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Post by Jean-Luc Facilier on Jan 11, 2016 21:42:35 GMT 1
Shadow Man
Jean-Luc Facilier
PERSONALITY First and foremost, Jean-Luc is a showman. He's quick and quick thinking, a trickster at heart. His desire is for power and money, unwilling to scrape by like his parents did. He will always resort to persuasion before force. He has a laissez faire attitude about his magic and trinkets, citing buyer beware when someone comes to him with a complaint. He is not intentionally malicious, mostly, but if harm comes as the result of his readings or of his spells, he warned you. He picks up the desires of the heart and manipulates them for his own gain. He never does anything more than is agreed upon at the time, though he may keep hidden agendas off the table or hide them in fancy wording while making the deal - much like a certain imp everyone knows in town... He does have an air of superiority about him, though, and hates to be disrespected or given less than he feels is his due. He hates to see other people doing better than he is, or not having to work his hard for more than he gets. Jean-Luc is charismatic. No one would listen to him if he wasn't. He's a natural judge of people, sensing more than he is told when he speaks to them. He can pick a mark out of a crowd as easily as a person spots a cloud on an otherwise clear day. He instinctively seems to know what people want to hear in order to sell his mojo. He's not afraid of hard work, though the goal is to not have to do it anymore. HISTORY A lot has been said about his life, but what exactly is true is up for debate. He certainly can't be counted on for the truth, peppering lies into the public opinion for so long it's hard to know what's true because most everyone has heard and accepted it as fact. What's true is that Jean-Luc was born on February 29th, 1892, a leap year. His mother, Josette, was the daughter of a slave, born at the end of the Civil War in Louisiana. His mother made her home in New Orleans, not far from the plantation her mother worked on in Hunter Parish. His father, Jean-Michele, worked on the river boats as a showman, with a flair for the dramatic, and drinking. His mother worked as a laundress and sometime seamstress. He was born into what was known as the Gilded Age and, so far as he knew, there was no reason to doubt that title. Everything was alive with money and power and New Orleans was no exception. Everywhere magic and music were in the air. As a child Jean-Luc lent himself out as an entertainer like his father. He learned what he could from Jean-Michele, assisting in the shows on the boats his father worked. He carried props and learned show business from the inside. One night while waiting on his dad to finish up a poker game he happened upon Madame Leota's parlor. She took him in and read his cards. He was hard to impress with her parlor tricks, used to creating similar for his father's shows. But the cards, the cards impressed him. She had no true talent but his ambition was easy enough to see, and that he would grow up strong. She used that to plant a future of success in his head and he knew he was going to rule New Orleans, not breaking his back like his mother and father did. He devoted himself to studying the darker arts of the bayou, learning tricks of his own and Madame Leota's talent of guessing. He learned shadow magic from a Hoodee mama down in Cajun country. It was deep south where the Spanish Moss hung like cobwebs from dying bayou trees. Mama Hoodee introduced him to her friends on the other side, teaching him that personal gain could be had by magic, but for a price. He studied with her, making deals and his own friends on the Other Side. He brought these new skills back with him to New Orleans, setting up shop in a back alley boutique, conning tourists and the unwise alike to scrape a living, working toward his real goal. Regrettably, his powers couldn't simply conjure his destined future for him, so he had to rely on others to help him get there. The fiasco with Naveen would have worked, if Larry was a stronger man and not the simpering jelly-spined butler he proved to be. When Tiana broke the amulet his debt was called by his friends and he was forced to pay it, bring dragged to the Other Side to pay for eternity with his own soul, rather than escaping on the souls of others. Then one day he woke up in Storybrooke. Everything looked different. This was not New Orleans, though it was on the water. There were no trolleys, no jazz, none of the colors and sounds of the bayou. He stumbled around blindly for a day, trying to get his bearings. That night he was told by his friends that they still expected souls, the souls of somewhere else, somewhere far away from there. This place had magic, the natural kind, and he could use it to pay back his debt. So Jean-Luc found a curiosity shop in a back alley and opened it with tarot readings and little curios that got much more fun after magic was returned to the town. He got to know his neighbors, learning their hopes and habits to best be able to exploit them in the future, offering his "help" to those in need. RP SAMPLE "Friends!" The masks on the wall of his curio shop glowed. It was twilight, when shadows tended to be strongest. The doors and shades of his shop were pulled and he was alone with his friends come to Earth in the masks. They were animated by magic, watching him as he stood in the middle of the room, arms spread wide to the main spirit. He grinned, offering a shining, silvery orb from his pocket. A great intake of breath from the mask swept the little ball out of his hand and into the spirit's mouth, taking the soul to the Other Side. "Just a taste, friends. Just a taste of what this city has to offer. You were right. The souls here are ripe for the picking." It wasn't so much about the money, anymore, as it was about the souls. Though they had Rumplestiltskin his prices often sounded more severe than they may be willing to pay and, besides, his reputation preceded him. Some people were too scared to make deals knowing what happened to the people that did, or simple what he was capable of with practically anything. |
