"Character Quote(Optional)" "There is orderliness in the universe" (taken from Ghandi)
Full Character Name: Hugo Ignatius Lucas Cooper
(coming soon, gotta draw it first)
===IDENTITY=== Full Name: Hugo Ignatius Lucas Cooper
Nickname(s): Hugo, Iggy, Cooper
Codename: Vermin
Alias(es): The Rat King, Lord of the Flies, Vermin God
Age: 82 (appears 22)
Classification: Humanoid Shaman
Affiliation: Lawful Neutral (highest bidder)
===PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION===
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Blue
Height: 5' 11''
Weight: 210 lbs
Other Traits: Eyes are heavily bloodshot, appears filthy and unwashed, heavy odor accompanies his presence and wake (sometimes described as urine, compost, decaying meat, or fecal matter)
===POWERS===
Powers: Immortality - Hugo draws his life-force from vermin and other pestilence. This allows him to regenerate wounds either by letting familiars enter the wounds or eating poisons or decaying meat. Even when reduced to ashes, Hugo maintains a conscious presence in the world, capable of interacting with his familiars.
Shape-Shifting - Hugo can take on the form of various pests ranging from a single organism to a whole swarm. Though this is often exhausting and he uses it as a desperation to attack and/or escape.
Animal Possession - Hugo can project his mind into familiar creatures to take control of them.
Immunity to Poisons - Hugo can not be poisoned, any toxic substance can act as a healing agent.
Skills: Mastery of Poisons - With an extensive knowledge of toxic plants and substances, Hugo often poisons his weapons.
Weaknesses: Pyrophobic - Fire can reduce Hugo to ashes, from which he regenerates more slowly. He is also deathly afraid of fire and explosions (or explosive sounds), both of which unnerve him and he will often retreat when such threats arise.
Malaise - Hugo's presence often produces feelings of illness accompanied by a heavy odor. This makes more easily detected by the astute.
Infectious - Hugo often longs for human contact since he's spent most of his life alone. However, his nature as a vermin god means that he can spread disease by touch. Many blossoming relationships with people have been cut short by disease.
Vermin Empathy - Any harm done to a rat, fly, locust, etc. will cause pain to Hugo.
Equipment: Gloves.
Small knives.
===PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE===
Personality: Hugo had a normal upbringing until his powers began to manifest. The infections and disease he spread in his wake forced him to isolate himself from society. Years of crushing loneliness and almost no human contact have warped him into an awkward, delusional wreck. He often presumes on friendships and makes strange attempts to be social, since his hermetic life and constant abuse of poisons have had an irreversible effect on his mind. He is prone to mood swings, and rash decisions - results of having "reintroduced" himself back into society. His neutrality in the fight of good vs. evil is a result of a grandiose delusion that everyone wants to be his friend, so as to assure he doesn't alienate anyone he fights to avoid picking sides. So if he betrays a former alliance, he becomes extremely apologetic.
Strengths: Stealth - Years of living in the shadows have forced him to learn to move around undetected. However his malaise often forces him to move quickly from place to place, since he reeks of filth.
Problem Solving - Hugo shows an above-average intelligence when it comes to practical problem solving. Something he picked up by raiding and completing puzzle books from trash cans and landfills.
Interests/Habits: Botany - Hugo's fascination of poisonous plants drove him to begin tending a garden of toxic bouquets.
===PERSONAL BACKGROUND===
Family Members: Timothy Cooper (father, deceased), Tammy Cooper (mother-deceased), Nigel Cooper (brother, whereabouts unknown)
Place of Origin: Newark, NJ
Current City: Steel City
History: Hugo was born on April 8th in the year 1940 at Newark General Hospital. His father was a foundry worker and his mother worked as a geriatric nurse. He has an older brother who was born in 1935. For the first nine years of his life nothing spectacular happened until his tenth birthday when he woke to a massive cloud of flies hovering over his bed. An exterminator was called to resolve the problem, but when the house was gassed to kill the flies, Hugo fell to ground screaming and having spasmodic fits. Despite many visits to hospitals, sanitariums, and churches; no one had a real explanation for the connection between Hugo and the massive population of pests that followed him. When his brother left to go fight in Vietnam, tragedy struck. Nigel was missing, presumed dead; and Hugo's powers claimed the lives of his parents and three neighbors. Frightened and in a panic, Hugo fled. He was guided by voices in his head to head to a slaughterhouse some miles away, where he spent the next five years. During this time, Hugo discovered the voices in his head were actually the voices of the familiars that were at his side. Through practice and experimentation, Hugo discovered his powers and began to use them to survive. He became transient, moving from town to town and living as best he could in the gutters until his presence there became a threat. He continued his nomadic lifestyle until he found the huge system of drain and sewer pipes that ran beneath Steel City. His familiars told him this would an excellent place to live, and Hugo settled down in an abandoned pumping station under the Factory District.
Sample RP Ch-kunk The door to the old pumping station creaked open after the utility worker managed to muscle that massive latch on the door into becoming unlocked. He shone a flash light into the room, it was the old switch room for the various pumps and locks that filled the station.
Zrrt he turned on the radio.
"Molly, this is Bert, over."
"Hear ya loud and clear Bert, did you get into the station?"
Bert stepped into the room, shining his flashlght around cautiously.
"Yeah, no sign of anyone living here. What did the report say?"
"Report said one of the cameras outside Lock 12 caught a glimpse of something moving into the station. Might be a bum looking for a place to live"
" Wouldn't be the first one, remember Trombone Teddy?"
" Yeah, son of a gun got caught trying to open one of the pipe grates with a hacksaw. Look for some sort of bedding or the remnants of a fire."
Bert walked around the old switch room, if any homeless people were going to live in the pumping station, this was the place to be. There was still some active power down here in case some maintenance had to be done, so somebody might use the wires to start a fire for warmth or food. Bert turned the corner into the secondary control room and jumped.
"Holy Crap!"
"Bert? What happened?"
Bert jumped aside as a massive grey rat suddenly ran for it's life out of the secondary control room and disappeared behind a stack of crates.
"Just a rat, Moll. Darn thing scared the bejeezus out of me!"
"Heh."
"Regardless," Bert said, shining his light around "I think we're good. There's no sign of anyone living here. Not even so much as a newspaper."
"Good enough for the paperwork, come on up and get some lunch."
Bert walked out of the switch room and closed the door behind him, latching it shut. He made his way along a catwalk back to the stairs. Had he taken the time to look down, he would've noticed the disheveled figure watching him walk away. He wore a tan trenchcoat on top of a dark green hoodie. He looked filthy and unkempt. A squeaking noise coming fro his feet caught his eyes, and he saw the rat that had scared Bert skittering up his pant leg, and under his hoodie. The man held out his hand and rat crawled out of his sleeve and onto his hand, squeaking in urgency. The man listened and nodded.
"They're getting nosy, we'll have to move further in".
He put the rat in his pocket and began sneaking into the darkness a few yards away. Behind him, the ground suddenly became alive as various rodents and bugs began to stir and follow him.
Mon Jan 22, 2024 9:45 pm by 
Subject: Vermin 