Post by zandyne on Oct 30, 2008 21:34:21 GMT -5
Name: Skull King (speculated and confirmed to be Jacob Rhynes)
Age: 49 (currently dead)
Gender: Male
Race: Human (now a Specter)
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Power Level: Low-Tier High (7)
Timeline: Applicable to almost any timeline with humans running around. (An exception would be extreme cases of Sci-Fi and pre-civilization.) Specialty lies in timelines that function with the occult and/or with kinetic abilities but with non-space-age technology.
Appearance: The Skull King’s physical statue is nothing special (5’10”) however his build is taut and lanky; he could easily be considered scrawny by conventional standards. His skin is pale and exceptionally smooth despite his age. His face is pointed in its features and also wears an odd half-mask that resembles an exaggerated human skull branded with a red slanted gear. The garment he wears is eccentric at best and resembles a strait-jacket formalized into a wearable one but with strange skull-like designs integrated into it. He also has a set of odd buckles that loop around his elbows and circle around to the back of his clothing (it serves no real purpose, it is merely aesthetic).
His hair is brown in color and very short. He keeps it smoothed back to keep it out of his eyes which are blue-grey.
Skull King without crown
Skull King with crown
Personality: The Skull King is careful in his dealings and his operations; however he has the tendency to act on impulse on occasion. He tolerates little error unless it happens to be coming from a source he cannot afford to eliminate. He does not believe in employing random grunts but can charm and negotiate with others to gladly follow him to the grave (or in some cases for him). He is known for his strategic understandings of society and has a great amount of pride in how glamorously he can execute things (in all possible senses) and how well he can conceal his tracks. He thinks of himself as a King in rank, nobility, honor and power, his very manner of speaking also reflects this in that he has a very formal, but scathing and somewhat dated speech.
He happens to be a stickler for signatures and personalized marks as well as a touch OCD when it comes to certain rituals (both personal and outer Occult). However, his priorities are always on himself first and foremost. The Skull King is also radical in that he believes stagnation is a virus as a state of “too much lax peace” is deadly and weak; he finds boredom an equal offender and does everything in his mental powers to escape this.
History: Once upon a time in the sleepy town of Southern Hill, a twelve-year-old Jacob Rhynes stumbled upon a hidden altar in the basement of his home from the time of the Salem witch trials. It was a stage covered in long-rotted sacrifices and held a single esoteric contract where the price had been paid by his fore-fathers and mothers to inherit the powers of a particular familiar, yet it was unsigned and otherwise unclaimed. Unknowingly he managed to activate this long-sleeping pact by touching it and he was granted powers over the very flesh and bones of humans (in reality, power over the bones of humans).
He was at first frightened by the intrusion of strange temptations, thoughts and suggestions that now filled his mind. But for the most part Jacob conquered that festering dark morality in his mind and lived his days as usual. However he lived in a fairly normal but still high-strung family. During a particular bout between his mother and father, he managed to get both of them to bite their own tongues off (specifically by making them literally shut up by forcing their jaws to clamp shut during a yelling-match) and both parents died in a frightening and bloody manner. Investigation would render it an unsolved case for many years to come and Jacob would spend the next four years becoming a recluse in his aunt’s home outside of Southern Hill as he researched and refined his newfound powers.
Curiosity, vain self-worth and awe began to lead him down the less moral path as he began to listen to the wonderful ideas and to-be wishes rather than deal or interact with the people around him.
After this period of absence from the town and having somewhat mastered his power over human bones as well as a renewed fascination with his slowly twisting ideals, he moved back to Southern Hill with his aunt (the same one he stayed with away from town) and slowly became reacquainted with the little town and its people (he of course kept this power secret from them). He made several acquaintances but seemed to never really involve himself with anyone including his aunt. Jacob became known around town as the shy boy who was a hard-worker yet had a kind heart, something which was opposite if they knew what schemes were now churning in his mind- an arrogance that he’d been nursing since he realized that he has a special gift and how he had grand delusions about utilizing them to construct a new world for himself.
More time had passed; his education was all but a blur, Jacob was a student who did enough to get by and avoid being lumped together with the average, in secret he garnered an infatuation with anatomy and occult dealings because he believed they were his greatest weapon. He’d continued his research and invested as much time in it at every moment he was left alone, but his dear aunt had begun to become a nuisance. Luckily for him though, a bad heart claimed her life before he would ever have to lift a finger and feign her tragic death of “falling down the stairs.”
Jacob mourned her death on the outside; behind closed doors he further constructed plans for how he would propagate his new world. At 28 he finally pinpointed the ritual and means by which he was able to gain his powers, he also had discovered new properties about it; it was a contract that had to be renewed every eighteen years of “active use” but there was a way to permanently secure it. In addition, there was a method by which to exponentially increase its powers.
Soon after discovering this, he did everything in his power to arrange for the ritual necessary to make his powers completely his without fear of losing them from a demonic expiration date. The ritual required the skulls of his mother and father as well as various other ingredients of the black arts that he acquired through various means, the last ingredient which was the skull and blood of a pious member of the local faith (in this case, Reverend Cid Graves of Southern Hill Church). Jacob manages to murder Cid Graves in a discreet enough manner that the local doctor dismisses his passing as a ‘natural cause’. Jacob attains the Skull helmet he would later never part from at age 29; however before he fuses it to his own skull he considers arranging for more help in his future endeavors concerning amplifying his current powers.
Jacob kept careful watch of the time that he would have left before having to resort to fusing the helmet to his skull so he manipulated, schemed, charmed, sabotaged and otherwise extorted his way into the hearts of a selective few of Southern Hill’s citizens to do his bidding. The end result of this relentless operation yielded him six utterly loyal subjects that were smart enough to complete his tasks but not clever enough to escape him. However by this time, his ability was near expiring and he was forced to commit to the procedure he had prepared to keep his power over bones. In doing so he had permanently forgone the name and identity of Jacob Rhynes and was now the Skull King. The illusion of this to the rest of the population of Southern Hill was created with him setting fire to his own home and leaving behind a corpse that was burnt beyond recognition and current technology to decipher save for dental records which he forged with his bone manipulation powers. The corpse itself was of a vagrant wandering around the border of the town, he was neither missed nor noticed to be missing.
The Skull King continued his task of preparing the necessary ingredients and other components to increase his own power. The first instance of increasing his ability entailed the deaths of twenty people, each of which he carried out with the aid of his loyal subordinates. There were a total of 5 ‘unique’ methods by which a total of 20 people were killed (2 were carved up with various symbols and found in an area much like an offering stage in the wilderness, 3 were all elderly and killed by a weapon speculated to be a scythe or otherwise curved blade, 4 were found murdered in their own kitchens, riddled with bite marks, none of which were human and with a cooking utensil driven through a major artery, 5 were heavily mutilated bodies, had their eyes cut out and had candid pictures found where their bodies were found, 6 were actual or alleged sex offenders who were killed by a sharp object driven through the heart). These particular murders were carried out over the course of six years.
For a period of four years there were no more murders within Southern Hill. The Skull King spent those four years arranging for the sixth member of his group to acquire the art of necromancy. This person was nick-named “Tomb Prince” and later in the 5th year of no murders, put into a coffin and unofficially buried in Southern Hill Cemetery due to his incompetence in using his skill (he was later dug up while still alive by Jack Graves). After the Tomb Prince was buried, the Skull King murdered the remaining five old members by crushing all of their bones on their organs. He removed their skulls and kept them with him in his hidden residence.
Over the remaining eight years of the Skull King prior to his death was the incident known as the “Suit of Bones.” The Skull King acquired more loyal subjects through his underhanded methods and five new members were put at his disposal. These five were also used to commit several highly-methodical murders for a total of 57 killed, (7 by being bled dry, 8 by being surgically gutted, 9 by what could easily appear to be suicide attempts, 10 by binding and being frozen, 11 by blunt and broad puncturing by nails, 12 by disembowelment and what appear to be crude methods of abortion as all the victims were female). However, unlike the previous years when he’d employed his minions to carry out these murders, after they reached their specific number of kills, he would kill them discreetly and usually recreate the signature he had assigned to them on them.
With all of murders completed however, he realized he was missing two lives left required to expand his powers to that of a superior level. He still needed the life of the Tomb Prince and of a Gravekeeper (Jack Graves). In the process he managed to mortally injure the Tomb Prince but was unable to do substantial enough damage to Jack Graves in order to achieve his goals. He was literally bludgeoned senseless and then impaled by Jack’s shovel and then later suffocated by the Tomb Prince who’d finally found enough capacity to use it on the bodies in the Southern Hill Cemetery Jack Graves took care of to drag him underground. The Skull King died from lack of air and blood, and the Tomb Prince died along with him because of his internal injuries.
Later on while the Skull King was suffering in the spiritual nether, he was torn away from the stone he toiled at by a witchdoctor that assigned him to be Jack Graves ‘guardian spirit’. He now begrudgingly serves Jack Graves in the hopes of discovering a method by which it resurrect himself, fully possess Jack Graves’ body or to otherwise delay his return back to his eternal punishment.
*The Skull King still possesses his abilities over bone manipulation even as a spirit because his CORPSE still wears the helmet that forever preserves his powers.
Powers/Abilities:
Bone Manipulation – Able to manipulate bones such as bending, breaking, reinforcing or artificially moving them as though they are mere molding supplies. He possesses the ability to crush skulls without a weapon and without contact HOWEVER he must be no more than a foot away and apply substantial force to crush them. All other bones that have joints however are fair game and are far easier to manipulate.
Bone Marionette – (alive) Can manipulate the bones of the dead to act as programmed soldiers for a limited time however it is a fairly obvious and is only used when needed to overpower others. (This applies to dead bodies that have any bones in them as well). The catch of this power though is that he has to be able to see the body in question.
Bone Combustion – Can shatter a certain set of bones on contact; however the ability will actually give him a splitting headache that renders his vision and most senses useless for a certain amount of time. Had he succeeded in his ritual to increase his powers this ability would have been able to be used a great number of times with little ill effects. (But he was stopped.)
Bone Weapons – His power over bones allows for him to have exclusive ‘kinesis’ or magic over bones, as such he could make floating weapons out of them and ‘shoot’ small bones through people like bullets. (He could also use his own bones in theory to do this but the pain would be horribly excruciating.)
Occult Knowledge – The Skull King possesses a great deal of knowledge for the occult as well as various signs that are typically found in the open. He also understands the finer workings of most charms, curses and otherwise if he can find the runes or incantations associated with them. He has also dealt with the demon Dantalion on several occasions and while he was alive was able to extract information to help in his dealings of his minions as well as who he would murder.
Equipment:
Skull King’s Crown – A helmet that resembles an exaggerated human skull and has a slanted gear on it, wearing it allows for the Skull King to not have to renew the active contract of his bone manipulation powers. And as long as his corpse also happens to wear this helmet his spirit/soul will continue to have access to these powers.
Skull King’s Garb – The unique and oddly designed clothing the Skull King wears has a minor enchantment on it that causes normal people to be unable to distinctly recall what the he looks like. (He acquired this through his minor dealings with Dantalion.) In other words if he was standing in front of them they would recall what he looked like but if he is not standing before them they are unable to recite any specifics. Mythical or otherwise gifted beings however, would not be affected by this minor charm.
Weakness:
Human Weaknesses – Can be killed and in fact was by a shovel no less. He is not particularly strong nor possesses any extraordinary amount of physical or mystical stamina. (A problem he was going to fix by completing his ritual.) It should be noted he has a low pain threshold.
Overconfidence/Ego – The Skull King can be flattered into slightly letting down his guard or over/under-planning according to any weakness aside from his own. He also possesses vanity and grows too bored with normalcy that he often overlooks its details.
Notes: Longest character history yet and was created to go alongside Jack Graves’ profile. I don’t think there are any blaring inconsistencies or errors but if there are please tell me so I can fix them. I promise to someday post a picture, but most likely I never will. :]
Age: 49 (currently dead)
Gender: Male
Race: Human (now a Specter)
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Power Level: Low-Tier High (7)
Timeline: Applicable to almost any timeline with humans running around. (An exception would be extreme cases of Sci-Fi and pre-civilization.) Specialty lies in timelines that function with the occult and/or with kinetic abilities but with non-space-age technology.
Appearance: The Skull King’s physical statue is nothing special (5’10”) however his build is taut and lanky; he could easily be considered scrawny by conventional standards. His skin is pale and exceptionally smooth despite his age. His face is pointed in its features and also wears an odd half-mask that resembles an exaggerated human skull branded with a red slanted gear. The garment he wears is eccentric at best and resembles a strait-jacket formalized into a wearable one but with strange skull-like designs integrated into it. He also has a set of odd buckles that loop around his elbows and circle around to the back of his clothing (it serves no real purpose, it is merely aesthetic).
His hair is brown in color and very short. He keeps it smoothed back to keep it out of his eyes which are blue-grey.
Skull King without crown
Skull King with crown
Personality: The Skull King is careful in his dealings and his operations; however he has the tendency to act on impulse on occasion. He tolerates little error unless it happens to be coming from a source he cannot afford to eliminate. He does not believe in employing random grunts but can charm and negotiate with others to gladly follow him to the grave (or in some cases for him). He is known for his strategic understandings of society and has a great amount of pride in how glamorously he can execute things (in all possible senses) and how well he can conceal his tracks. He thinks of himself as a King in rank, nobility, honor and power, his very manner of speaking also reflects this in that he has a very formal, but scathing and somewhat dated speech.
He happens to be a stickler for signatures and personalized marks as well as a touch OCD when it comes to certain rituals (both personal and outer Occult). However, his priorities are always on himself first and foremost. The Skull King is also radical in that he believes stagnation is a virus as a state of “too much lax peace” is deadly and weak; he finds boredom an equal offender and does everything in his mental powers to escape this.
History: Once upon a time in the sleepy town of Southern Hill, a twelve-year-old Jacob Rhynes stumbled upon a hidden altar in the basement of his home from the time of the Salem witch trials. It was a stage covered in long-rotted sacrifices and held a single esoteric contract where the price had been paid by his fore-fathers and mothers to inherit the powers of a particular familiar, yet it was unsigned and otherwise unclaimed. Unknowingly he managed to activate this long-sleeping pact by touching it and he was granted powers over the very flesh and bones of humans (in reality, power over the bones of humans).
He was at first frightened by the intrusion of strange temptations, thoughts and suggestions that now filled his mind. But for the most part Jacob conquered that festering dark morality in his mind and lived his days as usual. However he lived in a fairly normal but still high-strung family. During a particular bout between his mother and father, he managed to get both of them to bite their own tongues off (specifically by making them literally shut up by forcing their jaws to clamp shut during a yelling-match) and both parents died in a frightening and bloody manner. Investigation would render it an unsolved case for many years to come and Jacob would spend the next four years becoming a recluse in his aunt’s home outside of Southern Hill as he researched and refined his newfound powers.
Curiosity, vain self-worth and awe began to lead him down the less moral path as he began to listen to the wonderful ideas and to-be wishes rather than deal or interact with the people around him.
After this period of absence from the town and having somewhat mastered his power over human bones as well as a renewed fascination with his slowly twisting ideals, he moved back to Southern Hill with his aunt (the same one he stayed with away from town) and slowly became reacquainted with the little town and its people (he of course kept this power secret from them). He made several acquaintances but seemed to never really involve himself with anyone including his aunt. Jacob became known around town as the shy boy who was a hard-worker yet had a kind heart, something which was opposite if they knew what schemes were now churning in his mind- an arrogance that he’d been nursing since he realized that he has a special gift and how he had grand delusions about utilizing them to construct a new world for himself.
More time had passed; his education was all but a blur, Jacob was a student who did enough to get by and avoid being lumped together with the average, in secret he garnered an infatuation with anatomy and occult dealings because he believed they were his greatest weapon. He’d continued his research and invested as much time in it at every moment he was left alone, but his dear aunt had begun to become a nuisance. Luckily for him though, a bad heart claimed her life before he would ever have to lift a finger and feign her tragic death of “falling down the stairs.”
Jacob mourned her death on the outside; behind closed doors he further constructed plans for how he would propagate his new world. At 28 he finally pinpointed the ritual and means by which he was able to gain his powers, he also had discovered new properties about it; it was a contract that had to be renewed every eighteen years of “active use” but there was a way to permanently secure it. In addition, there was a method by which to exponentially increase its powers.
Soon after discovering this, he did everything in his power to arrange for the ritual necessary to make his powers completely his without fear of losing them from a demonic expiration date. The ritual required the skulls of his mother and father as well as various other ingredients of the black arts that he acquired through various means, the last ingredient which was the skull and blood of a pious member of the local faith (in this case, Reverend Cid Graves of Southern Hill Church). Jacob manages to murder Cid Graves in a discreet enough manner that the local doctor dismisses his passing as a ‘natural cause’. Jacob attains the Skull helmet he would later never part from at age 29; however before he fuses it to his own skull he considers arranging for more help in his future endeavors concerning amplifying his current powers.
Jacob kept careful watch of the time that he would have left before having to resort to fusing the helmet to his skull so he manipulated, schemed, charmed, sabotaged and otherwise extorted his way into the hearts of a selective few of Southern Hill’s citizens to do his bidding. The end result of this relentless operation yielded him six utterly loyal subjects that were smart enough to complete his tasks but not clever enough to escape him. However by this time, his ability was near expiring and he was forced to commit to the procedure he had prepared to keep his power over bones. In doing so he had permanently forgone the name and identity of Jacob Rhynes and was now the Skull King. The illusion of this to the rest of the population of Southern Hill was created with him setting fire to his own home and leaving behind a corpse that was burnt beyond recognition and current technology to decipher save for dental records which he forged with his bone manipulation powers. The corpse itself was of a vagrant wandering around the border of the town, he was neither missed nor noticed to be missing.
The Skull King continued his task of preparing the necessary ingredients and other components to increase his own power. The first instance of increasing his ability entailed the deaths of twenty people, each of which he carried out with the aid of his loyal subordinates. There were a total of 5 ‘unique’ methods by which a total of 20 people were killed (2 were carved up with various symbols and found in an area much like an offering stage in the wilderness, 3 were all elderly and killed by a weapon speculated to be a scythe or otherwise curved blade, 4 were found murdered in their own kitchens, riddled with bite marks, none of which were human and with a cooking utensil driven through a major artery, 5 were heavily mutilated bodies, had their eyes cut out and had candid pictures found where their bodies were found, 6 were actual or alleged sex offenders who were killed by a sharp object driven through the heart). These particular murders were carried out over the course of six years.
For a period of four years there were no more murders within Southern Hill. The Skull King spent those four years arranging for the sixth member of his group to acquire the art of necromancy. This person was nick-named “Tomb Prince” and later in the 5th year of no murders, put into a coffin and unofficially buried in Southern Hill Cemetery due to his incompetence in using his skill (he was later dug up while still alive by Jack Graves). After the Tomb Prince was buried, the Skull King murdered the remaining five old members by crushing all of their bones on their organs. He removed their skulls and kept them with him in his hidden residence.
Over the remaining eight years of the Skull King prior to his death was the incident known as the “Suit of Bones.” The Skull King acquired more loyal subjects through his underhanded methods and five new members were put at his disposal. These five were also used to commit several highly-methodical murders for a total of 57 killed, (7 by being bled dry, 8 by being surgically gutted, 9 by what could easily appear to be suicide attempts, 10 by binding and being frozen, 11 by blunt and broad puncturing by nails, 12 by disembowelment and what appear to be crude methods of abortion as all the victims were female). However, unlike the previous years when he’d employed his minions to carry out these murders, after they reached their specific number of kills, he would kill them discreetly and usually recreate the signature he had assigned to them on them.
With all of murders completed however, he realized he was missing two lives left required to expand his powers to that of a superior level. He still needed the life of the Tomb Prince and of a Gravekeeper (Jack Graves). In the process he managed to mortally injure the Tomb Prince but was unable to do substantial enough damage to Jack Graves in order to achieve his goals. He was literally bludgeoned senseless and then impaled by Jack’s shovel and then later suffocated by the Tomb Prince who’d finally found enough capacity to use it on the bodies in the Southern Hill Cemetery Jack Graves took care of to drag him underground. The Skull King died from lack of air and blood, and the Tomb Prince died along with him because of his internal injuries.
Later on while the Skull King was suffering in the spiritual nether, he was torn away from the stone he toiled at by a witchdoctor that assigned him to be Jack Graves ‘guardian spirit’. He now begrudgingly serves Jack Graves in the hopes of discovering a method by which it resurrect himself, fully possess Jack Graves’ body or to otherwise delay his return back to his eternal punishment.
*The Skull King still possesses his abilities over bone manipulation even as a spirit because his CORPSE still wears the helmet that forever preserves his powers.
Powers/Abilities:
Bone Manipulation – Able to manipulate bones such as bending, breaking, reinforcing or artificially moving them as though they are mere molding supplies. He possesses the ability to crush skulls without a weapon and without contact HOWEVER he must be no more than a foot away and apply substantial force to crush them. All other bones that have joints however are fair game and are far easier to manipulate.
Bone Marionette – (alive) Can manipulate the bones of the dead to act as programmed soldiers for a limited time however it is a fairly obvious and is only used when needed to overpower others. (This applies to dead bodies that have any bones in them as well). The catch of this power though is that he has to be able to see the body in question.
Bone Combustion – Can shatter a certain set of bones on contact; however the ability will actually give him a splitting headache that renders his vision and most senses useless for a certain amount of time. Had he succeeded in his ritual to increase his powers this ability would have been able to be used a great number of times with little ill effects. (But he was stopped.)
Bone Weapons – His power over bones allows for him to have exclusive ‘kinesis’ or magic over bones, as such he could make floating weapons out of them and ‘shoot’ small bones through people like bullets. (He could also use his own bones in theory to do this but the pain would be horribly excruciating.)
Occult Knowledge – The Skull King possesses a great deal of knowledge for the occult as well as various signs that are typically found in the open. He also understands the finer workings of most charms, curses and otherwise if he can find the runes or incantations associated with them. He has also dealt with the demon Dantalion on several occasions and while he was alive was able to extract information to help in his dealings of his minions as well as who he would murder.
Equipment:
Skull King’s Crown – A helmet that resembles an exaggerated human skull and has a slanted gear on it, wearing it allows for the Skull King to not have to renew the active contract of his bone manipulation powers. And as long as his corpse also happens to wear this helmet his spirit/soul will continue to have access to these powers.
Skull King’s Garb – The unique and oddly designed clothing the Skull King wears has a minor enchantment on it that causes normal people to be unable to distinctly recall what the he looks like. (He acquired this through his minor dealings with Dantalion.) In other words if he was standing in front of them they would recall what he looked like but if he is not standing before them they are unable to recite any specifics. Mythical or otherwise gifted beings however, would not be affected by this minor charm.
Weakness:
Human Weaknesses – Can be killed and in fact was by a shovel no less. He is not particularly strong nor possesses any extraordinary amount of physical or mystical stamina. (A problem he was going to fix by completing his ritual.) It should be noted he has a low pain threshold.
Overconfidence/Ego – The Skull King can be flattered into slightly letting down his guard or over/under-planning according to any weakness aside from his own. He also possesses vanity and grows too bored with normalcy that he often overlooks its details.
Notes: Longest character history yet and was created to go alongside Jack Graves’ profile. I don’t think there are any blaring inconsistencies or errors but if there are please tell me so I can fix them.