Filip Yanukovich, criminal telepath

[Devilpants]

Player Nickname: Devilpants

Name: Filip Yanukovich
Codename: none
Date of Birth: October 30, 1991

Height: 5'9"
Weight: 150 lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Place of Origin: Prague, Czech Republic
Nationality/Race: Czech, with some Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian heritage
Classification/Origin of Powers: Mutant

Status: Villain
Occupation: Criminal, spy

Personality Profile:
Filip is lacking (but not totally bereft of) empathy and morality. While there are some acts to which he will not resort (notably harming children or sexual assault), for the most part, Filip believes the ends fully and wholly justify the means.

However, he is also a consummate professional: He prefers to leave no evidence, to deal with witnesses by not being witnessed at all, and to avoid killing whenever possible (to avoid the consequences of murder rather than because of any moral stand against killing).

Filip has absolutely no faith in the law or the justice system, especially not that of the United States. He believes it is a sham and completely corrupt from top to bottom, and feels zero remorse in breaking laws.

Physical Description:
Filip has a plain, mousy appearance, deliberately cultivated with a very common male hairstyle and plain clothes in dark blues, grays, and browns. Every item of clothing he wears is selected specifically for its ability to blend in to a crowd.

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General Power Information: Filip is a moderately powerful telepath. While he has developed several different ways to use telepathy aside from communication, his power ceiling is low compared to some telepaths.

Ability One:
Telepathic Combat: Filip is skilled in combat against other telepaths, and while he lacks the overwhelming power of some specialists, he is known for being slippery and hard to deal with. For all of these, an especially strong will or determination can mitigate these effects, as can special training against telepathic attacks.
- Sleep: Induces drowiness. Works better on unsuspecting targets; nearly useless in an actual fight.
- Stun: Overwhelms all of a target's senses at once, interfering with equilibrium and possibly inducing unconsciousness. Filip's primary form of attack.
- Blind: Specifically targets the optic nerve to cause temporary blindness. Causes a "grey-out" effect, similar to when the brain doesn't receive enough oxygen.
- Deafen: Interferes with the brain's ability to process what the ears hear, causing temporary deafness.
- Erase: By manipulating his target's saccadic masking and blind spot, Filip can erase himself from a person's visual field. This takes a high level of sustained concentration and can only be used on one person at a time.

Ability Two:
Detection: Filip is capable of sending out subtle low-powered "pings" of telepathy to detect other thinking entities. Filip has become very skilled at making these very hard to detect, to the point where another telepath would have to be specifically looking for them to pick up on it. Otherwise, the ping blends into the background noise of ambient thoughts.

Ability Three:
Mind Reading: While Filip cannot alter or erase memories, he can read the surface thoughts and intentions of a single person at a time. In addition, he can perform a "deep dive" into their memories. Filip lacks the raw telepathic power to force his way into the mind of an awake and lucid target, so the target must be either heavily drugged or unconscious for this to work.

Drawbacks & Weaknesses:
Inorganic Foes: Filip lacks any sort of offensive options (aside from outside weaponry, like guns) against foes who are immune to telepathy.
Group Battles: Filip thrives in small encounters and one-on-one fights, but fares poorly against groups because he's only capable of targeting one person at a time with any of his powers.
Lack of Lethality: Because of the nature of Filip's powers, needs to rely on weaponry to actually kill anyone.

Skills:
- Deception: Filip is a career criminal and has made his livelihood from lying, but this goes far beyond simple verbal falsehoods. He has a deep understanding of body language and micro-expressions, and has fooled experts and professionals without the use of telepathy. He has even fooled a polygraph machine.
- Stealth: In addition to deception, Filip is skilled at sneaking. Aside from simply moving quietly, he is also a master at blending in, imitating the body language and facial cues of the people around him, and uses colour theory to coordinate his wardrobe to make himself less memorable.
- Melee Combat: Filip is not a physically imposing man and is not particularly athletic, but he has been trained in both unarmed and armed combat. His style emphasizes redirecting momentum, tripping, and disarming, as well as improvised weaponry.
- Firearms Training: In addition to melee combat, Filip is trained in the maintenance and operation of firearms, especially pistols.
- Table Tennis: Filip is moderately skilled at table tennis. Not good enough to compete with pros, but he'll dominate in a casual environment. It's his favourite sport.

Background:
- father was a soldier in the Czech military, mother was a school teacher
- quiet, unassuming child who learned how to lie to get what he wanted from an early age
- was bullied into joining a gang at 14; his telepathic powers manifested when he was attacked by a rival gang, and he used his powers to defend himself, leaving two of the kids comatose
- identified by another telepath named Petr, a member of one of Prague's crime families, who took him in and trained him
- Filip used his position of privilege in the crime family and powers as a telepath to rise through the ranks and secure financial security for his parents
- in 2019, a secret war between major crime families in Prague broke out, resulting in several assassinations, including the heads of the family Filip worked for
- his mentor, Petr, was killed by another mutant criminal during that time, and Filip was next, so he fled to the United States and started his life over again
- Filip stays in regular contact with his parents, and they still don't know that he's a career criminal

Criminal Record: Filip has extensive dossiers with INTERPOL and META for various lesser crimes, most of which are connected to much larger organizations or operations. There is little conclusive evidence to go on and not enough to make any arrests, but he is known to keep the company of criminals, both meta and otherwise.

Quirks, Extras, Random Character Facts: Filip is a strategy game enthusiast, both for board games and video games. He refuses to use his telepathy when competing for the sake of fairness. He has a reputation as a notorious troll in EVE Online, and was known for his meticulously-crafted armies in the Warhammer 40,000 scene in the Czech Republic.