Personality:
A man who preaches piety and conservative practices, such as to abstain from drink and drugs, to keep oneself pure in marriage, and to work and labour hard for rewards stored up in ‘Heaven’. He disapproves of those who don’t follow his instructions, and will began to subtlety shun them, pushing them away and manipulating others to do the same as he isolates them.
In truth a two-face snake who revels in women and earthly possessions, and pines after both. While he truly does hate drink and drugs, almost anything else he tells others to avoid under pain of disapproval, he intertwines himself with avidly.
He is a man who hates not being in control, rejecting the existence of any higher power than God(himself). He attempted to run for presidential office on an independent platform due to this, and will constantly try to subvert his master’s control, to make them the subordinate in their relationship.
Lore:
During childhood, Joseph was surrounded with numerous different examples of preachers gathering up a congregation and preaching to them. He became fascinated with this, not with the religion and truth like is told to the world, but the control they had over their congregations. He wanted to do the same, to have others follow him so unquestionably, but couldn’t accept others having authority over him, as some would if he joined an established religion.
So, Joseph came to a ‘logical’ conclusion. He began to craft his own religion, starting with the lies of an angle and a set of treasures on a hill he couldn’t take, and continuing from there. As time went on, he begun to also yearn after other things, not just control over other people. He yearned for money, so he joined a treasure hunting company. He yearned for women, so when the father of the first to catch his eye refused, he convinced her to elope with him.
He would eventually return, continuing his religious ruse by saying he had finally been allowed to take the treasures, and begun to manipulate those around him to believe in their existence, despite never being seen, even by those he would use as witnesses. However, as those he had previously worked with at the treasure hunting company began to attack his home to find these treasures, he decided to leave before his lies could be found.
After his move from Palmyra to Harmony, he began work on his greatest lie to support his fiction, the Book of Mormon. He began with Martin Harris as his scribe, and weaved the tales of his book. However, when Harris lost the first hundred pages, he replaced him with Oliver Cowdrey, claiming god had told him to do so, and not to repeat what was done so far. In truth, he’d forgotten the stories he’d crafted so far, and wished to start anew. During this time, he decided he wouldn't even create an illusion of one greater than he to his followers, so a new part of the doctrine was added.
Apotheosis. God, is not unique. That man who has exceeded his limitations, could match or exceed god. That he, could exceed god.
After the book was printed, and he formally founded his church, he began to assert even more control, crushing the attempt by others to claim similar ‘revelation’ to Smith, claiming that god designated him prophet, and so only his words were always true. Moving to Kirtland, his church only continued to grow as he further strengthened his fiction, and his control over those who believed it.
Creating the first temple of his church, he attempted to once more find financial prophet by beginning a bank funded by the church. It destroyed him, causing the Kirtland people to eventually turn on his followers, and leaving him in massive debt. Whilst in Kirtland, he had been attacked, tarred, feathered, and left for dead.
He attempted to start again in Missouri, but began to chafe under the American government and non-followers. He forced out many problematic members in Missouri, and began to meet violence with violence after events in Kirtland, not seeing the worth of those that didn’t follow him and caused him problems. His actions here began to cause cracks to form in everything he’d built. He was arrested and put on trial, and forced to reel in his distaste to save his work.
Manipulating his way out of Missouri, and fixing the cracks in his following, he calmed down for a while, shifting his focus from control to pleasure. Polygamy, business, tithes, all were introduced to give Smith everything he wanted.
The reprieve didn’t last long.
As the American government began to oppose him, he lashed out once more, commanding his bodyguard to kill the governor. The man failed, and whilst little evidence was available, it wasn’t hard for the governor to link Smith to the crime. He was forced out, and decided he no longer stand for the government to be able to control him.
He formed the council of fifty to pick and choose what laws they would follow, putting his own name in to become the president. He wished to use the position to forcefully convert the nation to become his followers. He would never get the chance, arrested for starting a riot, he was killed in the prison in which he was held by a mob of people with blackened faces.