Man or Monster?

[Dark Squiggle]

I am beginning as a writer, and I am writing a short story where my two characters will be meeting a strange thing who will play games with them one by one, promising the first a lot of money if he wins and all the money he carries if he loses (much less money), and then either knowledge of how to grow fairy wings on human against burning the building with both characters in it if he loses. The thing will lose the first game and and pay out, but halfway through the second game (chu shogi, a slower paced, more complex version of chess), the characters will realize it pickpocketed the first player's money, the thing admits that it pays out both sides of the bet no matter what and sets fire to the building immediately, and then hands the second player a slip of paper once they escape the flames.
Should the character be male? female? human? a fairy? a skeleton? I like the idea of an ankh-and-snake motif on a necklace or tattoo or on coat buttons, but beyond that, I can't picture this character in any way.
Please help! What are the pros and cons of using different forms?

 

[CupofJoe]

I think this really has to be up to you. What is the feel you are going for? If its high fantasy then anything could happen. If it's low fantasy, maybe something more human but with a twist would fit better. If it is weird fantasy then it could look human but be something VERY different. If the feel is Urban. then a streetwise Mage might work.
If they are play chu shogi [which really sound like some thing from Lovecraft] then an Asian/Japanese feel could take over. I don't know Japanese mythos well enough to know what might be possible.
I tend to write in a low fantasy style so I probably use something human with a twist, but that would be my story not yours...

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

ideas off the top of my head

-kindly old grandmotherly looking woman but with some unsettling feature (like dark holes in place of eyes or whatever)
-a cat (love cats)
-dude with big leathery wings
-a figure shaped like a human but made of sentient jello
-a homeless guy with weird tattoos
-a creepy eleven year old girl
-a guy in a trenchcoat with lots of wristwatches and pocket watches
-a hag-like woman with tentacles for hair

 

[Dark Squiggle]

Thank you for your replies.
I was wondering how the story would change if I used a different character.I am not sure what subgenre I am writing, so that doesn't help, but I suspect it is somewhat near Urban Fantasy. I chose reverse chess for the first game, because it is fast, confusing and strangely familiar to anyone who plays chess. I chose chu shogi because it is also familiar, yet unfamiliar to a chessplayer and slow, deliberate and overwhelming in a way that no other game I know of is, not for any Asian reference. The only references I have made so far in the story are to the obscure and defunct ice industry of Rockland County, New York, USA. lets say I chose 'dude with biog leathery wings', how would that make the story different than if I chose 'creepy eleven year old girl', or 'cat'?

 

[DMThaane]

A lot of this should be guided by the tone you're going for. Functionally many different things can fit and if you have no set idea of what you want then the question is what works best for the atmosphere. Something hideous or alien immediately throws the story in the deep end, with the two characters making a deal with something obviously out of the ordinary. A cat or child take the ordinary and make it abnormal, which lends itself to eeriness and while the characters would know something is amiss it's ambiguous enough to be more intriguing than horrifying. An ordinary human, or something that looks like an ordinary human, lends itself to luring both the readers and the characters in, making them question if something strange is even going on before pulling the rug out from under them.

Another good question is how you want your characters to react. A certain person might run away from a moth person, entertain a talking cat but never make a deal with it, or get suckered into a loaded game by a chatty street vendor. Another person might not like talking to people but find the cat more intriguing, or think that the offers of something as clearly magical as a moth person too valuable to pass up.