The Good, The Bad and The Spandex: an Original Superhero Game!

@Sijo: Yeah, Xy's a Hero. And if you'd like to use her "deceased" creator later, that'd be cool too. We all know how death works in most comic/superhero 'verses, right? :P

Cool! And btw, feel free to jump in with helping stop the rampaging train, if you want to.

Sorry for jumping on the train (pun intended) so late but are you still accepting characters? I'm thinking of doing a mercenary type villain/anti-villain with sonic powers...

Definitely! Write up your character according to the instructions in the first post it, if approved I'll work an entry point for it in the game.

edited 17th Jul '16 6:50:59 PM by Sijo

Another character on my list of consideration. If not, then an NPC.

Topaz

• Noel Nikkei, anti-hero
• She bears the yellow crystal, as the Saffron Sentinel before her. She lacks for some of us his psychic abilities, or his gravity control, but those that she has have come forth incredibly strong.
  • The immediately obvious is her telekinesis, brutally strong when she's angry with one target to deal with but goes down in strength if she's asked to calmly deal with many smaller objects. She can fly with this power. Most telekinetic actions are accompanied by hand gestures and disabling her hands invokes a mental crutch that will severely hamper her, not so much in raw power but in dexterity. Not to mention making what she's doing obvious.
  • Teleportation. Or, more like brutally ripping a portal around herself. Limited to line of sight or places she can remember well.
  • Third Eye: She can see far off places so long as she knows them well, see in all directions, see through illusions and disguises if she focuses and read the mind of anyone she can touch with both hands while maintaining eye contact.
  • Mind Break: She can carry attacks out on the mind, though she usually doesn't bother unless the person is otherwise beyond the reach of her telekinesis.
  • Ancient Knowledge: She may tap into the knowledge pools of one of the previous bearers of her crystal, a being called Amniel. It knows a wide variety of things on topics ranging from cosmic and extraterrestrial to mystic and arcane.
• A sixteen year old African American girl. She on the tall side for girls, has a short afro and constant scowl on her face. Her build and face means she is some times mistaken for a boy, plus the baggy clothes she prefers. The crystal juts out of her body on her forehead.
• The Saffron Sentinel was known to have a large ego, tempered as it was by a joyous and even flamboyant attitude. He loved kids and found hurting others to be difficult. Topaz has a large ego. She is cranky, subdued and believes strongly in efficient brutality, which she will correct you is actually brutal efficiency. She espouses and follows the ethical philosophy of act utilitarianism. She would not only would pull the lever, she'd push the fat person in front of the trolley. In her belief that she knows best, she has no problem flouting the laws of society to get done when she feels needs to be done.

Another great one GOA! Question: how much does the general public know about the Crystal Bearers, their origins, and how most were killed?

Those that make studying supers a thing will make the connection, as they have with previous supers who displayed some colorful crystal growing out of their body and never the same color as another at the same time. The last bearers were, informally, a team and how the Viridian Comet, now Emerald, has been keeping tabs on this new younger group hasn't gone unnoticed.

The last patch were mostly West Pacific, coastal Asia, Japan, the Philippines, Australlia, and it was big news all around when a super powered child went up and down the coast and islands, murdering a ton of people and the dozen of heroes that tried to stop 'em before some Japanese superhero used his dying breath to drop a goddamn satellite on the kid.

So, pretty much public, but not the fact their crystals came from space, much less that they have been used as power sources for generations?

Besides being from space, it's well speculated and documented, but one has to generally have an interest in that sort of thing and a willingness to go digging. A little easier with the Internet around but still an obscure piece of not-totally substantiated knowledge and trivia.

The Red Child incident is more widely known

Awesome, thanks Sijo. I'll get to work my my sheet once I've properly read through all the characters thus far.

EDIT: Done! I've been talking with Star and he was keen on having my character as a merc working with Amadeus, at least in a semi-regular fashion.

REVERB

• Identity
  • Name: Sally Bowles (Not her real name, still kept relatively secret and used in place of her original name)

  • Real name: Saliha Zaman (Secret)

  • Alignment: Villain/Anti-villain

  • Day Job: Mercenary for hire, occasional assassin, sessional musician and occasional tutor (The latter two are kept secret)

• Powers & Abilities
  • Audiokinesis: Reverb's primary power is the generation, control and absorption of sound wave. She is believed to do this through precise, unique control of her muscles and body so as to create an incredible volume and breadth of frequencies. Thus she is able to create ear shattering sounds, percussive bursts capable of pushing people back and hit the resonant frequency of objects or even individual organs. She prefers the latter as creating louder sounds requires greater energy and it is more difficult to produce complex sound waves than using objects as sounding boards or making them shake themselves apart. Conversely, Sally can absorb or modify ambient sounds quite proficiently.

  • Super-hearing: As a result of her audiokinesis Sally can hear far beyond the normal human range of frequencies and amplitudes.

  • Super-reflexes: Due to her impressive muscular control and unique nervous system Reverb has reflexes superior to normal humans, albeit not by a massive degree.

  • Enhanced Speed & Strength: Sally's overall physical fitness is a bit above the peak for humans, not quite on par with truly 'super' strength or speed but nonetheless impressive and lend themselves to acrobatic maneuvers.

  • Martial Arts Training: Sally Bowles has a 2nd Dan black belt in karate and is known to be rather vicious in combat, when the situation calls for it. She has also been trained in the use of blades, basic weapons and fire arms but generally uses them when supplied.

  • Mechanically Adept: While not formally trained or in anyway an expert on such matters, Sally is rather talented in understanding mechanical technologies. This is largely applied to picking locks (when her audiokinesis isn't an option), fixing cars and sometimes just tinkering with her instruments.

• Weaknesses: Sound-proofing, much to Reverb's embarrassment and ire, effectively blocks her sonic powers so long as it is good enough. Moreover, she isn't much more durable than a regular human aside from some conditioning. Has a soft spot for animals and children.

• Physical Description: Sally Bowles is an energetic young woman in her mid twenties with an athletic, acrobatic physique and reasonably tall for a woman, standing at 5'11". Her skin is a smooth mocha and her build a touch androgynous due to being a little flat chested though she holds herself with striking grace. Her hair is black and kept in a short pixie cut, her features are not unattractive overall and has a disarming smile. While her civilian clothes vary by day, time and occasion when doing her less legal jobs she wears gray bullet-proof vest over a black lycra shirt as well as typical merc cargo pants and combat boots. To protect her identity she has a white, almost featureless mask with five horizontal lines across the center. Though no eye holes are apparent she can see through the material quite well and modulates her voices to make unrecognizable. She tends to wear simple, grey gloves to take care of finger prints where necessary.

• Personality: Sally Bowles may be a morally dubious and occasionally murderous superhuman mercenary but she is nothing if not personable. In fact, her upbeat and amiable disposition is quite surprising for most that meet her during her less public work as is her tendency to extend this to her adversaries. While she does have certain, justifiable gripes with superheroes as a whole, due to past experiences, as well as the general state of society her villainy is just a job and one that does not require her to be an asshat. One of her main motivations for her criminal activity is relatively altruistic, in that she wants to provide for her parents. That being said, she tends towards sarcasm and generally sardonic humour as well as a slight penchant for teasing her friends and foes alike. She is clever, quick-witted and fairly thoughtful. Reverb prefers to avoid straight up murder, the assassination of undeserving targets and absolutely abhors hurting children or animals. Sally is a vegetarian on moral grounds, strangely enough. Less surprising is her love music of many genres and plays quite a number of instruments.

• Background: Sally Bowles, born Saliha Zaman, was born and raised in the outer slums of a small city near the Easton Metropolis to Bengladeshi immigrants. Her father was a full-time mechanic and her mother took a few part-time jobs in between over the years. While they weren't well off financially and living in a dangerous area they were nonetheless a happy and quite cohesive family. They managed to support their daughter's education in a local school, even got her lessons in an instrument and karate, the latter of which to cope with the less than welcoming neighborhood. When Saliha was 13 she began to notice certain changes beyond the generally disturbing gamut of puberty, more sensitive to sound and physically stronger than seemed normal. Her powers manifested, apparently a genetic gift but one she decided to keep secret for fear of worrying her parents. Regardless, young Saliha began to experiment with them in private and often used them to help her family or friends covertly.

• Unfortunately the GFC hit the Zaman family hard and Saliha's father was forced to take up another job at night which he was reluctant to described to his wife and daughter. They tried to help and support him as best they could but he insisted they not get involved. Near her 18th birthday they finally discovered what he had been hiding when they saw him beaten and arrested by a local superhero, a henchman for a villain of the time. The father was crippled by the superhero and sent to jail for a number of year, leaving his wife and daughter to fend for themselves. Saliha left school to work as a musician and her mother began to work full time but it was not enough for a good living. Disenchanted with society and superheroes Saliha left home under the pretense of seeking better gigs but in truth was pursuing a less legal source of income using her powers. She became a thief and then a mercenary, calling herself 'Reverb' and taking the more mundane alias of 'Sally Bowles' after a character in one of her favorite musicals. Over time she made a bit of a name for herself amongst villains and made enough money to support her mother and later her father once he was released from jail. Sally still works as a session musician in some circles and even tutors between larger jobs.

• Most recently Reverb has taken to working for The Conductor for reason unbeknownst even to him, initially hired sometime ago for a ride and finding the villain somehow endearing in a psychopathic sense. She seems intent on keeping him out of too much trouble but isn't very interested in his grand schemes.

• Reverb's Ride: [[Carma https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/1968_Rebel_770_Cross_Country_station_wagon_s-Cecil'10.jpg]] Thus called because anyone unfortunate enough to be hit by it, gets what's coming to them.

edited 18th Aug '16 3:02:09 AM by Lt.BGob

Sorry for the double post, but I've finished my sheet. Let me know if it's okay or what needs tweaking, etc. Really looking forward to jumping in.

It's OK, and approved! Feel free to introduce her right away, for example you can have her rescue The Conductor from The Traveler. Note: while Simon will adapt to her sound powers, she will probably beat him in hand-to-hand combat.

Now, for the last crystal-bearer. Well, no, there's still the cyan and orange crystals, maybe an indigo one, but I don't have characters for them. They may either be fairly minor in power, or kept their crystal origins on the down low or simply you could explain that they're European or something and got ignored.

This is another character up for consideration to be my PC. After this, I have a number of character that are not crystal-bearers. Whomsoever I choose, I'm giving you a library of NP Cs to use.

Rubeus

• Frederick Djorn, hero
• Rubeus bears the crystal of the Red Child. A mystic superhero survived the Child's rampage and she claims the Child displayed probability warping, the ability to place their emotions inside items, such as killing intent inside a knife and survival instinct inside a locket, giving these items power and the ability to draw power and permanent strength from killing others. The Red Child may also have fought on a partly metaphysical level, attacking someone's hope and the will to live as much as their actual bodies. Whatever all these powers were, Rubeus has thankfully displayed almost none of them.
  • The primary power Rubeus has displayed is density shifting, able to make himself lighter and softer to heavier and harder, giving him related amounts of super strength. He can also do this to anything, or anyone, he touches, up to a certain volume (like five time his size, maybe?). This could be a natural extension of this ability or perhaps a reflection of the Red Child's ability to imbue objects with power. One of his favored tactics is to go light and jump high in the air before going heavy and "goomba stomping" back down on the ground.
  • His mind does a psychic version of this, usually towards the heavy side. This power is purely defensive, making his mind extremely hard and dense to telepathic touch. Since he does this automatically now, it's difficult for even positive telepathic contact to touch him. He'd have to actively lower his defenses, leaving all around vulnerable.
  • His reaction times and sensory speed have been amplified to the point he can keep track of a mid-tier speedster and instantly harden himself in response to a speeding bullet touching his skin.
  • Regeneration, though there seems to be some manual labor involved since he has to actively pinch wounds close or snap bones back into place for it to get going. Replacing lost flesh involves actually applying the necessary material to the wounded area, like he were some kinda flesh golem.
  • In fact, he is a lot like some kinda flesh golem, as he doesn't need to eat, breathe or sleep anymore, though he does so out of habit.
  • Before getting his powers, he was some kinda Renaissance Faire nerd, trained in the use of medieval weaponry and armor. His usual fair as a superhero is plate armor, sword and board. He also has an education in welding, smithing and general metallurgy.
• Blonde white guy, altough red streak have appeared in his short hair, beginning to spike on its own. He's about 18, muscular, mid-height. His eyes have turned red and two red crystal spikes jut out of his temple like little devil horns.
  • His costume, namely his armor, and equipment are all of a black-colored metal, given a red tint whenever he extend his density shifting power to it all. This give it all a very menacing appearance, leaving some people to label him an anti-hero out of aesthetic appeal, even when his behavior is straight heroic.
• He shares with the Red Child a blood lust and battle hunger that drives him to violence. It is tempered by a chivalric, sometimes archaic and somewhat vague code of honor and a general sense of decency that the Child lacked at all. Sometimes he gets pretty hammy and Shakespearean with his speech, especially in a fight. Outside of battle, he's humorless and unsmiling. Inside of battle, he's got a slasher grin on and jovial attitude.
  • On an unrelated note, he's gay, just a bit closeted about it. If confronted on the matter, he'll say he's a private individual and not at all ashamed. He's a little embarrassed though, and confused.
• Renaissance Faire nerd somewhat obsessed with his family's mixed history as bonafide knights and Viking warriors. Although he had enough of a grounding in reality to seek out some real world skills, he studied metal welding because hell yeah was he gonna be his own armorer!
  • Then he gets a red crystal popping itself into his body and the next day has a tiny Indian woman lifting him up by the throat like he were the Devil reborn. After the misunderstanding was cleared up, he accepted a new vocational calling as a superhero and the associated training.

Cyan happens to be my favorite color. But thanks anyway for your wonderful contributions GOA! Looking up to more!

Thanks for accepting me! I'll get an intro post worked out today.

Hi there!

I was wondering if you're still accepting characters in the villain category.

Pretty sure we still are, though I can't speak for the GM.

Well I can (because I am the GM ) and the answer is yes!

Leaning towards Amethyst, but I'm a wait till I get my laptop back from the repair depot.

OK.

NPC and plot device

First Night

• Aric Astral, prisoner
• Aric produces an aura around himself, one part psychic, one part magic and maybe a little bit something more thrown into the mix. Like light, the nature of this aura is dual, acting as both a kind of glow centered around him and a virus spreading from person to person, starting with those who had been caught in the glow. It affects everyone who has perceived him, directly or by record or hearsay. Those caught in it treat Aric differently, they simply accept what he does, what he asks or commands. They don’t have to like it. In fact, they can detest it, but none of that dislike would fall on Aric. So pervasive, overwhelming and potent is this aura that he managed to enthrall about a dozen psychic and mystic type supers specifically.
• He’s a scrawny man in his late twenties to early thirties. Messy orange hair, bordering on red, bright blue eyes and big bottle-glass glasses. He certainly doesn’t look like much.
• No one quite knows how long he was active before he ended up in the box he’s in now. What is known is that he became afraid of his own power. That’s right, huh? Guy with this kinda power, sounds like a supervillain. Well, he agreed, but didn’t decide 'well, let me be evil'. He enthralled a dozen supers of the appropriate type and even managed to wrangle in some official super police types (Whatever your equivalent to SHIELD is) into it as well. He asked them to build a special prison and they complied with very little hesitation. It was only after the door shut on the prison and the power to his aura was cut off did everyone realize what had happened. And then the panic began.
  • While no one decided to just deep six the poor bastard and be done with it, there were some talks of doing exactly that. Eventually, the powers that be nervously kept him around for a couple reasons, code naming him after the supposed right English nobles to, essentially, do whatever the hell they wanted. For one, he imprisoned himself, that spoke well of his behavior. They tracked a few of his victims before he got cold feet it seems, particularly a couple of prostitutes he wrangled free service out of, although neither women decided to press charges, although for one only after she heard he put himself in some deep hole. "Well, hell, ain’t nothin’ I can do to him now." Other than that and some shoplifting, he hadn’t actually done anything. Second, it was speculated that he could be weaponized. The powers that be both desire this option but fear using it, in case Mr. Astral had a change of heart since locking himself away. If he did, there might be no closing that Pandora’s Box once opened. However, while he currently rests in a null psychic and magic zone, some wonder if an outsider could circumvent these defenses while keeping Aric powerless and then enthrall him. If somebody managed to do that, they’d have a very powerful weapon.

Hmm, kinda like The Purple Man, except not evil. Nice concept as usual, GOA. I'll add him to the list.

Here, have a goofy political NPC:

• Identity: Mayor Major Mayor Major-Mayor, superhero name Major Mayor Major Mayor-Major (publicly known because... well, it's obvious)
• Alignment: Hero
• Powers & Abilities: The same way his tongue twister name messes with your sense of pronunciation, Major has the power of skill disruption. By making physical contact with his opponent and picking a skill, talent, or ability they demonstrated, the mayor can make them forget or otherwise confuse their ability to use those skills for a few seconds. While a few seconds might not seem like much, Major is very much a hands-on fighter and opportunist - he may be fighting for the law, but he fights dirty, and will take full advantage of those brief moments of confusion to tip the scales in his favor.
• Description: (you can link to a picture if you want)
• Personality: The mayor is a man who brims with the gruff charisma of the working, common man but despite his seeming rough edges he has a great, if odd, sense of humor and uses it to help connect him with his people. That being said, Major is a pragmatic and ruthless man, doing everything he can, even if it's not wholly legal, to keep justice in line in his city. Ultimately, his heart is in the right place, and he has a presence to win people over and make merry, but those who know that side of him also know to fear him.
• Background: Originally born Madison Marilyn Major to a father who thought himself a comedian (and was one for a living), Major grew up hassled a lot for his name, leading to lots of school yard fights until eventually he learned not to take himself so seriously and have a good laugh at himself. Old rivals became old pals who helped him get set up in a working class job - not the best pay, but a living's a living, yeah? Then, discovering his powers, Major took to the streets and started fighting his crime, legally changing his name to Major Major Major after the Catch-22 character to throw off his opponents and catch them off-guard during introductions. (His wife, Madeline Monroe, was not amused by this fact.) Eventually, though, he set his sights higher, taking on corruption within the local government itself, tracking down crooked cops, bribed judges, and the like and on a lark, even ran a mock campaign to run for mayor, legally changing his name AGAIN to Major Mayor Major-Mayor for the joke of it all. However, with supercrime the way it was and the government so corrupt, he was the go to third party protest candidate - and won, much to his, his wife's, and everyone's surprise. That being said, Mayor Major Mayor Major-Mayor cleaned up city hall and contributed his entire self to resolving the city's problems, as both mayor and vigilante, and the city's been looking better than it's ever been, now in his eighth year in office.

...OK, I admit it. That was just credible enough to pass muster with me. Approved.

But remember, as an NPC, he's *my* character to use. And most folks will just plain call him Mayor.

I will have him debut at the Charity Event.

Don't underestimate my ability to BS a character from scratch.