Erskine Ravel | Skulduggery Pleasant

He doesn't feel that bad.

User Name/Nick: Sy
User DW: n/a
Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal: anstaar on discord, anstaar on plurk, PM to journal
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Xie Lian, Nathaniel, Fitz Kreiner & Sanzo

Character Name: Erskine Ravel
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant
Age: 400s
From When?: At the end of Book 9, when he's thrown into the Accelerator

Inmate Justification:

Erskine is working for a better world, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to get there. This includes mass murder, starting a war, and killing friends. On top of that, his 'better world' involves sorcerer's ruling over mortals. However, it's not a personal power grab. He's willing to sacrifice everything for a brighter future, including himself. Good intentions haven't made what he's done better, but they're a place to start in moving away from any means being justified.

Arrival: against his will

Abilities/Powers:

Ravel is and Elemental sorcerer, which is basically what it sounds like. He's able to manipulate air, fire, water and earth. In some ways this is an artificial limitation sorcerers have adapted so that they don't have full access to the source of their magic (mainly because that drives them insane). At full power, magic doesn't separate into branches, it's just power that can change reality. He's basically unaware of this, and it's also not a limit that he could break without outside intervention even at full power. Using magic also changes your body, which is why sorcerers remain young and are generally slightly hardier than mortals. Sorcerers are also able to control people in basic ways if their know their given names. While the being able to control others bit should be completely removed, for the elemental abilities I'd like Erskine to still have access to them, though very weak. Nothing stronger than being able to flip a page with air or just a spark of fire, but the connection to magic not entirely closed off.

Even without magic, Ravel has spent most of his life fighting in various wars and specifically serving in a blacks op unit that took on suicide missions and came back alive. He's a capable hand-to-hand fighter as well as being trained in a wide range of weapons. He also has some basic training in blocking psychics.

Inmate Information:

The word people most frequently use to describe Erskine is charming. It's not just a surface shine. He's a likable person. He's kind. He pays attention to people and works to put them at ease. He cares about his friends, and believes the best of them. He has a sharp sense of humor, but his jokes tend to be at his own expense and he knows when to take things seriously. He's willing to lead, and happy to let other people take the lead when they're better suited for the situation. All of this is why no one realized that he was a traitor working to destroy everything he claimed to stand for. Being a very good liar didn't hurt, either.

Ravel is deeply shaped by his history, which is shaped in turn by what he is. Erskine was born in 1606, and at some point during his adolescence learned that he could do magic. At that time, the magical community was at war. One side was made up of worshipers of the Faceless Ones, evil gods who had been banished from their universe by ancient sorcerers, who they wanted to bring back to rule again and slaughter all mortals. Erskine was on the other side, sorcerers dedicated to stopping Mevolent and his followers. They fought for each other, and to protect mortals. Despite everything, Erskine was at his happiest during the war. He had a clear purpose, fighting for what he believed in. He had fellow fighters, people who were more like family. It was close to a war of good versus evil. As Erskine says, bad things happen in war and he isn't proud of everything he did, or that his side did, but at the end of the day it was still simple. They needed to do whatever it took to win, because they had to win.

During the war, Erskine was captured. He was tortured, and when he was finally saved it wasn't by his friends but by the Children of the Spider, members of a religious sect whose magic makes it impossible for them to blend in with mortals. They took him in and nursed him back to health. He founds himself surrounded by people forced into terrible conditions not because of the war but so that they wouldn't be found and hunted by mortals. He had been shattered by the enemy, and his friends hadn't saved him, but now he had a new cause. Mages were fighting and dying and facing the darkness in their own souls to protect mortals. They were giving everything to make sure mortals were free to make their own choices, free of magical interference. Looking at the world, he didn't feel that mortals were worthy of that sacrifice.

The magical community keeps itself hidden from mortals, but secret doesn't mean uninvolved. Their stated role is to protect mortals from magical threats. It's the mortal's world, sorcerers are just there to help. So when the war ended, Erskine's revolution was just getting started. He had fought for his friends, he had fought against evil but he hadn’t fought to leave the world in the hands of people who were not equal to them. This is when Ravel truly started down the path of wide scale manipulation and lies. When he had returned to his friends he hadn’t mentioned his new opinions but they were in the middle of a war, not exactly the place to discuss the fine points of where his philosophy differed. Now they were at peace. Now they could go back to protecting the mortals. Now there was time to be open about what changes he felt should be made, about what had made him believe they couldn’t go on as they were. That wasn’t the way Erskine went. He had his reasons, of course. Sorcerers, as a rule, aren’t particularly fond of change, perhaps because they lived such a long time. They had just fought a war against people who believed that mortals should be ruled and that made it a tricky subject. He didn’t want to lose his friends.

Erskine decided that the better approach was to work to manipulate circumstances so there would be no choice but to have sorcerers take over. During the war, Erskine had worked under Corrival Deuce. Corrival knew that the war might be over but the underlying sentiments were still strong. He was also a fervent believer that the role of the magical community was solely to protect mortals. He believed that use of magic, already limited in certain ways to keep them hidden, should be restricted even further – only to be used to safeguard mortals. This was an extremely radical sentiment even among his own side. He spent a hundred years traveling the world on diplomatic missions, working to convince others of his beliefs. Corrival didn’t travel alone. He was accompanied by his right hand man, the man he trusted implicitly, Erskine Ravel.

Erskine spent a hundred years using Corrival – a man he respected and trusted, a man who believed in him – as a cover. He was the perfect excuse to meet with people who agreed with Erskine about how mortals should be treated. Erskine argued convincingly for his mentor’s cause, all the while arranging secret meetings where he’d layout his plans for a sorcerer run world order. Moreover, Corrival was all the character reference he needed. No one who followed Corrival so clearly could be plotting against mortals. Erskine didn’t portray himself as being quite as radical, thus he was the perfect candidate to serve as Corrival’s political second, the buffer for his most radical notions, the person who would be given the list of all the discontents.

For years, Ireland had become a more unsettled place. Old enemies escaped from prison; elders were killed or turned out to be traitors; the Faceless Ones, almost managed to return; and a recently released prisoner almost used a magic bomb to destroy a stadium full of people, planning on revealing magic to the world in the worse way possible. This was helped along by the actions of another figure, a man working from the shadows, who was plotting a coup and then, when his candidate died stopping the gods’ invasion, simply had the Sanctuary destroyed. The Irish magical community was in disarray, they were completely without elders and the other governments were circling, always ready to offer ‘help’ and get their hands on such a powerful resource. A man with international respect was needed to take charge and show that Ireland could handle its own problems. Enter Corrival Deuce and to help him, of course, Erskine Ravel.

Erskine managed to perfectly position himself as someone who has been thrust into a position of power he doesn’t want and yet is determined to do his best. He sets up a situation where he is forced to place a Child of the Spider (a woman who has been plotting with him for years) on the council, all the while claiming he doesn’t trust her. Thus the focus of distrust is drawn to her and he is clear of suspicion.

As Grand Mage, Erskine kicks his plan into high gear. It’s a simple plan: magic would be exposed to the mortals in some sort of disaster, sorcerers would emerge as saviors and then step in as leaders. The problem is that sorcerers are really good at stopping these disasters before it was too late. That is where all their attention was focused. Erskine drew their attention away from this by setting up a war (all the while positioning himself as being the victim of other people's attempts to grab power). The magical communities went to war, most of them having no idea it was just a cover.

His plan doesn’t exactly succeeded. Erskine attempted set the warlocks, a rather violent subset of mages, on the mortals while everyone was too distracted by war to stop them. The warlocks realized they had been tricked and went after his city instead. By that point his treachery had been discovered but, as he said, it didn’t really matter. Under cover of the war he had had Grand Mages around the world, in countries that were allied to Ireland as well as their enemies, assassinated and replaced by people who agreed with him. Sooner or later there was going to be something that couldn’t be hidden and sorcerers would step into the light as leaders. He just didn't live to see how it would play out.

One of the most important things about Erskine was that he wasn’t going to be one of these leaders. Once the sorcerers were in control he was going to reveal his role. He accepted long ago that his path was leading towards death or handcuffs. He’s a true believer. To prove his dedication to the cause he has one of his friends killed and murders the other himself. He doesn’t want to. The only time he loses control of himself is when one of his allies tries to kick the body of the friend he killed. Whenever someone brings up what he did he turns away. He offers no justification for his part in their deaths. He will suffer for what he’s done but he’s still right. He is completely committed, even more committed even so that he hasn’t killed them for nothing.

Erskine has known for years that he’ll lose his friends as soon as they find out the truth. Yet he can’t help himself from trying act as if nothing’s changed. He says repeatedly that he’s the same person he’s always been. He’s not a villain that wants to take over the world for personal power. He believes that taking over is their right. That fooling mortals into taking them in as heroes is the most painless way to achieve their aims versus straight out attacking them and causing mass destruction on a global scale. He hasn’t enjoyed it, getting innocent blood on his hands or betraying his friends. He wants his friends to understand him, forgive him, even though he knows they won’t. Still, he’ll be grateful enough just to have them safe, living in the world where they’ll rule as they should. He’s just trying to do what’s right.

Erskine genuinely dislikes mortals and believes the world will be better when they’re not in charge. He believes they’ll destroy the world. That they’re petty and short sighted and dull. They know that they’re destroying the environment but the people in charge are too obsessed with their own transient power to unite over what they share instead of always dividing by their differences. With sorcerers in charge there won’t be extremism or terrorism or destruction. They’ll be able to live their lives freely unless they try to hurt someone. Sorcerers, he feels, have proven that they can police themselves. They beat their monsters. The mortals haven’t held up their end. Besides, he is sure that once mortals learn about sorcerers, which really is an inevitability, they will hunt them down to experiment on them and kill them.

Considering everything it isn’t surprising that Erskine has great control over his emotions. He keeps his cool. He’s generally easy going but can play up his feelings when needed. He has people killed and then acts his denial to perfection. When truly upset or angry he usually just shows it in flashes before regaining his equilibrium. When something goes wrong he accepts it and moves on to try to fix it, without blame or wasting time. His plans are always flexible, they have one end goal but there are countless ways to get there. He’s an idealist, believing in a better world, but he’s a practical one. He is willing to embrace change. The status quo isn’t eternal, they protect the mortals but that was a choice, they can make a different one.

In the end, when he says that he’s given enough it's important to note that most of what he’s given up has been other people’s lives. He had warlocks killed to try to drive them into slaughtering mortals; he probably killed Corrival Deuce; he destroyed the Sanctuary, which resulted in the deaths of those still inside; he started a war; he had people assassinated and led to mortals being hurt as they were too busy to protect them from magic threats; he killed his own friends; and more on his single minded quest. Yet, still he’ll say that he was right. He has to be.

Path to Redemption:

When thrown into a new situation, or any situation, Erskine will do what he's best at: working to get along with people. The lying and manipulation is thrown in for free. He'll do his best to give off the image he's cultivated for centuries, because he's had centuries to practice. He doesn't have any clear plans for the future, which is a big shift from what's driven him for the last few centuries. His life is weird enough that he's very unlikely to be thrown off by any flood or breach, he's mainly concerned with being as social as possible. He genuinely likes people, and it's useful to be liked. He does his best to get along with people, and he's good at hiding that he holds grudges. Meeting people from worlds that have suffered from environmental disasters or whose people are oppressed with make him feel even more justified.

Ravel will never deny that he has done things that require redemption. However, he has a lot of ways of covering the 'what'. He admits to having fought in wars. He might say that he was working on a revolution, especially to people who aren’t human, but will tend to glide over what it was meant to accomplish and focus more on the danger he feels mortals represent. He won’t lie about having magic but it might be a bit until he brings it up. He is very careful to avoid letting slip that he killed his friends and betrayed people who thought they were his allies because that’s not the sort of reputation you want when trying to make friends.

Erskine is actually a big proponent of redemption and believes that he needs it. Unfortunately that doesn’t make it easy. In his view, redemption isn’t something internal. He believes that it comes through making up for it through time and action. Enough time spent doing the right thing will bring balance or if the outcome of your actions are ultimately for the best it makes up for what you did to get there. Thus when he decides redemption is possible for himself he’ll try to find something to do not address what he needs to change. There’s a danger he’ll find another cause to throw himself into.

BARGE UPDATE: Erskine won't immediately remember his prior experiences on the Barge, but even before he regains his memories those experiences have affected him. He made genuine connections, without the layers of lies he was used to. He's aware that he needs to decide what sort of future he wants, and find a place where he can have it. He's somewhat aware that his personal feelings of anger and betrayal played a part in some of the actions he'd claim were just purely practical. He has a long way to go, but these are all very important steps.

Any warden for Erskine would need to be someone who's good at getting through lies and distraction. They’ll have to be someone he respects. Someone who tried to impose authority upon him would be met with obstruction and slightly hidden mockery. He has no problem dealing with abrasive personalities but if they have an ego then they have to be able to back themselves up. He has spent a very long time arguing for his cause and he’s not going to be easily swayed.

A warden he'd listen to would be one willing to listen to his arguments and react to what he's saying. They’ll have to be able to disagree with him based off reasonable objections and not entirely on moral grounds. He's made progress on being more introspective, but it's still limited. He’ll talk about actions and his cause but it’s difficult to get him to address his feelings in any depth. He has to deal with his experiences of torture and how it has affected him, both times. He needs to separate the things he’s probably right about – that mortals will discover the existence of magic, that there is every chance they won’t react well – from his actions dealing with the problem. He did, in fact, have a choice.

History: link

Sample Network Entry:

[Welcome to Barge Home Video: the camera slowly panning down a corridor as Erskine offers narration.]

You see before you a wall. Another wall. Oh, look, here a door! [He reaches out to jiggle the handle, but it's locked.] When is a door not a door? When it's locked. If you look at thing, philosophical like, is there any real difference between a door and a wall? Aren't' they both serving the same purpose? Can't they both be broken down with a dramatic kick. Not broken down by a kick, and instead leave the kickee? - no, kicker stumbling around swearing in, perhaps, a humorous manner?

If you picked up a piece of wall and leaned it against an opening, would it become a door? An alchemist could work on transforming something for a hundred years only to walk out of their room and see that someone had just kicked a bit of wall over and, in a philosophical sense, done it in moments.

That's just the sort of thing that gets on alchemists nerves. It's probably all those fumes. The obsessive focus on a piece of metal that's of questionable objective value.

[He pauses a moment. Time can be taken to consider this valuable insight. There's probably something, if you're really willing to make an effort.]

Anyhow, I've been stuck in this maze for thirteen hours. Some assistance would be grand.

Sample RP: here

Special Notes: I'd like him to regain his memories of the Barge slowly, needing effort and reminders to pull out more specific details