[CHAR] Red Skies

[Jozarin]

Pierre Beaumont

Name: Pierre Beaumont
Aliases: Baron Beaumont
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Ethnicity/Nationality: French, but a citizen of the USA
Physical Appearance:

Pierre has a soft but angular pretty-boy face. He wears his brown hair long and tied back. His eyes are hazel, and he keeps his teeth ivory-white. He always dresses up, draping a short copper-trimmed blue cape 'round himself at least. Under that, he either wears formal suits or one of his old Marines uniforms.

Class: Ace
Red Skies Traits:

He can impose his will on others using pheremones and mild psychic powers. The power can be subtle or forceful. Intoxicated and asleep people fall easiest. Next come people with unstable emotions. Next are people with normal mental state. Finally, are people trained against it. The change is gradual in most cases, with only the weakest willed people breaking right then. The pheremones only really work when the victim is nearby and in the same environment. The effect can linger, but it becomes weaker and weaker. Prolonged exposure can leave permanent changes.

Weaknesses, Drawbacks and Limitations:

It can be draining to use psychics on anyone with a stable mental state. If he attempts to use his psychic abilities on someone trained against it, it can leave him stunned.

Skills and Talents: He spent seven years in the marines, giving him skills with weapons, multitasking, mechanics, and tactics. He also learnt ballet and fencing as a teen. He can ride a motorcycle and drive a car.

Psychological Profile:

After a mission where almost his entire squad fell to the virus, and the rest divergent, he fought guilt. To cope, he began to obsess over "worthiness", and turned to the medieval "great chain of being". He considers aces to be "superior", the only ones worthy of holding great ranks. The humans and divergents are inferior, and live to serve the aces. He plans to reinstate a feudal system, preferably with him at head, but any ace will do.

History/Bio:

His family have always been well-off from business enterprise. Growing up, he had a good education, and good opportunities. They moved to New York in 1984, to make even more money on Wallstreet. He joined the Marines at 18, and served for the last seven years. He was recently discharged due to psychological concerns. His family died to the virus, leaving him an upstate penthouse and some blocks in the east village.

Relationships:
Jillian Thorn, his human concubine
Hector White, the second in command of a gang he runs in the east village

In a nutshell: Pierre, an ace supremacist, fancies himself a feudal baron after a traumatic mission for the marines.

[BytheSpleen]

Ebenezer Volkov

Name: Ebenezer Volkov
Aliases: "Lambent", or in derogatory cases, "Centaur".
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Ethnicity/Nationality: Slavic Descent
Physical Appearance:
Ebenezer's body has two distinct parts that are conjoined :

The Centaur : When most think of centaur, they think of powerful figures with lithe, supple forms that take the best qualities of horse and man into one convenient, workable form. This conventional thought holds true, but not without its flaws, for man was intended to be man, and nothing else. The Centaur stands at 8 feet from top o' the head to the bottom of the cloven hooves, those of which follow same digitigrade parallels as mountain goats. These feet, while not necessarily capable of handling conventionally sized footholds, are able to support the half-ton weight with much more ease due to the similar size of that of elephants' feet. Because the hooves are cloven, it can be said that at the very least MOST larger footholds can be scaled. The equine part of the Centaur has completely exposed, blackened flesh, and although the flesh itself has a stringy consistency and hardness akin to leather, it is by no means indestructible. Simply maneuvering in precarious environments and unsafe weather conditions could lead to contamination, if not wear and tear, and venturing in bogs and cesspools simply are no longer viable without risking infection. Rest will allow time for adaptation to the new body, which will eventually harden and strengthen given enough time to adjust, but as Ebenezer is only a few months into infection, he is quite a vulnerable creature. The "Sapient" part of the Centaur is indeed a humanoid form, sporting at least a skin-clad set of musculature deceiving of his actual age, but its face is completely obscured by two incredibly hard plates of calcified matter. There are no eyes or nose, but there are definitely ears, ears akin to those of deer (though hairless, like the rest of Ebenezer's equine parts) to aid in hearing. Between each rib are rows of quarter-sized holes, all lined with turbinate-like folds and uvula-like apparatuses that facilitate breathing and scent. The folds filter and catch any foreign objects, and once the uvulas feel a threshold being reach, a hole will pump a hard gust of moist air out, ejecting any foreign materials lodged inside. The two-dozen some of these holes help carry oxygen continuously, leaving the mouth (which have metallic-like teeth) to do any secondary function without pause, such as eating, talking, etc. The humanoid torso contains all the vital organs, which in theory could mean that sawing Ebenezer's body from behind the front legs down would only put him in the risk of shock and blood loss, incurring no immediate danger to any vital organs. It is very possible he only needs his two front legs to move around, but then again, Ebenezer wouldn't let himself be administered to such pains. Every part of the Centaur contains extremely high amounts of melanin, which in effect makes it appear an inky violet-black. This is because of the Red Sky Trait, which requires much more efficient functionality of cells, but also provides increased protection from microbial contaminants and a range of radiation.

The Man : The upper half of old Ebenezer hangs uselessly behind the humanoid half of the Centaur, inactive, old, and battered. He appears to be Caucasian, whatnot with his pale skin, glazed-over blue irises and grey brown hair. At the hip, it is conjoined with the Centaur's spine and shoulder blades, but can freely side to side. Thus, Ebenezer takes the trouble to tie his two humanoid uppers tightly together to avoid loss of streamlining.

Classification: Divergent
Red Skies Traits:

"Lambency" : Ebenezer's body has been reshaped to accommodate a new form, which boasts high control over electrical conductivity. At command, Ebenezer can "supercharge" a given part of his body, boosting its capabilities for an incredibly brief moment while ejecting electricity and heat as byproducts. He can essentially make jumps thought impossible (to about 20 feet high from a running start), punch cracks into concrete slabs, bend steel beams (but can't melt 'em, sorry), etc. If he focuses, he can project a stream of charged ions in the form of lightning from his hands.

Weaknesses, Drawbacks and Limitations:

All of these will incur a period of sickness if he uses this too many times in succession (about 5 times within 4 minutes starting out). Forced conduction of energy for 5 seconds will equal 3 consecutive usages. Going beyond this limit will overcome the ion buildup in his body, which will degrade his overall stature for the next 3-4 days. Continued use during this period will worsen his condition.

If used too much, even with the recovery periods, he will begin to overheat and literally cook himself alive. Overwork will literally smoke him up.

His mouth cannot breathe, as the holes along his ribs have entirely replaced the job. Therefore, he cannot swim in deeper waters, even if his head is sticking out.

Freezing temperatures will directly freeze his lungs, as they have much more moisture inside than human lungs.

His original body hangs uselessly, making it a great place for infections and other contaminants to invade due to possible atrophy from inactivity and the like. It also makes a nice target since it's so pale compared to the inky black color of the Centaur. Most of his sapient mind comes from the human brain too, so damaging the brain too much will make him brain dead.

Whichever parts of the body used Lambency glow quite nicely, making Ebenezer a great target to pick at in dark places.

Skills and Talents:

• Ebenezer plays the violin proficiently, but is certainly no master. The entirety of any songs he can bother to remember playing fall mostly in Irish folk pieces (he fell in love with the genre growing up), or any number of modern classics. The same goes for playing the piano, though to a far lesser extent.
• Ebenezer is bilingual, in Russian and in English.
• Ebenezer can shoot the AK-74 and VSS, effectively allowing him to handle just about every other weapon system like it (the god-awful amount of knock-offs AKMs and Chinese Type series, the RPK, the 47, etc.). It's fairly simple, really.
• Ebenezer uses echolocation, as his upper body has no eyes (excluding his human self, which lies dormant for unknown reasons).
• Ebenezer is a practitioner of Internal Medicine. He can prescribe different types of medications for a number of conditions concerning the organs. He can only do some basic examinations, given his lack of eyesight and equipment, that a specialized doctor might be more proficient at.

Psychological Profile:

Ebenezer, when he was human, only wanted his final years to pass on into retirement, where he could pursue some hobby he was content to have. He was deprived of this opportunity when the infection left him wifeless and transformed, and for the first few weeks, months even, he was angry at himself and the world. But, as all survivors do, he calmed down, thought about his predicament, and decided to make do with what he had. He has elected to protect his last immediate kin, a daughter living within a quarantined city X (GM may or may not determine location relative to where we'd be) from divergents who failed where he had succeeded. That isn't to say he exclusively other divergents; aces are more dangerous in their own ways, and humans are a case-by-case danger all on their own. If one were to take that one light away from him, his daughter, there's no telling what he might do or be. As he is now, though, many people are glad that he only prowls at the border and slums, where he projects his anger onto anyone he even thinks of a risk to the few humans around and about.

History/Bio:

Born from a defected Soviet tank commander and an English telephone operator just after the second World War's end, Ebenezer had a relatively rigorous life between ideologies right from the get-go. In his house, he was raised with socialism in the pragmatic, humanitarian sense. Outside the house, he learned of loyalties, ties, sins, and the dark side of human nature. It came to no surprise then, that once he heard about the escalations in the Cold War, that he sought to free his extended family at the age of 16.

He was successful, but only marginally. With the gratitude of his nieces, aunts, cousins, and grandparents in mind, Ebenezer went to prison after being caught, and from there spent a year in a Gulag camp before its closure. He, among the lucky few, was allowed to cycle back into Russian society for helping design infrastructure and efficiency. Once the Soviets heard he was an Englishman, he was cycled to interrogation, and was allowed to come back to Britain...on the condition that he would never meet his family again, and that he should cooperate with the KGB whenever possible. So from there, he became the fiddle of two very different arms; on one side of the Curtain, he was a liberal arts teacher professor who wedded an American lady in the year of '68. On the other side, he was something of an independent spy, a versatile relay that had punctual consistency despite being difficult to reach. Life went on, and by '81, had a daughter with his wife. Ten years later, he confessed to his wife of his role in the USSR the day after it was dissolved, after she found two Russian guns boxed, wrapped in leather holsters, promptly left on the doorway of their apartment. They were compensation for his hard work in the Gulag camps and as a spy, as any currency in rubles were being overturned within the satellites states. While she was a little angry, she was a little happier to know how he got the Russian newspapers as an old "hobby", and a little happier that he wasn't spending his free time off on "business trips" like he did before. Because of UK gun laws, though, the family decided to move out to the US. Between raising a family; teaching young, hopeful adults; and having fun with new American friends (who seemingly stopped giving a damn about the Russians after the USSR fell), Ebenezer was still a humanitarian at heart. He spent half his retirement money on tuition to pre-medical studies, and passed his MCAT by '95. For two years, he was living quite finely. Then the comet took his wife from him, leaving only him to fend for his daughter.

How could he do so when he was 8 feet tall and around half a ton? How would she even look at him the same? Well, he could mitigate the problems, make life a little easier. He reasoned, after a few weeks of finishing his metamorphosis, that not everyone could turn out the same as he did. He knew there would be people who learned, adjusted, embraced their change in all the wrong ways. If so, they could not, under any circumstances, live any longer. After all, like many humans were back in the day, they were greedy, selfish scum protected by a few words and "rights". Rights that he could breach whenever necessary.

Relationships:

• 16 Year-Old Felicity Volkov - Human...as far as he knows.

In a nutshell: That which has been patched with a new skin.

Other:

• 2 Rifles : AK-74 and VSSK. The Kalashnikov is throw-in-the-mud-and-flash-freeze-it-right-after tough, as expected from quality gunsmiths and a no-nonsense design, and has plentiful ammunition. The VSSK falls slightly shorter than the AK in those aspects, but makes up for it with armor-piercing capabilities and incredible suppression by default, on top of the accuracy that makes it the choice of many Spetsnaz operators. Of course, the VSSK's ammunition is very rare, which makes each shot an expensive choice.
• Clothing : Ebenezer owns a plethora of sweaters and the like to keep himself warm at times. He cannot fit any sort of pants.