Application
May. 14th, 2015 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
worldtorightsInvestigator Application
Player Information
Name: Tex
Pronoun: Him
E-mail: texside-at-google's mail service
Other Contact: I'm a mod, you know where to find me!
Character Information
Name: George Henry "Acher" Ackermann
House: Weatherford
Birthplace: Calcutta, The British Raj
Birthdate: December 9, 1921
Age: 75; he looks about 35.
Gender: Male
Physical Details
Hair Color: Brown, dark enough to look black
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 6'4"
Body Type: Muscular and broad-shouldered; imposing and well-built.
Appearance Notes: Acher has a large sword scar across his right bicep and three bullet scars on his back. He's otherwise usually very clean-cut and conservatively dressed; despite this, he has a solid sense of modern fashion. His suits and uniforms are impeccable and he carries himself with confidence. When he sallies forth as the Black Knight, he wears slate black plate armor.
PB: Souichirou Takagi; High School of the Dead. The Black Knight is, well, the Black Knight from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.
Life Details
Background: George Henry Ackermann is from the smaller line of Weatherfords that remained in Britain. His family, specifically, settled in India during British rule. He was born in Calcutta. He spent the first fifteen years of his life there, which was happy enough. He witnessed higher class British society in the colony, and developed a high opinion of his people and his station in the world. He was left with a sense of noblesse oblige (and, frankly, some mild racism and paternalistic feelings towards non-House Mages and "colonials").
Unfortunately, that life came to an end when malaria killed both of his parents. Magic couldn't stop all diseases. He was away at the time, on a trip to Bombay with Ravikiran, the family's servant. His younger brother, Leonard Allenby, was left at home. They found him sobbing amidst the corpses of the family; somehow, only Leonard had survived. G.H. counted it a small miracle that his younger brother by four years lived.
The brothers inherited their wealth and moved in with his uncle in London, leaving India behind. He only lived with his uncle briefly; after he turned sixteen, he went to Boarmoles to learn his magic. He developed an early specialty in Enhancing and Channeling, which he nurtured over the next three years.
He was a British citizen, so when the Second World War broke out, G.H. joined the British Expeditionary Force and participated in the war. He was drafted out of Boarmoles before he finished his studies there. He had cultivated a persona as a dignified British gentleman, befitting his upbringing. It matched a lot of Rudyard Kipling and gentleman adventurers from novels that he read.
It was completely unsuited to life in the war. He saw some of the worst action, as he was part of a force of mage soldiers that went into Nazi-held Europe. This forced Acher to consolidate a second persona, with matching fashion: the Black Knight. He turned himself into a warrior without mercy, clad in unforgiving black armor, and became a force of death that tore through Nazi brigades across North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany itself.
Things came to a head when, on a solo reconnaissance mission, he found a death camp and a small town close enough to smell the incinerators. By the time that the Black Knight finished with the town, the Allied commanders agreed to say a bombing raid struck it.
His impressive war record led to a nickname among his fellow soldiers: "Acher." They said that George Henry Ackermann knew how to make the Nazis hurt. He didn't argue the point.
When the war ended, he had to reconcile his two personas. He tried to return to the old one, but it wasn't easy going. He finished his schooling at Boarmoles, completing his last year while his little brother was there. Afterward, he began an illustrious police career. His family life suffered, though; he never married, claiming he was married to his work. He placed his hopes on the Ackermann line on his brother Leonard.
It became clear, as they grew older, that Leonard was scarred by the deaths of their parents in a way that Acher never was. He couldn't settle down; he couldn't even manage to graduate from Boarmoles, being thrown out. Acher supported him financially as he roamed the world listlessly; his salary from Scotland Yard was considerable, and his investments of his parents' wealth was enormous. In this time, Acher managed to reconcile his personas -- at least, somewhat. He learned to be a gentleman on most days. He learned to become the Black Knight when he needed to be.
In the 1980's, though, he wanted a change. He joined Interpol's SICU division, where he was partnered with Victor Florian Kirsch. The two became friends; they had similar experiences, some mental scars from World War II and things they did after, and could be friendly.
In 1985, though, they got a case that had deeply troubling results. A serial killer began to roam around London -- and then all of southeastern England -- and used magic to kill mundanes. His preferred method was creating powerful illnesses that killed far too quickly, from far off places; he also raised corpses with Invoking and Mending. Victor and Acher were put on the case, but could never track the man down. He killed eleven.
The twelfth was Acher's brother Leonard, who had been visiting for the past few months. He died in a strange way, stabbed and shot, instead of with sickness. The scene of his death suggested a struggle, though, including a shattered risen corpse. After that, the attacks stopped. Victor suggested that perhaps Leonard had mortally wounded him.
Acher has tried to let the case go, but can't find it in him to manage that. He sometimes tries to follow a lead -- which inevitably ends cold. It leaves a hollow feeling in him, as he considers how he tried to support his brother, and the end he came to. He has thrown himself into work even more. At this point, his only friend is his partner, Victor. When he discovered that Otto von Schellenberg died and he was assigned to the investigation, he welcomed it.
It was a chance to do something exciting -- and forget about the case he can't solve. Except... he never can forget about it.
House Politics: Acher is loyal to House Weatherford, but rational about it. He knows they are flawed, and he tends to care far more about the British side of the House than the American. He is a consummate Briton, who regards the American cousins as showy. Nonetheless, he supports them, and he trusts the House's judgment. However, he isn't interested in rising in House politics; his experiences in World War II left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. He is content to work as an investigator. Solving crimes doesn't involve hurting people, and Acher is deeply sympathetic to the plight of mundanes.
He doesn't take House rivalries personally, but sometimes he is blind to it. There are Schellenberg scions who see him as a bloodthirsty monster who brutally slew a number of them in the war; there are Vorinskies who have lost cousins to his discovering Soviet spies in London. He sees such actions as business, and he can be cordial with rivals. He doesn't always realize the sentiment isn't mutual.
Personality: Acher is a hardened individual. He has seen a great many horrifying, terrible things in his life. He has learned to keep these things inside of himself and manage them. He is, by and large, a carefully managed collection of frustrations and angers at the way the world ended up. His parents were taken by illness; he saw the worst of mankind in the war, then more of that as a police investigator; then he lost his younger brother to murder. He is lucky that his primary persona is a British gentleman, because he is a master of keeping a stiff upper lip.
But, he based this persona not on stuffy well-to-do merchants, but adventuresome individuals who had incredible experiences in Africa, India, and the Orient as a whole. He looked to Sherlock Holmes and the protagonists of Dracula. The result isn't someone who is always stoic and taciturn. Rather, when Acher uses this particular persona, he presents an amicable image.
He is able to converse with others and behave charismatically; he is well-read and observant, and this persona matched his love of reading and analyzing people. He can be friendly and even outgoing, and he has a slightly rough-around-the-edges, physical manner. He grins, claps people on the back, and is expressive. However, he has a subtle formality and distance that keeps him a step removed from others. He has an aloofness that, while friendly, is there.
It's matched by a sense of superiority. Acher acts like he is above things; like he is better than other people. He keeps it subtle, rather than openly boasting, but he can be exceptionally patronizing if someone thinks too hard about it. This is a defense mechanism: he doesn't want people to realize that he was bothered by what he saw in the past and setbacks that his life has experienced.
The Black Knight persona is a similar defense mechanism. Sometimes, his life and his work require him to do unpleasant things, like kill people. Here, he becomes completely cold; he seems a superior, detached, and murderous force of nature that will not relent. Acher may show fury here, but it is always a cold fury. He cultivates this mask as something fierce, but alien; more of a force of sheer brutality than a person.
There are parts of this that are quite real. Acher's anger is a fierce thing that he keeps controlled -- and when it slips, the Black Knight is how he channels it. He can become murderous and violent; he uses that persona to funnel it somewhere acceptable.
Flaws: Acher keeps everything bottled up. He doesn't let his anger, his frustration, or his depression out. When it does, he shuts down, and tends to walk off stunned -- or fly into a rare hot rage. This attitude isn't healthy, though it's reasonably well repressed.
Acher also has a superiority complex. He grew up in a place of privilege, in a very different time. He thinks of himself as better than other people in a subtle way. He can be patronizing and off-putting without realizing it. He tends to be pessimistic about people, too; he expects the worst, often times, and he is rarely disappointed. However, he isn't able to deal with that disappointment.
When Acher finds something he cannot accept and cannot process, his personas aren't enough. The defenses come down, and all he can fall back on is rage -- and it's a rage most often expressed through violence.
Magic and Skill Details
Magic and Skills: Acher's first school is Enhancing. He focuses more on strength and resilience -- he is somewhat terrifying, having thrown cars and taken blows that could kill men without much trouble. This has been used, especially, for surviving outdoors; he uses Enhancing enough that he can survive at a high level without sleep or food. He did this a lot during the war.
Acher's second school is Channeling. This was the second school he learned. He focuses on lightning and, to a much lesser extent, wind. However, he has neglected it over time; while he can unleash some frightening lightning blasts, it is far from his strongest school.
Acher's third school is Imbuing. He uses this to improve the qualities of mundane weaponry. For example, his armor and sword aren't magical artifacts; rather, he has learned to make his sword sharp enough to cut through tank armor and make his suit of armor bounce back rifle shots. He can also summon his armor and sword to him whenever he likes. He can also set up recording and listening devices through Imbuing, and make things operate without batteries (such as his Walkman, remote cameras, et cetera). Finally, he uses it with his armor to greatly increase his speed and mobility; when he wears a full suit of plate, he doesn't move like it.
Acher's fourth school is Empathy. Rather than communicating, he has learned to read emotions to gather extra information from people -- when Acher wants to, he can be something of a human lie detector. It also assists with interrogations and the like. He can project emotion outward, but he isn't great at it.
Acher also is skilled in swordplay. He prefers a two-handed great sword, which he uses to incredible effect; he is a skilled swordsman who has taken down armored vehicles and, in one memorable hostage situation, a helicopter with his sword. He often uses it in conjunction with his Channeling.
Finally, Acher is skilled with investigation. He is the clever, thorough investigator of him and Victor; Acher is skilled at observing crime scenes, noting every detail, and connecting things together. He also has full training in forensic science. Acher is basically very good at police things.
Player Information
Name: Tex
Pronoun: Him
E-mail: texside-at-google's mail service
Other Contact: I'm a mod, you know where to find me!
Character Information
Name: George Henry "Acher" Ackermann
House: Weatherford
Birthplace: Calcutta, The British Raj
Birthdate: December 9, 1921
Age: 75; he looks about 35.
Gender: Male
Physical Details
Hair Color: Brown, dark enough to look black
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 6'4"
Body Type: Muscular and broad-shouldered; imposing and well-built.
Appearance Notes: Acher has a large sword scar across his right bicep and three bullet scars on his back. He's otherwise usually very clean-cut and conservatively dressed; despite this, he has a solid sense of modern fashion. His suits and uniforms are impeccable and he carries himself with confidence. When he sallies forth as the Black Knight, he wears slate black plate armor.
PB: Souichirou Takagi; High School of the Dead. The Black Knight is, well, the Black Knight from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.
Life Details
Background: George Henry Ackermann is from the smaller line of Weatherfords that remained in Britain. His family, specifically, settled in India during British rule. He was born in Calcutta. He spent the first fifteen years of his life there, which was happy enough. He witnessed higher class British society in the colony, and developed a high opinion of his people and his station in the world. He was left with a sense of noblesse oblige (and, frankly, some mild racism and paternalistic feelings towards non-House Mages and "colonials").
Unfortunately, that life came to an end when malaria killed both of his parents. Magic couldn't stop all diseases. He was away at the time, on a trip to Bombay with Ravikiran, the family's servant. His younger brother, Leonard Allenby, was left at home. They found him sobbing amidst the corpses of the family; somehow, only Leonard had survived. G.H. counted it a small miracle that his younger brother by four years lived.
The brothers inherited their wealth and moved in with his uncle in London, leaving India behind. He only lived with his uncle briefly; after he turned sixteen, he went to Boarmoles to learn his magic. He developed an early specialty in Enhancing and Channeling, which he nurtured over the next three years.
He was a British citizen, so when the Second World War broke out, G.H. joined the British Expeditionary Force and participated in the war. He was drafted out of Boarmoles before he finished his studies there. He had cultivated a persona as a dignified British gentleman, befitting his upbringing. It matched a lot of Rudyard Kipling and gentleman adventurers from novels that he read.
It was completely unsuited to life in the war. He saw some of the worst action, as he was part of a force of mage soldiers that went into Nazi-held Europe. This forced Acher to consolidate a second persona, with matching fashion: the Black Knight. He turned himself into a warrior without mercy, clad in unforgiving black armor, and became a force of death that tore through Nazi brigades across North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany itself.
Things came to a head when, on a solo reconnaissance mission, he found a death camp and a small town close enough to smell the incinerators. By the time that the Black Knight finished with the town, the Allied commanders agreed to say a bombing raid struck it.
His impressive war record led to a nickname among his fellow soldiers: "Acher." They said that George Henry Ackermann knew how to make the Nazis hurt. He didn't argue the point.
When the war ended, he had to reconcile his two personas. He tried to return to the old one, but it wasn't easy going. He finished his schooling at Boarmoles, completing his last year while his little brother was there. Afterward, he began an illustrious police career. His family life suffered, though; he never married, claiming he was married to his work. He placed his hopes on the Ackermann line on his brother Leonard.
It became clear, as they grew older, that Leonard was scarred by the deaths of their parents in a way that Acher never was. He couldn't settle down; he couldn't even manage to graduate from Boarmoles, being thrown out. Acher supported him financially as he roamed the world listlessly; his salary from Scotland Yard was considerable, and his investments of his parents' wealth was enormous. In this time, Acher managed to reconcile his personas -- at least, somewhat. He learned to be a gentleman on most days. He learned to become the Black Knight when he needed to be.
In the 1980's, though, he wanted a change. He joined Interpol's SICU division, where he was partnered with Victor Florian Kirsch. The two became friends; they had similar experiences, some mental scars from World War II and things they did after, and could be friendly.
In 1985, though, they got a case that had deeply troubling results. A serial killer began to roam around London -- and then all of southeastern England -- and used magic to kill mundanes. His preferred method was creating powerful illnesses that killed far too quickly, from far off places; he also raised corpses with Invoking and Mending. Victor and Acher were put on the case, but could never track the man down. He killed eleven.
The twelfth was Acher's brother Leonard, who had been visiting for the past few months. He died in a strange way, stabbed and shot, instead of with sickness. The scene of his death suggested a struggle, though, including a shattered risen corpse. After that, the attacks stopped. Victor suggested that perhaps Leonard had mortally wounded him.
Acher has tried to let the case go, but can't find it in him to manage that. He sometimes tries to follow a lead -- which inevitably ends cold. It leaves a hollow feeling in him, as he considers how he tried to support his brother, and the end he came to. He has thrown himself into work even more. At this point, his only friend is his partner, Victor. When he discovered that Otto von Schellenberg died and he was assigned to the investigation, he welcomed it.
It was a chance to do something exciting -- and forget about the case he can't solve. Except... he never can forget about it.
House Politics: Acher is loyal to House Weatherford, but rational about it. He knows they are flawed, and he tends to care far more about the British side of the House than the American. He is a consummate Briton, who regards the American cousins as showy. Nonetheless, he supports them, and he trusts the House's judgment. However, he isn't interested in rising in House politics; his experiences in World War II left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. He is content to work as an investigator. Solving crimes doesn't involve hurting people, and Acher is deeply sympathetic to the plight of mundanes.
He doesn't take House rivalries personally, but sometimes he is blind to it. There are Schellenberg scions who see him as a bloodthirsty monster who brutally slew a number of them in the war; there are Vorinskies who have lost cousins to his discovering Soviet spies in London. He sees such actions as business, and he can be cordial with rivals. He doesn't always realize the sentiment isn't mutual.
Personality: Acher is a hardened individual. He has seen a great many horrifying, terrible things in his life. He has learned to keep these things inside of himself and manage them. He is, by and large, a carefully managed collection of frustrations and angers at the way the world ended up. His parents were taken by illness; he saw the worst of mankind in the war, then more of that as a police investigator; then he lost his younger brother to murder. He is lucky that his primary persona is a British gentleman, because he is a master of keeping a stiff upper lip.
But, he based this persona not on stuffy well-to-do merchants, but adventuresome individuals who had incredible experiences in Africa, India, and the Orient as a whole. He looked to Sherlock Holmes and the protagonists of Dracula. The result isn't someone who is always stoic and taciturn. Rather, when Acher uses this particular persona, he presents an amicable image.
He is able to converse with others and behave charismatically; he is well-read and observant, and this persona matched his love of reading and analyzing people. He can be friendly and even outgoing, and he has a slightly rough-around-the-edges, physical manner. He grins, claps people on the back, and is expressive. However, he has a subtle formality and distance that keeps him a step removed from others. He has an aloofness that, while friendly, is there.
It's matched by a sense of superiority. Acher acts like he is above things; like he is better than other people. He keeps it subtle, rather than openly boasting, but he can be exceptionally patronizing if someone thinks too hard about it. This is a defense mechanism: he doesn't want people to realize that he was bothered by what he saw in the past and setbacks that his life has experienced.
The Black Knight persona is a similar defense mechanism. Sometimes, his life and his work require him to do unpleasant things, like kill people. Here, he becomes completely cold; he seems a superior, detached, and murderous force of nature that will not relent. Acher may show fury here, but it is always a cold fury. He cultivates this mask as something fierce, but alien; more of a force of sheer brutality than a person.
There are parts of this that are quite real. Acher's anger is a fierce thing that he keeps controlled -- and when it slips, the Black Knight is how he channels it. He can become murderous and violent; he uses that persona to funnel it somewhere acceptable.
Flaws: Acher keeps everything bottled up. He doesn't let his anger, his frustration, or his depression out. When it does, he shuts down, and tends to walk off stunned -- or fly into a rare hot rage. This attitude isn't healthy, though it's reasonably well repressed.
Acher also has a superiority complex. He grew up in a place of privilege, in a very different time. He thinks of himself as better than other people in a subtle way. He can be patronizing and off-putting without realizing it. He tends to be pessimistic about people, too; he expects the worst, often times, and he is rarely disappointed. However, he isn't able to deal with that disappointment.
When Acher finds something he cannot accept and cannot process, his personas aren't enough. The defenses come down, and all he can fall back on is rage -- and it's a rage most often expressed through violence.
Magic and Skill Details
Magic and Skills: Acher's first school is Enhancing. He focuses more on strength and resilience -- he is somewhat terrifying, having thrown cars and taken blows that could kill men without much trouble. This has been used, especially, for surviving outdoors; he uses Enhancing enough that he can survive at a high level without sleep or food. He did this a lot during the war.
Acher's second school is Channeling. This was the second school he learned. He focuses on lightning and, to a much lesser extent, wind. However, he has neglected it over time; while he can unleash some frightening lightning blasts, it is far from his strongest school.
Acher's third school is Imbuing. He uses this to improve the qualities of mundane weaponry. For example, his armor and sword aren't magical artifacts; rather, he has learned to make his sword sharp enough to cut through tank armor and make his suit of armor bounce back rifle shots. He can also summon his armor and sword to him whenever he likes. He can also set up recording and listening devices through Imbuing, and make things operate without batteries (such as his Walkman, remote cameras, et cetera). Finally, he uses it with his armor to greatly increase his speed and mobility; when he wears a full suit of plate, he doesn't move like it.
Acher's fourth school is Empathy. Rather than communicating, he has learned to read emotions to gather extra information from people -- when Acher wants to, he can be something of a human lie detector. It also assists with interrogations and the like. He can project emotion outward, but he isn't great at it.
Acher also is skilled in swordplay. He prefers a two-handed great sword, which he uses to incredible effect; he is a skilled swordsman who has taken down armored vehicles and, in one memorable hostage situation, a helicopter with his sword. He often uses it in conjunction with his Channeling.
Finally, Acher is skilled with investigation. He is the clever, thorough investigator of him and Victor; Acher is skilled at observing crime scenes, noting every detail, and connecting things together. He also has full training in forensic science. Acher is basically very good at police things.