Trickster

29. Trickster

Tricksters are a type of mischievous beings or demideities with the ability to warp reality and make real-looking objects and people out of thin air. In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human, or anthropomorphisation) which exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior. Tricksters are rather rare but their powers are greater than most beings; they are able to warp reality, create people and objects out of thin air and create time loops. According to Bobby, they can take the form of anything but most of the time they appear as humans. They generally have a sweet tooth, and enjoy sugary treats, as they have the "metabolism of an insect". They commonly have a mischievous personality, and generally go after the high and mighty, and enjoy taking them down a peg, normally in ironic ways.

Power and Abilities

Tricksters, as gods, are very powerful beings capable of warping reality to an immense degree. However, their power to do so is not on par with an archangel's.

• Immortality - Tricksters can live for thousands of years without aging or dying.

• Invulnerability - Tricksters are invulnerable to most forms of harm.

• Highly Advanced Reality Warping - A Trickster's main power, they can warp reality to fit their own desires both for their tricks and their personal use.

• Conjuration - Tricksters could create things out of thin air including constructs of other beings and realistic projections of themselves that could harm others but suffer no damage in the process.

• Shapeshifting - They can assume any form they want.

• Super Strength - Tricksters are superhumanly strong.

Weaknesses

• A Stake of Wood Dipped in the Blood of a Trickster Victim - A stake of wood dipped in the blood of a Trickster's victim sticked in the heart of this same Trickster, is one way to kill them.

• Archangels - At full power, archangels would have been effortlessly able to kill trickster.

• Snake Venom

Lore

Tricksters, as archetypal characters, appear in the myths of many different cultures. Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser". The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules: Tricksters "violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis." Often, this bending/breaking of rules, takes the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both. The trickster openly questions, disrupts or mocks authority. They are often male characters, and are fond of breaking rules, boasting, and playing tricks on both humans and gods. Many cultures have tales of the trickster, a crafty being who uses cunning to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. In some Greek myths Hermes plays the trickster. He is the patron of thieves and the inventor of lying, a gift he passed on to Autolycus, who in turn passed it on to Odysseus. In Slavic folktales, the trickster and the culture hero are often combined. Loki cuts the hair of the goddess Sif. Frequently the trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability. In Norse mythology the mischief-maker is Loki, who is also a shape shifter. Loki also exhibits gender variability, in one case even becoming pregnant. He becomes a mare who later gives birth to Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir. In a wide variety of African language communities, the rabbit, or hare, is the trickster. In West Africa (and thence into the Caribbean via the slave trade), the spider (Anansi) is often the trickster.