NAME: Marcus Aurealeas Doyle
CODE NAME: Morphine
AGE: 40
GENDER: male
RACE: Human
LINEAGE OF NOTE: Descendant of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
BASIC APPERANCE:
Marcus is very tall, 6’4”, and thin. Long lanky arms and legs coupled with large eyes and nose give him a very bird-like appearance. His dark hair is thick and usually he doesn’t bother to comb it all that much. His eyes, also dark, often seem overbright. He dresses well, but about 2-3 years behind the current fashion trends.
PERSONALITY:
Marcus is factual to a fault, tends to be abrasive, and often aloof. He does not tolerate stupidity…and generally everyone falls into that category at some point. He does not make friends well, or at all. He works hard, when he’s in a productive mood he can focus and really achieve great things. His moods shift so often though…from productive to brooding to dreamy that it’s hard to keep track. If he works with others they often have a hard time dealing with him, at most they tolerate him. What he thinks is important and what others think is important are often vastly different things. He has a keen mind, and loves to experiment, even on unwilling subjects at times. He values logic and deductive reasoning, and the way to win points with him is to show you value the same. He has very little acceptable social skills, being as he spent most of his time in a laboratory and on various narcotics. His moral compass is underdeveloped and his moral code is not strong. He tries to adhere to something of a code concerning his powers, but the temptations are often so great he struggles to hang on to his morality.
HISTORY:
Marcus has been in pain for as long as he can remember. His pain is excruciating…when asked to describe it he explains like it is the constant feeling that his bones are being pulled apart and fire is pouring through is veins. It never stops, never abates.
Consequently he has been on drugs, and addicted to opiates, also for as long as he can really remember. It has been the only thing that has calmed his pain. Three particular types, cocaine, opium, and morphine are the ones he uses. Different derivatives for different moods or if he wishes to accomplish different things. He has been to countless doctors and specialists, none can account for the pain or give him relief.
The pain clouds his mind and breaks his focus or concentration, the only solution is the relief he finds in drugs. They clear his mind and give him an intense focus, though often he does not focus on what he should but rather what he wants. His desires tend towards the dark, complex, and scientific.
It wasn’t until he was 13 that he finally found another source of relief for his pain—the pain of others. He feeds on it, much like a vampire feeds on blood. It strengthens him, frees him of pain, and clears his mind in a way that not even drugs can accomplish. When he was young this required a touch, now he has grown in strength—mostly through various forms of self-experimentation—that he need only be nearby. His range is about 40 ft, and is not hindered by walls or rooms. He can sense pain, and its source, almost without effort. It matters not if it is emotional pain or physical…he can reach out and draw it into himself. It changes him, he has not quantified how it changes him…but it makes him healthier and stronger both in body and mind.
He moved to London when he was 18, claimed the flat at 221B Baker street, which had been in his family since his ancestor wrote of the famous dective, and made it his own. He set up business as a consulting dective, much like Sherlock Holmes did, though he kept part of the flat as a "museaum" for visitors the upper levels were all his own, a dissaray of incredibly well stocked labratories and banks of books, journals, and research computers.
He has a brother, Duncan, whom he has not spoken to in many years. Duncan was born with the same pain, but in his case it was fear that alleviated it. His need to feed on the fear of others grew with every day, and he grew darker and darker in his personality. Marcus tried to warn his brother of the danger, but Duncan grew stronger and more addicted to fear. He actively tortured many just to invoke fear in them. Soon he took off on his own, to become the master of the London underworld. He goes by the code name Moriarty now, in tribute to the literary master criminal crafted by their ancestor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
POWERS/WEAKNESSES/DANGERS:
NATURAL ABILITIES: Marcus is incredibly intelligent with a nearly eidetic memory. He has a great understanding and knowledge of a wide variety of sciences, scientific studies, processes, and has whole labs devoted to research. He excels at research of all types whether it is in journals, books, digital, etc. He knows how to hunt down the information he needs. His disadvantage there is that he is often lazy and even if he knows where he needs to go or what he needs to do to learn something if it requires leaving his lab space he will often be disinclined to bother with it. He has a strong grip and arm strength, though it is by no means “super-human” it is more than one might expect of his lean build. He is very dexterous both with fine and gross motor skills, though once again it does not fall into the “super-human” category. He is an excellent boxer, very skilled at fighting with a rattan staff, and can flawlessly perform sleight of hand magic tricks. These are his only real hobbies besides science and research. He is mostly human, and unless he has very recently fed he has all the strengths and weaknesses of a normal human.
FEEDS ON PAIN: Marcus feeds on the physical and emotional pain of others. He does not require it to live, in fact he doesn’t even require it to be pain-free…but it is like no other relief he has yet found. Not only does it free him from pain, but it also strengthens him unnaturally. It exponentially increases his speed, resistance and strength…both mental and physical. These enhancements fade quickly, usually less than 15 minutes, but while fresh he is almost impervious to mental or physical damage and can react almost instantly to both mental and physical situations. This experience of feeding on another’s pain is a heady experience, and addicting. The greater the pain, the greater the euphoria that feeding grants him. When he feeds on physical pain, it draws it off the victim, into Marcus. When he feeds on emotional pain the pain lingers in the victim and increases their bitterness. Not only that but feeding is a very intimate thing, and currently he only does it with permission. Usually. When he feeds on physical pain he learns the victims physical strengths and weaknesses at that moment, he knows just what to do to make their pain stronger or alleviate it. When he feeds on emotional pain he knows their emotional strengths and weaknesses, who they love, hate, miss, what to say to ease their mind or cause more hurt. He would excel at torture, both physical and psychological. The odd nature of his abilities, its advantages and limitations are of constant curiosity to him and he studies them regularly, often attempting a variety of experiments on himself to learn more.
PAIN AND DRUG TOLERANCE: Due to his lifetime of pain that is beyond excruciating he has an extremely high pain tolerance. Few things can be done to him that are more painful than what he lives with every second of every day. As such things like physical torture mean very little to him. He also has an extremely high drug tolerance, particularly to opiates. His body has been bombarded by narcotics all his life and as such it takes far more to affect him. Even dosages that would kill a normal human have very little effect.
DRUG ENHANCEMENTS: Marcus uses three drugs regularly, and is very addicted to them, all opiates. He has found no other narcotic that can alleviate his pain. First is cocaine, always snorted/inhaled. In fact he keeps a supply of it in a snuff box and with him at all times. It clears his head, improves his thought processes, and gives him sporadic fits of extreme energy and focus. During the height of these periods he will work with an intensity that is often disturbing, forgo sleep, and usually food as well. This does not mean his body can handle this, he just ignores what his body needs in favor of a different focus. Opium, smoked in a pipe, is the next option. Like cocaine he always has both a pipe and opium on his person. Opium affects him far differently. It causes a massive spate of physical laziness and he will often sit in a chair and think for hours on end. He usually focuses on how to solve the problem, not the problem itself, during these massive bouts of laziness. Sometimes to the point he grows too lazy to be bothered to eat or take care of himself in general. The thinking is not un-productive…though it is often in such random thoughts that it takes some time to see how they connect to his current problem. Occasionally he sleeps, dreaming lucid dreams that somehow help him connect the dots in a logical manner. Finally there is morphine, the strongest and most balanced option. Like the others he keeps it on him at all times, a cigarette case with a series of slender syringes. It clears his mind, opens it to options he might not have allowed before, and in general gives him focus and mental strength…though without the massive explosion of energy from cocaine or the calm slow reasoning power of opium. The other drugs have their uses, but for general survival of his pain filled life morphine is the drug of choice..
MOODS: Marcus is by no means stable, as far as his moods go. This is only enhanced by his constant use of narcotics. He is known to brood for long periods, go thorough massive periods of lethargy, and grow waspish and intolerant for no reason at all. Worst is melancholy which when it descends basically removes any usefulness he might have. He does nothing save sit and brood and spiral deeper into depression. One must either wait for these moods to run their natural course or find a way to shock him out of them.
DARK NATURE: Marcus does not have a strong moral compass, he tries to uphold an upstanding moral code but he does slip. He became a detective just to help with keeping true to a positive morality. He figured that basically catching the criminals of this world, particularly the truly heinous ones, would help keep him focused on doing good. The pain he feels however, his mood swings, and the constant effect of various narcotics, does not make this easy. A small handful of times in his past he has reached a breaking point, using his skills to bring pain to others just so he had a way to relieve his own. They were all criminals of the worst kind but even so what he did to them was beyond cruel. His skills at torture, with his ability to know just what to do to cause the most pain, meant he could keep them alive for a long time. Their deaths were slow, lingering, vastly painful affairs. Marcus has tried to block those memories from his mind, but the knowledge of what he has done in the past, what he could do in the future, still lurks in him. With the right nudging is talents could easily be turned to a much darker purpose.
Heroism 404
must I explain
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