“ | I must therefore rely on all of you to spread the word of Lord Recluse's vision. A vision of a glorious future, in which man is not encumbered by the desire for truth, peace, or justice. A future where you no longer must obey others, where you must no longer bow down to those who deem themselves your superiors, a world in which you can finally say "No more." No longer will you have to listen to those who tell you that you must earn what you wish, that you must work hard to achieve your goals. You will have the strength to take what you desire. Through my way, the way of villainy, you can have what you want now. You can leave the weak lying in your wake as you grasp with both hands the glorious future of havoc. The heroes are doomed! Join me now, or you will suffer the same fate that awaits all those who defy me. I, Lord Recluse, shall cover this world in darkness! | „ |
~ Lord Recluse |
Lord Recluse is the leader of Arachnos, a huge organization of supervillains, and is the most powerful supervillain of City of Heroes/City of Villains. He is a former friend of the game's signature hero, Statesman. Lord Recluse's intelligence, reasoning and charisma are not just superhuman but Incarnate (divine/inter-dimensional) and as such his specific mental skills are pre-calculated across the multi-verse to be the strongest concentration of each that ever has or will exist in his reality.
His introduction in City of Heroes heralded the opening of the City of Villains and eventually lead to the two games becoming extensions of each-other. Leading to him becoming the main source of villainy both in-universe and out-of-universe.
History
Stefan Richter

Statesman remembers Stefan Richter as he once was.
Becoming Recluse
The opening of Pandora’s Box was explosive, resulting in a cave-in and Stefan was washed away into the open ocean. As he swam for shore, he became intoxicated by his new-found powers, envisioning himself as a god among men that would pave the way for technological science. Billy, a friend, went searching for Stefan and when he found him, he tried to drag Stefan out of the water, but Stefan, consumed by his vision and determined to embrace his new destiny, grabbed Billy by the throat and snapped his neck with ease, before tossing his body into the sea. Stefan climbed into the boat Billy had used and returned to civilization, ready to begin his new future survival demanded cruelty. Stefan would reunite with Marcus and convinced him of all they could do with their new powers. Marcus had not had the same sort of awakening as Stefan, but did feel the need to put his new powers to use as well. When they arrived home, they found that Rudolf Richter had gotten extremely sick shortly after both men had left for the War. Stefan managed to convince Marcus to help him get the money to save his father and Stefan began a life of crime. With Stefan's perfect planning and Marcus's god-like strength the capers went off perfectly. However as time went on, Marcus became more and more uncomfortable with what Stefan's plans called for. Eventually Marcus refused to help Stefan when he saw his friend was willing to resort to out-right murder in order to get away with a plan. Marcus dawned a disguise and alias of The Statesman, and used his new persona to stop crimes in Paragon City to make-up for his time helping Stefan. Shortly after Statesman appeared, Rudy Richter died despite his extended treatments. Stefan half blamed Marcus for leaving, thus forcing him to make plans for smaller safer crimes with smaller pay-outs, but increasingly despised Statesman for preventing him from making a dishonest living. With his father dead and criminal activities no-longer safe, Stefan left the US for Europe, but swore he would return one-day to build a criminal empire, in-spite of The Statesman.
While in Italy, Stefan proceeded to join a shady organization called Arachnos, whose leader at the time was a mysterious figure called only the Weaver. Stefan was made one of the Weaver's right-hands, as Arachnos's operation planner, with his promotion Stefan focused on the meta-physical embrace of his Incarnate nature. As Stefan began to focus his new dark powers, he started suffering from physical changes. His eyes started to have an almost allergic reaction to bright lights and changed to glowing red, burning with evil. Stefan started developing a back hump, which eventually gained eight large arachnoid arms and he enhanced them with powerful claws made of a highly strong metal known as proto-steel. All of this helped Stefan as he tried to emulate Tartarus, an ancient evil demigod. With his transformation complete, "Stefan Richter" was no more; Recluse had truly been born.
In the early 1932, Recluse proposed an massive operation to the Weaver, a criminal empire that assimilated it's former local government. The Weaver was excited about the operation and appointed Recluse as the head of the American branch, which was to be based in Paragon City. During his time acclimating himself to Paragon, Recluse stayed undercover, hiding his extra arms at his sides beneath his clothing. While down-playing his presence Recluse observed the workings of Paragon's underworld. Stefan saw that Paragon's main criminal syndicate The Family was secretly run by a supervillain going by the name Lord Nemesis. Lord Nemesis was an oppressive sponsor and Stefan saw he could shift their loyalty. Recluse offered The Family semi-free reign of Paragon City if they helped him with his plans. The Family was won over by Recluse's generous offers and tired of working for Nemesis, they became Arachnos's improvised militia of crime for the operation. Recluse sent Arachnos spies, to take on jobs as guards, military members and police members. While the operatives were getting into place Recluse had his formal battle-armor completed dawning the fearsome image of an armored warlord, now proudly displaying his spider-like appendages. Recluse had The Family create a massive riot in down-town Paragon during which time The Family committed a series of mass robberies, with the understanding Recluse would keep the police from interfering.

Recluse fighting the Statesman
Becoming Lord Recluse
Recluse was enraged his careful planning had been for nothing and with the formation of The Freedom Phalanx, it seemed he would never get quite the same opportunity again. Recluse had the Weaver assassinated by Red Widow, usurping him as the leader of Arachnos. Recluse claimed that the Weaver's lack of vision combined with his power-lust had utterly blinded him to Arachnos's potential, none of his fellow members took issue with the logic and Recluse took on the title "Lord Recluse", with his new station as supreme leader of Arachnos. Lord Recluse renewed his plans to assimilate a government, but needed to look outside the U.S. with Statesman rallying meta-humans to stand-together there. Arachnos established a base on the Etoile Islands, which gained the nickname, Rogue Isles, an archipelago off the American east coast. Lord Recluse launched a successful military coup, declaring the Isles to be the domain of Arachnos and began working on forming his empire. Recluse continued to operate from the Rogue Isles, which he ruled with an iron fist as he prepared for world domination.
Powers and Abilities

As a M.M.O. City of Villains was subject to intelligent design and rather than trying to play down various ways the Rogue Isles functioned as coincidence the game developers shifted the in-universe credit to Lord Recluse, crediting the mysterious removal of trouble players and zones grouped by threat level as the work of Lord Recluse, who had complete control of the Isles - essentially making Lord Recluse the in-universe version of the dev-team. Lord Recluse appears to have knowledge of things only the player characters should know including secret plots against him, which he prepares for long before completion; all this is credited to his status as "smartest being on the face-of-the-planet" effectively justifying giving Lord Recluse meta-game insights. The terrifying truth of Lord Recluse's intellect is he can sum up and predict the actions of various groups, heroes and villains through simple observation, in essence granting him short range omniscience achieved through pure estimation. Just as The Well of the Furies has made Statesman as strong as he will ever need to be for any given situation he will ever encounter, Lord Recluse was made smart enough to calculate whatever he needs to for any given situation.
Gallery
Trivia
- Lord Recluse's name was the nickname of David "Zeb" Cook, who was the former creative director behind City of Villains at Cryptic Studios. Cook left Cryptic Studios in 2006 and the nickname was given to Serdar Copur.
- Both Non-Playable Characters and Players all refereed to Lord Recluse's full title, he was never dubbed "LR", or "Recluse" or given any such short-hand, yet most other villains and heroes were given such short-hands.