Desmond Vinson

[Desmond Vinson]

Name: Desmond Theodore Vinson Jr.
Nick Names or Alias: Jonathan Andrews
Age: 40, though technically only 23 in the mortal world
Aesthetic Age: 40
Gender: Male
Sexual Preferances: Straight
Breed/Form: Ogres
Kith:

Stonebones

Powers:

Obdurate Skin - Once per day, Desmond can turn his skin into tough armor made of stone. This makes him very difficult to harm, but also makes it hard for him to maneuver. Normal armor doesn't enhance this protection.

Contracts of Stone (**) - Desmond can greatly increase his strength in combat, becoming able to easily bring down several normal humans with a single swing of his fists. He can also rip apart objects with frightening ability and efficiency.

Contracts of Smoke (***) - Desmond can cause his footprints to appear like those of a rabbit or to vanish entirely. He can also cloak himself in darkness that muffles light and sound, allowing him to sneak around with great proficiency.

Derangement(s):

Like many of his kind, Desmond is terrified that the Fae will find him and drag him back into bondage in their world of cruel but beautiful dreams. When the involvement of the Fae is even remotely possible he becomes paranoid, sometimes lashing out at anyone who he might suspect of having any links whatsoever to his old masters. He is always watching for any clues that might alert him to the Fae's presence, and sometimes invents such clues in his mind.

Misc.:

Loves: Anna, doomed as that love is.
Likes: Classical music, a good burger
Dislikes: Loud noises, idiots
Phobias: The Fae

Foci:

A combat flashlight that was Desmond's constant companion throughout his time in the army. Heavy enough metal to give anyone a good thwack and well enough balanced to sit easily in one's hand. It also illuminates the dark places where agents of the Fae might hide, and now it serves to focus Desmond's magicks.

Deformities:

Beneath the Mask that hides his altered body from the eyes of non-fae, Desmond is a strange being only barely recognizable as the human he once was. Tall and broad, his tanned skin is impossibly thick, and his features appear half-formed, as though sculpted from mud. His eyes are entirely grey, devoid of whites and pupils, and his hairless head lacks ears. His arms are overly long, almost dragging on the ground, while his fingers and toes are short and stubby, made for nothing finer than crushing and destroying.

Appearance:

The Mask causes Desmond to appear much as he did before the Fae changed him, though seventeen years older. He is bald, his face haggard but clean-shaven, and his ice-blue eyes are alert and full of life despite the weight behind them. Well-muscled and relatively handsome, there is still something strange about him, something that cannot be described but seems sorrowful and a bit frightening.

Fashion Sense/Style:

Desmond wears practical clothing: jeans or cargo pants, t-shirts, hooded sweatshirts or windbreakers, and the like. He almost never wears shoes, as some of his powers depend on bare feet and the skin of his soles is so thick that stepping on a nail would be more annoying than painful. He often covers his head with a baseball cap; it embarrasses him to be bald, but his hair has stopped growing and simply won't start again.

Personality:

Before his abduction by the Fae, Desmond was a strong-willed believer in truth, justice, and morality. These attributes still exist in him, but now that he has become a monstrous killing machine he's less sure of how to follow them. He tries hard to use his abilities in ways that harm only evildoers, and has resumed praying just in case he was wrong about God not existing.

He's not as strong of will and mind as he once was; his curse has dulled his intellect somewhat, and the realization that he's just one more beast in a world full of such dark creatures has shaken his psyche almost as much as the tortures inflicted on him by the Fae. Still, he tries to keep to his beliefs, and that's more than can be said for many of those who walk the night.

Physical-Strength: 12
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 6
Leadership: 10
Melee: 6
Unarmed: 12
Ranged: 6
History:

Desmond Theodore Vinson Jr. was born into a lower-class family; his mother was a public school teacher and his father, for whom he was named, worked in construction. They were deeply religious Catholics, strict in their lifestyle as well as with their five children, of whom Desmond was third oldest. He was strongly encouraged to go to seminary and become a priest; this pressure honed his keen mind like the forging of a gemstone, and he excelled in school.

Despite excellent grades, Desmond didn't have time for extracurricular activities because he was too busy helping his aging father run the household. He played street sports with friends, but he couldn't keep up a commitment to any of the school teams. Though he received a modest academic scholarship, it wasn't nearly enough to get him a priest's education. His parents promised God would provide, but time passed and no help came.

With no alternative, Desmond turned to the only certain source of education money he wouldn't have to pay back: the military. Soon after graduating at age eighteen he enlisted for a six year career in the army reserve. His parents, avowed pacifists, condemned the decision, and his father even disowned him. Stuck with his choice, Desmond clung to the hope that he would be reconciled with his family when he finally became a priest.

Desmond was spared any actual combat in his first year because of Hurricane Katrina; he spent quite some time deployed with a National Guard unit, sifting through the waterlogged wreckage and pulling people both dead and alive from ruined houses. His experiences there both shook and strengthened his faith, opening his eyes to the suffering of people who were worse off than he could possibly have imagined before coming to New Orleans.

In-between training and disaster relief, Desmond wrote nearly a hundred letters to his family. His parents never responded, but his youngest brother kept him up on happenings at home. His father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and wouldn't live through the year; sure enough he died several months later, never to reconcile with his son. Desmond's mother blamed him for causing stress that led to his father's death, and he became even less welcome at home.

As his first year came to an end, Desmond was deployed to Iraq for the first time. The country was still greatly unstable, and every patrol was a dance with the possibility of death. Two of the young man's squadmates were lost to roadside bombs in the first month, several more to ambushes as time went on. Yet by some stroke of luck Desmond always survived, even when a piece of shrapnel lodged in his shoulder a mere centimeter from his windpipe.

That first tour of duty shook Desmond deeply; he made his first combat kill, searched the houses of people who hated him even if they were innocent, and watched good friends die before his very eyes. He became almost totally certain that this was a losing war, but he fought it anyway because he genuinely believed himself to be on the right side. His devotion was rewarded with a promotion to Private First Class.

Upon his return to the states he met an old friend from high school named Anna Kelly, now a published author. The two of them gradually formed a relationship, and he moved in with her over his mother's shouted protests after several months of dating. He proposed to her just before he was called away on a second tour of duty, and she accepted; his mother assumed he'd gotten her pregnant, but they actually hadn't gotten intimate yet due to Desmond's strong religious beliefs. They planned the wedding for the day after his return.

This time Desmond ended up in Afghanistan, and it proved to be even more hellish in its own way. Out in the countryside bandits still held sway over rural farmers, and were well equipped with old Soviet weaponry. The ensuing battles were bloody and brutal, though Desmond's performance in them secured his promotion to sergeant. It was around this time that he lost his faith completely; things were too bloody and horrifying for him to believe in a merciful God.

He also encountered the supernatural for the first time during this tour of duty; a strange figure appeared suddenly from the darkness to kidnap his commanding officer, who was found some distance away almost completely drained of blood. Desmond carried him seven miles over desert terrain without water and was awarded with the Soldier's Medal for his heroism. The identity of the strange blood-drainer was never discovered.

As the second tour of duty approached its end, the newly-decorated Sergeant took his squad out on patrol for one final night. As darkness fell he spotted a little girl by the side of the road, bleeding from a head wound. He hurried over, hoping to save her before dehydration and blood loss finished her off, but she crawled away into thick undergrowth. As he tried to reach her he became separated from his men, who waited by the edge of the road.

Desmond finally caught up to the girl, surprisingly fast despite her injury, and tried to talk soothingly to her. After some time she seemed to come to trust him, and took his hand. Yet as he tried to lead her back through the thicket he became more and more lost, wandering on and on as she began to giggle in a way that sent shivers down his spine. When he finally emerged from the underbrush it wasn't the road that greeted him but a dizzying, impossible landscape. He blacked out at the mere sight of it.

Desmond's memories of the time that followed are spotty at best, like a cracked mirror reflecting his face. He remembers waking each day to find himself a little bit different, his body swollen to strange girth and becoming rocky and hard. He remembers savage beatings with impossible implements, cruel laughter, and barbed words that dug as deep as any weapon. He remembers being told to crush anything that came through a doorway. He remembers obeying.

And then, one day, he remembers running for all he was worth. His Keeper was asleep; he sheathed his fists in stone and crushed the door to little bits and ran. The Hedge tore at him like a field of razors, trying to take away whatever he was and had become, but he didn't slow down until he found the little clearing where the girl had led him astray. This time he found the road, but no one was waiting. Too much time had gone by.

He remembered seventeen years of enslavement, but when he staggered into Kabul after days upon days of walking he discovered that, in the real world, it had been only three. Still far too long. He had no documentation; his Keeper had taken everything. So he walked even further, hitchhiked, rode in secret on trains until he found a cargo ship to take him back to the United States. When he got there, back to the Charleston apartment where he had left Anna, he saw himself.

Something calling itself him had been left in his place, he discovered. That something had married Anna, but they'd been divorced a year later; she'd said he wasn't the man she'd loved anymore, not knowing how true it was. His life was a wreck, and there was no will and no way to take it back. He left the thing to live in his place and rode trains again until he found somewhere else to be. That place turned out to be New York.

He'd found out that he was called Desmond, and he called himself that every night so that he would remember himself, but he gave himself a new name, too, so that he could hide his identity: Jonathan Andrews. Slowly his eyes opened to the darkness of the world he'd returned to, an evil he hadn't seen before but which had always been there. He began to understand the gifts that came with his curse, and to use them to make some kind of life for himself.

He knows they're coming for him. He's just trying to delay the inevitable for as long as he possibly can.

[Iota]

nice read, well played