Chiaroscuro

Name: Dominic DeLuca
Nicknames: Stitches (codename), Dom (he insists for, but it never seems to stick), Nicky (he insists against, to no avail)
Birthday: 07.24.1989 (leo)
Pronouns/Gender: He/Him

Physical Description:
A bulky, built-out 6’2, who walks and talks with his shoulders perpetually squared, deliberately furthering the imposing impression he gives. He has straight black hair, streaked with the slightest dusting of gray and permanently combed back.
He has a rough, sneering, rectangular face, with a solid jaw accentuated with a rough goatee, dark, heavy brows, and equally dark eyes that seem locked into a permanent leering squint. Most noticeably, however, is the source of his codename; two long, jagged, poorly-healed scars that stretch from one of his sideburns to the other, directly through the corners of his mouth. His parents were both Italian-American, though he only knew his father, and grew up with him in Philadelphia.
He is almost always found wearing suits, or some other kind of formalwear, worn untucked and uneven as though thrown on in a rush. He leans toward deep greens, and other dark, muted tones, and has several pieces of bulky jewelery he accessorizes with, but none who know him personally would describe him as having strong aesthetic sense.

Occupation:
Recently released from prison, former career criminal. He was arrested in the aftermath of a chaotic and highly public gunfight, but as much as he would protest to the contrary, his involvement was relatively minimal, and his hearing left him with a heavily reduced sentence.


Personality:
Nicky is a dumbass, a jackass, and doesn’t even have a heart of gold to round off the rough edges. He is not monstrously cruel— he can be counted on to stick to his guns when it comes to trust, promises, and the safety of his gang, and has just enough morals to keep him out of the deeper circles of hell— but by common standards he is your average low-life thief and bully. He talks a big game, wears a cocky facade like armor, and shrugs off anything that makes him feel stupid or embarrassed with a scoff.

He isn’t particularly wise or skilled outside of the talents he has picked up from his life-long exposure to organized crime. His primary expertise is in acquiring, maintaining, and using weapons, or simply throwing or taking a punch. He is quick to complain when he is given more cerebral tasks, preferring instead to be pointed at a target, and told to shoot. Computers, finances, puzzles, and esoteric bullshit, are all way beyond the scope of his interest or capability.
He is happiest working for someone, following orders, and being lead by someone else’s plans or ideas. He is easy to persuade, easy to convince, and much of his history with organized crime was primarily informed by his willingness to follow a crowd just to fit in. Though he would never admit it under any circumstances, no matter how hard he was pressed, he gets nervous and embarrassed being asked to take charge.

He likes fast cars, loud music, big guns, and movies where shit explodes and people kiss. Subtle, artistic things bore the absolute life out of him, and spirituality or religion are nonsense to him. He is not quiet about expressing these opinions, but will fight to the death for the right of his friends, family, or allies to have their own interests and beliefs.


Backstory:
Dominic’s father was a small-time soldier in a mafia family in Philadelphia, and growing up this gave him an extremely inflated sense of importance, a warped view of the law, and first-hand experience with crime and weaponry. After his father was taken to prison, where he was killed by a rival, Dominic fled Philly and became involved in small unrelated gangs under a pseudonym, fearing his connection to his father had painted a target on him as well.
This fear would come to fruition in his mid 20s, when an especially violent man recognized Dominic for his father’s role in the failure of their business, and brutally wounded him, leaving him with his signature scar. The wound was stitched haphazardly outside of hospital, and healed poorly due to a lack of proper care, leaving him with a jagged stitch-studded scar.

In his late 20s, Dominic met and married a woman named Caroline, who operated under the pseudonym Nine, shortly after she was discharged from her role as a US army strategist. The pair met when they were both hired by an underground experimental neuroscientist named Romeo, and their romance was a sudden whirlwind of physical attraction and aggressive passion that saw them swinging violently between lust and rage.
The pair mutually divorced shortly after Romeo’s squad dissolved, citing that they would ‘fucking kill one another’ if they ever lived under the same roof.

Some time later, having fallen back into his old ways, Dominic was caught in a cross-gang gunfight that saw him arrested on the spot. In prison, he ran into another former member of The Specialists, who had been in jail since the squad fell apart; a man called James, who had operated under the pseudonym Lucifer for some time.
The two became close in prison, always watching each other’s back, and through him Dominic found someone he could rely on like a brother, in spite of the other man’s dark personality.

Eventually, within a few months of one another, the pair were released, and reconnected when they moved into an apartment together, at the far northern edge of Saint Raymond. Currently, the pair fund themselves through low-key scams, house robberies, wallet snatching, and other small-time crimes.


Stats:

• Power: 2
• Finesse: 1
• Mind: -1
• Arcane: 0

HP: 8