Damien Brenks

Player Information

Player: Alishia
Contact: knightinqs
Other Character(s): n/a

Character Information

Character Name: Damien Brenks
Canon: WATCH_DOGS
Canon Point: Just before his final confrontation with the game's protagonist, Aiden Pearce, at the Harbor Lighthouse.
Journal: abeautifulgame

Character Background: Here.
Character Personality:

On the surface, Damien is nothing if not intelligent. He goes to great lengths to make himself read as the smartest guy in the room, utilizing witty one-liners and big words in conversation, or turning them towards wholly intellectual subjects, and he appreciates when people treat him as such, his ego very much tied to that perception of intelligence to the point of being a fault. Anyone who doesn't treat him like he's the superior mind in any given situation is met with ire, and anyone who can't keep up with him isn't worth his time -- or at least not for anything more than to act as hired muscle, Damien possessing a distaste for getting his hands personally dirty if he doesn't have to. He would much rather someone else do the heavy lifting, thinking of himself as the mastermind behind whatever scheme he's a part of at any given moment, always a hundred moves ahead whether or not the plans were his to begin with or not. It's why he worked so well with the protagonist of his series, pre-canon, Aiden willing to do the field work while he played the guy in the chair.

It's also why their relationship fell apart, Damien, once he's managed to focus himself on one idea, rarely willing to let it going, and to the point of obsession. He wouldn't let go when they hacked into the Merlaut, earning them the attention of the Irish mob, the Chicago South Club, and again, after, when he tried to get Aiden to play ball, to find out if it was the South Club. Unfortunately, in the latter case, Aiden refused to work with him again, and that brings us to the part where, if and when things stop going Damien's way, he's not afraid to play dirty. Again, his idea of playing hardball revolves around the intellectual (blackmail, usually, for all that he knows how to pry people's dark secrets out of them, either through banter or, when he has access to his toolkit, sifting through their digital footprints), but he's not opposed to getting a hair more violent, if say, kidnapping someone's family might produce better results, like he did with Aiden's sister. He does, however, seem to have something of a soft spot for children, refusing to go after Aiden's nephew and expressing genuine sympathy over the death of his niece, but whether that's because he knows his target audience well enough to know that going after Aiden's nephew would be a bad idea, or if because he has a son of his own is anyone's guess. Either way, Damien is absolutely not a fighter, not in the physical sense.

And since Damien's so reliant on knowledge as a way of making himself feel important and to control others, he lusts after it and the power it brings, and really, that's the root of as many of his problems as it is his advantages. It's why he and Aiden got the attention of the South Club, Damien demanding he continue to root around in the network at the Merlaut, long past the point of getting caught. It's why he insisted Aiden dig into the Club, after they took their revenge, first for the blackmail file the Club thought they were there for in the first place, and then for the intellectual nuke the Club turned out to be in possession of. It's why he ultimately dies at the end of his canon, too, unwilling to give up on his obsessions and quit while he was ahead -- if the protagonist hadn't killed him, one of the other antagonists, the super cooperation Blume would have, for his failure to deliver on his half of a bargain. Thanks, Aiden.

Finally, in terms of temper, while Damien is quick to sour, particularly when his intelligence isn't respected, he's slower to actually anger, the sort of upset that earns his retribution usually a result of someone doing something to piss him off, him extricating himself from the situation and overthinking it, and then deciding he should have his revenge. It took him a few days to work himself up to being angry enough at the fact that Aiden snubbed him to decide to kidnap his sister, after all. It took time, but by the time he'd obsessed over it to the point of rage, he went completely off the rails, and held onto that anger, that grudge, until his death at the end of the game, so needless to say, like any of his other obsessions, Damien just can't let go. He'll probably hold onto that anger, too, if and when Aiden or any of his allies arrive in game, pretending to be amicable to working together only to turn on them, if and when it becomes convenient to do so.

TL; DR? Damien is an egotistical, obsessive jerk, with a mind like a knife and a penchant for holding a grudge. It's no wonder, really, that he's the game's main antagonist.

Character Abilities: Damien has no non-human abilities. He is, however, a damn good hacker, so if the world ever figures out the internet and a network develops, he'll probably have his fingers in everyone else's pies -- or at least try to.
Items: Besides the clothes on his back, the only other thing Damien will be arriving with will be his cell phone. While useless, at current, within the confines of the world, Damien's phone normally contains his hacking toolkit, which, at home, made him a real threat to anyone who stood against him. He could, after all, use his phone to do anything from picking up personal details about someone's life in order to manipulate or blackmail them, control someone's car or the city traffic lights to cause accidents, or exploit Chicago's infrastructure in entirety to cause transformers to explode to lethal effect or to cause localized blackouts in critical areas. Basically, if it was connected to a power source or had a wi-fi connection, he could use his phone to use it to his advantage in some way.

Other: Not necessarily a special request, but the writer would like to mention the fact that Damien is disabled somewhere on the application. Eleven months before the start of his canon, the Chicago South Club broke both of his legs, and while they healed well enough for him to walk and stand, both are limited. He wears a leg brace on his left leg constantly, to try and maximize how long it'll be before that leg won't support him anymore permanently, walks with a limp with or without the brace, and is probably in at least some measure of pain consistently. He's been told by doctors that, as he gets older, he'll eventually need a wheelchair.

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Imprint

Imprint Type: Scenery
Summary: A lighthouse and the body of water around it.
Full Details: The Harbor Lighthouse exists on a small island on Lake Michigan, east of Chicago. Built in 1893, it was considered state of the art at the time, and still is, the city upgrading the lighthouse accordingly -- which is to say the docks that surround it for maintenance are well-kept, there's a security fence around it, complete with barbed wire and electronic locks to keep people who aren't supposed to be there out, and free wi-fi! ... really, what else can be said about it? It's a lighthouse.

Imprint Type: Scenery
Summary: An upscale hotel.
Full Details: Built in the heart of downtown Chicago's Mad Mile, and owned by local crime boss Dermot 'Lucky' Quinn, the Merlaut Hotel is about what you'd expect from a luxury hotel. The real piece de resistance here is the fact that the upper floors serve as a base of operations for the Irish mob, the Chicago South Club, including a penthouse for Quinn, containing his rooms, office and hidden panic room, just in case anyone actually makes it that far.

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Samples

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