A cosmic duke who isn’t mad for power. Just making people happy.

History
Life wasn’t fair to Donovan. His mother died a few months after he was born, mowed down by a drunk driver, and his abusive bastard of a father raised him, beating the shit out of Donovan whenever he got drunk – which is to say, most of the time. He didn’t do well in high school, and dropped out during his freshmen year of college. By that time, Donovan had discovered what he considered to be his two true talents. First, he was very, very good at making, and then drinking, various alcoholic drinks. Secondly, people could talk to him about their lives, especially after he’d made them a drink.

Donovan got by on this for a good long while, keeping the bar at a pub and having the occasional heart-to-heart confessional with a boozehound. However, it so happened that a certain Freak came into Donovan’s bar, searching for a trace of Dirk Allen. Eventually, the Freak got to talking with Donovan, and, after knocking back a superhuman amount of beer, gave Donovan just about everything there was to know about the Underground. The truth hit Donovan pretty hard. He’d been willing to dismiss it as a drunken rant, were it not for two little things. First, the Freak had called him, in between death threats made to Allen, something called an “avatar.” This struck an odd chord with Donovan, who was at the time already unconsciously channeling the Confessor. Secondly, after finishing his brews for the night, Donovan followed the Freak outside – and was rewarded with a demonstration of just exactly what a godwalker and fleshwalker can do when a extremely drunk Dirk Allen drops a car on top of him out of nowhere.

Donovan left his job, and took to drinking pretty bad. Though he was 23 at the time, he looked about 40 at his worst. There’s a long streak that he doesn’t remember very well, but he knows how it ends. He woke up in a warehouse in New Jersey, naked and drunk, and with a half dozen crates levitating above his head. He’d drunken himself straight into Dipsomancy, and had accumulated about two dozen minor charges by the time he realized what he could do.

Needless to say, things were a bit hectic for Donovan from then on. He went on a few more binges lost to memory, fought crime as a masked vigilante for about a week until he got arrested for trespassing, tried to become a priest, binged some more, tried to join the army, and hitchhiked across America. By the time he was done, he realized what he was doing was pointless – running away from something he didn’t understand. He knew he could do something with beer, and he knew people could talk to him – no less than what he knew before the Freak talked to him. But he now knew what the Underground was, and he thought he knew what made it such a sick place.

No one had friends. Dukes across the world were wracked with guilt and sin – and had no one to share their pains with. Donovan had seen would-be suicides, terminal cancer patients, and guilt-stricken veterans walk out of the bars he tended with new leases on life. He figured he could do the same for the Underground. He opened up a bar, and invited every duke he knew to it. Unlike most places in the Underground, it’s a friendly place, where drinks flow cheaply and hope for even less. It’s not going to heal everyone in the Occult Underground, but it’s a place of shelter and atonement for the few dukes who seek it out – and that’s all Donovan cares about.

A few things need to be said about the bar. Firstly, it exists in more than one place. This is a very, very confusing concept, even for Donovan, who’s responsible for it. You see, at one point, Donovan managed to get a major charge by drinking down an honest-to-gods Pan-Galatic Gargleblaster – don’t ask me where he got it. He used the major to…well, let’s say he just made it so that his bar exists in seven cities: L.A., Chicago, and New York in America; London and Dublin in the U.K.; Munich and Germany; and (most oddly) Tokyo in Japan. It’s all one bar, it’s just that you can enter it from any of those cities. Look, if you still don’t understand it, go check out a Room of Renunciation – works a lot like that. Now, the way the magick works, when you walk out in the door, you end up in the same city you came in from, though Donovan can bend this rule a bit if a duke with a good reason asks politely.

The bar is warmly lit, and typically filled with friendly faces. Even the most belligerent dukes know to behave in Donovan’s. It’s a low price to pay for a safe neutral ground – and no one wants to end up like Lucky Eddy, a bodybag who tried to maim an ex-lover in the middle of the bar and got his own loaded dice blast up his nostrils for his troubles. Donovan has an impressive knowledge of drinkmixing, and has a large variety of alcohol on hand. Prices run a fair gamut based on what you want – but anyone who needs a drink for their sorrows, demonstrates a bit of magick original enough to impress Donovan, or manages to beat the old boozehound at punning can expect it to be on the house.

Personality
Donovan’s a laidback, easygoing type whose most glaring fault is a nasty tendency to pun. He’s well liked by most clued-in types he’s met – and that should say a lot.

Obsession
The happiness and consolation that can be shared only over of a good cup of beer in a friendly bar.

Passions
Rage: Idiots who try to start a fight in his bar. Donovan doesn’t like violence in general, but anyone who tries to pull any of that shit in his bar can expect to have his ass handed to him.
Fear: Failing someone who trusts him. Donovan hasn’t done this very much, but when he does, it’s like a knife in his gut. (Self)
Noble: Helping other people atone for whatever sins they’ve committed in life.

Stats

Body: 45 (Getting On In Years)
General Athletics 15%, Hold His Liquor 50%, Throw ’em Out the Door 20%

Speed: 60 (Quicker Than He Looks)
Initiative 40%, Darts 20%, Dodge 15%, Drive 30%, Knows His Guns 25%

Mind: 70 (Cunning Like a Fox)
Bartending 50%, Conceal 20%, General Education 15%, Notice 30%, Occult Knowledge 25%, Street Smart 15%

Soul: 85 (Nearly an Empath)
Avatar: The Confessor 80%, Charm 25%, Lying 15%, Magick: Dipsomancy 60%

Madness Meters
Violence: 2 Hardened | 1 Failed
Isolation: 0 Hardened | 0 Failed
Helplessness: 0 Hardened | 0 Failed
Unnatural: 3 Hardened | 2 Failed
Self: 1 Hardened | 2 Failed

Magick
Donovan’s good when it comes to charges, what with the whole living in a bar thing he has going on. He’s going to have as many minor charges as he needs, as there’s rarely a time when there isn’t a pitcher of beer within arm’s reach of him. He has an impressive collection of significant vessels that he drinks from when necessary, allowing him to typically have two or three significant charges, more if he’s expecting trouble. Donovan’s fond of using random magick to imbue the drinks he serves with positive emotion, giving anyone who drinks them a nice stream of euphoria to bear them through life. He’s also one of the most creative boozehounds to ever walk the earth, and can random magick up just about anything he damn well pleases.

Possessions
Primarily, his cherished multidimensional bar (which he lives in the top floor of), and the impressive library of booze kept within it. Donovan is actually pretty damn rich – he’s got about $60,000 in the bank at any given time, and makes a very tidy annual income. He saves most of what he makes, spending it mostly to refurbish his bar or restock on the rarer boozes. He’s got a collection of significant vessels – a steel mug made from the melted-down blade of the guillotine that beheaded Robespierre, the pint glass that Anthony Burgess first drank a Hangman’s Blood out of, and a hip flask used by Winston Churchhill. Donovan keeps a steel baseball bat and a 12-gauge under the bar, though he typically uses magick to deal with the rare ruffian.

Allies
Donovan’s got it made when it comes to friends. Most dukes have heard his name, and most of them are at least on good terms. In addition, he’s got a pretty devoted corps of regulars in his bar. Doctor von Hohenheim, an avatar of the Healer, and Oliver Wintering,the world’s only canine duke, are fond of his place, coming over to Munich from Berlin to get there on the occassional weekend. Roy Green, a nasty bastard of an Urbanomancer from Chicago, comes to Donovan’s to relax, the only real place where he can find peace. And the entire Golden Apple Corps has been known to meet en masse in his bar, discussing Discordianism and getting really, really drunk.