Emery Foss
Emery Foss
Dan Stevens
Dan Stevens as Emery Foss
Name Emery Foss
Status Alive
Age 33
Occupation Forensic Accountant
Place of Origin London, England
Date of Birth October 31, 1979
Player fade
Timezone Central
Notes Notes for Emery Foss

Boring forensic accountant for the government by day, boring ordinary accountant for the Watch by night! He's all made of helpful for field work, so long as he can keep the lights on while he's helping.

Background

Daddy was in Thatcher's government, Mummy raised prize-winning roses and staffed charity boards. It was a happy little family with three darling boys to carry on the family name and traditions - which weren't very old ones, the family being somewhat New Money as these things go - up until their youngest, Emery, was about eight years old. And then he and his oldest brother, John, went missing for a few days in some childhood foolishness gone wrong. Children will get up to pranks, and they came back home safely with no harm done.

Except of course it wasn't that.

Emery walked into the Gloom, and John followed to get his little brother back. Both of them came back changed; John was better at faking normality again. Emery had screaming nightmares any time he had to sleep somewhere without a light on. He ended up being pulled out of boarding school after a year; he got the good child psychiatrists, who taught him (not quite on purpose) how to cover for the things he sees and hears. John made it through school, and drowned in a koi pond in the rose garden at the age of 20. It was deemed an unfortunate accident. Emery thinks otherwise.

So Emery was the lucky one. Relatively speaking. The Watch found him in adolescence, and let him know he wasn't quite as crazy as he thought. Which helped, really, in getting through all that study and certification for becoming a forensic accountant. He's downright well-adjusted by Watch standards, and judged merely a little eccentric by his peers on the mundane side of things.


Personality

Emery is not very comfortable around people, but projects professional competence and self-confidence vigorously enough that many never notice. He's a shaky idealist, always wanting to find the perfect solution to trouble and trying to ignore the part of his mind that insists there's no such thing. He's generous of time and resources towards those who seem to be in need, and doesn't quibble too much on the "seem" part. He's not prone to forgiving the unrepentant or holding grudges against the contrite.


Paranormal Abilities

  • Shadow Magnet: Darkness likes Emery. It tries to cuddle up when no one is looking. This has no practical use, unless he actually tries to hide in the shadows, in which case it tends to turn into…
  • Shadow Travel: Emery steps into the shadows in one place, and steps out of the shadows somewhere else a few seconds later. ("Somewhere else" is either a place he knows well, or a place entirely at random. He is unlikely to pick the latter.) For him, the trip takes anywhere from half an hour to several hours, and is full of nightmarish vistas, chatty shadows, and mild physical discomfort. Thus, he considers it only appropriate for emergencies. He might be able to take someone else with him, but has never been in an emergency so perilous that he's been willing to try. (See: Lost & Found.)
  • Shadow Chat: The darkness tells Emery things. Sometimes they're true things he never would've known otherwise. Sometimes they're damn lies. (And how's he supposed to know the difference?) Sometimes the darkness that lurks in the corner just wants to gossip about that shadow down the block. He could talk back, but generally doesn't.
  • Shadow Lost & Found: When Emery travels through the shadows (see: in emergencies, above), what he's taking through with him sometimes doesn't come out on the other side. Watches. Shoes. Pets. But they always reappear at his home a few hours/days/weeks later. Usually they're subtly changed in some way. (Watches run backwards. Shoes have changed color. That dog with the golden eyes that stared at him so knowingly.) Sometimes they haven't changed—or he hasn't been able to find the change. How would he know which?

Skills

Everything else aside, Emery is a damn fine forensic accountant. He can sift through a hundred bland documents in the course of an afternoon to sniff out that one trace of perfidy within. (He can also do your taxes, but expects lunch bought if it's not for the sake of covering up Watch expenses.)

His flat's closets are full of tidily repacked beginner equipment for dozens of hobbies he tried and gave up; there's hardly a legal hobby to be found that he doesn't have a beginner's understanding of, and few where he's got any sort of expert skill. Need someone to climb an easy cliff face, produce a mediocre watercolor landscape at the top, and then get through a tango without stepping on his partner's feet? He's your man for the job.


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