Danthus, or Dandy as he prefers to be called by most, is an incubus, a demon of pleasure. A dedicated admirer of the adorable and the fluffy, he also has a special affection for retro items, especially times he lived through. He is, perhaps, a little jaded, and despite living in the human world for some time, he can come off as a little bit alien.
Personality
Dandy is pretty agreeable to most, though he can also seem alien at times. He's sometimes too plain-spoken and can be taken as rude or just insensitive, but there's a kind heart under it all. Anyone who gets to know him will see a being capable of profound love and affection, but one who interacts with circles that are almost never embraced by the mainstream. He's eccentric, very obviously, but at the same time, he doesn't usually stick out enough to alarm people. It's more likely that they would just think he either had some sort of delusion or that he was an artist deeply dedicated to his work.
Those who get closest to him may see him without pretense and without facade, existing and allowing himself to become easily attached to others. It's rare, though, since most of the time he has to keep up something of an act. He can't truly be himself all the time, or else it would become very obvious that he at least isn't part of the mainline of human society.
Background
Danthus came into being as demons of his kind do, surrounded by a mid-20th century world and all its hangups and repression. Naturally, he took what he wanted out of it and carved out his own little resistance of the rest. If society didn't understand or accept things, it wasn't any skin off the demon's back. And he wasn't beyond using that to help persuade people that his way was right and that they should go along with him.
Things changed, as things do over time, and Danthus -- who quickly took to a more affectionate and "normal" nickname of Dandy -- embraced the change as it came. Everything from fashion to folk seemed to race over the world in a flash, in a decade of tumult and relative chaos. Dandy persisted, and it all seemed so exciting and new.
Then that decade ended, and another came and went. All the fun made time fly, as it was said to do, but Dandy soon started to learn a hard lesson: that some things are only exciting and new once, and then they're done and can never be like that again. Having burned through plenty of joys in his existence thus far, he was struck with a kind of sobriety that lasted for a fairly short time for him. He would have to take a new approach, keep it interesting. So, for the rest of the 80s into the 90s, he played it cooler than he had before. After that, it's like he hit a skid and just kept leaning into it for over a decade.
Dandy kept on, finding joy and pleasure where he could. Then things started to happen. Fascinated by the prospect of new thrills, he started to look more into the supernatural spheres more deeply again. He made sure not to get too far in, but soon he found his days and nights with more going on than ever before. And here he had thought that he would just live his life and not be too much a part of the larger picture! But more and more, he found himself completely immersed and surrounded by the many supernatural affairs affecting the world around him.
SIGNATURE ABILITY
Absolute Ecstasy
In his time of greatest need, Dandy can essentially create a supernova of pleasure, powerful enough to affect a football field's space and all the living things contained in it. The effect is strongest with proximity to Dandy, though even the fringes would command enough pure pleasure to overwhelm an average human. All senses are overloaded with pleasing sensation, which should at the very least elevate the moods of those involved and make conflict less likely, or at least take it down a few levels. As it is a burst effect, it happens at once with intensity but does not linger.
After this occurs, Dandy must concentrate on essentially harvesting the usable energy so that he may replenish his levels. He will be unable to extend himself for at least a few hours, or he can risk injury or longer-term dampening of his superhuman abilities such as his aura. It also leaves him more vulnerable to attack or danger in general, due to his sudden and great usage of energy. If he is able to rest for a few hours, or ideally a good night's rest, Dandy should be almost fully recovered by the next day. This ability cannot be used more than a couple of times in a month, as it wears on Dandy and detrimentally affects the powers he needs to survive.
SKILLS
Advisor - Competent Level
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Over the years, Dandy has cultivated an impressive ability to listen, analyze, and advise. He's good at counseling, although it can depend on his mood. Sometimes, he just can't be bothered or doesn't take the situation seriously. It's not that he doesn't care about the people who come to him for advice (though that is sometimes part of it), it's just that he has a different perspective entirely on most things than humans do.
Dandy really doesn't like physical conflict. He'll avoid it wherever possible, but if he has to actually do something, he can throw a punch without hurting himself. His main strategy in a fight would be to just fend off whatever it is and, as soon as possible, either overpower his foe with some object (like a chair, or a bus), or get someone else who can deal with it better than he can.
Cooking - Competent Level
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Dandy is actually a very good cook, though he usually only cooks for someone he's very fond of. There are exceptions, of course, and sometimes he just wants to eat something delicious; even if he doesn't have to eat, he likes doing it occasionally because it is still a pleasing experience to eat good food.
Most of the time, his skill in cooking shows in his appreciation of food, instead. He can recognize a number of ingredients and has good enough senses to be able to distinguish them and potentially figure out how a dish was made. Still, perhaps most importantly of all, he knows what he likes to eat and he is able to praise well-made food in a coherent, knowledgeable way.
Finer Things - Competent Level
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Dandy likes the best things in life. It's taught him to recognize those things, and he can appreciate authenticity. He might even be able to tell the real thing from a copy, with certain things. He's able to navigate the world of fine art and decor, fashion and style, and the most exciting cuisine of the moment. It can also tell him a good amount about a person.
Knowledge - Competent Level
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Dandy's lived for a long time, and in that time, it's been easy for him to learn things. It's even easier when he pursues knowledge and training, though that's been on his whim and irregular. He knows plenty, though, by living through it, experiencing it, and so forth. His interactions with a diverse array of people have also helped him to form an impressive collection of knowledge.
Manipulation - Expert Level
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Dandy is great at getting people to do what he wants them to do. He can influence a person or a crowd if he wants to. He has the honeyed words and the silver tongue, not to mention profound perception and ability to read people by their reactions. Even without using his superhuman advantages, he's skilled and experienced enough to tell a lot about a person from indications most miss.
Occultism - Competent Level
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Since he's a demon, Dandy started off with an impressive foundation in the occult. He's had quite some time to absorb a wide range of information, and he's also aware of the interconnections of the magic world. Occult subjects are often very simple to him, and no amount of non-euclidian horrors can affect Dandy's sanity or psyche.
Streetwise - Expert Level
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Dandy has dealt a lot with grey areas, over the years. It has taught him how best to navigate those same grey areas, and even to go further, into the realms of the forbidden, the secret, and the hidden. Dealing with the human underworld is a piece of cake, though supernatural underworlds are more challenging. Regardless, he knows enough about both to be confident in his ability to get around and get things done.
Therapy - Competent Level
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A variety of therapeutic activities are well-known to Dandy. He's quite good at massage and stretching, if the muscles hurt. He knows which scents can help a person feel better. He even knows a bit about using colors to set a mood. Sometimes, even just suggesting something is helpful, and sometimes, someone just needs to get out of the house for a while or mix up their routine a tad, and Dandy's likely to be able to look at a situation and see it.
ABILITIES
Power: Communication - Basic Level
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It's incredibly easy for Dandy to pick up languages and to effectively communicate with a wide range of people. He can even do that with animals and plants, though it's a little trickier there (and isn't easy to translate) -- he simply has to spend a little time with the person in question and, with his perceptive nature and enhanced senses, as well as his inborn abilities, it's easy for him to absorb the language in a short amount of time.
To do this, whatever he's communicating with has to use some sort of language that he can identify; body language counts, and plants are hard mode. He also will usually pick up the dialect of the person he learns from, since that is the way they employ the language, but the more people who communicate a certain way, the broader base he will have in the language. He can use a language even after a long time of disuse, but his use of it will be as outdated as the last time he used it. Regular use of a language keeps it more up to date.
Note that just being able to understand a language does not mean that Dandy will be able to effectively communicate in it, especially if he isn't the same species or doesn't have the same kind of physical form as what he's learning. Many times, he just uses this as a tool to understand others better or attempt to translate for a third party. He can't coo like a mourning dove, but he can figure out what their song means if given time.
Power: Demonic Physique - Enhanced Level
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Dandy is able to exert control over every part of his body, even remotely, and can typically give each part enough energy to carry out its impulses. Not that it would be very easy to separate parts of him from the rest of him, since he's significantly tougher than a human and possesses vastly greater stamina and endurance. He doesn't require human necessities like sleep, food, or water, and he's resilient enough to resist even extreme temperatures and conditions without his body being harmed.
His demonic makeup affords him senses much keener than a human's, able to notice things and get around in less ideal circumstances than a human would. It's very easy for him to notice details that others might miss, simply due to him being able to detect them more easily.
Power: Empathy - Enhanced Level
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Dandy is gifted with empathy and able to sense the feelings of those around him. He's able to tell the most from those physically closest, though greater familiarity can also enhance this ability and make it more vivid even over larger distance. Naturally, defenses or training can make it much harder for Dandy to get any empathic impressions from someone, though it's probable that he'll notice the difference from most.
His empathy can also be used expressively, allowing him to form a kind of feedback loop with those whom he may choose. In this way, he can enhance sensations and experiences with others. He is familiar enough with his abilities to use them to whatever effect he should want at the moment, from accenting an interaction to overwhelming someone presenting a threat. As with the other most frequent application of his empathy, physical closeness and familiarity help to make this more effective, and defenses or training against it can resist its effects.
The more people around, the less Dandy generally can get from them as a group. He can, however, focus on one person or a small group of people with ease, even in a crowd. It may be helpful to compare it to talking: in a large room, he will be able to understand a lot of little things, but it's unlikely to be a conversation or contain any real depth until he focuses on a smaller number of people.
Power: Incubus - Supreme Level
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As an incubus, Dandy is able to absorb energy as essentially his food and drink. He has to maintain a certain level of energy to employ his various demonic abilities with regular ease. Dandy specifically feeds off of pleasure and the pleasure-adjacent, either by inspiring or enhancing that pleasure in others, or by being close to living things experiencing pleasure. Fresh is best, but he can get by on residual pleasures if he must.
In a way, this is a kind of magic generation, a kind of inspiration, which he tends to call "essence": with his abilities, he is able to cultivate great pleasure in others. After he feeds, which is typically more a passive absorbency, those upon whom he has fed will feel tired for a short time. In this period, their bodies will naturally replenish energy levels, similar to a particularly intense workout.
Due to his demonic nature, Dandy also possesses a tremendous will and, because of his nature as an incubus, is almost entirely immune to supernatural charm. He is also able to perceive beyond an average human's ability to comprehend, which includes the true forms of other demons and supernatural entities. His nature further enables him to detect shifts in time or reality, and he may be able to resist effects indefinitely if he catches it quickly enough, allowing him to remember details about a situation that was completely altered or erased.
Power: Invulnerability - Enhanced Level
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Dandy is effectively immortal, as well as being unkillable by conventional methods. Supernatural attacks can affect him and at least make him extremely uncomfortable. Dandy doesn't age, and his body heals at an accelerated rate, making physical injury less serious than it otherwise might be. He is not susceptible to disease or sickness, and additionally he cannot be possessed by other entities.
If Dandy's physical form should be destroyed, he will have to return to his realm of origin to reform his body. This can take some time, as he has to shape it again through force of will.
Power: Pleasure Aura - Supreme Level
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The one thing that Dandy does exceptionally well is apply his natural aura to a situation. Having come into existence as a demon of pleasure from the start, he has the ability to heighten positive sensation of those around him. Less pleasant things retreat and become less important, and the more positive things can seem stronger and easier to notice. Like his empathy, he is able to apply his aura in various degrees. He can use it simply to bring up the mood of a room, or on the other end of the spectrum, he can potentially overwhelm a threat with an overload of sensation. Most of the time, however, this aura is barely noticeable, acting subtly and improving how people respond to Dandy.
As with his empathy, his aura is stronger and more effective with physical proximity and familiarity. The more people the aura has to affect, the less potent it generally is. He can, however, focus it on a single person or a few people and maintain an impressive potency to it. Typically, though, it's simply background noise, even if it is background noise that tends to make people feel better.
Power: Shapeshifting - Basic Level
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Dandy possesses a minor modicum of shapeshifting. He can change his form to be a little more appealing, here and there, to those in whom he might wish to inspire pleasure. This could potentially also be used for other pursuits, such as escapology or just messing around with people by changing eye color three times in a conversation. Aside from minor alterations of his body, though, Dandy can't really change his shape that significantly.
Magic: Sorcery - Basic Level
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Dandy has a basic understanding of sorcery. He knows enough to cast basic spells and also knows some ways to counteract magic and magical effects. It's a sturdy foundation that allows him to figure out things that the uninitiated never would; he may be able to pull off more complicated and impressive feats if he's given time and opportunity to research and to extrapolate from the data he can gather. He's most likely to try and get someone else to do it, if it's magic. He would much rather try to explain what they need to know and let them take care of a magical affair, rather than get himself into mystical mischief.
Power: Telekinesis - Basic Level
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Dandy can use his will and focus to move objects remotely. This generally requires that he be in sensory range of the object he wishes to affect. He can even use his telekinesis against living things, but that demands a pinpoint focus that can be difficult to maintain for long enough to be effective. He's not the most skilled at telekinetic feats, but Dandy can at least open a door, get a drink from across the room, or use a mental push to get a little room to breathe.
Power: Telemetry - Enhanced Level
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Whenever Dandy touches something and concentrates on it, he can get impressions of its past. Things that are emotionally-charged or significant, such as something that fundamentally altered or damaged the item, are often easiest to discover and most prominent. Dandy can only go back so far; he is typically limited to about a decade at most, though he could push past that to some extent, albeit very briefly, with focus, time, and effort.
ADVANTAGES
Over the years, Dandy has picked up a number of communications, on all echelons of society. He's especially connected in the grey area, since so many things that are fun are also either illegal or highly controlled. He's favorably-regarded by most, since he's an honest and reliable customer who doesn't divulge dangerous secrets, and it's conceivable that he could call in favors if needed and have a reasonable degree of confidence that they would come through for him.
Rich and indulgent, that's Dandy! But more specifically, he's very well off where money is concerned. He has savings all over the place, and it's not exactly a challenge for him to get more.
WEAKNESSES
As much as he tries to cover it up or deny it, anything that appeals to his sense of the cute and the adorable can reduce Dandy to a babbling mess. Whether simply objects or creations of art, or living things, Dandy loves cute stuff. And if anything cute is put in danger, it's a sure bet that he will drop everything and even put himself in harm's way, in order to save what has been endangered.
Dandy is unable to escape the bounds of a devil's trap without help, and his demonic abilities are diminished while in it. He is not, however, entirely powerless in its bounds.
Being as empathic as he is, Dandy tries to avoid violence and causing great discomfort to others. Violence tends to make him uncomfortable, because he will be able to feel a residual unpleasantness from it. Even though he can temporarily muffle his empathy, he doesn't prefer to do it; it's comparable to temporarily losing one of the senses, an uncomfortable experience.
Dandy maintains a certain degree of boredom and doneness with things. It is perhaps understandable, since he's already lived for quite some time in a rapidly-changing world. Most of the time, he can push it aside and just experience the moment. Sometimes, though, it gets the best of him, and there's little that can shift his mood. The prospect of something novel or daring or just different can do it, but it just makes things that much worse if it turns out to be nothing much of interest after all.
The more conventional and general something is, the less it tends to fascinate Dandy. The exotic, the uncommon, and the daring are things that thrill him. He does have a number of go-to things that always entertain him, but he also tries to take care that those things don't lose their appeal.
Dandy's pleasure absorption is basically always on, though he can focus it in a specific moment and a specific target for his feeding. He has to intake essence regularly, or his abilities will attempt to feed him, which can result in no end of awkward situations. If he does not feed for an extended period of time, his abilities will gradually diminish and he will, eventually, waste away. Fortunately, his system is set up to prevent this wherever possible.
Holy fire and holy water are no fun for Dandy. They aren't fatal and don't cause irreparable injury, but they can interfere with the speed of his recovery and are painful enough that he would choose to avoid them if possible rather than have to endure them at any time.
To Dandy, money is meant to be used to get a person what they want. Money is only worth anything if you use it, so Dandy doesn't hesitate long to do so if he believes it will resolve a problem. This can range from usefully purchasing supplies or resources that contribute to solving the matter, to frivolous spending. Most things aren't that new to Dandy, so novelty is a strong appeal point; if it's new and interesting, he's likely to throw money at it without thinking that decision over carefully (or sometimes at all). He's also free with his funds and also likely to spend on others, especially if he cares about them. Seeing someone else experience something really enjoyable for the first time gives Dandy pleasure too, so he has an incentive. He just doesn't always balance out benefit over cost in his mind.
Although he's tried to keep a low profile, over the years, Dandy has gained at least a small reputation with a limited audience. Some may recognize him, though mainly the people that would are supernatural in some way themselves. Those who don't know better may fear him or try to stay away from him because he is a demon. Since misunderstanding of demons is common and widespread, it makes complete honesty a somewhat risky venture and can quickly complicate even the simplest and most straightforward of situations.
Because he also possesses profound empathy, Dandy tends not to like applying his telemetry without knowing something about the item in question beforehand. Traumatic events can feel to him like they're happening to him, and it gets weird when he experiences something terrible from an object's perspective. Because of this, he tends to avoid meat in his diet when he chooses to eat, and he is also very particular about the clothes he wears. It's better that way, in his opinion, than taking the chance of an unwelcome and very unpleasant unexpected secondhand surprise.
