Post by sam on Jan 28, 2013 3:37:28 GMT -5
Basics: Wagner, Kurt. Nightcrawler.
Full Name: Kurt Wagner (legally changed from Kurt Szardos)
Codename: Nightcrawler
Nicknames: Fuzzy Elf, Bamf, Great Boggie, Elf, Herr Indigo, The Flying Fiend, The Magnificent Monster, The Daredevil Demon, formerly Gainsborough
Type: Canon
Gender: Male
Species: Homo superior
Age: 27
Date of Birth: November 11
Hometown: Bavaria, Germany
Current Residence: Westchester, New York: The Xavier Institute
Loyalty: X-Men, formerly Excalibur
Occupation: Adventurer, X-Man, teaches Drama at the Xavier Institute
Hair Colour: Indigo
Eye Colour: Shining yellow, no visible pupils
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 161 lbs
Body Type:
Kurt is a bit of a featherweight, tending to lean on the skinny side, but all of this weight has developed into hard muscle through years of acrobatics and training. He sports a very streamlined, athletic figure, though he tends to hunch a bit when he walks, making him appear slightly more bestial. Because his spin is more flexible than a normal human's, he can stand in this manner without permanently damaging his posture.
Typical Style:
Nightcrawler can typically be seen sporting his X-Men uniform, as he spends much of his free time at the Institute. When he's not cavorting about in a skin-tight suit, he tends to wear clothes that cover up as much of his body as possible. Pants and layered long sleeved shirts are the norm, and he usually just wanders about without his shoes when not in costume, since they pose a bit of a problem with his unique feet. Kurt also owns an image inducer that disguises his true appearance with a holographic form, though this has been used with less and less frequency. When he does use it, he adopts the form of Errol Flynn because people have often told him they have similar personalities.
Distinguishing Features:
Kurt was born and raised in Germany, and consequently there is a noticeable German accent whenever he speaks. He incorporates short Germanic phrases into his speech, often using them as terms of endearment.
Physical Mutations:
Nightcrawler's mutations have altered him so much physically that he looks almost inhuman. His entire body is covered in a thin layer of indigo fur, and his hair is of the same color. His feet are abnormally large, so that if he were to walk on his toes he would resemble a faun. Each foot only has two large, unusually long toes, and each hand has only three digits, including an opposable thumb. His eyes are a luminescent yellow with no discernible pupils, and his canines are more pronounced and fang-like. Kurt also has pointed ears, and a prehensile tail that is 3'6" long, to top off the extensive list of his physical anomalies.
Uniform:
Nightcrawler wears a skin tight black suit that completely covers him from the neck down, with the exception of a hole for his tail to fit through. A strip of red covers his shoulders and runs down his body, a single vertical stripe that tapers to a point at his crotch. The symbol of the X-Men is stamped on the front of his chest. He has white boots that go up to about mid-calf, and white gloves that cover about half of his forearms. Both his gloves and boots are fringed with red at the end. The fabric that Nightcrawler's suit is made out of is flexible enough to stretch along with his body and durable enough to withstand most of the damage he receives in a typical fight.
Personality:
Kurt is a complicated sort of guy, to go along with a complicated sort of situation that he's in. Though he looks every bit like a demon, he has used the adversity that this presents to elevate himself above the darkness that might bleed into the heart under such strains. He maintains strong Catholic roots, and uses his faith to spread hope to others in the genuine belief that such actions will help bridge the gap between humans and mutants. As a result of his beliefs, Kurt maintains a rather sunny disposition. He is a happy-go-lucky fellow most of the time, and will often tease or prank the others at the Xavier Institute. He's not bad with the ladies either, despite his unconventional appearance. Fortunately, he's sobered up a bit over the years, and is beginning to be more vocal about his faith. Though the guy will never stop being a diehard fan of swashbuckling fiction.
Always a shoulder to lean on and an ear to listen, Kurt is friendly almost to a fault and is fiercely protective of his friends and companions. Because of his own unnatural appearance he's rather accepting of others, no matter how 'disfigured' they might be to a world that's not quite ready to accept that it's not as 'normal' as they might have once thought it was. Although years of mistreatment by humans have made him leery of venturing out in public, Kurt has gradually grown to believe that not all humans wish harm to mutants. He used to always wear his image inducer in public because of how people had treated him due to his mutation in the past. However, after he lost a bet with Wolverine, Kurt was forced out into the public without his image inducer. He expected everyone's reaction to be fear and hate, but most reacted with curious interest. Kurt still has his image inducer, but hardly ever uses it unless he needs to.
Family:
Azazel - father
Mystique - mother
Baron Christian Wagner - stepfather, deceased
Margali Szardos - foster mother
Stefan Szardos - foster brother, deceased
Jimaine Szardos (Amanda Sefton, Magik) - foster sister
Graydon Creed - maternal half-brother, deceased
Rogue - unofficial foster sister
Nils Styger (Abyss) - paternal half-brother
Kiwi Black - paternal half-brother
Other half-siblings (deceased)
History:
Kurt Wagner is the product of a love affair between two mutants, both with origins that have never fully been explained. His mother is the terrorist Mystique, who at the time was the wife of Baron Christian Wagner. Though Baron was believed to be Kurt's father for a long time, in actuality the Neyaphem warlord, Azazel, is Kurt's biological father. Azazel had a master plan to impregnate earth women with his children so he could escape the Brimstone Dimension; Kurt was one of his children, created to be a pawn in a demon's game.
When Kurt was born, the townsfolk were horrified by the child's demonic appearance. In order to save her son, Mystique threw him into a river, shape-shifted into another form and then claimed that she had killed the infant and his mother. Azazel would not allow his son to die, so he saved him and gave him to one of his servants, Margali Szardos, to raise as her own. To hide the truth of Kurt's origins, Margali claimed that she came across the boy when she was walking by his house. She said his father, Eric Wagner, had died of a heart attack outside and she had found his mother lying next to him dead.
Margali took Kurt in and raised him along with her real children Stefan and Jimaine at the Bavarian circus. She worked there as a fortune teller to hide the truth about her sorcery. Kurt possessed an amazing agility at a young age, and used these gifts to perform in acrobatic shows for the circus as the Incredible Nightcrawler. The audience assumed Kurt was a man in a devil costume, and he was raised in an environment free of prejudice, as much of the circus folk had no qualms against mutants.
When Kurt was in his adolescent years, his life began to take a turn for the worse. Texan millionaire Amos Jardine, who ran a large circus based in Florida, had heard of the circus Kurt worked for and bought it. Jardine intended to move its best acts into his American circus. However, he demanded that Kurt be placed in the circus's freak show; when the mutant refused, he was imprisoned against his will and drugged in order to remain complacent. Eventually, a young boy with the ability to sense other mutants freed Kurt, who then turned on Jardine and threatened the man so his circus friends would receive better treatment than he had.
The circus was no longer safe for Kurt, so he ran away and made his way back to Germany. To his great chagrin, he discovered that his foster brother Stefan had gone mad and had brutally slain several children in Winzeldorf. When the two boys were younger, Stefan feared his magical heritage might lead to him to evil, and had made Kurt promise to kill him should he take an innocent life. Kurt managed to find Stefan and confront him about the killings, hoping to stop his rampage without having to end Stefan's life. However, they were forced into a physical confrontation, and during the course of the struggle Kurt unintentionally broke Stefan's neck. The villagers of Winzeldorf then discovered Kurt and assumed him to be a demon who was responsible for the killings. They chased the unfortunate mutant throughout town, eventually cornering him. Before Kurt could be killed, however, the villagers were all psionically paralyzed by Professor Charles Xavier. He had come to recruit Kurt into his team of mutant super-heroes known as the X-Men.
Kurt agreed to join the group, but before they left for America, he and Xavier returned to the Bavarian circus so that Kurt could tell Margali the truth about Stefan's death. However, Margali was not there, and for years she would consequently hold Kurt responsible for the murder of her son.
Kurt had many subsequent adventures with the X-Men as Nightcrawler, and quickly proved to be the lighthearted, sometimes obnoxious, but forever faithful moral compass of the group. The X-Men clashed often with the Brotherhood of Evil, where Nightcrawler first met his biological mother, Mystique (though he did not know she was his mother for a good amount of time). During his time with the X-Men, Kurt discovered his ability to become invisible in shadow. When the X-Men battled Nimrod, the supreme Sentinel, Nightcrawler was hit with an energy signature disruption, causing him to disintegrate. No one even knew if he had survived at first, though it turns out he had merely teleported to the New York harbors. While there, Kurt was almost killed by a mob. His teleportation powers had been damaged, and he could now only teleport a few times a day without seriously straining himself. Nghtcrawler faced the Marauders in this weakened state, despite Wolverine's warnings, where he overexerted himself and fell into a coma. Kurt was sent to recover on Muir Island, and upon waking up from his coma, Shadowcat informed him of the X-Men's apparent deaths during the time he was out.
Kurt and Kitty left the X-Men for a while to become two of the founding members of the British super-team, Excalibur. Captain Britain originally assumed leadership of the group, but Nightcrawler gradually took on the responsibility. After an encounter with the monarch of Latveria, the armored despot Dr. Doom, Kurt's powers were fully restored. Doom had shot Nightcrawler with an electromagnetic scrambler in an attempt to disrupt his teleportating abilities, which ended up accidentally realigning them instead. While still in Britain, Kurt also reformed the team of alien bounty hunters known as the Technet into a team of costumed superhuman adventurers dubbed the N-Men. It was during this time that Kurt also learned that Mystique was his biological mother.
Excalibur did not last, however, and once the team disbanded Kurt returned to the United States with Kitty and Colossus to rejoin the X-Men. This time though, he did not stay long before taking another sabbatical to mourn the loss of Colossus and to pursue the career of a priest. Kurt eventually returned to the X-Men as a fully ordained priest. However, it turns out that his work for the Church was retconned to be an illusion; he had, in fact, never attained priesthood. Soon after, Kurt found himself unable to resist the compulsion to travel to the Isla des Demonas off the coast of Florida. There, he was manipulated into a ceremony with other teleporters like himself that opened a dimensional portal, through which came an army of mutant demons. The X-Men arrived to recover their teammate and clashed with the army. During the battle, Kurt was forcibly removed from the ceremony which collapsed the portal, trapping all present into the other dimension. There, Kurt learned that the leader of the army, Azazel, was his natural father and the father of the other teleporters present. A mutant from biblical times, Azazel was finally implementing his plan to use his children's combined powers to return to Earth and enslave humanity. However, Kurt rejected him and, with the aid of his newly-found half-brothers Abyss and Kiwi Black, Azazel was defeated.
Kurt returned with the rest of the X-Men, where he taught Drama to students of the reopened Xavier Institute. However, he quickly became restless and insecure about his position on the team. He felt that the X-Men didn't need him, and that Pixie was a better teleporter than he was.
Thus, Nightcrawler left the X-Men for a third time to take a trip back to Germany. His conviction in his abilities as a hero was renewed through an encounter with a boy cursed into a demonic form by gypsies, a brush with Mephisto, and a short romantic fling. Self-confident once more, Nightcrawler returned to San Francisco to aid the X-Men against a foe they desperately needed his help to defeat. He has since resumed his role in teaching Drama at the Xavier Institute, and also trains students when needed.
Kurt regards the new Mutant Registration Act with mixed feelings. He truly wants to believe that humans are becoming more tolerant of mutants and that the act is a sign of their new acceptance. He wants to believe that people's better natures are beginning to make themselves known. However, Catholicism can only do so much for a person who has had to endure a lifetime of abuse and rejection because of his status as a mutant. A part of Kurt is instinctively leery about the new MRA, and he is thus conflicted when it comes to registering. He has not done so yet, and his indecision will probably keep him from registering at all.
Classification: Gamma
Powers:
Nightcrawler's main mutant power is teleportation, which he achieves by opening a portal into the Brimstone Dimension, traveling through it, and then returning to his own dimension at a certain distance from his point of departure. The entire process occurs so quickly that he is unaware of being in the Brimstone Dimension at all. Although he controls his teleportation ability with his conscious mind, his power to teleport is not psionic. Rather, it is the result of an unknown biochemical or biophysical reaction which he triggers mentally. When teleporting, Nightcrawler leaves behind a small portion of the atmosphere of the other dimension that escapes with a muffled “bamf!” sound and smells of brimstone. On returning, his power automatically displaces any extraneous liquids and gases.
Though he can easily teleport in a horizontal direction either north and south, along the Earth's magnetic lines of force, teleporting east, west, or in a vertical direction is more difficult for him, since doing so goes against this force. Under optimal conditions, Nightcrawler can teleport roughly two miles east or west, three miles north or south, and two miles vertically if he exerts himself. His momentum is retained when teleporting, so he arrives with the same inertia he left with. For example, if he were falling from a great height, he could not teleport himself towards the ground in order to save himself; he would land with the same velocity that he teleported with. He can subtract this inertia by teleporting short distances upwards (as though taking two steps back for every step forward).
Nightcrawler has a limited unconscious extrasensory ability that prevents him from teleporting into any area that he cannot see or has not seen in the past, as doing so runs the risk of injury or death by materializing partially or entirely within a solid object. However, since there is still the risk of potentially teleporting into a wall or through someone's arm, he tends to only teleport to a place he can see or that he's seen before. The longer the distance over which Nightcrawler teleports himself and the bigger the mass of whatever he takes along for the ride, the harder and more exhausting it is for him to make the jump. Through practice, he has increased the mass he can teleport with him, though the limit to the amount of weight he can carry when teleporting and the distance over which he can teleport with such additional loads are unknown.
Teleporting with Nightcrawler often leaves a passenger feeling weak and nauseous. Thus, Nightcrawler can use his powers offensively by grappling with an enemy and teleporting him or her in a series of rapid jumps. The strain of these "multiple ports" can exhaust foes without superhuman endurance while Nightcrawler remains strong enough to continue fighting.
Nightcrawler is also able to cling to solid surfaces via microscopic suction cups on his hands and feet. This allows him to scale up walls. He has a limited ability to blend into the shadows, both as a result of his indigo fur and his connection to the light-bending attributes of the dimension through which he teleports. This is also the explanation for why he constantly appears in shadow, even in direct light. Nightcrawler's eyes, which constantly emit a weak yellow glow, give him heightened night vision. He is also supernaturally agile and possesses unnaturally quick reflexes, allowing him to perform incredible acts of balance and coordination incapable of a normal human.
Superhuman dexterity also allows him to easily manipulate items despite his large hands and feet, and also gives him an edge in fencing; he can wield a sword with either his hands, feet, or tail. In addition to being able to hold a sword, Nightcrawler's prehensile tail is strong enough to support his own weight and lift the equivalent of a full-grown man off the ground. Nightcrawler possesses above average strength for a man of his age, height, and build who engages in intensive regular exercise. At his peak, he is able to lift about 250 pounds.
Despite all of Nightcrawler's superhuman powers, he is just as susceptible to disease and physical injury as any ordinary human. Also, because he is a Neyaphem, angel's blood, which heals everyone else, hurts him, normally adding to whatever injury he received.
Skills:
Nightcrawler is an Olympic-class acrobat, blessed with a flexible spine that allows him to perform contortionist-like feats and to go long periods in a crouched position without injury. Though by no means is he a master martial artist, he is moderately skilled in hand-to-hand and melee combat, and is a master at fencing. He can even perform with his tail, which is strong enough to support his entire body weight. As a member of the X-Men and a teacher at the Institute, he's skilled at making quick decisions under pressure. Whether on the battle field or in front of a class of teenagers, Nightcrawler has proven he had the chops to lead when it is called upon him to do so. He also possesses skills in aviation, having served as the team's pilot. He has been the mechanic of the X-Men's Blackbird jet for a long time alongside Wolverine. If no qualified X-Men are around, Nightcrawler can additionally serve as the team's medic.
Weaponry:
None, though he used to wield a pair of swords and can swing a couple of fencing foils with prodigious skill.
Role Play Sample:
"Bamf!"
A shadowy figure suddenly tumbled into existence, letting out an involuntary hiss as his shoulder struck cobblestone. Ouch; that last jump had taken a lot out of him.
Kurt shrunk against the wall off the alley, grateful for once that his indigo fur helped him blend into the shadows. He sat against the wall, panting hard, tenderly massaging his injured shoulder. Bright yellow eyes, round with fear, darted up and down the alleyway, searching for even the slightest hint of movement. He had to be ready to run again, in case they found him. But he also needed to rest too; he was exhausted, and knew he couldn't keep running around these unfamiliar streets for much longer.
How could everything have gone so wrong, so fast?
He hadn't killed those children. He hadn't meant to kill Stefan. The guy had been one of his closest friends, his Bruder, for heaven's sake! Why couldn't they understand? All he wanted to do was leave town. And all they wanted to do was get rid of him, but in a more gruesome manner. The situation was so ironic it was almost funny. Almost.
Kurt turned his head to look out of the mouth of the alley--and found a pair of brown eyes staring right back at him. His body immediately stiffened and recoiled, eyes stretching wide with fright.
They had found him.
"Over here! He's over here!" the villager, a boisterous young man, shouted to the rest of the mob. Kurt scrambled to his feet, barely giving the man a chance to react before taking off in the opposite direction. He had to get away. He had to live.
Your Name: Sam
Other Characters: N/A
Full Name: Kurt Wagner (legally changed from Kurt Szardos)
Codename: Nightcrawler
Nicknames: Fuzzy Elf, Bamf, Great Boggie, Elf, Herr Indigo, The Flying Fiend, The Magnificent Monster, The Daredevil Demon, formerly Gainsborough
Type: Canon
Gender: Male
Species: Homo superior
Age: 27
Date of Birth: November 11
Hometown: Bavaria, Germany
Current Residence: Westchester, New York: The Xavier Institute
Loyalty: X-Men, formerly Excalibur
Occupation: Adventurer, X-Man, teaches Drama at the Xavier Institute
Hair Colour: Indigo
Eye Colour: Shining yellow, no visible pupils
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 161 lbs
Body Type:
Kurt is a bit of a featherweight, tending to lean on the skinny side, but all of this weight has developed into hard muscle through years of acrobatics and training. He sports a very streamlined, athletic figure, though he tends to hunch a bit when he walks, making him appear slightly more bestial. Because his spin is more flexible than a normal human's, he can stand in this manner without permanently damaging his posture.
Typical Style:
Nightcrawler can typically be seen sporting his X-Men uniform, as he spends much of his free time at the Institute. When he's not cavorting about in a skin-tight suit, he tends to wear clothes that cover up as much of his body as possible. Pants and layered long sleeved shirts are the norm, and he usually just wanders about without his shoes when not in costume, since they pose a bit of a problem with his unique feet. Kurt also owns an image inducer that disguises his true appearance with a holographic form, though this has been used with less and less frequency. When he does use it, he adopts the form of Errol Flynn because people have often told him they have similar personalities.
Distinguishing Features:
Kurt was born and raised in Germany, and consequently there is a noticeable German accent whenever he speaks. He incorporates short Germanic phrases into his speech, often using them as terms of endearment.
Physical Mutations:
Nightcrawler's mutations have altered him so much physically that he looks almost inhuman. His entire body is covered in a thin layer of indigo fur, and his hair is of the same color. His feet are abnormally large, so that if he were to walk on his toes he would resemble a faun. Each foot only has two large, unusually long toes, and each hand has only three digits, including an opposable thumb. His eyes are a luminescent yellow with no discernible pupils, and his canines are more pronounced and fang-like. Kurt also has pointed ears, and a prehensile tail that is 3'6" long, to top off the extensive list of his physical anomalies.
Uniform:
Nightcrawler wears a skin tight black suit that completely covers him from the neck down, with the exception of a hole for his tail to fit through. A strip of red covers his shoulders and runs down his body, a single vertical stripe that tapers to a point at his crotch. The symbol of the X-Men is stamped on the front of his chest. He has white boots that go up to about mid-calf, and white gloves that cover about half of his forearms. Both his gloves and boots are fringed with red at the end. The fabric that Nightcrawler's suit is made out of is flexible enough to stretch along with his body and durable enough to withstand most of the damage he receives in a typical fight.
Personality:
Kurt is a complicated sort of guy, to go along with a complicated sort of situation that he's in. Though he looks every bit like a demon, he has used the adversity that this presents to elevate himself above the darkness that might bleed into the heart under such strains. He maintains strong Catholic roots, and uses his faith to spread hope to others in the genuine belief that such actions will help bridge the gap between humans and mutants. As a result of his beliefs, Kurt maintains a rather sunny disposition. He is a happy-go-lucky fellow most of the time, and will often tease or prank the others at the Xavier Institute. He's not bad with the ladies either, despite his unconventional appearance. Fortunately, he's sobered up a bit over the years, and is beginning to be more vocal about his faith. Though the guy will never stop being a diehard fan of swashbuckling fiction.
Always a shoulder to lean on and an ear to listen, Kurt is friendly almost to a fault and is fiercely protective of his friends and companions. Because of his own unnatural appearance he's rather accepting of others, no matter how 'disfigured' they might be to a world that's not quite ready to accept that it's not as 'normal' as they might have once thought it was. Although years of mistreatment by humans have made him leery of venturing out in public, Kurt has gradually grown to believe that not all humans wish harm to mutants. He used to always wear his image inducer in public because of how people had treated him due to his mutation in the past. However, after he lost a bet with Wolverine, Kurt was forced out into the public without his image inducer. He expected everyone's reaction to be fear and hate, but most reacted with curious interest. Kurt still has his image inducer, but hardly ever uses it unless he needs to.
Family:
Azazel - father
Mystique - mother
Baron Christian Wagner - stepfather, deceased
Margali Szardos - foster mother
Stefan Szardos - foster brother, deceased
Jimaine Szardos (Amanda Sefton, Magik) - foster sister
Graydon Creed - maternal half-brother, deceased
Rogue - unofficial foster sister
Nils Styger (Abyss) - paternal half-brother
Kiwi Black - paternal half-brother
Other half-siblings (deceased)
History:
Kurt Wagner is the product of a love affair between two mutants, both with origins that have never fully been explained. His mother is the terrorist Mystique, who at the time was the wife of Baron Christian Wagner. Though Baron was believed to be Kurt's father for a long time, in actuality the Neyaphem warlord, Azazel, is Kurt's biological father. Azazel had a master plan to impregnate earth women with his children so he could escape the Brimstone Dimension; Kurt was one of his children, created to be a pawn in a demon's game.
When Kurt was born, the townsfolk were horrified by the child's demonic appearance. In order to save her son, Mystique threw him into a river, shape-shifted into another form and then claimed that she had killed the infant and his mother. Azazel would not allow his son to die, so he saved him and gave him to one of his servants, Margali Szardos, to raise as her own. To hide the truth of Kurt's origins, Margali claimed that she came across the boy when she was walking by his house. She said his father, Eric Wagner, had died of a heart attack outside and she had found his mother lying next to him dead.
Margali took Kurt in and raised him along with her real children Stefan and Jimaine at the Bavarian circus. She worked there as a fortune teller to hide the truth about her sorcery. Kurt possessed an amazing agility at a young age, and used these gifts to perform in acrobatic shows for the circus as the Incredible Nightcrawler. The audience assumed Kurt was a man in a devil costume, and he was raised in an environment free of prejudice, as much of the circus folk had no qualms against mutants.
When Kurt was in his adolescent years, his life began to take a turn for the worse. Texan millionaire Amos Jardine, who ran a large circus based in Florida, had heard of the circus Kurt worked for and bought it. Jardine intended to move its best acts into his American circus. However, he demanded that Kurt be placed in the circus's freak show; when the mutant refused, he was imprisoned against his will and drugged in order to remain complacent. Eventually, a young boy with the ability to sense other mutants freed Kurt, who then turned on Jardine and threatened the man so his circus friends would receive better treatment than he had.
The circus was no longer safe for Kurt, so he ran away and made his way back to Germany. To his great chagrin, he discovered that his foster brother Stefan had gone mad and had brutally slain several children in Winzeldorf. When the two boys were younger, Stefan feared his magical heritage might lead to him to evil, and had made Kurt promise to kill him should he take an innocent life. Kurt managed to find Stefan and confront him about the killings, hoping to stop his rampage without having to end Stefan's life. However, they were forced into a physical confrontation, and during the course of the struggle Kurt unintentionally broke Stefan's neck. The villagers of Winzeldorf then discovered Kurt and assumed him to be a demon who was responsible for the killings. They chased the unfortunate mutant throughout town, eventually cornering him. Before Kurt could be killed, however, the villagers were all psionically paralyzed by Professor Charles Xavier. He had come to recruit Kurt into his team of mutant super-heroes known as the X-Men.
Kurt agreed to join the group, but before they left for America, he and Xavier returned to the Bavarian circus so that Kurt could tell Margali the truth about Stefan's death. However, Margali was not there, and for years she would consequently hold Kurt responsible for the murder of her son.
Kurt had many subsequent adventures with the X-Men as Nightcrawler, and quickly proved to be the lighthearted, sometimes obnoxious, but forever faithful moral compass of the group. The X-Men clashed often with the Brotherhood of Evil, where Nightcrawler first met his biological mother, Mystique (though he did not know she was his mother for a good amount of time). During his time with the X-Men, Kurt discovered his ability to become invisible in shadow. When the X-Men battled Nimrod, the supreme Sentinel, Nightcrawler was hit with an energy signature disruption, causing him to disintegrate. No one even knew if he had survived at first, though it turns out he had merely teleported to the New York harbors. While there, Kurt was almost killed by a mob. His teleportation powers had been damaged, and he could now only teleport a few times a day without seriously straining himself. Nghtcrawler faced the Marauders in this weakened state, despite Wolverine's warnings, where he overexerted himself and fell into a coma. Kurt was sent to recover on Muir Island, and upon waking up from his coma, Shadowcat informed him of the X-Men's apparent deaths during the time he was out.
Kurt and Kitty left the X-Men for a while to become two of the founding members of the British super-team, Excalibur. Captain Britain originally assumed leadership of the group, but Nightcrawler gradually took on the responsibility. After an encounter with the monarch of Latveria, the armored despot Dr. Doom, Kurt's powers were fully restored. Doom had shot Nightcrawler with an electromagnetic scrambler in an attempt to disrupt his teleportating abilities, which ended up accidentally realigning them instead. While still in Britain, Kurt also reformed the team of alien bounty hunters known as the Technet into a team of costumed superhuman adventurers dubbed the N-Men. It was during this time that Kurt also learned that Mystique was his biological mother.
Excalibur did not last, however, and once the team disbanded Kurt returned to the United States with Kitty and Colossus to rejoin the X-Men. This time though, he did not stay long before taking another sabbatical to mourn the loss of Colossus and to pursue the career of a priest. Kurt eventually returned to the X-Men as a fully ordained priest. However, it turns out that his work for the Church was retconned to be an illusion; he had, in fact, never attained priesthood. Soon after, Kurt found himself unable to resist the compulsion to travel to the Isla des Demonas off the coast of Florida. There, he was manipulated into a ceremony with other teleporters like himself that opened a dimensional portal, through which came an army of mutant demons. The X-Men arrived to recover their teammate and clashed with the army. During the battle, Kurt was forcibly removed from the ceremony which collapsed the portal, trapping all present into the other dimension. There, Kurt learned that the leader of the army, Azazel, was his natural father and the father of the other teleporters present. A mutant from biblical times, Azazel was finally implementing his plan to use his children's combined powers to return to Earth and enslave humanity. However, Kurt rejected him and, with the aid of his newly-found half-brothers Abyss and Kiwi Black, Azazel was defeated.
Kurt returned with the rest of the X-Men, where he taught Drama to students of the reopened Xavier Institute. However, he quickly became restless and insecure about his position on the team. He felt that the X-Men didn't need him, and that Pixie was a better teleporter than he was.
Thus, Nightcrawler left the X-Men for a third time to take a trip back to Germany. His conviction in his abilities as a hero was renewed through an encounter with a boy cursed into a demonic form by gypsies, a brush with Mephisto, and a short romantic fling. Self-confident once more, Nightcrawler returned to San Francisco to aid the X-Men against a foe they desperately needed his help to defeat. He has since resumed his role in teaching Drama at the Xavier Institute, and also trains students when needed.
Kurt regards the new Mutant Registration Act with mixed feelings. He truly wants to believe that humans are becoming more tolerant of mutants and that the act is a sign of their new acceptance. He wants to believe that people's better natures are beginning to make themselves known. However, Catholicism can only do so much for a person who has had to endure a lifetime of abuse and rejection because of his status as a mutant. A part of Kurt is instinctively leery about the new MRA, and he is thus conflicted when it comes to registering. He has not done so yet, and his indecision will probably keep him from registering at all.
Classification: Gamma
Powers:
Nightcrawler's main mutant power is teleportation, which he achieves by opening a portal into the Brimstone Dimension, traveling through it, and then returning to his own dimension at a certain distance from his point of departure. The entire process occurs so quickly that he is unaware of being in the Brimstone Dimension at all. Although he controls his teleportation ability with his conscious mind, his power to teleport is not psionic. Rather, it is the result of an unknown biochemical or biophysical reaction which he triggers mentally. When teleporting, Nightcrawler leaves behind a small portion of the atmosphere of the other dimension that escapes with a muffled “bamf!” sound and smells of brimstone. On returning, his power automatically displaces any extraneous liquids and gases.
Though he can easily teleport in a horizontal direction either north and south, along the Earth's magnetic lines of force, teleporting east, west, or in a vertical direction is more difficult for him, since doing so goes against this force. Under optimal conditions, Nightcrawler can teleport roughly two miles east or west, three miles north or south, and two miles vertically if he exerts himself. His momentum is retained when teleporting, so he arrives with the same inertia he left with. For example, if he were falling from a great height, he could not teleport himself towards the ground in order to save himself; he would land with the same velocity that he teleported with. He can subtract this inertia by teleporting short distances upwards (as though taking two steps back for every step forward).
Nightcrawler has a limited unconscious extrasensory ability that prevents him from teleporting into any area that he cannot see or has not seen in the past, as doing so runs the risk of injury or death by materializing partially or entirely within a solid object. However, since there is still the risk of potentially teleporting into a wall or through someone's arm, he tends to only teleport to a place he can see or that he's seen before. The longer the distance over which Nightcrawler teleports himself and the bigger the mass of whatever he takes along for the ride, the harder and more exhausting it is for him to make the jump. Through practice, he has increased the mass he can teleport with him, though the limit to the amount of weight he can carry when teleporting and the distance over which he can teleport with such additional loads are unknown.
Teleporting with Nightcrawler often leaves a passenger feeling weak and nauseous. Thus, Nightcrawler can use his powers offensively by grappling with an enemy and teleporting him or her in a series of rapid jumps. The strain of these "multiple ports" can exhaust foes without superhuman endurance while Nightcrawler remains strong enough to continue fighting.
Nightcrawler is also able to cling to solid surfaces via microscopic suction cups on his hands and feet. This allows him to scale up walls. He has a limited ability to blend into the shadows, both as a result of his indigo fur and his connection to the light-bending attributes of the dimension through which he teleports. This is also the explanation for why he constantly appears in shadow, even in direct light. Nightcrawler's eyes, which constantly emit a weak yellow glow, give him heightened night vision. He is also supernaturally agile and possesses unnaturally quick reflexes, allowing him to perform incredible acts of balance and coordination incapable of a normal human.
Superhuman dexterity also allows him to easily manipulate items despite his large hands and feet, and also gives him an edge in fencing; he can wield a sword with either his hands, feet, or tail. In addition to being able to hold a sword, Nightcrawler's prehensile tail is strong enough to support his own weight and lift the equivalent of a full-grown man off the ground. Nightcrawler possesses above average strength for a man of his age, height, and build who engages in intensive regular exercise. At his peak, he is able to lift about 250 pounds.
Despite all of Nightcrawler's superhuman powers, he is just as susceptible to disease and physical injury as any ordinary human. Also, because he is a Neyaphem, angel's blood, which heals everyone else, hurts him, normally adding to whatever injury he received.
Skills:
Nightcrawler is an Olympic-class acrobat, blessed with a flexible spine that allows him to perform contortionist-like feats and to go long periods in a crouched position without injury. Though by no means is he a master martial artist, he is moderately skilled in hand-to-hand and melee combat, and is a master at fencing. He can even perform with his tail, which is strong enough to support his entire body weight. As a member of the X-Men and a teacher at the Institute, he's skilled at making quick decisions under pressure. Whether on the battle field or in front of a class of teenagers, Nightcrawler has proven he had the chops to lead when it is called upon him to do so. He also possesses skills in aviation, having served as the team's pilot. He has been the mechanic of the X-Men's Blackbird jet for a long time alongside Wolverine. If no qualified X-Men are around, Nightcrawler can additionally serve as the team's medic.
Weaponry:
None, though he used to wield a pair of swords and can swing a couple of fencing foils with prodigious skill.
Role Play Sample:
"Bamf!"
A shadowy figure suddenly tumbled into existence, letting out an involuntary hiss as his shoulder struck cobblestone. Ouch; that last jump had taken a lot out of him.
Kurt shrunk against the wall off the alley, grateful for once that his indigo fur helped him blend into the shadows. He sat against the wall, panting hard, tenderly massaging his injured shoulder. Bright yellow eyes, round with fear, darted up and down the alleyway, searching for even the slightest hint of movement. He had to be ready to run again, in case they found him. But he also needed to rest too; he was exhausted, and knew he couldn't keep running around these unfamiliar streets for much longer.
How could everything have gone so wrong, so fast?
He hadn't killed those children. He hadn't meant to kill Stefan. The guy had been one of his closest friends, his Bruder, for heaven's sake! Why couldn't they understand? All he wanted to do was leave town. And all they wanted to do was get rid of him, but in a more gruesome manner. The situation was so ironic it was almost funny. Almost.
Kurt turned his head to look out of the mouth of the alley--and found a pair of brown eyes staring right back at him. His body immediately stiffened and recoiled, eyes stretching wide with fright.
They had found him.
"Over here! He's over here!" the villager, a boisterous young man, shouted to the rest of the mob. Kurt scrambled to his feet, barely giving the man a chance to react before taking off in the opposite direction. He had to get away. He had to live.
Your Name: Sam
Other Characters: N/A