Ardan O'Donnell, Human, Destiny Manifesto Leader
May 15, 2016 5:18:15 GMT -6
Post by Ardan O'Donnell on May 15, 2016 5:18:15 GMT -6
(Play by is of Big Boss from the Metal Gear series)
Name: Ardan O'Donnell, AKA Destiny Leader Ardan
Gender: Male
Age: 52
Species: Human
Appearance: Ardan is a taller man with a medium build, standing at 6'2 feet tall and weighing around 175 pounds. Though many years ago he would have more obviously strength, his older age has worn him down over time. Nevertheless, he is a relatively strong man, especially for his age, and if he was a few decades younger would still have a body in good enough physical condition for the military. Elsewhere he shows other signs of aging, from his wrinkled skin to his once dark brown hair that has since turned grey. He has a preference for more formal clothes like suits and ties, but is often seen wearing an overcoat over them. His missing eye is covered by a black eyepatch, and concealed underneath his left sleeve is a wristwatch with a Mega Stone built into it. Ardan also speaks with a thick Irish accent and has a fondness for cigars.
Personality: One may think based on their reputation and agenda that the leader of The Destiny Manifesto would be a cruel and selfish man, but this is far from the truth. Instead, Ardan is a calm, polite man with the good of everyone on his mind. A natural born leader, he has a talent for persuading people and though he is normally soft spoken, when he is giving orders or speaking of his cause he speaks in a louder, outspoken manner. One would find if they ever met him that he is pretty much always serious and is always working or busy with something, never letting himself relax even for a moment. Though he will be less formal around trusted companions, there is never really a time where he completely relaxes.
Though he may be a polite man, he is still very devoted to his cause. Beyond all else, he has a strong belief that Humans are the superior race and that they should be the rulers of the world, with the other races serving them as Pokemon do. He believes that this is not only what's best for humanity, but for everyone else too, and if everyone followed his plan it would lead to a society stronger and more functional than ever before. After years of being stuck in ways, there is very little use in trying to stray him from his cause unless you have a really convincing argument. Not only is he zealous, he's kept his ideas for so long that stopping what he's doing now would just mean that the last few decades of his life were completely wasted. Naturally, he wants his life to actually mean something.
Though he'll argue politics and ideals all day with someone and stay stern but not angry, if there is one thing that triggers his absolute rage it is the abuse of women, whether it be physically or sexually. He's extremely sensitive about it, and acts like nothing less than an absolute gentleman when talking to a woman. Because of this, he finds himself unable to harm any woman by his own direct actions unless absolutely necessary (his cause still comes above all else), and if he does it will be accompanied with sincere apologies on Ardan's part. Indeed, his inability to harm a woman could be seen as an exploitable weakness if one were to find out.
Despite the trust he holds for many of his men, there is still a linger doubt in Ardan's mind that there is no one in the world that holds the perfect vision of the world as he sees it. He has dedicated so much to his life to accomplishing this goal that he is of the strong belief that a successor to his legacy may be unequipped to carry the torch, or is likely to stray from the path that he has set the Manifesto on. Because of this, Ardan has grown desperate in his older age to see his ideas be realized, even it means resorting to unsavory tactics that he would rather avoid. In the end accomplishing his goals are more important than anything else, so if he has to do some dirty things to get there, then so be it. All he has to do is create the perfect storm; he'll clean up the pieces left in the wake of its destruction after the fact. Still, he tries his best to hold his team to his own standards, so he tries his best to make sure they act like proper revolutionaries instead of petty criminals.
History: Ardan had a humble beginning, being born into a small working class family who where 1st generation immigrants of the Tarot Islands. He grew up by the Knight District of King City, both of his parents having jobs at a nearby factory that produced textiles. From the beginning, he had an upbringing wrought with mistrust of other races, as his family was from a region in which Gijinka and Pokemorph alike were a rarity and were wary of them, telling Ardan to avoid playing with them or being alone near them. Whether they were afraid that their animal appearance made them more animal and thus more ferocious or if they simply didn't trust people so unlike themselves, Ardan never found out. For the most part he didn't pay much mind to it as a boy, besides the occasional small thing he did unconsciously, like sitting away from them at the lunch table or moving closer to his mother when one passed them on the street. His sister Jeane, an innocent girl several years younger than him, never seemed to be bothered by them and made friends with several, but whether by coincidence or lingering suspicions, Ardan never did.
For a while, Ardan didn't really know what to do with his life. Though he wasn't a failure at school there was no subject that he particularly excelled at and was praised for, besides the occasional praise for being a good speaker when he had to present a project. He knew for damn sure that he wasn't going to work in a factory though. Both of his parents worked long hours for not much pay, and were always so tired they had little energy to do anything outside of work, even if they had the time. Ardan knew he didn't want that life for himself, so with little else that he could do, he signed up for the military. He ended up in the Navy, naturally the largest branch of the Tarot Island's military given that the country is a bunch of small islands in the middle of the ocean. He ended up stationed on a ship which would spend months at a time out at sea, isolated from the rest of the world for long periods of time.
For one of the first times in Ardan's life, he felt like he had a real purpose. Though he started pretty small, he quickly earned the trust of his superiors for his strong work ethic and became a trusted an respected member of the ship's crew. It was on this ship that for the first time he also got to really know some people of other races. He wasn't as much wary of them at first as he was curious of them, and over time he became friends with many of them, as he did with most of the ship's crew. He was fascinated by their powers and how they could use them to do amazing things beyond the capabilities of a human. Even if life on a warship out at sea with nothing to fight would seem boring to most people, for Ardan it was some of the happiest years of his life.
Eventually though, his service would come to an end. He considered staying in the Navy for a while longer, but ultimately decided that after spending so much time away from land and his family he needed to take some time off, to rejoin society and maybe settle down with someone to start a family. But all of this changed when he got back home from his final tour at sea and heard tragic news from his parents. While he was away, his sister Jeane had been raped and murdered by a culprit who was confirmed to be an Arbok Pokemorph, who they were able to identify from the venom that was in her bloodstream that made her too weak to fight back and what ultimately killed her. It was at that point that Ardan fell into a deep depression. He couldn't get a job, nor did he have the will to keep one, and ended up spending his days drinking his miseries away at local bars. Why would this happen to someone as innocent as Jeane, Ardan wondered. How could someone be so cruel? How could they use their innate talents to do something so malicious?
And then one night, Ardan had an epiphany. A collection of knowledge from his past experiences combined to show him what he believed to be the problems of society were and how to fix them. The half-Pokemon races, they were powerful and they could do wonderful things with their talents, but they couldn't be trusted with it. Left to their own devices, many Pokemorphs and Gijinkas would likely do what an untamed Pokemon would do; whatever the hell they want. Humans, however... Humans could control Pokemon. They were skilled in bending them to their will, getting them to do what they want. Modern society was built upon the labor of Pokemon and the Humans who supervised it. It stood to reason, then, that if Humans controlled everyone else the way they controlled Pokemon, then that would be better for everyone. He saw that for himself when he was in the Navy, and saw how well they worked when ordered by their superiors, who were mostly Humans themselves. If Humans were the masters of everyone, then they would not half to worry about being preyed upon by uncontrolled half-Pokemon races, the other races could put their powers to good use, and everyone would benefit from the advancements made from this kind of cooperation. Through his new vision, Ardan would lead the world to a new golden age. And it was on that one faithful night, as Ardan considered his next course of action as he walked home from a bar past midnight, that The Destiny Manifesto was born.
Ardan started small of course, being a man with not a lot of money or connections. He managed to form a small group of like minded people, mostly old Navy buddies of his that were swayed by Ardan's words and likely had their own prejudices to begin with. Using a fishing boat that one of them owned they sailed to Tower Isle and set up a camp on the island to be their base of operations hidden away from prying eyes. They knew they were likely to have many enemies on their mission, and they were going to have to work in secret if they didn't want to get stamped out like a small fire blown out before it can spread. In time they recruited more people, and did small things like going into poor neighborhoods and fighting off gangsters (usually mostly made of non-human species) who owned the streets to gain the admiration of the people living there.
As they started to grow, The Destiny Manifesto grew a bit bolder, doing more bigger things to try to push their agenda. They started to adopt orphans (not always legally), Human and non-human alike, to give them a home and to teach them the respective purposes of their races. As they say after all, children hold the key to the future. They also increased their acts of vigilante justice, leading to events like killing suspected criminals who were found not guilty mostly through mistakes made by the prosecution than being proven innocent (this happened most often with rapists, by Ardan's decision), or breaking other pro-human activists with similar ideals to their own out of prison. It was during one of these raids that Ardan was wounded and ended up losing one of his eyes. Years go by and many of the members that the Manifesto started with eventually end up dead or in jail, and many Pokemon pass through Ardan's possession, but he always remained as the Manifesto's leader and his Gallade named Knight remained as his closest companion.
Its been a few decades since The Destiny Manifest was founded now, and Ardan is starting to feel his age weigh him down. He knows that it may not be too long until he had to pass the reins down to a successor, but there is always the lingering paranoia in his mind that such a successor would not have the perfect, ideal world envisioned in his mind the way Ardan does. And so, in the past few years, he has started to get desperate. Many of the Manifesto's recruits nowadays are criminals rather than revolutionaries, looking out for their own gain than to try to change the world. It was through this desperation that he allowed the invention and use of the Aura Amplifier as well, a devious device that he would never use himself if he wasn't so convinced that the ends justify the means. After years of being able to remain hidden this has caused the government to start to devote an effort to undo his work. But the revolution, he believes, has already started to begin. It must begin soon, for everyone's sake, while he is still there to see it through and lead everyone into a new age of prosperity.
Powers: Though he has no special ability to read aura, Ardan's commanding presence is much stronger than the average Human. Pokemon seem naturally drawn to him and he's often able to gives orders to Pokemon that aren't even his, so long as they aren't directly opposed to him. Even then, Pokemon can find his presence to be distracting and lose their focus from their attention being drawn to him. Ardan also finds commanding multiple Pokemon at once to be less of a challenge than the average trainer.
Pokemon Owned: 6
~Pokemon~
Name: Pawn
Species: Talonflame
Gender: Female
Moves: Brave Bird, Flare Blitz, Swords Dance, Roost
Ability: Gale Force
Nature: Brave
Details: Ardan's usual lead, and his usual method of transportation. Pawn can be kind of reckless when she attacks and seems to hold a bit of a disregard of her own well being in favor of succeeding and protecting Ardan at any cost.
Name: Bishop
Species: Bisharp
Gender: Male
Moves: Iron Head, Sucker Punch, Guillotine, Swords Dance
Ability: Defiant
Nature: Quiet
Details: Bishop is a reliable member of Ardan's team that he can always trust to get the job done. He's a very quiet Pokemon, rarely saying anything at all. Generally he doesn't seem to express much outward emotion, but he follows all orders to the letter and its fairly obvious he is loyal to Ardan.
Name: Rook
Species: Bastiodon
Gender: Male
Moves: Iron Head, Stone Edge, Iron Defense, Protect
Ability: Sturdy
Nature: Hardy
Details: Rook is a tough looking Bastiodon who doesn't seem to be bothered much by anything and everything that goes around him. Whatever comes his way he deals with it without complaint, and Ardan can always count on him to act as a shield from any blow, no matter how severe.
Name: King
Species: Nidoking
Gender: Male
Moves: Earth Power, Sludge Wave, Flamethrower, Ice Beam
Ability: Sheer Force
Nature: Rash
Details: Despite his large size and obvious strength, many foes have been caught off guard by the fact that King is actually a ranged fighter. Sure he can crush a watermelon in his fist, but he'd much rather shoot flames at people instead. He's the reckless, "shoot first and ask questions later" type, so Ardan avoids using King when any discretion is required.
Name: Queen
Species: Vespiquen
Gender: Female
Moves: Attack Order, Defense Order, Heal Order, Air Slash
Ability: Pressure
Nature: Bold
Details: Queen is proud of her strength, and generally believes herself to be better than most other Pokemon. She outright refuses to listen to any person other than Ardan, who is the exception to her arrogance. Like the others, she is completely obedient to him.
Name: Knight
Species: Gallade
Gender: Male
Moves: Close Combat, Psycho Cut, Night Slash, Swords Dance
Ability: Steadfast (Inner Focus when Mega Evolved)
Nature: Serious
Details: Knight is Ardan's oldest and closest partner, and the two of them have been fighting together since The Destiny Manifesto was first founded. He is a very serious and straightforward Pokemon, who always focuses on the task at hand and is rarely ever distracted from his goals. There are many faded scars on his body from years of taking blows. He holds a Galladite, which along with his close bond with Ardan allows him to Mega Evolve, greatly increasing his strength and speed.
--- SAMPLE RP ---
"Yes, I know. Look, you don't need to tell me twice that you have to look out for the authorities." Ardan sat at his desk in his office, discussing an operation with one of his field operatives with a cigar in his hand, taking pauses to smoke it while the man on the other side was speaking. The office was pretty elaborate, as paintings covered each wall and a fireplace crackled off to the side. The room was kept a lot colder than the rest of the base specifically so the fireplace didn't make the room too hot, since they lived in the tropics. Casually looking up at his wristwatch, and noted he was expecting someone in just a minute. "Excuse me, but I'll have to call you back. I have an appointment. Continue with the plan as we discussed." Ardan hung up the phone and leaned forward out of the more relaxed sitting position he was in.
Right on time, a knock came on the door. "Come in," Ardan ordered has he pulled out a bottle of brandy and begin to pour some into a glass. A young man entered, one of the regular grunts of the Manifesto. He tried to look calm, but it was apparent that he wasn't really sure what to expect from his boss and it made him nervous. Ardan remained silent as he walked in, and didn't speak until he sat in the chair opposite of him. "Brandy?" The grunt looked sideways then put attention back on his boss. "Sure?"
Ardan poured a second glassed and pushed it over to him then started to speak. "Hello Mr. Johansson. I'm sure you're wondering why I called you to my office." It was more of a statement than a question; he didn't bother waiting for the grunt to answer before continuing. "Your record is pretty good so far, despite only being with us for a few months. You're a talented Pokemon tamer, and do your tasks efficiently and punctually... At this rate, you could be considered for a promotion." The grunt smiled at this, more relaxed that his boss seemed only intent on praising him.
"With how hard of a worker you are, I'm surprised you are single. Surely a young man like you has a girl at home?" The grunt grinned and shrugged passively. "I suppose not. I heard yesterday you 'made some moves' on one of our maids." He stared at the grunt quietly, not with a judging expression but obviously curious as to what he had to say.
Already disarmed by Ardan's praise, the grunt nodded and spoke up. "The Lopunny Pokemorph? Haha, yeah. I wouldn't normally wouldn't go for one of those animals but its been months since I got any action and she looks damn fine for a dumb rabbit."
Ardan put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together. "I hear you offered to 'sate her animal urges' and that you 'have a carrot for her rabbit hole'. And I don't think I need to get into detail about where you groped her." Slowly, the grunt was starting to get the idea that this wasn't going to lead to anywhere good. "Well I-" Is about all he got before one of Ardan's hands shot across the table, gripped him by the hair, then slammed his face down into the desk. The grunt yelped in pain and fell out of the chair, laying on the floor and holding his face.
"Who the fuck do you think you are!?" Ardan rose from his chair, the fire in his eye now clearly visible and his anger at a fever pitch. "You call yourself the future of humanity? I think not! All people are worth your respect, no matter their race or sex. Surely, you'd think of doing it to any girl you see fit, but you hide behind your prejudice and think the disgusting way you treat women is acceptable then." The grunt was still too busy being in pain to respond with more than a groan. "Apparently, you still don't get what The Destiny Manifesto is about. We are not about slavery, we are about cooperation! The lesser races are not for us to use and abuse as we see fit! We are going to make a world where we live in harmony, with us guiding the lesser races, and they shall serve us like Pokemon serve us. They are still people, and they deserve the same respect you give your own Pokemon."
The grunt finally moved his hands, and stared up at Ardan like, ironically, a scared rabbit. "Get up," the boss ordered to him and he looked away and smoked his cigar. The grunt quickly rose to his feet and brushed himself off, trying his best to follow orders so he wouldn't get hit again. "Don't you ever do this again, or I assure you I'll do a lot worse than slamming you into a desk. Now get out of my office." Saluting and stumble muttering 'Yes sir', the grunt turned and quickly exited the office, the door slamming behind him. Turning back to his desk Ardan sighed as he spotted the glass the grunt was holding has fallen to the floor and shattered, spilling brandy across his rug. Picking up the phone he pressed a few buttons and held it up to his ear. "Hello. Yes, this is Ardan. I need one of the maids to clean a mess in my office."
~About You~
Player Name: Billy Mays
Preferred Pronouns: Male
How did you find us?: When I made the site on Proboards