Tadrin:  Okay, so a wolf, a bear, three gael'braugh, and a phookik all walk into a ritual... Sound like the beginning of a bad joke? It is; it's the beginning of Tadrin's life. The totem ritual that gael'braugh go through went disastrously wrong for poor Tad, and he ended up with slight physical characteristics of both wolf and bear, but mostly phookik. Appearances aside, Tad thinks he's a phookik; rather, he knows it just as any other phookik does.

When Momma Phookik happened into the ten foot radius of the botched ritual and caused Tadrin to become what he is today, she immediately saw opportunity in him. Tad grew up in the Winter Court with the rest of his new family, and as far as he was concerned, he had always lived
there.

As the young phoo'braugh grew older, he began to notice how fascinatingly beautiful things that sparkled were. This interest grew into obsession, and with the help of Momma, he soon had learned all there was to know about any object that reflected any amount of light in shiny fashion. During his studies, Momma took the time to teach him specifically about the shiny metals; see, she really was a very smart phookik and manipulated her adoptive son into becoming a master smith for the sake of knowing all about sparkly things. The manipulation was done in love, though, and regardless, Tad never really realized he had been tricked into becoming useful.

Not that Tad wasn't useful already. Though his mind was fully phookik, his body still retained the healing powers of the gael'braugh, the usefulness of which bore no end. Between Bren's various botched experiments with traps and Il' Pappa's clumsiness (he may have been a good leader, but let's face it, the guy's as klutzie as any other phookik), Tad soon came to rationalize his nickname of 'Special Brother' to mean that he, and only he, kept the family together - literally. Sure, Barrow could raise bodies and make them do things, but only Tadrin could truly bring bodies back to life. (And, he could do it better than any silly old gael'braugh he ever met!)

Appearances aside, Tad is very different from the rest of his brothers and sisters. His brain seems to work differently, and this is likely due to the fact that it is still that of a gael'braugh. He is very much exactly what he is: a gael'braugh who thinks he's a phookik.

 
Secretly, he blames himself for every sibling lost to the Unseelie court, though he never shows it on the outside. The only manifestation of this hidden sorrow is his absolute insistence to help anyone he's grown attached to whenever he can. Mostly, he is just attached to his family, but when friends outside the family are made, Tadrin wants to help them just as much.

Tad will make friends with anyone who will let him. It takes a certain type of patience to put up with him, but as soon as anyone does, he's a friend for life. Depending on who the person is, Tadrin may even pursue a friendship despite previous instructions to bugger off. Beautiful walking trees are great examples.

Perhaps the letters A, D, H, and D are best used to describe the young poo-bra. Tad is so excited about everything and can't sit still for long unless he is eating or tired. Some of this is a facade put on to lure others into a state of complacency; however, most of it is just that he's a phookik at heart. Friendly to the end, Tadrin will do whatever he can to please those around him, and he never has quite figured out why people aren't as interested in his 'shinies' as he is.