Boxed - Application

[nicodemus]

Player Information
Player name: Levy
Contact: plurk @ pathogenic
Are you over 18: Yeeep
Characters in The Box Already: Helios Sprensonne (folklorist)

Character Information
Character Name: Nicodemus Archleone
Canon: The Dresden Files

Canon Point: Just after book 10 – Small Favor

Is your character Dead, Undead or Alive: Alive

History: History

Personality:

Nicodemus is, without a doubt, a truly evil character. While other villains of the series have had moral gray aspects, Nicodemus shows no such shade in his overall personality. Nicodemus is, for intensive purposes a psychopath. He is extremely intelligent, meticulous in his schemes, and typically a very careful individual when playing his hand. And even if his plans do fall through, generally he never really loses much, but gains something anyway. His thoughtful mindset does not end there. The reason Nicodemus does not have an alternate form, as all the Denarians do, is because that would allow his fallen to have a certain influence and power over him. Instead Nicodemus has Anduriel as his shadow to which he can control and Anduriel can do as it pleases. In this sense Nicodemus needs to have control over himself, and over everything he does. To not have that power would severely limit him in his schemes and overall goals. He has no tolerance for his own men in regards to using them, and he certainly has no qualms in their deaths either. He also has their tongues cut out in order to prevent them from speaking, whether it’s to keep secrets or because Nicodemus is careful, is uncertain. But given the man’s nature it’s probably only because he sees them as nothing more than tools, and rather not deal with speaking to them.

Despite once being mortal Nicodemus has hardly any remnants of such an existence. He does not love or show compassion and has no feelings of remorse towards anyone who gets in his way. He is cold, calm and utterly detached from everything that makes him human. Even though he does have a wife and a daughter, they too are part of the Order and they were probably not given a choice in taking one of the coins, which holds a fallen angel within them. His wife and himself seem to be at ends with each other though and the last time they worked together they caused the Black Plague. So it’s probably best for this family not to have any family reunions anytime soon. Nicodemus has a much better relationship with his daughter, Diedre. It’s almost taboo actually, since they both seem to be sexually involved with one another. And yet out of all the Denarians he is the most human, because he retains his physical human form the demon admires the human in Nicodemus’ case and it only makes his character that much more evil. He takes joy and amusement in torturing people, and even when he had Harry at his mercy, once Harry declined his offer to join the Order of the Blackened Denarius, Nicodemus’ demeanor towards Harry changed drastically. He no longer saw any use for Harry and therefore considered him nothing more than an item on a checklist to be scratched out. He was going to slice Harry’s neck as a sacrifice, to fulfill his spell to create a plague which would start the apocalypse. In this and the way he treats his human followers we see that Nicodemus holds some small amount of contempt towards mankind as a whole. In terms of choosing people and who he gives coins to; he focuses more on their mindsets than anything else. Should a person not live up to Nicodemus’ expectations they can consider themselves cast out and left to die without so much as a parting word. For example one of Nicodemus’ right hand men, Cassius gave up his coin in Dead Beat and since then Nicodemus has paid him little mind. Nicodemus has simply discarded him and left Cassius to rot once his use had run out and also because Cassius could not ‘keep up with the times’ as Nicodemus put it. He let the other man go and wasn’t very moved when he learned of Cassius’ death. Nicodemus is a man who is more concerned about ideals, rather than material gain, but he knows how humans work and can certainly make a deal anyone wouldn’t refuse, aside from, well Harry.

“Apocalypse is a frame of mind. A belief. A surrender to inevitability. It is a despair for the future. It is the death of hope.” This quote puts in perspective his frame of mind. In the absence of hope there is a breakdown of order, and a breakdown of order means chaos. Chaos is one of the fundamental ideas and states of being that Nicodemus tries to cause.
Even being a typical villain underneath it all Nicodemus comes off as being charming, grandiose, pleasant and with some form of manners. His typical calm and mellow voice only fuels this image and his lack of care in the most dire of situations aids it. However there are times when he is downright vicious and his smile is said, in terms of Harry, to look like a crocodile’s. Nicodemus has also shown to enjoy pain something of a masochistic tendency but it also might be because he knows that he can’t simply die by normal means.

Nicodemus isn’t without his fears though, despite being invulnerable. The one reason as to why he tried to get Harry to join his order is because he actually fears the man. He knows and has seen the amount of damage Harry’s powers have caused and it’s for that reason that he makes an aim to either have Harry join his side (by giving him Lasciel’s coin) or simply kill Harry, which was thwarted by a Knight of the Cross named Shiro. This fear is only perpetuated even further when Harry figures out the only means of actually killing Nicodemus.

He also holds grudges, big ones, which was the reason why Nicodemus traded in Shiro for his holy sword and Harry. His grudge against the Knight of the Cross was so immense that he literally wanted nothing more than to finally kill Shiro, one of the only people to come out alive in a duel against him, and he gave up one of swords for that purpose. He holds a certain amount of contempt for his own wife as well. Given how treacherous she seems to be, such as when she steals back all eleven coins in Small Favor, it’s easy to see where Nicodemus gets some of his paranoia and overt cautiousness.

Items on your character at canon point: Just his noose and if applicable his sword as well.

Abilities, Strengths and Weaknesses:

Strengths: Nicodemus has a brilliant mind. He paces himself unlike other villains of the series, which is why he’s lasted as long as he has. Despite him not having a battle form he is still formidable with his sword expertise. Nicodemus also isn’t against keeping up with the times so where a sword would be meaningless he uses a gun instead. He’s an opportunist when all is said and done and he makes no move without careful consideration. Even how he chooses a new host for the coins he has depends on the person and their personality more than their physical prowess.

Weakness: Despite not being physically weak, Nicodemus has some flaws. His tendency to hold grudges for one. Also his victories in most of the encounters he’s had in his life have made him pompous and arrogant. In terms of physical weakness the holy swords have a power to repel Anduriel and this is shown in Small Favor towards the end of the book. Nicodemus’ only weakness thus far is the noose around his neck, which can kill him via strangulation.

Nicodemus doesn’t possess an alternate form like all the other Denarians, this alternate form is known as battle shifting in canon. His human features remain entirely in tact when he uses his limited powers. His shadow, which is Anduriel the fallen angel that has possessed him, moves and acts on its own accord leaving no openings for Nicodemus to compromise himself. This mutual relationship is, in a sense, what helps constitute as Nicodemus’ battle shifting form. Anduriel takes a corporeal form and incapacitates its victims well away from Nicodemus to ensure that its host is well away from harm. It can also spread itself out to an enormous degree (ie: it's able to literally expand indefinitely along walls, floors, and ceilings, and in recent canon it even covers Harry in a dome like casing to try and smother him) Anduriel can also reform by pulling in the shadows of other things to regenerate itself.

Anduriel as with all the Denarians gives Nicodemus super human abilities such as: lack of aging, flight, millennia’s worth of knowledge, the ability to not be mentally compromised via telepathy or mind control, regeneration of damage done to his person (this is seen in Death Masks when Marcone fires a Gatling gun at Nicodemus and tears half his body to shreds. It takes only a fraction of a minute for him to reform his body), suppressing human magic practitioners powers like thorn manacles can do, and translating all spoken languages (including supernatural beings like ghouls – Nicodemus doesn’t demonstrate this but Harry and Lasciel do).

In the most recent book Anduriel's powers have been fleshed out a bit more. It's now stated that Anduriel is also known as being the Master of Shadows, or the spymaster of the Denarians. It's true potential is in using and obtaining information via people's shadows, as it was never meant to be a denarian that fights physically. Anduriel can zone in on a particular person's shadow and listen in on whatever that person says, it's also able to see through that person's shadow as well so writing is not an option to block it. He can basically see and hear anything within range of a living being's shadow regardless of who they are. Specific beings of power can block Anduriel's presence and powers to see into others shadows, like Mab, the island of demonreach (which is protected by a powerful living spirit) and angels or other beings of light.

Nicodemus also moves faster and is stronger than a normal human being. (Seen in Small Favor where he moves in the blink of an eye to attack Harry who was a few feet away). The extent of his power is unknown however, but with the two books he’s been in this much has been demonstrated. Magically speaking he doesn’t seem to possess much of a talent for it, but he is predisposed to working heavy, powerful, plague like spells.

Nicodemus cannot be injured by conventional means. Even the holy swords which the Knights of the Cross possess only seem to affect him little. They cut him, true, but he can apparently reform his body and recover quite quickly from an attack. Bullets are the same and other magical attacks as well. However powerful enough attacks can leave him stunned and have in the past sent him flying through walls and such. He’s indestructible but when force is applied he still has weakness to being pushed back, and takes time to recover. The reason for Nicodemus’ invulnerability is because of the noose he wears around his neck. Said to be the same noose Judas Iscariot used to hang himself, this grants him immunity from any physical and magical attack. However this noose is also his greatest weakness, the only way to seemingly incapacitate and kill Nicodemus is to strangle him with said noose.

Lastly he has a few millenia’s worth of sword fighting experience and in his entire life there have only been two Knights of the Cross who have successfully escaped him and lived after a duel.

Samples

Network/Action Spam Sample:

[ A man with an English accent will speak over the cellphone. There’s not much in the way of background noise, but he’s entirely too calm about the situation. ]

What an interesting little game this will be. Tell me. [ And here he pauses. ] What would you do to survive here, to attain a position of power, or to protect those you care about most? What would you be willing to sacrifice to make sure that they survive for as long as possible in this place? Would you give away your riches? Your most prized possession? Perhaps even your soul?

[ He laughs at the last one, his laugh is not a kind one but it is not entirely evil either. It is a dark laugh that has seen the folly of man when asked this question far too many a time and gets amusement out of the answers received. ]

I have a proposition for all those willing to listen. You may contact me at this number and you may call me Nicodemus Archleone. I’m sure we will be doing business in the future for those willing to hear my proposal.

Prose Log Sample:

Taken from Ryan’s Gulch application:
There is no easier way to a man’s heart and soul than to offer him riches and fame. All creatures, great and small, have such desires and ambitions. It’s here and now that sees it for himself. Rapture is the epitome of human nature, Darwinism at its finest, and he was all but enjoying seeing how it all amassed in the end. His own machinations didn’t help, but he could sense and see the mindset being to attack and rear up in some people. He had seen it once before…back when he and Tessa had started the first Black Plague, and it was a glorious feeling.

He knew the signs of impending disaster, hell he was one of the reasons for it usually, be it by plague or something else. He knew how good it felt to have power, to have everything you could imagine. And yet…greed was such a hard vice to control. Did Ryan really think these men and woman to be satisfied by such a normal and boring existence, day in and day out? It was a simple failing of man, one which had yet to be quelled or changed. And living in such close quarters as they all were? He merely smiled to himself, watching some disgruntled fools argue over something insignificant and hardly worth the fuss.

Humanity would never change, not unless the mindset and conditions were met. Chaos, disorder, and the apocalypse were all just a state of being, a condition of the human mind. And he would be the one to enact it here, or on the surface, once he made his way out of this place. Two thousand years of watching the world grow and change and he never saw any major difference. Mistakes that were made once in the past were remade again in the future. Humankind was such a hard study it seemed, and it all amounted to the fact that they were self-destructive as a race.

But no matter. He would certainly enjoy his time in Rapture, he felt certain of that fact quite a bit. It was almost too easy to go about normal business here, but then again he’s been in the business for a very, very long time.