Character's full name: Aaron Striker

Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: Masque

Gender: Originally male, currently androgynous

Age: 22

Date of Birth: 11/11/1991

Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: New York, USA

Nationality: American

Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: Canadian

Appearance

Hair color and style: None

Skin Tone: Chalk White

Eye Color: Green

Height: 5’6

Build: Thin and athletic

Visible mutation: Masque’s skin is made of calcite. Its default colour is a chalky white but the exact appearance and colouring can vary dramatically depending upon the use of his power. He has no body hair and his physically androgynous.

Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: None

Other features:

Everyday clothing style: Masque prefers to dress for comfort. T-shirt and jeans are common. More often than not, his clothing is purchased second hand.

Uniform:

Sleepwear: Boxers

Miscellaneous clothing: Going without clothing is not uncommon.

Character

Personality: Being mute, Masque is naturally quiet, preferring to listen and observe from the background. While not exactly shy, he is cautious and often withdrawn. While able to communicate in ways other than verbal, he enjoys having an heir of secrecy around himself, although he’d never admit as much to anyone else.

Masque is confident in his own abilities without being cocky. He knows how to take care of himself and is comfortable within his area of expertise, although is hesitant about going outside of his comfort zone. When failure occurs, whether it is his fault directly or not, he is prone to blaming himself.

Masque wages an internal battle between wanting to be close to others and wanting to avoid getting close to others. Living a life of isolation is living a life of sorrow and unhappiness, yet he can’t help but question whether the risk of being hurt again is worth it to have others close to him in his life.

Hobbies/ Interests: Hacking, art

Job or part time job and description: Street artist and petty hacker

Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Because of his inability to swim, Masque has a great fear of water.

Special talents: Masque is quite technologically adept and artistic. As his parents are French Canadian, he understands fluently both English and French in both written and verbal forms.

Morality

Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: Neutral – Masque has no interest in hurting others but he isn’t about to let others hurt him either. The life of being a mutant sometimes leads to making choices that aren’t always easy, but when it comes down to it personal survival is what’s most important.

Mutations

Mutation description: Calcite Skin – Masque’s skin is made of calcite. As with natural skin, it covers him from head to toe and is approximately 1 cm thick. While its base colour is a chalky white, its colours and patterns can be changed based upon Masque’s wishes and as per the use of his power. The only area on his body which the exoskeleton does not cover is his eyes and mouth.

Strengths: The most obvious strength is in its hardness compared to that of natural human flesh. This is beneficial both in offensive and defensive situations; serving both to enhance the damage an unarmed strike can inflict and reduce the damage his opponents can inflict upon him.

Secondary to this, however, is Masque’s ability to alter the physical colouration and patterning upon his exoskeleton. As calcite can come in a variety of different colours in its natural form, so to can he alter the specific colouration upon his own calcite skin.

Weaknesses and Limitations: Calcite is not an especially strong mineral. While it provides excellent protection against unarmed damage, its protection is modest when it comes to the use of physical melee weapons and minimal when it comes to the use of high velocity ranged weapons including arrows, guns, ect. A solid strike from a hammer, for example, could crack or shatter a part of his calcite skin.

Masque’s calcite skin does not merely require time and sustenance to heal damage. Rather, he must absorb calcite into himself in order to do so, something done through prolonged physical touch and a deep meditative state. Luckily calcite is easy to come by, existing in most sedimentary rocks including calcium and limestone. While the calcite required need not be pure, it does need to be naturally formed. A small crack might take an hour of direct contact, a 6 inch crack might take 3 hours, and significant damage to a limb might take 8 hours. Absorbing calcite does gradually weaken the object it is absorbed from and there must be at least an equivalent amount of calcite in the object to the damage that is trying to be healed.

It takes time and concentration for Masque to alter the patterns on his skin; the larger and more complex the change, the longer it takes. A simple pattern such as stripes or dots or written words at a size of 1 ft x 1 ft might take 30 seconds. A simple picture of the same size might take 1 minute. An elaborate piece of art or something requiring very specific details at the same size might take as long as 5 minutes. The more of his skin he seeks to alter, the longer the change is likely to take. As a general rule, for every additional 1 ft x 1 ft he seeks to alter, it increases the amount of time needed by the increments listed above. Thus, something simple at 2 ft x 2 ft takes 1 minute, something moderately complex takes 2 minutes and something complex takes 10 minutes. Colouring something complex across his entire body can take up to an hour. The colours used always maintain brighter mineral shades. Thus, even if trying to assume something resembling natural living colours, the best he can achieve is something that looks like a human mask, obviously unnatural except at a great distance.

While Masque’s body is naturally adapted to deal with the added weight of his calcite skin, its extra weight makes it nearly impossible for him to swim.

Before the development of his power, Masque used to be able to communicate normally. However, something in its development struck him entirely mute.

Physical Abilities

General Physical Capabilities: Masque isn’t unusually fast or strong. Because of the extra weight of his skin, his stamina is slightly below average, although his mutation does allow him to take more physical damage than most. He has above average dexterity.

Fighting Style: Masque’s preferred style of fighting is to avoid it entirely. However, if it comes down to a physical conflict he is a modestly experienced brawler. When in a fight, there is no honour and if one needs to fight dirty to win, that’s exactly what one should do. He often relies upon his mutation to give him the edge in a fight.

Fighting Style Pros/Cons: To fight is to fight for survival and some opponents aren’t expecting one to fight dirty. Masque’s mutation can also give him a valuable edge.

If a fight goes on too long Masque could be in trouble. Adapted’s can serve to eliminate what edge his mutation might give him. A truly skilled fighter could best him without great difficulty; his skills are little beyond that of a street brawler.

History Of Your Character

Aaron Striker was born to Matt Striker and Jenny Striker on a cold November night in New York City. There was little unusual about his birth and no hint about the future he would eventually have to face. His parents were duel US/Canadian citizens, having emigrated from Montreal, Quebec 2 years before the birth of their first son. Both were in the tech industry with his father helping develop new computer programs and his mother being involved in the video game industry.

Aaron’s early life was not especially unusual. He was bright and charismatic and although only an average student, the reasons had to do with lack of motivation rather than lack of intelligence. Even as a child, he showed himself to have a gift and a passion for art, especially drawing, painting and sculpting. Whenever he wasn’t drawing or painting, he could be found on a computer.

Aaron’s little brother, Chris, was born 1 years after Aaron, almost to the day. Even as Chris became an academic prodigy, the two brothers got along well, each with their own talents. As close as they were in age, the two were usually inseparable as the best of friends. They had few of the problems siblings usually had and what arguments incurred between them were almost always of a casual nature, quickly resolved and unimportant in the long run.

As with so many other mutants, it was around puberty that Aaron’s mutation began to show its first signs. Before anything else changed, it was his voice that started to go. It was at the age of 13 that he developed a case of what he thought was laryngitis. The illness started out normal enough; with the usually coughing and scratchy voice that eventually worsened into no worse at all, but when the usual symptoms left his voice didn’t return. It was almost a year before anything else changed and during that year his parents brought him to a number of different doctors who couldn’t come up with anything at all wrong with him.

During this isolating time, Aaron found his solace on the internet where his lack of voice didn’t affect his ability to communicate and it was during this period he began learning about some of the shadier digital skills, focusing on those of hacking. Of course, he never lost his passion for art and as his lack of voice began to negatively affect his social life, he began focusing more of his time on his creative pursuits. It was during this year that things began to become strained with his little brother whose social life was moving in the very opposite direction.

Once Aaron’s true mutation started manifesting, it was a swift process taking mere weeks to appear in its entirety. In little patches at first and then ever quicker, his skin transformed itself into smooth stone until it covered his entire body. It was a deeply traumatic time and one which forced his parents to pull him out of school and isolate him at home. While never overtly phobic of mutants, his parents nevertheless couldn’t imagine a world in which their own son was one and one who couldn’t hide who he was. Thus, they hid him away, telling him they still loved him, giving him everything he needed to survive, yet making him a prisoner in his own home.

Aaron was 16 when he finally had too much. How could he live hidden away like some monster? How could the people who claimed to love him do this and do this, as they said, for his own protection? By this time his brother’s and his relationship was barely existent, yet who else could he turn to? Yet, no matter how much he plead with his brother, Chris would do nothing for him instead berating him for being the freak he was.

For Aaron, that was the final straw. On a night when his family was gone, he gathered up as much money and food as he could find, carrying as much as he could in his backpack. He didn’t know how he was going to survive, only that he couldn’t continue with his current existence. It would be the last time he saw any of his family and his brother’s betrayal and failure to help him never left.

The first year of life alone was Aaron’s most difficult. He took the name Masque at that time, on account of the nature of his power. Between taking small hacking jobs and selling his art on the street, Masque mostly made enough to eat and, eventually, managed to get himself a small suite of his own.

Roleplay

Where did you learn about this site?: I am a previous player (Amber, among others)

Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Not Currently

Sample RP:

Masque sat on the side of the street downtown, a paintbrush and canvas in hand. Beside him was an upturned hat, in hopes that some generous citizen would deign to put change in it and several finished pictures were arrayed out in front of him. It was night and he sat as far from the nearest light as he dared. He had found, over the years that people tended to be more generous when they didn’t realize they were helping a mutant. His face was painted to resemble something human; with pale peach skin and red lips. In the dark and at night, he could almost pass.

A couple passed Masque by, holding hands. They looked in his direction and he held up a sign that read, in large clear letters ‘Please help a man to eat’. He gestured down towards the hat at his side and then towards the paintings in front of him, smiling up at the couple hopefully. Both shaking their heads, one of them apologizing with a disingenuous “sorry,” the couple walked right past him.

Masque’s heart sank within his chest. It had been a difficult month and he still didn’t have all of his rent money. What was he going to do if he lost his place? He would be forced to sleep on the streets again, that’s what and it was never safe to sleep on the streets. There was nothing to do but what he was doing, however. This was barely a life but at least it was his and at least he was free.

Nice!

Looks like fun! Welcome back, glad to see the new character!

Welcome back, Meld. <3

very cool character, love the idea of them being mute. Also, hi Meld! *waves*

welcome back

Congratulations on the new character! I love the malachite color changing.

I finally got my butt on here long enough to read this. Your comments in the cbox got me curious. I love this. And what-dogs-know, they both have issues with water. Lol.