Your Nickname: Dawn
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
Are you over thirteen? Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Other
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Tamis Raynor
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Secondary
Full Character Name: Richard Ian Burke
Character Birthday & Age: 24 October, 1968; 41
City & Country of Birth: Culmore, Ireland
Blood Purity: Pureblood
Alma Mater: Durmstrang; Zufrieden
Job/Position: Black Market Smuggler
Wand: Ebony, dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches. Springy with a spiraled shaft.
Physical Description:
Richard Burke is not a man that immediately stands out in a crowd and he prefers it that way. A social chameleon, he can go from the most unimportant man in the room to the most charmingly engaging depending on his fancy. Standing at five feet ten inches, he is taller than most men, but shorter than others, exaggerating his posture one way of the other by hunching or straightening his back. A well built man, Burke is stock with defined chest and arms.
Once as pale and pasty as the next Irish descendant, nearly two decades of living in the middle-east has darkened his complexion, giving him a deceptive slightly foreign look. Darkly featured, Burke has deep brown hair, almost black, that tends to curl as it grows longer. He likewise has ordinary and beady brown eyes and is almost never clean shaven.
His age is beginning to show, particularly in the crows feet at the corner of his eyes and frequently used laugh-lines. He is very expressive and can switch from a jovial disposition to a menacing one with little preamble.
Personality Description:
When one first meets Richard Burke, he comes off intelligent and charismatic. A man easy to charm and logically introspective. The longer one sits down with him, the more one realizes he is not entirely quite right. Psychotic would be the first term to come to mind, but psychopathic would be the correct one.
Calm and easy in his manners, Burke prefers the unbeaten path. He dislikes establishment as a rule – any form of establishment – and defies it simply because he can. He tends to immediately see the best and worst characteristics in people that he encounters and often nonchalantly (and often interpretively sarcastically) points them out unabashed. He lacks a moral compass and is apathetic to others. He rarely ever feels remorse or shame and is always out to benefit himself first and foremost; self-preservation trumps all else. He is pathologically egocentric and thinks very highly of himself.
Therefore his loyalty is fickle and unreliable, often only valid if there is something in it for him or if he feels the negative consequences would not make the positives worth it if he double-crossed a particular individual.
Notoriously private, the Smuggler delights in maintaining an air of mystery about himself. Very few know any personal details about his life and what they do know are often lies fashioned for his personal entertainment. He does not care for friends or personal relationships, often not seeing the point of them beyond any physical benefits. Thus, he loves to flirt (regardless of gender) for flirting’s sake, but never commits or is very serious.
Burke navigates life on instinct. He never has a plan, playing life circumstance by circumstance. But he is very careful and very clever, which is the only reason he has eluded authorities this long. However, his cheeky, logical demeanor is entirely dependent on his disassociation. If he gets upset or feels personally cornered or threatened in a situation, he gets sloppy and rash, losing insight and making mistakes.
History:
The Burke lineage is amongst the ‘sacred twenty-eight[1]’ pureblood families in England and Ireland. Most infamously of them is Richard Burke’s grandfather, Carcactacus, the original founder and owner of the Knockturn Alley staple Borgin & Burkes and one-time employer of Tom Riddle who would go on to be one of the darkest and most powerful wizards in history. The story of how Carcactacus pawned Salazar Slytherin’s locket from Merope Gaunt for a mere ten gallons was told every Christmas until it became tiresome.
For as long as Richard could remember, his family has discreetly been involved in the acquiring of dark artifacts. As their renown in the smuggling circuits grew, Carcatacus sold half of the Knockturn Alley storefront to Mr. Borgin and forfeited its daily operation to the other wizard. By the time Richard was born, the Burkes influence on the company was almost entirely behind-the-scenes.
The family’s history with the Runespoor Trade Industry dates back to Lord Voldemort’s first rise of power. His father was elated when they were contracted by the Department of Mysteries to traffic in the beloved three-headed snakes and even more so that the Unspeakables were willing to look the other way on who else he sold to as long as their arrangement remained secret. His father built connections with Egyptians that specialized in the breeding and selling of the snakes and the trade flourished for quite some time. Until it was revealed the Unspeakables were conducting research with Runespoor Venom to try and create a weapon to neutralize the Dark Lord.
Smartly, the Burkes informed the Dark Lord of the DoM’s intentions, leading to several of the researchers deaths – including Renwick Raynor. Not long after, Lord Voldemort was destroyed not by Runespoor Venom, but by the Boy Who Lived. Without a buyer, the Burke’s interest in trafficking the snakes was put on the backburner.
Richard grew up in Ireland and attended Durmstrang Institute. He was a smart and clever lad, but disliked the established regime and political games the professors forced on its students. As a result, he was never a particularly memorable student, coasting through much of his education as a Zufrieden. However, the school offered a solid education in the darker aspects of magic.
Upon graduating, he went directly into the family business. By the time he was 20, he had already committed a couple of murders and had several successful contracts under his belt. He developed many clients and employers through out Europe, but found himself drawn time and again the beauty of the upheaval of the Middle-East. Which proved advantageous in 1994.
After the events of the Quidditch World Cup, the DoM began to discretely reinvest in its research concerning the properties of Runespoor Venom and Burke was more than happy to supply. Except, this time, the efforts were not thwarted by the Dark Lord, but rather by a still-green Auror too nosy for his own good; Tait Aldridge. The more Aldridge dug into the nature of the Runespoor Industry, the closer he came to revealing the DoM’s scandalous involvement in its facilitation. Unwilling to risk the conspiracy being revealed and falling out of favor with the Wizarding Public, the DoM shut down efforts once more and ceased their contract with Burke, but not before requesting that Richard “deal” with the Auror. Burke murdered Aldridge and then fled the United Kingdom permanently, fearing retaliation from the oblivious Level Two. Law Enforcement never discovered his identity, labeling him “The Irish Man.”
With the second rise of the Dark Lord giving birth to the Second War, Burke found himself in no hurry to return to Island life. He became further imbedded in the Runespoor industry, falling deeper into the pockets of several Egyptian wizards and becoming a general nuisance for Jordan and Israel. He floated around under several aliases, but was likewise dubbed “The Irish Man” for his distinct accent. He rather liked the calling card and often purposely used it.
In 2008, with a second resurgence of Runespoor Trade in the UK, Burke decided to return to his old stomping ground, not realizing how much of a nuisance certain law enforcement and reporters could be. Its really starting to effect his business.
1. Pottermore fact
Describe your job duties and how you go about them:
Trafficker of illegal, stolen, and darkly magical goods. Richard Burke is a glorified and well-connected middle-man, knowing who to contact to get a hold of certain merchandise and how to get it discretely from point A to point B.
He was many international resources as well as a small assortment of goons and brutes he calls upon occasionally. While he has no issue selling-out a client for a better deal, he has never betrayed one of his third-party contacts. And has been known to frequently do favors for them to maintain positive relationships.
Elaborate on your expertise in your field:
Burke had the advantage of growing up knowing that he would make a career out of procuring and selling dark objects and creatures -- some legal, some not so much. While the Burkes forfiet daily management of their Knockturn Alley store-front to Mr. Borgin (and kept the slimy wizard amiable by agreeing to put his name first on the letterhead), Burke was still exposed to business skills at an early age.
He was privileged to inherited contacts and connections in various dark magical artifacts and smuggling circuits -- including the Runespoor industry. In the several decades he has been smuggling himself, he has used that initial foot-in-the-door to build quite a reputation.
He was raised a con-artist and has proven his worth as one.
Writing Sample:
Sum up your character in one paragraph:
Richard Burke is a man with no real power in his own right, but prostitutes that power from others to make a living for himself. The doctrine of how society should be run is a game to him and he loves to break the rules. He is more than a little insane, but he insists that gives him a prospective on the world that more people could benefit from having.
Richard Ian Burke: Black Market Smuggler