D-38
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Professionalism in all things | |
| D-38 | |
| Player: @TalenLee | |
| Origin: | Science[1] |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Brute |
| Threat Level: | Full Clearance[2] |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Unknown |
| Known Aliases: | Lachlan |
| Species: | Human Mutant |
| Age: | Listed as 25[3] |
| Height: | 5'10" |
| Weight: | 6.43 t (14,175.57 lbs) |
| Eye Color: | Liquid steel grey |
| Hair Color: | Light brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Citizen of the United States of America |
| Occupation: | Accountant |
| Place of Birth: | Unknown, believed near Oregon |
| Base of Operations: | Confidential |
| Marital Status: | Confidential |
| Known Relatives: | Confidential |
| Known Powers | |
| Radiation absorption, extreme density | |
| Known Abilities | |
| None of note | |
| Equipment | |
| None of note | |
| No additional information available. | |
- "D-38; a defunct name for a depleted resource."
- - Dr. Benjamin Croshaw, head of the Seven Sons Project
Contents |
Character
Who You Know
D-38 is a crisp professional, keeping others at a distance in general. The 'serious one' of the group, he's never as outrightly violent or obviously brutal as Red Barren, nor as lighthearted and silly as Vincent. He's therefore often the straight man for their jokes, and he plays the part well enough, using only dry humour to get his point across.
Since D-38 is generally at best a gang leader, a yakuza imperator, he does not posess many of the traits one would associate with being a leader. Really, all he does is act, and let others react to him; he does not try and inspire Red Barren[4], he simply draws her attention to things she'd want to do anyway that happen to benefit him.
D-38 is, for all his gentlemanly style and polite manner, a brutal fighter, a toxic waste patch and a firebrand of counter-culture anarchism, in his own way. He doesn't try to let these facts be too obvious; instead, he is a professional, adult mask on an ultimately adolescent political sensation. D-38 does not believe in 'pure' anarchism; the idea of destroying all order across the world. Instead, he regards anarchism as a kind of political life form, one that predates on other, lawful ones.
D-38 is very loyal, but equally manipulative. He keeps people close and treats them well, but it could be said that he does so simply because he finds them useful.
Who Knows You
D-38 is an enforcer of Riot Gear; he's also part of the administration and their accountant. It's been hinted that he's their lawyer, but he refers to Red Barren as his 'legal counsel' which suggests this term is ironic in its use.
D-38 is in a relationship of sorts with Refrain, and is considered by Red Barren to be her little brother. In turn, Vincent Ogg regards him as an acceptable-enough authority, referring to him as 'chief.'
D-38 has a kind of generalised, unfocused personal grudge against most minor gangs in the Etoile, feeling them pathetic and wasteful of his time and energy. Most of his time is spent operating against either Arachnos or Longbow. For all that he operates a glorified street gang, he nonetheless is exceptionally critical of other gang activity, and has been known to use language that's quite harsh[5] in description of these gangs.
D-38 has technically a connection to Deathsurge, though it's not quite understood just how this relationship works. D-38 and the rest of the Gear speak of Bat'Zul with some expertise, but D-38 is notable for not bearing any marks at having entered the demon's hellish prison.
Powers
D-38's entire body is laced with depleted uranium, the product known now as DU-238, but in the 1970s and early 1980s - when D was born - as D-38. This is part of a process designed by Dr Benjamin Croshaw[6] to stifle D-38's actual mutant powers. D-38's heart is a small fission generator, running his entire body on nuclear energy and processing almost all atoms that enter his body into depleted uranium over time.
At its most superficial, this uranium structure means D-38 is exceptionally heavy and extremely strong. His body can withstand greater amounts of direct impact than a normal human's can, and he can sustain more electrical current than could a human. Thanks to his internal fission generator, he is also extremely resistant to cold and fire.
D-38 is also a ready supply of heavy metal poisoning. Prolonged contact with D-38 is highly toxic, as most heavy metal poisons are. Extensive exposure to D-38's bodily fluids or skin can lead to blindness and renal failure. There are a number of metahumans who are immune to this effect, but for the most part, D-38 has to be very careful who he touches and why[7].
Super Strength
Because his body is much more physically dense and has much more structural integrity, D-38 is effectively super-strong. He can use his own body to leverage much greater weight than a person of his size should, and the effect it has on his general muscle tension is distinct.
D-38 has been seen at least one grabbing a semi-trailers truck by its front axle and hammer-throwing it into a building side. Feats of strength like this do not appear to be particularly common, as if it were, he would likely smear most opponents he punched across the ground. Most analysts suggest that because D-38's strength is a matter of leveraging mass, he can't simply deadlift weights the way most can.
Pyrophoria
D-38's body constantly produces and generates depleted uranium, which leaves his body in a highly volatile state - a mere movement of his hand at the right angle through the air can prompt ignition, and most all of his punches show the flash-burn of ignition when his hand hits. D's used this to establish layers of energy defense; as long as he can start the fire off in a controlled fashion (for which he uses his zippo lighter), he can sustain the rate of burning almost indefinitely. Through this, D-38 can surround himself with a cloud of toxic fire, make large bonfire-style bursts by expelling particles directly around him, and can insulate himself against cold through this manner as well. Many individuals who've made direct attacks against D-38 have found this halo of fire is an effective deterrent to more conventional arms as well, as it also contains a lot of compressed air pressure.
D-38 can even use the heat around him to fuel his heart. Using biothermic heat around him as a catalyst, he can give himself a short, sharp jump-start, gaining a second wind. He can also momentarily redirect the fire cloud internally and use it to provoke a short-term burst of cellular regeneration - effectively healing himself of potentially live-threatening injuries.
Weaknesses
Physical
D-38's most significant and obvious weakness is a function of the fact that he's carrying around at all times several tons of metal. First, there's his weight. He can't swim worth a damn, having to instead hold his breath and walk under water; many things can't support his weight at all, and he causes distinct problems when he has to be smuggled around. He sets off geiger counters and metal detectors like barking dogs.
D-38 is both short and heavy, making him a sitting duck for practiced martial artists who are capable at throwing him off his centre of gravity. In classic sumo style, D-38 can be overbalanced, thrown and off-set reasonably easily, as he has mostly spent his combat training leveraging his existant powers. His footwork is amateurish.
D-38 has no magical training, and has shown a reckless disregard for the effects magic can have. He entered a pact with a demon and almost blinded himself as part of it, and the incident doesn't seem to have affected his opinions - for all he puts forward the guise of a relentless planner and meticulous mastermind, there are moments such as these where one might get the very real impression that D-38 is simply playing chicken with the universe. He's also shown to have difficulty contending with Circle ghosts and other immaterial opponents; if they're not direly affected by a few thosand pounds of weight swinging through their head, chances are they aren't going to be bothered much by D-38 at all.
Mental
Thanks to all his physical limitations, D-38 tends to not stray much from his home - travelling great distances is often difficult and tedious to arrange[8]. Since he's such a driven and calculating individual, this means that his schemes can rarely reach far beyond the immediate area of the Rogue Isles. Those agents he likes to 'deploy' outside of his immediate environments tend to be highly predictable and self-sufficient, which means any plans he has needs to take that into account.
In essence, because of his inability to relinquish control over his plans to even the slightest bit of delegation means that they will always be limited by his physical limitations. In an electronic age, that's not as much of a constraint as it could be, but it does mean that he can just as much be opposed by electronic means. Information that doesn't pass through the Isles doesn't make its way to him easily, and his most trusted agents are either too valuable to deploy at distance (such as Refrain) or too chaotic to really do anything precise (such as Red). In the end, it's the meticulous planning and precise nature of his plans that keeps Riot Gear confined to the Isles.
Metatext
Themes
D-38 was not made with a serious theme in mind. I was just feeling out the game at the time, with D being one of my first 10 or so characters, over on Freedom. Originally from that dark and barren place, I levelled him up to level 14 or so very quickly, only to have my wife, Fox, ask me to put him on pause, so as to not outpace her Brute, Red Barren. A few more pauses like that led to me leaving D-38 languishing on Freedom at level 28, but with me just unwilling to improve him, having too much fun playing on Virtue, where I could show off my character concepts.
When server transfers were instated, Pendix came to me and suggested that we move Riot Gear over to Virtue, where more people we knew played. This devious move to get me once more interested in the Riot Gear ethos I wrote all that time ago for Freedom's ridiculous public worked, and worked well. I spent a few dollars bringing D-38 over, and Fox brought Refrain (D-38's lover) and Red Barren (the original brute between us).
D-38's original idea was to be part of a shadowy conspiracy, the Seven Sons project, that created him and was responsible for a number of other superhumans whose powers were destroying them. This is a theme I revisited in Josiah's backstory, and in Entangler's. However, those themes went relatively untouched and now, instead, D-38 is a kind of icon amongst my characters. He's one of the few really scheming mastermind types. He's also one of those characters I consider truly villainous without being truly evil. He treats many many people like things, using other people to achieve a lofty, though admittedly destructive goal (the annihilation of the world market and the dissolution of conventional economic borders), but doesn't lose the personable cracks in his veneer that make him fit Riot Gear's more fun side. He doesn't have a 'goofy' side, he doesn't run around wearing rabbit ears or pink latex.
No, D-38 is the persistent straight man to his best friends. And in that regard, playing the quiet, reserved man contrasted to a pair of lawless goofballs is quite an exceptional circumstance for me.
Musical Themes
- Without A Fight - Hoobastank
Unfortunately, given D-38's young age and his relative philosophical simplicity and amorality, he does fit a lot of music I would normally consider teenage pop dreck. In this case, this song - which I found through Elite Beat Agents - seemed to have the kind of simplistic, angry style that D-38 felt during his teenage development. - Ghost Riders - Captain Tractor
This piece does nicely summarise D-38's philosophy towards the modern world and its fruitlessness. with that in mind, D-38 rarely has any kind of feel towards the deliberately helpless - he believes one makes one's own luck, as one makes one's own destiny. - Vultures - Five Iron Frenzy
Perhaps a little adolescently, D-38 has embraced anarcho-counter-corporatism as a cause, feeling that the current system of assisted open market has led to exclusionism and a new kind of feudalism[9].
RP Notes
- D-38 predates the existence of Fusionette; however, despite this, the thematics of how his body works indicates that he might well be one of the Nuclear 90.
- D-38's work as Riot Gear's administrator takes up a lot of time. To most Riot Gear operatives, he's just a background figure, an unintimidating bookkeeper.
- D-38 is a good long-range instigator for character plots. If you want someone who can have hired or comissioned your character for seemingly obscure work that put them in the path of something else, he's a good explanation.
Trivia
Character
- D-38, prior to his reconditioning, had a very poor sense of smell and was reasonably short-sighted. These two ailments have since cleared up.
- D-38 doesn't swear often. He has jested that Red uses up their quota too quickly and he doesn't want to get shaped back.
- D-38 is often mistaken as British.
- D-38 is a fan of much classic American literature and music.
- D-38 hates listening to hip-hop music, but he collects songbooks and transcriptions of live performances of same. He finds the lyrical intricacy interesting and artistic, but also finds the typical style and memes of execution to be distasteful and demeaning[10].
Meta
- D-38 began his life on Freedom, on the day Issue 7 went live. He got up to level 7 before the servers went down (and the respec and costume tokens were distributed). It was then another 20 levels - and over a year! - before D-38 used that respec token, in an attempt to shake some of the dust off and re-interest me in playing him.
- D-38 was originally a very different, visually, character, named Wildren, who was a pretty blatant Tyler Durden knock-off. I ditched him pretty quickly in favour of D, who has become something of an icon amongst my friends.
- D-38's praetorian counterpart is probably a Radiation Emission/Radiation Blast Defender and probably taller than he is.
References
- ↑ D-38 is a mutant; but the powers he has and the powers he uses in day-to-day operations around the Rogue Isles have nothing to do with his mutation and everything to do with the treatments of the Croshaw Project designed to suppress his mutation.
- ↑ A download link for the Mids file of D-38's build is available here.
- ↑ Sources differ on D-38's age. Certainly his height and his physical development suggest a young man, but his mental age is up for discussion. He claims to be in his twenties, but he also has no reliable source on this.
- ↑ The most famously truculent member of the Gear.
- ↑ For him.
- ↑ OOC: A reference to the game author and now video game reviewer, probably better known to you as Yhatzee. D-38 and Red Barren obliquely reference the video game 1213, of his creation, which continues to hold up the high bar that free games should all aspire to achieve.
- ↑ This is actually why D-38 wears gloves in combat situations; Depleted Uranium has been considered a cruel and unusual weapon of war since its use in the Kosovo conflict, and has therefore been frowned upon by humanitarian and other aid organisations. With that in mind, he shirks from using it in what he thinks of as work.
- ↑ "Yes, I need five oxygen tanks, a boat that moves at walking pace to pass them down to me, and... why are you looking at me like that?"
- ↑ Ironically, D-38's own dealings and business model, rendered after the Yakuza of Japan, are actually quite feudal in their own right.
- ↑ To be fair, D-38 feels this way about a lot of music, especially live performances. Wagner is beautiful and makes the heart soar, so it's awkward to have it poignantly associated with a fat sweaty man who has spit coming out the end of his oboe.
