Basaltine (pron. "bazzle tine") is a character written by Mutt. He is a hellhound of debatable heritage.
He is the bonded familiar of Suitov Iceheart of Applestone. Basaltine's full name is Basaltine by-Rover-out-of-Brimstone bound-to-Suitov.
This character used to be called Baskerville before Mutt decided "author surname = character name" wasn't cool. Mutt has posted under the nickname Baskerville in the past, notably at the SciFi Vine.
His coat feels like that of a normal medium-shorthaired dog. His breath smells of dog breath, not smoke and brimstone. He is generally slightly warmer than his surroundings, as you'd expect when touching a mammal. To infra-red senses his core temperature is similar to, or only slightly higher than, a normal dog of his size when at normal temperatures.
Basaltine's bark is that of a youthful large dog. His growl is fearsome. His voice when 'speaking' is an animated, slightly rough adult male's voice, not overly gravelly, with what we can think of as a mid-North-Atlantic accent. His howl when in full voice is supernaturally chilling and terrifying, and sets up odd echoes that seem to amplify rather than diminish, until he stops and it dies away. He can also yowl normally if he makes a conscious effort.
His nose is superhumanly sharp: a normal doggy nose, in fact. He is a strong runner and swimmer. He can sit, stay, roll over, fetch, play dead, beg and crush a person's windpipe with his jaws.
He speaks demonic language, which allows him to understand most things said to him.
He sings, not very tunefully.
He likes red meat and peanut butter, which taste better when stolen.
He does not like cats or angels, and has no love for any kind of hell creatures.
Because of bad experiences earlier in life, he views ferais with a great deal of suspicion.
Basaltine has been known to drink alcohol to excess. He gets drunk in stages, usually starting with speech impediment, continuing through sluggish stupidity, aggression and eventually ending up in loud off-key singing. His family's innovative hangover cure is to roll in a fire until the alcohol is burned out of the bloodstream.
Given the properties of hellhounds, it is assumed that Basaltine dies with his master.
There are a few things Basaltine's writer needs to know if you're roleplaying with him. Aside from the usual speech, actions, body language and so on, it's helpful if you mention scent information where you think it could be relevant. This can be anything from "the sandwich she's carrying is mango and coleslaw" to "he's feeling aggressive and stressed". Basaltine gets most of his information about the world from smell, and can tell certain things about mood, levels of stress and general health from it - though, obviously, that's dicey when it comes to alien species.
Basaltine can detect things that are poisonous to him or to Suitov by smell.
When writing I'll generally assume that an alien with different morphology has different smells that Basaltine may not be able to interpret. If your character doesn't have any smell at all, he's stumped - which means I definitely need to know that information!
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![[Image by Mutt, 14/11/2008]](http://hellhound.net/graphics/finished/basaltinelying.jpg){kind=link}
![[Image by Mutt, 24/08/2008]](http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b93/suitov/giftart/blinddatebasaltine.jpg){kind=link}
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