Humpty Dumpty (Archived)
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
This is an article about an older character, who has since been either deleted or renamed. For the character currently named Humpty Dumpty, click here.
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| "I sent a message to the fish; I told them 'This is what I wish.'" | |
| Humpty Dumpty | |
| Player: @SusieBot | |
| Origin: | Technology |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Mastermind |
| Threat Level: | 12 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Egbert Drood |
| Known Aliases: | n/a |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 32 |
| Height: | 5' 8" |
| Weight: | 180 lbs |
| Eye Color: | Pink |
| Hair Color: | None |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | U.S. Citizen |
| Occupation: | Inventor |
| Place of Birth: | Founder's Falls, Paragon City, RI |
| Base of Operations: | Cap au Diable, Etoile Islands |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Roderick Drood (Father, deceased); Antoinette Drood (Mother, deceased) |
| Known Powers | |
| None | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Genius | |
| Equipment | |
| Clockwork Servants, Force Fields, Proton Blunderbuss | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
Background
'...sat on a wall
Egbert Drood was the only son of Roderick and Antoinette Drood, a wealthy industrialist and his wife. Roderick and Antoinette tried for many years to have children, and were finally blessed with the arrival of their son, Egbert (named for his paternal great-grandfather). Unfortunately, Egbert was afflicted with numerous congenital defects, possibly due to his father's constant exposure to industrial wastes.
Egbert's cranium was exceedingly large for his body, preventing him from walking until he was nearly two years old. He was also an albino, and completely hairless. But his most dire affliction was a thankfully mild condition of osteogenesis imperfecta -- a congenital disorder that effects bone growth, making his bones exceedingly brittle and prone to breakage.
Roderick and Antoinette loved him nonetheless, sheltering him from the world and protecting him while catering to his every whim. As though in compensation for his physical weakness, Egbert was possessed of a genius-level intellect. He read voraciously -- mostly on mathematics, engineering, and the sciences -- and conducted all manner of experiments in his bedroom laboratory. By his eighth birthday, he had delved deeply into the field of robotics. His contraptions demonstrated a hitherto unrevealed artistic sense -- eschewing the cold steel and circuits of modern robots, Egbert borrowed a page from the Prussian Prince of Automatons, and wrought his creations in brass and clockworks.
...had a great fall
And so Egbert might have been nothing more than a mad shut-in, but for the intervention of Alice Middleton. The daughter of Egbert's nurse, Alice spent a great deal of time at the Drood household. And where other children mocked and shunned Egbert, Alice embraced him. She spent many hours sitting with him as he worked on his inventions, patiently listening to his explanations and asking countless questions. In return, Egbert ventured forth with her into the world, taking long walks around the family grounds, and even into the city. The few broken bones that Egbert suffered on these outings, he suffered gladly, putting on a brave face for Alice.
As they grew older, Alice and Egbert realized that they were in love. On Egbert's 22nd birthday, he proposed marriage, and they made plans to wed. In celebration, Alice compelled Egbert to take her to Gemini Park for a picnic.
It was there that disaster struck. As they dined, a battle between super-heroes and villains broke out above the park. As weapons fire rained down around them, one of the many heroes engaged in the battle streaked from the sky and attempted to throw Egbert clear. Unfortunately, the throw shattered both of Egbert's legs, and so he could only look on helplessly as a giant robotic hero, struck with a force beam, crashed out of the sky and landed atop Alice. The girl did not survive.
All the King's horses...
With the loss of his beloved Alice, Egbert's mind snapped. Retreating to his mansion (solely his, his parents having passed away some years before), he packed up his research and disappeared from Paragon City. He retreated to the Rogue Isles, purchasing a large warehouse in Cap au Diable and converting it into a laboratory.
There, he became obsessed with safety and accidents. Building upon existing research, he improved his crude childhood prototype for a portable force field projection system. He converted his robotic servants into police drones, arming them with lasers and other weapons. So equipped, he hatched a mad scheme; a plan to protect all people, by eliminating all super-humans, everywhere...starting with the so-called 'heroes'.
Personality
Egbert Drood is introverted and serious, preferring the company of his own thoughts to that of other people. Years of being simultaneously ostracized for his odd appearance and sheltered for his physical frailty have made him aloof and lacking in social skills.
However, beneath the introverted and peculiar exterior is a whimsical and creative man who has a penchant for fantastic stories. While working, Egbert voraciously consumes movies and cartoons.
Since the loss of Alice, Egbert has gone slightly mad. He will often speak in riddles or nonsense, borrowing passages from the works of his favorite authors (particularly, since adopting his nom de guerre, Lewis Carroll).
Equipment
Robotic Servants
Humpty Dumpty is a self-taught expert in the field of robotics. Lacking formal guidance, and possessed of a tremendous sense of whimsy, Egbert has created robots that are fantastical, artistic, and a bit odd. They are generally constructed from brass, rather than steel, and are fastidiously decorated. Each one is unique, and they are often modeled after characters from the works of Lewis Carroll.
The robots' intelligence is fairly limited -- Egbert is more a roboticist than a developer of machine intelligence -- but they can follow simple instructions, and are unfailingly obedient.
Egbert is currently accompanied by:
The Dormouse
One of Egbert's first robotic projects, this small automaton is fashioned in the shape of a mouse. Carrying a smaller battery than the other robots, Dormouse spends any possible downtime in "sleep" mode. This is not to say that the Dormouse is under-powered -- packing a dual pulsed laser cannon and an advanced targeting system, this robot undeniably deadly.
The Mad March Hare
An improvement over the initial Dormouse model, the Mad March Hare incorporates ultrasonic detecting "ears" that allow it to visualize targets through solid objects using a hyper-acoustic scanner. There is an unsolved bug in the Hare's guidance system that causes it to meander a bit when travelling.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Tweedledee and its brother, Tweedledum (currently confined to the laboratory due to a curious anomaly with its AI) are heavier robots, designed to be Egbert's personal bodyguards. Heavily armored, equipped with Egbert's force field projectors, and armed with anti-riot grenades, the Tweedles are the state-of-the-art in police robots. For his own amusement, and to test the resilience of their force fields and armor, Egbert has engineered the Tweedles with a self-diagnostic routine that causes them to attack one another if left idle for too long.
Force Fields
Early in life, to protect himself from harm, Egbert studied the development of force fields. Based on existing research, he developed a simple, portable force field generator. With this device, Egbert protects himself and his minions.
Since the demise of his beloved Alice, Egbert has improved upon his original designs, creating stronger force fields.
Proton Blunderbuss
In his youth, Egbert developed a coherent energy weapon he called a "Proton Blunderbuss". Essentially a laser rifle, the Blunderbuss fires a pulsed "pellet" of coherent energy, encapsulated in a magnetic shell. When the shell is ruptured (through contact with a hard surface), the pellet releases its energy -- violently.
Egbert is not a fantastic shot, but he will occasionally plink away at targets that his robots have already engaged.
Abilities
Genius
Egbert is an engineering and mathematical genius, with a near-superhuman intuitive ability to develop robots. Given a task or set of tasks, Egbert can conceive of a robot to accomplish it. It may, however, take him over-long to develop the robots, as his creativity and slavish devotion to detail and decoration can sidetrack an otherwise simple engineering task.
Unfortunately, Egbert's genius does not extend into the tactical realm. He is relatively unskilled at deploying his robots in a fight, and relies on their technical superiority to retain the upper hand. Given his intelligence, though, it is only a matter of time until he develops a personal theory of small group tactics.
Weaknesses
Osteogenesis Imperfecta
Humpty Dumpty is afflicted with the congenital disorder Osteogenesis Imperfecta. This rare syndrome effects the development of the bones, making them brittle and prone to breaking.
Fortunately, Egbert's case is fairly mild -- while he can be severely hurt in day-to-day activities, he can move about on his own, and his injuries are seldom life-threatening. But he fastidiously avoids physical aggression, staying well behind his robots to avoid injury.
Trivia
Inspiration
- Humpty Dumpty was obviously inspired by Humpty Dumpty, as portrayed in "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll. His powers are a natural extension of taking the nursery rhyme literally (in that he looks like an egg and breaks easily).
- While he obviously owes a debt to the Batman villain The Mad Hatter and other Carroll-inspired super-villains, he is more directly inspired by the Mock Turtle from Kurt Busiek's Astro City (Read "The Tarnished Angel", if you haven't).
Costume
- Humpty Dumpty's costume is fairly straightforward. In a perfect world, his head would be even bigger and more egg-shaped, and his clothes would be a bit more whimsical (incorporating a waistcoat, pocket watch, and a patterned jacket). Anything, really, to get him closer to the John Tenniel look from "Looking Glass".
