Richard Faylen (deceased)

Strength        Agility         Intellect       Willpower
4x              3x              5c              3x

Hand Size:      2 (10)
Edge:           0

Origin:

Richard Faylen is a normal human, for the most part, possessing no paranormal powers of any sort. While he has no ascendant abilities to speak of, he did serve as the operator of a high tech, remote controlled tank prototype, so there's that.

Powers:

(none)

Hindrances / Augmentations:

Guilty: Richard is totally devastated over a previous crime he committed, essentially involving a sexual encounter with somebody he didn't know was a minor. As such, when reminded about this occurrence, his ability scores are reduced to zero for the duration of the scene.

Of course, Krotze uses this to his advantage whenever he can, especially when trying to bully Richard into doing something he doesn't want to.

Equipment:

the Behemoth Battle Tank (i): on one particular operation directed by Fritz Krotze, Richard used the experimental Behemoth tank against Jenny Swensen and her Mark 2 MAX armor suit. The tank was totaled in this incident, but it's not like Krotze International couldn't build another.

Skills:

Electronics (i): though a total loser in most other aspects of life, Richard is an electronics whiz. He can build, design, and repair such gear with ease, and makes any applicable actions concerning electronics as if the difficulty was one level lower than normally required.

Engineering (i): another area that Richard excels in is raw, mechanical gear. He has a near-intuitive sense of how gears, wheels, and such go together, and enjoys making them work together. Further, he can make repairs on such machinery rather easily.

Contacts:

The only reliable contact that Richard can possibly count upon would be Krotze International. And really, relying upon KI for help is something that Richard wasn't likely to do, what with it having gotten him in so much trouble in the first place.

Calling:

Repentant: Richard is a haunted man, and he's still trying to make up for his mistake of years past. As such, he's doing everything he can to make things right, even if most of this work is toadying to Fritz Krotze these days. Not that he trusts Fritz with his secrets.

Costume:

Not at all a super-human individual, Richard didn't wear any sort of ridiculous costume while doing his job. He typically wore a business suit whenever he was spotted doing Fritz Krotze's bidding. It was invariably a tacky brown suit, but at least Richard was consistent.

Personality:

Richard Faylen was a man ruled by fear. Fear that Fritz Krotze would eventually reveal his dirty little secret to the police. This fear drove the man to do anything Krotze required of him, even breaking the law in increasingly serious degrees.

Unfortunately, Richard never realized that he'd never be free of the grim specter of Krotze's blackmail... but he nonetheless retained hope of this.

Real Name: Richard Faylen
Occupation: mechanical engineer
Legal Status: American citizen with no criminal record, legally deceased
Marital Status: single
Alias(es), if any: none
Group Affiliation: none

Height: 5' 10"
Hair: brown
Eyes: blue
Weight: 200 lbs.
Other Distinguishing Characteristics: none, other than his pot belly.

Story:

Richard Faylen was a senior engineer at Krotze International. Not a genius, mind you, but competent enough with juggling his skills and making his superiors happy that he could advance into upper management. Of course, his career came to a sudden halt when he was involved in a statutory rape incident on one fateful night. Fearing he'd go to prison, he confided with his boss in the matter.

This proved to be a fatal error.

You see, unknown to Faylen, Fritz Krotze was a traitor to his nation, selling the high tech weapon systems he developed for the government to various other world powers, including the Club, a mysterious terrorist organization. Lacking scruples, Krotze covered up this whole incident, but has held Faylen over a barrel ever since, forcing him to do his dirty work lest he have to tell the police what Richard did.

Fearing prison to the extreme, Faylen did everything Krotze asked. This included three particular missions that Krotze executed against Jenny Swensen, the daughter of one of his late engineers, a daughter that had stolen a piece of equipment he'd already promised to deliver to the Club. During the first one, Krotze employed another thug to fly the original MAX suit (Jenny'd stolen the second one).

Though he had to be on the scene, then, Faylen didn't have to actually do anything, other than assist the thug's tactical data readings, though this thug ultimately got beaten up by Swensen. After this, Krotze sent Richard out with the Behemoth tank, a sort of remote controlled killing machine, which he steered into the New Hampshire wilds after Swensen, who was hiding out across the state border.

This mission also failed, as Jenny found out how the fiber-optic controlled thing worked, and disabled it. After she threw the tank over a cliff, a defeated Faylen returned to Krotze International. Once he'd completed brow-beating Faylen, Krotze had him help deal with Swensen once again, who'd broken into a Krotze International laboratory to find some incriminating data.

Faylen couldn't help much, however, as Krotze himself was operating the experimental laser system against Swensen, and Krotze's security goons were coating the area where Swensen was at with a hail of bullets. In the end, Swensen got away with the data she needed, and Krotze disappeared that night. Fearing the worst, and now knowing who Krotze really worked for, Faylen fled.

He'd made it as far as Albany, New York, when Krotze's kidnapper caught up to him. The evil Steel Hawk, agent of the Club and all-around lousy human being, killed poor Richard Faylen by putting a car bomb in his vehicle. The man didn't think to check his car out before it blew him to bits. 

Chronology: Spitfire and the Troubleshooters # 1, Spitfire and the Troubleshooters # 2, Spitfire and the Troubleshooters # 3, Spitfire and the Troubleshooters # 4.