Post by deadman on Jul 10, 2006 13:16:27 GMT -5
(second character, I also play Forge)
Name: Vincent Larson
Codename(s): The Dead Man
Affiliation: Brotherhood
Age: 39
Height: 6’1
Weight: 201 lbs
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Red
Appearance:
Creepy. The Dead Man is extremely Pallid, having blotchy almost grey skin. His hair always seems to be wet, or greasy, even though he keeps it well cleaned. His eyes are red, including even the pupils, which are a darker red. This skin tone and eye-discoloration are side affects of his mutation.
He is somewhat tall, and lanky. He moves in an almost jerky, surreal way, and can remain still for an excessive period of time when lost in thought.
His attire is always nice, if not completely drab. He wears suits with ties, always black or grey, and it always gives him the impression of being put out of time, or maybe working in a funeral home.
Personality:
The Dead Man is a complete sociopath, hell, even a complete psychopath. He dislikes dealing with the living, but understands the need for doing so. He truly hates humankind, preferring mutant kind, but only barely. All in all, he lumps them into the category of “the living”, and dismisses them as a bother…
When dealing with anyone, he is generally short and to the point. Though he is often caught up in his own dark thoughts, making him seem aloof or spacey, the Dead Man is really quite astute and sharp. He comes across as abrasive, and melodramatic, often portraying the psychotic bad-guy angle to the hilt. Of course, he doesn’t really notice, as he doesn’t care at all about the opinions of others.
He takes extraordinary delight at the suffering of others. In general.
Powers and Abilities:
Read the Dead:
Dead Man can see the psychic imprints left on the brain by the once functional minds of the deceased. He can then make contact with them, and completely read what is left of the mind. He can mainly search for memories, but moreover he can breathe a bit of life into the imprint, making it believe it's still alive. The imprint is a shadow of it's former self, but has all the knowledge the former mind had. The mind is coherent (sort of), though much slower and more stupid. It's only a fragment of its once great glory, and is generally somewhat insane and lacks lucidity. This ability allows Dead Man to scan through this mind, maintain mental contact with it, control it, and rummage through it.
Note: The older the corpse, the less coherent the mind will be. Fresh bodies are almost unaware they are dead when Dead Man contacts with them, while ancient bodies are rambling madmen, and difficult to read.
Raise the Dead:
Dead Man has the ability to instill a bit of power into a dead body he has made contact with. He gives the corpse essentially a base level of telekinesis, which it instinctively uses to animate itself. The limit of this power is based off of the subconscious understanding the mind has of its life. The field generated around the corpse that animates it is fueled off of the leftover psychic energy in the body, and a portion of Dead Man's own will.
Ultimately, it's the subconscious belief of the mind of the corpse that keeps it animated. Thereby the body is only as strong and fast as the body originally was, because that's what the mind “thinks” it's limits are. Of course, these limits are consistently at the peak of the person, making even a normal human very strong and fast, because the body is quite powerful when unrestrained by it's own safe-guards.
The older the body, and the more degraded the brain, the less physically smooth the movements. Long dead bodies actually produce jerky, almost shambling zombies. Fresh bodies move almost like the person did in life. Bodies of mutants who had physical enhancements, such as super strength or speed, keep these supernatural benefits in this form. Indeed Dead Man treasures mutant bodies that possess great strength, eagerly looking forward to animating someone like Colossus.
Killing these animated corpses is as easy as convincing the mind of the dead that it has been killed. For most people, this can be as simple as shooting it in the chest, or severing its legs. For the long dead, who's minds have been rotted and driven mad, only destroying the brain itself will work. In fact, in all cases, destroying the brain of the dead will end its animation.
Dead Man cannot animate the same corpse more than one time.
Though the longer he remains alive, the more powerful Dead Man becomes in his ability, he currently cannot maintain more than twenty animated corpses at one time.
Additional: Dead Man discovered recently that he can infuse himself with this same ability. It’s completely useless on him unless he lets go entirely of his control, and allows his subconscious to take over, but when he does the telekinetic field greatly enhances his strength and speed. This is a last-ditch effort for him, and being fond of total control, will almost never use this option.
History:
Vincent was abandoned as a baby, likely due to his obvious red eyes, and taken into an orphanage. He was a dark, disturbed youth, bent on self-reflection and shunned by the rest of the children, and most of the adults. Few cared for him, because he was freaky, and none got much closer than the occasional ‘Hi’. He was an outcast, discarded by parents, by teachers, by his so called peers. Naturally, he began to hate at an early age.
He was raised pretty much exclusively in the orphanage, obviously never getting adopted at all. When he grew old enough to realize he could, he escaped, and tried to make it on his own. Soon he found a man on the streets who knew how to survive, and that man, shunned by the rest of society as well, took in Vincent. His intentions were dark, of course, but the young boy had no choice but to stay with him. He was abused, physically and emotionally, by the man, but taught him to survive as well. Besides, the old hermit acknowledged him, at least. At least, even though he hurt him, the man loved Vincent.
His mutant powers developed late in his life, about the time he was 15. One day Vincent had been hurrying home after stealing a double handful of cans from a side-walk sale, when he hid in an alley to avoid the police. As he buried himself in a sea of refuse, he failed to notice that next to him was the bloated corpse of a vagabond, who’d died some days before. Instead of being disturbed by this, the boy found himself completely fascinated. He studied the corpse for some while, laying in the sea of garbage right next to the body, red eyes staring at stinking flesh.
After opening the corpses eyes, and staring into them, he began to feel a stirring in his unconscious. Something itching the back of his mind. He opened himself up to it, and could actually see the man’s mind – or a shadow of it, inside his skull. To him it looked like a dull green light, but he could see it through the corpse’s head. Vincent reached his will out, trying to contemplate the green glow, and soon discovered that it was actually some sort of imprint of what was once the guy’s mind. The boy couldn’t explain how he knew this, but he could feel it. As he felt for the mind again, he could suddenly hear the man’s garbled cries of astonishment and fear inside his head. Vincent scrambled out of the pile of refuse, and stumbled backwards in the alley, hands clenched to his mouth to prevent himself from screaming.
After getting control of himself, he soon gained control over the voice too… then he began to understand his real power. He stayed in that alley all day, working with the body and it’s beautiful, dead mind. Vincent decided that he’d been gifted a wonderful power. He thought that his years of suffering and the torment of others was all a test, some sort of cosmic challenge he had to beat, he had to survive, in order to be granted this wonderful power. He could talk to the dead… and he could make them walk once more.
When he returned that night to the condemned building where he lived with the old man, he brought the corpse with him. Amazingly, his street mentor wasn’t terrified. In fact, the old man simply kept a cautious distance, and asked Vincent what had happened. After Vincent told his story, the old man nodded gravely, and regarded the boy in a whole new light. Beginning that night, Vincent’s training began.
The old man didn’t have special insight into Vincent’s ability, but he was abnormally cunning and sharp. He helped the boy mold his power, and learn its true depth and dimension. Soon Vincent discovered his abilities weren’t necessarily limited to the dead, at least not all of them, but were easiest to use on the dead. For some reason, all of this pleased the old man, who had stopped abusing the boy, and only helped him train and learn.
Two years later, Vincent was dubbed The Dead Man. The old man told him to forget the name Vincent, as it was the name of a mortal. Of a stupid, weak, frightened human. The Dead Man was beyond those things. The Dead Man was bound for greatness. By this time Dead Man had learned to control a small army of the dead, and used his power to rob an armored car, taking a small fortune (at least to him) for him and the old man… but the old man wasn’t interested in money. He told Dead Man that he had a higher purpose, which was to serve as the boy’s right hand. He said that the only way he would be truly powerful, that he would be remembered by a world that had forgotten him, is if Dead Man would take him and make him his most powerful servant. Then, to Dead Man’s shock, the old man slit his own throat, dying in the arms of his protégé.
The Dead Man lived up to what the old man wanted, and animated him fully. To his surprise, the old man’s psychic imprint was more stable than any other he had seen. He discovered that the old man had actually been preparing his own mind for this for over a year. He had meditated each night on imprinting his memory and will into his own brain, so that when he died, it would leave a much clearer picture. It had worked.
So Dead Man and the old man, who now animated and powerful, called himself Zombi, began their life of retribution. The limit of Dead Man’s abilities were such that he couldn’t just raise all the dead in the world, so he had to be very careful about his targets. He brought havoc to the world, sewing carnage and evil all across the United States, using the dead as his unwilling servants. His spree of disaster was erratic and uncontrolled, and he often took long periods of time to concentrate on ruining single lives for his amusement. He is unmitigated evil, of the highest purety, and sometimes took months to hatch bizarre plans to break individuals of little or no power, simply because he thought they needed to be broken.
In his early 30’s, he ran into Magneto and Mystique, and learned of the Brotherhood (this was pre X-Men part one.) Deciding that exacting revenge upon the humans, and attempting to gain a support structure for whatever power-play he wanted to make eventually (if he could ever concentrate on one long enough,) he joined the Brotherhood.
At 32, he was arrested in an attempted raid on a chemical supplies factory. It was a stupid mistake, that got him caught, and though he killed three cops beforehand, he was still taken down and sent to Jail.
His mutant power to raise the dead did little good to him in prison, so he was stuck carrying out his seven consecutive life sentences for the murder of the three cops, In addition to twenty two additional murders he was connected with throughout the previous years.
Seven years later…
Fortune struck him, one day, when the person in the cell next to him died of a stroke. As the guard came in to check on him, and pull him out, Dead Man animated him, and had the corpse draw the pistol of one of the gaurds and shot him. Then Dead Man animated that body. Needless to say, by the time he was done, there was as full-fledged riot in the maximum security prison, and Dead Man’s army of twenty corpses were sowing destruction throughout the place.
Dead Man escaped. Now, restored and refreshed, he seeks to rejoin with the Brotherhood, find Mystique and Magneto, and once more prepare to bring chaos and destruction.
Weaknesses:
Dead Man is not all there. He is easily distracted, and takes personal delight in the torture of others. In close combat he often relies on his subconscious animal instinct, enhanced by his own powers, so he looses most of his reason and deductive skills. In normal combat, he relies heavily on his undead troops, and prefers to stay far in the back. To a degree, Dead Man is a coward, and will flee if it’s the most advantageous.
FAQ's
Has he ever had a situation where an animated corpse has 'gone rogue' on him, or does he always fully maintain control? How does he shut that control down, simply remove his will from them?
(His first power allows him to read the brains of the dead, and communicate with the echo of their mind. It’s this power he uses to control them. He can animate a corpse, and not control it, just leave it to wonder around and see what happens to it. He’s done this before. The corpse will stay animated until he decides not to animate it further, or it dies. OR if he animates another corpse outside of his control – like his cap of twenty - , the very first one he animated will no longer be animated. The Echo-minds are always there, as they are just psychic imprints. They aren’t really aware until he makes contact with them, though, and then they stay aware for only a few hours, unless he keeps a contact with them. Basically he needs to keep sending out contacts with his animated dead in order for them to be aware. The only exception to this is the one known as Zombi. He, for some reason, has control over his own mind. Dead Man thinks it’s because he prepared himself mentally for a year for the change. )
Presumably the more corpses he animates, the less 'conscious to the real world' he himself would become, right?
(Actually, he can extend his will out to read/talk to/control any amount of dead around him – say a 200 foot radius or so. His brain is compartmentalized in this fashion, and he can sift through communiqué’s at a remarkable speed. He can also send out mass controls to all of them. Essentially he sends a visualization, his desire, to them, and they are compelled to do it. The more distorted the brain, i.e., the older, the more basic the message. He can get fresh bodies to “Go into that building, find me the red file cabinet on the fourth floor, and bring it back out. Kill anyone who gets in your way.” But the older the corpse, he’s limited to “Follow me.” And “Kill those people” – or if he’s lucky, “Kill anyone who comes through here.” His own personal consciousness is only dimmed when he’s actively controlling the undead. Not when they are animated. So essentially, if he has to stop and think, and give them multiple commands, he pretty much has to just stand there and only do that. But, he can set them on task, and the resume his normal train of thought.)
So for how long can he animate a body?
(The bodies stay animated until he either dismisses them, he hasn’t contacted their minds for a several hours, or he animates a 21st corpse, then the 1st one will dismiss. If he animates a 22nd, the 2nd corpse will dismiss, etc. He can only have 20 – right now. If he gets separated too much from the corpses, and can’t send an empathic communication to them for several hours, the psychic imprint that is their “mind” will collapse and they will just fall over, unanimated )
What happened to Zombi?
(Good question. I want to answer this in RP, as even Dead Man doesn’t know. Due to Zombi’s special meditation preparation for this power, he is different than the others. Dead Man hasn’t seen him since he was arrested, and assumes Zombi is dead.)
Can he sense when someone dies - like the guy in the cell next to him?
(Not when they die, but if there are dead around. The guy in the cell next to him, he just heard them saying “Hey, I think this guy is dead!” and then sent out his reading mind to sense if there was a body in there. And there was.)
And finally, is he any good as a fighter? You mentioned close combat.
(He’s not trained to fight, no, but he can loose his animal instincts, and use the power he uses to animate dead to beef up his strength and speed – in this condition, he fights like an animal, completely on killer instinct. He becomes unnaturally strong and fast, though, and hard to put down – but can’t really think well in this state. It’s almost like a blood rage, but enhanced with TK. Definitely a last resort, but will make a great fight scene should some X-Man finally corner him. I’m picturing him finally having to square off with Nightcrawler, and it’ll look great. Dead Man will lose in that scenario, but the fight would be long and cool)
Oh also, is that Thin Man in your icon?
(Indeed, Crispin Glover plays Dead Man. He played Creepy Thin Man in Charlie’s Angels, but that picture is from Willard.)
Sample RP:
A gurgling giddiness bubbled up inside of Dead Man, for his moment had finally come. For weeks he’d been closer on his internal debate, the same one he’d been having for five years, the choice inching closer and closer in his mind. Should he finally loose all controls over himself, infuse his body with his mutant might, and kill someone with his power? If he did that, he could release himself in time to animate that body and use it to his advantage. The internal argument was valid on both accounts. If he succeeded, he’d no doubt be free, using a domino affect of dead and animation. If he failed, he’d be throw in solitary, and all hopes of escape would be out the window. That’s why now, seven years after his incarceration, he still debated it. He was close to deciding to do it, he’d been feeling it for weeks…
But a power, cosmic force had intervened on his behalf. That one entity that bowed to no man, but controlled the destinies, for good or ill, of all men, had taken a stop at his doorstep this night. Lady Luck had made her play, and he had been fortunate.
In the cell next door, a shout was raised: “Holy shit, 8-Ball done died!” To which, naturally, was a clamor and commotion amongst the inmates. Soon the guards had arrived, and they began to carry away poor unfortunate 8-ball. Dead Man made his move. By this time he’d already made contact with the former coke-smuggler’s psychic imprint: The echo of the mind left behind in the brain by the deceased. Now he not only knew the story of 8-Ball’s life, but also had direct control over what was left of his mind, as dead-maddened as it was. All it took was the slightest infusion of power, and…
One of the guards screamed, obviously terrified by the re-animated corpse in his arms. It caused a great confusion, and in this confusion, the corpse had drawn the guard’s side-arm.
Dead Man smiled as the blasting sounds of the 9mm echoed throughout the population. Soon, he had a second body, this one Andy the guard. Then a third, an inmate too close to the fight.
Luck had delivered a window, and the Dead Man knew how to take advantage of opportunity. Throughout the course of what would be labeled a “prison riot,” he went through thirty plus bodies, sewing anarchy and murder as he made his escape.
History: My name’s CK.
Screenname(s): Forge, Dead Man
Email: CKLAvery AT gmail DOT com
IMs: chickenking2001 (Yahoo)
RP Experience: AD&D, Rifts, Gurps, Merps, Corps, Big Eyes Small Mouth, White Wolf games, Larp, Pallidium, Bubblegum Crisis, and the Email-based-game: County of Glass - a Changeling game. Also, Other Worlds, another Gaming Forum by the Main Mod of this one.
Name: Vincent Larson
Codename(s): The Dead Man
Affiliation: Brotherhood
Age: 39
Height: 6’1
Weight: 201 lbs
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Red
Appearance:
Creepy. The Dead Man is extremely Pallid, having blotchy almost grey skin. His hair always seems to be wet, or greasy, even though he keeps it well cleaned. His eyes are red, including even the pupils, which are a darker red. This skin tone and eye-discoloration are side affects of his mutation.
He is somewhat tall, and lanky. He moves in an almost jerky, surreal way, and can remain still for an excessive period of time when lost in thought.
His attire is always nice, if not completely drab. He wears suits with ties, always black or grey, and it always gives him the impression of being put out of time, or maybe working in a funeral home.
Personality:
The Dead Man is a complete sociopath, hell, even a complete psychopath. He dislikes dealing with the living, but understands the need for doing so. He truly hates humankind, preferring mutant kind, but only barely. All in all, he lumps them into the category of “the living”, and dismisses them as a bother…
When dealing with anyone, he is generally short and to the point. Though he is often caught up in his own dark thoughts, making him seem aloof or spacey, the Dead Man is really quite astute and sharp. He comes across as abrasive, and melodramatic, often portraying the psychotic bad-guy angle to the hilt. Of course, he doesn’t really notice, as he doesn’t care at all about the opinions of others.
He takes extraordinary delight at the suffering of others. In general.
Powers and Abilities:
Read the Dead:
Dead Man can see the psychic imprints left on the brain by the once functional minds of the deceased. He can then make contact with them, and completely read what is left of the mind. He can mainly search for memories, but moreover he can breathe a bit of life into the imprint, making it believe it's still alive. The imprint is a shadow of it's former self, but has all the knowledge the former mind had. The mind is coherent (sort of), though much slower and more stupid. It's only a fragment of its once great glory, and is generally somewhat insane and lacks lucidity. This ability allows Dead Man to scan through this mind, maintain mental contact with it, control it, and rummage through it.
Note: The older the corpse, the less coherent the mind will be. Fresh bodies are almost unaware they are dead when Dead Man contacts with them, while ancient bodies are rambling madmen, and difficult to read.
Raise the Dead:
Dead Man has the ability to instill a bit of power into a dead body he has made contact with. He gives the corpse essentially a base level of telekinesis, which it instinctively uses to animate itself. The limit of this power is based off of the subconscious understanding the mind has of its life. The field generated around the corpse that animates it is fueled off of the leftover psychic energy in the body, and a portion of Dead Man's own will.
Ultimately, it's the subconscious belief of the mind of the corpse that keeps it animated. Thereby the body is only as strong and fast as the body originally was, because that's what the mind “thinks” it's limits are. Of course, these limits are consistently at the peak of the person, making even a normal human very strong and fast, because the body is quite powerful when unrestrained by it's own safe-guards.
The older the body, and the more degraded the brain, the less physically smooth the movements. Long dead bodies actually produce jerky, almost shambling zombies. Fresh bodies move almost like the person did in life. Bodies of mutants who had physical enhancements, such as super strength or speed, keep these supernatural benefits in this form. Indeed Dead Man treasures mutant bodies that possess great strength, eagerly looking forward to animating someone like Colossus.
Killing these animated corpses is as easy as convincing the mind of the dead that it has been killed. For most people, this can be as simple as shooting it in the chest, or severing its legs. For the long dead, who's minds have been rotted and driven mad, only destroying the brain itself will work. In fact, in all cases, destroying the brain of the dead will end its animation.
Dead Man cannot animate the same corpse more than one time.
Though the longer he remains alive, the more powerful Dead Man becomes in his ability, he currently cannot maintain more than twenty animated corpses at one time.
Additional: Dead Man discovered recently that he can infuse himself with this same ability. It’s completely useless on him unless he lets go entirely of his control, and allows his subconscious to take over, but when he does the telekinetic field greatly enhances his strength and speed. This is a last-ditch effort for him, and being fond of total control, will almost never use this option.
History:
Vincent was abandoned as a baby, likely due to his obvious red eyes, and taken into an orphanage. He was a dark, disturbed youth, bent on self-reflection and shunned by the rest of the children, and most of the adults. Few cared for him, because he was freaky, and none got much closer than the occasional ‘Hi’. He was an outcast, discarded by parents, by teachers, by his so called peers. Naturally, he began to hate at an early age.
He was raised pretty much exclusively in the orphanage, obviously never getting adopted at all. When he grew old enough to realize he could, he escaped, and tried to make it on his own. Soon he found a man on the streets who knew how to survive, and that man, shunned by the rest of society as well, took in Vincent. His intentions were dark, of course, but the young boy had no choice but to stay with him. He was abused, physically and emotionally, by the man, but taught him to survive as well. Besides, the old hermit acknowledged him, at least. At least, even though he hurt him, the man loved Vincent.
His mutant powers developed late in his life, about the time he was 15. One day Vincent had been hurrying home after stealing a double handful of cans from a side-walk sale, when he hid in an alley to avoid the police. As he buried himself in a sea of refuse, he failed to notice that next to him was the bloated corpse of a vagabond, who’d died some days before. Instead of being disturbed by this, the boy found himself completely fascinated. He studied the corpse for some while, laying in the sea of garbage right next to the body, red eyes staring at stinking flesh.
After opening the corpses eyes, and staring into them, he began to feel a stirring in his unconscious. Something itching the back of his mind. He opened himself up to it, and could actually see the man’s mind – or a shadow of it, inside his skull. To him it looked like a dull green light, but he could see it through the corpse’s head. Vincent reached his will out, trying to contemplate the green glow, and soon discovered that it was actually some sort of imprint of what was once the guy’s mind. The boy couldn’t explain how he knew this, but he could feel it. As he felt for the mind again, he could suddenly hear the man’s garbled cries of astonishment and fear inside his head. Vincent scrambled out of the pile of refuse, and stumbled backwards in the alley, hands clenched to his mouth to prevent himself from screaming.
After getting control of himself, he soon gained control over the voice too… then he began to understand his real power. He stayed in that alley all day, working with the body and it’s beautiful, dead mind. Vincent decided that he’d been gifted a wonderful power. He thought that his years of suffering and the torment of others was all a test, some sort of cosmic challenge he had to beat, he had to survive, in order to be granted this wonderful power. He could talk to the dead… and he could make them walk once more.
When he returned that night to the condemned building where he lived with the old man, he brought the corpse with him. Amazingly, his street mentor wasn’t terrified. In fact, the old man simply kept a cautious distance, and asked Vincent what had happened. After Vincent told his story, the old man nodded gravely, and regarded the boy in a whole new light. Beginning that night, Vincent’s training began.
The old man didn’t have special insight into Vincent’s ability, but he was abnormally cunning and sharp. He helped the boy mold his power, and learn its true depth and dimension. Soon Vincent discovered his abilities weren’t necessarily limited to the dead, at least not all of them, but were easiest to use on the dead. For some reason, all of this pleased the old man, who had stopped abusing the boy, and only helped him train and learn.
Two years later, Vincent was dubbed The Dead Man. The old man told him to forget the name Vincent, as it was the name of a mortal. Of a stupid, weak, frightened human. The Dead Man was beyond those things. The Dead Man was bound for greatness. By this time Dead Man had learned to control a small army of the dead, and used his power to rob an armored car, taking a small fortune (at least to him) for him and the old man… but the old man wasn’t interested in money. He told Dead Man that he had a higher purpose, which was to serve as the boy’s right hand. He said that the only way he would be truly powerful, that he would be remembered by a world that had forgotten him, is if Dead Man would take him and make him his most powerful servant. Then, to Dead Man’s shock, the old man slit his own throat, dying in the arms of his protégé.
The Dead Man lived up to what the old man wanted, and animated him fully. To his surprise, the old man’s psychic imprint was more stable than any other he had seen. He discovered that the old man had actually been preparing his own mind for this for over a year. He had meditated each night on imprinting his memory and will into his own brain, so that when he died, it would leave a much clearer picture. It had worked.
So Dead Man and the old man, who now animated and powerful, called himself Zombi, began their life of retribution. The limit of Dead Man’s abilities were such that he couldn’t just raise all the dead in the world, so he had to be very careful about his targets. He brought havoc to the world, sewing carnage and evil all across the United States, using the dead as his unwilling servants. His spree of disaster was erratic and uncontrolled, and he often took long periods of time to concentrate on ruining single lives for his amusement. He is unmitigated evil, of the highest purety, and sometimes took months to hatch bizarre plans to break individuals of little or no power, simply because he thought they needed to be broken.
In his early 30’s, he ran into Magneto and Mystique, and learned of the Brotherhood (this was pre X-Men part one.) Deciding that exacting revenge upon the humans, and attempting to gain a support structure for whatever power-play he wanted to make eventually (if he could ever concentrate on one long enough,) he joined the Brotherhood.
At 32, he was arrested in an attempted raid on a chemical supplies factory. It was a stupid mistake, that got him caught, and though he killed three cops beforehand, he was still taken down and sent to Jail.
His mutant power to raise the dead did little good to him in prison, so he was stuck carrying out his seven consecutive life sentences for the murder of the three cops, In addition to twenty two additional murders he was connected with throughout the previous years.
Seven years later…
Fortune struck him, one day, when the person in the cell next to him died of a stroke. As the guard came in to check on him, and pull him out, Dead Man animated him, and had the corpse draw the pistol of one of the gaurds and shot him. Then Dead Man animated that body. Needless to say, by the time he was done, there was as full-fledged riot in the maximum security prison, and Dead Man’s army of twenty corpses were sowing destruction throughout the place.
Dead Man escaped. Now, restored and refreshed, he seeks to rejoin with the Brotherhood, find Mystique and Magneto, and once more prepare to bring chaos and destruction.
Weaknesses:
Dead Man is not all there. He is easily distracted, and takes personal delight in the torture of others. In close combat he often relies on his subconscious animal instinct, enhanced by his own powers, so he looses most of his reason and deductive skills. In normal combat, he relies heavily on his undead troops, and prefers to stay far in the back. To a degree, Dead Man is a coward, and will flee if it’s the most advantageous.
FAQ's
Has he ever had a situation where an animated corpse has 'gone rogue' on him, or does he always fully maintain control? How does he shut that control down, simply remove his will from them?
(His first power allows him to read the brains of the dead, and communicate with the echo of their mind. It’s this power he uses to control them. He can animate a corpse, and not control it, just leave it to wonder around and see what happens to it. He’s done this before. The corpse will stay animated until he decides not to animate it further, or it dies. OR if he animates another corpse outside of his control – like his cap of twenty - , the very first one he animated will no longer be animated. The Echo-minds are always there, as they are just psychic imprints. They aren’t really aware until he makes contact with them, though, and then they stay aware for only a few hours, unless he keeps a contact with them. Basically he needs to keep sending out contacts with his animated dead in order for them to be aware. The only exception to this is the one known as Zombi. He, for some reason, has control over his own mind. Dead Man thinks it’s because he prepared himself mentally for a year for the change. )
Presumably the more corpses he animates, the less 'conscious to the real world' he himself would become, right?
(Actually, he can extend his will out to read/talk to/control any amount of dead around him – say a 200 foot radius or so. His brain is compartmentalized in this fashion, and he can sift through communiqué’s at a remarkable speed. He can also send out mass controls to all of them. Essentially he sends a visualization, his desire, to them, and they are compelled to do it. The more distorted the brain, i.e., the older, the more basic the message. He can get fresh bodies to “Go into that building, find me the red file cabinet on the fourth floor, and bring it back out. Kill anyone who gets in your way.” But the older the corpse, he’s limited to “Follow me.” And “Kill those people” – or if he’s lucky, “Kill anyone who comes through here.” His own personal consciousness is only dimmed when he’s actively controlling the undead. Not when they are animated. So essentially, if he has to stop and think, and give them multiple commands, he pretty much has to just stand there and only do that. But, he can set them on task, and the resume his normal train of thought.)
So for how long can he animate a body?
(The bodies stay animated until he either dismisses them, he hasn’t contacted their minds for a several hours, or he animates a 21st corpse, then the 1st one will dismiss. If he animates a 22nd, the 2nd corpse will dismiss, etc. He can only have 20 – right now. If he gets separated too much from the corpses, and can’t send an empathic communication to them for several hours, the psychic imprint that is their “mind” will collapse and they will just fall over, unanimated )
What happened to Zombi?
(Good question. I want to answer this in RP, as even Dead Man doesn’t know. Due to Zombi’s special meditation preparation for this power, he is different than the others. Dead Man hasn’t seen him since he was arrested, and assumes Zombi is dead.)
Can he sense when someone dies - like the guy in the cell next to him?
(Not when they die, but if there are dead around. The guy in the cell next to him, he just heard them saying “Hey, I think this guy is dead!” and then sent out his reading mind to sense if there was a body in there. And there was.)
And finally, is he any good as a fighter? You mentioned close combat.
(He’s not trained to fight, no, but he can loose his animal instincts, and use the power he uses to animate dead to beef up his strength and speed – in this condition, he fights like an animal, completely on killer instinct. He becomes unnaturally strong and fast, though, and hard to put down – but can’t really think well in this state. It’s almost like a blood rage, but enhanced with TK. Definitely a last resort, but will make a great fight scene should some X-Man finally corner him. I’m picturing him finally having to square off with Nightcrawler, and it’ll look great. Dead Man will lose in that scenario, but the fight would be long and cool)
Oh also, is that Thin Man in your icon?
(Indeed, Crispin Glover plays Dead Man. He played Creepy Thin Man in Charlie’s Angels, but that picture is from Willard.)
Sample RP:
A gurgling giddiness bubbled up inside of Dead Man, for his moment had finally come. For weeks he’d been closer on his internal debate, the same one he’d been having for five years, the choice inching closer and closer in his mind. Should he finally loose all controls over himself, infuse his body with his mutant might, and kill someone with his power? If he did that, he could release himself in time to animate that body and use it to his advantage. The internal argument was valid on both accounts. If he succeeded, he’d no doubt be free, using a domino affect of dead and animation. If he failed, he’d be throw in solitary, and all hopes of escape would be out the window. That’s why now, seven years after his incarceration, he still debated it. He was close to deciding to do it, he’d been feeling it for weeks…
But a power, cosmic force had intervened on his behalf. That one entity that bowed to no man, but controlled the destinies, for good or ill, of all men, had taken a stop at his doorstep this night. Lady Luck had made her play, and he had been fortunate.
In the cell next door, a shout was raised: “Holy shit, 8-Ball done died!” To which, naturally, was a clamor and commotion amongst the inmates. Soon the guards had arrived, and they began to carry away poor unfortunate 8-ball. Dead Man made his move. By this time he’d already made contact with the former coke-smuggler’s psychic imprint: The echo of the mind left behind in the brain by the deceased. Now he not only knew the story of 8-Ball’s life, but also had direct control over what was left of his mind, as dead-maddened as it was. All it took was the slightest infusion of power, and…
One of the guards screamed, obviously terrified by the re-animated corpse in his arms. It caused a great confusion, and in this confusion, the corpse had drawn the guard’s side-arm.
Dead Man smiled as the blasting sounds of the 9mm echoed throughout the population. Soon, he had a second body, this one Andy the guard. Then a third, an inmate too close to the fight.
Luck had delivered a window, and the Dead Man knew how to take advantage of opportunity. Throughout the course of what would be labeled a “prison riot,” he went through thirty plus bodies, sewing anarchy and murder as he made his escape.
History: My name’s CK.
Screenname(s): Forge, Dead Man
Email: CKLAvery AT gmail DOT com
IMs: chickenking2001 (Yahoo)
RP Experience: AD&D, Rifts, Gurps, Merps, Corps, Big Eyes Small Mouth, White Wolf games, Larp, Pallidium, Bubblegum Crisis, and the Email-based-game: County of Glass - a Changeling game. Also, Other Worlds, another Gaming Forum by the Main Mod of this one.
