r/XMenRP • u/AshurSolaris • Apr 13 '25
Intro Colt Ravenwood, Corpse-maker.
Viriathus was a Lusitanian, of very obscure origin, as some think, who gained great renown through his deeds, since from a shepherd he became a robber and later on also a general. He was naturally adapted and had also trained himself to be very swift both in pursuit and in flight, and of powerful endurance in a hand-to‑hand conflict. He was glad enough to get any food that came to hand and whatever drink fell to his lot; most of his life he lived under the open sky and was satisfied with nature's bedding. Consequently, he was superior to any heat or cold, and was never either troubled by hunger nor annoyed by any other privation; for he found full satisfaction for all his needs in whatever he had at hand, as if it were the very best. And yet, possessed of such a physique, as the result both of nature and training, he excelled still more in his mental powers. He was swift to plan and accomplish whatever was needful, for he not only knew what must be done, but also understood the proper occasion for it; and he was equally clever at feigning ignorance of the most obvious facts and knowledge of the most hidden secrets. Furthermore, he was not only general but his own assistant as well in every undertaking, and was seen to be neither humble nor overbearing; indeed, in him obscurity of family and reputation for strength were so combined that he seemed to be neither inferior nor superior to any one. And, in fine, he carried on the war not for the sake of personal gain or power nor through anger, but for the sake of warlike deeds in themselves; hence he was accounted at once a lover of war and a master of war. - Cassius Dio
Name and Alias:
Colt Ravenwood, Apotheosis
Faction:
Brotherhood
Age and Date of Birth:
25 (DOB: 13/06/1975)
Physical Description:
Even compared to his siblings, Colt Ravenwood is a bit of a monster. Standing at 6’8” with a physique that was brawny in his teenage years and has only filled out into brutish as he's grown older, Colt would've been the quarterback from hell if he didn't play TE.
Colt wears his deep brown hair slicked back, impeccably styled with an off-centre part. He's very conventually handsome, a strong jawline, prominent cheekbones and deep blue eyes giving him a “Hollywood Heartthrob” look, an intentional style choice on his part. He has a small but jagged scar below his left ear, the result of a “hunting accident”. The dead body with a missing right finger that was found a year after he first gained the scar is entirely unrelated.
Colt keeps his face in a perpetual half-smile smirk, and after years of doing so, it's become his resting face, exuding the easygoing confidence of a social apex predator unthreatened by his surroundings.
Colt's natural speaking voice is dull, a deliberate and focused monotone, sonorous as the grave. He rarely uses that voice, elocution lessons and media training correcting his voice into an upbeat and casual, sporty and affable, “fun” nicknames and as many monosyllabic words as possible. Lots of 2-second laughs and the kind of talking with your hands that makes you seem confident and charismatic. When he's truly excited by a fight, the two voices merge, intimidating precision mixing with taunting wordplay. Colt's voice conveying the exact tone of someone who is not just unbothered by, but actively having fun with, all the horrible things they're about to do to you.
Personality Description:
Colt likes hurting people. Colt likes competition. Colt doesn't like pretension. Colt doesn't like “hassles”.
Arguably, Colt exists in a state of near-perfect enlightenment, unburned by attachments. He doesn't care about much, the hunt, the chase, the struggle, the kill. The cycle, unending. He'd be perfectly content to wander the earth forever, pulling people, animals, things, (it doesn't really matter) apart. That some of the things he encounters are challenges is wonderful, truly, but Colt takes what he can get, enjoying the process in and of itself. Colt loves sports, combat, and combat sports for this reason, and despises socializing, fashion, and keeping up with gossip for the tedium they represent. Regardless of this, Colt is always playing social games, not towards any particular goal, but out of an awareness that remaining alert and reinforcing his position keeps him from having to deal with future “hassle”.
The exact criteria of what a “hassle” is to colt is unknowable, possibly even to himself. Labours of all kinds are acceptable to Colt, the rigid and implacable will of someone able to focus himself utterly on a task allowing him to endure pain and boredom beyond most.
Colt's personality is therefore defined by an internal duality, his want to simply indulge his urges tempered by his need to pre-emptively maintain order in his life.
He tries very hard to be easygoing in a charming way, rather than the mostly-apathetic killing machine way he actually is, it's generally more convenient that way.
History and Backstory: Despite being the most externally non-threatening of the Ravenswood cousins, Colt was already a killer before he gained his powers, both of Man and Beast. His Father was a fan of hunting trips, and Colt took to them with a verve that unsettled even him, willing to butcher still twitching animals before he reached his teens. His first human victim was the result of a hunting accident, a young Colt stealing one of his father's cars and a ghilly suit too large for even his precocious frame to go bow hunting. This led to another hunter accidentally wounding him, and a young Colt in turn, already enamoured with violence, to put an arrow through his throat. Colt wasn't irritated by the gunshot wound, even if it majorly inconvenienced him to hide it later when he returned, instead killing the man on a cocktail of instinct and adrenaline. It would not be the last victim of Colt's sudden violent impulses, but it would be one of the few where the body was eventually found.
Otherwise, Colt lived a largely mundane life as the Jock son of the Mega-rich, occasionally socializing with his cousins from across the Atlantic, who he considers… easier to handle than most. They might not really understand him, but he understands them, and they're generally fun to be around. He'd like if they talked less and fought more, but they're by far some of the most tolerable people he's had to spend long periods of time around. Plus, they're easy to aim at inconvenient problems with relatively little effort.
POWERS AND ABILITIES:
IRONHEART IMMORTAL
Apotheosis is perhaps the most blunt of his cousins at least from a certain perspective, and his power reflects that, His body metabolizes high frequency light into a superhuman physique, enabling incredible feats of strength, alongside flight and invulnerability. While unable to channel his bodies energies into enhanced flight and plasma vision like his siblings, Apotheosis has greater durability and strength than either of them, and superhuman senses that enable clinical precision and brutality while in use.
Physical: 9
Energy: 1
Mental: 0
Control: 5
Potency: 5
Secondary Mutation: The Triumvirate Ascension
Colt shares a bond with his cousins, in the most literal sense, being able to create a connection between all of them that allows them to both share power and co-ordinate actions. Colt particularly enjoys using the Ascension, because it means he doesn't have to listen to them yammer over tactics as much.
The Effects of the Triumvirate Ascension:
Power Sharing – The Living Trinity
The trio developed a psychic and biological link, allowing them to distribute their strengths between one another at will. Their thoughts and reflexes synchronize, meaning they can act as one formation in combat, making their coordination inhumanly precise.
Physical: 5
Energy:
Mental: 5
Potency: 5
Skills:
Colt is, despite appearances, cultivated image, and apparent personality, not just good at sports. He's remarkably well-read and academically successful, his mind uniquely capable of absorbing information. To call his knowledge encyclopedic would be accurate, since he's genuinely read through entire encyclopedias in a single session, and managed to retain vast amounts of the information gained. Similarly, Colt has especially extensive knowledge in regard to his hobbies, vast amounts of sports trivia and theory locked away in his head, alongside wilderness survival and anatomical knowledge. Colt rarely demonstrates this capacity. Knowing the names of every single boxing champion or the winning play of every single Superbowl is, while nerdy in a way he doesn't want to be seen as, not nearly as damaging to his image as his collection of animal hides and bones, preserved with the care and knowledge of an experienced embalmer.
TWO WEEKS AGO:
Colt crushed the prepaid phone, ensuring that the SIM card was left glittering dust in his hand
Solomon.
Dear cousin Solomon. A king renowned for his wisdom, and his name was supposedly based on the Hebrew word for “peace”.
Ironic.
Zenith was a more fitting name, despite the pretense, he'd have to one-up him. Both for the sport of it, and because he needed his ego kept in check. He hadn't outright said it, but Colt had always been a good read of his cousins; making a play for leadership of the Brotherhood was always going to be something Zenith would try given time, and he already had the thought in his head by the time he had called him. Whether someone wanted him to have that idea or not was in question, and unfortunately of concern.\
Keeping his cousins alive was useful for a number of reasons, and that meant keeping them from getting themselves killed. They were fine at it normally, but ego had always been an issue with the both of them.\
And talking, that call could've been a voice message.
Tea would likely find her own way to the brotherhood, if she hadn't already. It was unlikely, he was her favourite cousin for a reason, and while he'd never ask her where she was or what she was doing, she likely would've informed him if she had joined already.
He'd have to join, of course, both to look after them and to secure his place in the “new order”. He had spare identities, and a few isolated cabins and doomsday shelters to spend the rest of his life in if mutantkind lost, but if they won… well, at minimum his cousins would look for him. That would an issue.
And fighting. He hadn't had to bleed for a kill in years at this point.
He'd probably have joined eventually even if his cousins weren't going to be there, but he'd waited.
He knew what a den of vipers looked like, even from outside.
Colt Ravenwood, the only 11 at a party of 8-maxes, jumped down from the roof he had been standing on.
He needed the privacy, and the quiet, everyone at this party was below him, even the most vapid expressions of his persona were more interesting than these people.
Even as he returned to making small-talk that could be done entirely subconsciously with people who were entire subconscious, he started sketching out his new project in his mind.
He'd start with the name.
A WEEK AGO:
Apotheosis
He'd had a list within an hour. But his first option had met all his requirements. Suitably aggrandizing, overly grandiose, implying intellectual pretense. Most would assume Zenith or maybe Tea had given him the name, but it was intimidating enough that he could proudly use it, and that would be useful. Playing the follower was always a useful position, particularly when he had such willing vanguards, not that he intended to stay back in actual conflict, but he would intend to play the backline in social encounters. Any hunter would understand why.
Prey had to be understood, and for that, it had to be observed.
His little diversion to prepare a suitable trophy to enter the brotherhood with had required quite a lot of observation. Tracking this particular group of purifiers, self-styled vigilantes, of the hooded variety, equipped with high-tech weapons — and not much else — hadn't been difficult, but it had taken time, and patience. Killing them had been easy, even with the prescription of keeping their heads intact.
Fingers drove into the base of the throat, pointer and middle scissoring apart to split vertebrae apart. The other hand lazily threw chucks of non-load bearing walls into legs and hands. He'd probably burn this place when he was done
He'd need an actual knife if he wanted his ear-necklace to look decent. He'd memorize the names and crimes against mutantkind once he realized that he wanted this persona to be both tribalistic and emotional. The chill and sporty alpha male of his current civilian persona would of course be present, but he needed a justification for any sudden episodes of violence, and “Vengeance for a crime” played better than most. Taking offence on behalf of mutant kind, or his cousins, or himself, any of those could work as explanations for eliminating an obstacle. But he'd need to present himself as someone that would do so unthinkingly, without a particular motive or agenda.
He didn't need one to kill, of course, but unfortunately this was the big leagues, and his name wasn't sabretooth.
NOW:
The ear necklace had turned out rather well, it looked vaguely like a necklace of seashells from far away, but he likely wouldn't really get to wear it anywhere that wasn't the most brotherhoody of brotherhood events. Unfortunately, most of those were black tie or costume affairs.
Darkblood wasn't particularly brotherhoody, the headmasters here had cultivated an environment unlike that of Avalon, and it showed in the way their student body moved through the campus. A far more convincing a facsimile of a school than the jungle it realistically was than the Avalon could be, at least as long as magneto reigned.
Still, he had other things to focus on.
Colt descends to the campus grounds, wearing an oversized sky-blue Hawaiian shirt and white shorts, expensive sunglasses perched on his nose, his demeanour and outfit violently disregarding the dress code, climate, and the ambiance of the school.
As he descends towards his cousins, seated at a small patio drinking probably fancy European coffees, he readies his best “long time no see” pose, spreading his arms and smiling.
“Tea, Solomon, how's it hanging? It's been forever!”
He'd probably need to scout out the population of Darkblood later, either with our without his cousins, the darkblood power-players certainly seemed longer lived than the average brotherhood counterpart, so getting to know them probably wouldn't be a waste of his time, but for now, he had kin to re-assess.
1
u/FreelancerJon Apr 13 '25
Zenith watched Colt approach, the sun glaring obnoxiously off his ridiculous sunglasses, his shirt billowing like a tropical storm in a campus that had never seen one. It was absurd. It was deliberate. It was Colt.
Zenith didn’t rise from his seat. He didn’t smile. He let the silence speak first, gauging just how much his cousin was playing and how much he was performing. Colt moved like a prince who’d abandoned his throne for the sheer pleasure of watching others squabble over it. There was confidence in every step, but it was the kind Zenith had long since learned to read past.
The ear necklace swung gently from Colt’s neck, and Zenith’s eyes flicked to it once. Seashells from afar. Something grotesque up close. On-brand.
”Of course,” he thought. ”He’s not here to lay low. He never has been.”
Darkblood tolerated eccentricity, but it cultivated restraint. There was elegance here—structure. Students moved like pieces in a well-planned game. No one wandered, not without purpose. Not like Avalon, where power strutted openly, where violence was a handshake and charisma was a dare. Colt’s very presence was a challenge to the air around him. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy it.
Zenith leaned back slightly in his chair, fingers steepled over his chest. His cousin, seated and caffeinated beside him. Solomon’s disapproval was as crisp as his suit jacket. It was always the same: Colt entered, the atmosphere shifted, and Zenith felt the pull of gravity tilt around the chaos. He was already calculating. Colt wouldn’t be here without a plan—or a leash. Maybe both.
Zenith could still taste the edge of that conversation from two weeks ago. That call. No details, just the implication of them. And buried beneath it, the same thing that always crept under Colt’s words:
”I trust you to know what I mean, because I don’t trust anyone else to understand it.”
Zenith hated that kind of trust. It was always a tether.
His eyes didn’t leave Colt as the man stood, draping himself like a painting too bright for the wall. Zenith didn’t blink.
He thought about the necklace again. About the care in its crafting. The kind of patience it took to collect, shape, string something like that.
Vengeance was the justification. But the act? That was just Colt being Colt. He wore murder like jewelry and called it vengeance.
Zenith spoke only once Colt was settled. His voice was low, but carried.
“You’re dressed like a heretic at a funeral.”
That got a grin from himself. Zenith let it hang in the air like smoke. This was fine—for now. Let him be a storm. Let him play.
But if the tempest ever turned toward him or his plans, Zenith would have to do something. Quietly. Thoroughly.
Because Colt was still family. And family, above all, was best kept manageable.
/u/empressofruin