Amelia

Persephone From the top her her tree, Camellia saw something at the far northern edge of town, though she couldn't tell what. Whatever it is, it's big! And it's moving! Heavens to Betsy, it's like the Crabtree Building itself stood up and went for a midnight stroll! Camellia relaxed her arms, letting the red volunteer vest slip down off her shoulders and fly away in the ferocious winds. She slipped her lanyard over her head, gently pulled over a meter of hair through it, and then let her volunteer I.D. fly away to follow the vest. Green pigment spread all across Camellia's skin, like a cloud of ink under water. Her long hair, already falling as far as the top of her legs, grew even longer, brushing her ankles, and shifted from platinum blonde to royal purple. The irises and sclera of her eyes morphed from blue and white to a similar violet hue. Thousands of overlapping lavender leaves sprouted from her skin in strategic places, a living alternative to clothing. With a quick tug, she then ripped free her actual clothing, held together as it was with discretely sewn-in magnets, and she let the hurricane take those final trappings of her normal life as well. As Camellia, she had tried to be discrete, but as Persephone, she wanted visibility. Folks might need help. Even if I can't see them, I reckon they should be able to see me if I'm lit up like a Christmas tree. Her purple hair was already shiny, but when her mental command released the right combination of chemicals into it, her hair flared up, as if someone had cracked a two meter long glow stick. She willed a duller gleam to her eyes as well. At this point, she heard yelling over the howling wind, and spotted the young man below her. She patted the trunk of the palm tree, and it bent down in a nearly 180-degree loop. That should have broken it in half, but Persephone had altered its flesh so that now it was as flexible as a willow leaf. The tree trunk stretched and snaked downward until Persephone was hovering less than a foot over the flood waters directly in front of Chris. "Hey there!" She smiled and waved at the young man. It's that cutie from the shelter. God willing and the creek don't rise any higher, he won't recognize me as fast as I recognized him. "Did you need some help, Sweetie?"

I have no objection. Notice check (DC20): 20. That's lucky.

Thanks for pinning those NPC guidelines. This one's firmly Tier 2. I edited the subject line accordingly.

Subscribbled.

Persephone Doctor Camellia Blume had her hands full. She'd closed down her practice and cancelled her appointments in the face of the hurricane, and turned down several party invitations, but the Weston storm shelter she was volunteering at was filled to the brim. There was less than two feet between each cot, there were so many crammed into the building, but every one of them was claimed. There were lines of people snaking through just about every room. People waited in line for food, for bathrooms, for toiletries and other supplies the local stores had donated. Camellia was acting as a "volunteer mental health professional", though her red vest and the identification in the lanyard around her neck didn't specifically identify her as such. That sort of labeling could make people feel suspicious or self-conscious. Often the people who needed the most help were the most reluctant to, or least capable of, asking for it, so instead, Camellia and her fellow volunteer counselors came to them. They performed a sort of emotional triage, scanning the crowd for those showing signs of the greatest emotional stress and targeting them first. Some people were distraught over having lost track of pets, or having been unable to reach loved ones. Others were already homeless, and suffering from various existing and untreated disorders. Camellia and her fellow counselors stopped more than one brawl before it began. Only time would tell whose acute stress reactions would fade away, and whose would metastasize into full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder. But even a small amount of support, a calming touch and a friendly ear offered at the right time, could make the difference. Even in a disaster, sometimes people just needed someone to listen to them. When the thunder rumbled and the lights went out, the people in the shelter started yelling. The volunteers managed to calm them back down once enough flashlights and hand-crank lanterns had come to life. Once she'd helped get the commotion settled, Camellia told her fellow volunteers she was taking a break. She slipped outside and sloshed through the shin-high water for a couple blocks, until she found a palm tree. She asked it nicely to lift her up so she could get a better view of the city. The tree obliged her, bending down so she could climb on top of it, then standing back up. Its bark shifted and bent to provide her with easy footholds. She thanked it and gave it an affectionate peck on the trunk. Still unsatisfied with her vantage point, she imagined the tree being taller, and it grew to match her mental picture, twice its normal height and several times its original diameter, standing firm against the battering winds. She didn't like what she saw. Lord have mercy. This frog choker's already got these poor people's nerves plumb frazzled as is. They were ready to fly off the handle before someone cut the lights for the whole darn town.

Right, NPC tiers. Forgot about those. Whichever tier lets anyone use him but requires that they run it by me first.

It's just the power feat of the same name from Healing and Regeneration, yes.

Octoman Octoman's eyes bulged to literally twice their normal size. "Did you just say..." He pointed at the monitor. "I wasn't looking at your face, is this screen right? You just said 'I remind you of Geckoman'?" He leaned back onto the bed. "That's it. I've peaked at sixteen. All downhill from here. Next stop, rehab and a spot on the 'I Love The Twenty-Teens' panel. That's the nicest thing anyone will ever say about me. Oh hey, that limb-regrowing thing? I think I can do that." He started tugging at the base of one of his own tentacles. He muttered under his breath, "Yeahhh, keep on believin' THAT as long as you can..." "Look, I'm one-hundred percent NOT telling my parents I'm a superhero now. But...Mamá and Tatay are gonna wanna take a look at the place before I go there. Or that's what they're gonna say, and then something's gonna come up, and they'll have to reschedule, and after like the third or fourth time, they'll just forget about it and sign whatever I give 'em. But I figure, even at Superhero School, they still got, like, open houses and stuff, right? And sooner or later, they're gonna feel too guilty to blow it off, and they're gonna show up and see some super power stuff go down, or someone who looks even freakier than ME. So yeah, I guess I gotta tell 'em I have super powers NOW, so they don't blow a fuse LATER. And yeah, if I have the option of having freakin' BOMBSHELL and JACK OF ALL BLADES with me while I'm doing ANYTHING, I'm gonna say 'Helllll to the Yes', especially if the thing is telling my parents 'Oh hey, congrats, we know you ordered your baby boy Original Recipe, but they gave you Extra Freaky at the drive-through, sorry, no refunds!' Mamá doesn't like superheroes, but if I'm bringin' the A-list hometown-heroes, AND their mom? That could work."

Actually, I'm gonna do a slight retcon of the lore. I slept on it and decided it was too bleak, even for me, even for Bedlam. The person's soul is released to their afterlife after the vampire conversion is complete, or after they die if they're killed before the conversion is done. The soul isn't consumed by the conversion process.

Pfeffner's delayed action goes off, and Dead Head is now in such a seemingly vulnerable position that I'm going to fiat his Intimidation of Pfeffner going away, and Pfeffner's going Hostile again. Dead Head gets a Hero Point for the setback. Dead Head's Defense is +4 (DC14), Pfeffner gets +4 to hit a Prone target in melee, he gets a -2 attack penalty for still being Shaken, and Dead Head suffers -3 Defense for being Exhausted, so Pfeffner's final target number with his +0 bonus is DC9. Ethan Pfeffner's Attack roll (DC9): 7. He misses. At the bottom of the round, Grim Diddle is up. Move Action: Follow Strix and the Woodchuck Man around the corner, where he sees Dead Head lying prone with the unconscious fratboys and Ethan Pfeffner standing there. Standard Action: He attacks Ethan with his Drain Constitution power. Attack roll (DC10): 17. He hits. Ethan Pfeffner's Fortitude save (DC19): 1. Ethan Pfeffner loses 9 points of Constitution, putting him at Con 1 (-5). End of round. Initiative & Conditions Summary Woodchuck Man: 27, Pinned, Sickened, Nauseated, Helpless Ethan Pfeffner, Fratboy #1: 20, Bruised, Injured, Shaken, Drained Constitution (10 > 1) Fratboy #2: 20, Bruised, Injured, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Shaken, Prone Fratboy #3: 20, Bruised x2, Injured x2, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Dying, Shaken, Prone Fratboy #4: 20, Bruised x3, Injured x3, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Shaken, Frightened, Prone Fratboy #5: 20, Shaken, Frightened, Panicked Fratboy #6: 20, Shaken, Frightened, Panicked [Other]: 19, Unharmed Mister Strix: 12, 0HP, Fatigued, Grappling Dead Head: 11, 1HP, Exhausted Fire: Out Grim Diddle: 4, Unharmed Homeless Man: -, Helpless, Bruised, Injured Woodchuck Man: Still Nauseated to the point of Helplessness. Ethan Pfeffner, Fratboy #1: Move Action x2: He moves 60ft away from Grim Diddle. Fratboys #2-4: Unconscious. Mister Strix: Free Action: Maintain the grapple. Standard Action: He'll renew his grapple and the Nauseate + Mind Reading. Strix's Mind Reading check: 11. Woodchuck Man's Will save: 15. Woodchuck Man is still Helpless from the Nauseate effect, but he's managed to kick Strix out of his mind. Move Action: None. Dead Head is up again.

Mister Strix Mister Strix was oblivious to everything around him. He tried to pry deeper into the Woodchuck Man's memories, but he became momentarily distracted by the delicious, robust taste of the creature's blood, and that moment of distraction was all the creature's mind needed to slam shut. Dammit. No. No, we're not done yet, you and I. There are still more secrets hidden in your blood. Still more questions for you to answer. You didn't hurt the woman...you didn't hurt the girl...what about the fires? The vampire growled, tightened his grip, and drank more deeply from his prey.

GM Ethan Pfeffner's face had been twisted into a grimace of pain and terror for the last couple of minutes, but when Dead Head lay on the ground before him, begging for aid, that grimace faded into a sadistic grin. He grabbed a pipe wrench that one of his fellow fratboys had discarded while fleeing up off the ground, and swung it at Dead Head's skull. "Help this, FREAK!" The swing was wild and unsure, and Dead Head was able to duck under it. The blue glowing man floated around the corner, out from the second alley. When he saw Pfeffner, he moaned and raised his hands up toward the fratboy. His eyes glowed brighter, and a similar blue aura appeared around Pfeffner. The floating man's glow turned from blue to red. Pfeffner choked, gurgled, and flailed his arms. His skin faded from tanned to pale and jaundiced, and it pulled tight around his bones as most of the fat and muscle under it shrank and vanished. In a couple of seconds, he went from looking like a magazine cover model to looking like he'd just survived a famine. He screamed, turned around, and started running away.

Mister Strix After tending to the infected hospital workers to the extent of modern medical science, Mister Strix had retreated to the club president's personal office, where copies of many of the same tomes Dead Head had consulted in the library could be found on his shelves. He had several of them open on his desk, with a notepad and a pen sitting motionless under his hand while he read the same pages several times. The name kept popping up like a set of floodlights in the front of his mind, blinding him to all else. Adriana. Dead Head and Wadjet heard a tiger's roar from the other side of the doors, and the crash of books flying across the room in several directions at once as an arm lashed out with superhuman strength to clear them from the desk. One of them hit the door. When Dead Head opened the door, he saw Strix sitting at his desk, his cowl pulled off his head, his face buried in his hands and a mop of dark hair, blood leaking between his chalk-white fingers. His head slowly rose from his hands. Blood was streaked around his black eyes, which glared at Wadjet. "...You?! What the hell are you doing here? Where's Horus?"

So what do we see of the inside from the roof?

@Avenger Assembled For the Mind Reading: What things does Wadjet fear?

GM The zombie butler's yellowed and bloodshot eyes widened and he leaned back on his feet when Wadjet chambered the round in her rifle. He raised a fist to cover his mouth and cleared his throat. "Begging your paaahhhrrrdon, Miss, but that would beee mossst improper. Our employer gave spessscific instructionsss to essscort you to hisss office immeeediately upon your arrival. Weee bring guesssts to him, if he chooooossses to receive them. We do not drag him away from hisss affairsss and demand that he attend to the whimsss of othersss. He is the president of the Twilight Lodge, the cussstodian of our fates, not some guttersnipe to be thrown a half-penny and sssent on an errand. If it would make you feeeeelllll more comfortable, then by all meansss, keep your weapon at the ready. With none of the mortal membersss of the Lodge currently in rezzzsidence, you will harm no one sssave for yourssself. Now, shall you accompany me, or shall I relay the messsssage to my employer that his guest has left the premissses?"

Fratboy Constitution checks (DC20): 25, 29. They both come back to life. Dead Head gets a Hero Point. Grim Diddle attacks Strix again with his Paralyze effect. Attack roll (DC14): 11. Even with Strix flat-footed, he misses. Initiative & Conditions Summary Woodchuck Man: 27, Pinned, Sickened, Nauseated, Helpless Ethan Pfeffner, Fratboy #1: 20, Bruised, Injured, Shaken, Intimidated Fratboy #2: 20, Bruised, Injured, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Shaken, Prone Fratboy #3: 20, Bruised x2, Injured x2, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Dying, Shaken, Prone Fratboy #4: 20, Bruised x3, Injured x3, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Shaken, Frightened, Prone Fratboy #5: 20, Shaken, Frightened, Panicked Fratboy #6: 20, Shaken, Frightened, Panicked [Other]: 19, Unharmed Mister Strix: 12, 0HP, Injured, Fatigued, Grappling Dead Head: 11, 1HP, Exhausted Fire: Out Grim Diddle: 4, Unharmed Homeless Man: -, Helpless, Bruised, Injured End of round. Next round: Woodchuck Man: DC18 Will save to break free from the Nauseate effect, at +1: 8. He's still Helpless. On his turn, Strix regenerates the Injury he'd inflicted. Ethan Pfeffner, Fratboy #1: Since he's Intimidated, he'll delay his actions to do what Dead Head tells him to do. Fratboys #2-4: Unconscious (but breathing!). Strix: Free Action: Maintain the grapple. Move Action: Move out of his current alley back toward Dead Head and into the original alley, dragging the Woodchuck Man along. Since the Woodchuck Man is Helpless, he doesn't get to resist. Strix has more than enough Strength and Speed. Standard Action: He'll renew his grapple and the Nauseate + Mind Reading. Strix's Mind Reading check: 16. Woodchuck Man's Will save: 9. Not enough to beat the Nauseate or the Mind Reading. Strix gets another question: "Then who did?" Initiative & Conditions Summary Woodchuck Man: 27, Pinned, Sickened, Nauseated, Helpless Ethan Pfeffner, Fratboy #1: 20, Bruised, Injured, Shaken, Intimidated Fratboy #2: 20, Bruised, Injured, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Shaken, Prone Fratboy #3: 20, Bruised x2, Injured x2, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Dying, Shaken, Prone Fratboy #4: 20, Bruised x3, Injured x3, Staggered, Disabled, Unconscious, Shaken, Frightened, Prone Fratboy #5: 20, Shaken, Frightened, Panicked Fratboy #6: 20, Shaken, Frightened, Panicked [Other]: 19, Unharmed Mister Strix: 12, 0HP, Fatigued, Grappling Dead Head: 11, 1HP, Exhausted Fire: Out Grim Diddle: 4, Unharmed Homeless Man: -, Helpless, Bruised, Injured Dead Head is up.

Mister Strix Mister Strix ignored the blue glowing man's feeble attempts to pierce the fortress walls of his mind. He lifted his fangs from the Woodchuck Man's neck long enough to drag him around the corner, past Dead Head and the fratboys and back into the alley where they all had first met. The bottom half of his face was covered in sticky scarlet. Once he reached that first alley, he clamped his jaw back onto the Woodchuck Man's throat and started sipping his blood and sifting through its psychic resonance again. If you didn't hurt her, then who did?

GM The eyes and mouths of the two dead fratboys burst open, and beams of the same blue-green light shot out from them as they gasped. Dead Head had caught their souls on their way out the door and brought them back inside. Their heads eased back down onto the concrete and their eyes closed again, but they were breathing. The blue glowing man continued to try to mentally "squeeze" Mister Strix's brain, but he was distracted and terrified, so his grip was weak. The Woodchuck man continued to hang limply in Strix's arms, overwhelmed with euphoria. He purred and drooled.

@Gizmo @trollthumper Were you guys going to post?

@alderwitch @Gizmo Do either of you have anything else you want to do in the IC, or have you gotten everything you wanted out of this interaction?

GM While Bombshell and Octoman swung between the rooftops of the West End, the paramedics and police officers on the scene sprinted over to the street two blocks away from the Lenkiewicz residence, where they found Josef Bankowski's unconscious body. He was shivering or spasming, but unresponsive. The paramedics heaved Bankowski up onto a stretcher. The police sergeant snarled to one of his officers, "Cuff him!" One of the paramedics tried to protest. "'Cuff him'? This man is DYING!" The sergeant remained firm. "This man took enough super-drugs to fly through NOT ONE, but TWO buildings, fall five stories down onto hard asphalt, and still give as good as he got against NOT ONE, but TWO superheroes! I don't care if there's a TAG on his TOE! CUFF. HIM." The paramedic relented, and one of the patrol officers cuffed Bankowski to his stretcher. Doctor Cooper Seidel had watched dispassionately through his binoculars from another rooftop as the Ben Wang's flesh warped and shifted to form a superhero costume. He sat up and leaned in with greater interest when hundreds of feet of tentacle spooled out from inside the boy's body. He muttered a few curses to himself as he ran back downstairs to his van, hurriedly sliding his baseball cap and sunglasses back on. He'd lost sight of the boy by the time he reached his car, so he turned his radio to the emergency bands. He guessed correctly that the home invasion would draw the boy's attention, and he got there in time to watch Wang swing into the window, and then go flying out the window and through two buildings less than a minute later. He slipped out of his van wearing a stolen CSI uniform and holding a camera and a sample kit. He creeped up to the scene and started taking pictures, collecting samples, and eavesdropping. He slipped back to his van and drove away before anyone questioned his presence.

Mister Strix The man in white raised an eyebrow. "Freedom City? You're from Freedom City?" He scowled. "Is this your first time in Bedlam?" He'd met a group of superheroes from Freedom City last year, when they worked a case that brought them to Bedlam. World-class professionals, the best at their trade. But they weren't prepared for Bedlam. It didn't break them. It couldn't. It's beneath them. But it shook them. Even Burt here seemed to have trouble adjusting, trouble accepting this place for what it is. There are lives at stake here, dammit. We don't have time to babysit another wide-eyed ingenue from Superhero Sesame Street. "The 'plan' is to head toward Hardwick Park. Not just the neighborhood, the actual park. The closer we get, the better chance we have of running into the Mara or one of their vassal-gangs. We'll ask questions, they'll start a fight, and we'll finish it. Take whatever form of transportation you prefer. I'll stick to the rooftops, and I'll keep up."

Mister Strix The man in white rose to his feet and stepped back into the room, his confident stride and fluid movements indicating that his previous superhuman vigor had been restored. He wiped a stray drop of blood from his mouth onto the knuckles of his white fingerless glove, staining it crimson. "Whatever it was that possessed these people is gone now. Their blood is normal." And sweet. So sweet. They have so much more. One more drink couldn't hurrr-NO. "A wise man once said, 'When you seek revenge, be prepared to dig two graves'. I dug myself up out of one grave already. Bedlam is MY city. If this thing returns, then I'll be here to stop it. And if it comes down to it, you people will be here...to stop me." With that, the man in white evaporated into mist again, and flew out the door, leaving a gust of wind in his passing.

@Avenger Assembled Since she made her Notice check, feel free, if you want, to have Wadjet react to the sensation of having her mind invaded and read like the pages of a book in her next IC post. I'll save the illusions and fear for the next GM post. @Dr Archeville 30 on a Knowledge check tells Dead Head the following: Whether or not a vampire or any other undead creature retains its soul or is capable of being "good" varies from one type to the next, and vampires come in a wider variety than just about all other undead put together. Some of them literally and immediately lose their souls, while others lose them a piece at a time over the centuries, gradually desensitizing until acts they once considered unthinkable become routine. Sometimes it's really "you" in that undead body, sometimes it's a monster who just has your face and memories, and sometimes you're trapped in there with a monster who's calling all the shots. In this case, once Dead Head and Strix have a chance to compare notes, Dead Head will recognize the specific symptoms and manifestations they've both witnessed as indicating that these vampires belong to a bloodline known as "The Red Death". Red Death vampires don't have souls. The conversion process ends with the real person's soul being consumed and hollowed out. The vampire has their old memories and sense of self, but they're really just echoes. You're not looking at the person, you're looking at the thing which killed them. The victim's soul doesn't go on to any afterlife after the conversion. It's just destroyed. Red Death vampires are basically a highly contagious and sentient supernatural disease, functionally similar to ebola. The infection spreads through any fluid exchange, most commonly the vampire's bite. Once infected, it takes three days for the victim to transform into a vampire, whether they survive the infection or not, and they will be contagious the entire time. If they do survive the initial infection, then the conversion process will kill them, body and soul, at the end of the three-day gestation period. At the end of the three days, their body will "crash out", violently expelling geysers of infectious blood from every available orifice. If they are killed during the initial infection or after, then three days after the initial infection, then there will be no "crashing out", but their soul will still be consumed and they will rise. Roughly 0.1% of those infected will not crash out or turn after the three days. They will survive, and acquire a lifelong immunity, their body and soul having successfully fought off the infection. Red Death vampires are driven by instinct to feed and to spread their curse. They give no thought to issues of ecological balance. They do not care about reaching a point where they outnumber their prey. They are not solitary apex predators like Strix. They are a virus, and like any other virus, they wish only to feed and to spread. Fortunately, as the heroes have already observed, Red Death vampires are far less resilient than Strix's bloodline. They have basically all the weaknesses Strix has, except that decapitation and stakes through the heart kill them instantly instead of just incapacitating them. In game terms, the Red Death vampire curse is a Continuous (Lasting) duration Transform effect, at a power rank equal to the vampire's power level, with the Disease extra and the Incurable feat.