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13 Skulls: Gideon LaRouche

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Description

Name: (Father) Gideon Robert LaRouche

Age:42 (DOB July 25, 1969, St Christopher's Day*)

Height/Weight: 5' 11", 178 lbs

Ethnicity: Canadian (Quebecois)

Place of Origin: Saint-Gabriel, Quebec, Canada.

Language Spoken: French (Quebecois dialect), English (with an odd, faint, and hard to place accent), some simple Spanish.

Hair color: Mouse brown, fading to gray

Hair Length: Unkempt and shaggy, various lengths but generally below the collar, along with a full beard that has a few stray white hairs in addition to the gray.

Eye Color: Hazel (gray-green, with light brown rings around the pupil)

Blood type: A positive

Tattoos, Markings, Scars: Old burn scars and tissue damage on hands and forearms. Similar burn scarring on his lower legs.

Accessories: A broken and poorly repaired pair of glasses, linen bandages wrapping both hands to nearly the elbow, old but mostly clean, an old Sterling silver and ivory Rosary, a Sterling silver crucifix and chain, a slightly larger, hand-carved cross of charred oak, worn on a piece of twine around his neck.

Personality:

Negative traits: Directionless and in many ways, nihilistic. Gideon's absolute belief that everything that happens to him, no matter how horrific, happens according to God's plan, tends to sap his own initiative, and make him slow to react to personal danger. As a result, Gideon is also something of a masochist and a martyr. However, when he sees people acting unapologetically in a truly monstrous fashion towards others, his righteous indignation will lead to explosive violent outbursts, particularly when he is drunk. Almost all of these faults are a result of the St. Jude's fire, along with a severe case of survivor's guilt. Additionally, Gideon has degenerated into a borderline alcoholic (as in, a true alcoholic with limited access to booze).

Positive traits: Gideon is extremely caring and protective of the downtrodden and forgotten. He is also very patient and understanding of the faults of others. . . provided they show some awareness of their own weaknesses and make an effort to redeem and improve themselves. Also, despite his own burning faith, Gideon sees no need to proselytize others, curse them as heretics, or even chide them with Biblical verses. He tries to lead by example instead, living a (somewhat) aesthetic life of denial and simple charity and kindness. This quality makes him welcome nearly everywhere, regardless of the faith, or lack thereof, of the people around him. The fire of his belief shines like a dim candle in the dark places of the world, no longer enough to show the way out to the lost, but it can attract others who are even more adrift than himself.

Hobbies: Wood carving/whittling, playing the harmonica. Both are childhood pursuits that he has practiced throughout his life, and is quite skilled at (the harmonica playing moreso that the whittling, although the cross he carved is quite lovely, and obviously a labor of love).

Personal History:

Gideon Robert LaRouche was born in Saint-Gabriel, Quebec, to Jean-Michael and Sophia LaRouche, on St. Christopher's day in 1969. Raised in a strict but loving Catholic household, Gideon was the third child to Jean-Michael and Sophia, all boys. As such, with the family business, a small lumber mill, was likely to pass to his older brothers. Growing up witnessing the constant atrocities of the Vietnam War on television and newsreels throughout his childhood, Gideon became detatched from family and school friends, withdrawing into the woods of the Laurentian Hills that supplied the timber for the family mill. It was there that he found peace, and would often spend hours alone in the pine forests, with only the distant roar of the logger's saws to give an indication that humanity ever set foot on this land. In his teens, he would take a backpack and disappear for days at a time, learning how to survive in the wilderness.

His parents, concerned about their sensitive and withdrawn child, were at a loss as to how to help him, when one day, when Gideon was seventeen, he returned from one of his excursions, beaming with joy. He informed them that in his meditations alone, he had heard the Call of God, and would enroll in Seminary school, so that he could provide the same guidance to others that he had lacked for so long. Overjoyed (and relieved) that their youngest had found a purpose at last, they fully supported his decision, and were amazed at the transformation he had undergone. He was gregarious, albeit soft-spoken still, and his quiet wit and contemplative nature made him an excellent counselor and natural for the Priesthood. After becoming ordained, he bid his farewells to his family and moved to Quebec City, where even as a young man of twenty-three he impressed the Clergy in the city. He was assigned to the St. Jude's home for wayward boys, where his deep understanding of isolation and non-preachy ways earned the trust of the troubled and orphaned children in the run-down facility. For four years, he lived a happy life there, helping the lost, the dispossessed, and the bitter of the community.

In 1996, that all changed. Father LaRouche, as he was now known, was a favorite of the children and the community in general, spending his spare time wandering the poorer neighborhoods, feeding and quietly ministering to the elderly and infirm of Quebec. One of his charges at St. Jude, Raphael, was a juvenile delinquent and grandson to one of these shut-ins, who simply could not afford to take care of the violent and destructive child. The boy had a history of fights and was a pyromaniac as well. When Gideon found him trying to to start a fire in a trash can, he refrained from taking the boy's stolen matches, knowing it would simply make him feel even more powerless. He told Raphael that they would work together to find a healthier outlet for his turbulent feelings that night, after he made his rounds. Raphael, fearing Father LaRouche was planning to tell his grandmother about his problems and have him sent away again, started another fire that afternoon. . . this time adding an old can of turpentine he had stolen in the basement, where he started the fire. The exploded, severely injuring and incapacitating Raphael, the fire burning out of control. The old wood of the orphanage was quickly involved in the blaze, the heat and smoke overwhelming the staff and children.

Father LaRouche returned to a chaotic jumble of emergency vehicles and choking black smoke. Knowing who was to blame, Gideon frantically leapt over the firefighter's barricades and began scrabbling through the hot ash and burnt wreckage, trying to find Raphael and any of his other "children". He was dragged out of the remains of the building, weeping and screaming at God and the firefighters to at least let him join them if he could not save them. Restrained and taken away for treatment of his burns, Gideon was held for psychiatric evaluation for several days, to make sure that he would not take his own life, as well as to treat the extensive second-degree burns he suffered wading through the destruction at the orphanage. While he was in the hospital, a member of the local Diocese came to visit him, informing him barely a dozen children and a handful of staff managed to escape the fire, and that Raphael's grandmother had died of heart related issues the next morning when she heard the news report on the radio. She had, however, known she would not live too much longer, being elderly and not in the best of health as it was, and had made a small gift of thanks to Gideon in her will. She had left him her silver rosary and crucifix in her will, as a gift to the priest who had quietly bolstered her faith and prepared her to meet her God. Taking them, when he was finally released from the hospital, Father LaRouche returned to the blackened shell of the orphanage some five weeks later. There, in the jumbled heaps of charred wood and ash, he found the remains of the rectory of the orphanage's modest chapel, and managed to find a burnt but still-legible Bible in the Director's desk. With that and a small portion of the altar's half-incinerated oak Crucifix, Father LaRouche quietly walked away from the orphanage, from Quebec, and from the world.

Gideon (or simply LaRouche, as he now called himself, wandered across the North American continent for the next four years, always moving, always alone with his guilt. At first he avoided all others, until, passing through Buffalo, NY, he met a group of homeless drifters who lived in the warehouse district of the city, on the Niagara River. They rekindled his need for human companionship, and he found the answer to the question that had plagued him for so long: why had God allowed him to live, while claiming so many good and innocent souls in retribution for his failure? He realized that God was testing his conviction, and so far, he was failing still. He decided then that he would continue to minister and watch over the lost and forgotten, even though he might never again find a home of his own. LaRouche has spent the last decade doing just that, his childhood survival skills serving him well in his travels, and he has sacrificed everything of himself for those other drifting, wayward souls he finds in his travels, leaving himself only the barest essentials to survive, and treasuring only the few small reminders of his past life.

When the strange invitation found LaRouche, he was in Wyoming, lately feeling compelled to head west across the Rocky Mountains. Once he saw Nigel's courier bearing the invitation to the contest, he knew that God had decided to finally give him the chance to put his faith to the final test, with a true Miracle as his reward, should he prevail.

Skull Power: LaRouche's Skull crystal grants him the power of Air, allowing him to levitate, and float like a leaf driven by the Breath of God Himself, to wherever he needs to be next.

Particpants have what they were wearing/carrying at the time of their RSVP. Describe what they are wearing, have brought with them, and of course, the contents of your character’s wallet.

Heavy oilcloth duster coat, battered Stetson hat, old and tattered leather boots, several layers of clothing and socks, all typically worn at once, an extremely long and frayed wool multicolored scarf, well-worn and scorched edition of the King James Bible, Swiss Army knife, box of matches, a plastic butane lighter, a package of disposable sanitary wipes, and a battered but well-cared for harmonica. His various pockets also hide some 75 dollars in small bills, and a small, half-full bottle of cheap whiskey.

LaRouche carries no ID of any sort, nor a cellular phone.

*Trivia: Gideon was born on July 25, 1969, St. Christopher (the patron saint of protecting travellers)'s day. Interestingly, the same year the pope (Paul VI) removed his feast day from the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, claiming the tradition was not of Roman origin. St. Christopher, however still enjoys great popularity as a patron saint, and as a guardian of travellers.
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PattyMcPancakes's avatar
oooh i like the textures~