The Family Man

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   <default>The Family Man</default>
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The Family Man is a cult leader who took a place in the Kennet Undercity, had a scary chance of divine ascent.

Personality

He is best understood as a patriarch, who does everything in his power to hold onto his position. That means he needs to kill maim injure brutalize and do any number of horrible things to get what he wants.<ref>“Fuck the Family Man!” one shouted, bringing a girl with a visible break in her jaw over to the couch. “Fuck him to hell! I’ll burn that neighborhood to the ground, next time!”

The pain of having one side of her jaw break and fold in on itself hit Verona all at once, chased soon after by the pain of a forearm that had been cut with a large blade, the skin and flesh hanging away from bone like a banana. Then, as if refusing to be outdone, her hand twinged.

She dropped the salt.

The echoes crashed through each other. The aftermath of two confrontations, one lighter, with lots of smaller injuries. Bites and pencil stabs from kindergarten shock troopers. The other brutal- the Family Man or his lieutenants had gone out of his way to make the injuries graphic. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.9</ref> He built up the worship of his authority and position into a religion which helped him become almost a god. He just looked for one last push to get him over that hump.

He extends his territory via white picket fences.

Relationships

"Wives"

Can be thought of as concubines who have all the social pressure expected from cult members.

Lieutenants

Becoming knotted just as he is.

Marlen Roy

Offered her shealter and took information from it.

Appearance

Incredibly pale with white-blond hair and startling blue eyes. His shifting nature put Lucy and Verona in mind of a certain movie they once watched.<ref>Shaking Hands 9.10</ref>

Abilities

Supernaturally fecund.<ref name=":0">Family Man:
Knotting made this guy super fertile. Was a weird but normal guy until something went off. His kids are growing up fast too. Don’t like him, but we haven’t been able to remove him. - Keeping Tabs, Kennet</ref>

Has the potential to become a demigod, he is able to feel this potential to an extent and uses it to guide his actions.<ref name=":4a">“Sometimes that’s how rituals look.  Awakenings, this.”

“There’s a part of me that has a feeling for this.  That shuddered, tremored, and yearned for things as I brought Kennet together, coordinated, and made declarations.  Most of the wives and daughters of Kennet were to give birth together, the men and boys were to be butchered, the butcher’s cuts served before us all.  There was a seed of meaning there and I would have been its flower.”

Might’ve been a god.

“That part of me doesn’t tremor or react at all to what you’re saying. It reacts to all of this… but not those words.”
[...]
“They won’t be dark,” the Family Man said. “This side of Kennet is a reflection of our base wants, our impulses, the things the people above would keep hidden and unsaid, or second guess. To truly claim this place as your own, you have to face that darkness. That makes sense to me. That stirs the tremoring.”
[...]
“I’ve told you what this side of Kennet is.  It’s pure.  It’s dark in that purity.  Brutish, violent, free.  Am I your last enemy here?”

“Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Then I’ll be your obstacle.  Fight me, child, and fight me on the terms of this side of Kennet, dark, pure, base and violent.  If you’re going to take this place when I don’t want you to, you need to be more representative of this side of Kennet than even I am.”
[...]
He’d stumbled his way into the right answer, and wormed his way into the fabric of this whole challenge in a way that made him stronger. Arguing any part of the terms he’d outlined would weaken her claim more than it helped her. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.9</ref>

Is immortal for all senses and purposes; easily able to heal and rearrange his body as needed.<ref>- Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.11</ref>

Weaknesses

Had several simple curses placed on him by lucy backed up by power taken from a seized power battery.<ref>“I, the first witch of Kennet, will lay a curse on you, Family Man.  To strangle your seed, to make your flesh soft when desire runs hard.  It’s a pretty basic curse that gets a lot of use, as I’m sure you can imagine.  Can’t have you hurting anyone else. Seems like it’d hit you where it hurts, given your whole thing.”

“I think my flesh is stronger than your curse.”

“I will lay a second curse on you tonight.  To weaken your will to fight and see your ritual through.  The bloodless faint heart.  Let the idea of blood make you shaky.  Let the sight of it make you faint.  You send your men to do your dirty work?  That’s cowardly.”

“These curses seem lesser, don’t they?” he asked.

“And finally, a curse of Lorn Address.  Let your words struggle to find purchase.  The more you speak, the less will be heard.”
[...]
Verona pulled her bag around, and handed Lucy the power source.

“Don’t use too much,” Verona told Lucy. “We can use it for other things.”

“Five percent?” Lucy asked.

Verona nodded.

With the battery of power liberated from the realm collector Thea in Thunder Bay, Lucy powered each curse as she laid it. Simple curses, but she didn’t mind. With enough power, even if the diagram work and words could be eaten or wiped away, the curse would linger, set in deep. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.9</ref> This gave him a revulsion to the sight of Blood, unable to have more children due to impotency, and having his charisma stifled as he was unable to get people to listen to him.

To deal with this he largely blinded himself, restricting his vision so he could see light and shadows,

Later the Thorn in the flesh was placed in him, this severely weakened him amoung other things damaging his divine senses and regenerative ability.<ref name=":4b">That kernel of nascent, possible divinity in him.
[...]
It was really easy to imagine that something like the Family Man could have a limit to its healing.  That if someone hurt them long enough, you could deplete some supply of power, and the healing would slow.

That wasn’t always the case, though, and with that trace of divinity in the Family Man, it was possible he was existing on another level.  By different rules.  Maybe he just couldn’t die.  Maybe he would always heal until he was some paragon of physicality.  To change him from that could be like pushing water out of a human-shaped bowl.  If that water didn’t have anywhere to go, it could end up back in the bowl.
[...]
He tore the chunk of frozen flesh away. Then he looked down.

The healing was slower.

The Thorn in the Flesh poisoned practices, slowing and weakening them. It also applied to effects like the Family Man’s healing. And his divine instincts.

She’d put it darn close to the heart.
[...]
“And what have you been doing? Hiding away, feeling sorry for yourself? If we want to talk about claim and who belongs in the undercity, what the hell kind of excuse do you have to be here? I challenge all that you are. The knotting that gives you power, the divinity from a faith in you that has died.” - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.9</ref>

Chronology

Before the Story

Unknown may have been substantiated when Kennet below, quickly became a major threat.<ref name=":1a">“Family Man? [...] Bad news.”
[...]
“Pretty quickly learned that new boys in the area weren’t looked kindly on,” Bracken told Lucy.  “Family Man showed up three weeks ago, wasn’t like he is now, back then.  Mostly normal. [...] But he made a joke weeks ago, about castrating all eligible kids- boys, so they wouldn’t grow up to be competition.  Made the same joke again eight or nine days ago.  A lot more people laughed.  Made the joke a third time just three or so days ago, and it didn’t sound so jokey, and some leech of a guy who wanted to win him over started talking about it like it was a plan they could and should put into place.  We didn’t stick around. [...] He’s not so normal now.  He’s- built different.  Physically.  People treat him different.  Got the white picket fences he puts up everywhere, on the barricades and stuff.  Brands some people, got people branding themselves, or tattooing themselves.  All the girls and ladies want him, all the guys want to be part of that tight inner circle that won’t get castrated.  ‘Cause they get girls and shit, right?”

- Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.3</ref>

Post-Carmine Contest

Was quickly able to secure a third of kennet below<ref name=":1b">She went on, “I can’t say for sure that we’ll handle it right away.  This guy is someone we’ve wanted to handle for a while but it’s… tricky.”

“Yeah.  So I hear.”

“How tricky can it be?” Melissa asked.

“Like, this guy doesn’t sleep in the same house two nights in a row, he keeps a small private army with him.  If they don’t have guns, a lot of them have bows and stuff.  And other improvised weapons.  Verona thinks his physiology is different, so even if we do get a shot at him, there’s no guarantee that what knocks out or stops your usual criminal type will stop him,” Lucy said.  “And the people who do fight for him are- a lot of them are zealots.”

“A third of Kennet is with him,” Bracken said.

“What?” Melissa asked.  “Seriously?”

“A third of their Kennet, which is about a third of what our Kennet used to be.  Which is still four to six hundred people, about.  Occupying most of the residential area west of the River.” - Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.3</ref>

Met Lucy while the witch was chasing Marlen, offered the fugitive sanctuary and made an alliance offer to Bitter Street Witch which was put off.<ref>- Excerpt from Playing a Part 15.9</ref>

He was later dealt with by the kennet council, which "destroyed" him; utterly removed any authority he had over his faction.

the Founding

The practitioner invaders of Musser were able to view the scene during an investigation into where Marlen had gone.<ref>She squeezed out and flicked two more beads of blood to bring it even closer to reality, and to highlight the attacker.

A man, big, broad shouldered, with too many muscles- they slithered around him like slugs beneath the skin, bulges of muscles without places to anchor to, adding to his bulk and monstrousness.

Marlen, half on her bike, one foot on the ground, wheels spinning. The monstrous man reaching out- he’d chased on foot and he’d almost caught her in this moment. - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.a</ref>

Killed the foreman bloodlessly.<ref>- Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.9</ref> Tried to challenge Verona's claim to her demesne but failed and was weakened further.

Stayed out of the later conflict.

Peace ends

He was still weakened and did not have anything to do with the larger Kennet framework.<ref>“Thorn in the Flesh?” The gift from Gashwad.

Verona shook her head. “Still inside the Family Man, keeping him weak.” - Excerpt from Crossed with Silver 19.4</ref>

References

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