Post by Dane Caspar on Jan 20, 2024 23:50:58 GMT -8
DANE CINCINNATUS CASPAR
BASIC INFORMATION
Age and Birthday: 22; December 17th, 2001
Year and House or Profession: Auror
Canon: No
Special Abilities: N/A
FAMILY & HISTORY
Place of Birth: Chelsea, London
Notable Relatives: N/A
Character History: Dane comes from a long legacy of criminals. His great grandfather, Axel, was stick up man who made his living ripping off liquor shipments. His grandfather, Alexi, was a luckless gambler and small-time con-man who paid off his debts to loan sharks by doing good time for local gangsters—taking the fall for their crimes so that they could avoid the stretch. And of course his father Marcus had ambition to pair with his own legal flexibility.
It was never supposed to to be that way for Marcus, though. He was the middle of four brothers: Simon, Marcus, Alfie, and Charlie. As children, they dreaded the weeks that their father stayed home, instead looking forward to the months he spent as a resident in the British penal system where he couldn't hurt their mother. Hogwarts was a welcome escape for all four of the Caspar brothers. Simon was the most charismatic of the four and fell in love with magical politics. After Hogwarts he began studying law with the hope of parlaying a career as an attorney into a seat on the Wizengamot.
Marcus' hope was to never go back to the council estate. His first job out of Hogwarts was as a clerk at Quality Quiddtch Supplies. To support the cost of room and board at The Leaky Cauldron, Marcus sold merchandise out the back of the store for discount prices. When the Ministry pulled Marcus in for suspicion of theft, Simon was there to bail him out after Marcus promised to cut out the criminal nonsense. And it was Marcus' plan to go legitimate as soon as he had enough money together.
Using what ill-gotten gains he'd managed to stash away from the police, Marcus took the plunge and purchased his own space in Diagon Alley, bringing in his brother Alfie to help run the business. Alfie brought a mind for business that matched Marcus' ambition. From the front, Caspar's was another Quidditch supply store to rival Quality Quidditch Supplies, but the brothers found profit in the secret merchandise that Marcus offered on the side. Marcus and Alfie could get their hands on almost anything, from untraceable wands to pixie dust. The genius of their scheme was that the store stood on the reputation of Diagon Alley itself. While the Ministry constantly had eyes on the dark corners of Knockturn Alley, the brothers Caspar were safe to operate their black market in the wholesome daylight Diagon Alley. Their plan was to go full legitimate within a few years. But first, without an owner scrutinizing their every move, they were able to sell whatever they wanted out the back of their store.
Their five year plan almost immediately fell off track, however, when Voldemort returned to power. Inspired to defend the lives of his fellow Muggleborn, Simon joined the effort against the Death Eaters. At first, Alfie successfully appealed to Marcus' sense of self-preservation in convincing him to stay on the sidelines, but after Death Eaters firebombed their store, Marcus followed Simon into the war. Ultimately, Simon would lose his life early in the war, taking with him any hope of a legitimate Caspar son.
Rallying in the face of tragedy, Marcus and Alfie rebuilt Caspar's atop the ashes of Magical Great Britain. Their little storefront in Diagon Alley became the foundation for what would later be called The Caspar Crime Family, a great criminal empire that would grow largely unchallenged by law enforcement whose primary concern was the apprehension of dark wizards.
During the war, Marcus married his Hogwarts girlfriend, a pureblood witch named Vivienne, who defied her family's prejudice to settle down with him. Together they had four children. Simon, unpredictable and dangerous, always one delinquent impulse away from military school. Dane, as cunning as Marcus but as stubborn as his mother. Vivian, quiet and clever, secretly the most rebellious of the Caspar children. And Max, naive and carefree.
Dane was a gifted child. By age four he'd memorized the names of all the Ministers of Magic in the modern era. By eight, he enjoyed crossword puzzles and Wizard Chess. By ten, he already understood that his father was more than a salesman. Hit Wizards often dropped in unannounced at the Caspar home. Vivienne always welcomed them in with tea and biscuits, and though Alfie claimed that Marcus had many Ministry connections because of Uncle Simon, Dane could spot Marcus' enemies from their interactions. Marcus only smiled at his enemies.
From the very beginning, Dane was being groomed as Marcus' successor. In those early years, the weight of expectations didn't rest too heavy on his shoulders. It all felt matter of fact to him, like he would be ready when the time came. It wasn't until Dane started Hogwarts that he really began to question his very understanding of the world. As a student, Dane almost immediately fell in love with Quidditch. When he announced to his mother one day that he wanted to be a professional Quidditch player, he received a smack across the face and visit to his father's office. It seemed hypocritical to Dane that his father should build an empire off of selling Quidditch equipment and forbid him from pursuing the sport, but Marcus already had Dane's future mapped out for him.
That didn't stop Dane from trying out for the team, and in his third year he made the squad as reserve keeper, moving up to the starting roster in fourth year. Among numerous academic accolades, Dane's accomplishments on the Quidditch pitch were his favorites. As team captain, he led Gryffindor to the Quidditch cup final in consecutive years and set a house record for saves in his seventh year.
Dane expected to go early in the Premier League draft, but his name was never called. He wrote to every team in the league pleading for an opportunity to try out, but was met only with rejection. It was a familiar story. Despite being at the top of his class, Dane had been passed over for Head Boy. He didn't know if it was because of the family name or his father pulling the strings (though he suspected a combination of both), but it was clear that he could never escape the hold that Marcus Caspar had over him. Dane ultimately followed the plan that has father laid out for him: a career in the Ministry of Magic. It was Marcus' old dream: Dane would bring respect to the Caspar name and eventually lead the family business out of the criminal underworld.
With his grades, getting into the training program was easy for Dane, but earning the trust of his peers was an entirely different story. Most ranking members of the Department suspected Dane of being a spy for his father, few hardly acknowledged him. Dane had to work his way up from the very bottom of the Department, often jumping at the opportunity to work an organized crime case and prove that he wasn't just there to be his father's inside man. Slowly, Dane found favor in his superiors.
Marcus' death changed everything. The murder of Marcus Caspar hit the criminal underworld like an earthquake, completely restructuring the systems of power amongst the magical world's most notorious criminal families. When Simon was named a suspect in the case, the Department began distancing itself from Dane, concerned that he may have helped plot the murder with his brother. Dane was quickly stripped of all of his cases and handed a special assignment: relegated to lonely deskwork in the department basement.
Today, Dane is still trying to process his father's death. He hopes to fight his way out of the basement, just as he once fought for the trust of his superiors as a trainee.
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name or Alias: Travis
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Experience: 22 years
Other Characters: Lawrence Gable , Theodore Platt , Fox Bishop , Dr. Bryant Tannen , Martin Abbott , and Sam Spade
Role Playing Sample: It wasn't just Liliana being difficult about this decision. It was awfully late for Martin to be shopping for a place of his own, but he and Liliana had never lived or loved on regular time. Their lives were timelines weaving in and out of each other until finally crossing over and staying there as one line stretching out into forever. That's all Martin cared about, not the place itself but that the place was with Liliana. So it shouldn't have mattered much where they stayed, right? But the closer to the heart of London they looked, the less any of these places felt like home.
It wasn't that Martin missed their life on the road, it was that the vaulted ceilings, the wide windows, the sheer number of rooms felt like some kind of betrayal of his principles. Why should he deserve such a large place in a city where one in fifty people were unhoused? A part of Martin envied that Liliana's sister managed to have it both ways: a successful career in the public eye and a quiet life off the grid in a small little cottage somewhere. That was the kind of living they'd gotten used to together.
He was a bit relieved to see Liliana trying to talk herself into it. It wasn't just because of him that they were still staying at Michael and Camila's flat in Chelsea. This was the first permanent decision they'd made together since quitting their jobs ten years earlier, and it was so much like Liliana to need to decision to be perfect before making it that Martin couldn't help but love her for it. He held her close to himself, feeling her hand on his chest while she talked her way through it.
"It's not right," Martin said, worried that he'd let her suffer through her justifications for too long. "Maybe it's a simple way to look at things, but if it doesn't feel right on our first impression, why should we talk ourselves into it if it's not right?" Martin leaned out and gently took Liliana's chin into his hand so that he could study her green eyes. "I don't have to talk myself into being recklessly in love with you."