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[citygrit]

NAME: Alexander Cromwell Wolfgang
AGE: 35
D.O.B.: October 19th
RACE: Human, Irish/German

Alexander is an original character from a series of novels (The Days be Done Series; Book I: Culling the Crows, Book II: The Lyrebird Lies, Book III: Song of Sparrow, Book IV: The Blackbirds Beget, and Book V: Whip-poor-will), novellas (There is Only One Dirt-Road to Perdition For You, Diary For A Moderately Sane Man), and short stories (Fraught Heart, Excellia Rush), that have been written since around 2001.


Personality:

Alexander was brought up in a well off household, so he isn't short of any civility, and he isn't incapable of showing respect to those he feels deserve it. However, much of those manners sometimes won't show subsequent to the many years he had spent homeless, so he tends to switch back and forth from his conceit to his punkish street smarts. Despite being a fairly well educated man, he has a habit of speaking in broken English on purpose, given where he had spent his adolescence on the streets. It was method of self-preservation, of nothing else. He's fairly able to adapt to conversation depending on who he's talking to. Although when nervous or flustered, much of that emotion is hard to keep to himself and he is known for having a foul, if not colorful use of the English language. When he goes off on ranting tirades, his thick, Southern accent becomes impossible for him to cover up.

On the surface, he comes off as selfish, oftentimes putting his own needs before the needs of others. For this reason, he's less likely to ask or accept help, as he has a habit of steering conversations elsewhere on such matters. God forbid anyone tries to help him with his sickness or fix his physical mutilation, as he will be fast to lose his composure with them. It's not that he doesn't care — he just doesn't know how to help them, and has no desire to be placed into anyone's debt. He comes from a place where there are no such things as a Good Samaritan. If a situation were too get too perilous, he will retreat without a second thought. He isn't the type to really stand up for (or to) his friends in extreme situations in which he is likely to get killed, so don't expect him to be taking a bullet for you anytime soon. To Alexander, it's every man for himself, no matter what.

Regardless of that, Alexander will sometimes act in a suicidal manner. It shows in his careless behaviors and rash decision making. In other times, he's too frightened to die. His attitude towards death is erratic. He would rather live in fear than die in shame. For this, he could be considered the very definition of flippant, as his obscure philosophies of the afterlife leaves him indecisive on what he really wants now. At the end of the day, Alexander Wolfgang is simply not a good person. He is a murderer and a terrorist, and while he isn't one to flaunt these things as fact, he accepts that this is who and what he is. He would be lying to himself if he were to deny it.

That doesn't mean he is without standards. Alexander is not someone who is at risk of going on a rampage. There are two things which he cannot, under any circumstances, abide by: Rape, and the harm of children and animals.

Hypocrisy is his habit. Debauchery was his tradition. These days, Alexander just wants to find a place where no one will bother him. Many would describe him as crazy, with a short patience for cryptics. Though clever, he isn't the type who can easily pick up riddles. He gets easily flustered when people beat about the bush. He doesn't waste his time trying to figure out vague messages and would rather cut to the chase, although he's not completely incapable of comprehending subtexts. He expresses his frustration through bitter sarcasm and black humor, but he is by no means a violent man. Or so he appears...

Alexander isn't a fighter, and while he's fine with the use of knives and guns, he isn't very skillful with them. On top of that, he has a track record for stealing, hot wiring cars and being a horrible, irresponsible driver. Conversely, he is an exceptionally fast and agile runner as he had, on numerous occasions, been forced to flee crime scenes. His height and scrawny build helped him hide away in tight places in the past. Judging by his stature alone, Alexander is obviously not that big of an eater, let alone one to take care of his physical health. He can get by fine on one meal a day. This has made him look very gaunt in a very unflattering, very unattractive way.

As mentioned before, Alexander is not the most mentally stable guy in the world. He's quite the opposite. To say that he's either bipolar or paranoid schizophrenic is not too far from the truth. He's still somewhat suicidal, although in theory he's too afraid to go through with it. In the past, he had tried petty (if not creative) attempts to kill himself, such as with tubocurarine, and any other kind of medical supplies stolen from hospitals. His past use of drugs could also be considered a result as to why he is so mentally unhinged. That, and the fact that he is victim to myriad traumas throughout his life. Despite his demeanor, his temperament, and his forced will to live, Alexander hates life. He loathes it. This not only leads him to a penchant for self-destruction, but the destruction and ruin of life in general. He has no regard for property, and seriously doesn't give a shit if you just bought that nice, half-million dollar Rolex — all the more reason to crush it with a two-by-four!

He is a prolific firebug as well. On top of his high education, Alexander is very knowledgeable in a wide array of explosives and flammable chemicals. He enjoys the small of napalm and gunsmoke. In Ophelia, he was a renown terrorist, causing ruin to the remains of the government before throwing the whole damn system into anarchy. Alexander loves this, too. He strives off of chaos and disorder, because deep down, he enjoys watching people suffer. Humanity as a whole deserves it, as far as he's concerned. We're all on a one-way road to self-damnation, and God help him if he doesn't help us get there. Of course, he'll continue to hide this under the guise of a pleasant smile and casual conversation.

Above all else, Alexander takes care with his words. His college days were spent studying narrative writing and journalism, on the side of studying physics, philosophy, and quantum mechanics. He wanted to use words to speak a kind of bleak truth, as well as twist it to his own advantage. He is an exceptional bluffer. If panicked, however, he will babble a lot, talking too much if only for the sake of hearing his own voice. When frightened, he'll just ramble on about quantum mechanics and things he learned in college as a coping mechanism.

When it comes to parties and raves, he is a social butterfly. Get a few drinks in and he's the most agreeable person in the world. Which also means he's not the most responsible alcoholic; a bad habit that runs in his family, it seems. Drugs, on the other hand, is an entirely other story altogether. If he were ten years younger, Alexander would try any kind of drugs he could get his hands on, including a series of obscure and not very known brands on the black market. In his adulthood, however, he just strays from any more mind-altering substances. Not because of his well-being, though.

You wouldn't think it, but he has a genuine soft spot for children. He never did have children, neither is he capable of having any. He is, however, an uncle, with a niece that he adored very much. Alexander just admires children for their innocence, given how he lost his own at such a young age by no fault other than his own. For this reason, he doesn't hold much self-pity for himself these days — not like he used to. In spite of his current state of health, he really doesn't view it in a prospect of woe. The disease he has is more karmic if anything.

Used to the joke being on him, Alexander comes off as pretty shameless at times. He doesn't have any problems with putting himself out there in embarrassing situations. He also has no qualms with his height, so he'll just shrug off "shorty" comments as well; he's already heard them all. Any attempts at humiliating him doesn't really seem to work, as he generally just backfires by agreeing with you anyway. Want to insult his good name? Go ahead. He doesn't have one, anyway.

Another interesting thing to note is that Alexander is vaguely religious, though he does hold a strong grudge against what he calls God. As such, he considers himself to be a "non-practicing Catholic", feeling strongly to the beliefs as they were what his mother raised him with. As such, he views religion as his final connection to his mother, even if he doesn't technically believe in most of it. His travels with Ravine have led him to the realization that there is, in fact, such a thing as life after death. Just that it may not be much of a life, after all.

Recently, Alexander was diagnosed with an unknown illness that has started eating away at his organs. His symptoms include lightheadedness, numbness, flesh decay, excessive sleeping/lethargy, migraines, loss of consciousness, coughing and vomiting blood. Doctors told him that there currently isn't enough time for them to come up with a diagnosis, let alone a cure. He is dying, and there's nothing they can do to stop it. They can either keep him in a lab until they find a treatment, or he can just give up. At this point, Alexander has chosen the latter, because to him, it's "about damn fuckin' time I kicked it".

So it goes.

Appearance:

First impressions would reveal nothing short of a homely-looking man. He looks like he could have once been attractive, or at the very least remotely so if he bothered to take care to his own health. As it is, though, he's a very emaciated skeleton of a man. His ribs jut out from his torso in a disturbingly anorexic, highly unappealing beyond-words way. His arms and legs are like withered strings attached to his body, his shrunken skin reveal high cheekbones. (In spite of his lightweight appearance, however, he can hold his alcohol intake pretty well.)

For this, he wears absolutely no article of clothing that leaves his body uncovered, save for his hands and face. He wears turtlenecks, jackets, and long-legged jeans to promise that, with regular running shoes or sneakers. This would be because of his body that had been utterly disfigured during the Ophelian Riots. Scars and scratches cover his body, with chunks of meat taken out of him. Some muscle tissue is bore open. Moreover, he has a metal plate covering his right ribcage that had been nearly ripped apart entirely. The plate protects the ribcage that would otherwise be exposed without it. An outdated example of Alexander's scars and body build can be found here.

Another metal plate covers the left side of his forehead. To anyone else it looks like a blondish-brown patch, but if the bangs were pulled back, the edge of the plate covering his forehead would be seen. This plate is the only thing protecting his brain since an incident when he was a kid. Because the hair covering the plate is fake, it did not change color. The blondish-brown bit of hair was just the color that didn't change from when he was a kid, as the hair color darkened as he got older. Additionally, one other notable trait would be Alexander's height: He's a very short man, just barely 5'3" tall.

While German with a clearly German name, Alexander inherited more of his mother's Irish traits, with his dark, reddish hair and green eyes. Dark rings encircle them, along with the fact that his skin has a very dry, very dead feel to it. Some flakes of dead skin peel off his face. Although whether or not if this has something to do with his history of drug abuse, malnutrition, the disease that's claiming his life, or all of the above is a debatable matter.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
ABILITIES

- In terms of powers of any kind, Alexander is just a normal guy. His family does have a particular curse that has been bonded to his bloodline, but that's not a fortunate trait by any means, and is neither here nor there in any game setting. Moreover he is an ordinary guy who tends to get caught up in extraordinary situations throughout his life. Weird things happen all around him all the time, to the point where he's pretty casual about it now.

- In spite of the way he talks, he's an unusually intelligent man, with much knowledge in the field of twentieth century pop culture (literature, film, music in particular), as well as physics, quantum mechanics, and philosophy. Since he majored in journalism, he considers himself a writer.

- Alexander does, however, have an odd penchant for pretending to be less intelligent than he actually is. He purposefully acts like a fool, makes an idiot out of himself at the expense of others so that they underestimate him. Alexander is a survivalist, for as suicidal as he behaves at times. He adapts to live, and is an incredibly great actor. He can easily hide his thick, southern accent if he really wanted to, and even fake others. But the whole southern dialect just continues to work with the act.

- He's an exceptionally fast runner. His fighting method is more of a barroom brawl style -- very sloppy and with no real patterns to his actions. One thing about when he does fight, is that he switches, like becoming an entirely other person, almost animalistic. Survival instinct kicks in, and he'll fight to the death if he has to. He has used the metal plate in his head for an effective headbutt on occasion.

- In Ophelia, Alexander used to be a terrorist. He's a firebug with the hots for things that go boom, which he specialized in. He isn't so open about this anymore, but some of that hasn't left him.

- While not spectacular at it, Alexander also plays the acoustic guitar. It's safe to assume that he has a hoarse singing voice, though.

- Alexander has tried to die on several occasions. He's suicidal. However, be it considered dumb luck or some other force at stake here... he's not capable of dying. Not in a self-inflicted sense. If he tries to shoot himself with a fully loaded pistol, it won't fire. If he tries to hang himself, the rope will snap. Take pills, he'll puke it back up. Cut himself, the blade will dull and... Well, you get the idea.

WEAKNESSES

- Alexander does not have any powers. Not only that, but he is also very physically weak, and can be easily thrown down if someone tries.

- Regardless of his inability to off himself, this doesn't mean that he is completely incapable of being killed. He's just a man, after all.

- Because of Reene's hidden ability to manipulate Alexander's will, he suffers a "trigger phrase". After the entity possessing her repeatedly told him to kill her, this phrase will drive him into a psychotic rage. If someone asks him to kill them, he is compelled to do so, entering a fugue state and having no memory of the incident after the fact.

- Reene had further demonstrated her ability to sway Alexander's will by forcing him off of his drug addiction. There are still times where he suffers the pangs of withdrawal, but considers himself clean. Years afterwards, the drugs really messed up his health. He makes up for this by excessive drinking. This may or may not be a better alternative, really.

- One thing that is worthy to mention, however: Ten years ago, Alexander supposedly killed Death (AKA Ravine). By doing so, she was assimilated into a part of him. Over the years, symptoms of a bizarre disease began taking a toll on Alexander's body. Doctors have tried to study it, but have come to no discernible conclusion as to how to treat his illness. Supposedly, however, he has a limited time left to live. Six months, a year, two years, they don't know. Long story short, the disease itself is Ravine, coexisting with Alexander's body. This cripples him more than it offers him any abilities. His organs are rotting, but somehow the entity inside of him keeps him alive. Because of the nature of his illness, there is no cure. The sickness itself is practically a force of will that will cling to Alexander, which is probably best not to be tampered with. It isn't contagious, but just don't get curious with his guttyworks. There might be some adverse effects. On that note, it is probably not a good idea for any vampire characters to try and feed off of him. Unless if they want to get really sick in the process.

- There are a few symptoms of Alexander's aforementioned disease that hinder him a great deal. Among them are lightheadedness, lethargy, vomiting and coughing up blood and tissue are among them. His body reveals itself to be within a slow process of rigor mortis.

- The worst symptom of Alexander's disease is his inability to feel pain. Or, rather, it's significantly dulled. He has on numerous occasions burned himself on the stove without realizing it, which contribute to the many scars and injuries he sports on his mutilated body.

- Lastly, as if the disease isn't bad enough? Alexander also suffers with a benign tumor in his brain, due to the Link operation. This, however, is not so much of a weakness, but a small note to make in case if it ever comes up with the medical team. Because. You know. There's a tumor. Metal thing. In his brain.

Inventory:

- (5) 20 pack of cigarettes
- (1) zippo
- (1) butterfly knife
- (1) denim jacket
- (5) turtlenecks (each of them either black or blue)
- (4) jeans
- (2) pairs of running shoes
- (1) acoustic guitar