Bronze Belfry
Caveat emptor: this page—like the character—is very much a work in progress.
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| 1.1 Played by: | @The-Imperial |
| 1.2 Origin: | Magic |
| 1.3 Archetype: | Sentinel |
| 1.3.1 Primary: | Electric |
| 1.3.2 Secondary: | Dark |
| 1.3.3 Ancillary: | ????? |
| 2.1 Full Name: | Zoltan Graves |
| 2.2 Identity: | Secret |
| 2.3 Aliases: | ????? |
| 2.4 Species: | Human (Undead) |
| 2.5 Citizenship: | United States |
| 2.6 Living Status: | Deceased |
| 2.7 Birthday: | 10 October 1842 |
| 2.8 Gender: | Male |
| 3.1 Place of Birth: | Pest, Hungary |
| 3.2 Education: | ????? |
| 3.3 Occupation: | Vigilante |
| 3.4 Residence: | Croatoa, RI |
| 3.5 Marital Status: | Single |
| 3.6 Affiliations: | ????? |
| 4.1 Ethnicity: | Hungarian (Magyar) |
| 4.2 Apparent Age: | Unclear |
| 4.3 Height: | 6'5" |
| 4.4 Weight: | 230lbs. |
| 4.5 Build: | Large |
| 4.6 Eyes: | Clouded |
| 4.7 Hair: | White |
| 4.8 Complexion: | Grey, as a Deathly Parllor |
| 4.9 Notable Features: | Significant scarring and stitching on the right side of face. Missing right eye, wears an eyepatch. |
| 5.1 MBTI: | ????? |
| 5.1.1 Summary: | ????? |
| 5.2 Strengths: | ????? |
| 5.3 Weaknesses: | ????? |
| 5.4 Quirks: | ?????
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Zoltan Graves, 1842-1865. In memoriam. Son of Maj. Kornél and Fortuna Graves of New York City, New York. Born in Hungary and emigrated to the United States with his parents in the wake of the failed 1848 uprisings. Father's occupation: army officer. Mother's occupation: homemaker and spiritualist. Killed in battle, the latest casualty in this War Between the States.
1865.
Private Graves knew this was the end. Thirty yards from the rebel artillery, then a flash and terrible roar: the cannister shot took the right side of his face off. He was blown off his feet onto his back, left to die like so many other in the maelstrom of the charge. *But* that was not to be the end of his story.
In his last moments he saw the sky, beautiful and blue, and then the shapes of his regimental comrades trampling his body into the muck and mud.
His spirit lingered over the battlefield, then dissipated. No tunnel of light; no heavenly trumpets. In the darkness, he heard his mother calling his name. Whatever spirit was once Zoltan remembered his name and began to press towards the comforting sound. Light and shadows took shape, and soon he saw the familiar surroundings of his family's parlor: his mother, the noted spiritualist, was conducting a seance. She was looking for the ghost of the boy she had lost in the war. And she found him.
Zoltan's ghost pressed with all his might. Every step closer to his mother pulled him into an ethereal mire. Yet, he continued striving and fighting for every step. "Anya?!" (that being the Hungarian word for mother) the young man called out. The parlor, with its books and kerosene lamps and awful yellow wallpaper. His mother, with grief-red eyes and soft hands. It all seemed so real. *It was real.*
Though being drug back as if by a team of draft horses, the young man pushed and reached out to touch his mother's hand. And - for the briefest of moments - he felt his warm skin upon his.
And then all was lost. All was gone, drowned in a sudden black nothingness.
His consciousness next awoke in the company of an untold multitude of spirits calling themselves the Liminal Congregants of Souls Ill-at-Rest, or more simply, the “Congregation.”
Well-studied in his mother's Spiritualism, Zoltan greeted the dead with little surprise. The shock to come was that he was to not be allowed his eternal rest. No.
Gathering their power in unison, the great host of the Congregant souls would send Zoltan back to the realm of the living, where he would speak for them, the unquiet dead, those murdered and killed and lost. His voice would be their Voice, words that would ring in men's souls like a great bronze belfry.
And once more, the sudden dark.
Zoltan awoke again, but this time with the distinct feeling of an unbearable weight of dirt upon his body and then stench of putrefaction filling his nose. He was corporeal once more, yet buried with other fallen. Digging himself out, he emerged, shambling and shocked to find his face had been put back together if by the crude instruments of a barber-surgeon. All was there, save for his eye.
He was happy to trade an eye for life once more, some simulacrum it may be of one.
Three weeks later, his mother wept as he appeared in the yellow-wallpapered parlor.
The last 170 years.
Zoltan graves has spent these last many decades of his undeath searching out murderers and wrongdoers in many varieties: bounty hunter, territorial judge, costumed vigilante made infamous in pulp novels, and - for something like the last seventy years - as the costumed figure known only as Bronze Belfry.
Zoltan can speak with the Voice of the Beyond, carrying the spiritual weight of a great host of souls. While the Voice can affect the material world - knocking back or even shattering objects, for example - its direst effects are upon the minds and spirits of living beings. The use of the Voice does not require his vocal cords. In fact, those who hear the Voice - moreso, those directly Spoken To by it - attest to an overwhelming myriad of voices that seem to be heard emanating from many directions at once.
Where the bodies of the living are filled with bile and blood, Zoltan's undead corpse is filled and sustained by ectoplasmic matter from the spiritual realms. He can manifest it in a variety of ways, chiefly in his own defense. It functions as armor, an obscuring cloud, and - due to its very nature - a fount of dread and fear.
Bronze Belfry can step between the world of the living and the spiritual realm of spirits and souls as easily as another person can walk from one room to another. This allows him to "teleport" vast distances - and that travel is not relegated to planet Earth or even the physical universe. Graves has found he is able to reach many places believed or hypothesized by the gestalt human experience, though this is fraught with challenges.
Medically speaking, poor Zoltan Graves has not been alive since 1865. His skin is grey with deathly pallor, his remaining eye cloudy, and his hair (though unexpectly, it grows, as do his finger and toenails as well as the regular replacement of his epidermis) a bright shock of white. He is cold and clammy to the touch and cannot breathe nor process food. He however still enjoys the affectations of food and drink, though he politely spits out anything that he takes a bite or drink of. As he does not need to breath, he is able to spend an indeterminate time underwater or without a regular oxygen supply. If cut, he "bleed" ectoplasm, but he does not regenerate in any form. He refuses to discuss any supposition on the current state of his undead body.
Since the original closure of City of Heroes, my comics reading has drifted much more toward the spooky and the monstrous: characters like Mike Mignola's Hellboy, Dan Brerton's Noctournals, and supernatural stalwarts from the Big 2 like Ghost Rider, Blade, John Constantine, Etrigan the Demon, and Justice League Dark.
Bronze Belfry is my attempt to create a costumed superhero that would fit in the classic spandex tradition - and the fictional world of Paragon City - while also letting me indulge in the spooky, weird angle myself.