The Grim

Designation
The Grim. AKA 'Ol rag and bones', 'the Bogeyman', 'the Ripper'

Real name: Elliot Thomas

Public Acknowledgement level
Due to a large degree to his own efforts, the Grim has maintained a very low public profile. Though largely unknown outside of his home region, he has attained a kind of urban legend status within the Southgates area.

This is especially true among criminal elements of the region, who see him as a kind of bogeyman.

It is confirmed that the Southgates branch of the London MET is aware of his existence and his activities. He is the ongoing subject of search and seizure operations, although it is a well known 'secret' that there are several officers within the service who maintain contact with the Grim in a kind of mutually beneficial effort to fight the crime in the area. This has led to more than one officer being disciplined behind closed doors

Known powers and abilities
Aside from the usual enhanced strength, resilience and regenerative abilities we have come to commonly associate with the Afflicted, the Grim's primary power set revolves around his ability to manipulate his own bone structure.

Though horrific to behold, the Grim is capable of altering his bones to pierce through his own flesh and form bony ridges, plates and even exoskeletons and additional appendages. The bones themselves can also be heavily modified - potentially carrying additional horns, spurs and spines to be used as climbing aids or weapons.

The price for this is stiff, with a tremendous toll taken on his physical body, leaving him with multitudes of scars and a near constant requirement for a replenishment of Iron, Calcium and Vitamin D. The shift from normal appearance to his 'costume' would kill any normal human, even a normal Afflicted. However this fact leads us to his other abilities;

The Grim has shown an incredible resilience to pain - to the point where it is theorised that he does not even suffer from it. This is presumably how he is capable of mentally surviving the change in form and also lends him considerable resilience to attack.

Finally, it also appears that the Grim has the ability to manipulate his own blood flow with extraordinary precision. This allows him to maintain a steady circulatory system even whilst 'shifting' from one form to another. How he is able to do this is unknown and outside observers have noted that his blood appears to act as though it were a living thing itself - moving around on its own, avoiding obstacles, speeding up, slowing down and even stopping. Again this grants him extreme resilience to attack, preventing even large open wounds from causing him to bleed out and allowing his blood the ability to 'cleanse' itself to some degree by expelling toxins or compromised blood cells from the rest of the blood stream.

It is theorised that it is this ability to move his blood around at will that allows him to operate the two additional spine like appendages he regularly utilises on his back as additional weapons. It has been speculated that these do not operate using muscle tissue in the normal sense, but instead a mix of collagen and hydraulic pressure caused by the Grim's unique blood system.

Appearance:
When transformed, his 'costume' consists of a number of skeletal like bone plates and ridges - not unlike a heavily stylised form of medieval plate armour. The extent of this varies dramatically and can be very heavy and cumbersome to the point of being a full exoskeleton, or be comparatively light. The amount of flesh and exposed muscle tissue visible varies depending on the style favoured at the time.

His face is generally fully enclosed within a bone 'helm' and will generally favour either a plain form with no obvious facial features, or a skull like visage designed to intimidate.

The Grim regularly makes use of taloned gauntlets as weapons, as well as a variety of spurs, horns and spikes formed from the armour plates over his body. He also will regularly have 2 additional spine like appendages from his back. Though normally used as weapons, they have been shown to have some use as climbing aids as well, albeit they are generally ungraceful and unsubtle in their range of movements.

When out of 'costume' Elliot Thomas is a heavy built, stocky man in his early thirties and of unclear ethnicity

Affiliations:
The Grim's efforts to maintain a low profile have meant that he has no known affiliations to any group. That said, he was known to have operated alongside the Flame briefly, but it is unknown to what extent the two men cooperate.

His focused efforts on the Southgate region have also meant that he has largely avoided the intercine conflicts between the Corporate and Government groups such as Solarus and the Unshiri corp that plagued inner London and thereby he has also avoided significant contact with those groups.

What is known is that he does have at least some affiliations with the London Metropolitan Police Service. These are highly unofficial and anyone who has been publically caught with confirmed contact with the Grim has been disciplined for their actions. Despite this, several officers have a working relationship with the Grim, making use of their mutual goal to strike back at the rampant criminal gangs in the area.

Enemies of Note:
The Grim is most commonly at odds with the Gang of Gregory and other similar criminal elements within the Southgates region. This has led to significant collateral damage and an escalation in violent activity in the area despite the best efforts of the Police service to control the situation.

Threat Level:
The Grim has limited brawling expertise and few resources available. With little to no political influence and with abilities that affect only himself he is considered to be only a Theta level threat to public safety.

History
Elliot Thomas was formerly an engineering student graduating the University of London in 2046. Although a promising student, he began to falter in his grades in his final year following a growing addiction to alcohol and drugs.

Though he succesfully graduated, a number of run ins with the law prevented him from getting any work placements and with his parents cutting him off from further financial aid as his addictions worsened he fell into a life of petty crime and drug addiction. He was eventually given shelter at a bordello in the Southgates district, befriending the Madame and becoming something of a handyman/bodyguard muscle for the girls. Although he was able to recover from much of the worst of his addictions during this time, his debts eventually caught up with him and he was forced to leave, ending up on the streets.

Whilst homeless, he was aided by the local Southgates Community Shelter and met with another homeless man called Michael Steinbach. The two became swift friends and Michael was instrumental in helping him get away from the worst of his drug addictions in exchange for Elliot's help as a bare knuckle fighter for the local fighting pits.

Michael and Elliot became relatively well known within the illegal fighting circles and the two became close friends. Elliot continued to seek rehabilitation - particularly after becoming godfather to Michael's daughter. Elliot eventually gave up alcohol altogther, and forced himself to go cold turkey to avoid any further drug use. He sought and received assistance for this from the Southgate shelter and its team of social workers - in particular one Alice Chamberlain.

It is suspected that it was during his time at the shelter that he was first infected with Sedis 9 and the Catalyst, as each element was slowly and quietly introduced into the districts water supply by the gang of Gregory under instructions from the Unshiri corp. Though symptoms of the change were constant over a 5 month period, they did not fully manifest until around the time of the Croydon shuttle disaster.

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