Post by Baron Mordo on Jul 28, 2008 15:58:31 GMT -5
Baron Mordo
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Canon or your own: Canon
Copyright (Marvel/DC/ect): Marvel
Characters civilian name: Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo
Code names/Aliases: Baron Mordo, Karl Krowler
Class: Villain
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Gender: Male
Age: Uncertain due to number of deaths, though at least one hundred years old all told.
Apparent Age: Mid forties
Hair: Black with streaks of grey
Eyes: Green
Height and weight: 6’2” 180lbs
Appearance: In his new body Mordo is a lean man, handsome with a distinguished air about him. His black hair, flecked with grey, is receding slightly though it’s still thick. His beard is perfectly trimmed, a detail which matches well with his appearance. He is always immaculately turned out to an almost anal retentive degree of neatness (the fact that this is done with moments sorcery is a minor point). The easy confidence with which he carries himself gives him an air of importance which is rarely surpassed in a room full of mortals. While the mischievous and partially menacing glint in his green eyes gives him a sense of danger which should be belied by his slight frame, but isn’t.
He usually dresses, while playing the role of Karl Krowler, in a hand tailored Italian suit, with a tie of deep green. His sorcerous powers tend to manifest as green energy and his eyes in particular glow while he uses his powers. When he dresses in his mystical garb usually for performing some ritual or other, he had a deep green tunic edged in gold, a cloak so dark it looks like a window cut into darkness, black trousers and boots of green leather boots inlaid with golden scrollwork.
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Super Powers: A Master of the Mystic arts bettered only by the Sorcerer Supreme Dr Strange himself. He has a vast array of skills of and powers at his disposal. He is often been looked down upon due to his repeated defeat as Strange’s hands, but few people realise quite how powerful one needs to be to even concern the Sorcerer Supreme let alone challenge him. Just as Strange has the Vishanti so Mordo draws additional power from Dormammu, Umar and a whole range of other dark demonic entities.
Perhaps his most basic skill is telekinesis, his hands surround with a green aura which dims and brightens in accordance with the scale of the task he is accomplishing; bringing a beer bottle to hand will produce a soft glow while lifting several hundred tons of rubble will surround him with raging green light. As useful as this sounds however the proportional concentration required for this however makes it useless on any real scale in combat; so while pouring a glass of scotch or dressing himself is near effortless lifting a struggling Meta human is far too hard to be worth it.
Baron Mordo can teleport across any world or dimension he is currently in and can open gateways between dimensions. This usually consists of his trademark green sorceries, though it can be more subtle means such as opening a door in Manhattan and having it open out onto Daytona Beach. Flight too is easily within his grasp, as is astral projection, illusion casting and transmutation. Turning lead into gold may have bemused mortal alchemists for hundreds of years but it is well within the powers of a true sorcerer, he is for example well capable of altering surveillance footage to show someone entirely different robbing the bank or killing the president or altering a pc hard drive to hide fraud or imply it. With a degree of effort he can even augment his strength and stamina to super human levels.
When he is called to battle he can use his mystic might in more direct, blunt, forms; namely energy shields and concussive blasts. His shields are tremendously strong and can usually survive a blow from Thor’s hammer though never more than two or three, while his energy blasts can at their higher levels crumple battleship armour.
As for ritual sorcery, the principle use for it which Mordo has found is to bestow power on individuals or artefacts. He will only do this however as part of a larger scheme, Mordo does not share his hard earned power lightly. He is also fond of summoning Demons of other beings from other planes to do his bidding.
Learned Abilities: Mordo is a skilled martial artist, practiced in a range of martial arts notably Karate, Tai Chi and a number of different Kung-Fu’s. There were part of his training in Tibet and he has proved capable of channelling mystic energy in a similar manner to some Martial Artists ability to channel Chi. The same training, combined with his family training in the Barony has left him a masterful swordsman, he will usually summon a blade clean out of the air.
Karl speaks almost every language in the world fluently; he is also fluent in many of those which have fallen out of use, from ancient Atlantian to the various dialects of the Eight Heavenly Cities. He also has an extensive knowledge of human history, public and secret. Despite a lack of formal training he also has a masterful knowledge of the human psyche.
He is also an expert on fine wine, the arts and military strategy.
Equipment: Usually just a cell a suit and a packet of cigars. He can summon or create near anything else.
Weaknesses (Must Have): The Baron’s principal weakness is his hatred of Stephen Strange. He hates that self important, moralising, teacher’s pet with a fury strong enough to burn worlds. This can lead him to go out of his way to harm the Sorcerer Supreme and even take gross risks with his own safety in order to do so. Although this is to some extent tempered by his calculating personality it has often been the cause of his downfall.
He also has more than his fair share of psychological issues Mordo’s vast knowledge and great power has led him to a colossal degree of Hubris which is yet another of the common reasons for his failure. He works riddles and clues into his plots to prove his own genius and laugh at the ignorance of the rest of the world. Of course the rest of the world is not always as stupid as Karl thinks.
Background: Born the son of Baron Nicolai Mordo and Baroness Sara Mordo nee Krowler, at some point around 1900, no one is exactly sure when, somewhere on the Eastern frontier of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father followed the best martial traditions of the time, a genuinely gifted military leader, an excellent swordsman and a scholar. Unfortunately he was also a peerless snob, a bigot and long story short incredibly callous towards the subjects of his mountainous barony. Throughout his childhood he was taught the traditional skill of an aristocrat, martial skill, horse riding, hunting, diplomacy, governing and world politics.
Perhaps had his father taken part in World War One the outcome for the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have been quite different, perhaps his military brilliance might have turned the tide. But it was not to be weeks before war broke out and Nicolai was preparing to join the army on the Russian Front, the people of his own Barony stormed the castle Mordo and tore the over taxing, uncaring snob of a ruler into bite sized chunks. All the while the fifteen year old Karl hid, managing to kill a handful of the filthy peasants as he escaped with nothing more than a horse, a sword and the half dozen books he managed to rescue from the castle library.
Seething with hatred and more than a little fear the boy took the few day journeys to his maternal grandfather’s castle. Viscount Heinrich Krowler, always a shadowy figure in the east of that large, if not great, empire. The boy had heard rumours of his Grandfather’s sorcery but he was an educated young man. All he Knew was that his Grandfather’s castle had many rooms into which he was not allowed and some of the most interesting ornaments.
Of course in fact the Viscount was a rather exceptional practitioner of the Dark Arts. Had he been some other sorcerer or merely another noble the life of Karl Amadeus Mordo might have been very different. But alas this was not the case through the First World War Mordo was tentatively introduced to the Dark Arts by the Viscount. When Karl realised however that they offered the key to both avenging his father and, far more importantly, ensuring the same never happened to him the highly intelligent youth dived headlong into his studies. Over the next thirteen years or so Mordo gradually unlocked each and every room in that castle absorbing his Grandfather’s teachings like a sponge. Finally the old man had no more to teach the young baron, who had largely ignored the outside world in his studies; the one Russian column who had entered the Viscount’s domain had been torn to ashen bones by unleashed demons. Now though he looked out and saw he no longer had a Barony to rule, the peasants who had killed his father had mostly died in the Great War or subsequent skirmishes.
His revenged robbed of him Mordo was left with only his quest for power and his thoughts. He looked upon the eruption of democracy across Europe with disgust, the ill-educated, crass, ill-bred stinking masses of the Cradle of Civilization given the reigns of the destiny of nations? The concept was disgusting; true he had little patience with the inbred aristocrats but at least they had received an education.
In disgust he left in search of the Ancient One, the only one who Heinrich suspected could teach to a speed which would match the young man’s insatiable nature. He travelled though Turkey, the Middle East and India on his journey to Tibet picking up sorcerous, philosophical and martial wisdom along the way from individual gurus and groups such as the Thuggee.
Finally after an epic journey his own, he scaled the mountains of Tibet until finally arriving at the Citadel of the Ancient One, a colossal complex of buildings. He arrived, as most do, amidst an epic blizzard, though unlike many seekers of the Ancient One’s wisdom he was prepared for all but insurmountable challenges. But by now the constant testing, climatic and from the mythic wildlife even Mordo’s far from inconsiderable resources were approaching exhaustion. He barely had the sorcerous might to keep the warmth in his bones let alone still the storm.
He found in the Citadel the perfect place, libraries that contained books thought to be lost to all knowledge, books from civilisations thought to have left no trace and even books yet to be written. Around a dozen other students of the Ancient One from all across the world, they learnt from one another as well as through meditative and philosophical discussion with the Ancient One himself. Mordo soon found himself favoured; becoming the Ancient One’s disciple little did his know exactly why this was.
There was both potential for great good and great evil in the young Baron; he had great deal of potential, a deep desire to learn and an indefinable need to put the world in order. But he also lusted for power and knowledge, a willingness to go to almost any length to achieve his goals and his desire to put the world in order put no consideration on the wishes of the world to be put in order.
The Ancient One taught Mordo much, however, slowly but surely he began to notice something, a glass ceiling. The highest peaks of his sorcerous knowledge the deathless ancient one kept to himself, or so it seemed. In truth the Ancient One was simply waiting for the Baron’s moral character to develop, but what he did was drive Mordo to look for other sources of knowledge. It was then that he contacted Dormammu, the Ruler of the Dark Dimension, a war torn magic infused universe at the base of all realities, he offered Mordo the power to take the knowledge of the Ancient One and the Power of Sorcerer Supreme for himself. In return He would be Dormammu’s warlord on earth and across this entire dimension, ruling for as long as it took to drag it down into the Dark Dimension. Still however Mordo hesitated. That was until the arrival of a tired and storm battered physician seeking healing for petty material concerns. But the Ancient one saw something more some great potential, some fate or destiny, what it was the Baron did not know but he saw his door closing, his saw the Ancient One turn towards this new possibility. A self obsessed westerner who cared only for his ability to earn petty funds!
This was the last straw, Mordo made the deal with Dormammu; Strange saw him discussing it with the burning image of the dark god and ran to tell the Ancient One. The Physician was bound in the Crimson Bands before he reached the end of the corridor. Mordo flew a dark hurricane of new found power, to confront his teacher. But he was cast down, cast down and away, hurled from the mountain top where they battled by the bright white power of the Ancient One.
When he awoke he lay in tatters on a sandbank the waters of the Ganges lapping at his cheek, exhausted, wounded, but alive. The Ancient One had blown him from the mountain; hundreds of miles south and left him utterly drained with a single word. But he was not dead, three weeks had passed it seemed but Mordo was out in the world once more. He found his way to the Thuggee Cult he had known years before who after a massive demonstration of his power and an offering of an entire village to Kali with the last of his strength they nursed him back to health.
The Baron ventured out into the world once more, a little older and wiser than before he continued to seek out knowledge and power, traversing dimensions and making deals with gods, demons, dragons and more. All for that sliver of power which would finally be enough. As he journeyed though he began to resolve his world view, sorcery shouldn’t be hidden away in the darkness it should wash across the world in all its might. In his eyes it was power earned, not by some inheritance or by winning a trite popularity contest, or by being an alien from some other planet or a lucky scientific accident. No it was power which had to be wrested from the mouth of the universe itself. He developed a vision of a world of sorcerers and serfs, any who succeeded in the study of sorcery, would have proven their wit and intellect enough to rule by the same token they would have the power to rule. The more power one had the more right to power one had, it was a beautiful catch-22, a justified feudalism with the all powerful Baron at its head.
Over the years he tried to realise this vision but time and again Strange and his Defenders have stood in between him and his utopia. Time and again Mordo planed and plotted only to be foiled by the power and cunning of his adversary. Only Dr. Strange had the power to defeat him, but then only Dr. Strange needed to be able to. If this physician would only see the error of his ways and the beauty of Mordo’s plan then he would be more than happy for them to work side by side, Sorcerers Supreme, Masters of the Universe. Together they could make the world a perfect place but the Doctor refuses to see the truth. So the two near immortal magi battle on, perhaps forever...
(If Mach V agrees)
Recently following the War, which Mordo saw as largely beneath him, though he did use the opportunity to gather favours and promises out of a whole range of world leaders in return for some dark ‘miracle’ for their forces. Baron Mordo has decided to take a different tack, time and again Strange’s collection of freaks and curiosities, the Defenders, have proved key to foiling Mordo’s plans. Thus he is seeking to gather his own menagerie and has spied Thunderbolts Mountain as perhaps the perfect seed from which he can build an army.
Thus Karl Krowler was born, a former executive of Roxxon Oil and holder of Masters Degrees in Behavioural Psychology, Marketing and a Doctorate in Business Strategy. Karl is applying to replace Norman Osborn as the Director of the Thunderbolts.
Personality : Mordo is a genius, his mind moves on more levels and approaches problems from more angles than many would think possible. He can outthink near anyone. The near being the important word in that sentence, it has proved his downfall time and again. He has grown to used to being smarter than his opponents, he has grown arrogant and proud. Justifiably so in all honesty he has achieved amazing things in the pursuit of knowledge, but what began as simply a desire for power to fuel a pure and burning hunger for knowledge has become quite the reverse. Even Mordo does not realise quite how much he coverts power, despite the fact that from the moment he made the deal with Dormammu he could not hold the Vishanti appointed role of Sorcerer Supreme he still resents Strange holding the title.
Still he is nothing if not persevering, he tries time and again, why? The answer is simple really... In the end he will win, because he is Baron Karl Amadeus Mordo, last Scion of a line older than any country in Europe save those of the British Isles. He has overcome any and almost all challenges this world and many others could throw at him and in the end he will win.
Other: By the Deathly Dominion of the Dread Dormammu of master of the Dark Dimension kneel before your betters!
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Brief Sample Roleplay
See Namor, Wally West and Venom
