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Fighting: |
Am |
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Agility: |
Ex |
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Strength: |
Am |
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Endurance: |
Rm |
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Reason: |
Pr |
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Intuition: |
Ty |
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Psyche: |
Fe |
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Health: |
150 |
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Karma: |
12 |
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Resources: |
None |
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Popularity: |
-20 |
Real Name: Major Desmund Pitt
Occupation: Former USAF pilot; supercriminal
Legal Status: (as Pitt) U.S. Citizen with no criminal record; (as Darkoth) wanted criminal.
Identity: Secret
Place of Birth: St. Louis, Missouri
Marital Status: Widower
Known Relatives: Son, name unknown
Base of Operations: Mobile
Past Group Affiliations: Former ally of Diablo and Dr. Doom
Known Powers:
Cyborg Body: As a cybernetic organism, further mutated through chemical means, Darkoth possessed a number of superhuman powers. Major portions of his skeleton were replaced with steel alloy (Monstrous material). Darkoth survived direct blows from the Thing, and was able to battle Grimm in hand to hand combat without suffering skeletal damage.
Armor Skin: Darkoth’s outer skin was transformed into a thick purple hide that could withstand the Thing’s mightiest blows as well as the impact of heavy armor artillery fired at close range without laceration. Darkoth’s outer hide was also sufficiently durable to survive the friction of re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. In game terms, this provided him with Amazing protection from both physical and heat-based attacks.
Claws: In place of fingers, Darkoth was equipped with steel talons which did Incredible damage in combat. These talons were made of an alloy that was able to rip into the
Thing’s tough outer armor. Often, Darkoth would carry a type of poison on the tips of these talons that would render his opponent unconscious.
Prehensile Tall: Darkoth also possessed a prehensile tail. The tail enabled him to maintain balance while stalking the rooftops, and could be used as an offensive weapon. Darkoth used it as a whip and as a means of constricting his opponents. In both cases, it did Good damage.
Heat Emission: On Darkoth’s head were two antennae called “Firehorns.” In some as yet unknown way, they fed on the mental energies of Darkoth’s opponents within a range of 50 feet. Fully charged, the horns were capable of emitting an Amazing heat ray that could melt through several tons of steel in a matter of seconds.
Kinetic Bolt: The Firehorns were also capable of sending off rays of heatless concussive force which were of Excellent strength. The impact of this force ray was sufficient to move a 500 pound object back several yards in one attack.
Mind Control: The Firehorns were also able to enter and disrupt the mind of any opponent, reducing him or her to insanity. This process took several minutes of high concentration to achieve and was of Excellent power.
Winged Flight: Diablo gave Darkoth two supernaturally derived abilities when he came under his power. The first of these was the addition of tiny bat-like wings at his ankles which magically gave Darkoth the power of flight at Typical airspeed.
Phasing: Darkoth was also given the power of intangibility at an Excellent level, although he could only employ it for limited periods of time.
Limitation:
Because Darkoth rarely used the Firehorns to any great extent, it can be assumed that they were weapons of last resort and that the great amounts of mental energy required to utilize them rendered them too costly to use in normal battle.
Talents:
Test Pilot (as Pitt)
Contacts:
None
Role-Playing Notes:
As Pitt, Darkoth is a career military officer and pilot. His devotion to wife, however, surpasses even his devotion to duty. Even as Darkoth, he retains his loyalty to his friends and will not knowingly harm them. If his memory is blanked out, he becomes a raging berserker and a relentless foe. Should he later regain his memory, he turns his fury on whoever has used him.
History:
Desmond Pitt was a major in the United States Air Force when he met test pilot, Ben Grimm. In short order he and Grimm, who would later become the Thing, a member of the Fantastic Four, became close friends. During a brief return to civilian life, Pitt married and had a son. During this period, His relationship with Grimm remained close.
Eventually, Pitt rejoined the Air Force and was assigned to the Kennedy Space Center in Houston, Texas. There he was placed on the staff of a research project designed to develop the solar shuttle (a variant on the space shuttle that would transmit solar energy from earth orbit to waiting solar panels on the planet’s surface).
As Pitt became involved with the early stages of the project, his wife was diagnosed as suffering from a terminal illness. The prognosis gave her only a few months to live. While under the great emotional stress which accompanied knowledge of his wife’s condition, Pitt also discovered that the solar shuttle project had been infiltrated by agents of Victor von Doom, absolute monarch of the tiny Balkan state of Latveria.
In an effort to learn the extent of the infiltration and its purpose, Pitt decided to present himself as a willing collaborator. Fearful that the spy network may well have extended into other areas of NASA, Pitt told no one of his plans, not even his superiors. Attempting to gather as much information as possible, he became the confidante of the ring’s leaders. They were so impressed by Pitt that they brought the major to the attention of Doctor Doom himself. To all appearances, Desmond Pitt was a loyal spy. He soon learned that Doom’s men meant to utilize the awesome powers of the solar shuttle to energize solar panels in Latveria.
Before Pitt could expose the plan to United States government officials, his wife died. Grief-stricken, Pitt became careless with his ruse and Doom discovered that he was a double agent. Doom’s operatives, still highly trusted in the space program, denounced Pitt as a traitor. Before he could be arrested, Desmond Pitt disappeared. U.S. officials deduced that he had been killed because of his apparent failure to sell secrets to Latveria.
In reality, Pitt had been kidnapped and brought to Latveria. Doom wished to make an example of Pitt to other individuals who might dare to consider betraying him. Pitt was forced to undergo months of chemical and cybernetic transmutation. Under Doom’s direct supervision, Pitt’s body was reformed to resemble a legendary demon that supposedly haunted the mountains of Latveria. Code-named Darkoth the Death Demon, Pitt was given extraordinary strength, agility, and limited psionic powers. The final process in the creation of Darkoth was exposure to Doom’s vibration device, a machine that could erase all traces of a man’s past personality and memories. As a final humiliation, Doom implanted in Pitt’s mind the suggestion that he was in reality a demon who had been rescued from the Netherworld by Doom to be his personal warrior. As such, Darkoth became the most loyal servant of the man who had made him a monster.
When Doom attempted to flee in a spacecraft, Darkoth stowed away onboard and attacked him as he piloted the ship into orbit. During the ensuing battle, Doom’s craft went off course and collided with a satellite. Both Doom and Darkoth were sent hurtling into re-entry.
Darkoth survived his fiery return to Earth, and his body crashed into a
barren sector of the Texas deserts. But his flaming fall from the sky had not
gone unnoticed. Diablo, the master alchemist, rushed to the spot where Darkoth
had landed. There he discovered that the Demon was very near death. Taking
Darkoth back to his hideout, Diablo used a variant of his own life-prolonging
potions to hold off Darkoth’s imminent demise.
Exposing Darkoth to his will sapping potions to insure his loyalty, Diablo
chemically augmented Darkoth’s powers, giving him both the powers of flight
and intangibility.