Deus
| File:Deus.JPG | |
| Deus | |
| Player: @Deus De | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Deus (Dyeus, Daeus) |
| Known Aliases: | Deus Ex (2004-2012), The Black Ally (1944-1946) |
| Species: | Construct |
| Age: | Unknown |
| Height: | 6'6" |
| Weight: | 200 lbs |
| Eye Color: | Crimson |
| Hair Color: | Brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Citizenship: | Was granted American Citizenship in 1944 |
| Occupation: | Registered Superhero, Operative of Vanguard and Special Advisor to M.A.G.I. |
| Place of Birth: | Unknown |
| Current Residence: | Unknown: Believed somewhere in Perez Park |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | Brothers and Sisters |
| Known Powers | |
| Hyper-Sensory Perception, Supernatural Physical Attributes | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Eidetic Memory, Magical Resistance | |
| Equipment | |
| Morþor, a cursed blade. A variety of eclectic items from history | |
| Footnotes | |
| ' | |
Personality
In a purely social setting Deus tends to be a very withdrawn individual, even in the presence of his closest friends and associates. He does not argue or quibble and rarely debates anything (even if asked). When he is not withdrawn, he is awkward. He cannot relate to much of the human experience however much he tries, vying against his essence to become more like the humanity he wards and usually failing quite miserably. He has virtually no sense of humor, most jokes flying well over his head. He also does not have any particular sense of pride either, so he is rather impervious to being goaded. All in all, he is a stoic goof, unknowingly making social gaffs virtually every time he interacts with people.
Within his closest circle of friends (of which there are few left from yesteryear that have not retired), they have seen other sides to him. The side that expresses incredibly muted but intensely powerful grief and shame, an ever-present gentle nature with stray animals and orphans, and an barely contained inhuman wrath towards the worst of villainy, particularly those that would exploit the most vulnerable, enslave or subject others to non-consensual experimentation. Despite the presence of these things, Deus himself cannot recognize the emotions for what they are within himself, as alien to him as they are inextricable to humanity.
In combat, he is a different sort of creature. All hesitance disappears, all uncertainty evaporates faster than an eye can blink. It is here he feels his most natural state and comfort within, even as everything around him descends into violent madness. Grim and cold, he is a study in blinding lethality and relentless energy towards his objectives, cognizant of every shift in the environment, able to bodily react to blade, bullet or beam of light. Those around him have drawn half-joking parallels between Deus and the terminator, in that doesn't fatigue, doesn't seem to feel pain and won't ever stop unless it is tactically favorable to do so.
Powers as surmised by others
Hyper Sensory Perception
Perhaps the most advanced ability in Deus's arsenal is his sensory perceptions and their simultaneous interplay with each other. His senses by themselves are refined to the point where they are vastly superior to most animals famed for such perception ability. He has exhibited examples of 20/.01 vision, his hearing tested in the 3hz - 300khz range, and has on many occasions tracked criminals for miles with his olfactory sense, much like a bloodhound.
However, the true power of it comes out in their connection. Each sense is directly tied into the others; sights have a feel, tastes have a sound, noises have a visual key, etc. Each of his five senses produces a response that is seemingly perceived by the other four simultaneously. Deus can sift through this information with surprising accuracy and speed, as his mean reaction time has been measured in the 5 millisecond range. Some have speculated that the understanding of so much sensory data and the ability to interpret and react to all of it at such an alarming rate gives him a limited form of near-precognition in battle, accounting for his ability to dodge and parry bullets and beams, to say nothing of melee combat.
This said, he does not view the world in the same way as humanity. To him, the world is a seething sea of sounds and smells, a swirling kaleidoscope of lights and colors; a nearly incomprehensible experience that he lives in everyday as perhaps the worlds most advanced form of synesthesia. So while the advantages of this are manifold, they do not extend to communicating it aptly in description to others.
Supernatural Physical Attributes
Deus’s physical aptitude is beyond a doubt far beyond the human norm, a pure product of his undefined supernatural nature. He has shoulder-checked tanks and APCs to their sides, lifted Zeus class Malta titans meters into the air from a blow, has outran sports cars on the express way and has maneuvered untouched through a veritable storm of enemy fire. Beyond this, his ability to sustain and heal from damage is incredible, seemingly less a proper cellular regeneration and more akin to a rapid reconstitution.
One particularly incredible aspect of Deus's physiology is that he does not experience cellular or organismal senescence of any kind. Indeed, studies have found that comparing older samples obtained from Deus Ex during his initial registration and more recent ones, his cellular structure has become more resilient. What is more, during mitosis the corresponding telomeres somehow regenerate (or reconstitute) themselves; it is believed by absorbing ambient nutrients. All of this combined has the effect of making Deus, in effect, biologically immortal.
Abilities
Eidetic Memory
Otherwise known as photographic memory or ‘total recall’; the ability to remember individual instances with near-perfect clarity. Near-perfect being the operative word as all memories are by default distorted by the viewer the moment they are witnessed. Never was this statement more true than it is with Deus, due primarily to his odd amalgam of sensory abilities, as mentioned above. Deus has memorized specifics on thousands of subjects, not the least of which includes languages. He is one of a handful of true hyper-polyglot individuals within the contiguous United States.
He also appears to find function in this ability in adapting muscle memory quickly and efficiently. The student who must strike a thousand times to teach his body to respond instinctively, Deus seemingly need only do so but once. Often, this allows Deus to copy unknown warriors and their form, utilizing their own maneuvers once they are displayed. On the other hand, this has caused Deus more trouble than it is worth in the past with martial artists, and he is reluctant to initiate this aspect actively.
Magic Resistance
A side effect of him being created by magic is an inherent resistance to such effects. Spells often inexplicably have less effect upon Deus as they should, or sometimes not even working at all. This applies to both positive and negative effects, as it seems that the magic that empowers his essence does not like to be altered much. There is one exception to this resistance, seen in vulnerabilities.
Vulnerabilities
Sigil of the Soulless
<REDACTED>
Anti-magic
The most evident weakness of Deus is his response to anti-magic. His physical being is more like a composite of many creatures; his digestion system is more akin to a blast furnace than a mild acid pit, some organs over-sized and some over-small (or non-existent). In essence, he is a being of impossible existence which is made possible only by the magic that binds it together. Thus, a powerful enough counter to this energy can conceivably kill him by rendering the magic inert and letting his being deal with it's impossibility suddenly as his bones grow brittle and the temperature of his internal self burning it's way through him. Even a weaker one will hurt him severely, causing instant cellular-death over large portions of his anatomy. What is more, this will bypass his magic resistance very often. It would be the function of relative miraculous luck for his own resistance to counter the effects.
Due to this limitation, Deus is nigh obsessed with the various verbal keys and gestures from all magical philosophies which would indicate an effect being produced along said lines, so he can bodily avoid the ability and reassess combat priorities (meaning more often that not, he comes for the caster with a cold fury). He does try to hide this vulnerability, but a handful of the most persistent of villains with access to rudimentary magic (ala: those that are still alive) are very much so aware of this particular weakness, to say nothing of better intentioned magicians that seek his death, ones that know more of Deus's past and little of his present.
The what, the why
What is believed
Deus has been the long subject of study by various organizations and groups, both good and bad. MAGI has done the most thorough study of Deus, in part due to access and in part due to the friendship between Azuria and him. What they believe to be true is that Deus is a composite being, one body fashioned from the parts of many akin to a Frankenstein's monster of a sort. Another thought is that he is a form of golem, one which radically departs from the form of such things. The most exhaustive telltale involved the magic itself. The magic that swirls about and through him is remarkable in a few ways. First and second, it is harrowing in the extreme and inhumanly complex, like perceiving a mandala intricate enough to take centuries to create but with blood and screams and crushed bone instead of colored sand. It is alien and inextricably horrific to virtually every practitioner who is capable of sensing such things in detail. Lastly, its power. While the verge of it is very contained, like raw chaos given boundaries to form a paradoxical order, the vestige is in continuous flux, increasing aforementioned complexity over time as if it was building upon itself.
The Midnight Squad knows some parallel information and a little more. They know that Deus was the first of seven “siblings” to be created and they know that they were created as slaves. They know one has died and believe it occurred in spring of 1944. They know his name comes from the proto-Aryan Dyḗus, and suspected that it was the first name he was endowed with, the early peoples believing him a god of wrath, which would make him very old indeed. Within the halls of the club, there is a small and eccentric subculture that views him and the others as a mystery to be unraveled in a form of gamesmanship of arcana and occult lore, one that generally attracts the dilettante or the very weird. This is due to the fact that Pontice Doub himself tried to unriddle it and whatever he found, he made sure he wouldn’t take it even to the grave. So like dueling physicists trying to solve the three body problem, none have made any real headway.
The Mu and Oranbegans know less specifics but at the same time, more. The Mu have an acute caution (some might say fear) of Deus and the “siblings” in question, particularly of Deus himself. Their magic does not diminish but recoils, as if the ancestral power passed down through their breeding responds to his presence with trepidation. As such, most Mu simply do not approach Deus, or actively avoid. The Oranbegans on the other hand, hate Deus passively, but knowingly. Whatever the case or cause may be, they aren’t inclined to speak on the matter but refuse to use gender pronouns or even the name when referring to Deus. “It” is all they will say.