Tal Faig's Story (Tobyverse)
No, no, don't look over there. Your parents can't help ya kid. See, cos they're dead. No, look at me. Right, I bet you're feeling pretty scared right now. I get that. But I also bet that somewhere, deep down, there is a little bit of you that's holding on. Because I'm real scary, I am, but I'm not that thing that cuts into your heart. You know, maybe it's a scary dog, or a mean tramp or the right kind of fire. But you can tell yourself, “at least he isn't that thing, that thing that scares me more than anything. Well kid, I hate to tell you this...BUT I AM!
Tal Faig
Some changelings are good people, using their powers to help others. Some are angry and bitter, and lash out, becoming terrorists or simply criminals. Some just want to live their life. And some...are simply insane. Tal Faig isn't his real name, or even his first alias. His history is shrouded in uncertainty and questions. There is some possibility that he is or was an Atlantean citizen, or perhaps a former resident of the UK, but that is only conjecture. All anyone else knows is that one day, at the height of the New Year's celebrations, a square filled with party-goers was suddenly filled with a sweep of malformed insects, things that many people later claimed “triggered some sort of primal revulsion.” This wasn't the last of the “pranks” played that night.
A dozen revelers found themselves stranded on the tops of the tallest skyscrapers in the city, while many more were scattered throughout the subway tunnels and sewers. There were more missing people, and as the authorities and super-heroes began finding them, they discovered that each one had been trapped in a representation of some kind of fear or phobia. And that among each group there was at least one person who possessed that phobia. All anyone could remember was that right before everything happened, they had been surrounded by people in garish masks.
This wouldn't be the last attack on the populace of Progress City. Not a month later important businessmen began being stalked by personalized, anthropomorphized versions of their greatest fears. Even when Spring-Heeled Jack was able to foil the most successful attempt, the creature simply vanished into smoke once defeated. Eventually the hero was able to track down the pattern connecting the men, and met the man behind it all. Tal Faig. They fought, and the fae terror-monger almost beat him. But Jack was able to win in the end, only to find that somewhere in the fight, he'd just been fighting another Fetch. Tal Faig and his men once again were free to terrify and torment on a whim the people of Progress City.
Tal Faig is an oneiromantic changeling, with a focus on nightmares and fear. He can, with some effort, look into your dreams and read your nightmares like an open book. He can also conjure them into strange, half-formed things he calls “fetches” that can walk, fight and even talk, though they are usually confined to some sort of phrase or simple dialogue involving whoever they were made from. At his most powerful, he can twist an entire labyrinth into a Nightmare maze, a score of fears or more stitched together to trap the unwary. He's quite mad, a gleeful London-accented thug who revels in tearing down the high, crushing further the low and crushing everyone in between. He's a mad mix of the Joker, Scarecrow and Spike. He'd be quite dangerous on his own, but at his beck and call is also the Carnival of Shadows, a terrifying entity all on its own...
