El Serpento!'s page

Jaime Santos was the 7th child of a poor farming family in western Ustalav, serfs to a local sheriff. The serfs were brutally oppressed by the baron, who levied outrageous taxes and dispensed brutal punishments for imagined slights. As Jaime grew older, he watched his father - a once proud and strong man - slowly deteriorate into a shambling wreck through stress and crippling poverty. His father finally succumbed to illness the day before Jaime's 15th birthday - and on his deathbed, Jaime swore to him that he would find some way to help the family, and the other farmers around.

Jaime began to train, mercilessly driving himself day and night to perfect his physical skills. He perfected his combat techniques throwing bulls, and his reflexes catching fish bare-handed from a nearby stream. Finally, on his 18th birthday, he was ready to strike back!

Realizing that his family could be subject to vicious reprisals, Jaime adopted a disguise - really just a red half-mask with a crudely-drawn serpent on the forehead. Adopting the name El Serpento, he began a campaign against the Sheriff's troops. He started with the tax collectors - pinning them to unconsciousness, and redistributing the wealth they carried among the other farmers. He then moved on to disrupting supply caravans headed for the Sheriff's tower - again, sending on badly needed food and equipment to the other farming families.

This may have continued, had not the professor been travelling through the area. Finding himself accosted by the Sheriff's troops, he was saved by El Serpento's timely intervention. As he rested before continuing his travels, the professor engaged the young man in a long conversation about whether an individual can ever do enough - or if he needs to act as a symbol to others, where he can do so much more.

Inspired by the older man's insight, Jaime rallied the other farmers - and using weapons stolen from the Sheriff's supplies, led them to pitched battle against the Sheriff's troops. There was carnage on both sides, but by the end of the day, the Sheriff had fled and the farmers were free men at last.

Despite the others' insistence that he stay and lead them, Jaime decided that there was too much injustice throughout the rest of the land. He left to walk the countryside, righting wrongs as he finds them.

El Serpento is a giant of a man, standing almost seven feet tall, and hugely muscled. Handsome, but not overly so, he usually keeps his face largely obscured by a red half-mask covering the top half of his head. Bright blue eyes blaze from within the mask, and a long handlebar moustache outlines a smiling mouth.