The Otter’s HoltOr, Xanthe describes their fursonæ to
you in prose, because they can’t draw

Vital statistics

• Name: Xanthe (/'zan.θi:/, zanth·ee) van Otterburn
• Species: Lutra lutra × Cervus elaphus (European otter × Red deer)
• Gender: Herm­aphro­dite
• Height: 190 cm (6′ 3″) without antlers; 260 cm (8′ 6″) with them. Dislikes doors.
• Weight: 150 kg (330 lbs), including tail and antlers
• Smells like: Roses, wet dog, and cheap perfume

Xanthe van Otterburn is something of a shapeshifter, both metaphorically and literally. (The Greeks might have called them πολύτροπος.) They areis half otter, half deer; half male, half female; half spiritual, half mundane. Oh, and half in the bag at the local flat-roof pub.

They werewas born thirty-summat years ago in the sleepy Northumbrian town of Holton-le-Wall, to the union of a Henk van Herten and an Olivia van Otterburn. Henk was a software developer who joined a stuffy Dutch esoteric order because it helped him network. Olivia was a plumber who was the latest in a line of British hedge-witches stretching back to Roman times. Neither knew the other was an occultist at the time of Xanthe’s conception.

Oops.

Xanthe, you may have gathered, is a witch, and a very good one at that. (Their local coven doesn’t do this whole stuffy hierarchical “High Priest” thing, darling, but if they did, they’d surely be at the top.) This prodigious magical talent, however, tends to come up rather less often than one may expect, for there are bills to pay, and try as you might, the authorities tend not to like it when you magick up pound notes with the wrong serial numbers on them.

After their antlers prevented them from joining the family plumbing business and programming proved too similar to magic to enjoy as a day job, they instead found a fulfilling occupation as a writer of low-rent horror fiction — indeed, Return of the Curse of the Book of the Night of the Weretaur is set to be adapted into a major motion picture this autumn. Keep your eyes peeled!

Physically, their fur is an even brown, with lighter patches on their chest and face. From the waist down, they sports jagged, cervine legs and cloven hooves — with the generously-sized asterisk of their large lutrine tail.

Four arms jut out of their chest, one pair roughly down and behind from the other; their otherwise-humanoid hands are bound by aquadynamic webbing between four of their fingers. (The extra pair was meant as a temporary ritual device, but they turned out to be surprisingly useful for getting all the shopping in at once. It’s the little things!)

Moving up to their head, it’s mostly lutrine in form — whiskers, booper, small ears, the usual — excepting the stonking massive antlers which jut out from the top, forever ruining their ability to wear hats. (Trust me. They’ves tried.) Their wavy, mousey-blond hair falls down to just above their shoulders (think Jeff Bridges), accented with a dashing purple streak on one side of its parting, as well as a purple goatee on their chin.

Their physique is often in flux — they may be fairly depicted anywhere between 100 and 200 kilos — and, due to their masculine and feminine hormones being out of synch, their bust size tends to vary throughout the year.

Speaking of which. Xanthe is, you might say, “fully functional”, outfitted with both male and female kit. They does think of themself as transgender, but they haves no memory of what their birth sex might have been, and as far as the universe is concerned, it’s like they werewas born this way — all they remembers is waking up one evening as a student with a blistering headache, an entire herbarium of ingredients scattered on the forest floor, and a definite sense that they’d forgotten to buy tampons and condoms.

Fashion-wise, when out on the streets, you’ll usually find them in some sort of horribly clashing colourful outfit: a tie-dye dress; a black leather jacket with a hot pink shirt underneath; a sparkly purple trenchcoat. When performing rituals, they either opts to go skyclad or use an elegant set of purple robes handed down from their mother, adorning their antlers with golden brooches and gemstones representing each item of the Nine Herbs’ Charm.

The one item you’ll never see them without is their trusty brass caduceus necklace. This is the trinket that lets them shapeshift without having to go through the whole rigamarole of setting up a circle and channelling the local nature spirits; as a bonus, it also applies to anything they’res touching, meaning they doesn’t have to spend any extra money on extra holes into all of their shirts.

Vital statistics

• Name: Marsyas, born several centruries before the invention of surnames
• Species: Dæmon silenicus (Satyr)
• Gender: Jack Harkness
• Height: 184 cm (6′)
• Weight: Doesn’t own a scale
• Smells like: Lavender, rosemary, and weed

About Marcy

Born thousands upon thousands of years ago, Marcy the satyr is a priest in the Cult of Phanes, an ancient group of time-travelling hippies who prevent suffering and spread Bacchic joy across space and time. Over the years, they’ve helped stop dozens of wars, organise the “spon­ta­ne­ous” ceasefires of 1914, and personally intervened in hundreds of future lives.

Marcy’s tangled, tatted locks of golden hair fall far down their back, nearly touching their tufted tail. From the front, it covers up their hazy, half-open blue eyes (partly drugs, partly time travel messing up their sleep schedule), and almost smothers the lavender blossom perched above their right ear.

Spots and scars from past rites and jobs dot their tanned white skin, one of their dark-furred legs even sporting a noticeable gash right along its calf. (Magic and medicine could fix it up, but they’ves rather taken to the look.) Their more ani­mal­istic features come from a chimera of different ungulates: their ears are akin to those of a fawn; their messy mane is inter­rup­ted by the arcing horns of a ram, while a golden goatee drips from their chin.

Marcy isn’t par­tic­ul­arly flamboyant, and their deep voice makes no attempts at femininity. Like the Deity whence their cult takes its name (and, indeed, like most all of its members), they possess cha­rac­ter­ist­ics of both sexes, though you’d never know if they didn’t tell you. They’res heavyset, but not unfit: they’res no body­buil­der and their abs aren’t too chiselled, but a physician probably wouldn’t take much note.

They’res no great fan of the cult’s official drab salamander-fur vest. It might have saved their skin from sabres and snipers more times than they can count, but it just cramps their style, man! When travelling to times of peace, they’ll ditch it the moment they arrives, AD-era puritans be damned. Despite the reputation of their species and their distaste for drab shirts, Marcy is by no means a complete naturist: attached to their belt hangs a leather loincloth, passed down the ge­ner­a­tions and decorated with la­by­rinth­ine patterns of meanders and knots.

The belt to which that cloth is attached holds all the things they might need while travelling forth in time. A blunted knife is used to intimidate (but never wound), lavender and other… soothing substances ease the mind, and what might seem like mis­cel­la­ne­ous scraps — gypsum, rosemary, hand sanitiser, a mysterious flask — are vital to a ritual if they ever wants to get back to the past.

They don’tesn’t look a day over thirty, but an old soul sits behind that unwrinkled face. The same magic that lets the members of the cult travel through time also keeps them young and fresh; by Marcy’s estimation, they themself must be well into their seventies.

Marcy is slow to anger and quick to befriend, with a chill, convivial attitude and the most boisterous laugh you’ll ever hear. You’d think it’d be a good asset for the job, but the same talent that makes them so good at spreading peace and love also makes them liable to deviate terribly from the plan during missions, bunging off with whatever and whoever takes their fancy. (The record for how long they took before returning to the summoning circle currently stands at four weeks, two days.)