Amelia

Initiative: 24. Standard Action: Acrobatic Bluff to feint. Take 10 with Skill Mastery for 25. Move Action: Demoralize as a move action at -5. Intimidation: 17.

Looks like I'll have to go through the motions before I can get any answers. Mister Strix took a deep, quiet breath to focus his senses, forcing the cacophony of heartbeats and footfalls and coughs and whispers of the surrounding crowd back into the background. Clever. If I lose, it damages the legend I'm trying to build. If I win, I publicly humiliate the local police. Oh well. Won't be the first time I've taken down a cop. "Don't hold back, Lieutenant" he growled. "Come at me with everything you have."

First piece of advice: Look at the way other character sheets are formatted. Most things are written as lists, not as sentences. Second: I recommend writing the powered-up values first, then the de-powered values. The former will be applicable far more often than the latter. So I'd write Str 30/10 (+10/+0) rather than the reverse. Those two things should make it easier for other people to read and understand your sheet at a glance, which is the main purpose of the character sheet. I don't think most GMs are going to want to make rolls once every 4 rounds to figure out which spirit is in control. It's probably best to leave it to the GM's discretion when the switch occurs. In general, when it comes to setting Complications, it's better to suggest possible mechanics for them than to dictate them. And you definitely won't get a Hero Point every time someone new takes over. As with any other Complication, you would only get a Hero Point if the switch actually hinders you in some way. Mechanical notes: Why is "Protection 4" giving "+3 Toughness?" Why wouldn't it give +4 Toughness? The skills don't seem to add up. For example, I see "Bluff 10 (+15)," but his Charisma bonus isn't +5, it's either +10 or +2. So shouldn't this be "Bluff 10 (+20/+12)?" The house rules allow everyone to use Accurate/All-Out/Defensive/Power Attack for +/-2 for free, without having the feat. You only need to have the feat if you want to shift by +/- 3-5. So depending on your plans regarding combat tactics, you may not need those feats. For less than the 3PP you're spending on those accelerated Feint/Taunt/Trick feats, you could just buy 5 more skill ranks, which would give you the same net benefit, and also a better skill bonus for non-combat checks. You're not hitting your PL caps for skill ranks yet, so it's an option. Also, you didn't actually buy the Taunt feat. Attack Specialization (Unarmed) doesn't add to your grapple bonus. It's for unarmed attacks for damage only. The only attack bonuses that add to your grapple bonus are base attack bonus, Attack Focus (Melee), and Attack Specialization (Grapple). I'd recommend ditching the Attack Specialization and just getting Attack Focus (Melee). The knockback resistance appears to be wrong. If he has Toughness 14 and 6 of is Impervious, then it should be 10. 14 - 6 = 8, 8 / 2 = 4, 4 + 6 = 10. I'm assuming that the "Chi" power listed here is the one from Ultimate Power. If that's the case, then you have to choose which version of it you have. It's either Healing (Flaws: Personal), or Boost (Any One Physical Ability, Flaws: Personal), 1PP/rank either way. I assume it's Healing, since Boost would violate your power level caps, but you have to specify. On the sword's Damage power, you don't have to specify that the Improved Critical applies to the Damage power. That's self-evident, since it's a power feat on the Damage power. And Penetrating is an extra, not a feat.

Also, sorry, I forgot to make this explicit: I assumed that, between Hide In Plain Sight, Skill Mastery with Stealth for an automatic 25, his smoke bombs, and Quick Change would combine to allow him to make it up to the ring unnoticed and make his grand entrance.

Let me know if anything I set the scene with contradicts anything you had in mind. I literally just Google Image Searched the park, and went to weather.com to find out what it's like in Chicago today.

Despite his best efforts, Brian didn't have much time to surveil the park. What little he did "see," he didn't like. One big wide-open space. Nothing taller than a tree for a mile in any direction. Less chance of property damage, but still surrounded by innocent people. So much moisture in the air, walking feels like swimming. Barely any heat from above at all. Sky must be overcast. But the weather reports say the sun doesn't go down for another hour. Never done this during the day before, and never with this much direct scrutiny. I doubt the usual costume will have the same impact. Brian wasn't carrying his white cane as he made his way through the park. Don't want to draw attention to myself...until I do. At 4:44PM, seemingly out of nowhere, a cloud of white smoke appeared at the edge of the fighting ring. Out of the smoke stepped a large man wearing a tailored silk business suit, all in white. The fabrics, the buttons, even the leather of his gloves and shoes, every piece of his outfit gleamed like ivory and alabaster. The cuff-links, buttons, and tie-tack were all shaped like tiny crescent moons. A black circle containing a white crescent moon was embroidered over the left breast of his jacket. A white mask, like a balaclava but without any eye-holes, covered his entire head. Large black teardrop-shapes around the eyes dominated the face of his mask. Small, yellow mirrored lenses covered what were presumably his eyes.

Mister Strix (5) Supreme Ultimate Competition: The Original (5)

Good, Mister Strix thought as his fingers caressed the face of the envelope. The name is spreading. He lifted the parcel up to his face and sniffed it before tearing it open. But this also means my movements are too consistent. I can't afford to be predictable. I can't afford to be careless. His mind raced as he ran his thumb across the card. Chicago. Of course. If they've heard of me, then they probably know that everyone who matters in this city wants me dead, yesterday. If they tried doing this in Bedlam, not only would the local syndicates want their cut, but they'd blow up the whole block if they thought I might be inside. But neither the Scarpias or the Gorganzuas have any friends in the Chicago families. Taking the bait would let me get close while hiding in plain sight. So much for not being careless. Within the hour, after a quick stop at home, Brian Brubaker was sitting in a Regency Crown taxi headed to the Bedlam "International" Airport, and a box of his "art supplies" was being over-nighted by FedEx to his hotel in Chicago. Last-minute bookings aren't cheap, and R.C. will overcharge me, especially when they find out I'm blind. No licenses, no meters, no rules. But I'm in a hurry. I need time to get the lay of the land before my "appointment." And the European galleries are still selling out, so for now, I can afford it. At least R.C. won't literally try to rob me, like a Yellow Cab driver might. And nobody else will get me to the airport faster. Garwood's people live in the Meadows, so unlike the fresh-off-the-boat rookies driving for everyone else, they actually know the way. I'll lose too much time in the air as it is. No direct flights to Chicago on Air Wisconsin. But I can fly to General Mitchell in Milwaukee, and switch to a real airline from there.

Thanks for the individual IC intro, but mine might need some tweaking. The person putting up his invitation probably wouldn't have reason to know it (unless it is one of the Shambala monks calling in a favor), but Mister Strix is blind. He wouldn't notice his name written on anything at a distance. He's a Daredevil knockoff, so the only way he can read text or "see" color on an object is if he's physically touching it.

Mister Strix would be using his vigilante name and keeping his mask on. He tries to guard his secret identity carefully.

Mister Strix is a PL9 martial artist (I don't know what sort of PL range you were thinking of), and he's about as "investigative" as it gets. He'd be unlikely to enter the tournament voluntarily, but I could see him getting caught investigating it and being forced to compete, if it's a sinister Enter The Dragon style affair. Alternately, one of the Shambala monks who trained him could get him to enter by calling in a favor (he owes them plenty). As for what could put him on its trail: His archenemy is a human trafficker who helps supply bodies to The Labyrinth for DNAscent experimentation (as well as more mundane slavery). So his usual investigations could naturally put him on the trail of an underground fighting circuit.

Frank raised an eyebrow. "You're kidding." Taylor shook her head. "No, seriously. 'Brian Brubaker.' Is he, like, your cousin, or...?" She trailed off. Frank's eyes widened, almost bulging out of his skull. "WHAT?! What the..." He grabbed Taylor's phone out of her hand, stared at it for a second, then shoved it against her chest. "WHAT...HOW...THE HELL?!" He turned away from her and started walking in half-circles, doubling back on himself. Taylor took half a step back and swallowed. "Frank, what's wron-" Frank pointed a finger at Taylor's face. "NOT NOW." He pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket, hit one of the speed-dial buttons, and brought it up to his ear as he stormed out of the room. "Hey, remember seven years ago, when MY BLIND SON VANISHED INTO THIN FREAKIN' AIR?!" His voice echoed from the adjacent rooms. "YEAH? YOU EVER FIGURE OUT HOW THE HELL HE DID THAT?! OH, YOU THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD?! YEAH, SO DID I! BUT HE ISN'T DEAD! NO, EINSTEIN, HE'S HERE, IN MY FREAKIN' CITY!" When Taylor heard the sound of glass shattering and wood breaking, she ran for the front door. "IN MY CITY, AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW HE'S ALIVE UNTIL I FIND OUT FROM MY DECORATOR! NOT MY SOLDIERS, NOT MY COPS, NOT DAPPER FREAKIN' DONNY, MY FREAKIN' DECORATOR!"

"Body horror is all the rage in Europe this year." Taylor didn't look up from her phone except to roll her eyes. Like most of the wealthy people of Bedlam City, Frank had more money than taste. "The beauty of the grotesque. You're lucky we could get our hands on this one. I had two offers on this piece in the time between when you bought it and when it arrived here. Apparently the artist's exhibitions in Paris and Barcelona both sold out." Frank grunted. "Hmph. What kinda mind comes up with this stuff?" He'd broken his fair share of faces over the years, mostly before his children were born, but he'd never turned someone inside out to play mix-and-match with their parts. Taylor tapped and swiped the screen of her phone a few times, still not looking up. "Some blind guy, a recluse, too tragically hip to show up to his own gallery openings. Says here...huh. That's weird." Frank took a couple steps forward and quietly wrapped his arm around Taylor's waist. "Weirder than this?" His other hand pointed a thumb over his shoulder back at the sculpture. "The shows were in Europe, so I just assumed he was European. But he's American. In fact, he lives right here, in Bedlam City." Frank chuckled. "Yeah, that makes sense. This is that kinda town. Even the fancy art's all about murder." Taylor finally looked up from her phone. She turned to face Frank. "Frank...his name's Brubaker."

Frank Brubaker stood in the northwest corner of his downstairs parlor, leaning in as he intently studied his interior decorator's latest acquisition. The marble pillar displayed a fired clay sculpture, a human bust in profile. The side of the face and neck facing out toward the room was open, as if the flesh had been peeled off. Inside, the skull was flipped in the opposite direction from where it should have rested. The shape of the head on the outside remained consistent with normal human anatomy, but the visible interior showed the vertebrae trailing down through the open mouth, while the esophagus and aorta twisted up under the teeth. "This is the kind of sick crap that passes for art these days?" His arms remained crossed in front of his chest as he turned around to face his decorator. Taylor was less than a year out of her Master's program, young and blonde, Frank's favorite kind of woman. He hadn't hesitated to play the sad widower angle for all it was worth, and he'd made sure to blur the lines between the professional and the personal as fast as he could. He smirked as he looked her up and down.

I'm operating under the assumption that it's functionally impossible for the Tattered Man to lie to Mister Strix, since TM's Bluff score is +3 and MS hits 30 on Sense Motive with Skill Mastery.

Mister Strix took an abrupt sniff of the air and tilted his head slightly in John's direction. No fluctuation in heartbeat. No extra sweat. Hormones, pheromones, all stable. He's telling the truth, or at least, the truth as he sees it. "If it's personal, not business, then the fire may not have been about destroying evidence. It might have just been overkill. You stab a stranger once. You stab a friend fifty times. Still leaves an untraceable killer and an unidentifiable victim. The first of many. Anyone who hates this much has more than one person on their hit list. No one gets this kind of power and stops using it."

"Not a popular assessment." Good. The name is spreading. It's starting. The man in white didn't look directly at either person when he talked. He spoke "at them" rather than "to them," over his shoulder. His head occasionally cocked to the side at an angle, like a dog listening to its owner. "The killer didn't leave a trail," he whispered, to seemingly no one in particular. "They didn't walk in here, like you did. They didn't walk out. They just appeared, right where they needed to be, created an impossible fire, and disappeared. They didn't touch anything. Either they had intimate knowledge of this building, or they were able to trace their target's exact location. Or both. The killer isn't just a pyrokinetic, but a teleporter as well. May also possess extra-sensory abilities. Almost unheard of for someone in that weight class to bother with Bedlam."

It's been a week and a half since the last IC post. What's the status of this thread?

Rep tables are here if anyone wants to make any checks. Skill Mastery with Stealth is DC25 Notice for Mister Strix to not pull a Batman on you. Skill Mastery with Notice hits DC30 for any relevant checks, and unless there's something stopping him, he'll take 10 on any applicable Search checks to hit DC25. He'll sniff around, feel up, and listen to as much of the crime scene as he can. If any Notice or Search checks reveal any clues, then he'll take 10 with Investigation to hit DC25, which is 10 higher than the DC15 required to collect a clue properly. That gives him a +2 circumstance bonus to the clue analysis, for which he'll also take 10 on the Investigation check, hitting DC27. His Feature allows him to analyze clues then and there at the scene, as if he had a laboratory (since he effectively is one). Not really mechanically relevant, since PC behavior can't be affected by interaction skills, but Intimidation check to big-dog everyone as he comes out of hiding: 17. Not very scary.

The carbon stench from the fire remnants wrestled with the cool salt air of the harbor outside inside Mister Strix's nose as he crept through the warehouse. Sounds like the lady with the trenchcoat has back-up somewhere. They must be in radio contact. It's not like she's talking to herself. But I should be able to hear the other voice coming through the speaker at this range. If she does have a radio in her ear, then it’s small, too small for my echolocation to make out. Maybe she has some kind of subdermal implant. Either way, that's fancy tech for...what, a private detective? Neither one is a plainclothes, or a gangster. Mister Strix didn't smell cordite on either of the people at the scene. Neither carried a gun. And neither one would be in here alone if they were. “You’re not cops,” he growled. The man in white stepped out of the shadows, his boots making as much noise as a gentle snowfall. Even from across the room, he could feel the lingering heat. He sniffed at the air a few times, and ran his fingers along various seemingly random surfaces. “People set fires like this thinking they’ll destroy all traces. But you can never get rid of every bread crumb in the trail between where you are and where you've been. You always leave something behind.“

Back in 2016, a guy who describes himself as "media activist crafting conscious memes" had a sickeningly narcissistic personal essay published by a few sites (at least one of which has since taken it down at his request because of the backlash). "Love Will Be The Death of Us: Notes On The End of My Marriage" is an (unintentionally) hilarious read by itself. But then another, better, more self-aware writer worked up a brilliant blow-by-blow parody, "Infidelity Will Be The Death Of My Marriage: The Unbelievably Brave Story Of One Incredibly Sensitive Man’s Intensely Personal Journey Towards Divorce." She coined the brilliant phrase "sad boner confessional" to describe this specific flavor of self-indulgent tripe. I couldn't make it through either piece without laughing out loud, multiple times. If you've ever put up with a friend or lover whose head seemed permanently lost up their own ass, then I think this will resonate with you like it did with me (I swear my last ex is this guy's opposite-sex clone). I'm tempted to turn this one into an Eye of Argon style party game where you pass a copy around the table and each person reads it out loud for as long as they can without cracking up.

The skinny young Latino man barely looked old enough to shave, let alone to have the several amateur prison tattoos Mister Strix felt as he ran his fingers along his arms. He was checking for track marks, and he found them in abundance. He pulled the man up to his feet. "What is your name?" The young man mumbled. "Cesar." "Cesar, did you do what these men said you did?" "Gotta eat, Man. No one else is hiring, you gotta do dirt." "Got to get more drugs you mean." "What else is there to do in this town?" "Cesar, did you hurt anyone?" "Huh?" Cesar looked up at Mister Strix's masked face for the first time. "When you robbed Mister Poplawski. Did you hurt anyone?" Cesar's heartbeat jumped. That's a "Yes." "What's that gotta do wit-" Mister Strix punched him in the solar plexus. He fell back to his knees, wheezing. Mister Strix grabbed Cesar by the throat and lifted him back up to his feet. "Give me the names of your friends, the ones who helped you with the robbery. I'll tell them the same thing I'm telling you: Get out of my city. Tonight." He pulled Cesar around, unlocked his cuffs, and dropped him back onto the sand. "If you're still in Bedlam tomorrow, then you become one of my special projects, too. If the Scarpias don't kill you first. Or if the Mara doesn't kill you to appease the Scarpias. This city doesn't need people like you." He turned back to the cops, still handcuffed down in the sand. "Any of you."

The other cop started yelling. "The Mob! It's the Mob! Who do ya think we're takin' orders from?" MacMillan growled at his partner. "Dammit, Gabe! Shut the hell up!" Mister Strix addressed MacMillan's partner, but his face stayed focused on MacMillan. "Scarpias or Gorganzuas?" Gabe almost couldn't breathe, he was talking so fast. "Scarpias! Scarpias! The boys, we do jobs for 'em sometimes. Hit a place ain't paid their protection money. Make someone into a missing person. Whatever they need!" "And this one?" "Stupid little junkie #@$% and his wetback friends knocked over Bernie Poplawski's jewelry shop. Guy pays protection money to the Scarpias. Never missed a month. Cops and capos buy our wives anniversary presents from his shop, fer chrissakes! Nobody messes with his shop! Orders came down from on high to make an example outta this little #@$%."

Mister Strix then knelt down next to the beaten cops, pulling their wallets and phones from their pockets. "Why were you going to kill him?" One of the cops groaned. "Go to Hell, Mask. Your type don't run things here." Mister Strix turned his back on the cop and thumbed through his wallet. "John MacMillan, 714 Waldron Street. Born March 7th, 1970." He turned back to Officer MacMillan, knelt down, and held the man's drivers license in front of his bruised face. "You will tell me why you tried to kill this man. You will tell me which syndicate pays you to run these little errands. You will tell me who else is in your gang. And then you will leave this city forever. I don't care if you go into Witness Protection or if you just disappear. But this town doesn't belong to your kind anymore. You will tell me what I want to know, because if you don't, I'll make you and your friend here my special project. These bones..." Mister Strix rested his knee down on MacMillan's broken thigh bone. MacMillan screamed. "...These bones take six weeks to heal. I'll mark my calendar. And six weeks to the day, I'll come back. I'll find you, at 714 Waldron Street. And I'll break them again. And I'll wait another six weeks, until you're all healed up, and then I'll do it again. And again. The people you work for will kill you if they find out you talked to me. They might just kill you anyway, since you're not useful while you're lying in bed with broken bones. But I won't kill you. I'll just keep hurting you. Forever."

The dull roar of the tides and the cops' own smug overconfidence distracted them from the pellet bouncing along the sand toward their feet. They didn't notice it until it exploded into a cloud of white smoke, so thick they couldn't see their hands in front of their faces. They screamed and cursed, pointing their guns in random directions. They didn't get a chance to get their bearings, or even to get a shot off, before the guns were knocked out of their hands, and their bones started to break. When the smoke cleared, both cops were lying prone on the sand, coughing and groaning, bound with their own handcuffs. Mister Strix stood over them, his face inclined downward but not directly pointed at either one. Both of their guns, their service pistols and their drop-pistols, were lying in a pile at his feet. He knelt down, methodically emptied the clips and cleared the chambers, then threw all four guns into the water, one after another. "You can't be trusted with these," he snarled. Then he pulled the cops' badges off their shirts. He turned his back on them for a moment, ran his fingers along the badges to read the numbers, and then turned back to the cops. "And you don't deserve these." He heaved the badges into the water as well.