Post by Professor Armando Dippet on Feb 26, 2013 12:25:52 GMT -8
Armando Archibald Berge Dippet
Age 375. Status Erudite Wizard. Occupation: Professor. Former house Ravenclaw
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BIRTHDAY: 1. October 1637.
BIRTHPLACE: England.
CURRENT: Budleigh Babberton.
FAMILY:
• Unknown, but he was raised by Almerick Sawbridge (1600-1699).
BLOOD: Pureblood,
ORIENTATION: Asexual.
WAND: Pine, 13" inches, Kelpie mane.
DESCRIPTION: Once very thin, frail and feeble-looking, one of his experiments during a restored some of his youth, and at present time, he hasn't seemed to age over the last half a century. At present time, professor Armando Archibald Dippet is a tall and broad-shouldered man who is surprisingly large for an old man, where he in height stands 6'1" He has dark, penetrating eyes. Despite being perhaps the oldest wizarding alive to this day, he can be surprisingly agile. All who really knows him can tell him, even though he is at the age of three hundred and seventy-five years old, is still able to draw a wand so quickly that one barely can see his robes twitch. Although he often can be seen strolling leisurely, he is fully able to move quickly when the situation requires it. Since the hands are without liver spots and his movements without the natural rigidity that comes with old age, the ancient sorcerer's wrinkled face and long white hair and beard is in many ways the only revealing that he is an old man. He is often wearing long, majestic robes of blue and bronze, as an honor to the old house he roamed in as a student at Hogwarts. Because of his love of travel and learning, he has transformed his own wand to a large walking staff that he uses when he goes longer trips or to do magic. On the top of it, there is some sort of it a mystical crystal which tends to gives off many coloured lights whenever Armando is about to use magic. Its unique magical properties is his dearest seceret, which he will never reveal to a living - or dead - soul.
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PATRONUS: Eagle.
BOGGART: To loose the crystal.
MIRROR OF ERISED: Himself as more than a thousend years old, having become the oldest living wizard in the history of men, as well as being Headmaster of Hogwarts once again.
HABITS: In spite of being an 375 year old wizard, he can act quite childish under certain circumstances.
PET PEEVE: He is a Polymath and Philomath, and his love and passion for learning, and his knowledge of the fact that there is always more to learn, is what makes his clock tick.
STRENGTHS:
• Magical Mastery and Knowledge - Long before the birth of the likes of Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald and Lord Voldemort, Armando Dippet was considered to be one the most powerful wizards of his time, and already by the time he left Hogwarts in 1655, were well known to be a formidably brilliant sorcerer, who's extensive knowledge and abilities were only matched by a few other witches and wizards of his age. Although he was greatly overshadowed by one of his students many years later, Albus Dumbledore, widely considered to be the most powerful wizard in the world, respected Armando's abilities as a wizard. He is known to be excellent in many practical magical disciplines as well as theoretical, and with more than three hundrered years spent on learning, that is saying something.
• Occlumency and Legilimency - Due to the help of Maxwell Barnett, Armando is fully capable of magically navigating through the many layers of a person's mind and correctly interpreting one's findings as well as magically closing his mind and prevent a Legilimens from accessing his thoughts and feelings, or influencing them.
• Resourceful - Armando Dippet is most familiar with many languages, cultures of non-humans and part-humans life. Thus, he speak Mermish, Troll, Giantian, Gobbledegook, Romanian, French, Spanish, German, Latin and he understands Parseltongue.
Even wandless, he is capable to preform a few spells wandlessly, which means he will always be able to light a fire, collect smaller items that are beyond arm's reach, or get light when needed. He is good at cooking and are familiar with herbs and mushrooms to be used for cooking. He is also to a certain extent practical set, since he rarely acquires water or other natural material by means of magic. Most of the furniture he owns he has made by hand without the use of a wand, and at his house there is a well where he retrieves and carrying heavy buckets when needed. In addition to this, both the hugger and carrying logs when to ignite the fire of his home. He has also designed a number of unique magical devices for different purposes.
WEAKNESSES:
• Poor at flying, unnecessary consistent and a little too much of a strict disciplinarian, distrusting and under certain circumstances, easily fooled.
• Professor Dippet have a tedency to underestimate enemies, and his arrogans can let enemies get the best of him.
• Armando "know" he is magically superior to most people he meets, being overly confiendt in his own abilities, and this allows him to be very unpleasant at times, because he can show a lack of patience and respect for both the abilities of the less talented warlocks, but also to the people themselves.
TRAITS: Professor Armando Dippet is a very old, experienced, and highly intelligent and powerful wizard. As such, he is known to have a commanding presence that exuded gravitas, serenity, composure, authority and control, and he does rarely displaye intense emotions of anger or fear. He is a loner who prefers his own company, along with all his books, and feel reassured by taking the distance from the world's ferocious and savage nature. Once one of the biggest blood-purity fanatics of his time, viewing himself as being racially superior to Muggles, Muggle-borns, and half-bloods. However, after falling in love with a Muggle in his later years, this changed however. Although he never quit feeling, and especially during his time as teacher and later Headmaster at Hogwarts, feeling that pure-blood students usually displayed the best magical talent as compared to Muggle-Borns and Half-Blooded wizards. He also is a bit of a hypocrite, as he frequently said that teachers should not have favourites but then already have many of the most talented students as his, among them was once Tom Riddle.
He is a strict disciplinarian and have always considered himself to be a man of priciple. His twisted morality and veiw of right and wrong came most clear when he was shown by his tenure as Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. During this time, the school was marked by a cynical acceptance of severe punishment, as professor Dippet allowed Caretaker Apollyon Pringle to use corporal punishment on students. Early in 1940, Armando got into an argument with former Transfiguration professor, Albus Dumbledore. The reason for this was due to the fact that Armando Dippet refused to let a young boy attend Hogwarts, as he was a Half-Giant, and Armando strongly believed he would undoubtedly either have, or develop the same taste for blood as regular Giants have. Professor Dippet expressed his disagreement by reminding him that it matters not what one is born, but what one grows to become. After eight hours long conversation, Armando agreed, though reluctantly, on letting Rubeus Hagrid attend Hogwarts. Professor Dippet did not have a high opinion of Hagrid, however, and treated him with disdain and rudely instructed the boy to leave his office without hearing him out whenever he had a request that one would have to talk to the Headmaster directly, or he was looking for a teacher which was in the Headmaster's Office at the time.
However, in spite of his somewhat brutal view on dicipline, he did not take the safety of his students lightly. When the Chamber of Secrets was opened by Tom Riddle, Armando, like all his employees, did everything in his power to apprehend the perpetrator. An example on this was when he realised that no one had seen Myrtle for a couple of hours, Professor Dippet asked fellow student and Prefect Olive Hornby to go and look for her. Also by him rejecting Tom Riddle's request of staying at school over the summer holidays due to the situation, but did comment that he would have given him special permission if the school were much safer. However: The moment Tom Riddle declared Hagrid a suspect, Dippet promptly expelled the latter without putting much effort in investigating the matter, and told professor Dumbledore, who rushed to Hagrid's defence, that the expulsion was fully justifeid and that the event just proved the point he had made three years earlier.
Professor Dippet did not limit his strict demeanor to the students, as he was never known to hesitate to give those he belived deserve punishment for their actions exactly what he feel is a suitable price to pay for their stupidity or insolence. During Dippet's tenure as placed professor Silvanus Kettleburn on sixty-two periods of probation. One known time was after he provided an Ashwinder with an Engorgement Charm on it instead of a worm for the The Fountain of Fair Fortune pantomime. After the chaos, Armando placed a permanent ban on pantomimes from thereon. The very same night, Armando summoned the Herbology professor to his office for a "small talk". At some point, Armando had become so angery that he had drawn his wand, but apperently not used it and apologized for the outburst. However: Beery later confessed to Dumbledore that this confrontation caused his later productions to become as unlucky as the first. Soon after, he no longer wished to mount the performances due to the supposed bad luck which accompanied them and was replaced by Pomona Sprout. Many of the teachers had suspected Armando of cursing him, although there was no actual evidence to support the theory. In addition, as the school was currently under the administration of the man in question, no one, not even professor Dumbledore, dared to confront him about it.
Headmaster Dippet retired in 1955, leaving Professor Dumbledore to take his position of head of his old school. Follwing his retirement Dippet went to live in Budleigh Babberton. However, after buying a house there, he left it empty, still being the legal owner, so that he had a place to return to after he returned from his travels. The same year, on his way on foot to King's Cross Station, (as he intended to take the train from platform Seven and a Half to travel to Europe), he encountered a particulary nasty witch in Bath who mocked him for his bad flying and came with loud comments of his capabilities as a wizard according to his description from Armando Dippet: Master or Moron? by Rita Skeeter. The result was that Armando decided to show her exactly how inadept of a wizard he truely was, and did so by cursing her copy of the book so that once she began reading it out loud to mock him, she was rendered incapable of putting it down or close it. The result was that the witch was forced to wander around reading the book and trying to do her everyday tasks with one hand for the rest of her life.
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HISTORY:
No one really know how the man who once would end up being the strict and intolerant headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Many have heard different stories about what really happened. Stories goes from man to man, and has changed over the past couple of centuries. So what do we know for sure? Not much. Just wandering histories and tales of the sorcerer's life. They are all marked by various degrees of pain, love, betrayal and bitterness. But they all start the same way:
It was in the year 1645, where a ship is said to have sailed across the North Sea from a foreign country far away. No one knows quite how it happened, or why for that matter, but it is said that on the legendary island of Avalon, which was once ruled by the Dark Witch Morgan le Fay during the time of King Arthur, the attention was drawn to something far out there. The fort which once belonged to Morgana had been transformed into a towering building in black stone that is perhaps the most dreaded place in British History of Magic. The guards at the wizarding prison of Azkaban was excited and agitated by the sound of loud bangs, and the flash of fire and smoke not far away. Elfrida Clagg, Chief of the sorcerer Council of Britain, ordered Lucius Malfoy I to go and investigate. When Malfoy arrived at the scene, they found Malfoy a little lifeless human body that washed up against the big, jagged rocks at the water edge under them, and the little boy was kept floating solely because of the blackened wreckage after the ship that sank. The boy was rescued just before he would have hit land, and levitated to safety. The boy he had saved was not old. He could not be much older than nine, maybe ten years old. Malfoy took the unconscious child back to the mainland, and sent for Mungo Bonham who looked after him while the formal affairs took place. Malfoy brought the discovery up to the Council and informed them that it was his belife that the child undoubtedly had to be of magical origin, otherwise the magical protections have forced the waves to wash boy away from the island, if he had been a Muggle.
Though it is difficult to confirm, it is said in many versions of the stories that the Council had the greatest confidence Lucius Malfoy the first honesty and reliability. Others however, tells how the Wizard's Council discuss the matter and come to the conclusion that they refuse to believe that there happen to be a ship full of Muggles sailing past the Avalon, and the one who survives happen to be a sorcerer himself, and that Malfoy first had give up many precious treasures and riches to "convince" them that he was of noble and humble kind and worthy of their trust. Regardless of what really happened that day, we know at least for certain that Malfoy was not personally interested in taking responsibility for another human being, and claimed his waiver of responsibility for the child he found was due to his young age and lack of experience with children. It was then that a young Warlock named Almerick Sawbridge stood before the council, said it is willing to accept the child. Sawbridge, who had already won the Council of respect by defeating a large River Troll, got custody of the boy immediately. Almerick would know where the boy came from, and decided to go down to the wreck, which he did using Gillyweed. It is said that he did not find the sight of the drowned bodies informative, but their ship was called "Dippet.". The boy, who had no memory of who he was, was then renamed Armando, after Almerick's own father. The surname came from the ship in which the boy had traveled with, which was the only link to his own past. And so Armando grew up under Sawbridge's watchful eye and protecting hand over him.
Armando had unfortunately been born into a time of fear and terror. Ever since the early fifteenth century, the persecution of witches and wizards gathered pace all over Europe, making many in the wizarding community feel that offering to aid their Muggle neighbours with their magic was tantamount to volunteering to fetch the firewood for one's own funeral pyre: many witches and wizards were locked up and sentenced to death on the charge of witchcraft, and while some managed to use magic to escape, others were not as lucky and were immediately stripped of their wands. Wizarding families were particularly prone to losing younger family members, whose inability to control their own magic made them noticeable, and vulnerable, to Muggle witch-hunters. As the witch-hunts grew ever fiercer, wizarding families began to live double lives, using charms of concealment to protect themselves and their families. By the seventeenth century, any witch or wizard who chose to fraternise with Muggles became suspect, even an outcast in his or her own community. Widespread persecution of wizarding children by Muggles, escalating attempts by Muggles to force witches and wizards to perform magic for Muggle ends and teach them magic, increasing numbers of witch-burnings, including those of Muggles mistakenly burned as witches were the catalysts for some kind of measure to be taken.
Armando went attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, then Headmaster professor Vindictus Veridian, a good friend of Almerick. Armando was sorted into Ravenclaw House in 1649. During his time as student at Hogwarts, Armando was not very popular. It is said that fellow students did indeed admire both his magical abillities and intellect, however he was highly disliked for having been so competitive when it came to academic success that he was known to backstab other students in order to get the top marks. Armando is also among those who are so proud of the success of famous members, such as Laverne de Montmorency, that he more that one have claimed many other intelligent wizards and witches to be a member of Ravenclaw, such as Bridget Wenlock, who was in fact a Hufflepuff.
Although he have claimed to know better in later years, professor Dippet was undeniably prone to the belief of Pure-blood supremacy. This ment that Armando not only once was among them who belived that wizards and witches whose known ancestry is exclusively magical inherently superior to wizards and witches who have traceable Muggle ancestry. Although Almerick strongly disagreed with Armando, informing him that he even believed the correct term for Muggle-Borns for always should be called Magbob, Armando proptly replied that he regarded Muggle-born wizards as impure and not worthy of possessing magical ability, and that Almerick was a fool to believe that those who are so closely related to the witch hunters ever could be worthy of the title of Wizard, insisting that: "Poisonous toadstools don't change their spots." And to Almerick's great dismay, Armando became a close friend of Brutus Malfoy, the son of Mr. Malfoy, the man who found Armando in the North Sea the year before. After Armando graduated from the school in 1655 and achived top grades in all his N.E.W.Ts., as well as having been Prefect for Ravenclaw, he and Brutus started planning how to spread the belif of the superiority of the pure-blood. Armando and Brutus started to work for the then renowned anti-Muggle periodical Warlocks at War, with Brutus as the Editor, where Mr. Malfoy came with the statement: "This we may state with certainty; any wizard who shows fondness for the society of Muggles is of low intelligence, with magic so feeble and pitiful that he can only feel himself superior is surrounded by Muggle pigmen.". In addition, Armando wrote a book under fale name in 1675: The Muggle Conspiracy, which was credited to a Miss Sinistra Lowe. This book contained propaganda supporting discrimination against Muggle-born witches and wizards. In addition, he and Brutus planned a massive attack against the filthy and unworthy Muggles as they both agreed had no right to exist. In 1666, they rented a huge basement where they placed a Welsh Green, which they wanted to await the perfect opportunity. And so they did, and together they were directly resposible for the Great Fire of London. This was what made Armando realize that they had gone to far. When he tried to convince Malfoy of assisting him putting out the fire, Malfoy did nothing but grinning, telling him how funny it was, joking about helping Muggles. When Armando assured him that it wasn't a joke, Malfoy got furious and exclaimed: "How can you say that? After all we have been through Armando, everything we have done and fought for, it all has been leading up to this very day! And now you believe you can just turn your back to all this? No! You cannot do this, Dippet, oh no, you won't! If you are not with me, you're against me, and if that is the case, if you are planning to become a filthy little - little Mudwallower! Then I believe it is for your own benefit that you learn your place! Crucio! Crucio!"
Overpowered by Malfoy after this attack, Armando was left unconscious and bruised left in the basement where they had kept watch over the dragon, and woke up the next day with bloody sores and lacerations all over his body. But Armando did not hesitate a second. He raked his way to his wand as he had found thrown away in a corner, cracks all over it. He magically repaired it and heal their injuries with some quick spellcastong and joined volunteer groups among civilians wizards to help the Ministry to extinguish the fires. Here would he get acquaintance with the newly appointed Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department, Brian Dumbledore. He, along with his young secretaty, a man called Nicholas Moody. Together with countless others, they worked together to stop the fires. Armando however, did not reveal Brutus Malfoy, for fear that Malfoy would use it against him and talk about Armando's own involvement and participation, and was afraid he would have to suffer through the horrors of Azkaban as the ultimate consequence.
In the year 1685, Armando had finally found his true love. According to the oldest of the stories, she was a Muggle peasant named Edith. She lived on a tiny farm with a little spring lake on it, and the farm had been managed by Edith ever since her parents was killed by pirates. The lord of the fiefdom was a guy Brutus Malfoy, the man who Armando once was a close friend of at Hogwarts. Brutus planned to banish Edith from the farm because she couldn’t manage it on her own, but Armando protected her. He sent away the brutes who’d come to throw her out. Apparently, he gave them pig tails and told them if they came back he’d finish the job. Meanwhile, Armando safeguarded the farm and made really thick briars of thorns grow up all around the perimeter, keeping out Malfoy’s brutes. And then, just to be safe, he started to magically alter her appearance. That way, she could go to the markets unnoticed. She had to, because Malfoy had put a price on her capture. Things seemed to be working just fine for them, and it looked like Armando was going to marry her. However, Brutus Malfoy spotted her and somehow saw through her disguise. He told his fiefdom brutes, also known as Crabbe and Goyle, who were always hanging around the market. They captured Eidith and took her to Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire.
Brutus seemed to expect Dippet would show up. He told the Crabbe and Goyle to let Armando through the gates, right into the main hall. Armando didn’t even waste time on the guards, though. He just put the two of them to sleep and stalked right up to Brutus, demanding the release of Edith. Malfoy informed him that told he had every intention of giving her back, but only if Armando agreed to return the farm, remove the thorn hedge, and as a tribute of respect, double the fiefdom’s lands, because the bigger Malfoy's fiefdom got, the wealthier he become. After Armando did what he asked, Brutus Malfoy pretended he was going to let the two of them, Edith and Armando, leave together. However, he killed her while her back was turned, before laughing at Armando, informing him that he could do so much better than a Mudblood. Armando lifted his wand, but by the time he had the time to curse the murderer, Malfoy had Disapparated. This is probably why Dippet is so distrusting. The life of his one true love was in his hands, and in the promise of a liar. He knew he could never forgive himself for trusting Brutus, and he knew he would never love any other woman like that ever again.
By 1692, Armando Dippet had put himself available for service to the British Ministry of Magic, which in that very year had followed Wizard' Council. When the Confederation of Wizards instituted the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy to hide the wizarding world from the Muggle world, many wizards worldwide considered the Ministry as weak and cowardly compared to the old system, and many Britons from the wizarding community demanded that they went back to the Wizard's Council, which they believed was a much stronger kind of government. Armando's mission was to serve as a mercenary for the Ministry. He would get a certain amount of Galleons transferred to his vault at Gringotts Wizard's Bank, and he would go to groups that rebelled against the authority of the Ministry of Magic and curse them. However, Armando lived in a dark time still, and loyalty and confidence were a rare commodity at the time. The result was that those who were punished for trying to fight back against the Ministry's decision and reinstate the Wizard's Council, gave him a higher sum to go back and curse the employees of the Ministry of Magic in return, and he did. During this time, the Ministry ordered him in 1707 to dispose of a dangerous enemy who had murdered Brian Dumbledore, leaving his wife and young son Wulfrick on their own. Armando hunted down the wizard, but proved incapable of defeating him, as the Dark Wizard proved to be more than a match for the older and yet so also accomplished sorcerer. When Armando proved unable to defeat him, Nicholas Moody, who recently had replaced Mr. Dubmledore as Head of Department, founded the Auror Office for the purpose of tracking him down, and Moody became the first Head of the Auror Office and started the infamous long line of Aurors in the Moody family, which lasted for more than two hundered years, with his descendant Alastor as the most prominent Auror in not only the family history, but also in that of Ministry of Magic. The murderer was never caught.
After this, when the Auror Office and the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol took over for Magical Law Enforcement and his services were no longer needed, he left England to take the Grand Tour, but he did not return until many years later. Armando became engulfed by his travels, which have spread worldwide in his hunting and thirst for learning, philosophy, history, with a special focus on learning about the nature of magic and how the nature of magic and the nature of men influences each other.
Little is known about his departures, but he have encountered evil wizards and dark creatures, seen miracles and monsters, and he have seen nations rise and die since his birth in the late Middle Ages, and he have acquired both friends and foes. He returned to his country of orgin to become a professor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When this took place is unknown, but it is known he worked as a professor under Eupraxia Mole, Phineas Nigellus Black and Newton Scamander before he finally assumed the position of Headmaster himself in 1928, by which time he had worked there in nearly eighty years. In his position, he was responsible for the employment of Horace Slughorn, Albus Dumbledore, Herbert Beery, Silvanus Kettleburn and Galatea Merrythought as teachers at Hogwarts. Professor Dippet retired in 1955 and left the school under the administration of professor Albus Dumbledore. And with this, he returned to his beloved travels. He attended Dumbledore's funeral in 1997.
However: In the United States of America, where Armando have spent a considerable amount of time the past decade at Alma Aleron School and University of Humanities and Spellcraft, studying Remote Parapsychology, Reverse Precognition, Advanced Technomancy, Clockwork Mechanics and Mageography, there have began to start stories and rumours. A group of witches and wizards who believe that accounts of events leading to the Battle of Hogwarts and the demise of Voldemort and his followers are skewed in favor of the victors and maintain that “Lord Tom Riddle” was unfairly demonized and destroyed because he threatened to make life better for both wizards and Muggles. He is considered a revolutionary hero and a fresh thinker whose beliefs were too radical for the traditional ruling class to handle. Their rallying cry is “Equality and full disclosure”. Many believes their hidden agenda is total domination of the Muggles, requiring the first step of full disclosure to the Muggle world under the guise of equality. This group, the Progressive Element, wants to join forces with the Death Eaters and use their ideology to aid them in total control of the Muggle World. Rumours has it that they have tried to recruit Armando for this idea, and to aid them in the war against Muggles, and those who oppose those who remain faithful to the memory of Lord Voldemort. One can say much about Armando Dippet, but his ultimate allegiance, as well as his reason for returning to England is uncertain, and yet to be revealed...
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NAME: Phil/Phillyman/Phillip.
EXPERIENCE: About six years.
CONTACT: How can we contact you?
HOW'D YOU FIND US? Random web-search.
RP SAMPLE:
The old wizard was standing on the cliff, leaning heavily to his walking staff with the dark eyes seemed to sparkle. Apparently, the eyes had somehow begun to reflect light from the sun was about to rise over the horizon. The sharp eyes moved across the landscape slowly and greedily. There was not much to see, other than than this blood-red sky and the roaring, unruly water under it. The sound of the rushing water was the only thing anyone could be able to listen to a distance of miles or two, regardless of what direction you walked in. At 05:30 PM, far out in the wilderness and far from others, most people probably think that this did not mean anything. That the important thing was to find shelter, fresh water, being able to make contact with the rest of the civilization, perhaps, because where he now stood, was miles from both people, city and drivable terrain for any Muggle vehicles. But for Armando, who stood utterly alone, whose eyes were only rigidly attached at this sight, it was beautiful. and it meant everything.
(Sorry if you find this sample unsatisfactory, but it's late here in my zone, and I personally believe that we got a clear view of a part of love Armando have for traveling and nature.)
ANYTHING ELSE? Yes... I come from Norway and I love this site! :-D
Just fixed the sheet formatting - Subaru