Nevermore

Nevermore

Real Name - Griffin Taylor
Code Name - Nevermore
Sex - Male
Age (11-18) - 16

Mutations/Powers - Nevermore has the ability to manifest psionic "phantasm" illusions. If he makes eye contact with someone, they will begin to experience sensory images that are frightening to them. The illusion can be visual, auditory, tactile (never to the point of causing pain though), or even olifactory, but Griffin can generally only effect two senses at once. The effect persists for two to five minutes after Griffin breaks eye contact.

Griffin doens't have much control over his power. First off, since his power requires eye contact, he can only effect one person at a time (although he could quickly "cycle" through targets and let the phantasm run its course). Secondly, he has no control over what the illusion will be—it manifests as something that frightens the target, but he won't know what sort of illusion will show up before activating it. He does have a degree of control over the intensity of the fear reaction. He can manifest something simply "spooky" or he could generate an illusion that would cause the target to run in terror. His control over the type of illusion could change as he learns to focus his powers.

Look - Griffin is a thin, waifish thing, standing at about 5'6" and about 120lbs. He tends to dress in jeans and button-up shirts and sneakers—nothing too flashy or fancy. He doesn't pay much attention to his dark brown hair, which usually sits in an uneven part. He's fairly pale, with wide brown eyes that are usually looking somewhere else.

Personality - Some would describe Griffin as a "pretentious intellectual," and quite a few wouldn't disagree. He has a particular fascination with literature and poetry, and often tries to make a point of pointing out that he's more well-read than his peers, usually dragging along a Blake or Shakespeare anthology used as a prop as much as reading material. Once you get past the snobbery, however, he's actually a pretty nice guy. The intellectual posturing is for him more than anybody else, and he enjoys a good conversation over a latte as much as the next poser bohemian. He isn't overly enthusiastic about the whole "superhero" thing, but finds himself liking it the more he does it. He generally avoids talking about his recent past, or about his family.

Of an interesting note, he's gone through several code names before deciding on "Nevermore," including Grendel (too evil sounding), the Green Knight (he doesn't look good in green), Poryphora's Lover (nobody got it), Tiger Burning Bright (too wordy) and Fearful Symmetry (too literal.)

**History - **

Griffin seemed to be living the normal suburban life in the Northeast seaboard. He lived with his parents and older sister in a house in the suburbs of Boston, where he did well in school and basically lived an unremarkable life otherwise. This was all interrupted when Griffin was fifteen, during an attack by a group of mutant terrorists on a government building near where Griffin went to school. The fight exploded into Blake's schoolyard, where he was reading William Blake's "The Tiger" during a break between classes.

The school was evacuated, and in the chaos, the mutant criminal Mastermind used his illusion powers on the crowd. Mastermind's illusion somehow interacted with Griffin's own undeveloped powers, causing Griffin to lash out at anyone who made eye contact with him, uncontrolled. Horrified by the experience (he saw the illusions too), Griffin ended up spending a year in a mental hospital, where he did nothing but read. After being released, Dr. Leonard Samson referred his parents to Xavier's institute. After a lengthly discussion, they decided he would go to school there.

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