Stars and Stones!

Your name or online alias: JK
Your email: ashavah.jk@gmail.com
Another preferred means of contact: ashavah or ashavah
Character's Full Name: Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden (though don't expect to get the full thing from his own lips; names have power).
Character's Canon: The Dresden Files (Books)
Character's Journal Name: wizard_is_wizarding
What would you like your character's tag to be?: harry dresden

Answer the following questions in no less than 300 words but no greater than 1000 words put together...


Background

Harry Dresden was born the son of a powerful wizard and a stage magician. His mother died in childbirth (though Harry would later learn she was murdered by a former lover, father of Harry's half-brother Thomas), and his father when he was still a young child. Harry was in foster care until he was adopted by a wizard, Justin DuMorne, who raised and trained Harry and another orphan, Elaine, giving them extensive but harsh training. When Harry was 16, DuMorne tried to sway them to dark magic. When Harry refused, he set a demon on him. Harry killed him in self-defence, which got him captured and tried by the Wardens, the military/police of the White Council of Wizards. Harry hadn't known there were other wizards, let alone that killing someone with magic was against the First Law of Magic and would earn him an instant death sentence.

Harry was found guilty, but because he'd acted in self-defence, he was reprieved but put under the Doom of Damocles -- if he broke any more magical laws, he'd be executed, and the reprieve was only possible if a new master took responsibility for him. He spent much of his adult life under the Doom, first training with his new master, and then moving to Chicago and setting up as the city's only professional wizard. Harry is a private investigator, sometimes helping mortals, sometimes the supernatural, sometimes Chicago Police Department. A few years ago, he was drafted into the Wardens himself to help fight a war he'd accidentally started with one of the vampire courts.

Not long afterwards, Molly Carpenter, daughter of a dear friend, was convicted of breaking the Third Law of Magic against mind control. Harry pleaded her case and, as a result, Molly is now his apprentice. She is under the Doom, and if she transgresses, so too is Harry.


Personality

Harry is a perpetual smartass, to the chagrin of those who know him; his response to fear is typically to crack wise. He's a man of deep feeling, and his constant jokes cover that. He takes seriously his self-imposed duty to protect people, particularly mortals from the supernatural.

He's a fiercely loyal friend, and is willing to take a bullet to save someone he feels is under his protection. He's also very protective of women (which he realises is rather chauvinistic but doesn't plan to do anything to change) and children. As a result, Harry is often stubbornly independent, and it has taken him a long time to learn to trust his friends to go with him into danger.

Harry will always try to do what is right, even at great personal risk or if it involves things he finds distasteful. However, he would not describe himself as a good man: he has a much darker side as well; he can be vengeful, and in the heat of anger sometimes acts in haste and repents later, as when he burned down a building in anger at the vampires inside and accidentally killed some of their human captives. However, he struggles to make the best choices he can, and deeply regrets what he sees as his own failures and mistakes.


Skills

Harry is a very powerful wizard. He's good at thaumaturgy, creating magical links between people and objects, such as using tracking spells. His skills at evocation, or quick and dirty magic, are mainly in fire and wind magic; many spells require his blasting rod or staff. He's not always able to refine his spells. More subtle spells give him difficulty, although this is less the case since he started training Molly.

Along with magic, all wizards have the ability to soulgaze; if a wizard looks too long into someone else's eyes, they see straight into their soul, and vice versa.

He can use wizard's sight, which shows the true nature of things, but what is seen is is irrevocably imprinted on the memory and never fades. He can also Listen, which involves very focused listening and allows him to hear things from a distance if he chooses.

Harry can also open portals to the Nevernever, the spirit realm. Given the nature of the game I'm happy to assume Q has cut off access to the Nevernever.


Items

Harry will have with him:

• his shield bracelet; he uses this as a focus for a defensive shield.


• the rings he wears which gather kinetic energy and can unleash it at an opponent.


• a black leather coat impregnated with defensive spells.


• a silver pentacle amulet that he often uses the generate light.

He will not have his staff or rod with him, which will limit his evocation.

He will have his huge dog, Mouse. Mouse is a guardian dog with the ability to sense dark creatures and magic and to attack spiritual beings. He's very intelligent and has a bark that can be heard dozens of miles away should he choose to use it.


Games

Harry has not previously been in a game. I'm looking forward to the challenge of playing him; I've considered playing him for a long time because I love his personality, and another player is considering playing Molly, which would be very fun CR. He'd also be fun to play off some of the other magical and spiritual characters. Also, he'd be accidentally breaking one of the laws of magic. Again.

I will need to work out with the mods how to handle Harry's issues with technology. Wizards break technology in unpredictable ways; Harry describes it as bringing out Murphy's Law. Gabby has suggested on his arrival we could run a plot with him initially accidentally breaking something and leaving the ship adrift. I would LOVE to run this if the mods are okay with it and am happy to hash out details.

For Harry to work in a high-tech setting, he'd either have to be depowered or Q would have to shield the technology against magic, which I'm sure he could do.



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