Freakshow
| Freakshow | |
|---|---|
 Nate with visible extensions of his suit | |
| Author | /u/spider_dream23 |
| Civilian name | Nate Brooks |
| Alignment | Villain |
| Affiliation | Noncanon (Devilfish) |
| PRT Classification | Tinker |
| Born |
October 13, 2006 Devilfish |
| Status | Noncanon |
Some guy got hospitalized by an unknown creature, he and Nate’s mom left the house, frightened and she refuses to acknowledge the freak inside as her son.
Days passed and Neighbors noted some strange things going on around the property, plants and animals showing odd behavior, supposed sightings of cryptids or monsters…
Previous to his trigger he was known for being strange, many rumors surrounding the weird misfit.. how he seemingly traumatized the neighbor kids.
His Father worked as a scientist at the local university especially known for his rather controversial views. He turned out to be a wanted murderer once his first victims became known.
Character Sheet
Appearance
Medium length black hair, green eyes, 1,60 m height. He doesn’t really care much about his appearance. Usually, his hair and skin appears to be somewhat greasy and sweaty while his clothes seem to be old and worn off.
There is some black mold growing on his skin, which can cover him entirely if he wants to hide his identity or protect himself.
Equipment and Resources
At the moment Freakshow is pretty blank and does not have much belongings, besides what he needs for his experiments.
Wealth level: 3
A small makeshift lab
A variety of different plants, and invertebrates.
Enclosures
Books about anatomy, medicine, and biology
A bunch of really good horror movies and games
Tinkertech ( He usually keeps 10 Vials of of R1, 20 E1, 20 N1 etc)
His creations
A bunch of Chickeneggs or other easily transportable creatures/eggs.
Taser
Smartphone
Tranquilizer
Tinkertech
Vials
Suit
| Creator | Freakshow |  |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Like previous version but now with bio-luminescence able to manifest luminous markings. Often around eyes, mouth, or other parts of his face | |
| Abilities | Like previous. Bio-luminescence for aesthetic purposes and to aid with dark environments.
Additionally: Enhanced durability (close to spider silk), Limited shock and Heat-protection, Air filter against poisonous or harmful substances. Able to cover wounds and keep them from bleeding, can support broken limbs by stabilizing their position. Adhesive and able to stick to rough surfaces and less effectively to smooth ones as well. Suit allows Freakshow to climb vertical walls or to hold onto something without any effort. Does not account for lack in strengt or agility. Can turn toxic, if fed with God-Vine Leaves, suit would invade open wounds and release paralytic toxins by contact. One Leaf sufficient for one injection (stuns and causes weakness for a few minutes). Effect is much worse if someone or something tries to bite/eat the suit(own creations excluded). The poison does work on touch but the effect is minor unless the contact persist for more than a minute. Starting with local numbness and then causing loss of strenght. It is much more effective via open wounds, able quickly spread the toxin into the bloodstream. The quick injection would sting like fire, cause disorientation and muscle spasm, for like one minute. The poison is pretty ineffective, used in normal hand to hand combat, but once he manged to draw blood only one touch is needed. Though clinging onto someone long enough(more than 10 min) would also cause them to collapse. Swallowing parts of the (amped)suit would cause heavy muscle spasm, vomiting, disorientation and seizures, depending on how much got ingested. It is very deadly to most animals and any minion with a somewhat animal-like physiology | |
Creations
| Creator | Freakshow |  |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Scorpion-like creatures. black or grayish, 5 cm up to 1 m in length (usually pocket sized but can grow very fast). | |
| Abilities | Fast and able to climb any surface, they can eat almost any organic material and double in size in matter of minutes. Most notably is their ability to spray glue via their tail. A sticky and resistant substance impeding movements. It isn't that strong( could be teared away with great difficulty) and easy to cut, but it keeps its adhesive properties and would immediately stick to something else. Glue is a strong irritant if it comes into contact with skin, but doesn't do much harm besides that. Does not stick to Freakshow's suit or the swarmers them self and degrades after one hour.
Small amounts of glue would immediately expand into a manifold of their original volume as they react with air. With one small swarmer able to produce a liter of that stuff. Even without their glue, big ones are still able to overpower a human with their strength alone. | |
He usually keeps four dozen eggs, which would immediately hatch. | ||
| Creator | Freakshow |  |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Tiny maggots at first and later something halfway between a wasp and a shrimp. Ten legs, the fist four with pincers, big complex eyes and mandibles. They have wasp-like wings and a stinger. Size and final stage depends on the host. | |
| Abilities | Larvae are extremely tiny and able to penetrate skin. From there on they can stay dormant for an extended amount of time or immediately start to grow. Originated from parasitic wasps, they need a host for their development. Though a corpse or just flesh would still be sufficient for their growth. Those parasites can grow in a matter of minutes, physically puppeteer the host via their own limbs growing beneath flesh or just ripping through the body and dragging it along. They usually only develop wings and fully emerge once the whole corpse got absorbed. If not interrupted they will reach the same size of the host. Adult forms are considerably stronger than any mammal, able to rip through steel if hatched from a human and practically immune to gunfire.
They may gain physical similarities to their host, like hands instead of claws, a human-like face, etc.. They are very aggressive, able to see in the dark and smell blood from a wide distance, but will perish after a few hours. Larvae can be transmitted via Freakshow or any of his creatures, but he is limited to only 20 of them. If hatched from a parahuman they may gain manton protections of their host(fire immunity if hatched from a pyrokinetic etc..) or physical similarities to a changer form. | |
He would usually use them on some creatures he has available(mice etc..) resulting in smaller 'wasps' but if Freakshow has access to a corpse or if backed into a corner, humans are not out of the question.
If he got very desperate, he may use them on himself, suppressing the full development of the parasite and instead causing him to grow insect-limbs. The process is very painful and potentially life threatening if he doesn’t get any medical help in the next few hours. | ||
Sentient Creations
| Creator | Freakshow |  |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | A backpack-sized tick and bug-like creature, it has three pairs of wings with the first pair being elytra, covering the larger actual wings beneath. Those wings are disproportionally large for its size and very similar to those of a dragonfly (but foldable like the ones of an earwig). By default, the wings are tightly folded to fit under the smaller elytra but can rapidly expand when needed. Additionally, it has two large complex eyes and eight legs, with the first pair being longer and somehow similar to a praying mantis. The remaining ones are in contrast relatively short. | |
| Abilities | Angel is mainly used for mobility. Able to tightly grab onto a person and easily lift it. He can lift up to 150 kg and will have issues carrying anything heavier. With only Freakshow in his grasp, he can reach a velocity of 40 km/h and keep this speed for quite a while. Quite agile, able to hover and rapidly change directions. He can crawl moderately fast and use his front legs to grab or impale things but is relatively weak at combat or more precisely too cowardly to try in most situations. The Exoskeleton is durable enough to withstand gunfire for a short while though.
If he lifts too much or is being kept in sustained flight for more than an hour, he rapidly starts to lose stamina, needing some time to rest and eat, to recover the lost energy. Once he clings onto his master, there is a connection like his suit, but angel is much more autonomous, which is inevitable with his reaction time surpassing those of his master or any normal human, needed to allow fast and agile movements midflight.
Mentality: Quite intelligent for a bug, but also easily frightened, often immediately on his way to retreat once any threat is spotted. Angel tends to respond reluctantly to Freakshow’s commands but would immediately cooperate once he spots his master in danger. Angel regularly molts, allowing him to regenerate damaged or lost wings/legs and heal damage to his carapax. Has a tendency to run off, preferentially to find something edible (usually something sweet), seemingly being aware of his superior independence, most of Freakshow’s creations seem to lack. He still has to come and get his daily shot, preventing him from wandering too far. If he is starving his attitude can rapidly change and turn more aggressive/predatory. | |
If Freakshow did not bring him along, he can attract Angel either with a uv-flare gun or pheromones. His minion would usually show up after two or three turns. | ||
| Creator | Freakshow |  |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | A derivative lifeform based on his suit, it looks somewhat similar fungi/plant-like but much more complex and sometimes even flesh-like. With luminous markings embedded in the dark of its own being, pulsating and changing, holes and honeycomb-like structures opening or vanishing. It covers existing walls and ground or just grows those themselves. | |
| Abilities | Once connected to a nutrient source, it grows rather fast ( up to 1 m per 20 min) trying to cover everything, but preferentially growing towards more nutrients. Naturally it acts as a life support for other creations able to sustain or heal them, enveloping them like a cocoon. For those creations who depend on Freakshow’s suit, or which are incomplete, mortally damaged, or just supposed to be dormant, it will nurture and take care of them. In return it has some sway over those creations. Creating a union between it and beings like the mites. They will forage, collect food and protect it while Hive provides shelter. Bioluminescence is sufficient to act as room illumination. Hive is able to keep people in a comatose state and to heal them over an extended amount of time, either that or to slowly digest them using the nutrients for itself, depends what takes priority.. | |
Unable to grow outside as its susceptible to UV-light. Needs maintenance or it starts to degrade after a few weeks. | ||
| Creator | Freakshow |  |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | A collective of tiny translucent worm-like beings, symbiotic fungi and growing tissue. They can join together to form something larger, able to take on different forms. Gestalt is able to grow skin and appear almost completely human.
Once it gains sapience, it would prefer to wear clothing, gloves, sunglasses and as much cover as possible. | |
| Abilities | Gestalt has two distinct life stages:
Juvenile parasitic phase: It needs a host(human or nonhuman), to protect and nourish them. Inside they will start to multiply but not outright take over or damage the host. It's actually quite the opposite, as Gestalt will do everything to reinforce tissue and keep its host healthy. Host would gain slightly enhanced strength and metabolism, resistance to many poisons as well as slightly enhanced regeneration. Its not that obvious, but they become harder to kill. Gestalt has some influence over host behavior, able to completely suppress pain, or increase dopamine/adrenaline. In this stage the number of Parasites is relatively low and they're much smaller. They can stay in this phase forever if needed. Adult Phase: If the host sustains considerable damage, stress or dies, Gestalt will enter a phase of rapid growth and multiplication. Replacing lost tissue with themselves, even form new limps to assist the host or just completely consume the dead body. If the Host is still alive Gestalt can voluntarily leave to be independent or stay and try to heal the damage(It could replace a lost arm but they would need weeks for the tissue to actually grow back. Once it leaves, host condition tends to get worse than previously. It can't survive inside the host without regular medication, as the host would otherwise reject them. Causing the organism to just die off. Adult Gestalt can survive an hour after its emergence but would die without the right drugs. After this it needs daily maintenance to keep that delicate balance, allowing it to properly function. Freakshow can only sustain one adult exemplar (Gestalt prime), but is able to oversee multiple host's with juvenile ones. He can have multiple secondary ones for a short period(one hour) if they emerge from a host, be it by the host dying or them leaving once they've grown enough. Secondary's are too young to gain any sentience, they would join together to form something vaguely humanoid, mimicking the movements of their previous host and follow simple orders. Able to quickly grow and absorb other lifeforms until they fall apart and die. Gestalt Prime can absorb fractions of the secondaries to gain experience and further its own development. Gestalt is susceptible to high temperatures, low humidity,aggressive chemicals and sunlight. With more experienced version able to shield themselves via skin, clothing or armor. While younger and 'naked' ones would start to slowly degrade from the surface. Almost immune to cutting damage as it only loses a few parts of its own, while a strong punch may crush a portion of it. Physical strength below average and movement clumsy at first, Gestalt prime can be quite fast and strong opposed to the inexperienced secondaries.
Despite it being a collective of tiny organism, Gestalt is quite complex and adaptable. Them acting as one singular being, able to adapt, learn and further develop. Gestalt adapts to the host, using the host's consciousness as a model for its own development. From the juvenile stage on it learns through the host until it becomes Independent and starts to learn and interact on its own. It is naturally curious, developing from an instinct driven animal and simple minion, towards something capable of abstract thought and personality on its own. Clumsy and awkward at first, it will learn to communicate even mimic human speech and explore the world. | |
A mega-project Freakshow worked on since the first week after his trigger, wasn't viable until a certain breakthrough, may become his successor if anything happens to him. Adult ones and something like Gestalt 'Prime' would only pop up later, as he first would need to recruit host's( homeless and sick people, addicts, etc..) | ||
Hideout
| Creator | Freakshow |  |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Seemingly empty and uninhabited property at the edge of the city, though in the last few weeks multiple people were seen hanging around the place, the estate now covered in dense vegetation. | |
| Abilities | Vegetation grows considerably faster than anything natural, providing the raw biomass needed for the inhabitants, including edible and actually quite tasteful fruits.
The inside of the building is covered in a fleshy and bio-luminescent material(Hive), providing light as well as protection for everything inside. Outer rooms are intended as living quarters and shelter, less occupied by Freakshow's creations. Deeper within are enclosures, cages and his tinker-lab. The whole property is inhabited by more or less mutated creatures, hiding underground, and inside the building/dense vegetation. They won't immediately attack, but are likely to respond once someone unknown invades the place. The whole ground is interspersed with tunnels and sinkholes, many of which Freakshow isn't even aware of. Deeper tunnels will actually extend further into the city, their inside covered in hive, trying to extends its own influence and with this the range of his mutants. | |
There are some rumors of monsters inhabiting the land, a tinker who heals people for favors as well as drugs and other goods derived from this place.
| ||
Skills and Specializations
Nate is skilled at rationalizing death or work in situations others would be easily overwhelmed or too grossed out to be useful. Able to precisely patch up injuries almost like a skilled Chirurg. He can utilize a variety of medical and biological knowledge even without any support of his tinker power. His father figuratively and literally beating the knowledge into his head, working on animals dead or alive, sometimes even other victims as well.
Experienced at handling a variety of creatures, venomous, poisonous or dangerous in other ways and proficient in utilizing different drugs, many of which he was forced to experience the effect on himself.
He is well versed in science fiction and a bunch of other media(comics etc..), able to utilize that knowledge as inspiration for his creations.
Cooking is one of the few things he enjoyed learning from mom and he got pretty good at it. Skilled at preparing various dishes many people would mistake for something, straight out of an restaurant. Though the majority would probably still decline once they realize what kind of ingredients he uses, as nowadays he would often cook utilizing his own creations.
He is somewhat exceptionally good at karaoke, but more embarrassed than proud about it. Claiming those evenings were the most traumatic experience he had to endure.
Mentality
He tries to be friendly but is actually very apathetic concerning the well being of strangers, though he can show compassion towards anybody he views as a friend and deep inside he does seek companionship with others. There is a hidden vulnerable, more emphatic and heroic side of him, which he mostly keeps buried to cope with the trauma.
Nevertheless he would never describe his past as traumatic, nor acknowledge how it actually affected him and instead rationalise the Events or repress important Details, to view them in a much more positive or neutral way than they are.
Freakshow does not shy away from talking about his past and seems pretty open about it but would do it in a cold and distanced demeanor almost like it happened to someone else, with a tendency hide certain details, which could make him seem more vulnerable.
He has a habit to purposefully scare others away, trying mask his own insecurity and awkwardness by being monstrous, as well as to test if someone is just like everyone else or worth his interest…
Overall Nate is very curious and often oblivious to any consequences of his actions, with a tendency to do things just because he can. He often appears to be shy and reserved, even scared of others but simultaneously can be surprisingly fearless in other situations, sometimes almost thrill seeking and self-destructive.
Because he spend most of his life shutting everything off and diving into movies and his own imagination, he his very oblivious to most things, viewing others more as NPCs until he get to know them better.
His fucked up childhood and less than good role models, did a toll on how he views the world. His perspective somewhat skewed because of it, the power not really helping with that. Growing a facehugger-like creature inside of a dog to scare the owner would be something he calls a prank. Death does not really faze him, though his own death would be something he rather avoids.
Naturally he has no qualms experimenting with animals, but he can be very protective towards some of his creations he invested more of his time in, treating those like precious pets or loved ones rather than tools.
He has a tendency to show off and seek appreciation, combined with his warped morality resulting in him having no qualms working with heroes or villains as long as he can tinker and display his creations.
Power
Freakshow is a Bio-Tinker specialized in mutations, genetic engineering and splicing of (basal)life.
He usually utilizes his own blood and sweat as well as different genetic material he is able to collect, as a basis for his tinkering
This allows him to create different drugs and to enhance certain traits of a species or to mix different genetic materials to create something entirely new, able to change the entire biological make up of a species and to combine what shouldn’t be possible. By mixing and enhancing certain traits he is able to vaguely predict the outcome, but in the end his creations are unpredictable, and he does not actually know what fuck he just created.
He can only work with traits and abilities a species already has and not just turn them into something entirely different. Yet his power does account for issues which normally would occur if he for example creates a giant bug, mostly by giving him ideas how to reinforce their anatomy. Nevertheless the more shard-support a creation needs, the more of his attention and work would need to go towards it, leaving less for everything else.
Creations seem to respond to his subconscious if they are inside of his field, otherwise they act on their instincts, but he has some influence on how they are supposed to behave. He can also change their behavior with certain versions of his mutagen.
Experiments need to be maintained by a constant dose of the substance, sometimes a bunch of different vials as well as surgery, depending on how affected they already are. This also limits how many of his creations he could sustain, as most of them depend on shard shenanigans to stay alive.
Slightly changed life (enhanced growth etc..) survives by just staying in his field and would return to normal once he leaves. More mutated organism would need a regular dose of the refined substance and other work or they rapidly start to degrade .
This also depends on the organism. By default, his power would not work on anything too small for him to notice, but some refined versions are able to affect smaller lifeforms, regardless anything microscopic would need constant exposure to be viable and immediately die after seconds once they are unable to feed on the substance
Big organism would need more time and available biomass as well as more of his attention. Though any organism able to enter a state of hibernation with almost no metabolism would need much less maintenance until revived.
Generally, he needs a base organism as a template, to then feed it with different versions of his serum or to inject it into different parts of the creature. At this point he can add new genetic material and influence how it would affect the basis organism. The template does not need to be a complete creature, he can work with tissue or even cells, but this will greatly influence the outcome. Its also more difficult for him to keep small tissue samples or individual cells alive.
Sometimes creations may turn out to be uncontrollable or more monstrous than usual, especially if he holds himself back from tinkering or using his power in creative ways (his shard’s way of expressing how pissed it is).
Even if his power does not really work on humans, he can technically work with human DNA if it gets mixed up with enough nonhuman material, but still this will make his work much more difficult and unreliable.
His power may work on Master minions/power creations, Changer/Breakers or Case 53’s if it’s something biological and different(nonhuman) enough but results can’t be predicted. This is only relevant for future tech once he starts to study other parahumans.
He isn’t able to directly work on himself or other people, but could make parasites to do the job, still his creations are unable to permanently change or enhance anything besides creating internal damage.
Usually parasitic organism will rapidly or almost immediately degrade inside of an human host, but are potentially able to survive if he floods the host’s system with some variants of his drugs. Also only relevant for future tech.
Classification: Tinker (Master/shaker)
Trigger type: Single natural Trigger, can second trigger
Example
The situation appears to be dangerous… what should he do?
Anxious he pulls out a vial…. A red one…. He never tested it…. Should he do it or better…
“Fuck it.” He throws it against the dog that keeps chasing him.
At first confused, the animal cries out in pain as it starts to grow additional legs and eyes until it dies shortly after.
The owner catches up, ready to shoot Nate but suddenly what once was a tapeworm changed into a snake like abomination, slithering out of the carcass it immediately tries to burrow into the leg of the thug.
Backstory
Nate grew up confused, his family far from normal.. mom tried to, but actually just wanted him to behave, to be a good kid others would find cute… to control him.
While he would watch horror and science fiction movies with dad every time she was away.
If he couldn’t sleep because of the movies mom would notice, causing his parents to argue, with dad treating him like a traitor after.
Still he tended to go more along with dad, as mom just dragged him from one unbearable activity to the next.
On his tenth birthday dad showed him his collection, and how to handle the animals, most of them being invertebrates but also some reptiles, plants and other stuff.. he brought from work. There was a silent agreement to never talk about the collection at home and he understood why as there was already enough fighting as it is, mostly because of him.
From there on Dad often took him along showing and teaching him his work. Most of the time to have him help with something.
At school people usually avoided him, at least once he started to be himself instead of pretending, still there were kids he viewed as friends until he fucked up not even sure why they stopped interacting with him, sometimes seemingly their whole family kept them from meeting each other.
The situation at home grew worse after he almost died because he made a mistake handling something of dads collection.
His parents fought more often and more violent, practically waging war against each other.
Mom disposed part of dad’s collection, while he at one point just killed the cat and made furniture out of it, coercing Nate to help with the taxidermy.
After that they fought one last time until neighbors called the police and dad just left.
Things were about to change but they didn’t, or they did but not in a good way. The evenings still shaped by arguments and violence. Dad’s gone but there is another guy filling the same niche.
Nate tried to spend his days ignoring it, diving into the things he loved or learnt to love. He knows what dad did and how he sometimes helped, but one day everyone seemed to know it. Things became public and the few relationships he cherished unbearable. The bullying got to a point where he almost couldn’t leave the house, but he dealt with that fear and weaponized it.
Which only made everything worse.
Nate glares at it, the door is locked, he did it to be safe but the knocking gets louder, they already found what he kept in the basement and what he recently did at school…. Only the collection, his projects… his stuff in here are left. The gaze of fearful eyes wanders through the room, to the enclosures and to leftovers from dads old collection, jars, bottles and parts… evidence!
He tries to think to have ideas a way out of it until he triggered.
Feeling like his head would burst at any moment while images of new worlds and beings start to invade his mind, dividing themselves and blending into each other, death over and over… reborn and discarded. Organism warped in every possible way... monsters, staring at each other… at him. Species destined for doom and worlds falling into chaos….. weapons with the will to survive…..
Few days passed until his first Creations started to emerge.