betrayal sometimes find him standing silently nearby. He usually doesn’t have to return twice.

The Crocodile’s Teeth (Autumn Court)

Tick was made to keep the stories in line—and now he helps Autumn keep the fear real. When debts go unpaid, when someone flees the consequences of a Bargain, or when a mortal stumbles too close to truths they shouldn’t know, Tick is one of those the Court sends. He doesn’t threaten. He just shows up. Quiet. Watching. Waiting. And he doesn’t leave until the balance is restored.

Lost Boy, Found Teeth (Motley / Deep Trust PCs)

Tick was a Lost Boy before he was the Crocodile. He doesn’t remember his name, only the ache of being unwanted until he was reshaped to serve. Sometimes, late at night, it can almost be seen—that ache still there, curled behind the scales.