John Patmos

Concept: Living Personification of the Prophecy of the Apocalypse

AKA: None

Desc: Presents as a fairly average caucasian male. Average height, average weight. Brown hair. dark eyes. Pleasant smile. Low musical voice. Dresses relatively low key. Tends to go in for darker colors. Looks decent in jeans and a black turtleneck. He used to look like a greek male but had to change his appearance because it made it difficult for him to travel. Too many people mistook him for a Muslim.

History: What most people don’t understand is that the collective unconscious has a certain amount of metaphysical heft. What in the fuck is that supposed to mean, I imagine you opining...Well. It means that even people who don’t believe in astrology might end up getting jacked up by Mercury going into retrograde.  It’s because certain types of superstition have sunk so deeply into our cultures that they affect us even though their root causes may be entirely spurious.  But I'm not bitter. (He said bitterly while wearing a bitter expression and drinking vodka and lemonade.)

Because the collective unconscious HAS this metaphorical heft, it is a fairly serious affair when an idea becomes ingrained in enough of the people that share it. Prophecies, especially well-known ones tend to spawn spirits that personify their fulfillment.  They tend to go about their tasks looking forward to the day when they can be complete.

John is a whole order of magnitude above that level of manifestation.

Technically, He’s sort of a cross between a potent spirit and a kind of Sin-Eater.  He has a physical form and a spiritual form. Both are persistent. By this, I mean that John is effectively immortal. You can kill the physical body but this is essentially just an annoyance and if he wants to he can form another body the next day. In fact, many times, some of his more active plans, involve the demise of his physical form and this can be a real shock to those who aren’t exactly ready for that. Powerful spirit magic can actually damage him and imprison him for a time, but since he draws his power from the collective unconscious, it erodes those prisons (in the same way that paradox might) and he escapes them.  It is interesting to note that once he was arrested on a weapons charge in Alabama and sent to the state penitentiary for 5 years, and for some reason didn’t bother to kill himself or escape.

Fortunately, for a whole host of beings, John never takes any of that personally.  In fact, he tends to respect those people and creatures who stand against him. After all, they are a sign from his “Father” that the time is not yet at hand.  John tends to act towards these people as if he’s simply enjoying a good game of chess with them, that he’s inevitably going to win...but he still enjoys the conversation.

So what exactly does John DO with the vast swaths of time he has?  He goes back and forth on various errands, managing his enormous fortune, purchasing biotech firms for his various special projects. Building a dedicated cult for the furtherance of his goals. Visiting with various entities and networking.  Constantly on the go.  After all. The worlds not going to end itself.  You should understand, though, that John understands that he has to play the long game.  If he wanted the nuclear launch codes, he could, of course, get them. But it would not create the apocalypse he has specifically been created to bring about. Same goes for global warming.

Attitude:  “Let me see if I can explain this properly. I would hate for you to die without understanding why. It seems rude to me. There are these special people. They are called Tzadikim.  They are special souls.  Souls of a special purity. They are, essentially like the pillars that hold up this existence. As long as these righteous souls exist in the world, then it can’t actually end. The judgment can’t be rendered.  

Now I recognize that I may never be able to get ALL of them at once, but my work is SO much more possible when these people are off the count, or out of play.  Hence, the vest covered in explosives.

Them?  

OH darling child, no.  None of the other passengers matter a bit.  I came for you, stewardess...”

Skills: Never bothers with combat skills except for some defensive merits. His main skill is a certain hypnotic magnetism that enables him to create and further a loose confederation of doomsday cults and Christian sects that might as well be doomsday cults.  His social skills are off the charts.

While essentially mortal and requiring air, food, and water to continue existing, John does not need to sleep and non-mortal damage will eventually regenerate

Gear: Even the living personification of the end of the world has a smartphone. There’s just so many people that one needs to reach out to.

Home: When John “Dies” he normally reforms on a rocky outcropping on the greek isle of Patmos.  The amount of time that it takes to reform is variable. Sometimes, it’s fast, sometimes whole lunar cycles can pass before he can re-enter the physical realm.  There may be some astrological significance here.  The natives of Patmos are certainly aware of the white man who speaks perfect Greek and only wears black. There are theories. Most of them are entirely correct. Nobody bothers that guy.

Circle: There are a lot of people who want to die. There are a lot of people who want other people to be judged so that they can watch. These people make up the leaders of the various cults that John has his hands into. As you can imagine, there is some power and money to be had behind this, but for the most part, all John has them do is acquire things for him, or occasionally do things.  He seems to have an unlimited stream of money that he plows into projects.  One of his inner circle asked him where all the money was coming from and he said, “Well. Money is just an idea and I may know a thing or two about ideas...Or if it makes you feel better, I have my hooks into Pentagon black projects.  Some people seem to think that Judgement day will only be coming for nations outside the United States.  *Sighs*  That’s a bit foolish really.”

Story Uses:

“I am not the end of all things. I am merely its harbinger.”

John Patmos is the kind of antagonist that really has no antagonism towards the players. He’s not there to make them suffer or die in horrible ways, he is merely a personification of the inevitable ending of human existence and the judgment of souls. It’s the entirety of his being. Other than that he’s a decent guy for the most part.  He’s even weirdly good with kids.

“Why here? I don’t know...It’s just a feeling I have.”

So why is a globe-hopping personification of the Prophecy of the Revelation hanging around THIS town?  Even John doesn’t know exactly. His work takes him all over but time after time, he keeps coming back here...He’s not sure why.

Connections:

* Milo Karanikas has driven him on a few occasions. They've had interesting conversations. The weird thing about Mr. Patmos is that he has a philosophical streak that his other clients lack.

* Holmes, Gillis, Baker, Savage, North, and Dean handles a number of things for Mr. Patmos.  Occasionally it's getting certain cultist off for various charges, other times it involves the acquisitions of goods, services, real estates, and the establishment of corporations and trust funds.

* Occasionally, John needs to know things. While his spiritual powers can usually help him learn things quickly, occasionally he cannot handle these things directly because of spiritual constraints or time constraints.  So he'll sub-contract to Aldous Church. He thinks that Aldous would make a good Horseman.

* Once, He bought Charlie a bottle of decent whiskey and they sat on a park bench and talked till the sun came up. Neither came away from that talk entirely satisfied.