Duke Virne
Name: Rexes Virne
Title: (Former) Duke of Calphad
Height: 267cm
Weight: 1168kg
Age: 651 (Much like lobsters, Lardanerus do not really age past a certain point. He is an adult.)
Race/Species: Lardanerus
The Lardanerus are an extremely slowly growing and reproducing race of humanoids composed almost entirely of a difficult to completely identify metal alloy. It seems their diets affect the structure of them, but attempts to extract the very base of this combination has not proven successful yet. Progress is being made, which in turn has allowed for greater exoframe development within the Fleet, but let's not get to that here.
Their existence is practically limited to those who still exist within Ragnarov Fleet thanks to their slow growth and few ever leaving the group since having chosen it as their future over their old king... who was eventually wiped out with their supporters for trying to fight the inevitable.
Tier/Influence: 3 (regional); A body of metal may grant one quite the endurance, but other than that Duke Virne is nothing too special. He has not shown any aptitude for magic as things are, but technology tends to be easy for him to understand.
Group(s): Ragnarov Fleet
Appearance: Dark, tall, and made of metal.
Personality: Duke Virne loves jokes and taking risks, an odd feature for one of his trade, but he might be one of the most tight lipped people you meet, rarely talking about himself. As long as the discussion steers clear of anything personal though, his booming laughter and entertaining stories can be heard all the way across the room.
Abilities, Talents, Traits, Powers:
- ( 3 ) Metal Body -- While "Break yourselves upon my body!" might be a common quip from Virne, it holds a grain of truth to itself: His person is much harder to beat down without weaponry that has above average armour penetration capability. In addition to being protective, it also graces the man with sheer mass, making facing him in close combat a foolish endeavour. However, his movement when it comes to speed, flexibility or reach is not much above an average human (if stretched to his size), so most of the threat indeed comes from the mass and hardness alone.
- ( 3 ) Racing (driving, more specifically) -- Duke Virne is well known within the Fleet for winning their biannual racing competition with his car Armour for a decade in a row. It is not just the vehicle that makes this possible: The Duke himself has honed his skills as much as at all possible over the years. He has people to impress and fun to have. So why not combine the two?
- ( 2 ) Hand-to-hand combat -- One would not want to end up in a fistfight with someone like Duke Virne, nor would one be delighted to find themselves wrestling with one. Which is exactly why the Duke has trained a bit in these arts: Just to make himself a bit more intimidating and knowledgeable.
Items:
- ( 4 ) "Armour" (Vehicle) -- The Duke's pride and joy, a racing vehicle built with the chief medic for him and him alone. The chief managed to utilise her ability for vehicular linking to a third party interface, although that only worked thanks to Virne being of metal himself. While the vehicle is bulky as well, it has shown to be capable of remarkable speed with it's engine set-up and capability of burning through multiple gold and platinum grade Fleet nitroes without suffering component damage.
- ( 1 ) "Get down!" (A projectile weapon) -- For personal protection past his bodyguard squad and his sheer bulk alone, the Duke carries around an old troop classic, one instance of the handgun type nicknamed "Get down", the name earned for those being the words usually spoken when it is drawn. Slow to fire and a bit too heavy for its own good, it still sports a commendable level of armour penetration.
History: The story of the (back then) Duke of Calphad is not that different from many of those who now find themselves in the ranks of the Ragnarov Fleet. The planet of these metal people was unsurprisingly rich in desirable minerals just as well, which served to summon in the Fleet. A choice was offered as was customary: "Surrender your planet and join, or perish. We do not particularly care which." The Lardanerus were comparatively primitive folk back then, yet their king chose to fight. Their pride would end up being their downfall, which Virne predicted and gathered those loyal to him... and defected.
It was not much later when word of the fall of the former kingdom reached his ears and he knew he had made the survivor's decision. Yet guilt of having left his king behind never quite left the man. Nowadays, while not as prominent, it surfaces as the Lardanerus being fiercely loyal to the Fleet: If he abandoned his king to join this side, he would stay on this side. Eventually this quality (and the fact he had spent over two hundred years on deck by that point) led to him becoming the chief of internal security over in the Fleet council where he later got to know a certain Akæn, with whom he felt he shared a connection. After all, living metal was an inherent part of them both, even if they were of different kinds.
