Guardsmith: here is Jeriah's background. Let me know if you have any concern's or questions about it. I'm still working on typing up the character sheet.
[sblock=To Guardsmith]”…JERIAH!!” comes the scream. Lifting my head I see only red, blood filling my eyes, covering my face. “Whose blood?” comes the thought slowly, as booted feet from deep mud. Panic rises fast in my mind and suddenly I remember the stranger. Scrambling to my knees I look to the sounds of Rua screaming in the darkness. Quickly her cries of terror are shrieks of pain and my panic only quickens further. Swiftly rounding the side of our car, the stench of blood assaults me as I hear the pain in Rua’s voice turn to whimpers, and then I am struck. Not physically as before, but with a fear deeper than any I have ever known before. IT rises from on top of my wife, standing and turning. In the darkness all I can see are two eyes seething in yellowed rage and IT’s maw drenched in Rua’s life blood. The Beast, the creature strides towards me and in the car's headlights, my terror is complete. Snarling as any beast of the wilds, it’s blood soaked maw and claws reach out for me, striking me and sending me flying once again. Pain, terror, over-whelming irrationality all conspire and my world begins to darken as I see the creature once again turn to finish with my wife. Tears are all that I can manage before the darkness claims me…”.
Jeriah jerks awake, heart and mind full of the old panic. Looking around he slowly calms as the realization comes that he is at home…safe. Jeriah gets up and it dawns on him that he had fallen asleep at his desk. Books of the occult, accounts of legendary creatures scatter themselves across the desk as Jeriah stands. Looking quickly at his clock, Jeriah jumps up screwing up his courage for the day ahead. “It wouldn’t do to be late on my first day back…” he thinks to himself as he begins making his way around the disheveled apartment, preparing himself for the hospital. “They all think I’m mad already, no need to give them more fodder.” Jeriah says to the gray cat that had begun to rub against his calf, as he holds a book on the occult contemplating taking it to the hospital to read in his downtime. Thinking back to the other sabbaticals he had taken recently, Jeriah can only sigh in amazement at the fact that he even still had a job.
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Jeriah Shammah is in his early 30's, a young a talented doctor. A jewish man born to a strictly Hasidic family in New York, Jeriah took early on to the study of science to the point where he greatly angered his family and tzaddik at his disregard for Torah study, but none of them could deny Jeriah's skill in sciences or gradually his desire to be a doctor rather than serve the Rebbe.
So Jeriah went to medical school, and graduated. He served his time as an intern, and began to practice as a surgeon. He was introduced to his wife Rua, and they fell in love. Jeriah was offered a position in Boston after only two years of work and accepted, moving his new family to Boston. On a weekend outting to the country with his young wife Rua, they came across what appeared to be a motorcycle accident. Jeriah being a doctor stopped and went to try and help the rider who was writhing in apparent pain on the ground. As he got to the man he noticed that there were strange things happening. He didn't appear to be injured from the crash, but rather growing at an exponential rate. The man thrashed about and knocked Jeriah back before it howled and continued to change. Rua had come out to see if she could help in anyway and was attacked by the man/creature and Jeriah was once again hit as he tried to aid her, this time knocking him unconscious.
Later, he was told by the police that he had obviously tripped and been knocked unconscious after getting out of the car. Rua had been attacked by what looked like a wolf and the Dept. of Game and Wildlife was trying to track it. No motorcycle was found, nor was any man present. All his friends looked on in pity as Jeriah seemed to descend into maddness at the loss of Rua. Everyone chalked his story up to mad ravings, and just pitied him the more. Jeriah's world was shocked when he turned from the Torah, and from Hasidism and began to study and read anything and everything he could about the occult. He shaved his peyos and beard, added a middle name in the western style, distancing himself from the Rebbe and pretty much everyone he loved. He spends all his money now on occult books and old tomes of ancient knowledge that he can find. Soon in his researches he came to discover the creatuer that had taken so much from him had a name, Werewolf.
Still no one believes him, but when the stress of memories become too great, the hospital allows him to take the time he needs to recover. Jeriah spends his days at the hospital and his nights reading, interviewing, trying to find some evidence of the werewolf and his reality...[/sblock]