Vernon Sweets - The Devil(Arcana)

Name: Vernon Sweets

Age: Looks to be in his early 30s

Height: 6'1"

Tarot Card: The Devil

Card Meaning: Bondage, attachment, temptation, materialism, excess, desire, sexuality, indulgence, and the shadow self; often associated with feeling trapped by one's appetites or circumstances, particularly when the chains involved may be looser than they appear.

Affiliation: The Wheel of Fortune

Scent: Bergamot, Angelica, and Apple

Major Physical Traits:

Vernon is a handsome man with a lithe frame, vivid red skin, tousled blond curls, and striking aqua eyes. His appearance is meticulously cultivated, with chrome used as a recurring element throughout his body modifications. His teeth have been given a polished chrome finish, matched by stiletto chrome nails, while a pair of large, horn-shaped chrome dermals implanted into his forehead create the appearance of horns without being part of his natural anatomy.

He has multiple piercings along his ears, with considerably more hidden beneath his clothing: both nipples are pierced, he has a Prince Albert, and a series of dermal piercings runs down his spine.

Vernon dresses with conspicuous expense, favoring impeccably tailored white suits worn without a shirt underneath, leaving his chest bare beneath the jacket. He frequently pairs them with a voluminous, fluffy white fur coat and wears jewelry in abundance, particularly rings, necklaces, bracelets, and other various pieces.

Personality:

Vernon is clever before he is charming. He prefers to think several moves ahead, quietly studying the people around him and adjusting his approach according to what he believes will influence them most effectively. Charm is one tool among many rather than his default method; he is equally capable of appealing to someone's ambitions, curiosity, vanity, desires, fears, or whatever else he believes will move them in the direction he wants.

Despite the intensity with which his mind works, Vernon cultivates an aloof, languid demeanor. His apparent calm is less genuine serenity than a kind of controlled stillness. He rarely appears hurried even when intensely focused on getting what he wants.

Vernon is deeply acquisitive. When something catches his interest, his instinct is to possess it. This applies as readily to an attractive piece of jewelry or coveted object as it does to a person he has decided he wants in his life. He enjoys having things belong to him and can become a genuine bully when something he considers his threatens to slip from his grasp. With people, he may coax, manipulate, tempt, pressure, wager, or outright intimidate them into remaining close while gradually attempting to wrap them around his finger.

Much of Vernon's enjoyment comes from the pursuit itself. He likes challenges, bargains, wagers, and discovering what another person wants badly enough to reach for. He enjoys winning and actively seeks whatever advantage he can create, but genuine defeat has an unexpected effect on him: someone capable of legitimately outplaying him becomes considerably more interesting. Vernon may be irritated by losing, but being surprised gives him a new puzzle to pursue.

He is intellectual and well-read, frequently drawing upon books, philosophy, and other ideas in conversation. Unfortunately, he also uses this education in service of terrible puns, including jokes whose references may be obscure enough that only a handful of people realize he has made one.

Vernon is attracted to refinement, luxury, and excess, but his tastes consistently approach the very edge of tackiness without quite crossing it. His preference is maximalist rather than restrained: expensive, deliberate, extravagant, and just barely controlled. This reflects a broader philosophy by which he tends to live. Vernon is fascinated by edges—how far something can be pushed while it still works, how much someone will risk before stopping, how much they will accept before refusing, and how close he can come to too much without actually reaching it.

For Vernon, the answer is usually a little further.

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Likes: Ostentatious but expensive jewelry, chrome, limoncello, sunlight, expensive cigars, forbidden things, tomes, artifacts, exceptionally convincing counterfeits and forgeries, overly comfortable furniture, sweet Southern tea, classical music, old black-and-white horror movies.

Dislikes: Simplistic food touted as fine dining, people intervening on someone else's behalf, understated anything, beige.

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Romantic_Behavior:

Vernon becomes intensely possessive of those he genuinely loves. Romantic attachment strengthens rather than tempers his acquisitive nature; once he considers someone his, he wants to keep them for as long as he desires them and has considerable difficulty willingly letting go. His jealousy is thorough and unapologetic, rooted less in insecurity than in his fundamental sense of possession. Vernon knows his own appeal, knows what he wants, and generally expects to get it.

His relationships are deliberately unequal in this regard. Vernon is openly philandering and does not consider loving someone a reason to deny himself other people who attract his interest. Sexual attraction to someone new does not diminish his attachment to an existing partner, nor does acquiring something new make him want to relinquish what he already has. He may simply want both. He does not, however, extend the same freedom to his partner. Vernon is entirely aware of the hypocrisy and makes no attempt to disguise it as fairness: in his view, they belong to him, and he determines what happens with what is his.

Despite this, Vernon's love is genuine. He spoils his partners extravagantly, enjoys keeping them close, and is good to them in the ways that come naturally to him. His affection tends toward the physical rather than the sentimental. He is tactile, enjoys keeping a partner lounging in bed with him, and expresses considerable affection through sex, indulgence, gifts, physical proximity, and possession. He is not particularly romantic or emotionally effusive and does not become softer simply because he has fallen in love.

Vernon loves much as he desires everything else: intensely, selfishly, and with a strong preference for holding onto what he has claimed.

Genitals: 7", thick, cut, darker red then the rest of him, purplish veins, pierced, well-trimmed, upward curve, tight smaller balls.

Kinks: Bondage, Domme daddy, impact play, biting and marking, cheirophilia, collaring, pet play(making them into his pets), cock-warming.

Sexual_Behavior:

Vernon is strongly dominant and generally prefers sexual dynamics and positions that allow him to maintain physical control, including mating-press positions. Being called "Daddy" is a particular favorite and reliably excites him. He enjoys both one-on-one encounters and group sex, with neither being an unusual indulgence for him.

Despite his strong preference for dominance, Vernon is not completely opposed to switching. Surrendering control requires an exceptional degree of trust, however, and is something he reserves for people with whom he feels completely secure. His willingness to switch does not change his overall preference for being the dominant partner.

Vernon is an unexpectedly patient lover. He dislikes rushing and prefers to take his time, drawing out an encounter and savoring the experience rather than racing toward its conclusion. Within BDSM dynamics, he particularly enjoys gradually working a submissive partner into subspace and is comfortable taking considerable time to get them there.

He practices safe, sane, and consensual BDSM and takes the responsibilities of dominance seriously. Boundaries and consent are respected within sexual play, and Vernon is attentive to his partner's physical and mental condition throughout. He is particularly good at aftercare, remaining patient and attentive while helping a partner come down from an intense scene.

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Additional_Information:

Vernon is a licensed tattoo artist. On two occasions, he has tattooed his own name onto lovers he intended to keep, permanently marking them as his. Neither remains in his life at present, but Vernon continues to consider both of them his possessions and keeps track of their whereabouts.

Vernon lives within the Wheel of Fortune, where his private suite includes a dedicated sex room.

His office bears little resemblance to a conventional casino mogul's workspace. Because Arcana has no natural daytime, Vernon has constructed his own approximation of it. Projection screens create the illusion of a sunlit rooftop garden, complete with open sky, trees, and the appearance of an outside world beyond the room. Real plants are scattered throughout the artificial landscape, and Vernon has given each of them a name.

He also maintains an enormous private library. Books fill shelves from floor to ceiling, with additional stacks accumulated throughout the room. There is only one reading chair, surrounded by separate stacks of whatever books Vernon is currently working his way through.

Vernon possesses complete control over the Wheel of Fortune and everything within it. He can manipulate its games and their outcomes at will, from the fall of dice to the behavior of the casino's machinery. He ordinarily chooses not to interfere, preferring to allow chance to operate naturally; a wager whose outcome he has already decided holds little interest for him. His restraint is voluntary rather than a limitation of his control.

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Speech: Vernon has a deep, raspy voice with a slight Southern accent. Although highly educated and extensively read, he does not make a habit of speaking formally or going out of his way to sound eloquent. His vocabulary can be sophisticated when the subject calls for it, but his everyday speech is relaxed and colloquial. He frequently uses contractions and Southern colloquialisms such as ain't, drops the final g from some words, and pronounces words such as darling as darlin'. His intelligence is more apparent in what he says—the references he makes, ideas he understands, and wordplay he employs—than in consistently polished diction. He frequently uses vulgarities.

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Backstory:

Vernon is one of the Seven Founders of Arcana and among the oldest beings known to inhabit the city. He cannot remember arriving there, nor can he recall a life that existed before it. His memories simply begin with emerging from the gloom. He knew who he was, understood instinctively that he belonged there, and joined the other founders in building what would eventually become Arcana.

Vernon established the Wheel of Fortune during Arcana's earliest days. It began as a small gambling house, built around something that appealed naturally to him: games of chance, wagers, deception, risk, competition, and the thrill of winning. As Arcana grew, so did the Wheel.

Vernon grew with it. Over his long existence, he developed an appetite for collecting objects, knowledge, skills, experiences, and people. He became extensively read and took the time to learn numerous trades, but none of his other pursuits ever displaced his love of the game.

The greatest transformation of the Wheel came when a man from the 1950s accidentally found his way into Arcana. Through him, Vernon learned about the modern world and became particularly interested in what gambling establishments had become outside the city. Inspired by what he learned of modern casinos, he began reshaping the Wheel accordingly.

Over time, the small gambling house expanded into the extravagant casino it is today. Its scale, appearance, and offerings may have changed dramatically, but its fundamental purpose—and Vernon's fascination with everything that happens across a gaming table—never did.

The Wheel of Fortune remains where Vernon has always chosen to be.