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RP account for a modern adaptation of Sebastian Moran from Kim Newman's "Professor Moriarty: Hound of the D'rubervilles". "The Adventure of the Empty House" by Doyle is also taken into account, but is not the primary driving force behind my characterization.

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He began to rattle off facts. Facts about me.

“You are retired from your regiment, resigning at the request of a superior to avoid the mutual disgrace of dishonorable discharge. You have suffered a serious injury at the claws of a beast, are fully recovered physically but worried your nerve might have gone. You are the son of a late Minister to Persia and have two sisters, your only living relatives besides a number of unacknowledged half-native illegitimates. You are addicted most of all to gambling, but also to sexual encounters, spirits, the murder of animals, and the fawning of a duped public. Most of the time, you blunder through life like a bull, snatching and punching to get your own way. But in moments of extreme danger you are possessed by a strange serenity which has enabled your to survive situations that would have killed another man. In fact, your true addiction is to danger. To fear. Only near death do you feel alive. You are unscrupulous, amoral, habitually violent, and at present have no means of income, though your tastes and habits require a constant inflow of money.”

Throughout this performance, I took in Professor James Moriarty. Tall, stooped, hair thin at the temples, cheeks sunken, wearing a dusty— no, chalky— frock coat, sallow as only an indoorsman can be, yellow cigarette stain between his first and second fingers, teeth to match. And obviously, very pleased with himself. He reminded me of Gladstone gone wrong, with just a touch of a hill-chief who had tortured me with fire ants.

But I had no patience with his lecture. I’d eaten enough of that from the pater for a lifetime.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I interrupted.

The Professor was unpleasantly surprised. It was as if no one had ever dared break into one of his speeches before. He halted in in his tracks, swiveled his skull, and leveled those shotgun barrelhole eyes at me.

“I’ve had this done in a bazaar,” I continued. “It’s no great trick. The fortune teller notices tiny little things and makes deadeye guess. You can tell I gamble from the marks on my cuffs, I was in Afghanistan by the color of my tan. If you spout with enough confidence, you score so many his, the bits you get wrong— like that tommyrot about being addicted to danger, are swallowed and forgotten. I’d expected a better show from your advanced notices, Professor.”

He slapped me across the face, swiftly, with a hand like wet leather. Now, I was amazed. I knew I was vermillion again, and my dukes went up. Moriarty whirled, coattails flying, and his boot toe struck me in the groin, belly, and chest. I found myself sat in a deep chair, too shocked to hurt, pinned by wiry strong strong hands which pressed my wrists to the armrests. That dead face was close up to mine, and those eyes horribly filled the view. That calm he mentioned came on me, and I knew I should just sit still and listen.

“Only an idiot guesses, or reasons, or deduces.” The Professor said patently. He withdrew, which meant I could breathe again and become aware of how much pain I was in. “No one comes into these rooms unless I know everything about him which can be found out through the simple means of asking behind his back. The public record is easily filled in by looking in any one of a number of reference books, from the army guide to Who’s Who, but all the interesting material comes from a man’s enemies. I am not a conjuror, Colonel Moran. I am a scientist.”