ravenswrath

Really into rats.

User Name/Nick: Kota
User DW: N/A
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: waningsunflower on both Plurk and discord
Other Characters Currently In-Game: Godric, Johann, Aaron, Sheehan (this is a swap for Pagan)

Character Name: Corvo Attano
Series: Dishonored
Age: 39
From When?: At the top of the tower, when Havelock is struggling with Emily. Instead of saving her, Corvo is killed by a guard he missed.

Inmate Justification: Corvo was a good man. He was a protector, the sort of man who was born to put others above himself. But after the death of Jessamine and the kidnapping of Emily, he changed. He tore through people like tissue paper and caused the city to fall to a plague and chaos in the pursuit of revenge. He was part of the Loyalists, a group of men who sought to put Emily back on the throne, and he allowed them to use him to tear down various political figures and big players in the city without ever once questioning why. When they predictably betrayed him, he went after them, too, as best he could, without a thought for the consequences.

Arrival: Very much against his will

Abilities/Powers:

Combat ability: Corvo is a trained assassin. His reflexes are honed and he is a skilled swordsman and shot with both gun and crossbow. He knows how to sneak in a way that makes him a part of the shadows, even before the Outsider’s gift was given.
On the Barge: Unchanged. He’s a strong, capable human with a lot of training and skills, but this, at least, isn’t supernatural.

Blink: This is a teleportation ability that allows Corvo to instantly move to a target location within his line of sight. He must be able to see the destination and move to it unobstructed (so no going through bars or glass or keyholes or anything like that) .
On the Barge: Limited to ten-fifteen feet or so in any direction and will tire him out if used too often simultaneously

Dark Vision: This power enables Corvo to see in low light conditions and through walls. It helps him detect enemies, security systems, and, because of video game logic, important objects in his vicinity.
On the Barge: Can see in the dark. Can sometimes sense people through walls in common areas with OOC permission from all players involved. Cannot sense people in any protected spaces like cabins or warden-only areas, obviously.

Devouring Swarm: Corvo can summon a swarm of rats to attack and devour enemies. Swarm disappears after about a minute.
On the Barge: Control a swarm of rats that may be around, but cannot summon them from the ground since there is no ground. That might only work in appropriate ports.

Windblast: This ability allows Corvo to unleash a powerful blast of wind, knocking back enemies and objects. It can be used to clear paths, create distractions, or deflect projectiles.
On the Barge: Limited to a gust strong enough to knock someone back, but is draining enough to use only a few times a day. Strength is limited to little more than his own, human strength, so he can use it to open doors or push objects out of his way, but not knock down walls.

Possession: Corvo can temporarily possess humans and animals and use them to travel into areas that may be inaccessible for a human.
On the Barge: No human possession. Corvo can possess one animal once a day for no more than five minutes, but cannot use them to travel to restricted areas. If he tries to enter restricted or protected areas, he will come back to himself, just outside the doorway.

Bend Time: Temporarily slows or stops time, allowing Corvo to move unhindered
On the Barge: Null, since it’s game breaky, but I wanted to have it here in case an event comes up when it can be used

Vitality/Agility: The Outsider has granted Corvo fast healing and other abilities like jumping higher, running faster, and ability to fall from long heights without hurting himself.
On the Barge: Healing is only a little faster than normal. Agility is near the upper limit of human level (think hopeful track and field Olympian, like the sort they do Today show interviews with).

Shadow Kill: Turns the bodies of the people he kills to ash
On the Barge: Nerfed completely because my dude

Inmate Information:

Corvo was once a protector. He has always been the sort of man who felt called to help others. Quiet and calculating, he stood by the Empress’ side and vowed that he would always be there to defend her. He poured his life into this, even gaining the title of Lord Protector. However, the death of Jessamine, his lover, and the kidnapping and exploitation of Emily, his daughter, broke a once righteous man. He lost everything in a matter of moments - his love, his family, his title, and his reputation, and spent six months in prison, tortured for a death he did not take. During those moments and during that time, he changed.

He wasn’t without help, though. When the Loyalists broke him out of prison, they needed a weapon. The Outsider, a pagan god, also needed Corvo for his own gains. Pagan submitted willingly to both of these people in the hopes that he could get vengeance and some semblance of his life back.

The Outsider was very pointed when he gave Corvo his powers. He told him that they could be used in any manner of ways. And while Corvo had access to less lethal ways of getting to his goal, he began to choose the deadlier and more vicious attacks as a rule. He followed the Loyalists without question, simply because they broke him out of jail and promised him Emily. He followed their orders to the letter, engaging in political intrigue and assassination until they ultimately betrayed him and he had to rid himself of them, too. Martin remarks at the end that they had ordered deaths and blackmail until it became habit. Corvo never protested, never did anything other than exactly what they wanted. They made him a tool and he accepted it as the price to pay for Emily’s return.

The Loyalists used him as a sword and he was very good at it. While the Loyalists offered flimsy excuses for why targets needed to be eliminated, Corvo never once asked why. He didn’t probe into the reasons. He didn’t think to ask a single question. He simply did as he was told. And so, as time went on, the problem became that he began to think of himself as nothing better than a tool. There was no future goal for him, just the job and nothing outside of it. That sort of tunnel vision leads to his poor decisions and ensures that he never could pull himself out of it. There was never a happy ending for Corvo as long as he led the city into darkness, but he hadn't cared about that in a long time.

But it wasn’t simply their orders that he followed to a lethal ending. There are many other instances where he could have chosen differently but, instead, chose violence. When he helps Granny Rags by taking care of her “suitors,” he doesn’t hesitate in slaughtering them on her front porch rather than employing diplomatic or otherwise nonlethal approaches. Corvo slowly loses more and more of himself as his missions continue until he’s become nothing more than a shell of the man he once was. Emily comments on it, and his influence on her makes her a darker and more vicious person than she had been. He corrupts a child, his child without even thinking about it. It’s at that point that Corvo has lost all control of himself and where he’s at. He’s done so much damage to try and save Emily, but he’s made her just like him.

In addition to eliminating his targets, Corvo takes out guards along the way, killing without abandon. Their bodies attracted more rats, which brought more plague, more weepers, more chaos into the city. The people around Corvo begin to turn on him, making comments about how often he chooses to kill, how he used to be a protector. And Samuel, after saving him by only giving him half the poison when the Loyalists told him to give it to him in full, remarks that he doesn’t know why he’s helping Corvo when all he’s done is kill.

When he’s ultimately betrayed by the Loyalists, it’s only a confirmation of everything he had already known - he can’t trust anyone. He can’t rely on anyone. Corvo’s never had a head for politics, and he doesn’t want to, and he lets their actions color his entire worldview until he’s become nothing more than the Masked Felon. The Dunwall Butcher.

He had a handful of targets that he takes out in various ways:

Overseer Campbell

While it would have been simple for Corvo to choose to exile the High Overseer, to brand him as an outcast and ensure that he never remain in power, he went a different direction. Instead, after learning that the Overseer planned on poisoning the drink of Curnow, the uncle of Callista, a Loyalist, he switches the drinks, sparing the uncle and killing the Overseer. He left the uncle to fend for himself, to take the blame for the death of the Overseer, and took the notebook and returned to the Loyalists with it.

In the meantime, at the request of Granny Rags, Corvo poisoned the elixirs of the Bottle Street gang, which would later create more weepers, and kills the men who come to bother her at her door, all to get Outsider’s ruins.

Pendelton Brothers

Slackjaw, the leader of the Bottle Street gang, unaware of what Corvo had done to his elixirs, tells Corvo that he can get rid of the Pendleton brothers without killing them and without fuss. All he needs is the safe code from an art dealer in the pleasure house. In order to get this code, he has to torture the man with electricity. Corvo decides to get the code and let Slackjaw deal with the twins, without even knowing what their fate would be. He also funds the Bottle Street gang with the coins from the art dealer’s safe, possibly spreading their influence and certainly emboldening them on the streets.

Lady Boyle

Corvo infiltrates the party and discovers that the Boyle sister he is supposed to eliminate has a stalker. Rather than kill her, he kidnaps her and shoves her in the basement, selling her to her stalker, Brisby, who would marry her and take her away forever. While he did not kill her directly, he arguably damned her to a worse fate, which he didn’t even hesitant to execute.

Hiram Burrows

When it comes time to take out the man who orchestrated the death of Jessamine and the kidnapping of Emily, Corvo does not stay his hand. He slides a blade into him, rather than expose him for the traitor that he really is. This likely increased the Loyalist’s desire to betray him later, since Burrows wasn’t able to confess how he orchestrated the whole plot.

This is the biggest misstep that Corvo makes. In letting his desire for revenge get the better of him, he robs the city of a chance to heal, to have the man who threw them into chaos be tried and executed in a more lawful way.

Daud

Of course the man who actually killed the Empress is killed. When faced with the choice of sparing or saving Daud, even after the man's confession that it was a mistake, Corvo chooses to kill him, shoving a blade into his neck and ending his life. He didn’t even need to confront Daud. All he needed was the key on his person to escape and return to save Emily. Corvo didn’t take the chance. He wanted his revenge and he took it.

Path to Redemption:

Redemption for Corvo would require a fundamental shift in his mindset, values, and behavior. It's about moving from a path of vengeance and destruction to one of reflection and atonement. He needs to find that part of himself that was a protector once upon a time. The sort of man who thought about others before he acted. He needs to first be able to realize the effects that he had on the people around him, especially Emily. He needs to see that he doesn’t act in a vacuum and those actions have consequences that are not always so easy to spot. He needs to be able to find other ways of handling his problems. That tunnel vision that he was given needs to be stripped away so he can see the entire forest again.

The barge itself isn’t too much of an enigma. He would rationalize it as being back in the Void again. Perhaps the Admiral himself is actually the Outsider, testing him once again. From the canonpoint I’m bringing him from, he won’t be happy to be there. Quite the opposite, in fact, and might actually get rather violent. At this point, he doesn’t care if he lives or dies, and can’t imagine a world or an existence without Emily.

He won’t mind too much being wardened, mostly because he won’t think about it too often. The restrictions that might be put into place wouldn’t affect him too much. The problem is going to be getting him out of the mindset that he is anything more than a tool to be used. A precise and deadly tool, to be sure, but a tool just the same. He needs to reconnect with the man who is a father, who is a lover, who was a son.

A warden will have to be compassionate with him. He doesn’t need a drill sergeant or he will either fall into line without learning anything, or he will spend his time rebelling until he’s exhausted. Rather, he needs someone with a softer touch, someone he can call a friend so he can learn to trust other people again, especially people in power. He needs someone he can talk to who can guide him through the grief and his reactions to it.

Once Corvo really sees the way that his actions have impacted Emily and the rest of the city, once he learns to care about himself and his daughter more than he cares about revenge, then he will be able to really start to change. It will be difficult at first, especially because he is stubborn and set in his ways, but Corvo isn’t a monster by birth; he was created to be one by the circumstances of his life.

History:

Corvo’s Biography

Basic Plot

In each mission, with each choice, Corvo has chosen to eliminate the target. He has killed nearly every guard he comes across in brutal ways and the “High Chaos” consequences apply:

The city of Dunwall becomes more dangerous and hostile. There are more guards patrolling the streets, and they are more alert and aggressive. The spread of the plague intensifies, leading to more weepers (plague-infected citizens) in the streets. The overall health of the city deteriorates. Townsfolk express fear or hostility towards Corvo. The number of rat swarms in the city increases, and they become more aggressive.

Sample Network Entry: I thought I wouldn’t have to see the Void again. I thought that, maybe, I wouldn’t need to live in his world any longer. But here I am, on the Outsider’s ship, the Void outside my damn window, though he calls himself something else.

Do you worship him here? I bet he loves that.

Sample RP: TDM

Special Notes: I'm bringing Corvo from the first game, but I'm using information from the comics, the books, and the second game to fill in the blanks left in the game.