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[wolfofdunwall]

PLAYER INFORMATION

Player Name: kristi
Are you 18+?: yep
Preferred Contact: fracture_minded / pm
Current Characters: n/a

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character Name: Daud
Canon: Dishonored
Canonpoint: Hours after pleading for his life and being spared by Corvo. In terms of recent events that particularly matter: About six months before Daud is drawn to Rome, Daud and his group of assassins were contracted to kill Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and kidnap her daughter, Emily, and they carried out the deed (which came to be pinned on the Royal Protector, Corvo Attano). This broke something in Daud, though he didn't speak of it. On a tip from the Outsider, Daud and his assassins began investigating a woman called Delilah, a largely unknown threat to the Empire. In the course of this investigation, Daud was betrayed by his second-in-command, found out that Delilah intended to possess the body of Emily Kaldwin, and basically used Delilah's own ritual to trap her away from the world via painting. It was shortly after this that Daud fought and was spared by Corvo.
Character Age: 42

Background/History: Here's some history.


Strengths:
Adaptable. Perhaps Daud's greatest strength is his adaptability. While he's a careful planner, he's always keeping an eye out for more useful tactics, new routes, new players and pieces of information that he can employ. Indeed, he looks to most everything with an eye for possibility (a very focused kind of possibility; more on that to follow) and use. Working as an assassin meant months of careful preparation and exact plans, but it also meant being able to toss those plans in the moment and improvise if some factor went awry. This further honed his ability to act in accordance with every changing moment. Along with this, he's practiced at relying on instinct, which helps in making those split-second decisions.

This adaptability also means that he's learned to react well under pressure. Having become acquainted with so much sudden change, the stress of a situation does little to alter his operations. When something goes wrong, he has the security of knowing that he's been through a lot of rotten situations and worst-case scenarios, and that he's come through just fine. He's also usually able to recognize at least one (and often many) strategies for mending the situation using the tools (people, objects, etc.) around. Finally, his adaptability also means he's typically able to adjust well with new environments.

Practical. Daud's practicality tends to keep him steady even in rocky times. The practicality means that he isn't often distracted by whims, and that he can quickly find the use or value of something that may seem unhelpful. Means that he can hone in on information, objects, people, etc. that could be useful, even if they seem mundane at a glance. He sees the potential in things and people, sees what they might become (which ties right back to his adaptability). Means that he rarely acts based on emotion alone (though it does happen, and he does have a temper that can't always be kept under control), that even in many cases of high emotion he's able to make himself take a step back and review the situation's actuality. Along with his practicality comes an efficiency. He doesn't tend to waste resources - time, objects, energy - and is generally able to discern how best to set up everything toward his desired end.

Patient. Daud doesn't rush headlong into something unless it's appropriate to do so. He's comfortable biding his time, and he knows that the perfect moment (to the extent that any such moment exists) is tricky to cultivate, and that it takes time. In terms of how this has played out through his work: he'd rather wait on carrying out a job than rush into it. He'd rather have everything planned, with extra supplies in place, than collect his coin a little quicker. Nor can he be bullied into hurrying by his clients. They accept the timeline he chooses, or they can find another assassin.

In and out of his work, his patience means that in an unfamiliar location, Daud's perfectly comfortable hanging back a bit and gathering a sense of the place and its rules before deciding what he's going to do. He doesn't mind fading into the woodwork for a while, especially when it means he'll come out stronger and perhaps be able to make a name and place for himself after.

Driven. This one's tricky, because Daud was deeply driven and could become so again, but he's been floundering some since Jessamine's murder. Historically, his drive has kept him moving even when times looked grim or when he didn't know what to do or how to overcome a tough situation. Because of his drive, Daud has refused to be overrun, or to be overlooked when desirous of something. His drive has also fueled and to an extent still does fuel his confidence, keeping him sure of himself and able to believe in his capabilities.


Weaknesses:
Narrowly focused. Adaptable as he is, Daud's focus is narrow and intense, and he lacks scope of awareness as related to the impact of his actions. He fixates on his pursuit and the quantities that will make that pursuit a success, but he rarely thinks in terms beyond that pursuit. So if he's chasing a goal, he can see everything that would aid or impede that goal; the rest of the world is a blur, inconsequential. Which means that he loses track of the world around him. Loses sight of larger consequences, of the ways actions resound in the world beyond him. Everything is thrown out of scope, takes on new measures of importance (all, again, defined by his goal), and the scale of morality shifts, is often left behind entirely. He becomes wrapped up in what he's pursuing and the world/scene he's creating in that pursuit. Which is why he went twentyish years leading a gang of assassins without deeply questioning what he was doing or realizing the impact he had. It takes a major event to shatter him into seeing what he's done, and even then, it's relatively easy for him to slip into another narrowness of focus.

Lacks self-awareness. Daud's narrow focus also means that he lacks a strong measure of self-awareness. Not being able to look beyond the terms of the goal means not being able to examine himself, or to think about how he exists in the world. Because he doesn't realize the impact of his actions, he also doesn't recognize his responsibility for that impact. Which means that he's horrendously bad at both holding himself accountable and learning from his mistakes. Even after finally being made to recognize his mistakes, there's a good chance that he'll slip back into negligence. Ducking responsibility has become second nature, and it's hard to find guidance for moving forward in another way. He's drifted too far from himself, from any sense of how to direct his life or redirect his actions. And indeed, this lack of awareness means he acts in some ways apart from himself (that is, in ways he may once have disagreed with), or in ways that will eventually cause a rift between the man he was and the man he's become. As a result of this, after being shaken into awareness of what he's done, he finds himself left with a lot of hollow spaces. He's dealing with that rift when he's pulled to Rome.

Resentful. Related to the above, he can hold major grudges and pass all blame on whoever he's grudging against. It's a way of looking past his own responsibility and of avoiding serious questions he should probably be asking himself. Once he develops a real grudge, a true and useful grudge, he can carry it for decades, and can employ that grudge as a convenient replacement for some more productive goal. His favorite target for blame is forever the Outsider, but he's willing to find others.

Willful. While this can also be a strength - and while it's closely related to drive - historically it's been more of a flaw for Daud, bound up with his tendency toward a narrow focus. It was will that allowed him to seek such singular ends, and will that allowed him to forget all else; what mattered for years was only what he pursued, was that he could call the pursuit right and his own. Thus, will was a large part of what helped him to neglect the world beyond his scope.


Fatal Flaw: Ego, for sure. Daud finds it comforting to feel and believe in his strength (physical, mental, in the use of his powers, anything at all), and he can easily fall into the trap of his own importance. The Outsider fed this in him by claiming that Daud was different, destined for great things. Daud held onto that claim, but he lost the means of measuring what he was doing, and whether it was really the best use of his abilities or energy. He fell into bolstering his name and reputation, fell to the greed of gathering esteem and coin to back his name and actions. This egocentricity contributes to (and may be mostly responsible for) his lack of scope, the ways he falls into viewing the world only in his own terms, the way he begins to believe no conflicting view is necessary, the way he loses perspective.


Driving Force: This gets tricky, because at this canon point, Daud's lost touch with his driving force. That said, of course it's still present, and is likely to strengthen with time. Historically, Daud has acted from a desire to make a place of his own in the world, to become someone on his own terms who will be noticed in the eyes of others. He was born a relative nobody, the son of a woman called a witch and an unknown father (a prince, though Daud has zero percent knowledge of this), and decided early on that he'd be damned if he didn't tear himself out of obscurity. Daud wants to know that he exists on his own terms, wants others to recognize that he exists as such, and cannot abide the feeling of being controlled or even directed by others.

So, yes. He still wishes to (re)make himself, and once he begins to believe that he has a chance of doing so, he's likely to find his drive full-force.


Patron: Neptune.

Honestly, all of the traits listed on the god powers page suit Daud one way or another. Daud's driven for sure, and the last time he had the backing of a god he went on to make a well-known name for himself. He took the god's given powers and put them toward becoming the most skilled assassin he could be. (Which maybe wasn't the best use of his powers and certainly didn't please the god he'd compacted with, but that's kind of another story.) What matters is that he didn't sit idle with the powers. Has almost never sat idle, instead choosing to tirelessly pursue his goals. It should be noted that his drive's become somewhat stalled, but there's no doubt it can be sparked again. And along with his drive comes his competitiveness; Daud doesn't like to see others get the best of him, and if he sees other succeeding, he'll work three times as hard to keep his place at the top.

Daud doesn't exactly have the sunniest disposition, and being friendly doesn't come naturally to him. Though he does have a pretty strong sense of snark, he won't typically play along with others' jests, and he has no problem being unkind, rude, or even hurtful to people (though he usually stays away from being actively hurtful, since it takes too much investment and he just doesn't care that much). He prefers being blunt with people, though he can and will shift demeanors somewhat as necessity dictates. Overbearing is an apt descriptor for him, as historically has seen his aims as important above others', and he'll impose his will without a second thought.

Also? He is salty. As. Fuck.

The water affinity doesn't hurt, either; Daud was born at sea, and has spent his life living in cities bordering the sea. Oh, and his home aka the hideout for his assassins was situated in an aptly named Flooded District. Though he's never thought much on it before, he finds the sound and scent of water reassuring, and would feel somewhat out of sorts if he were parted from it for long.

GAME INFORMATION

Setting Suitability: Daud wishes to get away from the man he's become and to find a way to start his life anew, and this drastic change of scenery could be just what he needs. At the canonpoint he'll be drawn from, he's caught in a whirl of doubting indecision about who he is, and is as poised as he'll ever be for a major change. If he remains in his own world, there's a 97% percent chance he'll end up miserable and hell-bent on blaming the Outsider and the Mark for all of his troubles (that's basically his canon ending). Transporting him to Rome gives him a chance to remake his life, and takes away a certain ease of blaming everything on the Outsider, since Daud will no longer bear the Mark. Partly this is to say that if I have a larger plan in the game, I'd say it's only to put Daud on a track toward reestablishing his sense of self, however that pans out, whatever it may look like.

It might also be helpful to know that Daud has spent most of his life killing people for pay, and is skilled in physical combat (fighting with knives, swords, and wristbows as well as bodily incapacitating people) and in putting his powers to use in attacking. He's used to killing people he has no personal grudge against or association with, so being set against a scarce-known enemy to defend a scarce-known country shouldn't be too much of a trouble. And while he's said that he wishes to be finished with killing, he could easily slide back into the habit, even if there's some anguish over it. (It's also possible that Daud will find a way of perceiving the killing necessitated by this world as something different from the death dealt by an assassin.)



Sample: test drive top-level with Squalo Superbi and Emily Kaldwin.