Tobias Wingmercy

Tobias Wingmercy was a 16th-century playwright by day and vigilante by night, going under the false name of Ravenmask when undercover. He was 'Slotham's answer to Shakespeare', and a well-beloved poet centuries after his death.
== Character ==
=== Appearance ===
Wingmercy was described by other playwrights and noteworthy people of the time as:
'A short man, silver-haired before his time, smooth-faced and appearing to be of faraway descent. He is shaven, at all times, his face is troubled as if time doth concern him. His clothes too big for his body, he swells to be much larger than thee when speaking to him, but he doth shine like moonlight upon thine presence. To be Tobias Wingmercy is to be luminous.'
As Ravenmask, he wore a black shirt, dark trousers, black stockings and shoes and dark gloves. He also wore a black shoulder-piece with dark frills and a dark clasp, and sometimes a cape, but not always. His famous mask was a porcelain mask with gold patterns, gold lips and many raven feathers lining it. He carried a black-bladed rapier as his signature weapon.
=== Personality ===
He was described by friends as the quiet type, apparently rather stoic, and normally troubled by unknown causes. He always seemed stressed, but was very secretive, and often refused to bask in the success of his plays, always worried and incapable of relaxing.
The source of the hyper-anxious hero's worries were secret to everyone but his lover and confidant, Miles Makepiece, who knew the truth - he was constantly fretting about the future of justice in Slotham and the rest of Britain, and cared dearly about the safety of the land, to the point where he would spend days and nights in his Ravenmask persona without food or sleep.
=== Abilities ===
He was an adept gymnast and an excellent swordsman. Many spectators claimed that Ravenmask often looked as if he were 'in flight' while running through the night on a mission for good. He had a great sense of justice and was an excellent playwright, writing 'ruthless', 'relentless' plays.
== History ==
Tobias Wingmercy was born in Slotham (although some argue that he was born in Couresbury and moved to Slotham as a teenager). He began writing at a young age, as a servant to a rich family, so he could read his stories to their bedridden son, Miles Makepiece. Wingmercy began writing professionally at the age of 15, and his first play - The Comete Folk, describing pandimensional pilgrims he'd seen - was performed in front of an astounded audience in the Slothingham Compass Theatre.
Being a mysterious soul, much of Wingmercy's history is unknown, but prior to his death at the young age of 28, he adopted the alternate ego of Ravenmask, a sword-wielding vigilante that existed to combat not only the crime-rife underbelly of Slotham but also a larger villain known as The Pendulum, an immortal murderer that had dedicated their endless life to sin, describing themselves as an 'ever swinging pendulum of morality and metaphor'.
Wingmercy published 18 plays in his lifetime, no easy feat, while fighting crime and The Pendulum. Miles Makepiece became his lover, but was violently killed days before his final showdown with The Pendulum, as his foe wanted him emotionally raw and unable to fight. It worked, as the death of his lover was still hot in his mind, and Ravenmask was struck down - but not before successfully wounding The Pendulum and ejecting them from their mortal body. With Ravenmask dead and The Pendulum bodiless, it seemed as if everything was finally alright...
But The Pendulum was persistent. They arranged a date of battle - 500 years in the future - and in that time, Wingmercy's spirit, bound to the mortal plane by the obligation of justice, would have to find another body to possess and train to fight the pendulum. But over the years, every promising apprentice was killed in training, and time is running out...
== Plays ==
Some of Wingmercy's best-known plays are -
* Thiefbeast - A prince finds a priceless amulet and his greed drives him to insanity. This play inspired Seraphina Anderson's Legshark in Miami.
* The Comete Folk - His first performed play, inspired by pandimensional visitors he once saw while walking to the Makepiece home to see Miles.
* Disappearance of an Indian Princeling - A rather dark play inspired by his first failed 'mission'. A young Anglo-Indian prince (Prince Thomas Hanbhal) was kidnapped, and Ravenmask was too slow to find him. It describes what he imagines the torment was like.
* A Little Knowledge - A nosy maid eavesdrops on a traveller and gets more than she bargained for. Wingmercy's only comedy.
* Two Scoundrels in Endless Magic - A rich man and a street rat (both thieves in their own senses) stumble across a castle that is under an odd spell - they cannot die there. Very dark and violent.
== Trivia ==
* Many people say that Wingmercy and Makepiece were friends, not lovers, even after hundreds of love letters (of varying risqueness) were found buried in Makepiece's grave with him.
* Wingmercy's grave is in the centre of Old Slotham Cemetery, beneath a large statue of him. However, the statue was broken in half diagonally by vandals, so his head and most of the left side of his torso are missing.
* His mask is in the Slotham museum. It has been attemptedly stolen four times (by The Nefarious Domino Brothers, Johnny Cobra on a dare, the Director General of the SGA and an agent of Bill Large, respectively), but the thieves were all wounded in their escape by the same sign falling onto them, and were caught. The mask is said to be extremely unlucky for anyone but its rightful owner.
* His rapiers and cape are being kept by Loch & Keye Containment and Storage.
* Playwright Seraphina Anderson has listed Wingmercy as one of her greatest inspirations.
Category:Males
Category:Heroes
Category:Elite Normos
Category:Deceased Characters