Member
TruthHurts
RPM
Xaltwind
Rune_Alchemist
Shazamrock
Yanadere
Double
Savo
Numbers
Ginger Tee
Goal: Security, both financial and personal; eventually escaping the city.
Secrets: Everything personal about Adel is kept a secret, and they are the only secrets he has that are not up for sale. From major information like his true name or the exact nature of his gyft to the most insignificant of details like his favorite color, Adel tries to keep everything about himself hidden. Some of the more important secrets are his and his family's past, his role in the downfall of the once great Magna Mafia family and the death of a respected detective, and the fact that 'Adel Dawson' is only a pseudonym.
Fears: Losing his wealth; being truly trapped in a small or confined space; being stuck in Nocturnia for life.
History: It sucked to be a regular person stuck in the middle of power struggles in a city like Nocturnia. When you died, you didn't get to become a martyr killed in the line of duty and lauded as a hero, or go down in a blaze of glory while increasing your family's prestige. You just died. When Adel's father died, his loan shark made an example out of him. He also left his wife and son with a mountain of debt, though they hadn't blamed him. The man had wanted to get his loved ones out of one of Nocturnia's few slums, and the loan had practically been forced upon him besides. Without any way to pay it back (the interest alone would swallow them within a couple months), the two remaining Dawsons had little choice but to work for the mafia they were indebted to. As he was young at the time Adel worked as a gofer, while his mother became a prostitute.
The Magna Mafia family were a large and cruel one. The Dawsons' debt was not forgiven, but at the very least the interest was frozen while parent and child worked for them. Life didn't get any easier; it still sucked. The first turning point in his life, and contender for one of the worst days of it too, came after a few years of suffering when a couple of goons from their 'family' approached Adel to tell him his mother was "gone." He'd never get to learn what actually happened to her, as the men then literally bagged him up and stuffed him into a suitcase.
Adel had no idea what they were planning to do with him - chop him up and sell his organs? Maybe ship him off wholesale to some sicko? Either way he was probably going to die. That realization changed something in Adel, allowing him to escape. In the violent ensuing struggle he found himself in a warehouse full of other poor kids, but in his wild drive to stay alive he didn't stop to try and help any of them. He abandoned them to their fate, and once he managed to slip away he ran to the only place he really had to go: the Magna's usual hangout. In hindsight it was a really stupid decision, but the fates must have been feeling particularly funny that day. Don Magna had been visiting the area, checking in on his mafia's newest revenue project: trafficking. Once Adel showed back up he took great amusement in the fact this scrawny kid had managed to give his thugs such a hard time, but even more so the emergence of the boy's gyft intrigued him. The event ended with the don exerting more control over the area, merging it with those he managed directly, and Adel was allowed to live and keep working for them so long as he put his newest skills to use.
Of course after his gyft first manifested, Adel quickly put it to the test. With an ability like his, it wasn't a stretch to think a bank robbery was possible. He could get a lot of money quickly and get out of his current situation. The thought would at least cross most people's minds, even if they didn't follow through with it. Adel did follow through with it, but it turned out robbing a bank was actually way harder than it looked. All he got out of it was a beating, an arrest, and the beginning of a rap sheet.
But it was also the second turning point in Adel's life. The police easily figured out he was a low level lackey of the Magna family, and they offered to cut him some slack if he acted as a mole for them. He took the deal. All he had to do was get chummy with the people bossing him around, maybe weasel his way into a couple of private rooms, and tell the cops whatever he found out.
And it worked. For the next couple years Adel played nice as a dedicated mafioso. Paid his family debt and wormed his way slowly up the family hierarchy while feeding information to the local police branch. Supply routes, lab locations, where secondary headquarters were, the number of people involved in any given operation, how they were armed... the family got suspicious, but hadn't managed to find Adel out. He got bold, eventually demanding better rewards from the police for the increasingly valuable information he was giving them. It was only after he finally managed to get his file scrubbed and obtain some 'official' paperwork with a new name that Adel turned around and told Don Magna everything he knew about the police activity in the area, going from double to triple agent.
As the police still trusted his intel, it didn't take much for Adel to lead them into a trap designed for slaughter. The Magnas eliminated the biggest thorn in their side by wiping out nearly the entire force in their largest district, including the branch's captain and lead detective. Detective Henrickson had been a celebrated officer, a candidate for next police chief and a beloved community member. He was Adel's main contact with the police, a kind man who'd been there since Adel's arraignment - but he had also been one of the few who knew Adel's true identity. The loss of Henrickson was a huge blow to the police at the time, and secured the Magna family's stranglehold on Nocturnia's Southeast side.
While he worked on rebuilding his reputation with the police after the 'unfortunate accident,' Adel turned to dismantling the very mafia he was part of. They were the bastards that had made his family's life miserable in the first place after all. He disseminated secrets, rumors, and straight up lies within the group, leading to inter-family conflict. At the same time he got into contact with rival gangs, giving them access to what he knew about the Magna's inner workings. It took much longer than Adel had wanted, but over time the Magna Mafia crumbled, chipped away at from the outside by the police and other families muscling in while its members ate each other alive.
As far as anyone knows, after the fall of the Magna family Adel took a handful of men and established his own little gang like many other surviving members. A small time neo-family with a good relationship with other mafia groups and informants within the police department, in danger of being forcefully absorbed into a larger family yet somehow always managing to keep independent... which they do with the assistance of the city's badges, who view them more as an undercover pseudo-branch. When Adel meets with the police he goes by the codename they originally gave him: Silver Canary. When he works with criminal enterprises he lets them use his assumed name, Adel Dawson, to give them the illusion they have some information about him.
Now at twenty-six years old, Adel has amassed a good deal of money by playing both sides. He'd seemingly succeeded in his immediate goal of securing a future for himself. Adel was a man in the know, safe in the knowledge that he was too useful to kill. But then again, for many that also made him too dangerous to allow to live.
__________
Alliance: ███████
District: Silverside
Rich District
A small riverside borough of Nocturnia that has seen a rapid increase in wealth and growth within the last few years. With the jeweled districts at its back and the water at its front, Silverside sparkles with neon reflections both day and night. It is mostly made up of tall buildings of metal and glass, legitimate businesses as well as subtle fronts for less than legal work. For a mysterious reason it is extremely rare to see beggars or anyone of lower class around the streets, despite the close proximity to Penny Stakes. A couple of first class restaurants can be found in Silverside, the most famous of which is Peccatore, a classy and expensive live music lounge on the water run by a notorious chef's brigade. Highrise apartments sprout up throughout the area, with the most notable being one of, if not the tallest building in Silverside. This is The Palazzo, an ultra-luxury living space for some of Nocturnia's richest citizens. Besides its size, The Palazzo is unassuming from the outside - though it's rumored that the favored informant of both the mafia and the police resides in the penthouse.
Faction: Silver Canary
A single man with a handful of informants working under him. Most citizens will never learn of the Silver Canary, but those feuding over control of the city will at least have heard of him. Beat cops and mafia goons all believe the Canary is on their side, feeding information to the "right" people, but veterans and old family leaders know that the Canary is a free agent whose loyalty is pledged only to whomever pays him the most for it. His true allegiance, if he has any, is unknown.
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Gyft: Magic Word
Magic Word is the ultimate passphrase, a vocal skeleton key. With his gyft, Adel can open anything. From locks to passwords they can all be undone, giving Adel access to rooms, chests, safes, computers, digital files, hidden passages... and, of course, the secrets concealed inside them. Over time Adel has broadened its application, extending the gyft's use to several less conventional things that the concept of "open" can be applied to, such as a human mouth. The opposite is true as well, and what is already open can be made to be closed.
Limitations and Weaknesses:
Adel's gyft has no offensive use, or at least none that he's been able to figure out as of yet. It has extremely limited use outside of the obvious, and without a target to directly act upon the gyft serves no purpose. Although the gyft can force locks open, it does not have the capacity to supernaturally lock something that wasn't already protected (so for example, he could not apply a lock to a door that doesn't have one, or keep something closed indefinitely). Using it at all requires Adel to speak aloud, so rendering him unable to do so effectively strips him of his gyft.
Mechanics:
If Adel attempts to use his gyft on a living being with a will of its own, an opposed dice check is rolled. 1d12 vs 1d12, the higher number wins. If Adel loses, his gyft fails and his target is able to resist compulsion. Another attempt can be made in the next post. This dice check can be influenced with some gentle persuasion. Physical trauma applies a penalty up to -2 to the target's dice roll.