thing.

[cepicorpus]

Player Information

Name: Rune
Age: Over 18!
Contact details: PM please; I don't have Plurk
Other characters: N/A

Character Information

Name: Dio Brando
Canon: Jojo's Bizarre Adventures: Stardust Crusaders
Canon Point: Just before everyone arrives at his mansion.
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: AU
Age: Just over a century.

World Information: Earth. It's followed Earth's history, with its wars, technological developments and even bands and musicians! Except it's also an Earth where vampires are a thing, magic is very rarely a thing, and Stands are a thing. Such things however are broadly a secret, and anyone from modern era transported to Dio's Earth would not notice anything unusual.

Personal History: This is going to get long. I am sorry.

Born in 1867 to an alcoholic father and a mother not long for this world, Dio's life for the first 12 years was anything but pleasant .. or unfortunately, unusual for any poverty-stricken family in the Victorian era. It wasn't until his father accidentally earned a 'debt' from a rich family when trying to rob their corpses (come to find out two of them weren't dead), that Dio's life began to change. Sent to live with this generous and kind family, Dio was promptly adopted in as the son of George Joestar and brother of Jonathan Joestar, a boy his own age. Jonathan was friendly, and Dio looked forward to his new life.

And that's where things began going wrong. An accident while loading up the incinerator full of garbage led to the death of Jonathan's beloved great dane dog, much to Dio's horror, mistaking a stumble for a feint and beating the crap out of Jonathan in a boxing match, and mistaking Erina's friendliness for flirtation and giving her a kiss - only afterward finding out that she was Jonathan's girl and utterly horrified by his actions. He did his best to make up for it, doing everything he could to act the perfect gentleman the Joestars already were and pursuing his schooling as fervently as he could. Every time something could go wrong, it did - an innocent comment suddenly making Jonathan seem untrustworthy, a game turning into a vicious match, over and over. Every time, Dio was as apologetic and contrite as he could be, and did his best to try to make up for it. It probably spoke volumes of Jonathan that he was even willing to consider that his adopted brother wasn't out to get him, so much went constantly awry between them.

For seven years, very little happened after that. They gained educations, and began trying to move past the nightmare that was their first year in the same house. No sooner does Dio declare that his life is finally on track, and that he's going to make a good name for himself, that things begin going wrong again. George Joestar falls ill, and Dio takes it upon himself to bring the apothecary's medicine every single day as a dutiful son should. Only Jonathan thought, and then exposed, the treacherous apothecary's vendetta against the wealthy, who'd been poisoning the medicine all along insdead. So furious is Dio over the apothecary's betrayal that he snatches up a knife and sets to trying to kill the man himself, only to be stopped by Jonathan, and in the process one of them is cut, splattering blood on a strange stone mask. Shortly later due to the hooks the thing extrudes upon being splattered, they decide it must be a torture or execution device. While Jonathan turns to studying its cultures and origins, Dio takes the mask to several experts to see if there's history on them.

In the doing the mask accidentally finds its way onto the face of a drunken thief who tries to rob him, and in the scuffle blood activates it again.. transforming the thief into a vampire. Only the rise of the sun prevents Dio from being utterly slaughtered in the doing. Rushing home after this horrifying incident, he runs into Jonathan and his new friend Speedwagon, and tells them exactly what the mask REALLY does as George manages an appearance, weak but alive. The Joestars uniformly decide that the mask MUST be destroyed, and no sooner does Jonathan pick up a knife to smash the thing to pieces with its hilt that the police arrive to confront Dio over the death of the alleyway thief. In a series of events that perfectly encapsulate Murphy's Law, the attempt to arrest Dio leads to George accidentally stumbling in his efforts to get to Dio, right into Jonathan, shoving George, the knife, Dio, AND the stone mask down the stairs. In the resultant tumble, their recovering father is stabbed and the mask finds its way to a new owner. The police open fire on Dio, declaring him an obvious murderer, and Dio, no longer among the living.. fails to die.

However all the bullets flying around knock down a candelabra and set the entire place on fire. In the ensuing efforts to escape, the policemen are unfortunately killed, but Jonathan manages to drag Speedwagon and a delirious and rather deranged Dio out of the fire by himself. Jonathan makes Speedwagon promise to hide Dio before passing out and being hospitalized. Speedwagon reluctantly obeys. While hospitalized, Jonathan restarts his relationship with Erina.

Dio made a small number of visits, to apologize ... yet again ... and confirm to his brother that yes he is indeed a horrific monster of the night now. Arranging a funeral for their father that happened to be after sunset was a challenge, but doable. Jonathan still failed to blame Dio for any of it, possibly because he was just that softhearted, possibly because Dio still seemed unmalicious about any of it. Meanwhile it is revealed that the apothecary has managed to steal the stone mask and has disappeared.

Jonathan is found by Zeppeli, who has heard of the stone mask incident, the remains of the dead vampire, and that the mask is now missing, and teaches him the power of Hamon, which imitates sunlight and is lethal to vampires. Jonathan finds it prudent to .. NOT ... tell Zeppeli that his brother is a vampire, simply extremely reclusive. Jonathan, Zeppeli and Speedwagon head out to try to track down the stone mask and train further. Dio, unwilling to risk getting involved in sunshine powers, remains in Erina's basement for most of the time, practicing his new unholy powers. It isn't until the stone mask and the apothecary are tracked down to Windknight's Lot that he decides to go with them. Come to find out the apothecary has raised several ghouls and minions, and sics them on the group. And then the zombie and ghoul army arrive. In the resulting mad scuffle, Dio is revealed to be a vampire but before Zeppeli can act on it, he's forced to sacrifice himself to save Jonathan, granting the Joestar heir his significant Hamon powers in the doing. In order to destroy the zombies and their apothecary master, Jonathan unleashes massive amounts of Hamon, injuring Dio in the process, who is forced to behead himself in order to survive it. ... 'Survive' it. More or less, and very annoyed with the entire situation.

Jonathan destroys the stone mask finally, and collects Speedwagon and Dio's head and goes home, promising his beheaded brother he'll find some way of fixing this .. ridiculous problem. Surely the apothecary is FINALLY DEAD.

Except he isn't. Since Dio is now just a head, Erina and Jonathan take him with them as their responsibility after they've been married and sail to America for some fresh air and perhaps to locate an unwanted corpse nobody will miss, far, far from home. Which of course is when the apothecary springs his attack, sabotaging the ship's steam engines and declaring they're ALL going to die for his revenge. As Jonathan obliterates the apothecary, Dio finds out that crying for a vampire isn't necessarily tears and accidentally runs his brother through with unexpected laser eyes. Erina's not able to drag Jonathan's considerable frame to safety and he dies in her arms. Dio comes to the horrifying conclusion that if he doesn't do SOMETHING, Jonathan's wife and unborn child are also going to die, and takes over Jonathan's body for himself, dragging Erina and a surviving second infant into the coffin that was originally meant to protect his head and later on his 'new american' body on the journey across the sea. Erina, horrified by all of this utterly reasonably, accepts it only for the sake of her unborn child and the surviving infant, and he does his best to keep them alive until a ship comes to rescue them. Unfortunately this is during the day, while Dio is hiding under the second compartment for safety, and the crew ignore Erina's request to retrieve the coffin as well. It sinks, trapping Dio at the bottom fo the sea.

... For a century. A century is a long time to think about his life. About everything that's gone wrong, and how situations just seemed to MANIPULATE themselves into the worst possible outcomes. Being of proper Victorian upbringing, he did fear God in a vague sort of way, but it also led him to the conclusion that God Himself MUST have been directly interfering to make things go so badly. God, or the Devil. Either way, it cost him his humanity and his family, and with a century to stew in his own new inhuman emotions, he comes to the conclusion that God must PAY.

Many years later near the Canary Islands, his coffin is finally fished up by treasure seekers, and Dio takes the first opportunity to escape to the mainland. It's there that he encounters a young priest named Pucci, and becomes good friends with him in alarmingly short order. While looking for a more permanent place to stay, Dio runs into Enya, who sensing he is supernatural, introduces him to her son J Geil, Anubis, D'arby and others, and the power of Stands. When she offers such a great power to him, one he can't see, hear, touch or otherwise interact with but in the hands of ALL THESE MURDERERS, he immediately accepts, coming into possession of The World shortly later via the Stand-creating arrows. Such is the World's power that subduing everyone Enya brought to him, and accidentally gaining most of them as servants shortly later, was alarmingly effortless.

Honestly sometimes it was only Pucci's utter sanity and friendship that kept him from going nuts dealing with them all and trying to keep them from slaughtering everyone in their path. But even Pucci wasn't immune to the way reality seemed to warp around Dio, deciding that Dio's utter hatred of fate was in fact a desire to control it and everything else.

Setting up a nice place finally in Cairo to try to wrangle all the lunatics that have sworn allegiance to him with the obedience of several key minions being paramount in this, Dio discovers that he can mind control people with his hair on accident on a visiting boy from Japan and again on a man from France looking to kill one of his minions in revenge. Enya helps him gain control over this particular technique, and he sneakily uses it for the first time deliberately on her, to make sure she CAN'T suddenly turn on him, not when she has all those damn arrows to make more Stand users with. It's during this time that he hears of a skilled fortune teller named Abdul, and attempts to gain his help. Abdul nopes the hell out and runs away. Unsure of what else to do with the two mind controlled gentlemen, he sends them on a quest to see if there's any remaining Joestars, and to take care of them if they're still alive. After all, with all this Stand bullshit going on and spreading, someone was going to have to make sure Jonathan's descendents aren't roped into all of it and possibly harmed in the doing. He owed it to Jonathan to try to protect at least some of his legacy.

Of course, both of them immediately conclude that 'take care of' means 'kill' and set out to assassinate all remaining Joestars. They fail miserably, but it does set said Joestars on a path to try to kill him in return. Somehow all of this sets his adopted great, great, great granddaughter into a lethal fever as she can't handle the power of her Stand, and Dio finds himself blamed for it. Pucci, being at a church conference, is not within reach to remove her Stand and eliminate the problem effortlessly.

Dio's decision to kill God is further reinforced.

Upon finding out that all of them somehow have very powerful Stands as well, Dio hits upon the magnificent idea of how to finally get rid of all the goddamn murderers who keep flocking to his banner at Enya's encouraging, and begins sending them out after his great-great-grand-family one by one, starting with the very weakest of his 'servants'. They needed to be permanently stopped somehow, and if he did it himself, they'd all revolt - and while The World is incredibly powerful, taking on ALL of them would likely mean his demise. Expectedly, the Joestars and friends have NO real problem defeating every single minion sent to fight them, especially with Dio carefully making sure the resources are always on hand to make certain they can recover and aren't even seriously injured in the doing.

This actually works rather well, up to and including getting rid of the very dangerous Enya and her rapist monstrosity of a son. Unfortunately there's also the obvious side effect of the Joestars becoming utterly convinced that Dio's trying to murder them every step of the way. Dio takes the time to recall all of his minions that he feels are most deserving of NOT being killed off to his mansion, and prepares to confront the Joestars directly and hopefully explain matters without having to resort to actually killing any of them, waiting til sunset to open the doors and simply invite them in, his remaining Stand users at his side.

This is his arrival point.

Personality: He tries to be a decent person. 'Tries' being the active term.

Dio Brando's idea of what makes a decent person however doesn't always line up with what the rest of reality thinks. He doesn't go out of his way to harm others, but in turn barring specific circumstances he won't go out of his way to help them either. He does try to maintain well trained manners and is inclined towards politeness even when dealing with those he hates - after all, there's nothing to be gained from rudeness - and to those he looks well on, he's genial and gracious. He has a strong belief that true loyalty isn't earned by fear but trust, it's simply that the vast bulk of people he encounters can only be kept in line with terror instead of faith. The rare exceptions to this he prizes. While others might rush to the aid of strangers in distress, unless given a very good reason to bother, Dio simply ... won't. It's not his problem if it doesn't directly affect him or someone he cares about, and if that means they're getting hurt or killed ... well, that's too bad for them isn't it. But if it DOES directly affect him or something/someone he feels important, he has little hesitation bringing all his considerable resources to bear to settle the problem as efficiently as possible.

That sometimes the most efficient route means lying through his teeth, manipulation, deception and sometimes outright murder is inconsequential. It's for a good reason, or at least what Dio feels is a good reason. So long as it's in the pursuit of his interests or his important people, trivial things like murder or torture are really not that bad. It's not the means that's important, it's the end result and the reason for getting there to begin with. It doesn't really help his reputation as a horrible monster any.

Frankly it's not an undeserved reputation. If it's been a bad day the first impression is one of utter malevolent fury, a burning undercurrent of nearly every thought and action when forced to be out and about in the world. Beneath his distant politeness is a constant seething hatred, and it cracks through more often than he likes. He's a literal monster after all, a vampire who drinks blood to survive. From an external perspective, away from those very few people who know him best, he's a distant malignant presence; where he goes, disaster follows. He tortures, he murders, and he destroys. His followers are malicious and evil, delighting in the pain they cause others. How can their master be any different?

It's led to a cult. He has no idea what to do with them beyond a standing order to keep people away from him, taking care of the Joestars, and sending the worst ones off to be murdered. This has in turn led to a lot of killing and destruction.

And that's where that seething hatred comes from. Dio loathes the vast majority of his life and the endless parade of horrifying "coincidences" and "bad luck" that led to the loss of his birth family, his adopted family, and his own life into the undead ridiculousness it currently is. No matter what he does, dark fate dogs his steps, turning innocent commentary into ominous threats, drawing evil to his side like birds of a feather and arranging events to exalt Dio Brando as THE pinnacle of all that is evil in the world. If he thought he could have a clear shot at killing fate itself, then he would take it and utterly erase from reality such a thing as destiny. Bad things happen around him with utter predictability, and his temper can only last so long before the latest "coincidence" leading to further deaths and destruction in his name causes him to lash out. It really doesn't help that reputation. He feels an obligation to the Joestars, even if they wish he'd just die in a fire or something, and goes out of his way to keep tabs on them out of lingering gratitude to the family that took him in... and guilt for what he did to his "brother".

But he means well. He really, truly does, for himself and his special ones. He doesn't want to rule the world he just wants it better organized for the lives of those he cares about. Without all this nonsense that follows him constantly, he would be the person the Joestars raised him to be, kind and gentle and willing to help anyone who needed it. He wishes he could be that person, even when he doesn't bother to try to actually live up to it. Even as he is now, he does his best to keep his nightmarish legacy directed in ways he thinks deserve it most, sending serial killers and murderers to be slain on the altars of the righteous "in his name". Even though he fully realizes it's futile, in the cascade of awful beginning he's compelled to TRY to stop things from going horribly wrong, even if this often makes things worse. He has to try. Surrender isn't part of his nature. As much as Dio is capable of bringing great destruction and death, he's capable of loyalty in the same measure, and kindness, and affection. If he thought it safe for others, he would reach out for friendships, family - something to return to, to make undeath worth unliving. But he knows his uncanny knack for turning the innocent into disaster would put anyone and everyone in the line of fire, so he makes no friends if he can avoid it, has no comrades. But he's capable, and on the rare occasions someone DOES breech the walls he's built, he is as fiercely devoted and protective a friend as anyone could hope for. But right now ... right now he has no remaining attachments to living humanity save one, a certain priest who seems utterly immune to his field of corruption. So great is Dio's faith in Pucci that he entrusted to the priest his ultimate grand plan of rewriting reality and ending fate forever.

That Pucci decided he really meant something wildly different perhaps shows that he isn't as immune as Dio thinks.

The one constant companion Dio has for the past year is The World, his Stand. The World exemplifies better not what Dio is now, but what he wants to be, or more appropriately what he thinks he should be, the ideal set up by his brother a century ago that is perhaps impossible for him to attain. While utterly obedient to every command given, The World favors acts of nobility and kindness and disapproves of many things that don't live up to that now-impossible standard, and has no problem telling him this - albeit in private. To do so before others would be shameful for both of them, and in public they strive to be the perfect unity they should be. He knows he can trust his Stand's judgment on the morality of any given situation, and has considerable faith in The World's reasoning and sense of justice, but he also sees it not as a reflection of who he once strove to be as a child and young man, but as a reflection of Jonathan himself. After all, his body, his life energy, was once Jonathan's. Onto The World, Dio projects much of his guilt over his brother and his unspoken agitation at being unable to be who he wants to be, and his Stand dutifully reflects it, often to his frustration and bitterness.

He has a bizarre sense of humor (unfortunately..) and has a particularly soft spot for children. Peculiar though that particular affectation might be, exactly how he likes children tends to vary widely. Sometimes he simply spoils them outrageously when given half a chance, sometimes he's a friendly and cheerful conversation partner, and sometimes he's a raging, furious monster who drives them away with threats, horrific displays of nightmarish power and carefully aimed strikes that are never meant to actually hit one. He's good at scaring them off. He's fond of the flavor of wine, enjoys the flush of exertion, takes great pride in building things as opposed to tearing them down, is tremendously fond of fishing (though the fish rarely survive his efforts), and lies as easily as he tells the truth. If he had his way he'd spend most of his unlife tucked in a library with a glass of mulled wine, reading til daybreak.

Fate however has other plans.

For all that he spent time on the Train previously, it left no lasting impacts on his personality or beliefs, save his certainty that Nerdanel and her kind are Australian, and a certain fondness for the little device the train hands out like candy that keeps him from bursting into flames when exposed to sunlight.

Key themes: The fight against fate/being thwarted by destiny. That 'you can't fight fate, but you keep trying' trope.

Main Motivation: REVENGE. He thoroughly believes God or some similar power is literally manipulating the threads of his life (and he's not wrong), and at this point he's dedicated to killing God and eliminating what he sees as a curse.

Skills: Oh dear.

Vampire

Superhuman strength and speed: As it says on the tin. It has been claimed by Speedwagon that he can run faster than a cheetah, and he's capable of lifting a steamroller and carrying it at least a short distance. He can use this strength in other ways, such as clinging to walls and ceilings, climbing vertical surfaces, and jumping considerable distances. His hand-eye coordination is good enough to deflect a shower of emerald 'bullets' at not quite bullet speeds.

Enhanced senses: Dio is capable of hearing the heartbeat of a human from several meters away.

Regeneration: Dio regenerates faster than fire burns. So long as his brain and most of his head is intact, he can survive, though HEALING requires having an actual body to mend. This does have limits, if he has no fresh blood to consume, his regeneration is considerably slowed, but a fresh victim ensures even vital bodyparts regenerate within a minute or two.

Healing: Presumably an extension of his regeneration abilities, Dio can completely heal others as well, of at the very least congenital birth defects that affect the skeleton. Due to an incredible lack of information on this skill, I have decided he can heal minor and moderate wounds and mend broken bones through the application of his vampiric essence, but life-saving level damage can't be dealt with, nor can he truly resurrect the dead or regenerate lost limbs or eyes and such. So long as the bone and flesh is still there, however, and the damage not critical, he can mend it.

Eye Lasers: No seriously. He can pressurize the liquid in his eyes and use this to shoot people with in something that frankly looks a lot like lasers. This can slice through stone. He doesn't like using it given what happened to Jonathan when he first found out he can do it.

Freezing: He is capable of vaporizing the moisture in his body and freezing it, including anything (or anyone) he happens to be touching at the time. This is fairly limited; he can freeze a hand of someone else, or a foot, or a similar sized patch of person, but can be more extensive on his own person. This does cause damage to his own tissue but regeneration generally handles that.

Fusion: He can swap body parts on various living things, including himself, without actually killing his target. Like zombies, the creatures created this way tend to be fanatically loyal.

Flesh Buds: Dio can form a parasite that can be inserted into a human head. Once done, he can control the individual as if they were utterly mindcontrolled. If left in too long (years, it seems..), it can kill the host, but it is possible to remove a flesh bud with enough skill without harming the victim.

Minion Creation: If Dio gives his vampiric essence to a victim (a bloodlike substance which isn't actually blood), be they dead or alive, that victim becomes a zombie, an utterly fanatically loyal undead creation. Sometimes they retain their living personalities, sometimes not - it seems to depend on the victim. Like zombies of myth, they tend to stink, be hideous, and have insatiable bloodlust. If Dio gives his actual blood to a freshly dead corpse, it reanimates as a vampire instead, with much the same abilities he has, but loyalty to their creator.

Spiritual Connection: Thanks to having Jonathan's body, Dio is able to sense the presence and general well-being of all of Jonathan's descendants. The further away the more vague this sense is, but even close up he can't really tell individuals, just that there are X number of Joestars in Y location and they seem to be generally healthy/not. This stops working at close range, and he has to rely on normal senses within a hundred yards or so.

ZA WARUDO

The World is Dio's Stand, a towering humanoid golden creature that specializes in immense speed and strength that Dio can summon at will. He seems to possess his own mind and ideas, though he rarely if ever speaks to anyone but Dio and is faultlessly obedient. To normal senses, The World is utterly invisible and intangible, though his effects upon the world can be seen and felt. He can phase through matter effortlessly, and can't be harmed by most environmental hazards such as say, walls, a blizzard, or a house fire. For the purposes of RP in games, beings that can sense life energy can sense his presence, and those who can see spirits, ghosts and demons are perfectly capable of seeing him, and magical/Mods Say So environmental problems can affect him just fine. Broadly, if it is a mundane thing, it can't harm The World, but magical and enchanted/similar things can (or things that qualify as magic) ... as well as other Stands.

The World is capable of straying far from Dio's presence and acting independently, however in order to fight or interact with the world in a tangible way, he must be within 10 meters of Dio. His most potent ability is to utterly stop time for five seconds; with enough practice and time Dio can extend this (to infinity, according to the writer of the series..), but this is their current limit. To others, this timestop ability looks rather like teleportation and impossible speed. He can take actions in stopped time, but others generally cannot unless they share a similar power. Time stop requires a significant energy investment, and it's only Dio's vampiric nature that allows him to use it so freely, but even he has limits. Outside of the stress of combat, Dio can command The World to use this ability silently, but during combat, thanks to the focus it requires on many things, Dio must order The World to use it - otherwise The World will likely be doing OTHER things, like fighting for their life.

As they are essentially the same being, whatever harms The World though, harms Dio. Their injuries map 1 to 1; break The World's leg, and Dio's own shatters. Punch a hole through The World, and Dio too will sport a donut hole through his body. The World shares his vulnerability to sunlight and Holy-type powers, alongside his durability. Obliterate The World and hey, Dio dies! Sufficient strength is enough to damage the Stand, and he has no special resistances at all to magic and ki energy manipulation.

The World is not a permanent presence, and is often discorporated when not needed.

Jonathan's Stand

A skill that Dio almost never uses simply because he knows it's not his, Jonathan's Stand goes with the body and thus he technically has access to it. Manifesting as spectral thorny, purple vines with blood red roses, it allows a sort of long-distance scrying, allowing him to cast an image into a crystal ball or onto a photograph of a place or event or person that is happening at that very moment. It can also allow him to project an image of something close to the heart of the person he wishes to use it on into a picture or crystal ball, though this gives him no true insight as to the connection to that image, or what it means to the person it's used on.

Best Skill

By far the best power Dio has is his magical ability to puff into ashes and debris if exposed to direct sunlight. Slightly less awesome is how holy magic can do this too, if he's ever exposed to enough of it. Small amounts of either, like a small sunbeam or .. I don't know, a holy laser, only burn what they touch. This damage takes a comparatively long time to heal.

Item: His makeup kit from the previous round of being here!

Sample: okay so basically the croc thing was a call-out.

Notes: If you're familiar with Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, try to read all of this as a satire/parody of the series. While it has very serious elements and Dio takes it all seriously, it's not anywhere near as serious as true canon and should be looked at through a lens of absurdity and hijinx. WHY?? .. because canon Dio is really hard to play in games, he's just that much of a lunatic. Additionally, The World's phasing and timestop and such is subject to Plot Necessity. If it is required that nobody do this, suddenly for mysterious reasons The World can't do it for now.