Nomak the Reaper
Context
This monster appears in the second Blade movie starring Wesley Snipes. The film was released in 2002 (and directed by Guillermo del Toro, incidentally).
Background
- Real Name: Jared Nomak.
- Marital Status: Single.
- Known Relatives: Eli Damaskinos (“father”), Nyssa Damaskinos (“sister”).
- Group Affiliation: None.
- Base Of Operations: Mobile.
- Eyes: White Hair: None
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Powers and Abilities
As the first of the new strain of vampires known as reapers, Nomak was essentially an supervampire. His speed, strength, and endurance were far beyond that of most vampires and even slightly superior to Blade’s abilities.
While Nomak was still vulnerable to ultraviolet radiation, he lacked the typical vampiric weaknesses to silver and garlic. He was only momentarily weakened by the EDTA solution that exploded most vampires.
He was capable of passing on his version of the vampire virus just like a normal vampire. The reaper strain would even transform other vampires into reapers.
History
Inspired by the existence of the Daywalker Blade, vampire nation Overlord Eli Damaskinos decided to engage in a genetic engineering project. This great work would create a whole breed of such vampires. He succeeded to some degree, creating a form of vampire dubbed a “reaper”.
The reaper lacked the traditional weaknesses of vampires other than a still-existing vulnerability to ultraviolet light. Furthermore, he was actually much stronger and faster than even the best vampires. The reaper was given the name of Jared Nomak and treated as a sort of son by Damaskinos.
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This relationship ended when Damaskinos realized that Nomak was a much more aggressive and prolific strain of vampire. Reapers would quickly overwhelm the extant vampires if allowed free reign. Unfortunately for Damaskinos, Nomak survived and escaped, vowing revenge.
Fear the reaper
Free at last, Nomak began to build an army of reapers, turning humans and vampires alike. He also started attacking vampire-run blood donation clinics to spread fear of the threat he represented.
After Nomak began his reign of terror, Damaskinos became desperate to bring the escaped subject to heel. As a result, he ordered his daughter Nyssa to contact Blade and arrange a truce. Blade accepted and met with Damaskinos. The vampire warned Blade of the danger Nomak presented but lied about his origins. He said Nomak was the result of a naturally mutated strain of the vampire virus.
Blade began the hunt for Nomak with a team of vampire killers called the Bloodpack. Ironically, the Bloodpack had been training for the last two years specifically to kill Blade. They had been reassigned now that the threat of Nomak took priority.
The reapers hunted the hunters however and confronted them for the first time at a vampire nightclub. The battle ended when the sun came up, but not before the Bloodpack had lost a member and Blade had discovered just how powerful Nomak was.
Undead exterminators
Whistler tracked the reapers back to an entrance to the city sewer system. That afternoon, Blade and the Bloodpack went in with special ultraviolet grenades. They wiped out all of the reapers with the single exception of Nomak. Most of the Bloodpack was also killed in the process.
While the Reapers battled the Bloodpack in the sewers, Nomak sought out and met with Whistler. Sparing Whistler’s life, Nomak explained his true origins to the elder vampire-hunter.
Nomak withdrew as the other reapers fell, leaving Blade and Whistler to be taken captive by Damaskinos’s forces and returned to the overlord’s headquarters. There, Whistler exposed Damaskinos’s duplicity, creating a rift between Nyssa and her father.
Get Damaskinos
Nomak followed Blade to Damaskinos’s lair. He smashed his way through the defenses there. Damaskinos would have escaped, but Nyssa blocked the way, disgusted with her father’s dishonorable actions in the Nomak affair. Confronting Damaskinos, Nomak killed his “father” and fatally wounded Nyssa.
Before Nomak could finish killing Nyssa, he was attacked by Blade. The Daywalker had escaped captivity in the confusion of Nomak’s assault on the headquarters. Nomak and Blade engaged in a brutal melee from which Blade barely emerged as the victor. With the death of Nomak, the threat of the reapers came to an end.
Description
Normally Nomak appeared to be a gaunt, pale Caucasian male in his early 30s. His only distinguishing feature was what appeared to be a scar running vertically from the middle of his lower lip to his adam’s apple.
When his vampiric powers are in use his skin becomes mottled, his eyes become pale, and the “scar” splits his lower jaw into a pair of mandibles. Nomak usually dressed in baggy attire designed to minimize his exposure.
Personality
Nomak’s motivations were simple. He wanted to destroy the vampire nations, particularly the head of the nations who had created and then disowned him. He felt betrayed by his own family and wanted to eradicate them in particular with the rest of the vampires close behind.
Quotes
“I hate vampires !”
DC Universe History
If the cinematic versions of Blade and his vampire foes have been imported, then it’s fairly easy to insert Nomak and the Reapers as well.
Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG
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Jared Nomak
| Dex: 12 | Str: 08 | Bod: 08 | Motivation: Power Lust |
| Int: 06 | Wil: 08 | Min: 08 | Occupation: Occupation Title |
| Inf: 06 | Aur: 05 | Spi: 08 | Resources {or Wealth}: 00 |
| Init: 024 | HP: 050 |
Powers:
Analytical Smell/Tracking Scent: 08, Cling: 05, Invulnerability: 10, Jumping: 03, Poison Touch: 08, Regeneration: 15, Ultra Vision: 07, Vampirism: 08
Bonuses and Limitations:
- Invulnerability only works versus Aging Acceleration attacks (-6FC).
- Poison Touch only affects victims who have lost at least 1 AP of Current BODY due to Vampirism (-2FC).
- Poison Touch does not damage the victim, but rather turns victim into a reaper if it scores at least 1 RAP (x2BC, +2FC).
- Vampirism has No Range and No AV (-2FC).
Advantages:
Conditional Recovery (Can subtract 5 HPs from cost of Desperation Recovery if he drinks blood first, 20 points), Lightning Reflexes, Miscellaneous (Reapers can heal normally even after death, unless the killing blow (i.e., the one that reduced Current Body APs to negative BODY) was inflicted on the heart or head (such attacks must be declared as Critical Blows), 100 points), Miscellaneous (Due to the bone shell around Nomak’s heart, Critical Blows directed at it get one less CS to RV than usual, 25 points), Miscellaneous (Reapers can regenerate lost limbs through normal healing), Scholar (Vampire society), Stabilization.
Drawbacks:
- Distinct Appearance (“Scarred” jaw).
- Miscellaneous (Injection with EDTA is the equivalent of a 6 AP Disintegration attack).
- Miscellaneous (UV radiation is a Disintegration attack ranging from 6 APs (UV lamps/flashlights) to 16 APs (UV bomb/full sunlight) — Flash Powers with UV light make a Disintegration attack with APs equal to 3xAPs of Flash).
- Gradual Loss Vulnerability (All Physical Attributes and Powers, lack of using Vampirism every 24 hours (15 APs of time)).
- Miscellaneous (Once Nomak’s Gradual Loss Vulnerability activates he develops an MIA to Blood; every 24 hours thereafter this Drawback is increased by one rank up to a maximum of Catastrophic (at that point Nomak also suffers Minor Rage).
- SIA (Destruction of the vampire nations).
Reapers
Anyone who suffers at least one RAP (including vampires) from a reaper’s Poison Touch will be infected by the reaper virus. If the infection is successful, the change occurs over the next 20 minutes (8 APs).
The end result is that the subject will get the stats of a typical reaper except for Physical Attributes and Powers that are equal to or greater than a typical reaper’s; in the latter case, add the APs of the relevant stats together using AP math.
Newly changed characters will retain all previous HPs, Powers, Skills and other stats except for whatever exceptions are deemed appropriate by the GM.
Typical reaper
| Dex: 06 | Str: 07 | Bod: 06 | Motivation: Power Lust |
| Int: 01 | Wil: 04 | Min: 04 | Occupation: Varies |
| Inf: 01 | Aur: 01 | Spi: 04 | Resources {or Wealth}: 00 |
| Init: 08 | HP: 005 |
Powers:
Analytical Smell/Tracking Scent: 08, Cling: 05, Invulnerability: 10, Jumping: 02, Poison Touch: 08, Regeneration: 15, Ultra Vision: 07, Vampirism: 08
Bonuses and Limitations:
- Invulnerability only works versus Aging Acceleration attacks (-6FC).
- Poison Touch only affects victims who have lost at least 1 AP of Current BODY due to Vampirism (-2FC).
- Poison Touch does not damage the victim, but rather turns victim into a reaper if it scores at least 1 RAP (x2BC, +2FC).
- Vampirism has No Range and No AV (-2FC).
Advantages:
Lightning Reflexes, Miscellaneous (Reapers can heal normally even after death, unless the killing blow (i.e., the one that reduced Current Body APs to negative BODY) was inflicted on the heart or head (such attacks must be declared as Critical Blows), 100 points), Miscellaneous (Due to the bone shell around a reaper’s heart, Critical Blows directed at it get one less CS to RV than usual, 25 points), Miscellaneous (Reapers can regenerate lost limbs through normal healing), Stabilization.
Drawbacks:
CIA (Obey Nomak), Distinct Appearance (mottled skin, “scarred” jaw), Miscellaneous (Injection with EDTA is the equivalent of a 6 AP Disintegration attack), Miscellaneous (UV radiation is a Disintegration attack ranging from 6 APs (UV lamps/flashlights) to 16 APs (UV bomb/full sunlight) — Flash Powers with UV light make a Disintegration attack with APs equal to 3xAPs of Flash), Gradual Loss Vulnerability (All Physical Attributes and Powers, lack of using Vampirism every 2 hours (11 APs of time)), Miscellaneous (Once a Reaper’s Gradual Loss Vulnerability activates he develops an MIA to Blood; every 2 hours thereafter this Drawback is increased by one rank up to a maximum of Catastrophic (at that point the reaper also suffers Minor Rage).
Design Notes
Nomak and the reapers did not actually demonstrate every vampiric healing advantage. But they have been included nevertheless given that those healing abilities they did demonstrate were vastly superior to a vampire’s.
Source of Character: Blade II (movie) character played by Luke Goss.
Helper(s): Peter S Piispanen.