Post by Tokrochiru on Nov 20, 2011 6:41:39 GMT -5
Name: Walter Graceland
Age: 162
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 221 lbs
Likes: His son, whiskey, puzzles, mysteries, discoveries, challenges, learning, experimentation, cinnamon rolls, debating, philosophy, cool weather, rain
Dislikes: Boa, undead, coffee, celery, injustice, closed-mindedness, ashes, fire
Alignment: True Neutral
Class: Support
Appearance:
Walter has a somewhat rectangular face. He has a semi-broad jawline, gaunt cheeks, and and a protruded, sharp chin. He almost always has bags under his eyes that would make him look oddly exhausted, even while he's acting upbeat. Blue eyes, side-parted brown hair and somewhat small, rectangular glasses, when combined with his other facial features, give him the look of a particularly adorable man in his thirties. Certainly not the kind of man you would think deals with gruesome murders and malicious lies for a living.
Walter can usually be seen wearing a hoodless gray duffel coat over a dark blue vest and white t-shirt, and black khakis. The color scheme adds a very rainy look to Walter. He also keeps his hands and feet covered with brown gloves and black dress shoes. The ensemble is made complete by a cute little bow tie that is the same dark blue hue as his formal vest.
Personality: Walter bears a warm smile while simultaneously managing to be cold. He is the very image of a cerebral man, who relies on his mind more than his heart.
"All people have their faults and strengths. Some have more faults than strengths. To say that everyone is equal is like saying an emerald is as valuable as a stone on the road. The question one should truly ask himself isn't 'how valuable am I,' but 'what determines my value.' Once you do that, you'll know what you need to do in order to increase your self-worth. It doesn't matter how valuable you are at the moment, because you can always make yourself more than you are right now."
Walter is hardly an outstanding example of moral integrity by most people's standards. He is deceptive, manipulative, and cold. However, he is also optimistic, daring, and desires nothing more than the well-being of others. He's a man who believes that certain races and species are inferior to others (with humanity being somewhere near the bottom), but doesn't let that effect his opinion on the value of an individual. Overall, despite his morally ambiguous opinions and actions, he remains a force of benevolence. While his character may be questionable, his intentions are not. He is out there to help you, whether you like the way he does things or not.
Walter is a man who enjoys good drink, entertainment, and depth. If you asked him to analyze the finer points of something he likes, he would be more than happy to indulge you to the point of excess. He is always willing to try new things, even if it seems unpleasant to him.
Walter generally likes to intellectualize things, but knows when to simply trust his gut. And while he's trusting his gut, he'll intellectualize his gut and rant about the advantages of following one's intuition rather than logic. And after that, he'll provide a counter argument as to why logic has its own value. He's a man who likes to bring out the depth in everything, even when it isn't necessary.
Walter loves his son dearly, and talks to him regularly over the phone. This is rather odd, considering how is son is, or at least should for all intents and purposes, be dead. Whether or not Walter somehow truly communicates with his son, or is insane on some level, is a mystery. Evidence seems to point toward the former, however, since communication with Jacob often miraculously provides him with knowledge he had little way of figuring out on his own. There is also the possibility that Jacob could have some sort of connection with Walter's apparent supernatural mental abilities.
Walter has more than a few quirks that can either annoy or fascinate the people he converses with. He is almost never seen without his metal flask, which he keeps filled with whiskey as often as possible, and an extra full bottle of whiskey stored either somewhere on his person, or in some sort of mobile storage device. Walter is capable of consuming a limitless amount of alcohol without ever becoming intoxicated. Some theorize that this phenomenon is a side-effect of Walter possessing an unnaturally powerful mind. It may very well be that his mind is simply too strong to be poisoned by such a substance. It raises questions as to what other things might not be capable of influencing him.
Weapon: Standard issue 6-clip "Iceman" model police pistol.
Weapon Rank: D
Subweapon: A bottle of whiskey, a cloth, and a matchbook.
Armor: None
Rank: Expert
Attributes: 24
Strength - 1
Agility - 1
Mana/Intellect - 21
Endurance - 1
Elemental Affinity: Unknown. It is quite clear that Walter has no small measure of intellect. His ability to solve puzzles, find the truth, plan and react appropriately to nearly any given scenario goes beyond what the human mind should be capable of performing. The source of this, however, while likely supernatural, is uncertain.
Elemental Control: Subconscious
Attacks
None
Abilities
((Note: Due to the nature of many of these abilities, Tokromar will regularly consult with other players on what can and can not be revealed or exploited by Walter. A lot of these abilities essentially focus around plot development and the like, and that only goes so far as other players are willing to let him.))
Paranormal Communication: Walter is supposedly able to communicate with dead son Jacob via a telephone, radio, or anything that can transmit audio. Jacob can also leave signs for him, such as causing Walter's eyes to be particularly drawn to something, or causing him to twitch. Regardless of whether Walter truly communicates with Jacob or not, his this perceived connection provides numerous advantages.
-Jacob seems to have a lot of good ideas on where to find leads, surprisingly enough. It's rather odd when you think about it. Perhaps he knows more than he lets on, or perhaps he simply has a sixth sense that tells him where to look. Or perhaps, if Jacob isn't real, Walter himself has a sixth sense, and Jacob is the means through which he comprehends it. If anyone in the party is stuck, Walter can request Jacob to point them in the right direction.
-Jacob, someway or another, is able to sense any sort of imminent danger immediately, and will notify Walter just as swiftly via text, phone call, etc. This makes surprise attacks almost completely ineffective against the entire party.
-Jacob is able to occasionally cause distortions that are beneficial to the party's progress or survival, such as opening a door that can only be opened from the other side, or distracting an opponent by creating noise. Jacob can also help activate to carefully planned traps. Jacob can not, however, do many things that a normal human child wouldn't be able to do. Assuming that Jacob is in fact some sort of specter and can fly and phase through walls, one should not assume that he is capable of of lifting fifteen iron ingots. He also can not attack people. He can tap them on the shoulder and the like, but is incapable of doing any actual damage.
Analyze and Exploit: Walter is capable of sizing up the physical capabilities opponent simply by observing him or her. How he does this is a mystery, since not even the most keenly honed sense of perception is capable of revealing all weaknesses in the time he is able to do it. One way or another, however, Walter is capable of immediately knowing what another character's combat weaknesses are, given enough time. The stronger the observed opponent is, and the less obvious the weakness, the longer it will take for Walter to find it.
Investigation: The ultimate problem solving ability. Walter has honed his investigation skills to the point where it ascends the normal capabilities of the human mind. He can learn, log, and piece together information more quickly than even most of Devoid's computers can. This provides several benefits.
-Photographic memory. If Walter has seen something before, he will recognize it upon seeing it again, with no exceptions.
-Swift correlations. Walter is able to quickly see and thoroughly understand how various events or actions may be related upon receiving the necessary information.
-Unparalleled perception. If something about an object, location, or piece of information is out of place, he'll be able to immediately spot and point out the inconsistencies. As a side note, his perception also allows him to tell if people are lying as easily as an official police lie detector can.
Immediate Reaction: Regardless of what is being thrown at him, Walter is able swiftly react and do what he needs to in order to avoid danger. His ability to react so swiftly to danger is both uncanny and unparalleled. Thanks to this ability, Walter can react to attacks and begin to dodge away from them as if he had a Swiftness level of 20, though he still can only run, jump, move, et cetera at a Swiftneess level of 1. Things like dodging bullets become much easier for Walter, but outrunning the blast of a large bomb is simply out of the question.
Weakness: Does not do the whole "fighting" thing.
History: There is likely not a single person who works in a government intelligence agency who hasn't heard of Kyril's "miracle detective." Considering the amount of deeply woven, nigh invisible conspiracies he's uncovered and destroyed, he deserves the title. Few, however, know his true name, or his origins. One thing, however, is certain. Regardless of where a problem starts, once he gets involved, it ends with him. Always.
Walter Graceland was born in Malen 126 years ago, and raised by a loving, but absent family. Being an only child with few friends, he spent a healthy amount of his childhood exploring and experimenting. He looked under rocks for bugs, and cracked them, hoping to find out of they were geodes. He was a silly boy, but there was never truly anyone for him to be silly with. With his parents gone most of the week, working desperately and laboriously to provide for him, he relied on the care of nannies, who came and went like mayflies. No one in his life could afford to consistently spend time with him. As a result, he learned to live alone at a young age.
Whenever his parents could make time to see him, they always gave him their full attention. Their time with him was precious, and they had to make the most of whatever time they had. While they could not repair the wound of loneliness they had unintentionally inflicted upon their son, they always encouraged him to be the best that he could be. What they could not make for in attentive care, they did their best to make up for in support, and faith in the belief that their child would be great someday.
Walter tried his hardest to live up to the image of their perfect little boy. He tried, so, so hard.
As the years passed by, his parents visited less and less often. "I'm not doing well enough," he told himself. "If I work harder, they'll show up." So he worked as hard as he could, to the point where it became unhealthy. His nannies often had to forcefully remove him from his studies, roughly tearing him from the books he should not have been able to read at such a young age, so that they could get him to eat. Eventually, Walter's parents stopped showing up altogether, and the condition only got worse.
Even in his adolescent years, Walter had no time for friends. He had to work harder, learn more, and think faster. The only thing that mattered to him were his efforts toward becoming the perfect, brilliant son that his parents always expected him to be. That was his drive. That was his purpose.
Walter passed each grade with flying colors and eery silence. While his teachers were happy for his success, they always knew that it was rooted in neglect. He was learning in order to fill hole in his life. One that the teachers, as hard as they tried, could not fix. It wasn't that he wasn't socially capable. No, he was quite capable of communicating. He simply refused to realize the value of social interaction in his life. He became a recluse who devoted his time to solving invisible puzzles and self-made riddles. He remained a closed, reinforced, bolted door, so that no one could get in the way of his education and self-improvement. His temperament remained smug, and colder than ice.
Walter’s college years were very similar to the time he spent in grade school. He was neither hostile nor friendly. He was simply passive toward everyone, and focused solely on his own success. However, there was one woman who he always encountered at the bus stop who never even seemed to put forth any effort to talk with him. She never seemed to talk to anyone else either. Every day, on his way to college, he would run into her, and she would avoid his gaze.
Walter never saw anything truly wrong with the way he lived. It was simply a lifestyle. A lifestyle that he chose to live willingly. One that he was generally content with. But this woman was different. Even a blind man could tell that she wasn’t happy with herself. Her gaze sorrowfully blank, while Walter’s was only hollow.
Walter, unable to suppress his curiosity, and the idea of solving such a unique mystery, approached her. She was quite introverted, as he suspected. She shied away from his questions at first, seemingly not knowing how to react to Walter’s pushiness. But as time went on, Walter pushed only harder, and her defenses wore down. The girl, named Gena, told Walter that the only reason she was downtrodden because no one bothered to approach her as Walter had. Walter had a hard time accepting this, since it was highly unlikely that someone who gave off such a gloomy sense of presence could be ignored by everyone who happened to pass by her. She assured him, however, that it was the truth and nothing but. The reason for this was that she was rather sickly, and was born with an uncategorized disease that, while not contagious, was quite apparent with her unnaturally snow-white skin and hair. Walter took a moment to feel ashamed of how he didn’t notice it before. Even humans who were raised in the coldest regions of Kyril weren’t as colorless as her.
The two continued to talk while riding the bus every day, each with a different destination in mind. Walter headed off to college while Gena always went to a dark corner in Malen’s seediest part in order to meet a man who she simply referred to as her “employer”. The more the two talked, the less selfish Walter’s intentions became. In the beginning, Walter was only interested in her because of the mystery she represented. But as time passes by, people find new things to appreciate about each other. He grew to enjoy the exchange of mundane retellings of their days, and the ideas they shared with each other. It was Gena who recommended that Walter try his hand at detective work, since he had a talent for solving puzzles and figuring out what other people’s intentions were.
Curiosity became friendship, and friendship became love. The two were nearly inseparable by the time Walter earned his degree in criminal justice. Still, they chose to take their time, and hold off any consummation or thoughts of marriage until they were ready.
At the age of 29, Walter made his first big move as a private detective. He was hired by a widow to look into the suspicious death of her late husband, a famous elven politician name Helios Navra. Walter chased several leads, all of which were inconclusive. This inconclusiveness was key to solving the mystery, as it turned out, since Walter eventually realized that the amount of evidence that pointed toward the possibility of anyone murdering him was simply too scarce to be real. Eventually, Walter began to question the people who lead him to these dead ends. Fully aware of the fact that he was breaking the law, he made covert efforts to steal and analyze classified police documents. What he discovered would completely shatter the trust the citizens of Malen had for their police department if the information was ever shown to the public. The police department, essentially, and provably, controlled Malen. The head of the police department had cut deals with an uncanny number of criminal kingpins, exchanging ignorance of their actions, for assistance in keeping the politicians and judges on his leash. No law was passed that he didn’t approve of, and anyone he claimed was guilty, inevitably was found to be in court. The public was lead to believe that the increase in criminal arrests was due to the police working extra hard to ensure their safety. But no. The police were merely damning those who got in their way to a cell, and claiming that they were criminals all along.
Walter exposed this lie to the public while managing to stay, for the most part, invisible. He worked with another famous politician named Senator Severa Miyelan, who had her own suspicions about the police. By creating a series of precisely timed “coincidences” the two were able to fabricate false evidence, pointing towards police corruption. This evidence was eventually proven to indeed be false, but it none the less encouraged Malen’s citizens, and certain outside forces to look into Malen’s law enforcement infrastructure. Eventually, the people were able to figure out on their own that the police were corrupt, and Miyelan was able to obtain the people’s approval to hire an outside agency to investigate the police. The end result was the public revealing of the conspiracy, true justice being delivered to those who cleverly crafted it, and a complete reworking of Malen’s law enforcement department.
The public gave praise to Senator Miyelan, believing she deserved all the credit for uncovering the conspiracy. However, those in power knew who truly deserved it. For his protection, they made sure that as few people as possible could trace the whole ordeal back to him. Still, those with the power to find the truth often will, and he earned the curiosity of a few people in major positions of power. The man who managed to change the power balance in Malen in under a week would not go unnoticed.
Upon solving his first “miraculous” case, he approached Gena and asked for her hand in marriage. She gleefully accepted, and the two were wed six months later. Two weeks following the wedding, a baby was on the way. Sufficed to say, the pair couldn’t have been happier.
However, in Kyril, things have a tendency to take a turn for the worst.
Walter knew this.
It shouldn’t have come to a surprise for him.
There was a day that started like any other. It was only a few weeks after Jacob’s seventh birthday, and the image of his joyful smile after receiving his new professional artist’s supplies was still fresh in his mind. Jacob did love to draw. He really, truly did.
It was ironic, really. That day, he would see the saddest picture ever painted.
He couldn’t quite register it when it first happened. It was as if his brain was trying to run a program made for another operating system. However, when he managed to wrap his mind around it, and see reality as it was, he knew perfectly well what was happening.
The car was parked in the driveway, and the apartment building was on fire. A few people outside were saying “Save Gena! Save Jacob!”
Walter, for the first time as far back as he could remember, did something without thinking. He rushed in, searched desperately for his family. His wife’s body was nowhere to be seen, but he did find his son. The sight of his ashes caused Walter to reel back and clutch his head in horror. He remembered trying to scream, but hearing nothing.
The next few days were a blur to him, in more ways than one. The next time Walter was lucid and able to think clearly, he was in a bed at Malen General Hospital. The doctors took their time in telling him the finer details of what had happened. Upon seeing his dead son’s ashes, Walter had temporarily lost his eyesight and his mind. He was fairly sure that he had regained the former, but the latter? He knew he would never regain that part of himself again.
After attending the funeral set for his dead wife and son, he bought the closest bit of housing he could find to the graveyard. Though the man who was pinned for causing the fire was brought to court and executed for numerous crimes, none of it made Walter feel any better. He tried to drink away his sorrows, but the gods had picked an opportune time to either play a sick joke on him, or take pity. No matter how much he drank, he could never become intoxicated. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t make any effort to research into it. He was mad enough by that point. Perhaps he was getting drunk all along, and simply didn’t realize it. It didn’t matter.
Time passed, and grief and monotony took control of his life. He sat around in his apartment all day and watched television. Every once in a while, he would be hired to do some smalltime investigative work, but nothing special like the job he did involving the conspiracy with Malen’s police. After mulling it over some, he decided to buy a gun, and some ammo. The plan was that he would blow his brains out once he couldn’t take it anymore. Despite trying to perform the deed several times, however, he simply couldn’t pull the trigger. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. Whenever he tried, his muscles simply seized up. It was as if his body, for one reason or another, simply refused to end itself, against his mind’s wishes. He tried his hand at other forms of suicide, but it was the same with every attempt. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t kill himself. Something was holding him back.
He started receiving lots of phone calls. He ignored them.
Even more time passed, and as it did, Walter became angry with himself. At first, he was simply depressed, but he had moved on from depression to complete and utter frustration. However, as certain things in his life started making even less sense than usual, frustration turned to fright. This began when he woke up in the middle of the night to descover that his walls were covered with two words, written over and over in bright blue chalk. “black cloak” “black cloak” “black cloak” “black cloak” “black cloak”. Walter was certain that he had lost it.
The phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
It got worse as yet more time passed. He found himself doodling pictures of a man in a black cloak and a mask that had a sickening smile molded into its shape. Sometimes, he would mouth childish poems or nursery rhymes to himself without meaning too. The rhymes were sweet and comforting in a strange sense, but that didn’t make them any less unusual. Walter tried his best to gain control of himself. He invented his own exercises that challenged his mental capabilities, with the hopes that putting his brain to work would somehow lessen the effects of the madness. Strangely enough, this only made things worse.
It all eventually came to a head, on the third anniversary of his family’s death.
Walter’s house phone rang for the umpteenth time, and his will was too weak to ignore it anymore. He picked it up, and was greeted with a single word.
“Daddy?”
Walter dropped the phone and fell to the ground. He was absolutely sure that this was it. There was madness, and then there was this. He was irredeemably crazy. It had to be the case.
….Didn’t it?
Did he have to be crazy to be going through these things? Most likely. But even then, was that such a bad thing? If going mad meant he was able to talk to his son, how could insanity be such a bad thing?
Walter picked up the phone and answered back.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when it happened.”
“That’s okay. I know you wanted to be. You wouldn’t cry as much as you do if you didn’t want to be.”
The two talked about mundane things for a while. A lot of it didn’t make much sense. Jacob kept talking about pretty waves and colors, and how he could fly. Walter took it as it was and accepted it. He was talking to his son. He had no reason to deny such an invaluable gift.
Time moved onward, and Walter received more calls from Jacob. He took his time with him, always making sure he had completely exhausted all possible dialogue with him before hanging up. Throughout the various, impossible exchanges, Jacob kept urging Walter find a masked man in a black cloak. Not knowing if this Jacob was real or simply a coping mechanism, he decided to humor both his child and himself. He was somewhat taken back when he started finding actual evidence of this man’s existence.
Photographs, taken over several hundreds of years, all displaying a picture of a man in a black cloak, his face hidden behind a smiling mask. In each picture, the measurements all added up. The man was the same exact size in every photo, discouraging the possibility that they were different people altogether.
Jacob revealed more leads to him as they continued to converse paradoxically. These leads pointed him toward nervous people of all races and genders who made frantic claims of the dead rising from their graves, always including sightings of a man in a black cloak and mask. Walter knew very well that these claims had merit. He lived in a world of magic. To refute the existence of necromancy altogether was closed minded to say the least.
Eventually, Walter started to form his own theories on how these events could have been connected. One of them led him back to his wife’s grave. Knowing fully well, he dug up her urn from the ground and peeked inside. The ashes were gone.
In response, Walter began working frantically to search and follow more leads relating to the man in the black cloak. It was an insane, former GD intelligence agent on the verge of death that finally managed to put a name to the entity. “Boa” he called him.
After scraping up as much information he could from the old curmudgeon, Walter left him in peace. He died in a fire three days later.
As Walter continued his search, an old feeling returned. That wariness that he felt a short while before his family’s death had returned. This wariness was finally confirmed to be well founded when Jacob called Walter’s cell phone while he was investigating an abandoned daycare facility, and pleaded him to run away and hide somewhere.
Taking his son’s advice, to heart, Walter did just that. He picked the most effective hiding spot available, a nearby air vent, and watched as a tall, muscular humanoid tore up the place. He made his escape quickly and quietly. While the brute was obviously the superior fighter in every way, a monstrosity like him couldn’t match Walter’s cleverness in a million years.
Several more attempts were made to take Walter’s life, and each time, he managed to evade the assassins. It seemed that they simply weren’t prepared to handle someone with Walter’s knack for making use of every possible advantage. In order to confirm the suspicions he had, he hatched a cunning plan. He allowed them to track him. Each time, they sent a different assassin, none of which could capture him. Eventually, they sent exactly who Walter had theorized they would. He teared up as he recognized the latest assassin.
The pained, lifeless, doll-like visage of Gena staggered through the front entrance.
It all made so much sense. Boa, for some reason or another, had spent a great deal of time and effort tracking down people with great potential and power, slaughtering them, and reviving them as his servants. Walter knew that his wife was something else. He knew that the disease she claimed to have was never a disease. She was superhuman, on a very dangerous and disturbing level. She admitted this to him long ago. She had trusted him with the knowledge that she was “different,” from other humans. She was special.
That’s why Boa wanted her. He wanted people like Gena at his beck and call. He didn’t know why, but he knew he did. That was reason enough to hate him more than anything else in the world.
Walter tried to contain himself as he led his undead beloved to his trap. The old abandoned Grair's Brewery was close by. Making use of whatever cover he could find while still leaving faint, traceable evidence of his presence, led her to the center of it.
All it took was a few properly timed mixtures, a bottle of whiskey, a wet cloth and a match.
He let her look upon him once more before he burned her for the second and last time, allowing her ashes stay as they should have been. Simply ashes. He had never felt so guilty and yet so determined at the same time.
Walter wanted, more than anything else in the world, to talk to her one last time. But had he tried, it would have resulted in his death. She would have killed him on the spot, regardless of what she desired. He had put time in to research necromancy. She had been commanded to kill him by her master, and there wasn’t a single thing she could have done to avoid that. All he could afford was to let her see him one more time, before she returned to cinders.
Walter took solace in the fact that his beloved, while dead by his hand, was free from whatever she had to endure. It was not murder. He had set things right. They both found some measure of peace that day.
Walter walked away from the flames of the factory., and received a call from Jacob.
“I know she’ll be happier this way, daddy….but I still feel sad. Is it wrong to for me to feel this way?”
“…No, Jacob. Not at all.”
The two spent the next few hours crying over the phone. She was gone now, but whatever abuse Boa had put her through, at the very least, had been put to an end. She was free to go to wherever people went when they died.
Walter, after he could shed no more tears, gathered up his strength, and moved on. He made an effort to put his life back in order. He built up his reputation and sharpened his mind until he became a man with no equal. Time and time again, those in power requested his services. He put his skills to use by exposing the lies evil men used to protect themselves from judgment. A plot to end the president of Devoid’s life, attempted genocide on the orcs of Argenon, and an attempt to make Aves the “master” race above all others. All of these things were brought to an end by the efforts of one man, with a mind matched by no other. The miracle worker and his paranormal assistant spent over a hundred years clearing away the fog of deception that blinded everyone in Kyril.
To this day, he continues to search for the man called Boa while simultaneously working with men of authority to uncover the dark secrets of Kyril. Whether he realizes it or not, Boa is responsible for creating what may perhaps be his greatest enemy.
Theme Song:
Battle Theme: N/A
Age: 162
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 221 lbs
Likes: His son, whiskey, puzzles, mysteries, discoveries, challenges, learning, experimentation, cinnamon rolls, debating, philosophy, cool weather, rain
Dislikes: Boa, undead, coffee, celery, injustice, closed-mindedness, ashes, fire
Alignment: True Neutral
Class: Support
Appearance:
Walter has a somewhat rectangular face. He has a semi-broad jawline, gaunt cheeks, and and a protruded, sharp chin. He almost always has bags under his eyes that would make him look oddly exhausted, even while he's acting upbeat. Blue eyes, side-parted brown hair and somewhat small, rectangular glasses, when combined with his other facial features, give him the look of a particularly adorable man in his thirties. Certainly not the kind of man you would think deals with gruesome murders and malicious lies for a living.
Walter can usually be seen wearing a hoodless gray duffel coat over a dark blue vest and white t-shirt, and black khakis. The color scheme adds a very rainy look to Walter. He also keeps his hands and feet covered with brown gloves and black dress shoes. The ensemble is made complete by a cute little bow tie that is the same dark blue hue as his formal vest.
Personality: Walter bears a warm smile while simultaneously managing to be cold. He is the very image of a cerebral man, who relies on his mind more than his heart.
"All people have their faults and strengths. Some have more faults than strengths. To say that everyone is equal is like saying an emerald is as valuable as a stone on the road. The question one should truly ask himself isn't 'how valuable am I,' but 'what determines my value.' Once you do that, you'll know what you need to do in order to increase your self-worth. It doesn't matter how valuable you are at the moment, because you can always make yourself more than you are right now."
Walter is hardly an outstanding example of moral integrity by most people's standards. He is deceptive, manipulative, and cold. However, he is also optimistic, daring, and desires nothing more than the well-being of others. He's a man who believes that certain races and species are inferior to others (with humanity being somewhere near the bottom), but doesn't let that effect his opinion on the value of an individual. Overall, despite his morally ambiguous opinions and actions, he remains a force of benevolence. While his character may be questionable, his intentions are not. He is out there to help you, whether you like the way he does things or not.
Walter is a man who enjoys good drink, entertainment, and depth. If you asked him to analyze the finer points of something he likes, he would be more than happy to indulge you to the point of excess. He is always willing to try new things, even if it seems unpleasant to him.
Walter generally likes to intellectualize things, but knows when to simply trust his gut. And while he's trusting his gut, he'll intellectualize his gut and rant about the advantages of following one's intuition rather than logic. And after that, he'll provide a counter argument as to why logic has its own value. He's a man who likes to bring out the depth in everything, even when it isn't necessary.
Walter loves his son dearly, and talks to him regularly over the phone. This is rather odd, considering how is son is, or at least should for all intents and purposes, be dead. Whether or not Walter somehow truly communicates with his son, or is insane on some level, is a mystery. Evidence seems to point toward the former, however, since communication with Jacob often miraculously provides him with knowledge he had little way of figuring out on his own. There is also the possibility that Jacob could have some sort of connection with Walter's apparent supernatural mental abilities.
Walter has more than a few quirks that can either annoy or fascinate the people he converses with. He is almost never seen without his metal flask, which he keeps filled with whiskey as often as possible, and an extra full bottle of whiskey stored either somewhere on his person, or in some sort of mobile storage device. Walter is capable of consuming a limitless amount of alcohol without ever becoming intoxicated. Some theorize that this phenomenon is a side-effect of Walter possessing an unnaturally powerful mind. It may very well be that his mind is simply too strong to be poisoned by such a substance. It raises questions as to what other things might not be capable of influencing him.
Weapon: Standard issue 6-clip "Iceman" model police pistol.
Weapon Rank: D
Subweapon: A bottle of whiskey, a cloth, and a matchbook.
Armor: None
Rank: Expert
Attributes: 24
Strength - 1
Agility - 1
Mana/Intellect - 21
Endurance - 1
Elemental Affinity: Unknown. It is quite clear that Walter has no small measure of intellect. His ability to solve puzzles, find the truth, plan and react appropriately to nearly any given scenario goes beyond what the human mind should be capable of performing. The source of this, however, while likely supernatural, is uncertain.
Elemental Control: Subconscious
Attacks
None
Abilities
((Note: Due to the nature of many of these abilities, Tokromar will regularly consult with other players on what can and can not be revealed or exploited by Walter. A lot of these abilities essentially focus around plot development and the like, and that only goes so far as other players are willing to let him.))
Paranormal Communication: Walter is supposedly able to communicate with dead son Jacob via a telephone, radio, or anything that can transmit audio. Jacob can also leave signs for him, such as causing Walter's eyes to be particularly drawn to something, or causing him to twitch. Regardless of whether Walter truly communicates with Jacob or not, his this perceived connection provides numerous advantages.
-Jacob seems to have a lot of good ideas on where to find leads, surprisingly enough. It's rather odd when you think about it. Perhaps he knows more than he lets on, or perhaps he simply has a sixth sense that tells him where to look. Or perhaps, if Jacob isn't real, Walter himself has a sixth sense, and Jacob is the means through which he comprehends it. If anyone in the party is stuck, Walter can request Jacob to point them in the right direction.
-Jacob, someway or another, is able to sense any sort of imminent danger immediately, and will notify Walter just as swiftly via text, phone call, etc. This makes surprise attacks almost completely ineffective against the entire party.
-Jacob is able to occasionally cause distortions that are beneficial to the party's progress or survival, such as opening a door that can only be opened from the other side, or distracting an opponent by creating noise. Jacob can also help activate to carefully planned traps. Jacob can not, however, do many things that a normal human child wouldn't be able to do. Assuming that Jacob is in fact some sort of specter and can fly and phase through walls, one should not assume that he is capable of of lifting fifteen iron ingots. He also can not attack people. He can tap them on the shoulder and the like, but is incapable of doing any actual damage.
Analyze and Exploit: Walter is capable of sizing up the physical capabilities opponent simply by observing him or her. How he does this is a mystery, since not even the most keenly honed sense of perception is capable of revealing all weaknesses in the time he is able to do it. One way or another, however, Walter is capable of immediately knowing what another character's combat weaknesses are, given enough time. The stronger the observed opponent is, and the less obvious the weakness, the longer it will take for Walter to find it.
Investigation: The ultimate problem solving ability. Walter has honed his investigation skills to the point where it ascends the normal capabilities of the human mind. He can learn, log, and piece together information more quickly than even most of Devoid's computers can. This provides several benefits.
-Photographic memory. If Walter has seen something before, he will recognize it upon seeing it again, with no exceptions.
-Swift correlations. Walter is able to quickly see and thoroughly understand how various events or actions may be related upon receiving the necessary information.
-Unparalleled perception. If something about an object, location, or piece of information is out of place, he'll be able to immediately spot and point out the inconsistencies. As a side note, his perception also allows him to tell if people are lying as easily as an official police lie detector can.
Immediate Reaction: Regardless of what is being thrown at him, Walter is able swiftly react and do what he needs to in order to avoid danger. His ability to react so swiftly to danger is both uncanny and unparalleled. Thanks to this ability, Walter can react to attacks and begin to dodge away from them as if he had a Swiftness level of 20, though he still can only run, jump, move, et cetera at a Swiftneess level of 1. Things like dodging bullets become much easier for Walter, but outrunning the blast of a large bomb is simply out of the question.
Weakness: Does not do the whole "fighting" thing.
History: There is likely not a single person who works in a government intelligence agency who hasn't heard of Kyril's "miracle detective." Considering the amount of deeply woven, nigh invisible conspiracies he's uncovered and destroyed, he deserves the title. Few, however, know his true name, or his origins. One thing, however, is certain. Regardless of where a problem starts, once he gets involved, it ends with him. Always.
Walter Graceland was born in Malen 126 years ago, and raised by a loving, but absent family. Being an only child with few friends, he spent a healthy amount of his childhood exploring and experimenting. He looked under rocks for bugs, and cracked them, hoping to find out of they were geodes. He was a silly boy, but there was never truly anyone for him to be silly with. With his parents gone most of the week, working desperately and laboriously to provide for him, he relied on the care of nannies, who came and went like mayflies. No one in his life could afford to consistently spend time with him. As a result, he learned to live alone at a young age.
Whenever his parents could make time to see him, they always gave him their full attention. Their time with him was precious, and they had to make the most of whatever time they had. While they could not repair the wound of loneliness they had unintentionally inflicted upon their son, they always encouraged him to be the best that he could be. What they could not make for in attentive care, they did their best to make up for in support, and faith in the belief that their child would be great someday.
Walter tried his hardest to live up to the image of their perfect little boy. He tried, so, so hard.
As the years passed by, his parents visited less and less often. "I'm not doing well enough," he told himself. "If I work harder, they'll show up." So he worked as hard as he could, to the point where it became unhealthy. His nannies often had to forcefully remove him from his studies, roughly tearing him from the books he should not have been able to read at such a young age, so that they could get him to eat. Eventually, Walter's parents stopped showing up altogether, and the condition only got worse.
Even in his adolescent years, Walter had no time for friends. He had to work harder, learn more, and think faster. The only thing that mattered to him were his efforts toward becoming the perfect, brilliant son that his parents always expected him to be. That was his drive. That was his purpose.
Walter passed each grade with flying colors and eery silence. While his teachers were happy for his success, they always knew that it was rooted in neglect. He was learning in order to fill hole in his life. One that the teachers, as hard as they tried, could not fix. It wasn't that he wasn't socially capable. No, he was quite capable of communicating. He simply refused to realize the value of social interaction in his life. He became a recluse who devoted his time to solving invisible puzzles and self-made riddles. He remained a closed, reinforced, bolted door, so that no one could get in the way of his education and self-improvement. His temperament remained smug, and colder than ice.
Walter’s college years were very similar to the time he spent in grade school. He was neither hostile nor friendly. He was simply passive toward everyone, and focused solely on his own success. However, there was one woman who he always encountered at the bus stop who never even seemed to put forth any effort to talk with him. She never seemed to talk to anyone else either. Every day, on his way to college, he would run into her, and she would avoid his gaze.
Walter never saw anything truly wrong with the way he lived. It was simply a lifestyle. A lifestyle that he chose to live willingly. One that he was generally content with. But this woman was different. Even a blind man could tell that she wasn’t happy with herself. Her gaze sorrowfully blank, while Walter’s was only hollow.
Walter, unable to suppress his curiosity, and the idea of solving such a unique mystery, approached her. She was quite introverted, as he suspected. She shied away from his questions at first, seemingly not knowing how to react to Walter’s pushiness. But as time went on, Walter pushed only harder, and her defenses wore down. The girl, named Gena, told Walter that the only reason she was downtrodden because no one bothered to approach her as Walter had. Walter had a hard time accepting this, since it was highly unlikely that someone who gave off such a gloomy sense of presence could be ignored by everyone who happened to pass by her. She assured him, however, that it was the truth and nothing but. The reason for this was that she was rather sickly, and was born with an uncategorized disease that, while not contagious, was quite apparent with her unnaturally snow-white skin and hair. Walter took a moment to feel ashamed of how he didn’t notice it before. Even humans who were raised in the coldest regions of Kyril weren’t as colorless as her.
The two continued to talk while riding the bus every day, each with a different destination in mind. Walter headed off to college while Gena always went to a dark corner in Malen’s seediest part in order to meet a man who she simply referred to as her “employer”. The more the two talked, the less selfish Walter’s intentions became. In the beginning, Walter was only interested in her because of the mystery she represented. But as time passes by, people find new things to appreciate about each other. He grew to enjoy the exchange of mundane retellings of their days, and the ideas they shared with each other. It was Gena who recommended that Walter try his hand at detective work, since he had a talent for solving puzzles and figuring out what other people’s intentions were.
Curiosity became friendship, and friendship became love. The two were nearly inseparable by the time Walter earned his degree in criminal justice. Still, they chose to take their time, and hold off any consummation or thoughts of marriage until they were ready.
At the age of 29, Walter made his first big move as a private detective. He was hired by a widow to look into the suspicious death of her late husband, a famous elven politician name Helios Navra. Walter chased several leads, all of which were inconclusive. This inconclusiveness was key to solving the mystery, as it turned out, since Walter eventually realized that the amount of evidence that pointed toward the possibility of anyone murdering him was simply too scarce to be real. Eventually, Walter began to question the people who lead him to these dead ends. Fully aware of the fact that he was breaking the law, he made covert efforts to steal and analyze classified police documents. What he discovered would completely shatter the trust the citizens of Malen had for their police department if the information was ever shown to the public. The police department, essentially, and provably, controlled Malen. The head of the police department had cut deals with an uncanny number of criminal kingpins, exchanging ignorance of their actions, for assistance in keeping the politicians and judges on his leash. No law was passed that he didn’t approve of, and anyone he claimed was guilty, inevitably was found to be in court. The public was lead to believe that the increase in criminal arrests was due to the police working extra hard to ensure their safety. But no. The police were merely damning those who got in their way to a cell, and claiming that they were criminals all along.
Walter exposed this lie to the public while managing to stay, for the most part, invisible. He worked with another famous politician named Senator Severa Miyelan, who had her own suspicions about the police. By creating a series of precisely timed “coincidences” the two were able to fabricate false evidence, pointing towards police corruption. This evidence was eventually proven to indeed be false, but it none the less encouraged Malen’s citizens, and certain outside forces to look into Malen’s law enforcement infrastructure. Eventually, the people were able to figure out on their own that the police were corrupt, and Miyelan was able to obtain the people’s approval to hire an outside agency to investigate the police. The end result was the public revealing of the conspiracy, true justice being delivered to those who cleverly crafted it, and a complete reworking of Malen’s law enforcement department.
The public gave praise to Senator Miyelan, believing she deserved all the credit for uncovering the conspiracy. However, those in power knew who truly deserved it. For his protection, they made sure that as few people as possible could trace the whole ordeal back to him. Still, those with the power to find the truth often will, and he earned the curiosity of a few people in major positions of power. The man who managed to change the power balance in Malen in under a week would not go unnoticed.
Upon solving his first “miraculous” case, he approached Gena and asked for her hand in marriage. She gleefully accepted, and the two were wed six months later. Two weeks following the wedding, a baby was on the way. Sufficed to say, the pair couldn’t have been happier.
However, in Kyril, things have a tendency to take a turn for the worst.
Walter knew this.
It shouldn’t have come to a surprise for him.
There was a day that started like any other. It was only a few weeks after Jacob’s seventh birthday, and the image of his joyful smile after receiving his new professional artist’s supplies was still fresh in his mind. Jacob did love to draw. He really, truly did.
It was ironic, really. That day, he would see the saddest picture ever painted.
He couldn’t quite register it when it first happened. It was as if his brain was trying to run a program made for another operating system. However, when he managed to wrap his mind around it, and see reality as it was, he knew perfectly well what was happening.
The car was parked in the driveway, and the apartment building was on fire. A few people outside were saying “Save Gena! Save Jacob!”
Walter, for the first time as far back as he could remember, did something without thinking. He rushed in, searched desperately for his family. His wife’s body was nowhere to be seen, but he did find his son. The sight of his ashes caused Walter to reel back and clutch his head in horror. He remembered trying to scream, but hearing nothing.
The next few days were a blur to him, in more ways than one. The next time Walter was lucid and able to think clearly, he was in a bed at Malen General Hospital. The doctors took their time in telling him the finer details of what had happened. Upon seeing his dead son’s ashes, Walter had temporarily lost his eyesight and his mind. He was fairly sure that he had regained the former, but the latter? He knew he would never regain that part of himself again.
After attending the funeral set for his dead wife and son, he bought the closest bit of housing he could find to the graveyard. Though the man who was pinned for causing the fire was brought to court and executed for numerous crimes, none of it made Walter feel any better. He tried to drink away his sorrows, but the gods had picked an opportune time to either play a sick joke on him, or take pity. No matter how much he drank, he could never become intoxicated. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t make any effort to research into it. He was mad enough by that point. Perhaps he was getting drunk all along, and simply didn’t realize it. It didn’t matter.
Time passed, and grief and monotony took control of his life. He sat around in his apartment all day and watched television. Every once in a while, he would be hired to do some smalltime investigative work, but nothing special like the job he did involving the conspiracy with Malen’s police. After mulling it over some, he decided to buy a gun, and some ammo. The plan was that he would blow his brains out once he couldn’t take it anymore. Despite trying to perform the deed several times, however, he simply couldn’t pull the trigger. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. Whenever he tried, his muscles simply seized up. It was as if his body, for one reason or another, simply refused to end itself, against his mind’s wishes. He tried his hand at other forms of suicide, but it was the same with every attempt. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t kill himself. Something was holding him back.
He started receiving lots of phone calls. He ignored them.
Even more time passed, and as it did, Walter became angry with himself. At first, he was simply depressed, but he had moved on from depression to complete and utter frustration. However, as certain things in his life started making even less sense than usual, frustration turned to fright. This began when he woke up in the middle of the night to descover that his walls were covered with two words, written over and over in bright blue chalk. “black cloak” “black cloak” “black cloak” “black cloak” “black cloak”. Walter was certain that he had lost it.
The phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
It got worse as yet more time passed. He found himself doodling pictures of a man in a black cloak and a mask that had a sickening smile molded into its shape. Sometimes, he would mouth childish poems or nursery rhymes to himself without meaning too. The rhymes were sweet and comforting in a strange sense, but that didn’t make them any less unusual. Walter tried his best to gain control of himself. He invented his own exercises that challenged his mental capabilities, with the hopes that putting his brain to work would somehow lessen the effects of the madness. Strangely enough, this only made things worse.
It all eventually came to a head, on the third anniversary of his family’s death.
Walter’s house phone rang for the umpteenth time, and his will was too weak to ignore it anymore. He picked it up, and was greeted with a single word.
“Daddy?”
Walter dropped the phone and fell to the ground. He was absolutely sure that this was it. There was madness, and then there was this. He was irredeemably crazy. It had to be the case.
….Didn’t it?
Did he have to be crazy to be going through these things? Most likely. But even then, was that such a bad thing? If going mad meant he was able to talk to his son, how could insanity be such a bad thing?
Walter picked up the phone and answered back.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when it happened.”
“That’s okay. I know you wanted to be. You wouldn’t cry as much as you do if you didn’t want to be.”
The two talked about mundane things for a while. A lot of it didn’t make much sense. Jacob kept talking about pretty waves and colors, and how he could fly. Walter took it as it was and accepted it. He was talking to his son. He had no reason to deny such an invaluable gift.
Time moved onward, and Walter received more calls from Jacob. He took his time with him, always making sure he had completely exhausted all possible dialogue with him before hanging up. Throughout the various, impossible exchanges, Jacob kept urging Walter find a masked man in a black cloak. Not knowing if this Jacob was real or simply a coping mechanism, he decided to humor both his child and himself. He was somewhat taken back when he started finding actual evidence of this man’s existence.
Photographs, taken over several hundreds of years, all displaying a picture of a man in a black cloak, his face hidden behind a smiling mask. In each picture, the measurements all added up. The man was the same exact size in every photo, discouraging the possibility that they were different people altogether.
Jacob revealed more leads to him as they continued to converse paradoxically. These leads pointed him toward nervous people of all races and genders who made frantic claims of the dead rising from their graves, always including sightings of a man in a black cloak and mask. Walter knew very well that these claims had merit. He lived in a world of magic. To refute the existence of necromancy altogether was closed minded to say the least.
Eventually, Walter started to form his own theories on how these events could have been connected. One of them led him back to his wife’s grave. Knowing fully well, he dug up her urn from the ground and peeked inside. The ashes were gone.
In response, Walter began working frantically to search and follow more leads relating to the man in the black cloak. It was an insane, former GD intelligence agent on the verge of death that finally managed to put a name to the entity. “Boa” he called him.
After scraping up as much information he could from the old curmudgeon, Walter left him in peace. He died in a fire three days later.
As Walter continued his search, an old feeling returned. That wariness that he felt a short while before his family’s death had returned. This wariness was finally confirmed to be well founded when Jacob called Walter’s cell phone while he was investigating an abandoned daycare facility, and pleaded him to run away and hide somewhere.
Taking his son’s advice, to heart, Walter did just that. He picked the most effective hiding spot available, a nearby air vent, and watched as a tall, muscular humanoid tore up the place. He made his escape quickly and quietly. While the brute was obviously the superior fighter in every way, a monstrosity like him couldn’t match Walter’s cleverness in a million years.
Several more attempts were made to take Walter’s life, and each time, he managed to evade the assassins. It seemed that they simply weren’t prepared to handle someone with Walter’s knack for making use of every possible advantage. In order to confirm the suspicions he had, he hatched a cunning plan. He allowed them to track him. Each time, they sent a different assassin, none of which could capture him. Eventually, they sent exactly who Walter had theorized they would. He teared up as he recognized the latest assassin.
The pained, lifeless, doll-like visage of Gena staggered through the front entrance.
It all made so much sense. Boa, for some reason or another, had spent a great deal of time and effort tracking down people with great potential and power, slaughtering them, and reviving them as his servants. Walter knew that his wife was something else. He knew that the disease she claimed to have was never a disease. She was superhuman, on a very dangerous and disturbing level. She admitted this to him long ago. She had trusted him with the knowledge that she was “different,” from other humans. She was special.
That’s why Boa wanted her. He wanted people like Gena at his beck and call. He didn’t know why, but he knew he did. That was reason enough to hate him more than anything else in the world.
Walter tried to contain himself as he led his undead beloved to his trap. The old abandoned Grair's Brewery was close by. Making use of whatever cover he could find while still leaving faint, traceable evidence of his presence, led her to the center of it.
All it took was a few properly timed mixtures, a bottle of whiskey, a wet cloth and a match.
He let her look upon him once more before he burned her for the second and last time, allowing her ashes stay as they should have been. Simply ashes. He had never felt so guilty and yet so determined at the same time.
Walter wanted, more than anything else in the world, to talk to her one last time. But had he tried, it would have resulted in his death. She would have killed him on the spot, regardless of what she desired. He had put time in to research necromancy. She had been commanded to kill him by her master, and there wasn’t a single thing she could have done to avoid that. All he could afford was to let her see him one more time, before she returned to cinders.
Walter took solace in the fact that his beloved, while dead by his hand, was free from whatever she had to endure. It was not murder. He had set things right. They both found some measure of peace that day.
Walter walked away from the flames of the factory., and received a call from Jacob.
“I know she’ll be happier this way, daddy….but I still feel sad. Is it wrong to for me to feel this way?”
“…No, Jacob. Not at all.”
The two spent the next few hours crying over the phone. She was gone now, but whatever abuse Boa had put her through, at the very least, had been put to an end. She was free to go to wherever people went when they died.
Walter, after he could shed no more tears, gathered up his strength, and moved on. He made an effort to put his life back in order. He built up his reputation and sharpened his mind until he became a man with no equal. Time and time again, those in power requested his services. He put his skills to use by exposing the lies evil men used to protect themselves from judgment. A plot to end the president of Devoid’s life, attempted genocide on the orcs of Argenon, and an attempt to make Aves the “master” race above all others. All of these things were brought to an end by the efforts of one man, with a mind matched by no other. The miracle worker and his paranormal assistant spent over a hundred years clearing away the fog of deception that blinded everyone in Kyril.
To this day, he continues to search for the man called Boa while simultaneously working with men of authority to uncover the dark secrets of Kyril. Whether he realizes it or not, Boa is responsible for creating what may perhaps be his greatest enemy.
Theme Song:
Battle Theme: N/A