Callidon, Nihlus

[Nihlus Callidon]

Name: Jasten
Age: Twenty
CBox Name: Jasten
RP Experience: Ten Years
Activity Level: Always

Name: - Nihlus Arterius Callidon Michael Vale Lewis
Age: - Thirty Two
Birthdate: November 11th
Gender: - Male

Affiliation: Hell, Chorazin Liberation Front
Member Group: Transfigured Human

Appearance:

Nihlus appears as an average human in his mid-thirties, with short brown hair and brown eyes. He stands at 6'2" and weighs approximately 153 lbs. He's built light, with a body made for agility rather than brute strength. Nihlus wears his hair short and neat, a decision made for its low maintenance needs. As for facial hair, he likes to keep it light, preferring a precision kept stubble over an actual beard. His eyes are a dark, almost black brown, the same color as his hair. For clothing, he wears whatever the present situation requires. When dealing with business, or interacting with the likes of Sammael and his demons, Nihlus prefers slim fitting suits that present a professional image. When in the field alongside his followers, he adopts a more militaristic look, wearing tactical gear over comfortable clothing. All of his apparel is of the highest quality, a recent change due to the influence of Sammael.

All in all, he keeps his appearance professional in order to present the proper image to both his underlings, his business associates, and the populace of Chorazin he terrorizes every day.

When using his powers, Nihlus's eyes change into a very light blue color, and emit a visible white light that can be seen even in the middle of the day.

Face Claim:

Likes / Dislikes:

+ Explosions
+ Raging Fire
+ Detailed Paintings
+ Manipulation of Man

- The Self Righteous
- Total Failure
- Warriors of Heaven
- Uncontrolled Variables

Strengths and Weaknesses:

+ Resistant to the Power of Angels and Demons - Nihlus has etched into his very bones runes of binding, which has bound his soul into his body thanks to the efforts of the demon Mara. He had this process done in order to protect himself from Sammael's ability to rip a soul from its body. As a side effect, he had become slightly more resistant to the supernatural powers of both angels and demons.

+ Power over Electricity - Nihlus's transfigured powers revolve around the manipulation and creation of electricity. His body is a self sustaining battery of energy. The most obvious applications is the usage of bolts of electricity as ranged weapons, but creative experimentation has trained Nihlus to use his powers in unexpected ways.

+ Explosive Creation - Much of Nihlus's adult life has been spent as a part of terrorist organizations which utilize explosives to carry forth their goals. As a result, he is highly trained in their creation and use.

+ Incredibly Intelligent - Nihlus's early childhood was spent at the finest schools money can buy, and so his education is of the highest quality. In recent years, he has set above gathering knowledge in order to gain power beyond his wildest dreams.

+ Master Manipulator - Nihlus's experience leading terrorist organizations have helped him gain skill in manipulating the minds of weaker willed men to fight and die for his cause. He knows how men work, and can exploit them effortlessly.

- Fear of Pain - Nihlus is a sadist, and enjoys making people suffer. However, he abhors the idea of pain himself, and flees in the face of inevitable injury.

- Horrible Reputation - Nihlus isn't exactly known for being a nice guy. Word travels fast about his actions, and though he's a brilliant liar, there's not a whole lot one can do to deny actions which result in the deaths of large amounts of innocents. As a result, he often utilizes false identities to get what he wants.

- Paranoia - Nihlus is constantly on the look out for enemies wherever he looks. After watching the fall of his previous organization due to betrayal from within, he expects to be stabbed in the back at any moment. As a result, he is exceptionally slow to trust anyone, and realistically only trusts the ones who openly hate him. At least he can be sure that they'll try to kill him, after all.

- Reckless - Despite his fear of pain, Nihlus carelessly will overextend himself in order to accomplish his goals despite the repercussions. He constantly ensures that he himself is fine, but his organization has lost a number of soldiers over the years due to his failure to consider the fallout.

- Arrogance - Nihlus is a textbook narcissist, and believes himself to be the single most important human being in existence. His regard for fellow man can be broken up into three tiers. At the bottom is the common man, in the middle, the CLF and his close allies, and at the top, himself. No man can compare to the excellence that is himself, he believes, and the only ones he come remotely close to being his equals are demons of Hell.

Personality:

Arrogant, paranoid, and ruthless: Three words that describe Nihlus well. Nihlus is a man whose world revolves around the concept of power. He is utterly dedicated to the acquisition of more of it, at any cost, willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve it. To him, murder is not an abomination, instead being a simple action which is justified by the goal. Innocents mean nothing to him; in his eyes, there are none. He is a manipulator, carefully milking every bit of his "associates" worth, before throwing them to the wolves. To him, people are little more than tools to be used to build the bigger picture, a picture which focuses on himself. Nihlus is near incapable of compassion, only managing to show the slightest hints towards his underlings in the CLF. Above all else, however, he is a master of manuvering through the power struggle between the factions of Chorazin, playing every side to maximize his profit while keeping a multitude of escape routes available in the unlikely event that he's hunted down by his adversaries.

History:

Nihlus Callidon was born Michael Vale Lewis in the wealthy residential zones of Connecticut. His father, the CEO of Xanatos Mechanical, was an incredibly wealthy man, and was able to provide everything his young wife and son could ever dream of. For Michael, this meant he was placed in the most prestigious of schools and given access to the most effective of tutors. Between his father's money and his own considerable potential, Michael was seemingly destined for complete and total success. As the years went by, Michael developed a considerable talent for painting, capable of putting unparalleled detail into his works of art that very few in his circles could match. He had everything, and his early childhood was filled with happiness.

However, in September of 2201, when Michael was eleven, everything changed for him and his family. From out of nowhere, a great dome of golden light enveloped the city within itself, and a great fiery pit that looked as if it was made from the very stuff of Hell itself emerged in the center of Chorazin, causing chaos within its wake. At the exact moment the pit in the center of the city opened, Michael was visiting his aunt who lived on the edge of the pit's boundaries, and was at ground zero when it appeared. As a result, both he and his aunt were washed over with the energies of the Hellmouth. For his aunt, the strain was too much, and she died in seconds. Michael however survived, knocked unconscious but alive.

When he came too, his parents had already arrived to take him home. The death of his aunt greatly effected his family, but to Michael's surprise, he felt almost nothing at the loss of his beloved family member. This was the first of things to come that made him realize he had become irreversibly changed. As the weeks went by, he gradually became more and more angry at everyone around him, and a desire for violence which scared him lurked at the edge of his mind. His painting was impacted, as the once serene scenes of nature and perfectly designed city scapes had become more and more disturbing with every painting finished. In school, his grades plummeted as he turned away from his education and began to concentrate more and more on his artwork.

His parents were incredibly worried for their son, and brought him to speak with a counselor. This however led nowhere, as the counselor refused to see the boy again after the first few meetings. In an attempt to make their worries known for their son, Michael's father confronted the boy in his room and explained that Michael could talk to him if he needed help with anything, whatever it might be. Michael, in response, simply sneered at his father, and went back to his painting.

At a loss as to what to do with their son, Mr and Mrs Lewis turned to simply keeping their family afloat in the midst of Chorazin. This did not last for long, however. Within a year of the emergence of the Hellmouth and arrival of the Barrier, both of them were found by security personnel dead in their home, with their son Michael missing. For the security company, they were simply another trio of casualties in the wave of violence that had came with the city's new situation, the parents killed for the money and the son an unfortunate victim, and they wrote them off to focus on keeping more crimes from happening.

The truth of the matter was far different. One day, after seeing a painting created by their son, the Lanes were disgusted with what they saw. An incredibly detailed landscape of chaos, dismembered corpses, and showers of blood, the painting was simply unignorable. When they came to explain to their son that they were going to get him help whether he liked it or not, Michael smiled and informed them that he was no longer their son, and that they would leave him be. When his parents pressed the point, Michael sighed, apologized for their actions, and proceeded to take from beneath his bed's pillow a butcher's knife before throwing himself at his parents. As they watched their son attack them with a blade, Michael's parents realized that whatever had happened to their son when the great pit emerged in the center of their city, it had erased the boy they had loved and replaced him with this monster.

When the deed was finished, Michael walked out the door, never to return again.

For awhile, he disappeared out into the streets of Chorazin, drifting across the city and simply surviving. Though young, Michael's mind had been forged into one of a killer the moment he was touched by the power of Hell, and his ruthless pragmatism allowed him to thrive where others fell in droves. It was on the streets that he began to show signs of his future abilities. At first, it was simply strange, but not obviously supernatural occurrences. Whenever he touched someone, they were zapped as if by static shock. Lights flickered when he touched plugged things into outlets and hit light switches. It wasn't until he unconsciously discharged a bolt of electricity at a security officer who attempted to arrest him following a botched robbery did Michael realize what he was capable of.

He was arrested that day, but the reality of his power had hit him. Sent to a security-ran prison facility, and placed in a transfigured cell block, he began to practice his powers on his fellow prisoners when he could get away with it. His fellow cell mate, a much older man who's transfiguration was very small, was his target, chosen due to both his inability to defend himself from the much more potent Michael and the close proximity. From there, he branched out to fellow prisoners in the block, before the young man had a working grasp of his power. He was a human generator, capable of producing vast amounts of electricity with little to no effort, and he loved it.

His antics gradually became noticed by the guards however, and he was transferred to a much more secure cellblock where his ability to practice was reduced by the highly armed and incredibly vigilant guard team. His stay in this part of the prison was not to last for long however, as the guards where not the only ones who noticed Michael's power. A man named Carter West, another transfigured prisoner of some power, had seen what Michael was capable of, and was impressed. Carter was a member of a terrorist organization known as SPECTRE, and saw in Michael a potential member... if only the two were able to get out of the prison.

Carter came to Michael one day in the prison cafeteria, and introduced himself, before inviting the younger man to join his social group of fellow prisoners. Over the next few weeks, Carter ingrained Michael into the group, and explained his plan to escape the prison. It would be easy, if timed right. During the changing of the guard, in a few minute window where the entire rotation was vulnerable, the group planned to launch an assault against their captors, take their weapons, and link up with a SPECTRE team that was waiting to break them out of the prison. Michael would be allowed to join them in the attempt, and all he had to do was pledge his allegiance to SPECTRE if they succeeded. In Michael's eyes, it was a fair trade off, and so he accepted the deal.

With Michael on board, the group of inmates was ready to begin their plan. Just as they had conspired, they leaked word to their associates outside the prison via the lawyer of one of the inmates, and started the riot which would form the basis of their escape plan. It worked flawlessly, the disorganized guards taken completely by surprise by the revolting transfigured inmates. Though the inmates took heavy casualties as they fought the guards, a small group of them including Carter and Michael managed to force their way to the waiting members of SPECTRE, and make good their escape before the guard teams could rally.

In SPECTRE's custody, Michael upheld his end of the deal, and proclaimed his loyalty to the organization. Carter, being a high level member of the organization, repaid his help by granting him a position directly under his command in a cell, and a new name. Michael Lewis was the name of a man who had nothing. Nihlus Callidon however, would be the name of a glorious warrior of SPECTRE, a name that could strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.

Michael took both the position and the name change with a smile, happy to have finally found a place where his abilities would be respected. For several years, Nihlus served as a loyal member of SPECTRE, assisting his cell with several attacks across the city and making his way up the ranks till he led a cell of his own.

Four years after joining SPECTRE, however, things changed. During an intended attack which was supposed to eliminate the city leadership in a massive explosion in the political center of New York, SPECTRE was betrayed from within by a high level agent who turned out to be a mole embedded by Vakarian Security Services. The terrorists, expecting minor resistance, found their target defended by heavily armed security officers and US Military units. They attempted to call off the attack, but it was too late to pull back from. The various cells attacking their targets were slaughtered in droves, and the leadership's locations revealed by the mole and assaulted by the joint US Military/Vakarian taskforce. Nihlus and his cell were some of the only to escape with their lives, going to ground to avoid being found by their enemies.

For the next year, Nihlus hid with his cell, gradually making contact with the few remaining survivors of SPECTRE as they attempted to outrun their hunters. It quickly became apparent that Nihlus was the sole surviving cell leader. When Vakarian and the US Army called off the search for the remaining SPECTRE forces, declaring the organization eradicated, Nihlus was left to pick up the pieces. And pick up the pieces he did, gathering his fellow survivors under his banner and reforging links with their backers as they did so. However, SPECTRE was done for, and Nihlus knew that if he were able to gather his supporters, they would be something entirely different.

And so it was that he renamed his network of remaining terrorists the Chorazin Liberation Front.

Three years later, he took the CLF and reemerged into the public eye, launching a surprise assault on US military holdings in the political district. In the three years, he had managed to restore his organization to SPECTRE levels of expansiveness, and their reveal came as a shock to the security corporations. Much of their attention has turned to hunting down and eliminating this new organization which has risen from the ashes of SPECTRE. Despite their efforts however, Nihlus's leadership has so far kept the CLF from being rooted out like their predecessors.

In recent years, Nihlus has sought out more power for himself and his organization. He has forged several alliances with sympathetic parties, and found allies in the unlikeliest of places. Of these allies, three in particular stand above the rest. The first is Sammael, an Archfiend of Hell, who reveled the existence of Hell to the transfigured terrorist. Nihlus took the revelation in stride, and has pledged his allegiance to the superior evil. The second is Octavious Reed, leader of the vast cult network of the Tainted. Possessing an army capable of standing against the forces of the security corporations, Octavious is the perfect ally for Nihlus, who has pledged the CLF's power to Reed's cause, forming an alliance which has proven to be a great threat to the stability of the city. Lastly, the third is Havien of the Serpent's Fang, an underground slave trading organization with influence in the highest reaches of the government. Havien provides Nihlus with slaves to utilize as suicide soldiers and servants in his war against the city that he couldn't get anywhere else.

As of now, Nihlus leads the CLF alongside his allies against the forces of the Coalition of security companies, and seeks to bring down the enemies arrayed against him, before plunging the city of Chorazin into the fires of anarchy.

Roleplay Example:

See Azrael.