Maximillian Caine
Maximillian Tiberius Caine
Character Name: Maximillian Tiberius Caine
Gender: Male
Age: 7 (body and mindset of a 24-year-old)
Class: Officer
Weapon: As a parting gift from his parent company, Caine was given the cutting edge in ARMS weapons technology: a large, heavy, revolver, directly modelled on classic Anime large, heavy revolvers.
This gun is the masters-work of a celebrated ARMS Corp. magician-weaponsmith. Frustrated with his failure to produce reliable, rapid-firing black powder weapons, he looked for other means of achieving the same result. This weapon is the result of research into psycho-active materials, similar to the kind of materials used in enchanting magical weapons.
The gun works as an expression of the user's will. The user must focus upon the shaped slug of metal inside the barrel and mentally push the bullet out of the gun. The alloy of metal and psycho-active materials along the barrel and in the drum magnify the will of the user so the bullet flies out, impelled by the user's boosted will. Naturally, a powerful will and lots of practice is needed to propel the bullet, and the less stressful the situation, the further and stronger the bullet will fly. Training with such weapons focuses mostly on meditation techniques that allow the user to detach his mind from the world, and focus solely on his relationship between gun, user and target.
The revolver is larger than Magnum .44, but it's three barrels, set into a triangle formation, are all the same length and calibre as a .44. Engraved in flowing, cursive script along the length of the topmost barrel is the name of the gun, Jacqueline, and stencilled in red and gold into the textured grip is the ARMS Corporation logo, a double-ringed cross-hair. A three-choice selector positioned above the trigger lets Caine choose whether to fire the topmost barrel, the bottom two, or all three at once. The revolver can fire various forms of special, and rare ammunition (see GUNSLINGER commands).
Armor: A tailored greatcoat that has been proofed against most missile weapons. It's much less effective against melee weapons.
Commands:
ATTACK [LEGION]
COMMANDER
GUNSLINGER
ITEM
COMMANDER
((All abilities listed "party improvement" improve the targeted party member in a minor fashion))
Open fire! Affects all party members using ranged weapons. Caine yells instructions and advice about how best to shoot a single chosen target. The rate-of-fire and accuracy of all party members with a ranged weapon is improved when shooting against that chosen target.
Volley Fire! May only target groups of enemies. Only affects party members with ranged weapons. Caine kicks party members into a firing line and gives the order to fire! A massed volley slams into the enemy, improving the damage done to the group.
Chaaaarge! Affects all party members using melee weapons. Shouting a small inspirational speech, Caine picks one target and yells for everyone to charge at that target. Characters who attack the chosen target in hand-to-hand will have their accuracy and damage improved.
Down! Affects all unengaged party members. Caine yells advice about how best to take advantage of the available cover. Party members using cover will be hit less often, and suffer less damage.
GUNSLINGER
Zen shot: Caine may use this selection to shoot, even if affected by status effects that would normally prevent him from shooting (such as Paralysis).
Fire Bomb: Caine loads a special unit of ammunition into the topmost barrel, and fires at his target. The target is hit as if Caine cast a Fire 1 spell on it.
Wind Bullet: Similar to Fire Bomb, however in this case, it's as if the target has been hit with a Wind 1 spell.
Heavy Shot: Caine sets the selector to fire all three barrels. Improved damage if it hits.
TRANCE: Legion of the Damned.
The sky turns an unnatural shade of grey, and the ragged ghosts of the siblings Caine has personally killed rise up through the ground. These ghosts surround Caine and pour blazing green-and-white energy into him. Spewing light from his mouth and eyesocket, Caine staggers, convulses, and then emits coloured beams of light which strike the rest of the party.
When the trance engages, every member of the party that Caine imbues has their ATTACK option replaced with a LEGION option. The LEGION option is their normal attack that is either enhanced or changed by Caine's Trance. Caine's starting Trance is: all party members affected have their initiative upgraded (they become a blur of energy), and their ATTACK, regardless of normal alignment, is now Fire-aligned (they glow with burning red energy, and emit a lot of heat). The effects of LEGION remain in effect for 1 minute 30 seconds. Caine also benefits from the Trance.
Character Element: Fire
Strong With: Fire, Wind
Strong Against: Fire
Weak With: Earth, Water
Weak Against: Water, Darkness
Clothing: World War II army ensemble: large, heavy greatcoat, strong boots, combat trousers "bloused" (tucked into the boots). His belt has four large ammo packs hanging off it (2 on each side). His outsized holster hangs from the belt on the right hand side of the hip. No hat.
Eyes: His left eye is a brilliant gold. Set into his right-hand eyesocket is a large emerald.
Hair: None. Bald as a coot. He has a lizardish comb running along his head, rather like an iguana.
Description:
A lizard anthropomorph-flesh golem, Caine stands tall at 5' 8". His scaley skin is mostly light green - what little can be seen of it. His face is mixture of crocodile and iguana. The right hand side of his face is mostly white bone, with patches of flesh and skin creeping over from the left-hand side of his face. Skrimshandered into the skull half are runes (which any white mage will see as a series of engraved Heal spells). A large emerald has been set into his empty eyesocket, which unnervingly follows his real eye.
History:
War, they say, is good for business. Almost war is better. Almost war promotes excessive proliferation of weapons. Creates large government contracts. It produces an excess of paranoia which lingers for decades and casts a pall over friendly dealings between different cultures.
It’s this state of affairs that the ARMS Corporation would like the world to remain in, indefinitely. The stated mission goal of ARMS, an international weapons concern is "keeping the world secure". To this end, all the weapons they manufacture and develop are quite cheerfully sold to whoever will buy them. ARMS has reasoned (both in and out of the courts) that if just one person had access to all the weapons, then everyone else would be dominated by that one person. Far better that everyone have access to an affordable means with which to protect themselves, and deter such would-be conquerors. It's hard to argue the point when demon princes are destroying the tax base, creating the next generation of shiftless wanderers and bandits and your policies on personal weapons mean that it’s the neighbouring country that’s buying the cutting edge of blowcrapup weaponry, for half price.
However, ARMS Corp. have a problem. The execs. know that proliferation of weapons as a deterrent only works so far. Sooner or later, someone is going to use those weapons, which rocks the boat that ARMS wants steady. Additionally, there are only so many weapons you can sell, and the market for weapons had been predicted as growing saturated, and stale. ARMS needed means to create a greater stalemate while exploiting new markets. Enter the PHILOSOPHER golem project.
The goal of PHILOSOPHER was to produce a better class of officer, leader and strategist. ARMS magicians and alchemists were set the task of creating military officers who could naturally outthink, outguess and outdo any of the most celebrated generals and leaders of the age, all in one neat and reproducible package. Proliferation of mega-strategists would not only bring short-term returns from nations looking to one-up each other, but the stalemate betweens competing nations would be virtually ensured as the strategists would cancel each other out. Thus, nations would come back again and again to ARMS to buy the latest model straight off the rack, ensuring ARMS predominance.
From thousands of possible strains and variants, Project PHILOSOPHER coalesced into 13 different sub-projects. Each would-be leader was assigned it’s own team, and they worked in isolation to other PHILSOPHER teams, creating impressive diversity as different alchemical, magical and aetherial strategies were pursued. Subject Six's (later known as Maximillian Caine), project leader’s eccentric fondness for lizards found it’s way into his mix, and an anthropomorphic amalgam of lizard and human (complete with tail) was created.
The test scores were good, although their flesh golems could use a lot more experience before being allowed to lead armies! ARMS were pleased with the initial results…. But…. they only needed one. As their initial offering, they wanted only the very best to sell on the market. They could then offer the others in specialist roles, and there was a lot of debate in the boardrooms about how to determine who was the best. Differences in test scores were negligible. What a subject lacked in one field, s/he made up for in others. Arena combat was discussed, then dismissed. They wanted to be able to show that these were superb officers, not fighters. Then one enterprising junior exec. hit upon an idea.
“What if“, she said,”we released the subjects out into the world“,(there was mild consternation at the thought of letting millions of gil in research go so freely),”and mentally programmed them to seek each other out and kill each other? This would be a live field test, under the most severe of conditions. They would naturally seek out forces to help them, and they would be battling each other under real conditions.”
This got the attention of the execs. at that meeting. Oh, there were more discussions, more refinement, plenty of deliberation, but the basic idea held. The subjects would be armed, equipped and given cover stories. They would be placed at random locations in the world, and mentally programmed to seek each other out and fight to the death. As they would naturally seek out allies and form armies, this would provide an excellent advertisement of their capabilities, leading armies, demonstrating their skill in tactics. There was a few lone wolves who were worried that this may affect ARMs negatively, but they were shouted down.
Since then, Max has played the role set for him perfectly. He has already killed one of his “brothers” after being contracted to ambush a band of mercenaries his “brother” had taken charge of. In the general melee, a rogue darkness spell blasted him, stripping the right-hand side of Max’s face clean to the bone. He was saved by the immediate attentions of the white mages working for the side he was fighting for, but the damaged caused by the darkness spell lingered on, and the best part of his right-hand face to this day is white bone. Max works fervently towards the day when his face can be fully healed.
Max currently poses as a wandering mercenary, a discharged officer for hire to the highest bidder. This guise allows him freedom to accumulate contacts, allies and look for his remaining brothers and sisters.
