Basic info
Name: Marcus Friedrich Goldstein
Age: 18
Birthday: 11th of November
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Height: 182 cm
Weight: 72 kg
Face Claim: No idea, found it on a random google search.
Stats
STR:4
DEF:4
RES:3
SPT:1
Aura 180|120 HP
Personality
Major: Combat Major (Combat engineering and demolitions, in other words if you see him running try to keep up.)
Likes: Big explosions, working with his hands, listening to music, shooting, dirt racing, good food.
Dislikes: Melee combat, dubstep, style over substance, planning
Fears: Beowulves (yes really) and other small Grimm up close, loss of control, being seen as dumb.
Overall Personality: Aggressive, confident and intelligent, Marcus has a certainty to his movements that belies his poor hand to hand combat skills. His eyes tend to roam around, constantly on the lookout for opportunities or loot. He makes for poor conversation, period. He has a tendency to literally wander off mid sentence if a conversation bores him. If a discussion does catch his interest, Marcus has the ability to hold conversation at the same time as he does something else. This may make him come across as blunt or even brusque when he does not make eye-contact for a whole conversation long because he has something in his fingers.
He loves to tinker and will gladly give a technical helping hand to those who want one. Firearms especially fascinate him endlessly. An afternoon in the workshop working away on weaponry is his way to unwind and relax, preferably with some tunes in the background.
Because Marcus rolled into the hunter lifestyle more or less on accident, his combat style is unrefined and can be roughly summed up as 'hit harder'. Alongside spamming high calibre ordnance he has a preference for singing and humming during combat.
He is highly pragmatic and level headed and thus open minded. There are very few personalities, traits and abilities that he will not work with. You are a faunus? Good, improved senses are always welcome. You wish to overthrow the government but are willing to help fight off a horde of Grimm right now? Here is spare ammo. You snort Grimm like a crack whore does cocaine? Whatever, go get them. In short, cover his back and he will cover yours.
Abilities
Aura type: Healing
Aura Color: Silver
Semblance: Deus Ex Machina (Utility) - Marcus can at will share his aura with a single machine of his choosing. This can be a component machine of a larger object, such as a traincar that's part of a train. Alternatively it can be one whole device or machine, so long as someone with aura took the effort to design and build it. Arrows, cars, vending machines and so forth all qualify. Pets such as Zwei, rocks someone threw once, cut down trees and so forth do not qualify.
Sharing his aura in this manner gives Marcus several interesting options. The first and most obvious is that the device literally becomes an extension of Marcus himself. He can instantly understand how it works and what it's purpose is. His aura can even repair damage to the machine, though it costs him inordinate amounts of power to replace more than the smallest missing components. This means he cannot for example turn half a crashed airplane into a whole new factory fresh plane, but he can perform most field maintenance with literally just a touch of his aura, sorting out scratches and small tears with next to no effort. With some concentration he can even give someone a free reload, but this taxes his abilities to the limit and cannot be done more than two to three times per day depending on the amount replaced. He cannot replace any special dust-based ammunition at all, period. This ability cannot be used in the middle of a fight either as he has to sit still and do nothing but concentrate for a good quarter of an hour.
Second and much more subtle, Marcus can 'talk' to whatever machine he's bonded with, gleaming information from leftover bits of thought and soul. The more spiritual attachment there is to a certain object, the more information he can gain from it. A beloved family heirloom will tell him not just it's function, but also the history of who used it where and when and even what the later users were thinking. He can literally see their memories as sharply as if he lived through them himself. On the other hand an idly sharpened stick discarded in the woods might give him a vague inkling about the user, up to 'was angry' or 'went north' (note that's only direction, not destination).
- Functions as heal on androids. 3 aura to 2 health restored, max 20HP per post.
- Repair of weapons and armour counts as a +2 strength buff by the added effectiveness of essentially a brand new weapon customised to fit the owner's preferences. 10 Aura/post
Item 1: Skree - Rating 1 weapon - An industrial angle grinder modified for combat. Unlike normal angle grinders Skree can release it's grinding disc at the touch of a button even while it spins, firing it as a lethal frisbee that can cut through steel. Due to the weight and size of the discs Marcus only carries around twelve spares and thus rarely uses the ranged function unless absolutely necessary.
Item 2: Ishimura Mk III - Rating 1 armour - Armour based on what astronauts were expected to wear until the discovery that dust does not work in space. Marcus' grandfather kept it as a memento to the space projects he worked on. It has since been modified to work as combat armour. Marcus consistently refers to it as his driver's harness. In the linked picture Marcus can be seen wielding Skree too. The lights are not actually visors, they are literally just that: lights, for better vision in dark areas.
History and Sample
- History:
- Marcus expected to become an engineer by trade. Dad forged weapons for aspiring hunters and huntresses, and from a young age Marcus helped out around the shop. This soon lead to Marcus tinkering with all sorts of devices on his own, though time and again he kept returning to the creative and dangerous use of high explosives. An experiment gone wrong did not deter him even though it permanently marked his cheek with a distinctive whisker-like set of scars. Given that he has yet to actually injure himself in the workshop beyond that particular incident, he still considers himself a good engineer.
Then Mom took Marcus with her to her work. She organised supply trips to the defenses that keep the borders of the kingdom safe, specifically the heavy artillery emplacements. When ten year old Marcus went with her, his life changed. It was love at first sight. The sight of shells larger than he was lobbed at some poor unsuspecting target over the horizon with enough explosives to make all sorts of pretty mushroom clouds, to be specific.
Once home, Marcus dove into tinkering with a manic glee. One old tractor, a large quantity of high explosives, some other materials and several months worth of elbow grease later he completed his first gun carriage. Little more than a swivel-mounted cannon carried around on a pair of treads, it was the ancestor for a much larger and more capable platform that came to dominate Marcus' life: The Ultima Ratio Regum tank.
Over the course of several years his obsession caused a rift between his parents and himself: Marcus was obviously less interested in learning for the sake of inheriting the family business and more to improve and refine his personal weapon. It was a drive that they had seen pass by the shop time and again when an aspiring hunter or huntress had that burning need to express their soul in the real world. This was an effort by Marcus to create his own huntsman weapon, not as he so stubbornly saw it, an out of control hobby.
It took until Marcus turned sixteen and his aura spontaneously manifested during work on his 'side project' that he acknowledged his parents might have a point. Especially given that his semblance made itself known not soon after. Both expressions of his soul pushed Marcus to go forward, to craft that what the world had never seen before.
Yet no matter how determined, no matter how legitimate the calling, there was a problem as simple and immutable as a mountain in Marcus' way: the Ratio cost more resources than a small mansion. Resources that he did not have and would not be able to come by easily. Paradoxically, resources he would have relatively easy access to as a huntsman. Never one to back down from a challenge, Marcus threw himself into training and preparation, passed the entrance exam to Syne and is now eager to start his career. That his true weapon is still half complete in a hangar is simply an obstacle to overcome him.
- RP Sample:
The sun rose over the mountains. Cold morning air bit his face. Marcus gazed out into the sunrise from the little workshop he spent his youth in, out to the future. Cross-legged he sat on the turret of his brainchild, the metal monster he hoped to make a name for himself with. Syne Academy was out there. Not actually visible from where he sat, what with the entirety of a mountain in the way, but his mind's eye provided. He imagined the inside to be spacious and brightly lit. The scientists on the very edge of technological development, the stalwart heroes of justice, the brave soldiers who stood firm against the grimm hordes.
Would he fit in, he wondered for a brief moment, before the ridiculousness of the statement dawned on him.
Of course he would. He had the brains. He had the skill. His soul reached into the metal below him and Ratio's engine rumbled to life. He definitely had the firepower.
The door opened behind him. Mom, Dad, possibly both. He cast a last glance back, just to see the two of them stand there in the dawn.
"Well. Bye." he said. Nothing more was needed. The shouting, the fights, the denial and the ice cold bucket of realisation that his were not hands of creation, much as he might claim them to be. It was all in the past. A chapter of his life he regretted, at last closed off. Marcus looked forward again. Ratio's treads clattered on the cobblestone street as the machine rolled forward. To the future.
Side note: Skree and the Ishimura are considered 'temporary' weapons both IC and OOC: My goal is and will be to get the tank in the face picture useable in combat. Called Ultima Ratio Regum, it is designed, again both IC and OOC, as a heavy support unit, NOT front line combatant. How to make Ratio viable is something of an ongoing project.
Last edited by Marcus Goldstein on Fri Sep 02, 2016 5:42 pm; edited 9 times in total (Reason for editing : Added in full effects of semblance. Ready for action.)
