Ryan Stokes

Ryan Timothy Stokes (born September 28th, 1989) is an Anakim Beast born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.

Formerly an EMT and graduate of the University of Washington, Ryan's soul was devoured in his home-city of Seattle around the holiday season of 2016 - subsequently flipping his life upside-down when he took on the size and ruinous hunger of the Horror, Magni; an ice giant and a son of Thor said to have survived Ragnarok.

He was not alone in tumbling into the World of Darkness, however, as his close group of university friends had experienced similar, yet very different, changes.

Personality
Ryan comes off as an unrepentant man-child at the best of times. He is socially inept and quick to blow serious situations off, or otherwise over-react explosively when things do not go his way; it's obvious that he is relatively unhinged, if not outright mentally challenged.

In his heart, though, Ryan always wanted to do good. But even before the Devouring, he found it very difficult to make good on that. His temper and psychological hang-ups soured many opportunities for him, for which he is endlessly bitter.

Though the man is prone to holding grudges, his carefree exterior and deep-rooted denial prevent him from acting on most of them. But when the time comes, he swears there will be a reckoning.

Despite all of that, he is tragically at odds with his own hunger. Ryan morally shackles himself for fear of becoming too much of a monster, despite his friends having little-to-no issue with being ones themselves, making feeding difficult and drawn-out and leaving him starving and hunting for scraps. A vicious cycle that threatens to end catastrophically.

The only companion that Ryan has ever felt consistently at ease with would be his dog, Barney.

Biography
Ryan's family led a strained history that may or may not account for the man's own issues in adulthood.

From birth, Ryan was troubled by a dim imagination and night terrors. Otherwise, he was a little too active and rambunctious, prone to kicking.

He was incredibly close to his father, Jim Stokes; an asshole, but a loving father, who would bicker quietly and constantly with his wife, Julia; a troubled bitch, in the old man's words. Typical as far as a dysfunctional family goes thus far, until you learn that Jimmy was actually a Hunter with a double-life.

This did not mean the man was distant, though. Jimmy would regale his son with old horror stories and only the easiest-to-digest mythologies. Exorcisms, Homer, but Ryan's favorite was Norse. Hell, some of these tales sounded just like the truth. (In fact, some of those horror stories were true, given Jimmy's double life.)

Ryan's mother was another story. If Jimmy was the involved and doting father, Julia was the detached breadwinner who always saw everything in a state of win/lose. She did not imagine life would be this way and always took it out on Jim. To her, Ryan was a loss she could not accept. The boy was troubled, boorish, and took too much after his father, they shadowed one another and bonded far better than Julia could ever stomach.

Yet, Ryan still had a place for Julia in his heart. He loved both of his parents, because that's what you're supposed to do. Otherwise, who else do you have? Ryan had few friends growing up, being a geeky and arrogant sore loser. The only friends he had were his soccer mates. So, when Ryan's mother acted out on him in her arguments with Jimmy, Ryan paid little mind.

A 13 year old Ryan even brushed it off when his mother insinuated he was retarded, something that Jimmy found inexcusable. The two adults contemplated divorce for the first time in their marriage.

A Father Lost
Unfortunately, before anything came of the divorce discussion, Jimmy disappeared on Veterans Day of 2003.

Worse, Jimmy disappeared as he was walking home with Ryan from a neighborhood barbecue; he went to investigate something and never came back. Some twenty minutes later, Ryan was exactly where his father had left him, joined by concerned neighbors. A search party went out, and then an investigation, but nothing was turned up. It would be more than a decade later that Ryan learned the truth behind it all.

But regardless, the incident haunted him for forever after - although it was only at Jim's funeral that the trauma actually hit Ryan. He would never see his father again, because surely he was dead - Jimmy would never abandon him. Julia wasn't so certain, and she became a bitter and resentful widow, though she resolved never to let Ryan know that. As far as Ryan thinks, Julia was the rock of the family; she doubled down as a single mother and tried whipping her son into shape when he needed guidance most.

The truth is, Julia went head-long into vicarious fantasies of Ryan getting into college and being a successful doctor or an athlete. It was a coping mechanism. Ryan, for his part, was in no state to realize his dreams were being perverted. He only saw Julia's love, and he went along marvelously; soccer practice became a serious commitment and his love of the weird translated well into anatomical studies.

But the nightmares never stopped after Jimmy was gone. The nights when Ryan found himself in cold, lonely fields - stalked by tremors and frostbite - were surely the signs of the boy's loss and hopelessness. But all the boy could do in these vivid nightmares was run.

University Years
Ultimately, Ryan got into the University of Washington on a sports scholarship, pursuing his (mother's) dream of medicine. On paper, it was smooth sailing. Ryan had maintained a few friendships and even cultivated new ones, forming a loose gang of pals that he could keep in touch with.

But the boy had also brought with him an arch-nemesis from his earlier school days. A classic and persistent bully by the name of Daryl Hawking. Rich kid, knew all of Ryan's weak points, and was the biggest source of suffering for the poor boy before and especially after Jimmy died. All throughout middle school, high school, and now university.

Unfortunately, baggage doesn't magically disappear when you go to college, and Jimmy was Ryan's Achilles Heel. Ryan was stuck dealing with Daryl for three years before he snapped. It took just one stray comment about "dead daddy", a one-sided fist-fight, and a busted eyebrow to strip Ryan of his scholarship and his place on the team. Expulsion was close behind, until the team pulled some strings - emphatically siding with Ryan over Daryl. Cue bitterness with a side of secret relief.

Julia never learned about the scholarship loss, since Ryan had proven he could be (mostly) autonomous and she decided to move to Montana. But with only a year left, he had to get creative with paying tuition fees off.

A mixture of Jimmy's life insurance money, odd jobs, and a brief stint in drug dealing landed him with a B.A. and a shady new roommate. Joe wasn't smart, by any means, but he had money and chutzpah. Once Ryan got a license and started off as an EMT, he was golden too, and the two of them rented out a house to crash at until they found better things and moved on. For Joe, that was a girlfriend - luckily for Ryan, Joe had the charisma of a brick.

Joe's woeful existence, however, kept Ryan's contacts afloat. The circle of text-buddies benefited from a licensed weed dealer while Ryan spent years stagnating in the same EMT position, always trying to climb up but narrowly getting edged out. All the while, ruminating on what could have been.

Spiraling, Supernaturally
Years of minimal meaningful face-to-face contact with some of the members of his group led Ryan to bring them all together in one spot for a night of drinking. Eastlake Bar & Grill was far enough from them to be adventurous, close enough not to be a fucking burden to get to.

But Ryan underestimated how 'adventurous' the night would become. The group found their surroundings haunted by the ghost of a murder victim, the bar shifted into an eerie alternate plane that echoed for help in the spookiest and most chilling way possible. Locked inside of a vacant establishment, the group tried every possible way to figure out what was going on and escape.

Which they eventually did, with mental scars and the burning desire to investigate the eerie circumstances they were just subjected to. (As opposed to the typical ignorance-is-bliss mentality of normal humans.)

However, like a fucked up Final Destination reboot, changes were fated to befall Ryan and his friends. All of them, every single one of them - even the ones that weren't invited to the bar night. People even tangentially related to the group were affected for a time.

After scouring for clues, the group sought out a medium on the Deep Web by the name of William to help out with their ghost problem. William was no hack, and readily brought the ghost out in corporeal form, giving the group clues and resources to solve the ghost's issues and banish it from their lives.

But that would be the least of their worries, in time. Ryan was the first to change. Crashing on Damian 's couch, he encountered the source of his nightmares and eased into the realization that he was a Beast, with very unsubtle changes to his physique. Overnight, Ryan grew from 6'2 to a 7'1 monstrosity, dwarfing the couch and destroying his clothes.

While incredibly strange and difficult to explain at first, the changes kept coming for his friends as they investigated further into the ghost's history. Werewolf, Sin-Eater, Mage, Vampire, the whole kitchen sink dumped out. One peek into the World of Darkness, and the whole circle fell right in.

Life as a Beast
Ryan took a long time to come to terms with being a literal monster. As a Beast, his duty was to strike fear into humanity and feed from it. He was a bogeyman clad in a story that hungered for a harrowing destruction of everything he could see, but he still felt a tinge of humane guilt for it.

It didn't help, contrary to popular belief, that everybody was losing their goddamn minds over suddenly becoming monsters right there with him; the whole "we suffer together" thing was stressful, considering the ghost was still on the loose.