James Witt

**James Witt** or **The Sheriff** is a character that is featured in *Villainy and Virtue*, created and portrayed by iCaramelBird.

Having both his trusty Sheriff's Revolver and the power of Fire Manipulation, The Sheriff is able to use his revolver to fire powerful incendiary rounds; though this has disastrous consequences if he uses it too much. Yet James has his own style of using fire to defeat his foes, and can always defend himself from fire.

## Biography

### Background

James Witt grew up in Scarlet City; a proverbial cesspit of the lowest of the low; criminals, gangbangers, and all sorts of crooks. It is in one of the many cobbled and rough neighbourhoods that adorned Scarlet City, that James Witt grew up in a rundown apartment. James grew up to learn the harshness of the world around him pretty quickly. His mother was only eighteen when she had him and worked at a terrible job in a run down diner, that earned her so little pay that at times she would starve herself for days and only spend whatever she made on food for her son. She loved James, and yet James couldn’t help but focus on his father. His mother told him plenty of tales about his father, that he was a dignified man and though she never explained the circumstances of his disappearance and never mentioned if he died; just disappeared little after a day after James was born. His mother noted that his father had similar powers as him, on his discovery of fire manipulation. As he progressed through his childhood, learning how to harness his powers, he could really tell that his mother’s health was waning most likely due to his employment. In his early teens, James joined a street gang to gain more money. James met his first friend in this gang, called Will, who also joined the gang to gain money but for his grandfather as opposed to a mother, as Will was an orphan. The two developed a close friendship that other members of the gang frowned upon due to sensing that the two would leave the gang or worse, betray them.

Thus the leader of the gang having to deal with the stress of the gang falling apart due to many members dying and other gangs forming, had to deal with the problem of potential betrayal quickly and thus ordered several other gang members to take James and Will on a drug deal in which they were tasked to kill Will. What the members didn’t know was that James had the ability to create and control fire, a secret that only Will and James’s mother knew about and when the attack happened, James was able to defend himself. Will was not. James lost his first and only friend that day, and after managing to scare and at least severely injure those who killed his friend, he changed. Yet things only got worse when his mother told him, that she unfortunately had cancer.

The gang stayed away from James and in months all of them were killed with some of them supposedly moving to a city named Heartania to form a new gang ‘The Vipers’, and James decided to change his life for the better. He began working harder in school, worked menial jobs to earn some money and as he did this his mother was proud. Sadly just before his graduation, James was informed his mother died due to her cancer. The next few months that surpassed were the roughest James had been through; the feeling of grief overtook him and though he wasn’t an alcoholic he found most of his nights staring at the bottom of an empty bottle.

James managed to sober up eventually and reattempt getting his life together, but felt he needed to move, and found his trusty revolver when he was clearing out his apartment. He soon found himself enlisting to be on the police force of Capital City. Still hiding his powers, James worked as a beat cop for one year before transferring to detective work. The first year was great, and he developed another "close relationship" with his partner Detective Jaden Orwell, who gave him advice and was the only person whoo took an interest in James. James was considered a great detective and worked hard. But soon, the workload got to him and James had to admit his methods were getting reckless, especially as he learned about the repercussions and oddity of his trusty revolver. James quit the force and broke things off with Jaden. James left both the force and Jaden behind; as even Jaden believed that James had his true calling in finding out what happened to his father.

The last couple of months, James has been hunting down every criminal or crook he can find for money and to find his father. Yet found nothing. Having enough of Capital City, James has now decided to go to Heartania in order to see if the plagued city could truly reveal what happened to his father.

### Heartania

By the time James had arrived in Heartania, he had already began to cause trouble. After encountering Hunter when he attempted to steal his motorbike (a crime he claims he wasn't committing), and even after openly flirting with Luke, he later encounters Custos; guardian of Luke and trusted friend of Lilly. James manages to defend Custos after surviving an attack from some gang members, yet Custos was severely wounded in the fight. James and Custos managed to make their way to The Citadel; where they were helped by Luke and Jade.

James made his way over with Claudia to the Heartania Park,

## Trivia

* James has shown to be openly flirting with Hunter and it has been speculated that the two may become partners.
* Much isn't known about James's father, though James does possess a picture of their father from when they were younger.
* During the conceptual stage of creating the character, this character was originally meant to be Luke's father who left after Luke and Lilly's mother died, to live in Capital City. It was to be revealed that the character disowned Luke and Lilly out of shame because he had powers of his own he hidden, in order to try and live a normal life and disliked his children's embrace of their powers. The character was meant to hear of Luke being alive due to a news report on the conflict at the Capital City stadium, and track them down to Heartania. The character-arc was meant to build upon the fragmented relationship between Luke and Lilly, and the character as a father. However, the creator, iCaramelBird disliked the idea of creating too many character's linked to Luke and decided to instead try and create a more original character. After a few drafts, the final character came out as James Witt.
* Originally, the Sheriff's Revolver specialization was going to allow James to teleport and have a low level of telekinesis that would only effect the weapon. Since the specialization states that 'The revolver is similar to Mjlonir...' It was planned for James to be able to have telekinetic powers that would allow him to be able to move the revolver through the air and allow it to come back to him quickly. This was replaced with the idea of the revolver always coming back to James, no matter what happened to it. In terms of teleportation, James was originally going to be able to use the revolver to teleport. This would mean, he could throw the revolver across a room, behind an enemy, for example and teleport to it, being able to dodge an enemy's attack and shoot them from behind. This was going to give James an advantage in combat, however the creator, iCaramelBird found this to be too 'over-powering' and decided that James's ability of 'Fire Manipulation' and experience of combat and ruthless survival in an urban enviroment as detailed in his backstory would be reason enough for him to be subsequently decent at combat.
* After asking Luke to come up with a nickname, after the birth of his own nickname 'Quiver', James attained another alias, 'The Dragon'. This is because Luke decided to call him 'Dragon' due to James' fire manipulation, and his revolver, however James laughed, finding it unbelievably cheesy, so Luke never used it again. However the nickname still sticks and crops up as a way to embarrass Luke every now and again.
* 'The Dragon' is now an associated name for James alongside 'The Sheriff', but of which respect different sides to James' personality and his powers.