Inquisitor Phibes
From PRIMUS Database
| Inquisitor Phibes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player: @machinegunblues | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| "Have you ever heard of Gore-Drinker? The Nameless Bretheren? The Seven Signs? Of course you haven't. This is because I am very good at my job." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Character Build | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Class Focus: | Melee Dual Blade DPS, crit heavy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power Level: | 40 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Research & Development: | N/A | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Biographical Data | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Real Name: | Arthur Phibes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Known Aliases: | The Inquisitor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gender: | Male | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Species: | Human | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ethnicity: | Anglo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of Birth: | Fall's Church, Massachusets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Base of Operations: | Millennium City, Vibora Bay | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relatives: | Arthur Phibes Sr. (father, deceased), Julia Phibes (mother, deceased) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Characteristics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Age: | 60, appears a little more than half that | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height: | 6'2" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight: | *shrug* | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Eyes: | Brown | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hair: | Light Brown | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Complexion: | Pale | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Physical Build: | Fit | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Physical Features: | Blind in one eye, prominent scar on same | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Status | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alignment: |
Lawful Neutral | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reputation: |
Reclusive | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Identity: | Secret | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years Active: | 40ish | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Citizenship: | American, bogus papers for several others | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation: | Witchfinder, Demon-Hunter | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Education: | Doctorate in Ancient Near-East Studies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marital Status: | Single | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Known Powers and Abilities | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Magic resistance, light powered armor, swordsmanship, Second Sight | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Equipment and Paraphernalia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lemurian 'Duelist' powered armor, twin blades Judgement and Wrath, inbuilt plasma cutter, huge repository of arcane lore, secret bases, torture devices and mind-wipers, Hat | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Contents
Background
Phibes first came to the attention of the Inquisition by the miracle of his mere survival of the Falls Church Massacre of 1966. A DEMON cell had long established itself in the old, foggy and still deeply religious New England village. The Coven set out to prove its worth to the Inner Circle in the most dramatic fashion possible - by opening a temporary rift to the Qliphothic and in doing so sacrifice its inhabitants to the madness and hunger of their Edomic masters. Those who were not violently torn apart (including the cultists themselves) inevitably were found raving mad, horribly mutated or both.
The Inquisition was fascinated by Arthur's survival and lack of taint, and scooped him up early on, determining that he possessed a very strong innate resistance to magic and the supernatural. He quickly rose up the organization's ranks till his promotion to full Inquisitor, possessed of intelligence and ruthless cunning and impressed even the senior leadership. In the years since then he has carried his crusade against the forces of darkness to the four corners of the earth, leaving carnage in his wake while remaining little more than a black rumor.
Appearance
Even outside the trappings of his dark office, Arthur Phibes cuts an imposing figure. A few inches over 6 feet with neatly swept back brown hair, the man is built like a professional athlete rather than the antiquities scholar he professes to be - though his credentials and expertise are very real. Square jaw typically bears a thin patch of stubble, and thin lips are ringed by tightly creased frown lines. His voice is deep and gravely, made more so by a lifetime of chain-smoking and shouting orders. Inexpensive suits and business casual are his usual civilian attire.
His most striking feature is the dead, milky white orb that is his right eye and the ragged vertical scar cutting across it. Despite being totally featureless and devoid of pupil or iris, people swear it follows their movements along with his good one.
In combat, Phibes wears a suit of brass-colored power armor pictured above, which he often combines with a large buckled hat for some reason he's never explained to anybody. It's construction appears both archaic and hyper-modern, as well it should being a product of different eras seperated by millenia. It's this appearance that his enemies know him by best.AppearancePowers And Weapons
- Incorruptible Flesh: Phibes first came to the attention of the Inquisition by the miracle of his mere survival of the Falls Church Massacre of 1966. While others were wraped, twisted or torn apart by the roiling interdimensional energies, he emerged unscathed. Inquisitorial examiners determined he possessed a strong resistance to demonic corruption.
The Inquisitor is largely immune to the soul-sucking, mutating effects of the Qliphothic dimension as well as those of other extraplanar realms. Theoretically he could travel unprotected through the Q-realm with no ill effects, even resisting its insanity-inducing unreality. (Though that doesn't mean the things that live there wouldn't try and rip him to shreds). No one is quite sure why.
This resistance is largely to ambient, environmental effects and corruption, mutation, hexes, curses, insanity, etc. Focused, directed damage attacks utilizing dark magic will still hurt him, as will other sorts of offensive magic, though slightly less than your average mortal.
- Witch Sight: Phibes lost his right eye in the attack. Since then, through this destroyed eye he channels a power known as 'Witch Sight, allowing him to see into the hidden natures of people. At a glance he can pick out whether a person is a shapeshifter, undead, artificial, or disguised demon simply by looking at them. (OOC Note: I usually ask rather than assume this knowledge. Presumably supernaturals know of such powers and could potentially guard against them; the Sight isn't infallible.)
- Artificial Youth: Phibes takes a cocktail of age-inhibiting drugs to delay the onset of aging and increase his lifespan. He will likely live to be close to 200. This is also vulnerability on his part, for if denied access to the Regen-Tech cocktail (itself a product of ARGENT mad science) for more than a few months he'll rapidly develop various cancers and tissue necrosis, and die.
- Inquisi-Tech: Phibes is an able physical specimen but barely super-powered on his lonesome. He relies heavily on technological and arcane lore to assemble his arsenal and bring the fight to the enemy.
- "Duelist" Powered Armor: Phibes wears a suit of brass-colored power armor, a mixture of both salvaged proto-Lemurian parts and designs and modern human-built PA tech. The whole assembly runs on an Ignatium shard built somewhere into the suit's housing. Though it provides adequate protection against conventional bullets, high-heat, sharp objects and blunt trauma, it's primary purpose is to vastly enhance the wearer's Strength, Dexterity and agility. Encased in his suit, the Inquisitor hits like a truck but can dodge and weave with superhuman acuity. The downside comes at the expense of protection. Because it's designed for maximum flexibility and mobility, it has a number of weak-points exploitable by a skilled opponent. A competant swordsman will find its gabs, and a high enough volume of fire will eventually penetrate. The suit also incorporates an inbuilt plasma burner and rocket boot propulsion.
- Swords: Wrath and Judgement: In combat he wields a pair of blades which he typically keeps in a 'dimensional pocket', invisible till produced at his will. They are a bizarre mixture of sorcery and technology, with power-field generators built into the handles and blessings against the demonic integrated into the blades. This approach typifies Phibes' predilictions, favoring all manner of integrations of sorcery and science. They seem to be able to cut through many hardened man-made materials with enough force, deal extremely painful wounds to demons and Qliphothic entities, and he can frequently deflect or disintegrate incoming projectiles by spinning them rapidly in front of them. Should he catch a blade made of conventional steel between both swords, he can break them. Unfortunately the ability to produce these blades at will is integrated into his armor. No armor, no swords, unless he physically carries them around.
- Mindwipe Device: A product of stolen and reverse-engineered PSI technology, the Mindwipers usually appear as thin three-foot pylons with a purple cylinder at their top. When activated device scours the memory of nearby humans and humanoids, erasing their last hour of recollection. Allies and acolytes are usually given blocking devices. Once activation is complete the device self-destructs by fusing together into a worthless hunk of molten metal. Mindwipes allow Phibes and Co. to intervene in supernatural crises in public - without having to kill every civilian in sight for having seen him.
- Neural Shredder: A nasty piece of work, and not at all portable. The Shredder is a large, complex torture device with tubes that attach to the restrained victim's skull. When activated it can produce precisely modulated levels of pain or vivid hallucinations in the unfortunate subject. It must be used by a skilled operator, or the victim may be killed by sensory overload - or alternatively, just annoyed when the user can't figure out how to crankt he juice.
- The Black Sites: Phibes' term for his network of secret bases. Blacksite Primary is his main operational base, a subterranean fastness hidden in the deep wildnerness of Michigan's upper peninsula. It contains a substantial portion of his arsenal, housing for Inquisitorial personnel, and a highly secure data storage network - along with a berth for his stealth-fielded gunship, the Unblinking Eye. Blacksite Seconary is a similar but much smaller base located just outside Vibora Bay. Teriary Sites 1 and 2 are, respectively: a fortified basement safehouse in Millenium City, located in an abandoned building he pays to keep abandoned; and a monitoring station on Monster Island.
Weaknesses
- The Flesh is Weak: For all his powers and resources, Phibes is quite vulnerable without his armor, weapons or allies. He is well aware there is nothing stopping one of his enemies from simply shooting him in the back of the head as he leaves his office for a cup of coffee, should they ever discover his identity.
- Up Close and Personal: Phibes has focused his combat talents mostly on swordsmanship. While he owns a pistol for self-defence in his civilian life he's nothing special with it. His plasma burner is fairly short range. All in all, to get to grips with the enemy, fighting from afar isn't an option for him personally.
- Proscribed: The Inquisition operates outside the law. PRIMUS and UNTIL are dimly aware of its existence, and would be obliged to fight, capture or kill its members should they stick their necks out too far.
- Dark Reputation: While the Inquisition's focus is fairly narrow, a reputation as mage-hunters and executioners makes others wary to work with the group.
The Inquisition
The modern day Inquisition is a shadowy organization of demon hunters and exorcists, sponsored by and loosely tied to the Vatican. In spite of the name, the group has little in common with its medieval predecessors; they care little for mere heresy and religious dissidence. Instead their sole purpose is to seek out and destroy supernatural threats to mankind's continued survival - by any means necessary and every means available to them.
It is this particular ruthlessness that puts the group far outside the heroic mainstream of the superhuman world, for while few would disagree with their goals (who thinks demons should be allowed to run around all willy-nilly?) the methods they use to accomplish them are so brutal an heinous as to make even the most hard-bitten vigilante blanch. A veteran Inquisitor would think little of killing numerous innocents to destroy a single target if they believed the threat to be grave enough. They are inordinately fond of torture, and are trained to think of their colleagues and underlings as ultimately disposable in service of the greater good.
Origins
Since ancient times the Church had been involved in combating what it perceived to be supernatural threats, with exorcism having been a long tradition, though one that had largely fallen out of practice in the modern world. As demonkind, fel magic and dark gods began to rear their heads in ways that were no longer deniable to even the most skeptical, it decided to dust off its accumulated centuries of knowledge in the ways of the unnatural, and bring the fight to the enemy.
Sometime in the 1950's, The Inquisition was born anew. There was little connection to the original organization that had terrorized Muslims, Cathars, and Jews in the Middle Ages. Different targets, different methods - or so it seemed. Unbeknownst to most, the Medieval Inquisition outside of Spain was also involved in the persecution and destruction of practitioners of dark magic. Hundreds of eager, faithful, and newly trained exorcists were sent hurtling into the fray against what the Church saw as the greatest and most existential threat now facing humanity and the faithful.
The results were predictably disastrous. %95 of all Inquisitorial cells were completely decimated - either infiltrated and subverted, or totally wiped out - within a mere five years. It was to be expected, as most were armed with knowledge and tactics that were at best outdated and at worst completely false. Only the most clever, intelligent, and ruthless Inquisitors survived, those who were willing to look outside doctrinal orthodoxy and utilize unconventional tactics and unsanctioned sources of power.
The modern organization is descendant of these battle scarred survivors. They have carried the disastrous lessons of their predecessors well - nothing is forbidden in the struggle for survival. While much smaller than it was at its founding, today's Inquisitors are many, many times more deadly and effective than they have ever been and have access to considerable resources to accomplish their goals.
It is believed that the Vatican proper, and most especially the Pope, exercises little control over the group today. Those who are even aware of the Inquisition's existence - and this is a very very small number of people - speculate that the Church is itself terrified of the monster it helped to birth, and does not dare cut off funding for fear of what their own Inquisitors might do to them both with the power they possess and the secrets that they know. It is the Holy See's deformed bastard child, too monstrous to acknowledge as its own but too dangerous to put down.Hierarchy
The Inquisition's organizational hierarchy is cell based. Each cell is led by a full-fledged inquisitor, who may maintain a stable of associates and henchmen ranging from less than a dozen to hundreds depending on the individual in question. Phibes is believed to employ about 50 associates directly. The Inquisitor has absolute authority over his cell. There is no brooking his or her decisions; serious dissent is often met with violence or even outright execution. The comraderie displayed between members of supergroups or military organizations they ostensibly have something in common with, is largely absent. All members of a cell are trained to think of each other as expendable, and to be suspicious of even their closest colleagues. They are of course, encouraged not to form lasting emotional bonds with one another.
Cell members may fill a variety of rolls, from fighters, commandos and hitmen to technicians and magic users. Besides these direct underlings, an Inquisitor with access to sufficient resources may on occasion employ 'outside help', who are largely kept in the dark as to who they actually work for.
Various cells communicate with one another only on an ad-hoc basis, to share information as needed. While technically answerable to an Inquisitor General, they mostly operate independantly. There is a conclave of all active cells every five years, which meets in a hidden bunker fortress dug somewhere in the Andes.
There are believed to be about twelve Inquisition cells active in the world at the present time. Only one operates in the United States, in varying degrees of secrecy, led by Inquisitor Arthur Phibes. Other countries with active cells include Mexico, Brazil, Poland, Japan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Peru, and Canada.
Allies and Acolytes
- Katarina: "My chief Hunter, a master of firearms tainted by Lich blood who I rescued from most unfortunate circumstances. Her faith ironclad where I've long since left mine behind, and few are more deadly with pistol, rifle or stake. What was done to her was not her fault, nor is it the permanent and damning corruption she believes it to be. Maintaining her loyalty is a delicate balance between encouraging her need for redemption, and convincing her of my sole belief in her humanity. (player: @redkah89
- Thanatos: "Real name, Alisteir Ras Algethi. A castaway of the Trimestigus Council; the things these people throw away. Thanatos is a powerful exorcist and a master of boons and curses. What worries me is his penchant for using darkness against itself. I've seen what lies down that road all too clearly. The time may come when he becomes more of a liability than a boon, but for now I regard him as a very, very useful weapon." (played by @swedsman)
- Trismegistus Council: "Allies? Hardly. We occasionally share information through third-party channels but that's the extent of it. I'm sure they're still convinced I'm out to lop off their heads for heresy or some nonsense. Still, we sometimes find ourselves in a state of mutual need."
- God: "An atheist Inquisitor. I believe this is what they call 'irony'. My years at this have taught me one simple truth: Billions cry to the heavens every day only to be met with silence, but the Devil will come when you call. Our notions of a benevolent creator and rightious judge of all are fairy tales. I understand the necessity of faith in these dark times, but whatever I say to the men I'm well aware that we're truly alone in this."
Enemies
- Inquisitor Harkin: "My old mentor. It's so strange to think that at one point in time I was his star pupil, and now we spend out days hunting each other in the shadows."
"I can't say he taught me everything I know, but it would be accurate to say he gave me the -tools- necessary to understand everything that I do today. Our relationship changed a decade ago. He began spouting the same.. unorthodox, dangerous theories he'd warned me against for years. One day he simply disappeared. Later he emerged from wherever he'd been mutated, mad and wielding what was clearly a demon weapon.
He'd claimed he'd found a way to permanently subdue the Kings of Edom, of all things, by 'turning their power inward'. Impossible nonsense, and the atrocities he's commited in pursuit of this are the more despicable for it.
I don't fear fighting Harkin. I fear becoming him. The Inquistor General once confided to me that no one at my station has ever died of natural causes. They're either killed by their enemies.. or to a depressingly common extent by their successor. I have nothing but hate in my heart for that batty old lunatic, but at the same time I understand the temptation all too well.
- Goredrinker: "Not a Qliphothic entity as commonly believed, but a Demon. There is a difference. A frighteningly powerful demon at that, he has none of the complex motives or long term goals of many of his kin; he exists only to rend, tear and destroy. And somehow, DEMON has found a way to harness and bind his power. Oh well. The brutes are the easiest to deal with, it's the smart ones you really have to worry about."
- DEMON - "I firmly believe this cult to be one of the greatest threats to mankind's continued survival. Not because they're more clever, more powerful, or more skillful than other villains. It's their recklessness that endangers us all. At least the Scarlet Moon shows some restraint and maintains a modicum of a sense of self-preservation. No price is to high to ensure their eventual extermination.. and my final revenge."
- Crowns of Krim: "Divided they fall. One can only be thankful these lunatics don't seem to be able to put their heads together for very long."
- Circle of the Scarlet Moon: "Threat level much reduced from previous decades. I'd like to think our targeted assassination campaign is at least partly responsible, but I feel the larger reason is they've grown more cautious and circumspect. It will be that much harder to ferret out the rest of them."
RP Hooks
- Are you a Hero or other assorted do-gooder? Arthur Phibes in his civilian identity is a professor and prolific researcher for Millenium City University. His expertise in ancient lore and artifacts is far ranging and PRIMUS has occasionally retained him as a civilian consultant, unaware of his true identity. Various heros might do the same. Got a MacGuffin your people can't figure out for the life of you? Phibes probably has at least some idea of where to look.
- Are you a Mage or other magic user? Contrary to popular belief, the Inquisition isn't out to slag any and all magic users, they're only concerned about the folks dicking around with Cosmic Evil. Phibes is capable and knowledgeable but no mage himself, and occasionally needs to take on 'outside help'. He's a bit dicey to work with, but generally speaking if something's got his attention is pretty srs bznz. Alternatively, maybe your wizard is messing about in things he shouldn't and has attracted the Inquisitor's scrutiny.
- Are you a dark mage, DEMON Cultist, Vampire, Werewolf, or Other? The Inquisitor can make for a tenacious adversary. Or even an unlikely ally if there's something out there worse than you.
OOC Notes
While I play Phibes as having significant cronies and assets, I don't usually use them in RP with people who haven't agreed to it prior. If the Inquisitor just shows up somewhere it'll be on his lonesome or with other player-character allies, not a gunship and a commando team. They're elements usually used in more arranged scenes.
Also, the power grid stats in the sidebar thing are for Phibes in his armor. Outside of it anything relating to physical prowess or energy projection etc. is dramatically reduced.
