APP/INFO, ZODION

[freeholding]

 ✖ PLAYER:
Name & DW Journal: Lucy, lucyzephyr
Birthdate & Age: 22 January 1990, 23
Characters played in Zodion: n/a

✖ CHARACTER:
Name: John Marcone
Canon: The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
PB/Image: PB Jim Caviezel with a dash of Gabriel Macht’s suits. http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md3b2iEiL61qkr4jn.jpg
Info links: There’s no up-to-date history that I can find, so I’ve written one up: http://freeholding.dreamwidth.org/838.html
Canon Point: Cold Days, latest book.
Gender & Sex: Both male.
Age: Mid-forties.
Birthdate/Sign: 1 January, ~1965. Non-canon, but chosen for two specific reasons.

1. In-universe, John is a vanilla mortal with no innate talent for magic, but is inexplicably resistant to supernatural glamours and emotional manipulation. This receives no explanation despite it being a pretty huge deal (he is the only character that can boast this in the series). To give this weird trait some semblance of sense, I say Marcone was born on the new year, which according to the rules of magic in The Dresden Files, is very powerful and associated with starting new cycles. Long-lasting spells are weakened by new dawns, so the dawn of a new year should have serious significance. Birthdates can grant characters these sort of inherent abilities. Thus, John’s weird resilience gets some basis.

2. 1 January makes John a Capricorn, which I find extremely apt for him. His greatest strengths are his level-headedness, his ability to plan ahead, and his nigh-terrifying determination. His biggest faults are his ego, his habit of believing in his own press, and his self-sacrificial streak. He represents Chicago and is its greatest authority, having clawed his way up to a high seat of power that puts all of the city’s citizens under his responsibility. If that’s not a Capricorn, I don’t know what is.

Tattoo: About the size of an American half-dollar coin, printed just under the clavicle, above his heart.
Suitability: n/a
Power: Starter Earth power will be summoning with the intention of eventually summoning tigers. (Canon joke; John’s explicitly described as having “a tiger’s soul,” which is as ridiculous as it sounds.)
Personality:

So there once was a boy who lost faith in everything but his city and decided to become a monster to save everyone else the trouble.

That is the short version.

John Marcone is a self-made prince with money green eyes and a tiger's smile. He is defined by one thing above all else: self-determination. There is a story being told in the city of Chicago, and he saw the part that was missing from the narrative, and he stepped up to fill it. When Chicago needed a polite, neat monster to quiet her crime and guide her through rough waters, Marcone decided to fill that space. He loved his city so much, he cut off the parts of him that did not fit his chosen task and was content.

Marcone is the head of the Chicago Outfit. He operates in such a way that even the Chicago PD is reluctant to remove him from power. He controls crime with an iron fist, ruthlessly eradicating any competition and imposes his own order on the city. That order happens to involve rules like 'no children are to be preyed on or sold to' and 'keep collateral damage to a minimum.' Anyone who doesn't follow his rules doesn't survive long in the city.

He is extremely efficient and very deadly, both in the power he wields and in his capacity for personal violence. He's capable of amassing resources quickly, applying them where they most need to be, and if it comes down to needing one more gunhand, he is certainly able.

Marcone is very enterprising, and since his introduction in the books has steadily grown in influence until managing to become the only vanilla mortal to sign onto the Unseelie Accords (see History). This makes him among the most powerful humans in the world, and he wears it well.

To his view, crime will always exist and people will always be scrambling for power they shouldn't have. It is best to be the top dog because he's the most magnanimous about it. Better him than someone with less scruples.

That's the surface of the character. That's the role he plays. That is the catch though: Gentleman Johnny, head of the mob and Baron of Chicago, is a role to play. And John plays it well enough no one thinks there is anything else underneath.

While the role demands him to be someone comfortable with wealth and conspicuous consumption, John himself came from a poor family and doesn't much care for the Gold Coast lifestyle. While the role demands him to speak in a manner most genteel and proper, you can bet it was learned from newscasters and films. The role demands a calm, unshakeable presence of character, but John's patron is fucking Odin and his city is overrun by succubi who control the porn industry and a fallen angel tried to kill him, mother of Christ.

Marcone's been playing this role for years now, and he's made it his lot in life. There are only a few things that shake him from it, usually either a wizard named Dresden or a comatose girl named Amanda. Only Harry Dresden and John's right-hand man, Nathan Hendricks, know about the John under the armor.

Under the armor, John misses when life was simpler. He misses being a James Dean wannabe with a leather jacket and a bad attitude. He misses being able to walk through Chicago and being just another face. He sometimes misses being the man, not the self-proclaimed monster.

The armor isn't perfect at all. On several occasions, John has shown himself to have (gasp!) emotions and feelings. His greatest weakness is Dresden, who has literally seen John's soul, and who uses that knowledge to knock John off his game. He can make John show mercy and can appeal to his better angels at times. And in return, John is obsessive about Dresden to a frightening degree. He completely believes that their stories are intertwined and has made extremely thorough plans to kill Dresden should a final showdown come to pass. But in a way, Dresden is the only person John trusts; when two people know each other that deeply, even if they're enemies, they have an understanding.

He's motivated by the usual gambit of emotions: selfishness, mercy, guilt. He's simply set things up in such a way he can find alternate motives for everything, thus making his actions acceptable in his mind. He's not going to help Dresden because they have years of history and trust behind him; he's going to help him because the man is more useful alive than dead. That's the sort of thing John tells himself to ignore his own crippling sentimentality.

I like to tell people that John is a ridiculous human being. Whether the facts agree with him or not, he believes he is somehow The Only One who can save his city. He's a bit of a pretentious git, but also he's a terrifying exemplar of the power of free will. While plenty of monsters want to play with humans and plenty of wizards pretend to understand humanity, John-- born with free will and the ability to determine his own true nature-- decided to become a monster.

✖ SAMPLES:
"Zodion" First-Person Network Entry:

((voice))

I admit, this is not how I imagined it would be. [It is a man's voice, level and even in the sort of way you tend to only hear from people on the news. It's almost boring in its blandness. A cop would describe it as "non-descript." None of you are police, are you? Mind, John doesn’t have anything but respect for the boys and girls in blue, of course.]

Not that I am exactly adverse to the idea. Politically, it’s a risky maneuver, but I have good people-- had good people?-- who will know how to handle the situation.

I imagined more fire. Some brimstone and the smell of sulfur, all the sorts of things you’re told to keep you God-fearing. If not that, I was told to expect something a bit more... Nordic.

[Whether the man is truly fishing for information or musing to himself, whether he is actually so calm or putting on a good performance, it’s impossible to tell.]

It pays to be prepared, so.

If a representative of Mr. Vadderung is here, I would speak to them. If this is an Accords matter, I need not take this as an act of war if you come forth and be frank. If this is some corner of the Nevernever, I’ll compensate handsomely for passage home.

And if none of those are accurate, any illumination would be appreciated.

Thank you.

"Zodionlogs" Third-Person Prose Entry:

Worship.

John Marcone has a... complicated relationship with worship, with faith.

When he thinks of worship, two very different things come to mind. The first is that instinctive, impulsive memory of when he was young and his grandmother shamed him in front of the entire congregation and Father Constantini for missing Sunday Mass to climb a watertower with his friends, to smoke and look out over Chicago in all of her concrete and glass splendor.

The second is the remembered moment, when he held Donar Vadderung’s sleek black pen between his fingers, feeling the heft of it like the weight of a shackle. The pen had moved easily, ink flowing fast, forcing John to sign the papers quickly, leaving no time to think about his decision to sign over himself to Odin All-Father.

But it’s not Donar’s all-seeing eye that marks John now. He has his shirt unbuttoned and can see it clearly in the mirror. It’s something much more mundane: the symbol for Capricorn set into his skin, just below his clavicle. The sign, both sharp and curved, twinges like he was only just under the needle.

The room he’s in echos that astrological sentiment. More symbols adorn the walls, and familiar figures stare down at him like he’s something interesting. There’s nothing remotely similar to what he’s come to expect of Donar and his Nordic sensibilities to be found.

John shakes his head and idly buttons up his shirt again. He does not know if Donar has sold the token of John’s service, or if it was taken by subterfuge or force. Hell, he’s not even sure that he’s dead, but it’s as good a guess as any for now. Afterlife seems the only thing to make sense.

If nothing else, it would explain how the letter on the altar knows his True Name.

Once John’s gathered himself, he takes a lighter out of his pocket and burns the letter. No need to spread one’s True Name around, after all.

When the letter is reduced to ash, John pockets the PDA device and makes his way out of the Luminar.

Let’s see what they mean by ‘worship’ this time, the baron thinks to himself as he ventures out.