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The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
"Okay," said Sharl, "I'll do that right-" His voice stopped, but the line didn't go dead. Instead Miss A heard the crashing and calling out intensify, a particularly loud noise, and then a sudden, eerie silence on the other end. Long minutes went by while she visualized Sharl reappearing in the house, locking down the security systems that she'd been meaning to upgrade, heading back to the phone, and then heading out. Just in time, Sharl's mobile emitter lit up, and he stepped away from the wall, forming with a pop of magnetism that briefly made static on the phone lines. He was unhurt, of course, but the teenager looked shaken. "Holy cow," said Sharl, running his hands through his hair. "That, that whole neighborhood," he said, tagging his commlink on, "they were all infected. One of them tried to stick some kind of alien starfish thing in my mouth, but that, well, that didn't work. I crushed the thing, and then all the people in the neighborhood swarmed me." He shuddered. "That was just awful." Toggling off the mike, he said to Miss A, "By the way, uh, I think our friend is OK. She's...she's actually fine. She looked unconscious, not like everyone else." "I think she's coming around," murmured the medical tech across the room, looking up from the unconscious woman he'd been working on. "I've got her hydrated," he said, indicating the field IV he'd set up, "but she can't be moved far, unless it's to a hospital." - The inside of the satellite was largely free of evidence, the sort of thing that would have frustrated a human. Protectron did find evidence of what might have brought Skyhook down, however; the unmanned probe had taken what looked like a direct micro-meteor hit through the body, leaving puncture marks through and through. Not only would such an accident have likely brought the Legion and Grue samples directly into contact, the destruction of the shield around the craft by the hit would have flooded the whole interior compartment with cosmic rays. - The alien starfish didn't like its confinement one bit, pressing against the side of the container with a wet sucking noise, seeming to gaze right into Dragonfly's soul. -
[All] Active Threads for February 2011
Avenger Assembled replied to Dr Archeville's topic in Archives
Edge: and vignette Somewhere that's Green Certain Flaws Love Is All You Need Worlds Enough Rainmaker Fusion: Walked Alone Place Your Bets Circus Harrier: and vignette Calling All Angels Citizen: The Conquering Mind (and GMing) I Have Had It Unearthly Girl Animal Fair GMing Grapevine Please put my extra rewards towards Edge. -
The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
"I'll be right back," promised Sharl. Sending himself through phone lines was scary, maybe scarier than he'd admitted even to Gina or Miss A, but he couldn't just leave his best friend when she was in a crisis. Giving him the ability to email himself had been something of an accident, really. Gina had been compiling his program down for shipment back to Tronik when he somewhat unexpectedly had walked right out of the computer and into her lab again. They'd learned how to refine the process together, letting it work over somewhat longer distances, and now...and now...He took a deep breath. Kneeling down by the telephone, he took his mobile emitter, plugged it into the jack, and concentrated. And a moment later, he was- There was no sense of passage on Sharl's end. As he vanished in a pop of energy on Miss Americana's end, his magnetic bubble bursting, he snapped to life in Gina's house. She'd set up a projector for him there, and so he appeared there. Even as much of an emergency as it was, he couldn't resist the urge to glance out the window. The city outside was ominously still, with sirens in the air but no one rushing to do anything about them. "Gina!?" He jumped down the stairs, practically clipping through the banister, and landed in the basement. Once there he flipped the power switch immediately, trusting Miss Americana's words, but a second later went to look for Gina. She was easy to find; she was sitting in her chair in her computer circle in the middle of the basement, can of Mountain Dew in hand as she stared off at nothing. Computers were shutting down all around him, and it looked like Gina had shut down too. "Gina!? Gina, say something!" He shook her lightly, but got no response. "Oh, Gina..." He closed his eyes and put his head against hers, magnetic hologram against human skin. A tear ran down his cheek and fell onto hers, vanishing in a puff of light as it left his immediate vicinity. "Oh, Gina. We'll get you out of this. I promise." He decided to make her comfortable, and tucked her in under a blanket. He headed back upstairs, picking up one of her phones outside, slipping it into his pocket so he could call Miss A with a report before coming back. When he went upstairs, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a knock on the door. "Uh-oh..." BOOM BOOM BOOM! Sharl peered through Gina's peephole and found himself staring at a half-familiar face. What, Gina's delivery guy? "Hello?" Outside, the guy was pounding on the door harder. "Come out, Evans! Come out!" It was a human voice, and yet, somehow, it wasn't! The man pounded again, his face blank of all expression, and Sharl suddenly stepped right out the door, opening and closing it quickly, to greet him. He couldn't let Gina be caught by this guy! Outside, the sirens were louder and the air strangely cold. The Peapod guy looked at Sharl with a blank face, only his eyes moving. "My sister's gone! I'm the only one here. If you want me, come get me!" Sharl remembered to turn solid at the last second, and gasped as the Peapod guy grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him against the door. Can't let him know I'm a hologram; he's got to believe I'm real! "You are not Evans. But you will be Conquered." Reaching into his bag, the deliveryman produced a red, wriggling starfish shape and slammed it against Sharl's face. It wriggled, found purchase, shoved tentacles in his mouth, and frankly that was just too gross for Sharl to deal with. "Oh my God, that's awful!" Gagging, Sharl went insubstantial again, the thing falling through his body and down onto the ground. He thought fast. Got to distract them! He STOMPED on the wriggling starfish thing, earning a hiss from the zombie-man just as he'd hoped. "You want me so bad! You'd better catch me! Woo-hoo!" He dived right through the Peapod guy and ran like Hell, getting as far as the truck outside before he realized he was right at the limit of Gina's home projectors. "Oh God, Oh God..." He slammed one door shut, then realized he couldn't reach the other; his hand disappearing even as he went for it. "Oh, craaap..." He grabbed the phone out of his pocket and reached out, hooking it against the doorknob and pulling it shut right in the Peapod guy's face. He gulped, managing to hit the lock just as the van began rocking. There were people outside now, coming out of the houses, coming right for the locked van, and he was trapped in the passenger seat...On the other hand, at least they're not interested in Gina anymore! He thought desperately, then pulled out Gina's cell. "Time to make some calls..." "Miss Americana?" Outside, Miss A could hear voices chanting as one. "CONQUER THE SPAWNSLAYER! CONQUER THE SPAWNSLAYER, and the sound of cracking metal and glass. "I...uh, I locked the basement down! But then I got stuck outside, and the people are very angry!" He filled her in as fast as he could. -
As we move to the glossing it all over portion of the evening, we move to die rolls! Roll an unmodified d20, higher is best. If you don't want your character to lose their (metaphorical) shirt, just skip the dierolling and break even. 12 Or just roll a 12, and break even anyway. Joan comes out two M&Ms ahead!
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Fusion was silent for a few moments as she studied her cards, listening to the interplay among the teenagers around her. She really wanted to get up and throttle Silhouette when she pontificated on about how horrible everyone was and how lucky she was to be so underpowered. It was a palpable image, tentacles around the girl's throat and her head bouncing off the ceiling like a coconut, and one that was satisfying enough to actually restrain the impulse. She wasn't going to start a fight in front of kids. Of course, Silhouette was a woman, _not_ a child. Instead she stood up, towering over the other women at the table, sinous tentacles writhing around her body, making liquid, organic noises as she glared at the other woman. "If you have nothing worthwhile to say, keep it to yourself." And with that, she said, still standing, "All in? If so, I think it's time we show our hand." She turned over her cards, revealing two kings, a queen, a 10 and a six.
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"If you wish for further conversation, I can provide it." Murdock didn't sound like he had feelings either way, just as he hadn't seemed to about most of their conversation. "I find that most people prefer not to hear what I say. They find it technologically or morally upsetting." He ate not with mechanical precision, but with the ferocity of someone who'd grown up poor and hungry, like some of the more abused children Carson had seen. "I work as a busboy at Champions. I find the work requires little conversation. I am not expected to have opinions there."
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The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
Doctor Tyrone went to work with the knife, cutting open the commander's neck in a piece of emergency surgery that was quite the feat of rough-and-ready medicine. Luckily, the _thing_ in the commander's neck was actually _above_ the major nerve clusters, and the red-rimmed starfish that crawled out of the back of her neck did so without doing damage beyond what a rapid application of a bandage could heal. The starfish-thing was the size of Mara's hand, covered in a fine coating of blood and some alien body-fluids, its six-limbed body rippling inside as if it was filled with water. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the thing sprang from the commander's face and hurled itself at Mara, only to suddenly be clinging to her face! But before Mara could relieve Star Trek, she realized that thing couldn't get her: though it was firmly affixed to her forcefield, it couldn't actually penetrate the energy barrier, for all that it writhed over her field of vision to try and get in. - "Okay, um," said Sharl, thinking desperately as he rocked the baby back and forth, an unfamiliar task for the electronic teenager that he was obviously trying to do his best on. "So the satellite is infected with that virus, and it crashes here, and people get exposed to it...if they did evacuate them all to that naval base, maybe that's where we should go?" he hazarded. "Along with to the Goodman Building and stuff, so we can get the cure. If that's where the infection started. Wait, that doesn't make any sense, if it's infected the whole city, they'd just be the first patients...unless something else happened, I guess. No, you're right, the Goodman Building makes sense." He thought for a moment, then asked, "Miss A, my friend was telling me they have really sophisticated computers...oh no! We've got to go to, um, our friend's house! If something's happened in Freedom City's, she's in danger!" - -
The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
Nervously, Sharl sat down on the bed, cradling the baby in his arms and giving the medtech a look. Sharl had spent a lot of time reading about superheroes lately, and Legion did stir up some memories. Oh man, a mind controlling plague? That's awful! Everyone getting sucked into some big hivemind... He'd seen Miss Americana meditate in a crisis before, and knew she was using her cyberkinetic powers, so much like Gina's, to get some idea of what was going on. The medtech, a man he didn't know, was definitely not in hazmat gear, but despite all that he didn't seem to be affected by any plague. Instead he focused on his job, which in this case was bandaging the battered woman in the cabin. "If you can contact Miss Americana, tell her that this woman has a severe contusion and she's in shock, but I think she'll be all right. If we'd gotten here any later, she and her baby would both be in trouble. But maybe we all are anyway." - "Uh, Dragonfly? What's _that_?" As Dragonfly and Doctor Tyrone worked to tie up and secure Commander Harrison, Tyrone pointed out something very peculiar about the commander's anatomy: underneath the back of her uniform, sticking up and just visible under her neck, was something red and throbbing, the size and shape of a moderate-sized starfish. At first it looked like merely a strange growth that had somehow been obscured till now, but it soon became obvious that this was no mere overlooked birthmark. Whatever it was, it was _moving_ under the commander's skin, making a beeline for her head even as Tyrone tried to secure the helmet. - Miss Americana would have to concentrate more closely to perform a close examination of the city proper, but tapping into police computers here and there showed her what looked like a terrifying spectacle: a city of slumped bodies and stopped cars, of wailing sirens with no one to answer them. Even the birds in the trees outside the city's largest police station were still on their branches. But luckily, before Miss Americana could panic, she caught sight of a police officer who'd slumped down directly in front of his station's security monitor; she could see the man breathing! A highway traffic camera was slightly more ominous, showing an interstate clogged with cracked-up cars, but few of the really bad crashes she might have expected otherwise, as if whatever had put everyone down had given them a second or two of warning. -
The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
"This is really weird," said Sharl unhelpfully, looking down at the unconscious naval officer. He'd hit people with intent before, but never someone who'd been a friend just a few minutes earlier. He clammed up under Dragonfly's words, taken together with Miss Americana's reminding him of what an emergency this was! He bent down and actually grabbed one of the team's medtechs, and soon was in the air speeding towards Miss Americana. Sharl wasn't as fast in the air as Protectron, but he was no slouch either. Soon enough he had landed by the open cabin door, going to assist Miss Americana. "Oh, man..." He went automatically to help with the baby, helping get the sleeper off the baby, then feeding it again, the medtech moving in to help with the injured woman. Which was good, because even when she tapped directly into the landline at the Motor Lodge, there was no answer at 911. It wasn't that the line was busy or disconnected, either. The phone was ringing. No one was picking up. Over by the lake, luckily the commander's gunfire hadn't actually hurt anyone, with the exception of Pablo Austin, the poor technician who'd gone to Dragonfly's aid and gotten a beating for his pains. He had several bad bruises, but he'd be all right, and in fact looked a little sheepish for his intended heroism. The computer where Dragonfly had been working was a total loss, having taken a heavy-caliber slug right through the hard drive as well as the shattered monitor. If anyone less protected than Mara had been sitting there, if Harrison had been a little quieter in drawing her gun, something much, much worse might have happened. Under the lake, the water was cold! And as Protectron moved closer to the satellite, he was able to make out the etched-in labels on the inside of where the biological containers had once been: and next to it, more ominously: -
The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
"Oh, man! On my way!" said Sharl, belatedly adding, "Stay here, Protectron!" The heroic teenager rocketed out of the water in a smooth, nearly motionless flight that didn't do more than make the faintest of ripples on the lake. He was just about to grab the medic himself and fly over to help Miss Americana with the medical emergency when he saw Commander Harrison pointing a gun at Dragonfly! The smell of cordite and broken machinery was everywhere, and people were running, one of them down on the ground! Without hesitation, Sharl flew in and punched the naval officer in the back of the head, his solid blow connecting with a loud THUNK! She dropped, her face not changing expression, and face-planted in the dirt. "What's going on?" -
The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
Harrison gave no reply to Dragonfly, instead opening fire again. The bullets continued to bounce off Dragonfly's shield, but the ricocheting slugs were at least as much a danger to the fleeing support staff as the cold, flat-faced naval officer. But Dragonfly wasn't actually abandoned by the staffers, one actually tried to rush their erstwhile employer as she reloaded! Without hesitation, she brutally pistol-whipped the man across the face and continued what she was doing. -
That misses.
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The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
Flying over the Jersey Devil Motor Lodge, Miss Americana quickly triangulated the source of the crying to one of the freestanding cabins. Inside, she found an eerie-looking room. The lights were on, water was running in the sink for who knew how long; the 'evacuation' had evidently happened incredibly fast. And in the back of the room, she found the source of the cries: a red-faced, thin-looking tiny baby was crying fitfully alongside a screened-in window. It was a warm February, but February nonetheless, the baby couldn't have been left there long and be so active...but perhaps it hadn't been. Alongside the Pack 'N Play which held the baby lay a young woman face-down on the carpet, breathing fitfully. She was pale and her breath shaky, a large contusion on the back of her head covered in half-matted blood. Someone had hit her on the back of the head, very hard, sometime the previous day. - Sharl tried talking under the water, and to his surprise it worked! His voice sounding not in Protectron's auditory sensors, but in his comm systems, he said, "You should take the external scans first," he suggested, "then go all the way in. That way, we'll know for sure we have all the information we need out here before you go in there. If there's a radiation leak, you don't want to risk overheating your plasma coils." He tried to talk with authority, the way Miss A would have, bu instead he revealed that he was familiar with the functioning of equipment that few typical teenagers of his demonstrated intelligence would have been. Still, he was Miss A's assistant. - Commander Harrison had been away trying without success to get her radio to work, and when she saw Miss Americana flying away she asked one of the support crew about the noise and where she'd gone. When she got an explanation from that tech, she made a face. She then pulled out her service pistol, a big, custom job she'd shown to the science heroes on the way in, and opened fire on Dragonfly. The spray of bullets missed Dragonfly, but the high-caliber ammunition tore its way into the computer panel where she sat, shattering tens of thousands of dollars in valuable equipment, and also posing some risk of shrapnel to the nearby civilians. Her face an emotionless blank, the officer ejected her pistol's magazine and began to reload. -
As they went to work monitoring Protectron and Sharl's transmissions, Miss Americana and Dragonfly heard a sound from the distance: a very strange, peculiar sound. It was a distant sound, too, but clearly audible. With Miss Americana's amazing robo-hearing, she was able to pinpoint the sound to the abandoned motor court.
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The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
Sharl joined Protectron for the trip underwater, the magnetic teenager passing through the water as if it wasn't there, which it really wasn't for him. It was more than a little weird to interact with the water like this when he couldn't really feel it, particularly since all the silt down below did partially obscure his vision, but he made do. Down below, he let the more experienced robot look closer at the fallen satellite, still sorting out the very strange nature of life down here under the water. "Hello, can you hear me up on the surface?" he asked into his commlink, standing by to let Protectron work. "We're down here and we've found the satellite. It's, uh, kind of half-buried in the muck down here. The water's really thick." He relayed his robot buddy's news up to the surface for a moment, then belatedly remembered that Protectron could actually talk and let the synthetic man explain the situation. With his ability to make out heat patterns, Protectron had an easier time taking in the bulk of the satellite. It looked relatively undamaged, minus the open hatches and compartments where Commander Harrison's people had likely come and gone. The main challenge would be to lift the satellite out in a body, so that none of the extraneous fragments snapped in the process. -
Whatever Walked There, Walked Alone [IC]
Avenger Assembled replied to trollthumper's topic in Southside
At that juncture, Fusion dropped down next to the others, a look of triumph visible on her masked face and two chunks of crumbled steel in her spare tentacles. "Okay, I just ripped the guts out of some kind of psychic entity that was possessing the van. It was pretty fierce, but I took it out. The van crew is safe, I made sure the cops were on their way before I came back here. They're just waking up, but I think they'll be all right. What's going on over here?" Fusion's voice was full of the fierce joy of battle, and she crumbled the fragments of the van like paper cups as she talked. -
"Maybe you are," said Citizen, glaring up at the lizard man, "but there's something you should know." The leather-clad teenager jumped in the air, coat billowing behind him like a cape, and landed on the subway car floor with a clang. "I'm not _from_ Earth." He drew back his fist and hurled a devastating left hook that sent the serpent priest sprawling backwards, taking the archvillain completely off-guard with his powerful blow. "I'm a free citizen of the Internet," he added belatedly.
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The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
"Okay," said Sharl, tearing himself away from the scenery by sheer force of will. He didn't want to disappoint Miss Americana, after all. He couldn't stop himself, though, from bending down and probing the soft, spongy earth beneath their feet, his eyes wide behind his mirrorshades. "Real, natural earth. Amazing. And look at this! Grass and little pebbles, and insects!" Thoroughly pleased with himself, he joined Protectron in pulling the collapsible skiff out of the truck and unpacking it. Taking the boat out made sense, Miss A having explained that getting too close if there was a leak might damage either himself or the synthezoid. "Can you believe how beautiful everything is? Just look at all the algae and silt in that lake!" -
The Conquering Mind (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Wharton State Forest
There was a great deal to do, and not a tremendous amount of time in which to do it! Soon the Lab was busy at work as the various science heroes went about summoning the civilian support staff who'd work well as their assistants in the field, building the tools and equipment they'd need for this mission, and generally getting ready for what promised to be a very profitable, if very mysterious assignment. For his part, Sharl spent the afternoon hanging around Miss A's lab, occasionally fetching things that he could get to faster than a computer. He'd been experimenting with his ability to 'clip' these days, and could actually hover off the ground while remaining solid enough to grab things off distant shelves. He still couldn't carry things through solid objects, as Miss A occasionally had to remind him with some little heat. The next morning, bright and early, everyone packed into the small Lab convoy (mostly for extra equipment) for the trip out to the State Forest, while the heroes with the ability to get there faster took a shortcut off into the hill. They found themselves deep in the heart of the New Jersey wild, the pine trees rising on either side with the sort of stillness that made it hard to believe they were just a dozen miles or so from Freedom City proper. But this far from the interstate, maybe that wasn't so surprising; Wharton famously was an island in the suburban sprawl of New Jersey, a long green finger of the Pine Barrens to the south. The trees hereabouts were oak and pine both, a landscape with relatively few fires and thus significantly denser trees than elsewhere. The lake that held the fallen satellite was near an empty tourist lodge, the old-fashioned motor resort the sort of thing that Gina's grandparents might have stayed in on a cross-country trip; there'd been a family reunion there on the night of the falling star, and the people there had been among those (as Commander Harrison explained) who'd been evacuated out to Freedom City after the crash. The lake, a natural body of water, was of respectable size, some twice as large as the big ornamental pond in Freedom City's largest park. The water was still brown and silty from the impact, but as the heroes studied the water, they could see the occasional fish swimming in the lake, and the steely grey husk of the fallen star itself nearby. They were indeed in a dead zone of cell communication, leaving their little team cut off from the rest of civlization. The lodge was deserted, the woods were deserted, and for a second before everyone went to work, all they could hear was the sound of wind and lapping water. -
14 DC 26 Tou save HP Reroll: 24 DC 26 Tou save.
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"I've spoken with the Blue Rogue myself," clarified Fusion. "She remembered me from previous encounters with Takashi, and knew I have the most experience dealing with him in the US." She made a small hissing noise, her tentacles under the table twitching with suppressed anger. "That poor kid. It wasn't easy fighting Takashi fair, the next time we ran into each other." At Grimalkin's words, she said sympathetically, "I'm sorry, kid. He sounds like a good man, and it's a crying shame how our society treats people with mechanical assets. As for the Yakuza, they're the worst kind of crooks. I hope you caught the guys who did it and made them pay." She hesitated a moment, then turned to Wisp. "Hey kid, you gonna ante?"
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http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Levicorpus There's nothing wrong with using fake Latin for your spells. But please, try not to take your character's enchantments directly from Harry Potter.
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Myrmidon (PL 14) - Semi-Autogyro (Bronze)
Avenger Assembled replied to Semi-Autogyro's topic in Archived Characters
S-A, This is a novel concept with an interesting backstory, and it'd be fun to get a Duplicator running around (and around, and around, in as many places as possible). The students who know what Overshadow looks like will not like him. This is, assuming all goes well, a good source of conflict. That said, you're going to need to rework some things about this sheet. Claremont is not going to let their students armor up like a SWAT officer or combat soldier, much less base their schtick around pulling out guns and shooting people with them. It's a high school for superheroes, not a training academy for supersoldiers. (Even if this was an adult character, it's a little too generous to let a Duplicator's Summoned duplicates walk around with perfect copies of all his equipment.) My advice is, make him a hand-to-hand combatant. That'd fly perfectly well. Also, we're pretty leery of 'emotional distance' here. This is not a setting where gruff loner types play well at all. -
Counterverse Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 16 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+11 Melee/+15 Unarmed) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Grapple: +16 Init: +7 Saves: 9 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Bluff 4 (+6) Intimidate 8 (+10) Investigate 4 (+5) Notice 12 (+14) Sense Motive 12 (+14) Stealth 8 (+10) Feats: 20 pp All-Out Attack, Attack Focus: Melee (3) Attack Specialization: Unarmed (2) Dodge Focus (7), Evasion, Improved Initiative Move-By Action, Power Attack, Startle, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 41 pp Alternate Form 8 (Dimensional) (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Innate) Affects Corporeal on Unarmed [5 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 10 (Life Support, Starvation and Thirst) [10 pp] Insubstantial 3 (dimensional) [15 pp] Super-Senses 8 (Hearing and Vision Penetrate Concealment) [8 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 12/48 + feats 20 + powers 41 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: The Counterverse isn’t quite like Anti-Earth. Sure, it’s run by a cold, militaristic empire with grim prospects for the future, but it’s not just a moral or historical inversion of our own world: it’s a physical and spiritual one as well. The colors even _look_ inverted to our eyes, the world resembling a fascist dystopia cast in a flipped color photograph. But things go deeper than that: the instinctive hostility that the Counterverse feels towards us and that we feel towards them is the instinctive _hatred_ that one feels towards their mirror image. And when the same people from the Counterverse and our own universe meet and touch, the subsequent explosion is a grim reminder of what happens when matter comes into contact with antimatter. This fellow must have had potent reason indeed to come to our dimension, allowing his scientist friends to _alter_ him, to make him a man made of the strange stuff between dimensions, a being of neither one universe nor the other. My idea is that he was a policeman in his own world, an honorable man despite the brutal nature of its society, and from underneath that white sky dappled with black dots, he came to our world to catch criminals from his own. He has formidable abilities given that he exists between dimensions, letting him look and listen through walls, fly, and even pass right through solid objects. He’s a formidable fighter as well, a skilled boxer whose abilities make him essentially impervious to mundane threats. He makes a striking appearance, doesn’t he, with a body that perpetually looks like a reversed negative and powers that make him function like a ghost? Play that up. He’s a man made of slightly altered antimatter, play that up as well. He’s far from home, fighting for justice in a world that fears and hates him. A classic for a superhero. Perhaps he’s here to catch Negator, the Counterverse madman and criminal who has bedeviled the police of two worlds. Another possible tweak: maybe this guy is actually a Silver Age refugee, a hero empowered by the 3RD DIMENSION! Owweeooo! (In that case, you should make sure to put on your red and blue goggles whenenver he’s about to go into action, so you can get a better glimpse of the action.)
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Illusionist PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +8 Init: +7 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 12 (+15) Computers 6 (+6) Concentration 8 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 6 (+6) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Distract (Bluff) Challenges 2 (Improved Taunt, Improved Trick) Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Luck 2 Second Chance (Illusion checks) Set-Up Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 62 pp Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Hologram Array [45+1=46 pp] Illusion 10 (all senses) (PFs: Precise, Progression 4 [100 ft radius]) AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Damaging, Range [Perception]) (12 tons) (PFs: Indirect 3, Precise, Subtle) Immunity 5 (Magnetic Effects) [5 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 62 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my build for an Illusionist, a character who specializes in fooling the mind and tricking the senses. The discerning reader will note that her sheet looks different than your typical Illusionist build: rather than a psychic or mystic as are the Instant Superheroes and Archetype Archive version of this archetype, I’ve gone with the idea that she’s a variant magnetic controller: her illusions are basically Star Trek holodeck-style projections that she controls. Unlike most illusionists in the book, she lacks both the Selective Extra and the Phantasms Flaw on her Illusion. This means she can affect machines and zombies and other mindless creatures, but it also means her tricks are going to fool the people around her, including allies who can’t see through them. This is a potential problem, but one that can easily be handled by the player being smart and using some complications when necessary. I figure her damaging power (so that she can inflict direct damage and affect the world as more than just a con artist) is illusory constructs that walk up to someone and punch them in the eye; or a bombardment of particles from her hand, or anything else she wants it to look like (that’s what the Subtle is for on her Blast.) It’s not an Illusion as such, so it shouldn’t be that tough to see through, but I think it’s thematic with her powers. It’s Move Object so those figures can push and pull things around, and do a decent stand-in for Magnetic Control. Note that while she doesn’t have to make an attack roll for her illusions, she does if she wants them to, say, pick up a car or bucket of nails and hurl them at her opponent. (Why do that? Well, maybe they’re immune to magnetism but not immune to a bucket of nails upside the head.) Her magnetic powers let her have her immunity and protection, and give her the ability to fly around as well. Hey, flying is awesome! I figure with her background, she’s maybe a computer tech in the special effects business? Movie stuntmen and the like have a decent presence in the world of superheroes, though I don’t think we have any PCs with that background. Ooh, maybe she actually makes money using her special talents in her work, and her superheroing is a way for her to feel like a better person. (This is not a setting friendly to super-sellouts, though we don’t _discourage it either. As is so often the case with characters, it’s all about the backstory! And the Benjamins. Which she can make appear.) Negotiate with your GM about how you’re going to police Illusion, it’s potentially a very broad power, and could arguably do the jobs of some others without too many mental gymnastics.