Gnosis

A psychiatrist fed up with human foibles

“Everything comes down to psychology, you know. What do people want, and how do they think? Understand that about a person, and you can control them.”

Gnosis is the leader of The Seven Wonders.

Dr. Ken Wissen has possibly the perfect power for a psychiatrist. He can read minds, but only when somebody is talking about something. And as they speak, he can drain the strong emotions from the speaker along with the thoughts.

He realized that telepaths are inherently untrustworthy to many people. If you can read someone’s mind, the most private thing they have as individuals, you can do anything to them. Thus, he kept his powers rigidly secret, vowing at first to use them only to help others.

That noble impulse faded quickly. Telepathy was also a curse, in that it showed him the bleakest, darkest, shallowest parts of humanity. The petty problems of his clients, combined with the intensity of the grudges they held over them, began to infuriate him. And in time, he let his own obsession with the human mind drive him to villainy.

He recruited a team of villains - each potent in their own right, but each with gaps or weaknesses. He was able to counsel each of them with their own problems. Most importantly, he was able to settle the inevitable interpersonal problems that arise among villains. Each of them are larger than life, driven, determined. He admires that, and his kindness and compassion for them is genuine.

It’s the rest of the world, full of ordinary lumpen human beings, that he absolutely cannot fucking stand. And he is going to solve their ridiculous problems once and for all, if it takes becoming global dictator to do so.

Playing Gnosis

The key to understanding Gnosis is that he really does want what’s best for everyone. He’s just given up on waiting for them to get there themselves. His motivation is to stop people from being so petty and awful, by any means necessary.

Gnosis is inspired by psychic leader-types such as Professor X and Magneto: characters who unite a team toward achieving a grand dream for life on Earth, and who struggle with imposing their vision on others.

Plots

Thwart Gnosis’ latest plan to take control of the city
Keep Gnosis from exposing an embarrassing secret about a politician or leader
Uncover one of Gnosis’ agents operating on the scene

Dialogue

“Your citizens empower corrupt institutions and selfish politicians. If you insist on being ruled by villains, we offer ourselves as villains more benevolent than them.”
“We will make our demands known in half an hour. I personally guarantee safe passage to members of the press who wish to verify our claims - so long as nobody thinks to sneak in that way. Then I cannot guarantee anything.”
“Well of course I’m long-winded. Of course I ‘monologue’ as the saying goes. But it’s been your careful attention to my every word that gave my allies the time to locate your base.”

Comic Book Panels

Dr. Ken Wissen sits at a desk, in his civilian identity as a consultant specializing in superhuman psychology. Someone from the city’s leadership is in his office. They have questions - what should they do about this team called “the Seven Wonders”?

Gnosis, masked, appears on a video screen. He is calm, collected, with answers for everything. He reveals some kind of awful plan or dangerous secret - for example, announcing a hero’s secret identity!

Variations

Genius

Dr. Wissen doesn’t have a genius-level intellect to create gadgets or master the sciences. He knows one thing - psychology - but he’s very good at it.
To make him more personally dangerous, he might be able to acquire knowledge through his telepathy. He might thus have dozens of stolen skills.

Methodology

Gnosis’s real power is in holding together a team of villains, who otherwise might be at each others’ throats. As he is, he’s assembled a roster of half-a-dozen key people whose powers and styles complement each other, and put them to a common goal.
To make the world’s villains more dangerous as a whole, Gnosis might have united more than just his fellow Seven Wonders. He could be at the heart of a whole diabolical League, using his psychological skills and telepathy to keep them all operating as a team.