Radiance
crystalpangolin
- Created
- 6 years, 4 months ago
- Creator
- https://ck-0.deviantart.com/
- Favorites
- 56
Profile
Letdown.
Radiance is his country's spymaster, whose responsibility it is to manage a large network of information-gathering people and resources -- and not just within the country. It's a perfect job for a person who can't keep his nose out of anything that strikes his interest, and he is very good at it. It also puts him in the perfect position to pursue his own grandiose ambitions, of which he has many.
Radiance likes to know everything. It is nearly impossible to keep a secret from him: even the curse of the Crown, which hides its own existence from almost everybody except the King, couldn't hide itself from Radiance. And now that he knows it exists, and that the King was put there by magic and not by any true right to the position, Radiance has a new ambition: to take the Crown for himself.
- knowing things
- digging up secrets
- body modifications
- flirting
- questions with no answers
- working too hard
- coffee
- large animals (the feeling is mutual)
Radiance has a talent for getting along with most people, largely because he is very good at getting in their heads. He likes people -- most of all, he likes pushing their buttons and seeing what makes them tick. He's smart enough for it, too: his mind is a steel trap for facts about the people around him, and he's clever enough to use those facts to his advantage. His talent for manipulation is what makes him so good at his job, but it never just ends at work for him.
Radiance is also ambitious, and never afraid to use every tool at his disposal to get what he wants. No secret is safe from him, and no secret is too personal to use as a weapon against the person who keeps it. Still, Radiance knows he can't get anywhere if nobody trusts him, so he keeps blackmail and other, more vicious weapons tucked away until they're necessary.
Even when they have nothing to do with his goals, Radiance just likes people. He finds them fun and interesting, and even if his job didn't encourage it he would pursue many different kinds of relationships with many different kinds of people. He doesn't like to be alone.
Radiance is a tall anthro dog with very long legs and tail. His ears are long and have wispy fur on their ends, and his tail has the same. The fur on the rest of his body is short. His eyes are blue, and he almost always has a smug smile on his face.
He has numerous piercings, some of which he chooses to change over time. He often, but not always, wears a dark blue collar as an accessory.
- Tall, with long legs & tail.
- Ear shape is particularly important.
- Not very fluffy on most of his body.
- Speckles can be approximate as long as they're in mostly the same place.
- Piercings & collar can be mixed and matched, removed completely, or swapped for other accessories.
- Gore is welcome and encouraged!
Radiance worked hard to get where he is today. A job as central as his, managing as many people and resources as he does, is very hard to get and even harder to hang on to; Radiance fought tooth and nail to get it. He was always a man of untempered ambition with the foresight and planning to make his goals happen, so he did.
He was also the sort of man to never be satisfied with what he had. When one day he discovered that the King of his country had become King through supernatural means, rather than through any inherent right to the throne, Radiance became the first person to see past the fog that the Crown's curse placed over his mind. If Vainglory shouldn't be the King, he thought, maybe I could be.
Realizing that his memories and thoughts had been tampered with by the curse made Radiance angry. He sorted through the things that didn't make sense, obsessively putting them all back where they belonged, and when he saw clearly again he knew more than anything that he wanted the King dead. Vainglory had not, himself, done anything wrong: he was just a barrier between Radiance and his goals. He needed to be removed.
He began by sending assassins, using his intimate knowledge of the castle and its security to create openings for them. Every one of them failed: even when his agent swore they saw the King dead, Vainglory would appear like nothing had happened the next day, unruffled and uninjured. Certain he could do it himself if his hired killers were incompetent, Radiance began to make attempts on Vainglory's life himself. He saw, before his eyes, that the King healed any wound inflicted on him. This, he realized, must be like the altered memories: something protecting the King from those who would question him.
For months, Radiance attempted to kill the King. Nothing worked. And Vainglory himself never had a word to say about it to Radiance in the daylight, which frustrated Radiance even more. When they finally did talk, Radiance had to be convinced that Vainglory didn't know what was going on: the Crown, Vainglory said, was cursed, and he didn't know how to get rid of it either. But maybe, if they worked together to solve the mystery...
It wasn't ideal. Radiance wanted the King dead; he didn't want to be friendly with him. But Vainglory wanted to be rid of the Crown, and Radiance wanted to take it: their goals were aligned. And as long as Radiance got the Crown in the end... he could make sacrifices.
the king
Radiance didn't start out thinking much of the King: Vainglory is hard to read at the best of times, and seems to approach his responsibilities on autopilot, without passion or drive. When the two of them began working together more closely, Radiance realized that it was a front: Vainglory has no passion for his duties because nobody asks him to. They only care that he is the exact image of what a King should be. Vainglory has spent so much time as a figurehead, he forgot how to be his own person.
Once he realized this, Radiance found Vainglory many times more interesting. Now he had a chance to exercise his greatest skill: reading other people. Vainglory was like a book to read: he has his cover, but inside there must be more. If he could just crack open that cover...
Breaking the curse and getting the Crown is the main priority, of course, but in the meantime, Radiance is having fun treating the King like a puzzle to be solved. And, of course, he hasn't stopped killing -- or trying to kill -- Vainglory.
knight-captain
Siobhan is one of Radiance's favorite people in the castle to bother. His extremely serious demeanor is fun to pick at, and Radiance has enjoyed learning to read a man with such a flat, perfect mask to present to the world. Radiance knows just how far he can push, in what ways, for how long; he knows how to make Siobhan angry and how to calm him down again. Radiance finds him delightful; Siobhan finds him an annoyance.
And yet: they still spend time together. If Siobhan hated Radiance's flirting so much, he wouldn't tolerate Radiance's company.
soothsayer
Radiance may understand why Seer is in the castle, but he is among the number of people who find her too unsettling to tolerate. He keeps enough of an eye on her to know the most crucial information he needs for his job, and beyond that he avoids her. He is, in fact, the best in the entire castle at avoiding her; he has special insight into her schedule and movements.
questing knight
More than anything, Radiance finds Arthur intimidating. She has all of Siobhan's seriousness, but she is around so infrequently that Radiance hasn't had a chance to learn more about her. She also barely gives him the time of day: something that he would normally consider a challenge, if he saw her more than twice a year. As it is, it's difficult to know where he would start.
religious leader
Arcangela keeps an impressive library, which Radiance is often obliged by his job to consult. The two of them have a comfortable rapport: they get along for work, but they don't spend time together outside of it. That would require their schedules to match up, and both of them care enough about doing their work well that they often just don't. Radiance likes to have his evenings and nights free; Arcangela is the opposite.
Still: Arcangela's records are very useful to Radiance, for work and for other things. He is, in turn, at Arcangela's disposal -- a spy has access to plenty of things a librarian does not.
acquaintance
Dirch is a workman who sometimes does jobs around the castle. He is the sort of man who, normally, Radiance wouldn't spare a second glance, but he is known for being a jack-of-all-trades with many skills, and that is exactly the sort of person that Radiance looks for when he wants to snoop around. Dirch also doesn't have any qualms about taking money in exchange for the information he has to offer.
Dirch is also exactly the kind of person Radiance tends to like: someone challenging to get along with, but fun to rile up. Sometimes he seeks Dirch out just to talk.
colleague
Greer and Radiance both work at the castle, and most of their interactions are limited to work. Radiance works inside, organizing intangible things like knowledge and risk; Greer works outside, in the gardens and the castle's hunting grounds, with lots of animals. Radiance might even visit him more often if not for the animals: large beasts like horses inherently mistrust Radiance, and Greer loves to make fun of him for it.
Greer is happy to share information about how the people in the castle and in the city surrounding the castle are generally feeling. He doesn't ask questions or care very much about what Radiance does with that information.
