JOHN CLAYTON
Played by: BRIAN BLESSED
Role: Evil White Hunter
PL 9 (111)
STRENGTH 3
STAMINA 4
AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 10
DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 1
AWARENESS 2
PRESENCE 3
Skills:
Athletics 4 (+7)
Deception 4 (+7)
Expertise (Great White Hunter) 12 (+14)
Insight 2 (+4)
Intimidation 2 (+5)
Investigation 2 (+4)
Perception 4 (+6)
Persuasion 3 (+6)
Ranged Combat (Rifle) 2 (+12)
Stealth 1 (+5)
Advantages:
Chokehold, Diehard, Equipment 3 (Gun, Knife), Fast Grab, Favoured Foe (Animals), Improved Aim, Improved Critical (Rifle) 2, Power Attack, Precise Attack (Ranged/Concealment), Quick Draw, Ranged Attack 7, Tracking, Ultimate Hunter
Equipment:
"Rifle" Blast 6 (12) -- (13)
- AE: "Knife" Strength-Damage +1 (Feats: Improved Critical) (2)
Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Knife +10 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Rifle +12 (+6 Ranged Damage, DC 21)
Initiative +4
Defenses:
Dodge +10 (DC 20), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +4, Fortitude +6, Will +5
Complications:
Motivation (Greed)- Clayton hunts for money, plain and simple.
Secret (Hunting Gorillas)- Clayton wants to bag a bunch of apes for big cash, and is using the Porters to get him to Africa. He lies to Tarzan for the same reason.
Total: Abilities: 60 / Skills: 36--18 / Advantages: 22 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 11 (111)
-Holy HELL does Disney have a grudge against hunters- sure it might come from the fact that an alarming number of Disney films are based around animals that talk and have relationships and stuff, but MAN, I think Walt Disney must have been shot by a dangerous hillbilly as a kid, because his films are LITTERED with heartless, monstrous hunters. You've got "Man is in the forest" from
Bambi, whomever Bambi'd Tod's mom in
The Fox & the Hound, the three hillbillies in
The Princess and the Frog, Cruella de Vil (kinda), McLeach from
The Rescuers Down Under, and ol' John Clayton here. Clayton's an... OKAY villain, I guess, but lacks the menace or grandeur of most Disney foes, and never quite gets scary enough. This is odd, because BRIAN BLESSED (you must always use all caps, as TV Tropes tells us) is the hammiest of hammy actors, yet the only thing I remember of this guy is his death scene- accidentally hanging himself and ending up being seen by a silhouetted shadow while his legs sway in the breeze.
-Clayton was actually a pretty severe threat. I was gonna make him a PL 8 guy to match Tarzan, Sabor & Kerchak, but having a rifle in a film set in the jungles of 1880 Africa is basically like having a one-shot-kill death weapon. One shot will basically destroy anything it hits (though even in real life, most shots aren't instantly "you drop down and slowly die"- plenty of people don't even realize they've been shot) lest you get the arm (like Tarzan). He's a weaker fighter overall (PL 7 defensively and with his Knife or unarmed), but with that gun, he can do a lot of damage to Tarzan, especially because of the poorer Dodge of most jungle-denizens, who are only trained at fighting things in melee. With Power Attack, Clayton can do +11 Damage with his Rifle (that Crits on an 18-20), and at +6 to hit will STILL be a bit more accurate than Kerchak's DC 15 Dodge.
About the Performer: BRIAN BLESSED is infamous for giving over-the-top, boisterous performances, chewing the scenery in every role. His hamminess is so intense that even roles like Augustus Caesar, a famously stoic, intellectual man, was portrayed as a bellowing, chortling sort ("IS THERE A SINGLE MAN IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTER?!?"). He's been performing since the 1960s, playing roles in
I, Claudius,
Return to Treasure Island, and more. He was the original Old Deuteronomy and Bustopher Jones in the 1981 West End version of
Cats, and frequently appears in Shakespearean works, too. To nerds, BRIAN BLESSED is probably most iconic for playing Prince Vultan in the schlocky masterpiece
Flash Gordon. To Brits, he's notable for his other work, plus being in
Blackadder.
-BRIAN BLESSED'S real-life story includes things like sparring with the Dalai Lama in boxing, hitting 28,200 feet on Mount Everest while in his 50s, surviving a plane crash, and being the oldest man to reach the North Magnetic Pole on foot. In 2011, the student union of the University of York named their new study area the "BRIAN BLESSED Centre for Quiet Study". In 2015, he collapsed during a performance of
King Lear, but returned to the stage 20 minutes later to complete the play.