Grifter |
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Portrayed by TBA |
Statistics |
Full Name |
Cole Cash |
Age |
50 (late 20s) |
Height |
6' 3" |
Build |
Tall and Fit |
Eyes |
Blue |
Hair |
Blond |
Skin |
Caucasian |
Factions |
Team 7 |
Quoted!
Grifter is a little known wandering hero and adventurer that has rarely been seen in the US
Reputation
Grifter is a mercenary/adventurer of some reputation. He is cheap to hire but often picky about what he does
Biography
Cole's father died when he was very young, and his mother remarried, but also died when he was a young teen, leaving Cole and his brother to be raised by their stepfather. A man Cole hated.
So he ran away and joined a gang. He became a petty thief and then a swindler. He spent some time in the juve and he seemed to be doomed to a life of crime. He was saved by a sympathetic judge that gave him a choice: go to jail or join the army. He enlisted.
The life in the army agreed with him. Despite some discipline problems, Cole was a remarkable soldier. Cool under fire, quick-witted, and such an incredible marksman he was quickly nicknamed 'Deadeye'. His skills drew the attention of John Lynch of Stormwatch, and he was promoted and recruited into Team 7.
For a few years Cole was part of one of the most elite black ops teams in the world. He was pretty happy, until the team disintegrated due to treachery and infighting. Cole learned he had been experimented upon and he was able to heal somewhat faster than normal. He was furious, but nevertheless kept working for the government for a while. They used him as an assassin, though, which he hated. So he quit.
Certain elements in Stormwatch didn't take well his resignation. Cole knew too much and so they sent people to eliminate him. They failed, and he fled to Mexico.
He lived on the run for a while, and started hearing voices in his head he could only suppress taking drugs. He was half-mad and a heroin addict when he met an immortal coda warrior fighting against overwhelming odds. He jumped into a fight to help her, and maybe saved her life. She took him under her wing out of gratitude and he fell in love hopelessly.
For many years afterwards they were inseparable. A deadly duo of dark heroes that brought doom and destruction upon the enemies of humankind all over the world. She taught Cole how to control his psychic powers, and after he had proven his courage and devotion countless times, she taught him the secret, alien martial arts of the Coda Sisterhood. The first male honored with such knowledge in centuries.
But eventually she left him, feeling he had learned all she had to teach and following an old flame of hers. Cole took it pretty badly, falling into depression for a while. But Stormwatch's assassins were still after him, so he had little time to feel miserable. For the next years he avoided them, or killed them when there was no option. He lived as a mercenary in Asia and Africa, occasionally as a swindler, recalling the street skills he learned in his early teens.
The persecution ended when Stormwatch disbanded and the DEO was formed. Old friends told him it was safe to return to America, no one really wanted him dead anymore, what vital secrets he knew had become old, stale news. He was distrustful at first, but after testing the waters and not seeing assassins after him anymore, he returned and settled in Gotham.
Character Details
Cole presents himself to outsiders under two guises: the friendly fool or the cynical merc. Neither of them is his true self. He is much older than he looks and he has been through much, so his real self is well concealed and hidden behind masks and emotional barriers. He is an excellent liar.
Deep down there is honor, a thirst for justice and the desire to make the world a better place. But making him admit he has some ideals usually requires to get him very drunk.
Nevertheless, his acts speak louder than his words.
Peak Human |
Cole is in superb physical shape. His speed, reflexes and agility in particular rival with those of Olympic athletes. He was intensively trained during his time as a Black Ops agent, and perhaps because of the healing factor he acquired, he never quite lost this extraordinary conditioning despite some periods of depression, inactivity, some serious injuries, excessive drinking and getting badly beaten up with distressing frequency.
That said Cole still exercises regularly to keep his fighting skills, but his excellent physical condition seems to need no exercising. |
Martial Arts |
As part of Team 7 Cole received instruction in hand-to-hand combat, becoming quite accomplished at Judo, Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga and knife fighting. He was a good fighter, but hardly the best in that deadly group.
But a few years later he learned martial arts from an immortal Coda sister. He is certainly a master class practitioner of Judo, Aikido and Ninjutsu. Moreover he is also an expert in the Coda fighting techniques. This is an alien set of martial arts developed by the Kherans and adapted to human use by the Coda Sisterhood in the last few millennia. It is a hard-hitting, very mobile and acrobatic fighting style best used with sword, spears or fighting staves. But even without weapons (which Cole rarely carries) it is very effective if the fighter is in top physical shape.
Cole is sworn not to teach these Coda martial arts to anyone. |
Gun-fu |
It was Cole's marksman skills what got him his position in Team 7 as 'Deadeye'. He is one of the best marksmen in the world. Deadly at all ranges and with all firearms. In particular his skills with handguns are unrivaled, and he has learned to combine them with unarmed martial arts to become one of the best Gun-Fu fighters on Earth.
With a handgun Grifter can kill, or cripple, or disarm almost any opponent in tens of seconds. He has exceptional spatial awareness and a knack to predict how enemies move in close quarters. Cole can draw as quickly as the legendary gunfighters of past centuries, too fast for they eye to follow. He can do almost impossible trick shots, and even hit opponents with ricocheting bullets. |
Gunsmith |
Most of the time Cole customizes his firearms. Sometimes even his ammo. He is an excellent gunsmith and with the right tools he can modify or even build from scratch any kind of handgun or rifle. |
Acting |
Grifter is a very good con-man and swindler, skills learned in his childhood and developed extensively during his adventures. He is an excellent liar and a master at feigning incompetence and drunkenness. He can talk for hours making everyone believe he is their best friend and that he is revealing interesting information and important secrets, while telling nothing useful or sprouting incredible bullshit that nevertheless sounds as good as the Gospels.
He likes to be underestimated, and even people that ought to know better has fallen for his tricks again and again. |
Streetwise |
Cole has been living on the streets or the road since his early teens. He learned early on to handle himself in the harshest urban environments. He knows how the police, gangs and criminal organizations work pretty well. |
Languages |
Decades of travelling around the world have forced Grifter to learn a few extra languages. He is pretty much bilingual in Russian, Japanese and Spanish, and he can carry a conversation at good pace in Arabic, French, German, Swahili and Cantonese, although he has a noticeable accent. |
Healing Factor |
Grifter has an unstable, sometimes powerful healing factor. Usually he heals around 4 or 5 times faster than a normal human. He recovers from beatings in a day or so. Broken bones is a week or two. Bullet wounds a few days. He heals from injuries normal humans wouldn't, and his aging has been greatly slowed, if not fully stopped.
It is not a sure thing, though. Sometimes the healing factor slows down greatly. In an occasion he was wheelchair bound for six months due to badly broken legs. On the other hands sometimes it seems to kick up to overdrive. It saved his life once by healing a broken neck in a minute.
Given how it is, Cole has learned not to take it for granted. |
Psionics |
Cole could have been a fairly powerful telepath if only the 'treatments' had gone a little better, or if his brain would have reacted better. Unfortunately, it didn't. His psychic powers are pretty much uncontrollable and could have driven. Coda meditation techniques keep his telepathy caged inside his mind in the form of a powerful psychic shield, which lets no one in, and allows no contact with other minds, and incidentally has protected him from possession in a few occasions.
After so many years suppressing them his powers seem to have weakened considerably, but if he lowers his shields (which takes at least a minute of concentration) Cole will be hearing all sentient minds for miles around him, so gets a head full of stray thoughts, irrelevant information he can't filter, and within minutes a severe headache. |
Soldier & Assassin |
Cole enlisted the US Army at 18, and a couple years later he was assigned to the elite Stormwatch black ops group Team 7. His violent lifestyle has kept most of the skills he learned up to date. Cole is familiar with military protocols and equipment. He can recognize, maintain and use all kinds of firearms, from handguns to heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. He can drive all military land vehicles but the most exotic. He can also fly transport planes with some ability, although not combat planes. Cole is also a good tactician (and a master at improvising) and has some decent leadership skills.
Moreover Cole is an expert on infiltration, interrogation, tracking, stealth, survival and surveillance. He was an assassin for the Stormwatch and although he hated the job, he was very, very good at it. |
Contacts |
Cole has made many friends in his decades on the road. He is actually a pretty congenial guy, a good drinking buddy and pretty funny at parties. He has also made many favors for free to people he feel deserve help, and he keeps in touch with odd folks all over the world. So he is rarely out of work, or lacking a place to hide, and can often get his hands into expensive gear cheaply. Very handy since he is often short of cash. |
Arsenal |
Although Cole has rarely managed to save any good amount of money, he has managed to accumulate an impressive amount of weapons and gadgets, some of which are quite valuable. From ancient weapons (some of which should be in museums) to half a dozen Kheran blades (not quite adamantium, but quite able to cut steel) including one of the famous 'clef blades'. To powerful custom firearms, some of which has built himself.
Usually, when he expects trouble, he is armed with a pair of heavy handguns, several throwing blades and a couple combat knives of Kheran steel. He wears one or two bandoliers of ammo around his chest, over an armored vest. Under most circumstances, he also wears a bulletproof coat.
His bandit-like red mask includes polarized and night-vision (the white lenses completely hide his eyes). The mask will also filter any noxious or poisonous element in the air.
If he expects to fight super-powered opponents, he might go into the battle with his VAD PP30 energy handguns. Those are semi-automatic particle pulse weapons. The charge can be regulated from just enough to stun a human, to an armor-piercing blast that can punch through half an inch of good steel. He only has two of them and they are very expensive (and completely illegal in any civilized country) so he saves them for really though missions. |
Reputation |
Grifter has a reputation as a mercenary, but it is not a very good one. For most, he can fight well, but he is a bumbling fool who drinks too much and talks too much. His long string of successes is surprising given his attitude, but often explained as sheer luck or third party intervention.
Which is exactly what he wants to be known.
Those who know what Grifter is really capable of doing are either good friends or dire enemies, and they do not talk about it with strangers. Cole is not in the mercenary business to get rich or famous. He picks his merc contracts following his moral compass, not size of the purse. |
Enemies |
Grifter has more than a few. He has fought in skirmishes all over the world, usually against crime-lords, supervillains and the odd alien warlord. The Coda Sisterhood does not like a bit he knows their secret martial arts. |
Dark Past |
Former member of Team 7 and former Stormwatch assassin, Cole has a few skeletons in his closet, and more than a few regrets. Some old Stormwatch people now high in the D.E.O. hierarchy still believe he is a traitor. |
Flawed Powers |
It is pretty strange almost all the Team 7 members got super-powers. Cole now suspects they were hand-picked because someone had identified them as possessing meta-gens or some kind of latent powers, and experimented on them how to activate them.
Whatever they did, it didn't work well on Cole. His regeneration is unreliable, his psychic power uncontrollable. He would be in an asylum if he had not gotten the Coda training, and he has no idea how those powers might evolve in the next years. He is living on borrowed time. |
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Relationships
RP Logs & Journals
June 19, 2019: Underground Underworld
Grifter gets unexpectedly recruited to clean up a vampire nest.
(permalink: log:8498 | tags: grifter magdalena nyc | posted: 21 Jun 2019 00:58)
March 26, 2019: Cold in the Iceberg
Lena goes to low places looking for Red Hood. Cole gives her some information and she decides to seek a person she shouldn't talk to. Typical.
(permalink: log:8422 | tags: captain_cold_l gotham grifter | posted: 28 Mar 2019 03:40)
February 06, 2019: By Yacht, to the Castle
A bunch of mercenaries and killers get invited to a party, and to a murder.
(permalink: log:8396 | tags: enchantress_m grifter metropolis sugar taskmaster | posted: 25 Feb 2019 22:07)
January 26, 2019: Hunting for Spider-Man
The Enforcers are after Spider-Man. Some heroes help keep that from happening.
(permalink: log:8373 | tags: grifter jigsaw neon spider-man white_queen | posted: 28 Jan 2019 01:13)
January 25, 2019: Speaking Without Talking
Grifter tracks down Lena while she's out and about with Neon. Dinner is ruined.
(permalink: log:8368 | tags: captain_cold_l grifter neon nyc | posted: 25 Jan 2019 01:52)
January 19, 2019: Possession is Two Thirds of... Something
A pair of enterprising Daemonites set a trap for Grifter. Unfortunately (for them) they also catch the Enchantress.
(permalink: log:8357 | tags: enchantress_m gotham grifter | posted: 20 Jan 2019 03:26)
January 04, 2019: Ice and Bullets
Captain Cold, Grifter and the goddess Amaterasu all want something Black Mask keeps in his vault. Trouble follows. (Scene backdated to just before Christmas 2018)
(permalink: log:8324 | tags: amaterasu captain_cold_l gotham grifter | posted: 05 Jan 2019 03:39)
November 30, 2018: A Cold Evening at the Swamp
Grifter is just trying to capture a criminal and get some cash. But of course in Gotham nothing is simple. Because Huntress just wants to beat up some bad people.
(permalink: log:8264 | tags: gotham grifter huntress | posted: 01 Dec 2018 12:31)
September 29, 2018: Staten Island Showdown
In A World…
Where Demons. Are. Real.
Miscreants. Misguided Assholes. Mercenaries. On Again, Off Again Hydra Agents. AND MORE.
Band Together.
To Kick. Some. ASS.
That's right. I wanted to give a chance for us Bad People, Anti-Heroes, Straight Up VCs… anybody that would be in and around Staten Island / Sister Margaret's School of Wayward Children the opportunity to let loose upon these evil creatures of demonic Infernodom! We're talkin' no pulled punches. We're talkin' violence. We're talkin' strong language. We're talkin' R rating.
Let's show these "heroes" how we do @(&* on the island.
(permalink: log:8056 | tags: deadpool deathstroke domino grifter inferno juggernaut professor_zoom scandal_savage sis | posted: 30 Sep 2018 12:17)
July 31, 2018: Interrupting the Hunt
The Killers attacking the people of Gotham are caught in the act and are far more than anyone expected, and far less happy about being interrupted, too.
(permalink: log:7775 | tags: arrow_and_claw batgirl batman grifter nightwing scandal_savage | posted: 04 Aug 2018 23:54)
July 12, 2018: A Good Bet
Underground Irish Bar/Fight Club. A good place to meet people, right?
(permalink: log:7669 | tags: ballistic grifter | posted: 13 Jul 2018 17:18)
July 02, 2018: The Boy Who Chose the Chase
A poor kid, late teens to early twenties, was hunted down and killed in the streets of the East End by a myserious new killer. Heroes and vigilantes appear to investigate.
(permalink: log:7618 | tags: arrow_and_claw batman catwoman grifter gwen_bell nightwing rapture scandal_savage | posted: 04 Jul 2018 19:03)
May 05, 2018: Hive of Scum and Villainy
A trash bar. Heroes/villains spoiling for a fight, one Amazonian killjoy, and some haters with guns.
(permalink: log:7347 | tags: boomerang grifter scandal_savage valkyrie wonder_woman | posted: 05 May 2018 14:40)
March 24, 2018: Find the Red Cat
A job interview in the Hellhouse leads to a work in Brazil for Domino and Grifter.
(permalink: log:7156 | tags: domino grifter | posted: 25 Mar 2018 16:59)
January 24, 2018: Resurgence: Chinatown War, Part 1
A night of rooftop scouting for Batman and Spoiler detours into stopping a public street war of retaliation from the Penguin. Cassandra is found. Grifter is a good Samaritan
(permalink: log:6832 | tags: batman grifter orphan resurgence spoiler | posted: 25 Jan 2018 13:00)
November 24, 2017: Black Friday Gotham
It is Black Friday and Harley, Steph and Cole were foolish enough to go shopping. The Royal Flush Gang was also… just foolish enough.
(permalink: log:6552 | tags: gotham grifter harley spoiler | posted: 26 Nov 2017 23:09)
November 11, 2017: Secret Smile(x)
Sugar and Grifter meet. Nothing nice about what "spice" it is over.
(permalink: log:6528 | tags: gotham grifter sugar | posted: 21 Nov 2017 08:16)
October 11, 2017: A Job in Gotham
Grifter accepted a bodyguard job in Gotham. Ravager accepted a bounty-hunting job in Gotham. As usual when in Gotham, everything goes pear-shaped. Those are two mercenaries that will go home poorer and more bruised they left in the morning.
(permalink: log:6324 | tags: gotham grifter ravager | posted: 12 Oct 2017 10:33)
September 10, 2017: Pants on Fire
The Hawkeyes scope out some gangsters and end up with company in the hero department
(permalink: log:6239 | tags: agent_nakano grifter hawkeye hawkeye_ii | posted: 12 Sep 2017 20:15)
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