Ness "Gallowglass" MacDonnell's page

About Ness "Gallowglass" MacDonnell

You can say it's just a movie but Merida was totally right: “There are those who say fate is something beyond our command. That destiny is not our own, but I know better. Our fate lives within us, you only have to be brave enough to see it.”

Beacon

Abilities:
□ Bow and trick arrows
. . Gallowglass has various flash, smoke, concussive, and EMP arrows
□ Acrobatics

LABELS
Danger -1
Freak -1
Savior +2
Superior +2
Mundane +1

CONDITIONS:
□ Afraid (-2 to directly engage)
□ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
□ Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
□ Insecure (-2 to stand in defense or reject what others say)
□ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)

Relationships
Mosaic is awesome, and you take every chance you get to hang out
with them.
I've watched Behind the Mask since Season One (hasn't everybody!?) and even when her friends thought Gestalt was the greatest, Ness was rooting for Mosaic. (OK, I loved Gestalt too, I won't lie, but she was never my number 1.) Oh, and I never trusted Jericho.

You've got to prove yourself to Praetoria before you feel like a real hero.
Ness has had many heroes, but a constant since she was nine years old was Praetorius. She's had his poster on her bedroom wall, his picture as her phone's screensaver, even his voice saying, "Never Fear, The Praetorian Is Here!" as her ringtone.

Influence
You are so excited to be here. Give influence over you to three of your teammates:
Mosaic, Praetoria, Horizon

Beacon Moves:
□ Straight. Up. Creepin'.:
When you scope out a person or place, roll + Mundane. On a 10+, ask 2. On a 7-9, ask 1.
- What happened here recently?
- What is being concealed here?
- Who or what here is not what they seem?
- Whose place is this?
- What's my best way in/out?
On a miss, you find yourself in over your head. The GM will tell you why this is a bad spot.

□ C'mon, Lucky:
You have a pet of some kind, a smaller companion that supports you and helps you out. Detail it. Choose 3 basic moves. Tell the GM how it helps you with them. Whenever your pet could help you, take +1 to that move. If your pet ever gets hurt, treat it as taking a powerful blow.

Ness is assisted by her faithful dog, Bear. Bear has no more powers than Ness does, but the two work well together. Specifically
Defend By barking and nipping, Bear helps Ness in her efforts to distract foes.
Comfort A happy dog makes everything better!
Assess the Situation Always vigilant for danger, Bear is ready to sniff out the truth.

Drives
Choose 4 drives to mark at the start of play. When you fulfill a marked drive, strike it out, and choose one: mark potential, clear a condition, take influence over someone involved.
When your 4 marked drives are all struck out, choose and mark 4 new drives. When all drives are struck out, change playbooks, retire from the life, or become a paragon.
□ Lead the team successfully in battle
□ Kiss someone dangerous
□ Punch someone you probably shouldn't
✔ Help a teammate when they most need you
□ Take down a threat all on your own
□ Show up an adult hero
□ Pull off a ridiculous stunt
□ Save a teammate's life
□ Get drunk or high with a teammate
□ Drive a fantastical vehicle
□ Get a new costume
□ Get a new hero name
□ Earn the respect of a hero you admire
□ Make out with a teammate
□ Punch out a teammate
□ Break up with someone
□ Stop a fight with sense and rationality
□ Tell someone your true feelings for them
□ Travel to an incredible place (or time)
□ Reject someone who tells you “you shouldn't be here”

Moment of Truth
This is the moment when you show them exactly why you belong here. You do any one thing, take out any one enemy, no matter how insane, no matter how ridiculous, because that's you. You burn bright and you burn hot, and their jaws are gonna drop when you're done. Of course, folks are gonna expect a lot more from you from this point out…

Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, tell them how they're awesome and add 1 Team to the pool. If they tell you how you're awesome in return, add another Team to the pool.

When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, ask them to confirm or deny that you should be here. If they confirm it, mark potential and give them Influence over you. If they deny it, mark Angry and shift 1 Label up and 1 Label down, your choice.
POTENTIAL

Every time you roll a miss on a move, mark potential.

Advancement
When your 5 Potential boxes are marked, you advance. Choose 1 from the list below: When you've taken 5 advances from the top list, you can take advances from the list below the line.
__ Take another move from your playbook
__ Take another move from your playbook
__ Take a move from another playbook
__ Take a move from another playbook
__ Take a move from another playbook
__ Someone permanently loses Influence over you; add +1 to a Label
__ Rearrange your Labels as you choose, and add +1 to a Label
__ Unlock your Moment of Truth

__ Unlock your Moment of Truth
__ Create a second character
__ Change playbooks
__ Take an adult move
__ Take an adult move
__ Lock a Label, and add +1 to a Label of your choice
__ Retire from the life or become a paragon of the city

Backstory
- When did you first put on your costume?
I sewed it about six months ago, before coming to Halcyon City...but I’ve been doing cosplay and dressup since I could dress myself.
- How did you gain your skills?
Obsessive practice! (And, when it comes to making trick arrows, some internet research)
- Who, outside of the team, thinks you shouldn't be a superhero?
My mother
- Why do you try to be a hero?
Because I *know* I can be the master of my own fate.
- Why do you care about the team?
We’re heroes; that’s just what we do. Duh! (Oh, and anyway, we’ve got some AWESOME folks in our team. The daughter of The Praetorian? I mean MOSAIC?

When our team first came together…
We found signs that this incident was just the start of something bigger. What were the signs?
1) we found evidence of Infini-Corp tech (let's say the mind control device used the proprietary chip set)
2) we found evidence that the space time continuum was fractured by whatever brought Horizon here: perhaps we saw echoes of past and future events starting to blend together, and we suspect that there's some repair needed or the fracture will get worse.

History
Many kids have a favorite childhood movie--or a fictional character everyone says “is just like them”. For Ness MacDonnell, that was Merida from Brave.

Ness grew up in the hills outside of Sleepy Arbors, a university town that’s a bit more than an hour outside of Halcyon City. Her father was a freelance illustrator, and her mother was a European History professor. She and her siblings were homeschooled, and encouraged to follow their passions.

While Ness enjoyed her academics, she tended to complete them quickly...and then would spend hours a day practicing archery and parkour. Her parents knew she was a bit obsessive, but at least she kept busy...and if they ever made her sit still she’d quickly drive them to distraction.

Too late they’ve realized that she wasn’t going to outgrow her childhood heroic fantasies. Her mom is horrified. Her dad is secretly excited and roots her on. He’s even started tooling around, trying to invest new kinds of trick arrows for her.

She's chosen Gallowglass as her hero name, after the elite Scottish warriors of the 15th Century.

Personality
Obsessive. Enthusiastic. Brave. Plucky.

Ness is SOOOOO excited to be a real superhero. I mean, plenty of superheroes don’t have powers per se, right? It’s been totally disproven that you need powers to be a real hero. Just think of Red Kestrel, and all the good she did!

And now Ness is going to get to meet aliens! And people who can fly and shoot rays from their eyes! Maybe she’ll even get to travel in time. It would be amazing to go to ancient Scottland and see what a “real Merida”’s life would’ve been like!!

Ness has had crushes on many superheroes since she was a preteen, and still has a poster of the Praetorian on the wall of her childhood bedroom.

The other poster is of Merida with Ness’s favorite line from the movie: “There are those who say fate is something beyond our command. That destiny is not our own, but I know better. Our fate lives within us, you only have to be brave enough to see it.”

Powers
Ness is a normal human in great physical condition. Due to obsessive practice, she has exceptional skills in parkour and archery, and (after some devoted internet research) has learned to make a number of trick arrows: ones with flash powder and smoke pellets and ones that can give off a brief EMP that can disrupt technology, and ones that trail bolas to entangle her foes.

Her partner in heroics is Bear, her Australian Shepherd. Bear has no more powers than Ness does, but the two work well together, and he helps her in her efforts to distract (defend), comfort, and sniff out the truth.

Look
She’s a pale, very freckly white woman with bushy red hair (enough that folks still often say “ya know, you look just like a real life Merida”). She dresses in comfortable clothes (hoodies, stretch pants, and running shoes) when not fighting crime.

Ness is proud to have sewn her own costume, inspired by her childhood hero Merida.

Reference Image

Villain
Crime Hawk is a flying burglar who carries a variety of kinds of bombs, and who makes a mockery of the laws of Halcyon City (through her crimes, but also by mocking do-gooders). When Ness first came out in costume, she and Bear came upon Crime Hawk leaving a jewelry story. Crime Hawk mocked the heroic duo and disabled them with a stink bomb before disappearing into the sky. Ness is keeping a close eye out for her, and intends to teach her that Crime Doesn’t Pay...and neither does messing with Gallowglass!