![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
☞ Player Information;
Name: Sy
Player Journal: N/A
Age: 21
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
serendipite
Other characters currently played at Ryan's Gulch: N/A
☞ Character Information;
Character Name: Colonel Sebastian Moran
Canon: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles
OU or AU?: AU - Modern AU
Canon point: After “A Shambles in Belgravia”
Setting: Most of the actual story takes place in London. Nothing about the world is exceptionally different from our own, except there are a litany of Victorian literature icons and popular icons from movies set in the Victorian era utilized in the story. Being that this is a modern AU of the original D’Urbervilles text, obviously a lot of the conventions used in the original story would become obsolete.
Problems like communicating with Moriarty over long distances are no longer a problem to Moran, due to the use of the internet and mobile phones, and his time in the Army was far less than it was in the book. This is because a lot of the time spent in the Army in the olden days was just from travelling to the location the troops would be fighting at. Because of this, I’ve shaved five years off of Moran, and due to the fact his fifteen years were spent in Afghanistan, Russia, India, and a few other eastern nations, whereas in this adaptation, he’s only really fought in Afghanistan, and spent a bit of time in India.
Obviously all of this is based in the Sherlock Holmes universe, but Moran is not yet aware of Sherlock Holmes or John Watson, as they don’t really play an important part in the actual D’Urbervilles book. While other modern adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories tend to focus on the technology and lifestyle of the current era, this particular AU focuses on pop culture, like the mentioning of rogue religions and rowdy trust-fundees.
History: Born in london 1975, Moran's father and mother were of irish descent. His father is a Companion of the Bath, and occasionally sent as a diplomat out to Iran, which led to Sebastian's first language being Farsi. Childhood was rough for ickle Moran: while he loved his mum dearly and treasured their interactions, his father had an explosive temper and wasn't a very affectionate sort to the younger Moran.
He attended Eton, and was a terrible little shit who was in detention half the time he was there for everything from stealing food to mouthing off at his teachers. The Farrer house captain tried to have sex with him and he in turn threatened him with castration by pen knife. The administration gave him a prefect to try and get him into line, but within the month, Moran had the prefect whipped and doing his busywork for him. Despite his objections to the school, Moran regards himself as a proud alumni of the school, and actually did learn a great deal while attending Eton.
Attended Oxford following Eton, but was kicked out for punching a Bursar in the face and throwing him out the window. This led to Moran being cast out from his father's home and inheritance, so he said fuck it and joined the army. From there, he went on three campaigns to Afghanistan, fared well in the first one, did an amazing job in the second one, was a colonel by the third and did very well in that one too. His fearless fighting earned Moran the nickname "Basher" and "Bloody Basher" from his sniveling, cowardly companions. After his three campaigns, Moran returned to England, a decorated soldier, a British war hero, a respected crack shot, and utterly bored with everything around him.The British government had a programme which involved sending British soldiers with PTSD to India to meditate with Buddhist monks, so long as they were practicing Buddhists. Not one to shirk on an opportunity like that, Moran had himself diagnosed, converted, and on the next plane over.
And of course, India bored Moran to tears. Unhappy from day one at the monastery, Moran went AWOL and teamed up with a few shady types, (not the first time either, having spent enough time in the clink on drunk and disorderlies), deciding his time in India would be better spent elsewhere. And where else to be than hunting in the Indian jungle? Hunting for all sorts of things, from birds to pandas to tigers, enjoying his fast-paced, dangerous, and completely illegal lifestyle with his new mates.
Until that one fateful night (which was really more of an afternoonish sort of venture) in where he met her: KK. Kali's Kitten, a tiger who would come to mark the end of Moran's adventure… in India, that is. He and the pretty beasty had a disagreement involving Moran shooting and wounding her, then crawling down a hole to finish the job. Only KK was a lot less hurt than Moran first estimated, and the space he'd crawled down after her in was a lot smaller than he predicted. Needless to say, KK ripped through Moran's shirt and jacket, dragging three stripes out across his chest and stealing a nipple in the process. All six shots of Moran's revolver were emptied into the tiger's body, leaving her dead, and him alive. So Moran was up one tiger carcass, down a nipple and none the wiser. Except instead of admitting himself to an actual hospital, he just had his new hunting buddies treat his wounds, resulting in them going septic.
Which led to him getting really sick. As in so sick, he had to actually alert the team of troops he came over with, and face disciplinary action for more or less running away. Oh well, not the first time he'd gotten a slap on the wrist. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't dishonourably discharged, rather, forced to retire to avoid being dishonourably discharged. So it was back off to London with Moran, after his wounds had healed somewhat, now without a real job and without a family that would give him so much as a pence to ease his troubles. And then he runs into Stamford, an old jail mate of his.
Which is when the story really begins.
It's 2012, and Moran is 35 years old. His 'friend' Stamford finds out he has no job and has had to pawn a lot of his stuff, (though not his guns, anything but his guns!), and offers to have a drink with him. Stamford informs Moran that a man named Moriarty is looking for a shooter, and Moran concedes to meeting him, if only because he's desperate. And because he really needs a place to stay and a Colonel staying in youth hostiles? That's just not right.
It is then he meets Professor Moriarty. The Professor spouts off a list of 'deductions' about Moran, only to have Moran mouth off to him. Moriarty takes Moran by surprise by slapping him across the face, and telling him that deducing is for idiots, and that he had researched Moran previously. Enthralled by his new master, Moran finds himself asking Moriarty not only who he is, but what he is, frightened and enraptured by him all at once. Moran is admitted into 'the Firm', and made to be the second in command, and Moriarty explains that they have an interest in a very specific business; that business being murder.
They then meet their first clients, two rather distinguished members of the Church of Scientology, operatives from the Office of Special Affairs. The Church itself is interested in a couple fleeing America, as the wife is the soul heiress to an unbelievable fortune from her late Scientologist father. Seeing as the father was on one of the highest operating levels (don't ask: Sebastian had tuned out this rot halfway through their conversation) within thecult church, the Church felt the money was rightfully theirs, and sought to have the couple 'out of the way'. Which begged the question how exactly they planned on getting their grubby hands on the fortune from there. And that's where the couple's mentally slow child came into the equation: if the couple was out of the way, she would live with her relatives, also Scientologist-oriented, and from there, she'd be easy to manipulate into handing off the fortune. Easy-peesy. Moriarty demands 15 million quid for the job, which was only a fraction of the fortune the heiress was inheriting. The two missionaries agree.
So Moran goes off to hunt the child, only to find himself completely fucking lost due to the fact the maps app on the iPhone 5 is fucking terrible. So a while later, he actually ends up at the right place, stakes out to stalk the couple, and then finds himself with a gun to his back. Great. Lassiter, the husband, leads Moran inside, has him standing on a chair with a noose around his neck, demanding to know if he's with the church, and who he's working for. Moran, of course, refuses to answer, rattling on about how he's a war hero and how they're making a big mistake with this. He also gets a boner from the rope choking him and offends the husband and the wife, not that he cares. He reasons that killing him here in the middle of London might be a bit of a bad idea, and Lassiter cuts the rope and allows Moran to fall to the floor. That's when Rachel, their mentally slow 16 year old daughter, decides that she's in love with him, and basically becomes Moran's new best friend.
So he (somewhat) convinces the couple that he's actually a private detective named James K. Humperdink investigating the Church of Scientology and their illegal dealings, only to have a smoke grenade lobbed through a window. Thinking fast, Moran scoops it back up and tosses it back out, just in time to avoid it exploding. At this point, bullets start to pour in the windows, and Moran deduces the Scientologists were voiding their deal with Moriarty. Then the bullets start to hail down, and another smoke grenade is tossed in, and it goes off before Moran can stop it.
But dangerous situations and bullets whizzing by actually helps clear Moran's head, so he suggests that he use the daughter as a hostage, since the Church needs her alive to secure the fortune. So he comes out with a gun to the girl's head while she's playing with her doll, and demands the Church members come forward or he'll kill the girl. They do, and Moran reveals the ace up his sleeve: Rachel has one of her father's gun concealed inside the doll, which she uses to shoot the lead Church man with. Lassiter shoots their sniper, and the other Church members flee before they can be killed, and just as that happens, a car pulls up with Moriarty in it, telling them to get in.
Of course, Moriarty's planned everything to go this way all along. He covers up the murders, sees to it the guns are gotten rid of, has three people of the right ages killed (burned alive, actually), stashes them inside the couple's London residence and sets the building on fire. The rogue church members are taken care of by Moriarty directing a vindictive sort in their direction. He puts together new identities for the family, on the condition they will over their inheritance to him. He even leaves them with fifteen million quid, isn't that nice? All of this is all well and good, but it's the beginning of a partnership where Moran will be kept in the dark regarding the intimate details of Moriarty's plans, much to Moran's chagrin.
The next case features a woman, the woman, the (in)famous Irene Adler of the Sherlock Holmes fame. She comes to the Firm, familiar already with Moriarty, but unfamiliar with Moran who does pretty much nothing but leer at her the entire time she's there. While Moran goes over scenarios in his head of him throwing her down on the ground and fucking her stupid, (seriously this guy needs to be put on a leash) Adler explains that she needs help from Moriarty and Moran with blackmailing a few rich sure-to-be-interested parties.
She explains that there's a sex tape with her and Michael Elphberg, third son set to inherit Ruritania Inc, an Eastern-European weapons company. His brother, Rudolf, is first in line, and he seeks to keep it that way by seeing to it that that video isn't released. Which makes no sense to Moran, until Adler clears it up by saying a video like that would propel Elphberg to almost instant fame, since he's already engaged to another heiress, and would put the company in the spotlight, causing the stock to go up. From there, it would almost be imperative the keys to the company were left to him. Alder wishes to get her hands on the only copy of the tape, stored on a thumb drive belonging to their head of PR, Mr. Sapt. According to Adler, Sapt cannot stand the idea of Michael inheriting the company, and plans to do everything he can to prevent that from happening.
So Moriarty and Moran agree to retrieve the thumb drive from Sapt's office, situated in the Ruritania inc. building in Belgravia, so long as Adler forks over half of whatever she makes from her blackmailing schemes. So Moriarty begins to spread rumours of the company employing underage workers to assemble their weapons, and some of those workers being seriously injured in the process. It's easy enough to get photographs and show pictures of malnourished, bleeding children with an arm or a cheek blown off, and the fake news takes the internet by storm. Once these rumours gain momentum, Moriarty then sends some of the Conduit Street Comanche (the twisted, evil counterparts of the Baker Street Irregulars) to put together a protest outside of the Ruritania Inc. building. The protest is gigantic, and Sapt is there as well.
By Moriarty's order, the CSC turns violent, and the peaceful protest outside the building turns into a deadly riot. Amongst the commotion, Moriarty and Moran slip into the building through a backdoor, find Sapt's office, crack the code to get into his safe, and slip back out with the thumb drive. Moriarty seems a little perturbed by how easy everything was, but doesn't say much other than that. They return to Conduit Street, and Moran seems pleased enough. But Moriarty isn't. And of course, Moran is the last person to figure out anything.
While Moriarty is tending to his wasps, (yes, wasps. In a flat in London. Don't ask.) Moran decides to take a peek at the video on the thumb drive. What it turns out to hold is a video, a photograph, and a .doc file. The video is just Adler and Sapt having tea with a rather spectacular view of London while making doe-eyes at each other, so Moran opens the .doc file to find a letter addressed to him personally. As it turns out, the entire thing was a ruse to cause a media scandal, as the Elphbergs were planning on forcing Sapt to retire, due to the fact they didn't really need someone so overqualified for a job that boasted very little excitement and very little scandal to actually manage. After the riot, the Elphbergs will be sure to keep him on with an increase to his salary, and Adler thanks Moriarty and Moran for making a much bigger deal out of getting the thumb drive than they actually needed to. The last photograph is a picture of Adler in sexy lingerie, but without any actual nudity.
When Moriarty returns to the room, Moran informs him that they've been scammed, and the Professor spits out a word that would forever become her descriptor to the Firm: Bitch.
Personality: A Moran is a Moran, temporal discrepancies be damned. And Sebastian Moran is a bad person, rotten to his very core.
Lots of people like to blame their shortcomings on their upbringing, or on their job, or on some circumstance in their lives beyond their control. Moran offers no excuses and shirks out of no responsibility for his horrible, sociopathic tendencies. He knows he’s a bad person and he enjoys being one.
His bad behaviours range from sex addiction, illegally hunting big game, betting away his money on horses, and of course, being a card sharp. Oh yeah, and murder. To Moran, it doesn't matter if he's hunting wild animals in the lush green Indian jungles or people in the cold grey concrete jungles of London. As long as there's a thrill in it for him, a kill is a kill.
So it's pretty easy to assume he's not the most moral-centric person to have ever lived. Quite the opposite, really. Moran has no problem with doing just about anything he's hired to do, theft, murder, and larceny included. He freely admits that he'll murder anyone of any political or social standing. And mentioning theft, the Colonel's a bit of a kleptomaniac: he steals simply because he can. And because it's exciting.
In fact, Moran is such a terrible person that he'll commit a crime just to keep the blood going. Of course money's a big factor in doing things, but he confesses it's more the thrill of the chase than the profit to be gained that interests him. While Moriarty is all about numbers, Moran is all about feeling. (Not the type that makes you keysmash all over tumblr, but the sort that makes you giggle a bit when you have a gun pressed to your temple.)
He does have one obsession to trump all others: guns. The man is all about his guns. He's got quite the collection and he's damn proud of it too. His guns are always kept nicely, well oiled, and taken care of better than he would his own children. His guns are almost an extension of himself, and once, when someone insinuated he might pawn his guns, he almost punched them in the face.
Religion and politics don't interest him either. Although he's got an Irish background, he'd have no problem throwing the entire Irish resistance movement under the bus if it meant turning a bit of profit. When people try to associate him with causes, he winds up nothing but annoyed.
And don't try to bring up blood being thicker than water: Moran hates his father, despite the fact he's going along the path to becoming the splitting image of him. His father shared the same anger problem Moran currently has, and the same proclivity to turn vermillion before exploding on the nearest person in all sorts of nasty ways. There's definitely a deep-set bitterness against his father, seeing as the old sod cast Moran out without a pence to his name (though let's be real, Moran sort of deserved it), and probably moreover because he always resented his father for not being proud of him. In addition to Moran's father, he has two sisters, August and Christine (originally Augusta and Christabelle, but come on, this is the 20th century now) who he doesn't quite hate but he certainly doesn't like them either. He calls them all sorts of lovely things, such as unmarriagable, and states that he'd whore them out if he thought he'd make a profit from it. The only familiar relation Moran seems to hold dear at all is his mother, and he doesn't speak about her often. She seems to share a little of his bad streak, as it was her that taught him how to play cards, and more importantly, how to cheat.
Returning to the sex addiction, Moran originally included pages upon pages of his sex life in the original D'Urbervilles, only to have them edited out much later. And he still goes into detail about his abilities, spending paragraphs from time to time describing the 'Basher Moran Special', which is a sexual experience akin to 'the charge of the light brigade between the sheets'. He lives in a building that functions as an escort service (originally a whorehouse in the book) and becomes pretty close to a few of the girls, his favourite being a tiny blonde French girl with a lazy eye named FiFi. (Marie-Françoise Lely, but that doesn't come up till later.)
If nothing else, Moran's creative. He once won an Army-Navy swearing contest, outlasting the most foulmouthed of the two military divisions by a half-hour without repeating himself. One of the key differences between this Moran and his Victorian counterpart is his proclivity to curse, since the social stigma against cursing has become a lot more slack than it once was. While Eton tried to beat the streak out of him, Moran resisted long enough to see his talents celebrated once he joined the army. He does use some really strange phrases, especially insults, such as referring to the Professor as a "sad old sausage".
Oh and what relationship is more important to Moran than his relationship with Moriarty? It's difficult to describe his feelings and thoughts towards Moriarty because in many ways, they contradict themselves. On one hand, Moran absolutely abhors Moriarty and thinks him to be the most detestable person he's ever met. On the other, he respects him completely and would never publicly say a word against him, though perhaps that is out of fear as well. Moran is one of the few people that actually backtalks Moriarty from time-to-time, though he is usually respectful even when he's arguing with the Professor. Moran is completely enraptured by Moriarty, and he firmly believes that if he is to be remembered at all, it'll be because he knew Moriarty, and not for anything he's done himself.
Touching upon his addictions again, Moran is the perfect example of an unhealthy Enneagram 7, which in layman's terms, is a thrill-seeker who's enough of a malcontent to be absolutely reckless in their general leap-without-looking philosophy. There's a point in the story where he 'accidentally' shoots someone who isn't involved in the scene, just because he's caught up in the heat of the moment. When he gets excited, Moran doesn't think, he just reacts, and this can be very useful, or very deadly. Or just kind of stupid, but Moriarty is usually there to stop him before he really bollockses something up.
But he's not a total idiot. Even though he acts like one from time to time, and certainly plays the part of a lowlife faithfully, he likes to pass himself off as a gentleman when it's convenient to him. He's both Eton and Oxford educated, and he speaks and writes very well when he wants to. His literary and historical knowledge is diverse, as is his cultural knowledge, and he manages to pull up a lot of little references to things, like poetry and philosophy. Although he's not afraid to speak his mind, Moran manages to convey a lot more of his thoughts via text than he does in conversation.
He's also a lot funnier via text. Moran's got a wicked sense of humour, and to top it off, he's an unabashed racist, sexist, homophobic, horrible human being. So his topics of discussion are rarely the most politically correct sorts, definitely not the type you'd want to bring to a dinner party. The thing about Moran is, he doesn't actually hate one race, one gender, one sexuality, one political affiliation, or one religion over the other: he equally loathes them all. Except straight, white, male, anglo-saxon Christian protestant Englishmen. He hates them just a little more than everyone else.
Abilities: The only real special ability Moran has is his sniping ability. A renowned crack shot, the Colonel is famous for being one of the most deadly accurate in Britain, if not the most. He’s pretty versatile with a pistol too: right handed, left handed, it doesn’t really matter, he’s pretty accurate either way.
Other than that, he doesn’t really have any special abilities, except managing to be a spectacular arsehole regardless of the situation he’s thrust into.
How did your character arrive in Rapture? Teleportation malfunction, of course!
Network sample:
All right, so we’re stuck under the ocean a la the Little bloody Mermaid. Very interesting, that. I don’t suppose the lot of you are clever enough to come up with an escape plan, so it looks like there’s no leaving this blasted place for the next long while.
Nice place, this. Casinos, nice places to eat, anything a bloke could need. Except for one thing: some company for the night. Come on then, an Ayn Rand fantasy like this can’t be complete without a place to go for some girls. Not that I don’t appreciate the change of scenery, well, actually, I don’t, but putting those complaints aside, where can a bloke go to find a pretty girlie to wind the day down with?
Used to live with a whole service, strictly legal, mind you, and now there’s not a place in sight for a poor sod like me. it’s bad enough there ain’t anything to hunt in these parts for sport, and a red-blooded and might I add fully capable sort like me might get a bit squirrelly all cooped up without an outlet, if you’ll be catching my drift.
Don’t suppose any of you nice folks know how to help a gentleman like myself out? Or perhaps there’s a lonely lady out there seeking to spend the night out with a distinguished British war hero?
Log sample: Over here!
Name: Sy
Player Journal: N/A
Age: 21
Contact:
Other characters currently played at Ryan's Gulch: N/A
☞ Character Information;
Character Name: Colonel Sebastian Moran
Canon: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles
OU or AU?: AU - Modern AU
Canon point: After “A Shambles in Belgravia”
Setting: Most of the actual story takes place in London. Nothing about the world is exceptionally different from our own, except there are a litany of Victorian literature icons and popular icons from movies set in the Victorian era utilized in the story. Being that this is a modern AU of the original D’Urbervilles text, obviously a lot of the conventions used in the original story would become obsolete.
Problems like communicating with Moriarty over long distances are no longer a problem to Moran, due to the use of the internet and mobile phones, and his time in the Army was far less than it was in the book. This is because a lot of the time spent in the Army in the olden days was just from travelling to the location the troops would be fighting at. Because of this, I’ve shaved five years off of Moran, and due to the fact his fifteen years were spent in Afghanistan, Russia, India, and a few other eastern nations, whereas in this adaptation, he’s only really fought in Afghanistan, and spent a bit of time in India.
Obviously all of this is based in the Sherlock Holmes universe, but Moran is not yet aware of Sherlock Holmes or John Watson, as they don’t really play an important part in the actual D’Urbervilles book. While other modern adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories tend to focus on the technology and lifestyle of the current era, this particular AU focuses on pop culture, like the mentioning of rogue religions and rowdy trust-fundees.
History: Born in london 1975, Moran's father and mother were of irish descent. His father is a Companion of the Bath, and occasionally sent as a diplomat out to Iran, which led to Sebastian's first language being Farsi. Childhood was rough for ickle Moran: while he loved his mum dearly and treasured their interactions, his father had an explosive temper and wasn't a very affectionate sort to the younger Moran.
He attended Eton, and was a terrible little shit who was in detention half the time he was there for everything from stealing food to mouthing off at his teachers. The Farrer house captain tried to have sex with him and he in turn threatened him with castration by pen knife. The administration gave him a prefect to try and get him into line, but within the month, Moran had the prefect whipped and doing his busywork for him. Despite his objections to the school, Moran regards himself as a proud alumni of the school, and actually did learn a great deal while attending Eton.
Attended Oxford following Eton, but was kicked out for punching a Bursar in the face and throwing him out the window. This led to Moran being cast out from his father's home and inheritance, so he said fuck it and joined the army. From there, he went on three campaigns to Afghanistan, fared well in the first one, did an amazing job in the second one, was a colonel by the third and did very well in that one too. His fearless fighting earned Moran the nickname "Basher" and "Bloody Basher" from his sniveling, cowardly companions. After his three campaigns, Moran returned to England, a decorated soldier, a British war hero, a respected crack shot, and utterly bored with everything around him.The British government had a programme which involved sending British soldiers with PTSD to India to meditate with Buddhist monks, so long as they were practicing Buddhists. Not one to shirk on an opportunity like that, Moran had himself diagnosed, converted, and on the next plane over.
And of course, India bored Moran to tears. Unhappy from day one at the monastery, Moran went AWOL and teamed up with a few shady types, (not the first time either, having spent enough time in the clink on drunk and disorderlies), deciding his time in India would be better spent elsewhere. And where else to be than hunting in the Indian jungle? Hunting for all sorts of things, from birds to pandas to tigers, enjoying his fast-paced, dangerous, and completely illegal lifestyle with his new mates.
Until that one fateful night (which was really more of an afternoonish sort of venture) in where he met her: KK. Kali's Kitten, a tiger who would come to mark the end of Moran's adventure… in India, that is. He and the pretty beasty had a disagreement involving Moran shooting and wounding her, then crawling down a hole to finish the job. Only KK was a lot less hurt than Moran first estimated, and the space he'd crawled down after her in was a lot smaller than he predicted. Needless to say, KK ripped through Moran's shirt and jacket, dragging three stripes out across his chest and stealing a nipple in the process. All six shots of Moran's revolver were emptied into the tiger's body, leaving her dead, and him alive. So Moran was up one tiger carcass, down a nipple and none the wiser. Except instead of admitting himself to an actual hospital, he just had his new hunting buddies treat his wounds, resulting in them going septic.
Which led to him getting really sick. As in so sick, he had to actually alert the team of troops he came over with, and face disciplinary action for more or less running away. Oh well, not the first time he'd gotten a slap on the wrist. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't dishonourably discharged, rather, forced to retire to avoid being dishonourably discharged. So it was back off to London with Moran, after his wounds had healed somewhat, now without a real job and without a family that would give him so much as a pence to ease his troubles. And then he runs into Stamford, an old jail mate of his.
Which is when the story really begins.
It's 2012, and Moran is 35 years old. His 'friend' Stamford finds out he has no job and has had to pawn a lot of his stuff, (though not his guns, anything but his guns!), and offers to have a drink with him. Stamford informs Moran that a man named Moriarty is looking for a shooter, and Moran concedes to meeting him, if only because he's desperate. And because he really needs a place to stay and a Colonel staying in youth hostiles? That's just not right.
It is then he meets Professor Moriarty. The Professor spouts off a list of 'deductions' about Moran, only to have Moran mouth off to him. Moriarty takes Moran by surprise by slapping him across the face, and telling him that deducing is for idiots, and that he had researched Moran previously. Enthralled by his new master, Moran finds himself asking Moriarty not only who he is, but what he is, frightened and enraptured by him all at once. Moran is admitted into 'the Firm', and made to be the second in command, and Moriarty explains that they have an interest in a very specific business; that business being murder.
They then meet their first clients, two rather distinguished members of the Church of Scientology, operatives from the Office of Special Affairs. The Church itself is interested in a couple fleeing America, as the wife is the soul heiress to an unbelievable fortune from her late Scientologist father. Seeing as the father was on one of the highest operating levels (don't ask: Sebastian had tuned out this rot halfway through their conversation) within the
So Moran goes off to hunt the child, only to find himself completely fucking lost due to the fact the maps app on the iPhone 5 is fucking terrible. So a while later, he actually ends up at the right place, stakes out to stalk the couple, and then finds himself with a gun to his back. Great. Lassiter, the husband, leads Moran inside, has him standing on a chair with a noose around his neck, demanding to know if he's with the church, and who he's working for. Moran, of course, refuses to answer, rattling on about how he's a war hero and how they're making a big mistake with this. He also gets a boner from the rope choking him and offends the husband and the wife, not that he cares. He reasons that killing him here in the middle of London might be a bit of a bad idea, and Lassiter cuts the rope and allows Moran to fall to the floor. That's when Rachel, their mentally slow 16 year old daughter, decides that she's in love with him, and basically becomes Moran's new best friend.
So he (somewhat) convinces the couple that he's actually a private detective named James K. Humperdink investigating the Church of Scientology and their illegal dealings, only to have a smoke grenade lobbed through a window. Thinking fast, Moran scoops it back up and tosses it back out, just in time to avoid it exploding. At this point, bullets start to pour in the windows, and Moran deduces the Scientologists were voiding their deal with Moriarty. Then the bullets start to hail down, and another smoke grenade is tossed in, and it goes off before Moran can stop it.
But dangerous situations and bullets whizzing by actually helps clear Moran's head, so he suggests that he use the daughter as a hostage, since the Church needs her alive to secure the fortune. So he comes out with a gun to the girl's head while she's playing with her doll, and demands the Church members come forward or he'll kill the girl. They do, and Moran reveals the ace up his sleeve: Rachel has one of her father's gun concealed inside the doll, which she uses to shoot the lead Church man with. Lassiter shoots their sniper, and the other Church members flee before they can be killed, and just as that happens, a car pulls up with Moriarty in it, telling them to get in.
Of course, Moriarty's planned everything to go this way all along. He covers up the murders, sees to it the guns are gotten rid of, has three people of the right ages killed (burned alive, actually), stashes them inside the couple's London residence and sets the building on fire. The rogue church members are taken care of by Moriarty directing a vindictive sort in their direction. He puts together new identities for the family, on the condition they will over their inheritance to him. He even leaves them with fifteen million quid, isn't that nice? All of this is all well and good, but it's the beginning of a partnership where Moran will be kept in the dark regarding the intimate details of Moriarty's plans, much to Moran's chagrin.
The next case features a woman, the woman, the (in)famous Irene Adler of the Sherlock Holmes fame. She comes to the Firm, familiar already with Moriarty, but unfamiliar with Moran who does pretty much nothing but leer at her the entire time she's there. While Moran goes over scenarios in his head of him throwing her down on the ground and fucking her stupid, (seriously this guy needs to be put on a leash) Adler explains that she needs help from Moriarty and Moran with blackmailing a few rich sure-to-be-interested parties.
She explains that there's a sex tape with her and Michael Elphberg, third son set to inherit Ruritania Inc, an Eastern-European weapons company. His brother, Rudolf, is first in line, and he seeks to keep it that way by seeing to it that that video isn't released. Which makes no sense to Moran, until Adler clears it up by saying a video like that would propel Elphberg to almost instant fame, since he's already engaged to another heiress, and would put the company in the spotlight, causing the stock to go up. From there, it would almost be imperative the keys to the company were left to him. Alder wishes to get her hands on the only copy of the tape, stored on a thumb drive belonging to their head of PR, Mr. Sapt. According to Adler, Sapt cannot stand the idea of Michael inheriting the company, and plans to do everything he can to prevent that from happening.
So Moriarty and Moran agree to retrieve the thumb drive from Sapt's office, situated in the Ruritania inc. building in Belgravia, so long as Adler forks over half of whatever she makes from her blackmailing schemes. So Moriarty begins to spread rumours of the company employing underage workers to assemble their weapons, and some of those workers being seriously injured in the process. It's easy enough to get photographs and show pictures of malnourished, bleeding children with an arm or a cheek blown off, and the fake news takes the internet by storm. Once these rumours gain momentum, Moriarty then sends some of the Conduit Street Comanche (the twisted, evil counterparts of the Baker Street Irregulars) to put together a protest outside of the Ruritania Inc. building. The protest is gigantic, and Sapt is there as well.
By Moriarty's order, the CSC turns violent, and the peaceful protest outside the building turns into a deadly riot. Amongst the commotion, Moriarty and Moran slip into the building through a backdoor, find Sapt's office, crack the code to get into his safe, and slip back out with the thumb drive. Moriarty seems a little perturbed by how easy everything was, but doesn't say much other than that. They return to Conduit Street, and Moran seems pleased enough. But Moriarty isn't. And of course, Moran is the last person to figure out anything.
While Moriarty is tending to his wasps, (yes, wasps. In a flat in London. Don't ask.) Moran decides to take a peek at the video on the thumb drive. What it turns out to hold is a video, a photograph, and a .doc file. The video is just Adler and Sapt having tea with a rather spectacular view of London while making doe-eyes at each other, so Moran opens the .doc file to find a letter addressed to him personally. As it turns out, the entire thing was a ruse to cause a media scandal, as the Elphbergs were planning on forcing Sapt to retire, due to the fact they didn't really need someone so overqualified for a job that boasted very little excitement and very little scandal to actually manage. After the riot, the Elphbergs will be sure to keep him on with an increase to his salary, and Adler thanks Moriarty and Moran for making a much bigger deal out of getting the thumb drive than they actually needed to. The last photograph is a picture of Adler in sexy lingerie, but without any actual nudity.
When Moriarty returns to the room, Moran informs him that they've been scammed, and the Professor spits out a word that would forever become her descriptor to the Firm: Bitch.
Personality: A Moran is a Moran, temporal discrepancies be damned. And Sebastian Moran is a bad person, rotten to his very core.
Lots of people like to blame their shortcomings on their upbringing, or on their job, or on some circumstance in their lives beyond their control. Moran offers no excuses and shirks out of no responsibility for his horrible, sociopathic tendencies. He knows he’s a bad person and he enjoys being one.
His bad behaviours range from sex addiction, illegally hunting big game, betting away his money on horses, and of course, being a card sharp. Oh yeah, and murder. To Moran, it doesn't matter if he's hunting wild animals in the lush green Indian jungles or people in the cold grey concrete jungles of London. As long as there's a thrill in it for him, a kill is a kill.
So it's pretty easy to assume he's not the most moral-centric person to have ever lived. Quite the opposite, really. Moran has no problem with doing just about anything he's hired to do, theft, murder, and larceny included. He freely admits that he'll murder anyone of any political or social standing. And mentioning theft, the Colonel's a bit of a kleptomaniac: he steals simply because he can. And because it's exciting.
In fact, Moran is such a terrible person that he'll commit a crime just to keep the blood going. Of course money's a big factor in doing things, but he confesses it's more the thrill of the chase than the profit to be gained that interests him. While Moriarty is all about numbers, Moran is all about feeling. (Not the type that makes you keysmash all over tumblr, but the sort that makes you giggle a bit when you have a gun pressed to your temple.)
He does have one obsession to trump all others: guns. The man is all about his guns. He's got quite the collection and he's damn proud of it too. His guns are always kept nicely, well oiled, and taken care of better than he would his own children. His guns are almost an extension of himself, and once, when someone insinuated he might pawn his guns, he almost punched them in the face.
Religion and politics don't interest him either. Although he's got an Irish background, he'd have no problem throwing the entire Irish resistance movement under the bus if it meant turning a bit of profit. When people try to associate him with causes, he winds up nothing but annoyed.
And don't try to bring up blood being thicker than water: Moran hates his father, despite the fact he's going along the path to becoming the splitting image of him. His father shared the same anger problem Moran currently has, and the same proclivity to turn vermillion before exploding on the nearest person in all sorts of nasty ways. There's definitely a deep-set bitterness against his father, seeing as the old sod cast Moran out without a pence to his name (though let's be real, Moran sort of deserved it), and probably moreover because he always resented his father for not being proud of him. In addition to Moran's father, he has two sisters, August and Christine (originally Augusta and Christabelle, but come on, this is the 20th century now) who he doesn't quite hate but he certainly doesn't like them either. He calls them all sorts of lovely things, such as unmarriagable, and states that he'd whore them out if he thought he'd make a profit from it. The only familiar relation Moran seems to hold dear at all is his mother, and he doesn't speak about her often. She seems to share a little of his bad streak, as it was her that taught him how to play cards, and more importantly, how to cheat.
Returning to the sex addiction, Moran originally included pages upon pages of his sex life in the original D'Urbervilles, only to have them edited out much later. And he still goes into detail about his abilities, spending paragraphs from time to time describing the 'Basher Moran Special', which is a sexual experience akin to 'the charge of the light brigade between the sheets'. He lives in a building that functions as an escort service (originally a whorehouse in the book) and becomes pretty close to a few of the girls, his favourite being a tiny blonde French girl with a lazy eye named FiFi. (Marie-Françoise Lely, but that doesn't come up till later.)
If nothing else, Moran's creative. He once won an Army-Navy swearing contest, outlasting the most foulmouthed of the two military divisions by a half-hour without repeating himself. One of the key differences between this Moran and his Victorian counterpart is his proclivity to curse, since the social stigma against cursing has become a lot more slack than it once was. While Eton tried to beat the streak out of him, Moran resisted long enough to see his talents celebrated once he joined the army. He does use some really strange phrases, especially insults, such as referring to the Professor as a "sad old sausage".
Oh and what relationship is more important to Moran than his relationship with Moriarty? It's difficult to describe his feelings and thoughts towards Moriarty because in many ways, they contradict themselves. On one hand, Moran absolutely abhors Moriarty and thinks him to be the most detestable person he's ever met. On the other, he respects him completely and would never publicly say a word against him, though perhaps that is out of fear as well. Moran is one of the few people that actually backtalks Moriarty from time-to-time, though he is usually respectful even when he's arguing with the Professor. Moran is completely enraptured by Moriarty, and he firmly believes that if he is to be remembered at all, it'll be because he knew Moriarty, and not for anything he's done himself.
Touching upon his addictions again, Moran is the perfect example of an unhealthy Enneagram 7, which in layman's terms, is a thrill-seeker who's enough of a malcontent to be absolutely reckless in their general leap-without-looking philosophy. There's a point in the story where he 'accidentally' shoots someone who isn't involved in the scene, just because he's caught up in the heat of the moment. When he gets excited, Moran doesn't think, he just reacts, and this can be very useful, or very deadly. Or just kind of stupid, but Moriarty is usually there to stop him before he really bollockses something up.
But he's not a total idiot. Even though he acts like one from time to time, and certainly plays the part of a lowlife faithfully, he likes to pass himself off as a gentleman when it's convenient to him. He's both Eton and Oxford educated, and he speaks and writes very well when he wants to. His literary and historical knowledge is diverse, as is his cultural knowledge, and he manages to pull up a lot of little references to things, like poetry and philosophy. Although he's not afraid to speak his mind, Moran manages to convey a lot more of his thoughts via text than he does in conversation.
He's also a lot funnier via text. Moran's got a wicked sense of humour, and to top it off, he's an unabashed racist, sexist, homophobic, horrible human being. So his topics of discussion are rarely the most politically correct sorts, definitely not the type you'd want to bring to a dinner party. The thing about Moran is, he doesn't actually hate one race, one gender, one sexuality, one political affiliation, or one religion over the other: he equally loathes them all. Except straight, white, male, anglo-saxon Christian protestant Englishmen. He hates them just a little more than everyone else.
Abilities: The only real special ability Moran has is his sniping ability. A renowned crack shot, the Colonel is famous for being one of the most deadly accurate in Britain, if not the most. He’s pretty versatile with a pistol too: right handed, left handed, it doesn’t really matter, he’s pretty accurate either way.
Other than that, he doesn’t really have any special abilities, except managing to be a spectacular arsehole regardless of the situation he’s thrust into.
How did your character arrive in Rapture? Teleportation malfunction, of course!
Network sample:
All right, so we’re stuck under the ocean a la the Little bloody Mermaid. Very interesting, that. I don’t suppose the lot of you are clever enough to come up with an escape plan, so it looks like there’s no leaving this blasted place for the next long while.
Nice place, this. Casinos, nice places to eat, anything a bloke could need. Except for one thing: some company for the night. Come on then, an Ayn Rand fantasy like this can’t be complete without a place to go for some girls. Not that I don’t appreciate the change of scenery, well, actually, I don’t, but putting those complaints aside, where can a bloke go to find a pretty girlie to wind the day down with?
Used to live with a whole service, strictly legal, mind you, and now there’s not a place in sight for a poor sod like me. it’s bad enough there ain’t anything to hunt in these parts for sport, and a red-blooded and might I add fully capable sort like me might get a bit squirrelly all cooped up without an outlet, if you’ll be catching my drift.
Don’t suppose any of you nice folks know how to help a gentleman like myself out? Or perhaps there’s a lonely lady out there seeking to spend the night out with a distinguished British war hero?
Log sample: Over here!