[b]Rogues Operating in St. Louis, Missouri[/b]

[hider= The Witchfinder General]

Matt Hopkins was a perfectly ordinary man. After two tours in Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne, he returned home to complete his degree in chemical engineering and marry his childhood sweetheart Amelia. The two had a son, Brody, who Matt doted on. Life was idyllic, and Matt considered himself lucky to be living the American Dream. 

Then came the Awakening, and with it the spread of magic.

Many flying potions are known to the occult community. One of the more reliable ones calls for the fat of an unbaptized boy. Brody was snatched off the street by a fledgling witch for no other reason than to provide this crucial ingredient. Matt and Amelia were understandably crushed by the senseless killing. Seeking revenge, Matt used his engineering knowledge and combat experience to destroy the witch's home with a homemade explosive. Horrified and heartbroken, Amelia left him.

With little else left in his life, Matt quit his job and turned to destroying magic users on both sides of the law, naming himself the Witchfinder General after a different Matthew Hopkins. With no superhuman abilities to speak of, Matt Hopkins depends on careful planning, manipulation, research into the supernatural, and overwhelming firepower. One of his favorite tactics is to set two or more witches against one another and then finish off the weakened winner. His money is usually stolen from the fair folk, or occasionally he will hire himself out as a mercenary or bombmaker to various criminal syndicates. [/hider]

[hider= Mama Bear]

At the time of the Awakening, Jessica Schlesinger was working in a pet store. There was nothing special about the job to her, it was merely another in a long string of low-paying and unfulfilling dead end jobs. On December 21, 2012, she was working the cash register. Then, in the quakes and darkness that heralded the coming of superpowers, Jessica realized she somehow understood the barking, meowing, and chirping from the frightened animals- mostly as cries for help.

Jessica had gained the ability to speak to animals- all kinds, right down to simple cellular life if she concentrates hard enough. Lacking any real friends before, Jessica welcomed the opportunity, slowly shutting out humanity as she grew more fanatical. She converted to veganism, joined groups like Greenpeace, left them when she decided they were moving too slowly.

Finally, she turned to ecoterrorism. Calling herself Mama Bear, she began using violence in an effort to protect animals. She drugged a group of wealthy hunters and released them naked in the woods, hunting them down one by one with a rifle. She liberated animals from testing facilities, which she then blew up. An ATF agent investigating her was bitten to death by his own dog. She shows no signs of stopping. [/hider]

[hider= Salieri] 

Ray Sweeney was young, he was talented, he was ambitious. Living in a rather Bohemian neighborhood known as the Grove among various artists, musicians, and writers, Ray was just beginning to find creative and critical success as a graphic novelist. With literate, three-dimensional and sophisticated superhero characters, Sweeney was being courted by the major lines and hailed as a worthy successor to such luminaries as Moore and Ennis. 

When the Awakening came, Sweeney was among those given powers- in his case, gaining the ability to toxify substances through touching them. For instance, if he were to stick a finger into a glass of water, the unfortunate who drank it might very well be killed. With prolonged touch to a living being, Sweeney could kill virtually anyone- though he himself was immune. Horrified by his loathsome powers, Sweeney at first swore never to use them.

Then the real-world superheroes started coming, and with them the villains.

Suddenly, on the cusp of fame and success, Ray Sweeney's dreams and goals were invalidated. Characters and storylines he had been painstakingly constructing for years- what good were they? There was a real life drama taking place. It wasn't just that interest in comics had dropped- Sweeney felt that no fictional creation could ever be as complex, as fascinating as an actual living human being or an actual event. His talent was now worthless.

Sweeney did not take this well, going into a deep depression and failing to hold down several other "alternate" jobs. Finally, at the breaking point, Sweeney had a sudden realization how he could once again have at least some creative control over this new and fascinating story. He would take part in it.

Sweeney took the name Salieri, for Italian composer Antonio Salieri. Legend maintains Salieri was so envious of his colleague Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that he poisoned Mozart with arsenic. In Sweeney's mind, it fits. Wearing a costume of [url= http://www.tiptopwebsite.com/photos4/valerian/commendatore.jpg]Il Commendatore[/url] from the opera [i]Don Giovanni[/i] and slowly but surely teaching himself black magic as an additional weapon, Salieri has vowed to destroy superheroes (and eventually supervillains, though he's keeping that part quiet for the time being) for their crime of making him a mediocrity. [/hider]

[hider= The Somnambulist] 

The Somnambulist is not a person. Nor does it have a physical appearance. Rather, it is an incorporeal entity (many have described it as a demon) that only gains form by possessing the body of an unconscious or sleeping person. The Somnambulist's victims are essentially nothing more than vehicles for it, and have no memory of what happens while their body is in use. It possesses a wide variety of magical powers, most of which are based around pain.

The Somnambulist has no real long-term plans or goals, it merely enjoys causing pain, suffering, or casual misfortune. As it is effectively unkillable without an actual body, some scholars believe it has been active for centuries, though it seems to be bound to the St. Louis area.

In addition, it has a small but growing following of fanatic cultists, ready to kill or die for whatever scheme it is working on. [/hider]

[hider= Dragan Musić]

On paper, Dragan Musić is nothing more than an American success story- an immigrant who worked hard and now owns several successful businesses in his new home, St. Louis. The truth, however, is much darker. It is something of an open secret that Musić runs a highly diversified organized crime syndicate with predominantly Bosnian members. Taking advantage of the sorry state of the St. Louis mafia, Musić and his men run the "high-class" crime in the area: arms smuggling, underground gambling, prostitution, protection rackets, narcotics, the usual sort of thing. The Bosnian Mafia has been dealt a few blows by the new superheroes operating in the area, but not much in the way of long-term consequences- foot soldiers are easily replaced and the bosses are too insulated.

Musić has no powers or exceptional combat skills, but in a world of heroes and villains he gets by by keeping a low profile and remaining relatively unambitious. While other villains will cook up a convoluted scheme to kill every hero and rob every bank in the world all at once, Musić will just keep selling guns and coke. That's not to say he isn't dangerous- he is an intelligent, careful man with a great deal of money and number of trained killers at his disposal. With connections in several major American cities and Eastern Europe, Musić would have little difficulty laying his hands on heavy weaponry or superhuman muscle if he felt so compelled. [/hider]

[hider= 21st Century Schizoid Man]

Carl Sorensen woke up on the day of the Awakening with thousands and thousands of voices in his head. He had no way of knowing which thoughts or feelings were his, what he was seeing or hearing, even whether or not he was hungry or needed to use the bathroom. Only dimly did he perceive the walls of his home crumbling to dust and flame.

Sorensen had gained immense psychic powers, but no means of controlling them. He is constantly bombarded by the thoughts of every person for miles around, so strongly that he cannot distinguish them from his own thoughts. As such, he will act on virtually any impulse that might enter his head, be it violent, kind, or irrational. Almost emotionally helpless, Sorensen is easily manipulated, though unpredictable. He has been nicknamed the 21st Century Schizoid Man due to the old King Crimson T-shirt he frequently wears. [/hider]

[hider= Steve the King of the Catfish People]

Stephen Gils was a mentally disturbed man living on the streets of St. Louis. The Awakening transformed him into a loathsome half-human, half-catfish creature. Steve found the change wasn't all bad, though- he could breathe underwater as well as he could on land, bullets bounced off his scaly skin, and he was strong enough to punch through brick walls with ease. Not to mention he was able to spit a noxious slime onto people that would transform them into a catfish person like himself (those he turned lacked this ability).

His warped mind saw this as a chance to gain the respect he never had. Steve raised a small army of catfish people in secret, then proclaimed himself to be "Emperor of the Confluence" and led them on a rampage throughout St. Louis. The police and Spirit of St. Louis were outmatched by the hundreds of super-strong creatures, and called for backup from the League and other Midwest superheroes. After a hard-fought battle, the catfish people were defeated, forced to retreat to the Mississippi. They remain there, slowly but surely building a civilization on the bottom of the river, as Steve broods and plots his next attack. [/hider]

[hider= Francois de Gevaudan/ Frank Givens]

Francois de Gevaudan was born to a noble family in 18th century France. Out for a walk on one moonlit night, he was knocked down and bitten by a wolflike creature. Though peasants soon drove the animal away, the damage was done- Francois had inherited the curse of the werewolf. His wealthy family, unable to bear the thought of their only son and heir being hunted down and killed by the King's well-paid werewolf hunters, sent him away to French Louisiana as an exile. He settled in the fledgling city of Saint Louis.

Immortal and perpetually frozen as a handsome young twentysomething, Francois has traveled all over the world and learned a great deal in the last three hundred years, but feels an affinity for Saint Louis and always returns. Lately, he has adopted the name Frank Givens in order to better fit in. Through intense mental discipline, he has learned to transform into the beast at will and has complete control of that form. Even as a human, he is a formidable force- superhumanly strong and fast and unable to be harmed by anything except fire and silver. Coupled with his immense wealth, centuries of combat training, and scores of degrees, Givens can be quite dangerous- when he feels like it. He primarily is using his immortality to enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle, though he will fight to protect himself and harbors an immense dislike for vampires. [/hider]