John

Biography: The oldest son of two witches-turned-necromancers, John was raised for the first portion of his life in his mother’s forest home, learning the basics of his craft from his family’s two distinctly different styles. As he got older, he also started to learn necromancy from his parents, which they made sure he didn’t tell anyone about and he kept secret because he thought it was cool to have a secret like that. After his parents killed half his family and convinced him that he was complicit in their crimes and would be killed if he didn’t join them, John left the forest and went to live on an island called Cabbar with his parents and sister, where he has lived the last five years, excepting the half year he spent in a city called Pungja on a mysterious undiscovered continent, where he came up with a few avant-garde techniques for animating corpses that he used to revolutionize piracy on Menechit’s west coast.

Notes:


 * John is proficient in both his parents’ styles of witchcraft, as well as the style of the clan he met in Pungja, and also several branches of necromancy. While he isn’t uniquely powerful, he does possess much greater technical aptitude for magic than most people
 * When John accidentally opened himself a portal to Pungja, he very seriously considered staying there for the rest of his life. The only reason he didn’t was because his parents found him and made him come home
 * Some, but not all, of John’s piercings serve as receptacles for his necromantic power
 * John’s necromancy is far more advanced at a theoretical level than his parents’ because he was able to study it formally in Pungja, where it isn’t illegal
 * John always found the forest too quiet, but the night that he and his parents left, he swears he heard it screaming
 * John can’t decide if he thinks James is brave for defying their parents or stupid for refusing their offer
 * The only time John enjoyed his life with his family was when he was with Gus. When Gus left, John spent months wishing he could come back and get him, but knowing he didn’t deserve it
 * John wishes he had a better relationship with Kayla, but he just can’t get along with her
 * John is terrified of needles, but always manages to overcome it when he wants a new tattoo or piercing
 * John is fluent in Daolo, Kyn and Gronnde, but also Dekna, the native language of the Bevia Islands; Farthi, the language spoken in the Pungja region; and Tün, a dominant Tunga language. He also reads in Heen, a dead language from Djyekkan, but not fluently

Quotes:


 * “Big kids are supposed to have things their parents don’t know about.”
 * “Don’t be a baby, James. Come with us. It’s going to be awesome.”
 * “It’s going to be awful and everything, but at least you’ll die quickly.”
 * “I don’t mean anyone any harm.”
 * “Unpaid debts tend to weigh on witches.”
 * “If you’d met my mom, you’d understand. Once upon a time my brother wouldn’t do what she wanted, so she tried to kill him. Several times.”
 * “I literally made Constantine Hammerhead’s soul in my dad’s shed and attached it to a dead body I had lying around. He’s not a real person.”
 * “Look. I need your help, okay? And you need my help. Can we help each other? I promise I won’t try to kill you or anyone you like again.”
 * “I…I…Goldwage sap. Got all over me…”
 * “Yeah. I’m good. Everything’s great, daddy.”
 * “What’s wrong with wanting to enjoy myself a bit?”

Trivia:


 * John is fascinated by spiders, snakes, insects, lizards and birds, but is afraid of dogs, big cats and most rodents
 * If John didn’t live with his parents, he would be naked all the time. He hardly wore clothes in Pungja
 * John lost his virginity to Gus when he was fifteen. His dad caught them, but left before they noticed
 * John got himself circumcised after a month in Pungja so people would stop making fun of him
 * John nearly always craves a large yellow fruit that grows all over Tundj but nowhere else, and regrets not taking seeds with him when he left
 * In their first week on Cabbar after leaving home, John was bit by a snake and almost died. His mother reminds him monthly that it was her antivenom that saved his life
 * John had many sexual partners in Pungja, including several friends from the local witch clan, the librarian at the library he frequented, two dragons who he let take turns fucking him for three days in exchange for access to some artifacts they had in their hoard, and his tattoo artist and boyfriend Hui, with whom he was in an open relationship until John had to leave
 * John has two blood brothers in Pungja. He considers them his family in a way he doesn’t consider his blood family
 * Parentage in Tundj is determined by marriage—a child is always the child of a married couple unless there is no married couple. For this reason, John is definitely not the father of a two-year-old boy named Zac
 * John didn’t really want his artificial souls to be pirates, but he had to do something with them that his mother would approve of so she didn’t make him stop the experiments

Modern AU: Modern John is a coroner working in the city’s biggest morgue, where he pretends that he isn’t related to a bunch of mob-affiliated criminals and just enjoys performing autopsies on people who have died gruesome deaths. He regrets going with his parents when they had that falling out with the rest of his family a few years ago, but also regrets that he pretty much cut ties with his parents when he graduated from school and barely sees them anymore. At the same time, he’s happier than he ever has been, and is planning to move down south to the area where he lived during a gap year, as the friends he made there are more important to him than anyone he knows in his hometown. When he’s not cutting up dead people or avoiding living people, John likes rock climbing, bird watching, contemplating new piercings and hooking up with ill-advised people in often unsafe environments.