App for Drift Fleet

[nomercyshot]

OUT OF CHARACTER:
Name/Handle: Jchan
Contact: PM to Percy's journal | PP to vampydirector
Reference: Maggie~
Other characters: n/a

IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III (but his friends call him Percy)
Character journal: nomercyshot
Series name: Critical Role
Canon notes: Canonically: Partway through ep 95 of Campaign 1 (which is a year-break episode detailing what the characters did in that time. Specifically, when the others are off in the Feywild and he's alone in Whitestone. He'll have accomplished most of the things listed there, with bigger Whitestone projects left unfinished.) But he's also a CRAU coming in with memories from witchywillows that came after that.

Species: Human

History: (Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for anyone catching up/wanting to watch CR's First Campaign.)
Percy's life was forever changed the day the Briarwoods visited his home of Whitestone years ago. After the slaughter of the entire de Rolo family, he managed to escape being further tortured and killed thanks to Cassandra, his youngest sibling. Sadly, she didn't make it. Percy ran away from Whitestone, fell unconscious, and somehow wound up on a fishing boat. The next two years were a blur, except he once dreamed a cloud of smoke offered him vengeance. He accepted, and when he woke, he was inspired to make his first gun, his main weapon of choice.

Eventually, an adventuring group called Vox Machina came upon Percy held in a basement jail cell. He traveled with them since then, getting into many adventures (pre-stream and ep1-85 summaries), including personally for him, learning Cassandra lived, getting revenge on the Briarwoods, and reclaiming Whitestone (ep24-38)! He also finally allowed himself to admit his feelings for another member of VM called Vex'halia, and they began a relationship after years of awkward flirting. (Seriously, he made shit for her and that was his way of flirting. (ep72/78)) And later they found the last person involved in his family's deaths and he forgave her--before she killed him. He was brought back, though the resurrection was difficult (ep67-69), and some time later, he experienced death again but his resurrection was easier that time (ep83).

After that, VM had a few loose ends to wrap up, one of which involved going to the Nine Hells to kill a rakshasha before it revived. In order to obtain safe passage to it, Percy signed a contract with a demon named Ipkesh (ep92) and the assassination was successful.

Finally, with everything done, Percy and VM were able to settle down for a while--which meant meant taking some of the burden off Cassandra and helping to run Whitestone.

That is, until the day he was out in the Parchwood, ready to do some tests, when he found himself in a city far more technologically advanced than anything he'd ever seen in Exandria or any other plane of existence. One where the technology had harmonized with magic as well, no less! Percy had a breakdown initially, thanks to creative overload and jealousy and swearing he'd seen his sister and Vex earlier in the day before he met a girl named Escha and later came across Vax. He got a job at an eccentric shop with an eccentric man, and learned some magic while he was there thanks to a professor willing to put up with him, texts he found, and by pure accident. He also made a couple close friends of the other displaced people from other planes (like Escha and Goofy), and spent a great deal of time with Vax, who had arrived with distressing memories from a time after Percy's (past ep115, the finale of the campaign). When he wasn't working, he was trying to figure out a way to defy the Raven Queen and keep Vax there. He'll never know if he could have been successful or not.

Personality:
On the surface, Percival has the air of a typical nobleman. He's naturally charming and regal with his clear voice, and filled with the best sophisticated manners one can possess and the finest well-spoken, honeyed words a silver tongue can utter when he needs to employ it. He's quiet and observant, and speaks when he has something important to say or add to a conversation. His words are chosen carefully and he'll pause in the middle of a sentence to both place emphasis on what he's saying and to quickly gather his thoughts as he talks. On the flipside, he can come off as snobbish, arrogant, and pompous, and sometimes his own privilege can skew his perspective of a situation, so he doesn't always realize that he's acting the way that he is until someone calls him on it. Often...he knows that he is and probably has turned up those attitudes on purpose for reasons only known to him or purposefully to manipulate someone he doesn't know into doing something he wants.

During the course of a conversation, it'll become apparent very quickly that he's intelligent and very knowledgeable about many things--and that he's not afraid to use said intelligence to his advantage. He can be called upon as a very reliable negotiator (though Scanlan remains the best if trickery is the name of the game), and is the best person to examine contracts/agreements since he can pick out any exploitable loopholes. If they work against him or his friends, he'll point it out and get it fixed so it can have the least possible negative impact on them and still leave them ahead. He knows what he would do (he being a cunning and very clever individual) and if he doesn't like it, he wants it out. However, if it's missing something he deems as necessary or sees that something could be even better, he'll argue for it even if it means upsetting his friends. It may come off as pushing his luck/insane/downright dangerous but the point is that he knows what he's doing and has something in mind. Sometimes that annoys the other party, but ultimately he doesn't care. He's getting what his party needs to accomplish the task set upon them, and nothing will stand in the way of that. He will do what he does for the greater good, and if it means pissing off someone he may never see again, or even friends, then so be it. He reasons that they'll thank him for it later, and maybe forgive him, but he doesn't expect forgiveness. He'll whatever punishment is coming his way.

Naturally, things have a way of backfiring now and again, both socially and literally. Where his intellect and overall creative skills are concerned (weaponry designs, non-weapon inventions, anything that he can tinker), he is extremely narcissistic. They are unique and the best because he made them. If something breaks, and his guns and inventions have a high chance of breaking because they're the first of their kind in the entire world of Exandria, he will never blame himself. He'll instead get angry at his tools and the broken thing itself, chocking it all up to bad luck--not any kind of flaws very much present in the make and construction. He also considers himself to be the only adult in the room (no matter how many people are there, or how many surpass the twenty-plus-odd years he's been alive), and also the smartest one around. Spoilers: he isn't, but thinks he is, and becomes very irritated if he's proven otherwise or someone acts like he isn't as intelligent as he is.

His family life growing up certainly played many parts in forming who he is now. He's a weird, lonely kid who grew up to be a weird and sometimes lonely guy. One wouldn't think he would be, being one of seven children, but being third in line, he knew he never was going to rule Whitestone and wasn't taught any of the finer skills one would need for such duties. So even at a young age, he was on his own, reading, studying, or sketching, and creating in his own little workshop. He never really gained the important skills one would need to rule, and he certainly never gains the social skills to flirt with women or anyone he was vaguely interested in because of this isolation (though he's tried, bless him). Thankfully he doesn't have to worry about that particular skill set now, but he can still be awkward regardless. He spent ages in his family's library eating all that he could up, from science texts, books about engineering to fairy tales and books all about the Feywild and random things in between so he's no slouch in the knowledge department. Hell, he taught himself Celestial and became fluent in it purely because it was fun to him. (Think of Celestial as D&D's version of Latin.)

The de Rolos weren't the most loving people in the sense of being open and supportive with their love; they were more of the tough-love, distant sort, so being warm and huggy isn't something he's used to, nor does he generally talk about things that are bothering him without being prompted. Often, he'll just keep thoughts and secrets to himself, and selfishly so. He'll reveal things when he's ready to, or keep running from it, like his running away from his titled duty for so long. He's now the oldest living de Rolo in Whitestone but passed the duties of actually running things to his sister and a council of leaders within the city, and he's more than happy to let someone else deal with all of that. It has kept him from facing the guilty emotions he has even just looking at his sister, but of anyone, he knows how heavy the weight of responsibility can be, and he's forcing himself to stay in Whitestone to help rebuild. It's a promise he made and damnit, he's not going to break it.

Behind this mask of a noble know-it-all, there's an individual who is very much broken. It's a fact that he is very much aware of thanks to a goddess flat out telling him that he always has been. This is a person who is a pragmatist and naturalist at heart, who has never put any stock in gods or things that could happen without a means of easily and readily dissecting its way of working, who purposefully sought out a god just to ask her if he can be fixed. His personal beliefs didn't change either. Sure he talked to a god, but so what? He knows he can't be fixed, not even by a god, and he recognizes the irony that he's a tinkerer who can't fix something. He knows he's a mentally unhealthy wreck of a human. On the plus side, he's gotten more healthy and is far from the person he was before facing the Briarwoods, but he has a long way to go. He still has a lot of issues that he hasn't taken the time to address, like self-loathing, deep-seated extreme guilt due to everything he's done, trauma over what happened to him and his family (the reason why his hair turned from brown to white. Hello extreme stress!), trauma from his two deaths and all the shit Vox Machina has faced over the years, trauma from Orthax living inside him for a number of years and the lasting mark it left on his soul, and a pervasive melancholy and sorrow that clings to his very being because of all the losses he's experienced, his lost innocence, and all the people he's killed--to name a few things that can keep him up at night and flavor his nightmares.

And then there's his issues with dealing with anger. He can be calm and collected, and have a plan for how to strategize his moves in a fight, but all of that goes out the window if someone is massively hurt or dies, and this intensifies if it's Vex who goes down. He has a chance of becoming either sloppy and panicky, or hyperfocused on the target of his burning ire, depending on how well he's able to concentrate. His frustrations have led him to exhausting himself and working to all hours of the night over something that sometimes won't even work. Plus his impulsiveness has had both positive and negative ramifications in his life, like he finally kissed Vex, but he also randomly attacked a tentatively ally to expose their true nature because why not. He will do things, especially in combat, because, "this''ll be fun". He has a high chance of his weapons breaking every time he goes to take a shot, so what does he have to lose? If he doesn't act right now, nothing will happen, so he acts to see what will. For some, it's a point of no return; for him, it's his, "fuck it, let's do this" moment.

And if he is betrayed? The gods help whoever did. He will not soon forget the betrayal. He doesn't handle it well, becoming angry and cold, and besides, he's the one with the money to potentially hire anyone to have that problem taken care of and the person should've known better, but he won't actually follow through with any threat like that. Not unless he has to, anyway. He's not murder happy petty, just..."I've had my feelings hurt and this is how I'm choosing to deal with it" kind of petty. The only people he would actually seek out and kill is anyone with similar inventions to his guns and people who utilize black powder in a similar way. He would want to see how they did it, and then he would end up shooting them dead. He's too vain to think someone else could come up with it, but terrified of seeing it go out into the world, knowing all too well what copies of his own designs has already done. He would rather it be destroyed.

Needless to say, he's very conscious of the dark side that he has. He blames the betrayal of an old teacher of his, Professor Anders, for murder entering his heart the day his family was slaughtered. With his guns, he's killed so many people and creatures in his journeys with VM and he always felt a rush when they died, though not any more. So many souls were sent to Orthax because of him, and still are when he takes a life using a particular gun, called Animus, that he keeps using despite being cursed. It's one of his ways of punishing himself for what he does and has done, like some kind of perverse form of atonement. (He's also Hexed himself, but it's not clear if he still does this.) Doesn't stop him from being an absolute bastard at times, though. He can be downright cruel if he puts his mind to it. Instead he's usually just a snarky bastard to anyone and everyone if he's in the mood, or a troll taking the piss out of someone who either does or doesn't deserve it. His is a dry (and sometimes wry) sarcastic wit, with a side of unironic gallows humor and cynicism that people have to put up with from him. It all helps to mask how terrified he may be at the time, though really...he doesn't need an excuse to be sarcastic asshole. That's just him. And he relies on Vex and his friends to pull him back from ever getting too dark. He could easily veer off into a darker place with the wrong influences, but there's always something or someone there to prevent that and center him once more.

One of the worst things that can happen is him losing control of the situation. Nothing accentuates this more than when he's forced into a situation where he's rendered useless in a battle and has to watch. Even doing what little he can just makes him feel even more helpless and angry. He can beg someone who can do something to do something and try to defend them, but that's it. It's all on them, not him. Feeling naked in situations like that is something he hates. When he can't do what's in his nature, it is so frustrating and frightens him. It's that need to fix and tinker. It all stems from having this need to understand how things function, and this is a constant battle he has with anything magical. If he can't understand how it works, or if anyone fails to explain to him in a way he can understand as a non-magical person, he will ultimately dismiss it and want nothing to do with it. Thanks to ol' Orthax, though, he does have a little magic that he can do. and having it bothers him sometimes...but not enough for him to never utilize it and sometimes he's actually okay with it. Ideally, he would like it gone, his small magical abilities are stuck with him forever. Sometimes. It's useful in combat, and has saved their asses in a pinch. And he's perfectly fine with friends' magical abilities and respects what they can do (they're the ones who really can save them all from biting the dust), though he can never understand how it's all done. That said, he's wary of the day when magic disappears for good. He won't be able to fix it or bring it back, and frankly he's okay of magic leaving the world entirely. He wants to be prepared with non-magical means to accomplish the same kinds of things that the different magics in the world already provide.

When things become a bit too much for him, he is known to have varying degrees of panic attacks. Some are just nervous breakdowns. Some because there is way too much for his mind to process and he needs to force himself to sit down and process it while he has a moment to. And some because he's being placed into situations that scare him that badly that he'll do something completely random on a whim until his mind has come back and he can function again. He's capable of keeping them mostly at bay when until it's safe to, but sometimes, he will just panic if he's doing something that he's naturally fearful of. Extreme heights, for example, is something he doesn't do well with, but he's gotten marginally better with it when he's with Vex on her broom, on a flying carpet, or stuck to a wall/ceiling with his Boots of Spider Climbing. Really though, he just needs a minute to rock in a corner for a bit and then he'll be fine. Actual processing of the breakdown''s causes can happen later when there's time to face them, but venting them out a bit helps him stay functional.

Deep down, he's still a pompous prat, but he's kind and generous when he wants to be, both with his time and things he creates for other people. And he can be oddly sentimental, being the one to create and carve a memorial to all of those lost in a town completely sacked by an ancient black dragon, and medals made from the scales of all the dragons VM has defeated. He has his moments of optimism. He's a much happier person now that he has Vex as a girlfriend; she complements him very well, and the sheer fact that he is that much healthier is all testament to her influence in his life. He's come a long way. He even tries to joke with people, making random comments and observations that don't always make immediate sense until what he's said has had a chance to register in their minds. He isn't always an asshole. He can be a big nerd about some things, and an even bigger nerd about others, and will find himself bonding with others who are big nerds, with added points if they also like to tinker and invent. He's even trusting people a bit more now too though he isn't without his paranoia that something could still happen or that an ally could still turn on them. (After all, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three or more times, hi, we're Vox Machina and some of us are forever distrusting of a box of ashes.)

Plus it's not like he actively seeks out evil like Orthax anymore either! He just...happens to be an evil magnet, which is not his fault. Nope. So what if he has a contract with a demon? He knows that he never will invoke the last two pacts, and trusts himself to not use it. Better him than anyone else in VM for varying reasons, and they made it through the City of Dis in one piece so it was worth obtaining it.

But as much of a cold-hearted bastard he can be, his love for his found family of VM, his love for Vex, his love for his sister (difficult as it is for him to express) and their home is what drives him forward. Even the friends he made in Witchy Willow. He may be a terrible person who does terrible things, but he has love on his side, and people who trust him with their lives in spite of everything horrible and awful that he's done in the past. That is something he values so highly; it's what keeps him alive.

Abilities:
In D&D terms, Percy is a level 17 Gunslinger (which is a martial archetype for the Fighter class). So, not only is he skilled with the very firearms that he invented and constructed, he is skilled with simple weapons, and martial weapons. He's taken to actually utilizing a sword in his normal kit (instead of just wearing one for decoration) so he has something to attack with if anything gets nice and close. His guns are even more dangerous up close and leave him at a severe disadvantage as a ranged attacker, so having a melee back-up is for the best. Well, not for his opponent. When he has the distance, Percy is a very excellent marksman, and will utilize different kinds of shots to take down the enemy. As a high-level gunslinger, Percy has become very fast with both delivering his attacks, reloading, and repairing his guns if they've misfired, and can deliver more shots with an Action Surge that lets him get off another entire round of shots if he's feeling like being real nasty. He'll use abilities that can increase his damage output if he doesn't misfire, he can push enemies back with the sheer force of his shot, and he's learned how to pull off trickshots that can knock weapons out of enemies' hands or cripple an enemy with certain shots to the body.

On his person, he typically has a number of weapons and equipment that he can utilize in and out of battle (but all or most will likely be taken away when he arrives.)
-[CONFISCATED] His guns: Retort (a pistol with four shots), the Animus pepperbox (pistol with six shots, and hits with additional psychic damage; is cursed and can harm HIM if it misfires), and Bad News (a scoped sniper rifle that packs a wallop.) (Note: all of these are like...circa late 1700's/early 1800s in general design and tech. So all "bullets" are actually musket shots that need black powder to be fired. He has both on him, including a bag of nicer gunpowder from Escha.)
-[CONFISCATED] Diplomacy (an electrically engineered and charged glove that if used against an opponent, can stun them for a bit and give them a nasty shock. And it's also equipped with a silence spell applied right to the glove that Percy can activate once every long rest so it can recharge. It makes it so no sound can be heard or made within the small bubble but it prevents those from within the bubble from making/hearing any sounds either.)
-[CONFISCATED] His swords: Dragon Slayer longsword (which deals extra damage to dragons), a Rapier +1, and a silvered rapier with his family crest on it.
-[CONFISCATED] Cabal's Ruin (a very special magic-devouring cloak)
-Boots of Spider Climbing (special boots that don't require attunement that allow the wearer to walk on walls/ceilings at their normal speed. It's because of these beloved boots that he's since attached magnets all over his person so his clothes stay in place.)
-Gloves of Missile Snaring (currently not attuned, but when they are, he has a chance of catching attacks out of the air, or at least lessening their potential damage.)
-Earring of Whisper (Think of it as a magical private walkie-talkie that's in the shape of an earring that he wears at all times. Right now though, it really is just an earring since no one else will have matching one that can communicate with it.)
-Amulet of the shield (an attuned amulet that increases his armor class stat)
-A plague doctor-esque mask (once used for hiding his identity and for blocking any harmful substances in the air, but now just the latter.)
-Tinker's Tools (The basic kit he needs for repairing his weapons and minor creations, but for things like making ammo or anything else, he needs a lab.), [CONFISCATED] bags of ammo for his guns (these are essentially musket balls), [CONFISCATED] vials of black powder, [CONFISCATED] the aforesaid bag of gunpowder, a couple basic healing potions, a book of basic magic spells he found in the streets, and a lot of notebooks of differing sizes plus writing utensils (for sketching new designs, taking notes about things he needs to fix after tests or a battle, etc.)
-A special ring that is near and dear to his heart, signifying a connection he's been keeping secret.
-A basic smartphone (akin to an Android). No longer has reception.

Percy also had gained access to a little magic both back home and in Witchy Willows.
-Canon magic:
-As a Magic Initiate, he knows a warlock spell called Hex, which looks like a black cloud of smoke that circles the target, that he can cast once (and can only use it again once he's had a long rest), and two cantrips called Friends and Minor Illusion that he can use as much as he wants, but only actually uses them in certain situations. He will only use Hex on an enemy that is the biggest and most dangerous one he could be facing that day.

-From Witchy Willows:
-He learned a few things while he was there like Darkvision (basically, he could see in the dark despite being human for the first time EVER) and learned how to enchant gunpowder so when it was applied to a drawing and then set off in a firework, it'd produce the image within the explosion. He also learned Mage Hand, and it's this ability that he'll be carrying over with him.

He can also speak three languages: common, elvish, and celestial (think of it as D&D's Latin).

Augment Skillset: Security!

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