Carnage
Carnage is a fictional character in the Marvel Comics Universe, a supervillain and adversary of Spider-Man and Venom. Created by writer David Michelinie and artist Mark Bagley, he first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #361 (April 1992).
Carnage is the result of a spawning of a separate extraterrestrial symbiote worn by Venom. This symbiote bonded with serial killer Cletus Kasady, creating one of Spider-Man’s most murderous adversaries.
Fictional character history
Carnage was once serial killer Cletus Kasady, and became Carnage after merging with the offspring of the alien symbiote called Venom during a prison breakout. He was originally conceived as a purely villainous counterpart to Venom, who was being reenvisioned as an anti-hero.
His past is uncertain and information given by Kasady himself is often contradictory. Kasady claims his mother tried to kill him after she caught him torturing her dog. She was apparently beaten to death by Kasady’s father, who received no defence from his son during his trial. Venom; Carnage Unleashed #1. Kasady however seemed to care for his mother, causing him to dig up her grave in Maximum Carnage, totally contradicting his prior account in which he took glee in her death. He also claims he killed his grandmother when he was younger, pushing her down a flight of stairs. By his early twenties, he had been convicted of 11 murders, although he bragged about committing dozens.
Kasady, albeit having a stronger bond to his symbiote than Eddie Brock did, has been separated from and re-bonded with the symbiote several times. The Carnage symbiote, attracted to stronger hosts, has attempted to bond with Ben Reilly (Spider-Man at the time) to become Spider-Carnage, and the Silver Surfer (Creating the insane and vastly powerful Carnage Cosmic). Later, Venom decided to reabsorb the Carnage symbiote “for good.” Without the symbiote, Kasady retained the Carnage persona by costuming himself in red paint and continuing his killing sprees (albeit as a powerless human). Soon after, Kasady found an exact replica of the symbiote in the Negative Zone. How this symbiote is an identical copy, or where it came from, has yet to be explained. However, the issues in which Kasady discovered the replica had references to the Spider-ManUnlimited TV series which had been airing at the time and which featured the Carnage Symbiote as one of its villains. In this same issue, Spider-Man himself briefly gained the costume the animated version of him from that series wore.
Perhaps the most famous storyline in which Carnage appears is the 1993 Spider-Man event Maximum Carnage. Carnage, and a cadre of psychotic super-villains (consisting of Shriek, Demogoblin, Carrion and Doppelganger) overtook New York, but were driven back by Spider-Man, Venom, the Black Cat, and several other heroes.
In the 1996 “Web of Carnage” storyline, the Carnage symbiote escapes from the Ravencroft Institute where Cletus Kasady is incarcerated, seeking a stronger host. It takes over Ben Reilly, who had recently replaced Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Reilly has little previous experience with symbiotes, and is unprepared for an enemy that is immune to his spider-sense. Together, they become Spider-Carnage, and the symbiote attempts to force him, both mentally and physically, to kill Peter Parker (then powerless), and other innocent people. Reilly barely escapes the symbiote’s control with help from Dr. Ashley Kafka and John Jameson, the administrators of Ravencroft.
Carnage starred in the miniseries Venom vs. Carnage in 2005. The Carnage symbiote spawned a “child” symbiote, which he tried to kill without success. The “child” later bonded with police officer Patrick Mulligan. Carnage felt nothing but hate for the young creature and attempted to kill it, while Venom defended it (feeling protective of his “grandchild”). Venom named the new symbiote Toxin.
Mulligan has since attempted to steer the symbiote towards heroism instead of murder.
Carnage was one of several supervillains trying to escape from The Raft in New Avengers #1-2. The Sentry flew Carnage outside the Earth’s atmosphere and ripped him apart.
Originally Posted by Unamis of the Dicefreaks forums.
On this Thread
Cletus Kasady, Carnage | |
Medium outsider | |
Wounds | 32 WP Vitality 420VP (20d10+220) |
Initiative | +18 |
Speed | 30ft/ Climb 30ft. |
AC | 33 (+7 insight, +6 natural, +10 Dexterity) |
Base Attack/Grapple | +20/+54 |
Attack | Claw +38 (2d12+18, 19-20/x3) |
Full Attack | Claw +38/+33/+28/+23 (2d12+18, 19-20/x3) or 4 tentacles +30 (1d4+10/x2) |
Space/Reach | 5ft./5ft., 35ft. with tentacles |
Special Attacks | Tentacles |
Special Qualities | DR 15/slashing, Symbiotic Bond, Alien Symbiote, Symbiotic Strength, Symbiotic Skin, TOTAL INSANITY |
Saves | Fort +40, Ref +29, Will +16 |
Abilities | Strength 43, Dexterity 30, Constitution 32, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 11, Charisma 15 |
Skills | Climb +35, Intimidate+22, Jump +42, Tumble +30, |
Feats | Cleave, Greater Cleave, Greater Weapon Focus (Claw), Greater Weapon Specialization (Claw), Improved Critical (Claw), Iron Will, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (Claw), Weapon Specialization (Claw) |
Climate/Terrain | Hopefully nowhere near you |
Organization | Solitary |
Challenge Rating | 23 |
Treasure | None |
Alignment | Chaotic Evil (Kasady), Chaotic Evil (symbiote) |
Advancement | By character class |
Doctors debate about the effects of Kasady’s bad childhood to his state of mind. Others simply believe that Cletus Kasady was born evil. At the age of 14, young Cletus had killed so many in such brutal and terrible ways that he had a death sentence
in each and every state of the United States.
His victims include (but are not limited to) his parents and his own grandmother.
If one wishes to embellish things, you could say that Kasady is a focused person. The truth is, of course, that Cletus Kasady is one of the most horrible serial killers yet alive. He lives to kill, he exists to murder. Nothing makes him smile like a mountain of flesh and blood, that used to be humans, does.
Nearly his entire life has been used to some way inflict pain to others, or to randomly kill people. Nearly, for he’s often incarcerated in the Ravenscroft Mental Institution.
Still, Carnage is one of the most vilest threats to mankind.
High-School Education
Kasady gains 3+Intelligence modifier of skill points per level
Alien Symbiote
Kasady has bonded with an homicidal symbiotic alien, an offspring of Venom’s symbiote. It changes his type to outsider and also gives him following powers.
- Improved Uncanny Dodge
- Evasion
- Maximum HP per HD (d10’s)
- +4 indicative bonus
- +7 insight bonus to armor class
- +7 bonus to reflex and fortitude saves
- +10 bonus on Jump, Balance and Tumble checks
- Bonus Feats: Blind-Sense, Great Fortitude, lightning reflexes
- Carnage is never surprised
- Immune to blinding attacks
Symbiotic Skin
The bloodred symbiote covers Kasadys whole body, allowing him to change his appearance at will, protect himself from injury.. and, envelop other people into his symbiote and grow long, deadly, tentacles out of it. These tentacles deal 1d4 points of damage each, and have a range of 35 feets.
The symbiote provides:
- A +10 bonus on all Disguise and Hide checks.
- A +6 natural bonus to Armor Class
- Damage Reduction 15/slashing
- A +6 bonus on all fortitude saves.
Symbiotic Strength
Carnage can lift 10 times what his Strength score would indicate. He also inflicts 2d12 (Critical modifier of x3) points of slashing damage with his claws. He also is not limited by his height for Jump checks.
Webbing
The symbiote can produce webbing similiar to Venoms symbiotic webbing. Unlike Venom, Carnage can project this web from any part of his body, not just the hands.
+2 to attack. The webbing allows Carnage to shoot a webline a distance of up to 250 feet. This line requires a Strength check of DC 30 to break up to one round after being fired. After that time it requires a Strength check of DC 50 to break.
Spider-Sense Immunity
Carnage is immune to Spider-Man’s early warning Spider-Sense and thus removes all benefits of it from him in combat.
Symbiotic Bond
Cletus Kasady and the alien symbiote are not just bonded both physicaly and mentaly. They simply love each others. Never before have either of these two witnessed such base corruption and cruel insanity in someone else. The symbiosis between them is several times stronger than that of Brock’s and his suit.
Kasadys and the aliens minds are actually so strongly fused, that they form a single person.
Carnage gains a +10 bonus on all Will saves and he can re-roll once per round any failed Will saving throws, for his dual minds are almost impossible to control.
Another reason why none haven’t tried to enter Carnage’s mind is his…
TOTAL INSANITY
“My name is Cletus Kasady, and I kill people and I enjoy it. I know one million ways to slaughter a man and I love all of them. The day’s boring before I get to the real thing and people start dying. When I sleep, I dream about ways to kill people no one else has ever thought of…” – a quote from the Marvel story Mindbomb.
-Simply put, Cletus Kasady is a sick, twisted man. The symbiotic makes him even worse. Anyone targeting Carnage with a thought detection, mind control, or telepathic ability makes direct contact with his insane, corrupt, twisted mind of a madman (or even worse, two madmen) and takes automatically 3d6 points of Wisdom damage.
As a secondary effect, the target victim must succeed at a Will saving throw (DC 35), or become Chaotic Evil and suffer the effects of insanity, wich will force him to attack the nearest creature (excluding Carnage himself).
Wall Crawling
Carnage can attach himself to any surface with his fingers and toes, allowing him to scale walls. This functions as the Spider Climb spell except Venom isn’t required to keep all his limbs on the wall to stay attached. He can remain on the wall as long as either both hands, both feet, or a hand and foot are in contact with it. This also gives him a +12 on grapple checks.
Carnage receives this higher bonus as the symbiotic can ooze over an enemy and he also uses this ability to surround his victims head with the symbiotic to let him see what little me me me ME is made of! This allows him to use this Total Insanity against the target.
Vulnerability
Carnage is vulnerable to both fire and sonic attacks, though he has grown more resistant against sonic attacks. On the other hand, he has always been much weaker towards flames than Venom.
He takes 2.5 times the damage from fire, but ‘only’ one and a half times the amount of damage from sonic attacks.