Vincent's File

[monsterstoyou]

Vincent Smith
Born February 29th, 1980
Silent Hill, Maine

Vincent, as he was named by the staff, was left outside of the Wish House orphanage in the woods near Silent Hill. While he has never known the identity of his parents, he suspects that he was the bastard child of one of the church elders, abandoned to maintain status within the community, though there is no evidence to substantiate this.

Wish House was an incredibly abusive environment, both spiritually and physically. Vincent himself received extensive physical abuse until he learned how to ape the behaviors desired by his caretakers, though he was often scolded for a lack of 'true faith' by some of the workers. He was sent to the Water Prison on Toluca Lake more than once to discipline him for his lack of faith; while there, staff discovered that punishing other children was more effective in changing Vincent's behavior than beating him himself. This led to Vincent isolating himself, cutting himself off from other children to decrease the likelihood of any child being specifically targeted due to his behavior.

While at Wish House, however, he got to see the Order's indoctrination work on many of the children, including Walter Sullivan and once he started attending public school, Claudia Wolf, the daughter of a prominent member of the Order. Combined with his frustration at the treatment/veneration of Alessa Gillespie, Vincent played the part of a proper dedicant but he came to regard the faith he saw as the desperation of children looking for love that the world had not provided. Vincent's views on his religion were more pragmatic: clearly their god was real, given the power he had witnessed through Alessa and the occult work done by Order elders, but his 'love' for his god was pure pragmatism.

Vincent spend his young adulthood working in the Order as the church collapsed due to the actions of Henry Mason and the death of Dahlia Gillespie, the leader of their sect of the Order. Vincent somehow became ordained as a priest to the Sect of the Holy Mother, was one of the few members of the sect that had survived. Thus he set to work growing and rebuilding the church, the primary driving force behind it's restoration. Vincent used this opportunity to leave the church behind, going to college and gaining his degree in finance. He proved to be a financial genius of sorts, raising a great deal of money and building a life he enjoyed away from the church. He got away! But he was called back to the town, drawn once more to Silent Hill like a siren song, an addiction, something inside of him that felt empty and unfulfilled despite the life he'd made. Thus he poured his money into the Order, into the church, and joined the clergy where he sought to learn more of his faith and occultism.

While Vincent never worked to change the Order and their horrible ways, he never participated personally: Vincent is a strict pacifist, though he has no problem ordering other people to harm others or looking the other way for illegal and abusive behaviors to maintain power and influence. He also extorted followers for donations and stole from church funds for his own personal use; It's likely that people thought he was stealing from the church, but given he funded the church, it seems unlikely. But Vincent likes the finer things in life and doesn't hide that.

Childhood friend Claudia was the one that he worked with to build the church, her the zealot while he was the one doing the practical work. When she wanted to find the reincarnation of Alessa to try and birth God into the world again, Vincent hired a detective for her, hoping that he wouldn't be able to find her. When she did, he met up with the girl (now named 'Heather') and started to work against Claudia's aims and used teenage Heather to kill church member enemies he hated as well as set her up to kill Claudia and stop the ritual.

Claudia, a true believer to the level that Vincent despised despite his care for her, eventually stabbed Vincent for his betrayal of their cause. That is when he came to the Barge.