Fear agus Beithíoch
Gavin O’Brien ◼ Januray, 1982 ( 35 ) ◼ Male ◼ HyperHuman
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"If you see something going down, and you can stop it. But can also inadvertently make it worse easily, should you intervene?"
"I may not look like much, but that is because I don’t feel like killing anyone right now."
//STATS:◼ HEIGHT | 5’ 10”
◼ WEIGHT | 173 lb.
◼ BUILD | Muscular, slightly malformed.
◼ HAIR COLOR | Black.
◼ EYE COLOR | Iris and Pupil is same shade of black.
◼ OTHER | Due to the genetic alteration caused by the Hype-Gene, this all approx. 100,000 miles of Gavin’s blood vessels are illuminated orange at different intensities depending on context. This varies from 30 to 60 lumens (bright enough to be noticeable through skin, but not bright enough to read something in the dark)
//DESCRIPTION:Due to the luminous blood, Gavin opts to cover his entire body. Typically he wears boots, cargo jeans, a pair of work gloves, long-sleeved t-shirt under a hoodie, and a mask covering the face.
While his entire blood has a soft glow, normally, only blood in the superficial veins/arteries will be noticeable.
Gavin is slow to trusting others and tends to reveal little about himself. Preferring solitude, he can on occasion be prodded into working in small groups.
"Sometimes I can still hear the screams."
Gavin was born in central texas to a 5th generation military family. So it was just natural he continued the tradition and enlisted shortly after turning 18. Since Gavin wanted to help his fellow soldiers and preferred small teams, he decided being an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) technician would be the best fit. After a few years of training he finally got certified and shortly thereafter got deployed overseas.
Nothing really notable happened until his second deployment in the Middle East. In 2011, while clearing a route from Improvised Explosive Device (IEDs, basically bombs made from junk) his team tripped one connected to several tanks buried underneath the road filled with mustard gas. The last thing he remembers before blacking out from the pain was insurgents storming out of a nearby building and gunfire.
When he woke up, he found himself the only one alive, knee-deep in the dead, covered in blood, and some of his bones were dislocated. Gavin then developed nightmares in which he killed the insurgents and even his own squad mates with his bare hands. He later realized, to his horror, that this was actually a repressed memory as he could not come to grips with what he had done. He just went berserk and killed everyone near him and seemed to gain increased strength. That was his first experience to what he calls a ‘Ríastrad’ as it shares similarities to what fabled hero Cú Chulainn could do in Irish Mythology.
Gavin starts to become mentally unstable as he is crushed by what he did and gets honorably discharged before he can hurt anyone else. For the rest of his life until this point, he became more distant to his family and friends as he fears of harming them or anyone else. He opts to live alone at least half a day’s travel from any point of civilization. Over time his Ríastrads progressively got more intense, though due to his distance from population centers, he usually never killed another human. Instead, sating his bloodlust on various animals near him until the Ríastrad passed. Around this time his skin began to show an orange glow along his blood veins, perhaps an Omen of the danger he is becoming.
About a week ago, he started traveling towards Crescent City. Gavin is unsure exactly why he decided to make this spontaneous decision, attributing it to the idea that maybe he could help the progressively worse situation. A way to redeem himself from the atrocities he did before. regardless of the reason, he just feels an urge to go there.
▼ M O T I V A T I O N / O B J E C T I V E:
"uhhh, Wit is one letter away from Twit?*fits pumps, ‘Nailed It!’*"
Ultimately, to learn to control his Ríastrads before it controls him.
▼ A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:
"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Likewise, sometimes all I see is prey."
//ABILITIES:
◼ Ríastrad | Gavin undergoes one of three stages of his Riastrad based on how much stress he is undergoing. Inactive, Passive and Active. Inactive is a neutral state in which he is no more exceptional than a particularly hardy mundane. Passive: Gavin gain an extraordinary amount of strength and resilience. He can exert an amount of force equal to roughly fifteen grown men and can shrug off light arms fire.Active: Gavin’s Strength and resilience further increases, but he mentally decays into his base animal instincts and becomes increasingly aggressive to anything nearby. Friend or Foe. He becomes immune to conventional methods of harm and while there is no upper limit to his strength, the maximum he has ever achieved is equal to roughly 150 grown men. I should also note that his blood glows in intensity relative to which stage he is in.
Whenever he has a Ríastrad his body acts like a battery. The amount of strength he has is directly proportional to how much energy he has. A specialized organ in his body produces astatine and distributes it through his blood stream (the amount produced is proportional to how much stress he has). The astatine undergoes radioactive decay and emits energy absorbed by his blood cells for distribution to the musculature system. Due to half-lives of radioactive elements, his body will still absorb energy even after astatine is no longer being produced. Typically Gavin’s Ríastrad will last no more than thirty minutes after combat or other high-stress situations. However, Excess energy can be absorbed by the consumption of sources of energy to extend the duration of his Ríastrad. Particularly notable sources of sustainment would be animals (including humans) and most radioactive materials.
◼ Increased healing | Gavin has greater than normal rate of healing. While by no means can he shrug off death or grow tissue immediately, it is still notable. The rate is tied to which stage he is in and can grow, say, an arm in four to forty-eight hours.
//SKILLS:◼ Adept with light arms | While by no means a master marksman, he can be effective with mearly any low cal weapon. Particularly handguns.
◼ Survival | Years of living away from civilization has trained him for living off the land, establishing shelter, tracking animals to hunt, and several other skills related to surviving alone.
//LIMITATIONS:◼ Self-Control | Not only is his strength tied to how much energy he has, it is also tied to how strong he is willing to become. Fearing what he can potentially do, he rarely surrenders control to his animal instincts
//WEAKNESSES:◼ Mentally Unstable | Past trauma has created an alternate persona he ‘Beithíoch’ or animal in Gaelige. This idenetity assumes control whenever he enters the active state of his Ríastrad. Beithíoch is hyper aggressive and has an insatiable bloodlust and seeks only to kill. Perhaps Beithíoch is a part of Gavin, the part that doesn’t care about mundanes. A part that feels like it is a wolf among sheep and should not abide by their laws. When not in an active state, Beithíoch may still occasionally try to get Gavin to do things he would not do.
◼ Exhaustion | After a Ríastrad, Gavin wil need a period of rest before he can have another. This is proportional to the intensity and amount of time spent in a Ríastrad.
//SUPPORTING CAST:▼ ALLIES◼ Traveler-59 | The callsign for an old friend of his from his army days. Traveler-59 is the only one Gavin trusts enough to tell him of his abilities. Traveler-59 occasionally supplies Gavin with resources or intelligence…. And to make sure Gavin does not suddenly become Jack Torrance*points if you know the reference*
▼ FRIENDS◼ None…yet | Test
▼ ENEMIES◼ None…yet | Test
//STOMPING GROUNDS◼ The Whispering Woods | Forests are usually rife with creatures to hunt and are generally unpopulated by humans. This makes the area the best place to rest during his visit. Gavin has established several camps he can move between to remain hidden.
//PARAPHERNALIA◼ Howdah pistol | Gavin’s preferred sidearm is a Howdah pistol which he has normal and specially made pellet rounds for. Of course it generally is unused because of the Ríastrad , but damn if it isn’t an ego boost to have a mini shotgun/hand cannon.◼Iron Mask | Nothing notable about this, just a human face shaped mask with holes for breathing and vision. It shows signs of aging and scratches reminiscent of scars. 
