⟢ verse : main, portrayal notes, please read.
kenneth is a roman demigod son of apollo, god of light and plagues. he is the centurion of the first cohort following octavian’s death and a brief period of the position being unfulfilled given fractures in the first cohort. kenneth wins the position after his successful completion of a quest, exams and trial.
his primary weapon is a scythe named virgil, his claiming day gift from his father.
his primary beast companions are a wolf named sonja and a firebird ercinee named cicero, both of whom reside dutifully in camp jupiter.
kenneth is known for his experience as a former gladiator, as well as a fierce and uncompromising commander on the battlefield — what is not known by anyone is that is a conduit of sorts to the fates, or that he is *fateless. your muse will not known this about him unless he tells them.
his faustian proclivities, via the passed down rune-casting abilities from the germanic side of his ancestors, are not known at all. only his close circle are aware he can quite literally make enchanted bargains with others for a variety of reasons : for example, he has made one with apollo to never tell a lie, in exchange for one secret; he has similarly also made bargains with his enemies to press them into his service rather than simply executing them.
he has a dual identity. one as kenneth vareck, centurion of the first cohort, and the second as the rattenfanger, an identity he absorbed from his nemesis, the rattenfanger: primarily known as the pied piper come to life, an underground competitor and cache supplier to the warring factions in the pjo universe, who is known in the underground to have a unique ability to make enchanted bargains. carrying with the original rattenfanger’s feelings on the centurion of the first cohort, the current rattenfanger also claims to hold the general in steep contempt!
[ 1. ] BEING A CHILD SOLDIER IS AN IMMENSE PART OF HIS CHARACTER. this is not because camp jupiter enlists children in their legion, but that during the titan war, the casualties of mount diablo were so devastating that no adult remained to defend the haven.
young trainees had to step up, such as reyna and jason, to guide the camp to safety. in a similar vein, kenneth did not have a choice but to fight for a safe haven he had not yet even gotten to enjoy. however, due to his pre-existing exposure to violence in childhood and juvie, and his innate willpower, he is able to keep up with these gruelling conditions after passing the wolf trials with lupa. kenneth joined camp jupiter at age fourteen, on the cusp of the second titanomachy that takes place in mount diablo. his second war was close to age sixteen when gaia is awoken, and the second giant war is incited. his third war is at age nineteen, the siege of camp jupiter at the hands of the triumvirate emperors, at which point he has also become centurion of the first cohort alongside kahale.
[ 2. ] *KENNETH IS FATELESS (ORIGINAL TAKE, NO PJO LORE FOR THIS). an individual who has no string of fate. they operate on a third dimension between reality and unreality.
he cannot be tracked by augurs and seers so easily, as there is no ‘footprint’ so to say. he is not meant to be here but he is. your muse wasn’t meant to meet him but they will. he is a divine-blooded glitch who must carefully navigate the arteries of fate-lines all over the world, and in the service of the parcae to whom he is bound by rune and oath. he is to rectify the lines damaged by python, and take advantage of those that grant him insight. —in-world context : when he was compelled to meet his end in the nest of the child-eating lamia at age fourteen, he bargained with the fates to cut him a deal. rendered fateless, he defies death; but with no string to validate his existence, he is owed no divine intervention, no good luck, no soul mate, and no prophecy. but in the same breath, he is limitless.
[ 3. ] KENNETH HAS COMPLETED A QUEST. I WOULD CALL IT THE QUEST. because he is fateless and not owed prophecy, this was in fact usurped from his half-brother, quincey de rolo, to whom the crown of apollo was promised. this quest takes place post-hoo, when he was seventeen/eighteen, and was both a pre-requisite to becoming a centurion and what transforms his abilities. a game changer basically.
the quest for the crown of apollo was a six month quest, of which he spends three months traversing a wicked sea as a captive, surviving a gladiatorial death pit, finding an unlikely firebird friend in the hercynian forest, and meeting the strange sibyl of tiburtine, whose dreamscape he defeats. the last stop of the quest covers the final three months of his quest : the lupercal. following the trail of mark anthony’s will as per the fractured prophecy, he falls into the house of rome deep underground, where he finds the final piece of his father’s abandoned crown. in short, he formulates a unique way to survive and escape without light in a deathless realm inhabited by the frenzied ghost of remus : the discovery and experimentation of extending his control over disease to fungal territory. —in-world context : as a note, the crown of apollo is his; once worn, it has since sunk into his skull to imbue with him. therefore, it cannot be seen, merely distantly felt as an unnerving heat that surrounds him.
[ 4. ] HIS CHILDHOOD IS VERY COMPLICATED AND HANDLED CAREFULLY; there is exposure to the foster system very early on and also to juvenile detention centres, physical abuse, drug use and monster attacks. a large part of his suffering revolves around not being believed [an irony he contends with, as a child of the god of truth who cannot lie] when he is attacked by monsters or tormented by humans.
on that note, please note that csa is a part of his background but it is not something i discuss on the dash [at all] nor do i feel any particular need to reference it in plotting except where it may be useful (with your permission) for context in understanding his aversion to even simple / harmless touch in the event of planning platonic or, potentially, romantic connections. [that is all you really need to know in regards to it broadly; he is not friendly to unexpected touch and can / may react violently or in hostility towards it — i will not discourage touch, but gently warn, to expect this in case your muse does touch him! casual and harmless touch is a good discussion point in threads (and frequent in camaraderie between romans!) and will not seen as a boundary being crossed by me when unintentional; however do be respectful as i will not tolerate malicious transgressions of this]. this has affected him significant in many ways such as : aversion to touch, a habit of speaking in very few words or not speaking at all, paranoid anticipation, nausea, etc. i write this because it’s important to keep in mind when shipping with him. a ship will not mean he is immediately comfortable with touch — an unapologetically very long process on this blog and often only seen in ships i’ve had for years, with characters who have been successful in navigating these complexities with him!
[ 5. ] HE IS NOT ‘OP’, NOR IS HE NOT ‘OP’. THIS IS SUBJECTIVE!
i do not write him as the strongest demigod ever, nor will i devalue your characters strengths to prop him up. kenneth is a very stern and intelligent commander, who has a long history of learning the hard way to cover up his vulnerabilities and learn from his mistakes with blood. he is cruel and cunning and deceitful and mischievous and very manipulative when he wants to be. however, he is keenly aware of his strengths and his limitations [you have to be when you are fateless, with no second chances or godly rescue promised]; he has failed and lost before, he’s been beaten in battle and mind games, he has gotten his ass kicked plenty of times and this was more apparent on my blog when i was writing him seven years ago. he has grown a lot since then!
i maintain he was born an average demigod in comparison to his greek counter parts. for one, he has virtually no ability to heal, not even himself. his powers of foresight were locked all his life because he did not have the talent for it. every inch of power he has since earned is because he has plotted and clawed for it, and however it grows over time, is via ingenuity. my purpose with this is not to hand him great powers as some special offspring of apollo but to make him work and think for it; his plague powers are a good example. they were not gifted to him with the terrible capacity to wipe off cities — this sprout of a power becomes devastating when he devises creative and insane ways to use and expand them.
