Jacques le Coq

Character Image

Ability Scores

Personality

Traits:

• I use sports terms to describe everything, and am surprised when people don't know what I'm talking about.
• I will use whatever advantage I can to win. There is always a way to win — you just have to see it.

Ideal: For love of the Game. I play because I love the game and the joy it brings my fans, and even my opponents. (Good)

Bond: (To be developed)

Flaw: I train hard, I play hard, and I party hard. All of my drinks are hard as well.

Backstory

Jacques Leqoc was born in the cold places where the world never quite forgot the old ways.

His people have lived alongside humanity in Canada since time immemorial, hidden not by magic alone but by familiarity. To the unawakened, Jacques has always appeared as an unusually large, pale man. Tall. Broad. Powerful in a way that makes people stop asking questions before they finish forming them. To those who know better, he is something older — a people shaped by ice, endurance, and oathbound honor.

Jacques grew up with two truths held tightly together: duty to his people — the quiet responsibility to protect the fragile boundary between the Awakened and the mundane — and hockey.

The Montreal Canadiens were not just a team. They were heritage. Pride. A banner carried from generation to generation. Jacques did not merely cheer for them — he served them. As an enforcer, his role was simple: protect the stars, punish the reckless, make the ice remember your name.

When the trade came, it felt like exile.

Boston. The Bruins. The enemy.

To play for them was to betray something deep and instinctual. Jacques wore the black and gold like armor that did not quite fit, knowing every Canadiens fan who saw him would feel the same ache he did. Still, he played. Loyalty to the team was a kind of oath, even if it was not the one he would have chosen.

October 1986. The Boston Garden.

A Rangers player took a dirty run at Cam Neely. The hit was late. Unnecessary. Malicious. Neely went down hard. Jacques did not think. He moved.

What followed was not a fight. It was a declaration. Jacques struck with a ferocity that silenced part of the arena and woke something ancient in the ice beneath his skates. It was excessive. Uncontrolled. His fists carried more than anger. They carried judgment.

The officials ejected him. The league handed down a suspension. Paid. Public. Convenient.

For the first time in his life, Jacques had nowhere he was required to be.

That absence is where the oath found him.

Away from the rink, away from the roar of the crowd, Jacques felt the cold settle deeper than muscle and bone. Something old answered something older. Not a god with a name, but a presence shaped like frost, endurance, and the promise that protection sometimes requires violence. Not rage. Purpose.

Jacques did not stop being an enforcer. He became something else. A shield. A bulwark. A guardian who understands that loyalty is not blind obedience, and that protection sometimes means standing between the innocent and what would break them.

In his absence, Lyndon Byers stepped into the role Jacques vacated. Jacques returned — changed. The ice still obeyed him. The crowd still feared him. But something had shifted. Boston had awakened something in him, and the city, whether it knows it or not, has a habit of doing that.

Class Features & Spells

Sacred Oath: Oath of the Ice (reskinned Oath of Protection)
Fighting Style: Protection
Lay on Hands: Yes
Divine Health: Yes
Channel Divinity: Protection

Racial Features (Goliath): Little Giant, Mountain Born, Powerful Build

Spells: Divine Smite, Ceremony, Cure Wounds, Detect Evil and Good, Detect Poison and Disease, Purify Food and Drink, Wrathful Smite, Bless, Command, Compelled Duel

Equipment

• La Sainte Paix (his signature weapon)
• Arrêt (shield or secondary)
• Hockey Pads (worn as armor)
• Unarmed Strike
• Clothes, Casual

Connections

Session Notes

Session 01 - The Convergence

• On suspension after his first Bruins game — defended Cam Neely with excessive force
• Walked to the waterfront; the harbor spoke to him through forming ice: "Guardian. Will you stand watch?"
• Said yes immediately: "I said yes. Yes, why not?"
• Ice skates formed on his feet; skated across a crystallized harbor path to Spectacle Island
• Met Pierre and Lee on the beach; intro: "I come from Quebec. What do you think? Of course I am French."
• Lee: "What the fuck is hockey?" Jacques demonstrated the glowing hockey stick. This helped no one.
• Assessed the arriving boat: "I think I see an old man with his grandson." (re: Chandler and Leonard)
• Functioned as group diplomat / de-escalator at beach standoff
• In combat: missed hockey stick swings in Rounds 1 and 2; creature shredded his jersey twice with Sorrow Lash (both missed, but just barely) — "Hey, I like this jersey."
• Round 3: Climbed the machinery (athletics pass), dropped 15 feet (acrobatics pass — "Your enforcer knees just don't give a shit"), attacked prone creature with advantage + Bardic Inspiration + Divine Smite
• Killing blow: slap shot across the jaw; the bottom half of the creature's face sailed across the facility and landed in a vat of rotted fish bones
• Last words translated by Bo: "The harvest was denied. The courts will remember. Winter judges. Summer rages. The Green One dreams of walking…"

Session 02 - Telephone

• Lay on Hands healed Bo to full at session start — "Hey, my namey."
• Zonk (his in-character call-sign / self-reference) attending the three captives; attempted to cure Lee's muteness with Lay on Hands (didn't work — not a poison)
• Met Monroe Tanner (who didn't give a name), Mai Xiong (who recognized him on sight as a hockey player and became an immediate fan), and Sapper Ripley (who'd been clean since '76)
• Saw Bo as an orc in a mutual glamour-slip; Bo saw Jacques as his true Winter-aligned Goliath form
• Detective O'Malley fawned: "The beating you put down on that man in the garden. You protected. I got you, bro." — Jacques promised him front-row tickets
• Hosted Lee and Pierre in his Park Plaza presidential suite for the 10-day downtime
• Became a tenant of Gerard Bova at the Boval building, paying rent on a unit in the same building where Pierre lives
• Interview with Chandler at the South Shore Diner on Day 8 — resulted in a front-page Globe story ("Welcome to Boston, bitch")
• Ejected Lee from the suite on Day 9 after the hotel maitre d' incident; gave him $100 severance
• Drove Pierre and Bo to Chandler's apartment in his blue Mustang with white racing stripes — spent $2.50 on parking
• At the apartment meeting: dropped his glamour for the whole party — 8½ feet tall, full-body tattoos, ice blue eyes, all teeth intact
• Payday: $1,200/week (professional hockey salary); possesses a coach-provided pager