Philander Alexander

[Philander Alexander]

Philander Alexander

biological information

Full Name: Philander Alexander
Nickname: Phil, although few have the honor. Mr. Alexander is what he goes by even with "peers".
Alias(es): O Wise One, O Knowledgeable One, O Fantastic One, Fountain of Knowledge, Life's Editor (primarily when referring to self) and other equally dramatic titles that he may come up with on the spot.
Gender: Male
Orientation: Heterosexual
Age: N/A
Date of Birth: N/A
Marital Status: Single
Place of Birth: N/A
Race: Entity - knowledge spirit
Occupation: Librarian

Physical Appearance: In general, Phil stands at 5'9", with an average build. He doesn't concern himself with shape shifting, and isn't much good at it anyway. Instead, he maintains a single portrait, including some wavy dark hair and permanent stubble. The glasses, although unnecessary, he feels complete the modern librarian image and add to just how smart he thinks he looks. His teeth are the model of perfection. Coming from the dawn of the Common Era instilled a gratitude for personal hygiene in Phil. Emperors were far less incredible without teeth.

As for apparel, he still lives in the past. Following the glasses trend, Phil goes for a heavy woolen jacket with elbow pads paired with dark pants all the time. He hasn't had the time nor desire to go out and get something new, and conjuring up something different would just be a waste of energy. Purple plaid sometimes pokes up through the jacket. All of the items appear to be unraveling, but Phil keeps tucking the strands away until more of the jacket is held together with scotch tape than to each other.

Pride also forbids any tattoos, unclean fingernails, scars, or other markings on Phil's body. He likes to believe he is incredibly classy and the perfect librarian. Wise, intelligent, good-looking, attentive... and attempts to look the same. However, he only has one physically appearance, clothes included.

When summoned, or if his physical form were to become damaged beyond use, Phil appears as a whispy basketball sized purple orb with a deep and echoing voice that flashes when agitated.

Celebrity Claim: Hugh Dancy

special abilities

Powers:

• Knowledge Plant - Phil can implant objective thoughts into the minds of others. He has to be able to look at the person, within about 50 yards. The idea would be at the front of their mind at the time of the plant. For example, if someone were-- JULIUS CAESAR DIED ON THE IDES OF MARCH AT 1:34 PM. The trick can be used to mislead, or cause doubt. However, someone dull enough or someone with enough willpower can push through the conclusions Phil leads them to come to. However, someone dull might also feel overwhelmed by an onslaught of pointless trivia, and unable to function long enough for Phil to escape, or cause other trouble. He can implant false knowledge as well. The main limitation is that the knowledge does not carry any emotional weight, and must be relatively unbiased. THE LIBRARIAN IS INCREDIBLY HANDSOME would never work, and only cause odd glances. The idea's soil would feel incredibly violated and reject the idea.
  
  Phil uses this power in two main ways.
  1. Information flood. Phil selects random facts from math and theoretical physics, and plants them in the mind of the target. The facts fly in faster than human cognition, causing to the mind what standing in the middle of an orchestra filled with active foghorns and cymbals would do to the ears. It effectively shuts down active cognition, and can cause the target to be stunned or crazed for an indefinite amount of time, based on the target's nature and willpower respectively. Even if someone did know and understand the facts they were barraged with, the sheet amount would cause them to stagger, as it would superimpose any other thought.
  
  2. Cause of doubt. If in a disagreement, Phil plants facts that support his point in the mind of his opponent. If trying to support evolution, he might plant "At the dawn of the planet, organisms lacked nuclei", "Fossils suggest that the complexity of cells increased over 4 billion years", amongst others. The ideas would be planted at varying points in the argument, and only a handful would be used as opposed to the tens used in an information flood.
  
  
• Knowledge Siphon - Even more restrictions apply to siphoning knowledge from a mind. The mind he reads must have limited emotional interference, and prompting. Phil can only see what lies on the top of a mind, therefore either he or someone else must be in a constant conversation with the subject to extract the information he desires. He can only siphon thoughts that are extremely objective. Emotions or whims are not read, but information like "The gun is upstairs", "This hat cost 52$", "I stepped in a puddle this morning and now my boots are wet", and "Oscar Wilde wrote that book, not Jane Austen" would be picked up on. Generally, if a statement can be answered with "true" or "false" without it being a mere statement of agreement or disagreement, Phil can read it. If the subject doesn't notice or realize something enough to think about it, Phil would likely not pick up on the seemingly irrelevant detail, unless he thought to ask about it and bring it to the surface. Using this, Phil almost always gets the truth out of a person. Lies are secondary thoughts. The target must either be well trained or unaware that their knowledge is fake to present a lie as truth to Phil. Even if the person does not know the truth and instead attempts to create a falsehood, Phil can detect the gathering of thought fragments.
  
  
• Knowledge Read - With a mixture of knowledge and magic, Phil can read the events an object has had a part in and its general history through a quick examination. The level of information gained is directly proportional to how well he can study the object.
  
  
• Photographic Memory with Infinite Capacity - Unlike most beings, Phil is not limited by any physical capacity of the mind. He was also designed for maximum knowledge retention, and therefore can recall details with extreme precision. He remembers every word of every book he has ever read- which is most of the worthwhile ones- every person he has ever met and everything they have said and worn, and every rumor or casual conversation he has cared to listen in on. Most of what he hears gets filed away to a memory trash dump in his head, but most everything else is more carefully organized than the library.
  
  
• Calming Aura - when calm himself, Phil passively releases a calming aura that stretches throughout the entire library. How else could he hope to maintain a peaceful environment in a city of crime? For the most part, it deters petty thieves and arsonists. He can also actively size it down to focus on one or two trouble-makers. The calm is a stoic sort of calm; it's an emotionless peace that is as conducive to the human mind as cold is to electronics.
  
  
• Phasing - Because Phil is truly immaterial, he can revert to his pure essence and travel through both walls and dimensions. He doesn't make a habit of it, seeing as it's actually a large effort for him to conjure up his physical form. Instead, he flies up a closed-off shaft in the middle of the library to get from floor to floor.
  
  
• Gift of Tongues - After doing as much reading as Phil has and just being an entity in general, he knows about every written language there is, in its ancient/formal and colloquial states.
  
  
• Sight - Philander can shut out his physical eyes and see the current state of other areas of Arc City and beyond. The location must be one that he has seen before, even if it was only from a photograph. His perception of the location must be about 50-75% accurate to its current state. Once he has conjured up what he can in his mind, the rest of the details are summoned from reality. A piece of his entity resides in that location momentarily, and he perceives everything going on in the space, including magical activity. He cannot see locations protected by magic, such as the Nexus, and most likely the offices of most of the criminal families. Wards also exist that would block Philander from seeing an individual person.
  
  
• Immaterial Form - Phil's physical form is only a shell of particles he chooses to house in. His true form is far more magic and immaterial. Therefore, physical attacks do little to the real Phil. He simply blocks out any nerve sensation, and has his consciousness retreat into his entity form. It may be annoying to reform, but no real damage is done with pure physical force.
  

Skills:

• Speed Comprehension - Phil can read about as fast as he can turn the page of a book. However, through a mixture of practice and nature, he is also able to comprehend the material at the same speed. The same is true for conversations, or interactions. Although he has trouble reading other people's emotions, he has no problem reading their intents, figuring out their lies, instantly cross-referencing their information, and figuring out his response without hesitation.
  
• Interrogation - Considering Phil can read nearly all of a subject's current thoughts, he is also well versed in how to get the thoughts he wants to the surface, in a way that does not harm the subject.
  

Personal Possessions:

• One 1994 Encyclopedia for the letter A - He keeps it under his desk as both comic material and self defense. He hasn't cared to learn any real weapons, so it's more what he grabs in a pinch than something he consciously sets aside as a weapon. He also re-reads it in his spare time, even though he has memorized every inch. Every reiteration he reminisces and laughs at humanity: "imagine if he really had been emperor! Oh man, life would have been so different. Atitmitian would be so upset to know he's been cut out of the history of Rome." It has gotten to the point where he has rewritten nearly the entire book, cutting out mistakes while re-writing truths with his own sense of humor.
  
  
• A thread-bare woolen jacket - His jacket, as previously mentioned, is somewhat dear to him, because buying another would be a hassle that has nothing to do with his current goals.
  

Weapons and Equipment:

• Heavy Books - Encyclopedias are heavy. He keeps a 1994 encyclopedia for the letter A under his desk. Even that takes most of his might to carry. Even though he can perform physical feats beyond human capabilities with his own body, he cannot affect his environment the same way. For example, while he could easily make himself fly through the library, he wouldn't be able to take a book with him.
  

Limitations: Magic attacks cripple Phil. He is entirely defenseless to them. Even though it was mentioned that physical attacks do no harm, if they are infused with any level of magic, he feels it. He can also be summoned as well as trapped.

psychoanalysis

Personality Description: Philander's name is a soft spot to him for many reasons. He picked it out during his time in the Library of Alexandria, wanting to give homage to both the library and his pride. Friend of Man he called himself. He is the total embodiment of knowledge, and felt that knowledge was the only thing that propelled man into the future. Their best friend. However, in the modern day, some see his name to take on the modern meaning of womanizer. At first it made him chuckle, and used it as a pick-up line, but it finally drove him a little nuts. No one in the modern day cared about him being awesome, instead they would use their knowledge of the term philander to antagonize him. He has "officially" revoked everyone's rights to calling him Philander, and instead goes by Mr. Alexander almost always in the mortal world. Mr. Alex is a degradation, but commonly used by interns and volunteers who don't last very long.

Both his name and his knowledge are huge sources of pride for Phil, as well as support for his ego. Library visitors frequently find themselves asked if they would like to ask him something, bordering on harassment. He confronts anyone: reading, studying, sleeping, browsing, oggling. When denied, he resorts to Shakespearean insults as well as critique of the patron's current activity. "What do you mean you don't want to learn the secrets of the universe you qualling crook-pated horn-beast! Let me see that. Oh THIS book? Do you realize there is an error on page 65 I haven't gotten around to blacking out..."

Speaking of errors and Shakespeare, he has a sort of love-hate relationship with the man. He can't stand the many anachronisms and use of poetic license, yet fawns over his use of language. A new copy of many of the classics must be ordered approximately every month after Phil tears it apart, then feels bad. That being said, if anyone else destroys or so much as dogears even a trashy romance novel in his library (granted the book would not be from his library) he promptly plants nuggets of knowledge that cause the majority of said readers to question their existence and run into the nearest car.

In this respect, Phil is an incredible hypocrite. He calls himself "Life's Editor" with pride due to just how many books he has burned and censored. All of them were either filled with errors or knowledge that Phil did not believe belonged to mankind. A tear still comes to his eye when he thinks of how he burned down the Library of Alexandria. That tear is filled with all of Phil's joy. He is likely to snap at anyone who accuses anyone else of burning it down, causing quite a ruckus in the history department. Little amendments are scrawled in impeccable cursive in nearly every text dealing with the ancient times.

His existence also seems contradictory. The library runs calmly, smoothly, and quietly. Philander runs hot-tempered, brash, and egotistically. When dealing with the day to day he generally mimics and maintains the atmosphere of the library, but when any small crisis occurs, all of Philander's negative attributes shine through. He tends to shout, insult, berate, destroy, yet in the end to little effect. Physical strength is not his strength, and tends to be a sore spot for him when brought up. However, it is only sore after Phil has run through his magical paces. If the target dodges all of Phil's mental attacks, they'd be likely to be able to beat him until his physical form melted away, and possibly even his magical form.

Strengths:

• Wise - Phil has seen a lot of life, with enough intelligence to interpret it for what it is. Even though he doesn't take all of his lessons to heart, he does tend to share his wisdom with whoever is around.
  
  
• Helpful - Eager to demonstrate his knowledge and capabilities, Phil is quick to aid whenever he can show off his talents. When he can, it is always to the full extent of his abilities. Doing any less would be slander. Also, city politics and alliances do not concern him, making him willing to trade information with anyone.
  
  
• Peacekeeping - When an argument does not involve him, Phil can continue to be rather calm and helpful. Through logic, sense, and a bit of fact-correcting, he can talk nearly any sensible person to their senses. However, sensible people in Arc City tend to be dangerous in other ways.
  
  
• Charismatic - Phil calls upon decades of poetry and speech to inspire and manipulate. Although not much of one for small talk, he is willing to if his goals require it, though does better with shows of grandeur.
  
  
• Tidy - Because of Philander, the library always remains neat. Although Phil may not respect every book, he does make sure they remain in their place. The Dewey decimal system is strictly enforced, only because Phil believes human brains would be confused by his far superior method, and he periodically scans the shelves for any books out of place. He is just as organized with any meetings or information he presents.

Weaknesses:

• Proud - Phil cannot stand to feel slighted, or have his reputation tarnished, and many of his other weaknesses result from it. He must be the smartest in order to retain any self respect, and challenges unknowing library guests to trivia battles just to prove his worth to himself.
  
  
• Egotistical - In the end, Phil only cares about Phil, and sometimes the library. He may strike up alliances, but they only last until another deal comes around. He'd burn the city multiple times to save himself, and gain power.
  
  
• Hot-tempered - As wise and calm as Phil can be, the facade disappears when challenged. If anyone belittles his intellect or his library, he is likely to resort to mental manipulation and shouting, even blind fists if needed.
  
  
• Cocky - Although his powers give him little advantage in a fight, Phil still likes to think he can take on anyone, as he is unwilling to admit his weaknesses.
  
  
• Curious - This wouldn't be such a poor trait if Philander wasn't interested in dangerous information. He knows nearly everything else. His main curiosity comes from the keys, items he only knows little rumors and conflicting information about. What he wants to know most are their locations.

Fear/s:
Someone else destroying his library
Someone else getting into the Nexus without/before him
Becoming bound to the service of another to be a personal encyclopedia (even if he seems so willing to volunteer his knowledge)
Goal/s:
Acquire all of the keys. Every night his mind whines to him, what's down there? You know everything but that. Please, I need to know... His ego can't help but writhe knowing the things it doesn't know.

Eliminate all errors from the library, or sufficiently censor the world to his liking. The two extremes oscillate to their liking.

biography

Their Story:
Philander has existed ever since there was something to observe and know, along with various other knowledge spirits. They formed a general consciousness on an immaterial plane, filled only with various abstractions built temporarily to entertain. Various entities would come back from the multiverse with knowledge of landforms, and show them off to the crowd while merging their knowledge. Then, there came a day where Earth was populated with beings of thought. The consciousness was astounded, and various pieces came back with various bits of knowledge about what the humans were doing. Initially, Phil, although not identified as Phil at the time, was not impressed. Any brute can make a sand castle or a stone castle for that matter.

That is, until the castle was filled with knowledge. A library, such an odd idea for beings who carried all knowledge. These humans seemed to emulate beings they did not even know, in the only way they could. Tired of the hearsay, Phil undertook the "pilgrimage" to the Library of Alexandria that so many knowledge spirits were fascinated by. It was the first time he split from the sea of knowledge, and came to realize what life was like alone. He too became entranced by the library, entertained by the idea that he could hold knowledge in his hands and feel that it was his instead of everyone's. He spent years organizing the library tirelessly. He read every scroll, and even wrote a few himself although they never caught on due to being far ahead of the human race's time. It was during this time he took up the name Philander, Friend of Man. Unlike other knowledge spirits, he felt that he really was one with humans, even if he never ate, slept, drank, or really conversed with any of them. However, his journey to the current plane was far longer than any other spirit had undertaken.

Eventually, he got bored and rather upset with humans. He felt he was above their wars and squabble, and saw the waste of good minds to death. After dealing with the library for so long, he felt that it was his. One day, he burned it down, just to feel the power. He used the scrolls he wrote to start the bonfire, because he felt no one else deserved the knowledge. It only took a quick moment with Plutrarch to convince him it was Caesar, as he was someone Phil didn't mind incriminating.

As he watched the fire burn, he felt a pang of guilt at destroying what he felt was the only hope for humans, and also knew that if he went back to conjoin with the consciousness, they'd realize he burned their prized idol down. He went to Rome to take in the sights, and explored the rest of the empire until he tired of the life. There was so little interesting knowledge in the rest of the world. He returned to the consciousness, and drank in all the new information other spirits had observed. The whole Alexandria incident went for the most part with no conflict, considering by then the spirits had taken up new obsessions.

Drifting among the consciousness, Phil felt empty. He had lost his identity, and no longer felt important or powerful. That is, until one spirit brought back knowledge of the Arc. Unlike everything else spirits brought back from Earth, almost nothing was known about it. It had a name, and some associations. Power. Keys. Squalor. Perception. Other spirits grew bored with how little there seemed to gather on the subject, and had no interest in gaining power in the mortal realm. Still, Philander remembered what it felt like to burn down the library, and couldn't resist.

And so Philander Alexander was born. He knew enough that Arc City was where he wanted to be. He immediately convinced the library's previous owner that he was now in charge, although the owner could remain as a figurehead, and Phil would attend to all librarian duties. It was a role he knew, and figured if any knowledge were to appear on the subject of the Arc, he would find it, or curiosity would filet and roast him alive.
Other Information:

rp sample

behind the scenes

Your Nickname: Kroma
How long have you been RPing? uuh on and off for 8 years
Where/How did you find us? Look at my other app!