Character & Player Information

[gotanothercall]

Character Information

General
Canon Source: RocknRolla
Canon Format: Film
Character's Name: Archy. (Formerly known as Archibald. He’s like Prince and Madonna all at once.)
Character's Age: 49

What form will your character's NV take? An updated version of his cellphone, because Lord knows he can’t go anywhere without it.

Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: A slap that could make a grown man cry.

Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? I think I want to give him a form of emotional manipulation. He would only be able to do this through touch. He doesn’t need to hang on to them, per se, to get the power started. Just a casual caress (or, I don’t know, a slap to the face or something) would do. However, the power would only last five or ten minutes. If Archy wanted to keep it going, he would have to touch them again. Emotional manipulation doesn’t mean automatic control, of course. Someone could feel very scared but then do whatever it is they need to do anyway. It’s just a little insurance is all.

Weapons: A Browning Hi-Power handgun. Which would be this beauty.

History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Archy, as he likes to go by these days, doesn’t tell us much about his past. He’s a guarded fellow and not without reason. Arch worked with big-time London backhander Lenny Cole for twenty years. He often said that Lenny held the keys to the city. Archy liked his position as the Number Two man very much. In twenty years, he worked his way up from muscle and errand runner to helping Lenny run all of his business, both legal and otherwise. He even had a hand in taking care of Lenny’s wicked and clever stepson, Johnny. The only time he had ever stopped was during the four years he had been sent away to prison, thanks to a scum-sucking informant. His time behind bars wasn’t easy. It takes a special man to survive four years of hell. But Archy is special, and survive he did. Once released, he was immediately back to work. Lenny got rid of Archy’s temporary replacement straight away. (He ended up working directly under Archy.) It turned out that Johnny had made something of himself while he had been in prison. Now he was a rockstar, going by the name Johnny Quid. Lenny didn’t particularly care, but Arch always followed his “nephew’s” career.

By 2008, London’s property business had never been better. Lenny had every single right contact to get special permissions to build which were otherwise not allowed, making him the best business in London. Archy was a very man busy during that time. One day, Lenny hit the jackpot. At least, that’s what he figured. A multi-billionaire of a Russian, named Uri Omovich, wanted to do business with them and use their contacts so he could build a stadium. Lenny was beside himself with joy, thinking of all the money to be made. Archy had reservations. He knew Russians to be very cutthroat in the dealings, even moreso than his employer. He tried to express his concerns to Lenny, but Cole wouldn’t hear any of them. This wasn’t new to Archy. He sometimes disapproved how unnecessarily rough Lenny could be. His boss very much subscribed to the idea of “better to be feared than loved.” He was used to Lenny calling the shots. Archy just did the dirty work.

Lenny asked for seven million Euros from the Russian so that he could bribe his contacts into giving them the permissions they needed. Uri agreed to the price. As a gesture of good will, the Russian lent Lenny a gorgeous and valuable painting. A lucky painting, so Uri said. So far, the deal seemed to be working beautifully. Then, one night, Lenny discovered that the Russian’s lucky painting had been stolen right out from under his nose. Understandably, this caused Lenny great concern. Archy was put to work, ordered to find out who stole the painting and where it got to.

As it turned out, locating a rare and priceless painting in London’s underworld was more difficult than he expected. Archy needed lots of men for this job. It was very important to Lenny. Arch taught them his famous Archy Slap to get potential informers to talk. (Through demonstration, of course. It’s the back of the right hand or it just doesn’t have the same impact.) He found himself traipsing throughout the whole city looking for it. But Archy is a clever man who knows where to sniff for these things. He called in a top-notch hoarder of information for everything having to do with the city of London, aptly called Tank. Eventually Tank found someone who claimed that Johnny Quid, who had been previously thought dead, tried to sell the painting to him but then backed out at the last minute. It made sense; Johnny would have a key to his stepfather’s house.

Meanwhile, the deal with the Russian was starting to fall through for other reasons. Uri wasn’t paying the money when it was expected; thereby Lenny didn’t have the money to bribe the councilor to help get the permission. As it happened, whenever the money was due to be extracted from a bank, it had been robbed. This happened twice and the robbers knew exactly where to go. Between that and the fact that Cole didn’t return his painting when asked, the Russian suspected foul play from Lenny. While Archy was presumably looking for Johnny, the Russian and Lenny had what was supposed to be a friendly game of golf. This turned into an ambush which left Lenny’s leg broken in four places and “limp for the rest of his days.”

Everything came to a head when Archy received another phone call from Tank. Tank figured out who had been stealing the Russian’s money. It was a group of gunslingers known as the Wild Bunch; an affable crew who, ironically, stole the money so they could pay Lenny the money they owed him. The gang had been in league with the Russian’s accountant, who fed them the information. This came at the same time that Archy found Johnny. Everyone met (or was dragged to) the warehouse where Lenny liked to interrogate people. One of the Wild Bunch desperately sought Archy’s attention, wanting to give him some papers. It became apparent that the gang had, through the accountant’s contacts, found a long-hidden informer who had been sending people to jail for years, including Archy. Archy was shocked beyond measure to find the name “Sidney Shaw.” He knew that to be an alias for Lenny Cole. Lenny was the man responsible for Archy going to prison. In fact, he had sent a lot of London’s criminals down at one point or another. So no one protested when Archy ordered the Wild Bunch be released. He, with the help of some of Lenny’s muscle, strapped Lenny into his wheelchair. Archy had been nothing but loyal to that man. He looked at Lenny like family. However, no one got away with that kind of treachery. Archy took his revenge and justice for everyone who had been betrayed by the rat “Sidney Shaw.” He drowned Lenny in the River Thames. Some time later, it is shown that Archy had taken control of Lenny’s empire. He has Lenny’s house, car, and driver. Most importantly, he has a now drug-free Johnny back in his life, the “nephew” who had had treated like a son more than Lenny Cole ever had.

Point in Canon: Post-movie

Character Personality:
In a lot of ways, Archy is a quintessential Englishman. He’s a born and bred London boy through and through and it shows. Then there’s another side to him. This side is a true gangster, guns, money, and all. These two essential parts of Archy clash and combine, making for one very interesting individual.

For a man who’s been running scams his whole life, he is surprisingly fair. Archy may abuse the law like there’s no tomorrow, but within the underworld, there is a clear set of rules and he’ll follow them to the t. He has his own moral code and it’s not terribly different from most people’s. (With the exception of there being a lot more flexibility over the killing matter.) He expects loyalty and in turn will not screw someone over if that someone is a friend or a decent man cut from the same cloth. Archy comes from old school sensibilities. He himself is extremely loyal. He’s known throughout the underworld for being Lenny’s most trusted. It’s only natural to expect that treatment from others. He’s actually something of a gangster gentleman.

Archy doesn’t have a large amount of book smarts, nothing beyond the standard. However, he makes up for that fully in his street smarts and common sense, something sadly lacking in today’s world. He is trusted by arguably the most powerful man in London to keep a tight ship on both his legal and illegal operations. Little known by most is that Arch also has something of a philosophical side. He likes dwelling on certain aspects of life and coming to his own conclusions about what things are and why they’re that way.

Now there’s a reason why Archy is very much feared in London. There’s a reason why people are seen answering to him even moreso than Lenny. Archy, in that classically British way, represses his emotions. He is all calm and cool ninety percent of the time. When something happens to get rid of his cool, he becomes a very scary man. When he gets genuinely angry, that’s when people start getting hurt. He becomes totally ruthless and isn’t beyond torture or death. It’s thought that his time in prison made him so cutthroat. No one knows what happened in there, but it was enough for Archy to kill Lenny over, so it had to have been very damaging.

Archy is secretly ambitious. He won’t demand to be given a job, but he will do everything in his power to see that the job gets offered to him. Again, his lust for power and life in general is repressed. This is perhaps a subconscious move on Archy’s part, for “getting greedy” was what landed him in jail to begin with. He may be the poster boy of right hand men, but he does it for only the most powerful man. Archy is shown to be the man behind the man and that’s how he likes it. He doesn’t need to flaunt anything. Arch is the kind of person who subscribes to the idea, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Appearance/PB: Mark Strong. Icons here.

Headcanon'ed Information

Birthdate: May 2nd, 1959

Early History: He was born into an inherently classist world. As it turns out, Archibald’s parents were quite affluent at his birth. Or, more appropriately, his father was. Archy wouldn’t know this lifestyle for a very long time. When he was just past a year old, Archy’s father left them. (As Archy would find out later through a rare tangent of his mother’s, it was for some “skinny blonde Yankee slag.”) Archy grew up in the working class. As an only child, he fought hard to provide for his mother, as she did to provide for him. He started running cons at an early age. Archy was always very bright and always getting in trouble for it. The lad usually bit off more than he could chew. Beatings weren’t uncommon from his victims, but Archy held his own. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And oh, how he learned from those early days.

The class separation never became more apparent than it did during Archibald’s teen and young adult years. Maggie Thatcher was running the show, and she was the greatest scam artist of them all, so far as Archy was concerned. Times were tough, especially for those in the council homes. He started getting into the serious business, the stuff with drugs. He never liked it much. Junkies weren’t to be trusted. Arch never sampled the product, merely got it from point A to point B without problems. Archy had always been a tall, even imposing young man. Being threatening was just in his DNA. Years went by and the economy healed from Thatcher’s misgivings. The public mindset of rich vs. poor never did. Archy knew what side of that he wanted to be on. He took to crime very well. He started working on the business end of things, helping to run long firms and the like. These old school gangsters were tough, but they were also smart. Arch admired them.

He worked with various men through his twenties, doing all sorts of jobs. He worked with guns, with drugs, with women, you name it. He balanced, schemed, sold, assisted stole, killed. Old Archibald did everything, from bookie to muscle. These small time guys weren’t cutting it for him. He wanted the big money, which meant he had to infiltrate the big boss. Lenny Cole was a name that came up throughout his years of traipsing through London’s underworld. As fate would have it, Mr. Cole had an opening for some muscle. Archy stepped on a lot of toes to get there. It was more than worth it. It didn’t take long for Lenny to see what a multitalented man he had in Archy. The promotions were rapidfire as he proved himself time and time again. Arch had to say that he favored Lenny out of all of his employers. The man had true vision. The two men grew to respect and like each other. Archy even looked at the man like the guiding father he never had, although in a very subconscious manner.