Post by Prosper Andrews on Aug 10, 2009 4:18:02 GMT
Prosper Andrews
In the web
Of dizzy leaves
Virgins all
Elude the trees.
character basics
NICKNAMES: Prosper is a nickname. The proper name in the church register is Paul.
AGE: Forty, the last seven years of which have been spent looking somewhere around twenty.
BIRTHDAY: December 8
GROUP: Human
SPECIES: Ensnared human.
OCCUPATION Gentleman occultist.
GENDER: Male.
PLAY-BY: Kian Mitchum.appearance
He is rather annoyed by his inability to produce a suitably mystical-looking beard-- it may help that he has a face like a Pre-Raphaelite wet dream, and is still, physically at least, barely scraping twenty-one. Still, he has a fondness for keeping his hair artistically long, and for dressing like an eccentric more likely to be seen at a prestigious university than an American speakeasy. All in all, he's as beautiful as he had hoped for, though more than a little debauched looking. Nothing can be done for his hair color, which is still an ordinary middling-dark brown. His dark eyes are curiously compelling, and have lashes heavy enough to outline them clearly. He's not yet enough of a holdover sheik to wear Rudolph Valentino eyeliner, but it really does look like it.
He is of average height and slim, and while he tries to adhere to some European concept of fashion (in the vague, nebulous sense that he understands it, more suggestions than a popular movement) he looks painfully out of place on American shores. Discreet but interesting jewelry is sometimes worn, but he tries his very best not to smile too much, and to look moody and imperious. The end result tends to be that Prosper looks like he's in pain. Or using copious amounts of pain medication.personality
At his best, Prosper is a social butterfly. If he can't be all things to all men, he can at least try. People easily bore him, when there's nothing exceptional about them, and for subjects most people would consider serious he has the attention span of a gnat. Art and the theater seem to be his favorite subjects as of late, outside of casual Satanism for fun and profit. He's a big reader, and would rather immerse himself in a book than hold a serious conversation; unfortunately (especially given the current economic situation) he pisses away money faster than he can make it, however dishonestly. Illusions, seances, and confidence tricks are his forte. While he has a whole internal mythology set up, one he can adjust to his clients' needs at a moment's notice, it's unclear even to him if he believes much of it.
He is prone to fits of mania and acting out of temper; he often acts hastily without considering consequences, and then suffers for it later. If you explain this away as an artistic temperament, the anguish afforded only to true geniuses, he would love you for it. His occasional "bleak depression" is more like a child's temper tantrum, orchestrated for optimal show. But in the public eye, he's a performer, and perform he shall.
Prosper is relentless in the pursuit of pleasure, but is more likely to slyly insinuate himself into his desired position than take it by force. However, given his temper and his present form, he's even less likely to get what he wants as a spoilt pretty-boy than a rather intimidating man in his thirties. Still, he fakes the same Patina of Mystery(tm) utilized as everyone's second-favorite mad, bad, and dangerous to know junior occultist. It's difficult for him to reconcile with the fact that times have changed. Simply being young forever (and rather prettier than he ever was, to be fair) seems to have convinced him that he can again have success in any field he pursues. Never mind that the idle rich aren't lurking in American dive bars, and the impressionable poor don't have money to burn buying into his personal cult.
He likes looking sharp, country houses, invitations, funerals, stage illusionists, Black Masses, young and impressionable girls, young and artistic men, spirit photography, and heroin. One of the few things that is never unpacked from its suitcase for ordinary showings, when normally all props are necessary to give his workplace a suitably haunted, cluttered look, is his one legitimate occult tool-- the skull of an adult, human suicide. He dislikes Sunday mornings, American accents, picture shows, sleep, social diseases (of which he has had at least one, in past) and children.family & history
Father: Christopher Andrews. Deceased.
Mother: Valentine Andrews, née Sharp. Estranged.
Siblings: Two sisters, Mary, deceased in her early childhood and Rosa, four years his junior.
Others: Sebastien, the latest in a recent series of neurotic French Catholic violinists he's seeing illicitly. Prosper has a very definite type.
On the whole, Prosper had a happy, if uneventful English childhood. Dull, in fact, which made the realization as a teenager that he didn't have to go into military service or the clergy quite freeing. (Though he's still sought a religious calling, strange to say.) He was a rather dull child, whose detachment was seen as shyness and punished with being forced to socialize. Generally, as the years of his life go, these were the least eventful ones, but the ones in which, he claims, he first realized he might have a Calling. Public school tried, and failed, to disabuse him of this idea, but left him with a persistent nickname.
He attended Trinity College, but soon came close to dropping out, though his attendance there at all is something he tends to brag about when in his cups. (At least half out of the vague wish to be associated in some small way with certain better-known occultists.) Coming from a relatively wealthy family, and ever the beloved child rather than the black sheep he claimed to be, he gadded about the country for a while, flitting from woman to woman and between various mystical spiritual orders. At thirty, his decision to start a capital-O Order of his own fell through quite dramatically; at thirty-three (an encouraging age for a man who'd started to develop a Messiah complex) he was a social pariah even among his own former followers. Naturally, as one does, he borrowed a friend's handgun and made a theatrical try at killing himself in the master bath of his current girlfriend's home.
Generally, attempting suicide in a room covered with mirrors is not the ideal recipe for committing suicide. To witness the human condition from all angles, and to be aware of just how very fragile you are-- the bullet will enter here, pass through there. It wasn't so much that he was tired of life as that he was in love with life, and felt deprived of the tools with which to properly enjoy it. A fresh start would have been preferable, but aside from an extremely tenuous belief in reincarnation, none seemed to have been forthcoming.
And at once, an angel came to him. Well, it had once been an angel.
He asked, specifically, for eternal life on tap, wealth, and youthful beauty. Not for love, or for the skill with which to use that power, but it had been a rather hasty summoning to begin with. Hadn't even thought to ask for invulnerability, but coupled with the concept of flawless beauty, he's rather difficult to harm. Still, his is a short term contract on the cosmic scale of things. (The actual mark of his signing is more permanent than ink on paper. It's a small array tiny flecks of gold in his right eye; were one in the mood for a rather boring game of connect-the-dots, one could probably puzzle out some kind of pattern there.) Unfortunately, such a reckless wish as to be young again forced him to uproot entirely, and sent him running first across Europe and then to America.
As a man in love with life, and terrified of it slipping away from him, he had convinced himself that he would never grow tired of it, but the more proud he grows of himself the less he fears death, and the more he tires of life. He takes advantage of his dubious acting talent by performing seances for impressionable older ladies, and is a dab hand at faking fortune-telling. Prosper's past clients are painstakingly recorded, of course (one never knows when the opportunity for blackmail might produce itself) and he keeps in reasonably good touch. The Americas are a new stomping ground, but even as the world merrily rolls downhill, he's charming privileged rich kids and blue-haired old ladies alike.the roleplayer
NAME: Skazka
GENDER: Female.
AGE: Nigh on 16.
ROLEPLAY EXPERIENCE: 6 years,
OTHER CHARACTERS: Drusilla Decima Amabilis
HOW YOU FOUND US: RPG-D
ROLEPLAY SAMPLE:(( is one of these still necessary? I have one on Dru's app.))
