Avenger Assembled

Grass of all Blades PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 16 (+3) DEX 20 (+5) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+12 melee/+14 swords) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +15 Saves: 10 pp TOU +7 (+3 Con, +4 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +8 (+5 Dex, +3) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Bluff 8 (+9/+13) Climb 7 (+10) Intimidate 4 (+5) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Knowledge: Streetwise 5 (+5) Languages 2 (French, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (jaw harp) 4 (+5) Sense Motive 4 (+6) Stealth 10 (+15) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 20 pp Acrobatic Bluff, Attack Focus: Melee (6), Attack Specialization: Sword, Attractive, Dodge Focus (5), Equipment, Evasion, Luck, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 41 pp Immunity 6 (Aging, Disease, Poison, Suffocation, Starvation and Thirst) [6 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 4 [4 pp] Planty Array [24+1=25 pp] Damage 8 (Extras: Autofire, Penetrating) ‘plant sword’ AP: Teleport 7 (200 miles) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Easy, Progression [250 lbs], Turnabout) ‘walking through plants’ Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Acute Scent, Darkvision) [3 pp] Equipment: 5 pp Sword (Strike 3) (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty) costs abilities 30 + combat 28 + saves 13 + skills 18/72 + feats 20 + powers 41= 150 pts ----- Design Notes: This is what happens when Willow and Jack of all Blades decide to celebrate her moving into the Interceptors' backyard by getting busy. (Consider this a cautionary tale: don't get with a fertility being in the springtime. Or if you do, wrap it before you tap it.) Their son is a swordsman of great skill and a plant manipulator of no little prowess: I figure his primary 'blade' is some kind of hardened blade of grass, one that he uses with great finesse to cut his way into the toughest and most dangerous opponents. He carries a regular sword too, just in case some emergency happens: his dad was very good at the whole combat training thing. He's very sneaky and very fast, though like his mom he's not that great dealing with people. Not hard to look at, though! He'd fit in really well as a nature-themed swordsman, perhaps the ranger hero of your local park? Or maybe he works out in Wharton State Forest on the fringes of the city. He's not the sort of guy to take intrusions into his space lightly, at least if those intrusions are carried out with hostile intent. I think this guy works pretty well as a Badass Abnormal exemplar: take away his powers and put him in a tactical vest (or maybe buy some Defensive Roll with those points) and he'll still be one of the finest swordsmen in the world: with his power he has superhuman scent and can see in the dark, as befits someone with a superhuman connection to nature and strong relationship with acuity. He can teleport 200 miles at a step, letting him get around most of the Eastern Seaboard in just a few steps. Heck, he can even jump up to the orbital garden on the International Space Station or the Freedom League's own Lighthouse, though he'd really better get some Change Velocity on his Teleport if he wants to avoid terrible things happening in the process. He'd be a dangerous assassin and this build would make a great eco-themed bad guy; as it is he'd work great as a fast, tough hero. Switch the theme up however you want: with his ample powerbase, this guy could have a wide variety of themes. (And indeed, maybe he will: watch this space!) You can mix up his signature 'weapon' however you like; maybe he uses a few feet of solid ash as his own baseball bat, or maybe he's a ranged fighter with a plant-based bow and arrow! Don't go beyond the iconic comic book weapons, though. With the exception of halfway funny characters like the Green Sharpshooter above, your superhero shouldn't be running around carrying guns! Not even plant-themed guns, which would probably involve some kind of potato launcher. I dunno. Stick with this badass melee fighter with plant powers as an awesome backup, and you'll do just fine. One possible change might be to give him a Snare in his big array; as that's a lasting effect, he could tie people up with his plant powers and go to work with his flashing blade

"We tried to go to the other city-states and warn them to organize a planetary evacuation, but they didn't believe us!" said the old man, remembered agony in his reedy voice. "They...they thought we were trying to score against them in the old trade wars, that we would get them to send their ships away and strike against them. None of them would help, they wouldn't even try to save their own citizens. We didn't have the resources to move tens of millions of people into interstellar space, and we were alone, all alone...You have to understand, this was two thousand of your years ago, the Republic could barely defend its borders against the Grue, much less evacuate one planet at the edge of Republican space! So...so I told them we could contact another race for help in building a teleportation device. I had...I had heard that the Curator was a collector. Of rare species, of planets, of people...I used the neutrino column to contact one of his starships and plead for help. I offered him anything, everything, my life, all of our lives, if he would save us. And he...he replied, and he made a pledge to me. He said that if I would build his machines all around the city, that he would make sure that Tronik and its people never died."

Murdock tensed, neither pulling away nor relaxing, but after a moment did return the hug. He was solid to her embrace, and weirdly mechanical: his metal bones giving his body an inhuman consistency. When they were done, he spoke again. "I appreciate the sentiment, Mona. It is a good reminder to me that there are those who are capable of looking past appearances. I suppose you have some experience with that, yourself." Her outsize build certainly did make her an outstanding figure; she was, if anything, more likely to draw attention than he was.

The man rubbed his temples, a look of fatigue on his half-visible face. "It's so hard working here alone," he muttered, "so hard. There were going to be so very many of us, but the Curator betrayed me. He took the others, then scanned me for special study." He landed, and faced the two women squarely. "My name...my name is Leroj Gatz, and I am...I am a very old man." He took off his glasses, and behind them Miss A and Dragonfly could see how old he really was: he looked in his eighties at least, but who knew what that meant here? "Many, many hundreds of years ago, I was the chief scientist in charge of the Tronik neutrino column. When our star began to go nova, my colleagues and I realized we could never hope for help from the rest of the Republic. That was when...that was when I used our technology to contact a creature I had heard of only in legends. A computer with the brilliance and power of an entire world. You know him as the Curator."

Demeter PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 20 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 26 [16] (+8/+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Plant Control) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +6 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Bluff 12 (+20) Knowledge: Life Sciences 5 (+5) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 5 (+5) Notice 7 (+10) Language 1 (Greek) (Base: English) Perform (harp) 2 (+10) Profession (florist) 3 (+5) Sense Motive 6 (+8) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 15 pp All-Out Attack Distract (Bluff) Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 70 pp Enhanced CHA 10 [10 pp] Immunity 6 (aging, disease, poison, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [6 pp] Impervious TOU 5 [5 pp] Plant Control Array [22+2=24 pp] Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) 'grain bomb' AP: Dimensional Movement 2 (any Olympian dimension) and Teleport 7 (700 ft/200 miles) (PFs: Easy, Progression 2 [x500 lbs], Turnabout) 'plant-walking' AP: Snare 10 (PFs: Accurate 2) 'entangling vines' Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 19 (Bruised 3 [no action], Injured 6 [no action], Staggered 5 [standard action], Disabled 4 (5 minutes), Resurrection 1 [1 week]) (PF: Regrowth) [20 pp] Drawbacks: Vulnerable (fire) (common, moderate) [-3 pp] costs abilities 20 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 11/44 + feats 15 + powers 70 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts --- Design Notes: Never, never, never get drunk with an Olympian. Even if you trust them. I'm not saying they're all bad people, but (especially) if they're drunk too, even the most moral son or daughter of Olympus can get up to some pretty rowdy business. This is a PSA, folks. Unfortunately, Fleur de Joie skipped one day in 9th grade health class, and missed this very important announcement. One thing led to another, and Moira Morley reappeared in the mortal world just long enough to give Fleur de Joie and Dark Star her daughter by her. Wait, what? But the first rule of magic in dealing with the Greeks is of course "No backsies!", and the Olympian lockdown afterwards left them with few options and one squalling baby with a very pretty smile and bright green hair. Well, you know, these things do happen in Freedom City. How does it even work? OK, so this is a very, very pretty plant controller, with a divine and plant heritage inside her veins. I figure she's worried her mom a lot over the years; she's more stressful to deal with her than her less crazy kind of sister Amaryllis, but luckily her button-down parents in general have probably been nice enough to steer her down a decent path. She's got the usual tricks I give low-level plant controllers, but she's also an immortal and very, very persuasive, especially to men or ladies of a certain preference. I didn't give her plant-based Emotion Control because she's got Charisma to burn, but you can fluff her Enhanced Charisma as being the product of strategic plant manipulation. If you don't like that, going ahead and giving her the Emotion Control would also make a lot of sense. Minus the insane clown backstory, this would make a lot of sense as a sheet for the daughter of the goddess Demeter: perhaps she had herself summoned to Earth as a way of keeping tabs on the place, and decided that maybe another kid wouldn't get sucked into Hades and hook up with her brother. Demeter probably worries a lot about Persephone, for all that her daughter and Hades have come to an accommodation over the years, and planting a superhero loyal to her at ground-level is a good way to make sure she has an 'in' on finally rescuing her daughter. And maybe her grandkids! And wouldn't the sons and daughter of Hades be an interesting set of characters to have in the background in the Freedomverse...

Dragonclad PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 46 pp STR 30 [20] (+10/+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON 20 (+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+10 Blast) DEF: +8 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +13/28 Saves: 5 pp TOU +12 (+7 Protection, +5 Con) FORT +6 (+5 Con, +1) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+5 Wis, +1) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Climb 5 (+10) Craft: Mechanical 10 (+15) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 5 (+10) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 5 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 10 (+15) Medicine 5 (+10) Notice 5 (+10) Perform (drums) 5 (+5) Sense Motive 5 (+10) Survival 1 (+6) Feats: 5 pp Inventor Master Plan Power Attack Takedown Attack Speed of Thought Powers: 48 pp Device 2 (Magic Sword) (hard to lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [8 pp] -Strike 2 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Mighty, Precise, Subtle) Device 7 (Dragon Armor) (hard to lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [30 pp] -Blast 10 (PF: Accurate) [21+2=23] -AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Targeted Area [Cone]) (PF: Progression on Area) -AP: Enhanced STR 10 and Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 24 tons) (PF: Super-Breath) -Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4] -Impervious TOU 8 [8] Immunity 3 (disease, poison, starvation and thirst) [3 pp] Protection 7 [7 pp] costs abilities 46 + combat 32 + saves 5 + skills 14/56 + feats 5 + powers 48 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Dragonclad was born after his moms (Dragonfly and Ironclad) were forced to make a hasty relocation to Freedom's Reach after the Incident. (You know the one I mean). Though their tremendous technical expertise and formidable prowess meant the two young ladies were swiftly able to become quite powerful in the region (as well as to induce certain political changes in both the local monarch and the local dominant religion), they were both confronted with the problem of how to find partnership and companionship in a world where no one washes. Luckily, they had ways of dealing with that, and between one thing and another, their son Dragonclad was born. (Good old-fashioned magic super-science helps explain how two girls had a boy) They equipped him with a formidable battlesuit constructed via the mightiest magics and most powerful technologies they had learned to wield, armed him with a powerful sword carrying the power cosmic, and the doughty young genius went off to seek his fortune in a world he never made! OK, so this is my attempt at building a magic battlesuit: I think he's mostly OK? I figure he spends most of his time on your typical fantasy battlefield flying around and blasting people with his fire-breath: with his Flight and Impervious, he's essentially immune to mundane weapons on the ground. Since his suit is primarily technologically-based, what the locals interpret as firebreath is like as not some sort of cosmic energy blast or maybe just good old-fashioned napalm. Two glands in the mouth send your enemies south, as the dragons love to say. When sorely pressed, he enters melee with the help of a mighty sword that lets him cleave her way through his enemies: in a superheroic context, of course, he can do all that non-lethally, smashing mooks aside with a ridiculously over-sized sword and bringing down really tough opponents with the vigorous application of firebreath. Incidentally, I figure the immunities and protection are a result of her moms treating him in the womb so that he could survive in the really stinky world of Freedom's Reach. I really cannot emphasize how much even a vaguely realistic fantasy world would seem like a dirty hellhole to modern eyes. Luckily Freedom's Reach is a basically nice setting, where magic means women don't die in childbirth all the damn time, and where they've managed to bring in Venetian-style democracy rather than kneel under the lash of a king. (Absolute monarchies suck, kids. It gets really tough to watch Lord of the Rings with that in mind. Go democracy! This young fellow has the values of a modern world in a fantasy one, or maybe he's a Claremont student learning about the world his parents came from before he goes home again. He's here to drag these people into at least the 19th century.

Ring-Bearing Paragon Abilities: 30 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [16] (+10/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Blast/Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +17/+27 Max Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 32 r=8 pp Diplomacy 6 (+10) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 5 (+5) Languages 2 (Arabic, Latin) (Base: English) Notice 3 (+5) Perform (choral singing) 4 (+8) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 13 pp Attack Specialization: Blast 2 Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 4 Power Attack Quick Change 2 Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 67 pp Device 6 (Power Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [Family]) [25 pp] -Blast 10 [Dynamic] [20+1+2+2+2=28 pp] -DAP: Flight 10 (total of 11 [25000 MPH]) -DAP: Impervious TOU 10 -DAP: Super-Strength 10 (total of 11 [Heavy Load: ~1500 tons) -Space Flight 2 (2c) [2 pp] Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 3 (aging, starvation and thirst, sleep) (Flaw: Half-Effect) [2 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) [1 pp] Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp] ---------------------- Design Notes: Here's Cobalt Templar and Quo-Dis' daughter as a flying brick with a power ring. Not an easy build! (This would also be a respectable build if you were trying to make Sodam Yat, or his non-union non-DC universe equivalent.) She's not that tough right now. It takes a while for Ultimen to come into their full power, and even with human blood inside her (ugh!) she's just a kid. Granted she's a kid who can fly, lift cars, and punch through steel doors, but her older relatives can do some really crazy things. She's got a lot of years to develop yet. In the meantime, she gets by with her baby Ultiman powers as well as the power ring she inherited from her dad, one that lets her tap directly into the energy of the cosmos: sure she can't call on vril on her own yet, but on the other hand she can fly very fast, lift very heavy objects, and blast people across the room. With her ring's help, she can even fly up into space and have crazy adventures among the planets! (2c is fast! Very fast indeed. But it could be faster as things go) I figure she's had a pretty conventional childhood in some respects: she's a nice, if blunt person just like her mom and dad, she's real pretty, and she sings in the church choir. Isn't that a pretty sound? (I figure the Ultimen aren't really religious types; if only because their connection to vril gives them all a connection to the meaning of the universe. You don't really get excited about the source of all things if you hang out with it all the time and you've known it since you were a little kid) In other respects, of course, she's been not conventional at all: she's been a globe-trotting adventurer, flying around from archeological site to archeological site (her power ring saves on air fare, that's for sure!) for many crazy adventures! One day she's fighting monsters from the depths of reality with her mom; one day she's fighting Zombie Dan Brown and his army of Implausible Zombie Priests! Either way it's a pretty good life when your parents are superheroes! As mentioned above, I had to cut the massively overbuilt Ultiman archetype for this one given everything going on with it: if you're attracted to playing a conventional Ultiman, look upthread for a regular archetype that I built as something that's a little more representative and a lot more playable, at least compared to the book Ultiman Exile archetype. I think this build would work in multiple contexts: maybe this is a superpowered Lor who has come to Earth to seek her fortune, bearing her mighty alien heritage and a powerful cosmic artifact. Perhaps she's the last of her people, shot to Earth with a glowing ring in the rocket with her that is the last inheritance of her race? This would also work fine as any other sort of archetype mashup, given that she's basically Supergirl with Green Lantern's ring. The idea of playing an heir to a superheroic legacy is a fun one, especially if your parents are still there... costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 8/32 + feats 13 + powers 67 = 150 pts

Rock Star PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +10/+19 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+3 Ref, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Bluff 7 (+10) Intimidate 7 (+10) Knowledge Pop Culture 10 (+10) Languages 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (DJ) 7 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 6, Elusive Target, Evasion, Improved Initiative, Luck, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 62 pp Music Array [32+3=35 pp] Damage 10 (Extras: Area [Cone], Selective) 'killer chords' AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extra: Area [Cone]) (Flaw: Sense-Dependent [auditory]) (PFs: Insidious, Subtle) 'dope beats' AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Impervious TOU 8 and Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) 'mighty ax' AP: Illusion 10 (visual and auditory) (PFs: Progression 2 [25 ft]) 'setting the scene' Flight 6 (500 MPH) (PF: Moving Feint) [13 pp] Immunity 4 (aging, disease, poison, temporal effects) [4 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) [1 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Accurate Analytical Hearing) [3 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 62 = 150 pts - Design Notes: Here's Breakdown and Zephyr's kid as a PL 10 starting hero. It's really too bad we didn't see this fellow in play, as I for one would have enjoyed the threads that would have resulted from his conception. Anyway, he's a blaster and sonic controller. Flying around at nearly the speed of sound (with Flight 6, he goes about Mach 1 at sea level as a move action), he blasts people with waves of powerful sound and music, or just punches them in the face with the power of rock and roll behind him. I deliberately didn't give him any Dazzle: the man is a DJ and blowing out people's eardrums is not what you're supposed to do in that profession even if you're a superhero in combat. What kind of rock star brags about deafening people, even bad guys? Instead he has waves of powerful sound that he can use to clear a room with the sheer power of his music, visual and auditory illusions that make a great backdrop to his work. I really don't like Arrays of Alternate Forms: they really are one of those things that you should not play in a setting where people are usually held to a common set of rules. And even if they aren't, well, you shouldn't go out of your way to annoy the GM! His big array is a decent compromise, given that his stats only change a little: in particular, his saves and TOU doesn't change, it just varies whether he's doing damage with unarmed strikes or musical blasts. I figure some of his powers come from his mother's phenomenal command of temporal energy: that's why he shares her immunity to temporal effects. Might he spend a while in his manhood traveling from era to era to learn music alongside the various greats? If so, he should hook up with Freedom City's own Bluesman, a jazz-playing two-fisted pulp hero from the 1920s, and one of the first black heroes in Freedom City. Minus the connection to PCs, I think this would work just fine as a music-based hero. If you don't like the (pretty generic) rock/club music theme I've given this guy, feel free to sharpen his skills and powers in whatever direction you want. Consider making a country/western themed hero, or a metalhead! You could make this an international hero if you want, perhaps inspired by the metal scene of Botswana. Music really is international and immortal: that's why this guy can go everywhere, and why you never really can kill him off. Bluenoses may sneer, haters may hate, but the sheer power of human creativity expressed in song and dance is about as heroic as you can get!

Okay, you convinced me on the Variable Descriptor deal, and the skills are good! I've always thought that the various divine types should have skills relating to where they live. I doubt I could convincingly take you through a numbers audit, so...APPROVED

The voice sharpened and hardened at once, sounding cranky and a little tired. "Ah, you speak the other language...Travelers have come to my city before. They come to observe and to study, as the Centurion promised. Not to change the code! We are already facing a full-on memory crisis and now I have outsiders to deal with!" The owner of the voice appeared first in the code as a rapidly-launching Easter Egg before making an appearance in 'mid-air', hovering above the two women: the figure was a short, stocky man with an old man's body, dressed like any other citizen of Tronik, but in the familiar blue and yellow color scheme of the Centurion. "You have already changed one of my citizens permanently," he said irritably as he glared down at them. "Giving him powers and abilities far beyond those of his fellow citizens. What am I to make of that?" This man was a program too, but he was not like the surrounding code: he was almost completely alien, without even the familiar Lor hardwiring at the edges of Tronik's program.

It took Miss Americana only an instant to realize what had happened: a security program had been initiated in the block of code surrounding the building, one designed to encase errant code like she and Dragonfly. Though the program itself was not sentient, putting two and two together gave her four: it was vanishingly unlikely that she or Dragonfly had triggered some automatic defense given how careful they'd been so far. For this to go off, someone had had to trigger it! The lights were all coming on in the building, lightstrip glowing to life that cast the concrete warehouse into a glow as bright as a Freedom City park at high noon on a cloudless day. And then, from a dozen places along the wall, an alien voice boomed! "quisnam es vos quod quis es vos effectus hic?" Watching as she was, Miss A was able to see the real source of the voice: someone not far away was manipulating the building's wallscreens to speak, as if someone hacking the 'real' world had deigned to speak through a telephone. But this was no hacker; this was someone inside the program.

A quick onceover of the building soon revealed that only a few custodians were working inside the building at this late hour. Like most people in Freedom City, said cleaning staff was eager to be helpful to the young heroes, but they knew nothing about secret gambling hells or other conspiracies. One weary janitor did have one helpful tip: "Mister E" was almost certainly Mr. Henry Ellsworth, a junior executive with a noticeable penchant for gambling and an addiction to watching the various reality shows that broadcast superhero battle In! Living! Color! and hi-def.

Love the pictures: they really give you an artistic feel for the character. Are you sure Variable Descriptor 1 is really that helpful for you in terms of how many descriptors you get? Or am I misreading you and it's actually 2? No Ride/Survival/Climb? Or is that just a points-cost issue?

Player Name: AvengerAssembled Character Name: Freedom Angel Power Level: 11 (150/164PP) Trade-Offs: None Unspent PP: 14 Progress To Impervium Status: 14/150pp (Platinum status earned with Edge) In Brief: Angelic ambassador from a Heaven losing its connection to the temporal plane Alternate Identities: The Angel of Freedom, Heyzel (‘haze-el’) Identity: Public, though the general public does not believe Freedom Angel is actually an angel Birthplace: Heaven Occupation: Angel of freedom, superhero, humanitarian Affiliations: Abrahamic monotheism, the common fraternity of man Family: Jeanne d’Arc (Mother), Azazel (Father) Age: 578 (born 1432) Apparent Age: 33 Gender: Male Ethnicity: Indeterminate (looks Arabic to N. American eyes) Height: 5’10” Weight: 200 lbs. Eyes: Brown Hair: Black Description: With his pale brown skin, prominent Roman nose, glossy black hair in ringlets, and dark brown eyes, Heyzel is cast in the image of the children of a Near Eastern desert god. One would call his manner deceptively mild, if deception wasn’t so far from his nature. In person he is soft-spoken and easy to get along with and rarely raises his voice without a need. Only when suitably aroused to great passion does his angelic demeanor emerge: as his halo glows with impossible brightness and his eyes flash with emotion, it becomes readily apparent that _this_ is truly a child of Yahweh. His wings are fluffy and white, like an angel’s wings from a Victorian illustration, and quite soft to the touch: curving up above his head when open, they add another two feet or so to his height. In the civilian garb of button-down shirts and khakis he favors, they are the only clue (at least to mortal eyes) that he is anything other than a soft-spoken human being with a strong inner reserve. Power Descriptions: Freedom Angel goes into battle in Romanesque armor consisting of a red leather skirt and sandals, white round shield emblazoned with a red Florian cross, iron breastplate, and white undertunic and garments. He is armed with a spatha, three feet of steel crafted by holy craftsmen, burning with a perpetual white flame of truth. The sword cannot be taken from him, and he can at will banish it to have his hands free. The blade itself is engraved with a representation of the chi rho, the personal symbol of the Emperor Constantine the Great. He is a shining beacon to all who stand with him on the field, his flaming sword and burning halo visible from miles off. He lacks the flashy powers of his more powerful brothers and sisters, but with his unflappable courage and ever-sharp sword, he makes up for that lack by blood and sweat. History: Somewhere, far away from here, there are beautiful places where good people go to pass into a joyful eternity. As there are infinite souls, there are infinite such planes, but the most famous of course is Heaven: the joyful place where those who have loved truly and kept their faith alive in darkest times are reunited with each other amidst the shining glory of the divine. It is a place of safety and magnificent wonders, a place where the joys of the world are lived forever more. There children play happily in beautiful ponds and streams, here men and women work together to build communities of love and harmony, where no one ever gets sick and no one is ever claimed by age. The angels guard this place, shepherding the children and grandchildren of Abraham and Sarah as the Blessed enjoy their magnificent Hereafter, under the personal rule of Gabriel, the right hand of God. Many of them were once blessed souls themselves, imbued with the power of angels for their goodness and mercy, bearing children together to carry on their divinely appointed mission. Heyzel was born from such a union centuries ago as we count it, his parents chosen by the Archangel Gavriel to carry forth the legacy of the angels. The angel Heyzel grew up with a fiery determination to see the world which his mother spoke about so admiringly (she’d been a woman of adventure and passion in her youth), and a desire to right the many wrongs of the Earth. But the angels were not the crusaders they had once been: they are defenders now, warriors against the machinations of the Adversary and his pawns among the so-called pagan gods. It was only as Heyzel grew a little older that finally he learned the secret of the angels, the great trust they'd been given and the fear that tugged at each and every pure soul. The truth was that the Logos, the Divine Word, had not been heard in Heaven for centuries. Gabriel had spoken for the Word as best he could, but the angels had not carried a direct connection to the Divine since the year 535 of the Common Era. None of the angels knew why the Divine had departed, only that it had. What did it mean that the Creator had abandoned his creation, appearing only in signs and miracles, never speaking to the Faithful? It was a mystery, and one that the young angel vowed to solve. Winning a personal audience with Gabriel, Heyzel persuaded the Archangel to dispatch him as an ambassador to the world below, a champion of righteousness and symbol of the justice and goodness of Heaven, who would at the same time seek out allies in the world below to tease out what had befallen the Almighty. It was a powerful burden to bear, but with the Sword of Truth and Shield of Faith in hand, Heyzel was ready to adventure in the world below. And so he did, fighting alongside the Freedom League and friends in Freedom City, until some month ago he was forced to make a hasty return home. Personality & Motivation: Heyzel is a man of deep faith and conviction, a creature of near-absolute moral certainty and righteousness. This has made his discovery of the grey areas of the world deeply depressing for him, and redoubled his desire to make the world a better place. He is ultimately young, a man looking to find his place in a world that embraces him as an agent of the Lord without any understanding of righteousness. Ever the diplomat, he does his best to talk a fight down whenever engaged in combat with mortals. He never lies, never cheats, and always works for the good. But as demons and monsters alike have discovered, nice is different than good. Complications: Cannot Lie: Heyzel cannot lie. In fact, it would not occur to him to try. This does not always mean, however, that he must always tell the truth. Diplomat: Heyzel is a peacemaker who seeks to avoid conflict with any but obvious demons. The GM can feel free to have Heyzel spend a standard action trying to talk an enemy down rather than directly engaging them in battle. Enemies: As the most powerful angel openly active in the Prime Material Realm, the angel of Freedom is a natural target for the infernalists and demons of the world. There are also those who might call themselves his theological allies who object to his message. Legacy: Though he knows it’s silly, Heyzel feels a certain obligation to the historical memory of his mother’s time on Earth, and if France, Roman Catholicism, or the image of young women were threatened, he would drop all but the most urgent matters to go deal with such matters. Rivalry: Yahweh has won. Though He is elsewhere and his agents all but powerless directly on Earth, the worship of the old gods has been broken across the globe. Heyzel has an uncharitable view of the so-called pagan gods, and they and their worshippers are likely inclined to feel the same. The GM can feel free to introduce a complication there whenever it seems likely. Symbol: Freedom Angel is a symbol to all Abrahamic religions (and others as well), for all that the worship of the Creator does not match the full dogma of any of those faiths. His relationship with believers of those faiths can be complicated, and well worth an HP at the GM’s discretion. NOTES Despite the name, Freedom Angel's flaming sword has the descriptors (slashing/holy). His Feature is mechanically Immunity 2 (Bluff check) with the Flaw (not in combat; i.e., he can still be Feinted and Tricked) Abilities: 50 pp STR: 22 (+6) DEX: 16 (+3) CON: 20 (+5) INT: 10 (+0) WIS: 22 (+6) CHA: 20 (+5) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+10 melee) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +16 Knockback: -5 Saves: 11 pp TOU: +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT: +10 (+5 Con, +5) REF: +5 (+3 Ref, +2) WILL: +10 (+6 Wis, +4) Skills: 17 pp=68 r Diplomacy 10 (+15)*, Intimidate 10 (+15)*, Knowledge (arcane lore) 5 (+5), Knowledge (history) 5 (+5), Knowledge (theology and philosophy) 10 (+10), Notice 14 (+20)*, Sense Motive 14 (+20)*, Feats: 21 pp Attack Focus (melee) 6, Dodge Focus 6, Fearless, Interpose, Luck, Skill Mastery (Diplomacy, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle, Takedown Attack, Ultimate Save (Will), Ultimate Skill (Diplomacy), Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 34 pp Comprehend 2 (languages 2 [speak and understand one at a time]) [4 pp], 'Tongue of Babel' Feature 1 (Cannot Be Lied To) [1 pp] 'angelic wisdom' Flight 3 (50 MPH; Drawback: Power Loss [Restrainable] {uncommon, minor} [5 pp] 'winged' Immunity 7 (aging, disease, poison, sleep, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [7 pp] 'angelic body' Light Control 1 (5 ft; Flaw: Range [Touch]) 'halo' [1 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp], 'divine armor' Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week; PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] 'immortal soul' Strike 4 (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Mighty) [7 pp] ‘flaming sword’' Super-Senses 1 (Infernal Awareness [mental]) [1 pp] Totals: Abilities 50 + Skills 17 (68 ranks) + Feats 21 + Powers 34 + Combat 16 + Saves 11 = 150/164pp

"Yes. Yes, it is." Harrier turned again and gave her that look. "I have been in therapy before, Mona. Beneath the Silver Tree on the world of the Furions, ancient sages of cosmic power probed my mind to tell me I was innocent of the blood of uncountable billions on my hands. That the megagenocides I have seen were witnessed by another being wearing my body and mind, not by me. In Freedom City, Lady Liberty has spoken with me about why I have not taken my own life to escape decades of memories and a world that, if it knew my true face, would surely..." He looked away for a moment, then back at Mona. "I live with it, with all of it, because I am the only one who can. No one else remembers those gone-away worlds. No one else remembers how they lived, and how they died...no one else recalls the Black Ghetto of Nihilor, or the life of proles gone so many years now. I live with this, with all that I am, on this bright sunny day because if I die, then it is all for nothing. All those worlds are dead even in memory. And my life, nothing but a tragedy with no meaning. I choose to have meaning. I choose to be a hero, so that others can have such. And I choose...today. This place, this life."

Wisp left herself so vulnerable, in fact, that she barely had time to notice the masked man erupted at her from the wrecked Dippin' Dots stand. "Give you a glorious gutting, girl!" called Fawkes, his twin flashing blades just missing the teen teleporter's tender flesh as their slashing edges whizzed close enough to her face that she could feel the whiff of air. If not for her preternatural speed, she might have been cut like a varsity quarterback with a broken leg. Fawkes cursed as he missed, rolling up from his dive and back on his feet, still ready for action. It looked like a dark time for the plucky young heroes...

Guy Fawkes: Move Action: Guy Fawkes move to within melee range of Wisp Move Action: He'll surge (take an HP, Azuth) and use his Fast Startle: DC 26 Intimidate check. Standard Action: He attacks her. (Too bad about wasting that nat-20 from his readied action: that darn high Stealth worked against him. ) 19 Okay, so he'll hit her if she's startled, but miss otherwise. That's a DC 23 Tou save if he does hit.

"To see children at play, free of worry and fear, is always a fine thing. To see such unusual children, whose coming must have been so difficult, is even finer. This is the beginning of something remarkable, especially if others are resettling here." Caradoc nodded. "You will have a fine place for your child to grow up," said Caradoc, looking over at Fleur. She could just make out eyes through the slits in his helmet, but from what she'd seen of his Omegadrone armor, they were probably not his. "Will you raise your children here?" he asked her, "or remain in Freedom City?"

Luckily the security lockout in the militia meant that there were no panics on the street; the remarkable events in the oxygen factory were being handled by the military for the moment and not being broadcast to the civilian population. The ride on the hoverbus went smoothly enough, though the quiet Tronik commuters were somewhat roused to life when what looked like the local version of a soap opera was interrupted by a flicker across the wallscreens. But even that brief interruption didn't last long, and soon enough the two spectral programmers found themselves at their second destination: the hoverbus had taken them all the way to the edge of the island proper, where they could actually make out the alien green sky overhead and the curve of the red sun that forever sat at the horizon. Their target was a warehouse near the edge of the verdigris sea, its boxy shape just like one on Earth, for all that it loomed large enough to hold a supertanker. Inside, sure enough, once past the militia guards outside, there was a gigantic ship hovering in the grip of powerful magnets. No wonder they'd moved the boat away from the water: it was inside out! The entire structure, as large as a supertanker on Earth, had been completely and almost perfectly inverted by a flip in the structural matrix of its code, leaving it looking like something between an abstract sculpture and a Look Inside drawing. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, there was no sign of any mutant people: whether they weren't here yet, or had been and gone, there were no damaged people running around. Before they could go to work repairing the ship (since the program fault that had caused the inversion could easily spread through the 'magnetic field' and into the buildings around, it had to be done), something surprising happened: the doors slammed shut behind them. No, not shut: they were gone.

"When I was lost, Miss Americana found me," said Citizen, only needing to prevaricate a little. "She took me in, talked to me, and saved me, when it would have been so easy to just delete me, or rewrite me, or do any of the other things she could have done since under your laws I'm not even a person. When I was in the crucible, she pulled me out of the fire." He nodded at that sentiment, something he'd pulled out of one of the books he'd found online. "She built a house to live in in her computer and everything. She's really awesome. And yeah, she is...she's that pretty in person, too. Wow."

Behind his armor, Caradoc laughed, and he really meant it when confronted by these adorable little thing. "Yes, you are all very beautiful bees! Never have I seen creatures like you before!" And in a lifetime of horror and pain, encountering creatures with whom he had no unpleasant associations was a very pleasant thing. "Are they all like this?" he asked Fleur. "So full of joy at new things? Or is it only the children? Either way..." To the giant bee, he said, "Your children have been raised very well. You must be very proud of your hive!" Insect culture, at least, was one thing he knew well, though it sounded like these bees had adopted the human custom of their leader.

Harrier made sure to leave his contact information with the other heroes before departing, turning himself into Caradoc and then turning himself invisible before he roared off into the night sky to collect his thoughts. The ghosts of the past had risen up tonight in more ways than one, and the experience had been a deeply unsettling one. He flew for hours, higher and higher, until finally he could look below and see the curvature of the Earth below. How many times had he gazed below at burning planets and burning cities, and known only joy at Omega's will? I am no longer what I was. He thought, reminding himself of that over and over again. I am my own man, my own thing. But the ghosts of the past are not as quiet as I might have hoped. I can only hope I can be as strong next time.

With their weapons gone and the mutants seemingly cured, the militia guards suddenly didn't seem to know what to do with themselves. While one with uniform markings that probably made him a leader frantically placed a call to headquarters to explain the situation, one suddenly tore off his helmet, staring at the woman who'd until recently had completely transparent skin. "...Mom!?!" Heedless of the others and the shocked response from his own side, he suddenly ran to his mother, weeping, and embraced her; the search for rational explanations and fear of the unknown lost in the joy of the moment. That seemed to break the dam, and suddenly the militiamen were offering rations and help to the recent mutants, all staring in wonder at the reshaped world all around them.

Temporal Conqueror The Qajarite Shah is a mystery. To students of Freedom City’s history, his story is a familiar one: God of Gods and King of Kings, the Shah is lord and master of the galaxy in the year 4000! Dissatisfied with the mere mastery of stars and planets, the Shah has set himself the mighty goal of conquering Time! Itself! Again and again, the Shah and his mighty armies of power-suited, genetically engineered warriors have tossed themselves against the heroes of Freedom City. Possessing mighty weapons like plasma cannons, antigrav troop carriers, and warriors wielding everything from flaming swords to whirling chain-swords, the Shah and his armies have been a formidable threat at every appearance: in his powersuit, the Shah was the equal of the Centurion himself (though not, as the Man of Adamant graphically demonstrated to the Shah, his superior), while the mightiest of his personal guard, the Immortals, can fight most superheroes on even terms. The Shah is not a particularly imaginative conqueror: a direct ground invasion was defeated in the 1940s, an attempt to conquer the Earth from space in the early 1960s was subverted by the genius of Alexander Atom, a strike against the Lor defeated by Daedalus in the 1980s, and most recently the time-traveling Freedom League teamed up with the Patriot Regiment to crush the Shah’s invasion of the 1860s, Each time he has been outsmarted, outgeneraled, or simply crushed by the weight of superior power. Despite all this, he is a potent threat, particularly since his era (which he describes as simply “the time of LIGHT that came after the time of DARKNESS”, focal point for his “CRUSADE THROUGH TIME”) lies so far beyond the era of even the Freedom Legion that his technology is largely a ‘black box’ even to Freedom’s finest sciences. But why hasn’t he killed us all yet? It’s a logical question: surely someone with regular access to time travel and a galactic empire could simply pour never-ending waves of Space Warriors into the past, burying Freedom’s heroes in unstoppable waves of supermen and women from millennia in the future. Why hasn’t he dumped a nanite plague in the past to devour people with super-genes, or sent agents back to strangle the Centurion in his rocket, or any number of other simple, logical things that anyone with a time machine and no morals could do if they sought to crush their enemies in the womb? Granted, there have been collapses of civilization between our day and the Shah’s, but surely he could use his command of time travel to find out something. When directly confronted by these contradictions, he grows visibly enraged, booming that the “WEAK and FEEBLE” minds of the past could never understand a 10th-level intellect such as himself. With his combination of great power and complete lack of strategic forethought, he is a frustrating enigma for hero and villain alike. (Indeed, both Mastermind and Overshadow have sought the Shah out with feelers for an alliance over the decades, planning to steal and subvert his power for their own: the Shah, however, notably does not share his resources with others). Too, that our grandchildren’s distant descendants are evidently enslaved by a world-conquering tyrant, and an inept one at that, is certainly a depressing thought for any optimist about the nature of the human condition. The truth about the Shah is at once much better, and much worse, than anyone in Freedom City knows. The Qajarite Shah is no king, no god, particularly in his own era. In an age of universal prosperity and peace, where men, women, and the rest from a thousand different species live together in brotherhood across the Milky Way, the Shah is a freak: socially stunted and given to intellectual obsessions, the Shah lives in the lower dimensional reaches noosphere where he was born, still sharing space with the ancestral members of his birth plurality. Unable to function in ‘modern’ society, he turned his attention to the grim violence of the past, a dark era where there was only conflict and bloodshed! Deciding he could make himself a king in those past worlds, he used cloning banks and nanite fabricators to build himself an army of toy warriors, and again and again has used a temporal generator with access to the past of an alternate dimension (thee are fairly common for household use in the 4000s, given how easy they make waste disposal) to assault the past for the pleasure of his hindbrain. His legion of concubines are synthetic faux-intelligences that are the only members of the opposite sex who have ever shown any interest in him; his armies are so many toys created by the impossible super-science of the future, his ‘playing’ with them making him the subject of scorn and derision by his peers. The Shah of Shahs and King of Kings, like many so-called great conquerors, is ultimately a small, petty man in control of something much larger and more important than himself. If ever he came truly close to victory, the Shah would have no idea what to do with himself. The best lasting way to defeat the Shah near-permanently would be to send agents forward into the future to speak directly to the locals: true, the local authorities would do nothing to help inhabitants of an alternate world's past, but the Shah's embarrassing antics pose a serious problem for his birth-plurality in a culture where social esteem and tolerance are very important: one young man's obsession with violent imagery and conflict makes everyone involved look bad. The evidence for this will be easy to find: the Shah proudly boasts of his 'conquests' to his fellow social deviants, living for their praise and worship being one of the few things that gives his life meaning,. If the heroes can manage the trip to the distant future and navigate the bizarre, alien world of humanity at the cusp of the technological and social Singularity, they can end the Shah's campaign of terror with the man himself near-tears as the elders of his plurality take away his cloning vats and his temporal projector, all the while lamenting to each other about where they went wrong with this one. Oh, he'll storm and fuss about how this isn't over: one day he'll get out of his home noosphere and be his own man, one day he'll get his revenge on the past by leading an unstoppable army of warriors to crush all that lie before him and become a god! But in the end, he'll come up with excuse after excuse not to leave the noosphere, and he'll ultimately sink into the haze of virtual realities and hallucinogens that mark the typical deviants of the world of 4011.

Gumshoe PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 0 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON n/a (-) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 ranged/+14 pistol) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +6 Saves: 7 pp TOU +8 (+8 Protection) FORT n/a REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Bluff 10 (+10) Gather Info 5 (+5) Intimidate 5 (+5) Investigate 5 (+5) Knowledge: Streetwise 5 (+5) Language 1 (Italian) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Search 5 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 19 pp Attack Focus: Ranged 6, Attack Specialization: Pistol Dodge Focus 6, Fearless, Luck, Power Attack, Precise Shot, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 93 pp Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Mental Effects) [40 pp] Insubstantial 3 (Extra: Duration [Default] [+0]) (PF: Innate) [16 pp] Noir Array [18+1=19 pp] Blast 6 (Extra: Autofire) ‘pistol’ AP: Dimensional Movement 2 (any dimension with a ‘picture’ descriptor) Protection 8 [8 pp] Regeneration 5 (Recovery Bonus +0) (PF: Regrowth) [6 pp] Super-Senses 4 (Postcognition) (Limited: Medium [images]) [2 pp] Drawbacks: -6 pp Weakness (magnetic fields; Uncommon, Major [-1 all physical ability scores], per 1 minute, potentially lethal; -6pp) costs abilities 0 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 13/52 + feats 19 + powers 93 - drawbacks 6 = 150 pts ----------------- Design Notes: The detective was in the middle of doing his usual work, shaking down a few skells for information on what Nicky the Nose was doing in Canarsie the night the old man took a header into his own mansion's swimming pool, when suddenly there was a great flash of light and noise and he was elsewhere: standing in a darkened movie theater while gunsels in shiny union suits and dames with great gams battled it out right in front of him with crazy powers like something from a kiddie comic book, or even the Liberty League! Luckily he recognized Lady Liberty and figured out what was going on, and he pulled out his trusty .45 and put two slugs in what turned out to be a creation of some lowlife freak named Toy Boy and his Toon Gang. It was only later, when he sat down to talk with the heroes, that they got a good long look at him and realized something very, very strange was going on. Here's my build for the Gumshoe archetype from Instant Superheroes, a classic character from pulp comics who has been grafted onto superhero stories with mixed success. The idea here, based on Film Noir, one of my favorite characters from the Algernon Files, is that the Gumshoe is indeed a fictional private eye from a film serial from the 1940s (one that luckily included a mention of the Liberty League to give him a frame of reference) that got pulled into the real world thanks to the mighty magic of the mysterious being known as Quirk. (And yes, he is in black and white and sees the world that way too; treat his colorblindness as a Complication) As this is a little beyond the resources of even your typical super-scientist, the Gumshoe has been let loose on the streets to do what he does best: fight crime! Hey, it turns out you don't need Affects Corporeal on a Blast with Insubstantial 3. Always having to fight the urge to narrate his activities is probably a complication too, really. So the idea is that he is a movie image brought to life: he can shoot people with his gun (which hurts despite being made of some kind of crazy movie energy) and do some decent low-level PI work. Real bullets pass right through him, since he's just made of a flickering image that really should be on a screen there. He's conscious of his true 'nature' and can use it to his advantage: talking to images on the wall to see if they saw a guy pass through here just a few minutes ago, or duck into pictures on the wall for cover! (You could depict that last one as Concealment, depending on exactly how you want to play with the many points available in the array.) He's a sucker for a sob story or a dame with great gams, and maybe likes a little whiskey now and again. He's not Batman, but Batman isn't a living image straight off a movie screen, either!