Richard Pergament Haut

Name

Richard Pergament-Haut

Concept

Mentally fragile object-reader.

Power

Psychometry: Richard can read the history of an object or the emotions of those who have handled it by spending a fate point. If Richard is reading an object which correlates to a skill he has less than 3 dice in, he can spend a fate point to add +2 to a one-time roll for that particular skill.

Aspects

Skull Full Of Crazy: Some people are crazy. Richard prefers to think of himself as "Mentally Different", but there really is no way to tell the two apart when he's screaming wildly and shooting at anything that gets too close. Don't touch the crazy man.
A Hammock Between The Shelves: Richard lives in The Library. To distract himself from what his life has become, he's attempting to find out everything, specifically the more esoteric pieces of knowledge that never end up in mundane hands.
SCP-XXX (Pending): The Foundation knows Richard exists. They're one of the few groups that does. Having been literally an hour away from being an SCP, Richard has a distrust of anything that has the stink of the Foundation about it, but is extremely willing to help out others who are in the same kind of position he once was.

Skills

  • Beard: Great +4
  • Lore: Great +4
  • Gun Skill: Fair +2
  • Physical Defense: Fair +2
  • Mental Defense: Fair +2
  • Physical Health: Fair +2
  • Mental Health: Fair +2
  • Melee: Fair +2
  • Stealth: Average +1
  • Thievery: Average +1
  • Science (Biology): Average +1
  • Persuasion: Average +1
  • Medical: Average +1
  • Foreign Culture: Average +1 (Germany)
  • Engineering: Fair +2
  • Perception: Average +1

Possessions

Veteran EMT's Medical Bag
Original Model 1911
Gurkha Kukuri
Hand Of Glory Pendant
Specimen Slide
Slick Nicky's Watch
Foreman's Safety Glasses
Jane's Monocle
Klitchzen's Dueling Pistol
Lorlei's Air Taser

EXP

Total:8
Current:4

Personal History

Richard's parents loved him. They really did. Him and his five siblings. If anyone asked about him when he was a child, his parents would talk about the nights in Berlin, the lovely cuisine, the romance… Nothing that really had to do with their son, beyond the specifics of his conception and his birth. Raised by a succession of nannies, Richard was a normal, if slightly awkward child. He laughed, he lived, he learned.

As the years went by Richard began to notice things. Like how the tablecloth remembered one of the butlers stealing silverware, or beautiful hand mirror in the bathroom had the impression of a burning need fulfilled by a surreptitious snort of white powder. His parents thought he was lying when he said his nanny had gotten into mommy's pearls. Richard's nerves became increasingly frayed by the sensation of dirty deeds hidden in the everyday surroundings. It was eventually too much for him to take, and his parents simply decided to "do the decent thing" and sent him away to a mental care facility, at the tender age of 12. Richard deteriorated there for five years, feeling the asylum beneath the wall of paint, decades of madmen and psychopaths pressing down on him. His parents eventually stopped visiting, the urge to be there for their son fading, as time and decadence filled their nights.

At 17, Richard's claims of being able to read the history of an object were discovered to be true by one of the doctors. His blind fumbling to find someone in the world who cared, and would pay him a large sum of money brought Richard to the attention of several groups. The Serpent's Hand got there an hour before the Foundation kicked in the doors. Their recruitment speech was blunt and effective; "Come with us if you want to live." Richard vanished into the night, his parents given amnesiacs to prevent them from raising a fuss.

A year later and Richard is now in control of his gift, though his psychosis remains a problem. Still, living in the Library has done wonders, and he's intrigued by the knowledge that lurks in the towering stacks. However, the members of the Serpent's Hand have told him the Foundation is still looking, and Richard has no desire to be submitted to their tender mercies.

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Richard.