OOC
Name: liz
Age: thirtymumble
Contact: ragweed @ plurk
Current Characters: N/A

IC
Name: Atticus Vedici
Age: 46

History: Atticus Vedici was a well connected and politically astute sorcerer who hailed from the city-state of Ghlee, a coastal power on the island of Maireglenn. His status afforded him the usual luxuries enjoyed by men of wealth and power:  a wife of similar status, a son who he presumed would follow more in his mother's footsteps than his own, an estate, and access to doors often kept closed to others of less privilege. In life, he used his formidable abilities as both sorcerer and politician to engage in acts of espionage both on behalf of Ghlee, and against her--all in the name of gleaning unique occult secrets about the nature of the god at the centre of his culture's pantheon. It is towards this purpose that Atticus endeavoured throughout his adult life--to learn, to access, and to touch the forbidden--and in pursuit of this goal that he ultimately engaged in treachery, deceit, and ultimately murder.

During one such attempt to uncover secrets long sequestered within a rival city-state's university, Atticus allowed himself to be held hostage, presumably as some intellectual capital to be leveraged against his fellow Parliamentarians back in Ghlee. Concerned for his safety, his grown son, Octavius, sent Rufus Basco, the captain of the Vedici household guard, to the neighbouring city-state in an attempt to free his father from capture and bring him safely home. This did not go as planned, and what became of Basco remained something of an unsolved mystery for the rest of the family indefinitely.

Successfully staging the would-be rescue attempt as an attempt on his life by his 'hosts' instead, Atticus' colleagues in the Ghleeian Parliament were able to successfully negotiate for his return to the city. This enabled him to continue his career of leading a double-life as Parliamentarian, spy, and occult researcher, for roughly another five years, but when one sticks one's nose close enough to secrets associated with a god thought to be long dormant, eventually, those secrets start to look back at you. When at last the nature of Atticus' research was uncovered--and subsequently, a small portion of the trail of bodies he'd left behind him in his efforts to cover up his work--he was sentence to death by his own colleagues, and publicly executed.

That was supposed to be his comeuppance, but maybe the god whose identity he sought to uncover decided to play one last trick on him. Maybe not. Either way, rather than being transported to the hell where he undoubtedly deserves to be, he is now in Penance. Fancy that.


Personality:

(Lightly edited from his Fade Rift app.)

Atticus is poised, elegant and well-read, and more than capable of performing the appropriate emotional reactions to most social situations. They are, however, just performances. The artifice tends to collapse when something he prioritizes must be set aside for the good of others. When he encounters a subject that genuinely attracts his attention, his focus can be unsettlingly intense; in these situations, he struggles with impulse control.

While it wouldn't be fair to categorize him as completely devoid of empathy or compassion (e.g., he's fond enough of his wife and his son in a limiting, detached way, and recognizes that it is important to ensure that their needs are met), his understanding of these feelings is intellectual. Emotional literacy, in other words, is something that he has worked to acquire the way one acquires other learned skills or trades--and when they become inconvenient, he can set them aside like one would clutter.


Please describe your character's sins and how they influence them:

Atticus' sins are legion: if you were to chart his progress using Dante's nine circles of hell as points of reference, he would wander liberally between the fourth and ninth circles at his leisure and depending on his moods. He has murdered and deceived and defrauded and malignly neglected in pursuit of heretical knowledge, with little real thought or care paid towards how his actions would impact those who depended upon him for security (e.g., his household employees, his wife Ophelia, and their son, Octavius.)

His sins might as well be part of his professional resume, though he wears them a bit like an urbane gentleman might don a well tailored suit. He does not feel remorse--or at least, when he does experience it, he is quick to shut the feeling down. (It does not do to dwell on one's sins, Harry, and forget to keep sinning.)

Abilities:
As a sorcerer, Atticus wields impressive magical abilities that distinguish him from the more mundane witches and wizards of Maireglenn. The means by which a witch or wizard becomes a sorcerer would be an app all of its own, but to summarize, Atticus has imbibed an elixir that grants him the ability to affect the elements around him. Example:  he can rip sizeable chunks of earth from the soil, conjure fire; the usual sorcerer abilities. (I have no intention of playing him as being the type of sorcerer to on impulse burn Penance to the ground, and so haven't fleshed these out in as much detail.)

His main magical ability that made him such a formidable opponent, both as a sorcerer and as a politician, is his ability to enter the sleeping minds of others as they dream, and either shape their dreams around them, influence their waking thoughts--or kill them if they become inconvenient. To see a basic description of how I have leveraged these abilities in game before, here is a link to Atticus' specialization over in Fade Rift.

Ideas:
In general, I would like to drag this low empathy monster kicking and screaming towards repentance for the enormous body of bloody work he left behind him in Maireglenn... or, frankly, watch him fail spectacularly. That would also be acceptable. I am delighted by both positive and negative CR for him and am open to anything and everything. Will he find love? Unlikely, but I'm down! Will he murder Rufus again? Highly likely, and I'm also down for that. Will he end up escorted straight to hell? Very probably--sign me up!

Sample:

Atticus reunion with Rufus.
The thread in Fade Rift that inspired us to create new versions of these characters to app them into Atonement.