SteemHeroes character submission: Armadillo
Basic Info
Alignment: Hero
Alias: Armadillo (or just "Dillo" to his friends)
Name: Aaron Grant
Profession: automotive maintenance
Age: 23
Height: 5" 7"
Weight: 375lbs.
Gender: M
Birthplace: Indianapolis, IN
Description: Very thick and heavy physique. Brown hair, brown eyes. Skin ranges from 1/4" thick on his face and hands to over 2" thick on his back, arms and legs
Costume: Blue football jersey with white accents and trim
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Origin and personality
Aaron Grant grew up in a small town outside Indianapolis, Indiana. He had a fairly typical childhood but always struggled in school, barely managing to pass from grade to grade. He was a chubby kid, which developed into a serious weight problem in his teens. By grade 9, he was well over 300 lbs. and on his short frame he looked a bit like a bowling ball.
Even with all that weight, he was surprisingly agile and naturally very strong. With little effort, he shattered all of his school’s weightlifting records. His size and athletic ability allowed him to play starting center on the varsity football team by his sophomore year. While he had a lot of success on the field, his poor grades kept him from continuing his football career into college.
Discouraged from countless college rejections, Aaron chose to give up on getting a higher education and went straight into the workforce as a grease monkey employed at various quick oil change businesses.
As he spent a lot of time working with Olympium-powered cars, the infection eventually took him. He developed extremely hard and dense skin which is much thicker on his back, arms and legs while thinner on the face, hands, feet, chest and stomach. While this skin was off-putting to some people, it didn’t prevent him from doing his job so he continued work where his coworkers gave him the nickname “Armadillo”. In addition, his natural strength and athletic abilities were boosted significantly. He would often show off to his coworkers by picking up small cars over his head and putting them on the maintenance lift by himself, that is, until his boss caught him doing it and threatened to fire him if he does it again.
While he lead a hard life, Aaron still has a goofy sense of humor and a desire to make people laugh. Even though his exterior is tough, he has a strong warmth that people find comforting. He cares about all people and has a strong sense of justice, which eventually led him to start intervening when he saw people who were victimized by criminals. He now takes to the street wearing his old high school football jersey as a uniform looking for crimes to stop and people to save.
Equipment or unique items
None, though he normally carries a bag of salty snacks with him. Stuff like potato chips (Salt & Vinegar being his favorite), pretzels, cheese puffs and tortilla chips are pretty much always with him wherever he goes.
Abilities
Ability 1
Shell - Armadillo has very thick skin which acts as a natural suit of armor. His skin will repel gunfire, though he's never been shot by anything more powerful than consumer-grade firearms so the limit to its durability is currently unknown. His shell is also highly resistant to heat, cold, electricity and acid, but only moderately resistant to pressure, so there's the possibility of internal injury if he was crushed by something extremely heavy.
Ability 2
Superhuman strength - Armadillo has tremendous strength, which was maxed out at a deadlift of 5 tons. His may be able to lift more, but at the time there was no way to test him with more than that amount of weight.
Ability 3
Agility - While far from impressive, he has a surprising amount of agility for someone of his size. By no means does this come close to superhuman levels, its above average for humans.
Weakness
Armadillo has significantly below average intelligence and is extremely easy to fool. He's also very trusting, which puts him at high risk for being manipulated by those who would take advantage of his abilities.
While his skin is extremely strong in some areas, its thinner in others and his eyes, ears, etc. have no more protection than the average person.