Alternate
Name: Steven Arthur Grant
Nick Names: Steve
Alias: Deathclaw (The name of the creature he turns into, taken from a deadly creature in the Fallout game series)
Alliance: Human
Race: Human (Shapeshifter)
❧Physical Characteristics
Age: 18
Hair: Messy and blond.
Eyes: Blue
Skin Tone: Caucasian
Ethnicity: British
Scars, Birthmarks, Tattoos: None
Height: 5'11" (6'0" at the head as Deathclaw)
Weight: 175 lbs (1,322 lbs as Deathclaw)
Marital Status: Single
Physical Structure: Steven's just an inch below average male height, with a slim build, blond hair, icy blue eyes, and fair skin. Deathclaw, on the other hand, is built a bit like a bear, with thick, matted fur which has spots similar to a jaguar or leopard. Deathclaw stands at six feet tall and is eight feet long, with twelve-inch-long canines.
Orientation: Straight
❧Personal Info
❖Transcripts:
Alignment: True Neutral
Criminal Record: None
Level of Education: Completed secondary school
If Collegian: "Haven't applied for one yet. I'd like to have a steady job first."
Current Occupation: Tour guide for the Fossil Halls, American Natural History Museum, New York. "It's really quite fun!"
Past Occupations: Unofficial paleontologist with his parents.
Family: Frederick Grant (father), Elise Grant (mother)
Lovers, Friends, and Others: "Ah, all my old mates back home in England... Thank the Lord for Skype, yeah?"
❖Personal:
Personality: Steven tends to be polite and shy; he is horrible with women in a romantic sense, though he has no problem with befriending a girl once he gets past the initial embarrassment. He's also more or less a walking encyclopedia when it comes to prehistoric life, which tends to freak out laymen. When he transforms into the S. populator that was bonded with his soul, Steven's consciousness goes dormant, and the cat's personality takes over. This means that Steven loses all sense of self and is incapable of communicating with anyone uless they are a felid of a closely related subfamily, such as Leo Panthera (lions, tigers, panthers).
Because the S. populator species was not entirely self-aware, the cat bonded with Steven acts in just the way such a large carnivore would be expected to act. However, when not hungry and looking for food, the cat seems to be quite docile, and even friendly to humans who approach it. Whether this is due to memories of how it was treated by the prehistoric shamans, or whether Steven's own docile personality is subconsciously affecting the cat's demeanor, is unknown.
People Skills: See above
Goals: "I wanna be a paleontologist like my parents!"
Fears: Being permanently shifted into Deathclaw's form.
Favorites:
Food: Pizza
Color: Red
Hobby: "... Guess."
Role Model: "My parents, as cliche as that sounds."
Catch Phrase/Motto: N/A
❧Skills, Abilities, and Powers
Skills:
Paleontology: Growing up with two parents as paleontologists means that Steven is very knowledgeable about the subject despite not having a degree in it.
Abilities: N/A
Powers:
Shapeshifting: Steven's only superhuman power is shapeshifting into a Smilodon populator. Steven's transformations, while done at will, can last for several days, and when he transforms back he has no memory of whatever he did in his animal form. This would not be a problem if Steven kept his sapience while in animal form, but he does not. He also does not remember his transformations after shifting back to normal. As a result of not being able to remember his transformations and not knowing what he does while in that form, Steven is able to be talked into showing people his animal form. He is aware of what he can turn into and what the cat can do, so he is wary of transforming for others.
When he is out, Deathclaw relies on animal instinct and his own raw power to overwhelm his prey. In addition, the magic used by the prehistoric shamans ensured that he possesses a hyper-regeneration factor which allows him to survive virtually any attack thrown at him; this is his only real defense when engaged in combat against other beings.
Weaknesses:
Mortal Constitution: When not transformed, Steven is vulnerable to all things that can kill an ordinary human.
Failsafe: Despite his transformations lasting for varying periods of time, Steven's parents accidentally discovered a failsafe for Steven's transformations: If someone mentions the name of a prehistoric animal of any kind while Steven is within earshot, Steven will revert to normal. The reason proposed for this is because Steven's love for paleontology and prehistoric life is so ingrained within Steven's psyche, and it is such an integral part of who he is, that his consciousness is brought back by the mention of a prehistoric animal. It took a few tries for Steven's parents to connect the dots on this, and once they did they informed Steven of the discovery.
Loss of Consciousness: When Steven transforms, he essentially goes unconscious as Deathclaw takes over. As Deathclaw is not exactly sapient, he in incapable of using logic or reasoning beyond his own instincts, and Steven is unaware of anything Deathclaw does.
Technology/Weapons/Paraphernalia: None
History
Steven Grant was born in Liverpool, England to famed paleontologists Frederick and Elise Grant. As a result of growing up with such parents, Steven has always wished to become a paleontologist himself. As a result, he pushed himself to excel in fields like mathematics and science, in order to one day become a paleontologist.
At seventeen, while on a dig in Argentina with his parents, Steven found a skeleton of a Smilodon populator: the largest ever discovered (and the S. populator species itself is the largest of the saber-toothed cats, making this find the largest cat to ever walk the Earth). Steven touched the skeleton and was engulfed in a white light, and in his place was a S. populator.
Though Steven did not realize it, the skeleton he had touched was actually an S. populator worshiped as an animal-god by prehistoric man due to his size. This specimen had been present when several prehistoric shamans invoked an ancient, long-since-forgotten ritual to preserve their animal-god's spirit within his own bones. The first human to touch the cat's skeleton would have their soul infused with the cat's own. That first human was Steven.
Steven's parents, after realizing what had happened (and narrowly avoiding being eaten), forbade Steven from transforming again outside of an controlled environment, but as they were reluctant to bring Steven to anyone for fear of either being labeled crazy, or Steven being used as a sort of weapon, they only rarely tested Steven's new abilities.
At eighteen, Steven moved to New York and got a job working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His job is being a tour guide for the Fossil Halls. He has not told anyone about his... predicament, nor does he plan to, but he is determined to figure out how to control Deathclaw eventually.
Theme Song: "Aha... Erm, Maybe the Jurassic Park theme?"
For Deathclaw specifically, there's Sabre Hunters, while I'm unsure of Steven's theme just yet.
