Wynn Bevan
Wynn Elfred Bevan
David Tennant
David Tennant as Wynn Elfred Bevan
Name Wynn Elfred Bevan
Status Alive
Age 33
Occupation Author, Manager of the Hollow Tree Hostel, and Watch Safehouse Coordinator
Place of Origin Swansea, Wales
Date of Birth August 12, 1979
Player Fireshift
Timezone
Notes Notes for Wynn Elfred Bevan

A paranormal investigator who found what he was looking for. He writes nonfiction books about the paranormal and has two books published with a third in the works. He also runs a youth hostel that doubles as a safehouse for The Watch. His powers are telepathic/telekinetic in nature, with side effects.

Background

From a young age, Wynn was fascinated with the paranormal. He read ghost stories, searched for haunted houses and scared his friends with the best re-tellings at sleepovers. His family and home life were relatively ordinary. His parents were both public sector workers who held down decent jobs. The Bevan family had been working class in previous generations, but had found some upward mobility, starting towards the end of his grandfather's career. His uncle had taken over the family business of running mine tours and a small museum that proved popular with the tourists. Wynn spent his summers working for his uncle in the shop, and later, as a tour guide. Immediately after he graduated, he enrolled at Swansea University and worked towards a Bachelor in European History with a focus in folklore.

It was during his undergraduate degree that he fell in with a group of students who investigated haunted places in their spare time. Wynn was quite active in the group. He was so involved, in fact, that his studies started to slip. Only a last-minute buckling down saved his honours degree.

After that, Wynn traveled around Europe, investigating the most haunted places in Europe. He started quite casually at first, blogging about his experiences. Eventually, he realized he was outputting a fair amount of content and had reached an audience. It was then that he realized that he had enough material to start putting together a book.

He headed to Central London and started living at a youth hostel. By this point, he was living on a small amount of savings and trying to keep his expenses down. He'd spend his days writing and researching at various libraries. It was at the hostel that he met Imelda Jones, the night manager. The two began to see each other, and she stuck by him and helped support him as he worked to get his first book published. He worked in the hostel part-time with her to supplement his income.

"In The Corner of Your Eye: England's Darkest Places," was very well-received and sold well enough to earn him an advance for a second book. He left Imelda and went traveling to gather research material. It was on this trip that he came to an old abandoned farmhouse in rural Scotland. He was supposed to meet two other investigators, but a bus breakdown delayed their arrival, so Wynn decided to look for himself. It was there, at the age of twenty-six, that he encountered the Gloom.

Even years later, Wynn did not have a clear memory of what happened to him in that place. He woke the next morning, flat on his back on the grass outside the farmhouse. Only when he made his way to a nearby village did he realize he'd been gone nearly a week.

The Watch found him almost immediately. In truth, they had been keeping an eye on him prior to his experience, given his research and how close he was to the truth of things. He discovered his abilities and started to work with them. Then came a man named Richard Lutton. The Watch suspected he or someone he knew was actively hunting Touched. He knew he had the ability to touch the minds of others, but this was the first time he used it seriously. He linked his mind with Richard's, and for nearly a half an hour, he answered questions. The probing lasted so long because his superior was convinced Richard was hiding something. It turned out in the end that it was the young man's brother and not Richard himself with affiliations to the hunter group. He was entirely innocent.

It was only after he broke the connection that he realized that his ability had a very significant drawback. He found himself with habits, thoughts and desires not his own. His own reflection spooked him in the mirror. It was only through conversations with another telepath that he realized he had picked up pieces of Richard. It took him months to purge aspects of Richard's personality from his mind. Still, pieces lingered. It was enough that he found himself no longer attracted to Imelda. Things had been strained between them since his incident with the Gloom. Wynn had tried to repair things by proposing, but after his personality shifts, things fell apart entirely.

After that, Wynn threw himself entirely into work with The Watch and on his second book. His follow-up book was not as successful as his first, but fared well enough that he had comfortable proceeds that he used towards taking over the lease of the youth hostel from Imelda, who had taken it over a year previous. It was a last act of kindness so that she could leave London and they could put distance between them.

For a time, he was only loosely affiliated with The Watch. But he realized that the Hollow Tree Hostel would make an ideal safehouse, especially for younger Touched. He reserved a floor for The Watch's exclusive use. It's been nearly four years since Imelda left and he started running the hostel. His third book is well underway, though work with the supernatural world keeps him busy.

When he looks in a mirror, he sees a man with long, jagged lines across his face, in the pattern of a shattered mirror. One eye looks like it doesn't belong to him, and his jawline is asymmetrical. He looks like he was patched together from a half dozen other faces.


Personality

Wynn is wry, cynical, intellectual and a bit prickly. He's also a patient teacher with a genuine desire to help people deal with their abilities. He's been hurt in the past and has calloused over parts of himself to prevent it from happening again. It's hard to break through his shell. Despite appearances, he is also an extraordinarily patient man who tries to be kind.

He's also got something of a fractured identity. Through the use of his power, he's lost chunks of himself and gained chunks of other people. His moods can be mercurial, and he occasionally has bouts where he'll seem like someone else entirely. He is a man who doesn't truly know who he is, or who he used to be.


Paranormal Abilities

Telepathy: Wynn's form of telepathy is not conventional, and is more like being a medium for the consciousness of someone who is still living. He synchs up his mind with his target and while he is, he thinks as they do and has access to their memories. The subject most often falls into a trance state, though individuals with strong wills can fight it. This process usually requires a third party to ask him questions, which he would answer as if he were the target. Even after years of practice, it's difficult (but not impossible) for him to sift through a subject's mind without the prompt of questions from a third party.

There is an inherent danger in this process, even as there are advantages (mental blocks that work against other kinds of telepathy have a harder time blocking his form of it.) When he connects with another mind for more than three or four minutes, he brings something of his subject back with him. If he becomes aware of these elements, he can eventually purge them. However, it is entirely possible for him to not notice that he's picked something up.

Examples of things he can glean from his targets are accents, habits (such as tics or a particular way of walking,) preference for food and drink, addictions, and even physical attraction and friendships. If say, he developed a fondness for chocolate cake where he'd never really cared for it before, he would realize this was a gleaned attribute and could work to purge it. On the opposite end, if he found he gleaned something he liked (such as artistic ability) he can work to integrate it into himself through practice and focus.

When he linked minds with Richard Lutton, for instance, he was unaware of this side effect of his ability. He stayed linked with the other man for nearly a half an hour. This fundamentally changed certain aspects of his personality. He's worked to try and purge Richard from his mind, but it's been long enough now, it's hard to know where he ends and Richard begins.

Theoretically, if he stayed connected with another person for too long (his connection with Richard was already too long, but if he were to stay even longer than that) it's possible his personality would be entirely subsumed by the other psyche, or he could develop multiple personalities.

If Wynn links minds with someone and doesn't try to actively read them and is not asked questions, he can give a person's mind a point of reference. So, it might help someone ground themselves in the here and now for a bit, or help someone who has difficulty separating the spirit world from the human world get their bearings. In a sense, he gives someone a compass reading, so they know which way is up. He can't stabilize their minds himself, but he can help them find the horizon, so to speak.

Telekinesis: Given he's had several years to get a handle on it, Wynn is a fairly capable telekinetic. His fine control still needs work, but he's capable of affecting a whole room (making it shake and tossing objects around) or throwing a grown man back several feet. In fact, it's far easier for him to affect a large area than it is for him to float a pencil. He's still working on the mental discipline required for finer movement. This ability works primarily on physical creatures such as human beings or monsters. It does work to a lesser extent on supernatural beings, though it's unpredictable and sometimes has no effect at all. He does not have any physical side effects while he's using this ability. However, if he exerts himself, he'll wake up with all-over body aches, like someone would after a particularly hard workout. This usually fades within a few days, but he can and has been laid up for as long as two days after exerting himself.

Supernatural Sense: Wynn can reach out with his senses and take a 'snapshot' of a building or space and innately know what kind of creatures are there and what the level of activity is there. The problem is, he has to reach out to do it. When he does, it's like shining a light on the monster in the closet. The monster might be stunned for a moment, but it also knows /exactly/ where you are. The moment he does it, he gives away his position to whatever supernatural beasties might be in the area. Weaker entities might be startled and shirk away, but stronger ones might be compelled to attack.

He also has a fairly strong intuition when it comes to haunted places, but he can't be certain until he 'lights up' a room with his ability.


Skills

Wynn is a trained historian, excellent researcher and capable writer. He specializes in nonfiction books about the paranormal, but he's also written freelance articles on other subjects. He is a strong public speaker and has experience managing his own business (the Hollow Tree Hostel.) His coordination skills and time management are excellent, and his cautious nature and tendency towards detail make him a very good safehouse manager.

He has a mixed bag of other skills from people he's read with his telepathy. Thanks to one woman he read, he's a fair illustrator (pen and ink, storybook-type drawings.) Thanks to another, he's an above-average cook. Because of his prolonged contact with Richard, who was an ex-soldier, he finds himself very handy with a firearm. Wynn is a man with no fondness for violence. He actually tried to purge the firearm knowledge from his mind, but has been unable to do so.


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