Name: [unknown]
Alias: The Warden
Age: [unknown, probably early 20’s]
Personality: Defender, Patient, Quiet, Watchful, Stubborn
Archetype: Alien
Powers: The Warden’s symbiotic relationship with the alien plant form growing in his back gives him a number of remarkable abilities.
-Heightened humanity: The Warden is capable of lifting over a ton, does not need to sleep, can breath either as a plant or human (intaking either CO2 or O2 – can also go without any respiration for a day), and can photosynthesize in absence of food. His skin is somewhat bark-like and highly resistant to piercing (sustained gunfire should be avoided), and he regenerates from major injuries within a day or so, assuming he doesn’t die first. He has much smaller resistance to cold, explosions, falling, etc. (though he is overall still tougher than a normal human). Seems to age rather slowly, as well.
-Plant Body: The warden has 3 prehensile vines coiled on his back with an effective range of about 30 feet; one of them is covered in brambles, looking like a blackberry bush, while the other two look like, well, vines. He also flowers and grows apple-sized fruits that taste roughly like wet sand; they offer no benefit (other than being useful food), but he is convinced that they accelerate healing and may offer them up to others. He’s taken to canning them, and has quite a few stored at this point, so the fact that he’s not in bloom won’t stop him! Poisons that would usually affect humans do not affect him, but may make his next batch of fruits actually toxic.
-Plant Control: Can speak any plant-based language, is almost always able to identify useful aspects of plants (including toxicity of fruit and other factors of edibility). As the Warden's powers have grown, he has found that he is capable of controlling surrounding plant matter, as well as accelerating its growth. This allows him to manipulate surrounding vines, hit people with tree branches, have trees suddenly sprout from acorns, etc. This power takes energy, but he trains it often and has rather impressive endurance at this point.
Incidentally, this ability also lets him grow vines from his own seeds, and his room is now covered in them. they produce the non-spiky vines, fortunately. The Warden also usually carries about 3 Oak Acorns, just in case.
Weaknesses:
-Not impervious: still rather weak to fire, explosions, potent weed killers, etc.; anything dangerous to a human or plant to which he has no resistances can still harm him. Additionally, separating the host human from the plant would certainly kill both, though he’s so interconnected that it’s probably more trouble than just killing him normally.
-different priorities: The Warden sees it as his job to protect all animal and plant life; threatening a forest is just as effective against him as threatening a city.
-Open mind: already a shared mind, The Warden is especially vulnerable to mind-based attacks.
Appearance:
Height: 6’4”
Weight: 255lbs
A hulking and intimidating man, The Warden is a relatively light-skinned black man, in prime physical shape. He has long cornrows, rather small brown eyes, small ears, and a wide nose. His beard is also long, and his eyebrows are bushy. Scars are visible all over his back, and some wrap around onto his arms.
The warden is permanently bonded with an alien plant form, and as such has some rather unique features. The plant growth is mostly green, and vaguely dome shaped; a large coil of spikey brambles, with the flowers hanging off the end. The majority of the mass of coils start at his neck and end just above his rear end, though a single thick bramble on each side moves around to the front and extends down to cover his kneecap, forcing him to wear only baggy clothing over his entire body (since he hasn’t the funds for specialized gear). The brambles also extend to the middle of his upper arm, especially thick and spikey at the shoulders and around the back of his neck, protecting it, though not restricting his head movement.
He really hates shirts, and they’re next to impossible to wear, so usually doesn’t even bother. If he’s not trying to do hero work he might wear one just to avoid catching too much attention. He wears jeans outside of combat, with a very high quality pair of work boots on his feet (the only gift from someone he’s rescued that he’s agreed to keep, and man have they been useful).
Character Evolution: The Warden has established himself as a quite and powerful supporting force, but it would be fun to see him take point more often. mostly to see if he can actually handle leading people or not. Otherwise, maybe relationships?
Altered History: x (since most of it's unknown it doesn't technically matter if I've changed it :P ... I will say that the Green will be involved now though...)
BRIEF Bio: The Warden knows nothing of his life before he became what he is. The first thing he remembers is lying dying in the woods, his back scraped, scratched, and torn, his spine broken in multiple locations, his innards eviscerated. His second memory is of pain. His brain, screeching. His legs, convulsing. His torso… healing? There’s more spurts and flashes as he regained consciousness and the plant symbiont bonded with him, forming a new spinal column, replacing the internal damage, and linking itself with him. The now bonded being began to wander the forest until he ran into civilization, where the police promptly tried to take him in, partially to figure out what or who he was, partially because they wanted to arrest him for public indecency (he had taken off all of his clothing at some point). He decided to join them (how the hell else was he going to figure out what to do?). Once he had explained what he knew, and they explained to him what public indecency was, they both decided it was probably fair to drop the charge.
He apparently had no family, and didn’t register on their databases, so they just sent him on his way after giving him some pants and a very large jacket, directing him to the library. They took to calling him Warden while holding him, for the way he would just sit and watch everything, constantly interested. He liked it, and started calling himself that. What followed was a few years of learning how society worked again. He attempted to find some jobs, though none really panned out, and he decided to re-abandon society to go live in the woods. He found a cave, started growing plants (he likes them!), and was able to become self-sufficient, but felt a pull to use his abilities for good – something towards which both parts of him felt. So he started superheroing pretty much 24/7, with some breaks for solitude, and has been doing that for a few years. He eventually joined the Justice League, and has since devoted his life to their cause. He expects loyalty to the Justice League from fellow members and the cause of the Justice League, protecting as many people as they can at all costs.
While the warden dislikes wanton murder, he does not see himself as above killing someone who is a threat after he tries to pacify them, which does put him at odds with law enforcement on occasion. He’s still done enough good to have caught the eye of Green Lantern, who extended the invitation to him.
Notes: Warden's room is well equipped to independently monitor police spotters, news, and the sorts of websites bad guys frequent. it is also completely full of vines sprouted from his own fruit - they act as a door too, one that only he can move, which is nice.
Background Leaguer: Matter Eater Lad
Sample Post: has been teleported to the Metro Tower in Metropolis to find the JLU’s HQ empty. Where was your hero before teleporting to HQ? What’s the first thing they’d do when it seems like they’re alone? Will you let your hero find somebody else who was transported to the tower? If they are members of the League will they just go to their personal quarters and wait it out? If they were not prior members will they try to find out what's going on? And shouldn’t somebody be on monitor duty?
Wait
what
why am I here? The Warden wondered. He was not supposed to be on monitor duty. He was, in fact, supposed to be tracking down a serial killer in Washington State. So many of those around there. and this one seemed extra fun, since all of his victims were highly singed skeletons, like they had had their skin forcibly removed by fire.
Really quite an unpleasant way to go he considered. he had managed to track the guy down to the Evergreen City suburb of North Bend, with the help of a local hero, Doctor Midnight. He was actually in the middle of a stakeout when he got ...put? here.
And regardless of if he was supposed to be on monitor duty, that was certainly not a reason to be teleported back in the middle of a stealth mission. Especially not into the woman's bathroom in the basement floor. The warden wandered out the door, and looked around. Seeing nothing, he made his way cautiously to the entrance hall. Oddly, the entire building was dark, despite it being day out.
The headquarters was also empty. Entirely empty. He poked a wall with a vine. He smacked the wall. He latched onto the rafters and pulled himself up. His watch was working, as was his phone.
So it's real... or very powerful... He unlocked his phone, and flipped through his contacts.
Wasn't Blue Beetle on duty? No answer.
He grunted in frustration.
Couldn't've at least teleported me somewhere useful? he though, as he meandered his way up to his room. On his way up, he caught sight of the end of a strange and quickly fading light pattern making its way to the control room. This was a lead of some sort, at least. He followed, quietly. A voice, female, wafted back through the halls:
“This is turning out to be quite a troublesome first day,” it said to itself. Not the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from an invader, or from lights. so there was probably a person attached to this -
very pretty - light trail, and she was probably non-hostile. Or at least hopefully not as well practiced as he was.
He mulled it over, and decided to take the risk. Launching himself forward quickly with his vines, he overtook the source of the voice. Black tracksuit with a color costume matching her trail confirmed that she was certainly a hero of some sort, seeing as how no other type of person was really crazy enough to wear these sorts of costumes on the regular. He couldn't tell where her hair ended and the light began, which gave him reason for pause for a moment, as she stared at him, as surprised as he was to find another person in the seemingly abandoned building.
"Oh, uh. Sorry. I am The Warden, Justice League member, and supposed to be on mission in Washington. As you can see, I am not. As I can see, you are not a Justice League member. Have you too been brought here unexpectedly?
