The Basics ~
Name: Adgar
Nickname: The Judge, Claude Frollo
Gender: Male
Age: 40
Birth Location: Arandelle
Race: Human, Necrotic
Class: Priest
Appearance ~
Hair Color: Gray
Eye Color: Glassy
Weight: 196
Height: 5'11
Basic Physical Description: Gaunt and thin, appearing older than he is, with raised cheekbones and a sinewy, bony frame, long, spidery fingers, and a demeanor indicative of class, an expensive education, and matter-of-fact elitism.
Other Features: Pale, deathly skin.
Visual Representation:
Background ~
Personality:
x Protective
x Vengeful
x Elitist
x Sociopathic
x Paranoid
x Self-absorbed
History: I was born Adgar of Arendale, son of Ulfwyn, heir of the kingdom of Arendale, and I was born with what, over my life, danced from being a gift to a curse to my mark in that twisted nightmare that we've all come to call home. I was born a healer - wherever I walked fruits bloomed, flowers blossomed, and the land itself was revitalized. Magic ran through our blood and my father, his kingdom deep in debt, saw my gift as a solution to our problems, a salvation from Arendale's financial oppression.
And it was. The mountainous Fjord we called home suddenly became a thriving marketplace for spices and fabrics of exotic beauty. They called me the Lifespinner. Of course, that kind of a title comes with implications that run much deeper than revitalizing crops. The first time I was presented with a corpse I didn't even make the connection. A farmer had come to me in the throne room with the body of his wife in his arms, completely silent. He asked me, and for about a minute or two I simply stood there, frozen like a deer, before ordering him out. He roared in a fit of rage, threw one guard into another, and charged at me... before collapsing at my feet, aging eighty, ninety years in three seconds until all that was left was a dry, patchy husk.
What followed was a blood-hazed upheaval the likes of which Arendale had never seen before or since. The Lifespinner was out of control - taking life with just as much nonchalance as he gave it. My parents, always my fiercest advocates, were slaughtered like treasonous savages, ripped apart into pieces so small and mangled I couldn't even try to bring them back. Only then did I understand the fear that had accompanied the adoration, even when I did what I did for them. Only then did I realize that to them, to the world, every savior is just one bad decision away from a tyrant. I was strange, foreign, and so easily misunderstood. I made a scene - covered myself in blood and proclaimed that my powers had been taken back, taken away, that our family's magical lineage ended with me. Of course, it was all an act, but they bought it.
I had become paranoid, afraid, but I was required to take my place at my father's throne, was required to lead a people who weren't skewering my head on a pike only because they thought I had purged myself from me. The thought of them finding out ate at me, but so too did the idea of reanimation. What if it wasn't that different? What if I could bring the dead to life? What if I could live forever?
I was young, and prone to experimentation, so I tinkered. I don't recall how many times I failed, how many sleepless nights I spent feeding life to whatever piece of dead matter I could find, until my first success blossomed to life. Rock trolls. Short, burly things from an ancient time, locked away in a perpetual, comatose hibernation for reasons that still elude me to this day - brought back to the realm of the awake by my hand. The eldest among them had much wisdom to offer, so I listened, and for the first time in my life, I had a friend who knew me for what I was, knew what I hid, knew what I held.
Many years passed and Arendale remained a bustling center for trade, our boats of merchants and princes flocking to our docks, for Arendale's reputation remained, even when her fields wavered. Our economy soared and soon enough Arendale had a queen. Idun was a gentle soul - frightened by things she did not understand, but gentle. I loved her, but I couldn't tell her. I couldn't have her bear my burden. So I tried to forget. I tried to do what everyone else did: I pretended I was no longer the Lifespinner. But a pretense can only go on for so long, even if everyone believes it.
My first daughter, was born with my magic in her blood. It was a different kind of magic, but nonetheless, something we needed to keep secret. I wasn't surprised that Idun was with me all the way - she loved me and we both loved our daughter, and when it was necessary to bear a burden together she bore her gladly and with pride.
Soon enough it became evident that her power was... dangerous. I couldn't let her bear the guilt I did. I tried to help her, tried to guide her through her pain, wishing so much that I could show her that I knew exactly how it felt, that I was right there with her, but knowing that it would only complicate the matter. I just hoped that she would find some way to push away her power like I did and try to live a normal life - to laugh and smile and love and pretend to be one of them. I never wanted her to box herself up, but for now it was helping, so it seemed like the prudent thing to let her be for now, and to hold her hand while she slowly climbed out when she was ready. That was before I died.
I was never a fan of ships. But being the lord of a bustling trade hub meant it was important to keep relations and certain ones required more than an ambassador, but a king's personal attention. I was supposed to die at sea that day. I was supposed to close my eyes, my arms squeezed around my wife, the last words I heard a whispered "Hold me, Adgar".
I was supposed to die.
Very few things are as nauseating as drowning to death so many times in succession that you lose count until your broken carcass smashes into a rock and you finally wake up again to air - after coughing about a liter of water out of your lungs first, of course. I wanted to greive, but the drumming in my head left no space to think. Survive. It was the only perogative, it had to be. I was tired, hungry, so utterly drained it looked like I had aged twenty years in a month. By the time the dust settled I was a monster, a being of twisted life and borrowed years, warped too thorroughly for me to face my daughters again. The only path from this point was forward.
Part of it felt almost exhilirating. I was always given my life, told how to lead it, expected to deliver. There was a this rush I got from the idea of building myself from the ground up, a sort of pride that everything I was, I had earned. I took another name, of course - Adgar had to die in the arms of his wife, with his dignity intact. Elsa needed my memory more than she needed me.
Claude Frollo. I pieced the name from various monks and merchants I met during my travels. By the time I had reached Paris the language, the accent, and the demeanor of a local came naturally to me. The city was vibrant, disorienting, and home to more murderers per capita in any city on earth save one. It was perfect.
The experiments started with gruesome dissections on the dead and, eventually, the living. But so long as I was targetting murderers, thieves and rapists, it felt like a social service. I tried to bring a few back to life, but the process was crude, messy, and they ended up ripping themselves apart or rotting away in a matter of weeks. Just having fresh corpses wasn't enough, it seemed. I had to do to them what had happened to me. I had to create a need to break away, a drive to get out, a will to survive so powerful that their fear, their hate, their panic, their seething pain would guide them through those brief moments of death, to keep their blood hot and surging for as long as it took them to rise again. I had to torture them. And I had soon grown to love it.
"The Judge". A street name I had earned. Where the French Judiciary System failed, the Judge would succeed. I had garnered quite a reputation among the people, and a deep notoreity to the point that I owned the night without even asking for it, and soon enough, I was the de-facto masked ruler of France. Crime rates plumetted. For once, people felt safe walking the streets. All, of course, save the gypsies.
Liars and thieves, the lot of them. Wanderers and vagabonds drifting from one con to the next, spewing fables like sirens, tempting and scheming. Whatever innocence they have as babes leaves the moment they learn the trade that is in their blood. And yet, some crossed paths with the Judge before then. I know the agony of pulling a child from her father, but I could not allow them to learn the sick, twisted lifestyles of a twisted people. Those who could be saved were sent to monasteries and orphanages. But wherever the Gypsy plague took root the only recourse was bleeding it out. What did it matter if a few vanished every night? What did it matter if they all did? Paris had her Judge, her savior, her tyrant. I had long grown over the unnecesary distinction between the two. France belonged to me, and from her slinking alleys to her towering cathedrals, slowly creeping beyond her borders, the Judge's verdict reigned supreme.
Family:
Parents, Deceased
Wife, Deceased
Two Daughters, Alive
Likes: Mindgames, Poetry, Torture, Children
Dislikes: Peasants, Theater, Gypsies
Fears: The Sea, Elsa coming to harm
Best Memory(ies): The birth of my daughters
Worst Memory(ies): The death of my wife
Favorite Color(s): Black, Silver, Steely Grays
Sexual Orientation: Straight, Pure Dominant, Mildly Experienced
Additional Info ~
Horror Likes: Gore, gore, and more gore. Necromancy. Zombified, mismatched and mutated abominations. Knifeplay, breathplay, ropeplay and temperature-play. Sexual and non-sexual torture. Slaughter and reanimation.
Horror Dislikes/Limits: Sexualized submission
Most of the Judge's followers are simply that - believers in a safer France, a safer world. That the threat of the hammer, the verdict, is a necessary fear to bring those who would seek to harm the innocent into line. They support him the way a civilian supports a government he believes in. And then there are the Deathless - those who take direct orders from their master, those directly involved in upholding the Pax Emori, and destroying those who would seek to tarnish it.
The Masterpiece
The most powerful of Frollo's creations, Quasimodo the masterpiece is a singular entity that spearheads every aspect of the Judge's Hammer - strong, quick, relentless, and fiercely loyal. The stuff of nightmares, Quasimodo has the power to make gods made flesh seem like mere trifles. Though sluggish of mind, his body is one of ruthless, inhuman persistence, insistent on its master's verdict... and the sentence that follows.
The Acolyte
A small, elite group of both living and undead, the acolytes are Frollo's apprentices - necromancers of great potential who Frollo seeks and endears himself to. No singular acolyte pales in comparison to his master, but they each still have substantial power and are necessary in keeping a vast empire, and its incessant need for arrow-soakers, running.
Known Acolytes:
Iago
The Adept
Equal in rank to the acolytes, despite their lack of necromantic power, adepts are characterized by just that - a profound adeptness with something. Both living and undead, adepts are the Judge's most powerful political pieces. Demagogues, advisers, con-men, assassins or merchants, the adept is someone deeply proficient at getting things done, and with ample resources to do so. Many, but not all, are also fiercely loyal to their master.
Known Adepts:
Known Ex-Adepts: Jafar
The Warlord
Battlefield commanders par excellence and almost always undead, warlords are the leaders of the Judge's armies. Generals in the purest sense, each warhost (the collective term for a warlord and his soldiers) has the manpower to crush whole nations and, typically undead, does not suffer from the maintainance, exhaustion, and morale problems of a living army.
The Slate
A peculiar group, the slates are, surprisingly, still living - though only on paper. They are creatures wound up by no amount of supernatural power but by sheer, relentless torture. Designed by a particularly sadistic adept, the slates have since incorporated themselves into Frollo's ranks. Slates are broken souls, minds utterly wiped from ruthless, torturous, extensive mental trauma, hopelessly loyal to their masters, who may then mold their slates into assuming identities for as long as it would fulfill the master's purposes, often employed as spies or sleeper agents.
The Templar
Much like slates, templars are always alive. The difference, of course, is that a templar comes to serve willingly. Most do so out of a desire to conquer death and be honored with a place among the unliving. A few, however, (and more often than not the best of them,) owe their lives to the Judge already, for one reason or another - usually in appreciation of granting justice to or saving the life of a loved one.
The Enforcer
Inspired by the Masterpiece, enforcers are massive abominations of muscle and bone, built like gruesome ogres and behaviorally not much different, either. Lacking the flexibility of their inspiration, enforcers are designed for all-out, open-fields war, and, though fast in straight charges, are incredibly clumsy in the winding, labyrinthine context of a bustling city.
The Stalker
Everything the enforcer is not, the Stalker is a creature designed for relentless pursuit. Agile and quick, stalkers, while still stronger than most mortals, are far inferior to the hulking enforcers in terms of brute strength. Stalkers typically travel in packs with a raptor-like mentality, hunting deserters and vagabond gypsy bands.
The Grunt
Glorified pincushions, a grunt is slow, clumsy, and easily bested by a warrior of moderate skill. On the plus side, grunts require no torture or process to animate, and can thus be raised en mass with incredible ease. Their mindlessness makes them effective shock troops and their hunger for flesh means, in large enough numbers, they can swallow whole cities. Grunts who consume enough flesh may, in time, develop a cancerous growth, transforming them into stalkers or enforcers.
The Troll (Rock & Ice)
A much older design, trolls are creatures animated from nonliving matter. Unlike most of the undead, a troll is not created per say - it is found sleeping and awakened. Some may be grateful for the gift of renewed life, others less so. It is clear that these are ancient creatures who walked the earth long before mankind, but the reason for their hibernating exile is still not yet understood.
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