CoX - Rack Profile

Rack

Origin: Magical
Archetype: Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Necromancy
Secondary Power Set: Dark Miasma
Power Pools: Concealment, Inherent Fitness, Leadership, Leaping, Teleportation
Ancillary/Epic Power Pool: Soul Mastery

Powers similar to:
Cloak (DC)
The Darkness (Top Cow)

Details:
Male
Grey, dead skin
Strong, imposing build
Milky white eyes with black circle around each eye
Holes where Ears should be
Red and Black ventilator around nose, mouth and lower face.
6ft 5in in height

Outfit:
Black Leather Jacket with Red Chaos Symbol on it
Black and Red Leather Shoulder Pads
Black Leather sleeves with Red Straps
Black Leather clawed gloves
Combat Belt - Grey Buckle with Brown Pouches
Loose fitting Black cargo Pants with Red Stripe on side
Black Leather Boots

Background:

“Rack is an infiltration/exfiltration expert. He rarely deviates from his mission objectives and prefers stealth, subterfuge and precise, surgical strikes than outright combat to accomplish mission objectives. While not physically imposing, Rack should be considered highly dangerous and dealt with extreme caution. He has been reported as a ‘confirmed kill’ on numerous occasions by our personnel, only to be engaged in combat minutes later, completely unharmed. Even extensive use of the emergency medical teleportation system cannot easily explain away the apparent ‘undying’ nature of Rack. Perhaps there is some credence to the rumors that Rack is indeed already dead, or not completely alive. Regardless, Rack’s appearance certainly has the outward appearance of an emaciated human corpse, although his imposing physique suggests otherwise. All personnel are advised to use maximum force when confronting Rack and under no circumstances are personnel to engage or apprehend Rack alone. A sighting of Rack is almost always a precursor to an ambush or pre-planned objective related offensive by the ‘undead’ minions Rack commands.” - Excerpt from a classified Longbow Report.

The villain known as Rack was born Hadrian Jonas Quinn on November 11th, 1920. The son of an American diplomat, Hadrian Quinn grew up in Berlin where his father was eventually stationed after World War I.

During World War II, Hadrian Quinn served as a field operative of the O.S.S., and was eventually stationed in the ruins of Berlin towards the end of the War. Covertly deployed behind enemy lines as a German Sniper, Hadrian Quinn was pitted not against the remaining German forces, but the dreaded Soviet Secret Police - the NKVD.

In what would be the opening phases of the Cold War, Hadrian Quinn’s mission was twofold - the assassination of certain NKVD officers, and sabotaging NKVD efforts to acquire German nuclear and rocketry technology for the Soviet Union.

Hadrian Quinn continued this clandestine war against the NKVD for nearly a year after the War in Europe officially ended in 1945. He was eventually recalled back to the United States for debriefing in the spring of 1946.

Hadrian Quinn remained with the newly emergent C.I.A. and spent almost three decades in and out of East Germany, engaged in deadly Cold War cat-and-mouse games against Stasi and KGB agents. What he did behind the Iron Curtain remains classified to this day, as is his reason for leaving the Agency. What is known is that Hadrian Quinn settled in Paragon City, Rhode Island in 1970, and eventually married a relatively younger woman (32), Caroline Grace - a fulltime hero of magical origin and a reserve member of the Freedom Phalanx.

Although initially skeptical of the magical arts, Hadrian Quinn grew to share his wife’s interest in this area, and began collecting rare and obscure books and artifacts of arcane origin. Hadrian Quinn used these books and artifacts to help augment and increase his wife’s magical abilities. The mystical knowledge that Hadrian Quinn acquired had two unexpected side-effects. The first was that he stopped aging, and coupled with his naturally remarkable good health, made Hadrian Quinn appear no older than his wife.

The second and more sinister side-effect was that the use of magic was slowly killing Hadrian Quinn, like an insidious cancer slowly eating away at him. This ‘disease’ was deliberate, but intended to mutilate and debilitate his wife Caroline, not Hadrian...

Hadrian Quinn, the man who would later become the villain known as Rack, was killed by a Banished Pantheon artifact that was supposed to kill his wife, Caroline Grace, a magic wielding superhero. Caroline grew more and more bitter and desperate trying to find legitimate ways to bring Hadrian back to life. When she was finally denied the necessary information and artifacts by MAGI, she turned to unconventional and dangerous methods.

Delving in the death magicks of the Circle of Thorns, Caroline believed she had found a way to resurrect her husband by sacrificing the souls of some very powerful Death Mages to a unnamed Higher Lord of Chaos.

Only one Death Mage survived to tell the tale of what happened, and his evidence is circumspect at best given that he was driven insane by what he witnessed and died shortly afterwards gibbering inanely that Rack had come.

According to the Death Mage, Caroline had her husband’s mystically preserved body placed upon an altar somewhere in the sewers beneath Perez Park. Seven Death Mages were bound by magic and frozen in place around the altar while Caroline ritually sliced the wrists of each Mage with a ceremonial jade dagger and began reciting ancient summoning rites not uttered on this plane of existence for millenia.

As darkness and shadow descended around the altar, Caroline sliced her own wrists and let her blood co-mingle with that of the seven Death Mages.

Hadrian began to twist and writhe as blood and shadow began mystically entering his body. Caroline completed the ritual by placing the jade dagger in the mouth of her husband.

The blood stopped flowing and the wounds on the Death Mages healed. Caroline had not expected this, and already weakened she was in no state to resist the Death Mages as they broke their magical restraints and captured her.

One of the Death Mages took up the jade dagger and whispered something in Hadrian’s ear. The dead man got up, apparently alive and restored to full health. Caroline wept at her husband’s return but her joy was short lived.

Taking the jade dagger that was offered to him, Hadrian turned to his wife and without hesitation or emotion effortlessly plunged the dagger into the heart of his beloved wife, killing her instantly.

According to the surviving Death Mage, Hadrian then turned to the Death Mage who had handed him the dagger and said “You laid this body upon the rack, but you have yet to pay six souls back.”

Hadrian Quinn’s living visage crumbled away as skin withered and decayed, and flesh twisted and rotted. In it’s place soon stood an undead soulless thing animating a lifeless shell of a man. And carved in flesh upon it’s leathery chest was the symbol of Chaos.

And bloodshed ensured.

Operatives from MAGI soon after discovered the scene. Six of the Death Mages had been ritually mutilated, tortured and killed. The seventh was hiding in a corner behind the altar, staring up at the undead thing lying peacefully upon it as if nothing had happened.

Rack was taken into custody and sent to the Ziggursky Prison for killing his wife. The verdict was damning. Undead and insane. To be kept in solitary confinement and under constant surveillance until MAGI found a way to either reverse the summoning ritual or destroy the undead creature.

Comments:
Rack effectively has no soul. He is an undead thing reanimiated by the wild magic of Chaos. Whether or not he serves a Higher Lord of Chaos or is an avatar of one remains unanswered. Rack retains the memories, knowledge and experience of Hadrian Quinn but is unfettered by emotion, conscience and morality. There is no right or wrong - just action or inaction. And being a former sniper in WWII and a CIA agent during the Cold War makes for a character who is just as ruthless and calculating as he can be inscrutable and hidden.

Rack has the souls of six of the most powerful Death Mages from the Circle of Thorns bound to him, possibly for eternity. It is unknown exactly what happened to the soul of his wife, Caroline Grace.

Rack uses these souls to 'raise' undead from the realm of Chaos. The tormented Dark Mage souls cloak themselves in the dark and twisted forms of Chaos, usually adopting the appearance of hungering zombies, murderous knights, or a vengeful lich.

Rack can also 'order' the souls of the Death Mages to enter the bodies of the deceased and reanimate the dead to create confusion, terror and chaos. It can be an effective, if somewhat gruesome, tactic to employ.

Rack personally uses the shadow of Chaos to provide armor, to cloak himself and remain undetected, to restore his visage to his previous living self, and when necessary to impersonate the visage and clothing of opponents he has studied.


Albtraum, Comrade Hero, Galatea, Graviton Girl, Iron Chancellor, Last Avatar, Rack, War Bride created by James Hansard Copyright ©2004-2011.

City of Heroes™, City of Villains™, and City of Heroes: Going Rogue™ are Copyright ©2004-2011 Cryptic Studios, Paragon Studios, & NCSoft. All rights reserved.