(fallen london stamps by 
it's very funny that both Lark and I made Fallen London characters based off of his main multiversal OC but they ended up being very different people
Rafael is, fundamentally, a Good Boy. he's cunning and charismatic, but everything he does is based in sincerity. he doesn't simply see the best in everyone - he sees the worst parts of them, too, and cares about them anyway. he is also unfailingly patient and polite, even to people who probably don't deserve it, even if it sometimes takes significant effort on his part.
Claude (Lark's character), meanwhile:
- an older Midnighter who left the Great Game despite the fact that No One Leaves The Great Game
- has this enviable aura of Detached Chill even when being pursued by assassins
- you can tell he was suave once - now it's mostly Tired Sass
- has forgotten more crimes than most people will commit
- his secret sauce is Soul-Numbing Apathy Towards His Own Existence
Claude, to a former coworker: "Oh dear, have we met before? I seem to have forgotten. The hazards of my old occupation, you see."
Claude: "Don't worry, I'm sure I'll remember you eventually. If you were important."
Former coworker, who is currently aiming a gun at him: "I see you haven't forgotten your charming sense of humor."
(he's totally lying) (his old coworker knows this and Claude knows they know this)
Much of Claude's background is informed by my reading of the Great Game as something akin to a cult. It preys on the desire to be part of something more. It lures people in with promises of meaning in a meaningless world. It frog-boils them into committing crueler and crueler acts; it isolates them; it ultimately devours their very identities. The players of the Great Game may serve governments rather than individuals, but the consequences are still horrific - for others, and for themselves.
Claude was someone who believed. He lied, betrayed, murdered for the love of the Game. He climbed the ranks, became a Midnighter - those spymaster-confessors whose rites of forgetting lend comfort to the players of the Game while entrapping them ever more deeply. Then, despite everything, he had a crisis of faith. And he left.
But no one leaves the Great Game - and the Game never leaves you.