Ooh! I was planning to be hunted by the government anyway, so that works out well.
Here is my submission/ idea (for Gaming Ranger). I haven't decided on a name yet but black goo will do for now. If anyone has hero name ideas let me know.
Picture Dark Goo
The goo remembers a time before it lived in beakers, flasks, test tubes and graduated cylinders, a time before it was a puddle on the ground even, a time when it was a person.
Two months earlier;
“Another late night,” Dr. Ty Bender thinks to himself as he enters the Organic Polymer Lab of the research installation he works at. He stops at a workstation and downloads the latest results from the international space station on the collaborative zero gee research in polymerase chain reactions. As he reviews the data he smiles as the results are encouraging. He continues to make his way around the lab taking stock of the various tests and experiments. He stops and makes a couple of entries into a ledger noting that the thermoplastics experiment hypothesis appears to have greater probability density then originally asserted.
Dr. Bender moves on and adjusts the settings on the particle accelerator for tomorrows run and checks the integrity of the vacuum chamber. His late evening in the labs continues in this fashion until he reaches the metal silylamides operant conditioning chamber. “Hmm, that’s odd,” he concludes as he examines the latest data. Trying to isolate the problem he monitors the spectrophotometry effecting the experiment and decreases the wavelength of the laser. A warning light starts blinking on the monitor, ”Why is it losing pressure, he wonders as he begins to flood the OC chamber with liquid nitrogen to slow down the reaction. He changes his monitors to the inferred spectrum and notices the crack in the glass of the OC chamber, “Crud,” he thinks right before the explosion.
He wakens and feels a tingling throughout his entire body. As he looks up he can tell that the explosion caused a lot of damage to the lab. From his vantage point on the floor he can see many of the staff standing around, “Why is no one helping me up.” he wonders. “Give me a hand here,” he tries to say but no words come out. As one of the technicians approach him he grows excited as he feels help is on the way. His excitement quickly grows to fear when he realizes that the technician has just sucked him up into a large pipette and moved him into a beaker. He watched the proceedings from his new vantage point and listened.
Over time, as it watched and listened from its beaker, it learned that the explosion had caused some kind of chemical reaction with his body, fusing together with it, and leaving behind this goo, well sentient living goo to be more precise. It discovered that Dr. Bender was presumed dead, and that scientist being scientists they decided to study this compound that was left behind.
*****Eventually he regains a bipedal form and escapes but I want to work out the details with the GM after I have a better idea on his powers.
As a result of the explosion in the organic polymers lab Dr. Bender’s body is changed and more malleable. He has become an amorphous bipedal being with stretching powers and is highly durable/invulnerable with regeneration ability. Originally I saw him as a mixture between Spiderman and Gumby and less like Mr. Fantastic and Plastic man but after writing his origin I decided to be open to some input and ideas. I don’t see him being able to use his ability to pass for other people as he cannot change color and is always a dark solid bipedal mass (although he could put on cloths and a mask). I see him with the ability to climb, bounce, lengthen his legs to move faster, strike at a distance, propeller his arms for striking, and maybe even glide. He can have heightened sensory ability or not. As far as attributes are concerned I can see him lifting a car or a bus but not much more as well as being quick and agile. Any way all of this is fluid and I look forward to working with you to develop this concept. Also, I left out how he gets out of the lab because I figured you would want some input into it. If not I can go ahead and flesh it out.
As far as disadvantages go he could be hunted by his lab/government, mute, have some acceptance problems or other mental problems form being different.
Here's that background I said I'd write.
Always supportive, her parents happily nurtured her new found interest, providing fabric and thread, arranging lessons, even saving up for a loom to weave her own textiles for her sixteenth birthday. It was no surprise to anyone when Kiran decided she was going to work towards becoming a professional tailor. With hard work, and the support of her parents, she dived right in to college after high school.
Just after starting her Junior year, Kiran's body started to ache and her skin slowly turned sickly pale until her roommate had to take her to the ER after collapsing with countless large bruises all over her. Upon hearing the news, her parents rushed to see her. While the doctors were able to dull the aching pain, they had no idea what was wrong with her. Kiran lay in bed for two days, her parents staying with her every moment they could.
The morning of the third day, Kiran woke up in a fit of agony as chitinous plates and spider-like legs sprouted from her body. Her parents rushed to see what was wrong to find the distraught arachnoid monster where their daughter once lay, whimpering in pain. Her father stepped forward to examine the new limbs only for the four sharp legs to lash out in panic, slashing and stabbing as Kiran struggled to reign them in.
Dizzy from shock after her transformation and sobbing after hurting her father, she quickly fled the room, stumbling away from the frightened gasps and shouts. She ran back to her apartment, hastily gathering as much as she could before fleeing.
Jubal, since it's a Super Heroic campaign, you pay character points for gear. Luckily they're usually cheap, since they're both a Focus of some kind and typically Independent.
I'm ok with most of the background, but you'll need to tweak it slightly, transforming in the hospital and being seen would be the 'in public' thing. She'd be picked up on closed circuit tvs, and the government would have swooped in within hours to capture her.
How about if she was released from the hospital after a day or so, and was told to return for more tests... and transformed in her room later, and then goes into hiding? If you want to keep the parents knowing, then they convinced her to come home for a few days while the doctors researched, and she transforms at home? No security cameras.
Not a bad 'origin' and back story, I'd want to know a bit more about the good doctor (age?). I'm assuming highly intelligent. Note that powers that let you be relatively immune to physical damage are very expensive, so his other powers will be correspondingly weaker (twice as strong as a human, able to lift a car, isn't all that powerful, compared to most attack powers). I would see this character as more of a scout/utility type character, who isn't a combat specialist, and mostly annoys/harries people in combat, but who can sneak into places, do recon, and so on. What would you think of that? A good example would, I think, be Inque from Batman Beyond. One major attack he'd have could be an NND vs self contained breathing or lack of breathing (basically wrapping around someone and cutting of the air).
Mundane non-combat equipment I don't charge for. IE: If you have the money for a Ford sedan, you can have one without paying for it. I don't charge for a cell phone, or clothes, or a tv, or an apartment. Basically, anything that 90% of the population has, you don't pay for, unless you can use it in combat.
You want a chemistry lab? Ok, you need to pay for that. You want to run to the store and buy a crowbar to help you break into a warehouse as a one off, no charge. You want to carry a crowbar and use it as a weapon in combat... you pay for that. You want to carry a cell phone, no big deal. You want to keep 2-3 cell phones on you so you can leave them streaming video and audio in various places as needed, that's a power, you pay for it.
@mdt: I sent you a PM about the game! I just noticed you're Ravboom from the Goblins in Space game :) Lol. Kaloora Plimp here ;)
Altered as suggested.
Always supportive, her parents happily nurtured her new found interest, providing fabric and thread, arranging lessons, even saving up for a loom to weave her own textiles for her sixteenth birthday. It was no surprise to anyone when Kiran decided she was going to work towards becoming a professional tailor. With hard work, and the support of her parents, she dived right in to college after high school.
Just after starting her Junior year, Kiran's body started to ache and her skin slowly turned sickly pale until her roommate had to take her to the ER after collapsing with countless large bruises all over her. Upon hearing the news, her parents rushed to see her. While the doctors were able to dull the aching pain, they had no idea what was wrong with her. Kiran lay in bed for two days, her parents staying with her every moment they could.
With no perceivable cause pinned down, her condition stable, and pain treatable, the doctors prescribed some pain killers and discharged her with instructions to return for further tests or for treatment if her symptoms got worse. Worried for their daughter, Kiran's parents insisted she stay with them until she was better. Settled into her old bedroom turned guest room, she took her medication and turned in for the night.
Early the next morning, Kiran woke up in a fit of agony as chitinous plates and spider-like legs sprouted from her body. Her parents rushed to see what was wrong to find the distraught arachnoid monster where their daughter once lay, whimpering in pain. Her father stepped forward to examine the new limbs only for the four sharp legs to lash out in panic, slashing and stabbing as Kiran struggled to reign them in.
Dizzy from shock after her transformation and sobbing after hurting her father, she quickly fled the room, stumbling away from the screams of pain and frightened sobs. She ran back to her apartment, hastily gathering as much as she could before fleeing.
Some suggestions would be, Lockheed Martin, NASA/JPL, or maybe SpaceX.
Whippoorwill, real name Briana McClaine.
Appearance: The tall, strawberry-blonde woman cuts an imposing figure, considering her strength and all-around athleticism, but most remarkable are her large, brown feathered wings sprouting from her back. These wings cannot be disguised by any clothing, as their joints even when folded reach high over her head before bending back down, their pinfeathers nearly touching the ground as she stands. Spreading out, Whippoorwill's wingspan is just over 10 feet, helping to create the powerful lift she needs to take flight.
Background: Briana had a difficult life early on. Her abusive home life left her bitter, though she early on found an outlet for her anger through martial arts and gymnastics. When she finally gained the strength to stand up to her abusive father, she left him in the hospital and ran away from home.
After several years on the streets, her fighting skills gained the attention of a criminal mastermind. A representative of some underground thug with power-broker type resources came to her, and made her an offer. They would get her out of the country, and she would become a super-powered mercenary in their employ. She accepted.
Bio-engineered wings were created and grafted on her back in an excruciating process. She endured months of pain as her body was altered to accept the graft, and it took her almost the same length of time before she could walk again. Through intense physical therapy, however, she soon regained her strength and skills, and control over the large, brown-feathered wings now a living part of her. No weak and frail appendages, these wings are strong and powerful, with corded muscles wrapped around sturdy bone.
For the next several years, Briana became a member of a mercenary cadre of super powered individuals. She proved to be very good at her job, and for a time, she accepted the price she paid for her gift of flight.
Over time, however, the acts of violence and cruelty became too much for her conscience to bear, and she rebelled from her former masters and fled. She managed to enlist the help of Robert Whetstone, weapons designer for the mercenary group who also left. He has been able to set her up with her special quills that she uses for her weapons.
She returned to the United States, taking up residence in Miami for a time, then in Chicago, where she found the support of a skilled police captain in charge of the special branch of the department that dealt with super human activities.
She seeks redemption for the things she has done as a mercenary. While some would encourage her to turn herself in and face justice, she knows that she would only face imprisonment or worse. Instead, she hopes to balance the scales; and eventually do more good to offset the harm she caused during her life as a mercenary.
Campaign notes:
Whippoorwill has been part of a team before, so she knows how to be a part of one. She has a rough past and has done a lot of bad things; however, she is trying to put that behind her and move forward by being a hero. She is haunted by her past, afraid that she is forever tainted by it. But that similarly drives her to atone for those past deeds.
As far as going incognito or leading a normal life, Briana left those options behind when she accepted the wings. They're not something that can be hidden, so she rather stands out. It's basically a weakness, so unless she's able to increase her Popularity, she'll never be able to do routine daily activities in public. She's basically a full-time crime fighter. If it's important, the persona "Briana McClaine" is a recluse who has a small top-floor apartment who has everything (food, toiletries, etc.) delivered, and whom the neighbors never see.
Villain ideas:
Any criminal mastermind should work as the ultimate backer of her modification. Her former mercenary teammates all would be good either solo or as a team to show up and try to drag her back to her former life, or simply make an example out of her. Whippoorwill's best friend on that team was Tweeter, one part of a brother/sister (Woofer being the brother) gestalt twins with sonic powers. Tweeter has the high-pitched sonic screams while Woofer has the low bass earthquakes. Tweeter has taken Whippoorwill's defection especially hard.
Marvel Super Hero Stats (for a comparison, if it helps):
F In 40
A In 40
S Gd 10
E Ex 20
R Gd 10
I Ex 20
P Gd 10
Health: 110
Karma: 40
Powers:
True Flight (Good 10)
Talents:
Aerial Combat (+1 CS while airborne)
Martial Arts A
Martial Arts D
Thrown Weapons
Weapon Specialist (Whip)
Contacts:
Captain O'Brien, Chicago PD
Robert Whetstone, weapons designer/tinker
Note about the quills:
Outside of the wings and the modifications to her body that allows it to support them, Whippoorwill does not have any additional powers. I've designed her instead with an array of quills, throwing weapons that have a number of effects (a la Hawkeye's trick arrows or Batman's batarangs). I don't know how you want to rule on this, but there's a limit to how many she can carry on her person, and she has to take time to create more -- especially those that explode or do something other than just do damage. I hope you'll work with me on this, especially since I'm unfamiliar with the Champions system and don't know how it handles a wide array of trick objects.
Quills:
(Number) / Rank / Intensity
(10) Explosive In 40
(20) Edged Ex 20
(10) Stun Rm 30
(10) Acid Rm 30
(10) Smoke Rm 30
(3) Flare Rm 30
(2) Homing (Rm range)
Whip: Ex material strength; a variant of beta cloth.
I'm assuming that's her original origin and background. Starting off, there won't be any specialized super hero teams on local police forces. There would be very exclusive and powerful mercenary groups that had supers, but her wings would need to be natural, as the tech isn't there yet to build them (they could still have been painful when they grew in). Her fleeing from a merc group would certainly be doable.
That's all fine, of course; I can definitely alter the origin to allow for some sort of mutagen exposure (I'm generally not a fan of the 'mutant origin' myself) instead of a designed augmentation. Perhaps she and her crew were sent to steal some form of experimental biochem material to which she was accidentally exposed.
How does that sound?
Primarily, I am very interested in having powers that run haywire a little, until I get them under control. The 'growing into your powers' thing is a vibe that I really like that pathfinder doesn't do overly well. If it's possible to buy powers that I don't fully control and grow into them, that'd be awesome.
The character's very first power was when he started hearing the radio in his head, and his family chalked it up to the fillings in his teeth. He eventually found he could change the station and the like.
The idea isn't so much magneto/static shock/jubilee as it is more of a senses mage. The focus is definitely on Electromagnetic manipulation, but it's a specific subset. I'm happy to branch out into the other more powerful uses as things move on, though. The idea is more a 'Finesse' electromagnetic than a 'Heavy'.
Core Powers (want early):
Low-band detection, manipulation and communication (Radio, Bluetooth, Satellite)
Technological Nuke (EMP electronics that aren't shielded properly)
Light and Radio manipulation (deadzones or bending)
Stun/Blind effects. (Light pulse to the face!)
Additional Desires:
EMF Sensing (Ability to sense/target people by their electromagnetic fields, like sharks, possibly differentiating them from one another... antishapeshifter?)
Eventual immunity to some of this (Like, say, instead of bending light, simply phase right through light... like Kitty Pryde, but instead of anything light itself?)
Flight (Similar to Static Shock/Magneto, maybe? Maybe Clinging is better?)
Far-from-core cool things:
Mind Machine Interface (Ghost in the Machine/Duplicate sort of things)
Mood Manipulation (Altering mindstates, personal magnetism?)
Light-Illusions/Constructs? (This seems farfetched for the concept)
Age: College Freshman (19?)
Resources: Lower Middle Class
Occupation: College Student/Wait Staff
Interests: Fiction, Comics, Video Games (Casual), Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (Shop/Parents profession-tier), Physically Active (Bikes/Runs regularly)
Perks: Good Sense of Direction (Built in GPS via Cell Towers!), Genre Savvy.
Traits: Doesn't really stand out much, and is more of a wallflower. Little Damn Hero. Great Power and all that. Morally Upright. Genre Savvy. Responsible (Working Class parents). Succumbs easily to peer pressure.
Is that good enough to work with, in the absence of writing up a more solid backstory, for now?
Hmm. I *definitely* want a chemistry lab. Thinking batman-style forensics training, on a character who works for the police but is contemplating dabbling into vigilantism thanks to some new and strange powers. Would "Police Powers" etc. be reasonable to get access to a forensics lab during normal hours? (I figure trading away the ability to arrest people for the ability to analyze their DNA).
EDIT: Hmm, any build-specific questions I should probably actually ignore for now, will do as I keep working on it.
Ooooh, very interested! I played Champions 1e back in High School, and played Hero Games 5e for several years as well, but it's been a while.
I had initially been thinking about a metamorph somewhat similar to Mr Fantastic / Kamala Khan...but I see Goo is going that way already so I'll at least think about other options. Maybe a speedster? Or someone who can turn their body into water? Or...lots of ideas. I'll play around!
Hero System 101 (Experienced players feel free to chime in)
Characteristics
The hero system uses 8 base characteristics, and 6 figured characteristics. The base characteristics are :
1) STRength - This is a measure of how strong you are. The sheet lists your lift capacity (25.6 tons for Shadowcat), your STR check (which is basically the same as a STR check in PF), and your base HTH damage (10d6 for Shadowcat). HTH damage means the number of dice of Normal Damage (we'll get to different types of damage later) you do with your strength. This can be a punch, a kick, a squeeze, a head-butt, however you want to stylize your attack. STR also affects how much punishment you can take before you pass out, how fast you recover from damage, and how resistant you are to taking physical blows.
2) DEXterity - This is a measure of how dexterous and quick to respond to stimuli you are. It affects your ability to hit, to avoid being hit, how often you can act, and how sure footed you are. It is used to calculate your base OCV and DCV (Offensive Combat Value & Defensive Combat Value). It goes into your Speed calculation (See below), and your dex checks and dex skills.
3) CONstitution - This represents how healthy you are. It affects how resistant you are to cold and heat (energy), how hard it is to 'ring your bell' in a fight, how much endurance you have, and how much pain you can withstand before passing out.
4) BODy - This represents how robust your body is physically. It affects how much damage you can take before you die.
5) INTelligence - This represents how smart you are, how perceptive you are of your surroundings, and how good you are at INT based skills.
6) EGO - This reprsents how resilient your mind is, and how good you are at attacking and resisting mental attacks. It also helps you resist torture and pain. It affects your ECV (Ego Combat Value), and your will saves.
7) PREsence - This represents how much personal magnetism you have, how charismatic you are, and how easily you can convince others to listen to you or how intimidating you are. It also governs how resistant you are to other people talking you into things.
8) COMliness - This is a representative of how attractive you are physically.
FIGURED CHARACTERISTICS
A) PD - Physical Defense. This directly affects how much damage you remove from incoming physical attacks. It only affects normal attacks (not killing attacks). It is based off your STR (one-fifth of your STR) but can be increased with points.
B) ED - Energy Defense. This directly affects how much damage you remove from incoming energy based attacks. It only affects normal attacks (not killing attacks). It is based off your CON (one-fifth of your CON) but can be increased with points.
C) SPD - Speed. This indicates how often a character acts in a standard combat turn. A combat turn is divided into 12 phases. A speed one person goes on phase 12 only. A two speed person goes on phase 6 and 12. A three speed person goes on phases 4, 8, and 12. The pattern continues. It is based off DEX (1 + DEX/10).
D) REC - Recovery. This indicates how quickly you recover endurance, stun, and body. It is based off both STR and CON (1/5 CON + 1/5 STR). You regain your Recovery in Stun and Endurance whenever you gain a recovery. A character gains a recovery (Normally) during Post 12 (at the end of a combat round), or whenever they use an action to 'take a recovery' by not acting. A character heals their Recover in body every month, divided as evenly as possible throughout the month (for example, a person with a 10 recovery would heal about 1 body every 3 days).
E) END - Endurance. This is how much endurance you have. Every power (with exceptions) costs Endurance to use. Moving costs endurance, using your Strength, pushing your Strength, and utilizing powers. It is based off Constitution (starting at twice your CON).
F) STUN - Stun. This is a record of how much non-lethal damage you can take before losing consciousness. It is based off your Strength and Constitution and Body (BODY + (STR/2) + (CON/2)).
Government experiment is very doable. It's the advanced technology I have issues with. I want that to grow organically in game, not have Tony Stark show up 5 years previous to 9/11 with Arc Reactor tech.
There are some mercenary groups running supers, but again, it's not common knowledge. Government has a few too. It has been emerging for a bit, but not WWII (or at least, not to the point governments were organized about it).
Will absolutely need a background and character write up. You know me. Powers are easy enough.
@Thunderbeard - A lab wouldn't be terribly expensive. Police powers *are* possible, but will make vigilante work much harder (Flash pulls it off because he has extreme speed to get his work for the day done in an hour).
@Gyrfalcon - Let me know what you settle on.
I can vouch for MDT as a player in one of his games—he's a very long-term GM.
Would "splashed with alien goo" be valid as part of a backstory, or does "fell into a vat of radioactive X" make more sense, or either/neither?
Sorry, I missed this one earlier.
I'm ok with 'Alien Goo' or 'Radioactive X' as a trigger. To start though, I don't want any full on aliens or anything like that. I'd like all characters to be human at some level. As the game progresses, there may be options for non-human characters or non-mutant. However, the game will focus heavily on figuring out what the mutations are, and what is actually going on, in between bashing bad guys. So a big mix of non-mutations would lessen that.
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Faye Forester, at the age of 14, was getting too old for fairy tales. Until the day she fell into one herself. She followed the sound of children laughing deep into the woods behind her house, and came across a magical locket in a knothole in the oldest tree in the forest.
When she put it on, she found that it gave her the power to become the tiny, yet powerful form of Pixie! Less than a foot high, Pixie boasts a beautiful pair of wings, and the ability to blast foes with "pixie dust"!
Four years later, Faye and the locket have been inseparable. Rumors abound at her high school of fairies playing tricks on students, but no one has ever suspected Faye. Young, naive, and having never used her powers for anything more than juvenile pranks, does Pixie have what it takes to become... a hero?
Basically, I'm imagining Pixie as having all her powers grouped together with the common limitation that she loses them without the locket worn around her neck. Her main powers will be three or four ranks of Shrinking, with the No Growth Momentum limitation (because I don't intend for her to un-shrink in combat), and Flight, with Restrainable due to her wings. The wings should only exist when shrunk, so you can bundle them and the shrinking into a Multiform.
I would imagine the Pixie Dust as some sort of Energy Blast, possibly Stun Only, but the details are of course up to you. I also envision Pixie as having a very high DCV, making her able to buzz around an enemy's face to distract them without being hit. The shrinking will help this, of course.
For END purposes, I would think that either you could just set the flight and shrinking to only cost END when first activated, or you could make the locket itself function as an Endurance Reserve.
For a possible unique Disadvantage, you could make it so that, while in her Pixie form, or even while wearing the locket at all, she has certain classical fairy weaknesses, such as a Susceptibility to silver or iron, or a Psychological Limitation against lying.
:) Understood, Kittiface. :) Good to know the power set is easily doable. I'll get to work.
Submission so far (in various stages)
Jubal Breakbottle - Martial Artist/(Minor) Mentalist
Jemstone - Mentalist
Stalwart - Duplicator or Weaponmaster or ???
Dark Goo - Morpher
Hat-Trick - Multi-Type focused on Defense/Entangles
Hotaru-face - Magnetic Projector
Arch-lich - Battlefield Controller
Newbonomicon - Bio-Energy Projector
@Tharasiph - No, prefer stats not be bought in power frameworks, with the possible exception of VPPs. I might make an exception for something like, for example, an MP that is for various STR abilities (IE: 40 STR, or 20 STR 0 END, or 30 STR 1/2 END, etc).
Ah, got it. My character will start out more human than I originally planned, possibly growing more alien as the game progresses (but I'm looking forward to playing disadvantages like "can't digest food, must photosynthesize regularly," etc)
Okay, I've done some thinking on the changes that I would need to make for my backstory. Let's go with this:
Early life's the same. Rough childhood that causes her to leave home early and find her way into covert ops/mercenary work. Her natural talent for fighting and thrown weapons gets her recruited into a shadowy organization -- along the lines of Hydra or Spectre. She works her way up the ranks to a specialist, the type that would be a right-hand henchwoman or assassin, but also one who would lead a team of lesser grunts.
She receives the code name Whippoorwill, since one of the weapons she took to was the whip, but also because of the legend that the cry of the whippoorwills herald someone's death. And she was very good at dealing out death.
At some point she has a crisis of faith. I have some ideas for what causes it, but that might be something to be revealed at a later date, and also perhaps with some input from you, to work it into a larger story or tie it into someone else's origin, perhaps?
But regardless, she works with Whetstone to get out. On what would be her final job, they engineer an explosion to make it look like she dies. It works, because there is an explosion. However, whatever experimental compound she was tasked to steal gets caught in it, and Briana is exposed. Whet manages to get her out, and manages to forge some papers for her to be a "Jane Doe, American" to get her into the States while she is bandaged up from the explosion and exposure.
It sounds like that's where you would want the "origin story" to leave off, so that her actual mutation can happen in the game. That sounds pretty cool. So basically, Briana will wake up in a hospital in Localtown, USA, mostly whole. Using her offshore accounts that she'd managed to set up, she starts to build a life for her despite the wracking guilt she feels from her actions as a mercenary. At first, she thinks about trying the mundane life -- getting a job with a temp agency and maybe trying the dating scene. Her scary combat skills lurking just below the surface makes everything just a bit off, however.
Comments and thoughts will be most appreciated.
I'll leave the stats and character sheet in your capable hands. The main thing I'd like to request is that Whippoorwill have fighting about as high as possible. She has the strength of a human woman who engages in intensive exercise (although her wings are much stronger to be able to bear her aloft and keep her flying for rather long distances). She's not a particularly fast flyer, but agile. Since she's mutated, I think it would be nice to give her a little bit of resistances, especially to cold since high-altitude flying will get cold fast. She's of average to above-average intelligence, experienced in military and paramilitary protocol, a variety of weapons but specialized in the whip and her thrown quills.
Her quills are limited in number, so that's one way I'm hoping that I can request that some of them pack a decent punch. The explosive are the heavy-hitters, but she's only got a few of them. Burn through them too quickly, and she's got fewer options.
That works perfectly.
EDIT: So, is Whippoorwill the one you want to go with as your submission? You put in 3, I don't want to work on the character until you're satisfied on which one you want.
Hmm. Is it alright if I get creative with Multipower? Rather than generic multiform powers, I'm thinking of buying 8 powers all related to body re-configuration (growth/armor/etc.) and dumping them into one big MP to pick and choose from variably (I'm currently at like 70 points on this power).
** spoiler omitted **
EDIT: So, is Whippoorwill the one you want to go with as your submission? You put in 3, I don't want to work on the character until you're satisfied on which one you want.
Basically, if I may be so bold, what do you think fits in with the story you want to tell? Which one will add the most to the future team?
I'm happy with holding off until the rest of the field shapes up, leaving all three on the table, or, if you insist, choosing one of these concepts and withdrawing the others.
@Thunderbeard - I'd actually rather use something like Multipower than multi-form. Multi-form usually ends up being more complicated, abused, both, or too expensive, by turn. I'd suggest possibly teaming it up with a VPP as well, not a big one, but maybe 20 pts, to allow you to simulate small abilities based on the current form. That way you don't ahve to fit everything into one multipower slot or try to account for everything you might want to do.
Moment of truth indeed. So, here's my response... don't worry about 'what fits better' and worry about 'which one do I think I will have the most fun playing'. If you really feel like you'd enjoy playing the gun-ho hero, go for it. If you want to tell the story of someone trying to redeem themselves for the horrible things they did, go for it. Honestly, all three will fit in no matter what, because it's supers, everyone fits in usually. As long as they are trying to be a good guy.
You got your concept/background in first, so you get your character stat'd up first. Jedi Jack He still needs 25 pts of disads (or we need to get rid of 25 pts of stuff). I'll need feedback on which you'd prefer. I think he has the feel of a mutant who's delusional and thinks he's a jedi and manifests his powers like that.
The idea of a delusional Star Wars fan getting telekinesis and stuff makes me smile.
I have far too many characters so I ask for a vote if any of you actually care of who you find more interesting.
Nikki Nuclear, late teen orphan due to a combination of her own powers and the town destroying event that gave them to her. Filled to the brim with Nuclear energy her skin and muscles have adapted into a biological lead like substance that imperfectly contains her irradiated core. Recently she has gained control of this leakage after being the source of a pandemic of radiation poisoning in her grandfather's apartment building.
Silver Spider, an armored hero with slightly enhanced strength from servos in his armor, his role is partially battlefield control thanks to his web gun. No backstory as of yet.
Powersurge, an electro-kinetic girl who's only able to see bio-electric and artificially generated electric fields, capable of manipulating those fields for buff, debuff, and blast effects.
Strongarm, capable of generating a psycho-kinetic field of power around his arms, giving him increased damage, super jump, by pushing off with his arms and capable of acting as defensive shields,
Nightmaster/Talon, gadgeteer martial artist with luck powers resulting from his work on quantum computing, when he saw the fractal computer forming driving into the quantum realm his mind and that of his partner were affected, right before the entire thing became unstable and blew up in their faces. Both came through with a vast increase in intellect, but where Nightmaster/Talon saw the beauty of order and came to despise the chaos of the criminal class, his partner saw a world where things had become so ordered that humanity ceased to exist as we know it. They now battle against each other trying to save humanity one from the chaos of criminals and one from order so as to preserve the human soul.
The idea of a delusional Star Wars fan getting telekinesis and stuff makes me smile.
Before the mentioned mutation I was reminded of Jedi Harris, a crossover work where Xander Harris went as Obi Wan, and retained his knowledge after the events of Halloween. A wonderful story that now has an expanded universe moving into NCIS, Castle, and Stargate SG-1
Silver Spider would be nearly impossible to do at the game start, due to modern tech levels.
Nightmaster/Talon would be just barely be doable, as they are working on quantum computers right now. Would work better if they were twin brothers.
Still working on a full story and character but I wanted to go ahead and dot with what I've had.
I listed things that might fit but I'll leave it to you to decide what is best.
Do Powers have to be granted or can they be born with them?
Do our powers need to be new or can we already have training with them?
I was considering a story that her parents found out about her powers and trained her to keep them secret, would that work?
Archtype: Brick/Martial Artist, Density Control Theme
Possible Skills:
Possible Perks:
Contact - Father
Money - Heir To Sinclair Fortune
Reputation - Well Known Family
Vehicles And Bases - Base, Home
Possible Talents:
Combat Luck - Dodge/Deflect
Ambidexterity
Combat Sense
Double Jointed
Resistance - Stubborn
Possible Powers:
Density Increase - Change Density Of Body
Force Wall - Change Density Of Air
Hand-to-Hand Attack
Killing Attack (Hand-To-Hand)
Flight/Glide - Lower Body Density
Possible Disadvantages:
Secret ID (Social, 15pts)
Hunted (US Govt, More Powerful, extensive influence, 20pts)
Distinctive Features - Signature Handbag
Reputation - Well Known Family
Social Limitation - Family Enemies
I'm voting against Powersurge, as I'm not into playing Plusle and Minun, at this time. :)
Powers are going to be rarely granted in this game, and when they are, weird things are going on. They should be relatively new, you don't have to have only had them for a few minutes, but you shouldn't have had them from birth. Usually it's a puberty thing, or something almost killed you or some other highly stressful thing happened to you. But yes, she could have had powers from a younger age, like 12 or so and her parents trained her to hide them. I'd guess late teens or so? She might also have only had limited powers, and they've been surging recently?
All doable, added to the list.
Ooh, VPP might be interesting for when my character gets more skilled at powers (I'm thinking since she's just discovering them, there's only a limited set of things she can do; the big reason I went with multipower is to allow switching between infiltration and combat powers, and right now it fits very well my idea of shapeshifting within well-defined limits).
@Hotaru: My name vote is for "Sunspot." (Personally, the best I've come up with for myself is "Snapdragon," with a signature ability called "Autotopiary").
@Zoey: How much are you tweaking gravity? I had a lot of density increase but toned mine down to cap at x4, and you can definitely pump STR crazy high with an appropriately limited density; were you thinking of also breaking objects or throwing people by changing their density?
@mdt: All right; going with Whippoorwill as my submission. She's a complex character with a strong drive to do good, and will come with some built-in bad guys for future conflict.
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I was thinking of throwing a gunslinger as the weaponmaster into the mix. Was hoping to derive off Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star if anyone has seen it. Basically a bounty hunter who is in it for the money but has a soft side that gets the better of him from time to time. He carries a regular pistol and a special "caster gun" that shoots special shells that produce spell-like effects.
Hmm seems interesting. I love super hero games. Hmm, idea. How about something akin to the Orange lanterns, but more limited. Force Fields, force walls, other protective abilities, and summoning minions. Change up the theme from greed to lightning. Maybe eventually pick up things like the ability to actually hurt people with lightning. If capable of summoning just call them gremlins. If it is a possible concept, I'm looking over the rules right now to see if it is.
MDT, I present for your review and approval:
Also:
I'd like to keep the attack powers in the 10 to 12 DC range at most, especially on powers that are very easy to hit with (like mental attacks). So 50 pts would be better for all attacks of the mental persuasion. Unlike some GMs, I don't give everyone and their brother mental defense, so lower is fine. At that level, I'd have to start handing out mental defense like candy. Also, I'd prefer the flight not be in the multipower, mainly because I prefer to keep multipowers that contain attacks strictly attacks. Same with the mind link. However, if you reduce it to 50 pts for the MP, you should have sufficient points to buy those outside the MP. I'll look it over some more when I get a chance and make sure nothing else is up, but it looks ok other than those so far.
** spoiler omitted **
Sounds good. But I'll handle that tomorrow. Right now, I need to sleep. :)
@Jem: Whoa, that's a really fast fly speed
I have far too many characters so I ask for a vote if any of you actually care of who you find more interesting.
I like Night Master/ Talon .
Alright, here's my first draft. Suggestions/criticisms/changes welcome. I can give a link to edit the character sheet if you'd prefer that.
Janice Li, “Snapdragon”
Forensic Botanist, 22 years old
Multimorph/Martial Artist (with a detective/investigator skills focus) powered by symbiotic alien plant
While much of her expertise was lost in a practical setting, Janice could run a DNA comparison faster than any other junior tech in the county. With the encouragement of a few officers, she co-authored a federal law enforcement grant that bought her station a cutting-edge dissection scope for pollen analysis. Six months into the job, she even made it briefly onto the local news, after a sap comparison she ran proved the critical link in solving a cold case murder at a nearby national park. When Janice returned to school and finished her doctorate, Lieutenant Sams promised, he and a few of the other station boys would write her as many recommendations as it took to get her a job in experimental forensics with the FBI. In her spare time—and, no longer a graduate student, she found lots of it—she joined a local theater group, following up on her childhood passion for acting, costumes and makeup.
And then came the really interesting case. A dead body, dumped unceremoniously in a nearby river, bearing the ballistics and disposal of a mob hit or assassination. In his frozen hands, the corpse had held a fistful of strange moss, a strain whose DNA restriction map seemed to defy anything in Janice’s forensic database. The man’s left shoe, however, held a crushed petal from a flower exotic enough to require an importation license, and this led the forensics team straight to the abandoned greenhouse of a bankrupt former orchid show.
Intrigued by the strange moss strain, Janice Li had requested, enthusiastically, to be allowed in the field on this case, despite the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation, and the lieutenant had relented. Nervously, three officers and one forensic tech investigated the abandoned greenhouse, and found it humming with life; tall and colorful flowers grew on strange stalks behind sheets of heavy plastic, and multi-colored fluorescent algae flourished in bubbling pools of heated water. And then the gunfire came, out of nowhere; Janice was hit twice in the left arm and three times in the chest, and fell backwards into one of the algae ponds. When Lieutenant Sams awoke, in the hospital, he learned that two of his men had been killed by sudden and mysterious sniper fire; the greenhouse had been burned to the ground, now nothing but a patch of scorched earth; and his best tech was nowhere to be found.
Janice awoke in a field, under the evening sun, with vague and scattered memories of being shot, of watching the blood leave her body. But her arm had closed up, leaving pale green scars in place of bullet wounds; and there was a strange feeling on the edge of her perception, as though she could feel and move more of her body than she used to. And, of course, the sunlight tasted good.
It hasn’t been long since the accident, but Janice has discovered that she is no longer the same person; her body, swimming with strange plant cells, was capable of new, exciting, and somewhat difficult things. Only Lieutenant Sams saw her die at the greenhouse, and survived, and so far, her boss has agreed to keep that secret, even helping her acquire the occasional UV lamp and bag of fertilizer. The incident itself was ruled a gas leak; orders from somewhere up high in the government ruled the whole thing classified, and closed the investigation out in a very definitive way.
But Janice has gotten restless; something very strange has been going on, and she’s begun to suspect she should be a part of something bigger. With newfound strength and reflexes, the stage combat and tai chi she learned as a child have become an effective martial art of their own, though she’s still clumsier than she would like to be. And she’s begun to read comic books and pulp novels, re-opening a few forensic cases of special interest, wondering just how hard it would be to start taking the law into her own hands.
That said, her increasingly unusual cells seem to be solely beneficial, possessing an intuitive understanding of their acquired biology and constantly seeking new ways to improve it. Her skin, muscles, xylem and phloem seem to possess a sort of distributed, cellular intelligence, reacting blindingly fast to stimuli and danger and granting superhuman reflexes and awareness. A lack of solely-human anatomy has led to greatly improved stamina, strength, and pain tolerance. Overall, she’s been fascinated by the degree of control she’s been able to exert over nearly ever aspect of her body, from carefully-tailored facial expressions and breathing to reconfiguring parts of her arms into wings and climbing vines. With practice, she realizes, she may well learn new tricks entirely, but for now simply her amazing muscle memory and boosted self-control have been enough to quickly pick up a decent level of the fighting and stealth skills that will be useful should she continue her flirtation with vigilantism.
Snapdragon is only part human, her skin riddled with green scars where plant cells replaced damage to her original body. Her bones carry veins and fragments of hardened wood, giving her a distinct and irregular skeleton under the X-ray scanner she “borrowed” to investigate herself; she barely bleeds when injured, and her blood is sticky and golden, tinged with sap, though the healing process is distracting enough to shatter her carefully-focused disguises. At social meals, she feigns swallowing small quantities of food and drink, quietly storing what she consumes in vacuoles within her body, to be tossed in the trash when she is alone; her body no longer requires food, instead gaining its nourishment from the sun. It took a bit of wheedling, but she’s managed to get her lab at the station moved to a south-facing office with decent windows; at home, she sleeps in a high-powered tanning bed. Salt and salt water dehydrate her, while fire burns, and her cells seem to panic at the sight of an open flame; in water, she grows easily distracted, sprouting tiny roots and filaments that make swimming nearly impossible.
Janice, on the other hand, is quite ordinary. She is short, and thin, with heavy glasses and a great deal of joie de vivre; her ability to fit into social situations has only increased with her self-awareness, as she effortlessly shrugs her shoulders while quoting Shakespeare or Darwin. She’s cut back on her hours at the police station, often spending long lunch breaks outside in the sun, though the new high-strength forensic UV scanners her sergeant requisitioned have helped a bit at work. In her spare time, she volunteers with a local theater troupe, supplying stage makeup and diction coaching, while she has once again put off reapplying to grad school in favor of reading papers online. Recently, she has developed a bit of an interest in criminology, reading books on lie detection and the art of persuasion.
Snapdragon’s thoughts, slightly distributed among her greener cells, have also lent her mind a certain non-human genius; in addition to boosting her reflexes, this gives her thoughts a bit of an unusual and alien bent, making them hard to read (though she has yet to meet a mind-reader).
With focus, she can also release a fine cloud of pollen spores; the effect is subtle, and nearly undetectable without a microscope or superhuman sense of smell, but with focus and patience she can leave a whole room sneezing uncontrollably, a talent that’s helped her avoid questions and harassment from the wrong sort of passersby.
And, perhaps most usefully, her body possesses the ability to regenerate itself, as her de-centralized plant cells remember its previous shape and work to restore it after a bodily injury that leaves them unharmed. She still needs sunlight to grow—separated from it for too long, her cells go dormant and she takes damage that does not recover—but, aside from fire, acid, or chainsaws, she’s pretty hard to kill, a talent that’s saved her once and now led her to consider dabbling in something dangerous, like real and proper crime-fighting.