Judas Wormwood (pre-Retcon)

Current

* Support Regiment
	+ Oikeia Squad

Party of Hope
Order of Assassins
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Hermes Motorcycle Club
Fuerza Severo de Reacción
Theomachia Fight Club
Church of Therion
Coffeeholics Anonymous
Tacez tribe
Ghost Club
House of Mavet
Syndicate of Thieves

*"When I was a little boy, I had a recurring dream about the end of the world. Now, I realize that it wasn't just a dream, but a vision of the future. My name is Judas Wormwood, and I am Death, the mighty destroyer of the world."*
―Judas talking about his dream
**Judas Wormwood**, also known by his *nom de guerre* **Reyes Calavera**, is the main protagonist of *Mist of the Heart*. He was the deified sovereign of Pathos and chief executive officer of Avaddon Enterprises, prior to the Collapse.

## History

### Early life

#### Youth in Avaritia

Circa 2133, Judas was born to the aristocratic Wormwood family. His father, Thomas Wormwood, forced him to study the history of Pathos while imposing a vengeful and skeptical mindset that shaped how he perceived society. Conversely, his mother, Sofía Wormwood, taught him about the beauty of life. However, they gave a combined effort to educate him of foreign lands and their cultures, with contrasting ways of doing so, in the hopes of broadening his perspective.

He frequently visited the Avaritia catacombs to escape the outside world, finding solace in the silence of the dead.

#### Death of his parents

Perhaps the most tragic part of Judas' life was the day he witnessed his parents get killed by Markos Aviur. A tense conversation between Markos and Thomas ended abruptly when the heinous king stabbed his father; this grisly fate befell his mother soon afterward. He only escaped with the help of an old family friend, watching as his home became engulfed in flames.

After that day, Judas began to hear the voice of Yaldabaoth in his head, although he did not realize it.

#### Refuge in Mexico

Judas was forced to flee the country and wound up on a boat to Mexico. He settled down in the slums of Mexico City.

### Military career

When he turned 16, Judas enlisted into the Mexican Special Forces Corps, creating a fake identity to qualify. He was eventually recruited by the Fuerza Severo de Reacción, and served for about 3 years before going AWOL.

### Quest for vengeance

#### Return to Pathos

At the age of 17, Judas encountered a man named Benjamin Matos, whom introduced him to the Pathonian Liberation Front and, through some convincing, granted him a place on his ship, which was set to sail back to Pathos.

#### Kismet Island Raid

One year later, Judas partook in an operation led by the Intelligence Regiment's commander Shadowstar and assisted by members of the Support Regiment to raid Kismet Island. On their trip to the island, he experienced a resurgence of splitting headaches and dreamlike visions of an indistinct figure with luminous red eyes observing him, later revealed to be Yaldabaoth. While storming the innermost base with the raid team, Judas was confronted by Null Následovník, who claimed to feel as though they had already met before and divulged key information, but the interaction ended shortly afterward when he was attacked by a Sentinel. This led to him accidentally destroying a large portion of the base, and he started to hear the voice of Yaldabaoth more often from then on.

After discovering that Pathos had made a covert alliance with its neighboring country Protivník, the Pathonian Liberation Front begun making preparations to commence preemptive war. Judas found himself a priority target for the Pathos-Protivník Coalition due to the information provided by Null, who he learns is a member of the notorious Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, codenamed “*the Black Horseman*.”

Suspecting that their primary bases have been located by the enemy, the Liberation Front’s commander, Pastel Reeds, ordered that they be evacuated, but not before two are attacked in quick succession. The Kismet Island Raid Team sailed back onto the mainland, trekking more than 15 kilometers to reach the town of Oilfrad, whose mayor agreed to shelter the pursued freedom fighters. They are given some time to recuperate and participate in the concurrent Strawberry Festival.

#### Avaritia Firebombing

Judas was placed into the newly established Oikeia Squad, who were stationed in Avaritia to await further orders.

While revisiting his destroyed childhood home, Judas became aware that he was being targeted by multiple hired assassins after one attacks him, whom he questioned following an intense battle in order to figure out the situation at hand. The female assassin, named Ina De Angelis, revealed her status as a mercenary who had been told to kill him. She proceeded to explain how key members were already dealt with, including Pastel Reeds, which caused him to become enraged as the woman continued to say he wouldn't make it through the night. Instinctively, Judas placed his hand on her face and disintegrated her, then a squadron of bomber planes carpet firebombed Avaritia after Princess Takali Aviur, co-commander of the Coalition, got word of his location via a quick report Ina sent prior to the fight.

#### The Wild Hunt

*Summary: Judas was hunted down by 16 more assassins over the course of a single night, heading toward the royal palace in Solaris all the while.*

#### Storming Aviur Palace

*Summary: Judas eventually reached Aviur Palace and forced his way inside to confront Markos and Takali directly, but they both suffered major injuries at one another's hands. He was blasted from the palace, knocked out, and saved by the curandera Yolian and taken to her hut in the Tacez Jungle.*

#### Path of the Warrior

*Summary: Judas was force-fed a ceremonial spiritual medicine that temporarily placed him in a state of virtual death, which lasted four days (asserted to have been around four years from his perspective). During this time, he journeyed through an endless tropical jungle while passing many challenges to test his spirit, and finally came back to the living world after conquering the Tecuani.*

#### Abandoning the Pathonian Liberation Front

With the operation derailed as a consequence of Pastel’s untimely death, Judas was targeted by the Coalition and forced to leave his friends behind in order to keep them from getting caught amidst the crossfire. He was briefly stopped by Benjamin while returning to Oilfrad for some necessary supplies, who hesitantly tolerated his decision before giving him the late commander’s scarf, believing that they would want him to have it.

## Appearance

Judas is a Cainitic male of below-average height and lean, muscular build, with flowing white hair described as "reminiscent of an ethereal being." His eyes are blood red, and they appear narrow in shape.

As the CEO of Avaddon Enterprises, Judas wore a black suit underneath a hooded coat, paired with gloves made from peccary leather and a scarf that matched the color of his eyes. He further donned black combat boots clad with steel armor, spikes lining the front.

## Abilities

**Overview**: TBA

* **Immense Strength**: Judas possesses a preternatural degree of physical strength, which seems to grow during times of intense hatred. Judas was able to tear apart an advanced fighter jet, fight on par with Takali, and can potentially surmount the combined might of the United Armed Forces, even without his additional powers. He further demonstrated the ability to move freely in the air with only his bodily movements.
* **Immense Speed & Reflexes**: Judas possesses meteoric speed and reflexes that allowed him to dodge rapid gunfire at close range, maneuver through falling debris, keep up with hypersonic missiles, and take down entire groups of enemies before anyone saw what happened. It was nearly indistinguishable from teleportation on multiple occasions. The only person known to consistently outclass him in this category is Starbright, who moves at the speed of light.
* **Immense Durability**: TBA.
* **Immense Stamina**: Judas is able to tolerate tremendous pain and remain constantly active for days without tiring or slowing down. He once traveled more than 2300 kilometers while critically injured, sleep-deprived, dehydrated, and suffering major blood loss.
* **Enhanced Regeneration**: Judas has recovered from innumerable gunshots, broken bones, burns, bite wounds, gashes, and torso impalements, even regenerating his entire left hand after it had been cut off by Starbright.
* **Enhanced Senses**: Judas possesses extremely acute senses that allow him to perceive things outside the normal range of perception, which he displayed by discerning the presence of enemy forces instantly, even when they were scattered all around a mountain. He has been documented hearing, seeing and smelling near-imperceptible stimuli from remote locations, as well as easily detecting faint vibrations in the air. Judas claimed he could smell fear. It was stated that only *grand veneur* Bloodhound outclasses him.
	+ **Night Vision**: Judas retains unhampered eyesight in darkness, attributed to the fact he possesses a variant of the tissue *tapetum lucidum* found in some nocturnal and deep-sea animals.
* **Accelerated Growth Rate**: Judas is a particularly fearsome opponent both in the short and long term because he can evolve fast enough to transcend his enemies midbattle. It was noted that his body is trying to seek an "ideal form" to accommodate his desire to destroy the world.
	+ **Adaptation**: Judas can reactively mutate to counteract new threats. This first manifested as desert locust-like wings used to escape a minefield, which he later detached and regrew on command. He also sprouted twelve, violet-red tentacles to defend and fight for him while being restrained. Judas seemingly has partial control over his mutations.

**Genius Intellect**: Judas possesses an incredibly sharp mind, displaying enough observational and analytical skills to infer an opponent’s abilities simply by watching them in action; he can perform deductive, inductive. and abductive reasoning of the highest caliber. He was able to calculate the variables for jumping between two advanced fighter jets, figure out where a meteorite would most likely land, completely neutralize Lucas’ Railgun, coordinate multiple successful missions, and allude the prying eyes of the public. He mostly relies on *ad hoc* plans that utilize lateral thinking, intuition and lightning-quick wit to outsmart adversaries, but employs "vertical" logic when it better applies, or even a mixture thereof.

Thanks to his flexibility, Judas can quickly adapt to foreign environments or situations that normally impede his abilities. He's exhibited a talent for improv.

* **Enhanced Memory**: Judas can remember great volumes of information, in more detail and for much longer than the average human; he can read books, listen to song lyrics, encounter people or experience events and recall a vast amount of the fine points involved.

### Powers

**Destruction**: Judas can disintegrate whatever he touches with his hands. The speed at which it progresses has developed from slow to almost immediate, eventually permeating a person's whole body if the afflicted section isn’t separated from the rest. It also no longer requires him to maintain constant, five-fingered contact, since briefly brushing against his target or using less than five fingers will provide the same results. It has been shown to capable of affecting masses as large as Protivník in one fell swoop, and it spreads throughout groups like wildfire, infecting anything they come into contact with even when he himself isn’t touching them.

By nature, this power forces Judas to always engage his opponent in close quarters, though he needs only to make minimal contact with his enemy in order to kill or heavily injure them.

Through continuous precision training, Judas gained enough control to leave certain obstacles completely unharmed, with mechanical lines akin to a circuit board that shoot across the intended targets. He had even learned how to manipulate the speed at which it progressed and would have it very slowly eat away at victims’ bodies as a form of physical and psychological torture, forcing them to watch as their body became devoured by the gradual putrefaction.

### Skills

**Combat Specialism**: Judas is an extremely accomplished special forces operator with tremendous mastery over both armed and unarmed combat, retaining his status as one of the finest CQC combatants in the world. Due to years of military training, Judas has become very adept at strategy, able to scrutinize his enemies or current situation and create an effective plan from that information. He even developed a personalized system called GRIM, and requires little to no windup in order to achieve powerful attacks.

Judas' combat skills are so keen that “they could only be achieved through brutal, life-or-death experiences”; he's remarkably agile, ferocious, proprioceptive, resilient, and astute.

* **Ninjutsu**: Judas learned ninjutsu from the seasoned ninja warrior Chie Minami.
* **Horsemanship**: Judas learned how to ride horses and perform mounted combat from the Four Horsemen.
* **Weapon Mastery**: Judas is able to operate several different weapons, such as knives, swords, sickles, scythes, bows, and rifles. He can throw knives with deadly precision and accuracy, and even wield two weapons simultaneously.
	+ **Chain Weapon Mastery**: Judas is highly proficient in using chains or chain-based weaponry, easily taking down opponents with them and masterfully handing his spiked chains for not only combat, but also parkour.

**Survivalism**: Over the course of his life, Judas has acquired the necessary skills to subsist within natural or built environments, and he exhibits the ability to very easily gather information about foreign biospheres/ecosystems to almost perfectly assimilate its “do’s and don’ts.” Examples include the jungles of Mexico, albeit with help from native tribes, the Sonoran Desert, as well as the distorted imitation of a tropical forest when he temporarily visited the Underworld.

In addition to his earned skills, Judas seemed to possess an intuitive knowledge of organic tracking methods when he was younger, even understanding how to entrap and kill prey simply by instinct without any formal training. He also has an incredible sense of direction.

**Special Operations Expertise**: Judas underwent intense training during his time with the FSR. He is well-versed in espionage, special reconnaissance, direct action, counterintelligence, infiltration/exfiltration, sabotage, assassination, deception, interrogation, manhunting, operation deep behind enemy lines, unconventional warfare, and asymmetric engagements. He can also hack most computer systems.

* **Stealth**: Judas has repeatedly shown the ability to breach into high-security buildings undetected and disappear out of sight the moment he’s looked away from, demonstrating extraordinary control over his body to profound effect.
* **Polymathy**: Judas procured a broad education within biology, general history, medicine, mathematics, physics, advanced chemistry, toxicology, metalsmithing, mechanical engineering, psychology, cryptography, religious studies, etc, though he cannot be viewed as comparable to an actual expert of the aforementioned fields. He learned how to perform magic tricks, sleight of hand, card throwing, and tarot reading from Null. He also knows how to sew.
	+ **Multilingualism**: Judas can speak most languages fluently, in addition to his mother tongue Pathonian, as well as use their signed variants.
* **Poisoning**: Judas is familiar with many poisons, sedatives, and muscle relaxants.
* **Makeshift weapon creation**: Judas was taught how to manufacture IEDs, smoke bombs, improvised firearms, acid packets, rudimentary incendiary devices, phreaking boxes, booby traps, and related weapons.

**Parkour**: Judas is an amazingly talented traceur, who can deduce the fastest, most efficient way to maneuver throughout any terrain and execute complex techniques.

**Cooking**: Judas developed phenomenal culinary skills at a young age, and improved his proficiency without proper equipment or refined ingredients amidst his travels. He has learned local recipes, techniques, and rituals from the multitude of places he's visited.

### Weaknesses

**Unnamed Headache Disorder**: Judas suffers from recurrent headaches that are often moderate to severe, which cause symptoms such as nausea, sudden fatigue, body spasms, irritated skin (especially around the neck), and sensitivity to light, sound, and/or smell. He has dealt with it since puberty. They can be triggered by emotional distress, and he describes them as "feeling like his head is splitting."

Headaches are sometimes accompanied by visual and/or auditory hallucinations of Cath Noxtja'luth, who usually tempts Judas into committing acts of violence and destruction, but also provides cryptic advise or an opinion that is relevant to the situation.

## Equipment

**Weapon arsenal**: Judas may wield various weapons when engaged in combat.

* A curved, single-edged sword.
* An FSR Combat Knife. A second, smaller version is stuffed down his left boot.
* Twin sickles.
* Throwing knives.
* Spiked chains.

## Trivia

* Judas is ambidextrous, but he prefers his left hand.
* Judas was born amidst the winter solstice.
* Judas dislikes the nickname Judy.
* Judas wears high-compression boxer briefs.
* Judas holds his phone by wrapping his middle, ring and thumb finger around it while sticking out his remaining digits, similar to the sign of the horns.
* Judas enjoys wearing black eyeshadow/eyeliner.
* Judas bears a strong hatred for religion.
* Judas' favorite victuals:
	+ Avaritian wine.
	+ Raw meat, especially blue sheep, ibex, venison, or fish.
	+ Avocado toast.
	+ Black coffee with two teaspoons of sugar and honey mixed in.
* Judas would be a biology professor, if he were to have gotten an actual job.
* Judas whistles to reveal his presence.
* Judas is a gray pansexual.
	+ He appears somewhat uncomfortable with romance or sex, but only when it’s being directed at him specifically.
* Judas loves horror movies, especially those with exaggerated gore, such as splatter films.
* Judas' medical details:
	+ Judas is allergic to dust.
	+ Judas reflexively sneezes when exposed to sunlight.
	+ Judas has persistent thoughts and dreams about homicide, as well as violence in general.
	+ Judas suffered from canities subita the day his parents died.
* Judas has committed mass murder, assassination, terrorism, arson, theft, kidnapping, vandalism, criminal poisoning/drugging, armed robbery, torture, mutilation, extortion, blackmail, and many more. He's considered a habitual offender.

## Quotes

* (To his comrades) *“War is a terrible thing, isn’t it?”*
* (To an angered Pathos noble) *“Have a seat, take a breath, drink some coffee, and let’s have ourselves a civil conversation.”*
* (To himself) *“There’s no road left but the one that leads to the end.”*
* (To a group of PLF soldiers) *“Cavalry’s here!”*
* (To Takali) *”Now that my conscience is **dead**, there’s nothing left to save you, o Great King of Pathos.”*
* (To Takali) *"Did you feel that chill go up your spine just now? Your survival instincts flaring up all of a sudden? That sense of dread and despair overwhelming your ability to move? That's me, **bête noire**. With the speed and destructive power of a falling star, **I’m gonna wipe you off the face of the Earth**.”*
* (To the Party of Hope) *"Hey! It's the rise of the new king of evil!"*

## Footnotes

1. ↑ Judas' mother originally wanted to name him Citlaltemoc because "a twelve-winged star fell from the sky" in a dream she had the night he was born.
2. ↑ After his body fully metamorphosed into an eldritch being, Judas is no longer considered human.
3. ↑ Learned from Thanatos
4. ↑ Learned from Nikolaos Kontos
5. ↑ Reminiscent of a descending minor 3rd