Colonel Joseph Richardson by StoneTree

TEAM: Freelance Villain

SECTOR: LOWTOWN

KIT CLASS: Inventor

Joseph Richardson was born to General Thomas Richardson, leader of the Gestalt, the special forces of the militaristic nation of Aver. Enrolled at a military school and groomed for success from an early age, it soon became apparent that his natural tactical genius and insight into the human mind was only matched by his talent for infuriating superiors and lowering people's opinions of him. Due to his father's position in the military, he was never court-martialed (a process that, on his planet, invariably involved a firing squad) and his eclectic military genius won him much respect and won many sizable victories in the centuries-long war that enveloped his planet. His political rivals in the military managed to have him assigned to the head of the, "Gestalt Anti-Grand Forces," a special forces infantry division dedicated to fighting Grands, a type of twenty-five foot tall manned battle robot used commonly in war. Through excessive use of suicide tactics, psychological warfare, and specialized anti-armor training Colonel Richardson continued to enjoy considerable success, despite horrible, horrible casualties among his soldiers. Still, his condescending attitude towards other high-ranking officers did little to help. After decades of bloody warfare, during which he successfully avoided numerous assassination attempts from both countries, the forward command was struck directly with a Dimensional Distort Warhead. (DDW) Most of the soldiers were split into a dozen dimensions, and others were thrust into inhospitable wastelands or lost in the cold of space. Roughly a dozen men, including Colonel Richardson himself, found themselves in Khazan. Using a few salvaged weapons pulled through by the DDW, they took over a bar in Lowtown and set up shop. The Colonel sees their abandonment on an unknown planet as merely a temporary setback, and is currently rebuilding his command in an attempt to take Khazan as a military outpost of Aver. Concealing his ultimate goals, he's become a community leader of sorts in Lowtown, enjoying a fair amount of respect from the locals and being viewed as a stabilizing force on the area, if a bit of a jackass. Not many know of the murderous ways of him and his soldiers.

Personality: Colonel Joseph Richardson is a partial sociopath. He values the lives of his closest men, and a few friends, but beyond a few dozen people he views each and every life as essentially worthless. While he doesn't kill indiscriminantly, as wholesale butchery would only destabilize his position, he wouldn't hesitate to kill pretty much anyone if it would be an advantage to him. He understands that others often value the lives of uninvolved civilians (although he views it as foolish) and doesn't hesitate to hold pretty much anyone hostage. In fact, his soldiers have standing orders to, on his death, kill ten random civilians each--an order he occasionally shares with self-nominated do-gooders who pose a danger to him. To his closest men and his country, however, he is almost fanatically loyal, valuing each of their lives almost as much as his own. He's a rather sedentary man, rarely leaving the bar he's taken over (the Drunken Antelope) and mostly has his soldiers and other minions do things for him. He is proudly, almost defiantly, unarmed, trusting in his men to defend him. Those of his men with their minds intact appreciate this trust, and return it in kind. In a way, the close bond between the inner circle of soldiers is freakish when compared to his utter, total disregard for civilian life and paranoid, angry attitude towards outsiders. But the close bonds and xenophobic attitude has kept him alive and brought a measure of stability to his neighborhood, so it's hard to find fault with his murderous habits on any grounds but moral ones.

Gestalt Anti-Grand Forces

Psychological & Chemical Warfare

Military Genius

A history of conflict

Traps and Contingencies