A near-legendary Deorn soldier during the war--also Crash's father.

early thirties (getting a little old in Deorn terms)

male

None. Btw, Deorns choose names for their cubs based on English words that sound frightening or powerful to them--e.g. Destroy, Scream, Crash, Burn, Ruin, Hiss--or sometimes they use nature-based names like Tide, Storm, Rockfall, Snow, etc.

He is a Deorn. Deorns are a race of solitary, dangerous shapeshifters that can control either ice or fire depending on the individual. They mostly inhabit the Americas, particularly USA and Canada. Each Deorn has a human form and up to three animal forms, and no two Deorns have the same combo of forms. Destroy has only one animal form, a giant black lion, and he controls fire.

None (may be subject to change, I honestly haven't decided yet lol. I can't really picture him with a beard but at the same time I doubt Deorns care to shave)

Long, thick, spikey, swept back, looks a lot like a lion's mane.

Black with red tips (may get rid of the red, idk)

6'1" in human form. In lion form, his size fluctuates according to his energy and the intensity of his emotions, but he can easily grow to eight feet tall at the shoulder, and he never gets smaller than a regular lion at four feet.

180 lbs. -ish

Pale gold, sometimes they seem to darken when relaxed/happy. (The red eyes in the photo are not accurate, obviously, as I found that picture online somewhere random XD)

He's pretty plain, for a Deorn. His lion form has a more wolflike than lionlike tail though, for some reason, and his mane attaches to a line of longer fur all the way down his back.

Adult markings (jet black markings that resemble tattoos on face, shoulders and arms. In his case, they look like swirling fire.) These markings only appear when a Deorn is fully grown and using his or her elemental powers.

He's pretty much a tank. His muscle is less "bodybuilder" muscle and more "actual professional weightlifter" muscle, so it appears softer and less defined but actually packs more punch.

Dark slate grey, not a skin tone a human could have. One of the many reasons he'd never be able to hide his Deornian nature even if he wanted to.

"Humans are living trash. My son is an idiot. My daughter doesn't know what's best for her. My wife is okay, though."
To put it less bluntly, he has very strong prejudices, ingrained over a lifetime of bad luck and mistreatment. He thinks that he knows what's best for himself more than anyone else, and by extension, what's best for his loved ones. This stems from overprotectiveness, which in turn stems from a background of loss and betrayal.
In addition, he refuses to believe that humans are capable of kindness or understanding for anyone outside their species, and he will almost never give them a chance to prove him wrong if he encounters them. He feels the same way about human cities and technology and is one of the few Deorns that goes out of his way to erase signs of human civilization rather than simply avoid them.

Said the Sky - Ares

By human standards, he definitely has anger-management issues and symptoms of PTSD. However these conditions manifest very differently in Deorns, and the short temper in particular is not considered much of a problem by his kind. His trauma from his time in the war (and afterwards in a human prison) has definitely shaped him, but not as severely as it might have shaped a human in the same situation.

-grunts a lot, only his wife can get him to use full sentences consistently
-dumb as heck by human standards
-doesn't care, he knows what he needs to know
-may actually be the strongest Deorn alive atm
-at least, he sure thinks so
-I mean, he took on an entire human army once and won
-hasn't genuinely smiled since his kids were little
-always grumbling about humans and would be highkey plotting their downfall if he didn't have a family to look after
-prefers his animal form over his human form for obvious reasons
-is actually really nimble and good at sneaking
-has lots of scars from his war days
-doesn't think much about his past though, if he can help it
-snores

His motivations are very simple. All Deorns value two things more than anything else: family and strength. Especially among males. The stronger your body and your will are, the better you are at defending your territory and loved ones from the world's many dangers. Since Deorns don't form complex social groups, they don't need to be as good as humans are at teamwork or peaceful problem-solving. They don't need as much reasoning power or conventional intelligence either. For humans, the celebrated factor is often brain over brawn, but Deorns scorn intelligence, saying that those with big brains are just trying to compensate for their weak bodies and, more importantly, their weak hearts.
(sorry, got rambling there XDD)
So for Destroy's part, he really just wants to keep his territory and family safe. In his head, that means making sure no humans are ever allowed near them, and teaching them to hate humanity just as much as he does. (I'll explain why he hates them so much in his background.)

Besides the issues already mentioned (irritable, violent, overprotective, slow-witted), his two other main flaws are his arrogance and stubbornness. When he sets his mind on something, only his wife can talk sense into him, and even then she sometimes fails. His self-confidence is so far through the roof that he simply can't fathom the idea that someone might be better or wiser than him, especially another male. And for the most part, his confidence is well-earned, but sometimes it gets him into trouble that even he can't punch his way out of--such as, say, an argument with his rebellious teenage daughter that can only be solved by swallowing his pride for once and simply hugging her until she stops crying. He's pretty helpless in these situations.

Fighting, hunting, intimidation, quickly reacting to stuff and not freezing up, and controlling fire. Destroy is so powerful that he can spontaneously ignite anything flammable within a radius of 30 yards. Also he may be bulletproof when in lion form, if you believe the legends.

Eating and sleeping, and later on in life, hanging out with his kids and teaching them about the Deornian way of life.

Angry dad. No dad-jokes here, nope.

He has no possessions except the clothes on his back, and doesn't care what he wears. Then again, his territory might count as a possession--if so, he's very attached to that.

Deorns don't use weapons or tools like humans do. Destroy's only weapon is himself. And believe me, that's a major weapon.

Has developed a taste for human meat. Otherwise, he prefers moose.

"Who cares about colors"
Alternately, it sounds kinda sappy, but he loves the color of his wife's pure white hair.

In chronological order: Dad, unwilling soldier, prisoner of war, dad again.

Deorns don't have political views the way humans do. If someone asked (and then patiently explained politics to him for the next few hours), he probably just limit his opinions to the war he was temporarily part of, because it's the only semi-political issue he has personal experience in. In other words, he'd say, "I hate the war. It was stupid."

Pshh.

Tanveism. Although this religion was eventually adopted by various human groups following the discovery, the Deornian style of teaching and practicing the religion remained poorly understood. Deorns have no holy books, no prayers or hymns or ritual practices related to Tanveism. They barely even recognize any kind of 'god' in the way most human religions do. They have a few myths of significant Deorns or other figures that have heavy spiritual connotations, but no messiah or saints or enlightened ones. Deorns simply recognize existence as inherently spiritual and share a deep connection with the being known as the Green One, who they see as the father of the earth and all living things (with a few notable exceptions, including humans).
Destroy himself is, like most Deorns, very quiet about his spirituality, but still it gives him solace when he's having an extra hard time forgetting about his rocky past. He's very careful to teach his children the simple but important rules and moral laws of Tanveism, and while he's not certain what awaits him after death, he's confident that his body and spirit will return to nature as they should.

English. He has a scanty vocabulary and terrible grammar, but he gets the job done.

"Like I said, moose is pretty tasty."

He was taught by his parents how to hunt, fight, shapeshift, control fire, watch for danger, and of course how to practice Tanveism. All this knowledge was already stored in his instincts, but his parents helped him fine-tune his skills and understand why they were so important.

(Disclaimer: About half way through this, I stopped trying to make this brief in any way shape or form. By the end of it, I was starting to forget how to type. Fair warning ^; )
Deep inhale
Destroy was one of the Deorns drafted--or should I say, captured--by the East Coast military during the Deornian War (also known as the second American Civil War). In the turmoil after the Discovery, when the country was divided into several opposing armies that fought for political dominance, some of those armies had the "bright" idea of using Deorns as soldiers, given how much powerful and dangerous they were even against heavy war machinery. Deorns cannot be convinced to willingly fight for one side against another, preferring to keep to themselves, but the East Coast Army (ECA) was cunning enough to realize that all they had to do was catch Deorns and then set them loose on their enemies once they were enraged. This technique was incredibly effective and destructive, and soon other armies were hunting for Deorns of their own to use the same way. (It's important to note that if Deorns had not become involved in the war, there might be some scraps of America left to put back together, but as things stand now, the country is ruined, the population is decimated, and the government is practically nonexistent.)
Destroy was married when the war started. He'd been particular about choosing a partner and taken much longer to find a wife than most male Deorns, but when he found Scream they both knew it was meant to be. They settled down together in the Appalachian mountains and had triplets, who shall remain unnamed. These triplets were five years old when the war began and the ECA found them. At that time, they were only interested in recruiting adult males, believing them to be the strongest and most violent. They captured Destroy and left his family to starve in the woods, bringing him back to their military base so they could attempt to train him for battle.
Naturally, Destroy tried with all his might to escape, but the ECA was very careful and never gave him a chance to overpower them. On the other hand, the trainers were naïve enough to think that he would eventually despair and weaken enough for them to control him. He weakened, but he didn't despair or surrender. After surviving two missions on the enemy battlefield (in which he was so effective that he instantly became the talk of the entire army), he realized that the people he was attacking were not actually the people who had stolen him away from is family. The next time they tried to set him loose on an enemy encampment, he turned on them and managed to kill ten soldiers before he could be subdued. Two of the soldiers, he ate, as they had been starving him to keep him aggressive.
Once registered as a human-eater, a Deorn has very low chances of survival in the ECA camp. However, because Destroy was already famous for the battles he'd almost single-handedly won, the army generals decided not to kill him, but instead sent him to their newly constructed wartime prison--just in case he proved useful later.
He lived in the prison for two years. It was a horrible place, run by very cruel people. While he was there, one warden in particular took great joy in tormenting him: Warden Vero. Apparently Vero got some kind of power rush from holding the fate of such a powerful creature in his hands, and he always took it out on Destroy when he was bored or angry. When the prison got too full, he let Destroy hunt, kill, and eat his fellow prisoners for the sport of it. When new guards or soldiers needed some extra training, he sent them to Destroy and had them gang up on him, making sure the Deorn was never given a fair chance to defend himself. But even through all this, Destroy remained steadfastly defiant. He never dropped his gaze when Vero taunted him, never showed weakness or gave up before a fight was done, never stopped trying to bite the hands off his captors. He needed to get back to his family. He had to see his wife and kids again, and he was not going to break before that happened.
On his eighteenth month of imprisonment, the guard that had originally patrolled his particular corridor died of pneumonia. The man brought in to replace him was not like the others--he was quieter, less cruel, and he honestly didn't want to be there. His name was Ron. He immediately sympathized with Destroy and tried to befriend him. At first Destroy wanted none of it, but slowly, he started to get used to Ron's quiet ramblings and even spoke back sometimes. They weren't friends, but Destroy hadn't realized how much he'd missed having a simple conversation....and one day, he opened up enough to tell Ron about his family, and how much he missed them.
Unfortunately, the captain of the guard was eavesdropping. He was a cold, calculating man who saw the glimmer of hope in Destroy's eyes and resolved to crush it. He stepped in and calmly explained (untruthfully) that when the ECA recruited Deorns, they generally killed any family they might have. Destroy's wife and children had probably been dead for the past year and a half.
Destroy lost his mind for a little bit, both from grief and rage. The news finally broke him, as the captain had intended. For three days, he desperately tried to break out of his cell so he could burn the prison to the ground. When he could no longer stand, he curled up in the corner and didn't eat, speak, or move for the next week. He would have deliberately wasted away if not for the teaching of Tanveism that a Deorn cannot pass on peacefully unless they are unchained and under the open sky. As it was, he no longer tried to fight back or escape the prison, having no reason to do so if his family was gone.
Meanwhile, Ron was still there. His captain had let him stick around only after warning him that Deorns were far too vicious to befriend and forbidding him from speaking to Destroy again. He agreed, but still felt sorry for the Deorn and wanted to help him. So one day, when he got word that a final battle was coming up between the ECA and an enemy army, he cashed in some favors and suggested to Warden Vero that they might send Destroy out to the battlefield, just to get one more use out of him. Vero, who was bored of Destroy by now, easily agreed.
It was the first time Destroy had been outside in two years, but he didn't care. He was so unresponsive at this point that Ron could walk him to the front all by himself--which was what Ron had been counting on. When they were close enough to the gates, Ron made sure no one was watching, then removed the special handcuffs that kept Destroy from summoning fire. He was supposed to wait until Destroy had locked onto a target, but he hoped that if he set him free now, he would have a better chance of escaping alive.
Destroy was caught by surprise by this, and for a minute they both just stood there. Ron began wondering if he'd made a terrible mistake, and whether he was about to die. But at that moment, Vero decided to swagger over and throw a few final jabs at Destroy, for old times sake.
That decided it. All of the hate, misery, pain, and dull fury Destroy had left was focused on Vero like a laser beam. He reached out and engulfed Vero's face in flame, as easily as that.
From that point, the situation quickly descended into chaos. Ron paused just long enough to fight off the first few guars that tried to subdue destroy, then got out while the getting was good. He knew he and the Deorn were not such good friends that he could hope to be spared if Destroy laid eyes on him. And he was right. Destroy's only plan now was to burn until the prison, the guards, and the entire army was nothing but ash. He was under the blue sky now, and in his mind, that meant he could finally let go of his life. At least he could bring some of his tormenters with him.
But there was something he didn't know. Across the battlefield, the enemy troops used Deorns too. Not long after his capture two years ago, their scouts had visited his territory as well. And now, there was a beautiful white-haired woman he used to love very much standing among their ranks.
And she'd caught his scent on the smoky wind.
The rest is history. On that fateful day when a massive wildfire and a devastating storm clashed together over two armies, scream dragged her long lost husband from the wreckage and they fled together, into the hills. Their three children were gone forever, but they had each other, and eventually they managed to heal most of each others wounds enough to think about starting another family. Thus the twins Crash and Burn were born, and raised in the woods far from the humans and their wars.
Destroy never fully recovered from his experiences in prison, and it still shows in his scars, his dark moods and his loathing of the human race. But despite this, he's content to watch his children grow and live out his final years with his wife. And if anyone asks, he's never slow to remind them that he was, and always will be, the strongest and most feared Deorn humanity had ever seen.

((And that's STILL the trimmed down version of the actual story, good grief))

He doesn't know, he stopped keeping track after he turned fifteen and left home to establish his own territory. Fifteen to seventeen is when Deorns are considered to be adults, and after that point, silly things like birthdays matter very little to them.

Deorns don't keep pets.

Deorns typically wear one outfit their entire lives. It melds with their form after a few days of shapeshifting, and afterwards it grows with them, heals itself if it gets torn, and becomes part of their pelt when in animal form. Deorns can switch outfits if they choose, but the process is painful, like removing a layer of skin, so most prefer not to. Destroy, however, wore several different outfits over the course of his life, first because he was drafted and forced to wear army clothes, then because he escaped and didn't want to remember those days every time he saw his own reflection.
His first outfit: A simple brown t-shirt, jeans, and hiking boots.
During his army days: A black sleeveless shirt to allow for easy movement, black cargo pants, black army boots, and a sewn on patch signifying that he was a member of the United States Military. He wasn't required to wear armor or bulky tactical gear because he wasn't expected to perform the same tasks in battle as his human teammates.
During his time in prison: For the most part his outfit remained the same, except the prison guards added special bright orange cuffs that kept him from using fire to burn the place down, as well as an identification patch sewn to his shirt.
After his escape: He tried to find clothes as close to his original ones as possible, but his shirt is grey this time and his hiking boots don't fit quite as well as his old ones.

(The photomanip of the black lion is not mine. The sketchpage is, though. Some of the lion poses are based of photos I found online, and some of the sketches of him half-transformed are derpy. Also he no longer has any markings on his back legs.)

Deorns usually give birth to litters of one to four cubs at a time, two being the average. While Deorns have shorter lifespans than humans (lasting only forty or rarely fifty years max), this is only because they are more commonly exposed to disease and infection, and they tend to get in fights more often. A Deorn pair generally is able to raise only one litter to adulthood (e.g. roughly sixteen years old) in their lifetimes, but in some unusual cases they may be able to handle two, especially if the second litter is born before the first is fully grown.
Deorns bond for life, and generally, if one dies, their spouse will soon follow. However, if the spouse is left with cubs to care for, they will either try to raise the litter on their own or sometimes form an "alliance bond" with another Deorn if they can't manage on their own. If the female dies, the male has to find another female to raise his cubs, as he is better suited for hunting and territory defense rather than child-rearing. If the male dies, the female has a few more options. She will either find another strong male to fill in, or a willing female to team up with so they can take turns hunting and watching the cubs. Male Deorns would never team up like this, as they are hardwired to see each other as a threat to their territory and status.
A Deorn's primary animal form can only ever be that of a predator, but it's not limited to a mammal. There are reptilian Deorns, aquatic Deorns, avian Deorns, and even the occasional insectile Deorn. As for their secondary form (if they have one), this is often an animal that compliments the primary form and allows for a greater ability to adapt to any terrain. E.g. a mammalian primary form suited for the woods might pair with an aquatic secondary form, or an avian form might pair with a mammal suited for the plains. Adding in the tertiary form, the combinations are endless.

((Almost too endless, tbh....I still have no idea how to make a universal reference page for these guys T.T))