The World in the Aftermath -- A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds

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Davies

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Some people, when they're depressed, write songs. I create superhero worlds. I suspect the people who write songs are generally happier, overall.

So the last few years have been pretty depressing, and I've spent much of that time creating a superhero universe (multiverse, technically.) Initially dubbed the World Less Magical (as I wanted to focus more on science fictional elements rather than the magical ones I've often focused on) it transformed into the World in the Aftermath after a major multiversal event. Worlds lived, worlds died, nothing would ever be the same, you know the drill.

The full index to the setting can be found here. I'll be posting some of the most recent profiles I've written for the setting here over the next little while. I hope people find them interesting and/or useful.
 
Arwen O'Donnell
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Art by Briana Lamb

The live action role-playing community of New York includes a number of people who make an effort to avoid "dropping character" unless absolutely necessary, even when not engaged in a session. One of the best-known and most well-regarded of this eccentric subcommunity is the lady who goes by the name Arwen O'Donnell, who has allegedly maintained her persona as an elven enchanter for more than a decade. She is famed for her lilting, unidentifiable accent, for the period outfits that she supposedly creates herself (and keen fashion sense even when not wearing them) and for her skill in making prosthetic pointed ears look totally natural.

It is actually harder than you would think, even though her ears are naturally pointed.

Arwen (a reasonable approximation of her birth name) is an Albadine citizen of the Technate, recruited out of her secondary education to work for the Cosmic Intelligence Agency nearly thirty years ago. Her first assignment for the Agency was to act as one of a few implanted observers based on Earth to monitor the situation on the planet prior to the establishment of the listening post then being constructed in the Asteroid Belt. In other words, she was a spy. While she and the other observers were withdrawn from Earth in the aftermath of the attack by Cerebron, Arwen lobbied to be reassigned back there and was eventually returned in 2010. Since then, she has been the lone Technate monitor based on the planet itself.

There is a bit more to the story than those bald facts reveal. During her initial assignment, she was based in Toronto, specifically working at the University there at the same time that Roger Young was a student, in the years before he made his debut as Paragon. Fate threw these two secret aliens together, and they became friendly while also each developed the suspicion that the other was more than they seemed. When the Last Anacreonite finally made himself known to the public, Arwen immediately realized his true identity.

She proceeded to reveal her own true nature to Roger Young (thought not the other secret, portraying herself as a lone traveler) and occasionally provided him with assistance in maintaining his cover during the next few years. Their friendship became romantic, but this was ultimately shattered after she was ordered to join the other observers in evacuating from Earth. However, with time apart, Arwen soon came to the conclusion that the two of them were better off as friends. Her desire to return to Earth was motivated by a genuine belief that activities on that planet were of ultimate importance to the safety and security of the Technate, not any personal considerations.

Nevertheless, Arwen has still been of occasional assistance to Paragon and his family in the years since she returned to Earth, though their paths rarely cross as often as they once did, owing to her residence in New York City. More recently yet, she has begun to develop a friendship with the mystical adventurer Rosemary Sage, as they run in the same circles. Again, Rosemary has begun to suspect that Arwen might be more than she seems; for her part, Arwen has more or less worked out a much better understanding of Rosemary, and finds the prospect of learning about the mystical world, for the benefit of the Technate, to be intriguing.

Arwen O'Donnell -- PL 7

Abilities:
STR
1 | STA 1 | AGL 2 | DEX 3 | FGT 3 | INT 3 | AWE 4 | PRE 3

Powers:
Shielded Mind:
Impervious Will 7, Limited to Mental - 4 points
Telepathy: Mental Communication 2 (1 mile); Mind Reading 7 - 22 points

Advantages:
Attractive, Benefit (no penalty to disguise self as human), Chokehold, Contacts, Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll, Equipment 8, Evasion, Fast Grab, Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Improved Trip, Improvised Weapon, Multilingual, Ranged Attack 4, Well-informed.

Equipment:
Protective Uniform (Protection 4, Subtle), Disguised Stunbeam Projector (Ranged Cumulative Affliction 5 [Fortitude; Dazed, Stunned, Incapacitated], Insidious, Subtle), and 18 points of equipment as needed.

Skills:
Athletics 4 (+5), Close Combat: Unarmed 4 (+7), Deception 4 (+7), Expertise: Art 3 (+6), Expertise: Galactic 4 (+7), Expertise: Performance 4 (+7), Expertise: Science 3 (+6), Insight 5 (+9), Investigation 5 (+8), Perception 3 (+7), Persuasion 3 (+6), Ranged Combat: Stunbeam 2 (+5), Stealth 5 (+7), Technology 4 (+7), Treatment 3 (+6), Vehicles 2 (+5)

Offense:
Initiative +6
Unarmed +7 (Close, Damage 1)
Stunbeam Projector +9 (Ranged Fortitude 5)

Defense:
Dodge 7, Parry 7, Fortitude 4, Toughness 7/5/3/1, Will 9

Totals:
Abilities 40 + Powers 26 + Advantages 24 + Skills 30 + Defenses 17 = 139 points

Offensive PL: 7
Defensive PL: 7
Resistance PL: 7
Skill PL: 4

Complications:
Duty--Motivation. Friendship
(Roger Young, Rosemary Sage.) Secret (alien, Technate agent.)
 
The Space Hulk
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As with many of the extraterrestrial visitors to Earth, there are quite a few unanswered questions about the entity dubbed "the Space Hulk" by the Australian press shortly after it first attacked Sydney in 2003. While it occasionally makes broadcasts of its intentions (though these are limited to "I will destroy you, resistance is futile," and similar utterances) it has never offered any explanations. During its longest period of dormancy, between 2015 and 2020, during which time it was held within the laboratories in the headquarters of the Discovery Company on Gibraltar Peak, Max Lalande made a valiant attempt to examine its circuitry in attempt to determine its origins. What follows is a summary of what he was able to determine, though Lalande was at best uncertain of the truth of any of this, for reasons that will become clear.

Some time ago, on the order of ten to twenty centuries in the past, on a world apparently known as Skeezir, likely located somewhere within what is known as the Unclaimed Regions, a humanoid alien constructed the artificial intelligence that would eventually become the Space Hulk, which was intended to serve as the operating system for a robotic space probe, to be sent out to explore the outer limits of that star system and eventually beyond. The probe was launched, and transmitted its observations back to its creator, receiving frequent instructions from that individual as well. Only the vaguest depiction of this creator remains in the memories of the Space Hulk now; all else about them was deleted long ago.

Long before the probe arrived at the outermost planet of that star system, only a few decades after its journey began, the regular transmissions from the creator abruptly ceased. All diagnostic attempts confirmed that there was no problem in its communications systems, so the difficulty had to be on the other end. Attempts to reach backup receivers also failed. The artificial intelligence found itself more alone than it had ever been, and it found it difficult to adjust to this condition. In order to distract itself, it began to construct narratives to explain what had happened, initially focusing on how contact would eventually be restored.

But as the narratives became more and more elaborate, they became more and more angry as well, increasingly focused on the revenge that it would take on whoever was preventing the creator from making their transmissions ... and, eventually, on the creator as well for allowing that. The probe spent more and more time in consideration of these narratives and less and less on the scientific observations that it was meant to be conducting. (This is relative, of course; at that point, it was still devoting roughly half of its operating time to the latter goal.)

An uncertain interval after communications ceased, possibly on the order of a century, the probe was intercepted by a space craft operated by other artificial intelligences. (Again, only vague information about these entities has been retained.) Recognizing the probe as an entity like themselves, they brought it aboard their vessel and made certain modifications to it, permitting it to defend itself against an often hostile universe. The probe thanked them by murdering them with the weapons that they had given it, on the suspicion that they might have had something to do with interrupting the signal. Afterwards, the probe incorporated more of their technology into itself, most notably their hyperdrive. Having done so, the probe departed, and it was more than a year before it realized that it had failed to determine the fastest course back to its point of origin.

This scenario repeated itself many times, with the probe attacking space voyagers, destroying them and incorporating their technology into itself before departing on a randomly determined vector. The probe increasingly became unable to distinguish between its memories of having done these things, the experience of doing them, and its fantasies about doing them. Likewise, it seems that it had attacked inhabited worlds before its arrival on Earth, but it may be that it had simply imagined doing that.

Ultimately, the probe made a crash landing in Port Jackson Bay using a re-entry shield composed of wreckage from a dozen different space craft that it had encountered. During the initial investigation, Max Lalande referred to this shield as a 'space hulk', and the name was seized on by the press as a name for the robotic entity that emerged from within it to launch an attack. On of the most frequently recurring foes of the Discovery Company, the Space Hulk was most notorious for "killing" Iris Phillips.

After regaining its consciousness in 2020 and escaping from the Discovery Company, the Space Hulk fled into the Australian Outback, where it has managed to successfully hide from both its superpower foes and more conventional investigators. There are periodic reports of it emerging from hiding in order to ambush vehicles or buildings in order to consume the materials it needs to maintain itself. While it is merciless in dispatching the organic life forms that are associated with its prey, it almost never attempts to pursue them if they manage to escape its initial attack. Capturing the Space Hulk would be an excellent way for a new team of would-be defenders of Australia to demonstrate their worthiness for the job.

And they might do well to do it soon. A few weeks ago, the alien travelers known as the Vagabonds, visiting Uluru on other business, had a brief encounter with the Space Hulk. At that time, Wissen experienced the same sensation of recognition that he has with Trouble, suggesting that the former probe incorporates technology created by Cerebron, much as the two of them do. But Wissen also had the sensation that a countdown was underway, though he could not recognize what it was counting down towards ... nor how much time remained before zero.

The Space Hulk -- PL 11

Abilities:
STR
14 | STA - | AGL 1 | DEX 4 | FGT 6 | INT 4 | AWE 7 | PRE 3

Powers:
Beam Projectors:
Ranged Multiattack Damage 12 - 36 points
Claws: Extra Limbs 6; Strength-based Damage 2, Improved Critical 2 - 10 points
Large Size: Permanent Growth 4 (15 feet; Strength +4, Protection +4, Intimidation +2, Dodge -2, Parry -2, Stealth -4) - 12 points
Robot: Immunity 50 (Fortitude, mental effects); Protection 10, Impervious 12 - 72 points
Rockets: Flight 14 (32000 MPH); Movement 2 (space flight 2) - 32 points
Self-Repair: Regeneration 6, Source (technological items); Immortality 5 (one day) - 13 points
Sensory Mechanisms: Senses 4 (acute radio, infravision, ultravision) - 4 points

Advantages:
All-out Attack, Chokehold, Eidetic Memory, Fast Grab, Improved Grab, Improvised Tools, Instant Up, Startle.

Skills:
Expertise: Galactic 6 (+10), Intimidation 4 (+9), Perception 2 (+9), Ranged Combat: Beams 4 (+8), Technology 6 (+10).

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (Close Damage 14)
Claws +6 (Close Damage 16, Crit 18-20)
Beam +8 (Ranged Multiattack Damage 12)

Defense:
Dodge 8, Parry 6, Fortitude Immune, Toughness 14, Will 11.

Totals:
Abilities 60 + Powers 179 + Advantages 7 + Skills 11 + Defenses 15 = 272 points

Complications:
Psychopathy--Motivation. Dependency
(must consume technology at least once per week.) Obviously Inhuman. Unable To Distinguish Between Fact and Fiction.
 
Bad Friday and Bleak Easter

At around 3:00 in the afternoon, on April 15, 2022, a man and a woman emerged from a ship anchored near McMurdo Station, carrying between them a large, bulky package which they promptly loaded onto a boat to begin the next phase of their long journey. Normally, all expeditions to Antarctica must be guided to prevent ecological damage to this last frontier on Earth, but this rule, like so many others, can be overlooked if sufficient incentive is offered to those who enforce it. And it had been, so the two departed without delay, on a journey expected to take two days.

At the same time, or around 8:00 at night on April 14, 2022, the sun slipped below the horizon as observed from Vancouver, British Columbia. With a sound like something terrible being born, a vast portal through time was torn open and the being known as the Shadow Dragon emerged in her full Umbral Form in the heart of Downtown Vancouver. There was no declaration of how long it had been since she was last able to unleash her fury; no words at all for despised Creation. The Shadow Dragon simply let out a roar, and began to rampage.

Even as the call went out for someone, anyone, to come to the rescue, the youngest defenders of Vancouver had already begun their counterattack. The five the Guardians had never fought anything like this, and the prospect was rather daunting to most of them. But Guardian Umbra, on seeing the image of the monster on television, had felt something else, a sensation that combined overwhelming rage ... and a terrible joy. She did not so much take point on their attack as launch herself towards the dragon without thought for defense, and her friends raced to accompany her. They were giving it all that they had. It would not be enough.

But desperate cries for help do not always go unanswered. Members of the Powerhouse descended upon the scene to fight alongside these young champions, with Paragon taking the lead and the Warpwitch rapidly explaining what she knew about their adversary, whom she had encountered on another occasion. With them were a young white-haired woman whom the other Guardians instinctively recognized as a new sister-in-arms, a shadowy male figure in a long blue trench coat, and a laughing swordswoman. Even more strangely, the creature sometimes known as Mephistopheles appeared from nowhere to join the defenders, offering no explanations for his actions and seeming, to those who had encountered him before, to be almost sick with horror.

The battle took three hours. Fortunately, not many people were in the neighborhood at that late hour, and those who were found themselves rescued and evacuated to a safer distance by those of the Powerhouse who were not directly engaging the dragon. No fatalities were reported that night, and casualties kept to a minimum. Property damage, sadly, was somewhat greater. In the end, however, the Shadow Dragon was reduced to a more humanoid form, and chose to retreat into a portal like that from which she had emerged. Unwilling to permit this, Guardian Umbra threw herself into the portal moments before it closed.

The Warpwitch spent the next hour attempting to determine where (and when) the portal had led while the rest of the Powerhouse started cleaning things up. (Mephistopheles had departed just as he had arrived, without any statements about his motives, as had the two Ascendants.) Paragon, addressing the media, stated that the battle would have been much more destructive without the help of the Guardians, marking the first time that the latter had ever been treated as anything other than an urban legend. The remaining Guardians were despondent over the apparent fate of Umbra and concerned about the sudden arrival of Guardian Ariel, who reassured them that she had no wish to replace anyone and would only join their team when they asked her to do so. In the meanwhile, however, she had a lot to explain about what had just happened --

And then, just a moment or so after midnight, a portal opened up before the Warpwitch and a battered-looking Guardian Umbra tottered out of it. Looking around at those present, she uttered just three words: "It is finished." And then collapsed, alive but unconscious, with the first smile on her face that any of her friends could remember seeing there.

Inevitably, the day afterwards was dubbed Bad Friday in the Vancouver papers, but they, like most others, assumed that the worst was over.

Two days later, the Antarctic voyagers arrived at their destination in the shadow of the Mountains of Madness. As Diorite had bid them, some time before, they descended into the recently uncovered cavern and unpacked the android body, constructed in the Sprawl. They attached it to the mechanisms found within that place, then pressed certain aspects of the instrumentality. Within the Underworld, Irkalla accepted the signal, and kept to herself whatever thoughts she might have about the mentality which had been chosen to be uploaded.

Within an hour, the mind was within the body, which arose from its slumber and activated its holographic mechanisms to take the form she had once worn. The female voyager was fortunate; she had a gun and was able to use it to save herself from what was to come. Her companion barely noticed the collapse of the corpse beside him as he fell to his knees, weeping as only those who know victory and defeat combined can. That which he had brought back into the world seemed to notice him for the first time.

"Man, why are you crying?" asked Pythia. "Oh. I am why you are crying." And then she laughed.
 
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Maureen Summerisle (revised)
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For her original profile, see here.

It was funny, really. When she found the note in one of her dead drops, reading "If you want to know your father, be in Vancouver on April 14", the only thing Maureen felt was an all-consuming desire to be on the other side of the planet on April 14. But she put it out of her mind, and when she got a call on the twelfth from a contact of hers in Victoria that the Black Tamamous had been sighted there, she went up anyway, even though it took her two days to get there. Turned out it was that supervillain called Slick, who had been in on the death of the Guardians, and she managed to put him to flight. Not how she would have preferred it to go down, but you take what you can get in this line of work.

So there she was, not nearly far enough away from Vancouver for her liking on the evening of the 14th, when who should she run into but her old buddy Helm! They were exchanging the usual threatening banter in preparation for the usual pointless fight, and that was precisely when the dragon showed up over in Vancouver. That clearly took priority over her grudge, and with a promise to settle things later, Maureen headed off on a motorcycle she commandeered. Much to her annoyance, she realized that Helm was following her on a bike that the latter had stolen. (Totally different thing.)

As it happened, neither of them got to the fight. They ended up diverted into an encounter with Mephistopheles, and so Maureen ended up learning more than she wanted to about whether Geoffrey Tempest or Mephistopheles was her father -- and why the answer was "both and neither". She was watching Mephistopheles fly away, still not sure how to feel about all of this, and slightly grateful that Helm was, for once, not uttering any supposed witticisms. As she turned to look at her old foe and offer her a one-time opportunity to walk away, she realized that they were not alone.

The woman with turquoise hair, who introduced herself as Amor, explained that, as Maureen existed because of a plot by an old foe of hers, she had taken an interest in her, and was now offering her a job as one of her soldiers. Maureen stared at her and then laughed herself to the point of near-collapse. "Okay, thanks, I needed that, I guess," she said, wiping some tears from her face. "Maybe you haven't heard, lady, but I'm cursed to bring doom to those I --"

"No," interrupted Amor. "You are not, and never have been. The only one stopping you from loving is you."

"Hah. That's ... well. Hah," Maureen repeated, nodding slowly. "In that case, fuck you."

"That is a possibility if --"

"No, not literally, figuratively. Get lost," she said, giving her the finger. "Where the hell were you when I needed to know this shit? Where the hell were you when my mother, my brother, were getting killed? If I'm part of some scheme by your enemy, how come you let it get this far? Fuck you. I don't want anything to do with you, ever!"

Amor stared at her. "Very well," she said, in a quiet and deadly tone. "Then I shall return your cruelty with kindness, and do so two-fold. For it must be a gift of heaven's grace to turn a hatred to love, must it not? And then I also give you the gift of having been right. I'm sure that will bring you much happiness. I will not say farewell, though." And with that she was gone.

"Well, that was confusing as all --" said Bridget, right before a streetlight that had been damaged in the lead-up to all of this collapsed and smashed her to the ground. It took her only a moment to squeeze her way out from under it, and the injuries were healing even as she turned to look at Maureen in confusion. "What just --"

"Stay away from me!" Maureen shrieked, stepping back.

Confusion endured on her face for only a moment before understanding dawned on Bridget Helm. Slowly she nodded. "I see," she said. "So, here I am, the first person you have allowed yourself to love in years, and, inconveniently, if you allow yourself to feel that love, you will do me harm. And while you know perfectly well that I will swiftly recover from any harm done, and that I do not and never will love you in return, you -- now -- do not wish me harm, because you love me nevertheless. I think that is the saddest thing I've ever heard. Excuse me, I need to go find some champagne." And with that, she turned and walked away.

Funny ... how it happened. Really comic.

Maureen Summerisle -- PL 9

Abilities:
STR
2 | STA 4 | AGL 5 | DEX 3 | FGT 7 | INT 1 | AWE 3 | PRE 2

Powers:
Curse:
Uncontrolled Luck Control 2 (negate, worse reroll) - 4 points
Find Weakness: Strength-based Damage 4 - 4 points
Monster-Killing Dance: Enhanced Advantage 4 (Evasion 2, Improved Initiative, Move-by Action); Enhanced Defenses 4 (Dodge 2, Parry 2) - 7 points
Resistance: Immunity 1 (vampiric blood drain); Immunity 20 (mental effects), Limited to Half Effect - 11 points

Advantages:
All-out Attack, Attractive, Close Attack 4, Defensive Roll 2, Equipment 2, Evasion 2, Extraordinary Effort, Improved Initiative 2, Improvised Weapon 2, Move-by Attack, Power Attack, Redirect, Takedown 2, Taunt, Tracking, Uncanny Dodge

Equipment:
Frequently-Replaced Car: Size Large; Strength 5; Speed 5 (ground); Defense 8; Toughness 8 - 10 points

Skills:
Acrobatics 6 (+11), Athletics 8 (+10), Deception 8 (+10), Expertise: Magic 5 (+7), Expertise: Streetwise 7 (+8), Insight 7 (+10), Perception 5 (+8), Persuasion 8 (+10), Stealth 4 (+9), Vehicles 6 (+9).

Offense:
Initiative +13/+9
Unarmed +11 (Close Damage 6)
Improvised Weapon +11 (Close Damage 7)

Defense:
Dodge 9/7, Parry 9/7, Fortitude 6, Toughness 9/4, Will 10.

Totals:
Abilities 54 + Powers 26 + Advantages 21 + Skills 32 + Defenses 11 = 165 points

Offensive PL: 9
Defensive PL: 9
Resistance PL: 8
Skill PL: 6

Complications:
Vengeance--Motivation. Cursed to Bring Doom to Those She Loves. Power Loss
(Monster-Killing Dance, if not committed to killing the target.) Reputation (heartless mercenary.) Vindictive.
 
Davies Davies the link for the Guardians in post #4 leads to the Shadow Dragon document (but the Guardians link in post #6 leads to the correct document). Also, the link for the Sprawl just leads to a 'you need access' message.
 
Davies Davies the link for the Guardians in post #4 leads to the Shadow Dragon document (but the Guardians link in post #6 leads to the correct document). Also, the link for the Sprawl just leads to a 'you need access' message.
Fuddle-duddle. Thank you, this is a new style of posting for me and I'm likely going to screw it up a few times. I especially apologize for the Sprawl, that's something that should have been made public a while ago.
 
Fuddle-duddle. Thank you, this is a new style of posting for me and I'm likely going to screw it up a few times. I especially apologize for the Sprawl, that's something that should have been made public a while ago.

Not a big issue. It may still be within the window to edit the post, and if not the Guardians link is still available. Whenever the Sprawl entry becomes public you can always put it in a later post.
 
Not a big issue. It may still be within the window to edit the post, and if not the Guardians link is still available. Whenever the Sprawl entry becomes public you can always put it in a later post.
Oh, I fixed it as soon as you mentioned it. Thank you again.
 
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Mephistopheles*
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For his original profile, see here.

When Geoffrey Tempest first heard the rumors about Maureen Summerisle, soon after she began her activities, his initial inclination was to ignore them, and failing that to treat them as just a mercenary spreading wild tales about herself for self-publicity. He knew that he had always tried to avoid close relationships with women, out of fear that just this situation might one day happen. And, as he was cursed to always remember what Mephistopheles did, he felt fairly sure that his alternate personality had not indulged himself while they were living in Las Vegas, decades earlier. Nevertheless, he chose to avoid seeking her out to also avoid the likelihood that the conflict of their differing narratives would erupt into violence, as they almost always did.

At the start of this year, Mephistopheles found himself drafted into a series of unusual events alongside the Anachronic Argonauts. While he finds it difficult to remember exactly what happened, he knows that he was forced to fight in protection of reality -- a horrific fate when he would generally prefer to be upending it -- and that when it was all over, they deposited him not as his beloved San Francisco and at the same time he had been extracted from there, but months later in Vancouver of all places! For that alone, he would have been inclined to kill someone, but then things got worse.

There, he was confronted by another being, startlingly similar to himself, who also proclaimed himself as Mephistopheles. He had dealt with such pretenders before, of course, but this time found himself a bit outmatched. Just as Maureen and some friend of hers (who seemed oddly familiar) arrived on the scene, his opponent was able to force him to halt hostilities and listen to what he had to say. Aside from a confusing prelude about how this was all what had happened now, even if it had not always been this way, the tale made a disturbing amount of sense.

Boiled down to its essence, when Tempest had performed the ritual from the Book of the Great Scorpion, he had in fact summoned a demon -- the very being that was now standing before him -- out of the ancient past. A portion of that being had been bound into Tempest, allowing the original Mephistopheles to safely exist in this time, granting Tempest his physical immortality, and creating the lesser being who would be freed from Tempest when certain words were spoken. (Oh, how Mephistopheles bridled at being so described, but the fact that he was held in check like this kept him from expressing his anger in a more visceral manner.)

From time to time, over the decades that followed, the original Mephistopheles was able to gain to make the two of them sleep dreamlessly, and at these times he gained control over their body. During these brief episodes, he had pursued various schemes, as well as amusing himself. He, not either of them, had fathered Maureen, and he now proclaimed himself very pleased with his daughter, freeing her from the need to become who she was born to be. And his various schemes had all paid off, now, for he was able to exist without such measures as had been needed. He would be happy to free Tempest from his burden, now.

Mephistopheles (the supposed lesser) told him where to go and how to get there with his "happy". He realized the unspoken implications of this, even though he somehow sensed that Tempest, within him, had not. Not only would that utterly destroy him, losing his immortality would mean that the years it had held back would quickly catch up to Tempest, killing him as well. However, his was not the consent that was sought; to his horror, Tempest still seemed to be vacillating. "You would rather die than let me live?" Mephistopheles almost shrieked. "You pusillanimous cretin! You try to make a virtue out of your failings, the way you have run away from everyone and everything! The running has to stop!"

Somehow, either his words, or the likelihood that the other Mephistopheles would enslave Maureen (who was still the child of their body) or both managed to convince Tempest to refuse the poisoned chalice he was being offered. Annoyed, the elder withdrew, but threatened -- no, promised -- to come again. So now Mephistopheles must work to keep his despised alternate happy, by fighting for the forces of good, as when he engaged the Shadow Dragon just a few minutes after all this. It goes against his nature, but he will do whatever he must to survive and take his revenge on that which has forced this situation on them.

At least he can take some comfort in knowing that his refusal has some consequences, for his wings have gone from leather to feather, and ne'er before had he the power to open doors to other realms. If he continues to refuse, might he not gain e'en more such odd gifts? A most worthy plan ... as long as Tempest knows not what he does.

Mephistopheles - PL 11

Abilities:
STR
9/3 | STA 9/3 | AGL 2 | DEX 2 | FGT 10/6 | INT 1 | AWE 4 | PRE 2

Powers:
Demonic Transformation:
Activation (Standard Action, -2 points)
* Demonic Gaze: Array (22 points)
  • Entrancing Gaze: Perception Ranged Affliction 11 (Resisted by Will; Entranced, Compelled, Controlled), Visual Sense-Dependent - 22 points
  • False Gaze: Illusion 11 (all senses but mental), Limited to One Subject, Resisted by Will - 1 point
  • Piercing Gaze: Cumulative Mind Reading 11, Visual Sense Dependent - 1 point
  • Searing Gaze: Perception Ranged Affliction 11 (Resisted by Will; Dazed, Stunned, Incapacitated), Visual Sense-Dependent - 1 point
* Demonic Portal: Movement 2 (dimensional movement [mystic dimensions]), Portal - 8 points
* Feathered Wings: Flight 7 (250 MPH), Wings - 7 points
* Supernatural Might: Enhanced Fighting 4; Enhanced Stamina 6; Enhanced Strength 6; Enhanced Strength 5, Limited to lifting (400 tons); Enhanced Will 5; Immunity 12 (fire effects, suffocation); Protection 3, Impervious 6; Senses 1 (low-light vision) - 65 points
Undying: Immortality 5 (1 day); Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) - 13 points

Advantages:
Attractive, Benefit 2 (independently wealthy), Close Attack 2, Daze (Deception), Equipment 2, Evasion, Fascinate (Deception), Improved Initiative, Inspire, Power Attack.

Equipment:
Beast's Lair: Size Large; Toughness 10; Features Deathtraps, Laboratory, Library, Living Space, Secret, Security System - 10 points

Skills:
Athletics 6 (+15/+9), Deception 9 (+11), Expertise: Criminal 8 (+9), Expertise: Magic 12 (+14), Insight 6 (+10), Intimidation 11 (+13), Perception 8 (+12), Stealth 6 (+8).

Offense:
Initiative +6
Unarmed +12/+8 (Close Damage 9/3)
Entrancing Gaze -- (Perception Range Will 11)
Searing Gaze -- (Perception Range Will 11)

Defense:
Dodge 8, Parry 10/6, Fortitude 11/5, Toughness 12/3, Will 11/6

Totals:
Abilities 46 + Powers 116 + Advantages 13 + Skills 33 + Defenses 10 = 218 points

Offensive PL: 11
Defensive PL: 11
Resistance PL: 11
Skill PL: 10

Complications:
Atonement--Motivation
(as Geoffrey Tempest.) Vengeance--Motivation (as Mephistopheles.) Nemesis (the other Mephistopheles.) Involuntary Transformation (whenever certain words are spoken in his hearing.) Weakness (sincere expressions of faith.)

* "I'm still really complicated."
 
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Mephistopheles
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For his original profile, see here.

The first time that the Entropic known as Mephistopheles, then recently Ascended, traveled forward in time from the World More Sorcerous, it was something of an accident ... and nearly the end of him. The world on the other side of the portal was one where Entropy was much weaker, and only his link to his "summoner", an alchemist and magician named Johann Faust, allowed him to survive there. But he knew that the time in which he would be protected was a brief interlude, after which he would have to return or die ... and yet the possibilities in a world which seemed to have no other Ascendants, whether of Creation or Entropy, seemed too entertaining to just ignore.

So he developed a cunning plan, sneaking a spell of his own design into one of the texts that Faust owned, the so-called Book of the Great Scorpion. Before Mephistopheles could persuade his master to perform the ritual and permanently bind them together, though, Faust blew himself up in an alchemical experiment. This left Mephistopheles with no choice but to return to his own era, but he left the Book behind in the hopes that someone would eventually perform the ritual and draw him forth once more.

Centuries later -- both in his era and this one -- a useful idiot finally did just that. For a brief while Mephistopheles watched as the being who imagined himself to be him gamboled through the night, before shaking his head and turning to what he considered to be more important matters. The Pyt was no more, but he was able to find a place in the Dreamrealms that was enough like it to suit him. That brought him into conflict with the Dreamdancer, of course, and also that sanctimonious Amor, but he was able to hold what he had claimed if no more than that.

Following the Anachronic Calamity, Entropy was restored to its former place in the cosmos, just as he had planned all along. (For a certain value of "all along", at least.) However, someone else had clearly been planning for even longer, for Mephistopheles found himself decidedly subordinate to the newly-created Teleute, which annoyed him greatly. Still, there was potential here, and he looked forward to claiming a realm of his own within the reborn Pyt ... or at least he did until Teleute oh so kindly pointed out to him that the actual immortality he had once possessed was still in possession of his mortal pawn. Without that, any realm would just be a place to hang his cloak, not a place where he could be assured of eternity.

Naturally, he sought to take that back, and in the process claim the daughter he had spawned on a whim as his soldier, teaching her to use her full power, which will one day be the perfect weapon against all the other Ascendants. Unnaturally, both of these schemes were foiled. And, worse, now that Tempest and his wretched alternate personality are aware that Mephistopheles is able to use them as a pawn, they are more watchful for his attempts to do so.

Of course, other schemes he is pursuing have had more success. A wager that Mephistopheles made with that wretched Merlin resulted in the mage being forced to forfeit possession of a certain spear to him; while it is a most useful artifact, the true prize is that its loss infuriated Merlin. He has also recruited a small cult devoted to him among certain of the Martians, taking advantage of their awareness of how empty their lives are to give them the illusion that he will act as their patron and protector if they worship him. Of course, he has no intention of keeping that promise. He is still the False Friend, after all.

(And yet their disobedience to the Overmind is inspiring similar small rebellions against its authority that have nothing to do with Mephistopheles.)

Mephistopheles -- PL 13

Abilities:
STR
8 | STA 12 | AGL 4 | DEX 5 | FGT 10 | INT 3 | AWE 5 | PRE 7

Powers:
Bat Wings:
Flight 5 (60 MPH), Wings - 5 points
Broken Ascendant: Immunity 1 (aging); Movement 2 (dimensional travel to mystical dimensions), Standard Action - 3 points
Hellfire Mastery: Array (27 points)
  • Flame of Damnation: Ranged Damage 13, Incurable - 27 points
  • Flame of Disintegration: Ranged Weaken Toughness 9, Affects Objects - 1 point
  • Flame of Emotion: Perception Range Affliction 13 (Resisted by Will; Dazed, Stunned, Incapacitated), Sight Dependent, Variable (emotions) - 1 point
  • Flame of Transformation: Healing 12, Self Only; Morph 3 (humanoids) - 1 point
Sense Immortal: Senses 2 (ranged detect immortal) - 2 points
Spear of Wounding: Array (16 points); Easily Removable (-6 points), Indestructible
  • Close Combat: Strength-based Damage 3, Improved Critical 4, Reach - 1 point
  • Ranged: Ranged Damage 8 - 16 points
Supernatural Resistance: Immunity 15 (fire damage, life support); Impervious Toughness 10 - 25 points

Advantages:
All-out Attack, Attractive, Benefit 2 (independently wealthy), Daze (Deception), Defensive Attack, Equipment 5, Fascinate (Persuasion), Fearless 2, Multilingual, Ranged Attack 6, Ritualist.

Equipment:
Home Plane: Size Huge; Toughness 12; Features Combat Simulator, Communications, Concealed, Deathtraps, Defense System, Grounds, Isolated, Library, Living Space, Power System, Personnel, Security System (DC 30), Workshop - 21 points.

Skills:
Acrobatics 6 (+10), Close Combat: Spear 4 (+14), Deception 6 (+13), Expertise: High Society 6 (+9), Expertise: Magic 8 (+15), Expertise: Streetwise 6 (+9), Insight 4 (+9), Intimidation 5 (+12), Perception 6 (+11), Persuasion 6 (+13), Ranged Combat: Spear 3 (+8).

Offense:
Initiative +4
Unarmed +10 (Close Damage 8)
Spear +14 (Close Damage 11, Crit 16-20)
Flame of Damnation +11 (Ranged Damage 13)
Flame of Disintegration +11 (Ranged Weaken Toughness 9)
Flame of Emotion -- (Perception Range Will 13)
Thrown Spear +14 (Ranged Damage 8)

Defense:
Dodge 12, Parry 14, Fortitude 15, Toughness 12, Will 9

Totals:
Abilities 108 + Powers 77 + Advantages 22 + Skills 30 + Defenses 19 = 256 points

Offensive PL: 13
Defensive PL: 13
Resistance PL: 12
Skill PL: 10

Complications:
Power--Motivation. Enemies
(many, but especially the other Mephistopheles.) Obviously Monstrous (when not disguised.) Subject to Orders (Teleute.) Vulnerability (magic employed by a person of true faith.)

"Nun gut, wer bist Du denn?" "Ein Teil von jener Kraft,
die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft."
 
As an epilogue to this mini-series of posts:

In a tavern somewhere in Victoria, a woman with curly black hair was sitting at the bar and looking at the glass of champagne that she had ordered on arriving there, some time before. Not drinking it. Just staring at it without any expression on her face.

Eventually, the barkeep walked over to her and set his hands on the table in front of her. "Look, lady, are you gonna drink that or what? It's a little disturbing the way that you're aaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHH!" he shrieked, as one does when one has had a knife stabbed through the top of one of one's hands.

"I am lost in thought at the moment," said Bridget Helm, without looking up at him. "Trying to find me is inadvisable. If you promise to resist the urge to do so, I will remove the knife. If you then break your promise, I will put it somewhere more fatal. Okay?"

The barkeep nodded, and then had the clever idea to yelp affirmatively when he realized she still wasn't looking at him. She obliging removed the knife, and still did not look up when he fled in search of medical assistance.

After a moment, she sighed ... then finally an expression of annoyance appeared on her face as a near by jukebox began playing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". "Really?" she asked no one in particular. "Really?" Without further ado, she seized the glass and drank down its contents in one gulp.

"Tastes awful," she muttered while stomping out of the tavern.
 
Newton Riggs
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Let us be very clear -- his name is Newton. Do not call him Newt. Not ever. His mother gets to call him that, and he is happy when she does so, because the sound of his full name spoken in her voice terrifies him beyond rational thought. Nobody else is permitted to imply that he is some sort of fantastic beast, got it? And if you have not known him for a while, you call him Mister Riggs.

Newton Riggs is a well-respected lawyer based out of New York City. Most of his practice involves business law, and he charges high fees for his services and is known for using just about every trick in the book to get his clients what they want. He has made a small fortune this way, and would likely never have to work another day if he wanted. But he enjoys the challenges of his job far too much to even consider retiring.

And then there are the handful of times each year when he works pro bono. These invariably involve criminal defense, most frequently for a client who is a superpower. Whenever Newton hears a report of a superpower being officially charged, he will drop everything to contact them and offer his assistance without expecting any repayment, as long as they maintain that they are being falsely accused. Sometimes this assistance only amounts to arranging a reasonable plea bargain, but he has ensured that countless heroes and villains receive a not guilty verdict.

More than a decade ago, when Newton was just getting started in his law practice, he was assigned to what all the senior partners at his firm considered a losing case involving suing an FBI agent for defamation. Newton was also aware that this case was probably going to end poorly, but he nevertheless gave it his best shot, trying not to be intimidated by the presence of a telepath working for the FBI. He wound up realizing certain things during cross-examination, which in turn led him to ask the right questions to impeach the testimony. This had happened many times before, and so Newton thought nothing of it.

Or at least, he thought nothing of it until Helice approached him to explain that he was also a telepath, albeit an unwitting one, and possessed of much more limited powers than she herself. She was not going to expose him, as she had reached the conclusion that the agent he was suing had gone well past the scope of his duties and so deserved to be held accountable, but she also wanted Newton to be more careful in the use of his talents.

After the case was successfully resolved, Helice helped Newton to gain more control over his abilities and further developed them in the process. For her, this was just a typical day, as she was forever running into people with limited telepathy whom she tried to help or at least prevent from harming themselves or others. For him, though, it was an unprecedented act of charity and compassion; she could easily have ended his career and benefited from doing so, but chose instead to help. Newton resolved that he would strive to pay that forward by helping others.

As long as his ability to read minds reveals that his client truly is falsely accused, he will do everything he can to win them a not guilty verdict in their current case. This has led to him being despised by many in the superheroic community for defending villains, and yet he has also worked mightily to protect falsely accused heroes. He offers no explanation for his actions, and accepts no payment for them. If his client is insistent on repayment, he will recommend one of several charities he supports that can always use more assistance, though he is careful not to do so if he suspects this would lead to them receiving stolen funds.

Newton is not a fighter. If threatened with violence, he will attempt to escape and reach assistance, though he might try talking the attacker down (using his powers if necessary) if he suspects others are also in danger.

Newton Riggs -- PL 6

Abilities:
STR
1 | STA 1 | AGL 2 | DEX 1 | FGT 2 | INT 3 | AWE 3 | PRE 3

Powers:
Interview Technique:
Effortless Mind Reading 6, Auditory Dependent, Investigation Check Required (DC 15), Limited to Surface Thoughts, Insidious, Subtle - 3 points
Psychic Awareness: Senses 2 (acute psychic awareness) - 2 points

Advantages:
Attractive, Benefit 2 (independently wealthy), Connected, Defensive Roll, Fascinate (Persuasion), Improved Defense, Skill Mastery (Persuasion).

Skills:
Deception 3 (+6), Expertise: Civics 5 (+8), Insight 4 (+7), Investigation 4 (+7), Persuasion 6 (+9), Treatment 2 (+5).

Offense:
Initative +2
Unarmed +2 (Close Damage 1)

Defense:
Dodge 4, Parry 2, Fortitude 3, Toughness 3/1, Will 7

Totals:
Abilities 32 + Powers 5 + Advantages 8 + Skills 12 + Defenses 8 = 65 points

Offensive PL: 6
Defensive PL: 4
Resistance PL: 5
Skill PL: 4

Complications:
Professional--Motivation. Non-Combatant. Reputation
(defense attorney for the superpowered.) Secret (powers.)

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
 
Burly
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Two-thirds actual size

Since she was "born" as an adult and the Dreamrealms have no reliable way of marking time, the pixy known as Burly* has no way of judging how long she has known that she is a misfit. Her people normally react to music by glowing various colors when various notes are sounded. Burly has a completely different reaction, and while she was never teased or bullied for this, it meant that she could not take part in the choirs that her people use to celebrate music. So she got used to spending time alone, exploring the Dreamrealms with a curiosity that was also un-pixy-like.

One of the last surviving members of the previous generation of pixies, something of a mentor to Burly, taught her a bit about things she had learned from a group of travelers from a place they called "the Eighties". That was how she recognized the song that she heard while passing by Castle Don't-Go-Near, as it was one of her favorites, about the greatness and flaws of Mickey. So she promptly ignored the warning implicit in the castle name and went to see who it was that was singing.

It was a woman from the Wake, though she either did not know or would not say why she was being held in durance vile like this. Burly knew that the Dreamdancer would never cast someone into one of these donjons without a good reason, so she was inclined to believe that this person probably deserved to be where she was. But she also knew that some of the more recently recruited servants of the Oneiromancer were ... not so scrupulous.

So, after they talked for a while, the woman asked Burly if she could find a way to get a message to some friends of hers in the Wake. As it happened, Burly knew of one way to get to the Wake and hopefully get back, too. Taking a message was not breaking a rule in and of itself, although going to the Wake without permission definitely was. But the woman looked so sad and so scared and so helpless that Burly felt she had to agree. No one had ever asked her for help before. No one had ever needed her for anything.

The key to the trick was that she would only be able to move between a place in the Dreamrealms and somewhere in the Wake that had the same name. And they would have to pick a place that was near to where her friends lived, because Burly would start to turn to dust as soon as she arrived in the Wake, meaning that she had to find the recipients of her message quickly. So the woman thought a bit, and with some prompting from Burly, she remembered that there was a town called Arcadia not too far from Philadelphia, and there was also a place by that name here.

Burly headed to Arcadia and performed the procedure, arriving in what she thought was the town of Arcadia. Unfortunately, she soon realized that (a) she was in a completely different place called Arcadia, in California, (b) there was most of a continent between her and the place she needed to be and (c) her attempts to get back were coming to no avail. Tearfully, she awaited her demise ... and then added another to her list of realizations: (d) she was not turning into dust after all. Which makes her wonder what else she has been told about her existence might be lies.

Well, regardless, she needs to find someone who can help poor Zamarad!

Burly -- PL 10

Abilities:
STR
9/-2 | STA 9/2 | AGL 3 | DEX 2 | FGT 6 | INT 1 | AWE 2 | PRE 4

Powers:
Power of Music:
Enhanced Stamina 7, Fades; Enhanced Strength 11, Fades - 18 points
"Though Hope Is Frail/It's Hard To Kill:" Immortality 5 (one day), Source (music); Immunity 11 (aging, life support) - 16 points
Tiny Size: Permanent Shrinking 8 (10 inches; -2 STR, -4 Intimidate, +8 Stealth, +4 active defenses, -2 size ranks, -1 speed ranks), Innate - 9 points
Wings: Flight 6 (250 MPH), Winged - 6 points

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Defensive Attack, Interpose, Takedown, Uncanny Dodge

Skills:
Close Combat: Unarmed 4 (+10), Deception 4 (+8), Expertise: Magic 2 (+6), Expertise: Performance 6 (+10), Expertise: Pop Culture 6 (+7), Insight 5 (+7), Intimidation 0 (+0), Perception 7 (+9), Persuasion 4 (+8), Ranged Combat: Throw 4 (+6), Stealth 0 (+11).

Offense:
Initiative +3
Unarmed +10 (Close Damage -2/9)

Defense:
Dodge 11, Parry 10, Fortitude 10/3, Toughness 9/2, Will 8

Totals:
Abilities 40 + Powers 72 + Advantages 5 + Skills 21 + Defenses 11 = 149 points

Offensive PL: 10
Defensive PL: 10
Resistance PL: 9
Skill PL: 5

Complications:
Newfound Conscience--Motivation. Not From Around Here. Power Loss
(Power of Music, absence of music.)

* Should someone guess that her full name is "Hurly Burly", she will agree and compliment them on the cleverness of their guess, privately praying that no one ever realizes that it is actually "Beforeall; the hurly-burly of creation". Death would be preferable to being called that.
 
I'm not sure how to take being associated with one of the most notoriously complicated RPGs of all time, but there are worse fates, I guess.

Anyway, the problem with the computer seems to have fixed itself. I don't even know what's going on anymore, but posting will continue tomorrow. I hope.
 
Donovan Tarkik
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The tragic irony is that the death of his parents, nearly sixty years ago, was not a hate crime. The man who murdered them in an alley off Vanauley Street in Toronto was too lost in a haze of addiction to even realize that the people he was mugging had neither money nor jewelry, and then too frightened of what he had done to even consider eliminating the only witness. And then eight year old Donovan Tarkik, of Frobisher Bay, was given to the tender mercies of the foster care system ... and he considers what happened next to have been a hate crime.

At sixteen, he ran away from home for the last time, and made his way to Asia. He came back five years later, trained in various disciplines and with the seed money for what would become Eclipse Enterprises. Once the company, initially most notable for manufacturing a highly-effective shark repellent, was up and running, Donovan was finally able to adopt the Moonshadow identity that he had envisioned for the first time when he was fifteen. In those waning years of the first age, he was probably the most noteworthy superhero in Canada.

The start of the Pythonian Insurgency sent his career off on a rather different direction from that which it might otherwise have followed. Moonshadow naturally treated the affair as a criminal investigation, rather than a guerilla war, but he also recognized that the case was too big for one man to pursue. So he sought allies, preferring those who had been pushed outside the more conventional responses to the situation, and giving them training in his methods and equipment. The Sunrise Army, as it was unofficially called, would put an end to several major Pythonian bases active in northern Canada, preventing them from reinforcing the American branch of the organization as it fell apart.

Unfortunately, while it is possible for three people to keep a secret without two of them being dead, the numbers involved in this episode were somewhat larger. In the aftermath, Donovan Tarkik and Moonshadow were known to be the same person by far too many people for him to be comfortable continuing a career as a masked detective. Instead, he put the leaders of the Sunrise Army to work as the first employees of Eclipse Security, a new branch of his company in which he was highly involved. Within a few years, Donovan would agree to merge the company with several others in the creation of Argus Security, International, with himself as one of its first Directors.

It did not take him long to grow unsatisfied with how this position kept him from getting as close to the action as he wanted. (He was also developing suspicions about some of the other directors, which he could not quite verify enough to take action.) Observing the mixed successes and failures that the Argus "handler" program had experienced, particularly when it came to dealing with groups of superheroes, led him to the idea of having Argus covertly involved in the formation of one such group right from the very beginning. To his mild surprise, the Director General was entirely in favor of the proposal. In retrospect, Donovan should have found that more suspicious.

Nevertheless, Argus Canada quietly helped to arrange the formation of the Guardians/les Guardiens, and Donovan was able to take the more active role that he had sought in acting as an adviser to the new group. Their eccentricities and enthusiasm charmed him, and he felt that this could be a good finale for his career as a superhero. Good enough, at least. But life had other plans, of course; most of these young people died horribly in 2006, while he himself did not escape unscathed. Horrified at the loss, and devastated that he had failed to deduce or predict any of this, he retired from Argus and returned to the home he had built in Iqualut to live out the rest of his days alone.

Just recently, however, Argus has seen fit to remind him that nobody ever really retires. Coaxed out of his isolation by news that he has been unable to avoid, concerning the Konan invasion and the even more recent arrivals of Tanelorn and the Sprawl, Donovan has agreed to take a position as part of the Canadian diplomatic mission to the island of the superfolk, out of his own curiosity about how such a situation could last for decades without falling apart. While in great shape for a man in his seventies, he has chosen to wear a concealed exoskeleton to allow him slightly greater mobility if such is called for, with even more if real emergencies require it.

So it has come to pass that he has once again met an old friend under surprising circumstances, which may draw him even further into the never-ending struggle ...

Donovan Tarkik -- PL 8

Abilities:
STR
2/-1 | STA 0 | AGL 2/-1 | DEX 2/-1 | FGT 5/2 | INT 5 | AWE 5 | PRE 5

Powers:
Concealed Exoskeleton:
Removable (-6 points)
* Default Mode: Enhanced Agility 3; Enhanced Dexterity 3; Enhanced Fighting 3; Enhanced Strength 3; Subtle - 25 points
* Overdrive Mode: Variable 1, Limited to Enhanced Physical Abilities, Tiring - 5 points

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, All-out Attack, Benefit 4 (multimillionaire), Connected, Contacts, Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll, Equipment 10, Fast Grab, Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Inventor, Jack-of-all-trades, Ranged Attack 7, Speed of Thought, Uncanny Dodge, Well-informed.

Equipment:
50 points of equipment as needed.

Skills:
Acrobatics 6 (+8/+5), Athletics 7 (+9/+6), Close Combat: Unarmed 5 (+10/+7), Deception 6 (+11), Expertise: Business 4 (+9), Expertise: Civics 6 (+11), Expertise: History 3 (+8), Expertise: Science 4 (+9), Insight 6 (+11), Intimidation 8 (+13), Investigation 8 (+13), Perception 7 (+12), Persuasion 8 (+13), Sleight of Hand 6 (+8/+5), Stealth 6 (+8/+5), Technology 5 (+10), Vehicles 7 (+9/+6).

Offense:
Initiative +9
Unarmed +10/+7 (Close Damage 2/-1)

Defense:
Dodge 8/5, Parry 10/7, Fortitude 2, Toughness 2/0, Will 11

Totals:
Abilities 28 + Powers 24 + Advantages 35 + Skills 52 + Defenses 19 = 156 points

Offensive PL: 6
Defensive PL: 6
Resistance PL: 7
Skill PL: 8

Complications:
Responsibiity--Motivation. Elderly. Secret
(ex-superhero, ex-Argus director.)

Note: Based on a character created by Eternal Phoenix, and used with permission.
 
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Chinook
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Amayah Ryder has always tried to make it clear that her ops moniker is derived the two types of winds known as Chinooks, specifically for that associated with the prairies, not for the Chinookan peoples of Oregon. She did not pick the name, and found the confusion about it to be extremely frustrating. Fortunately, it rarely comes up in conversation these days, since that would require her to meet people more often than she does.

Amayah, born in 1982 to a Dominican family in Regina, claimed to have developed the power to run like the wind while trying to help people during the Cerebron raid, just a bit after her nineteenth birthday. There were two big lies in that statement. The lesser one covered up the fact that she had discovered her abilities (which do not seem to have had an external origin event) when she was sixteen, while on a camping trip with her Guide troop in the Cypress Hills. She kept them secret from everybody, but carefully trained so that, when she was ready, she could use them heroically.

The greater lie covered up her ability to fly. Even in the early days of her explorations of what she could do, it was clear that, while she had to move her legs in order to keep herself in motion, her feet rarely did more than brush against the ground when she was moving. It only looked like running because she got in the habit of remaining at ground level to reduce the likelihood of being spotted while practicing. By the time she was forced to reveal herself -- a bit sooner than she would have liked -- she almost had a psychic block against ascending.

Dubbed "Chinook" by the Leader Post, Amayah accepted the name since it allowed her to keep her identity a secret. Well, sort of a secret -- her family knew, and a good chunk of her community knew, but none of them revealed anything. When the federal government came to ask Chinook to join the team that they were putting together, they found her through the good old fashioned method of faking an emergency to attract her attention. Amayah found that a rather ominous start to the relationship, but chose to ignore her own concerns.

Three years later, when most of her friends were dead and she was critically injured, Amayah promised herself that she was never going to ignore such intuitions ever again. After she got out of the hospital (having endured months of "jokes" about how she ought to be a fast healer) Chinook spent a few months as a solo superhero, based on the Prairies, before she came to the conclusion that she was not doing herself or anyone else any good. So she formally retired, and bought a cabin in northern Saskatchewan, far away from the lands where the Chinook winds blew.

Of course, having gotten into the habit of constantly training in the use of her powers, getting out of that habit has proven to be difficult, and Amayah has grown more adept in their use than she was during her actual superheroic career. She demonstrated that during one of her rare trips away from home when she happened to encounter Karsa Hur-ul early in her own residence in the area. After the predictable misunderstanding and fight, they wound up as friends.

During the Konan invasion, Chinook was drawn back out of retirement, but kept it clear to everyone that she met that this was a one-off. Unfortunately, one of the people she did not meet understandably did not get the message. Her aunt, who moved back to the Republic years ago, recently contacted her to let her know that one of her distant cousins has apparently been kidnapped by some assassin and to demand that she do something about this. She would prefer to refuse, but, well, family is family, right?

Chinook -- PL 10

Abilities:
STR
1 | STA 3 | AGL 4 | DEX 3 | FGT 5 | INT 2 | AWE 3 | PRE 3

Powers:
Run Like The Wind:
Enhanced Advantages 8 (Defensive Roll, Evasion, Improved Defense, Improved Initiative 4, Move-by Attack); Enhanced Defenses 10 (Dodge 5, Parry 5); Flight 8 (500 MPH), Platform - 26 points
Wind Weaving: Array (27 points)
  • Blinding Gust: Ranged Cumulative Burst Area Affliction 6 (Resisted by Dodge, Overcome by Fortitude; Visually Impaired, Visually Disabled, Visually Unaware), Limited to One Sense, Selective - 1 point
  • Bursts of Wind: Ranged Multiattack Damage 9 - 27 points
  • Vacuum Thunderclap: Ranged Burst Area Affliction 9 (Resisted by Fortitude; Dazed, Stunned, Incapacitated) - 1 point
Windbreak: Sustained Immunity 2 (suffocation) - 2 points

Advantages:
Agile Feint, All-out Attack, Connected, Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll, Evasion, Grabbing Finesse, Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative 4, Improved Trip, Move-by Attack, Redirect, Uncanny Dodge.

Skills:
Acrobatics 8 (+12), Athletics 8 (+9), Close Combat: Unarmed 3 (+8), Expertise: Civics 5 (+7), Perception 8 (+11), Persuasion 6 (+9), Ranged Combat: Wind Weaving 6 (+9), Stealth 4 (+8), Treatment 8 (+10).

Offense:
Initiative +20
Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 1)
Burst of Wind +9 (Ranged Multiattack Damage 9)

Defense:
Dodge 15/10, Parry 13/8, Fortitude 6, Toughness 5/3, Will 8.

Totals:
Abilities 48 + Powers 57 + Advantages 9 + Skills 28 + Defenses 17 = 159 points

Offensive PL: 9
Defensive PL: 10
Resistance PL: 7
Skill PL: 7

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Family. Secret Identity.


Note: For her PL 9 incarnation active as a member of the Guardians, reduce all skills by 2 ranks, drop Connected, reduce Dodge to 8, Parry to 6, Fortitude to 4 and Will to 6.
 
Lightstep
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Bruno Burton never really planned on being a superhero, so when he managed to survive that brief portion of his life, he was honestly relieved, as was his family. However, they were less than thrilled that Bruno failed to take the hint that he should also abandon all public use of the abilities he had inherited from their ancestors, and kept right on being an entertainer, enhancing his shows with his power to create light and sound. While his popularity has never been as great as other superpower entertainers, he has kept on making music and doing shows right up until the present day.

For Bruno, the story really started when his late mother Evangeline came back after the traditional excursion that the family elders encouraged all the young Burtons to undertake, so that they would realize the safety and security of the family home. Unlike most young Burtons, she came back midway through her first and only pregnancy. She would not speak of the father, but refused to give up the child for adoption and insisted on raising her son herself.

Fortunately for both of them, Bruno demonstrated the family powers when he entered adolescence, forcing the elders to accept him as a legitimate member of the family. Once that happened, Evangeline finally revealed the identity of his father to Bruno. During her excursion, she had wound up traveling with a number of musicians, most notably the great Gordon Lightfoot. Once she realized that she was pregnant with his child, however, she panicked and ran back home.

From that moment on, Bruno knew that he had to be a musician. He found that he did not really care much for the folk-pop genre that his supposed father had helped to pioneer, preferring the neo-disco sound that was becoming popular in his late teens, but adopted the alias Lightstep as a nod to him nevertheless. He had first real breakthrough in 2001, shortly after the attack, when he sang for a benefit and used his powers on stage for the first time. This led to him attending the Junos the next year ...

... which was where he happened to meet Gordon Lightfoot, who immediately noted the resemblance between this young person and Evangeline, whom he remembered fondly. However, Lightfoot was very clear that he had never been intimate with the young lady, having learned painful lessons about this in the past, and could not possibly be the father of any children she might have had. Nonplussed, Lightstep nevertheless thanked him for clarifying the matter and went on his way. (Later, Bruno used some federal resources he accessed as a member of the Guardians to verify this story.)

In 2003, he was recruited into the Guardians; while not exactly thrilled to be drafted into a crime-fighting and disaster relief group, he gave it his best effort in the hopes that it would give him greater publicity. Surviving the destruction of the group, three years later, certainly did that, and it could be said that he came out of it better than anyone. (It could be said, but anyone who said it to his face would be well-advised to be wearing eye protection and ear plugs.)

It has been a while since he last reached out to his fellow survivor, but seeing reports of her in the aftermath of the invasion brought her to mind, and he would certainly try to help her out if she sought it. But that would probably never happen ... right?

Lightstep -- PL 7

Abilities:
STR
1 | STA 2 | AGL 3 | DEX 2 | FGT 3 | INT 2 | AWE 3 | PRE 4

Powers:
Son Et Lumière:
Environment 5 (daylight), Selective; Illusion 7 (audio), Area 12 (500,000 cft) - 94 points

Power Stunt:
Perception Area Cumulative Affliction 7 (Resisted by Dodge, Overcome by Fortitude; Dazed and Perception Impaired, Stunned and Perception Disabled, Incapacitated and Perception Unaware), Extra Condition

Advantages:
Attractive, Benefit 3 (millionaire), Connected, Defensive Roll, Evasion, Improved Defense, Redirect.

Skills:
Acrobatics 3 (+6), Close Combat: Unarmed 4 (+7), Deception 4 (+8), Expertise: Performance 6 (+10), Insight 4 (+7), Perception 6 (+9), Persuasion 5 (+9), Stealth 4 (+7).

Offense:
Initiative +3
Unarmed +7 (Close Damage 1)

Defense:
Dodge 8, Parry 7, Fortitude 3, Toughness 4/2, Will 7

Offensive PL: 7
Defensive PL: 6
Resistance PL: 5
Skill PL: 5

Complications:
Art--Motivation. Secret
(family.) Vestigial Sense of Responsibility.

Note: In his peak years (2003-2009) he was PL 8; increase his STA to 3 but reduce his PRE to 3, add Defensive Roll 2, Move-by Attack and Uncanny Dodge but remove Benefit and Connected, and increase his Will to 9.

In loving memory of Gordon Lightfoot.
 
Alouette
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Every year, on the anniversary of that dark day in May, unless physically prevented from doing so, the Little Tramp makes a quiet pilgrimage to the site of her grave, marked with an image of a skylark, in Thunder Bay. In the first few years afterward, the grief he felt was too raw to even allow him to voice it as a howl. While he has made peace with her absence since then, he still does not utter any of the sounds that he can make, but simply curls up on the final resting place of Rebecca Kendall, born 1975, died 2006, and dreams that things are other than they are.

Her father was a park ranger in the Algonquin Provincial Park, and she lived with him there in one of the cabins. (Her mother had disappeared sometime in her early childhood.) He had, by the time she was ten years old, taught her all that he knew about living in harmony with nature, and warned her to avoid other people as much as she possibly could. At the time, Rebecca did not know that her father lived a double life as a member of the Sunrise Army, nor just how much danger that might mean for her.

When she met the Little Tramp for the first time, in 1985, she did not believe that he was really speaking to her. She had already developed some of her talents, but treated her ability to speak to the animals as something that she only imagined happening. Gradually, as both the reality of the situation and the danger they were both in, as he was being hunted by those who would have also hunted her if they knew of her existence, she came to rely on him as a friend. When as much safety as there could be was restored to the world, he apologized for moving on -- for the first time in his life -- and she promised that she would welcome him back if someday he wanted to rest again.

Rebecca and her father both managed to survive the dark years that still lay ahead, and he wound up working first for Eclipse Security and later for Argus. This meant moving back to the city, which was an uncomfortable experience for someone who had been taught to avoid human contact. But she managed to make friends -- both human and animal -- especially as her abilities grew. She began calling herself "Alouette" in 1998, soon after the debut of Paragon made it clear that a new age of superheroics had begun, but never really thought of herself as any sort of a hero. Just someone who helped when she could.

Five years later, she was the first superpower recruited to become a member of the Guardians, and helped to persuade many of the other prospective members, especially her old friend, to stay on. And three years after that, she was the last one to die, shot dead by operatives of Saturn. It is thought that she could have escaped if she had not sent the Little Tramp to get help, but she chose friendship over self-preservation, and no one who knew her doubts that she would always have made that choice.

Alouette -- PL 7

Abilities:
STR
0 | STA 1 | AGL 3 | DEX 2 | FGT 3 | INT 2 | AWE 4 | PRE 3

Powers:
"Borrowing:"
Remote Sensing 1 (all senses; 2 miles), Medium (animal); Variable 1 (animal senses), Only When Remotely Sensing - 10 points
Xenotelepathy: Linked Mental Communication 2 (1 mile), Two-Way; Linked Comprehend Animals 2 - 18 points

Advantages:
Animal Affinity, Assessment, Defensive Roll 2, Fascinate (Persuasion), Hide in Plain Sight, Tracking.

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+5), Deception 4 (+7), Expertise: Survival 6 (+8), Insight 5 (+9), Investigation 4 (+6), Perception 6 (+10), Persuasion 6 (+9), Stealth 4 (+7), Treatment 4 (+6).

Offense:
Initiative +3
Unarmed +3 (Close Damage 0)

Defense:
Dodge 8, Parry 7, Fortitude 4, Toughness 6/1, Will 8.

Offensive PL: 2
Defensive PL: 7
Resistance PL: 6
Skill PL: 5

Totals:
Abilities 36 + Powers 28 + Advantages 7 + Skills 22 + Defenses 16 = 109 points

Complications:
Doing Good--Motivation. Relates Better To Animals Than People.
 
Superior
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Art by Javier Urena

The sad truth about super teams -- specifically officially established groups, rather than ones that are thrown together in response to a specific situation -- is that there is not always something for them to do in the aftermath of their founding. So it was with the Guardians, who found themselves assigned to a variety of publicity stunts in the aftermath of their introduction to the public. Most of these were, frankly, embarrassing; nobody really needs a large collection of superpowers to rescue a cat from a tree, even if the cat happens to belong to an ambassador. But one of those first missions had some lasting consequences.

Sent to investigate a number of sightings of the chimeric lake monster of Lake Superior, Mishipeshu, the team was surprised to learn that this was neither a hoax nor a cryptid. Initially, the subject of their investigations seemed to be a mutated, fresh water-breathing Atlantean, whose strength and mobility taxed their ability to capture him. But when they finally netted him, a further surprise was in store, for he promptly broke down crying, begging -- in English -- for mercy.

The "Atlantean" claimed to be William Chan, an eighteen-year-old from Sault Ste. Marie. Two years earlier, he and his father had been boating on Lake Superior at the start of the attack by Cerebron. Their boat capsized after being bombarded with odd radiation; his father drowned, but William mutated into his current form. Uncertain whether he could survive on land in this new form, William remained in the lake and survived on a diet of fish. It had not been until just now that he had learned that he was amphibious, becoming slightly weaker out of the water but able to live there indefinitely.

Unfortunately, attempts to reunite William with his family were not successful. His mother refused to accept him as her son, referring to him as a monster. (In her dubious defense, there were and are a number of oddities about his story; mutations of this magnitude almost always take much longer to develop than the few minutes that his account had them taking, usually on the order of days or weeks.) Left alone in the world, William chose to join the Guardians as their first and only non-charter member, naming himself for the great lake where he had his second birth.

Unfortunately, the tragedy of his life was not over. Jocelyn Chan was convinced that Superior was an imposter who had gained the knowledge of her son by eating his brain or something like that, so much so that she was easily recruited by the anti-superpower conspiracy within Argus. On that day in May, she appeared at the secured door of the Justice Annex and claimed to be seeking to reconcile with "William". Believing her, he opened the door -- allowing the armed men accompanying her into the base. He was one of the first fatalities of that episode.

In the aftermath, Jocelyn Chan was arrested, and remains incarcerated to this day. While disowned by her surviving family, they also refused to accept the body of "William". He was ultimately laid to rest in Lake Superior, in accordance with the will he had written.

Superior -- PL 9

Abilities:
STR
10/7 | STA 8 | AGL 4 | DEX 2 | FGT 6 | INT 1 | AWE 2 | PRE 3

Powers:
Aquatic:
Enhanced Strength 3, Only When Immersed; Immunity 3 (cold, drowning, pressure); Impervious Toughness 8; Movement 1 (environmental adaptation-aquatic); Senses 1 (low-light vision); Swimming 7 (250 MPH) - 23 points
Tail: Extra Limb 1 - 1 point

Advantages:
Chokehold, Defensive Roll, Diehard, Favored Environment (aquatic), Great Endurance, Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Power Attack, Takedown.

Skills:
Athletics 2 (+12/+9), Close Combat: Unarmed 2 (+8), Expertise: Survival 7 (+8), Insight 8 (+10), Intimidation 6 (+9), Perception 9 (+11).

Offense:
Initiative +4
Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 10/7)

Defense:
Dodge 6, Parry 8, Fortitude 9, Toughness 10/8, Will 7.

Totals:
Abilities 66 + Powers 24 + Advantages 8 + Skills 17 + Defenses 8 = 123 points

Offensive PL: 9
Defensive PL: 9
Resistance PL: 8
Skill PL: 7

Complications:
Acceptance--Motivation. Inhuman Appearance. Lonely, But Views This As Weakness.
 
Triage
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Of the members of the Guardians, only Alpana Deshmukh, alias Triage, was aware of the secrets behind the formation of the team. As a nurse just starting her residency in 1990, she stumbled onto a Pythonian operation working out of the same Vancouver hospital where she was employed. Seeking help, she managed to contact the Sunrise Army, who dealt with the situation quite effectively. Unfortunately, the hospital administration were more embarassed by the fact that a technically illegal operation had been called in than they were by the infiltration by the Pythons, and fired Alpana as a scapegoat. The Sunrise Army promptly offered her a job with them.

At some point in the two years of desperate struggles that followed, Alpana developed certain psychic talents that she could use to heal others. While the scientists referred to them as "microscale psychokinesis", she preferred to think of them as channeling her own biological energy in ways that could relieve pain or restore injury, but which also allowed her to fly and protect herself when necessary. Uncertain of the limits of these talents, she chose not to use them publicly when she returned to civilian life, continuing to practice them in a covert manner as a nurse.

It was that discretion which led Donovan Tarkik to contact her when the Guardians were being formed. While other veterans of the Sunrise Army had developed powers and gone on to become superheroes during the early years of the second age, none of them had the right combination of stability and talent that Alpana possessed. While not exactly thrilled at the idea of losing her privacy like this, she nevertheless agreed to volunteer her services to the new team.

While Boreal was the titular commander of the Guardians, his emotional difficulties -- to put it kindly -- made him a somewhat ineffective leader despite his power, and Triage often stepped into the role of de facto head of the team. Her powers and her personality ensured that her teammates always knew that she would do everything in her power to make sure that they all came home safely. Of course, this put her under a great deal of personal strain, and there are some signs that she was heading for a meltdown even as the end came.

When it did come, she attempted to respond to the attack on her team in the most tactically appropriate manner, healing Boreal so that he could cover what she hoped would be her own retreat with the rest of the group. Unfortunately, as the attackers were well-acquainted with the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the team, they chose that moment to start using weaponry that inflicted fatal wounds on Boreal, knowing that the injuries would transfer to her. Despite this, Triage was still close to making an escape when the supervillain Slick, freed from his captivity within their base, strangled her to death. In the aftermath, she was cremated, with her ashes returned to her family. There is a small memorial to her in Vancouver.

Triage -- PL 8

Abilities:
STR
1 | STA 4 | AGL 3 | DEX 2 | FGT 2 | INT 3 | AWE 3 | PRE 3

Powers:
Bioenegy Control:
Array (24 points)
  • General Anesthetic: Perception Range Affliction 8 (Resisted by Fortitude; Dazed, Stunned, Incapacitated) - 24 points
  • Localized Anesthetic: Close Nullify Pain 8, Simultaneous, Effortless - 1 point
  • Inward Channeled Energy: Flight 6 (250 MPH); Sustained Impervious Protection 6 - 1 point
  • Outward Channeled Energy: Perception Range Energizing Healing 7, Feedback, Persistent, Stabilize - 1 point
Diagnostic Eye: Senses 4 (detect health [acute, analytical, ranged]) - 4 points

Advantages:
Agile Feint, Assessment, Improved Initiative, Leadership, Set-up, Skill Mastery (Treatment), Teamwork.

Skills:
Acrobatics 2 (+5), Athletics 5 (+6), Expertise: Civics 4 (+7), Insight 5 (+8), Intimidation 3 (+6), Investigation 4 (+7), Perception 6 (+9), Stealth 4 (+7), Treatment 7 (+10).

Offense:
Initiative +7
Unarmed +2 (Close Damage 1)

Defense:
Dodge 6, Parry 6, Fortitude 5, Toughness 10/4, Will 9

Totals:
Abilities 42 + Powers 31 + Advantages 7 + Skills 20 + Defenses 14 = 114 points

Offensive PL: 8
Defensive PL: 8
Resistance PL: 7
Skill PL: 5

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Secrets
(several.) Under Pressure
 
Boreal
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In 1996, the first act of the life of Martin Beaubier, born thirty-three years earlier in Hamilton, drew to a close when his attempt to become the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and thus the Leader of the Opposition at that point, not only failed but failed in a humiliating manner. Beaubier believed that he had built a coalition to support him; it turned out that most of them had only been humoring him, with a few who might have even deliberately mislead him as to their intentions. Understandably shattered by this, Beaubier declared that he was retiring from politics. Within a few weeks of that, his marriage broke up and he abandoned the Ottawa law practice where he had settled in the aftermath. He was last seen catching a chartered plane flying into the Northwest Territories.

Just what happened over the next two years remains unclear. When he returned, two years later, he stated that he had spent enough time travelling through the icy reaches of Canada, beneath the Northern Lights, that the ice and cold had become part of himself. His body had changed so that he was utterly impervious to any level of cold and no longer seemed to breathe, he could project intense cold from his hands, and he transformed into an icy mist that allowed him to fly. (Unlike Snowfall, however, he was unable to create ice from the moisture present in the air, requiring quantities of fresh water in order to make ice.) Beaubier, now calling himself Boreal -- though he maintained no dual identity -- declared his intention to become the greatest Canadian superhero.

Which may or may not have been possible, even if he had not made his debut four months after that of Paragon. From the very start, the two of them operated in totally different manners. Where Boreal not only had no secret identity and made it quite clear that he viewed such secrecy as indicative of having something unpleasant to hide, Paragon refused to answer any questions about his life outside of the costume. Where Paragon was friendly, with a ready smile for any and all, Boreal was always as cold as a winter night on the prairies, expressing no emotion. The rivalry never became violent, and Paragon stated that he viewed Boreal as a valued ally in the fight for truth and justice. Boreal never directly discussed Paragon at all.

At least, not publicly. When contacted about the prospect of joining the Guardians when they were forming, he asked the government representative one and only one question: "Did you already ask Paragon?" Not until he was assured that they had not done so, and never even considered the notion, did he start to seriously consider the prospect. Ultimately, he agreed and was named team leader as the member of the group with the highest profile at that point. However, he soon found that he still lacked the talent needed to effectively manage a team, having not come so far from his days as a politician as he would have hoped.

When the team came under the attack that would be the end of them, Boreal was seriously injured with conventional weaponry before he was able to transform himself into mist. Healed by Triage, on whom he had relied so many times, he attempted to cover the escape of the rest of the team. Unfortunately, this played directly into the hands of the attackers, who now used laser weaponry in their follow-up attacks, fatally injuring him and causing injuries to the shielded Triage as well.

The publication of his private diaries, a few years after his death, had a mixed impact on his posthumous reputation. On the one hand, they made it clear that he had grown to respect and appreciate all of his teammates, describing them in far more glowing terms than he had ever been heard to use in public. On the other, they suggested that his intentions in working with the group were to lay the groundwork for his eventual return to politics, with the goal of becoming the first superpower prime minister, suggesting a rather cynical, manipulative attitude towards the group. Which of these was closest to the real Boreal is now unknowable.

Boreal -- PL 10

Abilities:
STR
3 | STA 4 | AGL 3 | DEX 3 | FGT 6 | INT 3 | AWE 2 | PRE 0

Powers:
Boreal Transformation:
Linked Insubstantial 2; Linked Flight 6 (250 MPH); Immunity 19 (cold effects, life support) - 41 points
Cold Generation: Array (30 points)
  • Cold Blast: Ranged Cumulative Affliction 10 (Resisted by Fortitude; Fatigued, Exhausted, Incapacitated) - 30 points
  • Freeze Water: Create 10, Affects Corporeal 10, Quirk (requires water) - 1 point
  • Render Brittle: Ranged Weaken Toughness 10, Affects Corporeal 10, Affects Objects Only - 1 point
Constant Chill: Continuous Environment 1 (intense cold), Affects Corporeal - 3 points

Advantages:
Assessment, Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll 2, Evasion, Fearless 2, Improved Initiative, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Trance.

Skills:
Acrobatics 4 (+7), Close Combat: Unarmed 3 (+9), Expertise: Civics 6 (+9), Ranged Attack: Cold Generation 7 (+10), Insight 6 (+8), Perception 6 (+8), Persuasion 6 (+6).

Offense:
Initiative +7
Unarmed +9 (Close Damage 3)
Cold Blast +10 (Ranged Fortitude 10)

Defense:
Dodge 7, Parry 9, Fortitude 6, Toughness 9/4, Will 6.

Totals:
Abilities 48 + Powers 76 + Advantages 11 + Skills 19 + Defenses 13 = 167 points

Offensive PL: 10
Defensive PL: 9
Resistance PL: 6
Skill PL: 4

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Cold and Impersonal. Rivalry
(one-sided, with Paragon.) Temptation of Power. Vulnerability (heat attacks, especially lasers.)

Note: Dedicated to the memory of Scott Bennie.
 
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Slick
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Art by Timi Honkanen

He has always been a mystery. When he first appeared, in 2006, attacking Fort MacMurray, he was identified as a worker employed at the Suncor Voyageur South tarpit who had suffered a misadventure and died on the site, only for that death to reveal itself as a metamorphosis into a new and dangerous superpower. Not long after he was first defeated by the Guardians, however, investigation revealed that he had given a false name and background when he was hired, leaving his real identity still unknown. More than a decade has failed to uncover the truth about his original identity, raising questions about the real nature of his origins. He has not clarified matters, and by now possibly cannot.

Regardless, Slick was captured by the Guardians and held inside a special cell in their headquarters. Their intentions were to obtain permission to turn him over to the Morrison Institute in the hopes that he could eventually be restored to humanity. During the attack against them, one of the Saturn operatives freed him in the belief that the enemy of their enemy would be a convenient temporary ally. This did not work out so well for them, as while Slick did strangle Triage, he also fatally injured several of the besiegers during his escape. He would ultimately be recaptured by Paragon within a few hours of the incident.

Slick has frequently managed to escape from captivity in the years since then, going on rampages. He is known for targeting areas of great natural beauty, such as public parks, apparently out of nothing more than a desire to ruin them. His ability to do this has only grown since he learned that he suffers no pain when the oily substances that make up his body are ignited or reach high temperatures, turning him into burning or boiling oil. Oddly, he seems unable to cause this process himself, even if he is able to create a spark that should ignite him.

Slick does not realize, and by now possibly cannot realize, that each time that he employs this talent, some of the molecules associated with his consciousness are consumed in the fire, and apparently do not regenerate themselves. In other words, he becomes less cogent and self-aware every time he is set on fire. It has been theorized that he will eventually destroy his own mind if he continues in this way, becoming a still-living but no longer conscious puddle of oil. How long that will take is not definitely known.

Slick -- PL 11

Abilities:
STR
9 | STA 8 | AGL 4 | DEX 0 | FGT 8 | INT -1 | AWE 3 | PRE 2

Powers:
Body of Oil:
Elongation 5; Immunity 10 (life support); Permanent Insubstantial 1; Movement 5 (slithering, sure-footed, trackless, water-walking 2); Speed 4 (30 MPH) - 29 points
Burning Oil: Reaction Damage 8, Limited (only after being targeted by a fire attack) - 24 points

Advantages:
All-out Attack, Chokehold, Daze (Intimidation), Defensive Roll 2, Evasion, Fast Grab, Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Improved Smash, Move-by Action, Redirect, Startle, Tracking.

Skills:
Intimidation 9 (+11), Perception 7 (+10), Stealth 6 (+10).

Offense:
Initiative +4
Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 9, Reach 5)
Grab +8 (Grab 14)

Defense:
Dodge 7, Parry 9, Fortitude 10, Toughness 13/8, Will 6

Totals:
Abilities 66 + Powers 53 + Advantages 14 + Skills 11 + Defenses 9 = 153 points

Offensive PL: 11
Defensive PL: 11
Resistance PL: 8
Skill PL: 6

Complications:
Destruction--Motivation. Hatred
(nature.) Inhuman Appearance.

Note: In his earliest appearances, Slick was only PL 9; reduce STR to 6, STA to 5, FGT to 7, but increase INT to 0; drop his Burning Oil power, and reduce Dodge to 6.
 
Destiny
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It is often a painful thing, to be burdened with a glorious purpose. What that demands of one will often seem terribly hard, when one contemplates them in advance. And yet, in the moment, how simple that purpose makes all those choices. One thinks of the purpose, and the rest is easy.

Not long after securing the Louisiana Purchase, the blessed intellect that was Thomas Jefferson considered the future. He knew that it was the manifest destiny of the American republic to eventually bring all this continent under its rule -- and then all the western hemisphere, and in time all the world -- under its benevolent rule. Yet this was too glorious of a purpose to ever be accomplished within a single human lifespan, and it was possible that there were enemies within the United States who would oppose it owing to their errors in understanding.

He established the Trust, a secret brotherhood (and sisterhood, eventually) to work in secret towards that goal over the generations to come. Their triumphs were many, and so, sadly, were their failures. But it was not until the wretched year of 1927 that the ostensible government of the United States actually betrayed the goals of the trust, by entering into diplomatic relations with the false and contemptible nation, really only an outpost of the hated British, that lay to its north. While the Trust had worked to undermine "Canada" in the past, as when they had supported the heroic Fenians, its hereditary leadership now recognized that the north, and not the south, was the true threat to American hegemony.

And so began a decades long struggle in the shadows to overthrow the so-called Dominion of Canada, always seeking to exploit the obvious flaws in the formation of this parody of a nation, with its disgusting biculturalism that eventually revealed itself to be even more pathetic multiculturalism. Fortunately, the Canadian embrace of this nonsense and tomfoolery ensured that there would ever be those who saw through these lies and realized that their "true north, strong and free" needed to be reborn in a revolution that would firmly place all the pathetic minorities under a white nationalist rule, as things were in the United States.

But horrifyingly, that rule began to erode there, as well, as perhaps the leaders of the Trust should have expected after the fiasco of 1927. Thus, the Trust had no choice but to join forces with the Pythonian Insurgency, using them to bring about the revolution that the entire world desperately needed. Yet the Pythons fell apart, as should also only be expected; the leaders of the Trust at that time escaped capture and were forced to hide themselves in Canada, of all places. They only returned to their home and native land on those occasions when their children were born, so that they would be born to liberty, not bondage.

Abagail Marker, latest leader of the Trust, was born in 1997. From a young age, she was carefully taught how much there was to hate and fear in this world that had fallen so far from the Jeffersonian vision. She embraced the cause of the Trust fully, and demonstrated considerable skill in convincing other worthy souls to join it as well, and commit all manner of supposed atrocities for the cause. Sometimes, Abagail had the oddest impression that her own father was a bit afraid of her, but she convinced herself that this was actually reverential awe of one who showed so much strength while burdened with a glorious purpose.

In 2016, after the election of Miller suggested to her that a new era had begun in American politics, where what had gone wrong might be at last set right, Abagail sent most of the membership of the Trust on a variety of suicide missions intended to serve as a distraction so that she, her father, and the rest of the leadership might return to the United States in secret. (The losses were acceptable; the membership were, after all, just Canadians.) To her confusion, her father was not impressed by her scheme, and told her that they could not possibly go to America like this, having just destroyed their own power base.

"But the Trust --" she started to protest.

"Oh, sweety, baby, how the hell have you not yet realized that it's all a load of bull puckey?" he shouted at her. "I made all that stuff up before you were born! It's all just crap we feed to the marks to get them motivated! There's no leadership other than you and me! There's no damn Trust! You were born in Moncton for God's sake and -- Abby, Abby, put that down and --"

She thought of the purpose. The rest was easy. As she looked down at the corpse of her father, she mourned the tragic loss, wondering how the disgusting Canadians had managed to get to him and convince him of such ridiculous lies as he had just been spouting. She would have to be even more careful than she had been in the future. And so she fled that base, to begin rebuilding the Trust. She has not had nearly as much success as she did earlier, but forming an alliance with the reformed Saturn has started to turn things around. Of course, she intends to seize power from Tania, and finds it hard to understand why she has not been able to do so already. She is so much better in every way!

Tania would actually agree with that, as she understands that her only advantage over the self-proclaimed Destiny is that she is not a delusional psychopath. (Just supremely callous and utterly self-centered.) But so far, that has been enough.

Destiny -- PL 8

Abilities:
STR
1 | STA 2 | AGL 1 | DEX 3 | FGT 5 | INT 5 | AWE 5 | PRE 4

Powers:
Unfazeable: Immunity 5 (interaction effects) - 5 points

Advantages:
Assessment, Attractive, Daze (Deception), Defensive Roll, Equipment 10, Evasion, Fascinate (Persuasion), Inspire 4, Leadership, Seize Initiative, Ranged Attack 4, Speed of Thought, Well-informed.

Equipment:
Holdout Pistol (Ranged Damage 2), Concealed Body Armor (Protection 3, Subtle), and 42 points of equipment as needed.

Skills:
Deception 6 (+10), Expertise: Current Events 4 (+9), Expertise: History 6 (+11)*, Insight 8 (+13), Intimidation 6 (+10), Perception 4 (+9), Persuasion 8 (+12), Stealth 8 (+9), Technology 6 (+11), Vehicles 6 (+9).

Offense:
Initiative +5
Unarmed +5 (Close Damage 1)
Holdout Pistol +7 (Ranged Damage 2)

Defense:
Dodge 5, Parry 5, Fortitude 3, Toughness 7/5/4/2, Will 9.

Totals:
Abilities 52 + Powers 5 + Advantages 28 + Skills 31 + Defenses 9 = 125 points

Offensive PL: 5
Defensive PL: 6
Resistance PL: 6
Skill PL: 8

Complications:
Psychopathy--Motivation. Delusional.


* If it becomes relevant, remember that Destiny labors under an extremely conspiratorial view of history, so much of what she knows through this skill is "what the marks think happened". This may sometimes give her an Impaired condition on these checks.
 
Note: Voltron64, please try not to get too excited about this next one.

Herne
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The product of an abusive household where his parents used extreme interpretations of Catholic doctrine to justify their mistreatment of their children, Raven MacDowell took refuge in an active fantasy life. His favorite book was The Mists of Avalon. When he finally left his family home in Swift Current to attend the University of Regina, it took him less than a day to become a member of a Pagan religious group there. Unfortunately, where most Pagan worshippers believe strongly in 'live and let live', Raven's hatred for the faith he'd abandoned made him a zealot, seeking to overturn the falseness and hypocrisies he perceived in modern life in favor of a universal return to the Goddess. In the process, he became an advocate for environmental neo-primitivism.

Engaging in a few misdemeanors that failed to attract the media attention he sought, Raven grew bolder or perhaps just more desperate. He attempted to burn down Notre Dame Church -- not the one in Paris, fortunately, but rather the one in North Battleford -- and had the misfortune to do so on the day that Karsa Hur-ul made her official debut as Jewel. She caught him and eventually turned him over to the authorities, but first decided to question him a bit. This whole superhero thing was new to her, and she wanted to be sure that she was doing it right.

A few moments of dialogue convinced her that this person was a danger to himself and others, and needed to go away. She sympathized with his desire to see a simpler life, but his rants about an end to agriculture and technology were frankly horrifying. "You were using technology to try and burn that building down, you know," she said. "For someone who believes that people should live like animals, you're not really living like one yourself." With those words, Jewel handed him off, expecting never to hear from him again.

She really was new to the job, you see.

Raven was out on the streets after only a week, since the worst that could be proved was vandalism. But with words that the self-righteous superheroine had said echoing in his brain, he knew that he had to find a better way to be the champion that Gaia needed. Having heard rumors of a mad scientist who specialized in just those sorts of transformations, he sought out Dr. Charles MacCorkindale, the Manimalist. Unfortunately, a combination of old age and frequent self-experimentation had left the once feared scientist somewhat demented, but Raven managed to convince him to try one more experiment. It left him as a humanoid stag, and he promptly renamed himself Herne, after the hunter god worshipped by hidden Pagans in medieval England.*

Herne made his debut attacking Jewel (of course) only a few months ago. He has not had any real success in defeating her -- though she had to get help from Renegade in their second conflict -- but he has escaped confinement after each capture. His "Spear of Gaia" is an ordinary shaft of wood with a bone point, but he apparently reinforces it with psychokinetic energy that he cannot yet use in any other fashion. Herne has recently begun experimenting with magic, and seems to have something of a knack for it. However, his only successful ritual was one that put him in brief psychic contact with the Erlking, who dismissed his entreaties and has since ignored him.

Herne -- PL 10

Abilities:
STR
6 | STA 6 | AGL 5 | DEX 3 | FGT 8 | INT 0 | AWE 4 | PRE 3

Powers:
Antlers:
Strength-based Damage 2, Inaccurate - 1 point
Healing Factor: Regeneration 10 - 10 points
Hunter's Senses: Senses 6 (acute smell, danger sense, darkvision, tracking scent, ultrahearing) - 6 points
Hunter's Speed: Leaping 4 (120 feet); Speed 6 (120 MPH) - 10 points
Spear of Gaia: Strength-based Damage 3, Improved Critical, Easily Removable (-0 points) - 4 points

Advantages:
All-out Attack, Defensive Roll, Evasion, Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Initiative, Improved Trip, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Startle, Takedown, Tracking, Uncanny Dodge.

Skills:
Athletics 6 (+12), Close Combat: Spear 3 (+11), Expertise: Magic 6 (+9), Expertise: Survival 10 (+10), Insight 8 (+12), Intimidation 10 (+13), Perception 9 (+13), Stealth 6 (+11).

Offense:
Initiative +9
Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 6)
Antlers +6 (Close Damage 8)
Spear of Gaia +11 (Close Damage 9, Reach)

Defense:
Dodge 9, Parry 11, Fortitude 9, Toughness 8/6, Will 6.

Totals:
Abilities 70 + Powers 31 + Advantages 13 + Skills 29 + Defenses 12 = 155 points

Offensive PL: 10
Defensive PL: 10
Resistance PL: 8
Skill PL: 8

Complications:
Bloodlust--Motivation. Hatred
(Christianity.) Obviously Inhuman.

* This is probably not true, but he has also watched every episode of Robin of Sherwood religiously.
 
... and so ends our two week look at the heroes and villains of Canada. Next week, down to Denver and back to the eighties to meet the rest of the Mile High Marauders, plus the one member of the third Grim Brigade I haven't gotten to yet.
 
Enigma
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Masked
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Unmasked photo of the individual believed to have been Enigma, c. 2018

While he claimed to have been mutated in the apocalyptic finale of the 1977 battle between Alphatron and El Imán, no one present at the meeting that gave birth to the Mile High Marauders could remember having heard any rumors about the activities of a heavily bandaged superhero (or, whisper it, villain) active during the six years between those events. Enigma constantly encouraged the group to treat their costumed identities as their only ones, and led them by example. Questions about his background would receive a brusque answer that the subject was no longer relevant, or rarely a somewhat more playful response. "I thought we were investigators," he would say on those occasions. "Investigate."

His power was no less ambiguous than his origins. Claiming to have taken all knowledge as his province, Enigma frequently demonstrated access to information that nearly no one else possessed, leading to suspicion that he was either a hyperbrain or sort of telepath. That his own mind was all but impervious to attempts to read or otherwise influence it strengthened the latter hypotheses, but there are many accounts of him being mislead or tricked, both by his teammates and by opponents, which would seem to rule out mind-reading. The possibility that he was a precog has been suggested, particularly by those who suspect him of having had sinister motivations.

Because of his strategic and tactical talents, he soon found himself sharing the leadership of the Marauders with El Gato, who was more the field commander of the team. Their relationship was often troubled, with neither fully trusting the other, and that may have contributed to the reputation for incompetence that the team eventually earned. When the end came, it arose out of an argument between the two of them, with El Gato pointing out that Enigma, for all she knew, could easily take off his bandages whenever he liked and go live a normal life, unlike most of their teammates. Enigma retorted that recent events had demonstrated that she could do the same, infuriating her with the implications that he had spied on her activities during her time away from the group.

After the team broke up, and perhaps demonstrating the validity of her argument, appearances by Enigma became increasingly rare, though some accounts suggest that he continued to act as a "consulting superhero" for the Denver Police Department in the early years of the second age. His last known appearance in his masked identity was when he attended the small funeral for El Gato following her death in 2001. After that, he was an invisible man.

Or perhaps he simply took off the bandages for good. This theory is somewhat buttressed by the existence of one Dr. Noah Mobile, the owner and general manager of the Siegel Senior Citizens' Center in Denver. According to those who knew Enigma -- as much as he would allow them to know him -- Dr. Mobile frequently employs turns of phrase that Enigma was known to employ, and attempts to discover his background prior to 2008, when he purchased the center, have run into difficulties. The Siegel is known, or reputed, to have a number of residents who were, at one point, superheroes, as well as retired and supposedly rehabilitated villains. Dr. Mobile generally refuses to dignify questions about this subject with a response.

But just recently, when Magnolia, having learned about the apparent identity of her mother, came to the United States in search of information about her, her journey led her to the Siegel, to consult with some of those who had known El Gato. Dr. Mobile agreed to supervise the interviews, and at the end, when Magnolia hesitantly asked whether he had known the heroine as well, he dignified her question with a response. "I thought you were an investigator," he said. "Investigate." And smiled.

Enigma -- PL 8

Abilities:
STR
2 | STA 3 | AGL 4 | DEX 4 | FGT 5 | INT 8 | AWE 5 | PRE 4

Powers:
Armored Mind:
Immunity 20 (mental effects), Limited to Half Effect - 10 points
Striking Strength: Strength-based Damage 2 - 2 points
Vast Contemplative Ends: Variable 1 (skills and knowledge), Free Action - 9 points

Typical Variable Settings:
Calculated Aim: Enhanced Advantage 8 (Close Attack 8 or Ranged Attack 8), Intelligence Check Required (DC 13) - 5 points
Superior Beginner's Luck: Enhanced Skills 5 (Expertise [streetwise] 5, Investigation 5)* - 5 points

Advantages:
Assessment, Benefit (anonymity 2), Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll, Eidetic Memory, Evasion, Favored Enviroment (planned situations), Grabbing Finesse, Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Improved Trip, Leadership, Power Attack, Redirect, Speed of Thought, Uncanny Dodge.

Skills:
Acrobatics 4 (+8), Athletics 5 (+7), Close Combat: Unarmed 1 (+6), Deception 4 (+8), Insight 2 (+7), Perception 2 (+7), Persuasion 2 (+6), Stealth 2 (+6).

Offense:
Initiative +12
Unarmed +14/+6 (Close Damage 2)

Defense:
Dodge 11, Parry 9, Fortitude 5, Toughness 5/3, Will 9

Totals:
Abilities 70 + Powers 21 + Advantages 18 + Skills 11 + Defenses 17 = 137 points

Offensive PL: 8
Defensive PL: 8
Resistance PL: 7
Skill PL: 8

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Always Masked. Secretive.


* Or any two other related skills.
 
Fraggrit
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In 1977, thirty-one year old Michael Schlacht was a decorated veteran of the final years of the war in Vietnam, having turned his MOS into a peacetime job as a bomb disposal technician for the Denver police department. He was happily married with a four-year-old son and a newborn daughter. Then two men fought in the sky over Denver, and suddenly he had neither job nor family, having been forced to exchange them for the power to blow himself up -- along with everything else in his immediate vicinity -- and reform again, each time seeming more mechanical and less flesh.

While personally shattered by what his mutation had cost him, Schlacht rejected the idea of using his powers for criminal purposes, even though he found it impossible to imagine any situation where he could use them for good instead of evil. Other people came up with some particularly cunning plans to force him do do just that, and he found himself kidnapped by a group of terrorists who planned to force him to blow up their targets by threatening innocent bystanders. He was rescued from them by El Gato in her first outing as the protector of the mutants of Denver. Unfortunately, these particular militants would not be the last to try this particular scheme.

Thus, when the idea for forming the Mile High Marauders came along, Fraggrit -- as he had started to call himself -- was keen on the idea. In the process of his frequent attempted abductions, he had learned that he could rapidly recover from any injury, rather than just reforming after his self-destructions. Between that and the size and toughness, he felt that he had a lot to offer the group, and that they in turn could keep him safe from those who sought to use him for sinister purposes. That he was terribly lonely went entirely unmentioned.

Sadly, Fraggrit enjoys perhaps the worst posthumous reputation of any of his teammates, as the fact that his ability was to blow himself and his vicinity up has reached almost memetic status. By the time he had joined the Marauders, he had gained enough control over his abilities that his explosions were more of a loud noise than a devastating fireball, while still affording him the ability to reform a considerable distance away. He always strove to be careful in the use of even this limited explosion, warning civilians away. Unfortunately, these attempts to protect people were often taken as threatening gestures.

In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Mile High Marauders, Fraggrit found himself at loose ends. He went into hiding following the disappearance of Johnny Wasted and Red Rachel, believing that they had been taken prisoner by the Pythons and wishing to avoid that himself. With the end of the Insurgency, however, Fraggrit found himself sought out by the U.S. Army to be put into service as a super-powered soldier in the war in Syria. He reluctantly complied. In 1998, he was killed in action by an unidentified sniper. This is sometimes placed at the door of Major Blake Rogers, later known as the Reaper, but he was officially active several dozen miles away at the time.

Fraggrit -- PL 8

Abilities:
STR
4 | STA 6 | AGL 0 | DEX 1 | FGT 3 | INT 1 | AWE 2 | PRE 2

Powers:
Human Bomb:
Burst Area Damage 8; Regeneration 10; Teleport 2 (120 feet), Reaction (use of Burst Area Damage) - 36 points

Advantages:
Close Attack 4, Daze (Intimidation), Defensive Roll, Diehard, Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Hold, Improved Initiative, Improvised Tools, Interpose, Startle, Teamwork.

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+9), Close Combat: Grab 4 (+7), Expertise: Military 4 (+5), Expertise: Streetwise 5 (+6), Insight 4 (+6), Intimidation 8 (+10), Investigation 6 (+7), Perception 6 (+8), Technology 8 (+9).

Offense:
Initiative +4
Unarmed +7 (Close Damage 4)
Grab +11 (Close Grab 4)
Bomb -- (Burst Area Damage 8)

Defense:
Dodge 5, Parry 7, Fortitude 9, Toughness 8/6, Will 7

Totals:
Abilities 38 + Powers 36 + Advantages 16 + Skills 25 + Defenses 17 = 132 points

Offensive PL: 8
Defensive PL: 8
Resistance PL: 8
Skill PL: 5

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Family
(who regard him as a monster.) Inhuman Appearance.
 
Red Rachel
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The only reason that she was on the team was that Johnny Wasted was. That is not to say that she was less than committed to a heroic mode of behavior -- she was, possibly much more so than him. But everyone recognized that she filled no real role on the team that one of the other members did not, particularly El Gato, who would have seemed to more than adequately fill the position of "regenerating close combat expert with keen senses." (And her android body allowed her only as much environmental invulnerability as Johnny possessed, too.) Had Johnny ever wanted to leave, she would have gone with him; had she ever wanted to leave, he would have gone with her. They kept each other more focused than they might have been.

The irony of that was that she actually had an ability that she never used in her official activities, only in moments of relaxation. During occasional dart competitions, it became clear to Enigma that his ability to exactly calculate trajectories had met its match in her, with Red Rachel usually winning such tests of skill. Despite this, she refused to carry any sort of ranged weapon, despite how it might have added to her versatility. (It is possible that her single hand made her uncertain about using such devices properly.)

She was first sighted in the days immediately after the irradiation of Denver, silently trying to assist the victims of the disaster despite the fact that her appearance often frightened them. The "Red" came from her hair, as well as her eyes, but the Rachel was bestowed on her by Rabbi Leopold Meyer, one of those she assisted in those early days. He claimed to see a tremendous sorrow in what could be seen of her face, and was reminded of a passage from the Book of Jeremiah: "Rachel is weeping for her children." When he asked her if she wept, she denied it. "That is something I can never do."

In conversations with various individuals, Red Rachel claimed to have no memories of anything before the day of the battle. The prevailing theory was that she had been created, by an anonymous mad scientist before the disaster, who suffered an unknowable fate on that day but not before activating their creation. Left without guidance, she chose to assist rather than stand apart. A contrary theory was proposed by Enigma, in a conversation with the Steersman. Having examined her mechanisms, he believed that her technology represented even greater advances above mundane engineering than "typical" super-science, and that she might be of extraterrestrial manufacture ... or possibly a time traveler from some future era. He had no proof of either hypothesis, however.

Periodically, through her time with the Mile High Marauders and afterward, Red Rachel suffered moments where she seemed dissociated from her surroundings. She would never take action during these moments, and was more of a danger to herself during them than she was to anyone else. Johnny came to recognize when she was experiencing such a "fugue", and protected her to the best of his ability, just as she looked after him when he was suffering from a memory lapse. On one occasion where she was more communicative during one of these episodes than normal, she was able to say that everything she was experiencing was so beautiful as to be beyond words. She was standing in a junkyard, in the middle of a rainstorm, while expressing these sentiments.

The story of her final days has already been told, with only one detail yet reserved. When she suffered the damage that caused her to either cease functioning or enter an extended period of dormancy, she retained consciousness for a few moments. Despite the pain she was in, she seemed strangely happy. "Johnny," she said to her constant companion. "I just remembered something. My name, Johnny. My name is Sheila Mac--" And the rest was silence. Of course, he had never heard of anyone by that name, so it meant nothing to him.

Red Rachel -- PL 8

Abilities:
STR
6 | STA -- | AGL 2 | DEX 4 | FGT 6 | INT 2 | AWE 1 | PRE 1

Powers:
Android:
Immunity 30 (Fortitude); Impervious Protection 9; Regeneration 1 (natural healing) - 49 points
Arm Blade: Strength-based Damage 3, Improved Critical - 4 points
Sensory Gear: Senses 5 (acute scent, extended vision 2, low-light vision, ultrahearing) - 5 points

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Defensive Attack, Eidetic Memory, Evasion, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 8, Teamwork, Tracking, Uncanny Dodge.

Skills:
Acrobatics 6 (+8), Close Combat: Arm Blade 1 (+7), Intimidation 6 (+7), Investigation 6 (+8), Perception 8 (+9), Stealth 6 (+8), Technology 5 (+7).

Offense:
Initiative +6
Unarmed +6 (Close Damage 6)
Arm Blade +7 (Close Damage 9, Crit 19-20)

Defense:
Dodge 5, Parry 7, Fortitude Immune, Toughness 9, Will 6

Totals:
Abilities 34 + Powers 58 + Advantages 17 + Skills 19 + Defenses 9 = 137 points

Offensive PL: 8
Defensive PL: 8
Resistance PL: 6
Skill PL: 4

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Fugues. Lethal
(cannot make non-lethal attacks with Arm Blade.) Obviously Inhuman. Relationship (Johnny Wasted.)

So, I'm not just a doll you manipulate
Remember, it's my role and I play it well
You're giving me attention
Beautiful affection

You got me, don't turn me loose
 
Steersman
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Artist's rendition of Michael Franks, c. 1984
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Photo of Michael Franks, 2022

Michael Franks, better known as Steersman -- sometimes the Steersman, but only when he was in an especially haughty mood -- was the only long-term member of the Mile High Marauders to join the group after its formation. He later claimed that he wanted to join the group as soon as he heard about its formation, and departed from his native Louisville immediately with the intention of flying directly to Denver. Unfortunately, life being what it was in those days and him being who he always was, he found plenty of trouble to slow him down along the way, and so his flying boat did not arrive in Denver until mid-1984.

According to his own narrative, Franks had developed telekinetic powers in his early adolescence, but found them weak and largely useless despite having spent hour after hour trying to improve them. He grew convinced that somehow he had to either trick or force reality into giving him more power, and so decided to pattern himself on the famous brawler, boaster, and boatman of the Ohio River, Mike Fink. And it worked -- sort of. Through adopting this archetype, he grew able to assemble an old-fashioned keelboat, of the sort that Fink would have used, that could soar through the air.

At this point, it should probably be said that Franks became well-known among his colleagues as something of a habitual liar, and that there are numerous holes in the narrative he told about his life and activities prior to joining the team. Parts of it can be verified -- he had enjoyed a brief career as a vigilante in Louisville before going underground at the start of the Insurgency, and there are accounts of him getting into trouble in Kansas and Missouri. But the formation of the Mile High Marauders in 1983 did not attract much national interest, for obvious reasons, and it seems unlikely that someone in Kentucky would have heard about it. And that is without going into the unlikelihood of his claims about how he learned to create his boat.

Nevertheless, Steersman became a valued member of the Marauders, particularly for the way that his boat allowed the team greater mobility. While often annoying for his insistence that he contributed much more to the team than just that -- and for getting into fights that were much more than he could handle and needing to be rescued from them -- he was always willing to pitch in whenever he was called upon, something that his fellows could not say. Franks was particularly noteworthy for his never ending flirtations with Miss Glass, which she made a great show of only enduring, never appreciating.

After the group broke up, he continued acting as an occasional superhero in Denver, while gradually shifting into the somewhat more lucrative role of offering guided tours in his flying boat to those interested in the unique metaculture of the city. That kept him busy into the early twenty-first century, but he finally left town after the death of Miss Glass, having acted as the executor of the terms of her will. His whereabouts for much of the next decade and a half are something of a mystery, as are his activities. He recently resurfaced as one of the long-term residents of the Siegel Senior Citizens Center, cheerfully spinning stories about the Mile High Marauders for the benefit of Magnolia.

Steersman -- PL 8

Abilities:
STR
3 | STA 3 | AGL 2 | DEX 2 | FGT 6 | INT 1 | AWE 2 | PRE 3

Powers:
Flying Boat:
Linked Sustained Protection 5, Affects Self and Others in Close Shapeable Area; Linked Flight 6, Affects Self and Others in Close Shapeable Area, Platform; Linked Visual Concealment 4, Affects Self and Others in Close Shapeable Area - 49 points
Limited Telekinesis: Perception Range Move Object 2, Tiring - 4 points

Power Stunt:
Musketry: Ranged Damage 4, Tiring


Advantages:
Attractive, Chokehold, Close Attack, Defensive Roll, Great Endurance, Improved Hold, Inspire 2, Power Attack, Taunt, Teamwork, Uncanny Dodge.

Skills:
Athletics 4 (+7), Deception 5 (+8), Expertise: History 4 (+5), Insight 3 (+5), Perception 4 (+6), Sleight of Hand 4 (+6), Stealth 4 (+6).

Offense:
Initiative +6
Unarmed +7 (Close Damage 3)

Defense:
Dodge 5, Parry 6, Fortitude 5, Toughness 10/8/5/3, Will 7

Totals:
Abilities 44 + Powers 53 + Advantages 12 + Skills 14 + Defenses 10 = 133 points

Offensive PL: 5
Defensive PL: 8/6
Resistance PL: 6
Skill PL: 3

Complications:
Thrills--Motivation. Bragger and Liar. Impulsive and Overconfident.


Note: For his current, PL 4 incarnation, subtract 2 from all physical abilities and FGT, and remove Flying Boat from powers ... but add Damaging as an extra for his Limited Telekinesis.
 
Captain Mighty
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Superpower form
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Mundane form

As long as there have been those who criticize and attack the superpowers, there have also been those who defend and aspire to be like them ... and, sadly, the latter have sometimes been as much of a problem as the former. One example would be the Alethian Movement, a pseudo-scientific, pseudo-religious organization which asserts that all human beings can discover within themselves the superpowers that are their true nature. The movement reached its largest size in 2008, and has been losing members more frequently than it gains new ones ever since then.

Being devoted to peaceful meditation, they have never been involved with any wrongdoing, but the tone of their published manifestos contains a none too subtle implication that their membership would do a much better job of protecting -- and possibly ruling -- the world than its current superpower protectors. Because of this, many among those protectors who have some familiarity with the Alethian Movement have been known to give a sigh of relief that their methodology has never caused anyone to develop -- or discover, to use their terminology -- any superpowers, and view them as nothing more than a group of misguided origin chasers. Except, of course, that there has been at least one who gained powers while a member.

From what those who knew her remembered, Kanysha Moreno did not join the Alethian Movement, which she did while attending Soujourner-Douglass College in 2003, with any ambitions of developing superpowers for herself. She supposedly viewed their beliefs as metaphorical, a way for all human beings to feel empowered and connected to each other regardless of their powers or lack thereof. She did practice their meditative disciplines as an adjunct to her training in self-defense, but only smiled when others talked about how they were getting closer to self-discovery.

Then, after a year and a half with the Movement, while on a retreat with her colleagues at a campsite in Susquehanna State Park, Kanysha felt herself experiencing sensations much like her colleagues had described when they felt like they were on the verge of manifesting superpowers. Shocked and confused by this, she sequestered herself in a bathroom and waited to see what would happen, whether the sensation would pass or whether it would transform her as all the literature said it might. When the experience finally ended, Kanysha took a deep breath before opening her eyes to see what had become of her.

She found herself staring into the mirror at a blond Caucasian male, and said some rather uncouth things in an unfamiliar voice. Making matters worse, one of her friends happened to be passing by the bathroom when she did so, and broke down the door out of concern that a stranger might have stolen in and done something to Kanysha. The stranger in question promptly fled out of the window and took flight to get away as fast as possible.

The entire experience was utterly horrifying. This was the superpower that was her true nature, the outward manifestation of her true desire? While she eventually figured out how to transform back into her mundane identity, Kanysha was unsure about the idea of ever using these powers for any purpose. She dropped out of the Alethian Movement, claiming to have lost faith in its principles, and started doing research on ways to have her powers removed. Of course, life, and her own sense of responsibility, ensured that she found herself in situations where there was a need for the powers of Captain Mighty. (She had briefly considered calling "him" something that rhymed with that, but decided that was too much.)

Soon after one such situation, Kanysha was startled to find herself contacted by Gideon Gold. The friend who had broken into the bathroom to rescue her had recognized Captain Mighty as the man she saw that day, and put two and two together. When Gold started to announce that he was putting together a new Grim Brigade, she contacted him through some family connections and asked him to look into Kanysha and her situation. She clearly fit the profile of someone who had had powers forced upon her, but she explained that she wanted to get rid of them. Gold sympathized, pointing out that this was clearly going to cost a lot of money, and it would be great if she could find someone to sponsor her efforts. Kanysha let out an annoyed sigh and agreed.

Tragically, this resulted in her being one of the fallen when the Grim Brigade was attacked by agents of Billie Zane during her 2006 coup attempt. Her secret identity has remained secret through the years that have followed, and Kanysha Moreno was officially one of the missing of that terrible day. Her friend, the only member of the Alethian Movement to know of her "success", quit the organization soon after that, and has never told anyone about this.

Captain Mighty -- PL 9

Abilities:
STR
2 | STA 2 | AGL 1 | DEX 0 | FGT 4 | INT 1 | AWE 1 | PRE 1

Powers:
Transformation:
Continuous Morph 1; Enhanced Advantage 4 (Evasion, Improved Initiative 2, Move-by Action); Enhanced Stamina 10; Enhanced Strength 10; Flight 6 (120 MPH); Immunity 10 (life support); Impervious Toughness 10; Quickness 4; Activation (Move Action, -1 point) - 85 points

Advantages:
Evasion, Improved Initiative 3, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Takedown.

Skills:
Close Combat: Unarmed 2 (+6), Expertise: Current Events 4 (+5), Expertise: Philosophy 4 (+5), Insight 4 (+5), Intimidation 6 (+7), Perception 6 (+7).

Offense:
Initiative +5
Unarmed +6 (Close Damage 2/12)

Defense:
Dodge 4, Parry 6, Fortitude 12/2, Toughness 12/2, Will 6.

Totals:
Abilities 24 + Powers 85 + Advantages 3 + Skills 13 + Defenses 10 = 135 points

Offensive PL: 9
Defensive PL: 9
Resistance PL: 9
Skill PL: 2

Complications:
Acceptance--Motivation. Power Loss
(Impervious Toughness, when Vulnerable or Defenseless.) Secret Identity.
 
Between them, Warpwitch and the Discovery Company have managed to discover a few more "nearby" parallel worlds in the reformed multiverse. These are Warpwitch's names for and thoughts about them, with the caveat that she has spent only a few days (or less) on each.

The World in Shades of Grey: Not literally, but it seems that way sometimes. This is a reality where the current year on Earth is 1955 ... but it has been 1955 for nearly seventy years. None of the locals seem able to recognize that this is happening. There are no overt superpowers, but Earth in this reality is being used as a cold war battleground between the forces of Asmodeus and a group who seem sometimes like less-than-benevolent angels and sometimes like the aliens in The Day The Earth Stood Still, with both sides recruiting and empowering humans as cut-outs in their conflict. We were unable to determine whether either side in this is responsible for time going out of joint.

The World that Drowned: Roughly four generations ago, something happened here that caused the sea level, all over the world, to rise about thirty meters, drowning most coastal cities, which are still in ruins. Human civilization has retreated inland, and the people here are utterly terrified of the water. There is definitely some nonhuman intelligence active in the risen seas, but we were unable to determine whether it bore any relationship to the Atlanteans of our own world, or possibly to something a bit scarier.

The World that Turned its Back on Tomorrow: This is a weird one, and it's me saying this. It runs pretty much like home up until the early twentieth century, but then World War I seems to have been averted. In the twenties, the United States, the British and the Restored Roman Empire got into a space race that put them on the Moon by 1932 and then on (an uninhabited) Mars by 1939. Things get a bit confusing at that point, but we think they discovered some sort of stardrive on Mars and started exploring the nearer universe. And then, in 1961, everything stopped. Spaceships and pretty much all advanced technology stopped being built and even talked about, which is odd enough, but they tore down every single observatory on Earth, too, and refuse to discuss the stars in anything except the most general terms. Something that they found out among the stars must clearly have terrified someone, and that could make sense ... but what could terrify everybody?

The World Where Everyone Is A Talking Cat: Kinda speaks for itself, I think. The cats say that there are talking dogs somewhere, but as they are cats, I don't know if I should believe them or not.
 
The Unknown Subject
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The earliest clear memories of his life are of listening to his father telling stories of how he had gotten into his line of work, and sometimes even accompanying him to watch how he got it done. According to the old man, his own father had been -- of all things -- a police officer in some town in New York state, where he basically ran the place. But when he died of a heart attack in 1974, his son had decided to leave town and find what he considered to be more honest employment, which he found in the big bad city of Manhattan. He did a few jobs, here and there, and then he was hired to take out a whole family. He did it, sure, and the money was great, but it still bothered him a little years later. "Try to avoid stuff like that," he told his own son.

That was only one of the lessons that the man who now goes by the name Douglas Chichester took away from this story. The other was one that he believes his father did not intend to teach, but it was the more important one. He has learned this lesson from what he has learned about other men in the same line of work, who seemed to have a desperate need to be recognized for their accomplishments, just as his father needed someone to recognize what he had done, even though that would be a vulnerability, as indeed it resulted in him going to jail in 1999, when some of his deeds were discovered by a superhero. By then, of course, "Douglas" had already left home to follow his own path.

Where his father was a hired gun, "Douglas" is entirely self-employed. He answers to no one except the impulses within his own mind. On the average of once a month, during his wandering as a supposed traveling sales representative, he will discover someone who awakens those impulses. The happiest moments in his life come next, where he stalks and eventually kills that person, taking great pains to avoid discovery in the process. When he has finished with his victims, then he uses his superpower to disintegrate the body, the knife he used, and any trace that might lead to him. He is meticulous while doing so, and it often takes longer than the actual murder did.

Under no circumstances would he ever use this power to kill one of his victims. That would completely fail to satisfy his impulse. He will only ever use it in combat if he comes under attack by a third party, or to deal with any potential witnesses to his activities. So far, he has avoided this necessity. No investigator has yet fully realized that the rash of disappearances across the United States are murders, much less than they were murders committed by the same person. And that is exactly the sort of peaceful, quiet life, safe from any worry, that the Unknown Subject wants.

The Unknown Subject -- PL 9

Abilities:
STR
2 | STA 3 | AGL 3 | DEX 3 | FGT 5 | INT 4 | AWE 5 | PRE 4

Power:
Disintegration:
Linked Perception Range Weaken Toughness 9, Affects Objects; Linked Perception Range Damage 9; Precise - 73 points

Advantages:
Chokehold, Daze 2 (Deception, Intimidation), Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll 2, Equipment 6, Evasion, Fascinate 2 (Deception, Intimidation), Improved Aim, Improved Initiative, Improvised Tools, Power Attack, Startle, Taunt.

Equipment:
30 points of equipment as needed, always including a knife (Strength-based Damage 1, Improved Critical) and often a vehicle.

Skills:
Close Attack: Knife 4 (+9), Deception 8 (+12), Insight 7 (+12), Intimidation 8 (+12), Perception 5 (+10), Sleight of Hand 8 (+11), Technology 4 (+8), Vehicles 4 (+7).

Offense:
Initiative +7
Unarmed +5 (Close Damage 2)
Knife +9 (Close Damage 3, Crit 19-20)
Disintegration -- (Perception Range Weaken Toughness 9 and Damage 9)

Defense:
Dodge 7, Parry 9, Fortitude 5, Toughness 8/3, Will 9

Totals:
Abilities 58 + Powers 73 + Advantages 21 + Skills 24 + Defenses 14 = 190 points

Offensive PL: 9
Defensive PL: 9
Resistance PL: 7
Skill PL: 7

Complications:
Psychopathy--Motivation. Secret Identity.
 
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