One Universe: Marvel/DC RPG Season 1 Character SheetPlayer Name: Nightrunner
Character: Bruce Anthony Wayne
Power and Abilities: Bruce, as usual, has no superpowers. But he is fabulously wealthy, impeccably fit, highly intelligent, is a skilled hunter, a brilliant strategist, trained in ninjutsu, and knowledgable of ninja magic. He owns a plethora of vehicles such as a modified Stryker that is adapted to an urban environment or a jet capable of breaking the speed of sound. He owns a vast collection of gadgets that each have a distinct purpose ranging anywhere from distracting to breaking and entering to combat. His suit is fireproof, stab resistant, bullet resistant, insulated against electricity, capable of maintaining homeostasis so he can be at a comfortable temperature anywhere on Earth, and has a commlink system that allows Bruce to overhear any conversation he wants to as well as send any message he needs.
One difference in this costume though, is that his mouth is not visible. He breathes through several vents in the front of his mask. In case of unsafe breathing conditions, the vents will shut and an auxiliary air supply will feed him oxygen for up to ten hours.
Affiliation (Justice League, HAMMER, X-Men, etc): The Justice League
Alignment (Good/Evil/Walking the Line): Good
Character Notes (Anything you would like to expand on [Established Rogues, NPCs, etc]):There is no place to put this thought of mine, so here comes my explanation: Many people believe that Batman is and works best as a lone wolf. I thoroughly disagree. The modern Batman benefits from and perhaps even seeks out deep familial relationships. For example, Dick Grayson was adopted and trained as Robin to fight crime using similar means to that of Bats himself. In a way, it's like passing the torch from father to son. That much is fairly obvious. But is it really possible for a lone-wolf or someone whose only concern is his son to have so many sidekicks he deeply cares for? He wouldn't have mourned the death of Jason Todd for years if he didn't care for people. But I may not be being specific enough to prove my point.
Batman --> Robin.
Batman -->Spoiler.
Batman --> Batgirl.
What is the relationship here? They're not all male. They're not all of a certain appearance. What they share is the fact that they're troubled youths. As a boy, Bruce lost his parents. My theory is that he became Batman to seek vengeance. But he also grew into the role to use his alias of Batman to better the lives of everyone. To protect parents and families, and to prevent his fate from ever happening to any child again. But, to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. So he ended up teaching the children he'd decided to care for to protect everyone, while he focused on making Gotham a safe place to raise a child. That's a long-winded way of me saying I plan to include lots of youths in my stories, and have my Batman focus on the repurcussions of his actions and their perception. Also, place emphasis on his goal, which is often forgotten once his origin is completed, to prevent any child from sharing his fate.
Allies:▪Alfred Pennyworth
▪Dick Grayson
▪James Gordon
▪Katherine Pride
▪Hugo Strange
▪Lucious Fox
▪Matt Murdock: Known only as Daredevil
▪Peter Parker: Known as Spider-Man only.
▪Superman
Enemies:▪Anarky
▪Black Mask
▪The Joker
▪Man-Bat
▪Mr.Freeze
▪The Scarecrow & Mr.Fear
You can expect more of Batman's unrealistic enemies to appear with me than with, say, a Nolan-style fanfic. At this point, I feel the gritty Batman is a bit too mainstream, has been overdone, and wastes a lot of Bat-characters.
Background and Story So Far:Raised in the countryside just within the Gotham City countryside, Bruce Wayne was born into Gotham's wealthiest family. His parents, Thomas Wayne, owner and founder of Wayne Industries, and Martha Wayne, formerly Martha Arkham, gave him more love than a child could want. He had friends such as Roman Sionis, Tommy Elliot, Oswald Cobblepot, Rached Dawes, and Theresa Pride. They were all very different, Tommy was a bit cynical, Roman was irritable, Oswald was spoiled, Rachel was overly generous, and Theresa was stuck up. One day, while only Rachel and Bruce were playing in the garden of Wayne Manor, Bruce fell through a hole that had been boarded up previously. He crashed fifteen feet down into a small cave full of bats, that all swarmed around him. But in the darkness, he saw one fly to him, unlike the others that were scrambling rabidly. He saw the bat, and saw its terrible wings spread before him, and he felt afraid, before he fell unconscious. After he awoke, he was in his bed, like it had never happened. His parents certainly never mentioned it.
Life continued in the Wayne family for some time. Bruce was six years old when he was informed that his mother was pregnant. The baby was named Thomas Wayne Jr., but unfortunately, it was believed that he never survived birth. Growing up a bit, at the ripe old age of eight, he and his parents went to the theater to watch an opera, and after it was over, Bruce and his parents left out the backway, to avoid any unwanted attention. But, they were met by a man named Joe Chill, who mugged the city's richest people, shot them, and killed them in front of their own son. While the murderer got away, Bruce wanted his parents to wake up, but they never did. It was shortly after this that Bruce was adopted by the family's butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Wayne Industries was taken over by the board of directors until Bruce became of age. But for years, Alfred cared deeply for Bruce, raising him like a son. And throughout most of his younger years, Bruce looked at Alfred as a father.
But one day, when he was seventeen, Bruce looked out onto his city from the top of Wayne Tower, the base of operations for Wayne Industries, and looked out the windows, seeing all the filth that had come since his parents' death. It was then that he silently decided to leave Gotham, so that when he returned, he could make it something respectable once more.
His first stop was in Asia, where he hunted down legends of a city of monks. He actually discovered it, but he was not allowed to enter because when he was asked why he wanted to be trained, he responded "Vengeance. " Then, he traveled away from there and ended up finding a ninja clan's hideouts. There, he was trained by The Hand, who welcomed him into the fold, teaching him the skills of a ninja, though Bruce preferred to avoid use of magic, and teaching him to instill fear in his enemies, however, Bruce refused to perform the lethal attacks on common criminals, so an attempt was made to have him killed for betraying the Hand. Following that, Bruce traveled far away to Africa, where he learned from one of the world's foremost huntsmen, Sergei Kravinoff. He learned until Kraven decided that there was nothing left to teach him. Then, Bruce shipped off to Egypt, where he trained with a team of mercenaries led by Raoul Bushman, but due to Bushman's savage behavior, he left and encouraged others to do so as well. After spending seven years traveling the world, a twenty-four year old Bruce wayne returned home.
Bruce arrived on a flight in Bludhaven and then walked all the way to his manor. Alfred was shocked to see that Bruce was still alive, and he saw that he was now much more muscular. Then, Bruce was shocked when Alfred told him a secret:
Theresa Pride's daughter was fourteen years old, and was discovered to be a mutant. Theresa freaked out, calling the police when she discovered that her daughter could become completely intangible. Her daughter, Katherine 'Kitty' Pride, ran away before the police ever arrived though. Alfred spotted Kitty sprinting through the fields, but rather than turn her in, he offered to shelter her and hide her from the investigators. She complied, and ever since she'd been living with Alfred. In the meantime, Theresa had been apearing on public talk ahows and became a 'classic case' of how destructive mutations are to families.
Bruce was then gently introduced to Kitty, Alfred explained how he'd treated Bruce as a son for years before her. Bruce saw the terror in the young girl's eyes as she pleaded for him not to turn her in. So Bruce agreed, but didn't stop there. He promised that he wouldn't allow any harm to come to her, or any other mutant children, or any child in Gotham. From that moment forward, he decided that he would not allow any children to come to harm.
Bruce set out that night, eager to put his newlyfound skills to good use. He found a brothel where a group of underage prostitutes were known to 'operate', some unwillingly. He found the pimp and told him to let all the girls an go. The pimp refused, so Bruce forcefully threw him to the ground and then barked at him. However, things turned badly for Bruce when the prostitutes turned on him and attempted to beat him savagely. He narrowly escaped when the multitude of women closed in on him.
But, when he did return to the manor, he realized something. In order to make a big difference, he would have to be something more than a man, someone who could not be beaten by hookers. He realized that the best way to make everyone to remember his example, was to become a symbol, something immortal, something primal that cannot be bartered with. He begged his consciousness rhetorically for a proper symbol. He began to remember his father's garden, when all of the sudden a gigantic black bat shattered the glass window of Bruce's study. Bruce was petrified, but then he realized what his symbol would be.
"Yes Father, I shall become a bat."He began sketching costume designs and designing what he would include in his arsenal. He gave the designs and lists to Alfred, who was a bit hesitant to create a Bat-costume and an aresnal for any reason. But he located close designs of all the gadgetry that Bruce had listed, it was at Wayne Industries So Bruce went there and managed to recieve what he needed from his father's old friend, Lucious Fox, the head of Wayne Industries' R&D Department, who was also surprised to see that Bruce was alive. After Bruce described the items he was looking for, Lucious retrieved them graciously, though suspiciously.
Less than a week later, Bruce planned to return to the public. He attended Haley's Circus, and the ringmaster, Mr.Haley, agreed to show him off. The crowd of Gotham was thrilled to see that the cities' prince had returned. For the next several days, Bruce began to attend the circus regularly, keeping an eye on the spectacular acrobatics of The Flying Graysons, a family who had a skill on level with Cirque De Soleil. All until The Grayson family, sans the thirteen year old Richard Grayson, was killed by a mobster named Tony Zucco, who publicly made a speech about how accidents often happened. The police arrived shortly too late, because Zucco had escaped.
Realizing that this was exactly the kind of heinous crimes he'd sworn to fight against, Bruce returned to Wayne Manor, where he then entered a place of operations he'd established in the cave system below his home. He took a suit of armor that had been specially aesthetically redesigned to pay homage to a bat, and a plethora of other tools with him, and rode out on a dark military-grade modified stryker.
He followed up on many leads and followed a trail of destruction until he uncovered where Tony Zucco had gone. However, he did not hastily rush into battle. Though the police hadn't known where he was, Bruce kept an eye on him until he was ready to create a dramatic debut.
That night, Bruce snuck into Tony's safehouse, where he was playing agame of cards with his lackeys. They heard something on the roof. When Zucco heard, he ordered one of his men to go examine it. But before his lackey could leave the room, the ceiling exploded. Zucco screamed, crying 'What is That?" Bruce dropped down in costume and whispered
"Vengeance" before smashing his fist across Zucco's chin, knocking him out cold. The thugs panicked, running away, desparately trying to escape, but then they were all either wrapped up suddenly, grappled towards him, or struck without ever seeing him. The last one to be conscious cried, "Who are you?" Bruce responded, "I am Batman. And I'm going to make you a deal. You leave here and you tell everyone you know. From now on, none of you is safe! Anyone who commits a crime is now personally responsible to me." After that, Bruce let the criminal go. Zucco was arrested, and the witnesses described some sort of monstrous Bat-Man hybrid as their assailant.
In the following months, Bruce slowly built a legend surrounding Batman. He used various tricks he'd learned with The hand to suggest he was something more than human. He'd allow criminals to believe they'd escaped, only to use his skills as a hunter to meet them at their destination. He used paramilitary tactics and explosives to defeat gangs of armed thugs. After months of varying tactics in his war against crime, he'd established countless urban legends that had the criminal underworld confused and frightened, the media was going insane with speculation, and others questioned the existance of The Batman. James Gordon in particular came very close to uncovering the man behind the bat. He was only thrown off when Bruce had Alfred dress as Batman in public view while Bruce ate dinner with Gordon, discussing the morality of the Batman.
When speculation turned towards the insanely muscular billionaire Bruce Wayne, he began to look for a solution. He asked Alfred for a way to divert suspicion. And Alfred delivered, suggesting he always have an alibi befitting a billionaire: Date supermodels, drive fast cars, and host parties, following the footsteps of fellow billionaires Oliver Queen & Tony Stark. On a more private level, he helped Alfred raise Kitty, establishing an alias for her as Katherine Pennyworth and registering her in Gotham High, instead of the private school she had attended. And, Bruce decided to adopt the orphaned son of the Graysons, because he was reminded so much of his own childhood between losing his famous parents, having nowhere to go, and losing a seemingly secure future. He also registered Dick in school, and introduced him to Kitty as Alfred's daughter.
Over the following months, he was excruciatingly busy between his life as Batman, raising Dick and Kitty, being a playboy billionaire, and keeping all three lives separate. But one day, after watching Bruce come home late one night, Dick noticed how Bruce's body was riddled with scars and bruises. So he asked Bruce why he was so horribly injured, Bruce told him it was a golfing accident. But Dick noticed that the injuries didn't look like sports injuries, they looked like the bruises of a UFC fighter. Between thinking about the media's speculation and the active nightlife 'Mr.Wayne' lead, Dick inferred that the true cause of his injuries was his outings as The Dark Knight.
Dick casually brought up his realization at breakfast with Bruce in front of Kitty and Alfred. Alfred attempted to disprove Dick's theory, but was stopped by Bruce who lauded Dick's attempt to find the truth, and confirmed it, then he made the two youths promise to not reveal his secret, before he shrugged it off and kept eating. Dick then asked that he be allowed to act as his partner, which Bruce quickly denied.
But Kitty loved the idea of working alongside Batman, so she designed costumes for her and Dick and put them together with spare materials she had from her Home Ec class. Still keeping her true identity and her mutation a secret from Dick, she told him that they should try being vigilantes on their own, at least until Bruce saw their potential.
After a disastrous couple of nights, Kitty and Dick were out on the Gotham streets, busting up a small group of thugs, when Kitty was grabbed from behind and momentarily held hostage as a warning for them to back off. But then, Kitty reluctantly utilized her mutant powers to slip out of the criminal's grasp and then, while he was distracted, suckerpunch him. All the other criminals started backing away, whispering about the "Mutie Freaks" that were nothin' but trouble.
Dick was surprised too, but he noticed a look on their faces shift when they decided they were going to kill Kitty because of her mutation. So he grabbed her and took off running, dragging her along before she started sprinting too. The criminals tailed them until they were cornered. Kitty knew she could escape, but Dick couldn't. So she stayed by his side. The violent lot closed in around them, with murder in their eyes, until a shadowy form was cast from the sky. Batman landed in front of them and defeated all of them to protect the two youths, after a minute, Dick and Kitty joined in too.
When they got home, Bruce agreed to train them, but only if they agreed to go out exclusively under his supervision, and they complied. From that day forward, for about two months, he spent an hour training them at once, and another twenty minutes individually. Then they graduated to actually being taken out on patrol every night, but not in the Home Ec costumes Kitty'd put together. Bruce obtained a set of armor the same grade as his own for each of them, then allowed them both to add their own aesthetic touches with Alfred's guidance. Bruce also assigned them codenames. Dick, because of his red and yellow color choice and acrobatic history was named Robin, after the American Robin. But Kitty chose the name Shadowcat, because she thought it sounded more mysterious and feminine.
But then a crime spree began that necessitated that the Batman work alone once more. A series of related murders across the city kept occurring, with the only similarity being the appearance of the victims. The victims countenances were all contorted into exaggerated smiles and their faces were pale. And they all had variations of a single playing card in their pocket: The Joker.
Batman dedicated all his time to studying the cases, scouring the files for any kind of connection, and he could only find one: They lived in Gotham. So after following the trail for weeks, Bruce was surprised when a man dressed as a clown appeared on TV, saying he was The Joker and claiming responsibility for the people's deaths. Also fornevery five minutes that passed without The Bat appearing, a bomb woukd go off at a Gotham landmark. In the background of the video feed, his men started wasting hostages, and the Joker said it would only stop if a certain flying Rat-Man actually stopped him. Bruce saw that in the background, ay the very ends of the lines, there were lots of young children. So, reluctantly, Bruce suited up and snuck into the studio, defeated all of his men, and then battled the Joker on public TV. The Joker and all his henchmen were arrested, The Joker himself was sent to Arkham Asylum for The Criminally Insane.
While he was in New York for a business trip, Batman came across a martial artist named Daredevil, who was investigating a series of cases in which the victims were poisoned by a fear-inducing agent that flooded their nervous system. Batman developed an antidote for the poison, administered it to all the victims, and assisted The Man Without Fear in facing down fear itself. Personally, they both relived their parents deaths before taking their rage out on the pair of criminals responsible. Mr.Fear, a New Yorker, was sent to the Ravencroft Institute, while The Scarecrow, a Gothamite, was sent to Arkham.
Batman then joined with a newly formed organization, The Justice League, in order to put an end to the war between Kahndaq and Latveria. He helped strategize against the more directly powerful foes on the battlefield with the listening ear of Thor, who got along with Bruce surprisingly well.
In the meantime, tales of Batman's existance began to flourish, and in New York, many locals believed that there was a copycat vigilante. So Batman went back to New York, taking Robin with him, where he Investigated their Bat-Man. When they arrived, they met Spider-Man, who Robin befriended, while Batman wasn't particularly fond of working with because of his comedic disposition. Research within an Oscorp facility indicated that the NY Bat-Man was the result of genetic tampering. So, as a trio, the three heroes defeated Man-Bat before Batman and Robin headed back to Gotham. However, before they left, Batman recommended that Spider-Man see Daredevil in order to refine his combat skills.
Back in Gotham, Batman and Shadowcat hunted down a jewel thief, who'd nearly emptied out Gotham's Jewel Exchange. The thief had freezed all of the victims in blocks of ice that were laced with a chemical agent that prevented his frozen victims from dying from the cold. However, after finding his lair at an Ice Cream factory, Shadowcat defeated 'Mr.Freeze' by following Batman's field orders and sprinting through all the ice he blasted at her.
As of late, murder of common street thugs have been on the rise. Rapists, thieves, murderers, and junkies are all dropping dead like flies in Gotham's undrbelly. The only obvious connection is that they've all committed crimes.
Sample Post (At least 3 well thought out paragraphs as well as some dialogue):The Zoo, Gotham City, New Jersey
10:30 PM"Aauugh!"
A lot of people tend to belive that life isn't black and white. They've convinced themselves that a moral gray area exists. But it doesn't. Being morally gray is a failure to accept responsibility for your actions. Part of what you do may be black, another part may be white, but morals don't mix. It's more like oil and water than paint. Even when people say that oip and water mix, they don't. The oil and the water just surround and confuse the other.
That's what I am. Surrounded and confused.
Every way I look, I can't help but see another way to die. I'm at a fork in the road. To my left is Kraven the Hunter. To my right is Bane. And all the way down the path I'm currently on, is a dead end with the tigers.
In the last year or so, I've gotten used to cooperation to meet my ends. I'm not quite used to dealing with teams of skilled operatives though. My time with The Hand taught me to take on multiple opponents at once, and Kraven himself taught me how to stand against a pack. But fortunately for me, Bane and Kraven aren't here together. They just both happen to be hunting me.
"Mommy! Mommy!"
"Stay up there, sweety. Mommy's going to be just fine."
I stopped running away from my two pursuers. Then I looked over into the crocodile habitat. A mother stuck her little boy up in a short tree away from the savage reptile below. But the mother was still down with the beast.
Kraven released all the animals in the zoo from their habitats in order to lure me here. The crocodiles didn't all want to leave though. This is a very real danger for that mother. But as for why Bane is here, I don't have the slightest clue.
I looked over at Kraven, who'd nearly caught up to me. He's only one hundred and fifty feet back at most. At worst, I don't want to think about that right know.
So I looked over into the pit with the reptiles, and then I dove in.
I spashed into the murky green water and heard some sloshing. The green creatures were rising below me. So I quickly swam away, rushing at the small patch of land where the mother and son were.
Using my grapnel, I quickly made a line and tossed it to the mother, who gratefully smiled before rushing up to her child, about ten feet high.
The reason everything seems black and white to little kids, like the one in the tree, is because it is. Children look closely enough to see that your parents should mean as much to you as your own life. Children are innocent enough to hope that someone will help them out of everything. It's when you stop looking so closely and stop allowing yourself to see the little people, when you take things out of focus that you stop being able to tell what is black and what's white. When you become too engrossed with a big picture, that's when you lose sight of the little things, the important things. Looking at this boy, I know what I have to do.
With all the crocodiles, the world's greatest hunter, and Bane closing in, I'll be fine. I can handle myself. I'm not just a man. I'm a legend. I am vengeance. I am the night. I am Batman.
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