Characteristic

Cost

END

Cost

4

2

Cost

3

3

3

0

3

3

3

3

-6

3

21

5

15

15

20

10

10

15

15

10

15

15

5

July 18, 1918
The young woman stumbling through the forests was pale and cold. She wore a simple brown peasant’s dress, but carried herself, though dying, with a certain poise and aristocratic air. Certainly, her eyes were proud and alert, and she seemed not to let the blood running down her side or her bare feet distract her from her purpose. She was weighted down with a heavy pack strapped to her back. It seemed to squirm as she moved, but to the casual observer, that might have seemed like a trick of the light.

After more than two hours of moving through the dark woods, she came finally to a structure. In her dazed fever, she thought for a moment that it was a pair of trees. Then she gazed more closely at the two supports that held it aloft. They looked like chicken legs. Drawing her eyes upward, she saw that it was a small hut, the barest light escaping from the drapes on its windows. It smelled of stew and something fetid and dark. The feet on the chicken legs looked like they’d been dipped in blood. The young woman sighed in resignation. “Baba Yaga,” she said quietly. “I should have known.”

When the hut remained unmoving, and with no stairs present to lift her to its door some fifteen feet in the air, she finally resorted to tossing pebbles at the door and the window.

After a long minute, the door opened, revealing a horrible looking crone with wrinkles that seemed to run deeper than the bone. Her hair was white and stark, sticking out at angles. Her eyes were pale and rheumy. She peered down at the girl for a moment, then made a gesture with her gnarled hand. The hut’s chicken legs bent low until the hut’s floor touched the earth. The smell of stew grew stronger, and the girl felt a surge of hunger. The crone shuffled toward her. “What do you want,” the old woman said, her voice querulous and high-pitched.

The young woman stood up straight despite the pain in her side. As she did so, she felt something break loose and fresh blood ran down her abdomen. She ignored it. “I am Anastasia Romanov,” she said proudly.

The crone—Baba Yaga—nodded her head. Wisps of white hair dangled from her chin like a sparse beard. “Da,” she said. “I know.” She stretched out her arm, suddenly seeming much taller than Anastasia had previously suspected. She pressed the back of her clawlike hand against the young woman’s forehead, then made a soft whistling sound. “There is nothing I can do for you,” she said. “You will be dead within the hour.”

“Da,” Anastasia replied, her voice mocking the old witch’s. “I know.” If the death sentence disturbed her, she refused to allow that to show. Instead, she bent and removed the squirming pack from her back. She withdrew a small boy, perhaps 18 months old, dressed in a simple brown tunic. He was even paler than she was, with shockingly dark black hair and prominent eyebrows. His brown eyes were alert and intent, and he stared at Baba Yaga without reaction. He didn’t make the slightest noise.

The old woman started, her crusty eyes widening, the air hissing from her mouth, whistling through a gap where she missing a tooth. “What is this? The stars did not proclaim this. He is hidden from me.”

Anastasia smiled triumphantly. “This is my son,” she said with fierce pride. “His name is Mikhail Romanov… Rasputin.”

Baba Yaga was clearly deeply troubled, but she looked at the boy in a cunning, knowing manner that Anastasia knew was feigned. “Ah,” the old woman said, “so that is it.” She tore her eyes away from the boy’s reluctantly. “And what is it you wish of me?”

Anastasia’s shoulders slumped a bit. She could feel the life ebbing from her. With tears in her eyes, she set the boy on the ground, where he stood and clung to her bloody leg. She stroked his hair and her tears dropped upon his head like rain. “I need someone to protect him,” she said. “You are all I have.”

The old woman opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. When she spoke, her voice was almost kindly. “Come inside,” she said, gesturing at the open door to her hut. “We have much to discuss while we have time.”

* * *

Mikhail Romanov Rasputin, the last child of the Romanov dynasty, the son of the mystic Grigori Effimovich Rasputin, the pupil and foster child of the witch Baba Yaga has spent much of his life defending Russia from secret. An opponent of Communism for obvious reasons, he realized early in his life—after a disastrous attempt to assassinate Stalin in 1930—that no matter how his magical powers grew, he would be unable to change the government in his nation. Instead, he confined himself to more attainable goals. In 1943, under the superhero persona of Fantom that he established during the Second World War, he drove the German mystic Der Zauberer out of Russia. In 1952, when a representative of the elder gods crashed a meteor filled with magical spores in Siberia, he cured the citizens possessed by the spores and destroyed the meteor. In 1962, he saved the life of an American spy, allowing the man to escape with valuable intelligence that would embarrass the Soviet leadership. During the 1960s, he used his spells to create a Soviet superhero persona to defend his nation against supercriminals, turning his skin to iron and calling himself Iron Curtain. Although he has retained the necessary spells, he eventually abandoned the role as too limiting and too much of a help to the Soviet regime. These are mere examples of the work that the man performed in secrecy, all the while continuing his mystical training.

After the Soviet regime fell, Rasputin—who had at that point adopted the alias of Mikhail Ivan Pichugin to protect his identity—began to operate a little more in the open, though he was still spoken of only in whispers, as the “mad wizard” or “ghost” who called himself Yurodvi. Still, when the organization called the Russian Dawn formed, Yurodvi was one of the first people recruited to be a member of the team, lending his mystical might and knowledge to the vital defense of Russia.

In addition to being a physically powerful man, Mikhail possesses some of his father’s indomitability, healing from damage quickly and being immune to most poisons. He is a master mage with a wide variety of spells. He learned many of these directly from Baba Yaga, and his spells have a “Russian flavor” as a result, but he also has studied the spells of mages all over the world. In keeping with his reputation and image as a “fantom” or ghost, he particularly favors spells and effects that have a ghostly or frightening theme.

Because of his heritage and mystical powers, Mikhail’s aging process has been retarded. He is much younger and fitter than his age would indicate.

The Limitations listed for the various Powers in Yurodvi's Variable Power Pool represent the default Limitations he uses for them; he might alter these slightly depending on circumstances, as per the Variable Limitations on the control cost of the pool.

Mikhail is a huge man, more than two meters tall (6’ 8”). He is broad-chested and quite strong. He has very pale skin, somewhat mottled from scars he has suffered over the years, and strikingly dark hair and beard. As Yurodvi, Mikhail favors simple brown “peasant” clothing and workboots, with a heavy coat and belt, each of which contains many pockets. As he casts some of his spells, Yurodvi appears even more ghostlike—his skin becomes nearly transparent, his fingernails seem to grow, and his eyes turn red and begin to glow. He appears much younger than his 88 years; although he appeared to be in his mid-thirties by the time he was 21, he has aged little since.