Renato Alfieri

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Miscellaneous Notes:

Birth Order: Only?
Land of Origin: Sicily
Childhood Environment: Large City
Social/Economic Background: Slave Turned Billionaire
When Extraordinary Abilities First Manifested: Adulthood

Character Bio:

His name isn’t Renato, but for safety (His and Yours) we’ll call him that. He was born in Sicily, cerca 2500 B.C. If you are reading this it means you don’t have long to live, or he trusts you with more than his life: He trusts you with the well-being of the world.

The island was invaded by Egyptians in their First Dynasty. As a peasant child, he was sold into the royal house and slavery, which was better than starving on the streets. His sense of pride and justice drove him to be a member of the guard. He loved his position; not the most prestigious for a citizen, but he was a slave after all. He was a picture of health, which lead to his appointment protecting the Royal Sorcerer, which was working on reproducing a spell of immortality.

Not everyone is able to be given immortality through the process known in the Book of the Dead as ‘Methuselah,’ named after the man. (He included a complete description of the process and how to complete it, and roughly 95% of the human populous is ineligible.) The Sorcerer was looking for an eligible candidate for the process, and due to the fact that the ineligible participants inevitably die there was a steady supply of human ash; at once a key ingredient to the ritual and the one bane of a ‘Methuselah.’ Renato did not know the long-term plans of the Sorcerer, but he didn’t need to; He knew he was evil.

Renato was eligible but barely survived the process. The long, dark ritual involves blood, human ash and molten gold, and he doesn’t like to remember it. He woke up a week later without blemish. He killed the Sorcerer and burned the Book of the Dead ‘pre-First’ edition. He was chased by the Egyptian guard from the palace to the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, where he was able to lose them by faking his own death.  He then returned to his home of Sicily.

(2500-1000 BC)

From that point on, he chased legends of immortality. Memory of his ‘Creation’ fueled his search, and urged the slaughter of evil at his hands, and the search for a safer method to complete the Methuselah process.  After years of research he’d pinpointed the different aspects of a human that could verify eligibility without attempting the process and killing

He had one problem, he needed to feed on gold.  He worked wherever he ended up, and when he wasn’t paid in gold he bought or stole it.

(1000 BC – 500 AD)

After years of travelling the width and breadth of EurAsia, he set roots down close to his birthplace, to fight against the ‘Immortals’ with the Roman army. While living in the Roman empire, he helped in the development of heated flooring as he noticed his skin and lungs were irritated by furnace-heating. He eventually became a Centurion. He fought and commanded well, but he was ordered to the front lines, dooming his century.  Through the campaign he found evidence his enemies weren’t truly immortal, and he slipped into the shadows when the last of his companions fell.

(500 AD-1050 AD)

From there, he traveled to what became modern China, searching for tales of immortals, posing as an Alchemist. He helped with the development of gunpowder and rockets. The legend of the ‘Eight Immortals’ started to surface, and he wasn’t sure if it were his influence or not.  While in China, he learned three things. 1: He loved technology, and helping humanity’s pursuit of bettering the world. 2: It was possible to live without contact with Human Ash or dust. 3: Women, when scorned, were more furious than the fiercest warriors – especially Emperors’ Wives. This third realization incentivized his exodus onto the Island of Japan, searching out the Kami/Megami.

(1050 AD – 1855 AD)

He found a culture and people he loved, and he made a name for himself as a Ronin, principally when he saved the life of a daimyo. The daimyo had only daughters, so when Renato was given the oldest to wife he inherited the First-born’s Birthright. He stayed there for the longest he’d stayed anywhere previously. He truly fell in love and for the first time he attempted the ‘Methuselah’ process. It took, but he never forgave himself for her screams.

Thanks to his experience in Europe and China, he knew how to find craftspeople with great skill. In the fourteenth century, he became close friends with one old man in a small coastal village.  He was a soshu blade master of legendary renown, but had retired to seclusion to live the rest of his years in peace – away from the bloodshed the recipients of his craft sowed.  After learning that Renato’s heart was truly valiant, he crafted a final piece.  Renato promised not to publish its existence, and promised he’d use it to protect the innocent.  Despite keeping its name and origin hidden, the legend spread of the final Masamune, the Celestial Blade Tsurugi.  Renato tried to learn how to craft weapons from him, but is terrible at it to this day.

When the English’s influence invaded, nearly a millennium later, he fought with the last of the Samurai. His first experience fighting for country, and not for his original cause. As a reward for his patriotism, his wife was murdered when his manor was raided and burned to the ground by Meiji sympathizers. With her death, he was cut free from the land, and he drifted.

1850-1910 AD

He moved to America to secure a gold mine in the ’49 Rush.  He secured a steady source for his sustenance, and learned the hard-fought lessons of business to maintain a corporation indefinitely.

While there lightning struck for the second time, and he fell for a native princess named Yanaha Mai, or Brave Bright Flower. She learned his secret before he told her, and she asked to be by his side for eternity. Against all odds, she was eligible.  He implemented several native substances into the Methuselah ceremony, altering her state of awareness enough to dull the pain.  Through the next decades they discovered what Renato had assumed: The Methuselah Process made its subjects sterile.  They were heartbroken at first, but ultimately it allowed them to focus on their other passions.

1910-1921 AD

Wrongly blaming the English for the death of his first wife, they eventually moved to Prussia and Germany to fight the English in WWI.  Renato created a holdings company to store his gold in the Yukon, so as to have access to it whatever happened politically. After the war, they settled in to society, and he temporarily forgot about conflict. Mai found she loved sculpture and art, and learned as much as she could from the Germans about Metalwork.

1921-1999 AD

Having been alive for so long, he started to forget the faces of individuals, and only saw the face of a governmental entity; he grew tired of children squabbling over territory. He has been living for so long, he can see the writing on the wall before the scribe picks up a pen. As such, he and his personally wealthy, ethnic wife moved from pre-Nazi Germany back to the Americas; to Chicago.

He built a permanent residence that could accommodate his belongings and hobbies. He and Mai wove themselves into the social tapestry that was lovingly called the ‘Roarin’ Twenties.’ Within a decade he’d purchased several steel mills, and became an invisible partner of General Motors. The two continued to pursue passions.

As super humans started to surface, the dark rituals that gave them their lives were brought to the forefront of Renato’s mind.  He began to search for wielders of dark magics and end them before they could stumble upon the Methuselah Process.

To maintain his mountainous wealth, he hired an accounting firm to run the Stock Exchange for him.  Stocks, gold stockpiles, and profits from the businesses he’s shareholder of have made him a very wealthy man. Though his net worth changes from time to time, it stays in the high nine digits, if not ten.  His bank account balance, not including any lines of credit, is seven digits, and he has a vault in north-western canada that has roughly 1 ton of gold – though the vault could more accurately be called a larder.

1999 AD-Present

He and Mai moved to Century Station’s Orchard Green, and set up shop, blending in with companies flocking to the city for Project Daedalus.

He is the cause of strange disappearances of several Magicians and Superheroes, both good and bad, thought to be Immortal.