Lord Magtok
Unless you've joined our community fairly recently, Lord Magtok is a man who needs no lengthy introduction. You know him, you love him, you hate him. His greatest deeds and most pathetic achievements are written into the very fabric of the Nexus, his name is known worldwide. He has the kind of distinct face only a marketing exec could love. Still, for those of you who are new, or for anyone who needs a refresher on their MagLore, this post should hopefully suffice in communicating exactly who, what, and why Magtok is the cyborg that he is.
The Basics
Aliases: Maggy, Maggums, Maggot, Mags, Margaret, Mag, Tom Godlark (an anagram of Lord Magtok, not his 'real' name)
Gender: Male - Cisgender, He/His
Ancestry: Human
Birthday: November 28th (Each clone has their own Decant Day quietly celebrating their release from the cloning vats, but they've agreed upon 11/28 as their collective 'official' birth date)
Age: N/A
Profession: MagCorp CEO, Retail Manager, Retired Supervillain, Alleged Savior of the Universe
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Height: 5'10", or 178 cm
Description
The tin man is a pale, spindly creature, whose narrow frame and average height is veiled almost entirely by the voluminous purple robes that cover him from neck to ankle. All that he allows the world to see is his head and his arms, which share the same unifying theme, a fusion of metal and flesh. The left side of his head, his left arm, his left leg, and the overwhelming majority of the left side of his body left unseen all share the same shiny metal exterior. Flesh, organs, ribs, spine, even a chunk of his own brain has been digitized and given over to the machine. Every MagClone begins life this way. The same blood, the same flesh, the same chrome and wires and facial scar over their brown right eye.
His face is gaunt, skin pulled tight over his prominent cheekbones, and the corner of his lips are most often curled upwards into smug smirk, or hanging low in a bitter scowl. Usually the latter, as there's a lot more in this world to needle at his pride than there is for him to boast and brag about. The machinery is always clean and well-polished, kept immaculate regardless of the conditions around him. Looking your best and most menacing is important as a villain, and while Mag might be out of the business now, some habits are harder to break than others. This face is his
brand, after all. His trademark. You can't be a Magtok without it.
Personality
There's a lot of words you could throw around to describe Magtok. Egotistical, absent-minded, charming, cynical, overdramatic, evil, passionate, lazy, insecure. He spent most of his formative years as a supervillain, so there's a constant need to be
seen, to enthrall and delight and terrify the people around him. He does his best to keep those instincts under control, because keeping the peace is more important to him these days than trying to take over the world, but it still colors a lot of his thoughts and behavior. Monologues flow from him like rivers, superweapons and bizarre science experiments are constructed 'because why not?' and the morality of his choices is usually an afterthought, at best. Magtok will move mountains for a close friend, but will drop that same mountain on his enemies and everyone within a three-block radius of his enemies, if he thinks he can get away with it. Cross him at your peril.
History
Magtok was
the supervillain, once. The dramatic evil genius, the megalomaniac inventor, the monologue-spouting maniac who took to the spotlight like a fish to water. That supervillain still lies dormant inside him to this day, but it's been eroded over the years by cynicism and trauma. How can you take pride in taking over the world in the name of the premiere villain organization if it's just going to get handed back to the masses by the team's leader, your own rapist? Who can, in good conscience, kidnap the hero's girlfriend and sing a musical number about how evil they are, knowing some cultists are using your shenanigans to distract the good guys, keeping everyone from noticing their black ritual to birth the biblical plagues and a pink-eyed child who will usher in the end of days? Who can screw around robbing banks and distressing damsels when a talking cat is making contracts with gods and scheming to remove the higher cortical functions of an entire mob of innocent people?
Retiring from villainy didn't make the guilt pass. Working with heroes to stop those greater threats didn't make him any friends. All that saving the world ever offered him was more hate, more pain, more frustration and contempt for the world around him. So Magtok retired from
that, too. Sure, he'd continue keep an eye out for threats to the fabric of the cosmos, but he wouldn't spend every day
obsessing over it anymore. He'd settle down, have kids, watch them grow up and move out, and then start over again with a new wife and kids. He'd run his businesses, count his money, and wax nostalgic about the good old days. He'd try to be
happy, in spite of the world's best efforts to stop him.
Further Information
Equipment
Spine Implant - Each MagClone's spine has undergone significant improvements to put it ahead of baseline human vertebrae. The most prominent of these upgrades is the hover implant, which allows them to counter the effects of gravity and fly at low altitudes. Magtok doesn't like walking everywhere, and he likes the way the hem of his robe moves across the floor reminds him of a ghost drifting from place to place, so he usually doesn't go more than an inch or so off the ground.
In addition to flight, the implant can be used to aid in lifting heavy things, though Magtok doesn't often make use of this feature. No self-respecting evil genius ought to be picking up his own stuff. He has
machines for that sort of thing.
The Left Hand - In combat, Magtok rarely brings the same weapons or equipment with him. He'll use an energy rifle in one fight, and then immediately throw it out the next day. He prefers to keep his enemies guessing, and enjoys crafting new and exotic nonsense between battles so nobody can develop a sure-fire, reliable contingency plan for dealing with him. However, one thing he
always has with him is his left hand, which has a number of hidden compartments and concealed weaponry. Beneath the tips of his chrome fingers, he has a cigarette lighter, a single-shot revolver, a syringe loaded with enough sedative to subdue an adult human, a lockpick, and
[REDACTED] for the most dire emergencies.
The Left Eye - Sometimes you need to see in the dark. Other times you need to see the heat signatures of the things around you. Magtok has an eye that can do both. What his eye can't do is shoot lasers, though. He tried that once; the battery exploded, and...well, long story short, we won't be trying that sort of thing ever again. No one with sense would allow something that can get
that hot to attach to your brain.
The Cloning Vats - All throughout Nexus history, Magtok has confidently stood against gods, wizards, and eldritch monsters beyond mortal comprehension, and he did these things because death was of no concern to him. Every clone grown in the MagCave's darkest depths has the same collective memories uploaded into its brain, regularly updated and managed in the same database so they're all effectively the same person. The cloning vats are currently disabled, for reasons that I won't get into here, but there's always a chance they might get reactivated some day.
Hologram Tech - Hardlight constructs, fuzzy blue images like in Star Wars, lifelike imitations of people overlaid on robots to serve as the perfect disguise...Magtok doesn't like to draw a lot of attention to this stuff, preferring people look at all of his more bombastic and spectacular inventions, but he's done a lot of work with holograms that could help with subterfuge and secrecy.
Abilities
Evil Genius - Magtok is more often than not the smartest man in the room, a multidisciplinary genius capable of whipping up preposterous sci-fi technology that would take entire countries centuries to put together, and getting it done in only a few days.
Pretty Much Nothing Else Going For Him - Aside from being smart and rich and resourceful and connected, that's all Magtok's got. No superpowers, no magic, no psychic mind beams,
nothing. Even being normal can be an asset if you're clever with it, though. Convince that big angry lizard guy you're not worth fighting because you're just an itty-bitty human, and then WHAM, bonk him right in the back of the head with a cattle prod.