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Fighting: |
Ex |
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Agility: |
Ex |
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Strength: |
Gd |
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Endurance: |
Ex |
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Reason: |
Gd |
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Intuition: |
Gd |
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Psyche: |
Rm |
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Health: |
70 |
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Karma: |
50 |
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Resources: |
Gd |
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Popularity: |
0 |
Real Name: Unrevealed
Occupation: Assassin
Legal Status: Most likely a citizen of the United States; has criminal and psychiatric records
Identity: Presumably known to the police
Place of Birth: Unrevealed
Marital Status: Unknown
Known Relatives: None
Base of Operations: Unknown, apparently mobile
Past Group Affiliations: Defenders
Known Powers:
Anti-Telepathy: Manslaughter has the telepathic ability to reduce an opponent’s ability to spot him. His talent is Remarkable; on a Green FEAT, he reduces his opponent’s Intuition FEATs by -2cs, with a yellow FEAT by -4cs, and with a red FEAT by -6cs.
Weapons: Manslaughter uses a number of conventional weapons, from throwing stars (Excellent edged throwing, 3 area range) to swords (Excellent edged attack). He is also expert at setting traps.
Talents:
Manslaughter has Guns, Thrown and Sharp Weapons skills, and Martial Arts A and C.
Contacts:
None
Role-Playing Notes:
Manslaughter is a psychopath who enjoys demonstrating his superior tactics and intelligence by trapping and killing people. There is almost nothing good about him. Manslaughter does respect opponents of quality (such as the Defenders) and is willing to help them in times of extreme need (especially if he is under duress). Possibly, if Manslaughter still lives, the Defenders have reformed him, though this seems unlikely.
History:
Very little has been revealed about the past of the assassin calling himself Manslaughter. He has claimed he grew up in poverty on the streets, but he may have been lying. It is known, however, that he once used his then-latent mental powers to track down the mysterious being known as Interloper in the Siberian wilderness. Impressed by this feat, Interloper taught Manslaughter how to bring out his psychic abilities. But realizing that Manslaughter had an unstable psyche, Interloper did not teach him too much, for fear of making his pupil too potentially dangerous.
Unfortunately, as Interloper later regretted, what Manslaughter did learn made him quite dangerous enough. Aided by his psychic abilities, Manslaughter began a career as a hired assassin, motivated more by what he saw as the sport and thrills of trapping and killing victims than by his fees. Eventually, a crime boss whose recent cocaine smuggling operation had been wrecked by the team of superhuman adventurers known as the Defenders hired Manslaughter to kill them. But the Defenders defeated the formidable Manslaughter and sent him to prison.
Months later, Manslaughter returned and told the Defenders that he so admired the style with which they defeated him that he wanted to join their team. When they refused, Manslaughter trapped most of them. All of them escaped his traps but the Angel, whom Manslaughter hid in the Defenders’ mansion, which he set ablaze. Manslaughter said he would save the Angel only if he him self was made a Defender. Just then Manslaughter was caught by Interloper, who was on the trail of the dangerous Moondragon, and who used his powers to extinguish the fire.
However, Interloper told the Defenders that they must admit Manslaughter as a member since they Would need him to battle Moondragon and the alien entity called the Dragon of the Moon that had taken possession of her. Manslaughter proved instrumental in Moondragon’s defeat by projecting insanity and demonic feelings of fear into her mind through a psychic link she had once established with him. But then, her power increased by the alien Beyonder, Moondragon returned to the attack. In order to defeat the cosmic entity called the Dragon, Interloper and another Defender, the Valkyrie, projected their immortal life forces against it. But in order to defeat Moondragon as well, their power had to pass through “mortal instruments.” So Interloper asked Manslaughter to join him. Believing that thus aiding Interloper would mean his own death, Manslaughter nevertheless acceded to his former teacher’s request. They and two other Defenders joined hands to hurl the tremendous power of their combined life forces at the Dragon, Moondragon, and the Gargoyle, whose body was now under the Dragon’s control. Three other Defenders went to rescue endangered innocents, and when they returned, all participants had seemingly been transformed into statues of ashes and dust, and the Dragon of the Moon was apparently gone. But whether this is what truly happened to them, and whether they are still somehow alive, or capable of returning to life, are questions still to be answered.