Name: Lucian Dubois
Nickname: Faucon (Hawk)
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Nationality: French
Appearance: Standing at a rather unimposing 5’09”, Lucian is hardly athletic but nevertheless in commendable physical condition thanks to a long history of having both an active lifestyle and demanding line of work, even after suffering from a severe bought of malaria. His is missing half of his pinky finger on his left hand due to combat related injuries, as well as a few scars across his torso and right leg from bullet and blade wounds, reminders of years on the wrong side of a battle.
Skills: A man of highborn stature, Lucian is a very well educated man with a mastery of his native French, English, Arabic, Russian as well as having more than a passing familiarity with basic Hindi and Vietnamese. He is an able equestrian, a passable fencer, and marksman thanks to his aristocratic upbringing, as well as a resourceful survivor of several military and mercenary engagements and desperate survival situations. While capable with a rifle, it is in the revolver that his combat skill truly shines. As a pilot, he is calm and collected under fire and during high-risk maneuvers that require the utmost concentration. His specialty is low-altitude ground attacks, strafing ground targets with machine guns or when available to drop a precision bomb on target. While not the greatest dogfighter, Lucian is more than capable of holding his own, preferring to outlast his opponent until they make a mistake and capitalizing on it as opposed to beating them out in a show of skill.
Traits and Quirks: Lucian is a very calm individual who would be aptly described as unexcitable. Commanding commendable personal discipline, he is a very focused and driven individual who pays little mind to anything outside of his immediate interests. Because of his upbringing and service to the French military, he is somewhat nationalistic and holds his heritage and French achievement in high regard, although his experiences in the Far East and in Algeria has jaded his opinion considerably. While no stranger to the horrors of war and humanity, he nevertheless remains markedly indifferent to the slave trade, feeling that an individual can do little to change the darkness of the collective soul of man and as such he finds it easy to turn a blind eye to injustice. A man of few vices, Lucian does have an enthusiastic passion for animals; often temporarily adopting a pet while stationed abroad and if the option is available, he will enthusiastically takes the time to ride a horse. A revolver enthusiast, he maintains his Lebel 1892 revolver after each shooting and he collects pistols and revolvers from around the world, often during or after battles, or during his stints of piracy. He also collects flags and maps, which he stores neatly in cardboard tubes for easy transportation. During downtime, he is often found near a window or out of doors reading with a glass of wine or a fine, but easily obtainable liquor. While he is an outwardly composed individual, he has a nervous tick where he’ll roll a coin or some other small object aimlessly between his fingers. Lucian also carries a small notepad in his pocket with a pen to write down things he needs to remember, as he would prefer to avoid the embarrassment of forgetting something.
History:Early life was a relatively comfortable and wealthy one for the young Lucian Dubois, the second of three sons and the third child in the large family of three boys and two girls. Growing up on an estate in the harbour city of Brest, the Dubois family was wealthy enough to afford most of the luxuries from French trading partners and colonies, and the family wanted for nothing. Lucian’s grandfather was one of the officers in Napoleon’s grand army, a decorated colonel who had the distinction of remaining undefeated throughout his career. This made him something of a hero to the city of Brest, if not France, and he was just one of several renown Dubois across history, a lineage that included some of the earliest cannon forgers, military engineers, traders in the New World, military officers, knights, and in one particularly notable instance, a baron. All this amounted to a sheltered and comfortable life where the hardships the average French citizen faced were completely alien to the family, and in Lucian’s father’s eyes, France could do no wrong.
For almost as long as Lucian could remember, he was astride a horse, becoming a skilled rider before his tenth birthday. Almost as early, he could recall being taken out on hunts in parties made up primarily of his father’s associates and brothers, where hounds would chase out grouse or foxes. Although he had partaken in many hunts before then, it wasn’t until shortly after his 14th birthday that Lucian managed to make his first hunt. The occasion was shortly after celebrated with his first glass of wine, which at the time might as well have gone down like dish water to the teenage Lucian. Taking a keen interest in his grandfather’s military history, Lucian decided from an early age that he would follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, enrolling in the
École Spéciale Impériale Militaire, the Special Imperial Military School, like his grandfather before him who had served under Napoleon. Being granted his wish thanks in part to his excellent schooling and his family influence, Lucian was accepted in 1902 a few months after his 18th birthday, where he made the journey to Yvelines where his long and checkered relationship with the military and warfare would soon begin.
After three years, falling somewhere in the upper-middle of his class, the newly commissioned Lieutenant Dubois did not have to wait long after being assigned to his dragoon regiment before being called upon to serve overseas in the Far East, where the beginnings of uprisings in Vietnam and India were beginning to take hold. Lucian kept the men under his command occupied during the several month voyage to the colonies, holding regular physical fitness routines on the deck of the transport, drills, and unarmed combat drills where permissible under experienced veterans. He earned their loyalty from his fair and measured method of command and turning a blind eye to how the men conducted themselves during free time, only delegating duties as appropriate punishments or by a lottery system where a man would be exempt from future ship duties until the roster had done a full rotation. The goodwill engendered during the long, often sickening voyage would be sorely tested over the next two years, where the harsh jungle conditions and rampant disease, plus the determined Vietnamese rebels, would exact a heavy toll. By the time Lucian’s dragoons were withdrawn from combat over the 3 and a half year uprising, 37% of the regiment had suffered casualties, including Lucian, who had spent a considerable amount of time hospitalized after a particularly costly ambush.
After his return to duty, Lucian caught wind of the newly forming French Air Service in 1909, which was looking for volunteers to join this new and quite unproven method of warfare. The same drive for adventure that had caused him to enroll in the military college in pursuit of war was the one that drove him to seek out these new airplanes and become one of the first men in history to take to the skies. The experience of first climbing into his biplane and leaving the ground was among the most exhilarating experiences of his life, as well as one of the most nerve-wracking. What had finally steadied his nerves was the sight of a hawk cruising high in the sky, riding the thermals of the Earth in search of prey. Lucian took this hawk as an omen, that him and the bird of prey were kindred spirits. Steeling his resolve, Lucian soon became an adept pilot, risking maneuvers far before his fellow trainees. By the time war broke out in India, Lucian was more than prepared to return to the battlefield, this time far above the mud and chaos of the ground. He would command the skies, swooping down on his prey with a pair of well-tuned Chauchat machine-guns. The voyage back to Asia gave Lucian plenty of time to paint the portrait of a diving hawk on the tail of his plane, packed into the cargo hold with wings removed. It was this painting that caused his plane to become quickly identified by French and loyalist Indian ground troops, who were just as amazed at the sight of the soaring warplanes as the rebels, who had no way to counter the aircraft outside of machine-gun fire from captured French and British guns. Lucian quickly became a daring veteran of combat and a decorated pilot. Indeed, he had found his calling.
Upon returning to Europe, Lucian had discovered his father and younger brother had been accused of treason for selling secrets to the British, something that soon became attributed to the Dubois family fortune. Whether or not the claims were substantiated, it was not long before his father was put to death by guillotine and his youngest brother thrown in life imprisonment. Outraged at the government that had targeted his family after generations of dedicated service, and before accusations of treason could come to haunt him, Lucian resigned his commission and left military life, being permitted to keep his Lebel revolver, decorations, and uniform. While being assured that his reputation was secured from his actions in the Far East, Lucian did not want to entertain the thoughts of himself being spared from ruthless backroom politics. Using a large cut from his military earnings and his cut in his family fortune, Lucian paid for a close friend of family who had connections to the Brest city council, police services, and the government to see if he could get to the truth behind what had happened to his father and brother. Spending a few restless months in a seemingly empty estate with his mother and younger sister, Lucian grew weary and restless and soon caught wind of an independent Algerian company funding an expedition deeper into the African interior than had ever been attempted before. He had scarcely finished reading the clipping in the newspaper before setting out to Africa, if for no other reason than to get away from French society.
As it turned out, the expedition was in need of skilled pilots to scout the interior, marking points of interest on a map for those who would undertake the journey overland. Over the course of several months, Lucian and four other pilots scouted several hundred kilometers deep into the African countryside, painting an accurate picture of what laid ahead for the exhibition. When it came time for the overland party to depart, Lucian volunteered to join for the pay bonus as well as to verify what he had seen.
When it became apparent that the exhibition was to increase Algeria’s “resources” for the slave trade, Lucian was unmoved until he witnessed the brutality of it first hand, watching those who resisted get shot, and the rest beaten into submission and chained. Over a course of the next few days on the return trip, Lucian’s conscious ate at him until he confronted the exhibition leader, telling him that he had to release the slaves, as it was no way to treat a man. When the Algerian man laughed at his audacity, Lucian drew his revolver and shot the man in the forehead without realizing he was doing it. What resulted was a gun battle in the jungle that led to three other men getting killed by Lucian’s skill with the revolver, and the rest being overwhelmed by the slaves. Lucian, wounded by no less than four separate gunshots, was not greeted by grateful freed men, and he soon found that the slaves were just as barbaric as their masters, and the iron chains and clasps were effective, if horrific, bludgeons. Those who were killed by gunshot were the fortunate ones, as the screams of men being ravaged by the slaves followed Lucian far into the jungle, while several of the slaves were in hot pursuit. Their efforts were slowed considerably after Lucian was forced to shoot one more, and soon the slaves gave up their pursuit, figuring the wounded white man would perish in the Central African jungles.
After a week and a half, a malaria and dysentery ridden Lucian Dubois emerged from the jungle with hastily bandaged and infected wounds when he had managed to find the exhibition’s camp. When questioned as to what happened, Lucian claimed that they were unprepared for the numbers and the savagery of the natives and were overwhelmed. No one questioned Lucian’s story, and he spent the next two months fighting near-fatal illness and infection in an Algiers hospital. Once recovered, Lucian bought his biplane from the company, something that was not objected to as there were very few people who could make use of the machine. He returned to Brest, docking his plane in the harbour. Soon he was back in his family estate, where a rather thick envelope waited for him. His friend’s investigation had turned up a list of names, including two of his father’s close friends, who had turned in “evidence” of the treason and had benefited handsomely, including taking Lucian’s father’s portion of shares in several shipping companies ranging from Brest to Calais. Unsure of what to do with this information, and feeling the stinging burn of vengeance welling within him over the men he himself had known since he was a young man, Lucian went to a dockside bar, an indistinct place where a man could escape unnoticed for a few hours or more. As night settled in, Lucian returned to his biplane, sitting in it with a bottle of wine nestled in the cockpit. Little did he know, the voice that would soon address him would offer him something a little too tempting to pass up. It was then, that cold November night, that Lucian Dubois would be propositioned to join a band of rebellious pirates calling themselves the Wolves of the Mediterranean. Over the next 3 years, Lucian would find a sense of purpose he once had flying for the French army and a sense of justice taking riches from the fat aristocrats like the ones who had betrayed his family, as well as putting more than a few belts of machine-gun ammunition into slavers’ ships. While he kept aloft and agreeable about slaves deserving freedom, his ordeal working for the Algerian exhibition haunted him and he never quite came around to seeing slaves as more than savages. While he agreed all men deserved freedom, such lofty ideals came crashing down at the memory of the sounds of skulls being crushed under heavy iron.
When the Wolves disbanded, Lucian felt a sense of disbelief and loss before deciding to take the time to do what he should have done long before joining them. Over the course of the next 8 years, Lucian stored his aircraft away and taking odd jobs to keep him fed and clothed as he sought out the men who betrayed his family. He had made it half-way through the list by the time he was contacted about the Wolves rejoining. The barrel on his Lebel hadn’t even cooled that night as a man floated face down in the river, the recently acquired sales bonds of a certain estate in Brest leaching through his vest pocket.
Other: Lucian usually wears a light blue scarf, regardless of the temperature of climate, and most of his wardrobe consists of various shades of grey and blue. On the lapel of his coat rests a pin of a hawk, similar to the one he had painted on his aircraft years ago.
