Steelwolfe
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Steelwolfe | |
| Player: chintznibbles | |
| Origin: | Science |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Mastermind |
| Threat Level: | 32 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Sofia Nazarova |
| Known Aliases: | Steelwolfe |
| Species: | Biologically Modified Human (some wolf DNA) |
| Age: | somewhere around 30 |
| Height: | 5'10" |
| Weight: | 140 lbs |
| Eye Color: | Blueish |
| Hair Color: | Grey |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Russian |
| Occupation: | Robotics Researcher/Thief |
| Place of Birth: | Moscow |
| Base of Operations: | Tchernak Mobile Base X32A |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | some family back in the old country |
| Known Powers | |
| Robotics, Traps and other Inventions | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Limited superhuman strength | |
| Equipment | |
| Bayer 942c Pulse Rifle, robotic prototypes | |
| Speaks fluent Russian | |
Steelwolfe is a rarely-seen technology thief and robotics pioneer, currently dwelling in various locations around the Rogue Isles. She is notably private and reluctant to associate with and even speak to fellow villains, preferring to abstain from public statements and merely communicate with close friends and allies of indeterminate identity. Here, then, is a large collected file of rumors, hearsay and generally observed data on this reclusive character.
Contents |
Description and Observed Behaviors
Steelwolfe's appearance is that of a human-beast hybrid, featuring a prominent coat of hair and elongated, bestial feet and hips. Her facial features seem more human than animal, though she does have rather large wolf-like ears. Curiously, she also has external cybernetic components, though whether these are true implants or simply high-tech armor is undetermined. As of late, she has begun wearing a striped scarf, knitted by a long-lost aunt who knows nothing of her niece's biological modification and subsequent villainous exploits.
Steelwolfe's personality is characterized by relentless energy and enthusiasm, though marked by cynicism. She exhibits a definite streak of arrogance, believing that she is right in almost every situation and that differing opinions are of little to no value whatsoever. In a similar vein, she insists on being referred to as an Infamous Revolutionary, though this may be an attempt at humor.
She is a technological genius, having assembled a virtual army of robotic companions. Her most salient creation is the Tchernak Mobile Base X32A transport, a small-scale, permanently cloaked deployment platform capable of being piloted and crewed by one person. Her robotic servants are of standard, utilitarian build, though their weapons systems have all been modified to be capable of discharging a wide variety of ostensibly non-lethal ordinance.
Steelwolfe's activities center mostly around the theft of new technological prototypes, high-tech parts, and rare isotopes and chemicals. She occasionally raids consumer electronics manufacturers as well, particularly targeting new objects which have a chance to change the lives of many people but are too expensive to be widespread. She has also been connected to over one hundred separate cases of corporate sabotage, in each case targeting a multinational corporation that stood to lose at least a million dollars. Whether she has been able to retrieve the funding she's caused to be lost is unknown. No one knows her overall motivations in pursuing these actions, and she has yet to issue any sort of public statement regarding them. There are whispers in the underground that she fancies herself a modern day Robin Hood sort, but there have been no documented incidents of Steelwolfe sharing her profits with the poor. There has been a tiny increase in anonymous donations to the few legitimate charities in the Rogue Isles since Steelwolfe became active, but only a few can be specifically linked to her. It is theorized that if in fact this is her modus operandi, she may be utilizing an extensive money laundering operation.
She is a product of a now-defunct Russian bio-weapons program, started in the final days of the Cold War. Not much is known as to her specific background, but she fled the USSR soon after her modifications were complete, bouncing around immigration programs across the globe before settling in the Rogue Isles. It is believed that the rough treatment she received from British and United States immigration officials spurred her initial descent into villainy, though her current interests are seemingly far more connected to socio-economics and a somewhat inexplicable hatred for multinational corporations, the World Bank and the Free Trade Economy.
General Personality Type: INTJ
Characteristics
Physical Appearance
Steelwolfe is a female human with extensive biological modifications. She is approximately 5'10" tall and weighs an estimated 140 lbs. Her build might be described as powerful, but wiry; while some evidence exists that she possesses some degree of superhuman strength, this is not overly visible in her musculature. Her eyes are pale blue. Her hair (and the hair that coats most of her body) is steel grey. Beneath it, her skin is somewhat greyish. She has several purely bestial features, including wolf ears, a long canine tail, triple-jointed legs with large bestial feet, and clawed fingers.
Typical Combat Appearance and Behaviors
Steelwolfe is an excellent shot with her modified pulse rifle, but she is only rarely glimpsed alone in combat, preferring to instead move in the company of her robotic companions. She is fond of merely stunning her victims, often leaving entire platoons of hired guards or rival villains unconscious in her wake. She evidently does not like to kill in pursuit of her prizes. To facilitate this goal, she has created a small stash of curious badges that teleport anyone they are applied to a hospital in Paragon City. If it looks as though one of her victims is dying and she does not feel angry enough to permit it, she affixes a badge to them, ensuring that they will wind up in medical care even if they cannot afford the local services of Blackheart Hospitals. She takes great pleasure in doing this to defeated rival villains as well, likely sparing their lives but also placing them smack dab in Hero Central.
Typical Civilian Appearance
Steelwolfe does not often modify her outfit for the purposes of blending in; her physical characteristics somewhat preclude that anyway, except perhaps among the most unusual denizens of the Rogue Isles. She has been known to don a battered lab coat while working and on the rare occasion that someone objects to her thickly-furred breasts being exposed. There has been one documented report of Steelwolfe wearing what ordinarily passes as an evening gown (though she did not remove her techno-gloves) and one blurry paparazzi photo of an enraged, nude Steelwolfe attempting to escape a rival villain's trap.
Powers
Steelwolfe only possesses limited "super" powers, chiefly the ability to leap long distances, run at generally superhuman rates, and track things by scent. She has good reflexes and perception, giving her a rough command of acrobatics and dodging. She is also a very good rifle shot; she can manage pistols, but not by choice. Her weapon of choice is a specially-modified Bayer 942c Pulse Rifle that fires both standard blasts and low-intensity "stun" bolts. It is mounted with an underbarrel launcher that fires plasma grenades and flashbang devices.
Steelwolfe's only other power is her amazing intellect. She is a legitimate technological genius, by all accounts. Although she is not quite as intelligent or skilled as many of the highly dedicated professors and other such individuals out there, she is able to innately understand and accurately reproduce any technological device she is allowed to study and play with for an hour or two. Whether she has been classically trained or simply picked all this up by intuition is unknown. With this command of scientific arcana, she has constructed for herself a veritable armada of robotic servants, transports and more.
Robotics
Steelwolfe is rarely seen without a cadre of robots, ranging from simple bipeds to massive walking tanks. All of her robots have been modified from reference designs to be able to fire non-lethal ordinance: stun blasts, flashbang grenades, and notably in the case of her massive tank-bot, both nerve-suppressing gas and some sort of psyche-dampening beam. She is also attended by any number of anti-gravity-equipped hover-drones; these small robots perform many tasks, such as force-field projection and simple material transport. Reports indicate that a strange, floating presence can always be observed some distance in the air above Steelwolfe's current location- this is speculated to be the Tchernak Mobile Base X32A, a permanently cloaked personnel transport invented by Steelwolfe. The mobile base is not particularly large, housing only enough space for a small apartment and a robotic hangar, though it does boast an enviable machine shop and the ability to autonomously construct drones and replacement robot chassis. It is propelled by a full complement of anti-gravity turbines, is agile enough to avoid fighter plane flight paths, and contains rudimentary teleportation equipment.
Steelwolfe appears to issue commands to her robotic servants via an interface in the gloves she always wears, though any creation of hers also obeys voice commands. In one documented occasion where she was stripped and bound, her robots still functioned as normal. Whether this implies some sort of psychic control, mental transmission or advanced AI is undetermined.
Traps
Steelwolfe's technological prowess and devious mind often produce automated devices that harass, poison or even detonate on her foes. Most of her devices come from raids on other technological sources, however; she is somewhat unfortunately constantly reinventing the wheel in this regard. That said, she has a wide variety of adhesive grenades, tear gas emitters, and acid-launching devices at her disposal. Her more advanced devices include a prototype regeneration projector, force-field emitting drones, and small drones that autonomously seek out targets and detonate a flashbang device.
Trivia
-Steelwolfe is another in a long line of characters that sprang, fully formed, from the mysterious ways of the Random button in the Costume Creator. After making some minor changes, the first name that sprang to mind miraculously stuck. Whereas there may be other Steel Wolves out there with some variation of spacing and/or extraneous vowels, this one seemed to fit well.
-Steelwolfe speaks Russian, but her player does not. This was accomplished by copying and pasting some Russian phrases (in Cyrillic, no less) into CoH macros. Asking her to converse in Russian (or really say anything that isn't readily available in Russian phrasebooks) won't be of much use.
-Yes, I know she has a cat tail. There's no wolf tail. You just have to pretend. ;)
-Steelwolfe's reclusive nature is not, in fact, a planned character trait, but a reflection of the fact that I only rarely actually play CoV. Too many other shiny objects to focus my attention on, donchaknow.
