Rosa Sinclair's page

Harry the Helicopter (16 points)
Huge vehicle, Str 8, Speed 7, Def 6, Toughness 9
[Standard cost, which includes flight; I am also assuming radio comes in the package as you can’t really pilot a flying vehicle without comms, and a strong light.]
A refurbished small-to-medium search-and-rescue helicopter. Nothing special, but it’s still a helicopter.

Alt: Gary the Ambulance (14 points)
Huge vehicle, Str 10, Speed 5, Def 6, Toughness 12 (based on stats for armored car with additional toughness); communications system (1), hidden compartments (1), infirmary squeezed into space (2) (technically you can’t put a room in a less than gargantuan vehicle, so I’m spending a point on “bigger on the inside.)
A custom rescue-class heavy duty ambulance, a la a Type 1 Highliner model by Lifeline (adjusting looks and quirks of function as needed for the era). In addition to state of the art medical and extraction equipment, it has a powerful radio transmitter atypical to the model and hidden compartments for smuggling goods or people to safety.

Alt: Mary the Motor Lifeboat(14 points)
Huge vehicle, Str 10, Speed 5, Def 6, Toughness 12 (10 points; yacht standard cost +3 toughness; I am again assuming radio would be part of the package), Navigation System (1), hidden compartments (1), (2–4 more points I haven’t spent yet)
A retired and refitted former Coast Guard motor lifeboat.

Background
Rosa Sinclair was the child of a pair of professors at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Jason Sinclair, professor of the new field of parapsychology (with degrees in psychology and philosophy), and Martha Franklin, a neuroscientist. Franklin and Sinclair were working together to explore the existence—and possible development of—psychic abilities. Early studies showed that any evidence of such abilities were far more likely to manifest in children, and getting institutional review board approval to experiment on children is very difficult, so her parents did a very questionable thing: they began to experiment on their own daughter. Always rather distant and clinically minded, this did not occur to them as potentially problematic. While they never overtly hurt Rosa and young Rosa perceived what they were doing was mainly having her play games and drink funny things, this course of action nonetheless inevitably had unexpected and eventually unfortunate results. While Rosa occasionally but inconsistently demonstrated bursts of telepathic or clairvoyant capability, her primarily psychic manifestation was a mind-over-body capability: she developed a heightened sense of awareness of the state of her own body and became able to command her body to heal. Over time, she also began to be able to read the state of health and well-being of others as well.

However, as she grew older, she also became aware that her parents—however well intentioned, as they hoped seeing how she developed her skills could help cure diseases and mental afflictions alike—were overly clinical and manipulative, and she began to resist their efforts. At one point, she got into a fight with her father, who wanted her to submit to a test involving minor but somewhat painful electric shocks. When he lost his temper and grabbed her arm to attach an electrode to it, in an adrenaline-induced state she was able to command his body as she would her own and knocked him out. Always a deeply compassionate person, heightened by her ability to sense physical and emotional distress in others, she was horrified by what she did—and her mother and father both agreed to shut down the experiments.

This did not lessen growing resentment for her parents, especially as the abilities she had remained, and her sensitivity to her own well-being and others was increasingly distressing her. At 16, she pushed for emancipation, aided by a mentor from her family’s religious community, a Quaker meeting in a Philadelphia suburb (her parents were not deeply spiritual, but Martha’s family had been members for generations and she remained involved out of philosophical interest and occasional participation in liberal political activism, which the meeting engaged in). Her parents agreed to the emancipation. Rosa went to live with her mentor, Jolene Abrams, also was a trained teacher in transcendental meditation and taught Rosa to meditate to better control her abilities. Particularly its sense of calm helped her overcome instant negative feedback and she became less afraid of hurting others with her abilities. The more she practiced meditation, the stronger her powers grew.

Rosa maintained only minimal contact with her parents and was surprised to hear from her mother during her first year in college at Bryn Mawr, begging her to come home due to a family emergency. It wasn’t characteristic of her mother to be so hysterical even in the face of an emergency—but that itself was cause for concern. She traveled to her parents’ home to meet a frantic woman who looked like her mother—but Rosa’s senses informed her it wasn’t Martha, but Martha’s estranged twin sister Lucretia—and she sensed not the concern she was conveying, but sheer malice. Rosa addressed her as “Aunt Lucretia,” and realizing she hadn’t been fooled, Lucretia fled the scene. Inside, Rosa found things were far worse than she feared: her parents dead by gunshot wound, their research papers and materials filed through, many of them missing. As Lucretia was also a researcher like her sister, Rosa suspected she was trying to access her parents’ work on psychic abilities. She knew where her parents kept the materials detailing their experiments on her and to her relief, still found them hidden away. She destroyed them and called the police. The police intercepted Lucretia on her way out of state and she was sent to prison. But the ordeal was not yet to be over.

After college, Rosa decided she wanted to help people in the most immediate way, and be able to make use of her abilities in ways people may not notice, by working as an emergency medic (in frantic situations, people don’t always notice when you’re magically healing someone). The job didn’t pay well, but her inheritance from her parents more than allowed her to support herself. For several years, she lived a life one might call “quietly eventful” as a first responder. In her work, she befriended an ex-military mechanic named Inez Ortega Carter who was working as an ambulance driver (see sidekick description), who became aware of Rosa’s gifts after a horrific accident where a truck crashed into their ambulance. Not only did Rosa emerge miraculously healed from horrible wounds, she saved the injured Ortega’s life, and the latter swore to protect the former forevermore.

Rosa, perhaps, needed the protection. Lucretia Franklin escaped from prison, which Rosa learned when she appeared in Rosa’s apartment. Dr. Franklin first tried to cajole Rosa, convince her all that had happened was a horrible accident, but Rosa could not be fooled. Franklin switched to threatening her—come with her, or she would take her and find out the source of Rosa’s abilities one way or another. A struggle ensued, and Rosa managed to activate her defensive/offensive capabilities to get away. Rosa called Ortega for help, and for two days they went on the road, running from Dr. Franklin. She had called the police, but Dr. Franklin somehow was eluding detection and capture from them… she had developed technology, or perhaps rudimentary powers of her own, to make it easier for her to escape. Help did eventually arrive: not in the form of the police, however, but what appeared to be simply a team of conveniently nearby park rangers, who with equipment park rangers shouldn’t have, disabled Dr. Franklin’s vehicle and captured her.

The “rangers” revealed themselves to be members of a private organization: the Foundation. Dr. Franklin was part of Think Tank (please change this name to something better), a society of scientists looking to advance hostile technologies and got their considerable funding from terrorist organizations who used their developments in their work. They had learned of Rosa’s abilities from pursuing Dr. Franklin and knew she was obsessed with capturing and experimenting on Rosa. The Foundation could offer protection—if she came to work for them. And, they promised, with them, Rosa could help more innocent people than she ever could before.

One of the members of the group which rescued Rosa and Ortega was [First Responder], whom Rosa had seen before in nearby rescue operations. His vouging for her had helped reassure she would be a good recruit, and Rosa also trusted him, which helped her agree to joining the Foundation, despite misgivings about institutions with violent tendencies, no matter the good intentions. Her only condition: hire Ortega too.

Because she did not want Dr. Franklin or Think Tank tracking her activities through her money, and because the Foundation could provide her housing and sustenance, Rosa liquidated most of her assets in the form of purchasing several search-and-rescue vehicles for Ortega to go to town on and make her own. While her intention is to use the vehicles for the Foundation’s work, because she owns them, the Foundation can’t commandeer them or give them to someone else—and if she ends up having to escape a bad situation herself again, all she needs is Ortega and a ride out.

Many at the Foundation have picked up on a nickname Ortega gave Rosa, "The Saint." Ostensibly a reference to her last name, some call her that because of her kindness, compassion, and miraculous healing abilities. Others call her that more derisively, annoyed by Rosa's hatred of violence or having butted heads with her and found her to be annoyingly self-righteous.

Appearance
Rosa is a 30-year-old, 5'8" white woman with medium-length sandy blonde hair. She wears minimal makeup beyond what the era/genre requires such as, for some reason, blue eyeliner. If in her role as a medic she wears scrubs but more often for foundation missions opts for practical jeans, blouses, and running shoes, often with flattering colors and patterns.
HeroForge Mini

INEZ ORTEGA CARTER
Crunch
Defense
Dodge 5, Parry 2
Toughness 3, including leather jacket, Fortitude 2, Will 0

Offense
Initiative +2
Ranged attack: light pistol +7, DC 13

Abilities
Strength 0, Stamina 2, Agility 2, Dexterity 3, Fighting 0, Intellect 0, Awareness 0, Presence 1

Advantages
Equipment 2

Skills
Athletics (+0), Deception (+1), Expertise: Mechanic 12 (+12), Insight (+0), Intimidation (+1), Perception (+0), Persuasion (+1), Ranged Combat: Pistols 4 (+7), Stealth (+2), Vehicles 12 (+15)

Equipment
Light Pistol (6 ep), Toolkit (1 ep), Handcuffs (1 ep), Communicator (1 ep), leather jacket (1 ep)

Abilities 16 + Powers 0 + Advantages 2 + Skills 7 + Defenses 5 = Total 30

Fluff
Background
Inez Ortega Carter—most people just call her “Ortega,” though Rosa will call her by her first name when she wants something—is a 27-year-old genius with engines, both tinkering and controlling the vehicles that operate with them. She served in the Navy for five years as a warrant officer, primarily as a mechanical engineer, but also trained in piloting both seacraft and helicopters. She’s also a crack driver and used to do motocross and amateur racing as a youth. Child of Julio Ortega and Jane Torres Carter, she grew up in Santa Monica, CA with three brothers. While in the Navy, a new commanding officer considered her a threat to his career and began to sabotage her work. She caught him and punched him in the face. Court marshalled and dishonorably discharged, her family considered her a disgrace and largely cut off contact with her.

She moved to the East Coast to start fresh and became an ambulance driver, hoping to help others. Through this she became friends with Rosa, and Rosa saved her life after a semi truck barreled into the ambulance while on duty. When Rosa’s life went upside down, Ortega refused to leave her side, feeling she owes Rosa—and that Rosa needs someone to protect her, since Rosa so often refuses to fight directly in hostile situations. While she isn’t exactly a devout Catholic, Ortega is informed by her own religious upbringing and is the first person to have called Rosa “the Saint,” connecting “Sinclair” to Saint Clare of Assisi, patron of, among other things, those with extrasensory perception.

Rosa and Ortega conspired to put together the Rescue Fleet, and while Rosa technically owns the vehicles, Ortega is in charge of their care and well-being… and of naming them.

Appearance and Personality
Ortega, despite being handed some b~$+*#!@ in her life, is generally upbeat, and is very good at identifying at what she can and can’t control—and quick to act on the latter. She is a loyal friend. While she got a reputation for being “scrappy” due to the situation with her commander, she is usually level headed unless threatened or someone she cares about is threatened.

She is 5’4” with black hair and hazel eyes, wiry and swift. When not in a uniform appropriate to the vehicle she is controlling, she tends to wear mechanic jumpsuits, though might switch to loose fitting trousers and blouses for a night on the town. Regardless of what she wears, she always, always wears her brown leather bomber jacket. Heroforge mini