Name: Nicholas
Alias: Deadman
Age: 29
Date of Birth: March 16th 1990
Hometown: Glasgow, Scotland
Height: 5'5
Weight: 105
Hair Color: White
Eye Color: White
Nationality/Race: Scottish
Occupation: Resident in medical center
Undergoing rehabilitation at Cobalt. Helps out in the medical center by using his powers healing the grievously wounded. Handles some first aid and light work around the medical center like paperwork, cleaning, tending to minor wounds that require a stitch, disinfecting or band-aid and keeping the place stocked. In addition to that he also assists with the more serious injuries, ones that are life threatening.
Personality Profile:
Nicholas mostly keeps to himself. The only real personal interaction he has is while working in the medical center. Professional attitude and mannerisms keeps him friendly. Measured smiles and politeness abound. Known for keeping his patients company. Often found working on crafts in his free time or at a lonely patient’s bedside.
Physical Description:
One of the most striking things about Nicholas is the fact he looks like an animated corpse: waxy pale skin that's cold to the touch, dark circles around his sunken, eerily solid white eyes and bluish lips. His hair is shoulder length and straight with curled ends, as stark white as his hide. From the looks of it, he weighs 90 pounds when soaking wet, unnaturally thin and skeletal. There's a potential to be handsome if only he had more meat on his bones. Sharp angular lines are on his face, cheek bones jutting out, hollows underneath them. Fuzz lines his jaw from a trimmed beard, giving him a scruffy look. He has a tribal tattoo of a phoenix on the left side of his neck.
Other than his macabre appearance, he looks nothing short of mediocre. The more attentive may notice that he doesn't draw breath except to make speech possible. He usually wears silver rimmed glasses that have a pale blue tint to the lenses. Occasionally he can be seen with an onyx cane, the handle carved to be tipped with an owl's head.
On the rare occasion that the inside of his mouth can be seen, his gums are a medium grey and tongue the same blue as his lips. When injured, he bleeds thick blood that's an inky black that stinks like a rotten old corpse. The blood's the source of faint decomposition that surrounds him like an aura. Anything that's unfortunate enough to be doused with his blood tends to not only be stained but stink until scrubbed clean and aired out enough.
His clothing is almost always completely black with the occasional splash of color. On work days he wears a three piece suit with a matching pair of glasses. Off days find him in a t-shirt, jeans and steel-toed work boots. Black leather gloves are virtually always worn to keep any unfortunate accidents from occurring as his powers are touch-based.
Character Picture (Optional):
With dyed hair/makeup/contacts
Mutation/Powers:
Primary: Deathproof
Zombie: Injuries that would kill a normal human are an irritation to Nicholas. Nerves don’t transmit pain or pleasure. Blood loss, temperature changes, and lack of oxygen have no effect.
* Being infected with the Vurderstrom virus, combined with the damage suffered from being held captive by some giant spiders have altered his physiology. It's left him zombified, stuck between life and death. His heart still beats, he draws breath in to speak. Breathing is not a necessity and the loss of blood cannot kill him. Certain types of damage are rendered useless. Pheromones have zero effect, biological changes are either nullified or take more effort than usual to be successful. Poison's usefulness varies depending on how it affects the body.
Secondary: Injury transferal
Part A: From target to Nicholas: A person's injuries or wounds can be instantly healed up using this power. This can be quite good for the target but bad for Nick: he heals by moving the wounds to his own body, leaving it injured. The process takes very little time to get done, almost like magic. It can be traumatic for the target and fatal for Nick depending on the severity of the wound. Missing limbs can also be restored with this ability.
Part B: From Nick to target: It works the same way as Part A does, but moves injuries from Nicholas' body to the intended person via touch. Pain is experienced by the target as the damage is handed over. Target can be living, dead, or a simple object.
Tertiary: Deathvision
A person is given an intense and fully realistic vision of their death, or one of the ways they could die. It feeds off their subconscious. The fears, how they think they could meet their end...these will influence what they see. It's also possible for Nicholas to influence the vision. During the vision, it will feel like the person is dying: they experience everything as though it is really happening. Bullets feel real, fire burns white-hot but as soon as the vision ends, the sensations melt away to find no damage has been caused to their bodies though the experiences may last a lifetime and even result in ghost pains.
An odd thing can happen if he unwittingly or purposefully invokes a deathvision with no target: he subconsciously manifests a dark cloud of fog-like haze that wafts around him. Onlookers can glimpse odd things in the mist. This could just be their imagination trying to make sense and shapes of the darkness.
Drawbacks/Weaknesses:
- * Unable to heal. Even a simple paper cut will never heal no matter how long it’s left to mend. The only method to repair damage is to transfer it to another entity or object.
* The traumatic experience with the spiders has left several lingering scars on him: the repeated damage has left him fragile and weak. Bones are easily broken, wounds take longer, and nerves are irreparably damaged. He can no longer feel pain or pleasure. Some sense of taste remains but is dulled.
* Absorbing wounds leaves him damaged. Illnesses cannot be transferred in this manner. The worse a wound is, the longer it will take to transfer. Limbs cannot blink back into existence and must be grown. The affected person will effectively regenerate the limb over the course of a couple weeks while Nick's own rots and dies in the same time frame. Requires direct contact with his hands to exposed flesh. Also requires focus and his full concentration. Unable to heal what is healed. Things like scars are unable to be further healed.
* Transferring his injuries to another person has similar restrictions and effects as theirs to him. If physical contact is broken, the process is interrupted and the transferring is halted, the injuries divided between the two.
* Deathvision is only a vision and can deal psychological damage. No matter how convincing or traumatic the vision was, it will never cause physical damage. It lasts as long as contact is made and will end the second contact is broken, either by the will of Nicholas, the victim or an external party or force. Requires direct contact with his hands to exposed flesh. Also requires focus and his full concentration. The fog effect has no effect even if someone comes in contact with it. It additionally has no smell, taste or any other tactile feeling and cannot be used offensively.
* The physical mutation, his zombie-like body, has its own drawbacks. He cannot heal on his own without transferring it to another object or entity. The dead flesh is an inviting thing to parasites and maggots. Anything that can live happily in a decaying body would find him an ideal host. The inability to heal, his natural smell of decay, and inability to ward off maggots does not add up to nice things. Open wounds can also leak fluids and ruin clothing and draw unwanted attention to himself. The more blood he loses, the slower he gets, until he's reduced to a shambling corpse.
* Attacks that target his mind are unusually effective. More specifically, ones that amplify what he's capable, or incapable, of feeling. He has no way to fight back to mind or body control, hypnotic/voice suggestion, or any other variety of psychic attacks. Freezing might not kill him but it can stop him in his tracks: during the winter months, he must wear a heated jacket to avoid freezing solid. During the summer, care must be taken to keep his rancid smell from getting any worse. He won't rot and fall apart but it's unpleasant to be around and makes him uncomfortable.
* Only raw food can be consumed. His body can't handle any sort of gluten, processed food, dairy, or any other allergens. His diet is restricted to raw meats and vegetables, fruit juices and water. Eating anything else, alcohol, caffeine or other 'unhealthy' foods can render him quite ill, acting like a severe case of food poisoning.
* Animals, even mutants with feral abilities, are off-put by his abilities. It could be the smell, or just feeling something is 'wrong'. Humans can get the same upsetting feeling but it's not quite as strong. It makes being around animals difficult and strains friendships with people, particularly mutants with animal abilities/senses. For animals that eat carrion, it's worse: he looks and smells like a Meals On Wheels.
Weapons:
* Large caliber handgun that, if carried, is kept in a shoulder holster for easy concealment under his suit jacket. The leather is black, rivets a dark matte finish so that it's difficult to spot. The firearm itself is not properly registered and is a custom build gifted to him by 'Load. It has a special motif designed on the sides and displays teeth, assorted viscera and reads "Meal Planner". It's silver in color with black staining to bring out the design and make it more visible. Due to him being unable to carry firearms due to his META rap sheet, he keeps this weapon secret and has yet to brandish it.
* Has been known to use various tools from the trunk of his car, medical implements like scalpels to attack a foe. The canes he likes to carry around aren't just for looks: they are all made sturdy enough to double as a club and even has one with a built-in cattle prod.
Team uniform: Link
* Personal touches:
- *Boots: Steel toe
*Gloves: His own leather gloves
*Belt: Utility belt that carries medical supplies
*Added items: A backpack that fits close to his body and matches the color scheme. *Carries more medical supplies, team equipment, a couple extra of each vital items (comm units, glasses)
How do you believe this character's powers will further develop in the future? N/A
Background:
Until the age of 10, he lived in Glasgow. His parents had unremarkable jobs: his mother was a hairdresser and father worked in a steel mill. At 10, they visited the United States only to become illegal aliens. Despite their status, his parents were able to make enough income to live at a reasonable level. Nicholas' parents saved up until they were able to get him fake information so he could enroll in and complete school. After graduating from High School, he applied for citizenship and eventually got it, staying with a student visa until then. He lived on his parents' farm, helping out where he could. This meant hunting various wild animals to bring home for dinner.
Up until he met his girlfriend, Sarah, he was a bad child and was often in trouble with the school. The trouble-making involved acts of arson, setting off small explosions and getting into fistfights with other kids in school and on the street. But something in Sarah calmed him significantly, making him redirect his excess energy into work. This helped him blossom as a person. His grades shot up and he reached his full potential as a bright young man.
Then one night everything went wrong. Nicholas and Sarah went to a party and she drove home after too many drinks. A truck hit the driver's side. Sarah died in the car with Nicholas and he was successfully freed and endured an extended stay in the ICU of a hospital until he died from organ failure. A couple of days later he scared a mortician silly after returning to life just seconds from his autopsy. The resulting mental break from losing the love of his life to and the reaction from his horrified parents resulted in his spending some time in a psych ward. While his parents ultimately accepted him, they still give him strange looks from time to time, creeped out that he returned from the grave.
He has since started carrying around a note in his wallet with contact information and an address to leave his body at in the event of an accident, afraid he'll be cremated before he can return from the dead. Beside that note, he normally tries to avoid mentioning just what the mutation is around other people and often lies about just what he can do. After all, that information could be specially terrible if it falls into the wrong hands.
But following a traumatic experience with some giant spiders, everything changed again! His appearance turned to look like he was steeped in bleach for a week. With his memory completely erased, barely remembering English, he emerged a completely different person. It took weeks of intense therapy with psychics to put him back together again. His parents, the love of his life, traumas of the past, all gone to the wind. It's the only real death Nicholas has known, as close as an immortal could come to it.
The experience left him temporarily cut off from the world: blind, mute, the nerve damage. But with the help of doctors and specialists, his body was pieced together again.
Criminal profile: None
META notes: Terrorized some members of Cobalt extensively. Refuses to answer questions when interrogated. Frustratingly polite if he speaks.
Quirks/Extras:
* Despite being surrounded by death, he has a green thumb! But this mostly extends to cacti and succulents as his busy life leaves him little time to watch after finicky plants. He can keep some species or orchids, ferns and other assorted houseplants alive and thriving if they can take periods of drought.
* He has a couple of violins: an ordinary one for playing on the streets and the one left enchanted by Maurice's powers, able to produce illusions when played.
Nick favors a small assortment of music: classic rock, some classical music, soft jazz, ambient and lounge.
* He strongly dislikes dogs, even to the point of seeming like he has a phobia of them. Even the most well-behaved pooch will get a shaky smile at best; he's reluctant to touch a canine at all, let alone to pat it on the head. Thanks to the bastardization of his body and powers he's now wary of any animal he meets.
* Favorite colors are soft green, earthy browns/tans and sky blue. Loves storms and to watch the rain cascade down the windows of his apartment. Spends quite a bit of time on his balcony just watching the pigeons flying or clouds moving overhead.
* Has a nasty temper and is prone to flying into a fit of blind rage if angered. While not as temperamental as he used to be, certain phrases grate on his nerves enough to go berserk.
* Has a phobia of spiders! It's crippling, making him either get stressed enough that he shuts down, faints or simply flees. More recently he's grown wary of blood and other red liquids and blades. He's trying to work through it due to his profession in the health field. Dampeners have also made the list along with the feeling of helplessness.
* Absolutely hates zombie movies. If anyone suggests watching one in his presence his manties get in a wad and mood
