Julius Rook

**Julius “Joe” Rook** is a violent gun-for-hire and former member of the Crimsonhead Militia, who had reached the rank of Major while he was serving in the Sapphiria/Rubidia War. After Jasper’s demise in the war, he leaves the remnants of the service and begins to loan out his skills to the highest bidder throughout the Gilded Lands serving as a security consultant & specialist, repossession agent, and the occasional bodyguard.

## Biography

### Early Life

Born in Bello Locus to a gladiator trainer and a nurse mother, his mother died giving birth to him and his father blamed Joseph for the death. Given a harsh childhood in the care of his abusive father, Joseph held the likeness of a wild dog, dreaming of being the strongest arena. At age seven, he had ruined his father’s gambling streak by accidentally revealing his father’s guile and method of cheating. Enraged, after a thrashing, his father disowned him and shipped him off to Cartheginesis to join the military. Given his upbringing around fighters and violence, a young Julius found it easy to implement and respond with violence and aggression. During his training in Cartheginesis, he was akin to a rabid dog, always eager to get into scraps with the other boys and even his superiors. It wasn’t until he was taken under Commander Aquillius’ (Hadrianus & Titus’ Grandfather) wing and though Joe had proven stubborn, Commander Aquillius’ mentorship ultimately tempered the boy’s rage and taught him to channel it productively and forged a combative prodigy. Not only that, Aquilius provided a father figure, Joe secretly desired and soon heeded anything Aquilius would say or instruct. At the age of 16, Joseph was scouted by Jasper for the Crimsonhead Militia.

### Rubidia Expansion

Whilst serving during the Crimsonhead Militia, Joe served close to Jasper and Ozark, pacifying and annexing surrounding islands in the name of Rubidia’s expansion. Intoxicated by the power granted by Jasper’s boon and the freedom to employ brutal means to subdue the natives, Joe became consumed with an unwavering sense of nationalism and as such further reinforced Rubidia’s motto in his mind. Despite being young and drunk on the power of supremacy, Joe refrained from killing unarmed natives and non-hostiles as it was taught to him by the Romans that to kill an unarmed person was considered cowardly and dishonorable.

### The Feint (First Sapphiria/Rubidia Conflict)

On the icy shores of Northaria, an older Julius, a respected and grizzled veteran among the Crimsonhead Militia, was deployed alongside his commander Ozark. For a month, Julius engaged in prolonged bouts of combat with little to no rest for days at a time. Despite being on foreign territory, he and the invading Crimsonheads forces were able to dig into the northern front and hold the territory during their campaign. Much to Julius’ surprise, he and the Crimsonheads retreated on Ozark’s command and returned back home.

### The Sapphirian Campaign: Assault of Sima Cao

On Jasper’s return and a full-scale launch of the Rubidian forces, Julius was given command of a strike team to provide anti-air cover for the Black Ship. Sima Cao’s anti-air had hit his fighter, forcing him to abandon ship. Upon a rough landing, he linked up with the ground forces and wrought destruction upon Sima Cao. With phase one of Jasper’s master plan completed, he withdrew into the fog of war with the rest of the soldiers.

### The Sapphirian Campaign: Northaria

The next deployment, Julius had returned to the frigid lands of Northaria. As they reached the familiar shores, the skies over the land were blackened and what seemed like a permanent noxious smog. Adapting to the introduction of chemical warfare, the Crimsonhead forces implemented upgraded armors and vehicles to withstand possible organic damage. This time around, the Crimsonhead forces gained far more momentum than their previous attempt on the North and had reached Cornith, the capital of Northaria. Alek’voyna’s interference in the battle had seeded the belief that the Crimsonhead’s might was so fearsome that the weaker Sapphirians had to pray for divine intervention in Joe’s mind. However, the god of war and justice’s power provided the assistance the Sapphirians needed to snatch a win out of the jaws of defeat. During the climax of the battle, he witnessed light rip out of thin air and swallow his friends and squadmates, leaving nothing, not even ash, when the light faded. In his long military career of a few decades, Julius had never faced against the power of a god only wielded it and felt a pang of doubt in the Crimsonhead’s power retreating, Joe, with wounded-pride, cursed the intervention of the Sapphirian god and began to question how the Crimsonhead forces could possibly be routed and defeated despite them empowered with Jasper’s boon.

### The Sapphirian Campaign: The Eastern Campaign

Whilst the Roman forces burned through the jungles of the east, Julius was recuperating at a Black Ship stationed off the outskirts of the Sapphirian coasts. Within the ship, he was subjected to testing and had samples of Black Plaque scraped from his armor. The scientists aboard examined the Black Plaque and it was revealed to be absolutely toxic to organic light, but the upgrades his armor were equipped with shielded him from exposure. With further elaboration supplied by the results of quick testing, Julius questioned if the Sapphirian pantheon truly cared about their people to allow such a lethal toxicity to linger within the troposphere and infect everything within their land. He valued the strength of perseverance, but this virus, explained to him by the scientists, would wipe out organic life with no hope of mutation. During his month aboard, he had received The Official reports of Albus’ death, but shed no tears nor felt the need to mourn the loss of the supreme commander of Magna Roma. He had fallen to an enemy the Crimsonheads thought inferior to Rubidia’s strength, but despite this, he was a decorated individual and hero to Julius’ people. So, out of respect to every accomplishment prior to Albus’ fatal folly, Julius mentioned going to the funeral.

### The Sapphirian Campaign: End Game

With Albus’ death, the Roman forces had managed a truce with Sapphiria and marched home to bury their beloved leader. This left the Crimsonhead Army to face the Sapphirian Forces who launched a counterattack, landing on the shores of Alestios. On the plains of Alestios, Julius and his unit met the enemy and outmatched the foes they faced.  As Alek’voyna exploded in a light comparable to a second sun, faith in Jasper’s power was restored, but at the cost of the lingering question of what a god should be and their role in society. When the goddess, Sapphirian arrived, she performed a miracle that resurrected her fallen soldiers and further reinforced them. As they were revived, Julius saw the initial madness and shock of those revived from the dead first hand and saw this to be a violation and defilement of the dead and a blatant defiance of the natural order of the world.  Enraged by the goddess’ audacity, Julius went berserker on the risen and charged off to confront the goddess even if it killed him. He was stopped when he found himself entrenched in thick fog. Other crimson heads around him began to vanish. Blinded, but not beaten, he remained resilient against the random, veiled strikes of a spear in the fog. He staved off the dragoon in her mists for a time before he being impaled thrice over. Left for dead, bleeding out, through sheer willpower, Julius pulled himself out of the fog of death and patched himself up by repeatedly cauterized his wounds with an energy blade. A Sapphirian field medic found him and stabilized him then pulled him out of the combat zone at the cost of medic’s own life.

Recovering from the sidelines, he had watched Eisenclast fall from its perch from the sky and crash into the lake below, causing a tsunami. The outpost he was recovering from was flooded by the Eisenclast’s impact and Julius was caught under the tsunami and ended up washed up on the debris of the outpost. Unable to move, he observed Jasper’s last moments through a scope, watching Holy Diver land atop Jasper and soon after disintegrate his body. With Jasper gone, he felt the superhuman strength, the boon bestowed onto him, fade and with the last thought of an actual god bested by a young woman had Julius exacerbated and resulted in him losing consciousness from both physical and mental stress.

### Albus’ Funeral

After recuperating from his wounds and the loss of his superhuman power, true to his word, Julius attended Albus’ funeral. Within the flames and in the truth revealed by Ozymandia, Julius found the answers he had been seeking since the beginning of the second war.  He resolved that gods should stay put in whatever heaven they reside in and stay out of the daily life of mortals. Their only function in society is to promote order from afar, supply the seldom miracle as proof of their existence and accept what prayers come their way. In the following days, he realized how weak relying on Jasper’s boon made him and had him further declare that for any person or society to familiarize itself with a god’s power will eventually become their crutch and actually weaken them.

### Gilded Lands

Despite losing Jasper’s boon, Julius compensated the loss by refreshing his body with a more rigorous training regime hearkening back to the brutal tutelage he was subjected to as a child. Much to his surprise, even though Jasper’s boon granted him superhuman strength, the militaristic lifestyle kept him at maximum condition for a human. Confident in his body’s new condition, he left Crimsonhead’s HQ and found wetwork in the Gilded Lands. Given his skills as a veteran soldier and the special operation-style and execution of the work supplied to him, he earned a reputation fairly quickly among the Gilded Land’s Conglomerate and Triad as a lethal, half-insane, and hire-able solution to a myriad of security and repossession problems. On occasion he has worked for and against the ruling Triads depending on the job.

## Appearance

Julius Rook appears to be a weathered man in his early forties with a powerful build with a bevvy of muscle. He is of fair complexion with a head full of black hair normally shaped into a variation of a military cut and cold, dark blue eyes. Despite the older Roman leaders growing out their facial hair, Julius adopted a modern-day hygiene standard and kept himself cleanly shaven. After leaving the Crimsonhead, his efforts on personal hygiene slackened and occasionally sport an5-o’clock shadow   Across his heavily muscular body is a collection of scars from a lifetime of battle. More often than not, Julius will be equipped in either his Crimsonhead specialist armor. In civilian clothing, he wears a padded overcoat with an armor weave beneath it.

## Personality

Julius Rook is a man who sees the world in pure black and white terms. His military career has hardened him to even the most extensive violence, but being jaded has rendered him a quiet individual, speaking only when it’s absolutely essential. Raised with the Neo-Darwinian philosophy, Julius became fatalistic and if he was to die it was because whatever had killed him is stronger than he. On the other side of that coin, he believed the same to others around him and to his own victims.  He is cold-blooded and cruel when it came to killing foes. Thanks to the influence of Commander Aquilius, Rook was imparted with a sense of honor, discipline and honesty saddled with an iron mentality. He greatly values the lives of the innocent and will do everything in his power to make sure that civilians are not harmed. After experiencing and learning the extents of Jasper’s passions had done to the Rubidian people, Julius’ sense of morality had warped to the extreme, differing greatly from what would consider acceptable ideals of good and bad. He disregards any wisdom or view of justice anyone proclaiming divinity declares and follows his own code of honor and ethics. Rook’s involvement in the Sapphirian/Rubidia war made him increasingly suspicious and cynical about the capabilities and role of the gods of both pantheons, especially in regard to the deaths of Albus, Alek’voyna, and Jasper and later evolved his life philosophy to that of a humanist in the sense that mankind should solve their own problems as they have the potential to instead of relying on the divine and supernatural and from that belief in his own potential, a Kierkegaardian outlook on life realizing, in the end, nothing he does will actually matter but pursues his course because that is what he has chosen to do and he will pursuit what he chooses to do wholeheartedly.

## Abilities

Although Rook has no superhuman powers, he should be considered highly dangerous. He is in peak physical condition and through his rigorous training & exercise regime, he developed strength, speed, endurance, stamina, longevity, reflexes, and agility near the limits of a supersoldier’s inhuman capabilities. Rook’s endurance is unbelievably high. He does not hesitate to perform surgery on himself without pain medication.

As a recipient of multi-disciplinary military knowledge from both the Legion of Magna Roma and Jasper’s Crimsonhead Militia, Rook is a very thoroughly seasoned veteran in multiple forms of armed and unarmed combat. Thanks to this and continued training, he is a master of many weapons, favoring daggers and long-range firearms. Rook’s ever-changing arsenal of weaponry includes various automatic and semiautomatic rifles, both ballistic and energy based, and an array of handguns, fragmentation and tear gas grenades, other explosives, and combat knives. A personal favorite is the ballistic dagger he has had on him since his childhood at the arena, one he can launch its blade with lethal force. Rook has extensive knowledge of blade weapons from his years of training in the Legion. He would be considered the equivalent to a Pre-Great War extensively trained special forces commando.

Rook has complete control of his mind and consciousness, providing a strong resistance against telepathic powers that are used against him. He maintains this iron mentality with the absolute discipline to the point where he does not partake in alcohol or drugs even painkillers or anesthetics.

## Relationships

### Albus

The god he had been taught to revere and respect when he was a boy training in Cartheginesis, but the idea of reverence never stuck with him. He respected Albus for his martial prowess and tactical cunning, but never saw him as a god. He had never met Albus in the flesh, but the idea of one of Rubidia’s god being able to perish made Albus appear weak in Julius’ lens of what a god should be and what having power should be like. In his own truth, Julius only recognized two gods: Jasper & Death. Despite learning of the real reason behind Albus’ death, it did little to change his opinion of Albus aside from a margin more respect for the defeated god.

### Jasper

Until recent events, Julius viewed Jasper as the absolute symbol of power as he had never lost a battle he participated in unless he designed it for a future victory. His devotion to Jasper was absolutely blinding that the lies he was fed were so easily accepted as truths and further blinded him to Jasper’s declining composure which was mistaken for passion for the destruction of the decided enemy. With Jasper’s death and the truth coming out, Julius was disillusioned and grew a distaste and distrust for gods.

### Commander Aquilius

A mentor and a father figure  to Julius, Julius will forever revere him fondly and plainly admits that without Aquilius he would’ve been a mad dog that died in due to reckless stupidity either in battle or a sanctioned execution.  The only thing that stains his memory of the old man is that he died of old age instead of battle.