Riley Wu

NAME: Riley Wu
AGE: 38
PRONOUNS: He/Him
CONTENT WARNINGS: Memory issues, mention of parental abuse

CANON OVERVIEW: Riley’s world is set in 1952, in an alternative New York City, where the occult and the supernatural lie just out of view of the mundane world. Monsters, magic, and mayhem alike exist in the underbelly of the world from all different cultures and mythologies. Once you’re “in” the occult world, there’s no way out. Much like the mundane world, things are rarely clear-cut or organized when it comes to the occult.

Also, one of the hells that exist below the Earth is similar to that in Chinese mythology. When you die, get sent to whatever afterlife aligns with your beliefs. There’s a whole bureaucratic process involved. The overseers of the different afterlives--usually referred to as gods or demons, though the word ‘demon’ doesn’t necessarily imply “evil”--get into a lot of arguments as a result of this.

CHARACTER HISTORY: Riley’s father had immigrated to the United States as a paper son in the early 1900s, after the San Francisco earthquake, then married Riley’s future mother and moved to New York City. Riley was born October 31st, 1914. When Riley was only seven years old, a fire consumed the apartment building his family lived in, killing his mother and leaving him with a burn scar on the right side of his face. Although nobody knew the true cause of the fire, the police suspected that the apartment had been caught in the crossfire of local gang activity.

Unable to cope with the loss, Riley’s father turned his grief onto his only child. His father frequently impressed upon the fact that, in order to make it in America, one had to be utterly ruthless and selfish in the face of opposition. Over the next decade, Riley witnessed his father’s slow self-destruction. It was in these formative years that Riley resolved that he would never subject anyone else to the same amount of harm that his father put him through. He modelled his own behavior to be the complete opposite of what his father was preaching--kind, selfless, and overly-considerate.

When he was old enough, Riley left home and never looked back. He attended college, took on odd jobs throughout his adult life, served as a field medic in World War II, and eventually took on a position as a private detective at Osman Chapel’s Private Investigation firm.

Around six years into their partnership, Oz and Riley set off to investigate a woman’s potentially cheating husband. This case resulted in the both of them being pulled deep into the occult world, with Oz becoming a vampire after a demon had cursed him to become one. Soon afterwards, while dealing with another case involving demons and the afterlife, it was revealed that Riley was actually a demon. Oops.

Distraught over this revelation, Riley attempted to seek answers. He initially suspected that he had been cursed, similarly to how Oz had been afflicted. As he uncovered more about himself, however, it seemed as though he had been a demon for his entire life. Several alternative histories were proposed to him by the demons of the Eastern underworld, even if he could not remember any of them. Some claimed that he actively rebelled against the King of Hell and was exiled ten years ago. Others state that he left of his own volition. Still others say that he was tricked into entering the mortal world and was reborn as a human forty years ago. Regardless of the differences in the stories, a few details remain consistent. Riley grew overly sympathetic to the humans trapped in the cycle of reincarnation. He then drank the tea of forgetfulness, which led him to forget his demonic origins, and then entered the mortal realm.

Riley’s history is confused and muddled, and not even he knows what is the “truth”. But perhaps knowing the past doesn't so much matter as what you will do in the present, which is what Riley attempts to focus on.

APPEARANCE: As a human, Riley is a 6’0” lanky Chinese man with a kind expression and scraggly black hair. He wears browline glasses. He has an old burn that stretches across the right side of his face. Usually wears a dark blue suit, white dress shirt, and a black tie.

As a demon, Riley’s skin is a dark teal-blue color. He has golden eyes without pupils, pointed ears, and large black horns that curve back over his head. His right horn is broken off. A pair of tusks jut out from the bottom and top of his mouth. He has a thick, black mane running down his neck and back, which tapers off at around the base of his long, tufted tail. His hands and feet are clawed, and he has a pair of scraggly white wings on his back.


TRAITS: Compassionate, kind, perceptive, polite, protective, repressed, anxious, reserved
SUMMARY: When it comes to first impressions, Detective Riley Wu tends to come off as incredibly polite and considerate. Because of his (supposed) upbringing, Riley tries to be as kind as possible to other people and tries to see the good in everyone. Although he may become frustrated at times, he almost never becomes angry, usually attempting to justify another person’s actions in his head.

Of course, Riley’s not stupid. He knows people will take advantage of his kindness, and says to himself that he’d put his foot down if anything like that were to happen. However, because he’s so afraid of inadvertently hurting others, he hesitates to assert himself, especially if other people do not have the intention of hurting him. In his mind, it’s better to simply grin and bear it instead of reflecting that hurt back upon the individual in question.

Riley is also remarkably perceptive with regards to other people’s emotions. It’s what makes him a good detective, and it allows him to empathize easily with others. Riley isn’t very inclined to talk about himself--sure, he’ll go on about his precious plants and his matchbook collection, but nothing exceedingly personal. After all, nobody needs to know about that, and surely he’d just be burdening other people with that knowledge.

His overly considerate nature results in some unfortunate side effects. He spends a significant amount of time worrying about the consequences of his own actions. After all, he doesn’t want to turn out like his father, who only served himself and hurt everyone around him. If he believes he’s done something to cause serious harm to someone else, he withdraws and isolates himself. Keeping a constantly positive outlook around others eventually makes you think that people only like you because of what you seem like on the surface, and thus, he tries not to let other people see him during these periods.

Riley is highly protective of others, and firmly believes that nobody deserves to be harmed. However, it’s a completely different story when it comes to people who hurt others, either physically or emotionally. Although he’d rather de-escalate a situation, he understands that there’s a time and place to take action. If punching or threatening somebody will cause an end to further harm, then he’ll do it. But killing is out of the question. He’s already seen too much death during his time in the war, and he won’t contribute to that kind of violence. The only thing that can stir Riley into a rage is when people take pleasure or do not care about when they hurt other people.

SKILLS: Great at taking care of plants. Decent cook. Knows a decent amount about the human body and first-aid knowledge from his time spent in the trenches.