Loopy

aka Lewis P. Looks-Twice

aka Sirius (the dog-star)

Type: Werewolf (Shape-Shifter)

Player: Andrew Pidcock

Game: Loopy was originally created for play in a Vampire:The Masquerade game as the only werewolf, in the WhiteWolf system. He was a "Lupus Galliard Glass-Walker Garou." Eventually, the player moved on and now plays in the IDEAS™ system in a dedicated campaign entitled Loopy2:Who Are You? run by Jason Terlecki, and is a helluva lot happier. Loopy is also to be found on the MUCKs FurryMUCK and Furtoonia and their associated art sites.

Appearance: Loopy's first most comfortable form is of a beautiful white werewolf with silver dusting like a husky, with soft luxurious fur and a fluffy tail that curls proudly up onto his back. Though mostly wolf in appearance, he retains some humanoid elements like hands and a mouth that can speak, visible if he stands upright, but otherwise indistinguishable from a dog. This allows Loopy to move about freely, mistaken for an ordinary dog, even in his "natural" state. His right eye is icy-blue like the arctic wastes that were his home, and his left is a silver ball, a constant reminder of a terrible injury at the hands of vampires.

In human form, Loopy is lithe, young, tanned and androgynous with long blonde hair. Loopy can, however, alter minor details of his human form at will, such as skin and eye color, height, build, hair length and color.When he is dressed (which is not always convenient) he favors striking clothes, usually loose fitting or stretchy to prolong their life should he shape-shift while in them. Loopy has little sense of propriety or fashion (or sense, period) so his clothes often break all convention and reason.

Since acquiring the ability to alter his coloring or sex at will, and take the shape of any animoid, Loopy often will choose new colors or new species on a whim. He generally favors the most striking, and most attractive of beasts, though he typically retains his normal eye-coloring in all forms. Once changed, Loopy retains these forms indefinitely, though some forms he can still only take for a short time.

Origins:Loopy was born and grew up in a wolf-pack in the Canadian North where he lived until adolescence. Loopy was not like the other wolves, not only because his father had been a husky, but also because he matured much more slowly than any other wolf. In time, Loopy began to find he could do things no other wolf could do: Run longer, hear better, climb trees, see color. The other wolves scoffed, but Loopy knew he was changing, growing, and that there was a bigger world than just that snowy valley, so he and his two wolf lovers went out to find it.

Almost immediately, Loopy encountered a human called James Looks-Twice, an indian crypto-zoologist, and imitating him and his human form, Loopy suddenly became intelligent. James had been searching for a yeti, but believing he had found a werewolf, he took the young pup back to Man's world where he found him to be an eager student of all the mysterious and wonderful things of this magical, new, man's-world. James taught the creature to speak, to walk, to be human. When Loopy had learned all he can, James gave him an identity and let him out to explore the world.

Loopy has since learned that he is neither wolf, man nor werewolf, but a being called a Deakand from a world called Kane. The kaneans are empathic shape-shifters, creatures altered by the desires of others. He has learned that when he born he was a formless thing like a blob that took the expectations of the wolf-pack and made the half-wolf, half-husky shape he wore for his wolf life. As they expected him to grow, so he grew; When they were attracted to him, he became sexual, though most of his shape-shifting ability lay dormant. His ability to become more than wolf was the first hints of his shaper adolescence, and when he met and imitated James, literally shape-shifting into intelligence, he had reached adulthood. His link to the moon-cycle and his other lycanthropic characteristics were due largely to the powerful influence of James, who believed he had found a mythic werewolf, as did the vampires, whose influence was even stronger. When Loopy learned this, he also learned he could take whatever shape he wanted, whenever he wanted, and he delights in experimenting with new forms, new worlds: To fly, to swim beneath the sea, to be small like a mouse, large like a giant.

Loopy still talks of himself as werewolf, and more often than not as wolf, as these were the first identities he had, and he clings to them.

Background: For a while, Loopy was content to explore Man's world. Being intensely hedonistic, he was fascinated by the ways that men did things; the colorful way they spoke, ate, danced, played music, had sex. Often, he was content just to watch the world through a dog's eyes for, in his mind at least, he was still only a dog. Gradually though, Loopy came to feel lonely. There were no others who changed, no other animals who could walk in man's world, no other creatures like himself. Slowly, he began to ask the questions: Who am I? What am I? Where did I come from? While seeking these answers he happened upon another creature:

Vampires...

Loopy found in the undead something like himself. Like him, they were different. They saw things humans could not, they changed shape as he did, they bore the name "monster" as he did .. but he was innocent and naive, and they were not like him. The vampires coveted him his power, and envied him his life, and for the first time at their hands, Loopy knew abuse. Vampires cost him his eye, they broke his heart, they taught him to hate what he was and to hate himself, and yet leaving them was the hardest thing he ever did.

Still seeking his place, now in the sunshine, Loopy joined K-9 for a time (under the name "Jerry Lee"), determined to use his abilities to help people, even only as a police-dog. Loopy also opened a dog-training agency which specializes in police-dogs and trained animals for films, and when he is not fighting some evil supernatural, Loopy himself stars in films as a dog-star called, appropriately, "Sirius." With these and other gains, Loopy now owns a magnificent villa far from the prying eyes of man outside of New Washington where he lives with his two wolves, two other shape-shifters called Jessica (a were-zebra) and Maza (his spawn), two immortal children, his elf-mate Kariana and his gargoyle-boyfriend, Korul.

Abilities: Loopy's two primary abilities are Animal Magnetism and Shape-Shifting, both due to his deakand heritage.

He is able to shift between human and wolf instantly and at will, mending wounds as he goes. He can alter his form and details at will also, becoming any humanoid animal, or any variation on his human form. Loopy is also able to assume more complex shapes, altering himself fundamentally to produce venom, snares, wings that can fly, gills than can breathe water, body armor or anything else he can imagine, but he cannot maintain these true changes for long. Loopy has also learned to alter his coloring to match his surrounding, giving him a cheap form of invisibility. In werewolf form, Loopy is larger, stronger and faster than a real man or a real wolf, can stand upright but must walk on all fours, and can bound several hundred feet.

Animal Magnetism is Loopy's word for his ability to sense and manipulate the instincts of other beings. Being largely an instinctive creature himself, he is fascinated with mankind and their emotions, and discovered he can influence them the way they have so long influenced him. A long time ago, Loopy learned to slide his awareness into the subconscious minds of other people, becoming part of their dreams, even daydreams. Though he never questioned the origins of these abilities, they are an expression of the empathic part of his deakand nature, even as his shape-shifting is an expression of the other.

Personality: Loopy's personality is basically that of a canine: loyal, cheerful, affectionate, sensual and emotional. He bears the scars of his abuse at the hands of vampires, and tends to be quite manic, either intensely cheerful or terribly morose. Being empathic, Loopy has an altruistic streak that many "shapeless" (non-shape-shifters) find bizarre in that he puts the feelings of others before his own.

Loopy is a hedonist, revelling in his abities as a shape-shifter, and child-like. To him, the entire world is a constant source of beauty and wonder, a dreamscape of dreams and nightmares from which he can never awaken, nor would he want to. Loopy has problems of self-esteem and identity, largely due to discovering he is not what he thought he was, and in fact discovering that he's not a "what" at all, he's a shape-shifter, something that is not any one thing, but lots of things. He attaches special significance to names, naming those he loves and loving those who name him, because "..sometimes a name is the only identity we have."

Loopy is not very bright, and it takes quite a while for things to sink in. He has never stopped thinking like an animal. He scorns rationality largely because he accepts his intellectual limitations, preferring to see truth rather in feeling and in deed, a quality that makes it hard for rational beings like humans to understand him, and vice versa. Loopy is basically feeling and not thought.

Despite his pains and abuses, Loopy retains an innocense unmarred by the evils of the world. Perhaps part of his adopted canine mentality or because he is truly empathic, Loopy believes that love solves everything, and is determined to do good somehow.

Worthy of Note: When Eglantyne, Loopy's best friend and vampiress, bit him and killed him (few gulgacht can resist the lure of deakand life-force) over and over.. he dissolved into a puddle of what she described as "Wolf Soup" a flowing, liquefied, amorphous mass. When Loopy spawned Maza, his sister, he flowed a part of his body off in this state into a separate shape and then detached it. It is possible this is Loopy's natural state, but this is not yet known.

Names: Shape-shifters show affection by naming friends. Here are some of the affectatives Loopy gave to his companions.

• Eg aka Eglantyne Stuart. Loopy's best vampire friend, known in New Orleans as a foremost leather-slut and everywhere else as a writer of vampire-fiction.
• Bloomers,Ruffles aka Dame Marianne Tascher. An anachronistic, lady vampire who always spoke in a stilted, phony manner. Example: When Eg picked up her meal by saying "Hi..! Like -- You are just the hottest guy in this whole place", Bloomer's best imitation was "Oh, why, you're just the Bee's Knees, why don't we go to the carriage house and hold hands..? Without a chaperone..! Would you like to see my ankles..? WHOO!"
• Eve aka Robin/Carla. A vampirette with two personalities, as in "the many faces of.."
• Johnny Dangerously, J.D. aka Johnny. A young male vampire-sorcerer who was always getting into trouble.
• Stripes aka Jessica Margoyle, the were-zebra.
• The Gump aka Burnoye. The igor-type, a huge deformed giant who wished to "serve" Eglantyne.
• The only one to name Loopy in return was his gargoyle boyfriend (one of the reasons, in fact, that he fell in love with him) who dubbed him "WOOPY" largely due to a difficulty learning english.

Loopy also tends to call people by a title or description rather than using a name. He tends to append the title "sir" or "sirius" (serious) to anyone who is speaking to, and gives names like "lady", "princess", "jewel" "treasure" to others. He is also found of descriptive, indian-style names, like "sky-master" in place of the name of Shadow-Wing, the werebat. He has also been known to use this offensively, such as calling vampires "cobweb cozy", "dead-thing", "fang-face" etc.

Character Sheet

Werewolf Form

Human Form

Loopy, Deakand, IDEAS, bla bla created by Andrew Pidcock circa 1992