Alias: Croach
Age: 21
Date of Birth: June 3rd
Hometown: Boston.
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 197lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Solid black, no differentiation between pupil iris or sclera.
Nationality/Race: Caucasian, with a hint of Hispanic.
Occupation: part time student, semi-professional dumpster diver/freecycler and semi-professional parkour athlete.
Personality Profile: Cassius has had an interesting life. Normal if poor upbringing, world travels in his formative years and then the discovery and embracing of his cockroach powers. To say that he is a certainly unique individual is to put the term mildly. He is not crazy and doesn’t come off as weird, but he is certainly memorable. He tends towards the twitchy side, nerves always prepared to signal danger and his body always ready to respond to whatever giant boot might be poised over him. When relaxed though, and when willing to open up to others, he tends towards a confidant, well spoken charm. “Shy” is oftentimes not a word to describe him, but he has learned to control his brashness and is certainly able to simmer down when the situation calls for it. He is Croach, he is a cockroach man, and damn anyone who would deride him for it! He was proud of himself, of his mutation and of his life so far, why bother to hide yourself if there isn’t anything wrong with it right?
Physical Description: Years of parkour and hard living has led to Cassius boasting a chiselled, hardened body; though the sort one earns by working, not the one you can build by training). His hair and his tinted skin speak to some Hispanic blood in his past, although his features speak to a more Caucasian, European lineage in the more recent past. His eyes, solid black orbs, rather like the glossy black eyes of bugs are the only obvious signs of his mutation. He is a large fan of second hand stores, and thus is sense in fashion tends towards the eclectic and the scavenged. All and all, Cassius is a quite handsome young man, and would be considered downright dashing and debonair, if he could hide his eyes and would resist the urge to indulge his nature.
Character Picture (Optional):
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Mutation/Powers: Cockroach Mutant.
Primary : Omniphage. Croach is capable, and willing to eat anything and everything. Let’s not mince words here, this is meant in the literal, exact way it sounds. Due to his mutation, Croach is able to consume, digest and gather nutrition from effectively any substance. The trick is how fast he is able to consume things. While his jaws and digestive system have been enormously augmented, enabling him to chew through and swallow things without harm to himself, he is not without limits. Normal organic substance can he chewed through like a fat kid tearing through a cake, but more durable things…car engine blocks, rocks, bits of drywall and insulation, or trees for example take considerably longer. He is only able to take normal sized bites of things, and durable items must be chewed and gnawed upon. Make no mistake though; given enough time and enough determination Croach can eat you out of house and home, by eating your house and home. This aspect to his power does not work on a short enough time scale to be considered an offensive ability, it is only useful when he has enough time to work at eating. This power has had a particularly useful side effect, it has rendered Croach's body immune to toxins, diseases and other forms of environmental ills(hard and soft radiation for example, but not weather or temperature); thus far no terrestrial agent has been able to do more than cause a tummy ache. This is due to his powers of course; people tend to assume that a cockroach eats anything because it is immune to everything; when it is in fact the other way around. A roach consumes anything, and by long exposure becomes immune to everything. This secondary element of his power is not strong enough to serve as any real form of defensive power, but does allow Croach to eat to his heart’s content without fear of it agreeing with him and to live in possibly dangerous locations in the style of the common cockroach. Recent exposure to large sources of gamma radiation has caused additional physical mutatiosn related to this power; his jaw and mouth structure can now split and extend a set of ultra strong, hyper durable mandible like structures. With them, he is now no longer limited to regular human biology when it comes to eating and can now exert his full ability to it; letting him easily bite through things like hardened steel and concrete. These, like his wings, are functionally undetectable when not in use.
Secondary : Roachman! Croach has had his body augmented to include several animalistic traits, if one could consider the cockroach to be an animal instead of a common everyday pest. The first is an ability to cling to walls, to defy gravity and walk on things, in the style of bugs. Croach in fact, is so adept at this, that neither his dexterity, nor speed, nor grace is decreased when walking on surfaces other then the ground. For him, the “ground” is simply where things tend to land when he drops them, nothing more really. His roach mutations have also given him is a phenomenal sense of smell; the man can scent a bit of road kill from several miles away, even while upwind on a clear day. This normally would be amazingly useful as a tracking power, but alas it is tied into the part of his brain that deals with food, and thus the smells of tasty things (read: anything easily chewable) tends to dominate in his perceptions, even when he is actively attempting to ignore morsels. Croach has recently undergone secondary mutations which have gifted him with a set of insect wings. These wings retract when not in use, and are undetectable when hidden. He is noi a great flyer though, as the common cockroach isnt known for its aerial ability. He can travel at roughly 50mph in short sprints, but otherwise limits himself to augmented leaps and bounds; as longer flights tend to wear him out. The same gamma ray exposure that gifted him his new mandibles has also granted Croach a set of retractable antennae; each over two feet long and glistening black, extending and retracting into his forehead. With them extended; his scent ability has been magnified to frankly near ridiculous levels; to the point where its hard to explain them in plain words. From the school; he might be able to tell what resturant specials are in Salem; by being able to smell them; or noticing buried electrical lines by detecting the faint hints of ozone.
Tertiary : Physical boosts. Cockroaches are not exactly known as the swiftest of beasts, nor as masterful predators or cunning hunters. It doesn’t take much to sneak up on bits of dirt and scavenge. Cockroaches are known though, for durability and speed (you can’t crush’em and they vanish like lightning in the light). Sadly, Croach has not actually inherited that level of physical augmentation; but does seem to have a little bit more than the average human being. He has about class twenty-five super strength (letting him hoist up to twenty five tonnes under regular circumstances) as well as similar levels of stamina and speed. Basically this lets him root through garbage, without fear of being crushed under collapsing piles; or to jump from rooftop to rooftop in case he should need to make a getaway. Secondary mutations andgamma exposure have augmented both his durability and healing. His body is now durable enough to withstand high calibre gunfire ralatively easily; with anything shy of weapons designed to damage armour being capable of seriously injuring him. His healing times have been augmented such that he can now heal at about twenty-thirty times normal rates, while also being able to truely regenerate body parts if needed.
Drawbacks/Weaknesses : Croach has a few drawbacks from his cockroach nature. The first is that he tends to be a trifle skittish. Not outright cowardly mind you, just a little high strung and prone to overreacting to surprises. The second, is the mutation to his senses of taste and smell. Quite simply, nothing tastes bad to Croach. Good things taste delicious, but even the most rancid bit of filth, the most rotten bit of meat or even a bit of asbestos covered in tar, still doesn’t taste or smell bad. When asked, he simply admits that the thing has “A lot of flavour, that’s for sure.” Or some other remark; but will not, and cannot fathom that it actually tastes bad. This leads to complications when he attempts to understand other people, or feel empathy for their tongues or noses. Pretty much, never, ever let Croach cook dinner if you can at all help it.
How do you believe this character's powers will further develop in the future? Possibly the ability to communicate with and control bugs. Greater physical attributes and more bug powers.
Background: The background of the man who would be Croach reads like thousands upon thousands of others. It is nor remarkable for its highs, nor depressing for its lows. He was raised in a single parent family, with his mother and grandparents being the primary caregivers for him. He was an average student all the way through elementary, but in high school did show that he had a good brain in his head; but a slight lack of focus prevented him from earning any scholarships, thus meaning that he could not afford college.
Slightly depressed by this, Cassius did what any wayward youth does when school is over and you feel dejected. He went backpacking in Europe for a year! Hooray for slumming around in foreign countries and otherwise acting like an undesirable vagabond! It was there he learned to love parkour; and learned just what you could do with almost no money to your name. He met girls, fell in love, lost his virginity (twice, long story). And otherwise had the sort of formative experiences a person always has when roaming the countryside in a drunken, fun loving stupor. His powers had been slightly active since his 13th birthday, but had never fully manifested to the point where he noticed. He had always been a good climber, with a cast iron stomach. It was when he attended a rally in favour of mutant rights with a pretty girl he had been seeing for well over a week at that point that things went crazy-go-nuts. It turns out she was a mutant herself, albeit a minor one and was there to protest crimes against mutant kind. What good are rallies if they don’t go all night though? To make sure he didn’t miss anything, Croach wrote home and got his mom to send him a few cans of the newest energy drink she could find. Local stores in small town Europe had yet to catch onto the craze of high doses of caffeine and sugar at odd hours. The stuff looked okay, it was called “Amp” or something, which was a good name for an energy drink right? It didn’t even smell bad; then again, Cassius was never at all one to judge food by how it looked, smelled or even tasted.
Small town Germany was not exactly the best place for this all to happen though. When the cans were drunk, the pretty girl erupted and well..exploded something awful. Turns out her power was the ability to control internal blood-pressure; and when Amp triggered her, her blood pressure spiked to the point where she detonated in the same manner as a relatively high-yield explosive device. BOOOOM!. Cassius (who was in a port-o-john at the time) was only dazed from the blast, but did have his powered fully awakened at this point. Chaos ensued, police were called and Cassius was arrested.
Small town Germany was bad; small town German jailhouse was worse. As his eyes had changed, Cassius was branded a mutant and was held for questioning. Days later, he was released when a surprisingly open minded officer realized that Cassius was as lost and confused as everyone, and had known the bomb-girl but had no idea what was happening. It was during this that he earned the nickname “Croach”, when the guards took to calling him “cockroach”, after he had eaten not only his meagre dinner, but the bowl and cup and tray and even part of the linens on his prison bed.
After being “escorted” to the nearest airport and put on a plane for Boston, Cassius, now calling himself Croach was greeted by his family. Turns out, they had suspected his mutantness, but had always hoped it would always stay minor. They talked, it was decided that he still needed time to figure out his powers and his newfound place in the world. In was in the airport actually that he heard about Cobalt. Another student had arrived on the same flight, and overheard the conversation. Pleasantries were exchanged and Croach slipped into the cab with the student and off he went. His stuff has yet to arrive, his mom said it would take a little while to get his things sent over; but so far the school was pretty good. Heck! It was even surprisingly affordable, and seriously...the food was great. Even the stuff the cafeteria threw out was delicious, let alone the stuff he finds in the dorm garbage cans. Yummy! Life is looking pretty good for the man who is now Croach.
Quirks/Extras (Random fun facts about your character!): Its amazing the sort of strange things Croach has learned how to do over the time he spent backpacking. He has enough smatterings of French, German, Spanish and Russian to avoid starvation and exposure. He learned how to build a still and to sneak into restricted, abandoned structures. (Urban exploration is what he called it. Trespassing is the more commonly used phrase). He can identify wild mushrooms and knows a surprising amount about the BDSM subculture (not that he partakes, but he once stayed with a dominatrix for a couple weeks in Prauge). Croach has had an interesting life so far, and its amazing the sort of things that can teach you.