![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
massive half-assed attempt at a timeline
WARNING FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT, SUICIDE, MURDER, GORE, DUBIOUS CONSENT, TORTURE, DRUG USE, AND DORIAN BEING A MASSIVE SKEEVEBALL
Dorian Gray was born in November 8, 1862. He was the eldest of two children, the other being his younger sister, Isadora. When Dorian was young, around ten, his father died. The shock led Dorian's mother to be institutionalized and Dorian and Isadora went to live with their aunt and uncle. In 1879, when Dorian was 16, a new housekeeper was appointed to the Gray household: Constance Harker. Verbally abusive towards Dorian, the two got along like a pair of wet cats. Dorian was a lonely boy, with few friends, preferring the company of books to people. Constance took advantage of this loneliness to coerce Dorian into having sex with her. The two maintained a strained relationship afterwards, until the embodiment of Dorian's loneliness (manifesting as an imaginary friend) got jealous and pushed Constance down a flight of stairs, killing her as Dorian watched. (2.5, Running Away With You)
If that last sentence doesn't give you a good idea of the sheer weirdness of this canon, I don't know what does. Buckle in, gang.
Eventually, Dorian makes his way to London. As a bachelor, he had two good friends: Basil Hawthorne (a painter) and Lord Henry Wotton (a hedonist). After viewing a portrait of him painted by Basil, Dorian says something along the lines of "hot damn, I would give anything to be that beautiful forever." And somehow it worked. Who knew? Not knowing about his immortality, Dorian visited a theater where he fell in love with the beautiful actress Sibyl Vane. Dorian and Sibyl became lovers, utterly in love with each other. However, during one performance, Dorian's shocked to discover that Sibyl's acting went from sublime to terrible. She blames it on her love for Dorian, something that he doesn't take well. Lashing out at Sibyl about how she's wasting her talent, wasting the only thing she had, Dorian essentially ends their relationship. That night, Sibyl commits suicide, and Dorian notices the blemish on his portrait for the first time.
Flash forward sixteen years. Dorian hasn't aged a bit and is definitely aware that something funky's going on. He first meets Oscar Wilde in 1888, at the height of the Jack the Ripper murders. The two get along poorly at first: Oscar doesn't like how lightly Dorian's treating the murders. But they end up getting along in the end, as Dorian ends up helping Oscar out after the man has a bit of a nervous attack in the streets (5.1, One Must Not Look at Mirrors)
In an argument, in 1891, Dorian attacks Basil with a knife, killing him in the process. He blackmails Alan Campbell, a chemist, to dispose of the body. (side note: don't try to reconcile any sort of Picture of Dorian Gray dates with the dates given in Confessions. They don't add up. And will never add up)
Trying to escape the guilt of his crime, Dorian visits an opium den. There, he meets James Vane, Sibyl's brother, who he deceives into believing that he wasn't Dorian Gray himself (after all, the last time he saw James was eighteen years ago.) After someone told James that no, that man was Dorian, James started to stalk Dorian, trying to find an opportunity to kill the man himself. Unfortunately, James is killed during a hunting accident. (Picture of Dorian Gray)
After the "disappearance" of Basil Hallward, the noted detective Sherlock Holmes got involved. Suspecting Alan of murdering Basil, Sherlock interviewed Dorian and others about the murder. Despite interviewing Dorian three times, Sherlock couldn't find any decisive evidence that Alan murdered Basil (or that Dorian was a fishy motherfucker himself). Alan walked free but (supposedly) took his own life shortly after, partly due to Sherlock damning him in the press. (x.1, Ghosts of Christmas Past)
And this is the point in the story where you go 'wait a moment, I know how this book ends, Dorian shouldn't be alive.' You're right. Except he is. Our Dorian never attacked the painting and still remains immortal--what is known as The Picture of Dorian Gray in CODGverse is actually fictional, written by Oscar Wilde, a man who Dorian had a close friendship with. So Dorian Gray is alive and well and still an utter, utter, horrible human being.
At some point, Dorian started up a relationship with Spencer, a Victorian or possibly Edwardian gentleman (the time period is iffy at this point). However something that's possibly the Devil came to Spencer, talking to him in his dreams, telling him not to tell anyone about it. At one point, the Devil takes over Spencer entirely. Dorian then chokes Spencer in an attempt to kill the Devil entirely. (Benny Summerfield, Legion, it counts as canon okay?)
During a trip to Paris, Dorian essentially ditched his sister Isadora. The two wouldn't come in contact with each other for more than fifty years. Sometime during this point, Oscar Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray but that doesn't fit up with timelines at all so I'm fudging it, much like canon does.
In 1900, getting word that Oscar Wilde was dying, Dorian visited his old friend in a shabby hotel in Paris, where Wilde expressed concerns that the wallpaper was trying to kill him by tormenting him with the spirits of the dead. Turns out that the wallpaper was haunted by demons, which were tormenting Wilde and trying to steal his soul. Dorian stays a night at the hotel and is confronted by the demons himself but, as he tells the hotel's manager who's in the room with him, he doesn't have a soul so he's essentially safe. The demons take the manager's soul instead. Dorian then ollies out of Paris, but not before telling one of Wilde's friends to get the man a priest, a rabbi, something to help save his soul. (1.1, This World This Hell)
1902, Ireland. Dorian visits Ireland with one of his friends, Robert Mardling, who won the house in a card game. The house was decrepit and staffed only by Mary O'Tubridy, a woman who believed a banshee haunted her. Odd things started happening during the night: chills down his spine, terrible dreams, the words 'HELP ME' being written in spilled salt. In the morning, Dorian and Robert woke up to the house practically turning into a bog. Dorian figured out that the banshee was behind this and that it couldn't scream. As banshees only screamed to herald the arrival of a violent death, Dorian announces that he's going to kill Mary O'Tubridy, the banshee screams, the house rights itself, and then Dorian just axe murders an old woman. Classy. (4.5, Banshee)
Then Dorian continues his wonderful life of being a douchebag! Notably, in 1911, he seduces a woman named Rosina Sawyer then essentially abandons her and her unborn child. Distraught, Rosina commits suicide after seetting fire to the music hall that she used to work at. (1.2, Houses in Between)
Dorian is brought back to London around Christmas of 1912, arriving for Lord Henry's funeral. Unfortunately, he discovers that his painting has been stolen: in its place was left a ransom note telling him that in order to get the painting back, he needed to kill Sherlock Holmes. Dorian decided to go to Sherlock for help, explaining the true circumstances of Basil's murder to the man in the process. Adding in the reappearance of Sibyl Vane and the reappearance of a younger James Moriarty causes Sherlock to take up the case. They investigate and it turns out that Sibyl Vane? Isn't Sibyl Vane. She's the illegitimate daughter of the very-much-alive Alan Campbell who had tried to kill Dorian and Sherlock for ruining his life. Sherlock and Dorian manage to figure out Alan's plan, swap the paintings, and trick Alan Campbell into confessing his crimes. (x.1, Ghosts of Christmas Past)
The younger James Moriarty, however? Never explained. Maybe it's a ghost? Spooooooky.
1913, Brighton. After watching two men playing a long game of chess over a matter of weeks, Dorian follows one of them home. Talking with the man, Edward Montague, he learns that the two men are estranged brothers, and the chess game is their only contact. Despite Edward's warnings, Dorian follows Edward's brother home. After he's accosted by the man, Dorian and Edward's brother go to a church, and then later a bar--where Dorian inadvertently reveals his immortality to the man. The next morning, it's revealed that Dorian was set up and arrested for murder so that Edward's brother could get the address of Edward's home--it's also revealed that Edward Montague's brother is Dr. Henry Jekyll. Jekyll burns down Edward's home, killing his wife and his children. (2.4, Immortal Game)
Sometime before World War I, Dorian went to Cambridge where he met Evan Morgan, the Viscount Tredegar (Worlds of Big Finish).
During World War I, Dorian fought on the side of the Allies.
1915, Angel of Mons (5.2)
He saved his commanding officer, James Anderson, from mustard gas, giving the man his gas mask and bearing the brunt of the mustard gas himself. He got better (obviously). Later, in 1920 around Halloween, Dorian goes to Edinburgh to see James one more time. When he reaches Edinburgh, Dorian meets a masked man who gives him a business card with the name "Deacon Brodie" on it. In a bar, Dorian attempts to reconcile with James but, shocking no one, James FLIPS A SHIT when he sees the supposedly-dead Dorian and storms out of the bar.
In a furniture shop, Dorian learns about Deacon Brodie: a furniture maker who essentially robbed his customers. He also learns about the other side of the furniture shop...a secret bodyswapping society. Shenanigans ensue, with Deacon Brodie taking control of Dorian's body. Dorian tortures Brodie until the man gives up his body. However James, utterly terrified by Dorian's brutality, leaves Dorian to his own devices. (x.2, Prime of Deacon Brodie)
August, 1927. Dorian visits a country club where Evan (the Viscount) was hosting a bigass house party. Said bigass house party goes TERRIBLY WRONG when, during a seance, Alexander Korvo (mystic and all-around bad news) summons Magog, a demon who's supposed to bring about the end of the world, which proceeds to possess Pamela, a friend of Dorian & Evan's. Possessed-Pamela tries to burn the book that's kicking this crossover into gear, The History of Earth by Kronos Vad—Dorian solves this problem by pushing her out a window. He also solves the problem of Alexander Korvo by playing chicken with his car, leaving Korvo to crash into a tree. This is also dubiously canonical but who cares! I like it! (Worlds of Big Finish)
1929, London. Something is killing powerful men throughout the city: suffocating them and choking them to death on fumes. After coming across a corpse, Dorian finds himself investigating the mystery. The murderer turns out to be a powerful mist, interred from the graves of it's previous victims due to an earthquake, intent on killing men who make others suffer. Dorian lures it back to the graveyard before taking all of the mist into his body before exhaling it and trapping it inside a perfume bottle. (4.4)
In 1939, while visiting New York, Dorian meets up with an old friend Dorothy Parker. While visiting an exhibit on antiquities, a notable American fascist was murdered in a locked hotel room. After breaking into the hotel room, Dorian and Dorothy find out that the murderer is a golem, specifically the monstrous Golem of Prague. Dorian manages to calm the golem, rendering it inert by erasing one of the characters on the golem's head. (2.3, Murder on 81st Street)
The next year, Dorian moves back to the UK, specifically London. During this time, he was tormented by the souls of the people he discarded, the people he hurt and corrupted in the past and which were now bound to Earth like he was. To get rid of one of these souls (including Rosina Sawyer, hey there girl,) Dorian walked in the path of a German bomb, 'burning' the souls away while inflicting endless pain upon himself in the process. (1.2, Houses In Between)
1947: Frostbite
1948, fun with cults and Dottie (5.3)
1949, London. Dorian Does Domestic (4.8)
1952: Dorian attends university for a bit, majoring in English literature. He helps Dr. Adam Notting with BEAST, a supercomputer project dedicated to learning poetry. It...gets worse because Dorian just expects fun with Adam, while he's focused mostly on getting tenure & securing his position. After one fight, Dorian slits his wrist, showing Adam his healing abilities in the process. Adam...does not take this well, calling Dorian 'the perfect simulacrum,' a machine that can pass for human. Dorian tells Adam to just go to hell as he straight up abandons Adam. (4.1, Enigma of Dorian Gray)
After that, he decided to olly out of London and starts to travel, following the footsteps of explorers who had disappeared on their journeys, following the paths of vanished expeditions, things like that. In 1956, he makes his way to Singapore, where his sister Isadora lives. However, Isadora shouldn't be alive--her name was on a ship's register of the dead and yet she's living alive and well in Singapore. She accidentally releases dragon spirits, which then possess her, and spends the rest of her life trying to hold back the dragons. In order to prevent the dragons from possessing him (and, at Isadora's assistance), Dorian snaps her neck and travels back to Paris with Isadora's corpse, with the dragons trapped inside, which he buries deeeep below the ground. (1.3, Twittering of Sparrows)
Sometime before 1964, Dorian went back to England and now we have the BEST STORY EVER: Dorian Gray in a mod band. He was the singer of Dorian Gray and the Hedonists, a mildly popular mod band touring England at the time. As he goes to a rock concert by a band, the Gravediggers, Dorian notices that there's something odd about the band: they're driving the crowd into a maddening fury. Turns out that their lead singer, Otto, is something from another dimension, with the ability to somehow drive people into an ecstatic fury. When they meet, Dorian drugs Otto's tea, causing his powers to go haywire at a Gravediggers concert. Whipped on by his ability, the fans literally tear Otto apart and eat him. (2.2, Lords of Misrule)
In 1968, Dorian heads down to Salford for the decommissioning of BEAUTY, Adam Notting's latest project. After a conversation with BEAUTY, the machine reveals that BEAUTY was based on Dorian, but contains Adam's memories, downloaded into the machine when Adam realized he was suffering from something akin to Alzheimers. BEAUTY reveals that it summoned Dorian, who it views as the template, and believes that Dorian will complete it in order to make it Notting. However, BEAUTY's just a machine. It was decommissioned shortly after. (4.1, Enigma of Dorian Gray)
Also, sometimes in the 1960s, Dorian hung out with Frank Sinatra and told Quentin Collins from Dark Shadows basically to forget about a former love of his. No idea how canonical this story is, though, Big Finish REALLY LIKES CROSSOVERS. (Dark Shadows: The Darkest Shadow)
August 1974, Greece. Dorian and his girlfriend of four years, Alyssa, take a yacht trip to Greece. In international waters, they spot something in the water. Something large. Something big. Something that's a motherfucking kraken. The two try to outrun the kraken before Dorian literally sets it on fire. The boat sinks but the two of them land on an island. It's after that time that Alyssa breaks up with him. She wants to settle down. She knows Dorian never would. (4.6)
That same year, somewhere in Scandinavia, Dorian almost hits the goddess Freya with his car. The two talk in a mountain cabin, Dorian attempts to hit on her, and gets massively rejected. It turns out Freya's being chased by a literal troll. Dorian and Freya attempt to set the troll on fire via Molotov Cocktail—it doesn't take. So, as the troll starts WRECKING EVERYTHING, the two run away and then later attempt to get rid of the troll by luring it onto a lake, the ice cracking under it's weight. Unfortunately, the troll grabs hold of Freya and drags her down into the depths with it, Dorian unable to save her. (4.2, Freya)
In 1976, Dorian settles back in London. He settles down in a flat, keeping things sparse. One night, he brings home a girl...who turns out to be possessed by a ghost, who had haunted the flat. The girl killed him, then left. Dorian moved out but kept the property intact. (The Anniversary)
We next see Dorian in 1986, specifically Whitby. It's here that he meets Tobias Matthews: vampire. After Toby snubs Dorian for a while (and Dorian, not used to being denied, decides to be a freaking stalker about all this) the two decide to pursue a romantic relationship, lasting at least a year. (1.4, Heart that Lives Alone)
During this time, Toby starts to lose his memory, occasionally forgetting things—like what Dorian looks like. While watching Toby sleep, Dorian spots a mark on his body: the mark of an ancient Greek goddess. Dorian chats with the goddess, calling her out, and barters ten years of his memory if the goddess leaves both of them alone. She accepts, taking Dorian's memory of 1976-1986, stopping before he meets Toby at the Halloween Party. (The Anniversary)
It's during this relationship that Dorian paints Toby a picture of himself. This utterly freaks Toby out as he only sees the death and destruction in things, whereas Dorian sees the beauty--a fact which is reflected in the painting. Shaken up by the painting, Toby decides to commit suicide, and Dorian walks out with him as Toby dies from exposure to the sun. (1.4, Heart that Lives Alone)
The 1990s weren't great for Dorian. He plunged himself into a suicidal depression, brought on by the death of Toby. In 1992, Dorian visited Aisha Grant, a woman in Florida. The two teamed up to seal the spirit of necromancer Loretta Delphine in her picture (after battling a bunch of zombies in the process). (2.1, Picture of Loretta Delphine)
In 1998, Dorian checks himself into a hospital to get his appendix removed, mostly because this is the 1990s and he's still doing that spiral—also, considering that he previously got his appendix removed at this hospital for kicks, he knows they'll give him lots of drugs. The hospital is stalked by some horrible flesh monster thing that tore the face off of one of the doctors. Dorian and a nurse team up to find that the horrible flesh monster is actually the remains of Dorian's first appendix, made sentient due to the horrible air and haunted nature of the building itself. They push the flesh appendix monster in a crematory chamber and then probably spend a moment wondering what the fuck just happened (4.3, Human Remains)
Only when he met someone new (Natalie Isaacs, a famous painter) did he spring out of this depression. However, after a one night stand, Natalie vanished. After a long search for her, Dorian ran into Natalie again, on New Years Eve. On that night, she revealed to him that she had a brain tumor. Desperate to learn more about her and spend their last few days together, Dorian took Natalie to his bank vault, where the portrait resides.
And then Natalie stole the portrait. WHOOPS. For some reason, once she stole the portrait, Dorian started to grow older. He enlisted the help of Tom Sadler, former security guard, to help in search of clues. After finding an ad in the paper pointing them in a direction of a clue, Dorian and Tom make their way to an abandoned warehouse, filled with copies of Dorian's original portrait. These copies acted as portals to Dorian's memories: once he looked at them, he saw a different memory of his past and acted as a restorative, helping Dorian grow stronger and stronger. Eventually, Dorian got his original portrait back along with his youth, decided not to kill Natalie, thanked Tom for his help and ollied out with his portrait, deciding to keep it closer to him now, instead of locked up in a vault. (x.3, Mayfair Monster)
Flash forward ten years to 2007. At this point, Dorian has a job as a London banker, moonlighting as a cocaine dealer. After a night on the town, he brings back Simon Darlow, an investment banker to his flat. Even after realizing that his relationship with Simon will inevitably parallel Dorian's own relationship with Henry, he continues to meet up with him. However, two of Dorian's coworkers die and Dorian starts to have dreams of the people he killed, the people whose lives he's ruined, and he starts to suspect that it somehow has something to do with Simon. It turns out to be evil cocaine that tries to convince Dorian to commit suicide. Dorian's only talked down by Simon, who entreats Dorian to just get away from this high intensity world of his for a while. (1.5, Fallen King of Britain)
So that's...a story.
In 2009, Dorian visits Iceland in order to see the Northern Lights. There, he meets a group of werewolves, unfortunately right around the full moon. He manages to escape from being torn to shreds, but he does get bit in the process. That's when Dorian learns that his portrait can take on a nasty case of lycanthropy as well as all the wounds he's previously acquired. (4.7)
In summer of 2012, after receiving a letter, Dorian goes to Florida in order to meet up with Kayla Grant, the daughter of Aisha Grant. After discovering Aisha's house with blood scrawled on the walls, Dorian discovers that Kayla Grant is possessed by Loretta Delphine herself. He tricks Delphine into entering his body. But, because he has no soul, Delphine essentially cannot possess Dorian as she possessed Kayla. In an act of defiance, Dorian sets the house on fire, unfortunately killing Kayla, but destroying Delphine in the process. (2.1, Loretta Delphine)
A few months after this, Dorian moves back to England and converts his childhood home in Kew into a series of flats, renting them out to boarders. Unfortunately, some of the boarders have started dying. And he's started to hear the ghost of Constance Harker crying out to him. He calls Brennan Doyle, a (for lack of a better term) ghostbuster in order to exorcise Constance. However, it turned out that Doyle was that same imaginary friend from way back when, the one who pushed Constance down a flight of stairs. Driven by guilt and self-loathing, Dorian stabbed the painting, dying "to protect people from his mistakes" as well as to save the soul of Constance Harker. He remained trapped in the painting, alone with his thoughts and memories (2.5, Running Away With You)
That sucked! So when Dorian had the opportunity to leave, you bet your ass he took it. It's not really specified just who Dorian made the deal with, but it's implied out the whoa that it's Satan or some other form of demonic entity. But the deal was this: murder some people, get some attributes of yourself back. Voice, body, youth, soul, in that order, one murder per attribute. Deciding he really didn't need a soul all that much, Dorian murdered three drunk twenty-something trespassers to gain back his voice, body, and youth. (3.1, Blank Canvas)
Now that one's not dead, time to catch up with old friends! Dorian visits Simon Darlow, now working at a high profile firm, to get his affairs back in order and get some cash on hand. Unfortunately, Dorian and Simon discover that the shiny new office building which Simon works in was built on top of a plague pit...and is haunted by the ghosts of the plague victims. The knowledge of the plague pit is enough to satisfy the ghosts and the building collapses (3.2, The Needle)
Life goes on for Dorian for a few weeks until he has the few weeks from HELL. Someone's tipped off Luke Glass, serial killer stalker psychopath, about Dorian's immortality. It's a couple of weeks of Luke giving Dorian a daily murder before Luke locks Dorian in some Saw-style murder room. Dorian manages to turn the tables on Luke and get him locked in said murder room, leaving Luke to die and going on his merry way...except right after the murder room, he meets Victoria Lowell, all around enigmatic and leader of the Lowell Foundation (3.3, We Are Everywhere).
Victoria offers Dorian a job, telling him that due to his revival, all sorts of supernatural nonsense in London is acting up and she wants him to be an agent for the foundation, exploring and figuring out the supernatural nonsense. Dorian declines, before walking right into another bout of supernatural nonsense. This time it's a Tube train, haunted by what Dorian thought were spirits from his past but turn out to be something that's trying to get his portrait and okay, yeah, he'll join up with the Lowell Foundation, happy now Victoria? (3.4, Echoes)
His first action as an agent for the Lowell Foundation is to check out Madame Pandora, a psychic and tarot card reader who can grant people their heart's desire...except they die the next day. Dorian discovers that while Madame Pandora doesn't have any supernatural powers, her cards do. He promptly chucks them in a fire. However, this is after Dorian gets a reading...and his heart's desire is revealed to be 'the Lovers'...and Tobias Matthews shows up at his doorstep, alive and well (3.5, Pandora).
Dorian and Toby don't even get to hash out the 'why the fuck are you alive' bit before yet another problem (literally) comes to Dorian's doorstep: Ivor, the vampire who turned Toby, wants Dorian's help in getting rid of a siren that he's made a pact with. Turns out that Ivor just wants Dorian to be a meal ticket for said siren, but Dorian and Toby manage to team up and make short work of it. (3.6, Heart and Soul).
Like literally an hour after drowning a siren, Victoria shows up and tells Dorian and Toby to attend an art gallery opening with her as cover for some Illegal Shit. It turns out that they were played: the Lowell Foundation is actually an organization to eliminate the supernatural, and Dorian Gray is Target #1. Victoria sets Dorian up to take the fall as she steals a bloodstone, a mystic object that can give life to lifeless beings. The bloodstone is powered by love (I'm serious) and the love between Dorian and Toby is enough for the thing to work: Victoria brings Dorian's portrait to life, hoping that all the rage, anger, and hatred that the portrait's taken on will be enough to convince the now-sentient portrait to murder Dorian (3.7, Displacement Activity.)
The portrait murders Victoria instead. And a few other people. But eventually it makes it's way to the art gallery to try and murder Dorian! As the portrait monologues, Dorian realizes that the love between him & Toby is key to keeping the portrait alive. So when Toby busts in to try and save the day, Dorian has to essentially break Toby's heart in order to revert the portrait to it's prior state. He does so, leaving Dorian and Toby's relationship in a bit of a limbo for the moment (3.8)
The two eventually make up and move in together.
- Santa is the literal worst (x.4)
On New Years Eve, Dorian and Toby decide to spend the evening at the Hotel Brigadoon. Unfortunately, the Brigadoon lives up to it's name: it shows up once a year before vanishing somewhere else entirely. Dorian and Toby do a little investigating and learn that the Brigadoon is actually a prison for Lucifer and that they're in danger of being trapped here with him. They meet Lucifer himself and strike a deal with the devil (eyyy): if Dorian takes back his soul, they'll be let go from the building. Dorian agrees.
It's only when Dorian and Toby leave the building that Dorian learns the horrible truth: vampires are soulless. The thing that was powering Toby and keeping him alive after his resurrection was Dorian's soul. When Dorian took it back, he left Toby as a soulless shell of a body, perfect for Lucifer to slip into and make his way to the waking world. So now Dorian is +1 soul, -1 boyfriend, and +1 case of the devil hanging out in his boyfriend's body (x.5)
2016, Ever After, 5.4
2020, Isolation
2022, Before Your Eyes
tl;dr, Dorian Gray never fucking learns and it's really hard to sum up some of these audio plays without it sounding utterly bonkers.
Dorian Gray was born in November 8, 1862. He was the eldest of two children, the other being his younger sister, Isadora. When Dorian was young, around ten, his father died. The shock led Dorian's mother to be institutionalized and Dorian and Isadora went to live with their aunt and uncle. In 1879, when Dorian was 16, a new housekeeper was appointed to the Gray household: Constance Harker. Verbally abusive towards Dorian, the two got along like a pair of wet cats. Dorian was a lonely boy, with few friends, preferring the company of books to people. Constance took advantage of this loneliness to coerce Dorian into having sex with her. The two maintained a strained relationship afterwards, until the embodiment of Dorian's loneliness (manifesting as an imaginary friend) got jealous and pushed Constance down a flight of stairs, killing her as Dorian watched. (2.5, Running Away With You)
If that last sentence doesn't give you a good idea of the sheer weirdness of this canon, I don't know what does. Buckle in, gang.
Eventually, Dorian makes his way to London. As a bachelor, he had two good friends: Basil Hawthorne (a painter) and Lord Henry Wotton (a hedonist). After viewing a portrait of him painted by Basil, Dorian says something along the lines of "hot damn, I would give anything to be that beautiful forever." And somehow it worked. Who knew? Not knowing about his immortality, Dorian visited a theater where he fell in love with the beautiful actress Sibyl Vane. Dorian and Sibyl became lovers, utterly in love with each other. However, during one performance, Dorian's shocked to discover that Sibyl's acting went from sublime to terrible. She blames it on her love for Dorian, something that he doesn't take well. Lashing out at Sibyl about how she's wasting her talent, wasting the only thing she had, Dorian essentially ends their relationship. That night, Sibyl commits suicide, and Dorian notices the blemish on his portrait for the first time.
Flash forward sixteen years. Dorian hasn't aged a bit and is definitely aware that something funky's going on. He first meets Oscar Wilde in 1888, at the height of the Jack the Ripper murders. The two get along poorly at first: Oscar doesn't like how lightly Dorian's treating the murders. But they end up getting along in the end, as Dorian ends up helping Oscar out after the man has a bit of a nervous attack in the streets (5.1, One Must Not Look at Mirrors)
In an argument, in 1891, Dorian attacks Basil with a knife, killing him in the process. He blackmails Alan Campbell, a chemist, to dispose of the body. (side note: don't try to reconcile any sort of Picture of Dorian Gray dates with the dates given in Confessions. They don't add up. And will never add up)
Trying to escape the guilt of his crime, Dorian visits an opium den. There, he meets James Vane, Sibyl's brother, who he deceives into believing that he wasn't Dorian Gray himself (after all, the last time he saw James was eighteen years ago.) After someone told James that no, that man was Dorian, James started to stalk Dorian, trying to find an opportunity to kill the man himself. Unfortunately, James is killed during a hunting accident. (Picture of Dorian Gray)
After the "disappearance" of Basil Hallward, the noted detective Sherlock Holmes got involved. Suspecting Alan of murdering Basil, Sherlock interviewed Dorian and others about the murder. Despite interviewing Dorian three times, Sherlock couldn't find any decisive evidence that Alan murdered Basil (or that Dorian was a fishy motherfucker himself). Alan walked free but (supposedly) took his own life shortly after, partly due to Sherlock damning him in the press. (x.1, Ghosts of Christmas Past)
And this is the point in the story where you go 'wait a moment, I know how this book ends, Dorian shouldn't be alive.' You're right. Except he is. Our Dorian never attacked the painting and still remains immortal--what is known as The Picture of Dorian Gray in CODGverse is actually fictional, written by Oscar Wilde, a man who Dorian had a close friendship with. So Dorian Gray is alive and well and still an utter, utter, horrible human being.
At some point, Dorian started up a relationship with Spencer, a Victorian or possibly Edwardian gentleman (the time period is iffy at this point). However something that's possibly the Devil came to Spencer, talking to him in his dreams, telling him not to tell anyone about it. At one point, the Devil takes over Spencer entirely. Dorian then chokes Spencer in an attempt to kill the Devil entirely. (Benny Summerfield, Legion, it counts as canon okay?)
During a trip to Paris, Dorian essentially ditched his sister Isadora. The two wouldn't come in contact with each other for more than fifty years. Sometime during this point, Oscar Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray but that doesn't fit up with timelines at all so I'm fudging it, much like canon does.
In 1900, getting word that Oscar Wilde was dying, Dorian visited his old friend in a shabby hotel in Paris, where Wilde expressed concerns that the wallpaper was trying to kill him by tormenting him with the spirits of the dead. Turns out that the wallpaper was haunted by demons, which were tormenting Wilde and trying to steal his soul. Dorian stays a night at the hotel and is confronted by the demons himself but, as he tells the hotel's manager who's in the room with him, he doesn't have a soul so he's essentially safe. The demons take the manager's soul instead. Dorian then ollies out of Paris, but not before telling one of Wilde's friends to get the man a priest, a rabbi, something to help save his soul. (1.1, This World This Hell)
1902, Ireland. Dorian visits Ireland with one of his friends, Robert Mardling, who won the house in a card game. The house was decrepit and staffed only by Mary O'Tubridy, a woman who believed a banshee haunted her. Odd things started happening during the night: chills down his spine, terrible dreams, the words 'HELP ME' being written in spilled salt. In the morning, Dorian and Robert woke up to the house practically turning into a bog. Dorian figured out that the banshee was behind this and that it couldn't scream. As banshees only screamed to herald the arrival of a violent death, Dorian announces that he's going to kill Mary O'Tubridy, the banshee screams, the house rights itself, and then Dorian just axe murders an old woman. Classy. (4.5, Banshee)
Then Dorian continues his wonderful life of being a douchebag! Notably, in 1911, he seduces a woman named Rosina Sawyer then essentially abandons her and her unborn child. Distraught, Rosina commits suicide after seetting fire to the music hall that she used to work at. (1.2, Houses in Between)
Dorian is brought back to London around Christmas of 1912, arriving for Lord Henry's funeral. Unfortunately, he discovers that his painting has been stolen: in its place was left a ransom note telling him that in order to get the painting back, he needed to kill Sherlock Holmes. Dorian decided to go to Sherlock for help, explaining the true circumstances of Basil's murder to the man in the process. Adding in the reappearance of Sibyl Vane and the reappearance of a younger James Moriarty causes Sherlock to take up the case. They investigate and it turns out that Sibyl Vane? Isn't Sibyl Vane. She's the illegitimate daughter of the very-much-alive Alan Campbell who had tried to kill Dorian and Sherlock for ruining his life. Sherlock and Dorian manage to figure out Alan's plan, swap the paintings, and trick Alan Campbell into confessing his crimes. (x.1, Ghosts of Christmas Past)
The younger James Moriarty, however? Never explained. Maybe it's a ghost? Spooooooky.
1913, Brighton. After watching two men playing a long game of chess over a matter of weeks, Dorian follows one of them home. Talking with the man, Edward Montague, he learns that the two men are estranged brothers, and the chess game is their only contact. Despite Edward's warnings, Dorian follows Edward's brother home. After he's accosted by the man, Dorian and Edward's brother go to a church, and then later a bar--where Dorian inadvertently reveals his immortality to the man. The next morning, it's revealed that Dorian was set up and arrested for murder so that Edward's brother could get the address of Edward's home--it's also revealed that Edward Montague's brother is Dr. Henry Jekyll. Jekyll burns down Edward's home, killing his wife and his children. (2.4, Immortal Game)
Sometime before World War I, Dorian went to Cambridge where he met Evan Morgan, the Viscount Tredegar (Worlds of Big Finish).
During World War I, Dorian fought on the side of the Allies.
1915, Angel of Mons (5.2)
He saved his commanding officer, James Anderson, from mustard gas, giving the man his gas mask and bearing the brunt of the mustard gas himself. He got better (obviously). Later, in 1920 around Halloween, Dorian goes to Edinburgh to see James one more time. When he reaches Edinburgh, Dorian meets a masked man who gives him a business card with the name "Deacon Brodie" on it. In a bar, Dorian attempts to reconcile with James but, shocking no one, James FLIPS A SHIT when he sees the supposedly-dead Dorian and storms out of the bar.
In a furniture shop, Dorian learns about Deacon Brodie: a furniture maker who essentially robbed his customers. He also learns about the other side of the furniture shop...a secret bodyswapping society. Shenanigans ensue, with Deacon Brodie taking control of Dorian's body. Dorian tortures Brodie until the man gives up his body. However James, utterly terrified by Dorian's brutality, leaves Dorian to his own devices. (x.2, Prime of Deacon Brodie)
August, 1927. Dorian visits a country club where Evan (the Viscount) was hosting a bigass house party. Said bigass house party goes TERRIBLY WRONG when, during a seance, Alexander Korvo (mystic and all-around bad news) summons Magog, a demon who's supposed to bring about the end of the world, which proceeds to possess Pamela, a friend of Dorian & Evan's. Possessed-Pamela tries to burn the book that's kicking this crossover into gear, The History of Earth by Kronos Vad—Dorian solves this problem by pushing her out a window. He also solves the problem of Alexander Korvo by playing chicken with his car, leaving Korvo to crash into a tree. This is also dubiously canonical but who cares! I like it! (Worlds of Big Finish)
1929, London. Something is killing powerful men throughout the city: suffocating them and choking them to death on fumes. After coming across a corpse, Dorian finds himself investigating the mystery. The murderer turns out to be a powerful mist, interred from the graves of it's previous victims due to an earthquake, intent on killing men who make others suffer. Dorian lures it back to the graveyard before taking all of the mist into his body before exhaling it and trapping it inside a perfume bottle. (4.4)
In 1939, while visiting New York, Dorian meets up with an old friend Dorothy Parker. While visiting an exhibit on antiquities, a notable American fascist was murdered in a locked hotel room. After breaking into the hotel room, Dorian and Dorothy find out that the murderer is a golem, specifically the monstrous Golem of Prague. Dorian manages to calm the golem, rendering it inert by erasing one of the characters on the golem's head. (2.3, Murder on 81st Street)
The next year, Dorian moves back to the UK, specifically London. During this time, he was tormented by the souls of the people he discarded, the people he hurt and corrupted in the past and which were now bound to Earth like he was. To get rid of one of these souls (including Rosina Sawyer, hey there girl,) Dorian walked in the path of a German bomb, 'burning' the souls away while inflicting endless pain upon himself in the process. (1.2, Houses In Between)
1947: Frostbite
1948, fun with cults and Dottie (5.3)
1949, London. Dorian Does Domestic (4.8)
1952: Dorian attends university for a bit, majoring in English literature. He helps Dr. Adam Notting with BEAST, a supercomputer project dedicated to learning poetry. It...gets worse because Dorian just expects fun with Adam, while he's focused mostly on getting tenure & securing his position. After one fight, Dorian slits his wrist, showing Adam his healing abilities in the process. Adam...does not take this well, calling Dorian 'the perfect simulacrum,' a machine that can pass for human. Dorian tells Adam to just go to hell as he straight up abandons Adam. (4.1, Enigma of Dorian Gray)
After that, he decided to olly out of London and starts to travel, following the footsteps of explorers who had disappeared on their journeys, following the paths of vanished expeditions, things like that. In 1956, he makes his way to Singapore, where his sister Isadora lives. However, Isadora shouldn't be alive--her name was on a ship's register of the dead and yet she's living alive and well in Singapore. She accidentally releases dragon spirits, which then possess her, and spends the rest of her life trying to hold back the dragons. In order to prevent the dragons from possessing him (and, at Isadora's assistance), Dorian snaps her neck and travels back to Paris with Isadora's corpse, with the dragons trapped inside, which he buries deeeep below the ground. (1.3, Twittering of Sparrows)
Sometime before 1964, Dorian went back to England and now we have the BEST STORY EVER: Dorian Gray in a mod band. He was the singer of Dorian Gray and the Hedonists, a mildly popular mod band touring England at the time. As he goes to a rock concert by a band, the Gravediggers, Dorian notices that there's something odd about the band: they're driving the crowd into a maddening fury. Turns out that their lead singer, Otto, is something from another dimension, with the ability to somehow drive people into an ecstatic fury. When they meet, Dorian drugs Otto's tea, causing his powers to go haywire at a Gravediggers concert. Whipped on by his ability, the fans literally tear Otto apart and eat him. (2.2, Lords of Misrule)
In 1968, Dorian heads down to Salford for the decommissioning of BEAUTY, Adam Notting's latest project. After a conversation with BEAUTY, the machine reveals that BEAUTY was based on Dorian, but contains Adam's memories, downloaded into the machine when Adam realized he was suffering from something akin to Alzheimers. BEAUTY reveals that it summoned Dorian, who it views as the template, and believes that Dorian will complete it in order to make it Notting. However, BEAUTY's just a machine. It was decommissioned shortly after. (4.1, Enigma of Dorian Gray)
Also, sometimes in the 1960s, Dorian hung out with Frank Sinatra and told Quentin Collins from Dark Shadows basically to forget about a former love of his. No idea how canonical this story is, though, Big Finish REALLY LIKES CROSSOVERS. (Dark Shadows: The Darkest Shadow)
August 1974, Greece. Dorian and his girlfriend of four years, Alyssa, take a yacht trip to Greece. In international waters, they spot something in the water. Something large. Something big. Something that's a motherfucking kraken. The two try to outrun the kraken before Dorian literally sets it on fire. The boat sinks but the two of them land on an island. It's after that time that Alyssa breaks up with him. She wants to settle down. She knows Dorian never would. (4.6)
That same year, somewhere in Scandinavia, Dorian almost hits the goddess Freya with his car. The two talk in a mountain cabin, Dorian attempts to hit on her, and gets massively rejected. It turns out Freya's being chased by a literal troll. Dorian and Freya attempt to set the troll on fire via Molotov Cocktail—it doesn't take. So, as the troll starts WRECKING EVERYTHING, the two run away and then later attempt to get rid of the troll by luring it onto a lake, the ice cracking under it's weight. Unfortunately, the troll grabs hold of Freya and drags her down into the depths with it, Dorian unable to save her. (4.2, Freya)
In 1976, Dorian settles back in London. He settles down in a flat, keeping things sparse. One night, he brings home a girl...who turns out to be possessed by a ghost, who had haunted the flat. The girl killed him, then left. Dorian moved out but kept the property intact. (The Anniversary)
We next see Dorian in 1986, specifically Whitby. It's here that he meets Tobias Matthews: vampire. After Toby snubs Dorian for a while (and Dorian, not used to being denied, decides to be a freaking stalker about all this) the two decide to pursue a romantic relationship, lasting at least a year. (1.4, Heart that Lives Alone)
During this time, Toby starts to lose his memory, occasionally forgetting things—like what Dorian looks like. While watching Toby sleep, Dorian spots a mark on his body: the mark of an ancient Greek goddess. Dorian chats with the goddess, calling her out, and barters ten years of his memory if the goddess leaves both of them alone. She accepts, taking Dorian's memory of 1976-1986, stopping before he meets Toby at the Halloween Party. (The Anniversary)
It's during this relationship that Dorian paints Toby a picture of himself. This utterly freaks Toby out as he only sees the death and destruction in things, whereas Dorian sees the beauty--a fact which is reflected in the painting. Shaken up by the painting, Toby decides to commit suicide, and Dorian walks out with him as Toby dies from exposure to the sun. (1.4, Heart that Lives Alone)
The 1990s weren't great for Dorian. He plunged himself into a suicidal depression, brought on by the death of Toby. In 1992, Dorian visited Aisha Grant, a woman in Florida. The two teamed up to seal the spirit of necromancer Loretta Delphine in her picture (after battling a bunch of zombies in the process). (2.1, Picture of Loretta Delphine)
In 1998, Dorian checks himself into a hospital to get his appendix removed, mostly because this is the 1990s and he's still doing that spiral—also, considering that he previously got his appendix removed at this hospital for kicks, he knows they'll give him lots of drugs. The hospital is stalked by some horrible flesh monster thing that tore the face off of one of the doctors. Dorian and a nurse team up to find that the horrible flesh monster is actually the remains of Dorian's first appendix, made sentient due to the horrible air and haunted nature of the building itself. They push the flesh appendix monster in a crematory chamber and then probably spend a moment wondering what the fuck just happened (4.3, Human Remains)
Only when he met someone new (Natalie Isaacs, a famous painter) did he spring out of this depression. However, after a one night stand, Natalie vanished. After a long search for her, Dorian ran into Natalie again, on New Years Eve. On that night, she revealed to him that she had a brain tumor. Desperate to learn more about her and spend their last few days together, Dorian took Natalie to his bank vault, where the portrait resides.
And then Natalie stole the portrait. WHOOPS. For some reason, once she stole the portrait, Dorian started to grow older. He enlisted the help of Tom Sadler, former security guard, to help in search of clues. After finding an ad in the paper pointing them in a direction of a clue, Dorian and Tom make their way to an abandoned warehouse, filled with copies of Dorian's original portrait. These copies acted as portals to Dorian's memories: once he looked at them, he saw a different memory of his past and acted as a restorative, helping Dorian grow stronger and stronger. Eventually, Dorian got his original portrait back along with his youth, decided not to kill Natalie, thanked Tom for his help and ollied out with his portrait, deciding to keep it closer to him now, instead of locked up in a vault. (x.3, Mayfair Monster)
Flash forward ten years to 2007. At this point, Dorian has a job as a London banker, moonlighting as a cocaine dealer. After a night on the town, he brings back Simon Darlow, an investment banker to his flat. Even after realizing that his relationship with Simon will inevitably parallel Dorian's own relationship with Henry, he continues to meet up with him. However, two of Dorian's coworkers die and Dorian starts to have dreams of the people he killed, the people whose lives he's ruined, and he starts to suspect that it somehow has something to do with Simon. It turns out to be evil cocaine that tries to convince Dorian to commit suicide. Dorian's only talked down by Simon, who entreats Dorian to just get away from this high intensity world of his for a while. (1.5, Fallen King of Britain)
So that's...a story.
In 2009, Dorian visits Iceland in order to see the Northern Lights. There, he meets a group of werewolves, unfortunately right around the full moon. He manages to escape from being torn to shreds, but he does get bit in the process. That's when Dorian learns that his portrait can take on a nasty case of lycanthropy as well as all the wounds he's previously acquired. (4.7)
In summer of 2012, after receiving a letter, Dorian goes to Florida in order to meet up with Kayla Grant, the daughter of Aisha Grant. After discovering Aisha's house with blood scrawled on the walls, Dorian discovers that Kayla Grant is possessed by Loretta Delphine herself. He tricks Delphine into entering his body. But, because he has no soul, Delphine essentially cannot possess Dorian as she possessed Kayla. In an act of defiance, Dorian sets the house on fire, unfortunately killing Kayla, but destroying Delphine in the process. (2.1, Loretta Delphine)
A few months after this, Dorian moves back to England and converts his childhood home in Kew into a series of flats, renting them out to boarders. Unfortunately, some of the boarders have started dying. And he's started to hear the ghost of Constance Harker crying out to him. He calls Brennan Doyle, a (for lack of a better term) ghostbuster in order to exorcise Constance. However, it turned out that Doyle was that same imaginary friend from way back when, the one who pushed Constance down a flight of stairs. Driven by guilt and self-loathing, Dorian stabbed the painting, dying "to protect people from his mistakes" as well as to save the soul of Constance Harker. He remained trapped in the painting, alone with his thoughts and memories (2.5, Running Away With You)
That sucked! So when Dorian had the opportunity to leave, you bet your ass he took it. It's not really specified just who Dorian made the deal with, but it's implied out the whoa that it's Satan or some other form of demonic entity. But the deal was this: murder some people, get some attributes of yourself back. Voice, body, youth, soul, in that order, one murder per attribute. Deciding he really didn't need a soul all that much, Dorian murdered three drunk twenty-something trespassers to gain back his voice, body, and youth. (3.1, Blank Canvas)
Now that one's not dead, time to catch up with old friends! Dorian visits Simon Darlow, now working at a high profile firm, to get his affairs back in order and get some cash on hand. Unfortunately, Dorian and Simon discover that the shiny new office building which Simon works in was built on top of a plague pit...and is haunted by the ghosts of the plague victims. The knowledge of the plague pit is enough to satisfy the ghosts and the building collapses (3.2, The Needle)
Life goes on for Dorian for a few weeks until he has the few weeks from HELL. Someone's tipped off Luke Glass, serial killer stalker psychopath, about Dorian's immortality. It's a couple of weeks of Luke giving Dorian a daily murder before Luke locks Dorian in some Saw-style murder room. Dorian manages to turn the tables on Luke and get him locked in said murder room, leaving Luke to die and going on his merry way...except right after the murder room, he meets Victoria Lowell, all around enigmatic and leader of the Lowell Foundation (3.3, We Are Everywhere).
Victoria offers Dorian a job, telling him that due to his revival, all sorts of supernatural nonsense in London is acting up and she wants him to be an agent for the foundation, exploring and figuring out the supernatural nonsense. Dorian declines, before walking right into another bout of supernatural nonsense. This time it's a Tube train, haunted by what Dorian thought were spirits from his past but turn out to be something that's trying to get his portrait and okay, yeah, he'll join up with the Lowell Foundation, happy now Victoria? (3.4, Echoes)
His first action as an agent for the Lowell Foundation is to check out Madame Pandora, a psychic and tarot card reader who can grant people their heart's desire...except they die the next day. Dorian discovers that while Madame Pandora doesn't have any supernatural powers, her cards do. He promptly chucks them in a fire. However, this is after Dorian gets a reading...and his heart's desire is revealed to be 'the Lovers'...and Tobias Matthews shows up at his doorstep, alive and well (3.5, Pandora).
Dorian and Toby don't even get to hash out the 'why the fuck are you alive' bit before yet another problem (literally) comes to Dorian's doorstep: Ivor, the vampire who turned Toby, wants Dorian's help in getting rid of a siren that he's made a pact with. Turns out that Ivor just wants Dorian to be a meal ticket for said siren, but Dorian and Toby manage to team up and make short work of it. (3.6, Heart and Soul).
Like literally an hour after drowning a siren, Victoria shows up and tells Dorian and Toby to attend an art gallery opening with her as cover for some Illegal Shit. It turns out that they were played: the Lowell Foundation is actually an organization to eliminate the supernatural, and Dorian Gray is Target #1. Victoria sets Dorian up to take the fall as she steals a bloodstone, a mystic object that can give life to lifeless beings. The bloodstone is powered by love (I'm serious) and the love between Dorian and Toby is enough for the thing to work: Victoria brings Dorian's portrait to life, hoping that all the rage, anger, and hatred that the portrait's taken on will be enough to convince the now-sentient portrait to murder Dorian (3.7, Displacement Activity.)
The portrait murders Victoria instead. And a few other people. But eventually it makes it's way to the art gallery to try and murder Dorian! As the portrait monologues, Dorian realizes that the love between him & Toby is key to keeping the portrait alive. So when Toby busts in to try and save the day, Dorian has to essentially break Toby's heart in order to revert the portrait to it's prior state. He does so, leaving Dorian and Toby's relationship in a bit of a limbo for the moment (3.8)
The two eventually make up and move in together.
- Santa is the literal worst (x.4)
On New Years Eve, Dorian and Toby decide to spend the evening at the Hotel Brigadoon. Unfortunately, the Brigadoon lives up to it's name: it shows up once a year before vanishing somewhere else entirely. Dorian and Toby do a little investigating and learn that the Brigadoon is actually a prison for Lucifer and that they're in danger of being trapped here with him. They meet Lucifer himself and strike a deal with the devil (eyyy): if Dorian takes back his soul, they'll be let go from the building. Dorian agrees.
It's only when Dorian and Toby leave the building that Dorian learns the horrible truth: vampires are soulless. The thing that was powering Toby and keeping him alive after his resurrection was Dorian's soul. When Dorian took it back, he left Toby as a soulless shell of a body, perfect for Lucifer to slip into and make his way to the waking world. So now Dorian is +1 soul, -1 boyfriend, and +1 case of the devil hanging out in his boyfriend's body (x.5)
2016, Ever After, 5.4
2020, Isolation
2022, Before Your Eyes
tl;dr, Dorian Gray never fucking learns and it's really hard to sum up some of these audio plays without it sounding utterly bonkers.