The Masquerade

by **Zodiac** April 16th 2016, 11:58 pm

Masquerade
" You're right. I am a nobody. Because I'm a nobody I can be anybody, I can be anything or anyone. And who I am tomorrow may not matter, and day in through day out I can continue to be just another nobody; But tonight...I'm your reckoning"

The Masquerade Tumblr_m1bbj4ahpb1rsqldbo1_500

Basic Biography

Real Name: Zach Moriarty
Designated Name: Masquerade
Title: "Just another nobody"
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Age: 23 years
Gender: Male
Race: Metahuman
Occupation: Actor
Hair: Dark Brown and Black
Eyes: Brown
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 180lbs.
Blood type: O-

The Looks

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

The Legacy

Personality:

Masquerade is a divided soul, between his regular human persona and the man he is once he places on his masque. As a regular Human, Masquerade seems to be an intelligent young man with an incredibly big heart and a certain charisma that everyone seems to love. To the eyes of the public he seems to be the icon of retaining a child's heart and generosity while somehow pursuing one's dreams.

As Masquerade, he is the pinnacle of poorly timed humor, the paragon of not taking anything seriously at all. Masquerade is the living embodiment of a hallow shell, though to look at him one might never know the difference between him and any other celebrity. Masquerade is known to be a joker, the one that tries to make light of every situation, often times appearing as if he were not taking any part of his heroing seriously. This often times earns him the scorn of his compatriots, rather achieving his intended goal.

Masquerade inherently seems to be a good hero, though he often times makes tough decisions and offers a different perspective that doesn't always align with a heroic perception. Despite all of his good nature and his desire to do good, Masquerade sees things quite clearly. In order to do good, you need someone willing to do bad. The more one observes and picks up the subtle hints Masquerade leaves the more one can peer behind the mask. Under the jokes, the nonsensical nature lies a kind, but battered soul that sees the world for what it really is; no matter what face it tries to wear. Behind the mask is a man whose lost everything, someone who is afraid, depressed an overall tired and sick of our world and it's degenerating ways.

Masquerade hides behind his masque, doing the only thing he knows how to... act. He acts, and he loves acting. Though what he doesn't tell people is WHY he loves acting. It's because when he's acting...that's the one time he can stop being Zach Moriarty and be someone else. Be anyone else. Acting allowed him to escape and become someone else...even if it was just for a little while...anything to get away from being Zach Moriarty...

History:

Zach Moriarty is the son of Eleanor Moriarty and James Moriarty, brother to Patrick Moriarty. Much akin to his father's name sake, his father was in fact a criminal, taking his metahuman powers to create a group of lunar-opportunistic metahumans called "The Midnight Messiah's". Though that was all left a mystery to Zach and his brother. His father vanished after his airplane was attacked by a small-time group of heroes. The heroes were never found, and neither were any survivors.

Eleanor died of a broken heart, the stress eventually caused a dysfunction in the valves in her heart and she simply expired, leaving the thirteen year old Zach with his older brother Patrick. Patrick assumed guardianship of his little brother and began to provide for the both of them, with a little assistance. Eventually, Patrick found himself in the criminal underground. While Patrick was a pharmacist technician, he found himself smuggling and pawning off medications in order to make a few extra dollars to make ends meet.

Patrick was killed in the crossfire between a drug bust. He was labeled a criminal, but all charges were dropped as the fifteen year old Zach was the only remaining member of the family. Zachary was then taken to a boarding school where he received a new name and met his two newest friend.

Erin O'Brien and Gil McElroy were also two students to this boarding school, of course from different areas of Ireland. Zach took to them quite quickly, but it wasn't long for Zach before he looked to fencing, became the captain of the swim team and took quite heavily to acting in the thespian troupe. Gil was a swimmer with Zach, Erin was an aspiring actress and took to the troupe. Zach's alone time was in fencing, where he was bullied and taunted constantly by a bully name Eric Allen.

As the years progressed he finally settled into his life. Crushed on Erin, taking weekends with Gil and his family, going above and beyond to form the greatest friendships. Zach found himself in a bad situation Masquerade found himself concerned when Gil showed him some black hair growing out of his arm. Masquerade didn't say anything more of it, though when he placed his arm to reassure Gil he couldn't help but notice that he felt nothing but intense fear. Gil, on the other hand, seemed to feel better and thanked his friend before moving on.

Zach had come to think of Gil as his brother, even when they had their disputes over liking a common girl, or some personal shifts in dating and their interests. Gil was a very free person, and always very happy. It was a shock for Zach and easy for Erin to see that he was beginning to change. Meanwhile Zach began to feel even more terrified and more terrified every time he took on a role from his instructor. His instructor was enraptured by his performance, and how he managed to somehow make the others feel a chill up their spine. His performance was so believable.

It only took all of three days for Gil to not go to school, his parents had taken him to the hospital but they had no news on him, and they were beginning to worry. Masquerade spoke with Erin and they headed out, Zach went deep into the hospital before finding himself in a restricted section. He ended up finding an abandoned identification and carved out the person's picture and placed his driver's license behind it, allowing him to show the men who turned him away before. He attempted to get through a retinal scanner before he was apprehended and taken into custody.

There, Masquerade was confronted in a civil meeting by Agent Master's, an operative of a group called "The Agency". It was they whom had come to acquire Gil, though they continued to deny Zach any form of closure, and simply told him that now that he knew of them...they no longer had any hope of retuning to the surface world. Zach ended up shaking the man's hand before realizing that his anger and his anguish mixed in confusion and soon the man's face seemed to drain of color before he collapsed on the ground. The door opened and Zach was standing there, for sure he was caught when the young man across form him spoke up, addressing him as Agent Masters. He explained that the room was empty, which sent the other mystery Agent away with a furrowed brow and a few murmurs.

Zach eventually found his way to Gil, being held in the back of the establishment as his guise of Agent Masters had fallen. Gil had been transformed into a large, grotesque spider that retained several humanoid features. Touching the spider he came to feel the spider's emotions, realizing that they no longer had any true cognitive thought.

Mourning and reluctantly, Zach forced several toxin and anti-venoms down the creature's throat, knowing this wasn't what was to become of his friend. As the liquids killed the spider, he could feel it's emotions...the last emotion he felt though was the same emotion that he felt when he had his hand on Gil's shoulder. The exact same fear. Then the creature died. It's Chitin turned to a black ilk and Masquerades grief poured from him as he mourned his brother and his part he had to play in his death.

Masquerade walked out of the restricted area, the chaos of the events in the hospital kicking up and allowing him to absent-mindedly wander off. Zach made his way home before contacting Erin and giving her a hug and wandering off, after promising her he'd meet with her Tomorrow. He left Ireland that night and traveled to the United States, leaving her alone, fearful that The Agency would come for her too.

Masquerade ended up allied with a group of individuals, Aaron Faelore, an Egyptian known only as "The Undying", a bland creature known as Mannequin and the shark-man Mako.

Masquerade's adventures took him all over the world, learning secrets and experiencing the world...even saving it once, though no one would likely know about it. Not like he cared either, he was simply glad to be of help. Though in his adventures he had the displeasure of running into his old friend in a journey back to Ireland. A woman known as "The Black Rose" had come to power in Ireland, her minor botanokinesis and ability to manipulate hormones made her a force to be reckoned with as she took Ireland by storm and began to manipulate politics form the shadows, reshaping Ireland itself towards a more progressive era, free of their traditional inhibitions.

Masquerade stood to oppose The Black Rose, only to uncover her identity to be none other than Erin O'brien. Masquerade eventually thwarted Erin, but only in part because she allowed him to win. Though she did spare him, and allowed him victory she made it clear she would not forgive him so easily. Erin then escaped from his grasps and escaped to the United States.

Masquerade, now twenty one years old fled after her, looking to find her and take her back home, though he made quite a career for himself as an aspiring (and now a world renown) actor. After a few years he's finally given up on finding his friend and he's given up entirely on just about everything imaginable. Now he simply wanders and does whatever he can to put his powers to good use.

The Powers

Pathokinesis: Masquerade has the ability to sense the emotions of others, as well as manipulate, augment or diminish the current emotions that one feels. In doing so he is able to cause several emotions, feelings and even get to the levels of incapacitating someone from mental stress. (Requires Permission from PC's)

Empathic Shifting: Masquerades power allows him to take the form of someone he is touching and that he understands on an emotional level. While in this form he gains all physical related powers associated with that person. He is indistinguishable from the person he is copying. (Requires Permission from PC's)

Superior Human Training: Masquerade has mastered a couple styles of combat, one offensive and a couple defensive. He is deadly with a rapier, throw and improvised weapons. He has incredible reflexes and superior durability. All of these are still within human limitations.

The Weaknesses

Permission based: Masquerade's powers are permission based, save for his jujitsu training.

"Touch"y subject: Masquerade's mimicry powers require the element of touch to be present.

Man behind the Masque: Masquerade is inherently human for all practical purposes. He has incredible reaction time, and superior stamina, however Masquerade is completely within human levels.

Inherit weakness: Any physical form Masquerade takes with his power is one that he inherits the weaknesses of.

Emotional Overload: Masquerade is highly susceptible to emotional outburst. In fact it could end up going as bi-polar. He could be incredibly happy, he could be incredibly sad or he could be angered by the smallest thing. He is susceptible to his emotions jumping to extremes. Use of his Pathokinesis could end up knocking him up.

Terrible Humor: Masquerades terrible humor makes thing quite difficult to interact and makes allies or friends. He doesn't seem to be overly likable or well received.

Wear and Tear: Masquerade can only assume a persona for so long before he begins to undergo a crisis of identity, trapping him into a form until he is able to sleep or is rendered unconscious. Rapid shifting between persona's could cause a cluster and leave him dazed or incapacitated.

Friend of Children: Masquerade will go out of his way to make children happy, or entertain them in some way. He will give his life and limb to try and make sure they are kept safe.

Friend to Animal- wait isn't this the same as the last one?: Masquerade doesn't see the difference between animals and children. Well he does, but honestly let's face it. They're equally smelly and disobedient, and some of them just poop everywhere.

The popular vote: Masquerades popularity as an actor makes it increasingly difficult to keep his superheroing a secret. He can't just whip out his masque whenever he feels like it and put it on.

In the Masquerade: To add to the previous weakness, Masquerade refuses to use his shape-shifting powers without his Masque being on his face. It's part of his psychological complex.

Genetic Disorder: Masquerade's metagene is full of confusion, causing him to change between random people, become different blood types and obtain different powers. Unfortunately, this has caused a rather strange type of cancer that is slowly killing him. As a result, these cancer cells actually react to high frequencies or intense percussive bass. When these are experienced, Masquerade is taken into such pain that it forces him and his cells to revert to his personal form.

Alcoholism: Masquerade is Irish. He's obviously an alcoholic, he craves the shit. It's in his genes.

Depression: Despite his powers to influence his own emotions, Depression runs thoroughly through Masquerade. When utilized against him (I won't say how, you can find out what triggers it yourselves!) he could become distracted and interrupt the usage of all his abilities.

Playing out the part of the fool: Masquerade is a terrible liar. He's a wonderful actor and can play any roll, and fool just about anyone that he is someone else. He, as himself, is a terrible liar and everyone seems to inherently know when he is not being honest with them.

~~Luck~~ Misfortune of the Irish: Masquerade is actually a very, very unlucky person. First his father vanishes, his brother is killed and then he had to kill his best friend. This luck of his actually tends to be a sore spot for him.

Trait Trending: If Masquerade takes multiple persona's in a short period of time that have the same weaknesses, traits or quirks, he will personally develop these to his personality for an indefinite time period. This only works with personality traits and weaknesses.

A Stoic's Masque: Stoics and emotionally hardened individuals are not easily mimicked. One might believe that they are simply because they are like a blank slate and easier to understand. Contrary to that belief, Stoics are harder to read, like a book in a different language. His empathic shape-shifting takes longer for him to do.

Originality Complex: Masquerade despises the concept of mimicry in it's total sense. He believes that everything should have an original touch to it. If he's told to completely disregard creativity he's basically say screw the rules and do something else.

Masque the Pain: Masquerade has a certain pain that lingers within him. It makes him watching physical actions of love and affection actually cause him pain, or disgust.

Violence Aversion: Despite his training and skills, Masquerade tries every alternative to combat before he attacks.

Skip a beat: Masquerade's fighting skills, no matter how well trained, can be thrown off by music or rhythm. He will strike, fight and subconsciously fight to the beat of any music playing in the background.

Obsessive: Masquerade is an obsessive individual. To look at him he seems perfectly normal and completely fine. Unfortunately, this is not exactly the case. While it's true, Masquerade is certainly a good guy and seems rather normal as it would turn out he has a few quirks. The most secret and glaring of them is the fact that he has a strong paranoia, which has turned into a driven obsession. His obsession is on an enigmatic figure known as "The Baron" and their involvement with virtually everything he can find. Corkboards with string, pictures and papers cluttered over a desk. Masquerade knows He exists, but he has no proof. No way of knowing WHO he really is. All he knows is a voice and a few "victims". No motive. No endgame. This has driven him to the brink of a breakdown more than a few times. Anything and all things that go remotely bad or seem to be very, VERY well organized he blames and believes The Baron to have a hand in it.

The Equipment

[i]Item Name[i]

Spoiler:

RP Mechanics

Scary Place: Masquerade's mind is a scary, scary place. Telepaths are free to enter, though it's unlikely they'll find the information they want.

Fame and Wealth: Masquerade is a famous actor, he has some spare change to throw around, though he primarily just seems to focus it into charity.

Physical Priority

1 : Reaction : 1
2 : Agility : 2
3 : Endurance : 3
4 : Strength : 4

by **Alpha** April 17th 2016, 12:05 am

Approved until stated otherwise

The Masquerade

The Masquerade

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