Avenger Assembled

Protean 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 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +21 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 32 r=8 pp Bluff 6 (+10) Concentration 5 (+8) Disguise 0 (+4/+39) Language 1 (Russian) (Base: English) Perform (clarinet) 6 (+10) Notice 2 (+5) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Stealth 5 (+7) Feats: 13 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 4 Move-By Action Power Attack Quick Change Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 67 pp Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Sneaky Array [23+3=26 pp] Drain Wisdom 10 (Extra: Vampiric) (PFs: Precise, Reversible, Slow Fade) AP: Illusion 4 (all senses) (Extras: Duration [sustained], Selective) (Flaw: Phantasms) (PFs: Progression 2 [25 ft], Precise) AP: Insubstantial 4 (Extra: Progressive [+0]) AP: Morph 7 (same mass) (PFs: Covers Scent, Precise) Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 8/32 + feats 13 + powers 67 = 150 pts ---------------------------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Remember when Grimalkin kissed Atlas? Sure, we all do. Anyway, here's the child that was born as a result of that union. Fairies and Grue shouldn't mix, kids. But when they do, they make pretty OK babies! The Protean Paragon here flies around, bashing people in the face like her dad, but she's also got the incredible sneaky powers she inherited from her mom. She's really, really good at catching people flat-footed: her massive Morph lets her turn into anything and be damn near impossible to detect even for Notice specialists at her PL, while her Illusion is so good she can keep it up while in combat. (Sure, the DC to see through it isn't that high, but a well-placed Illusion is one you never even try to make the roll to avoid. You should never quite know who or what you're dealing with when interacting with the Protean Paragon, which is all for the best given the dual deceptions: Grue AND fae, at the very heart of her nature. If sorely pressed, she can fall back on her Grue heritage and grab you by the head to suck your brain energy out! It'll grow back, eventually, but in the meantime a foe with no WIS is an unconscious foe, and even if he stays on his feet, a guy with low WIS is one who'll have a much harder time seeing through all those Illusions and other tricks. Her Stealth is relatively low, she's more a deceiver than a sneak. Her skills in general could be higher, but I've gone with the idea that she has a lot of potential to grow; this is her quite early in her career! (Hence the fact that she's adventuring in her Claremont uniform, presumably...) If you want to get her more points, add a vulnerability or two: I could see her with a fae allergy to cold iron, or a Grue's potential problem with fire. You could combine the two, I guess, but really most people have a vulnerability to red-hot iron pressed against their flesh. Have her hang out with my Meta-Grue build upthread as sisters in Grueness, who know all about being judged by appearances. Luckily with her Morph and Illusion powers, her appearance can be just about whatever she wants! Grue-influenced PCs naturally have a lot of Enemies, both among humans and among their relatives in the stars. Grue may be Acceptable Targets, kind of, but those who carry their blood are just victims of circumstance. Such Complications make for great HP fonts: I can't stress enough how helpful those are to have in play! Stand up for the oppressed people and fight the power. Heck, maybe you could work up a plot of people with Grue blood in them running around and facing (entirely reasonable, but still bad) prejudice from the man on the street...

"Miss Americana gave me the day off," said Citizen with a little shrug. "So I thought I'd come out and see more of the city. I've gone walking around some, and flying, but I always seem to be doing something." He put his hands in his pockets, looking around. "I was telling Cobalt Templar that I don't have a lot of experience with schools like this one, and so he offered to take me on a tour. It's very impressive! I can't believe how much space you have," he marveled. "Wings do make a good stabilizer, especially beautiful ones. As for her size, personally, I think if I put the two of you together and divided by two, you'd add up to one normal-sized person." he added teasingly.

As the building began warping and changing around them, everyone began screaming! As well they might, really. It was all a wild confusion of the guards shouting at the mutants to stop, the mutants themselves pleading their innocence, even as the building began warping its way right back to normal all around them. Despite their fear, the militia guards weren't far gone enough to open fire on civilians, even mutants, pleading innocence: instead they watched as the building rearranged itself back to normal around the programs inside. At least until they began to change too...

"I do not have any flowers for you," admitted Harrier, "but..." He concentrated, and for a moment Fleur was worried he was about to carry out his graphic transformation right in front of poor fragile Bay-Bee! But instead, he turned into something else: in a showy flash of light, Murdock the man became a shining, gleaming knight! Fleur recognized Caradoc from stories she'd seen about the small population of heroes active outside Freedom City. "I can be a knight! And I can fly!" he added, the dragonshead on his back roaring to life. "Can you fly fast?"

"That I am allowed to live is a source of fascination for me," said Harrier, that flat look softened a little by honest wonder. "I bear the mark of the greatest enemy of humanity. Of all the humanities. And I am unique. Though records exist of other Omegadrones freed from the grip of the Coil, there are none who retain such indelible connections to what we once were." He ran his fingers lightly over the lines that ran over even his fingertips. "I am shown a mercy that I doubt very much I would ever have shown myself, and it fills me with wonder." At Fulcrum's words, he looked out over the arcadian picnic around them and replied with genuine honesty. "I look at this place and I imagine it as a charnel pit. I know how best to terrify the proles over there. I can imagine which would be the most effective to destroy to cow the others into submission." He struggled for words for a moment, then added, "It is a beautiful day. The food is good, and the company is pleasant. I feel happy."

World Devourer (For comparison) The Gorgon is the last great terrible work of the Preservers. Built as that mighty race was slipping towards the inevitable decay that comes to all empires, the Gorgon is perhaps best understood as the end of the cultural journey that began with scattering the humanities among the stars, then moved towards collecting the humanities (and much else beside) under the watchful, paranoid eye of the all-powerful Curator. (She has poor relations with the Curator, who has ‘poached’ her of several planets, but the two have united against pan-galactic threats that have threatened the great work of the Preservers.) The Gorgon thinks of herself as the ultimate Preserver (and indeed, that’s what she calls herself), traveling the universe and preserving planets, civilizations, whole stars from the ever-encroaching ravages of entropy. She is a famous enemy of the Terminus, one of the few entities in the multiverse who Omega genuinely...well, not fears, but one of the few entities whose potential actions he must be concerned with as he goes about his affairs. She loathes the touch of entropy, and will attack any planet showing its taint. Indeed, her near-miss with Earth in the mid-1960s helped alert the Freedom League to the threat posed by Omega. But the Gorgon, of course, poses a tremendous threat in her own right. She is called ‘destroyer of worlds’ in a hundred space-born languages, her terrifying visage a figure in space-monster stories across the Milky Way and beyond. She takes the form of a gigantic humanoid head cast in steel, her green-eyed visage and protruding rear horn perhaps a clue to what the Preservers themselves looked like, a gigantic head the size of the planet Earth itself. Surrounded by lashing ‘serpents’ as long as continents, she flies through space powered by a gravitic drive [which also help cut down on the tidal stresses caused by her passage] that lets her open wormholes to jump from star system to star system in an instant. When she arrives in orbit above a suitable planet (i.e., one that carries sentient life of a suitably advanced degree), she extends her serpents into the atmosphere and fires a package of powerful nanites. The ‘grey plague’ sweeps across the planetary surface within hours, transforming all life into a grey, unbreakable metal harder even than impervium, and within days the planet’s surface changes to that same grey substance as even the atmosphere is hardened into a nigh-unbreakable shell to preserve the specimens within. And then the Gorgon moves on, hunting for another planet to transform and preserve. How many planets has she transformed in this way? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Leaving behind only spheres of grey goo in her wake (spheres which, incidentally, swallow pirates and those who seek to plunder those 'preserved' worlds: she has very little tolerance for those who would lay hands upon her collection) where once green and brown orbs spun. The Gorgon is, as you might imagine, a formidable opponent. She has survived multiple space battles with the fleets of the various interstellar empires over the millennia, having fought in recent centuries the Grue, the Lor, and the Stellar Khanate in turn. (Indeed, her destruction of the Rhodian fleet off Lalande 21185 helped play a major role in the military and political shift between the First and Second Lor Republics, but that’s a story for another time.) She has been defeated on (very rare occasion), and each time retreats to lick her wounds somewhere her enemies cannot follow: perhaps the heart of a red giant. Each time the nanites at her core repair her wounds, each time she goes back out into space to continue her work: planets that have repulsed her before can expect to have her show a renewed interest in them. After all, any place that has such great power surely should be Preserved against the forces of the Terminus! Her last encounter with Earth came in 1964, when an encounter with the Silver Age Freedom League in the asteroid belt persuaded her to delay her plans for the Preservation of Sol's third planet. Said conversation remains off the record even today, but friends do remember that Daedalus began drawing up plans for a personal space vessel not long after sharing the true history of humanity with the grey monster of space. In addition to her powerful nanite packages, incredible energy reserves (though overheating forced her to retreat, a few centuries ago she absorbed, and was actually able to counter, the channelled power of an entire globular cluster by the local civilization), and formidable defenses (as mentioned above, she has fought and won battles against multiple space armadas, sometimes simultaneously), the Gorgon also has ‘children’. Honeycombed with passageways that possess Earth-normal gravity and oxygen atmospheres, the Gorgon is home to a uniquely mixed population made up of the descendants of refugees from multiple destroyed worlds. Having absorbed the beliefs of their mother, the people living in the Gorgon have come to believe that their mother is a savior of endangered worlds, and that those who seek to harm her enemies of the galaxy! They will defend her to the utmost, and they have access to high technology (force fields, energy weapons, and the more exotic things added to the mix over the centuries) in order to do so. In recent years, with the Khanate becoming active again and the Lor in a period of expansion (as well as growing conflicts with the Grue), the Gorgon has been considering a change of strategy: no small thing for a creature of so many milennia! Perhaps she needs help with her endless search, a herald to cross the universe for her and find the worlds that need Preserving (or destroying), thus allowing her to concentrate on her all-important great work. She has shared her knowledge with humanoids in the past when they had something to offer her in return; perhaps this relationship can be expanded on to make life better for everyone. For her, an aide and counsel, for them, unspeakable technological power! From a resting place deep in the heart of white-hot Sirus, while her children work to repair the damage recently inflicted by a major battle with the Grue Arcane near the galactic core, her sensors scan the cosmos for a suitable sentient for that great and terrible work. When she finds him or her, a bombardment of nanites shall change that being to the core, reshaping it to her mighty vassal and pawn to go forth and assist her with her task. But whether said herald succeeds or fails, the Gorgon will endure. The Gorgon is, the Gorgon was, and ever shall the Gorgon be! -

Okay, Zap is bound and helpless...for now! She is an electrical controller in melee combat with a robot, hmm hmm. Round 2 Wisp is up

Before she could get up, a figure in a white shirt with glowing red eyes appeared right next to her in a ripple of air, a malevolent smile on his face. "Oh, don't get up on my account, girl!" A malevolent grin on his face, Blackfire stamped down on Zap's chest, pinning her to the ground with a strength and weight much greater than human. This was no man, the teen quickly realized; this was a machine in a human's skin. "Listen to me!" he called to the other heroes. "My name is Blackfire, and your friend here is my prisoner. One little step, and I can put my foot right through her rib cage. Surrender now, and you can give our demands to the pigs outside." Sure enough, there were sirens coming, but now that they had costumes and power, the teen heroes were supposed to help the cops, not the other way around!

Midnight Witch PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 Melee/+15 Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +18 Saves: 8 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 23 pp=92 r Acrobatics 15 (+20) Bluff 4 (+6/+10) Diplomacy 4 (+6/+10) Intimidate 13 (+15) Investigate 5 (+5) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 10 (+10) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Languages 2 (Arabic, Greek) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Perform (torch singing) 5 (+7) Search 5 (+5) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Stealth 10 (+15) Feats: 20 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 5 Attack Specialization: Unarmed Attractive Challenge: Fast Acrobatic Bluff Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Ritualist Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 27 pp Immunity 2 (aging, own powers) [2 pp] Magic Array [12+3=15 pp] Autofire and Penetrating on Unarmed and Enhanced Feats 2 (Affects Insubstantial 2 [unarmed]) AP: Obscure 4 (50 ft) (mental and visual) 'Medean Mist' AP: Teleport 4 (1 mile) (Extra: Accurate) (shadow step) Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Senses 7 (Darkvision, Magic Awareness (Extended 2 (x100) [3] [mental]) [7 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 32 + saves 8 + skills 23/92 + feats 21 + powers 27 = 150 pts -------------------------------------- Design Notes: Picture it! Freedom City, 1946. Midnight I is going about his business on the streets when Medea appears! He draws his gas gun, ready for battle, when she presents him to his surprise with an infant girl wrapped in a blanket. "It's yours!" the immortal witch announces imperiously, giving him a look to melt the face off a statue. "...but we never-" "No backsies! First rule of magic!" Medea rebutted, and then disappeared into the night, leaving Travis Hunter with a little girl as his ward. She grew up learning both magic and the martial arts from her costumed detective teacher; it helped that he had friends all over the world who could teach her how to use magic. When she was old enough to go out on her own, she did so, leaving Travis to start his own family with his eventual partner. OK, so this is my attempt at magic Batman. Not too bad, I think! Her magic is a supplement to her formidable martial arts training, not a replacement; she's perfectly badass with no spells cast at all. But the spells do help, whether they're letting her walk through doors or across town, disappear in a cloud of magic mist, or just augment her punches with powerful magical blows. Acrobatics and such tricks are languages that go beyond fooling and persuasion. Even elder gods can be distracted by a well-placed backflip! She can also be very scary when she wants to be: she's not just Midnight's magical successor, after all, she's also the daughter of Medea. (As for Medea herself, well, it's probably best she doesn't take an interest in her daughter's life. Medea knows she's not really cut out to be a mother. She remembers what happened the last time she made a serious go of it) She's a good investigator, though not quite as smart as she thinks she is. Experienced magicians never are, really. If you don't want the immortal magic investigator schtick, drop the aging immunity and the Midnight connection and just make her magic Batman, period. I could easily see a young witch who's a variant of the Combat Magician upthread, using physical training to compensate for any 'lack' brought about by her relatively weak powers, and finding ultimately that the ability to blow an HP for Stunning Attack and beat the crap out of your wussier fellow mystics before they can get their force fields up is a very fine thing indeed. Give her a drawback where she needs her hands free to cast spells for more points, but this seemed like the kind of lady who has learned to use magic while tied up at the bottom of the ocean. Sometimes you have to get a little rough here...

"I understand," said Harrier. And when he thought about it, maybe he did, as much as he could understand anything about this cheerful, colorful world. "When you have been...burned by dealings with people, it can be very difficult to see them as anything other than a threat. Particularly when your differences are so obvious. It is a very good thing that you have been able to give them this place, with the peace and isolation to make their own choices. And with few enough people that both have space, even if one side needs..." he eyed the giant bees. "A great deal more space than the others."

Psychic Adventurer PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 26 [16] (+8/+3) DEX 26 [16] (+8/+3) CON 26 [16] (+8/+3) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+12 Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +12 Grapple: +16 Saves: 5 pp TOU +8 (+8 Con) FORT +8 (+8 Con) REF +8 (+8 Dex) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Acrobatics 7 (+15) Gather Info 4 (+5) Intimidate 9 (+10) Investigate 4 (+5) Knowledge: Streetwise 4 (+5) Languges 2 (French, German) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (beatboxing) 4 (+5) Search 4 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Stealth 2 (+10) Feats: 18 pp Acrobatic Bluff, Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2, Dodge Focus 4, Evasion, Improved Initiative, Leadership, Luck, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Takedown Attack 2, Ultimate Save (Will), Well-Informed Powers: 56 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Immunity 1 (own powers) [1 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Mind Reading 10 (Flaw: Duration (Instant/Lasting) (PF: Subtle) [6+1=7 pp] AP: Concealment 10 (all senses) (Flaws: Blending, Phantasm) (PF: Selective) Obscure 2 (10 ft) (visual and olfactory) ‘midnight mist’ [6 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 10 (Accurate Hearing, Danger Sense (Mental), Darkvision, Precognition, Uncanny Dodge [Mental]) [10 pp] ----- Design Notes: Here's the offspring of Trevor Hunter and Eve Martel from Earth-Paragons. I figure a few year down the line, his parents are both celebrities, and so he's definitely grown up in the media spotlight. Good thing he's so sneaky! He has his father's enhanced physiology and his mother's incredible acrobatic training; he's more inclined to be fast, silent, and deadly than full of threats like his dad. (And probably has a less active mental sex life than his mom, if only because when he was about sixteen he realized she could hear what he was thinking... :| ) Between his father's command of midnight mist and his mother's psychic sneakiness, he's a very stealthy ninja dude indeed. (That's one reason why his Stealth is relatively low; with Concealment and Obscure, he usually doesn't have to roll!) With his high Super-Senses, he'll be pretty tough to catch flat-footed in return. I took Shaen's (Instant/Lasting) for this guy's Mind Reading, which I think makes a lot of sense. He can't just bust his way into someone's mind, he has to make his way in every time. Having to have a little finesse in his Mind Reading seemed to fit someone who's basically a sneak and tricker like this. He's got the Leadership because I figure he's done some adventuring with his parents at this point: Trevor and Eve seemed media-savvy enough to create some kind of Midnight-brand they could market. (Well, once they got a little older and grew out of their obnoxious teen rebellious phase: they both come from money and you've got to do some work to have even more money to pass down to your sneaky little kid...) As I usually do, I didn't flaw his Precog: if you can't see the future at some point in the adventure, let the GM give you phat HP for the Complication! A psychic detective is a fun build. Paragons-style heroes are pretty grating on Earth-Freedom, but I think if you were very careful about it and a good writer, you could probably get away with it: maybe this is a guy who's been cut off by his rich family if you play him on Earth-Prime, and he needs to have a little hero-related merch in order to pay the bills. He doesn't have a lot of skills beyond beating people up and finding people to beat up, but that's OK, those are the sorts of things superheroes are supposed to do. He uses his scant spare time to practice the mad rhymes and dope beats of the all-American professional beat-boxer!

Midnight Bear PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 30 [22] (+10/+6) DEX 16 (+3) CON 20 [16] (+5/+3) INT 14 (+2) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +5 w/Growth (+6 melee/+10 unarmed) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed w/Growth) Init: +3 Grapple: +20 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +5 (+3 Dex, +1) WILL +10 (+5 Wis, +5) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Climb 4 (+10)* Gather Info 5 (+7) Intimidate 10 (+12/+13 w/size)* Investigate 4 (+6) Language 1 (Russian) (Base: English) Notice 5 (+10)* Perform (harmonica) 3 (+5) Sense Motive 10 (+15)* Stealth 5 (+8/+7 w/Growth) Survival 5 (+10) Feats: 15 pp Attack Focus: Melee 1, Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2, Challenge (Accelerated Climb) Dodge Focus 5, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Skill Mastery (Climb, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 38 pp Comprehend 2 (speak to and understand bears) (PF: Innate) [3 pp] Growth 4 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Innate) [13 pp] Immunity 1 (own powers) [1 pp] Obscure 3 (25 feet) (visual and olfactory) [9 pp] ‘midnight mist’ Protection 5 [5 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Acute Accurate Tracking Scent, Darkvision) [6 pp] ------ Design Notes: This is Midnight as a bear. Yeah, I went there. I've left it open whether or not this is the Trevor Hunter of Ani-Earth, a young bear raised by his grouchy old grandsire to carry on the family legacy of defending the city, or whether or not this is perhaps Midnight III brought to life through some unlikely chain of events (or even ones planned on by the redoubtably brilliant Midnight II) to protect the things the Hunter family hold most dear. If a costumed adventurer were a bear, he would probably look a lot like this: he's big, he's strong, and he's as scary as a gigantic black bear with glowing red eyes and its own cloud of smoke can be. Which is pretty scary, honestly. He's a great climber, going right up walls with the help of his gigantic claws (which as usual I didn't stat) and doing it darn fast. That's why you don't climb a tree to get away from a bear: bears can climb faster than you. He's a really good tracker, capable of following his nose all the way across town, and it's unlikely he wants any of your honey. If for some reason you're some kind of monster and don't want to play a teddy bear brought to life or a dimensional refugee, I think this works fine as a Russian costumed adventurer who fell foul of the Labyrinth, was dropped in a DNAscendant machine and managed to escape just before his soul could be destroyed. He's probably a pretty grouchy guy, just as you'd expect a bear in a world of people to be. He doesn't have any good way to disguise himself, and he's not that sneaky: that sort of thing just isn't a good trait for bears. He's better off making frequent use of his midnight mist as a disguise; sure a walking smoke cloud is decidedly odd, but it might attract a bit less attention than a bear on the loose in a black costume with adventure on his mind. He doesn't have a motorcycle: get him one! If you want him to have one, that is. Harmonica seemed like the kind of music a bear would probably play, all sitting in the woods in costume, or maybe on stakeout, perhaps a campfire burning nearby. Remember, though, that grumpy bear or not, you don't want to be That Guy and make this dude an angsty loner who nobody wants to talk to: 'it's my character' is a nice way of saying 'I don't get why no one ever wants to talk to me.' Just because you're not a people person (or, you know, a person) doesn't mean you can't be around people at all. Luckily with this guy's strong personality and musical talent, he fits in just fine around people!

Diehard is stunned. He'll heal his Bruised condition this round and be fine next round. Blackfire: Blackfire drops his Visual Concealment. He attacks Zap. 16. As she's currently flat-footed from her stun, that hits. He grapples her: 27 She is not able to beat that, but I'll say that impossible saves applies for grapples here. Go ahead and roll, LS.

"You may call me whatever you prefer," said Murdock. "I find that I prefer to use my last name when dealing with others. My super-identities should not be spoken in public, Mona." He knew that much about superheroes, at least. Turning that thousand-yard gaze on her, he said evenly, "Yes, my transformation and liberation have made me an object of fascination for many, and revulsion for others. Earth-Prime has many who are intrigued by what a free Omegadrone represents, just as there are many who would gladly destroy me for what I am. Only by maintaining my double-secrecy have I been able to survive."

"Well..." Sharl prevaricated briefly, the slight breeze that was blowing not ruffling his hand in the slightest. "I am intelligent, I guess, and I am made of coherent magnetic fields with a shaped-light overlay." He'd learned that jargon from Miss A, particularly since it was important in case anything ever interrupted his projection. "So I guess that's pretty artificial? I dunno." He smiled. "And Miss A is really great. I wouldn't be here today if not for her. And she's really great to work for." He studied Eve as she gestured, unfamiliar with sign language, but too polite to comment on someone's evident disability.

Pacifist Monk PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 42 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+9 Melee, +13 Unarmed) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +20 Saves: 10 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 16 pp=64 r Acrobatics 12 (+15) Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 8 (+10) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 5 (+5) Languages 3 (Chinese, Japanese, Latin) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 12 (+14) Stealth 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Acrobatic Bluff, Attack Focus: Melee, Attack Spec: Unarmed 2, Dodge Focus 5, Evasion, Improved Throw, Improved Trip Interpose, Luck, Power Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 36 pp PaciFIST Array [35+1=36 pp] Autofire Unarmed Damage (Extras: Aura [+3], Selective) AP: Trip 7 (Extras: Aura [+3], Knockback, Selective) (Flaw: Range [Touch]) abilities 42 + combat 32 + saves 8 + skills 16/64 + feats 14 + powers 36 = 150 pt -------------------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for a peace-loving martial artist, a Shaolin monk who Walks the Earth on a never-ending quest to battle for justice. He doesn't seek out fights, indeed, he does his best to stop them when they start. But they have a way of seeking him out anyway, as is often the problem for this sort of hero. Luckily, he has ways of dealing with that. His incredible martial arts training means that the moment someone actually attacks him (or thank to Interpose, tries to attack an innocent through him), he can go to town with a formidable array of flying fists and flashing feet: the lesser bad guys get knocked to the ground and given a stern lecture about the Way and the Path, while the real baddies get beaten senseless and have a chance to think about their karma in the spiritual confines of jail. But what's that you say, AA, I don't want to play a passive fighter? Well, a pacifist doesn't have to be a passive guy! He can go out and teach martial arts as a means of discipline and self-control to adorable moppets and housewives alike, and then he can walk the streets to try and talk the kids out of gang violence. Perhaps he shows up to super-battles and spends an action trying to talk the rampaging monsters down? (i.e., gets an HP for the Complication of being a peacemaker!) His holier-than-thou attitude may rub his allies the wrong way, but in his defense, he is holier than they are...anyway, be a missionary for peace and muscular non-violence by your actions, not your words, and let your friends make the choices they want to make. People who are ultimately good will learn the right path, and you can teach them by example. In Freedom City, this guy may well have come from Shamballa Vale, the mystic land in the Himalayas where martial artists learn their secret arts. Or maybe he's just a well-trained monk from a monastery somewhere, Walking the Earth to find his own path to inner peace. I've written him with the assumption that he's an Asian-influenced character, but it would be an interesting subversion to make him a Catholic or Orthodox monk. There's been enough Dan Brown-esque stuff done in recent years that it's not so crazy to imagine a secret monastery of Irish monks off somewhere learning martial arts against the inevitable day of judgement (or to fight off the Protestant Reformation)!

Pixie Cowboy Abilities: 30 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 16 (+3) CON 22 (+6) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+14 vs. Medium-sized) DEF: +6 (+14 vs. Medium-sized) Init: +3 Grapple: -4 vs Medium Saves: 9 pp TOU +6 (+6 Con) FORT +7 (+6 Con, +1) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Bluff 5 (+5) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (accordion) 10 (+10) Ride 7 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 10 (+13/+30) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 9 pp Evasion Fearless Hide In Plain Sight Move-By-Action Power Attack Precise Shot Second Chance (Reflex save vs. being stepped on) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 56 pp Device 1 (Teeny Sword) (easy to lose) (PF: Restricted ) [4 pp] Strike 2 (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty, Precise) [5] Device 3 (Teeny Pistols) (hard to lose) (PF: Restricted) [13 pp] Blast 6 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Precise) [15] Flight 2 (25 MPH) 'pixie wings' [4 pp] Shrinking 16 (Extras: Duration [Permanent] (+0), Normal Strength, PFs: Innate, Normal Movement, Normal Toughness) [35 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 14/56 + feats 9+ powers 56 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: When Colt and Grimalkin finally had that baby, magical complications (the thing you have to understand is that there are alway magical complications) forced them to relocate to Fairyland for a while so the baby could be born. Much to their surprise, they learned that the relocation to Fairyland meant that their son was part of the fae! Luckily they were able to leave with him, but the magical influence on his birth meant that he never grew more than three inches high, complete with an adorable pair of sparkly pixie wings on his back that let him fly like a hummingbird. His parents chose to run with this, however, and they taught him all the things a young pixie cowboy should know. With a fairy sword on his back and teeny-tiny pistols at his hip (manufactured by a visibly inebriated Viktor Archeville), the young man was ready to seek his fortune in the wide world, podnas. The thing of it is, this build actually holds up pretty well. If you don't want the connection to PCs here, my advice is to make this an action figure brought to life: how does Pixie Cowboy deal with the knowledge that his entire life was just a phantom on the pages of a storybook, or perhaps a CGI animated movie? Perhaps he's seeking a way to restore his friends to the real world just as he was, or maybe he's content to let them have their fictional lives and never learn that they're simply the creations of another being's mind. Or maybe they're just part of another dimension, and said storybook or movie writers simply tapped into that dimension's history unconsciously. It's comics, a whole lot of things can happen when you get right down to it. Normally I'm not a fan of PCs with guns, but I think a three-inch-tall cowboy can probably get by without raising any eyebrows. At least, not because he has real working guns! Given his size and the massive Stealth bonuses therefrom, the Pixie Cowboy can probably catch just about anybody flat-footed with his sword or his pistols. He's an OK melee fighter and ranged fighter both, as a cowboy really ought to be; one of the advantages of Shrinking is that it gives bonuses to both! He's also a pretty effective opponent against foes closer to his own size, a helpful thing when he finds a job pigeon-wrangling for the city, or just gets away from it all to live on squirrel in the park for a while. With his Precise Shot and the Precise on his pistols, he can easily plunk one of those slow, giant targets all around him even if they're in melee. He plays a mean accordion, and luckily has had one custom-made in just his size.

Big Science PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 30 [22] (+10/+6) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 [20] (+7/+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 w/Growth (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +6 w/Growth Init: +5 Grapple: +26 Saves: 5 pp TOU +14 (+7 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+5 Wis, +2) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Craft: Artistic 5 (+10) Craft: Electronic 5 (+10) Craft: Mechanical 5 (+10) Knowledge: Earth Science 5 (+10) Knowledge: Life Science 5 (+10) Knowledge: Physical Science 5 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 5 (+10) Languages 2 (German, Persian) (Base: English) Medicine 5 (+10) Notice 5 (+10) Perform (tuba) 5 (+5) Sense Motive 5 (+10) Feats: 6 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed Inventor Master Plan Speed of Thought Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 45 pp Enhanced Feats 4 (Extended Reach, Improved Crit, Incurable, Precise [on unarmed]) [4 pp] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Growth 4 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Innate) [13 pp] Immunity 9 (life support) [9 pp] Protection 7 [7 pp] Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) [6 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 32 + saves 5 + skills 14/56 + feats 6 + powers 45 = 150 pts --------------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for the future child of Doktor Archeville and Fulcrum. He's a super-strong eight-foot-tall German-Iranian genius who flies into space, summons glowing black Terminus energy around his fists to augment his already formidable punches, and he plays a mean tuba. (Well, what else is an eight-foot-tall super-strong German going to play?) I think he's a viable blend of various different archetypes all put together; the giant genius paragon! I'm sure there are plenty of webcomics out there just looking for a hero like this. He's not actually bulletproof, but with +14 TOU he's not going to be bothered by too many bullets: if you can get the GM to let you use the Inventor feat in play with him, try to come up with some kind of personal forcefield belt for him that lets him have Impervious TOU. Folks have sometimes objected to Speed of Thought in the past, but you know it's really not all that bad. (It lets you use your INT modifier for initiative; it helps explain why Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man, not physical primary characters [despite Mister F's Elongation] aren't just standing there going "Hurp durp" while the high-Dex members of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers are going into combat. I think it's fine here. After all, in this guy's case, I could actually give him a higher base init just by buying Improved Init for him. But Speed of Thought honestly seems to make a lot more sense for him, and it gives him a lot to build on for the future.) His Charisma's not that high; being a giant freakazoid will like as not do that to you, especially if you have a very complicated heritage from even another side to deal with! (OTOH, his great-grandpa would be just horrified at the sight of him, and that's pretty awesome.) At INT 20, he's somewhere in the Henry McCoy/drunk-Iron Man/divorced Mister Fantastic range in my personal roster of comic book geniuses, which I think is just about right for someone who's very smart indeed, much smarter than almost any non-super NPC he'll ever meet, but isn't quite the focused super-genius that some of the real bad boys are. That's OK. His inventions and genius aren't that powerful, but he more than makes up for that with the power he himself brings to the table. When the bad guys drop an EMP on the lab all the science nerd types are in, it's Big Science they call on to go fight the legion of robots outside while they fix the rest of their gear. And hey: he can beat up the jocks in the bargain!

Black Hole Hero Abilities: 20 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +21 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Concentration 10 (+10) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 10 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 11 pp Attack Focus: Melee (4) Dodge Focus (4) Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 76 pp Dimensional Pocket 10 (Extra: Duration (Sustained) [+2] ) (100k lbs) [40 pp] Enhanced STR 16 [16 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Protection 7 [7 pp] Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp] costs abilities 20 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 9/36 + feats 11 + powers 76 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: This is my build for a hero who makes use of the Dimensional Pocket power, in his particular case with the idea that he is a living black hole who can hold up to 100,000 pounds (50 tons) at once. Sustained is about as high as you want a PL-capped Dimensional Pocket to be; he takes things in and holds them inside him, with unwilling people getting saves like any other Sustained power (i.e., on the Time and Value Progression Table) to try and break out. The default Duration of Dimensional Pocket isn't that great, giving people a chance to bust out every round, while buying up to Continuous (while a reasonable out-of-combat power) is totally broken at rank usable in combat. My idea here is that this was a college student touring a supercollider laboratory when Something Went Wrong, and what was supposed to be the start of an internship turned out to be the start of a superheroic career as our hero was merged with an artificial black hole. He's got elements of Firestorm, but also Captain Atom's insanely cracked-out problem (i.e., Complication) where if his body is breached, something very bad happens! With a Sustained (lasting) duration on his powers, he can switch to other abilities (i.e., stunt off the power) and people will still technically be confined: they'll just start getting saves immediately and with a +1 bonus on the intervals. Note that if you do that, you can't 'turn it back on'. I gave this a science-y background, but you could just as easily make this a magic-oriented guy, maybe a dark and shadowy dude with a magic cape that can swallow anything, perhaps with my light-controlling Speedster build upthread as his good boddy. If you or your GM doesn't like the Sustained, consider the +3 Aura extra on your Pocket. That way anyone who touches you is sucked into another dimension, for all that it's not going to be that hard for them to get out again! (That's also going to cost you more points, and probably cost you that Enhanced STR and paragon traits) If you want to be able to get inside yourself, buy or stunt a dimensional pocket to do the snake-eating-its-own-tail thing.

Brick Brickerson PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 30 [18] (+10/+4) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +25 Saves: 7 pp TOU +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Diplomacy 7 (+10) Intimidate 7 (+10) Language 1 (German) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Perform (banjo) 4 (+7) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 12 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed Dodge Focus 2 Improved Initiative Interpose Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (TOU) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 54 pp Density 6 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Innate) [19 pp] -+12 STR, +3 Impervious TOU, Immovable 2, Super-Strength 2, Massx5 Flight 1 (10 MPH) (Flaw: Duration [Concentration]) [1 pp] Immunity 10 (Life Support, Starvation and Thirst) [10 pp] Impervious TOU 7 [7 pp] Leaping 5 (x50) [5+1=6 pp] AP: Speed 5 (250 MPH) Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 96 tons w/Density) (PF: Countering Punch) [11 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 9/36 + feats 10 + powers 54 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Phalanx and Wander's kid was born big and strong, the double inheritance of super-strength and toughness contributing to his incredibly dense muscles. A baby who weighs five times as much as a normal baby is less of a worry when your parents have super-strength, but the first time he sank to the bottom of the pool was pretty nerve-wracking for both of them! Luckily he can hold his breath underwater just fine, and honestly going underwater is cool enough that he's seriously considering making a career out of marine biology, at least when he's not performing a 'mighty fine a' pickin' and a singin'" on his custom-built banjo. He's not the sharpest knife in the box, but that doesn't mean he can't hold down a perfectly fine career teaching high school or community college. Or at Brown. How do you put a brick on top of another brick so you can brick while you brick? Well, you make him as dense as a brick! Sure, there are some disadvantages to weighing five times what a normal teenager should, but body image issues are all about what a Hero High PC should be dealing with. What a great source for Complications! If you want even more Complications, drop the Subtle from his Density (maybe replace it with Buoyant?) and let him run around looking like Ben Grimm in an organic shell, or maybe like a steroid patient in a teenage body. He's got a weak Flight (which takes a standard action each round) so you can walk over fragile surfaces without necessarily breaking them; if you want him to be stuck with the consequences of his powers, put that point elsewhere. (Maybe dress his Leaping and Speed up a bit?) Another way to build a super-brick is to make someone with Growth, but I have a kid with Growth already on the burner. (Plus, I didn't want to do that to poor Wander; if you want a giant baby, make sure it comes out of a mom with giant hips! Not that Wander couldn't handle a Caesarean, but I imagine having someone with a diamond-tipped saw performing a C-section would be pretty deeply unpleasant.) Another route is immunities, but full-scale damage immunities are tough. It's pretty tough to save up any serious damage immunities as a PL 10: even a Limited immunity to lethal damage (limited to converting lethal to non-lethall) will set you back a hefty 20 pp, and that's just so you don't die...but you don't die anyway in our game!

Dark Scarab Abilities: 18 pp STR: 10 (+0) DEX: 16 (+3) CON: 16 (+3) INT: 10 (+0) WIS: 16 (+3) CHA: 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +6 Init: +3 Saves: 12 pp TOU: +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT: +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF: +5 (+3 Ref, +2) WILL: +9 (+3 Wis, +6) Feats: 12 pp Attack Focus: Melee (4) Dodge Focus (4) Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Skills: 14 pp=56 r Intimidate 4 (+4) Medicine 7 (+10) Notice 12 (+15) Perform (percussion) 8 (+8) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Stealth 12 (+15) Powers: 70 pp Mental Gravity Array 23+4=27 pp Concealment 10 (Extra: Affects Others) (Flaw: Phantasms) (PFs: Close Range, Progression [2 additional], Selective) (all senses) AP: Drain Wisdom 10 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Extended Reach, Precise, Reversible) AP: Emotion Control 10 (PFs: Insidious, Mind Blank, Subtle) AP: Mind Reading 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective) (Flaw: Duration [instant]) (PFs: Rapid [x10], Insidious, Subtle) AP: Telekinesis 10 (Extra: Affects Corporeal) (Flaw: Feedback) (PFs: Accurate 2, Precise) Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3 pp] Immunity 12 (aging, life support, sleep, starvation and thirst) [12 pp] Insubstantial 3 (energy) (Sustained) (PFs: Selective, Subtle, Variable Descriptor 1 [gravity/psychic]) [18 pp] Protection 7 [7 pp] Space Flight 1 (1c) [1 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] --- Design Notes: OK, so the idea here is that Scarab tried to persuade Dark Star of her more practical, less Silver Age lifestyle with a little bow-chicka-wow-wow. Ridiculous? Yes. But on the other hand, Scarab and Dark Star did abruptly stop talking, Scarab herself went away for a while, and she had a very complicated personal relationship with both Dark Star and Fleur de Joie in the aftermath. So nine months later, it turned out they had a son, a boy born with a combination of his mother's psychic ability and his father's gravity powers. (You know, maybe it makes more sense if Evil Doktor Archeville decided to play God with a little genetic subtraction, multiplication, and then addition...but anyway!) This is a powerful character, able to transform himself into either psychic energy or gravitic, and to use both kinds of very broad powers he got from his parents to do some pretty awesome things. He can even fly in space! Which leaves open some other options for you. If you're not a fan of the insane origin story, this would also work just fine as a build for the Cosmic Mind II; the Cosmic Mind being the disembodied psychic intelligence from the Soviet Union that bedeviled the Atom Family for so many years. Perhaps said entity spawned a child-intelligence that has flown back to the planet of its origins in order to learn more about this mysterious thing called humanity. This would work fine as a build for any other kind of psychic intelligence, really. However, as it is, he does have a body by default, but you could give him the Special duration on his Insubstantial to make it a default part of his nature. Perhaps his Earth-XX counterpart has a power like that... So it turns out you don't need Affects Corporeal with Insub 3 on anything but Strength. Nice! One thing to watch out for with Insubstantial is that you do have a tendency to run into people with Affects Insubstantial 2 much more than you would expect: admittedly, this is because you don't want the dude to be an unkillable monstrosity in every fight, but on the other hand you don't want to get pwned either. That's why you want to ignore what Kenson tells you: character with Insubstantial 3 and 4 need to be built to match their Toughness caps, and maybe have some Impervious to go with them! Talk to your GM about making sure you get a good balance for the (very expensive) power you bought without becoming too invulnerable in the process. Luckily, we're reasonable people.

Asgardian Archer PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 38 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 20 (+5) CON 18 (+4) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged/+12 Ordrag) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +10 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+4 Con, +4 Protection) FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3) REF +8 (+5 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Bluff 7 (+10) Knowledge: Tactics 8 (+9) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 4 (+5) Language 1 (Old Norse) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (fiddle) 4 (+7) Sense Motive 4 (+6) Stealth 5 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 28 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 4 Attack Specialiation: Ordrag Dodge Focus 6 Evasion Fearless Improved Init Master Plan 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Quick Draw [draw] Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 37 pp Device 6 (Ordrag) (hard to lose) (PF: Restricted [Norse ancestry]) [25 pp] Blast 4 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Mighty 4, Precise, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) [18] Teleport 3 (300 ft) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Change Velocity, Easy, Turnabout) [12] Dimensional Movement 1 (Asgard) [2 pp] Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Protection 4 [4 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Divine Awareness [mental], Extended Vision 2 [x100]) [3 pp] costs abilities 38 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 13/52 + feats 28 + powers 37 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: This build is for the baby that Valkyrie was carrying when she went to the vicinity of Valhalla. Whoopsie! But luckily the Norse gods aren't all that bad, and her daughter grew inside her and was born on the rainbow bridge overlooking Midgard. Between that and her ancestry below, she was able to just slip past the Pact's strictures: she can go to and from Earth and Asgard, fighting evil in both dimensions, but one day when she comes of age she'll have to make a choice. Will she live in Asgard with her mother, or adventure in Freedom City alongside her father? Perhaps she'll even tour his native land of Scotland, a marvelous land of mystery and wonder which she's only heard a little about! In the meantime, wielding a mystic Asgardian bow that can strike with burning flame or shocking lightning at her whim, or shoot through the world and let her propel herself across fantastic distances. I'm not a big fan of the Norse pantheon; I think our admiration for them is driven largely by our cultural distance from their followers. Vikings are cool badasses in the pages of history, so we don't think of them as the murderous biker-gang/pirate savages that they really were. Their deities weren't really a lot better. Their "Heaven" was not a pleasant place if you were not a warrior. But we can bend that for comics, I think, even in Freedom City with its built-in reasons for a lack of Norse heroes running around. This is a character trapped between two worlds, trying to have the best of both while figuring out what sort of person she's going to be: a brawler in Asgard or a hero on Earth? She fits well as a teen heroine, playing into themes of maturity. As you get older, you have choices to make about your destiny, and sometimes you only get to make them once. She has her father's tactical acumen and talents as a ranged fighter, but her mother's strength and Norse heritage. If you had enough divine-themed characters around, you could assemble a "God squad" of divine champions of various pantheons, but that might be tough to finesse in a Freedom City context. As it is, you could easily play this one along. One interesting thing: this character may have been born in Asgard, but there's no reason she'd actually be a follower of the Norse pantheon. When you live in a place, it's pretty weird to worship the people there as gods, even if they are really powerful. Frankly, she may be glad to be in a place where she's not always the smallest and weakest, and where she can kick some serious butt with the help of her mighty bow!

"Oh, you're a telepath?" asked Citizen curiously. "Wow, uh, I've never met a telepath." He wondered why that meant she couldn't talk: he'd seen telepaths like Scarab and Psyche on the news, and they could talk! It's probably rude to ask, he decided. "If it's tough for you to read my mind," he said thoughtfully, "it's probably because I don't have a brain like yours. I'm a computer program," he lied smoothly. "Miss Americana downloaded me off the Internet." He was a little nervous about sharing that with near-strangers, but Miss A had assured him that part of his story was something he could tell people without much danger to himself.

"The building is unmarred?" Harrier's glowing, shrieking pike was still pointed at one of the building's superstructures, and Nick had absolutely no doubt that Harrier would indeed bring the entire structure down on all their heads if the mystic called for it. When Nick signaled that it was, Harrier flew up through the hole he'd blasted in the floor, hovering amongst the other heroes as his jetpack screamed behind him. He was the only thing left of the Terminus in the building. The faceless thing looked up at the ceiling overhead, and then, as if making a conscious choice, landed; his armor stilling itself behind him. "Thank you." he said simply. "Thank you."

Suddenly there was a shift in the code, the arrival of multiple new elements of corrupted and semi-corrupted data. Looking 'back' the way a Tronik citizen might see it; the duo were greeted with what would surely be a terrifying sight: right angles that bent in circular directions, geometry that made no logical sense to the eye, shadows that cast their own light over the black lightstrips that still glowed in the ceiling to either side. No wonder the people of Tronik were so frightened by these places. But the new arrivals were not connected to the warped heart of what had once been a gigantic factory. "MOVE!" The militia guards were in the full body armor Miss A and Dragonfly were becoming accustomed to; black, shiny plasteel matched by the glowing plasma rifles in their hands: they wore no insignia, for who else would they be in a world that had had no contact with the universe (at least that they knew about) for generations? Despite what passed for military unity, the guards looked scared, their amplified voices strained and their rifles shaking. And no wonder! Their prisoners were a fearsome-looking lot: bodies warped in ways subtle and gross, a man with glowing white eyes accompanied by what looked like a hairy dwarf with too-long fingers, a woman covered in blue body hair helping a man with too many lower limbs slowly hobble along. These were the face of Tronik's mutants. "Oh no, look at this place! What's going to happen to us here!?" asked a woman with skin turned so transparent you could see the working of bone and muscle underneath, turning to plead with her captors. In response, the guards fired back, "No talking!" It looked like a group of two dozen guards were escorting half that many mutants. "We know some of you can spread it by voice!" Now there were several rifles facing the speaker. "You will be given food, water, and supplies. In return, you will stay here and keep your taint from spreading to others!" The guards were noticeably not coming anywhere near the warped areas of the factory, and indeed were staying close to the still-safe areas by the doors.