Name: Henry Swank
Alias: John Doe
Age: 51
Date of Birth: Dec 15, 1960
Hometown: Seattle, WA
Height: Variable, generally 5'0
Weight: Variable, generally appears to be 125
Hair Color: Variable, generally light brown
Eye Color: Variable, generally blue
Nationality/Race: N/A, generally white
Occupation: Bartender
Personality Profile: John Doe seems to not have any! The main word is: seems. It just doesn't express many emotions, mainly just a dry humor and wit. He can be cruel with its jokes at times but John rarely means harm. John is quite jaded by the rough patches in his life, content to watch now from the outside as opposed to actively joining in. But he can't help himself at times and seeks out some social activities and involvement. This may include stopping by local establishments that it has no business in...including schools.
Physical Description: Long ago, John Doe had a normal description but no longer! He can assume any appearance that he wishes and that can change at a moment's notice. His natural appearance is a large puddle of what looks to be mercury, the surface multicolored like an oil slick. But his favored appearance is what he would have been if his x-gene hadn't interrupted his life: a balding middle aged man with short light brown hair, blue eyes and a soul patch on his chin. The clothes can vary and change at will, as they're part of his body, not actually cloth at all.
Character Picture:
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Mutation/Powers:
Primary: Shape shifter: John is, basically put, a giant pile of barely sentient amoebas. Individually, they aren't too special but when enough get together to form a colony, they work together to form a creature of average intelligence. That thing is John. He is a true shape shifter and can rearrange his mass around to form whatever he wishes. He can emulate another person, a different gender, real animals and mythical ones. It takes very little time to switch, his body taking on a metallic sheen as it flows from one appearance to another.
Physical attacks such as punching, striking him with normal inert objects, seems to produce zero effect. He can take an extraordinary amount of blunt force trauma and cutting attacks are often met with the main colony simply reattaching with the severed part. Even when overwhelmed to the point of losing his concentration, he can simply reform and continue on.
Secondary: Thought suggestion: This gives John the ability to give suggestions to others and is a bit more mundane than the usual 'take control and command' type of mind control. Instead it allows him to whisper suggestions to someone which they can choose to ignore or comply to or relay simple messages. Once he has gotten into someone's head, he's able to speak to them from short distances away. He is able to influence a person's dreams more strongly but only guide, not totally create. The effect is stronger if he's actively making eye contact with the intended target.
Tertiary: Multiplying: Parts of John's colony can be split off, reproducing asexually. This process doesn't take long and can happen accidentally if a part of it is hacked off or otherwise removed and not absorbed back into his body. The parts can be allowed to live autonomously or can be controlled by John by will. He can sense where these parts are, even over vast distances.
Drawbacks/Weaknesses/Side Effects:
Shifting:
* The process of changing his body drains quite a bit of energy, making him need to eat large quantities of food.
* Things like armoring or other hard materials are impossible to create, leaving structures that appear rigid or sturdy actually anything but. Horns, talons and bone look hard and dangerous but are, in reality, harmless. Different textures can be achieved, making cloth feel like cloth and scales feel like scales, but very dense structures cannot be successfully created. They have the same rigidity and strength as flesh, even teeth.
* He only has so much mass to work with and so, unless he absorbs enough food to give him enough to work with, he cannot change to a much larger size. John can compact itself to appear smaller, to a point, but unless parts are shed or cast off, he will weigh the same amount. So unless John chooses to break off a part of itself, he can change into a squirrel...that weighs however much he did previously. 125 pound squirrel if he was disguised as his normal self, 200 or more if he was particularly large, if he was much smaller!
* Consuming and digesting of food takes quite some time. He eats by wrapping around the food item and slowly digests it with a powerful acid, much like the amoebas within. He does not bite or chew food and has no capabilities to do so, making the digestion process even longer than most creatures endure.
* Basically put, mutant powers are super effective! Fire, lightning, too much water, anything to disrupt the cells in the colony from communicating with each other. He is completely powerless against them and can easily perish from the weakest attack.
* Any kind of disinfecting agent is a very effective way to harm John. Bleach, Lysol, anything used to kill microorganisms, preservatives like alcohol, strong acids and bases. They're all especially harmful to the colony and John is also more sensitive to toxins both in and on food or in the environment. This leaves him picky with his food sources, having to find things that haven't been treated with preservatives, dyes or things of that ilk. He also can't wear many colognes or perfumes, soaps, shampoos, any kind of cosmetic or use dryer sheets.
* Dampening does not work the way it should. He reacts badly with his body, causing John great pain. While it stops his powers dead in their tracks, it is traumatic to John at a cellular level.
* If John loses concentration, the body can turn back into a liquid form. If enough physical damage is sustained, the bonds between its cells break and he liquefies. This can be reversed if the damage ceases long enough for John to regain control.
* A liquified John can be washed apart by turbulent waters, the cells separated far too much to reunite, leaving the colony unable to reform. The parts can still sense each other and find a way to join together again but tiny parts traveling great distances takes time and effort!
Telepathy: This is a minor ability and has not been practiced enough to be of any real use. At most she can provide suggestions, hoping the other person will comply. More often than not, the ability is used to make prey items stay still long enough to be digested.
Multiplying:
* John is not particularly fond of this ability at all! He will not utilize it and tracks down any missing pieces in order to make them re-join the group. He has every right to be concerned: a rogue piece could form another colony and cause quite a bit of trouble in the city.
* When a piece is broken off, it loses every bit of communication it had with the main colony. The shape it had is dropped and it turns to a pile of metallic goop until it can get it's senses together enough to take on another form.
* Only 2 copies can be made this way, bringing the brand total of colonies to 3 in play at any single point in time.
How do you believe this character's powers will further develop in the future? They won't! But a rogue piece just might cause some trouble further on down the line.
Background:
Once upon a time, John was an ordinary person. He had an average childhood, one that many people would be envious of. His parents didn't have excessive wealth, just enough to get them buy with some extra. School, high school, college, all passed with flying colors. Found a woman he got along with, they started dating...all just normal, standard things.
And then one day his x-gene expressed itself. A late bloomer. One moment he was in his cubicle, minding his business and the next? Housed in a containment unit in one of the META holding facilities. There had been no causalities but he had to be held for his own safety, unable to control his powers. Dampening worked, to a degree, as a containment field forced the goo into a human shape but was met with gurgled screams of agony. For a man that had done no wrong, dampening was cruel and unusual punishment. Many weeks were spent in that special chamber, spent with a specialist that could help him learn to control his shape.
Finally! He had control of his powers and went back into the world...to find that his girlfriend, understandably, didn't want to date The Blob. His family turned their backs on their freak relative. And so he was all alone in the world. But with a good education with him, he started up life elsewhere. That place is Salem!
After crossing the country, he started up a classy bar downtown, right by Crowley's. The outside is plain brown brick with black mortar, the windows painted over to be completely dark. No sign hangs outside and the door is a sliding metal one. It is a place for regulars only, or those knowing one. The inside is much nicer, with black marble flooring, a mahogany bar with a counter matching the floor. Booths and tables spot the floor and a smallish preforming stage is in the rear, a golden pole adorning the front middle of it, hinting at one use for the thing. But more often than not, live music plays while those inside quietly talk amongst themselves. The atmosphere there is not particularly...good.
Only after the bar was set up and he had a place to live and a future did he change its name. Now going by John Doe, he also embraced his powers and sought to understand more thoroughly than he did with the aid of special trainers.
Quirks, Extras, Random Character Facts:
* John absorbs food by engulfing it. Once inside, specialized cells give off enzymes to break down the food item gradually as a long lasting energy source. If so invoked, that same set of enzymes can be secreted on its skin as a defensive maneuver.
* He hates pets and cannot fathom why someone would willingly let a cat crap in the house, scoop shit out of a box and do all the other lowly things that go with an animal. Picking dog poo off the ground with a plastic baggie. It horrifies John! But despite this, John has a pet of its own. A small mouse named Trigger, who lives in the kitchen of the place. For all the years John spent trying to kill the thing, he has never even come close to being successful. And so it gave up and let the damned thing stay. And now Trigger even has a food and water dish set on the floor by the bar.