Countess Crey

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Countess Crey
Countess Crey.jpg
CEO Crey Enterprises
Creator: Cryptic Studios
First Appearance: "City of Heroes" #8 (Blue King Studios)
Game: City of Heroes
Personal Data
Real Name: Clarissa Crey (nee van Dorn)
Known Aliases: Clarissa van Dorn, Julianne Thompson
Species: human (mutant)
Age: '
Height: '
Weight: '
Eye Color: blue
Hair Color: black
Biographical Data
Nationality: American
Occupation: CEO
Place of Birth: Paragon City
Base of Operations: Paragon City
Marital Status: Married
Known Relatives: Count Alphonse Crey (husband), Pamela Thompson (mother), unnamed father
Appearances
"City of Heroes", "The Justice-Knights", "The Guardian Powers"
Known Powers
telepathy
Known Abilities
psionic manipulation
Equipment
Corporate might and money
NPC.png This entry is an In-Game Non-Player Character.


Countess Clarissa Crey is a character in the City of Heroes MMO. She is the head of Crey Industries, one of the dominant corporations in Paragon City.

Even though "official" control of the corporation is handled through other people, make no mistake, she is the one in charge of it all.

Character History

Public Story

Countess Crey was born Clarissa van Dorn and grew up in Paragon City. The orphan heir to a modest family fortune, she spent most of her high school and college years at various private schools in Europe.

Clarissa first came to the public's attention when she married Count Alphonse Crey, a man widely recognized as the world's wealthiest and most eligible bachelor. At the tender age of twenty-three, she joined together with her new husband to form Crey Biotech, a pharmaceutical company based in Switzerland. Just a year after their marriage, Count Alphonse fell into tragic coma, a condition that still persists to this day.

The Countess moved her business back to her hometown of Paragon City, along with the corporate headquarters for the then-growing Crey Industries. She publicly swore to devote her company's resources to finding a cure for her stricken husband, but proceeded to use her amazing and daring business acumen to expand her company at an astonishing rate.

Through a series of buyouts, hostile takeovers, and key personnel acquisitions, the countess turned her small research firm into an economic juggernaut that provides jobs for thousands of citizens of Paragon City as well as the world.

Real Story

The real story about Countess Crey is that her "past" is a lie.

The truth is that she was born Julianne Thompson. The part about her being born in Paragon City is true, but she was not an orphan with a "modest fortune". Her mother, Pamela Thompson, is very much alive, although very little is known about Julianne's father. And she's far from wealthy.

Julianne developed her powers in her teen years. She was disgusted by how simple her life was and she yearned to be someone different. When she realized that she could do something about that, she did. She murdered and stole the identity of Clarissa van Dorn, used her telepathic abilities to convince everyone she met that she was Clarissa, and then lived in Switzerland as the "lost heiress". She met and married Count Alphonse Crey in order to steal his fortune. She manipulated him the moment they met and he had no idea that she was secretly poisoning him so he would be in a coma. As long as he is comatose but alive, Julianne (as Clarissa) had full control over the empire.

Powers and Abilities

Countess Crey's primary ability is psionic manipulation. Through her telepathic powers, she can manipulate the minds of others, giving them hallucinations, making them disoriented, or even overwhelm their minds.

Through experience using her primary ability, she can also turn her power inward to fortify herself from physical assault. While this isn't the same as willpower or invulnerability, it does provide her some modicum of protection if she does not have the overwhelming might of her human and superhuman minions to protect her.

Personality

Countess Crey is sociopathic manipulator. She shows no concept of boundaries when it comes to using her telepathic powers, so she has no qualms using them to peer into the minds of her underlings or pretty much anyone else.

She appears cool and collected because she knows what everyone thinks the minute they are within range of her powers. She can anticipate any kind of argument before it can be made. This is has made her a shrewd and domineering administrator, micromanaging people simply because she can.

Related Information

(See her Paragon Wiki entry for more information.)

The Countess appeared in the Blue King Studios incarnation of the "City of Heroes" comic series when Apex's sister gets a job at Crey and eventually aids Horus in breaking into it to restore his memories.

The Countess also appears in the six-part "Obey" storyline in the "Justice-Knights" series as one of the people questioned by Sin Stalker concerning the strange behavior of Manticore. The portrait painting of her seen in her office is based on the one shown in the Blue King series.

She appeared briefly in "The Guardian Powers" #6.