Post by rathbone on Jul 26, 2010 2:21:42 GMT -7
THE HANDLER
NAME: Asariel Alexander Rathbone II
NICKNAME: Father, Paladin, Father Rathbone
CLASSIFICATION: Human
GENDER: Male
AGE & BIRTHDAY:46, July 7th
APPEARANCE: Asarial Rathbone was born a handsome child and remains, to this day, a handsome man. He is a large 6'5" with a well toned build, blue eyes and short, well groomed blond hair. He often wears a solemn expression unless faced with children or dogs and is a little intimidating in appearance.
He has a few battle scars scattered around his body but his face has gone unmarred, a fact of which he's thankful. He likes wearing his hair slicked back and abhors scented shampoo, meaning that his hair is, while often very clean, odorless. He's an overall clean person but, being a priest, is the kind of man to wear/use something until it falls to pieces, which is reflected in the numerous discrete stitches in his clothing and the permanently scuffed but partially well polished appearance of his shoes.
Unfortunately, he's often forced to rely on the kindness of others for sustenance and is often found toughing out hunger pains, looking rather worn, or politely stuffing his face at a soup kitchen.
Three often overlooked features are crosses tattooed on his upper forearms and right ankle.
ATTIRE: Father Rathbone likes to stick to basic neutral colors, with a preference toward black and white. He can normally be found sporting either a suit or his usual papal garb. He likes to keep clean and though his clothing isn't as "new-looking" as some men of business men, given his line of work, his clothing is generally as clean as anyone could ever hope for a man that battles monsters on a daily basis.
He's also rather nitpicky about wearing bloodstained clothing and is apt to either buy a new shirt or go shirtless should his pristine white shirt's ever take in more scarlet than one could hope to wash out.
He wears black leather shoes that, as mentioned, are permanently scuffed. Their soles have been repeatedly sewn back on and they've been polished as well as they could be with the amount of action and cement they've seen.
He's also reputed to have a well polished silver cross hanging around his neck.
PLAY BY: Daniel Craig
THE CREATION
NAME: N/A
POWER LIST:
Magic Immunity/Truesight
Holy Power
DETAILED POWER:
Father Rathbone has possessed a rather curious ability since his birth: immunity to magic. As one may imagine, this is a very useful ability when given his line of work. Malicious curses and spells seem to just bounce off of him and at times, if he's lucky, backfire at the caster.
This strange ability also applies to his senses, meaning that magical effects such as Glamour have no effect on him. Thusly he is able to see, hear, taste, and touch things for what they truly are at all times. The fact that he can see fairies often estranges him to them and consequentially, he's not to fond of them himself.
Being an agent of God also has it's perks. On top of being immune to magic, Father Rathbone is able to perform all priestly duties effectively, such as blessing, exorcisms, and marriages. The latter being his favorite and least common duty.
THE POTENTIAL
ALIGNMENT/OCCUPATION: Unaffiliated Priest/Paladin
WEAPONS: Blessed Iron Claymore, Silver daggers, S&W M500 Revolver w/ Blessed .50 mm rounds
PERSONALITY: Father Asariel Rathbone is especially aggressive for a priest. Rather, he's especially aggressive in general. A man of great righteous fury, he's quick to sermon on hellfire and brimstone and even quicker to deliver the souls of heathens and fiends to their well deserved hell. However, his fury is reserved for heretics and monsters. He holds an extreme hate of both and will not hesitate to cut down either. This, unfortunately, makes investigation tricky since he has a penchant for silencing any potential sources before they can help him.
At the same time, he would never raise a finger against an innocent. He loves children (and dogs) and is outwardly gentle with most folk who don't rub him the wrong way. He also enjoys reading, good music, tea, taking nature strolls, and holds a strong opinion on the topic of abortion.
SKILLS: Asariel Rathbone is a rather well experienced fighter and exorcist. He has undergone copious amounts of training in both areas and has made a habit of picking up bits and pieces of knowledge along the way. He is, unsurprisingly, rather well built and significantly strong. His area of intellectual expertise lies in Biblical studies and the paranormal and occult. More specifically, he knows a great many ways of how to kill all things nonhuman. He's also rather well skilled in basic sewing and is fluent in Latin, Italian, German, and English due to his church-given education.
STRENGTHS: The words self-righteous and strong accurately describe Rathbone in a good many ways. He is both physically and mentally powerful and his natural immunity to magic coupled with his extreme dislike of all things magical makes him a Freak's worst nightmare.
WEAKNESSES: Father Rathbone is only human and his defenses against injury only extend to how many layers of armor he can put on. Also, his tender affection for children and canines make him hesitant to act in any way that might even remotely cause them harm.
He also dislikes getting dirty and doesn't like cats much.
THE STORY
HISTORY:
Asariel Alexander Rathbone II was named after his grandfather and born in July of 1964 to a newlywed couple, Albert and Lucinda Rathbone. They were both goodhearted, churchgoing, Christians who had recently taken up residence in a rural area outside of London. Their baby boy was well loved and cherished as any baby should be and they led a very happy life together with their child.
The couple loved the natural beauty of their rural home and took every chance they could to take walks outside with their lovely baby boy.
It was a few months after Asariel's first birthday that Albert and Asariel had gone out for an afternoon stroll and not returned. Lucinda, who so loved them both, was tremendously worried and had gone out to look for them.
It was hardly 15 minutes after she'd left her house when she found a handful of people surrounding something, their voices sounded concerned and afraid and the sound of a child crying was audible from several meters away. Lucinda automatically recognized the voice of her one year old boy and rushed past the small crowd to find her baby being held by a local nun while her husband lay on his back, eyes wide open, mouth agape, and motionless. She instantly broke into tears at the sight of her husband and was told by a bystander that he still had a weak pulse.
Lucinda had her husband hospitalized immediately but was told by the doctors that they couldn't find anything wrong with him, it was as if his brain had suddenly stopped working.
Lucinda, from then on, would take Asariel to the hospital every day to see his father, and everyday, Asariel would push and pull away from her, trying to get as far away from his comatose father as he possibly could, crying, screaming and even once vomiting at the sight of the man in the bed.
His mother was terribly distraught by her son's sudden extreme aversion to the man he'd so loved before and eventually blamed it on trauma at seeing his father fall into a coma before his eyes.
About six months after Asariel's second birthday, the man in the hospital bed dies in his mother's arms, her tears falling on his pale face. Doctors and nurses ran in to help and assess the problem while his mother sobbed. All the while, Asariel stood emotionless against the window, looking not at his father, but at the emaciated, abhorrent, travesty of a human that had replaced his father 15 months prior after a legion of small men no taller than the boy, himself, had carried his real father away.
Life was never the same after Asariel's "father" passed away. His mother was often depressed and the number of their walks dwindled.
Eventually, on her son's fifth birthday, Lucinda took her boy for a walk. He enjoyed the flowers and animals they saw but would flinch every-so-often at what appeared to his mother to be nothing but a lump of grass or a fat squirrel.
They were on their way back to the house when they passed by the same area that Asariel's father had fallen ill. The young boy was tremendously fearful of the place and his mother, though she tried comforting him, was overcome with sadness as well.
Then she suddenly lifted her head and stopped walking entirely, her attention averted elsewhere. Asariel, however, looked in the same direction as his mother and was horrified. Frantically he pulled at her dress to make her come away but she wouldn't move. Her eyes were transfixed on what she saw to be her late husband, returned to her. His arms were open and his lips spoke her name, and, overcome with emotion, she ran to him, ignoring her hysterical son as if she couldn't even hear his cries of horror and embracing her husband.
She held the man tightly in her arms and kissed him with tear-soaked lips while her five-year old reeled in horror, for, in his eyes, his mother was embracing a wicked looking little man with a long beard and big red coat. His eyes were squinted and his spindly bluish hands groped about her body obscenely.
Passionately she held "her husband" while the abnormally long arms reached up with their long fingers, holding what looked like a shard of glass, and slit her throat before her son's very eyes.
Asariel screamed as his mother's blood spewed over the evil little man in a shower of crimson. Fearful, traumatized, and completely lost of what to do, he ran. He ran as far as his little legs could take him, far down the path, back towards his house until he finally reached it, only to find the door locked...
For hours he sat, huddled in a fetal position in front of the door, crying and calling out for his mother, but she never came, she couldn't have.
As the sun was setting that day, an old couple that lived several Kilometers down the road passed his house and found him huddled on his porch, having cried himself to sleep.
The elderly couple had little to offer the poor child and, after discovering that his mother had gone missing, opted to give the small boy a home at the orphanage in London.
After about a week, the old couple took the boy to London and Asariel Rathbone II found himself standing in front of a large building with a pointed roof tipped with a cross.
Asariel would spend the next several years of his life under the care of the Catholic church (despite being in London, home of the Protestant Church). The whereabouts of his mother were never discovered and authorities gave Asariel what few possessions his family had. He grew up a studious and talented young boy. He could recite numerous verses of the Bible by heart by the time he was 10, and was already almost fluent in Latin and Itallian by the time he was 13.
However, life in the Abbey was not free of despair for the young boy. Though he seemed to have subconsciously blocked the events that lead to his orphanhood from his memory, he was frequently plagued with abominable nightmares in which nuns and priests would rush into his room to find a frantic boy crying in his sleep and yelling things about his parents, small people, and demons. The whole thing was rather unsettling to the resident priest but Asariel was acknowledged as a Prodigy none-the-less.
Asariel was 17 when the Paladin came to the Abbey. He was a tall, dark man who carried about a large sword on his back. Needless to say, this made him stand out in most places, but the Priest who oversaw the tutelage of the children at the orphanage seemed to know the man well. Asariel was naturally curious about the man but was terribly nervous when the Father asked him to come into his office that day. The tall, dark man was there too, merely standing by the window and watching the young boy...
The Priest explained to Asariel that he'd told the man of his night-terrors and that he'd found them intriguing. It was explained to Asariel that the man was a paladin, a soldier of God who struck down the wicked and delivered them to heaven or hell. He had expert knowledge of demons and monsters and thought that perhaps he could help the young boy.
That night the Paladin had a long talk with Asariel. He managed to pull the terrible memories of Asariel's childhood from the deepest recesses of the boy's mind. He explained to the boy what had happened to his family and made him a very special offer.
The next morning, Asariel packed his belongings in preparation for the trip ahead. He was to live with the paladin, who went by the name Father Stonewell, and study to become a paladin himself. He had always been a physically adept young man, and outside of his studies he was always good at sports, from then on he'd be putting that talent to good use.
Father Stonewell was a quiet, stern man, and the training he put Asariel through was vigorous. They would exercise in the morning and during and after lunch came the studies, followed by dinner and more exercise. It was under Stonewell's teachings that Asariel fully grasped the reality of the Fantastical World and it's denizens. He held a deep discomfort for the subject but Stonewell was unbending and instilled in the boy a great belief in his holy mission.
As Asariel studied, Stonewell studied him. He often wondered why the boy had been able to see through the fairy spells, and, when Asariel was 23 years of age, the Paladin finally got his answer.
The two of them were traveling through Austria while investigating a series of cases involving missing children. Eventually, the investigation led them to an old forest in which they soon found a small decrepit old hut. Littering the outside of the hut were dozens of small skeletons; human skeletons.
The two men braced themselves and attempted to enter the hut, Stonewell was instantly repelled by some magical barrier while Asariel was able to pass through unfettered. The two were shocked at the development but had little time to respond because the hut's denizen, a grotesque old hag, happened to be home. The old woman was, of course, a witch, and a cannibal and they had just interrupted her latest meal.
Infuriated, she unleashed a terrible screech as she flung her hands in the air and conjured fire to her fingertips, hurling it at the young Paladin. Though Asariel braced himself for the attack, there was no need, upon touching his skin, the ball of flame exploded and flew back at the caster, incinerating the old witch where she stood.
Both men stood awestruck at what had happened, for Stonewell had witnessed the event from outside. Carefully, Asariel stepped outside of the hut and examined himself. There were no burns, no marks, not the slightest indication of a curse or any form of magic. Stonewell then uttered a statement that Asariel Rathbone would never forget:
"My boy, you are an agent of God and he has given you the greatest weapon a man could hope for: to all manner of things unholy and inhuman you are untouchable!"
The following year, Asariel and Stonewell parted. The young man had learned all he could from the old Paladin. Stonewell continued to tour the world, vanquishing all manner of magical beings with righteous fury, and Asariel Rathbone took residence in the Vatican where he continued his education in the vast library of the Catholic Church and became Father Asariel Rathbone.
He studied there for the better part of a decade before finally venturing back into the world at the age of 33, full of knowledge, discipline, and a burning passion for his work.
He has since been traveling as his mentor had, working the will of God, and vanquishing heathens and monsters with his supreme fury. In this time he has exorcised innumerable specters and demons and slain a plethora of monsters and Fae. Though slightly more indiscriminate than his teacher, Father Rathbone takes great pride in his work and takes every measure to rid the world of evil.
At least, that's the way he sees it...
