[hider=King Snake]
[b]Supervillain Name:[/b] King Snake
[b]Civilian Name:[/b] Sir Desmond Dorrance
[b]Sex:[/b] Male
[b]Race:[/b] Human
[b]Height:[/b] 6’3’’
[b]Weight:[/b] 195 pounds or so
[b]Age:[/b] 57
[b]Origin city/Planet:[/b] London
[b]Hometown:[/b] Primary base of operation in Shanghai, cells of followers in Hong Kong and Macau, smaller cells scattered in US chinatowns. Personal lodgings in London.
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[b]Appearance:[/b]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/viNXqNV.jpg[/img]

Here have a little gallery for details: https://imgur.com/a/66L0A 

Gaunt for his height but built wiry and taut as though he were corded from steel cables, the striking surfaces of his body hardened and calloused beyond all reason, King Snake makes for a striking figure and bears two obvious eyecatches. The first, of course, is the mark of his namesake: a massive viper nests upon his chest, coiled and fangs exposed, ready to bite down on prey. The other are the brutal scars upon his back, a collection of crisscrossing markings that suggest a truly horrifying suffering lived long ago.

Thanks to these peculiarities and his powerful build and presence, King Snake doesn’t bother much with costumes. His regular outfit consists of a green dress shirt, white trousers and white dress loafers, along with a white jacket in the style of a mao suit. A pair of black gloves tend to complete his look, along with the nearly ever-present shades to hide the fact that his eyes have long gone dead and blank. He will also, at times, swap for white kung fu pants with wrappings around his feet and shins, black kung fu slippers, handwraps and a golden sash.

[b]Icon:[/b] His snake tattoo.

[b]Civilian Occupation:[/b] Head of the Society of the Snakes in Shadows, often simplified from its full chinese name as just the Ghost Snakes.

[b]Personality:[/b]
King Snake likes to present himself as an educated, smooth talking rogue, an always calm and self assured crime lord with a penchant for dramatization and grandstanding, as well as a great love for the many pleasures life has to offer. Though he can come across as something of a pompous hedonist at times, he holds himself to extremely high standards. Noblesse oblige, as it were. A very active, adventurous man who just can’t accept having others do his work for him, he is absolutely manic in his pursuits and even has something of a personal code, finding deceit and treachery rather beneath him and holding his word and honor to a very high value.

Having said all of this, the man is still an unrepentant, cold-blooded villain who puts himself above all else and sees no problem with wronging others if it serves his own purposes. For his villainy, Sir Desmond Dorrance sees opposing the forces of order as a great adventure, a personal test, somewhere he can get the ultimate thrills in life. And for him, there is no greater thrill than the way of combat. A dedicated martial artist who sees bloodshed as a deeply personal, elegant art, especially when faced with worthy adversaries, he is against wanton carnage or systematic extermination, seeing them as dull and impersonal corruptions of his craft.

[b][u]Super abilities:[/u][/b]
[u]Powers:[/u]
[b]-The body a fortress:[/b] It bears saying right now, King Snake is literally, legitimately blind and has been for a long time. Despite this apparent clear-cut handicap, however, the man has risen in the underworld primarily through his physical might. Always an athletic and gifted fighter, now rejuvenated through ancient medicine and empowered by the Totem of the Snake, Sir Desmond Dorrance is a finely honed killing machine, ahead of even the most skilled “street powerhouses” in ways should not be possible for a human being.

Though he isn’t as purely strong as those (in his powerscale) who dedicate themselves to muscle, he is still freakishly powerful for his build, and it is everywhere else where he shines best. His speed, agility, flexibility, reflexes, precision and coordination are staggering; allowing him to perform feats such as catching sustained barrages from lethal marksmen with minimal effort, throwing a knife faster than a room of people can follow, easily outmaneuvering world class fighters and performing seemingly gravity defying leaps even from the least stable of footing.

Outstandingly tough, he can be struck and sometimes stunned and be made to bleed, yes, but it seems to take far more effort than it should. King Snake can continue performing efficiently even when severely injured, and doesn’t appear to tire unless severely pressed and harmed. Though not a regenerator per se, wounds that would fell lesser men fail to do the trick on him, disease and toxins and the like appear to take little to no hold in him, and he can often grit his teeth and survive until he can receive medical aid and return soon and well.

[b]-The mind a temple:[/b] To make up for his blindness, King Snake’s hearing, smell, touch and even taste have developed to superhuman levels, providing him with an enormous amount of information on his surroundings that he interprets as an extremely vivid mental “image”. In order to properly process and manage all of this, avoiding sensory overload and allowing him to function as a lethal fighter, his mind has developed to the point where it operates faster and more efficiently, enhancing his intellect and ability to learn, adapt and think on his feet, and making it so sharp and focused it has become all but impervious to outside interference.

[u]Skills:[/u]
[b]-Fangs of the Viper:[/b] King Snake is a lethal martial artist, having synthesized his own fighting style which he perpetually seeks to improve upon. It is fast, sinuous and fluid much like Snake forms of kung fu, entwining, dodging, deflecting, redirecting and attacking precisely from advantageous angles, deceptive to the point where even those with extrasensory perceptions that should be able to see through his intentions can be fooled. Through proper technique, he can defend himself from attacks that surpass his impressive physical traits, and he can strike with shocking, snapping power that exceeds his pure lifting strength from nearly all positions and distances.

Two particular things stand out from Sir Dorrance’s fighting skills, first and foremost being his “venom”. The sum total of all his abilities, King Snake is preternaturally capable of attacking vulnerable spots and overcoming defensive measures, his attacks effective even against armor, beings more powerful than he or even those otherwise unaffected by mere physical trauma. Second is the power of his hands, usually one of the most vulnerable parts of the body. King Snake’s fingers act like his namesake’s fangs, his grip is disproportionately powerful and he can easily tear off or stab through flesh, even being capable of piercing and crushing rock and metals (within “reason”).

[b]-Beware what lurks in shadows:[/b] King Snake is a proficient assassin and infiltrator. Aside from his physical skills he is outstanding at operating stealthily, making not a single noise and blending into environments as a serpent blends into foliage, finding cracks in defensive systems and navigating situations where less physically capable agents would fail. The dark is where his abilities truly shine, as those who rely on their eyesight find themselves at the mercy of someone who has long forsaken his.

[b]-Renaissance man:[/b] Sir Desmond Dorrance was already an intelligent, driven and educated individual before his rebirth as King Snake. Ever since he has made amazing strides, becoming a resourceful polyglot and polymath, using his knowledge to further help him navigate around his blindness and form organizations around him. He is, however, still obsessed with martial skill above all, and will more often than not prefer to engage in it rather than falling back on any other field.

[b]-Crime lord:[/b] King Snake is currently on his second attempt at a criminal empire, after the rapid rise and catastrophic fall of the first, and the lessons he learned at the cost of his eyes have made him much more successful so far. As the head of the Society of Snakes in Shadows, Sir Dorrance has a good array of contacts, informants and “providers” for all manner of needs, as well as a cadre of often personally trained enforcers skilled both in the martial arts and in more mundane but modern means of waging war.

A relatively smaller but elusive and widespread organization, his soldiers come from all walks of life. Though the core is made up of disenfranchised street youth given purpose, a better life and shaped into a fighting force, the society’s ranks includes drivers, waiters, maids, factory workers and desk jockeys, all sorts. They are all fanatically loyal and they are often hidden in plain sight, waiting for King Snake’s command. He also possesses ample resources to call upon and can facilitate most things that money can buy and plenty that money can’t.

[u]-Gadgets:[/u] Rarely ever carries anything, relying on his own strength instead.

[u]-Weapons:[/u] Although he is quite skilled in the use of a wide variety of both modern and more classical weaponry, King Snake prefers to rely on his own abilities. Discretion, however, is the better part of valor, and so he tends to carry six small throwing blades just in case, as well as a hook on a long, thin fiber line that can be used for both utility and offensive purposes. He also carries a collapsible white cane, used for masquerading as a blind socialite and to humiliate weak assailants.

[u][b]Biography---------[/b][/u]
[b]Character History/Origin:[/b]
TLDR: Former british marine is blinded while attempting to establish a criminal empire in China, falls in with a kung fu cult and is empowered by a mythical snake totem. Now he returns with a vengeance.

Desmond Dorrance was born in 1962 in the less than welcoming parts of London. A lanky and self-conscious youth mocked for his early growth spurts, a desire to better himself led him to discover training in the martial arts, fighting, and that he was quite talented at both. Soon he found that the name calling mattered less and less to him as he improved in skill and his confidence grew in turn, though his need to climb ever higher away from his humble beginnings never left him. By age 18 he had joined the british navy as a Royal Marine, guaranteeing himself greater education and an environment that would nurture his gift for violence.

Extremely driven, regarded as almost manic by his peers, by age 24 Dorrance had reached captaincy. The marine distinguished himself in engagements against increasingly desperate communist guerrilla activity based in East and Southeast Asia, from where they struck out primarily as pirates plaguing both the west and their own. China, still under communist rule but opening to the world at large, denounced these movements and cooperated with other navies to quell what they saw as disruptive insurrections that the Party could not tolerate. It was during these travels that Dorrance spent time in and became enamored with the “Middle Kingdom”.

A pivotal moment came when Dorrance was wounded in the line of duty by age 26, acting as a bodyguard to british dignitaries including a member of the royal family in Beijing. Desmond protected the diplomatic mission to discuss further cooperation between China and the west, foiling an assassination attempt that sought to destabilize the eastern power and create tension between the countries. Hailed as a hero, he was given an honorary knighthood as he recovered in Beijing and was granted an honorable discharge at his request. In the decade that followed, Sir Dorrance established himself as a socialite in Britain and China, building bridges between the countries as he amassed a fortune for himself.

Accusations of foul play were levied towards Desmond in his meteoric rise to fortune, but few could fathom the depths of his corruption. Tired of serving others, of risking life and limb for a flag he felt nothing for, Sir Dorrance struck out on his own in Asia, the law be damned. Accompanied by several former soldiers he started a mercenary and smuggling venture in the turbulent waters. Having learned much from pirates and guerrillas and their failings during his military career, the highly successful Desmond managed to keep airtight secrecy about his activities even as he gathered more and more men under his command and immersed himself in the underground martial arts culture in China, forging himself into an outstanding figure.

Sir Dorrance’s operation rose from a smuggling ring to the upstart to watch within the chinese underworld, the so called Rising Dragon Clan. But that ancient, insular world of long upheld traditions was incensed by the foreign invader, they would not allow the british intrusion to begin anew. Acting in far greater concert and force than their usual methods, an alliance of Triads destroyed the Clan to a man in the span of a week, its assets acquired and split between those who led the operations. During the assault Sir Dorrance was captured, tortured and left broken and dying. But die he didn’t. He had lost his eyes, his honor and everything he had ever worked for, but within him burned a terrible vengeance.

For three years he worked like a man possessed, making a recovery that astounded the doctors he managed to buy with what valuables he had left, who thought he’d be lucky to walk again. In his fury he dove deeper into the martial arts, using them as a means to overcome his handicap and advancing his fighting skills by leaps and bounds. Word of his survival spread but it was seen as trifling matter, just a crippled madman seeking bogus enlightenment. A few cooler heads saw it fit to worry, but their peace of mind returned when Desmond vanished in the area around Mount Tai and was presumed dead. Instead, within the Great Mountain of China Sir Dorrance found his destiny.

An outsider who experienced a rapid rise, catastrophic fall and subsequent battle with disability, Desmond fit within an old prophecy, marking him as one who might carry the legacy of the Snake Clan. The stories he had long heard whispered were real. The mythical sub society of martial artists, adventurers and mystics known as the Wulin existed, and he had come to their doorstep. Guided to their hidden temple within one of the most important landmarks in the country he was offered a choice: he could restore his eyesight and return to the mundane world, or blinded he could seek ever greater heights he had never even dreamed of. Desmond did not hesitate.

Though he was now 40 time was of no consequence, for the Clan held one great asset. Using primordial substances of the Earth with regenerative properties and the lethal venom of snakes they concocted arcane potions and performed strange rituals, strengthening their own against the passage of time. Though his eyes were left dead and blank, instead his other senses developed monstrously to compensate. It was maddening, it was intoxicating power. Fifteen long years of training the body and mind followed, and Desmond was not alone. Others risen and fallen, all of them disabled in some manner, were to be the rivals for his ambition, but he would not be denied and he once again excelled.

At the end of the period, only one other remained. Mei Xue was beautiful, her skin the palest, purest white, her gaze like gold, her hair like silk and black as the night. Born deaf and having adapted admirably over the years, she had been rescued from poverty by the selfless head of a martial arts school. Under him she learned, she prospered and she grew to love him, and his untimely passing and the closing of his school shattered her. She became a death seeker, challenging others in increasingly brutal duels until the Clan found her and gave her a new purpose. Sir Desmond Dorrance was smitten with her, and ignorant of his past she grew attracted to him as a kindred soul forced to fight the cruelty of the world.

Dorrance truly wanted to love Mei Xue, yet he also hated her for he very quickly realized she was his superior in talents and skills. He hated that she was bound to claim the title he sought and above all he hated that she would never accept his ways, that any moment spent with her threw his mind into disarray. Desmond’s ambitions took hold. He could not let this stand, he would not serve again. Covertly, slowly, as the years passed and students dropped out of the running, healed of their imperfections and deprived of much of their former powers, he spread his influence. He had the ear of the youngest and most malleable, earned himself their loyalty, planted in them thoughts of taking power once more.

With only him and Mei Xue left, the final test was at last announced: an honorable race through the labyrinthine caverns under the mountain, filled with traps and deadly creatures, with the coveted title as the prize. The former marine’s estimations of the beloved’s skills were not wrong, she was his superior, he could not best her directly. But he would not lose. Instead, at an intersection, he deceived her, lured her to the dark where she would not be able to read him. There he embraced her, he confessed his heartfelt love for her and as she stood momentarily stricken Sir Desmond Dorrance slew the last person he ever truly cared for, carrying her body out as he emerged from the caverns to claim his title.

The clan elders were outraged at what they saw as a clear breach of honor and sought to deny Dorrance his position and cripple him anew now they saw him for what he was. In turn, Desmond was outraged that he would be denied what he felt he had rightly earned and what he had sacrificed so much for. But had planned for this, he knew the chinese would never truly accept a westerner. In a spiral of madness, Sir Dorrance and the followers he had gained attacked and the Temple of the Snake was ravaged by the battle. The instructors were struck down one after the other and as the tragedy unfolded, the spirit of the great snake awoke and watched with bemused interest.

Make no mistake, it too would have favored kindly Mei Xue, many of its past champions had been heroes. But the totem represented all aspects of the being, and this included its malice, its venom, its cunning and deadliness, and it was by this judgement that Sir Desmond Dorrance was deemed worthy. Once again he had risen above all expectations, surpassed every obstacle put in front of him and despite great suffering he had elevated himself above the rabble as he always knew he would. It was his destiny. Sir Desmond Dorrance was now King Snake, and the newly crowned monarch had a score to settle with those that had sought to end him before he could claim what was rightfully his.

Silently, he slithered outside the temple with his cadre of disciples and extended his grasp, slowly but surely coiling himself around those who had wronged him. For two years he collected more followers and whipped them into shape, creating a force far more sinister than his first, clumsy attempt. In two years he rebuilt what had once taken him ten to create, and in these two years he hid patiently and waited. He had called himself a dragon before, but now he realized the true danger lay not in the thunder on the horizon but within the shadows by your feet. A lesson he would soon impart.
[/hider]