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PLAYER
Player name: Chris
Contact: tricksterwind
Characters currently in-game: N/A

CHARACTER
Character Name: Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III (call him Percy)
Character Age: Early twenties
Canon: Critical Role
Canon Point: Episode 69: Passed Through Fire, just before the conversation with Seeker Assum
History:

This covers his pre-stream background.

On a quest from their friend Arcanist Allura Vysoren, Vox Machina ventured to the dwarven city of Kraghammer and the treacherous underdark of the Greyspire Mines in order to find Allura’s friend and ally Lady Kima, who had gone missing. Fighting their way through the mines, they met Clarota, a mind-flayer who had been exiled from his clan who became the group’s unlikely ally. He informed the group that a monster named K’Varn had asserted dominance over both his hive and the duergar who call the Greyspire Mines home. Upon learning that Lady Kima was held in the Emberhold, the duergar’s dark fortress, Vox Machina laid siege to it to save her. The resulting conflict gained them Lady Kima, but lost them their friend Grog who was psychically dominated by the duergar queen. Knowing that Grog would likely be sacrificed to K’Varn, the party gave chase, eventually discovering K’Varn was a monstrous beholder wielding a dangerous artifact known as the Horn of Orcus. After freeing Grog and destroying their foe, Clarota betrayed the group in order to return to his hive, leading to Percy blowing his brains out from a distance with his freshly made sniper rifle, proclaiming, “Some people have no sense of fucking honor.” Satisfied by this victory, the party returned to their home in Emon.


Upon learning from Kima that they would need to take the salvaged Horn of Orcus to the Platinum Sanctuary for it to be safely interred, Vox Machina chartered an airship and traveled to the ancient city of Vasselheim, where they spent some downtime. Said downtime was interrupted by the arrival of a hydra rampaging outside the city. Believing they were saving the city, Vox Machina attacked and killed it, only to discover that they had poached the hydra from the Slayers’ Take, a group of paid hunters, and to interfere with their contracts is illegal. In order to avoid prosecution, Vox Machina agreed to join the organization and the party was split into two groups for the trial. Percy went with the first group, which was meant to face a white dragon named Rimefang, and they succeeded in their task. With that and the success of the second group, they were awarded membership into the Slayers’ Take and returned to Emon again.


Upon learning from a political leader in Emon that a couple known as the Briarwoods were coming to Emon to attend a feast with Sovereign Uriel Tal’Dorei III, Percy informed his friends, for the first time, of his dark history with the foul couple. Upon realizing that the political leaders in Emon are unwilling (and in some cases magically charmed) to adhere to Percy’s warnings, Vox Machina made the trek to Percy’s former home of Whitestone to take on the threat head-on. They found the once beautiful city in a state of corruption and despair, but bit by bit, Vox Machina restored hope and planted the seeds of rebellion in the people, while eliminating the Briarwoods’ allies. As this went on, Percy began to struggle with his own inner (and literal) demons as he started to hear a mysterious voice urging him along, and became increasingly prone to dark and violent acts, due to the vengeance pact he made years before and the corrupting influence of the tainted city.


When the time came to attack the castle, Percy and the others discovered that the youngest de Rolo- Cassandra- survived the murder of the entire family. After saving her and removing another name from his “list,” the pepperbox pistol engraved with the names of everyone who wronged him, Percy (and his party) continued onwards. During this, they released Dr Anna Ripley (another name on Percy’s List) and held her captive, though she managed to escape due to Percy’s need for vengeance on the Briarwoods overriding how dangerous the woman could be. As the group finally reached the couple, they were betrayed by Cassandra who was revealed to be the Briarwoods’ thrall, and a new name appeared on Percy’s pepperbox- that of his sister. After defeating the Briarwoods and putting a stop to their dark ritual to summon a dangerous god, Percy refused to take action against the last name of his list, summoning the demon Orthax that had bound itself to the pistol in order to consume the souls of whoever Percy killed as part of his quest and Vox Machina was forced to slay the demon once and for all, destroying Percy’s gun in the process.


Once again returning to Emon, the city was immediately attacked by a group of Chromatic Dragons calling themselves the Chroma Conclave. Fleeing the city to Whitestone, Vox Machina set up a refugee camp to protect the people who couldn’t stay in Emon for fear of the dragons and began a quest to find the Vestiges of the Diverence- powerful artifacts that could help them beat the four dragons. They found the first in a sunken tomb and while trying to remove it, Percy accidentally triggered a trap that killed Vex’ahlia. Though she was revived through quick thinking, her brother Vax’ildan became bonded to the Matron of Ravens, a goddess of death, and the entire ordeal formed a schism in Percy’s friendship with Vax. Continuing their quest, they managed to slay the black dragon Umbrasyl and protect the city of Westrunn before moving on to find the next vestige in the Feywild, where the group faced off against dangerous fey, and Percy learned about Vex’s strained relationship with her father, and so to spite the man who judged his children too harshly, he gave Vex a title, which she readily accepted.


After returning from the Feywild, the group headed to the country of Marquet, where they learned that Anna Ripley had obtained another Vestige because she had been spying on them through the gun Percy took from her. They hunted her down to the Isle of Glintshore where they fought a violent battle with her and her team and learned she’d bound herself to Orthax in a similar pact to the one Percy made. Despite the best efforts of the team, Percy fell in battle and Vox Machina viciously slew Ripley in his name. They carried Percy’s body to Whitestone where a complicated ritual was performed to bring him back to life. Afterwards, they bestowed the Vestige- Cabal’s Ruin- that they had taken from Ripley’s corpse to him.

Personality:

Percy is everything one might expect from a combination of good breeding and severe trauma. He has impeccable manners (that don't mitigate his sardonic sense of humor), a good head for diplomacy (even if he's not really interested in politics), a strong sense of legacy, the kind of pragmatism that comes from the very privileged and the very broken, and a temper and ferocity that borders on hellish when unleashed. On top of this, he's a genius, and one whose inventions tend to lean more towards the destructive side, as he’s essentially the "inventor" of the firearm in Exandria.

Given that he is typically level-headed and cool under fire, it’s unsurprising that when angered Percy's rage tends to burn very, very cold. He's called "no mercy Percy" for a reason- he'll drop you with a single shot after quipping ice cold one-liners. He's stared down demons and diabolical swords and seems to exist in a state of "I have already been through hell- do your worst" when he approaches danger. He's reckless with his own life, which has a tendency to make him reckless with the lives of others, and if he wants you dead, he will not stop until you’ve died, though after the death of Ripley, he has started to learn how to forgive, rather than just murder straight out. His trauma has not made him kinder, and even with his deal with the demon Orthax nullified and his quest for revenge proven to be pointless, the scars have remained. He may not be the first to start the fight, but he’ll be the first to finish one.

 

Despite all the good he's done and can potentially do, and despite being well aware of just how clever he is, Percy doesn't have a very high opinion of himself. In fact, he despises himself, frequently points out that he's a bad person and says that the best thing his friends can do is not to trust him. This may seem a like an overexaggerated response provided by an anxious mind, but Percy has his reasons for thinking of himself, and it's something he turns on his perceptions of others as well. Percy, with people and objects, sees potential. Where one person sees a pile of rubble and chains, Percy sees a dragon-sized mousetrap. Where some just see a woman curious about his guns, Percy sees someone who will turn his inventions into something he never meant them to be. He thinks several steps ahead, judging people on what they could be, instead of what they are, and he points this inwardly, as well.

This is generally how Percy's sense of pragmatism manifests itself, which can lead to a lot of dissenting opinions among his friends, and can often seem contradictory. For example, Percy was the most intense about using the dragon Raishon to help take down her former ally Thordak, even knowing what she's done and will do, because he believed that, in the long term, the deal would be sound, and that, ultimately, they would all end up betraying each other, and Vox Machina had the advantage. At the same time, he was unyielding in his decision to not let Grog use the Githyanki skull to just wish the dragons away, because it was a "bad deal" and had the potential to cause future problems. It's this line of thinking that allowed him to justify almost keeping a cursed blade for himself and eventually giving it to Grog, because he felt the benefits outweighed the overall sketchiness of the weapon. He was wrong, in that case, and he doesn't mind being wrong and his being wrong can have disastrous consequences, but none of it changes how he approaches problems.

In fact, according to his player, "Percy always thinks he's doing the right thing by volume, if not quality." He's full of himself and seems to have the misguided belief that he's the only adult in the room at any given time, due to his nature as an insufferable genius (even though he's self-aware that he is exactly that). He's not nearly as cunning as he thinks he is- in many ways, he's just a traumatized, teenage punk kid with a fancy gun, some money, and just enough privilege to believe he knows better than everyone else, and can push problems off on other people. Some of this is even explained later by him admitting that he believed that the entire time he traveled with Vox Machina was just a fever dream brought to mind while he slowly died in prison- in essence, Percy believes subconsciously that he’s the star of some bizarre narrative only for him, meaning he often excuses his bossiness and poor decisions as part and parcel to that.

None of this, of course, negates that Percy can be kind. He is loyal, even if he doesn't think he deserves trust (and doesn't want it most days), and he very deeply loves his friends and family and his city with all of his heart. He might be dark and tainted and broken, but there is light there, too. In fact, Percy may go as far as to call himself a coward, but his actions show otherwise. He’s just as much of a hero as the rest of Vox Machina, and no amount of shady decision-making can really change the fact that he genuinely wants to help people- even if his “help” is in volume, and not quality. And, even though he’s very good at it for good or for bad, he doesn’t like to nor does he want to hurt people. If he had his way, he’d pay for the continued well-being of others with his own soul time after time again, but even that tends to hurt more than just himself.

And he’s not just a broody, broken little rich boy either. He’s nowhere near the clown some of his friends can be, but on good days, he’s creative and spirited, and prone to doing the most ridiculous things just to prove a point or meet a challenge head-on. The same man who threatened a possessed sword also created a bomb made of raw sodium and detonated it in a hot springs just to win a cannonball challenge. The same man who had a panic attack after being blinded in the Feywild by a nymph also, moments later, used a glove of missile snaring to keep from getting a Wet Willy. He might be the creator of the most dangerous weapon in all of Exandria, but he’s also a giant nerd and doesn’t care who sees him when he’s at his most gleeful.

At his core, he has a very intense dedication to legacy- both his own and the legacies of others- and was extremely adamant about the people of Westruun not abandoning their town when the Chroma Conclave destroyed it, because he felt abandoning a town would essentially kill the people who lived there in small ways. This is a feeling that he extends, especially, to his own home in Whitestone, to the point of saying that he’ll live on so long as Whitestone lives, and that perhaps he had survived all the cruelties he endured to hopefully set the city to rights again. He’d rather be remembered as part of Whitestone’s history than as the inventor of the gun to the point where he implores Vox Machina to destroy his notes in his will. In the end, that’s a mantle that he can never escape from, and he’s trying to do his best to live with it, which will always make him very intense and passionate about the subject of legacies when they come up.

He also has nothing but the highest disdain for the gods, believing they have no place in his life (though he respects the place they hold in the lives of his friends), due to being shunned by the Raven Queen, who would not help him, and revealed that he was “always broken” and would likely never truly reach salvation in the way he expected. This painful realization actually did him a favor, as it freed him of any preconceived notion that he can barter his way to redemption, and that he is free to do as he wishes without feeling beholden to some arbitrary notion of “internal peace”- it’ll never happen, and there is no way to balance the scales. He can’t fight his way to salvation, so best to find it within himself, instead of expecting to be absolved or aided by divine or damned beings- or at least accept that he is who he is- poor choices and all-, and that’s just going to have to be good enough.

Inventory:

(Or fucking dungeons and dragons characters.)

Retort, pistol*
Animus, pepperbox pistol (deals psychic damage)*
Bad News, a archaic sniper rifle*
Diplomacy, an electroshock glove that has to be charged by lightning or a heavy volt of electricity
Gloves of Missile Snaring
“Manners,” a magical restraining device that wraps a target in iron bands.
Cabal’s Ruin, one of the Vestiges of the Divergence. A leather cloak that can release 4 charges of lightning damage once per day, and can absorb some magic.
Rapier
A plague doctor-esque mask
The outfit shown here
Six pouches of black powder
A tinkerer’s kit (containing minor tools, things to cast bullets, etc.)
26 bullets
A raven skull broach
A piece of whitestone ore (It can slightly amplify magic, but really it’s just a piece of home he likes to carry with him)

*This may seem like an exorbitant amount of weapons, but these are gunpowder-based archaic weapons prone to misfires and breaking. All of these guns (even the enchanted one) are nothing compared to the efficiency of one semiautomatic weapon. (In the confines of his canon, they’re amazing, but outside of it…. Everyone is going to be like wtf are you doing)

Abilities:

Percy is a Gunslinger, the very first in all of Exandria, as he invented the firearm. He can use both a six-barrel “pepperbox” and a sniper rifle-like gun, though both use gunpowder and are extremely archaic by modern standards, especially given their tendency to jam or misfire. He’s gotten several guns over the course of the series, either built or taken from his rival Anna Ripley, and has no problem wielding any of them.

Theoretically, he could pick up a knack for any firearm with enough time, but there’s a vast difference between what he uses and what the modern expectation for guns are.

On the rare occasion both his guns fail him, he is also skilled with a blade, preferring longswords and rapiers that he can use his finesse on- he’s an entirely speed and dexterity-based fighter, having no physical strength to speak of.

As a “tinkerer,” he can build useful items so long as he has access to a decent workshop and the proper tools, ranging from explosive arrows, bombs, a dragon-sized mousetrap, a saddle for a broom of flying, an electrically charged gauntlet and many other things. He also casts his own bullets.

He also has the “Magic Initiate” feat, which manifests in-game as the last remaining scourge of Orthax on his soul. He can cast “Hex” which wreaths himself in black smoke tendrils that he can use on enemies to make it difficult for them to attack or resist enchantments or use it to help him hide in shadows. He can also cast “Minor illusion” which allows him to cast simple illusions, and “Friends” which can be used to boost charisma-based abilities like deception and diplomacy, so long as the person in question isn’t hostile to him.

He speaks Common, Celestial, and Elvish.

Flaws:

Cruelty: By his own admission, Percy believes himself "to cruel to lead." He has a mean streak, and he's called "No Mercy Percy" for a reason. Even with his newfound capacity to forgive those who have wronged him, he's still a pragmatist of the highest order and often has extremely unpleasant ideas with how to deal with situations. He invented a NEW KIND OF WEAPON through scheming with a demon just to have his revenge fulfilled. He is not a nice person.

Pride Percy believes he is the smartest person in the room at any given time and that makes him extremely full of himself. He always believes he's doing the right thing, and is clearly the only person capable of making adult decisions.

Impulsiveness: Tying into both of these things, Percy is always the first to cut deals with unsavory types because he can see the potential in the alliance, and believes fully it's the best course of action. He usually believes he can find his way out of it. Despite being intelligent and capable of strategy and planning, he can also act blindly without considering the consequences at times.


SAMPLES
Action Log Sample:

[Inspired by TEST DRIVE #32'S MAY FLOWERS PROMPT

[It's an odd sight to be sure- a man in a leather cloak with an archaic rifle sitting in the middle of a field of flowers, carefully tying them together with his gloves in his lap so his tinkerer's hands can knot them delicately. All things considered, it's not something Percy should be doing, but he's grasping the nature of this situation he's found himself in with as much teeth-grit patience as he can muster.

It's not a lot, to be honest. But since he's learned that the gods here feed off emotion and he's feeling remarkably petty about gods at this moment, his only bet right now is to do something unobtrusive and calming to just see what they think of that- they probably don't care. Emotion is emotion, after all.

Tinkering would just end up with something regrettable, and he only has so many tools and no space to even try- ergo flower crowns. Simple fucking flower crowns, like the kind he used to make with his siblings back before the Briarwoods. Back when Sweet Percival was still sweet...

He lowers his hands back into his lap as the nostalgia hits him unexpectedly and he gives the sky a dark look, as if it is entirely to blame for this. It was bound to happen- he knows this. Coming back from the dead when your entire family remains long buried and there's no rhyme or reason why it's you and not them is a hard pill to swallow, and he's been fighting against thinking about it the short time he's been back.

And now he's here in a place that will thrive on every dark thought, every feeling, every little bit of him that he doesn't like, and maybe even a little bit that he does- as few and far between as that is. He looks down at the half-finished flower crown in his lap and picks it up again.

He'll work on something else another day. He'll put his brilliant mind to the grindstone and work out the problems. For now, he needs to not let his feelings get the better of him so quickly. For now, he needs to ignore the gods and ignore the seething mass of smoke and darkness that's tainted his soul long since Orthax's departure. For now, he sits here and makes flower crowns and hums in the language of the angels and thinks about anything but No Mercy Percy and his revenge quest or Sweet Percival and his gentle moments with a family that he lost.

He just focuses on keeping his hands busy.]