Post by Nightcrawler on Jul 11, 2014 19:07:09 GMT
BASIC INFORMATION
Canon or Original: Canon
Dimension of Origin: Earth-616
Real Name: Kurt
Codename: Nightcrawler
Nickname(s): Elf, Trickster, Swashbuckler, Herr Indigo, The Daredevil Demon
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Race: Mutant
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Appearance:
A demon, they call him.
He typically keeps to shadows, but if you know where to look his yellow eyes give off a faint glow. With no discernible pupil, it’s sometimes difficult to tell where his attention is without the aid of body language.
Then. Suddenly.
BAMF.
He disappears entirely into a poof of indigo colored smoke, another deep indigo plume marking his new location. His lengthened canines are the next noticeable attribute, the contrast of white on indigo displayed broadly in his devil-may-care smile.
He has indigo lips. Indigo everything, actually, even his pointed ears and a prehensile tail that ends in a spade. Further differentiating his appearance from that of a human’s, Kurt has three fingers and three toes— two forward facing, one is opposable like a thumb and faces out to the side —as well as a fine, downy layer of hair that covers most of his arms, shoulders, back, and legs.
He stands 5 feet 9 inches, though given the choice, he rarely stands at his full height. Kurt inherently finds a comfortable posture in a crouch. His natural physiology is that of long and lean fast-twitch muscles. He has the body of an athlete, specifically, the sinewy ease of an acrobat.
Special Features: Indigo skin and hair, yellow pupil-less eyes, three fingers, three toes, pointed ears, prehensile tail approximately 3'6" long, and lengthened canines.
Clothing: Kurt’s taste is incredibly old fashioned and modest. He prefers to cover up as much of his body as possible. He likes long coats, vests, suspenders, newsboy caps, and shiny shoes. Well, he likes the look of shiny shoes. He doesn't like to wear human shoes at all if he can help it. They just weren't made for feet like his.
Special Clothing: Spandex. C’mon. You know every good hero or villain needs an outfit they can move in. Kurt is no exception. He prowls around in black spandex with some red detailing, an adapted version of his Daredevil Demon acrobat days.
CHARACTER DESCRIPTION
Personality:
For the most part, Kurt is a jubilant and gregarious person with a healthy attitude toward humans. He is quick to smile, quick to forgive, and quick to crack a joke. But like many others, Kurt hides behind his humor.
Having worked in entertainment and having a distinctly non-human appearance has given Kurt something of a complex about his physical looks. He rarely goes out into the human world without a way to mask his appearance. Often he uses cloaks, coats and hats, or a more recently acquired image-inducer in order to interact with others.
His fear of human reactions has caused him to build up some emotional defense mechanisms. For example his laid-back attitude, penchant for mischief, and humor allow him to outwardly shrug off a lot of abuse. He will often use these things to direct other’s attentions to something other than the way he appears physically.
Kurt demonstrates an aversion to sinister concepts. He is not above breaking the law, but he tries to maintain a healthy moral code based on his upbringing in the Catholic religion. He actively goes out of his way to make things better. Faith and love are key aspects to his character. Faith in his friends, humanity, and faith in a Higher Power. But, more than anything else Kurt tries to show love to others, even if that might translate into some “tough love” for a bad guy.
Connecting strongly with other mutants has helped nurture a compassion that is vital for someone with his appearance and history. While other physically non-human mutants might go off the deep end and rage, Kurt’s support structure has influenced him to instead work hard to fix an already broken world.
Compassion, humor, and the strength of his faith make up the essential core of Kurt Wagner.
Skills:
Master Acrobat: Nightcrawler is an Olympic-class acrobat thanks to his super-human flexibility. He can perform contortionist-like feats of strength and agility and to go long periods in a crouching position without injury.
Master Combatant: Though he has no formal training at this time, Kurt is a natural at hand-to-hand combat and a master at fencing, which he can (and has many times at the circus) perform with his tail.
Master of the Tail: Nightcrawler is skilled enough to grab onto objects with relative ease. His tail is strong enough to support his body weight and dexterous enough to use on the touch screen of a smart phone.
Multilingual: Kurt’s first languages are Romani and German, but he studied hard to learn English when he decided to work in America.
Weapons / Gear (if any):
Image-Inducer: Kurt has a wristwatch that doubles as an image-inducer. It carries only one image at a time and must be pre-programmed. The image overlays Kurt's movements perfectly giving the illusion that he is the person that the image-inducer is displaying. It does not change his height, body type/physique, or voice in any way, nor does it change the way Kurt's body would feel upon touch. A simple touch would reveal that he has 3 fingers even if his image-inducer visually displays 5.
Fencing Foil: But only if he’s feeling rakish.
Alignment: Hero
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Powers:
Teleportation: Nightcrawler has an unconscious connection to the Brimstone Dimension, a pocket dimension that is connected to all points on Earth along with a few others. Kurt’s power allows him to enter this alternate dimension for an infinitesimal amount of time and exit at a new location on Earth. The entire process occurs so quickly that Nightcrawler is unaware of being in the Brimstone Dimension at all. Whether disappearing or reappearing, Nightcrawler leaves in his wake a poof of dark indigo smoke.
Non-Human Physiology: Nightcrawler’s unique hand and foot structure allow him to grip onto non-traditional surfaces by use of opposable thumbs on all appendages, his tail, and the extra grippy nature of his non-furry skin. He has a flexible bone structure that allows him incredible flexibility and agility. He has incredible balance (Hello, tail, my old friend!) and reflexes.
Strengths:
Here! No? There!: Kurt is able to, within sight range, appear and disappear at will. Chains, bars, and restraints cannot hold him since he literally disappears from the Earth for a short time. He consciously chooses his destination and can teleport as far as 2 miles in one jump.
Let’s go!: He can carry up to two full grown people with him, though they often feel ill or unstable after passing between realms.
Weaknesses:
Lizard Brain: As the targeting of Nightcrawler’s teleportation is an unconscious power managed by the limbic (aka: reptilian) part of his brain, Kurt is not able to choose how long he stays in the Brimstone Dimension. His body will only allow him the briefest stay possible.
Mass Occupies Space: Kurt cannot teleport into something solid. If he tries, he will be displaced into the next possible space. This means that he cannot teleport into walls, floors, or solid objects. It also means he could easily teleport himself into the space between walls, the space between floors, or the space between solid objects whether it is a good fit or not. Kurt compensates for this by generally not teleporting outside of the range of what he can see.
Laws of Physics: Nightcrawler's momentum is retained throughout the process of teleportation. If Kurt is falling, teleporting himself closer to the ground does not lessen the impact. It only makes him splat faster.
You’re a mutie, aren’t you?: Kurt’s non-human physiology renders him unable to pass for human.
CHARACTER BACKGROUND
History: Kurt was born to Raven Darkholme, AKA: Mystique, during a time when the blue-skinned femme posed as Baron Christian Wagner’s wife. Due to his appearance, mother and son were chased out by a torch-wielding mob. Accounts vary on how Kurt came to live with the gypsy sorceress, Margali Szardos. Margali claims to have found Kurt in a shelter next to his dead father. Mystique claims she threw the child into a well in order to save herself.
Either way, Kurt was not raised as the son of a Baron as was Mystique’s original intent. Instead, Margali brought the young Kurt to the circus where she maintained cover as a fortune teller. Kurt grew up happy in the circus, surrounded by people who mostly had no aversion or prejudice against his appearance.
His natural agility lent itself toward circus entertainment. Happy to be doing something he was naturally good at, by adolescence Kurt became the star acrobat and aerial artist of Max Getmann’s Circus. The circus simply themed their shows toward the dramatic and demonic, allowing Kurt to perform in his own skin with his natural appearance.
Though never officially adopted by any one person, Margali acted as his unofficial foster mother. Her two sons became like siblings to him.
As time passed, crowds began to get bored with the same thematic performance every year. Craving something new, Nightcrawler’s performances drew fewer people each year until finally Herr Getmann could no longer afford to use Kurt’s act. He sold Kurt’s acts to an investor who ran a circus in Florida, Texas millionaire Arnos Jardine. Kurt left the only family he had ever known for a place in the American circus.
The new circus was far less accepting. Jardine denied Kurt a place as an acrobat despite his skills and insisted the young mutant be featured in the freak show instead. Jardine even went as far as to drug Nightcrawler to prevent his escape. Angry, alone, and drug addled, Kurt teleported for the first time in order to escape his bondage.
Pleased with his new power, but aimless, Kurt decided to return to Germany. Upon his return, Kurt finds that one of his “foster” brothers has gone mad and has left a trail of murdered innocent people. To his added horror, most of his friend’s victims are children. It’s one of the first times Kurt has used his agility and new mutant power in an aggressive way, but the mutant tracks down his friend, confronts him, and ends up killing him in order to stop his insane rampage.
Naturally, the people of the nearby village hear the commotion and assume that Kurt, the one they just saw kill a man, is responsible for all the recent deaths. Distraught, feeling guilty, and running for his life, Kurt hid in nearby Father Wagner’s church. Professor Charles Xavier contacted Kurt telepathically and convinced the elf that he could put his abilities to better use with the X-men.
It is at this point when the world shattered for Kurt.
RP Sample:
Had he teleported? Kurt lay on his back looking up at a smattering of dappled light that filtered through the leaves of a nearby tree. He didn’t remember teleporting, but he did feel rather queasy. Almost like the first time he’d done it. One second he was behind bars, BAMF, the next he wasn’t. Only at that time, he’d attributed his urge to vomit to the shock and the unwelcome pollutants in his bloodstream.
No. This was nothing like that. This time he remembered hiding in shame in the rafters of an ancient church while talking in his head to a stranger.
Best not to admit that one outloud.
A loud groaning like that of a wooden ship drew Kurt’s lazy attention to his right where a dinosaur, a Bronto-something (it had been a while since he’d watched Jurassic Park, was happily munching on a tree.
“Mein Gott.” He had flipped up to his feet before he’d actually processed the thought that he wanted to. “Is that real!?” They could make a fortune even if it wasn’t. Now here was a real curiosity fit for the circus life!
As if it heard him, the behemoth stopped its munching and turned its great head toward him. It so thoroughly stopped moving Kurt was almost sure it was a fake and its animatronics had broken down. “I didn’t mean it, mein freund. If you don’t want to to, I wouldn’t force you into it.”
But then he heard it too.
The ground rumbled under the retreating feet of the vegetative dinosaur. Coming straight toward them was something else. Something big and fast. Kurt teleported a few times in quick succession BAMF, BAMF, BAMF until he had a better view from up high.
Tyrannosaurus Rex.
He didn’t need a movie refresher to know that one. And running just a few feet too close? Vater Wagner, the priest of that same church he’d been haunting.
BAMF.
Father Wagner clawed at him, having never seen his grotesque features before, but his screaming and feeble defenses didn’t stop Kurt from saving his life. BAMF.
Source of Information:
Marvel Wiki - Kurt Wagner (Earth 616), Wikipedia - Nightcrawler (comics)
PLAYER INFORMATION
Username: Perfect Crayon
RP Experience: 6 years Marvel RP, 15 years total RP experience
Other Characters: n/a
