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nekrosmanteia) wrote2018-05-25 03:42 am
Character Info
Gregor Allaine
original character
Gregor is short, probably 5'6"-7", but somehow manages to look sort of lanky without being very tall. He doesn't have a whole lot of mass to him, but I wouldn't exactly call him skinny. Despite his actual age, he appears to be ambiguously in his mid-30s. He has black curly hair and grey-green eyes, and dresses about exactly the way you'd imagine an anthropology professor would dress. So, lots of three-piece suits, mostly, though he'll typically ditch the jacket and roll up his sleeves, and he's totally chill with casual if it comes to it. He looks perpetually tired and has this sort of aloof, lazy air about him, kind of like a cat. Usually pretty pleasant, if strange. His movements are very deliberate and precise, in contrast to how tired he looks.
Gregor has been a lot of things in his very long life; doctor, soldier, killer, assassin. These days he works as an academic, an anthropology professor, (the cultural kind, not the bone thing,) and also as a sort of detective. He's allied with an organization that tries to keep the concrete existence of magic a continued secret from the general public. In order to do this, they seek to stop those who would use their abilities or information in ways that might reveal them, definitively, to the world or to those who would hunt them. Gregor is primarily involved in investigating murders committed with magic, as well as, uh, disposing of the culprits. In the past he was more active in clearing out witch hunters, but it's not as much of a problem these days.
When he was younger, he was proficient in healing magic, but during the first world war, he corrupted his abilities by breaking the taboo against bringing back the dead. The dead being himself. Now he's a necromancer, or rather an anti-healer, a specialty that is as difficult as it is dangerous— for the mind as well as the body. Gregor mitigates this danger by being supremely arrogant. He has no doubts whatsoever about his ability to do exactly what he wants with his magic. It is this, combined with his advanced age and experience, that makes him such a formidable witch.
Though he himself is obviously quite dangerous, he's not an unpleasant person most of the time. He's loyal, observant, curious, and infinitely patient. He may give unsolicited advice, but he generally means well. He might be shady and/or unsettling, but it's rare to see him actually malicious. Of course, being who he is and doing what he does, he has the capacity for extreme cruelty under certain circumstances. If he decides you pose a threat to he and his, he will act with neither mercy nor regret.
Witchcraft: Gregor is a powerful witch with over a century of experience and practice. He has a firm command of (and great deal of confidence in) his abilities. Unlike most witches in his world, he is well aware that there is no "correct" magic system, but that it functions purely through belief and willpower. This hasn't hindered him, as he's pretty arrogant and has a nigh unshakeable will. Aside from his specialty, detailed below, Gregor can use magic for smaller tasks like unlocking doors, lifting/moving objects, and that sort of thing. He could learn other spells with a bit of practice. The only sort of magic he absolutely cannot perform is the healing kind, for Reasons. Relatedly, healing magic from others will not work on him. Period.
Necromancy: The short version is that he can reanimate the dead. He can sense the presence of nearby dead tissue, and assuming it's still capable of motion, he can adopt it as an extension of his own body and move it around. If it has sensory organs, he can receive information from those as well. It doesn't have to be human, (animals work, too,) and it doesn't have to be a complete corpse, but it can't be just bones. He can even interrogate a body about its remaining memories (works best with fresh ones) assuming it still has a brain and a means to communicate. It is possible he could take control of a sentient undead, assuming its will was weaker than his. Of course, all of this has side-effects, namely that his consciousness becomes stretched between multiple vessels and keeping his concentration can be difficult. While paying too much attention to one, he might lose track of another. This can put his actual body at risk.
False Immortality: Gregor is technically alive, despite having died multiple times, but he's not 100% functional. He's sluggish and cold, his heart rate is slow, and if it weren't for the constant influence of magic, he'd have trouble breathing and using his right arm (among other things). If he receives a minor injury, his body will heal itself, albeit slowly, but if he's fatally/seriously wounded, he'll probably just let himself die. Dying doesn't really slow him down any, seeing as how he can just reanimate his own body. In doing so, he can go well beyond the limits imposed by being alive; he stops feeling pain, heat, or cold, and can use his limbs however he wishes, even if broken or detached. He has a much easier time fixing corpses, too, as he can sort of "heal" dead flesh by fusing it back together— that's how he fixed himself, after all. This process has rather gruesome results, as it's hasty and less focused on form than functionality. It leaves scars, gouges, and misaligned bones. But hey, it gets the job done.
Corruption: The final piece of the necromancer triforce is that Gregor can rot the flesh of others with his touch. (IE, the opposite of healing.) It's not an instant process, and would probably take a few minutes of constant contact to kill someone. He can rot objects, as well, provided they're made of organic material. It is possible for him to do this without physical contact, but it's a bit of a strain, so it's reserved for worst-case scenarios. It's easiest for him to do this with his left (dominant) hand.
Smarts: Gregor is observant to an almost uncanny degree. He's insatiably curious, and he's had a long time to read up on a lot of subjects. Obviously, he knows more about anthropology and the occult than anything else, but he can keep up in most conversations about history, science, religion, and related fields (up to 2020 that is).
Marksmanship: As a former soldier, he knows his way around firearms (and also knives). He's not a crack shot or anything, but he certainly knows what he's doing.
Voice: Gregor is originally from New York City (Manhattan specifically) and has an accent to match. He speaks two languages besides English: Latin and Greek (outdated to a modern speaker).
Scent: Probably smells like tobacco smoke and books. To someone with a supernaturally gifted nose, he also smells like Dead Thing.
Mental Information: Gregor's consciousness is a little untethered; it doesn't always line up with his physical brain, especially if he's using his necromantic abilities. He doesn't have any telepathic powers or particular resistance to them, but if they were using magic, he'd know that someone was prying in his mind or trying to manipulate it.
Biological Information: For those that can sense it, Gregor is not entirely alive. His temperature is low, and his pulse and breath are slower than normal. He has a lot of scars and poorly-mended internal damage. The most notable: two former gunshot wounds, one through his chest and one over his liver; a nasty, deep gash of some kind on the left side of his ribcage that was obviously hastily closed, and which has resulted in partial paralysis of his lung; another gash down his abdomen; a set of alarmingly large bite-marks on his right forearm, along with an imperfect circle of scarring around that elbow. Several of his bones have been badly broken and roughly fixed, including his left arm and his neck. His body probably would not function very well without the constant influence of magic. He's also a smoker, and has been for over a century, so that can't be helping. Suffice to say his stamina sucks.
Magical Information: As stated, Gregor is a fairly powerful witch in full command of his abilities. Anyone who can sense magic will sense a great deal of it. He doesn't generate magic naturally (that's not how witches work in his world), but rather draws it in from his surroundings, and he personally can hold and manipulate a lot of it at once. He will know if magic is being used on him, and could potentially turn weaker spells (or spells by weak magicians) back on their casters. He doesn't need to do anything particularly special to use magic (no rituals, wands, phrases, or gestures) but sometimes it helps with the harder stuff, a sort of placebo effect.