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escordvi app
(cw for the whole app: period-typical racism & anti-blackness, hate crimes, slavery, drug abuse, suicide, violence against children)
PLAYER INFO
CHARACTER INFO
ARMADA SELECTION
SAMPLE
PLAYER INFO
CHARACTER INFO
Character: Cyrus Douglas
Canon: Mycroft Holmes series (Canonpoint: Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage)
Age: 43
Background Information:
Book 1: Mycroft Holmes
In 1869, Cyrus Douglas meets Mycroft Holmes and his fiancee at the London docks. Douglas was unloading his tobacco shop's cargo; Mycroft noticed a rare cigar among the stock and struck up a conversation. Mycroft becomes a Regent Tobaccos regular, and over the next year they become fast friends. Mycroft also deduces that Douglas is not an employee but the real tobacconist: looking to dodge scrutiny as a Black business owner, he'd hired a white couple to masquerade as the owners.
In 1870, Mycroft and Douglas travel to Trinidad to investigate the serial kidnappings and killings of young children, as well as Mycroft's fiancee's sudden disappearance. After encountering often violent resistance by mysterious adversaries, the two, with the help of Douglas' local friends, uncover a vast conspiracy of which Georgiana is a part. She plays a key role in a multinational business looking to create a normalized and "humane" form of chattel slavery.
The more they learn, the more threats they and their allies face. Douglas' family home is even burned to the ground. At a critical point, Mycroft, Douglas, and Douglas' friend Huan discover another serial killing victim. Mycroft, panicking, suggests they abandon the dead boy and flee; Douglas snaps at him, insisting they'll have lost touch with their own humanity if they don't bury his remains. As the three dig his grave, Douglas finally confides his past in Mycroft. Four years before, his African-American wife, young son, and parents were killed in a violent riot visiting the American South.
Eventually, a suicidal Georgiana gives them a final clue to her collaborators before succumbing to her own poison. Douglas and Mycroft recruit a number of local men to sail to the headquarters of the outfit. It's a trap: many men are killed or gravely wounded.
One of the main collaborators, a respected English bureaucrat, offers Mycroft and the other survivors the chance to leave if they leave the business alone. In the ensuing standoff and escape, Douglas is shot twice in the chest and presumably killed. Only Mycroft believes him to still be alive, and on the way back to the main island, he cares for his friend's body until he starts to breathe again.
Douglas undergoes surgery, leaving him with two bullet fragments near his heart that are too dangerous to remove. He recovers; he and Mycroft return to London.
After the slaving business is uncovered and broken up, Mycroft discovers a major stakeholder was a cousin to the Queen and was embezzling crown funds for his investment. Mycroft blackmails him; he soon becomes a wealthy man. With the help of some of Mycroft's newfound riches, Douglas establishes a boy's home in his late son's name.
Book 2: Mycroft and Sherlock
By 1872, Douglas has ceded half ownership of Regent Tobaccos to his employees: on doctor's orders, he must reduce his physical labor and stop smoking. He devotes more time to (secretly) managing Nickolus House, which prepares young boys for apprenticeships to keep them off the streets.
Mycroft brings his teenage brother Sherlock by one day to help tutor and distract him from investigating a recent string of gruesome murders. However, a boy from the shelter named Charles goes missing. Sherlock remarks that Charles bore strange puncture marks consistent with opium use, with some in odd areas that couldn't be self-inflicted.
Douglas receives urgent word that a ship containing his shop's cargo has run aground. Leaving Sherlock with the teachers, Douglas departs to investigate and salvage his stock. He discovers the corpses of two looters, bearing strange puncture marks matching Charles'. He also sees the debris of bisque dolls at the beach.
After Douglas returns, he and Sherlock track Charles down; unfortunately, he overdoses on an unknown drug. Douglas joins Mycroft on an investigation of Charles' true cause of death. Mycroft soon uncovers connections between Sherlock's chemistry professor, Cainborn; Deshi Hai Lin, a Chinese businessman whose ships import and export goods; and Madam Matalin, a wealthy opium addict and sponsor of Nickolus House. The two intentionally exclude Sherlock to keep him safe. By chance, Mycroft meets Lin's daughter Ai, whose younger brother is Sherlock's classmate-- she invites them to dinner with her family the following week.
Sherlock secretly investigates alone, leading him to uncover a code used by the opium dealers that uses Chinese characters. He reveals this to his brother and Douglas. Douglas enlists Huan-- Mycroft's driver-- to find a translator; however, Sherlock frustrates and insults the translator, who leaves before translation is finished. Douglas scolds Sherlock, urging him to keep his patience and humility when dealing with someone with a network. Rather than risk Sherlock's ruined reputation, Douglas and Mycroft take over with a new translator.
All comes to a head at dinner with the Lin family. Douglas and Huan wait outside the home in a cab in case of trouble. Deshi Hai Lin, stressed and under pressure, retires before dinner is over, but not before his past involvement in liberating coolie workers is revealed.
Midway through dinner, Ai Lin receives urgent word of acquaintance Matalin's death. She and the Holmes brothers take off for the crime scene, soon discovering Matalin's murder was arranged to resemble an overdose. Douglas and Huan indeed fight off several men, aided by Ai Lin's bodyguards.
The group reconvenes and shares their discoveries. For his violent revolutionary past, Deshi Hai Lin was blackmailed into smuggling experimental opium strains back to China from England in hollow dolls, marked with the code Sherlock discovered; Madame Matalin was one of many rich customers who vetted strains and tested them on street children, including Charles. Sherlock flees to confront Cainborn. His professor had taken advantage of their studies to create these strains; all Sherlock wanted was to create a better opium-based painkiller for his drug addicted and chronically ill mother.
The Chinese translator Sherlock informs the group he's found Sherlock at the docks, attacked by Cainborn and his men. Mycroft collapses while running to his aid, due to a heart condition he has concealed from all his loved ones. Ultimately, Huan and Douglas steps in to help, with Douglas saving Sherlock from drowning. Cainborn and the dealers are arrested and Sherlock recovers at Nickolus House.
Douglas will arrive in Escordvi at the beginning of book 3, Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage. He and Mycroft have spent a week traveling throughout Germany-- Mycroft to investigate German banking, and Douglas its tobaccos-- and they have just arrived in Vienna, Austria, to attend the Fifth International World Exhibition.
Personality:
1) Tell us about who your character is and what someone’s first impression would be upon meeting them.
Cyrus Douglas, as the Watson archetype of his series, is just what one might expect from a Holmes' loyal sidekick and foil. He can be bold and daring when Mycroft is in trouble, or he can be a mediator and voice of reason when Mycroft has caused the trouble. Most of all, he's a true friend and ready to follow Mycroft into hell, if need be. This, of course, is not limited to his best friend-- he stays entirely accountable to everyone he cares about or is obligated to, from his employees and business contacts to the orphans he supports through Nickolus House. He's a good and kind man, reliable and loyal to a fault; anyone lucky enough to count him as a friend knows this well.
However, this isn't always the first impression Douglas gives off. He's well aware that he stands out-- he's very tall, he's Black and middle class in a bigoted era, his best friend is white and almost 20 years his junior-- so he takes great pains not to draw attention to himself in public. He keeps a low profile, slouching and avoiding eye contact; he doesn't speak much, defusing any public conflict rather than stirring up trouble. He keeps his business endeavors private so he, and they, won't be targeted.
The observant will be able to tell there's more to him than this cautious mask, however. All his downplaying belies the worldly, mature man Douglas actually is. Born into culturally blended late 1800s Trinidad, then coming into adulthood working as a merchant sailor, he's had an interesting, varied life. It's part of why he cares deeply about the diversity and richness of humanity. He's seen and done so much that he's naturally inquisitive about other places and people, valuing opportunities to learn and do more. In private, he's friendly and gregarious, even dryly funny, and there's a sharpness to his mind that's evident in deeper conversations.
2) What is a driving force your character has? What goals do they have, what motivates them, etc?
Douglas' driving force is his own moral code and his inherent love of humanity. In book 1, he'd rather endanger himself than not give a child a proper burial; later, he'd rather risk certain death than bargain with criminals who'd enable hundreds of people to suffer. More than anything, he cares about putting good in the world and not causing undue suffering by his actions. To him, ends never justify the means if someone is being harmed by them, even for the sake of a noble, far-reaching cause.
Goal-wise, Douglas is... chronically productive! He put out to sea at 12 to support his family, and as an adult he still feels that instinct to keep busy. It's more about taking care of people and keeping himself active, however, than making money. When he gains enough capital and is obligated to work less, Douglas opens a shelter (that operates at a loss!) rather than spend that money for himself. He simply can't stay physically or mentally idle for long or he'll grow restless.
Finally, Douglas is also motivated by his own intellectual passions. His tobacco shop is a complete labor of love-- he's personally interested in the business angle, as well as the tobacco itself, and he loves learning more about both to make his shop the best it can be. Additionally, though he's never had a formal higher education, he's a voracious reader and has spent many long ocean voyages poring over classics for entertainment. Get him talking about something that interests him and he'll keep going as long as the other party is listening.
3) What are their flaws as a character? What is something they've messed up, or have done that they regret?
Douglas is private to a fault. He'd rather give help than accept it-- he's had to be strong for others for so long, especially supporting his family from an early age, that he struggles to open himself up to vulnerability instead. Instead of sharing his problems and inviting sympathy, he just doesn't talk about his problems, putting himself in a support role so no one realizes that he has any worries beyond day-to-day concerns. Sure enough, when he finally opens up to Mycroft and Huan, he can't meet their eyes for long: "their faces were so grieved that he could not bear it".
Furthermore, Douglas compartmentalizes hard. Mycroft describes a "melancholia that Douglas wore lightly, almost like a second skin"-- he's faced so much tragedy and violence in his life, that carrying it with him is the only way he knows how to deal. This is especially true for the deaths of his parents, wife, and young son. While he's mourned them, he hasn't truly processed how much it devastated him that they were simply killed for being Black in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure enough, he maintains complete composure telling his friends of the incident, even withholding some more painful details so their sympathies won't remind him of the grief he can't fully complete himself. As a private person, and someone who struggles with vulnerability, he has nowhere to express that pain. He just shuts it away, as carrying on is easier than figuring out how to deal with the weight of his hurt.
His family's deaths are a big regret of his. He'd been so focused on his business at the time that he convinced his parents to go to America with his wife and son; although he doesn't directly blame himself, he does wonder if things could have been different if he'd gone with them or told them to wait. A part of Douglas regrets how much work has kept him from his loved ones, but at the same time, he's not sure how to function when he isn't staying busy. With his son dead, the legacy he creates through his work sometimes feels like all he has left.
Finally, the flip side to Douglas' strong morality is his stubbornness. When he's resolved something to be right or wrong, he sticks to it, and can even come off patronizing if he isn't careful. As he's so focused on people and their immediate problems, he has trouble accepting high-level ideas that have long-term benefits for short-term downsides. Therefore, compromises made "for the greater good" don't work for him.
4) Optional: What is something unique and interesting about them, or what is a fun little tidbit that sets them apart from the crowd?
Douglas may come off as a sane voice of reason, but let us not forget his best friend is some blonde freak who keeps getting him into trouble. He could literally stop this at any time but it turns out he really likes solving mysteries. Though he hides it, fundamentally, Douglas is a bit of a weirdo, and he surrounds himself with weirdoes because he just thinks they're neat and vice versa. Life is more fun when things are a little unexpected!!
Secondary important tidbit: he's 43 and can still do a backflip. :|b
Abilities & Inventory: Douglas is a baseline human with no supernatural abilities. For his mundane talents...
- He's skilled at hand-to-hand combat and has trained since youth; particularly, he's familiar with capoeira and some Chinese martial arts.
- He began working on ships from an early age and is very familiar with them.
- He knows how to use a firearm (though, of course, at a late 19th century level)
- He's a polyglot: he is fluent in English, Patois, Spanish, and Portuguese, and has some familiarity with Chinese*, French, and Russian.
(*note: although canon specifically says Mandarin, when I researched, the Chinese-Trinidadian community he would've spent time with in this era was primarily Cantonese-speaking, sooooo I'm headcanoning it's largely Cantonese and a little Mandarin.)
He doesn't really have any notable possessions and will just be bringing the clothes on his back.
Canon: Mycroft Holmes series (Canonpoint: Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage)
Age: 43
Background Information:
Book 1: Mycroft Holmes
Book 2: Mycroft and Sherlock
Douglas will arrive in Escordvi at the beginning of book 3, Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage. He and Mycroft have spent a week traveling throughout Germany-- Mycroft to investigate German banking, and Douglas its tobaccos-- and they have just arrived in Vienna, Austria, to attend the Fifth International World Exhibition.
Personality:
1) Tell us about who your character is and what someone’s first impression would be upon meeting them.
Cyrus Douglas, as the Watson archetype of his series, is just what one might expect from a Holmes' loyal sidekick and foil. He can be bold and daring when Mycroft is in trouble, or he can be a mediator and voice of reason when Mycroft has caused the trouble. Most of all, he's a true friend and ready to follow Mycroft into hell, if need be. This, of course, is not limited to his best friend-- he stays entirely accountable to everyone he cares about or is obligated to, from his employees and business contacts to the orphans he supports through Nickolus House. He's a good and kind man, reliable and loyal to a fault; anyone lucky enough to count him as a friend knows this well.
However, this isn't always the first impression Douglas gives off. He's well aware that he stands out-- he's very tall, he's Black and middle class in a bigoted era, his best friend is white and almost 20 years his junior-- so he takes great pains not to draw attention to himself in public. He keeps a low profile, slouching and avoiding eye contact; he doesn't speak much, defusing any public conflict rather than stirring up trouble. He keeps his business endeavors private so he, and they, won't be targeted.
The observant will be able to tell there's more to him than this cautious mask, however. All his downplaying belies the worldly, mature man Douglas actually is. Born into culturally blended late 1800s Trinidad, then coming into adulthood working as a merchant sailor, he's had an interesting, varied life. It's part of why he cares deeply about the diversity and richness of humanity. He's seen and done so much that he's naturally inquisitive about other places and people, valuing opportunities to learn and do more. In private, he's friendly and gregarious, even dryly funny, and there's a sharpness to his mind that's evident in deeper conversations.
2) What is a driving force your character has? What goals do they have, what motivates them, etc?
Douglas' driving force is his own moral code and his inherent love of humanity. In book 1, he'd rather endanger himself than not give a child a proper burial; later, he'd rather risk certain death than bargain with criminals who'd enable hundreds of people to suffer. More than anything, he cares about putting good in the world and not causing undue suffering by his actions. To him, ends never justify the means if someone is being harmed by them, even for the sake of a noble, far-reaching cause.
Goal-wise, Douglas is... chronically productive! He put out to sea at 12 to support his family, and as an adult he still feels that instinct to keep busy. It's more about taking care of people and keeping himself active, however, than making money. When he gains enough capital and is obligated to work less, Douglas opens a shelter (that operates at a loss!) rather than spend that money for himself. He simply can't stay physically or mentally idle for long or he'll grow restless.
Finally, Douglas is also motivated by his own intellectual passions. His tobacco shop is a complete labor of love-- he's personally interested in the business angle, as well as the tobacco itself, and he loves learning more about both to make his shop the best it can be. Additionally, though he's never had a formal higher education, he's a voracious reader and has spent many long ocean voyages poring over classics for entertainment. Get him talking about something that interests him and he'll keep going as long as the other party is listening.
3) What are their flaws as a character? What is something they've messed up, or have done that they regret?
Douglas is private to a fault. He'd rather give help than accept it-- he's had to be strong for others for so long, especially supporting his family from an early age, that he struggles to open himself up to vulnerability instead. Instead of sharing his problems and inviting sympathy, he just doesn't talk about his problems, putting himself in a support role so no one realizes that he has any worries beyond day-to-day concerns. Sure enough, when he finally opens up to Mycroft and Huan, he can't meet their eyes for long: "their faces were so grieved that he could not bear it".
Furthermore, Douglas compartmentalizes hard. Mycroft describes a "melancholia that Douglas wore lightly, almost like a second skin"-- he's faced so much tragedy and violence in his life, that carrying it with him is the only way he knows how to deal. This is especially true for the deaths of his parents, wife, and young son. While he's mourned them, he hasn't truly processed how much it devastated him that they were simply killed for being Black in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure enough, he maintains complete composure telling his friends of the incident, even withholding some more painful details so their sympathies won't remind him of the grief he can't fully complete himself. As a private person, and someone who struggles with vulnerability, he has nowhere to express that pain. He just shuts it away, as carrying on is easier than figuring out how to deal with the weight of his hurt.
His family's deaths are a big regret of his. He'd been so focused on his business at the time that he convinced his parents to go to America with his wife and son; although he doesn't directly blame himself, he does wonder if things could have been different if he'd gone with them or told them to wait. A part of Douglas regrets how much work has kept him from his loved ones, but at the same time, he's not sure how to function when he isn't staying busy. With his son dead, the legacy he creates through his work sometimes feels like all he has left.
Finally, the flip side to Douglas' strong morality is his stubbornness. When he's resolved something to be right or wrong, he sticks to it, and can even come off patronizing if he isn't careful. As he's so focused on people and their immediate problems, he has trouble accepting high-level ideas that have long-term benefits for short-term downsides. Therefore, compromises made "for the greater good" don't work for him.
4) Optional: What is something unique and interesting about them, or what is a fun little tidbit that sets them apart from the crowd?
Douglas may come off as a sane voice of reason, but let us not forget his best friend is some blonde freak who keeps getting him into trouble. He could literally stop this at any time but it turns out he really likes solving mysteries. Though he hides it, fundamentally, Douglas is a bit of a weirdo, and he surrounds himself with weirdoes because he just thinks they're neat and vice versa. Life is more fun when things are a little unexpected!!
Secondary important tidbit: he's 43 and can still do a backflip. :|b
Abilities & Inventory: Douglas is a baseline human with no supernatural abilities. For his mundane talents...
- He's skilled at hand-to-hand combat and has trained since youth; particularly, he's familiar with capoeira and some Chinese martial arts.
- He began working on ships from an early age and is very familiar with them.
- He knows how to use a firearm (though, of course, at a late 19th century level)
- He's a polyglot: he is fluent in English, Patois, Spanish, and Portuguese, and has some familiarity with Chinese*, French, and Russian.
(*note: although canon specifically says Mandarin, when I researched, the Chinese-Trinidadian community he would've spent time with in this era was primarily Cantonese-speaking, sooooo I'm headcanoning it's largely Cantonese and a little Mandarin.)
He doesn't really have any notable possessions and will just be bringing the clothes on his back.
ARMADA SELECTION
Douglas is a shoo-in for Paladin! Though he doesn't care quite so much for enforcing order, he is an intelligent and very humanitarian-minded person. He'd definitely be interested in helping to preserve artifacts and scholarly discoveries-- and, more importantly, in using his influence as a Paladin to help other people. He'd be much more interested in doing something for the good of others than pursing mercenary work for his own benefit.
SAMPLE
Test Drive Sample:
- TDM toplevel
- TDM tag outs: Mycroft, Leon
- other misc samples: penny for your thoughts @ bkst
Questions: n/a, thanks for reading my app <3
- TDM toplevel
- TDM tag outs: Mycroft, Leon
- other misc samples: penny for your thoughts @ bkst
Questions: n/a, thanks for reading my app <3