Appearance

Physical Description

Holden is simply put a mountain of a man. His broad shoulders block entire doorways when he steps into a room. He rises over most crowds, impossible to miss. There have been jokes that he'd be too big to be a football player. Facing off against him simply would not be fair. It's hard to argue with that position. His presence tends to be very intimidating to strangers and enemies alike. His hands alone are as big as a person's face, in his human form. It's not hard to imagine the wicked punches he could throw.
 
Still, he's a largely gentle giant. He's content to sit and watch the world around him more than actively intervene, unless it's necessary. Impressively, his presence can be forgotten altogether at times, until he speaks up. He just stands still, and becomes part of the background, out of sight and out of mind.
 
In his wolf form, his fur is long and vibrant, an infinite subtlety of dark browns, grays, and blacks mixing in his coat. As an anthro, he rises to a towering 15', a little over double his human height. In that form, he's considered powerful and intimidating. Nearly unstoppable.

Body Features

A scar on his chest, from a werewolf hunter's silver infused sword. Holden was held captive at the time and battled the hunters daily while in captivity. The clan massively outnumbered both him and the number of werewolves in the area. After his escape, the hunters' order was eliminated.
 
A series of three deep slashes near his ribs, from a magically-created monster, bigger than Holden, with the head of a lion. It was created by a farmer turned madman. Holden was injured when entering the barn during a raid on the farmer's property in an effort to stop him.

Mentality

Personal history

Out of all the wolves, Holden is perhaps the one least well known. He's quiet about his life and what he's done. The days that have come and gone are just that, they're over with and not to be dwelled on. It's an unusually healthy perspective for a werewolf. Most of the pack are known to hold grudges, but Holden seems much more peaceful. Unfortunately, this means he doesn't talk much about his past. Only bits and pieces have really come to light.
 
What is known... Holden was born in rural Pennsylvania, somewhere far out in Lancaster, deeply Amish territory. He grew up on a farm and was raised as a farm hand. He spent early mornings milking cows, afternoons in school, and evenings working in the fields. His family had their eggs in a few basics. They sold milk, cows to slaughter, and a rotating variety of crops over the years. They would frequently grow corn, potatoes, and some other veggies. In principal if they had a bad yeara for one end of the business, the other would keep them afloat.
 
In his early 20s, he was working on a community college degree. Little is known about what exactly he was studying. There is belief that he worked on a farming-adjacent field. Some of the wolves believe he studied some specialization in plants. He's shown an aptitude for growing and working with plants beyond what your common farmer does. He knows how to breed hybrid plants.
 
Before he could graduate, he was bit in the fields. He had been in the fields looking for a coyote. Something had been killing off their cows. What he found wasn't a coyote (pronounced Kai-oat by him). It was a werewolf. The beast attempted to kill Holden, pouncing him, tearing into his shoulder. Fortunately, he was as big and fearless a man then as now. Among the wolves in the Philadelphia pack, he has the unique distinction of having killed the wolf that turned him, when it turned him. In the brawl, he managed to fight it off him and strangle it. That alone isn't enough to kill a wolf. The beast fell unconscious, he rose and started treating his wounds when it rose again. He won't say how he killed it, just that it didn't need to die a third time.
 
Holden's story takes a downhill turn from there. He never suspected lycanthropy. By the time any help could arrive, he'd killed his family. It remains a sore spot for him to this day. He has a brother and a sister, luckily neither were home at the time. He doesn't trust himself to be around them though. The risk is too significant.
 
The pack took him in shortly after that. The county investigators ruled the murders were a freak animal attack. Animal Control believed there must have been a second coyote, maybe a rabid one, that was behind it all.

Education

Holden completed high school. He has attended a college, but refuses to talk about that part of his past. It's generally believed that he was studying some form of plant or biology science. He had ideas to improve the family farm so his parents could retire early. It had dedicated himself to making their lives easier and taking over as much of the hard labor as he could. So far as he was concerned, hard farm labor should not be the domain of his parents going into their 60s. His work must have managed some significant breakthroughs, although the family farm is no longer in the family, it's booming to this day with the seeds he crafted.

Employment

For the past few years, Holden has contented himself with work in security for Astrid. She's arranged for him to have seemingly easy jobs, guarding buildings or doing some measure of event security around the area. Most of the work is for properties the pack owns. It's mostly being paid to lean against the wall and watch people go about their lives. She hopes that something of it will spur him to get more of his life started. She knows he's not quite happy in the pack as things are. His dreams were crushed and in many ways, it's left him a stagnant worker.

Mental Trauma

The night Holden first turned and the immediate days after have remained with Holden. Some nights he wakes with nightmares still from his rampage. He remembers the night clearly. His nightmares are mostly focused on reliving the event. No matter how much he screams, things never turn out any differently.

Intellectual Characteristics

Don't mistake Holden's silence for stupidity. He doens't believe in speaking much. Most of his time is spent in his head, just thinking. He can come forward with a moment of brilliant insight, entirely unexpected from the background. In his younger days, that insight was moreso centered on plants and animals. These days, he's more likely to solve something the pack is facing, a tactical problem.

Personality

Social