Avenger Assembled

Tou vs 27: 28

"And I will remember you," croaked Aquaria, turning her upper torso to Leviathan to meet his gaze. Long after you are gone - if I am not killed. "Let us sing," she said simply, "of what was and what will be again-" she cast those great eyes upwards at the night sky, and in them Leviathan could see reflected the impossible blackness of the night. "when the stars are right."

"You should tour headquarters in Moscow the next time your family visits the old country," said Dimitri sociably. "There are some fine paintings there, going back to the days of the Great Patriotic War." He stayed with Russian as they spoke, but spoke slowly enough to make sure he wasn't overwhelming the young bilingual man. Most of the artists of those paintings were dead now, of course, as were most of their subjects, but dwelling on that would hardly serve his purpose today. The arrival of their appetizers brought about a break in the conversation, and as the boy tucked in with a Siberian bear's appetite, Frost sipped his tea and studied father and son. The older one didn't quite meet his eyes; he wondered how many generations the stories about him would survive in the old country. "So tell me, since you are learning at your school. What is a hero?"

Dimitri blinked - evidently not having expected what lay on the page. For a moment, his face was blank except for a burning intensity in his eyes - before that smile popped up again. "Ah yes, those were the days!" he declared cheerfully. "You should be careful, your school may say your tastes in entertainment are too blood-and-thunder for the young minds of Americans." He laughed and clapped Jack on the back, a manly punctuation that two men of his generation might give to each other. "But this is fine work," he said sincerely. "You have a fine eye." Frost hmmed, then said, "Balancing a career as an artist and an American superhero will not be easy, but all worth it for the rewards, eh?"

Character Soundtrack: Combat: Brothers in Arms, Fury Road Romance: Need You Now, Lady Antebellum At Play: X Gon' Give It To Ya, DMX At Work: Beast of America, Nico Vega

Lady Horus has already left and is going after them.

Online Research: The spot where you're going has been abandoned by private business since roughly the turn of the millennium. It's been used as a known supervillain stronghold from time to time in the last decade, but even they've largely moved on since the mid-2010s or so. Deep Ones. Deep Ones are problematic. They're a race of degenerate Atlanteans who live beneath the sea, worshiping strange gods and practicing unholy rites on each other. They've been at war with Atlanteans for centuries and they've invaded the surface world several times, either on their own or through third parties. They're predators who eat the bodies of the dead, both their own and those of other sentients, and they practice human sacrifice - and worse things, if you can trust the old stories. Rumor has it that they are an apocalyptic death cult who wait for the day when the stars will be right and the seas will cover the land, and the reign of their dark gods Dagon and Hydra can begin. It's hard to recognize Aquaria, or her horror at the violation of her people's legacy, in the predatory beasts SFX encounters on the page. But there are hints of other things - most of the accounts of Deep One barbarism come from stories of the Atlanteans who they've been warring against for centuries, or from the pages of deranged pulp fiction writers. There are pictures of beautiful, albeit censored psychedelic art art and recordings of half-heard songs of great power, like whalesong from a thousand throats, or frogsong from a vasty deep. Still, the carnage inflicted by Deep Ones when they invade is quite real - but on the other hand, they've done nothing to human beings that human beings haven't done to themselves...

Let's see - give me a Master Plan check and an Online Research check, unless you'd like to use your Computers skill mastery and just keep the 30 there, BC!

Summary sounds better.

"People will be afraid if I use them," Aquaria said in a soft, rumbling croak. "But if most people see you with them, it will not mean anything - except that someone strong is there." It would mean very much to Aquaria - but she wasn't going to say that in so many words to Jessie. "Some will know the signs you bear - and they will see that they don't have to be afraid." She hmmed to herself, a deep noise, reaching down to idly run her fingers over the trident's shaft, then smiled, slightly, keeping it in the center of her muzzle rather than across her whole face, feeling unaccountably nervous about this conversation. This wasn't even the hard part of this morning! --- "Aquaria requested that you join her, Singularity, and Phantom for a visit to a partially submerged Deep One site off the New Jersey coast today." Callie frowned as she spoke, looking skeptical of the whole enterprise as she sat behind her desk. Pseudo offered gently, "I don't think she can tell the ages of non-Deep Ones by sight. It's harder than you might think!" he added with a warm smile. "This is...not typical for first-year students at Claremont," Callie went on, "but by the same token, I'm not going to hold you back from this opportunity for professional and scientific inquiry. If you are interested, Pseudo has volunteered to act as your adult monitor. Are you interested?"

For his part, Woodsman was a little more hesitant - if only in the interest of playing fair. Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together...The kinds of tactics he'd have used playing with "What if we do this!" he called out, "three hits for the big guy, one for me, and we're out! Course same has to go for you!" he added, "maybe we both have to hit?" He kept a smile on his face, even if he didn't exactly feel it. He knelt down next to Jack as he talked, rolling up and making snowballs with the off-handed focus of a tactician.

APPROVED

Trust me, you'll like this better! =) And the alteration effect vulnerability comes from her transformation - it means she's relatively weak against effects that involve physical transformation.

Default is something Steve Kenson suggested on the ATT forums that we've adopted for characters who are naturally not like normal people in some way, but have the ability to counteract that. i.e. a ghost might be able to make herself solid through sheer force of will, but would fall back to normal when she stopped maintaining the power. Think of it as being like the mirror-image of Sustained. Don't feel bad about your sheet - the numbers may be tough but the concept is perfectly fine - and fun! Basically the alternate sheet is much more rules-friendly without pushing any weird buttons, much easier to read, doesn't stretch the limits of low attack and defense and the like, and is going to give you a much more satisfying play experience. Or so I think! Let me consult. So you are OK with me editing this into your sheet?

Ignoring his mother's protests, Woodsman went for Peyton and pulled her to safety along the path Robin had originally suggested to them, her trigger discipline keeping her from firing a stray shot as they both hit the dirt behind a wooden crate that held the stuff that had been used to mind-control Mr. Archer - a serious problem just a scant handful of minutes ago. Riley felt his high school concerns bleed away as he considered the tactical implications of a Feral Alkahest loose in Freedom City, with a whirling angry portal back to his homeworld just behind it. Mother and son didn't speak to each other; they didn't need to as Peyton aimed down her iron sights while Woodsman loaded his crossbow. Woodsman, a Woodsman, supposed to be more Woodsmen. Maybe the last one, if they failed. He was completely terrified. He was ready.

Everyone take an initial HP for the Alkahest's transformation. Woodsman: Woodsman spends a full-round action dragging his mother behind cover, taking cover himself. Nighthawk is up as soon as I post IC

Woodsman - 25 Nighthawk - 23 Woundmaker - 21 Frostbyte - 21 Solution - 18 Ardent - 18 Sparkler - 17 Goons - 14 Grim - 10 The Sandersons - 8 Peyton - 5 Cannibal Alkahest - 5 (bolded characters are not acting this turn)

When Alyia looked back, Anna had disappeared - the swinging ladies bathroom door suggesting that perhaps she'd taken her own suggestion about where to hide out. The crew at the door, when she opened it, were not the usual people with whom Paul did business. In leather jackets and denim, they looked a touch under-dressed for a Wisconsin winter - but from the look of fervent intensity in their eyes and the grins on their snaggle-toothed faces, the trio didn't seem to be feeling the cold. "Howdy there, young lady," said the leader of the group, a tall man with a weathered face and impressive mustache that had recently turned to grey. "Is yer boss around? The boys and I made a long ride in today and I need to make sure we're in the right spot!" "Hey, maybe she's his accountant!" laughed another. "Your boss do business with the Mafiya, honey?" asked the speaker, a shorter man with a greying black beard long enough to be tied into a 'tail' over his belly. "Cause we're lookin' to send a message to them Russkies about some business!" A few steps away, the room around her slowed to a near-crawl from her perspective, a silent, invisible Anna Cline watched the conversation play out - pulling one of Esperanza's ski masks down over her head as she did so.

"Nothing with great power," conceded Aquaria, who had to admit that her talk with Phantom had gone easier than she'd expected. She'd fully expected the Surfacer female to destroy most of the Deep One artifacts lest they "fall into the wrong hands", but most of what had been made would survive. If she had not been able to give it to its rightful owners, it would go where it was safe - and that was enough, until the stars were right. "Look at this!" she added, scooping up the trident and shield and presenting them to Jessie. "These are made enough for you to use," she croaked, a look of curious anticipation on her face as she offered the weapons to Jessie. The trident was cast in the rough edges that Jessie vaguely knew meant Deep One craftsmanship and not Atlantean, its golden surface made of one of those exotic undersea metals that could endure even superhuman strength. The shield was something different - there was a greenish-black spiral of inlaid metal inside the circular shape, and at the center of the spiral a golden sign that Jessie had seen tattooed on Aquaria's skin. "Do you want these?" - "Were you concerned about her nature?" asked Pseudo, but SFX had the feeling the question was coming from her headmistress as much as the Freedom League member. "You went above and beyond the call of duty yesterday - but there will never be a time that this school forces you to be a superhero, especially with someone that makes you uncomfortable or afraid. Do you want to continue working with Sea Devil and Phantom on this case?" Pseudo asked.

Aquaria was silent for a while after that, blinking her great dark eyes consideringly. "Some know, some do not. It is easier not to stop people screaming every time." She blinked again, then went on. "I was not in the armies that came to Freedom City those years ago. But I heard what happened." She exhaled, throat bulging. "The ones who came to the Surface, they had been told that the Surface would mean meat, and water, and blood - all the things that they did not have. It is what happens. I do not blame the people here for being frightened of me, but I do not want them to be frightened of me." She croaked softly, scrubbing a three fingered hand over the pointed surface of her face. "When the Atlanteans invaded, I was...I was happy," she admitted, feeling unguarded. "But it was Deep One priests behind the invasion - and everyone knows. Things here will not change. But I have those I love, and I have food every night. There are those who have it much worse."

"Ah, well, it is hard for a young man to be away from home for the first time," said Dimitri, beaming paternally. He reassured the waitress with a little wave, and ordered "another cup of this delicious tea." "You should have seen me at Moscow University as a young man; those were the days." Growing a moment more serious, he went on, "You are in a fine school, with fine teachers. I may have some disagreements with their methods from time to time, but they are fine people." He chatted with Jack for a while about his school as they waited for their meal, obviously sussing out the younger man about his feelings about his school and his fellow students. "And when school is over - what then?"

Just make the device thing a complication, if it's powering her ability to shrink down by thinking about it.

If this is something you want, I'll edit the sheet at the top of the thread with this.

Okay, here's the logic: 1. 32 feet is tall but not insanely tall - Growth 16 is just too high for a viable urban PC. 2. The duration on her Growth is now default - she can 'shrink' to human size to adventure alongside regular PCs, but she needs to grow to hit her caps in combat. She also grows back to her full size when knocked out, sleeping, or when she fails a Concentration check Basically this gives you a version of the sheet that gives you the character you want without it being too complex to have fun as a new person - and that's much more competent at the things she should be competent at.

Abilities: 6 + 0 + 18 + 0 + 0 +0 = 24 pp STR: 40 [16] (+15/+3) DEX: 10 (+0) CON: 40 [28] (+15/+9) INT: 10 (+0) WIS: 10 (+0) CHA: 10 (+0) Combat: 16 + 16 = 32 pp Init: +0 ATK: +8 (+5 w/size) (+4 ranged) DEF: +8 (+5 w/size, +1 Dodge Focus, +2 Flat-Footed) Knockback: -6/-24 Grapple: +13/+34 Saves: 0 + 5 + 10 = 15 pp TOU: +15/+9 [10 Imp] (+15 Con/+9 w/out Growth) FORT: +15/+9 (+15 Con/+9 w/out Growth) REF: +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL: +10 (+0 Wis, +10) Feats: 9 pp Attack Focus: Melee Dodge Focus Interpose Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Skills: 36R=9PP Concentration 8 (+8) Intimidate 8 (+8/+14 w/size) Notice 8 (+8) Sense Motive 8 (+8) Survival 4 (+4) Powers: 37 + 10 + 10 + 1 + 2 + 4 = 64 pp Growth 12 (Extra: Duration [Default] (+0), PF: Innate) [37 pp] Gargantuan (–4 ATK/DEF, +12 Grapple, -12 Stealth, +6 Intimidate, 32 ft high, 32K –250K lbs, 20 ft space, 15 ft reach,.+15 Str for carrying) Immunity 10 (aging, life support) [10PP] Impervious Toughness 10 [10PP] Speed 1 (10MPH/115 ft per move) [1PP] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2PP] Super-Strength 2 [4PP] Drawback: (-3 pp) Vulnerable (alteration effects) (Uncommon, Major [%200]) (-3 pp) Abilities (24) + Combat (32) + Saves (15) + Feats (9) + Skills (9) + Powers (64) - Drawback (3) = 150/150PP