KELLEY FARRADAY || DANTALIAN

---

OOC Warning. This character bio contains dark themes. One element may be construed
as assault, another as erasure of personal identity. It's intended only for mature players.

ABILITIES & CONDITIONS
Here come the woman
With the look in her eye
Raised on leather
With flesh on her mind

[Both Consciousnesses] Demonic Physiology: While lodged in a mortal body, he has no access to a demonic form. His vessel was originally human and therefore flawed. The demon's occupation has granted it resistances and benefits. He's entirely immune to fire and damages from excess heat. His physical conditioning exceeds that of a normal human. His senses, while excellent, are not supernaturally boosted. The body will age as it would normally, can be injured or killed, but does heal significantly faster than it would without his habitation. Dantalian is not killed if his body is destroyed. He'll move on to a new host, which is annoying and may take time. He avoids contact with psychics and sensitives, as they've read the 'wrongness' in him previously, or caused interference in his control of his body. In his human body, he finds holy water, extreme cold and blessed items repellent, and extremely painful to touch.

[Both Consciousnesses] Perfet Aim: Born a gifted human, Kelley has infallible aim with any thrown or projectile object, up to and including the ability to ricochet an object three or four times without sacrificing accuracy. Related to his muscular control, this ability also affects things like his pool game, sports with a ball or foci in motion, or the placement of strikes in hand to hand combat. His placement is always perfect.

[Both Consciousnesses] Telepathy: [Used only with player consent] Called 'the collector of secrets,' Dantalian can hear the thoughts of those within a natural hearing range. He can't communicate or read minds, his access is restricted to present thought alone. That doesn't mean he can't goad an individual into thinking about certain things or turn a conversation in a desirable direction in order to get the information he desires anyway, though. Additionally, he has a wild knack for knowing which buttons to push to discover a individual's darkest secrets. This isn't a power, but an associated skill that rarely fails him. Strong telepaths, mentalists or individuals with talismans to block surveillance may be able to protect themselves.

[Dantalian Only] Demon of all countenances: [Used only with player consent, if doubling a PC] For three hours at a time, he can reshape his vessel to mimic any living human being, of any gender. All physical elements of his forgeries are perfect, including the voice, movements and mannerisms. However, he cannot copy athletic abilities or skills. He cannot copy neural patterns or thoughts, either, so a telepath or skilled empath familiar with the subject he has copied may notice the difference. While using this ability, his resistances and the enhanced physiology that he enjoys in his regular body are disabled.

[Dantalian Only] Lust and Pride: [Used only with player consent] With domain in both, just being around Dantalian has a tendency to provoke extremes of both vice. The degree is contingent on the interacting character's predisposition towards one, or both, and their self control and self awareness. If an individual is unfortunate enough and gains his interest, he may make a mission of provokiing one or both in either a short frenzy, or a long game for his own purposes.

[Dantalian Only] Counselor of Forbidden Arts & Sciences: His original purpose was the teaching and guidance of mortals, and he's still honoring that post...in a twisted sense. Although he cannot use the magic available to witches and warlocks himself [as his body has no magical talent] he's an encyclopedic master of all arcane arts, sciences and varied practices. Persuading him to share this knowledge is costly. Whether or not a magical practitioner impresses him or shows potential sometimes tips the scales on his decision making. He makes an excellent consult for inquiries into magical obscurities and rare practices, when he sees benefit in cooperating.

---
Bindings: Nyah's control of him is inconsistent, but she can call him as she pleases. He 'blinks' to her location when she does, and back again if she allows. He can't do so on his own, or at any other time. Damage inflicted on either of them by third parties is shared between them, which could either lessen the severity of an injury, or kill them both. Injury they inflict on one another is not shared.

Mundane skills: Due to Dantalian's age, the list of his skills is long. Many are anachronistic and useless. He speaks several languages and learns new ones quickly. He has early 19th century surgical skills, is a proficient equestrian, can drive stick and manual, and fences excellently. Lee is a skilled horseman, hand to hand combatant, homesteader, handyman, and southern farmboy with an ungodly Irishman's drinking tolerance. Access to the other's skills is inconsistent, which can create problems.

---

APPEARANCE
Here come the man with the look in his eye
Fed on nothing but full of pride
Look at them go, look at them kick
Makes you wonder how the other half live

Dantalian has the uncommon honor of owning his own body, not merely possessing one. It was chosen specifically for several exceptional qualities and to satisfy his vanity. He's proud of it, and takes exceptional care, as one would a priceless sports car. Fitness, grooming and hygiene regimens are regular and meticulous, as are his dietary choices. He'd put Patrick Bateman to shame. His uniform of choice is a perfectly tailored, bespoke suit, of which he owns far too many in staples and an assortment of more nuanced shades and considered color combinations. Smartly casual when dressed down, he won't be caught in jeans and a t-shirt. His movement is slightly odd. Although his body is obviously physically capable, and the presence powering it moreso, he moves like a driver who's recently upgraded to a Rolls Royce from a Yugo. His last body was a feeble Frenchman in his 60s standing 5'8 with a limp, so that's not far from the truth. He's getting the hang of it, but there are mistakes and surprises. He'll use too much force, forget to duck his head or will forget that he can easily reach high shelves.

Kelley can be identified by his comfort in his own skin. He moves with fair grace despite his size, is constantly aware of his surroundings and how he fits in them, and is calm, contained and at ease with himself the way a big cat would be resting between hunts. He dresses down, doesn't like to show off, isn't excessively smiley but has consistently warm eyes despite their color. As a result of a severe speech issue in his childhood, he's less loquacious than Dantalian, but better company.

---

PERSONALITY
Here come the world
With the look in its eye
Future uncertain but certainly slight
Look at the faces listen to the bells

Dantalian:
Casually but brutally malevolent, Dantalian is subtle. He doesn't truck in wrath. His sins are Pride and Lust, capital letters. He's calm, charismatic, intelligent, devious, patient and a hedonist in the extreme. Nothing delights him more than finding weakness in a human soul and pulling on those loose threads, unraveling a victim's confidence and morality like an old sweater. Although there are dozens of scriptures and dogmas claiming that they divulge the accurate origin of demons, Dantalian will only acknowledge one truth: although objectively evil now, by human definition, that was not always the case. He's so far removed from the creature he once was that the incongruency baffles, but occasionally he'll show the smallest of mercies or finds ways for his interests to align with those of others. Only when his whim suits. He doesn't even acknowledge that he is the Dantalian. Perhaps, it's just an odd coincidence in naming.

Psychologists would label him a sociopath, if a mind like his could be diagnosed in the same way as a rudimentary human's. He doesn't keep relationships that don't benefit him. He's endlessly charming, his reactions too ideal, too practiced, too gentile to entertain that creeping sense of wrong the more perceptive souls sometimes experience in his presence. True evil is, above all, seductive, and everyone knows you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. He's not being kind, or friendly. He hasn't lost his edge, or gone soft. He's laying groundwork, planting seeds, making plans. The 'long con' doesn't require much energy when you've been alive for time immemorial. When he's bored, he's done. He takes trophies from all of his conquests and previous vessels: a fingernail, a tooth, an ear [ask him about Van Gogh's tumultuous love life] or small items and trinkets priceless to their owners. He curates his collection. They're the most precious of artifacts.

The only other thing over which he exercises any possessiveness or protectiveness is Nyah Toussaint, his favorite student. He believes her to be the closest thing to a demon a human is capable of being, and is intermittently proud of her and disgusted by her failure to live up to his expectations. She excels, but never enough to sate his pride as a teacher. He is both nurturing and brutal with her, in turns. She's his creation. However, he considers whether he should break their bond, or take her body for his own to utilize its innate talents to their full extent in the ways in which she either can't, or refuses. The demon considers himself a pragmatist and a nihilist. Waste not want not.

Five times in the last six months he's experienced uncharacteristic moments of charity. He doesn't remember them, but word got around. They happened in what humans might call a 'black out.' It concerns him, but he chalks it up to subpar work done by the Maita in Tennessee, or akin to the settling of a new house. He's still nesting in his body, setting up shop. He still has to learn its limitations and idiosyncrasies.

Kelley Farraday [rare appearances]:
Lee wasn't completely evicted before Dantalian moved into his body. Farraday's soul is torn up but still present, little pieces of asbestos impossible to remove from the structure without irreparably gutting it. He's been mostly dormant for the last six months, but is starting to surface in small bouts when Dantalian sleeps.

In almost all ways, Lee is the demon's opposite. Born and raised in what he calls a 'food stamp' class family in the Blue Mountains, Lee is soft spoken, down to earth, well mannered, hard working, and generous with his time and loyalty. Objectively, he's a good man. By nature and nurture, he's a guardian archetype. His father and three older brothers are in law enforcement and the Army, like both of his grandfathers before them. He's capable of targeted, highly efficient violence, but is patient and strategic [the only traits he shares with Dantalian] and gentle with people unless given a reason not to be. He's agitated only when he doesn't have something productive to do, or his ethics or moral code is violated. Lee always knew he wanted to go career, into spec and MARSOC. Despite the 'team family' mentality pervasive in career servicemen, he avoided being tied down as a result. For years he watched his mother suffer, as did he and his brothers, over whether or not his father was coming home from deployment. He wouldn't repeat that.

Although capable and accomplished, and raised with a healthy dose of Deep South confidence, Farraday has some social awkwardness. He stuttered as a child. With limited funds for speech coaches, it persisted until he was twelve. He's not verbose, and says what he means only when he needs or wants to. As a tall, gangly kid that also made him a target for schoolyard bullying. Despite his kindness, Lee is not and was never allowed to be a soft person. If the change in posture and mannerism isn't enough to indicate a personality shift, his speech patterns will. Because only splinters of him remain, Farraday is sometimes confused, is unaware of the passage of time since since his unsuccessful removal, and repeats certain personal ticks on each appearance.

---

HISTORY
It's hard to believe we need a place called hell
A place called hell
Words are weapons sharper than knives
Makes you wonder how the other half die

Dantalian doesn't speak of where he came from. The current cycle of his history began in 1971, when he was summoned by Kanaa Adebayo. She wanted to learn advanced necromancy and the art of harnessing souls, but was so enthralled by the increase in power she received, and unwilling to pay the attached price, that she betrayed him and bound him instead. The effort nearly killed her, and she continued to pay dearly for it, but she successfully kept him shackled for over 30 years. Kanaa used him as a magical battery, but was more lenient with her reliance on his magic as long as he continued to teach her. He played along, biding his time, but was ever watchful for loopholes and chinks in her armor.

It was her vanity that ultimately did her in. After manipulating her concern for her declining vitality and beauty for years, he planted the idea that she should birth her own new vessel, so that she could better cultivate exactly what it was that she wanted, ensure her new body was of prime magical stock, and that it carried the 'legacy' of her first vessel. He knew she wouldn't actually want to raise the child. That would be left to him. She took the bait, and Nyah was given to his care. He named her: "lustrous purpose."

A foolish girl looking for a parent and the love Kanaa denied her, Dantalian swallowed the bitter pill and pretended to care long enough to cement her affection and reliance as she grew. Dressed in a decrepit meat suit, he played Grandfather. Without her mother's knowledge, he started her magical and academic education at seven. She was a natural. He was almost proud of his creation.

At ten, he sundered her world. He left Kanaa's grimoire open, which detailed her sinister intentions for her daughter. Nyah was fully dedicated to his emancipation then, exactly as he'd planned. It was executed years later, when Kanaa's age and arrogance got the best of her. Nyah wouldn't kill her mother to finish severing his bond, however. Truly furious for the first time in decades, he considered murdering the girl and running, trying his luck with a half-broken bond. Too inconvenient, he decided against it. The pair moved to Paris, where they acquired a proper body for him, and attached funds. Strictly for financial insurance, he formally adopted her under his assumed name. Nyah Adebayo become Nyah Toussaint, daughter of the early tech pioneer Yves Toussaint.

After her schooling was complete and she'd learned the ropes of [in his estimation] cultured society well enough to put on a proper mimicry, the pair packed up shop and moved to the United States, covering their tracks.

For the last several years, both he and Nyah have been staples in Erzulie's coven. He has played the part of obedient pet demon in the eyes of the coven, while encouraging Nyah to take the dirtiest, least desirable assignments or chores that needed doing. The intent was to garner Erzulie's favor, and gain himself clout in the paranormal scene in New Orleans. His plan was, and possibly remains, to ultimately take Erzulie's identity for his own and bask in her grand reputation. Nyah is unaware of this. For the time being, Dantalian occupies a former MARSOC sniper he discovered via a newspaper article about the returning soldier six months ago. The look and capability of the man stokes his vanity enough to temper his ambition, for the time being.

---
Lee's last memory is of the inside of a taxi in Nashville. In his first week back stateside, half a dozen friends he'd not seen since his last deployment took him out for a 'welcome home' night on the town. By some miracle, he caught the eye of one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen while making a fool of himself over an atrocious game of darts. She thought it was funny: she teased, she laughed, she wasn't interested in empty conversation, and that accent. There was something strange but magnetic about her. She had the same raw, broken glass edge he'd seen in the eyes of kids in Aleppo. The adjustment coming home after rotation was always hard. Everything was too clean, convenient, prepackaged and individually wrapped. Nothing felt real to him, but Nyah did. They were headed to her place at the end of the night when he blacked out, despite being conservative with his drink. [She gave him horse tranquilizer] Each time he surfaces, he believes he's just woken up from that experience. Farraday is currently registered as a Missing Person in Tennessee and abroad.