Lord Greystoke
The story is known to most of the world, by now. Unfortunately, the story is filled with misconceptions and the occasional outright deception. The man himself does not feel any particular need to clarify matters, or rather believes that he detailed all the messy parts of his past nearly fifty years ago, and sees no point in doing so again. While not as halting in his speech as the most famous cinematic version of himself, he will generally prefer to say silent rather than speak if he sees no purpose in saying something.
His life began in Africa, more than one hundred and twenty years ago. Just why his mother and father were sailing on the east coast of that continent, while she was with child, is not something he's ever chosen to address. A mutiny occurred, and they were marrooned. His mother suffered a breakdown not long after she was born, and died when he was still in infancy. His father soon followed her ... but by his own hand, not by that of an ape.
At the deposition in 1972, he commented that it was typical of his chronicler to believe it more likely that an ape would adopt a human child rather than eat it, and believe an African more likely to do the revese. As it happened, the jungle cabin where his castaway family lived was well known to the local human population, and they had tried many times to speak with the inhabitants, only to be driven away by the paranoid father. They investigated and found the infant, and took him back to their village with them.
He lived among these Sira-speaking people for some fourteen years, treated kindly but as something of a curiosity, rather than a person. Eventually, the wanderlust that is perhaps his defining characteristic came to the fore, and he left them to live on his own in the jungle, often walking with the great apes. (They existed, but the drama that his chronicler created was of his own imagination, inspired by other tales of feral children.) Eventually, he met another group of stranded Europeans, became involved in their lives, and traveled beyond the borders of all that he knew, and learned of his identity as John Clayton, heir to a British peerage.
The rest is too well-known to be repeated here. He was united with his love, and made a valiant attempt to live in the world of his forefathers. But events, and his own wishes, kept drawing him back to Africa, and in time he began to spend most of his time there, seeking out the secrets that it still kept, then. But the world was changing, and Africa no less than any other part of it.
Only he was not changing, perhaps as a gift from that old man who claimed to have a potion of eternal youth. (Actually, no. His unaging is part of the package of mutations that he inherited from his parents.) But this was a mixed blessing, for he had no way of giving that youth to his wife, or their children. Even if he had, the violence of war was to claim the lives of his children, and grief, as much as old age, took his Jane from him far too soon.
The Sixties saw him drawn back to action after a long time spent in mourning, as he fought along side other superhumans and more mortal champions, most notably against
the thing inhabiting the body of his sole living child. He was never able to capture her, much less save her, and this added to his frustration. Thus, when he learned that an American science fiction writer had published what he called a 'definitive biography' of him, the annoyance he had always felt at these fictional depictions finally reached a breaking point.
It's a measure of how much civilization had changed him that all he did was sue, obtaining a halt to the book's publication, and in the process obtaining control of the rights to the character, which he has since guarded jealously. But in the process, he had to go public, and this led to a great deal of unwelcome attention. He dealt with this by arranging for most of his titles and properties to be passed to distant heirs, leaving him with only the courtesy title "Lord Greystoke", and living a quiet life, rarely giving interviews.
The Eighties saw him once more take up arms, after the Pythonian Insurgency attempted to assassinate him as one of the last superhumans standing. He found himself the leader of the British response to the Pythons, often leading commandos in the field. This would ultimately result in him being one of the first human beings to set foot on Mars, an irony that he appreciated. When it was all over, he also accepted the invitation to become one of the founding directors of Argus. A decade later, after surviving yet another assassination attempt and helping to overcome Billie Zane's schemes, he was chosen to head the agency, over his own objections.
And so it's been ever since. A private man, he no longer has any real privacy. A man who loves to travel, he can usually only manage to get out of Argus' New York headquarters a few times each year, and then under carefully controlled situations. A man who fundamentally believes that humanity and the world are, and have always been, doomed, he is now charged with the responsibility of holding that doom at bay.
Ah well. He's still alive.
Lord Greystoke -- PL 11
Abilities:
STR 7 |
STA 6 |
AGL 6 |
DEX 4 |
FGT 11 |
INT 3 |
AWE 4 |
PRE 2
Powers:
Fast Healing: Immunity 1 (aging); Regeneration 5 - 6 points
Guts: Immunity 8 (cold, disease, heat, need for sleep, poison, starvation & thirst, suffocation), Limited to half effect - 4 points
Keen Senses: Senses 5 (acute tracking scent, direction sense, low-light vision, ultrahearing) - 5 points
Swift Movement: Leaping 6 (1000 feet); Movement 3 (swinging, wall-crawling 2); Speed 4 (30 MPH); Swimming 4 (6 MPH) - 20 points
Advantages:
Agile Feint, All-out Attack, Animal Affinity, Benefit 5 (Multimillionaire, Status), Connections, Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll, Extraordinary Effort, Fast Grab, Improved Hold, Improved Initiative, Languages 4 (many), Move-by Action, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 8, Redirect, Skill Mastery (Acrobatics), Uncanny Dodge, Well-informed.
Skills:
Acrobatics 7 (+13), Athletics 6 (+13), Close Combat: Unarmed 3 (+14), Deception 8 (+10), Expertise: History 6 (+9), Expertise: Survival 11 (+14), Insight 8 (+12), Intimidation 9 (+11), Perception 10 (+14), Persuasion 8 (+10), Sleight of Hand 6 (+10), Stealth 6 (+12).
Offense:
Initiative +10
Unarmed +14 (Close Damage 7)
Defense:
Dodge 12, Parry 13, Fortitude 9, Toughness 8/6, Will 8.
Totals:
Abilities 86 + Powers 35 + Advantages 33 + Skills 43 + Defenses 15 = 212 points
Complications:
Peace--Motivation. Closemouthed. Responsibility (Argus director).
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."