Jon Little Bird

Jon Little Bird is an American lawyer and current head of the Council of Native Americans legal advocacy team. He is well known for his skills in debate and for winning courtroom arguments. He’s built a reputation for fighting for the “little guy.” He is an adept channeler and skilled with the use of Compulsion. Additionally, he is an experienced dreamwalker.

Jon is the current Age’s incarnation of Coyote.

---

Psychological description

Jon is quite wordy. He tends to explain the obvious and sometimes has difficulty getting to the point. He finds it hard to cause undue suffering and harm to others but particularly revels in delight when he sees himself confronting higher powers. He finds it bothersome to be tricked, seeing it as an affront to his own intellectual prowess.

Physical description

Jon’s not a big or a strong guy. He isn’t particularly athletic and suffers near sightedness, requiring the use of eyeglasses to correct this problem. How he managed to become a championship kicker on his high school football team with this affliction is somewhat of a mystery.

Biography

Jon’s full biography can be read here.

Early Years

Jon was born on the Mescalero Apache reservation in southern New Mexico. His parents were killed in a car accident when he was a baby and he was raised by his grandfather, a tribal elder who taught him many of the old stories. His grandfather, and other tribal elders, put him on the path to experiencing his first encounter with The Spirit World.

As Jon was maturing, he saw pressure develop upon the reservation from the influx of people settling the New Mexico desert. His own tribe struggled to maintain their land and water supply amidst increasing encroachment.

After the passing of his grandfather, Jon was placed in foster care, and he never grew close with his guardians. He immersed himself in whatever studies he could find among the woefully deficient high school education offered on the reservation. He also played kicker for his high school football team for three years and helped them win a state title in his senior year, in art by convincing the coach to play an onside kick at the start of the game.

Jon attended the University of New Mexico with the initial plan to obtain a degree in agricultural engineering. He changed his degree to pre-law after discovering his talent as a debater. He graduated pre-law and was accepted into Yale to complete his Juris Doctorate.

While on the way to Yale, Jon was attacked by a strange creature who wanted him to tell how his people still had “medicine.” Faced with certain death, Jon reached for something he didn’t know he had inside him — and utterly destroyed the thing. This marked his first channeling experience.

Jon Meets Noah Crow’s Eye

Shortly after Jon was attacked by the strange creature, he met Noah Crow’s Eye who claimed he’d had a dream of Jon. Noah took Jon back to his home at the Oconaluftee Cherokee village in North Carolina and treated him for his injuries. At this time Noah also drugged Jon and knocked him unconscious, and kept him catatonic for eight days.

When Jon awoke, he was fed peyote and tied down while a ritualistic ceremony was performed around him. This coincided — as planned by Noah — with Jon’s first experience of The Sickness. He remembered very little of the experience other than him screaming the whole time. When Jon awoke he felt better and Noah explained to Jon that he’d had a dream the Jon would have died if Noah had not tricked Jon into drugging him. He told Jon of the Atharim and how the first two who’d come to Noah with the Sickness had gone to be treated at hospitals had experienced “accidents.” There had been two other unnamed individuals under his care, a woman who vanished after her symptoms disappeared, and a man who is buried behind Noah’s house.

At Yale

At Noah’s suggestion, Jon sought out Dr. Kevin Anderson, a doctor of anthropological studies at Yale who specialized in Native American lore. Anderson had already been made aware by Noah that Jon suffered the Sickness — much to Jon’s displeasure — and gave Jon suggestions to where he could find answers from Native American mythology. Anderson also showed Jon the black teardrop stone that had been found at an ancient Native American burial site. Jon unknowingly channeled for the second time, and used Compulsion on Anderson to convince him to let Jon keep the artifact and forget they’d had the entire conversation.

Jon threw himself into his studies that year — both his graduate work and his exploration of his new found powers, which he termed The Great Spirit. As he became more adept with walking the Spirit World, he used it to his advantage and worked awake and asleep. During holidays and any other time he had off, he took trips out into the wilderness to consciously experiment with his powers.

Within the span of a year, Jon managed to complete his studies and obtain his Juris Doctrate, awarded the honor Egregia Cum Laude — the only time Yale had ever awarded that particular honor. Perhaps more importantly to Jon’s health and well-being, he was able to find the answers to how he could gain control over his channeling. As he’d learned control during the course of his reactions to the Power, he never developed a block.

It did take Compulsion to convince the dean of Yale School of Law to allow Jon to graduate in one year, though.

After Yale

Before Jon had graduated, he’d already been approached by the Council of Native Americans to work as a legal advocate on their behalf. Jon accepted their offer and quickly got to work, arguing — and winning — a number of courtroom battles on behalf of a number of Native American causes. His most notable victory was the Supreme Court case Seminole v. Florida where Jon filed an injunction on behalf of the Seminole Tribe of Florida against the state’s use of eminent domain to seize tribal land. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled 6-3 in favor of the Seminoles, establishing precedent protecting reservation lands from seizure even under emergency circumstances.

RP History

• Glimmers of a Dream Jon helps coordinate disaster relief on the Potawatomi Indian Reservation in Michigan for refugees from the Dayton Disaster. There he is approached by members of the Minutemen who ask for his assistance in fighting the CCD’s designation of their group as a terrorist organization.
• Interview with Little Bird Jon meets Nolan Trace and is interviewed about his plans to sue the CCD on the Minutemen’s behalf.
• Glimmers of a Dream Jon meets Thalia Milton in Tel’aran’rhiod and gives her the name Nimeda.
• A Debate Jon debates Armando Napoli at Moscow University over the wisdom of the structure of the CCD.
• A Lawsuit Jon pursues his lawsuit on behalf of the Minutemen in the Custody Court. He uses Compulsion on his opponent, Prosecutor General Anatoly Kant in order to make the man sabotage his own defense. The morning after the Court hearing he learns of Kant’s apparent suicide and believes he is to blame.
• Kings of the Castle Jon goes to Kallisti to drink his troubles away and meets Jaxen Marveet and Oriena Rusayev. Jon invites the three to play a game called Numbers’ Gambit which ultimately exposes all three to knowledge of one anothers’ ability to channel. In this thread Jon also gets a phone call from Nolan Trace.
• Stages Jon is butt-dialed by Nolan Trace and he calls Nolan back, and the two have a brief conversation. The phone call is tracked by some unknown agency.
• A Friend in Need Jon follows an unknown agent to Club Kistyami and uses compulsion on an agent to convince him that Nolan Trace was indeed at the club where his signal was traced. Later, Jon invades Nolan’s dreams to warn him of the danger. During the dream they learn of each others’ channeling abilities. Nolan gives Jon the room number of the hotel suite he is staying at, and the next morning Jon shows up to meet him in person.

Threads

[character-story char=”58″]