City of Ariel Application

[dragonstomper48]

□ Name: Reaver
□ Journal: www.dragonstomper48.dreamwidth.org
□ Series: Fable (Video Game)
□ Canon point: Just prior to end-game, where Reaver departs Albion for fairer seas, leaving the Queen to fight the darkness with what force she has mustered. He will have just completed his latest sacrifice to the Shadow Court, which was part of the reason for his untimely departure.
□ History: http://fable.wikia.com/wiki/Reaver (Please note that I have no intention of using novel material for Reaver's background and will be sticking to the game's core material.)
Note on Canon: Decisions assumed for Fable II & III – Sparrow sacrifices their own youth instead of the other sacrifice and uses the Spire to bring back all the dead that he loved, save his own loved ones. The Queen of Albion elected to disregard most of Reaver's suggestions after sparing her brother Logan's life, favoring magnanimous policies for the people and fulfilling her agreements with allies, paying out of pocket to fund her armies.

Reaver, the “Hero of Skill” in Fable II was originally born in the city of Oakvale sometime after the Hero of Oakvale lived. According to his diary accounts, he became afraid of the ravages of time and aging and sought out an ancient eldritch court of spirits known as the Shadow Court. There, he begged them for a cure to the dangers of time, one that they granted though at a terrible price. He was tasked to offer them the youth of another in his place once each year for every year that he continued to live, failure meaning that his life would be forfeit to them. The side effects of his dark and fel deed led to the slow degradation of the city of Oakvale until it became a blighted wasteland known as the Wraithmarsh.

Wandering the countryside, Reaver developed his skill with firearms, awakening his heroic bloodline over time and eventually sought out greater and greater horizons. Prior to the events of Fable II, he became the Pirate King by assassinating his predecessor and claiming his vessel. With a ship to his name now, he became one of the most infamous pirates of the Bowerstone era, capturing ships by killing their captains at range with a single shot. He attained a vast fortune and established his primary base of operations in the city of Bloodstone, where his mansion stood as a testimony to his status as the pre-eminent citizen of the coastal town. A well-known hedonist and sadistic villain, all who opposed him were either killed or ultimately seduced by his wiles and became unwitting accomplices to his actions, whichever suited his mood more at the time.

Events transpired to alter his status when the Hero of Bowerstone arrived, seeking the last of three heroes to aid him in taking the spire and ending the reign of terror of Lucien Fairfax once and for all. When the hero pulled themselves out of the Wraithmarsh somehow alive and well, Reaver became aware of their presence and, initially, attempted to turn them over to Lucien for a reward, as Fairfax had sought the death of all heroes to ensure his own plans for the mystical artifact of the Spire were unimpeded. However, when Lucien turned on Reaver as well as the Hero, Reaver became mildly perturbed and elected to assist the Hero at the last in taking down Lucien and, ultimately, invoking the power of the Spire to grant one wish.

In the aftermath of the rather disappointing events at the Spire, Reaver initially traveled to distant Samarkand with Garth, the Hero of Will. The two traveled together for a time, though Garth frequently disapproved of the abusive philandering Reaver displayed and ultimately the two came to blows in a bar one night, where Reaver claims that he killed Garth. Given that accounts of Garth's death are inconsistent, however, it is thought that the Hero might have survived that day. Regardless the two never spoke or met again. Reaver went on to return to Bowerstone and aid in the construction of still greater industry, helping to galvanize the nation of Albion into a new industrial revolution of sorts. Permitted some latitude by the old King of Albion, the former Hero of Bowerstone, he rose ever higher in prominence to become not only the most powerful businessman and industrialist of his day, but also an infamous and closeted hedonist with particularly depraved and inhuman tastes.

During the civil war between the Hero of Albion and her brother Logan, Reaver initially supported Logan out of habit, and because his bread was buttered by the current king. He attempted to capture the Hero during a failed hostage rescue occurring within his own mansion, pitting the Hero against scores of enemies and ultimately his own private allies amongst the feral balverines. However, when the Hero returned and laid siege to the capitol, Reaver retreated from conflict and waited to see who would emerge on top. After the Hero's success in claiming the throne, he offered his services as a financial advisor in building up the war efforts to prepare for an invasion of the “Darkness,” a formless and malevolent entity in the far south. Spared the worst of her reprisal for his former actions, she used him as a political tool but largely ignored his suggestions and chose what were considered more egalitarian and less profitable ventures. Ever the entrepreneur, he made do with her decisions and still proved successful at making quite the killing before disappearing again to pay his latest debt to the Shadow Court, confident that Albion would somehow weather the storm of the Darkness. It always had before, after all.

□ Personality:
Reaver, as he has come to be called since the days in which he took down the Pirate King, has long since lost any real purpose in keeping his original name. Whatever glimmers of his old self linger on in the occasional nightmare and the few lingering doubts over his actions have been stamped so far into his subconscious as to be unrecognizable to any who might have once known him. Of course, this is just as well, as everyone who ever knew the boy that he once was has been dead for well over two centuries. As he says to himself in his own journal writings, that naive young man is dead long ago, and only Reaver remains.



Reaver is an arrogant, amoral, charismatic, deviant, depraved sociopath with exceptionally jaded sensibilities. In his youth, he was a humble young man who had a lover in his hometown of Oakvale. Deeply afraid of dying, he learned a means by which to summon the Shadows into his presence and conjured the powerful entities known as the Shadow Court, bartering with them for immortality and freedom from aging. He did not recognize the “down payment” that would be demanded by the Court, the lives of everyone in Oakvale, until it was too late. Every year afterwards, he would be forced to bring a sacrifice to age on his behalf that he might retain his eternal youth. That young man lamented for years over his deeds, but with the passage of decades a profound ennui began to settle in, one that increasingly overwhelmed him as he developed greater and greater ambitions. Though there is still a sense in which he fears death in ways that are difficult for many to understand, he has developed a sort of eternal ennui and tiredness from the extensive length of his contract with the Shadow Court. He is weary, so very weary, but more than that, he is also extremely bored.



Over the centuries, Reaver increasingly saw little point in the futility of moral or ethical debate, perceiving the whole notion as largely fruitless and idiotic. Protestations about the depravity of his actions or the deplorable way in which he treated the citizens he ruled over in Bloodstone or the employees he managed in Reaver Industries generally were met with outright amusement more than anything else, possibly included with acts of violence to punctuate his points. Reaver simply no longer cared, having seen centuries of human beings come and go, scurrying about with their desperate attempts to prove more noble than others or somehow aspire to some semblance of greatness. Their protestations were, to him, little more than the bleating of occasionally amusing sheep nattering in his ears. He took them, used them, manipulated them, killed them and had his way with them, growing ever more powerful until he had enough that he could do basically whatever he wanted. The corpses of his enemies lay strewn before him, and he carved first an empire out of the carcass of the Pirate King's fleet and later put to pasture all of that inconvenient past by making himself out as a “legitimate businessman” in the service of the crown, taking over Faraday Industries and renaming them after himself. With ruthless tactics, whether a legal and “honest” businessman, or an underhanded pirate and a crook, he crushed opposition and laid claim to all of the resources he could wrap his fingers around.



Reaver has seen it all. He has lived the experiences out of many lesser men, and he finds almost all of them to be completely beneath contempt, feeling absolutely no compunctions about abusing, manipulating, cheating, stealing from, hurting, torturing, killing or otherwise maligning them. He possesses not a shred of fear that there would be any sort of reprisal for his actions, being supremely confident in his abilities to handle almost any situation. Given his track-record of defeating virtually every opponent for hundreds of years with barely even breaking a sweat, it is little wonder that he tends to be an arrogant and demeaning soul to almost everyone he meets. He is flippant towards most people, especially when he is being threatened, accused or generally accosted, and rarely takes anything particularly seriously, bandying off almost anyone as if they were a joke. Reaveris egotistical to his core, believing his own perspective to be the best in any situation. He adores having likenesses of himself fashioned, but is incredibly picky about their content, having been known to kill people for the slightest imperfections in his form.



He is an ambitious man, but not seemingly out of any sort of desire to be a man of great power or prestige. Given the scale of his talents, the potential that he had at various points to achieve more than he did is quite high. Instead, rather, he would seek out new experiences, new horizons and new opportunities. Once he holds a seat of enough wealth and power (such as Bloodstone, the Pirate King's position or Reaver Industries), he becomes less restless, simply abusing the limited power to get more of his cheap thrills. This all works as long as he has enough wealth with which to slake his every jaded and debauched whim, and also pit him against ever increasingly dangerous threats who might potentially pose a fragment of a challenge. Notable among these was the Pirate King who he took down in claiming the control over Bloodstone, and his earned reputation as a man who would stand on the prow of his ship, seek out an opposing ship's captain and shoot them at seemingly impossible ranges, causing many vessels to surrender off hand. It was an act that he seemingly undertook merely for the challenge of the feat and the added wealth with which he could hold sumptuous and lavish parties to alleviate his boredom. His interest in the Hero of Bowerstone appears to have been increased significantly merely because of the uniqueness of them as a 'catch' for having escaped Lucien's grasp somehow.



For as much an ambitious man as him, Reaver is also a man who is exceedingly tired, lazy, indolent and bored. His ambitions only stretch so far, and he lacks the will to bother with greater efforts. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in a fight for his life. He makes the minimum of movement strictly necessary to do anything. When Page takes fire at him, he blocks a bullet with a bare motion of his cane and walks off without even a minimal care for potential threats. In combat against Lucien's forces trying to capture both he and the Hero of Bowerstone, he rarely uses the full extent of his abilities, only doing so once, ostensibly to show off to the Hero and give them something for their children to talk about. When he moves, it is rarely within any real haste, and though he does love to hear the sound of his own voice, he tends to use only just so many actual words as to say what he wishes, usually in the most officious of ways possible.



All of the above is not to say that Reaver's colossal ego comes without the intelligence to back it up. He is, in fact, considerably well read and speaks with a great deal of eloquence. He likes to pepper advanced vocabulary into his speeches, along with the occasional french phrase at random intervals. However, he rarely speaks at any length, and seems to grow easily bored with conversation if someone has not suited his fancy. However, while educated through countless years of observation and large quantities of books read when the opportunity has presented itself, Reaver rarely shows himself to be a true expert at any field.



Very few are the individuals who actually develop any sort of 'real' connection with Reaver. He has quite the memory for his many escapades, but convincing anything more than the vaguest of references to such sordid acts is generally impossible, as he prefers to annoy people with unclear and mysterious implications of scandal more than anything else. Those few individuals who have stood out have almost invariably been in some fashion unique and unusual. Both of the Heroes of Brightwall and Bowerstone drew considerable interest from him at points. The latter of these was a largely antagonistic relationship of necessity, the two of them having a more or less mutual enemy in the form of Lucien in the long run. However, the Hero of Bowerstone was also not one that actively sought out Reaver to continue this rivalry or distaste, their original issue being one that was accepted as simply part and parcel of the needs of dealing with the Spire. Reaver was not the only distasteful individual that the Hero had been forced to deal with, and was infinitely less a problem than Lucien. When he was transported by Theresa with Garth away, the Hero largely left him to his own devices. The Hero of Brightwall, on the other hand, develops a considerably greater relationship with Reaver. However, despite frequent flirtations and an open offer of sexual congress, Reaver never consummates any real closeness with either Hero. Instead, the relationship can best be termed 'professional,' with hints of an ongoing animosity derived from the attempts on the Hero's life during the rebellion. Regardless of this, the Hero of Brightwall is forced to continue to work with Reaver as both of them deem the threat of the Crawler to be a much more dangerous one than each other and focus their joint efforts against the unholy creation.



Garth and Hammer both represent relationships of considerably greater animosity than the Heroes. Despite the fact that he tried to kill both Heroes, they both react as if they really did have far bigger fish to fry than to bother with trying to deal with Reaver once and for all. In Garth and Hammer's respective cases, however, the heroes displayed almost completely irreconcilable world-views. Hammer is a woman of violence only out of bitterness and hatred towards a villain that took everything from her. In every other way, she seeks to live a life that is selfless and focused on the protection of others. To her, Reaver is as bad as Lucien and a monster that needs to be put down. Working with him is outright distasteful to her. Page's relationship with him fifty years later, showing that in many respects he seems incapable of avoiding an anatagonistic relationship with a paladin or social-justice lover like these women.



However, even in the case of a pragmatist like Garth, it is less that there is an outright distaste for his tactics so much a general displeasure with his personal behavior. Garth is a pragmatist at heart and displays a willingness to do whatever is needed to bring down Lucien, and therefore has little problems with Reaver's tactics, so long as the goal is one that he desires to see accomplished. Beyond this, though, he shows a diffident neutrality that subsequent references in “Reaver on Reaver” imply grow increasingly violent and ultimately lead to an attempt on each other's lives whenReaver has largely outstayed his welcome in the lands of Samarkand.



□ Age: Approximately 280 years of age. The events of Fable II occur two centuries, per http://fable.wikia.com/wiki/Oakvale, after the collapse of Oakvale due to Reaver's deal with the Shadow Court, which again occurs 50 years prior to Fable III's onset. Fable III takes place over the course of approximately 1 year and a few months. Based upon his eternal youth and appearance as a middle-aged man and showing no signs of slowness in reflexes, Reaver is likely to have been in his 20s or 30s at the time of his deal, placing his age at roughly 280.

□ Gender: Male

□ Appearance: Dapper, confident and chiseled, Reaver cuts an impressive figure. He stands head and shoulders over everyone around him, even both the Hero of Brightwall and the Hero of Bowerstone when they are augmented fully in Skill. When compared to the averages of the general populace, he tops in at around 7'2”-7'3”. Lithe and well-built, he has a sort of eternal youth to him, his strong chin and proud bearing showing nothing of the ravages of time. He has lustrous black hair and brown eyes and a beauty mark on his left cheekbone. He does not slouch, and walks calmly and with an arrogance that speaks to the level of skill he believes he possesses.

Reaver dresses in the finest of clothes available, the height of current fashion. He is accustomed to wealth and ostentation, and displays it with near glee, though he is not outright garrish in the choice of his clothing. His choices reflect a refinement that comes from centuries of observing the wealthy and powerful, and despite the near gross excesses that he is capable of, he generally does not cover himself in gold and jewels as if he has something to prove, but only what is the finest, because that is what he has come to expect in life. His favored clothes in Albion were fur-lined coats as part of a three piece, booted ensemble resembling Victorian England distantly, with a tall top-hat to further place his height above all around him.

□ Abilities/Powers: The so-called “Hero of Skill” of the Bowerstone era is not named so lightly. All of the “Hero” bloodlines stem from one of three paths, Strength, Skill and Will, though only the protagonist's bloodline is capable of marshalling all three at once within it. Reaver is a hero of the bloodline of Skill, which focuses upon precision, speed, accuracy, dexterity and perception. As the living representation of the bloodline of Skill within his era, and even into other eras, Reaver displays an almost praeternatural grace that exceeds even that of the Hero of Bowerstone and Hero of Albion at their heights. While they can master all three fields, he is the unquestioned master of Skill in all things.

In combat in Fable II, Reaver is seen displaying this grace during the escape from his own mansion. Casually remarking on how the Hero of Bowerstone could tell their grandchildren of his abilities, he proceeded to take out a flint-lock pistol and fire repeated, rapid shots with barely a glance, scoring a head shot each time. He is historically known to have captured ships during his pirating days by having shot dead their captains from considerable distances away while the two were on separate moving vessels. The more impossible the shot, it was said, the swifter the enemy crews surrendered. Though the details vary with the telling, it is known that he never bothers to use a sight and has nearly perfect marksmanship within the limits of the range of the firearm he uses.

Reaver's speed, reflexes, dexterity and grace are far beyond those of normal humans. His skill with a handgun is legendary. There are, however, limits. While his ability to fire a firearm to the very limits with little in the way of assistance is widely known, he is still limited by the capacity of the firearm itself. His speed, too, is far beyond that of another human's limits, but it does not reach into the categories of creatures like a Cheetah. He is above that of an olympian, but not so much as to appear obviously on the surface superhuman.

Reaver, lastly, does not age in any fashion or form. Due to a deal with the Shadow Court where he sacrifices the youth of a new soul each year to pay the debt that keeps him forever young, he does not age. Obviously, his one-year anniversary will be something of a difficult time for him in Ariel, as he is not sure how this power will be impacted by this world, or if the Shadow Court will require the debt be paid here, somehow.

□ Personal Items:
-The Dragonstomper .48 – A six-shot flint-lock repeating pistol (Do not ask me how they pulled that off. I'm not a gunsmith.), one of only six ever made and one of the most post powerful, fastest firing and accurate pistols of its era in Albion. Despite its age, it is the equivalent of a precisely and perfectly crafted, well-balanced Desert Eagle revolver, possibly due to magical enhancement.
-His top-hat, which adds easily two feet onto his height.
-A set of clothing in the fashion of Albion's elite (Fur-lined 3-piece suit with boots).
-A second set of clothing in similar fashion.
-A package of thirty sheep's intestine condoms.
-His gold-tipped, ebony wood cane
-Ammunition for the Dragonstomper (amount left to Moderator discretion)
-A bottle of strong and alluring musk-scented cologne
-A copy of “Reaver on Reaver,” his autiobiography
-A gold pocket-watch

□ First Person Sample:
[The voice of the man coming onto the screen is both faintly jubilant and generally self-indulgent. Dressed in a three-piece furred suit, he is lounging in what is clearly one of the newer apartments for fresh arrivals. The accouterments are considerably less posh than his own clothes, but if he is offended by the arrangements, he shows no obvious sign. Grinning from ear to ear, he brushes his fingers through the mop of raven locks on the top of his head before laughing almost giddily.]

What a delightful set of hosts we have here. Run off for a little vacation and respite after business arrangements are concluded and I find myself abducted away to a virile wonderland of beauty and license. I must say that I'm impressed to see that they have the good taste to have fetched my august personage. Always good to know that my hosts grasp a proper visionary when it comes to the stroking of the human libido.

[There was a momentary twitch in his features, fading almost immediate. His mind warred with the irritation of having been abducted in the first place, and with the fact that it had clearly taken them far too long to find him. He was far more disappointed than he wished to let on.]

But come now, let us dispense with the introductions before I can know each and every last one of you … properly. [There is a rap of his cane and his tongue snakes out to lick his lips. There can be little doubt what he means by that.] I am Reaver, though I highly doubt any of you know my name as of yet. Come now, don't be shy. We should rectify this little oversight immediately, and perhaps even … intimately.

[He was in a city full of sex and license, damnit. He was going to indulge, and he wasn't in any mood to wait for it.]

□ Third Person Sample:

Reaver was having what quite possibly translated to the best laugh of his life. He had just caught on from some of the banter of the babbling cretins he had been entrapped in this place that one's status within the society and access to one's powers were almost entirely dependent upon the performing of carnal acts with others. Holding aloft a champagne flute and looking out from the balcony of his home, he gazed towards the central rings of the city with an eye full of desire. The smell of sex still wafted from the other room, heady and redolent.

“So many ways to choose, so many roads to conquer,” he whispered with a silken, hungry little purr. “I should be far more incensed at it all. The temerity of them. That damnable guide, should have blown his head clean from his temples, and yet... why be hasty? This world is like a fruit waiting to drop from the vine, craving to be bitten into, its juices sucked.”

He laughed quite openly, uproariously even. His cane rapped at the cheap metal of the balcony and he offered the champagne in mock salute. Knowing what he did now, his eyes were practically alight with perverse passion. “At home, it was business and pleasure, and the joy was finding ways to make them one and the same. Here, it is almost too easy. I will bend this pretty little utopia under my heel and claim it for my own. One more conquest, and Reaver will have it for his own.”