Shatter

After a decade of obscurity, Michael Schepkin found ce­lebrity and celebration truly agreed with him. The son of an immigrant glass-blower, Michael followed in his father’s footsteps, but had a decidedly more artistic and unusual flair for design. Mocked at first, tabloids and art critics alike eventually came to label his work as modern genius, and with that adulation came fame and no small amount of wealth. Schepkin sold his name to anyone and everyone who could sign a check, and directed his pas­sions toward late nights and hard drugs. His newfound fame began taking its toll, though, and age soon nipped at the innovative artist’s heels. Where most men might find respectability or composure, Schepkin felt only disgust for the frailty of his aging flesh. When his father’s death brought that lingering dread of mortality into sharp focus, Schepkin descended into deep depression. For weeks he poured over family journals from the old country and—in a drug-induced state of enlightenment—he merged old-world superstition and his own uncanny spark of creation to forge himself a new body from glass and fire, immune to the ravages of age and above human weakness.
Schepkin awoke a new man, lying beside the dead form he once possessed, now withered and used up by the same drugs that inspired his transforma­tion. But whatever cobbled-together occultism transplanted Schepkin’s soul from flesh to glass was far from perfect. Though immortal and inhu­manly beautiful now, Schepkin found his creative spark ebbing, and his personality dis­torted and refracted into something grotesque. He grew violent, lashing out at his wife and critics, before slipping seamlessly back into his usual charm­ing, intellectual self. After a particularly heated argu­ment escalated and a wine bottle cracked across his face, Schepkin’s body shattered. He didn’t die, but was instead reborn as a new and horrifying beast of jagged shards.
Shatter’s mind cracked as messily as his body, and he carved his way through dozens of gallery at­tendees before his senses returned. In time, Shatter discovered he could resume human form, copying anyone by staring into their eyes. But without the eyes of Michael Schepkin to find himself in, Shatter remains an unstable man without an identity of his own, forever living others’ lives and mourning his own.

Physical Description

Special abilities

Shatter’s body is a golem formed from broken, enchanted glass, rendering him immune to mortal concerns as well as insulating him from many forms of damage. His sharp edges can inflict vicious lacerations with even a glancing blow, and he can hurl bits of himself as deadly projectiles. The disem­bodied spirit of Michael Schepkin is the true animating force within Shatter, rather than any intrinsic magic of the material, and Shatter can rebuild himself by devouring more glass.
Like a broken mirror, Shatter can take on the form, voice, and mannerisms of anyone by staring into their eyes, al­lowing him to disappear into a crowd if he grows bored with a fight, or take over the lives of his victims for days at a time. These forms are fragile, though, shattering with any sufficient impact to reveal the monster within.

Mental characteristics

Intellectual Characteristics

Half beast, half sophisticate, Shatter’s mind is deeply damaged thanks to his imperfect spiritual transfer, years of drug abuse, and broken identity. He yearns for his old life of adora­tion and comfort, and frequently kidnaps and impersonates celebri­ties or artists to recapture that love, sometimes losing himself in the role for days or weeks. But eventu­ally his paranoia and cruelty over­take him, or some accident breaks his facade, and he explodes into violence. He fixates on minor details, to the point of missing the rest of the world. Despite his erratic tendencies, Shatter is observant, clever, and persuasive, able to bring others under his influence even after maiming or terrorizing them. At times Schep­kin seems to genuinely regret the violence he commits, while other times he revels in the destruction and pain he inflicts on others, calling it his new art.
At his most lucid, Shatter attempts to rebuild the cult of personality he once possessed as Michael, but the more beloved his new identity becomes, the more disgusted he grows that the sycophants around him would forget the true genius he was in favor whatever flavor-of-the-month he presents himself as now.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Shatter finds other disturbed villains a comforting pres­ence—making him feel less “broken” —and occasionally abandons his quest for a normal life to revel in some vil­lainous cabal or romantic fling. At other times, he surrounds himself with a circle of willing servants drawn to his mag­netic personality—equal parts artists and cultists.
The fractured menace occasionally plays minion to other villains—especially mages and mad scientists—who claim they may be able to help restore his old identity. More often, unscrupulous magic users take advantage of his broken mind and weakened will to magically compel the deadly glass golem into temporary servitude or to execute their enemies.
Shatter hates other artists and celebrities, and espe­cially superheroes who fall into one or both categories. He fixates on perceived insults, and may stalk or harass anyone for weeks if he feels slighted.

SHATTER’S FOLLOWERS

As a celebrity with an extreme point of view as well as superpowers, Shatter attracts followers with a decidedly twisted outlook. Shatter doesn’t care for his followers at all, except for what they give him or do for him—he es­pecially loves the attention they give him. In some ways their worship of him brings him closer to his old life than anything else.
Due to his uncaring attitude toward them, Shatter often uses his followers as fodder in combat or to carry out some task he believes is beneath him. In one instance he might use a handful of followers to help him steal or destroy something, even if doing so might mean coming into conflict with the authorities or superbe­ings, and another time he might ask some of them to kidnap someone he’s interested in, or any number of other tasks. So far none of his followers have refused a task he’s given them.
The followers themselves come from all different walks of life, but all of them are clearly unhinged, twisted re­flections of their broken master. They are willing to do whatever Shatter asks, hoping to become favored by their master with more time and attention—or in some cases hoping Shatter includes them in his next bid for power, like the one that left him in his current form.
Shatter recently learned that he could break off shards of himself that his followers could use both as weapons and to mimic his ability to look like others he can see, at least for a short while. He plans to use his followers to sow even greater confusion in the future.