Roman Sionis

[Roman Sionis]

 

.:Name of Character:. Roman Sionis
.:Nick Name:. None
.:Alias:. Black Mask
.:Age:. 32 in 2013

.:Physical Appearance:. Roman has the look of a rich, prestigious, professional individual. He stands tall at 6 feet, having a fit build: not overly muscular but not obscurely thin. He brown eyes, and dark curly hair. He always dresses in very expensive attire for he is a millionaire and wishes to make no secret of this. He flaunts his wealth, by wearing expensive accessories, and designer clothing. As the sole heir to a multi-million company, he does wear alot suits, so certainly dresses the part of a company man. His casual wardrobe consists of mostly of jeans and a t-shirt but still with some style to show off the abundant amount of money he has.

The appearance of Black Face is drastically different. First and foremost, his face is completely painted black. This is done with a special face pain, uniquely produced with access to chemicals from Janus cosmetics. It is impossible to remove without a special substance, once again, uniquely created by him. This is in the event that he is caught or someone is trying to unveil his mask. He also wears a cap to hide his hair, making him look bald. His face is then, furthermore, disguised by another skin tight mask, covering absolutely everything except for his eyes. His forehead, eyebrows, nose, even lips, are all jet black. To hide the true color of his eyes, he puts in deep red contact lenses, making it even harder to recognize the man behind the mask. He often wears a top hat, for stylistic purposes of course. His outfit varies, but he usually has a long black trench coat on, and underneath, wears a pin stripe black suit with white vertical stripes. He wears tight black gloves, and always carries at least two automatic pistols, as well as a couple of handguns. He blends in with the shadows, and uses this to his utmost advantage.
.:Height:. 6"
.:Portrayed by:. Ioan Gruffudd

.:Personality:. Roman is without a doubt, spoiled. He acts like a rich kid, and a brat, despite his mature age. He is used to getting what he wants, and enjoys attention from others, though not too much as it may arouse suspicion. He is social, attending many parties and other social events of the elite of Gotham. He has a strong resentment for his parents, and hates fake people. He finds everyone transparent, even if they are genuine. He has a short fuse and will react violently to anyone who makes him angry. He shows off quite a bit, and has a strong superiority complex as he believes his wealth makes him better than most others. He is not very charitable, but does donate every now and then just to maintain the reputation of his family, though this was only limited to the time of his parents death. He is very good at appearing to be a devastated son for losing both parents, and a heartbroken man who lost his fiancé, but he is just doing what he learned best from his parents: how to wear a mask in society.    

All of the evil festering inside of Roman is unleashed through the character of Black Mask. Black Mask is a ruthless, vindictive, sadistic, cruel boss. He is associated with the mob, and is head of a mob group called the False Face Society. When Roman does not get his way, Black Mask will do whatever it takes to make sure he does. If someone is in the way, he has no problem getting to them, but by targeting the family and loved ones rather than the actual person. Death is sudden; suffering lasts. Black Mask has ruthless methods of going about his business. He is skilled in sadistic torture techniques, making others fearful of him. He is a master torturer and usually forcefully, and painfully, draws information from his victims about his enemies.

He is also highly skilled with firearms, as he always carries guns, usually two automatic pistols. Working with so many chemicals, he can also create explosives though once again, has not mastered demolition, though he enjoys creating bombs and explosive devices, giving each one a different name. He is a leader, following the mob ways and enjoying the power he has over others, and the ability to intimidate them.
.:Strengths:. Skilled with firearms, highly skilled with explosives and chemicals, master in the 'art of torture' (as he likes to call it)
.:Weaknesses:. Poor at hand to hand combat (that's what his minions are for, not that they are any better), lack of loyalty to anyone but himself (usually people don't realize this until its too late), has an overall bad attitude (can be described as rather psychotic by others when he's Black Mask), bad business skills (doesn't have the mind of a businessman / company owner)
.:Special Skills:. Mostly his strengths are his special skills; he is very creative in his forms of torture and often gains what he needs, giving him a reputation among the mob. He also is able to create explosives and uses them in some of his operations, enjoying naming each explosion as well.

.:Birthplace:. Starling City
.:Family:. All deceased
.:Occupation:. Head of Janus Cosmetics, Leader of the False Face Society
.:Current Location of Residence:. Starling City
.:History:. Roman was born into one of Starling's city's elite families. Unfortunately, his wealthy parents were completely self absorbed, caring more about their social status then their own son. Any accident that occurred when he was a child (i.e. broken bone, small altercation, etc), his parents would quickly cover it up so that no one would find out and that their perfect reputation would be protected. This made Roman’s childhood rather bizarre. He would often have to lie to others and was silenced about certain things. He did not share the same obsession to protect his reputation, but rather, resentment began to grow for having parents who were far too conceited with their wealth and doing whatever it took to protect their image.

One particular thing that would frustrate Roman was their supposed close friendship with another elite family. Roman was forced to socialize with their son, while his parents socialized with the other parents. Both his parents were very vocal to Roman about their dislike for this family, but only in private. In public, they were civil, polite, and extremely kind to them, assuming the role of true, decent friends. Roman hated this, and his parents’ hypocrisy had a strong impact on him. He began to hate and resent them for the way they concealed their true nature, and thus, was born the idea of “wearing masks in public” which would later serve as inspiration for Roman.

After he graduated from high school, Roman was given a high ranking position in his father’s company: Janus Cosmetics. His father was a businessman and he was going to be trained to be one as well, for it was the family business and they did after all, have a reputation to protect and an image to uphold in society. His hatred for his father’s hypocritical tendencies created some tension while working with him, but there was indeed one good thing that came out of this new position. It was in this company, and Roman met and fell in love with Circe. She was a working class secretary for the company, and this immediately made his parents disapprove of their relationship. She did not hold a high position in society and so his parents did not want him to associate to someone who was so low in status. They made it very clear to Roman that he was to end his relationship with Circe.

Roman was not used to not getting what he wanted.

Enraged, he vowed to get revenge in their hasty judgment and shallow perspectives. Roman planted a small bomb in their car which detonated when they were on the road, instantly killing both his parents. The explosion was so great that no trace of the explosive could be found. This was his first massively violent act that began to surface all of his feelings of anger and rage. Upon their death, at the age of 21, Roman inherited the family fortune and business, being the sole heir of everything. Unfortunately, Roman was not the businessmen his father was. He was forced to hire many advisers to help him run Janus Cosmetics. It is not his priority, but he went anyway, showing little interest in the cooperate world. He showed more interest in the chemistry aspect of creating cosmetics. He began to make his own products, secretively of course, and learned a great deal to help him perfect what would later become his alternate identity.

Roman could now be with his fiancé, Circe, without the interference of his parents, and could fully support her with his tremendous wealth. Sadly, things could another drastic turn. Circe broke up with him, and not only that, but she did so in front of his entire staff. He was humiliated, and feelings of bitterness and revenge began to surface once again. In a fit of rage, Roman broke into his mother’s coffin at the family mausoleum and stole part of the ebony from the coffin lid. From this small piece, he began to carve a mask.

With his expertise in mixing chemicals, he created a special face paint for himself. It could only be removed with another concoction, created by him as well, and this would secure his secret identity. One night, he painted his face, put on his new mask, assembled an outfit, and emerged into Starling City for the first time as Black Mask. His first victim was Circe. He went to her house, furious as her for ending things, but a part of him also desperately wanted her to return to him. To try to ensure this, he spilled a toxin on her while she was sleeping which burned, and disfigured her face. He thought that by doing this, her insecurities would be so great, that she would want to return to him after this traumatizing experience. Unfortunately, it did not unfold this way. She was far too traumatized to even acknowledge him, and resorted to suicide.

After this silent attack, Roman discovered that he had an amazing aptitude for crime. As time went on, he began to build his reputation as Black Mask. First, he created ties with the mob, becoming a man that would carry out hits or extract information from people through very violent and ruthless forms of torture. Even though he was a crazy man with a black face, he got the job done and began to create allies within the mob world. Soon, he created his own group called the False Face Society. This was own gathering that he would carry out hired crimes with, or ones that were of particular interest to him.

Unfortunately, he was captured by The Hood and even though he refused to take off his mask, his identity was revealed through some detective work from the police and Hood's helpers. Roman was sent to Iron Heights Penetentiary, but it was not for too long. The earthquake had destroyed part of the prison and Black Mask managed to be one of the escapees. Because of his revealed identity, he has to be extremely careful. He regrouped with those from The False Face Society, and he also took this opportunity to use his mob connections, however he was also forced to freelance, becoming disloyal with some of those who hired him and began to cause havoc in many other ways. He had no purpose for this, other than to teach the hypocrites of society (which to him was basically everyone). He wanted to wreak havoc for the simple purpose of watching his ploys unfold before his very eyes. With no predictability to his targets, he became an even bigger danger; a menace. He was no longer Roman Sionis, he was Black Mask. And so, continues to commit ruthless crimes, gain wealth, and instill massive fear in his victims. (Permission to use The Hood's name in bio was given by member)

The feeling of ruthlessness was indeed an exhilarating one. For Black Mask, it was his outlet for all the pain and suffering people had caused him. Though he was not exactly bitter against society itself, he wanted control over certain aspects of it, mainly the Underground part. Throughout his years as Black Mask, his greed and impatience was growing. Oh well. There were rather liberating ways to deal with it, and he was doing that right now.

“Now, Mr. Lewis, would you mind telling me again what is it that you ‘don’t know’?” Black Face didn’t believe him. He could see right through him; see through the obvious lies, the way his face was filled with fear yet there was no truth behind his words. Black Face knew that he had something to do with his odd disappearance of one thousand dollars. Now to Roman, this was not a lot of money, but it was the principle of the matter. Black Face could not encourage crime that he was not committing, especially a crime against him.

When the man continued to shake his head, Black Face brought his head closer to him. His red eyes looked as if they were burning with rage, though a smile crept on his lips. “The face can only take so much. How far are you willing to go to truly test what the limitation of our skin is?” He did not need to wait for the answer. He poured a few drops of battery acid onto the man’s eye. Not enough to kill him, but enough to cause massive pain and possible blindness. His already disfigured face became more burned and scared from the numerous applications of this sulfuric acid. “I have all day Mr. Lewis. “ The beauty of torture was that the victim suffered through it. If he were to merely pull the trigger, then where was the joy in that? The man would no longer be able to feel anything, and he would not get any information out of it, even if it solved his problem in the long run. Black Face wanted a reputation as a sadistic master of torture. He would have to be more creative then battery acid then.

Black Face disappeared for a moment and returned with a very special tool. “Do you know what this is Mr. Lewis?” He looked at him, and all he saw was fear; no attempt to answer his question. Black Face then went close to him, leaning against the chair that the man was tied to. “It’s called a Heretic’s Fork. It was used during the Spanish Inquisition to draw information out of people, and might I add, it looks like it would have been rather successful. See, this metal device it has two forks on both ends,” he explained, showing the man a close up of what it looked like, though he could only see it through one eye. “One goes right under the chin, and the other inevitably cuts through the flesh in your upper chest.” Black Face proceeded to position the torture device, but without the proper force to pierce his skin. “It doesn’t damage any vital organs, so don’t worry, you won’t die. But it does make neck movements rather impossible, and it might make talking a bit difficult too but you already seem to have a problem with your tongue.” He paused for a moment, looking at his minions who were watching eagerly; though Black Face could not see past their masks, he knew that the eagerness was concealing the shock of such a horrible device.

“Now that I gave you a bit of a history lesson, allow me to demonstrate.” And with that, he pressed into the man’s skin with the Heretic’s Fork and all that could be heard in this abandoned underground location, was the sound of an agonizing scream.

[Arrow]