The Cast
The Employer
The Employer
"You're mine now, kids. You belong to me."
Name: Known only as The Employer, or Boss.
Age: Unknown, estimated late 30s to early 40s.
Race: Unknown.
Gender: Assumed male.
University and Degree: Unknown, if any.
Appearance: Unknown.
Personality: A sadist, and a powerful one at that, The Employer is not only greedy and careless of the lives of others, he actually seems to enjoy causing others to suffer - though simple torture bores him. Instead, he prefers to hold power over others, to observe their reactions to the helplessness he forces upon them, and then to use that against them too. He is a highly intelligent, cunning, intuitive criminal, very likely from an extremely well educated background - and it shows. He also exhibits slightly paranoid tendencies, which is what has made him as dangerous and difficult to catch as has thus far proven - very few people are aware he even exists, despite having committed several very serious crimes in person before resorting to the Power Over game. It is also possible, given his apparent divorce from regularity and normality, that he suffers from some kind of delusional personality disorder, in combination with antisocial personality disorder.
Biography: Unknown.
Skills:
- Largely unknown, as the Employer is also capable of hiring professionals to make up for whatever he lacks, but it is likely that the Employer himself has some experience in business, diplomacy, or confidence tricks, as he time and time again displays an enormously convincing level of shallow charisma and social engineering that enables him to stay entirely ahead of his 'employees'.
- It is also likely that the Employer's intelligence is almost genius level, if not higher. His thought process is quick enough and thorough enough that, even in unforeseen circumstances, he is capable of planning ahead for multiple eventualities in a matter of minutes.
- He possesses incredible amounts of wealth and resources, so much so that it is very likely at this point that his 'crime through coercion' is more of a game for him than anything else.
- Undoubtedly, the Employer has more personal strengths alongside these - but he is enough of an unknown variable that they are not known.
Weaknesses: No major weaknesses known.
Other: He does not usually show his face to his employees, communicating instead through a mobile phone entrusted to the chief employee of any given operation. His voice remains unmodulated, but there is no other identifying factor, and he could well be faking an accent, or using an actor to communicate - it would fit his paranoid tendencies.
The Willingly Employed
Archibald 'Archie' Mercer
"You and I are not equals. Do not question me again."
Name: Archibald 'Archie' Mercer
Age: 34
Race: Caucasian - French
Gender: Male
University and Degree: Classified 'Secret' - Classified under the 'Five Eyes' Nationality Caveat.
Appearance: Archibald Mercer - or, as he prefers to be known, Archie - is a tall, slender, well toned man, with every appearance, air, and feeling of a seasoned military officer. He stands at roughly 6"1, and usually maintains his facial hair in a slight stubble. His features are sharp, and his eyes attentive, and his stature is well held and upright, as if he were a member of an ancient military aristocracy - which, of course, he is.
Personality: Archie Mercer is a generally cold, calculating, professional individual. He is exceptionally cunning, and superbly intelligent - though he would be the first to admit that he has problems with mathematics. His visual memory is excellent, and his capacity for learning is very hard to match, in that he picks up new skills very quickly, and accomplishes himself in them faster than most could ever hope to. Mercer is extremely adaptible, and a very intuitive, charismatic soldier, with all the gravitas of your average British villain. Notably, he is not an inherently cruel person, but does not take kindly to deviants from the established power structure, and maintains a relatively self-centered philosophy of relations - he does not make friends easily, and he does not come back for anyone he does not need, or otherwise like very much, although his competence in commanding this sort of operation usually means that there is nobody to go back for, unless they were left behind deliberately. Notably, he also has some superiority complex issues, and exhibits some shades of borderline personality disorder - though not enough to be diagnosed.
Biography:Archie Mercer is a member of a very old, very powerful, and very mysterious British noble house. His roots can be traced back to the time of the last crusades, and his ancestors were some of its greatest heroes - though he knows better than to apply that word to anyone who actually exists. The 'Mercer' clan, though that is not their real name, have maintained their standing relationship with the armed forces since that conflict, however, and every generation of the Mercer men has spent at least some time in the ranks.
It just so happens that Archie was exceptionally good at it.
Most of his family in the military went to fairly trivial combat posts, if they were deployed at all, and enjoyed the relative safety and comfort afforded to the commissioned officers, but Archie was of a different breed entirely. He relished in the command he was given over the other men, and delighted in the opportunity to employ his considerable intellect in the vein of simply defeating others. He, in a similar way to the Employer, enjoyed winning - and he won frequently. It fed his ego, and built him up to be something more than just a soldier - at last, his family could truly claim to be the progenitor of an Officer. A remarkable and talented tactician, able to employ immediate strategy to win not only the battle, but to set up the campaign for a total victory in the long run, whilst giving some thought to their losses and net gains. He treated war like a business, and having completed two tours in Iraq - the second conflict - with flying colours, business was good.
This meant career progression.
Fast forward three more years, and you're not looking at a mere Captain in the Royal Suffolk Fusiliers, you're looking at a man who's just been selected for entry into the Special Air Service, widely reputed to be the single most deadly collection of special forces troopers in the world - and he did much to uphold that reputation. In nobody's interest but his own, he served his country with the SAS for an additional three years beyond this, before being poached by another service just before his promotion to Lieutenant - and whilst, as you can imagine, the sudden jolt to his distinguished career made him rather irate, it was only to drop him into the thick of something much more... interesting.
The Increment. They're nothing but legends, and beyond simply not 'officially existing', this is a very special subgroup of the SAS that is genuinely the stuff of cheesy action movies. Assassinations, spywork, sabotage, he did it all, organised it all, led it all. He was almost drunk on the feeling it gave him, this visceral feeling of intense and absolute superiority, and betterness, and- and-
He got bored of it, eventually. And it got bored of him. It was work wherein he couldn't enjoy the reputation he deserved, couldn't see the look in his opponent's eyes as they realised they'd lost, couldn't find himself being validated, and the Increment too realised that no matter his contributions, he would not always be a good fit for the unit. His ego was too great, he took too much credit to be a 'quiet professional', he was going to end up putting them all in danger.
Now that's when our military aristocrat turns to crime.
The Employer contacted him a month after the honourable termination of his service, and promised him all the reputation, all the victory, all the status he could ever possibly want... in the underworld. Unlike most of The Employer's employees, Archie Mercer was not coerced, he was not held hostage, he was not beaten into submission - no, he was offered a contract, and gladly accepted it.
And as far as any census records show, he died tragically in a vehicular collision, five years before the events of this RP.
Skills:
- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - Archibald Mercer is a man of myriad and mercenary talents. He's at least seen it all, and done most of it twice besides. Not only is he an exceptionally dangerous physical threat, and a terrifyingly intelligent combat tactician and squad leader, Mercer is experienced in the art of the stalk, the game of disguise, and the poetry of civilian murder. This man is what a hurricane would look like, if it were a genius with the precision of an obsidian surgical knife. And you should be scared of him.
- The Front Man - He's the official head of this operation, and is the primary liason between not just the Employer and your character, but also your character and the Employer's nearly-global network of crime. Archibald Mercer is the source of your resources, and the leader of the crew.
- Thanks for the Memories - He does not forget easily. You will be remembered, one way or another.
Weaknesses:
- Discalculus - Not terrible enough to be officially diagnosed - not that it would ever have impeded him in his career, his family are too powerful for that - but enough that anything more than basic mathematics is usually something he leaves to his more qualified compatriots.
- Borderline Personality Disorder - An interesting example, in that whilst he still exhibits shades of the characteristic emotional impulsivity and fear of abandonment, these are usually quite tightly controlled by his strongly regimented upbringing and military background. He also maintains very few stable relationships, and actively dissuades himself from forming new ones as they do usually break down - and, of course, he is as promiscuous as it typical of the moderate to low end of this disorder.
- An Emotional Coward - He does not have many problems, but he runs from those he has - which explains why his personality disorder, even being less than severe, remains untreated.
- Hey, aren't you dead? - As part of the beginning of his contract with The Employer, his 'death' was negotiated, and faked. It was done convincingly enough that the vast majority of his family - and certainly, the British government, with the exception of the few intelligence operatives smart enough to see through it - genuinely believe he is dead. I'm sure you can see how this might lead to... complications.
Other: None that I'm aware of right now.
Maria Buscadora del Sueño
"You don't have to tell me I'm beautiful - I knew that when you couldn't look away."
Name: Maria Buscadora del Sueño (formerly Maria Riviera)
Age: 23
Race: Hispanic - Spanish
Gender: Female
University and Degree: BSc Equivalent in La Universidad Europea de Madrid.
Appearance: Tall, slender, and unbelievably beautiful, Maria is a striking and breathtaking woman to behold - and indeed, beheld she is. Often the object of the room's attention, and the audience's admiration and adoration, her talents as a former model do nothing but amplify the effect she has on others, male and female alike. She is athletic, gorgeous, and the exemplar of the feminine ideal - and most importantly, she knows it.
Personality: Intelligent, perceptive, and mostly kind, Maria could very easily be described as a fundamentally good person. She's engaging, personable, and can make even the most antisocial come out of their shells. Her emotional intelligence is unparalleled, due in part to her time studying psychology in Madrid, and due in part to her natural aptitude for all things social. Constantly, she is aware of the emotional state of everyone in the room, and constantly, it weighs on her mind. However, she also has the tendency to become paranoid when social interaction goes beyond what she is used to, and is an extremely nervous and anxious individual underneath the facade of calm and composure she has been obsessively maintaining for years. Being aware of the emotional state of her human surroundings has left her painfully aware of not only the good, but also the bad - the predatory observers, the stalkers, the abusive, but also those who are rendered self-loathing by their own self-comparison to her, and those who would lash out from jealousy alone. If she had her own way, she would run from it all, and seclude herself - and yet, even when that opportunity is presented to her, she does not take it. She is ultimately a beautiful person, trapped between the desire to be alone, and the shattering fear of being lonely.
Biography: Being the daughter of a former Communist party official is not easy. Not at all. It is a life that never ceases its demands - be bright, be beautiful, be fit, be slim, no, even slimmer, don't wear that, wear this, party colours only, don't drink, but do, study well, work hard, love everyone. That kind of thing, every day. Even what wasn't communicated to her verbally, or, more darkly, physically, was ingrained into her by the work environment her father's version of the Communist party had created in her home. Despite the ideology of the party she'd been born to, she was very much seen as their princess, their shining star, their item of propaganda to use on the youth. She was royalty, and she hated it. More than once, she thought about taking her own life, and more than once came within an inch of succeeding. The only thing that stopped her was... well, she didn't know. Fear maybe. She was very scared, around this time in her life. All the time. Of so many things.
But then something changed. Not for her personally, but within the party.
The Spanish Communist party experienced a surge in membership, voting intention, and national popularity, all linked directly to the election of Diego Azucaro as their new party leader. The policy platform of the candidacy was revolutionised, keeping in check with traditional marxist schools of thought, but becoming applicable to Spain in a way that was sorely needed during an economic crisis that was, as usual, the fault of the banking clans.
And, most importantly of all, her father (along with several other formerly-senior politicians) was fired, and arrested.
For the continued abuse of his only child, but also for corruption, conspiracy, and electoral fraud - which, funnily enough, still hadn't stopped Diego winning - which saw the old man end up with a prison sentence that would leave him a captive until his eventual death. For this, the public went absolutely wild - and the role played by the new Communist Party administration in exposing and bringing to justice all of the above did not go unnoticed. Combined with the incredible promises they made, the increase in marxist economics' popularity in Economics degree students, and their newfound fame as El Partido Honesto for turning in their own corrupt officials, the Communists would win the next general election by a landslide, and Spain would turn red again.
And Maria was free. Above all, she was free.
For four years, she studied psychology in Madrid, as it had always been a field she'd harboured a quiet interest in. She paid her way through it by working in a bar, and taking modeling jobs on the side, and she loved her life for the first time, ever.
But it gets even better.
It was a quiet day in the bar, and Maria was watching a news programme about the federalisation of South America, due in part to the efforts of the Communist government in Spain. In place of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and almost very sovereign nation except for Brasil, maps would now be obliged to show La Federacion Socialista de la Sudamerica or, The Socialist Federation of South America. While she was distracted, pondering the consequences for the world that this bold move might have, her next customer sidled up to the bar.
It was him. Diego Azucaro. Responsible for the truest form of Socialism in the modern world, and the unification of the Latin American nations; one of Spain's finest politicans, regardless of his alignment; and a handsome, charming young gentleman besides.
Celebrating with a cold pint.
She fell in love with him in less than four minutes of conversation.
Less than a year later, they were living together in his apartment, both of them party to the most stable relationship any government's leader has ever had. They meant the world to each other, and for Maria especially, things were looking good. So good she could barely believe it.
In fact, she didn't.
Paranoia slowly crept its way into their relationship. She, in her damaged way, could not stop thinking about all the women he must have known - all the women he was still knowing, behind her back. She could feel him losing interest, distancing himself. She expected to be evicted from his home - from his life - any day. She started biting her nails again, and slid back into all of her old terrible habits. He noticed, and tried his best to reassure her that he loved her, that there was nobody in the world for him but her, that they were all that mattered - he even admitted that if it came to a choice between his politics and ideals, and her, he would choose her without even needing to think about it. And he meant every word.
But the damage had been done.
They both lingered in depression for months, unable to function properly, after they broke up - at her freakish, paranoid, insane request.
Just what the Employer needed.
He offered her a new home, one where she would be appreciated in the way she never had been. He offered her a new job, where she could finally use her degree. He offered her a new salary, more than she could ever use.
He offered her a new life, under a new family name. Just... a way out.
In her nonsensical state especially, she was rather malleable, and took the offer.
Her name changed from Maria Riviera to Maria Buscadora del Sueño, and she fled Spain. Her nearly-husband was led to believe that she perished in a car crash, with the subsequent explosion rendering her body unrecoverable. It very nearly destroyed him, and for a year he left his duties entirely.
And now, she is the people-person in the team, living almost the same life that left her so damaged in the first place, only minus the physical abuse.
Skills:
- La Bonita - She is one of the most beautiful women in the world. Naturally, she can be rather distracting when she wants to be.
- Psicologia - Highly intelligent, and having studied the art of Psychology in depth for four consecutive years, her talents go beyond people-reading. She's qualified to make diagnoses, prescribe treatment, and analyse the mind, thanks to the modifications made to the typical Bachelor's degree by the government curriculum.
- Salud, y saludable - She is healthy, fit, and strong. In fact, in many respects she is fitter than either of the other two 'Employees'.
- La Lingüista - This means exactly what it looks like. She is fluent in not only Spanish and English, but also in German, French, Italian, and Russian. Consider it a necessary part of the political princess' skillset, and a hobby of hers besides.
Weaknesses:
- Fatalista - She's a fatalist, and can easily become depressed either when she perceives that she has been abandoned or cast out, or when she realises that her life is not her own, thanks to her deal with the Employer.
- La Santa Cortada - She cannot help but be emotional. She is naturally innocent and well meaning, and has very little real desire for anything but to be reunited with El Presidenté, and to help others. This makes her an easy target for the unscrupulous to take advantage of, and could leave her unwilling to do what must be done to ensure the success of the job, without adequate compulsion.
- La Muerte Falsa - She's not really dead. This complicates things, as is obvious.
- Su Amante - Her lover, the President of Communist Spain, has not forgotten her. Nor have the agents in his employ - and they are, some of them, smarter than to believe her 'death'.
Other: For those who would like to know, 'Buscadora del Sueño' can be translated to 'She who seeks the dream' or 'the seeker of the dream'. Just thought it was nice and fancy and meaningful.
Dowle Fenn
"I don't much like the Queen - but I bet her house burns nicely."
Name: Dowle Fenn
Age: 31
Race: Caucausian - Irish
Gender: Male
University and Degree: University College Dublin - Masters' Degree in Chemistry (Completed).
Appearance: Dowle Fenn stands at 6"4, rather intimidatingly, and is possessed of soft, rich, light brown hair, and a thick, healthy beard. He is an attractive, charming looking man, who can - assuming he acts accordingly - inspire confidence in most reasonable people without fault. He is, additionally, very well muscled, and built like a fucking tank. He has no major visible scars, and possesses an admirable shoulder to waist width ratio, and legs that are proportionally muscled to his arms - which is to say, very muscled indeed.
Personality: Dowle Fenn is an attractive man - or rather, he would be, if it weren't for the fact that he is an unstable, unpredictable, violent individual with a penchant for blowing things up, setting things on fire, or a twisted combination of the two. He is almost certainly the sufferer of several very serious mental health conditions, but in the past has absolutely refused any sort of psychiatric analysis or treatment, and is unlikely to ever come around to it. His emotional state can vary widely from paranoid to entirely muted, and in times of great stress he has previously experienced mild to moderate auditory hallucinations - though he has never 'seen things'. It is from this, as well as an intense and complicated variety of environmental factors, that his nature as a political extremist first arose, and it remains with him, even having moved on to private employment.
Biography: Dowle Fenn was conceived by a pair of hardline Irish Republicans, with previous links to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and naturally was never going to be raised in a healthy environment - even since the Good Friday agreement, his parents had remained entirely unsatisfied with what they deemed to be 'too great an influence of Imperialist Britain in the Republic.' Keep in mind that when I say hardline Republicans, this is in the context of The Troubles. Dowle's early life consisted of strange jumps between the relatively normal life offered to him by his school, and the intensely anti-British life he had at home; it's a strange thing to walk past a memorial to the protestant children killed by a catholic republican's pipebomb every day on the way to school, when it's entirely possible that your parents knew and were friends with the killer - even stranger, it is, to not feel immediate disgust at the seven murders committed by a man your parents were raising to call 'comrade'. Even the most radical individual, if thus far unexposed to violence, and the rhetoric of brutal murder, can be expected to experience something of a turn of their stomach when confronted with a bloody and unjustified massacre - especially involving children.
But not Dowle.
Somehow, it was all he ever expected from the world.
And that continued to be all he expected from the world, for years and years. His parents kept their jobs at the local branch of the biotech corporation ProZase, and he kept his schooling, and they all four of them - including his sister, Catriona - kept the faith, and hated the English, as well as the Welsh, for 'collusion' or somesuch. To be perfectly honest, if you asked him today Dowle wouldn't even try to pretend that he cared about the reasons behind the reasons, or how true they were. It just felt right to be hating someone like that - and not even in the kind of way you might think, as if he'd been looking for some radical ideology to join, and that he couldn't function without it. It just felt acceptable, normal, and like the right thing to be doing. He liked it.
At 17, he killed his first man. It was actually an accident, but he didn't much mind - Mr. O'Brien was another colluder, see. He'd worked with the English during the Troubles, his parents said, and he'd ratted out his father's brother to the British police, gotten him killed. No, Dowle had only meant to burn his house to the ground, and watch the flames lick over the brick skeleton of the house for a few hours before heading home, because it was just rural enough that nobody would be around to report it until morning came, and Mr O'Brien was meant to be on a business trip to England - the collaborator he is. When the screaming had started, Dowle left in a hurry, but he didn't feel bad or anything.
And they never connected it to him. Or his parents, funnily enough - and he did think it was kind of funny. Not for any particular reason, it just amused him that the British, high and mighty so they were, couldn't find him, or even know what they were meant to be looking for - though, to their credit, they'd figured out it was arson quick enough.
And his parents were so proud. He would have done anything to please them, he really would have. In fact, the reason he picked up his grades and got into university was to make them proud, too - they'd always suggested chemistry. Said it was a noble science. He didn't much mind either way, but was enthused when they were given the usual safety talks about explosive compounds, as we all saw coming. He was the best student in the class, developing two new explosive mixes that were simultaneously more powerful than, and more stable than, modern Dynamite, as well as providing major contributions to several other anti-cancer research projects, some of which reached fruition and may have actually gone on to save lives. Whilst all this went on, he got involved more and more with the radical republican arm of the student politics in his University, and took up boxing, and shooting. This would all continue without incident, his naturally violent and extremist tendencies even dying down, subsiding to the calming way he took to research work, until he graduated with full honours, and the admiration of his class - and, more tragically, crossed the point of no return.
Because immediately after he graduated, politics became very relevant once more in Northern Ireland.
Yes, four years later, nearly a week after his final graduation from the MSc course, the Troubles restarted. Britain had made terrible mistakes in their relations with the Northern Irish Taioseach, and had utterly ruined the devolved government it had until then been subject to! Historians would debate for a very long time just where it all started going wrong, but eventually the British government showed favour to just enough of the wrong parties in the North that there came a great schism once more, and the radical movement of the IRA gained popularity enough that they were able to blow up a convoy carrying three Unionist MPs, and kill six of their assigned security detail before being routed themselves.
Warfare having evolved, the Troubles weren't as long this time - but that did not mean they were any less fierce, especially thanks to the cacophonic symphony of explosives, poisons, fires, and sheer madness that Dowle was now equipped to bring, having excelled all his life at violence, and chemistry. Though through his work at university, many lives may have been saved through the honourable art of scientific medicine, he was now wiping that goodness from his slate entirely, and is still reputed amongst the Republican elements of radical politics in Ireland to have been responsible for more Loyalist deaths than almost anyone else, through careful application of explosives, and homemade nerve gas. He was excelling again, just... at something less productive than pure science.
But, as always happens, extremism loses its appeal to the public. Eventually, the Northern Irish republicans lost favour, and a second version of the Good Friday agreement was reached between the remaining Republican forces that retained any semblance of respect from their opposition, and the Loyalists whose ranks had also been worn thin by the fighting.
And when that happened, and the flow of resources to Dowle's makeshift lab finally stopped...
Well. He was as close to insane as can be realistically depicted, but smart enough to understand the concept of defeat - and to him, it was indeed a defeat, jarred even more by the revelation that he had never been naturally conceived by his parents.
His sister had found out, you see. They themselves had been killed in the fighting, and would never have told him anyway. She'd had to pull their medical records from the biotech company they'd worked for - which, of course, provided in-house medical care - and then go to great lengths to fill in the blanks created by obvious censorship and cover-up, too. Both of them had turned out to be designer babies - only, they'd been fucked up entirely in the process.
He was born with a genetic predisposition to psychological disorder, and mental illness - similarly to Catriona, who had developed depression, anorexia nervosa, and histrionic personality disorder in her own time at university. It was almost like a sort of tradeoff - they had all the benefits they'd been trying to breed into them, from natural physical health and fitness to incredible minds, for the most part, but in return they were almost undoubtedly amongst the most unbelievably mentally ill people in the world, and worse still, Dowle had never even been that smart or anything! He got more of the negatives, his sister got more of the positives - after all, she'd never burnt down houses for fun, or released improvised poisons to please her parents.
No, instead, she got help, and became a healthier individual than Dowle knew he could ever hope to be. She fell in love, moved to Scotland, and as far as he knew, lived happily ever after. The last he'd heard of her, she'd had three children, and was expecting twins on top of that.
He left Ireland too. Went to England, of all places. Managed to mostly get over his hatred of the English, for what it's worth, even if simply by way of being unable to avoid the bastards.
And then, halfway to the bottom of the chasm of alcoholism, and unable to find it within himself to go through the same complicated health service that his beloved sister had, he was picked up by The Employer. Nowadays, he's more stable than ever, even if only because destruction is a part of his job - which, by the way, pays very well. Feels much nicer than any of what those radicals he used to shack up with had given him. Great benefits. He owns two houses, and a flat in London - which is where he's been for the past week, preparing for this latest operation.
Skills: Probably relevant to their degree. You may have more than just 2, but be balanced.
- Synthesis - He's a chemist, and a good one. He can make shit from other shit, given time and apparatus.
- Things that go Bang in the Fight - At this point, he is an explosives and demolitions expert that would rival one with formal training.
- Murder, and all things murdery - He's a killer, and is good at it - this extends to the art of intimidation.
Weaknesses:
- Disturbed - He is, at his core, an exceptionally mentally ill individual. Though there was a time in his life where proper intervention might have made him almost normal, he's long past that - and given his status as a designer baby, even a failed one, some forms of medication do not have their intended effects.
- The Republican's Curse - Though it's been some time since anyone was actively searching for members of the IRA, and he was always good at concealing his identity, there are plenty of people on both sides of the political spectrum that would happily murder him for his former affiliations - and they're not hard to find out.
- Far from Home - Unlike both of the other professional criminals employed to oversee this operation, he speaks no language but English, and fragmented Irish gaelic. Given the nature of the heist they intend to pull off, this will disadvantage him enormously.
- The Shade of Remorse - Somewhere, deep inside of him, he knows that what he does, and has done, is among the purest forms of evil that a human being can commit. He regrets it, and it weighs over him. On his good days, at least.
Other: He has something of a preexisting relationship with Archibald Mercer - in that he once tried to kill him. Neither is aware of this, fortunately, as their faces were covered.
The Opposition
