Name: Deacon Marconi
Age: 47
Gender: Male

Appearance: A tall, broadly built man, Bald with dark blue eyes and skin that's deeply tanned and weathered from years of travel. He would have been quite handsome a few years and a couple of pounds ago, but age appears to have started biting at him something fierce. The most apparent thing about his face and the deep bags under his eyes.

Clothing/Armor: Black pants held up by suspenders, white shirt, black overcoat which appear to have been modified to have many more pockets that normal. Black shoes, meticulously shined. Black half cape worn over the left shoulder. Wears rings on all his fingers, each bearing the seal of a different secret society or fringe order, as well as over a dozen holy symbols on a necklace around his neck.

Belongings/Weapons: A black cane sword. A trunk, clung to for deer life, that contains his extra clothing, journals and notes, books on world religions and mysticism, alcohol, a shaving kit, pictures of his wives, a eclectic collection of drugs, candles, a silver chalice, a gold plated serpent, and a potato he had stolen from the ships kitchen.

Personality: Marconi would describe himself as a seeker of universal truth, and to a degree this is true. He is of an open and inquisitive mind, constantly seeking out new experiences and perspectives. However, how much of this can be attributed to simple hedonism is up for debate. He revels in excess and experience, and cares not for what other people think of him. His guiding philosophy is that one should do what one wants regardless of the consequences, and as such he doesn't hold other peoples actions against them or make judgements on their character. He is extremely hard to anger or repulse, and is genial regardless of who he is talking to. He is easy to befriend, but it is also extremely easy for him to cast friends aside when they become too burdensome. He enjoys his reputation as a wicked man and intentionally plays it up in public because he enjoys the reactions he receives. Despite his reputation he does not enjoy the sight of blood.

History: Deacon Marconi was born in the Sleythym empire to a rich, aristocratic family. His father was a whiskey magnate and alcoholic. His mother was a devout follower of Pricepia, the goddess of prudence and Order. After Marconi's father died in a boiler explosion the boys mother retreated into her religion, joining an extremely conservative fringe Pricepia church. She became inordinately controlling of her sons life, not allowing Marconi to leave the family manor and sheltering him from the evils of the world. If left to this he probably would have ended up a high priest or greater in the church. This was not to be.

Like most religious aspirations what derailed him from this path was sweet sweet sex. A dalliance with a maid at the age of fourteen opened his eyes to "all the joys of the world" and from that moment on he began to sneak out of his home and explore the wonders that the capital had to offer. For sometimes months at a time he would vanish, whoring, gambling, running with street gangs, returning many times blackened, bruised, and utterly broke. It was during one of these disappearances that he became involved in the Order of The Great Worm. He had never been able to completely shake the interest in religion he'd acquired from his mothers upbringing and made it fairly high within the cult before church inquisitors kicked in the door and began arresting people. This he evaded by hiding behind the door and slipping away in the chaos.

It is around this point that worry over his immortal soul began to drive Marconi's mother mad. Partly to placate her, and partly because he liked what he had seen of the inquisitors, he joined the clergy at the age of eighteen. He made Inquisitor at twenty one, covering any of his indiscretions with bribes and favors, and spent three years hunting seditious cults before his mother died and left him the estate. Having become bored of his position he confessed the misdeeds he'd perpetrated while acting as an Inquisitor, as well as naming everyone whom he'd bribed to look the other way, to three separate newspapers and was expelled from the clergy.

At twenty five he began attending Sleythym National University, graduating with honors in the fields of anthropology and religious studies at twenty eight. During this time he became deeply involved with the Six Circle Brotherhood, an order of mystics and wizards dedicated to commanding the forces of evil for the good of all mankind. He was thrown out of this order when he attempted a six month long ritual designed to summon all the evils of the world to face the caster and giving up two months on because the conditions of the ritual, particularly abstaining from things such as cooked food and sex, were not to his liking.

The consequence of breaking off this ritual was to be possessed by one hundred devils. The Brotherhood didn't really notice any changes in his behavior, but decided to err of the side of caution because how could you really tell with him?

After University he began traveling the world studying fringe religions and cults, on the basis that if any mainstream religion was the path to universal truth they'd have got there already. His peers pointed out that this was probably just an excuse for him to partake in heathen rituals, consume a truly heroic amount of drugs, and make love to the natives. Marconi replied that he never said his studies didn't have side benefits.

Since then he has written four books (three on the practices and beliefs of fringe religion and one of truly awful poetry), been married twice (both ending in divorce due to his rampant philandering, with one of his wives going mad afterwards), climbed one of the worlds largest mountains to study with the Yogi who lived atop it, killed seven men (two church assassins, three regular assassins, one jilted lover, and one dear friend who'd insisted on it), had deep religious experiences connected to many gods, thrown three legendary parties at his family manor, and cultivated a reputation as the wickedest man in Sleythym.

Before being shipwrecked he'd been on his way to the isle of Baha-Nan to live among the native Serpent Riders for half a year.