Richard B. Riddick
Context
Riddick is actor Vin Diesel’s pet character, who seems strongly inspired by his taste for tabletop RPGs. He’s a super-barbarian in a science-fiction setting, and a real badass.
Diesel played Riddick in 3 movies, and the character also appeared in one anime and two uncharacteristically solid licensed video games.
Background
- Real Name: Possibly “Richard B. Riddick”.
- Marital Status: Single.
- Known Relatives: None.
- Group Affiliation: The Necromongers, formerly none.
- Base Of Operations: The Necropolis, formerly mobile or in prison.
- Height: 6’1” Weight: 210 lbs. Age: 24+
- Eyes: Silver Hair: Shaved bald, normally brown.
Powers and Abilities
Riddick is an accomplished fighter, having been forged in the crucibles of childhood survival on the street and adult survival on the battlefield. Though he is a formidable unarmed combatant and is trained in the use of most weapons, he prefers to work with blades — shivs, knives, whatever he can get.
He also has flight training with spacecraft.
Riddick’s early work as a security guard and his many subsequent escapes from prison have given him quite a bit of expertise on foiling security measures.
At least some of Riddick’s abilities appear to be connected to his heritage as a Furyan. The most prominent of these are his eyes, whose silver corneas allow him to see in the dark. His other senses are very sharp, particularly his sense of smell. His physical strength, endurance, and agility are likewise impressive.
The latter is supplemented by his being able to dislocate joints in order to escape restraints.
In addition to Riddick’s physical prowess, his mind is very sharp as well. His perceptions and situational awareness seem almost superhuman at times and he always seems to have a plan no matter what the circumstances are. Riddick has a powerful personality that people seem to respond to instinctively.
It’s not uncommon for those meeting Riddick for the first time to be a little nervous or awed around him.
Dominant predator
This strength of presence is also evident in his ability to bond with some predatory animals at an instinctive level. He will stare them down as they approach and the end result is that they see him as a friend.
He befriended to aggressive hellhounds on Crematoria in this manner and got the guard dogs at Ursa Luna to turn on their handlers, following Riddick’s order instead.
The nocturnal creatures of the M-344/G system were not susceptible to this technique. Even if they’d had eyes, their tendency to attack without hesitation would have made it difficult for Riddick to engage them in a battle of will.
Necromongers
After killing the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers, Riddick assumed leadership of the Necromonger death cult. This group has a fleet of starships capable of overwhelming entire worlds through sheer numbers.
The Necromongers had such vast resources that they could afford to use their 500-meter-tall (1625-feet-tall) Conquest Icons (a combination troop/vehicle carrier and WMD) as disposable markers on conquered and destroyed worlds, leaving over two dozen Conquest Icons to dot the surface of each world they have “converted.”
Video
One of the trailers for Pitch Black. Though it’s flagged as “violent”, which means this entry can’t have adverts.
History
There are no known birth records, but Riddick is at least 24 years old. That’s how many years he’s done in various penal institutes across human space. Riddick found as an infant in a liquor store’s trash bin with his umbilical cord wrapped around his throat.
He grew up eking out an existence through various criminal activities, which meant that he spent more time in jail than he did on the streets.
When Riddick reached adulthood, he joined a corporate military force. His first job was acting as a sweeper for a ranger company. The sweepers’ primary job was to keep an eye out for spitfires, dangerous jungle lizards whose primary sense was a form of motion detection rather than sight.
Riddick impressed his commanders and was selected for training at the company’s Strikeforce Academy on Sigma 3. He became a colony security guard soon afterward.
The conditions in the colony were appalling. The settlers were little more than slaves and the security guards were more akin to prison guards. Riddick filed a report about some of the worse abuses occurring at the colony.
In exchange for his honesty, he was framed by the company and sent to prison himself. Before his third year was up, Riddick escaped and became a fugitive.
Riddick spent the next few years alternating between mercenary work after he escaped from prison and doing time in a slam when his identity was discovered. Some of the slams he spent time in included the Koravan Penal Facility, the Hubble Bay Penal Facility, and Ribald S Double-Maximum Correctional Institute.
Each time he escaped, the slam he’d broken out of would put another bounty on his head.
Every time Riddick killed one of the bounty hunters or mercs that came after him, another murder would be added to his record. After one escape, Riddick joined a mercenary outfit augmenting a company of E-TAC soldiers fighting in the Wailing Wars.
Of the 500 men in his outfit, Riddick was the only survivor. It is widely suspected that Riddick killed most of his fellow troops himself, but further details are unknown.
One of Riddick’s captures was carried out by a contingent led by military policeman William Johns, who was seriously injured bringing Riddick in. This would not be the last time the two men met. (Pitch Black novelization, website dossiers)
Riddick ended up at the Ursa Luna Maximum Security Orbital Prison. He was there a short time before escaping, taking a transport and killing the pilot. He was pursued by Johns, who was now a United Systems Marshall, which in Johns’s case meant he was a glorified bounty hunter.
Johns wanted to bring in Riddick badly, both because of the injuries he’d suffered in their previous encounter and because he was gaining a lot of money and status by bringing in high-risk felons. Johns managed to capture Riddick and brought him to Butcher Bay, a supposedly inescapable triple-max prison.
Butcher Bay
During his first escape attempt from Butcher Bay, Riddick sought medical assistance from an inmate named Pope Joe. During the procedure, he had a vision of a mysterious female who spoke to him about his destiny. When Riddick awoke, his corneas had turned silver and he could see in the dark.
Though his night vision came at the cost of discomfort in bright light, the ability was very useful to have in the depths of Butcher Bay.
Riddick blamed the doctor for this transformation and almost killed him. But Pope Joe was in fact as confused as Riddick was. Riddick went into denial after that and told people he’d gotten a “shinejob” for 20 menthol kools, though no such operation existed.
Before Riddick could complete his escape, he was intercepted by Johns. Johns didn’t want to stop Riddick from escaping, though. Instead, Johns planned to help Riddick leave in his custody so he could bring to another slam and collect yet another bounty on Riddick.
This plan was interrupted by their capture by Hoxie, the prison’s warden. Both of them ended back in Butcher Bay.
Though they were imprisoned separately, Johns and Riddick ran into each other again as they were making their own escape attempts. Working together, the two managed to steal Hoxie’s private shuttle and fly away from Butcher Bay. (Escape from Butcher Bay)
Riddick soon eluded Johns, doping up Johns with his own morphine and leaving him for dead. Johns gave chase, following Riddick’s trail to several different worlds. Johns caught up to Riddick 3 times, each of which ended with Riddick escaping a wounded Johns.
After 56 days, Johns finally caught Riddick by threatening a pair of children and forcing Riddick to surrender. (Johns’s Pursuit Log, Pitch Black novelization)
Pitch Black
Johns caught a ride aboard the transport vessel Hunter-Gratzner, planning to take Riddick to the Tangiers Penal Colony. The flight back to Tangiers was interrupted when the Hunter-Gratzner was damaged by a meteor shower and forced to land on a planet in the M-344/G system.
There, Riddick was forced to work with the surviving crew and passengers of the transport. They repaired an emergency lifepod while battling the creatures inhabiting the planet. Riddick and Johns grudgingly cooperated for a while, but eventually fought to the death.
During his time on the desert planet, he developed a fascination with the transport’s pilot, Carolyn Fry, after learning that she had planned to jettison the passenger section of the transport in order to escape (the navigator stopped her).
It is likely he saw a bit of himself in her decision. When she was willing to risk her life later on to save the passengers, he actually found himself working alongside her.
Fry died before they could escape the planet, and Riddick later said that he had died there as well. In the end Riddick escaped on the emergency shuttle with only 2 other passengers, the Imam Abu al-Walid and a girl going by the alias “Jack B. Badd” who actually looked at Riddick as a role model. (Pitch Black)
Dark Fury
Shortly after entering the Sol-Track interplanetary shipping lanes, Riddick’s shuttle was intercepted by a mercenary vessel. The mercenaries brought the shuttle into their hangar bay and finally took Riddick prisoner after considerable loss of life.
The mercenaries’ master, Chillingsworth, collected famous criminals. He kept them on display in a special form of cryo-sleep that effectively turned them into living statues. Before she froze Riddick, she wanted to see Riddick in action.
Chillingsworth forced Riddick to fight a pair of creatures known as the Shrill by using the Imam and Jack as bait.
Riddick not only beat the Shrill but found a way to get himself and his friends out of the arena, back to the shuttle, and off of Chillingsworth’s ship. Most of the mercenaries including Chillingsworth were dead by the time Riddick and company flew away.
However it became obvious to Riddick that such encounters were going to be a fact of life from now on. His new friends would be in danger as long as he was around. (Dark Fury)
Soon thereafter the group landed at New Mecca on Helion Prime. Riddick left Jack in the Imam’s care and went into hiding on the sixth planet of the UV system, a frozen waste of a world so remote and desolate that it had no name of its own. He spent the next 5 years living there.
During that time he would have occasional visions like the one he had at Butcher Bay (Escape from Butcher Bay, Chronicles of Riddick).
Furyans
After half a decade of avoiding discovery, Riddick was eventually hunted down by the bounty hunter Toombs and a group of mercs who were following a bounty from Helion Prime. After defeating the mercs and stealing their ship, he traveled there to “persuade” whoever put the bounty on him to rescind it.
He suspected it might be the Imam, as he and Jack were the only ones who knew of Riddick’s whereabouts.
Once Riddick arrived at Helion Prime, he tracked down the Imam. It was not he who had placed the bounty, but his associate Aereon. Aereon was an Elemental, one of a race of calculators and advisors, and was seeking help in fighting the Necromongers.
The Necromongers were a fanatical death cult. They were running rampant among the stars, invading planets with overwhelming force, killing everyone who would not convert and then rendering the conquered planets uninhabitable.
Aereon sought the last of the Furyans, the warrior race that has been wiped out by the Necromongers yet seemingly held the key to stopping them.
The Furyans had a custom of strangling their infants at birth with their own umbilical cords, apparently as a test of the infant’s strength. Hearing this reminded the Imam of something Riddick had said about his childhood, which he conveyed to Aereon. Aereon had then placed the bounty on Riddick to bring him to Helion Prime.
Riddick refused to help Aereon, insisting that she remove the bounty.
Before Riddick left, the Imam tried one last argument, bringing up Riddick’s responsibility to Jack. Though Riddick had left Jack behind to keep her safe from the mercs that would be hunting him, she decided to go after Riddick herself and ended up incarcerated in the slam on the planet Crematoria.
The Imam wanted to know if Riddick would abandon the people of New Mecca just as he had abandoned Jack. Riddick was unswayed in his decision to leave Helion Prime.
Necromongers
As it turned out, the Necromongers came to Helion Prime that same night and conquered the entire planet before the sun rose that morning on New Mecca. The Imam was killed by Irgun, one of the Necromongers’ ground assault leaders, while trying to hide his family from the Necromongers.
Riddick followed the Imam’s killer to a gathering of the New Meccan leaders on the Necromonger flagship, the Necropolis. There, the Lord Marshal, leader of the Nercomongers, convinced the New Meccans to convert by demonstration of his supernatural powers.
All bowed to the Lord Marshal… except for Riddick. Riddick challenged Irgun to combat. Irgun accepted, but only lasted a few seconds before Riddick killed him with his own blade.
The Lord Marshal was impressed with Riddick’s quick victory over Irgun, who had been one of the Necromongers’ finest fighters. He let Riddick keep Irgun’s customized knife, telling him of the Necromonger creed that “You keep what you kill.”
Riddick again refused the Lord Marshal’s offer to join the Necromongers and was ordered away for mind regression. Before a fight could break out, the Necromonger Dame Vaako intervened. She asked to show Riddick what the Necromongers had to offer and Riddick, intrigued by the Dame, accepted.
The “tour” turned out to be a trap. Riddick ended up in a mind regression chamber, where the psychics determined that Riddick had met with Aereon and was a Furyan.
The Lord Marshal had been told a prophesy by the Elementals 30 years before that he would be killed by a Furyan. This had prompted him to lead a war against them, wiping out most of the Furyan race even before he’d risen to the rank of Lord Marshal.
Upon discovering that Riddick was Furyan, he ordered his elite guards to kill Riddick. Riddick killed the first wave of soldiers and escaped before any more could follow.
You don’t know Jack
Escaping the Necropolis, Riddick fled through the ruins of Helion Prime. A Necromonger troop carrier caught up to him but was shot down before it could drop troops on Riddick. His saviors turned out to be Toombs and another group of mercs that had tracked Toombs’s stolen ship back to Helion Prime.
Riddick let Toombs take him prisoner and subtly convinced Toombs to take him to Crematoria, where Jack was imprisoned.
Arriving at Crematoria, Riddick found a very changed Jack. She’d signed up with mercs only to get traded away as a slave. She killed some people subsequent to that and was sent to Crematoria. She was still bitter about being abandoned by Riddick and had changed her name to Kyra in repudiation of her younger, weaker self.
The two came to a reconciliation of sorts during their attempted escape from Crematoria. The escape was interrupted by the Necromongers, who had followed Riddick on the orders of the Lord Marshal. Riddick was left for dead and Kyra was taken by the Necromongers.
Riddick was saved from the lethal sunrise of Crematoria by a Necromonger Purifier who had remained behind. The Purifier told Riddick about the Necromonger conditioning that Kyra would suffer, having undergone it himself.
Though he confessed to having done horrible things in the name of a religion that he did not believe in, he was able to momentarily break his conditioning at this moment to save Riddick… the first fellow Furyan the Purifier had seen since his conversion.
Having given Riddick the information he needed to save Kyra, the Purifier walked into the deadly sunlight before his conditioning could reassert itself.
Return to Necropolis
Riddick went back to Helion Prime and infiltrated the Necropolis, eventually getting close enough to the Lord Marshal to challenge him to battle. The Lord Marshal again extended his offer of conversion to Riddick and brought forth Kyra, who had undergone the conversion process and was now a loyal Necromonger.
Outraged at having lost everything to the Necromongers, Riddick attacked the Lord Marshal. He fought valiantly but simply could not match the inhuman speed of Lord Marshal, who had supernatural powers.
Riddick was beaten down in a few moments and would have been killed if Kyra had not broken her conversion long enough to stab the Lord Marshal in the back, an attack that cost Kyra her life.
Lord Vaako of the Necromongers moved in to kill the Lord Marshal, spurred on by the Dame Vaako, who saw this as an opportunity to seize power. The Lord Marshal used his powers to dodge Vaako’s attack only to run right into Riddick’s waiting blade.
The physically and emotionally exhausted Riddick sat down on the Lord Marshal’s throne and was surprised to see the Necromongers all bowing to him. Lord Vaako whispered, “You keep what you kill”; in killing the Lord Marshal, Riddick had become the new leader of the Necromongers.
The Necromonger fleet soon left Helion Prime without following the Necromonger custom of destroying the conquered world. What occurred after that is a story for another day.
Video
Trailer for the 2004 movie The Chronicles of Riddick.
Description
Riddick is a large, very muscular man with a shaved head. He is usually dressed lightly (black fatigue pants and a black muscle shirt are his favorite garb) and wears welder’s goggles in normal light.
In dark or near-dark conditions Riddick will doff his goggles, revealing his distinctive eyes with their silver corneas.
Personality
Prior to the crash landing in the M-344/G system, Riddick was very anti-social, a trait aggravated by his experiences with the law. He didn’t particularly care for anyone but himself and killed without hesitation if it was necessary for his survival or freedom. He was coldly rational and capable of making bargains with others.
Indeed, Riddick usually never bothered to lie. If he could not deal with someone to mutual advantage, he would simply avoid or kill them. As one psychiatric profile summed up, he has a primitive fight or flight response to dangerous situations.
Even on those occasions when he did feel strongly (such as his hatred of fellow mercenary Johns), Riddick was able to control himself when necessary.
He did have a vengeful streak and would take the opportunity to exact payback if it became available.
Because of his difficulties relating to others, Riddick found peoples’ emotions fascinating. At the same time, he made sure that those around him were frightened of him, simply because it was the easiest way to keep people from bothering him.
It’s quite possible he simply wanted to left alone, but didn’t have any idea how to lead a quiet life. When asked once if he would like to rejoin the human race, Riddick said, “Truthfully, I wouldn’t know how.”
Riddick’s experiences on the desert planet changed him. As he said himself after escaping the desert planet, “Riddick’s dead. He died somewhere on that planet.” Just as Fry had made the decision to dispose of the passengers to save her own life, and then discovered the empathy to risk her life for them, Riddick seemed to do the same.
He still has many of the personality traits described above, but is more willing to risk himself for the sake of others. Riddick actually trusted and fought to protect the Imam and Jack, which was the closest to a friendly relationship that he’d ever gotten.
Riddick has a bit of a soft spot for children. His interactions with young people take on something approaching warmth and he will try to keep them from danger when possible, a courtesy he isn’t as quick to offer to adults. He even developed slightly paternalistic feelings toward Jack/Kyra.
He left her behind when he went into hiding to keep her from being hurt by his pursuers and when he found out she’d gone looking for him, he voluntarily allowed himself to be taken to one of the worst prisons in the galaxy because she was there.
His reaction to their reunion was very much that of an angry father who was disappointed in his child’s choices but nevertheless relieved to know she was alive.
Thereafter, Riddick sought to get Kyra out of the dark place she was in, figuratively as well as literally.
Video
1080 restricted trailer for the third Riddick movie.
Quotes
Paris: “Paris P. Ogilvie. Antiquities dealer, entrepreneur.”
Riddick: “Richard B. Riddick. Escaped convict, murderer.”
“All you people are so scared of me. Most days, I take that as a compliment. But it ain’t me you got to worry about now.”
Johns: “How’s it look?”
Riddick: “Looks clear.”
Johns (after killing a creature that attacked suddenly): “You said it was clear!”
Riddick: “I said it *looked* clear.”
Johns: “Well, how does it look now?”
Riddick: “Looks clear.”
Riddick: “Think someone can spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe ? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe ? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God. And I absolutely hate the fucker.”
Imam: “He is with us nonetheless.”
Riddick: “Two of your boys are already dead. How much faith do you have left, Father ?”
(Confronting a bounty hunter) “You made three mistakes. First, you took the job. Second, you traveled light. A four man crew for me? Fucking insulting. But most of all… (Toombs reaches for the gun rack)…Empty gun rack.”
Guard: “You gonna kill us with your soup cup?”
Riddick: “Teacup, actually.”
Guard: “What?”
Riddick: “I’m going to kill you with my teacup.”
(Riddick drives the teacup into guard’s sternum, killing him on the spot.)
“Maybe you should pretend you’re talking to someone who’s been educated in the penal system. In fact, don’t pretend.”
“You’re not afraid of the dark, are you ?”
DC Universe History
If the campaign is set in the future, Riddick can be included pretty much as is, at whatever phase of his career works best. He could be encountered as a mercenary (à la Grinn from the Giffen/Bierbaum run on the Legion of Super Heroes) or a criminal on the run who comes into conflict with the PCs.
He might be encountered after the events of the first movie, trying to create a more stable life for himself and caught up in whatever conflicts the PCs are facing, possibly as an innocent bystander protecting his new home. The events of the second movie would see the Necromongers replaced by the Dark Circle.
In a modern setting, Riddick would make an excellent street-level villain. Perhaps he came from Santa Prisca, home of Bane, and was also the subject of prison experiments, this time in sensory enhancement. Having escaped alongside Bane, he serves as a shadow enforcer and has ambitions of moving up in the underworld.
He may even become inspired by one of the PCs to try and escape the criminal life.
Alternatively, Riddick could just be a minor-league metahuman, either contracting himself out as an enforcer/assassin or serving as leader of a major street-gang (ala the Mutants’ leader in The Dark Knight Returns).
Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG
Tell me more about the game stats
Riddick
| Dex: 08 | Str: 05 | Bod: 06 | Motivation: Unwanted Power |
| Int: 08 | Wil: 10 | Min: 10 | Occupation: Necromonger Lord Marshal |
| Inf: 07 | Aur: 08 | Spi: 08 | Resources {or Wealth}: 027 |
| Init: 027 | HP: 065 |
Powers:
Analytical Smell: 02, Animal Control: 04, Ultra Vision: 07
Bonuses and Limitations:
- Animal Control requires eye contact (-1FC); note that this means it will only work on animals with eyes that will take the time to meet his gaze, rendering it useless against animals without eyes or ones that will attack without hesitation.
- Animal Control is limited to convincing predatory animals such as guard dogs and hellhounds that Riddick is friendly (-2FC).
- Ultra Vision is Always On (-1FC); this is connected to Riddick’s Attack Vulnerability and Miscellaneous Drawback below.
Skills:
Accuracy (Perception): 10, Acrobatics (Athletics, Dodging)*: 08, Acrobatics (Climbing): 10, Charisma (Persuasion, Intimidation): 08, Detective (Clue Analysis)*: 08, Martial Artist (incld. Techniques)*: 08, Military Science (Danger Recognition, Tracking)*: 08, Thief (All except Forgery)*: 08, Vehicles (Land, Space): 06, Weaponry*: 08, Weaponry (Knives): 09
Advantages:
Credentials (Lord Marshal of the Necromongers, High), Double Jointed, Iron Nerves, Lightning Reflexes, Miscellaneous (Riddick can retain consciousness during cryo-sleep, though he still gets the physical benefits of being in Suspension, 10 points), Sharp Eye, Shtick (Paired Weapons — Knives).
Connections:
Necromongers (High).
Drawbacks:
Attack Vulnerability (-2CS to RV versus Flash), Creepy Appearance (silver corneas), MIA (Protecting children), Miscellaneous (All Physical actions suffer +1CS to OV in normal lighting and +2CS in very bright lighting, such as bright sunlight or a flashlight shining in his eyes).
Equipment:
- Goggles [BODY: 01, Shade: 04. Riddick wears these goggles to neutralize his “eyeshine” — He can’t use Ultra Vision while the goggles are on, but doesn’t suffer his Drawbacks for lighting conditions].
- Shiv [BODY 06, EV 03 (06 w/STR, 07 w/MA). Riddick always seems to have at least one or two of these makeshift knives on his person. Even when he’s disarmed, he has a knack for finding a suitable blade somewhere in short order].
Previous Statistics
Prior to killing the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers, Riddick did not have Credentials or a High Connection to the Necromongers. His Resources would have fluctuated between 01 and 04 prior to that as well, depending on whether or not he was in prison, on the run or with a mercenary group somewhere.
Riddick would also have the Mistrust Drawback. This would not apply now that he is leader of the Necromongers, though outsiders might well still be wary of a former criminal in charge of an interplanetary death cult even if Riddick has ceased the Necromongers’ worst depredations.
The Imam Abu al-Walid and Jack would have been High Connections after the events of Pitch Black, though Riddick would only have contacted them under very unusual circumstances. He had ceased contact with them to protect him from the mercs looking to collect on his bounty, after all.
Riddick only had 30 HPs in his early days, up through Pitch Black; he would have gotten quite a few HPs from the events in Escape from Butcher Bay, Pitch Black, and Dark Fury, bringing him up to his current level.
Reassessing Riddicks’ stats between Pitch Black and Chronicles
Increased Attributes quite a bit. Note that this does not indicate an increase in ability from Pitch Black to Chronicles of Riddick (COR) for the most part but rather more information about Riddick’s capabilities.
Riddick usually succeeded in his actions in the first movie, so his stats were based on the minimums he needed to achieve such successes. The second movie gave a better showing of the extent of his abilities and the limitations thereof. More craven justification to follow…
DEX increased to 8 along with Martial Artist, Thief, and Weaponry (with a Weaponry specialization in Knives). Acrobatics (Climbing) is up to 10 — in Pitch Black he managed to climb up to the ceiling and ambush Johns despite being manacled at the wrists and ankles and being blindfolded. There are other examples of his climbing prowess discussed below.
In part, reviewing of Pitch Black led me to think that I underestimated Riddick’s fighting ability before by not taking Combat Maneuvers into account, specifically Laying Back (which he did for pretty much the entire last fight with Johns, which resulted in his easily beating Johns).
In Dark Fury and The Chronicles of Riddick he was caught in fights in which he’d take on large numbers of opponents, engaging two or three fighters simultaneously and disposing of them quickly even though they were often attacking from several different directions and often armed better than he was.
On Chillingsworth’s ship in Dark Fury, Riddick quickly killed over a dozen mercenaries who had him surrounded and had a lot of firepower. The only thing that stopped him was Imam and Jack being taken hostage.
In the cave on UV Planet 6 he managed to climb the walls of the cave quickly enough to ambush a flying transport that entered the cavern only moments after Riddick had was over fifty feet above the ground.
In a few seconds, he managed to cut the gunners on either side of the ship loose of their harnesses and was standing on top of the swaying ship without losing his balance.
In the fight in Imam’s house on Hellion Prime he fought over half a dozen men armed with guns in a small room; he had the advantage of working in darkness, but at the same time he managed to fight in the midst of them without getting hit.
During the fight he climbed up to the rafters around the ceiling, move behind the remaining enemies, then dropped in and attacked them without giving his position away until he actually struck his targets.
Fighting the Necromongers on Crematoria involved similar circumstances against even greater numbers of people wearing protective body armor and armed with guns and swords.
Riddick waded through a couple of dozen people on his own, often fighting 2 or 3 people at the same time while frequently disarming them and using their own weapons against them and protecting his companions from some of their attackers.
He did block attacks from behind in the course of the mass battle scenes, but I don’t think he needs any special powers for that. I think that would be within the range of ability for anyone with a high perception (INT/WIL & Sharp Eye) and quick reactions (DEX, Martial Artist,&Lightning Reflexes).
Riddick managed to get a few blows in while fighting the Lord Marshall Kryll, but was mostly overmatched in that fight. Kryll was moving at Superspeed, though (I’d estimate 10-11 APs, given how quickly he was circling Riddick as hitting him).
STR 5 remains unchanged, due to his impressive EV and his dragging 300 pounds of unweildy fuel cell cannisters along rough ground in Pitch Black and still moving at a decent clip.
BODY goes up to 6, due to more demonstrations of Riddick’s resilience, including surviving without serious injury when momentarily exposed to sunlight and heat strong enough to kill most people in seconds.
Mental Attributes go up to 8/9/9, with Accuracy (Perception) 10, Detective (Clue Analysis)*: 8, Military Science (Danger Recognition)*: 08 and Sharp Eye. Riddick is very quick thinking, almost always taking the initiative (in the regular sense as well as in game terms) and quickly forming plans of action. He’s also extremely observant, catching details most people miss and making excellent deductions with minimal evidence.
His perceptions often border on the superhuman. In Pitch Black he seemed to react to Fry’s underground encounter with the nocturnal predators even though he was literally a mile away, and locked inside the ship.
In CoR, he was able to determine the precise location of Aereon by her passage through the air even though she was invisible and moving behind him.
When he met Toombs again on Helion Prime, he specifically identified Toombs and knew how many people were with the bounty hunter even though they had just emerged from cover twenty feet behind him.
When he and his group were taking the overland route away from the prison on Crematoria, Riddick was able to anticipate the particular observation turret from which the prison guards would pop up and attack his escaping group, even though he had no way of knowing that the prison guards even knew his group was there.
He did seem particularly canny about battlefield dangers as well (for example, he sensed the danger of the Necromongers’ dead-man weapons during their ground battle with the New Mecca militia fight on Helion Prime even though he’d never seen the Necros in battle before), so he gets MS(DR) as well.
These Mental stats make him a little better than Nightwing and about even with Conan, with a bit better Perception than either of those two, which seems to correlate well with his demonstrated abilities. Though frankly his Perception is often close to the near-omniscience Batman seems to have, particularly in CoR.
He was also resistant to Mind Probes — five psychics Team Attacking him were only able to get ½ RV RAPs over several phases.
Mystical Attributes went up a little bit. Riddick does seem to make a very strong impression on people at first sight. I added Persuasion to his Charisma Skill because he has an impressive knack talking people into things when he wants to.
He talked Toombs into taking him to Crematoria so smoothly that Toombs’s colleagues thought that was actually Toombs’s plan all along.
Riddick also seems to become the de facto leader of any group that doesn’t already have a clear hierarchy. When he steps forward with a plan, everyone seems to turn to him to find out what they’re doing next with little or no discussion.
HPs went up, which is an improvement from the first movie and is noted in Previous Statistics
Changed Motivation from Mercenary to Unwanted Power based on better knowledge of his background and his personality from the new sources examined herein.
More specifically, Riddick seems almost like the Incredible Hulk of old, who just wanted to be left alone but kept getting dragged into things by circumstance or very rarely by feelings of obligation to others.
Added Analytical Smell: 02 — Riddick has an excellent sense of smell. Most of the scents that he picks up aren’t outside the range of normal human olfactory ability but he is sensitive enough to pick up those scents much further away than most people can.
He does seem to be able to confirm people’s identity by scent and seemed to be slightly captivated by Dame Vaako in part because of her scent.
After the recent discussion, I said to hell with and gave Riddick Animal Control with the attendant Limitations necessary to properly model his abilities.
This seemed easier than Animal Training since under the current rules Riddick doesn’t do anything that Animal Training lets a character do and the one thing Riddick does do isn’t really covered in the Animal Training mechanics.
Added Military Science (Tracking) because it seems appropriate to his early military career and his perceptual abilities in general.
Source of Character: Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay(Xbox game), Pitch Black — unrated director’s cut (movie), Dark Fury (anime movie), Chronicles of Riddick (movie).
Helper(s): The official Pitch Black website and the Sci-Fi Channel’s Into Pitch Black website , the novelizations of Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick, Bernard E. Cana, David Johnston, Sean MacDonald, Paul Soth, KalEl el Vigilante