Lucian Clarke [Junction WC]

Standing at 6 feet and 2 inches (188 centimeters) and weighing in at 175 pounds (79 kilograms), Lucian Clarke is a man of powerful figure. Gray eyes, slim silver eyebrows and two frontal bangs of matching silver hair adorn a chiseled face with a slim nose and medium ears that together hold a pair of top-rimmed black glasses in place. His light Caucasian skin and lightly muscular complexion is mostly concealed by a fairly formal and prim getup, consisting of a white undershirt, black button-up vest, matching crimson coat and pants, white calf-long socks, black oxford shoes and a white cravat around his neck, leaving only his face and firm hands exposed. Though Lucian can only be seen without this specific outfit very rarely, this is because he enjoys the iconic look that it provides him and owns several instances of the different articles of clothing that compose it. Needless to say, all these articles of clothing are made of very expensive materials, and have been designed and sown together by professionals. Other features that identify Lucian are the dedicated and precise hygiene displayed in his hair, the pleasant aroma of his cologne, the notable size of his forehead and a star-shaped birthmark between the back of his shoulder and his neck.

Personality:
If Lucian had to be summarized into a single adjective word, the most fitting result would be “Selfless”. In his mind he prioritizes – and always has prioritized – the well-being of others over his own, to the point where sometimes he can be detrimental to himself in his attempts to benefit others.  Often times he will want to go out of his way to help those in need, but his years of experience with immense responsibility have taught him that sometimes it’s impossible to help everyone, and that giving in to the temptation of helping those who simply don’t deserve help can only lead to disaster. Even when angry, Lucian will remain courteous, polite and empathetic, trying his best to see things from the point of view of everyone around him as opposed to only his own, though this does not mean that he is not capable of standing his ground – it simply means that, as a mature and responsible adult, Lucian is beyond such childish behaviors as keeping grudges or giving into one’s emotions. Despite what this might lead many to believe, however, Lucian is very sensitive and can’t help but care deeply about what people who are close to him might think of him, even if he has learned to conceal this concern over time. Even in light of this, Lucian doesn’t allow his insecurities to affect his behavior, and is an expert at maintaining a confident and professional stance.

When interacting with others, Lucian is likely to come off as distant or disinterested at first, but this is only due to his serene and calm exterior; his expressions and comments are down to earth and level-headed, often being the voice of reason, and it’s not every day that you see him overreacting or dramatizing anything. He enjoys socialization and bonding activities greatly, but as a result of both his age and overall upbringing, Lucian will always choose a relaxing and refreshing afternoon over a thrilling and exciting adventure. If he is invited to or thrust upon exhilarating activities with others he will try his best to remain optimistic and enjoy the events to the best of his abilities, but don’t expect him to ask to do it again.

Though his long career as a man of power has allowed him to inherit many a trait, the most notable effect it has had on him is undoubtedly his bravery. Lucian is able to keep himself calm and composed, even when in the face imminent death, be it of his own or of someone he loves (though he has a significantly harder time keeping up appearances in case of the latter). His rationality is as resilient as his resolve, and he has a talent for working under pressure. This being said, this is not because he feels no fear. Lucian feels just as much fear as anyone else would at both small and lethal threads alike; he’s simply learned how to use adrenaline and motivation to override these fears.

An assured and sociable man, Lucian finds that approaching strangers and/or striking up conversations come to him with notable ease. As expected of someone in his position, Lucian is highly versed in the arts of speech, tact and diplomacy, which he considers his greatest weapon. Unfortunately, however, his concern over what loved ones think of him can cause him to tense up and sound lightly pedantic and petty around friends and family. When it comes to discussion and argumentation, Lucian could easily and fluently defend his opinions for days on end with no shortage of new arguments or objections, though he has been known to have a hard time admitting defeat in the off chance that it does present itself to him.

His sense of justice is impeccably defined, and he knows with absolute certainty what it is that he considers right and what he considers wrong. In all things he does, Lucian strives to be just and to uphold justice; however, he is not beyond disregarding the law if he feels it is in the way of his justice, and is willing to commit evil deeds if the end result is a global good that outweighs the evils that it took for it to come to light, though this does not mean that what he considers to be “justice” is twisted by any means – in fact, it could be defined as fairer than most, as it is based upon the principles of absolute equality, personal liberty, understanding and forgiveness. Some would call him hypocritical for this, as he is very vocal about his distaste for people who infringe upon the law, though this claim could be highly debatable, as the detailed version of that claim reveals that he only dislikes those who break the law just because they can with no good reason.

Surprisingly, Lucian particularly likes to indulge in some rather… childish habits in his spare time. Where most other heads of state truly were refined and stylish men who enjoyed cigars, fine dining and wine, behind the imposing and powerful POTUS that is Lucian lies a forty year old man that enjoys collecting comic books, reading trashy romance literature, staying in the shower for hours on end, leaving the hair dryer on just to listen to the sound of it, eating fast food and even building miniature replicas of fictional structures with LEGO bricks. In addition to this, he has an immensely difficult time containing his own opinions about certain fictional works whenever they are brought up in conversation, and the glee can sometimes be seen breaking through his façade of power when presented with an opportunity to indulge in these pastimes. These, however, are small factoids only known to those especially close to him, such as his daughter or Vice President.

At the end of the day, however, Lucian suffers from an immensely crippling existential and identity crisis; ever since the truth of his life and world had been revealed to him, Lucian has begun to question if what he knows about himself is true or just another fabrication of somebody else. The things he enjoys, the people he loves, the ideals he cherishes… he knows not whether any of them are lies; what’s worse, he knows that all the people who ever loved him or cared for him only did so because someone else wrote it into them, and even those who he knows carries the Liber Gene aren’t safe from his insecure suspicions. There’s no way of knowing if his world exists, if his identity exists, if anything he knows exists, if he exists. Lucian doesn’t know who he is, or if he even is.

—Strength Name: Platinum Tongue
—Description: Over the course of his life as a borderline noble and political wonder child Lucian learned the hard way that words can mean the difference between prosperity and ruin. As any skilled president should, Lucian has a remarkable proficiency for weaving words into convincing arguments and speeches, turning even his enemy into his favor. During demon negotiation, Lucian has a higher chance of pleasing demons as long as they can speak verbally.

—Strength Name: Charismatic Leader
—Description: The most important part of leading a group of people - be it a handful of heroes or billions upon billions of civilians – is the ability to inspire them and pass unto them every last drop of confidence and innate wisdom that one has acquired over their lifetime. When accompanied by a group of at least one other person besides himself, Lucian passively boosts the luck stat of every ally present – including himself – by 10%.

—Strength Name:  Heroic Bravery
—Description: When the pen breaks and the sword is the only might that remains, one must be able to bridge the gap in power between them and their enemy by surrounding oneself in lucid focus and rational thought. As the man entrusted with the fate of an entire nation and its people, Lucian has learned to maintain his rationality and composure even when faced with imminent death. Lucian is 15% less likely to be inflicted with the Panic ailment, and recovers from it one turn earlier than scheduled by the skill used to inflict it.

—Strength Name: Worth Every Hour
—Description: Having been born into a prestigious and wealthy family that valued education and being cultured highly, Lucian spent hours upon hours of his youth studying dedicatedly. It might have been grueling and tedious for itty bitty kiddy Lucian, but now that he’s spent many a year as an independent adult, he is forever thankful to his parents for having forced him into such a rigorous education. Lucian’s intelligence is significantly above that of an average man, and he is versed in a large variety of topics and subjects.

—Strength Name: The Everyman
—Description: According to Lucian, perhaps one of the most underrated yet most crucial perks of being a politician is the amount of people you get to meet and how they mold you and your identity. After having met with so many officials and having made friends or enemies of many, Lucian has gained bits of wisdom from every encounter, all of which have conglomerated into what he is today. Whoever it is that Lucian meets, he is able to find the humane side of anyone and everyone, and knows how to get along with many different kinds of people, making him very easily approachable and a quick friend to many.

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((Racial Strength: This is where you put any special powers that your race is capable of. This area is where your character truly comes alive. Things such as flight, shape shifting, or anything else your race can do is put here. This strength will be heavily scrutinized to ensure balance.)

—Racial Strength Name: Liber Gene
—Description: The one lucky charm that’s allowed Lucian to come this far; the Liber Gene makes Lucian and all others who carry it immune to all forms of mind control and suggestion, save for those related to the soul, which it still manages to repel efficiently, if not perfectly. In combat, this makes it 15% less likely for the carrier to be inflicted with Charm, and in the case that it does it only lasts for one turn.

Weaknesses:  


—Weakness Name: The Bitter Taste Of Defeat
—Description: To a man who relies highly on his usage of words and diplomacy, not being able to communicate properly with another is beyond irritating, it’s downright frustrating, which can cause Lucian to lose a bit of his composure. In demon negotiation, Lucian is less likely to please demons that do not communicate verbally, or simply those who he can’t understand.

—Weakness Name: Astigmatism
—Description: Maybe Lucian should’ve listened to his parents when they told him he shouldn’t read while in the dark or stick so close to the TV, as now he suffers from a form of astigmatism that blurs his vision whenever it shifts from one place to another rapidly, as is crucial for him to do while in combat (though maybe not so much outside of it). Whenever Lucian is downed in combat, his glasses will be knocked off. While his glasses are off, his accuracy will be reduced by 30%, and he must spend a turn guarding to put his glasses back on in order to recover his normal accuracy.

—Weakness Name: Immunodeficiency
—Description: Though Lucian definitely lucked out in inheriting decent looks and the Liber Gene from his mother, the rest of his embryonic conception was… less than fortunate. Lucian was born with a minor form of immunodeficiency, which makes him particularly vulnerable to disease. Poison deals 5% more damage per turn to Lucian and is 15% more likely to be inflicted upon him.

—Weakness Name: Manifest Destiny
—Description: While Lucian is a social individual and a kind man who genuinely enjoys learning about the people he meets and helping them out in any way he can, this desire to influence other’s lives and expand upon them might be a little intrusive. Even if he knows he shouldn’t or that he’s not wanted, Lucian can’t help but follow his innate instinct of always trying to be the hero and trying to reach out to others around him to reach them or influence them in any way he can, which – though his intentions are pure – can easily turn into a source of friction or remorse from the other party.

—Weakness Name: Prove You Exist
—Description: Years upon years of loving and being loved back that turned out to be nothing but lies have left Lucian with a scar that words and gestures cannot repair. Though he intentionally deludes himself and genuinely befriends new people and believes in their reality, deep down inside he doubts everyone he’s met, everything he’s done, and everything he’s become. Not only does he doubt their legitimacy, he doubts their very existence; he desperately searches for some sort of confirmation that as he thinks and feels he’s assuredly real and not just in another layer of mind control or pre-planned and false reality that he didn’t have the luck of escaping like he did his home’s, but no matter how hard he looks no such confirmation shows itself to him. Some people admire metaphysics, some people ignore them, some people study them, Lucian fears them.

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((Racial Weakness: If you take a Racial Strength, you are required to take a racial weakness. This weakness must tie into your racial Strength and will be looked over just as heavily.)

—Racial Weakness Name: Flesh And Bone
—Description: Despite their many redeeming traits and how far they’ve come as a species, humans aren’t exactly known for faring very well against the harmful elements of nature. Lucian especially, being past his biological prime, might need more than average protection when venturing into dangerous places, and is likely to exhaust easily in PvP combat. In PvS combat, however, this means that any elemental ailment lasts a turn longer than usual.

Soul Bound Weapon: (This is the weapon you'll be able to summon to your hand while in combat. This weapon is special for your character specifically and allows you to fight Shadows and Demons without the need of summoning your Persona. This can be anything but a Gun (Or gun related weapon))


Weapon Name: Law
Weapon Description:  Law is a platinum-colored steel sword with a golden handle, identical in appearance to a standard issue US Naval Officer’s Sword. The handle is 5.25 inches (13 centimeters) long, and the blade is 32 inches (81 centimeters) long. The scabbard is made of leather with brass fittings and sports a fleur-esque design on its cream-colored exterior. The whole thing is adorned by symbolic imagery and weighs roughly a pound and a half (0.68 kilograms).

Side-Arm Description: Order is a 1911 Style Pistol “Loaded Parkerized” Handgun with a steel frame and wooden grip. The barrel is about 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) and the overall length is of 6.8 inches (21.84 centimeters). It all weighs in at 2.5 pounds (1.13 kilograms).

In an alternative version of the world we know as real life, the cold war that sparked between the United States and Russia during the twentieth century escalated into an all-out nuclear war that consumed over 96% of Earth’s habitable territory, brutally transforming it into a barren wasteland where no new life could bloom and old life died fast. The few people that were lucky enough to find themselves in the remaining 4% of the habitable world looked upon the hell they had made, and realized that this was no longer Earth; it was a Scarred Earth, and they renamed it thus. What little was left of society began to crumble as civilization descended into anarchy and more and more people died each day.

This continued until a group of four anonymous people under the collective title of the “Four Horsemen of the Genesis” decided that this was definitive proof that humans could not be entrusted with their own existence, and needed to be eternally monitored and administrated. They began research on a new type of technology that would allow them to control human thought and behavior down to its most basic manifestation, and after years of work and hard-pressed survival, when humanity was down to its last few hundred specimens, they managed the impossible and brought such technology into existence. With the help of this new technology which they labeled “Cerebral Rescription”, the Four Horsemen of the Genesis managed to completely override the minds of the last remaining humans and utilize them to rebuild society as they saw it necessary.

Fast-forward one thousand years. Society has been rebuilt from the ground up in the image and likeness of life as it was during the late 1980’s/early 1990’s, and technology – as well as culture – have become stagnant and unchanging, effectively creating a loop of the same decade for centuries on end. Despite this, there is barely any war, poverty or hunger; global society in Scarred Earth is a perfect and impeccable utopia… on the surface, that is. Free will and thought is non-existent; the identities, lives and thoughts of nearly every single living being on the planet are pre-written, controlled and precisely executed by the Horsemen of the Genesis, who have remained alive to this day by means of their own technological advances. Everything you are, everything you know, all the people you meet, what you do and think at each exact place and moment in time… all of it is orchestrated. However, there is a nearly infinitesimal fraction of people with a certain evolutionary gift, an extremely recessive genome that makes humans immune to the effects of Cerebral Rescription. They call it the Liber Gene, and people who possess it have tried to conglomerate into rebel groups, though more often than not they simply wind up missing with nobody around them to even notice or care.

Enter Lucian James Clarke, born in Westmoreland County, Virginia in March 17th of 3067 AD. The only child of a highly prestigious and snobby American family, Lucian’s childhood was spent mostly in a retreat of strict teachings, complex books, limited recreation times and few friends. Lucian was a lonely child who wished nothing more than to be allowed to venture outside the confines of his own estate against the wishes of his parents who, despite loving him dearly and deeply, were overprotective of him to a tee. As he grew older, Lucian was granted more and more freedoms by his parents, but still retained a fervent desire to be truly independent and free - a desire that would ingrain itself in his philosophy permanently.

When he reached the age of eighteen, Lucian was immediately pressured into studies in politics by his parents, who had been for ages hoping that he could land a prestigious position somewhere within the US government. In a mixture of a wish not to let his parents down, genuine interest in the world of politics, a desire to shape his country’s future, and an ecstasy provided by the newfound freedom he’d been granted as an independent adult citizen of the united states, Lucian agreed without much complaint.

As he made his way through political studies, Lucian found that the political scene of his new world was really only a new form of royalty. The only people who got influential jobs within the US government were those born into families of politicians and lawmen, and the only way for an outsider to get into the circle was by bribing the eyes of the law with an amount of money so exorbitant that not even the Clarke family would be able to safely afford… or to marry into a political family. And so, Lucian reluctantly married Amelia Fitzgerald – daughter to a highly influential member of congress – on May 19th of 3090 AD, while Lucian was still 23 and attending university. Though there was no love between Lucian and Amelia, they kept up appearances in order to keep their relationship mutually beneficial to both each other and their families.

A little over a year later, Lucian and Amelia gave birth to Alice Clarke. Even if there was no love between her parents, Alice was still loved beyond comprehension by her father, yet oddly ignored by her mother. Soon after Alice’s birth, Amelia’s family decided her marriage with Lucian had outlived its usefulness and had her divorce Lucian to marry her off to somebody else. Having developed a sort of resentment towards Amelia over time, Lucian made no objection. However, he went through legal heaven and hell to ensure that he maintained custody of Alice, and after months of rigorous legal conflict, bribing and hiring, Alice was granted into Lucian’s care. In an even luckier turn of events for him, Lucian had turned out to have made a large enough influence within the political circle during his brief time as Amelia’s husband to pique the interest of some state officials, which allowed him to continue his political career despite his separation.

The following few years consisted of Lucian making his way up the political ladder, meeting friends and foes along the way as he cared for Alice to the best of his ability and with all of his love as a father. It was during this time that he met James Smith, a gruff yet friendly veteran of the only war left on earth – the war against Liber Gene rebels – turned politician with whom he became quick friends.

One day after many a year of nearing the summit of the political hierarchy, when Lucian and Alice were moving to Washington D.C to prepare for Lucian’s upcoming presidential campaign the plane they were relocating on suffered an engine malfunction and crashed into undefined territory. When Lucian regained consciousness after the crash, he was surrounded by a group of young men and women who seemed shocked that he was even able to perceive them. As it turned out, this was a group of Liber Gene carriers that had come to investigate the crash site to look for survivors. According to them, if Lucian could see, hear and acknowledge them in any way, then he himself carried the free will granting genome within him, as the effects of Cerebral Rescription made any non-soldier civilians who did not possess the gene themselves completely unable to notice blacklisted Liber Gene carriers in any way, shape or form. While Alice was still unconscious, the group of rebels explained to Lucian everything about the truth of his society and his own state of mind. It seemed Alice too was a carrier of the Gene, as she reacted subconsciously to the rebel’s attempts to wake her up. Faced with an undeniable yet horrible truth, Lucian thanked the rebels and got out of there with Alice as fast as he could. Not because he considered them unsafe or feared what could happen; he just needed to run away. It didn’t matter where to.

Almost a year later, Lucian’s presidential campaign is a massive success, and he becomes the new POTUS at the age of 36, employing James as his Vice President. Though his goal had been achieved, his overarching motivations had changed drastically; no longer did he wish to shape the country’s future to what he saw fit, he wished to destroy the possibility for anyone to do so. As the president, Lucian found that the Horsemen’s control over him was somewhat lacking; being the important figure and puppet that he was supposed to be, even if they knew that he wielded the Liber Gene it wouldn’t be easy for them to simply dispose of him. Making all twenty billion humans on earth completely forget everything about the leader of the world’s most influential nation would prove to be a challenge even for them. Thusly, Lucian’s first term was spent as a chance to fight back against the Horsemen by inconveniencing them in every way he found possible and creating political circumstances that would allow more information about them to reach his ears, so he could one day put an end to them and their mockery of a regime.

Re-elected four years later, Lucian woke up safe and sound at what was supposed to be the first day of his second term, and what to the Horsemen was supposed to be the day they’d finally be rid of him… but was not what either was expecting. Where a large chunk of Washington D.C previously stood now rested an enormous city of mangled parts and architectures, seemingly appeared out of thin air. Knowing that this day was his last chance to act, and believing unfailingly that this had to be related to the Horsemen somehow, Lucian and James set off towards the mysterious new apparition as the Horsemen were occupied in damage control. Once inside, Lucian didn’t even have time to process what he was seeing before it was made aware to him that Alice had followed him into the strange city. When he tried to force her to stay outside and wait back home, he noticed that the environment around them had changed drastically. The world outside of the city was no longer the world he knew. Dumbfounded, Lucian realized he was now stranded in some impossible city with his best friend and daughter…