Rattler

He made something of a name for himself among the street gangs; he could fight as well as any street tough, but if he managed to get eye contact with his opponent, concentrated a little, and spoke softly to him, he'd put him into a sort of hypnotic trance. Then he or one of his friends could clean the guy's clock. Since this was something like what a rattlesnake could do, Starr came to be called "Rattler" by his friends and other street gangs. Members of most of the other gangs learned to steer clear of him.

That was until the leader of the Walking Dead made a deal with COIL without telling any of the others. The gang became partially affiliated with COIL, and the food and water at the gang's base started getting laced with the COIL-Gene. In a short time, everyone's mind turned to the service of King Cobra. A couple of the Walking Dead even started to develop paranormal powers. Only Starr, however, changed in appearance - literally overnight, he became a humanoid reptile.

That's when the Walking Dead was completely absorbed into COIL. While most of the members became regular rank-and-file agents, the leader became a member of the Constrictor Commandos, and Starr became a special operative for the Serpentine Circle. It seemed that several former servants of King Cobra had defected from his service, and most of them were now working for VIPER. So he instructed Rattler to go out and pretend to do the same.

King Cobra had made other mistakes in his time, but this one was the most obvious he'd ever made. Starr had been undisciplined as a youth; without constant ministrations of the COIL-Gene to ensure his loyalty to King Cobra, Starr reverted to his rebellious ways, and soon left both COIL and VIPER.

Of course, neither of those two organizations were pleased with Starr's decision, and both sent out teams to retrieve or kill him. When PSI heard about this mutant mentalist running around, they also sent a team out to recruit him; the commotion attracted Genocide's attention as well, and a death squad was sent out. For four days, he led the teams on a cat-and-mouse chase through New York City. Finally, he sought sanctuary in what was for him a most unlikely location - a small Baptist church in Harlem.

Given all that had happened to him in the past year, it was a tall order, but the encounter he had in that Church on that Sunday morning changed him more than anything else ever had in his life, or ever would. It was the type of life-changing encounter as one might expect to have on a Sunday morning.

It was thanks to the members of that church that Starr was able to escape; he was in Atlanta before any of his pursuers knew he'd left Harlem. In Atlanta, he asked the Federal government for help in his plight, offering his services to the United States Marshall's Office in return for whatever PRIMUS could do. Despite his history in a street gang, he'd never been convicted of any crime, so he got the help and the job.

Starr worked for the Marshal's office for eleven years. At first, he was a part-time field operative, the salary from which was used to pay to get his General Equivalency Diploma (which he earned with flying colors despite poor grades when he was actually in high school) and later his Bachelor's degree in Criminology. With his degree he was able to become a fully deputized Marshal. Before long he was one of the Office's best field operatives; to paraphrase the motto of another law enforcement agency, he always got his man. He won a reputation as the Marshal to call when a superpowered criminal was involved, and practically became the Office's liaison-at-large to PRIMUS. When the Federal government began assembling the group Executive Sanction, they put his name forward, and it was only a paperwork detail that kept him out of that group.

While it wasn't his actual reason behind leaving the Marshal's Office, his nomination and denial did contribute to the decision. While his position was a good one and certainly paid well enough, and the goal of stopping criminals was certainly an appealing one, it just didn't satisfy him. Eventually it dawned on him what was wrong: he wasn't "his own man." In an effort to compensate for the rebellious streak of his younger days, he'd gone to work for the ultimate Authority - which, in the context of his profession, was the Federal government. But this was an overcompensation. Being able to roam the country on his own schedule, playing within the rules but with as few rules as possible to play in, was more his style. So he resigned from the Marshal's Office and became an independent bounty hunter.

This was much more satisfying. As a United States Marshal, he could only go after the criminals that he was assigned to handle, he was subject to review any time he used extreme force, he was highly restricted in his methods of gathering evidence and information, and he was generally under the constant watchful eye of Uncle Sam. Now, as a free agent, he still would have to answer for any crimes he committed, but on the whole he's subject to all the same laws that anyone else is subject to, and no more.

For a time, he worked in a partnership with the Russian exile Svetlana Grinkov, better known as Cyberia. In mid-1995 the pair crossed paths with the Portland superhero team Lightstorm, who extended an offer for the two to join. While Cyberia accepted, Rattler needed to stay independent, but he gave her his blessing to join, and the two remain close friends to this day (each being the brother or sister that the other never had). He set down roots in Portland to make it easy to stay in touch with her, though he continues to roam around the country in search of escaped supercriminals.

Recently, though approached by Cassandra Steele to become a member of the Justifiers, he's again turned down full membership. However, he's put her on retainer as his regular lawyer, and has agreed to do occasional investigation and other work for her when he's not busy with another case. He's also suggested that he might be willing to provide other assistance when he's in town, especially if the case is an emergency.

During his career, he's been very happy to make a public spectacle of himself. He's become something of a media darling, winning the affections of youngsters everywhere despite (or, perhaps, partially because of) his appearance. He's promoted his profession in general and himself in particular on national television more than once, and a couple of times (on Late Night with David Letterman and Fox After Breakfast) has shown himself willing or even eager to perform a little slapstick. He's also shown some rudimentary acting talent in a couple of television cameos (Nowhere Man, Sliders, and Capes of Wrath). These appearances aren't all just fun and games for him, though; after his youth as a gang member and his stint as a supervillain with COIL and VIPER, he feels the impact of public opinion very deeply, and is driven to find acceptance among his fans. That the name of Starr "Rattler" Edwards be recognized as that of one of the "good guys" is very important to him. Similarly, because of how COIL and VIPER treated him (both his brainwashing and the use of those death squads), he wants very much to get vengeance on them. (Yes, he's a Christian; sadly, he's not yet a very mature one.)

He's also demonstrated that, despite the hardness of his early hears, he cares deeply about others. He has a strong sense of justice - one that wasn't there before that fateful Sunday morning, one which moves him to stand for the weak and defend the helpless. He lives by that code, and often won't let a matter drop if he feels that Justice has been grossly miscarried. He even still has a case file from his early days as a bounty hunter where he brought a fugitive in despite the man's assertion of innocence; he believes the man, and wants to find the real murderer in that case.

"The really funny thing about it is that my voice has always sounded this raspy - even before the COIL-gene got into my bloodstream."

Among his other snakelike abilities are tough skin, the ability to leap great distances, and a pair of venomous fangs. His venom is similar but not identical to rattlesnake venom; it acts as a muscle relaxant, but is usually not deadly, though anyone immune to rattlesnake venom is immune to it. He can store up enough venom to make four of his bites poisonous, and it takes about a day to completely replenish it. He doesn't like using this ability, since it always involves drawing blood, and the venom takes a while to take effect, but he does it when he has to.

Starr learned street fighting while a member of the Walking Dead, and formalized his fighting skills by learning Commando Training while a member of COIL. He's not the world's greatest expert on this, but he is considering training in Tae Kwon Do or some other fighting style to round out his abilities. Still, when he must fight directly, this is the method he prefers - unless, of course, he can use his hypnotic power.

While with COIL and VIPER, Rattler did make concessions to their customs by wearing variations on their agent uniforms. Today, however, he doesn't wear anything resembling a regular uniform or costume. On the contrary; he's quite the snappy dresser, leaning toward three-piece suits in variations on white covered by a white duster and caruso when he's on his own time. At the same time, when he's working he wears more appropriate clothing, generally in shades of green or brown (to make laundering easier); he has a brown duster for this case.

His home is a one-story, two-bedroom house in Portland Heights, on Greenway Avenue just south of Patton Road. He makes no effort to decorate it in any particular "style," though he does prefer a mix of contemporary and art deco. The second bedroom is set up as an office (serving as a remote from his main office), though both it and the living room have fold-up beds for any guests (which have yet to visit).

Starr banks at First Hero's Bank, and drives a white Toyota Supra with the custom license plate RATTLR.

Starr has not even reconciled with his parents (Justin and Melody Edwards). He left them with a lot of anger, but his reasons now for not going back stem more from a fear of rejection than from any continued sense of bitterness. He has no brothers or sisters, and any of his aunts and uncles were out of contact with his parents before he was born.

He does have a few good friends, however. Cyberia, his former partner, is foremost; he thinks of her as his best friend, if not the sister he never had. He is also learning to trust Ms. Steele; after all, she is his lawyer - though it could still be possible that she's an agent for Genocide or VIPER. Maybe she's a sleeper agent. (You just never know.)

He also keeps some contact with his old friends in the United States Marshall's Office in Atlanta, and they call on each other for help about equally often. He doesn't really think of them as friends per se, though.

Though he answers to the name of Rattler professionally, he prefers to be addressed as Starr by those who would call him friend or ally. He only likes to be called Mr. Edwards in a legal or similar setting. (Of course, his enemies call him a lot of other things, but to give them here would violate the Communications Decency Act.)

As you can probably tell by now, his favorite color is white. His car, most of his clothing, and much of the decor in his house are in this shade. Even his personal home page on the World Wide Web shows a lot of white.

His taste in entertainment television runs toward action-adventure series; his perennial favorite is Capes of Wrath, though he finds more humor in this show than producer Ron St. John probably intends. He also is a faithful watcher of such programs as America's Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries, which show him potential targets. His favorite movies also tend toward action-adventure stories such as Speed and Day of the Destroyer, though he liked The Forty-Niners as well. Musically, he likes classical stuff played by orchestras; his favorite composers are Bernstein, Liszt, Mahler, Mendellsohn, Mozart, and Williams.

He has several news sources. His favorite method is to alternate between CNN and Worldview News, with one TV at work tuned in to each, though he also faithfully watches the local newscast on KGW (he even videotapes it when he's going to be out of town). He keeps daily subscriptions to the Oregonian, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Hudson City Daily Star-Gazette. His magazine subscriptions include Super Hype, PC Computing, TV Guide, US News and World Report, and World Cuisine.

One controversial element in his makeup is his Mind Control. One of the most controversial things ever in the Hero System has been Mental Paralysis powers, and how they should be represented using the Hero rules -- whether Steve Long's construction in The Ultimate Mentalist (borrowing somewhat from Champions III) is legitimate or disgustingly overpowered. Personally, I allow a modified form of Mental Paralysis (a simple +2 Advantage to Entangle). However, I didn't use that for Rattler because it doesn't fit the concept of how his ability works. Essentially, the target should be able to break out with a normal Breakout Roll, and should have greater chance of success when there is some pressing emotional reason for the target to not stand still.

His Stands Out as a Mentalist Distinctive Feature is handled by giving all mental-based senses (such as Detect Mind or Mind Scan) a +6 to locate him, with this +6 subject to normal Range Modifiers. This is based on a single Mental Power with 62 Active Points and the Reduced By Range Limitation; a different Mentalist with this Disadvantage would take a different Modifier, based on what Power(s) he had.