Nox Noctis
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Nox Noctis | |
| Player: @orodreth | |
| Origin: | Mutant |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Defender/Corruptor |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Thomas Wraith |
| Known Aliases: | none |
| Species: | Homo Superior |
| Age: | 33 |
| Height: | 6' |
| Weight: | 180 |
| Eye Color: | brown |
| Hair Color: | Black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Currently Ward of the State |
| Place of Birth: | Virginia |
| Base of Operations: | Richmond |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | None living |
| Known Powers | |
| Dark Miasma/Dark Blast/Dark Mastery/Teleportation | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Computer technology, Arcane sorcery, business management | |
| Equipment | |
| Jump jet pack | |
| ' | |
Revenge is a confession of pain. --Latin Proverb
Contents |
Character History
Thomas Wraith was born in Richmond, Virginia on October 13th, 1974. His father was Richard Wraith, the major shareholder in Wraith Technologies, a military research and development firm that specialized in creating metahuman countermeasures. Ellen Wraith was a former art student who gave up a promising career to be a stay-at-home mother to Thomas. She died of ovarian cancer when Thomas was only three. According to Thomas, his early life was happy, although he recalls his father being very distant.
When Thomas was eighteen, Wraith industries began competing directly with Crey for some very lucrative government contracts. Crey began a viscious smear campaign against Wraith Industries, and Richard Wraith in particular. When they framed him for tax evasion, he swallowed the barrel of a gun, leaving Thomas the majority shareholder in a company that was sinking fast.
The strain of his fathers death and inheriting the company seem to have triggered Thomas' long-dormant mutant abilities. Desperate for a way to save his fathers company, Thomas set Wraith Industries resources to unravelling his own genetic code, hoping to discover how his abilities worked and use this knowledge to develop lucrative new military technology. He dubbed this effort "Project Darkforce."
Unfortunately, word of the project was leaked to Crey, and the responded by staging a raid on the research building where Project Darkforce was being conducted. Thomas himself happened to be on site at the time, and a battle erupted between Crey commandos and the young mutant. Several people were killed, and there was major property damage. Thomas vanished, and Crey assumed he was dead.
They were wrong.
Thomas resurfaced a few years later, helping other fledgeling heroes clean up street gangs in Atlas Park. what happened to him in those lost years is unknown, but Thomas displayed a much greater range of powers, which he used with a finesse that suggested practice and experience. initially welcomed by the hero community, Thomas dedicated himself to investigating Crey activities.
Unfortunately, Thomas' need for revenge grew into an obsession. He began sacrificing friends and informants alike as pawns in his schemes to hurt Crey. He subjected his body to agonizing radiation treatments and experimental drugs in an effort to develop his mutant powers to the greatest extent possible. Finally, frustrated with the limits of the legal system, he turned full-fledged villian, using any and all means at his disposal to destroy Crey Industries. Assasination, direct assault, blackmail, intimidation, murder...nothing was beneath him.
Until one day, he woke up, looked in the mirror, and had an epiphany. There was nothing crey had done to him that he himself had not done to countless other people. Countless lives lost and ruined. He had persistently seen himself as a victim...but he wasn't a victim anymore.
And so he left the rogue isles and turned himself in to Paragon city authorities. After serving three years of his sentence in the Zig, he was offered a deal: work with Vanguard to repel the Rikti threat, and he would be granted conditional freedom. He accepted. The conditions: At all times, he is to wear a mutant inhibitor collar which supresses his powers. This collar can be temporarily disabled by any agent of vanguard or his parole officer.
Affiliations
Absolutely none. Very few hero groups would have him, and most of those are, in his own words "Emo kid vigilante wanna-bes." While a few villian groups would have taken him in, his recent decision to turn himself in has left them disgusted with him as well.
Personality
Thomas is an intense, moody loner who says very little. He is consumed with shame for what he's done, and understands intellectually that he has far too few moral restraints when it comes to hurting other people. As a result, he tends to try and scare new acquaintances away rather than risk harming them with intimacy. This only exascerbates his aching sense of loneliness and isolation. Trying to reconstruct a conscience has not been easy for Thomas, as he himself says, "Once you start caring about anything you did, you have to start caring about everything you did."
Powers
Originally a mutant, Thomas has subjected his body to a grab-bag of gene therapies, radiation treatments, and chemical cocktails. He has also studied and fought several magic-wielding groups, most notably the Banished Pantheon and the Circle of Thorns. This has exposed him to massive amounts of arcane energy as well.
All of this has mutated his abilities far, far beyond their previous parameters.
Darkforce Energy Manipulation
This was Thomas original mutant ability. In layman's terms, he can open small dimensional apertures between our reality, and a parallel universe which seems to be entirely filled with mysterious "nega-energy." He can draw this energy into our dimension at will, where it will respond to his mental commands. Thomas has dubbed this alternate dimension "The Darkforce dimension," and refers to this nega-energy as "darkforce."
Darkforce energy has largely defied any extensive analysis. Like plasma, it exhibits the properties of both energy and matter. It also seems to dampen or absorb other forms of energy, such as light, heat, or electricity....it even seems to dampen mental energy, such as those used in psionic attacks. Wraith has a tremendous number of uses for this basic power:
- He can project semisolid bolts of the energy as a weapon.
- He can surround himself with diffuse clouds of it, dampening heat, light, and other forms of energy, protecting him from energy attacks, psionic assault, and making it harder to see him.
- He can surround enemies with a diffuse cloud, making it harder for them to attack effectively
- He can make the energy semi-solid, forming tentacles that can grapple foes, or even semi-independent humanoid constructs
Thomas can also use the dimensional apertures he opens to teleport from place to place, to teleport others, or to nudge himself or others out of phase with our reality, rendering them unable to interact with anything solid for a short while.
Proto-Sorcery
In addition to studying magic directly, Thomas has also been exposed to massive amounts of arcane energies in the course of his heroic and villainous careers. He has, as a result, developed a few magical abilities and spells:
- He can cause abrupt, extreme fear by staring intensely and concentrating. He's developed this ability to the point where he can reduce an entire company of council into cowering, abject terror.
Life-force Manipulation
It is unclear if this power is an outgrowth of his mutant or arcane abilities...it may well be a mixture of both. Whatever the cause, Thomas can draw on the life-force of those around him, and use the energy to heal wounds (himself or others), to boost his other powers, or to refresh and restore himself (for example, he can use it to go without sleep with no ill effects).
This is one of the most terrifying powers in Thomas arsenal, and the ways in which he misused it account for a great deal of his former notoriety. Many of his enemies he left dessicated corpses, their life-force slowly and painfully drained away. Thomas does not tend to advertise that he has this ability.
Weaknesses
Light Sensitivity
Thomas has developed Achromatopsia, a condition in which the human eyes lack cones. Cone photoreceptors are important for perceiving color and allowing the eye to adjust to differing levels of light. Thomas vision is therefore monochromatic-he cannot perceive color. His eyes also do not adjust normally to bright light, requiring that he wear dark tinted glasses in order to function.
Costumes
For the most part, Thomas disdains the traditional spandex and cape, although he does have such an outfit for use when the situation demands it. In his former life, fashion was one of Thomas' hobbies, and he still wears expensive clothing when he can, favoring the clean lines of Kenneth cole or Armani. It's not unusual to see him charge into battle wearing a three-piece suit.
Trivia
- Thomas currently has about four more years of working for vanguard before his sentence is up.
- As a hero, Thomas was a member of Black Justice, a group of heroes with darkness or shadow based powers. This group has since disbanded.
- As a villian, Thomas considered joining Nation, but felt that he did not really share their agenda for mutant separatism. Thomas identity as a mutant has always been secondary to his vendetta against Crey.
- It is rumored that Crey operatives still have "kill-on-sight" orders with regards to Thomas.
