<div class="float-right"> <img class="character-table-image" src="emil_pfp.jpg" alt="Emil pfp"> <table class="character-table"> <tr><th colspan="2" class="character-table-quote">“I’m sorry that was the kind of animal I was.”</th></tr> <tr><th>Player</th><td>Jiayi</td></tr> <tr><th>Position</th><td>Head Cook</td></tr> <tr><th>Species</th><td>Human Sinner</td></tr> <tr><th>Pronouns</th><td>he/him</td></tr> <tr><th>Height</th><td>6’1”</td></tr> <tr><th>Age</th><td>43 (Died at 37)</td></tr> <tr><th>Birthdate</th><td>11/30/1956</td></tr> <tr><th>Family</th><td>Mika Salonen (Father), Narcisa Lazar (Mother)</td></tr> <tr><th>A.K.A.</th><td>Anton Morosov</td></tr> </table> </div> Emil used to work as an assassin in the Soviet underworld, back when he was still alive. What he really wanted to do, though, was to compete in rally racing professionally. But he did not have the luxury to pick a career. His parents, both outlaws on the bottom rung of organized crime, died before their time, leaving him with little more than substantial debts to the local syndicate. After years of committing acts of violence for subsistence, and one particularly close call that had him temporarily relocate to the US with the help of a Devilish lawyer, he finally accumulated enough resources to get himself into the driver’s seat of a rally car, only to perish in a racing incident two years into the stint. Such was his luck — or so he thought, until he accomplished the unusual feat of escaping a torment nexus and was brought back to earth under contract with an Archdevil of Gluttony to work as Head Cook in a Hell-owned New Jersey diner. In death, can he finally find a place to belong to, and people who treat him as something more than an asset or a burden? ## History - On November 30, 1956, Emil Salonen was born to Narcisa Lazar and Mika Salonen in a hovel on the Northern outskirts of Leningrad. It was a difficult childbirth; both mother and son could have died if it weren’t for the medical intervention performed by Dr. Anatoliy Morosov, trauma surgeon and Narcisa’s childhood friend, as well as Iris Morosova, Anatoliy’s wife and assistant. - Narcisa and Anatoliy grew up together in an orphanage back when the city of Leningrad — present-day Saint Petersburg — was still called Petrograd. The two formed a deep bond in part due to both being ethnic outcasts: Anatoliy, despite being given a Slavic name at the orphanage, was of Asian descent (likely Korean); Narcisa was Czech, and barely spoke any Russian at the time of being surrendered to the orphanage. For a few years, they were inseparable, until Anatoliy was adopted by an older, upper middle class couple who could not have their own children. Narcisa ran away from the orphanage soon after, and the two lost contact with each other. - Years later, in her 20s, Narcisa met Mika Salonen while living in Moscow. She was a high-class escort; he was a bodyguard and assassin employed by one of her clients. They fell in love with each other, broke things off with their current employers, and eloped to Leningrad, where Mika had a few acquaintances — fellow Finns working for the Soviet underworld. Back in the city of her childhood, Narcisa managed to find and reconnect with Anatoliy, who by this point had become a reputable trauma surgeon working in one of the city’s largest hospitals, and had married one of the nurses on his team, Iris Morosova (née Lang), a tall woman of few words from Dresden, East Germany. Their son, Dmitriy, was 5 years old at the time. - About a year after settling down in Leningrad, Narcisa gave birth to Emil. - Throughout his childhood and teenage years, Emil spent a significant amount of time living with the Morosovs. Narcisa and Mika wanted Emil to live a decent life away from organized crime; and Anatoliy and Iris were more than understanding, effectively taking Emil in and treating him as one of their own. - However, Emil’s borrowed, peaceful life came to an abrupt end, sooner than anyone had expected. The year was 1975; Emil was 18, attending a gymnasium in Leningrad, and doing quite well academically; Dmitriy was 24, studying medicine at a university in Moscow, having resolved to leave his home city after butting heads with his father over political issues for the past few years. - In February, KGB agents came to the Morosovs’ apartment and arrested both Anatoliy and Iris for suspected anti-state activities. They would not survive the Gulag labor camps. Dmitriy would receive heavily censored letters from time to time, until he was notified of his parents’ deaths about two years later. He himself only narrowly escaped condemnation thanks to having a record of participating in student government and being vocally pro-state. - In August, Mika suffered a severe injury in a mission. The medics of his mercenary group tried their best, but wasn’t able to treat him in an effective manner. His wounds became infected and he died of a septic shock. Emil and Narcisa were by his side as he passed. - After Mika’s death, Narcisa fell back into her heroin habit, from which she had been sober for more than a decade. She died of an overdose in October. - Due to past mistakes as well as Narcisa’s recent relapse, Emil’s parents owed a large amount of money to the crime syndicate behind the mercenary group that employed Mika up until his death. In order to pay off his parents’ debt, Emil started mercenary training by the end of the year 1975, and started working for the syndicate shortly after. Meanwhile, Dmitriy applied to transfer to a medical college in Leningrad, and moved back into his parents’ apartment, where Emil was still living. Knowing where he was headed, Emil attempted to extricate himself from Dmitriy’s life, only to be stopped by Dmitriy as the latter absolutely refused to let him go. Looking back, Emil recognizes Dmitriy’s companionship as the reason he made it through the darkest period of his life. - Years passed, and both of them progressed in their careers. Dmitriy became a surgeon of some renown, while Emil nearly paid off his parents’ debt and gained some degree of recognition in the underworld. Emil was feeling complacent, but Dmitriy wasn’t. Dmitriy wanted to leave the country; go to a different continent, if possible. It took him years, but he finally got all his documents signed and approved. And he wanted Emil to go with him, with whatever method Emil could employ, and cut all ties with organized crime after. Dmitriy wanted a fresh start, but Emil thought it was impossible. He believed the people he worked for would hunt them until the end of their lives, and so he refused to go. Dmitriy left for the U.S. by himself. - Somehow, they still managed to keep in touch, despite the distance and the nature of Emil’s existence. They wrote letters to each other, and spoke over the phone sometimes. - In December 1989, Emil took part in a high profile mission that went south disastrously. He went into hiding in the fallout, with both the syndicate and state police on his tail. Dmitriy reached out to him in a coded newspaper notice, expressing that he would help — look for someone who could get Emil out of this crisis. As it turned out, the lawyer Dmitriy found was Solomon Malphus, who provided the disguise and falsified documents Emil needed to travel to the US, and later handled the legal charges against him. In hindsight, Solomon’s maneuver was likely backed by supernatural powers; but neither Emil nor Dmitriy could see beyond the veil back then. - Emil stayed in Los Angeles with Dmitriy for about a year before the feelings between them got too stilted and rancid to endure. Besides, he never was able to acclimate to the U.S. West Coast. Enlisting Solomon’s help again, Emil went back to Europe, settled his unfinished business with some old acquaintances, and started a short yet not unimpressive stint as a rally driver under the fake name “Anton Morosov”. For Emil, it was a real childhood dream come true, and a great deal of fun while it lasted. - In May 1994, three years after he left Dmitriy and two years into his rally racing career, Emil died in an incident during the Corsica round of the World Rally Championship, and went to Hell. He spent the next six years toiling in the flaming bloody rivers of Wrath. He did not have coherent memories from this time, only fragments of hallucinations where he was made to relive the pain he inflicted upon others on behalf of his past employers. - Somehow, he managed to get out. As the torment became harder and harder to withstand, his instinct — cultivated from years of anti-torture and escape training, as well as firsthand experiences — must have kicked in. He could not quite recall the exact details of the escape, but when he regained consciousness, he was driving some sort of amphibious vehicle, likely stolen from someone, through a strange marshland — the Demon Wastes surrounding the torment nexus in Wrath. He was adrift by himself for some time, avoiding strange creatures roaming the Wastes, until he was discovered, inexplicably, by an Archduke of Greed called Egelon, who offered him a path back to the world of the living. All he needed to do was to work as head chef in a diner that was about to open in a town on the U.S. East Coast. And, if all goes well, perhaps Egelon would even support his return into motorsports… ## Relationships ### Dmitriy Lang <img class="relationship-image" src="chibi_dmitriy.jpg" alt="Chibi Dmitriy"> Emil’s once codependent Ex-Something. They had a long, difficult, and enmeshed history together, but Dmitriy remembers none of it now, ostensibly thanks to Heaven magic. Perhaps that is for the best for both of them. If only the mere thought of him doesn’t hurt so much... <div class="buffer-xs"></div> ### Ishatari Damawi <img class="relationship-image" src="chibi_isha_2.jpg" alt="Chibi Isha"> An old goddess stripped of her power and forced into servitude, whom Emil latched onto out of a need for a new master (or a ward, it’s hard to tell sometimes). If anything happened to her, he would kill everyone involved and then himself. <div class="buffer-xs"></div> ### Solomon Malphus <img class="relationship-image" src="chibi_solomon.jpg" alt="Chibi Solomon"> The Devil lawyer who’s helped Emil get acquitted of crimes he definitely did commit, and owns 48% of his soul. Since becoming coworkers at the Deviled Egg, their relationship has developed in a heated and potentially disastrous direction... <div class="buffer-xs"></div> ### The Voron <img class="relationship-image" src="chibi_voron.jpg" alt="Chibi Voron"> Russian mob boss who formerly employed Emil on a few occasions. Definitely not a necromancer who orchestrated the racing incident that killed Emil just so that she could claim his body as her own instrument. <div class="buffer-xs"></div> ### ??? <img class="relationship-image" src="chibi_emil.jpg" alt="Chibi Emil"> What becomes of a body without a soul? Does a new consciousness arise out of the stillness and decay? Might any trace of the original person still remain? <div class="buffer-s"></div> ### Narsica Lazar and Mika Salonen Emil’s parents. Back when they were alive, he loved them yet also feared them to an extent. Now, he remembers them as the best version of them, and misses them dearly. He only wishes they are no longer stuck in a torment nexus somewhere — even if that means their souls no longer exist. ## Trivia - Emil, Dmitriy, and all four of their parents were originally conceived as characters in an entirely separate OC project, a far-future space opera with aliens and bio-mechs. The Devilverse version of them has essentially become a Cold War AU of their canon story, hence the convoluted parental lore. - Emil’s favorite F1 driver is Ayrton Senna, who, in this timeline, died a mere 5 days before Emil did — Senna died during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix on May 1, Emil died during the 4th round of the 1994 World Rally Championship on May 6. Nowadays Emil considers it quite an honor to have perished so close in time to the F1 legend. - Emil’s favorite rally driver is Michèle Mouton; a biased pick, because Mouton’s attitude during televised interviews back in the day reminded him a bit of Iris, Dmitriy’s mother. While active as rally driver Anton Morosov, Emil met Mouton in person a few times, and thought she was much more approachable than how she appeared on TV. Notably, Henri Toivonen, a Finnish driver who was a rival and friend to Mouton, also perished during the Corsican stage of the WRC 8 years before Emil did. The irony of the situation was not lost on Emil. - Emil used to read a lot of poetry as a teen. He would say that Pushkin was his favorite, and it was not a lie, but his actual top two were Mandelstam and Akhmatova, who were not received positively in the Soviet Union at the time. The Morosovs’ family library contained an extensive collection of their works though. - Emil’s favorite song of all time is “We Are the Dead” by David Bowie, from his 1974 album *Diamond Dogs*. ## Gallery <div class="gallery"> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="chibi_emil.jpg" alt="Chibi Emil"> <figcaption>Chibi Emil. Art by Kris.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emil_pfp.jpg" alt="Emil pfp"> <figcaption>Emil’s profile picture from the 2025-2026 Storyboard Anthology. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="evilemil_roguesgallery.jpg" alt="Waist-up art of Evil Emil in a manga style."> <figcaption>Evil Emil’s sprite for Emil’s rogues gallery in the 2025-2026 Storyboard Anthology. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emil_isha_manga_chibi.jpg" alt="Chibi Emil and Isha from the manga cover."> <figcaption>Chibi Emil and Isha from the manga cover. Art by Felix.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emil_puppy.jpg" alt="Puppy Emil."> <figcaption>Puppy Emil. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emote_emil_cry.jpg" alt="Emil’s crying emote."> <figcaption>Emil’s crying emote. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emote_emil_vroom.jpg" alt="Emil’s VROOM emote."> <figcaption>Emil’s VROOM emote. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emote_babyemil_point.jpg" alt="Baby Emil’s pointing emote."> <figcaption>Baby Emil’s pointing emote. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emil_dmitriy_whitefish.jpg" alt="Baby Emil and Dmitriy catching a 2 kilo whitefish."> <figcaption>2 KILO WHITEFISH! Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emil_good_evil.jpg" alt="Good and Evil Emil."> <figcaption>Good and Evil Emil. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emil_bow.jpg" alt="Emil wrapped up in a bow."> <figcaption>Emil wrapped up in a bow. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="emil_pompompurin.jpg" alt="Emil with Pom Pom Purin."> <figcaption>Emil with Pom Pom Purin. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="minecraft_emil.gif" alt="Emil’s Minecraft skin."> <figcaption>Emil’s Minecraft skin. Art by Felix.</figcaption> </figure> <figure class="gallery-item"> <img src="jonny_emil_solomon_leslie_chibis_jiayi.jpg" alt="Chibi sketches Jonny, Emil, Solomon, and Leslie."> <figcaption>Chibi sketches of Jonny, Emil, Solomon, and Leslie. Art by Jiayi.</figcaption> </figure> </div>