User Profile

Player's Name: Brandon
What Kingdom Hearts games have you played/watched/read? Played Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2, Read script and watched cutscenes of Chain of Memories
AIM/email: Anzila86/startiger86@comcast.net
LJ: Anzila
Character: Harry Dresden
Series: The Dresden Files
Version: Book version, post Small Favors (The latest book)
Age: Unknown, but based on the years in the books he is in his early 30’s
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Straight. Despite what his brother’s staff might think, Harry has only ever displayed a sexual interest in women.

Appearance:

Harry is over six feet tall with a lanky build. He has dark hair that is usually kept short but is often messy, and dark intelligent eyes. Similarly, he tries to shave regularly, but his lifestyle frequently leaves him looking scruffy. Harry is reasonably handsome, although not classically good looking, and his life style often leaves him looking a bit tired and ill kept.

Harry usually dresses wears comfortable functional clothing such as jeans, combat or cowboy boots, and his distinctive leather duster. He also wears his mothers silver pentagram around his neck, a bracelet made of small shields woven together by several different metals, and a number of silver rings on his right hand.

His right hand is heavily scarred, though he usually covers it with a black leather glove. He also has scars on his wrists that look like they were created by thorns, a bullet scar on his upper arm, and a scar running from his throat to his stomach from a hooked knife.

Personality:

The first thing anyone who meets Harry notices is that he is an irredeemable wiseass. He has a tendency to respond to dangerous, uncomfortable, or frustrating situations with fine tuned sarcasm, even when he wishes he could keep his mouth shut. Harry himself has admitted that his way of dealing with fear is through running his mouth, although just as often he does it because he enjoys getting a rise out of people.

Those who truly know him, however, quickly figure out that at his core Harry genuinely wants to help people. He hates seeing innocent people hurt with a passion and has frequently put his life in danger for complete strangers. Harry lives according to the belief that magic comes from life, and that it should always be used to preserve life. He also has a chivalry complex towards women that is constantly getting him into trouble, although he has been reining it in lately. Growing up an orphan has left him with a soft spot towards orphaned and estranged children. Not having a family himself for much of his life, he hates to see the families of others dissolve or be torn apart. Furthermore, he will fiercely defend the strange assortment of family and friends who have entered into his life over the years.

He also takes an almost childlike joy in finding new and innovative ways to use magic and in his own life and to help people. He is fascinated by puzzles and loves reading, particularly mysteries. Nothing satisfies him more than coming up with the solution to a challenging problem or mystery. He is also a huge horror movie buff, and has been know to play role-playing games from time to time.

Harry does have a dark side, however, one that has grown with the tragedies that he has suffered over his life, as well as years of facing off against all forms of evil, both human and supernatural. He has killed in cold blood, tortured supernatural enemies both to save lives as well as in retaliation for lives they have taken, and temporarily allied himself with mobsters, vampires, fairy queens, and other even more dangerous entities when he had to. When he loses his temper he has a tendency to lash out with vast destructive power, causing immense property damage (One mob boss has specific countermeasures for when Harry visits any of his buildings to keep them from burning down). Harry is still haunted by one instance in which his temper may have killed innocent victims of a vampire, and has been worki ng to keep a tight control over himself, but it is not always easy. Harry’s job requires him to make many tough choices, and there is almost never a clear distinction between good and evil.

Harry is both aware of, and terrified of, his own dark side, which leads him to constantly question whether or not he is becoming the very things he is fighting. He knows he is far from perfect, and when he believes his actions have led others to harm he can sink into a spiral of depression and self recrimination. This means that he holds himself to extremely high standards, and he has certain lines that he will not cross. On the other hand, it also means that he is very open minded, and is often able to empathize with and understand those he encounters. He’ll put the bad guy down if he has to, but he doesn’t simply fireball first and ask questions later.

However, for all his darkness and doubt, Harry is stronger that he gives himself credit for. His quick thinking, unorthodox solutions, and immense capacity to be beaten into the ground and keep coming back for more has allowed him to triumph over beings and organizations vastly more powerful than he is. His intelligence and cunning are his most valuable tools, not his magic, and he is more likely to deceive an opponent into beating themselves than to attack them head on. He believes that there is good in the world, and that it is worth fighting for, is worth dying for. At the end of the day, those who know him know they can count on Harry to stand up for what he feels is right.

Abilities/Weaponry:

Harry is a Wizard, which allows him to manipulate magic to do things like track people across a city, fade from sight, and hurl fire from his hands. His immense reserves of raw magical power mean that even the strongest wizards acknowledge his potential. He is capable of creating enough fire to burn down a building, and has in the past unleashed the spirits of all of his enemy’s victims upon her, reanimated a zombie Tyrannosaurus Rex, and flipped a car on top of an opponent. He specializes in fire, wind, and force magic, and has a talent for tracking spells.

Harry also has a lifespan that is centuries longer than the average humans, and Wizards Sight, which allows him to strip away illusions and see the truth about the people and places he looks at (although what the truth he sees is itself is often symbolic and hard to interpret). Recently his Sight has begun to expand, granting him glimpses of possible futures in the form of dreams. This development is natural for all wizards at his level of development, but is unreliable, and it remains to be seen if and how Harry will be able to use it.

He has developed the ability to Listen, which may or may not be magical, but gives him much better hearing that the average human when he focuses. Looking into his eyes for more than a few seconds provokes a Soulgaze, in which both parties have a vision that reveals the others inner soul through a series of metaphors. The Soulgaze is one time only, but the memory lasts forever without fading.

Beyond magic Harry is also highly intelligent, and is incredibly observant, especially after years of training and spending much his adult life as a private detective. Harry knows a lot about legal systems, investigative techniques, psychology, and the supernatural (although the absence of Bob his air spirit of knowledge limits the information he has access to). He sees things others miss, and makes connections even police officers fail to realize. He has become vary good at thinking on the fly, and often comes up with clever solutions while being chased by massive fanged nightmares or shot at by trained assassins.

Harry’s long legs and regular jogging have left him very fast, and he is surprisingly nimble. He knows how to use firearms and is an above average shot, as well as having some knowledge of fighting with a sword or staff. He has had little martial arts training, but a lifetime spent fighting against all manner of enemies has left him an accomplished brawler who can hold his own in a fistfight. Harry also has an incredible amount of endurance, which allow him struggle on in the face of sleep deprivation, injury, and hunger. He can take substantial punishment for a human, although eventually he will have to succumb to his injuries. None of this is supernatural, just the result of human determination and endurance take n to the limit.

For his equipment Harry wears a duster enchanted to serve as armor, repelling bullets, knives, and other dangers, although he still feels some of the impact. He also wears a shield bracelet made up of a number of different metals which allows him to create a shield designed to repel specific types of energy, and several silver rings on both hands that store a little bit of kinetic energy each time he moves his arm and can channel that energy into blasts of force. He carries a staff which is carved with runes that focus and power his magic, as well as a blasting rod, a wooden stick used to channel his fire magic into a destructive beam, and a .45 Magnum.

Weaknesses:

While Harry has a lot of power and skills available to him, at the end of the day he is fundamentally a human being, and is subject to every human frailty.

Furthermore, using magic drains him, and like any muscle if he pushes it too hard he can damage it and hurt himself. In addition to this drain, his magic is also subject to the nature of the environment he is in. When asked why he did not blast his way out of a room he was locked in, Harry replied that doing so would likely kill him from the backlash of heat, as well as burn up all the oxygen in the room. Using black magic (aka magic that alters another’s mind or using magic to kill via curses) has a damaging effect on the caster, twisting his mind and corrupting his soul.

Like all wizards, Harry causing any technology made after the 1940’s to eventually blow itself out, and the more complex the tech the more likely it is to fail spectacularly. Therefore, he has a hard time using modern technology, and tries not to rely upon it.

Also, Harry has difficulty with more delicate magic, causing him to rely on complex rituals and magical tools to handle spells that require finesse. These rituals can take time, and require careful focus, making them highly impractical in a combat situation. Most of these rituals also require a wide variety of odd components, and in the absence of his lab Harry will have to devote a lot of time to locating and reassembling the materials he needs. Furthermore, without Bob, the air spirit who serves as his magical database, there are some rituals he simply won’t remember how to do. If deprived of his magical tools and foci his magic becomes less focused, more wasteful, and harder to control.

Anything he sees with his wizard sight stays with him forever, and it is usually horrible. This side effect means that he is reluctant to use the Sight, and cannot leave it open for too long lest he go insane.

Harry also has a huge guilt complex, and can get very depressed if he feels he has hurt innocents or failed to protect people. He tends to mouth off at inopportune times, and has a chivalry streak that gets him into trouble a lot. He can be impulsive and stubborn when he wants to be, and is a bit thickheaded about people at times.

History:

Harry never knew his mother, but spent the first six years of his life living with his father, Malcolm Dresden, a stage magician. When his father died from a brain aneurism Harry spend four years lost in the national childcare system, until he was adopted by Justin DuMorne, a powerful wizard who raised Harry and Elaine, Harry’s first love, until Harry was 16, when Justin put Elaine under a thrall spell (at the time Harry thought she betrayed him) and tried to kill Harry when he resisted. Harry managed to kill Justin (and he thought for a long time, Elaine), but had to make a deal with his fairy godmother Lea, which has haunted him to this day. The only piece of his old life he was able to save was a skull belonging to Justin that housed an air spirit of Harry named Bob.

After killing Justin Harry was arrested by the White Council of Wizards for breaking the first law of magic by using magic to kill. Normally he would be executed right out, the council ruled it self defense and put him under the Doom of Damocles, a probation period during which if he broke the law again he would be killed immediately. Harry became the ward of the Wizard Ebenezar McCoy, who taught him control and imparted a philosophy of magic that Harry would embrace for the rest of his life.

After a few years Harry set off on his own, and eventually ended up being trained as a PI and becoming Chicago’s only professional wizard (At least, the only one listed in the phonebook under wizard). He eventually was hired by Lieutenant Karin Murphy as a special consultant to Chicago PD Special Investigations unit, the police who solve the cases that are unexplainable and then make the paperwork look normal. He has forged a very close relationship with Murphy, who until recently was the head of SI.

Over the past few years Harry has been in the center of a series of world changing events. He inadvertently kicked off a war between the Red Court Vampires and the White Council when rescuing his girlfriend Susan from the Red Court.

The next year he stopped a war between the Winter and Summer Fairy courts, preventing massive damage to the world as a whole, killing the crazed Lady of Summer in the process and securing an alliance between the White Council and the fairy courts.

The following year saw Harry trying to keep a group of fallen angels possessing human hosts from releasing a devastating plague. He succeeded, but ended up with a fragment of the demon Lasciel in his head, where she hid for two years before repeatedly trying to temp him to use her powers.

Some time after battling the Fallen Harry in short order accidentally acquired a dog named Mouse, found out he had a half brother in the White Court vampire Thomas, defeated the King of the Vampire White court in combat with help from his allies, and suffered a crippling burn to his hand that left it badly scarred.

The next big event in Harry’s life came about when he was forced to race against a group of powerful Necromancers to find a powerful book. Harry needed the book to keep a vampire from destroying Murphy’s career, while the Necromancers wanted to become a god. Harry triumphed, but the discovery of Lasciel and his promotion to a Warden of the White Council, the same people who had tried to kill him, further complicated his life. He did find out his hand was slowly healing.

Harry then became embroiled in a battle with fear eating fairies and White Court Vampires that revealed the machinations of a much larger conspiracy going on in both Fairy and Vampire courts, and the possible presence of a Black Council of Wizards. Harry also took on an apprentice, his friend Michael Carpenter’s daughter Molly, who’s use of black magic got both her and Harry put under the Doom of Damocles (Harry’s first had been lifted years ago for stopping a black wizard).

Just a month ago Harry was forced to deal with an internal conflict within the Vampire White Court, which had been attacking people with minor magical talents to undermine the wizards. Harry won, but the battle cost Lasciel’s fragment (who had begun to change for the better by her time with Harry) her life. Harry is now more convinced that ever that the Black Council exists, especially after one of the necromancers he thought he killed two years ago returned to attack him with demons. There were also hints that Harry himself has a much larger role to play, and that his mother had made plans to aid him in a greater conflict to come. What that role is, remains to be seen.

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