Death Hunter

Context

This character is an original creation. We often call these “homemades” or “homebrewed” – think home cooking or craft beer.

Many of these characters were created to take part in tabletop role-playing game sessions. Others were invented as a creative writing exercise, often as part of a community event.

As to this specific character, I’ve decided to toss out a few original characters of my own from my supers campaigns over the years. Here’s a man that only wants to die, but can’t.

Background

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Powers and Abilities

Death Hunter cannot die. He regenerates from even the most massive physical trauma. He has even returned after being reduced to a bloody mist.

His strength, stamina, and endurance are all superhuman as well.

History

Ralf Timms was a chemical engineer and bio-chemist with his life spread before him. In one single moment, his life was ruined. A car accident stole from him his only sources of joy, his wife and daughter. Miraculously, he survived but felt guilty that he had.

His life as he knew it was over, and he decided to end his life in a flash of gunpowder. In his bedroom that evening, he took a pistol he purchased from a pawn shop and placed it to his temple.

In that moment, his grief and wish for death attracted the attention of Ooragoth, a demon lord of Hell. Ooragoth wondered what would happen if this mortal that wanted to die so much…couldn’t. Ooragoth granted Timms immortality and vast regenerative powers just before he squeezed the trigger.

Seconds later, Timms looked around confused. Blood was everywhere, but he was unharmed. He then emptied the gun into himself. He then tried other means of killing himself: hanging, pills, knives, walking onto an interstate at night. Nothing worked. What little sanity he had snapped.

Makes me wanna die

He decided that if he couldn’t kill himself, he’d have someone else kill him. He violently confronted a police officer who emptied his pistol into him to no effect. It took six officers, but he was subdued and arrested. While being held, he started a riot in the holding area that resulted in several deaths but not his own.

In the ensuing chaos, he simply walked out of the station unnoticed. He didn’t know that in Hell Ooragoth was taking the souls of those he killed. In return, Ooragoth helped him in minor ways such as unlocking doors and other minor things that Timms never seemed to notice.

Timms next plan was far more destructive. He broke into a construction site and stole several cases of dynamite.

Later at a crowded mall during the Christmas shopping season, he declared his infamous quote, “I am the Death Hunter. I seek only death. If I can’t have it for myself, I’ll give the gift of death to everyone else.” He then blew himself up with over 60 sticks of dynamite. He still lived.

He’s only gone downhill from there.

Description

Tall and lanky, his clothing is often mismatched, tattered, and dirty as is his hair. His eyes are black and looking into them shows a man that has been broken and now seeks the goal of his own destruction.

Personality

On the few occasions he’s lucid, Death Hunter is frighteningly intelligent and creative. His mind almost constantly plots yet another way to kill himself in an even more spectacular manner than before. Upon the inevitable failure of a suicide attempt, he immediately goes into a homicidal mentality for days on end until stopped.

He’s very simple and direct most of the time, but has shown great cunning. He is also fond of using a great deal of explosives to cause chaos and as many casualties as possible.

During his periods of lucidity, he seeks new ways and means of killing.

Should Death Hunter ever learn the source of his unwanted immortality, he would be consumed with a desire to slay Ooragoth in hopes that he could die afterward or in the process.

Using Death Hunter in your campaign

The Psiberspace Universe is a separate continuity, however due to the battle at Bikini Atoll in 1952 between the Defenders of Freedom and Dr. Victor Steiner which resulted in the destruction of Dr. Steiner’s Quantum Cannon, the fabric of reality sometimes develops tears.

Thus, Psiberspace characters can appear in any continuity though they tend to ask a lot of questions like, “How can you be real ? You’re a comic book character !”

In the DCU, Death Hunter would make a good villain for the various Bat-crew or perhaps he could find his way to England and have to be dealt with by John Constantine.

He is a nasty challenge for a group of street-level heroes as is and can challenge more powerful heroes should another villain quietly give him some super-tech weapons and/or armor and then point him in the direction of his heroic opponents.

By Lord Jobe (J.T. Benton).

Source of Character: Original Character (Psiberspace Universe).