Non-judge Staff NPCs


Cain Salvatori

 

Do I perform tarot readings on myself? Ahaha, I used to-- but there are only so many times you can pull The Tower before you start to take the hint...

-- Cain

 

 

Known locally as "The Psychic" (complete with capital 'T' and 'P' to match his showman persona), Cain is the sole owner of The Hourglass, a small shop located in Marrow that is chock full of mystic and magic wares-- and his personal psychic services. Unbeknownst to the general public, however, his act as a psychic is just that: an act. He has not a single iota of psychic power; everything he passes off as psychic abilities is either smoke and mirrors, observation, sleight of hand, misdirection, cold & hot reading, or just plain theatrics.

 

 

Table of Contents

  1. Backstory

  2. Personality

  3. Abilities

  4. Job & Skills

  5. Location

  6. Plotlines
  7. NPC Usage

  8. Gallery

  9. Author's Notes

Backstory

Cain has been living in Marrow for about a decade now, having hailed from... well, somewhere else. He doesn't really talk much about where he's from, his family, or his past prior to showing up in Marrow, but word around town is he's let a few tidbits slip after a couple drinks: he allegedly mentioned that he "learned his trade from his parents" but had to "move to a city to find any success in it", apparently adding that he sends the majority of his money back to his family for reasons yet unspecified.

 

Unbeknownst to anyone in Marrow, 'Cain' is not his real name. If you wanted to find out what his real name actually is... well, you'd have one hell of a time coaxing that out of him; Cain is incredibly guarded with that information.

 

Along the way, even prior to arriving in Marrow, Cain acquired a steep debt to an impatient and unforgiving debtor. While it seems that he owes money, he's never actually stated that money was what he owed-- only that whatever it is was "too much". Trying to get more information out of him about it is nigh impossible. It's likely that revealing too much would incur the ire of this already ruthless debtor. What is clear, however, is that he's been set up to fail: the interest climbs ever higher, and it looks as though Cain will be in debt for the rest of his (self-proclaimed "short") life.

 

Cain Salvatori

Charming Imposter
judgecain.png

Aliases/Nickname(s)

"The Psychic"
Profile

Race

Human

Pronouns | Gender | Sex | Sexuality

He/Him | Cis | Male | Pansexual Panromantic

Age

28

Weight | Height | Build

110 | 5'7" | Slim/Underweight

Hair | Eye | Skin Color

Black | Gold | White

Distinguishing Features

✦ Gold eyes

✦ Quite thin

Job/Vocation

"Psychic" | Shopkeeper

Location/Area

Resides in the city of Marrow, present

Hobbies

Cooking, card tricks, illusions, petting cats, sleeping, reading detective novels
Judge Rep
ElectricEidolon

Judge in:

BifrostTerminalOCT (Host, sub judge)

Personality

✦ The Façade

Ever the showman, Cain is exceedingly charming and personable, able to gracefully maneuver his way through conversations with even the toughest of personalities. He has the ability to entertain, coerce, and convince most to whatever it is he may be trying to peddle (or glean) at the moment, all of which comes quite in handy as a salesman. Keenly observant while also empathetic, Cain is able to combine both traits to understand how others may think or feel, using that sense to manipulate situations toward the outcomes he desires; both traits also help him with his "psychic" services (which is to say, as a professional liar). Confident, charismatic, congenial; Cain is either well-liked or detested, there is rarely any middling indifference to how others feel about him.

A few more notes about Cain with his façade:

  • Life of the party
  • Probably an ENTP-esque personality
    • Minus the obsession with debating
  • Rolls with "Yes and-"
  • Chameleon
    • Can reasonably alter his own voice/accent to appeal to someone
    • Appears well-off
  • Very skilled liar
    • Though ironically doesn't enjoy lying


✧ Under The Façade

Rather surprisingly, Cain is actually reserved and quiet deep down, not at all a showman by nature. For reasons he has not yet revealed, before moving to Marrow, he forced himself outside of his comfort zone and learned how to play the role of the entertainer. While the extroverted charm is manufactured, his keen senses of observation and empathy are true to his core, leaving him frequently laden with a deep guilt due to lying being part of his current livelihood. As such, even while Cain is still technically lying for certain psychic services (such as séances, for example), his end goal is still to help his clients, and will therefore do every ounce of research he can in preparation and suss out what is the best possible thing (in his opinion) for his client to hear. In a way, he's a bit of an unintentional life coach-- just with a lot of theatrics thrown in. Hidden under that extroverted façade, Cain is simply a lonely depressed man who feels trapped in his circumstance.

A few more notes about Cain's true self:

  • Guilted and lonely
    • Doesn't really believe he deserves happiness
  • INTJ-esque personality
  • Poor
    • Has the one nice outfit that he's learned to repair/tailor himself
    • Basically starves himself to save funds (hence being so thin)
  • Depressed

 

✦ Socializing & Relationships

   ✧ Outside Looking In

Charming as all hell, Cain can be very suave and smooth when socializing-- and he has a knack for making it convincingly genuine under normal circumstances. Despite his secret financial hardship, Cain takes pride in his appearance and tries to look good regardless of his circumstances. A good example of this is in the one nice outfit he owns: unable to afford any additional expensive outfits or to have the one he has repaired by a professional, Cain has learned to repair and tailor it himself as needed. Not too overblown, he has a healthy amount of vanity. Dress the part and fake it 'til you make it, he tells himself.

   ✧ Customers and Threats

No rancid skeezy car salesman vibes here; even when he is trying to sell a product or an act, Cain holds having satisfied customers in high priority. In fact, should any typical client walk away feeling unsatisfied with a psychic service from him, he will unquestionably issue a refund. There are exceptions to this, however. While thankfully not common, any client that Cain can discern is (or recognizes as) up to no good, a deplorable person, or otherwise someone he distinctly dislikes, will not be issued any refunds-- and Cain is not above being smug about it, should the client be an especially deserving piece of work. This, of course, doesn't always work out so well for him, sometimes leading into the client becoming heated (or worse). In the face of a threat, Cain will always attempt to charm, outwit, or simply talk his way out of the situation. Should those methods fail and a physical altercation occurs, he will try to use his agility and dexterity to attempt an escape rather than fight back as he is painfully aware that he has very little in the way of strength or fighting skills.

   ✧ Inside Looking Out

Despite it seeming like Cain loves to socialize, he genuinely finds it exhausting and often sticks to himself when he doesn't have to interact with others. It's a complicated issue, mainly due to how draining it is to constantly keep up the act. An introvert pretending to be an extrovert is strenuous. It isn't helped by his guilt and self-loathing either, causing him to believe he doesn't deserve any sort of happiness via relationships. There's also a practical reason: the longer he's around someone, the higher the chance increases that his secret could be discovered. The complication really becomes obvious in the fact that Cain is also lonely and dislikes being so alone, even if it's of his own doing.

   ✧ Friendships and Romance

Relationships are a thing Cain typically has tried to avoid for various reasons, some of which have been already mentioned. While there are others he considers his friends, he still tends to keep his distance, even from them. When it comes to romance, however, Cain has never had any romantic partner, ever. Just as with platonic relationships, he doesn't believe he deserves that happiness-- let alone thinking he'd just end up accidentally ruining that person's life. This doesn't mean he can't end up with a romantic partner eventually, though. While it wouldn't be easy, someone could get him to push past his fears and allow himself to fall in love.

With that in mind, it should be noted that while Cain can flirt expertly, it is usually entirely manufactured and not at all genuine.

   ✧ How To Instantly Break His Act

All of that being said, if someone wanted to instantly and undeniably destroy his façade, there is not a more surefire way to ensure that than to make the flirting become more real, aka: getting physically intimate with him, showing genuine love and desire to form a romantic relationship with him, etc. Taking it beyond simply flirting will cause Cain to suddenly become nervous and nonplussed, rendering him unable to hold up his flirtatious act (or any act at all) convincingly. He'll then try his best to talk his way out of whatever the flirting is turning into or find an escape as subtly as he can-- either way, it'll be a struggle for him to hide the sudden anxiety and fear, but he'll certainly try.

Cain's likes:
Cain's dislikes:

The Hourglass

Cain's shop of mystic wares-- and where he provides his psychic services-- is called The Hourglass. It is a small hole-in-the-wall located deep within the city of Marrow.

With a large catalog of inventory coming from a wide array of ethical sources, he has quite a lot to offer. Whether or not everything in his stock actually works as intended (or at all), however, is a bit of a mystery; most of the time, the only way to find out the efficacy of an item from The Hourglass is to purchase and try it.

As for the offered psychic services, most are walk-in welcome-- with the hard exception of Mediumship.

✦ Items For Purchase:

The Hourglass inventory that your OCs can procure:

✦ Psychic Services:

Psychic services your OCs may hire Cain for:

Abilities

✦ Deduction

Being inherently keenly observant, Cain's greatest strength comes in the form of his deductive skills. He is very perceptive, able to pick up on details and clues around him that the average person would completely overlook or disregard. Reason, intuition, and logic are his tools of instinct. All of this combined with his sense of empathy gives Cain an almost inhuman ability to accurately read and understand others-- something that plays directly into his fake psychic charade. He can pick up on nearly imperceptible tells and micro-expressions, allowing him to deduce his way through cold reading others; ironically, this also makes him quite good at detecting lies and deception.

✦ Charm

For all intents and purposes, charm almost rivals deduction for Cain's maxed out skill, falling short due to being a learned trait rather than one that came naturally. This isn't to say Cain isn't a charming person under the act, but it certainly isn't the same as the sharpened persuasive silver-tongued ability he taught himself over many years. Using charm, he is able to entertain, tap into humor and quick wit, make snap judgments, exude trustworthiness, persuade (and manipulate, if the ends justify the means), lie convincingly, and typically win most people over-- the exceptions being individuals that distinctly dislike him, find his type of personality irritating, or can somehow perceive that it is an act. His charm is a key factor in his ability to ascertain desirable information from around Thraelos.

✦ Sleight of Hand

Like one might expect, Cain's sleight of hand skill involves quick, clever, and dexterous movements of his hands utilized namely to deceive spectators and/or manipulate objects. This is an ability he has honed for many years, making him slick and very adept with using it in various situations. His card tricks and illusions benefit substantially from this ability, making them seem like legitimate magic to all but the most acutely perspicacious (who know what to look for). Other uses for sleight of hand include misdirection, lock-picking (his hair stick is multi-purpose in that regard), stealing/pickpocketing (though he'd only ever do either if it was a justifiable means to an end, never just for himself), cheating (especially in card games), theatrics (particularly with 'psychic acts'), and entertainment.

Job & Skills

Outside of running his shop, the main occupation and skillset that most others associate with Cain is that of a working psychic. In addition to the services he offers normally, his ability as a psychic has also been called upon from time to time by authorities, such as a consultant in missing persons cases or in helping solve particularly stumping mysteries.

Truthfully, however, Cain's status as a working psychic is secretly a complete farce. Cain actually doesn't have any powers at all whatsoever; he is not a real psychic.

The success Cain finds under the guise of being a psychic is actually achieved through deduction, research, intuition, and theatrics. For example: when the authorities believe they are hiring a consulting psychic, they are actually hiring a highly intuitive detective pretending to make discoveries through use of psychic abilities. When Cain is able to make [seemingly] very specific and accurate readings, it is actually through use of subtle cognitive tricks such as Barnum statements, reading tells and micro-expressions, prior secret research, etc. When paranormal events seem to occur during a séance Cain is conducting, it is actually due to hidden smoke-and-mirror tricks and rigging he'd already have set up in preparation. Many magical items in his inventory can often lend him a hand as well.

All in all, while Cain is absolutely not a real psychic, he still tries to (and typically manages to) get the results he is hired for-- it's all simply presented under the guise of having been gained through psychic methods.

Deconstruction of Cain's psychic skills:
Definitions of techniques used in Cain's tricks:
  • Reading [People]
    • Hot Reading
      • The reading technique of utilizing information that was already secretly known prior to the reading (for example, from background research or overhearing a conversation)
    • Warm Reading
      • The reading technique of interpreting responses to generic catch-all statements and questions
        • Barnum Statements
          • General statements of characterizations attributed to an individual that are perceived to be specifically true for them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people
        • Rainbow Ruse
          • A reading technique in which the reader first assigns the subject a personality trait, and then assigns its opposite to cover all possibilities for validation
        • Shotgunning
          • A tactic that a reader uses to put forth a large amount of general information, then observes which one elicits a reaction in order to slowly narrow the scope
    • Cold Reading
      • The reading technique of quickly obtaining a great deal of information by analyzing a person's body language, micro-expressions, age, clothing, style, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, education, speech, origin, etc during a line of questioning
  • Misdirection
    • The art of subtle deceptive directing of an audience’s attention towards one thing (a magical effect) so they do not notice another (the method or mechanics of a trick)
  • Mentalism
    • A performing art in which 1) the practitioner appears to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities, and 2) includes special effects that may appear to employ psychic or supernatural forces, but that are actually achieved by "ordinary conjuring means", natural human abilities (i.e. reading body language, refined intuition, subliminal communication, emotional intelligence), and an in-depth understanding of key principles from human psychology or other behavioral sciences
  • Logical Reasoning
    • Deductive Reasoning [Deduction]
      • Making an inference based on widely accepted facts or premises; a general-to-specific form of reasoning that allows one to apply known truths to specific instances with a high degree of certainty
    • Inductive Reasoning [Induction]
      • Making an inference based on an observation, often of a sample; a specific-to-general form of reasoning that tries to generate broad rules that can be applied in many circumstances
    • Abductive Reasoning [Abduction]
      • Making a probable conclusion from what you know; a specific-to-general form of reasoning that specifically looks at cause and effect, often for a particular example
  • Confirmation Bias
    • The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values
  • Sleight of Hand
    • The skillful art of quick, clever, and dexterous movements of hands, utilized namely to deceive spectators and/or manipulate objects
  • Improvisation [Improv]
    • The activity of making, doing, or saying something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found

 

Important note: For the most part (which is to say, when the client isn't someone he actively dislikes and feels is horrible), if Cain intuits potential problems the client may be facing during any of his psychic services, he will try his best to subtly suggest help through the psychic act, be it advice for the issues at hand, his opinion on a decision, encouragement, guidance, or even just what he thinks they want to hear if it'll help them to make it through another day, etc.

 

Cain may be a liar, but he is one with good intentions.

  

✦ General Stats

✦ Strengths
 ✧ Weaknesses
  • Observant & perceptive
  • Reading others
  • Agile & quick
  • Sneaky
  • Silver-tongue
  • Improvisation & thinking on the fly
  • Dexterous
  • Persistent
  • Every normal human weakness
  • Self-loathing & guilt-ridden
  • Low stamina
  • No magic, no powers, no extra-human anything
  • Physically weak in strength & defense
  • Weighs very little
  • Stubborn
  • Loner

✦ Psychological Stats ✦
Charisma ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ Kindness ✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧
Patience ✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧ Intelligence ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧
Confidence ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ Perception ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Discipline ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ Psych stamina ✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧
Courage ✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ Caution ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧
Honesty ✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ Loyalty ✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
Maturity ✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧ Creativity ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧
Cleanliness ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ Work ethic ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧
✧ Physical Stats ✧
Physical Strength 
✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
 Speed 
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧
Magical Strength 
✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
 Constitution 
✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
Physical Defense 
✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
 Dexterity 
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧
Magical Defense 
✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
 Stamina 
✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧

Plotlines

BifrostTerminalOCT

 Meta role: Host NPC

✦ BTOCT Prologue

With a sharp thwip, the nature of the last tarot card was revealed.

“Hm, The Tower…” A beat followed by a long inhale, “There's no gentle way for me to infer this, so please forgive my bluntness: The current path of your financial future is careening towards complete and utter ruin.”
 
The client sitting across from him gasped softly, shaking their head in resignation. Their downtrodden expression told him that they had silently expected that answer all along.
 
“But,” Cain started again, gloved finger sliding over to tap The Chariot card pulled earlier, “You have the chance, the choice, right now to change that. After all, it’s called the ‘sunk-cost fallacy’ for a reason– you can choose to take your losses of the past, stop gambling, and bet instead on yourself, your worth, your potential, on a better financial future. The cards depict two paths for you: one in which you reap what you sow in the present and continue to instantly gratify your way to devastation– or one in which you break the addiction, weather the pain of the immediate, and walk out of the tunnel into a brighter future for yourself. So…” The psychic sat up, his gold eyes locked unwavering with the client’s rapt gaze. “You stand at a crossroads, my friend; in which direction will your chariot race?”
 
...
 
With a soft smile, Cain bid the client farewell, closing the door to The Hourglass behind him with a click of the lock and twist of the 'OPEN' sign. Once hidden by the thick wood of the door, he shook his head with a sigh. Sometimes these readings were making him less a “psychic” and more a “life coach”.
 
They’d been the last customer of the day, a sad fellow. With everything Cain could read on the poor lad, stricken by incessant poverty of their own well-intentioned doing, he couldn’t in his right conscience charge them for the tarot reading. After all, he saw in them a mirror of himself, one hitting far closer to home than he was willing to admit.
 
That would have been the fifth psychic service he’d decided to work pro-bono that week already– and it was only Wednesday. Maybe he was growing soft, his hidden bleeding heart starting to claw its way into his rationale more and more. Regardless of the why, the bills– his debt– didn’t have the same bleeding heart for him. They’d need to be paid somehow and–
 
Tp tp tp.

The faux psychic perked up, his thought interrupted by the sound of a knuckle tapping rhythmically against the window of his locked shop door. Who…? A man in a sharp suit stood on the other side, patiently waiting to be let in. 
 
Above the breast pocket sat the recognizable logo of TITAN.

"Present day" Thraelos; A small but well-known psychic. Resides in the city of Marrow where he keeps a small shop of magic wares, The Hourglass. Touts having a number of psychic skills and offers several psychic services (though it's all a ruse).

Contacted by the megacorporation TITAN for a hush-hush job offer: rid the century-abandoned Bifrost Terminal of its haunting; absurdly high payment. Needing the money, Cain accepts the job and travels via flight on the back of hired dragon, Kazuya, to the Bifrost Terminal to complete it, expecting it to be a case for a typical exorcism.

He discovers he is very very wrong. This is not a type of haunting he has ever seen before.

Well out of his league, he retreats back to Marrow, thanks to Kazuya retrieving him, and decides to subcontract additional help: anyone who feels equipped to assist, be it priests, psychics, paranormal investigators, mediums, ghost hunters, etc.

When he returns to the Bifrost Terminal and meets up with those that answered his call, they all become suddenly trapped within the facility by the most powerful ghost there, challenged now to free all of the spirits haunting the Bifrost Terminal in exchange for their freedom. 

✦ Within The Winning BTOCT Canon

 [TBD]

✦ BTOCT Epilogue

[TBD]

NPC Usage

✦ BTOCT Audition

While it is not required to include Cain in your audition to BTOCT, keep in mind that he is diegetically also trapped there with your characters in the Terminal. It would create a plot hole to not mention him at all as if he didn't exist, but you are free and welcome to write a reason for him to not be there, effectively explaining away his not being included in the entry.

✦ RP (Roleplay)

Players have permission to use Cain in BTOCT RPs. You do not need to ask ElectricEidolon to use him, but please do not claim him as your OC.

judgecain_fullbody_refsheet.png

judgecain_chibi.png Cain with the jacket gifted from Kazuya

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intro Thumbs 10 022425.png
Chibi Cain

Cain wearing the gifted jacket

[Art by LinksTheShifter]

Prologue - Cain waking up in the Origa clinic [Art by LinksTheShifter & EE]

Free-to-use Assets

judgecain_leftpantlegdesign_withgradient.png

Cain's pantleg design, with gradient

judgecain_leftpantlegdesign_nogradient.png

Cain's pantleg design, without gradient

judgecain_shirtdesign_full pattern.png

Cain's shirt pattern, full sheet

Author's Notes

✦ Cain's voice claim is Billy Kametz, à la his voice for Macaque of Monkie Kid (which also includes the current VA for that character who is matching Billy's work, Alejandro Saab). Click here for a few voice claim audio examples.

✦ Cain's overall backstory details have been left intentionally vague for flexibility of your storytelling needs. Please feel free to fill in those gaps in such a way that best fits your plot-- after all, he is a set piece for your use in the OCTs.

✦ Fun Fact: This version of Cain is actually an AU! The canon Cain is one of the main characters in a TTRPG podcast (and he is much more... bristled)!

✦ Feel free to contact ElectricEidolon (such as via the BTOCT Discord server) if you have any questions!

✦ This page, as with those of many other NPCs utilized across ThraelosVerse, will be updated over time to reflect how the character's plotline has progressed over the course of the OCTs.

Kazuya

 

If you were annoying to me I wouldn’t be here right now. Stop asking… it’s fine.

-- Kazuya to Cain

 

 

Backstory

Don't worry about it.

 

 

 

Personality

Typically one to keep to himself, Kazuya interacts with others usually begrudgingly. He might have a low tolerance for socializing but he’s… cordial enough. Often his bluntness causes him to come off as rude without really meaning to, but primarily he’s just kind of awkward when made to interact for extended periods.

 

Though far from being an open book he’ll still answer most questions when asked but tends to keep conversations short and to the point. The only person he seems content chatting with is Cain.

 

His trust and loyalty is difficult to earn but those who have earned it he is fiercely protective of. There are very few people he will help without question. First and foremost being his younger brother, Masaru, followed closely by Masaru’s wife and children, though Cain seems to slowly be making his way onto that list. He’d never admit it, but the charming psychic is starting to grow on him.

 

Kazuya

Reluctant Helper

 

 

dragon kazuya rendered small.png

Aliases/Nickname(s)

Kazuya
Profile

Race

Dragon

Pronouns | Gender | Sex | Sexuality

He/Him | Male | Pansexual

Age

32

Height | Build

Entry | Entry

Hair | Eye | Skin Color

Dark Navy Blue | Orange Sclera, Blue Iris, White Pupils | Pale Blue and Greyish Blue

Distinguishing Features

✦ Torn Right Ear

✦ Spots

Job/Vocation

[Entry]
Judge Rep
Agent Cheshire

Abilities

✦ Flight

Kazuya feels most at ease when flying. High above and out of reach of most anyone, he can just relax and let his mind wander. If he needs time away to think he will often fly off to gather his thoughts similar to how one might go take a walk.

✦ Ice Breath

An icy cold blast that can freeze anyone struck by it in their tracks, literally.

NPC Usage

Since it took me till after he's really relevant to get this up at all it kinda doesn't matter

dragon kazuya small.png

(Lines by EE colored by Chesh)

dragon kazuya 2 small.png democt_symbol_VECTOR_smaller.png democt_symbol_VECTOR_smaller.png
View without wing in the way [etc] [etc]


Author's Notes

✦ Sorry this is late and bare bones, I've been busy and tired. I'll update/add more if people plan on using him past the audition but if not then I'm not really going to worry about it;;;