Merlin's Order of Defense
CHARACTER INFORMATIONCharacter Name: Rico Draugs.Age: 21 years old.Gender: Male.Education: Durmstrang, '35.Residence: Groundskeeper Villa, Castle DraugsDivision:42nd Broom Battalion. Rico is a magically skilled boy, but he is also a good fighter with a wand. His career has always been Cursebreaker, those who remove harmful spells from objects and archaeological sites. His Cursebreaker skills go both ways, giving him the unique insight into creating spells for protective or malicious intentions. His skills are best suited in Spell-Creation & Research, leaving the Codebreaking to the adorable ladies.Rank:Major General. Rico does not have decade of age and experience behind him to support his position as Major General, instead he has his intelligence, wit, magical skill and the underestimated ability to completely detach himself from any and all of the men and women under him. As a 21 year old Durmstrang graduate with NEWTS in Dark Arts, the boy has a high charms level and a strong footing in Divination Studies. He was the first to receive such formal education in many years and has grown very appreciative of what intelligence and strategy can accomplish. His lack of physical strength also gives him motivation to climb the more intelligent ranks -- why fight, when you can tell somebody else to do it?Specialty:Spell Creator/Researcher. The only real world experience that Rico can flaunt to his advantage is the experience as a Cursebreaker. Through the years he studied old - sometimes ancient - magic he started to develop his own magical theories to research, but the funding of such research never happened. With the Merlin’s Order of Defense, he has the opportunity to put his skills and knowledge of dark and protective magic on the research table in an attempt to create something that is not necessarily dark or protection, but useful to the nation and the advancement of the other Divisions. As a Spell Creator, Rico will try and push the full potential of any kind of magic he gets his hand on. Even magic that others might consider too dark to be used by the Wizard’s Alliance. Requested Magical Levels: (see here on how to do this)If you want levels above the usual 32 total, please fill out and submit the Special Request form here.- Charms: 16.
- Divination: 11.
- Transfiguration: 8.
- Summoning: 8.
Note: Higher levels were approved by Alastair Grimm when Rico was made, not too long ago.Please list any other characters you already have at the site:Astrid Chaucer & her Manic Menagerie of Abused Characters.Biography: (300 words minimum.)Rico is your typical spawn of the Romanian Draugs Branch, separated from the head families and shown a life that even the commoners looked down on. They had the numbers on their side, with the majority of the family spread out across the country’s coastline working in small Wizarding Pockets to assist Valerius Draugs’ business ventures. Most of the Romanian Cousins, as they are generalized, spend their lives working in warehouses and as of recently, working to fill the orders of the Wizard’s Alliance.
His direct family remains pure, while most of the relatives around them are diluted with Muggleborn and Halfblood ties. Rico is one of the few with the name in Romania that can trace their purity to the source of their name, he will never forget his station as the bastion of purity in the festering commons.
From a young age, his intelligence was taken into consideration. Very rarely did one of the Romanian Cousins show enough potential to warrant a legitimate education, especially with the tight budget that the head family allowed them access too. Trading away some of their liberties, Rico’s family was able to send the boy to Durmstrang Institute.
The first in his family to graduate, he chased a career in Cursebreaking. It was sponsored by Valerius himself. It was useful to the family, ensuring that the goods they supplied and demanded were legitimate and not cursed by dark or protective magic. Both were seen as bad for trade purposes. Rico was put to work immediately.
His life had always seen poverty, his family lived on very limited food and rations from the family and all of his brothers being very hard worked in the family business to make up for it. Their cousins had life a little bit better, but none of them had seen legitimate education such as Rico had. Ambition was nurtured, but his lack of empathy for his entire family had always concerned him.
Rico had never been concerned that he was apathetic to their feelings, but he had been concerned that they might discover just how detached he was from his own bloodline. He was smart and he knew how to get around it, faking a lot of his smiles and frowns for the audience around him.
With his career as the Draugs’ personal Cursebreaker becoming vital to the family’s less-than-legitimate trade ventures, Rico and his family started to see the shimmering side of coin. The head family had started to acknowledge the boy’s service and skill, his family started to live with feasts and house elves.
His family started to adore the changes to their life, but Rico was impartial to the change. It had given him a taste of wealth, but only a fraction of what the head family received on a daily basis.
Shortly before January 1939, Rico set his sights on Britain and travelled – with the intentions of staying – to the larger Wizarding Power. Only a few days into his stay, martial law was declared and he found himself stranded and presented with an opportunity to scheme against the family that had paid his way all these years.
There was the option to return to Romania, but he knew that the poverty was going to return quickly now that a war was brewing in the world. The gold was in London, Rico was going to stay near the resource he could count. As abundant as his mother’s love was, he count not physically count it nor could he exchange it for anything he needed in his life.
It was redundant to him. Forgotten.
With the Merlin's Order of Defense demanding young participants and Rico officially being a British citizen, he has no choice but to enlist his services. Perhaps, there might be spoils of war that he can claim for himself. Strictly under the table.Roleplay:The sounds of the wizarding war were inescapable; even the bunkers were filled with the crackles and pops of offensive and defensive spell casting. Light from the spells bounced and flashed off of every surface, illuminated everything, making hiding hard, eyes sore, and sleep hard to come by.
Daniel twisted on the thin mattress he'd been laying on, his hands covering his ears as he tried, somewhat in vain, to block out the shouts of his fellow soldiers, of the enemies, drawing ever closer for the last four days. The last meal he'd had, had been some awfully plain mix of rice and beans and it settled, uncomfortable in his growling stomach.
He closed his eyes and thought of Meryl. Of his girl at home, all brunette curls and red lipstick. Her letters sat safe in the pocket of his khaki uniform, by his chest, almost over his heart and his hand flew to them as he wished.
"Man down! Move! Move!"
A good night's sleep was hard to come by on the front; he had a cruel reminder of this more often than not, and his eyes flew open to greet the sight which was far more familiar than he'd like it to be: Two men, dressed as he was in well-starched Khaki, levitating a fellow soldier, a man, a victim in between them.
He sprung into action; Their division knew, by now, to clear space to allow the healer corps to do their work. As he stood, turning to pull away his bedding and leave the surface of his mattress clear, he bumped into someone and fell sideways, spilling a cup of cold, milk-less tea over an important-looking map in the process and his own wand dropped, un-noticed, from his hoister on his forearm.
He groaned.
Roleplaying ReplyThe Military was never a path that Rico thought he could be willingly walking, but circumstances had turned in the most peculiar fashion and he was not going to be washed away by the current. There were better ways to fight against the storm that struggle in a current, only to find yourself being dragged out to sea faster. Why fight it? Why not swim willingly along with the current and focus on keeping yourself on the surface.
Rico stood, hovering over a series of maps as some of the other men tried to get sleep. Which was not the most likely of outcomes, there was too much noise and tension in the atmosphere. If the sounds of spells ever stopped, the crude cracks and snaps in the air, then it was a warning sign that something worse was about the happen. Rico was too cynical to even consider the end of battle, it seemed like the end was never going to come.
The only thing coming was more suffering and pain, which Rico reminded himself he was supposed to feel guilty about. The people around him were not just statistics, but to Rico they were nothing more than an extra paper soldier folded and placed in front of the enemy. Paper could be folded again and again, until it was too damaged and had to be thrown away. New paper soldiers could be folded and that was how he looked at the sleep deprived men around him; half done.
“Man down! Move! Move!”
Rico looked up from his papers apathetically.
Some of them were closer to being discarded than others.
A violent, although obviously unintentional, shove from another man moving out of the way -- his maps ruined in front of him. Rico had nothing useful on them, he was just trying to reconsider the perimeter of their defensive magic. There were other maps, but there were hardly other paper soldiers he could bring in to replace the falling one.
Rico glanced at the man who had ruined the maps.
“I don’t believe your groaning is necessary, perhaps you should reconsider exactly where you are.” He paused, “You were not woken from your slumber five minutes earlier for classes. This is a little bit bigger than that.” By his own standards, not by much.
“Besides, they probably need help. Let’s see what we can do for this… wounded one.”
The origami before the crafter, was it too late to fold it back in place? Or did those creases have more integrity. Time would tell, Rico would listen. As he stepped closer, his foot tapped against a wooden object on the floor and drew his attention. He pointed to it silently, before looking up at the other.
“Mr.
Whatever your name is, is this yours?”
Rico was calm. Rico was distant. This was just work. They meant nothing.
