Walker d'Ardenne
¶ Overview
- Full Name: Walker d'Ardenne
- Aliases: Musketeer
- Species: Human
- Ethnicity: Caucasian
- Nationality: Freelance
- Born: July 27th, 2652
- Place of Birth: Calysto
- Gender: Male
- Sex: Male
- Sexual Identity: Heterosexual
- Faction: Freelance
Walker d'Ardenne is the ideal smiling bastard kind of mastermind and grifter. In another life, he would have done exceedingly well as a con artist. Thankfully, d'Ardenne had a privileged upbringing that shaped him more into a noble thief than anything else.
He utilized his portion of an inheritance to change the setup of the West Isles Company and recruit a crew that were as talented as they were willing to fling themselves directly in the path of danger.
¶ Physical Description
Walker d'Ardenne would be considered attractive if he didn't go out of his way to make sure he comes across as more bland and forgettable. He is 5' 8", with black hair, green eyes, and a lithe build one would associate with a gymnast, dancer, or runner. He is far from a physically imposing individual, but then, he has people for that.
¶ Personality
Walker d'Ardenne is, first, foremost, and above all, a high functioning sociopath, or in more accurate terms, he could be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. He does not care one bit for the morality of society as a whole, or for the individual morality of those around him. The only exception to this is his crew, as he has found that it makes the best business sense to know the limits of his people and what each of them is willing to do.
He is the quintessential smiling bastard and frequently makes use of his more charismatic masks to get him ahead in life. He has also grown into a mastermind with a talent for the grift.
He is ruthlessly devoted to those that he makes part of his crew, and while he cares very little for most of his extended family, the safety of his little sisters and their kids is one of the few things that he will move stars to achieve.
¶ History
¶ Early Life
Walker enjoyed a childhood of privilege and comfort courtesy of the truly unbelievable level of wealth his family has inherited, a fortune that dates back to before the nations that would form the League fled Earth. He and his siblings were able to attend the most exclusive private school in Neo Athens, attend all the concerts and festival they wanted, and pick up any number of hobbies, sports, or fads they fancied.
And yet, despite a lifestyle that would, 90% of the time, lead to a child becoming horrifically spoiled or disconnected from reality, the d'Ardenne children remained incredibly grounded thanks to their parent's careful and deliberate efforts.
¶ Family and Personal Life
Walker was born to Emmerson and Layla d'Ardenne in Neo Athens. He was the eldest of four children: his sister Lacy, and the fraternal twins Daniel and Danielle. Layla and Emmerson met at League Youth Summer Humanitarian trip to Tel'Erani. While there, they managed to frequently ditch their chaperones and experience the colony world more directly. This experience marked a significant change in the two and almost directly led to them getting married. Once they had managed to secure their respective trusts, they set about trying to do good where they could, frequently working to send supplies to frontier and Freelancer colonies.
The couple involved their children in their philanthropy as soon as they could, and while doing so helped to ground and center their children, it also brought a troubling concern about Walker to light.
¶ Religious Views
Despite their humanitarian awakening, neither of Walker's parents were particularly religious, identifying more closely with humanism.
After the death of his brother, Walker's two sisters sought comfort in the Coven of the Great Mother. Walker himself never saw the value in religion, preferring to put his faith in more tangible things.
¶ Learning About Masks
At a young age, Walker's mother recognized a stark difference between Walker's actions and those of his siblings. Where his siblings would gladly leap right into whatever activity they were doing, Walker would wait, observe things, and occasionally ask questions focusing on why they were doing whatever it was that his mother or father had brought them to. When she shared her observation with her husband, Emmerson sat Walker down to have a talk.
As it turns out, Emmerson could also be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. He told Walker that they were different than most people and that it meant that they had to work a bit harder to fit in, introducing his son to masks. As Walker grew up and developed better and better masks, his father would sit him down and provide elaborations to his original talk as Walker demonstrated being able to understand more complex concepts.
¶ Loss of His Brother
The summer before Walker began university, his brother Daniel died on a family trip to Juno Station. Daniel had asked for, and received, a ticket to fly a StarRacer around the Juno course. This popular tourist attraction had the best safety record of any comparable experience in Freelance space, but that fact did nothing to dissuade the uncommonly daring pirates who decided that anyone wealthy enough to afford a StarRacer ticket was probably a good choice for ransom.
Unfortunately, the pirates were as clumsy as they were daring. When they blundered into the course, their ship clipped an engine pod of Daniel's ship, disrupting the link to the station and preventing them from being able to correct what was happening.
The StarRacer went into a spin and collided directly with an asteroid brought onto the course as set dressing. Daniel died on impact and the d'Ardenne family was never quite the same.
Walker learned one last lesson as he watched his father drink himself into an early grave a year after Daniel's death. The lesson he learned was a simple one: some things carry no blame.
¶ University
Due to the two deaths, Walker put off his first year of university at Brannen City University for two years, entering college the same year as his sister Lacy. Where Lacy went into the university's pre-med program, Walker had elected to pursue a business degree. For awhile, things seemed to be going well for the d'Ardenne family, who needed a few years without turmoil to mourn and recover.
The peace wasn't meant to last. Walker studied for two years before his boredom with the college experience finally caught up with him. He began branching out and trying his hand at grifting bar patrons on the seedier side of Brannen City. Little did he know that he had drawn attention from several directions.
At one of the nicer bars, Walker tried to cheat the wrong mark and found himself the subject of a fairly uncommon bar brawl. He was rescued from the melee by a dashing older man who introduced himself as Ralph Marks.
¶ Apprenticeship
Ralph Marks, gentleman thief and spy-for-hire, taught d'Ardenne everything he knew.
¶ West Isles
¶ Legacy
...
¶ Ships
¶ Crew
To Walker d'Ardenne, his crew is the closest thing he has to family (as long as you don't count his sisters). He goes out of his way to make sure that every member of his crew is well paid, set up with comfortable quarters on Farsky Station, has the freedom to take other jobs as it interests them, and that any family or dependents of theirs are given protection.
In return, he asks only for their loyalty and he's ok if it takes a bit for them to pay him back. d'Ardenne makes investments in the people in his life and doesn't expect returns right away.
¶ Mikhail Janson
In many ways, Janson rescued d'Ardenne as much as d'Ardenne rescued Janson. When the Terran black-bag team killed Marks and kidnapped d'Ardenne's youngest sister Danielle, Janson was in a nearby bar when it went down. He followed the team and found where they were hold up, and then he stopped d'Ardenne from charging in unprepared.
The two of them were able to come up with a plan that handed an entire Terran SpecOps team over to McKenzie, got Janson's name cleared, gave d'Ardenne the vengeance he wanted, and saw his sister safely returned home.
d'Ardenne deeply values Janson, both for what he is capable of and for his well of good advice. d'Ardenne would never admit it, but Janson is pretty much everything d'Ardenne would want in a big brother. Minus the alcoholism.
¶ Emmy Sinclair
¶ Anya Tyr
¶ Riley Aimes
¶ Whitney Antares
¶ Major Associations
¶ Lizbeth Locke
- Relation: Cautious Acquaintance
If d'Ardenne is good at anything, it's planning. If he's good at two things, the second is reading people. After all, you can't con someone if you can't figure out what they want.
Lizbeth Locke has always read as dangerous to d'Ardenne. Not an immediate danger, nor one that has ever been aimed at him or his crew, but dangerous non-the-less. This has held d'Ardenne back from ever perusing any professional interactions with the legendary mercenary. West Isles has never sought out a contract from her, and on the rare occasion when she has posted an open job, d'Ardenne has never taken one.
He has asked for her help one single time, and he was careful to use David as a go-between. Apparently Locke thought that the cause was worthwhile and his caution was funny enough for her to help him out.
He has no specific problem with Lizbeth, and in fact, they are at the very least personal acquaintances. d'Ardenne appreciates that Locke gets the job done, but as he's said after an ill-advised number of gin and tonics, trouble tends to rain down around her when she goes to work, and he's worked hard to keep West Isles deep enough in the shadows that nothing rains down them.
If Lizbeth was asked how she feels about him, her first response would be "Who? Oh, the pretty boy." But if you could get her to open up, she'd probably admit that she approves of how he operates and how he cares for his crew.
¶ Alastair McKenzie
- Relation: Frequent, if secret, Employer
Much like with Locke, d'Ardenne is consistently surprised by just how often McKenzie and those in his inner circle keep finding disasters raining down around them. But hey, they keep handling it, and that's pretty impressive.
d'Ardenne holds no special love for the League, beyond Calysto being his homeworld and his sisters still living there, but he can feel the change in the wind and knows a storm is coming. Based on the jobs McKenzie hired Marks to do, d'Ardenne got a good sense that McKenzie can feel it coming too, and is working on the solution, and that's good enough for d'Ardenne.
That, and League black ops pays really well.
¶ David McKenzie
- Relation: Closest thing d'Ardenne has to a friend, frequent collaborator
David and Walker met when their respective mentors decided to throw them both at a problem. They realized fairly quickly that they were two very similar individuals and decided that since everyone kept telling them that they needed friends, they could fill that role for each other.
d'Ardenne knows that to David, he's an effective tool that David is fond of using. That doesn't bother him overly much, as to him, David is a useful resource as well, and hey, if you want a resource to stay useful, you take care of it.
d'Ardenne maintains several fairly expensive memberships in wealthy groups across human space, specifically because he knows that one aspect of his usefulness to his friend is his connections. It takes no effort to keep those connections running, and hey, he's already got plenty of cash. What better way to spend it than on maintaining a friendship.