Robert r. dexter

Immortal, Private Investigator, Son of a Witch

Stats

Name: Robert Richard 'Dick' Dexter
Species: Metahuman
Gender: Male
Age: 34 physically; 169 literally
D.O.B.: November 11th, 1851
Birthplace: Mojave Desert, Nevada
Height: 6'9"; 206 cm
Weight: 321 lbs; 146 kg
Sexuality: Bisexual, feminine preference
Status: Single
Occupation: Private Investigator
Location: Manhattan, New York City

History

Born in the Mojave Desert in the mid 19th century, the son of a bandit and a captive woman, Robert Richard Dexter was cursed from the moment he was conceived. His father, the notorious outlaw known as 'Dastardly Dick', led a band of criminals called the 'Dickheads', not only due to the name of their leader, but their shaven heads. The desert was harsh on grown men, let alone a child, trapped under the boot of his father.

Richard Dexter, otherwise known as 'Dastardly Dick', treated both his son and the boy's mother like slaves. To him, the boy was a pack mule and the woman was barely even worth the relief she unwillingly provided. The rest of the band, refusing sympathy for the captive and her child, was simply happy that Dick's abuses were targeted somewhere else for once. Perhaps an act of God's mercy, or simply a twist of fate, everything changed on Christmas Eve of 1865.

One week earlier, Dexter's mother had given birth to another child begotten of Richard's seed. Dick didn't deign to give the girl a name, and her dam knew to stay silent, lest she face his wrath. Unbeknownst to the band of outlaws, the woman they'd kept in chains for so long made a deal with the Devil himself - immortality and power, in exchange for the souls of all her children, who would walk the earth until the end times, when they would join his army and serve beneath him.

That night, when all the men were asleep, the newly crested witch gagged her son with a dirty cloth and dragged him out into the middle of the campsite. Though Dexter kicked and lashed out, he didn't have the strength to stop her. She tore the boy's left eye from its socket, before pulling the rag away and allowing him to howl in pain, piercing the silence of the Mojave all around them.

Dick and his men woke up and readied their guns, but before they could even cock back the hammers, thorns grew out of their bones and they couldn't help but fall to the ground and writhe. Richard received the worst of the witch's ire. Each of his teeth were ripped out of his mouth, and his tongue, split right down the middle. Before she finally filled his lungs and veins with sand, she declared that she had been reborn as Marianne, servant and concubine to Lucifer himself. She took her daughter, whom she named Dinah, and fled into the desert.

Dexter eventually passed out from pain, and awoke to the Nevada sun cresting the horizon. The blood on the ground had pooled into a viscous, black puddle, not too unlike tar. He stared at his father's corpse with his only eye, for God knows how long, unblinking and unfeeling. Despite the sorry state Dick had been left in, Dexter didn't feel anything. Not satisfaction, not sorrow, not even spite. He took the man's revolver and rifle, 81 notches between them, and a bag of whatever supplies he could scrounge up from the ruined site, and left for the trail the dead Dickheads had been planning to patrol the following day.

There, despite initially taking aim at them, Dexter was taken in by a family of newly freed black folk, who were traveling to California to escape the ridicule they faced back in Alabama. Though his family was weary of the skinhead boy, Obadiah Baker claimed that he saw the suffering in the boy's singular eye, and he couldn't simply allow the young man to starve out in the Mojave. For the next four years, Dexter worked on the Baker's ranch, always feeling distant from them despite being treated as family.

Their parting was inevitable, but Obadiah saw fit to give Dexter a silver belt buckle, with 'Baker' emblazoned upon it. He told the young man, "You can always find family in us." Taking this heirloom and a small sum of money with him, Dexter set out on a blonde horse named Hope, never to see the Bakers again. He wandered about for two years, taking on bounties and other freelance work, before settling in a town called Accord as a deputy. There, in his third year, he married Adelia, and they had a single daughter, whom they named Elizabeth. He became the sheriff of Accord another two years after that.

Fate caught up with Dexter on New Year's Eve, 1885. Since his birthday a month earlier, he'd been having nightmares that caused his blood to run cold. A pair of eyes all too similar to his own, turning black and lighting the world itself on fire. When he awoke to the sound of wood burning that night, his heart dropped into his stomach, and he quickly went to work.

His house, and the entire town of Accord, had been set ablaze. It was a beacon in the night on the southern border of California and Nevada, and the work of a single woman. An agent of their mother, Dinah was sent to destroy everything Dexter had worked to build. He found her standing outside his home, her eyes, a mirror image of his own. Then she blinked, and they became black pools, and before he could draw his gun, Dexter was flung back into his house as it started to collapse.

Adelia and Elizabeth were unfortunate victims of the fire, trapped as the stairs collapsed beneath them, and Dexter faired no better. He felt every bit of the pain, from his skin melting off to his bones turning to ash. He had never been a religious man, but in what he believed to be his final moments, he asked God to forgive him of the sins of his blood. If He couldn't do that, Dexter begged that his wife and daughter be taken into Paradise in his place.

As is his curse, Dexter awoke in the ashes of his home, naked and cold. When he finally realized he could move, he searched the rubble until he found two skeletons - one cradling the other. He held the bones of his lost loved ones for as long as he could, eventually starving to death and being reborn once again. This time, he kissed them goodnight and went to the town itself, which didn't fare any better. Everything was gone - every person, every building reduced to ashes. Everything but his father's guns, the Baker's belt buckle, and his wedding bands. Dexter scrounged together an outfit best he could, took these treasures, and decided to head east.

Dexter made his way across the United States, never spending more than a year in any given town or city, and taking on many different occupations, of morally sound, ambiguous, and rotten natures. Eventually, in the year 1988, he found himself in New York City. Here, on the other side of the world from where he was born, thousands of miles away from his memories, he chose to settle. After some time at New York University, he earned a Bachelor's in Criminal Justice, and started a practice as a private investigator.

Abilities

Immortality: Perhaps Dexter's most notable trait, he is supernaturally immune to death via a deal with the Devil himself, although it wasn't made on his behalf. He cannot regenerate past what a normal human is capable of, while he is still in a state that could be considered "alive." When he experiences "death," his heart produces a tar-like liquid which is sent out through his bloodstream, rapidly regenerating any internal damage, while external damage requires a more in-depth process. This liquid is capable of converting any non-living material into flesh and bone specifically for this purpose. In addition to this, his heart, black in coloration, is completely indestructible, and should the rest of his body be destroyed, it would continuously produce the liquid until his body was fully regenerated. His first "death" locked him into a permanent state; whenever he is "killed," he returns in the same form as always, missing an eye and retaining all the damage that had been taken before his sister struck him down.

Witch's Eye: Beneath his eye patch lies, under normal circumstances, a milky white, blind ocular; however, at Dexter's will, it turns wholly black, and is capable of a few different supernatural effects. This includes total paralysis of a viewed subject, vision capable of detecting life force, lie detection, and telepathy. These abilities cannot stack.

Silver Tongue: Not only referring to his own ability to charm others, Dexter is capable of using his voice to produce a few supernatural effects. This includes mimicry, distortion, volume control, animal command, and producing the sound of his voice from any spot he can see. These abilities cannot stack.

Equipment: With several contacts in the black market, Dexter has access to a small arsenal of weapons. Most often, he carries a concealed, black FN FNX-45. By default, this is loaded with silver hollow points, specialized to take down the supernatural threats he often comes across. He always carries an additional magazine of standard ammunition, just in case.